 APRO: The Official Voice of the Rent to Own Industry
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APRO's Exclusive Rent-to-own Audio and Podcasts
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Rent to own Audio & Podcasts: David Kraemer, President and CEO Bestway Rent-To-Own
David Kraemer is the President and CEO of Bestway Rent-To-Own.
Kraemer is a 26-year RTO veteran who served as past executive vice president with Rent-A-Center and joined Bestway in 2002. The company is currently the largest independent rent-to-own company in the country with 77 stores in seven states. Kraemer is a firm believer in the philosophy of "happy employees equal happy customers" and the company's annual managers meeting at the Hilton Sandestin Resort in Destin, Florida is evidence of that. The managers retreat at the scenic resort is a mixture of product training, motivational seminar and mini-vacation that pulls around 100 district and store level managers out of their routines to celebrate what this year turned out to be the company's most profitable year ever. "The people at the top at Bestway are here to make it easier for our store managers and the people in our stores," Kraemer said. "It's our job to provide them with the tools and the training so they can be successful and make a handsome living. I don't rent the TV's I don't collect on them, they do. We want to make it easier for them." Bestway is an independent company that has the unique experience of operating as a publicly traded company. Bestway executives took the company private in 2005. "It was the right decision for Bestway at the time," Kraemer said. As for the largest indie's growth strategy, Kraemer is not interested in growth for growth's sake. When the time and place are right, Bestway will likely open a store, but not before. "In the last several years we've seen some phenomenal growth with our stores," Kraemer said. "We want to grow. We're opening up two new stores by the end of the year and want to have good strategic growth but want to make sure we're doing it the right way. We'd like to probably add 10 percent new stores a years. More importantly, we want to continue to refine our current operations and continue to grow our existing stores." | ||||
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2012 APRO Convention and Trade Show July 24-26, Memphis, TN
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RTOHQ: The Magazine
RTOHQ: The Magazine is the Association of Progressive Rental Organizations' award-winning rent-to-own industry magazine, and it's available here. | |||
 CLICK HERE FOR OUR DIGITAL RTOHQ: THE MAGAZINE
RTOHQ: The Magazine’s upgraded digital format APRO's new, mobile-ready magazine is now available in addition to our print edition. The digital format provides the same informative content as our printed magazine, but also offers tools to make the reading experience more enriching. Access the table of contents page with one click or tap. Get additional information from advertisers by clicking on the links in their ads. The interface is easy to navigate and requires no special app—read our magazine on your computer, digital table or smartphone. Click here to access the digital version of RTOHQ: The Magazine March-April 2012.
A New Rent-to-Own Experience by Neil Ferguson Here’s the lowdown on APRO’s 2012 Convention and Trade Show, July 24-26 in Memphis. The RTO industry’s big event will offer many valuable experiences, including insights on how to turn your stores into “experiences”–the good kind for consumers
Who Is Your Competition? by Bill Keese In order to expand your customer base, you can learn a lot by observing your competitors. But first, you need to figure out just who they are. If you think your only competition is the rent-to-own store down the street, you’re not considering the bigger picture. APRO’s executive director offers a big-picture perspective.
A Review of Online Customer Complaints by Ed Winn III While rent-to-own companies have not cornered the market on negative reviews posted on consumer complaint websites, it’s no surprise that there are cyberspace beefs against RTO. APRO’s general counsel reviews some of them in search of a pattern and he considers appropriate response to online complaints.
Rent-to-Own Families, Part VIII by Kristen Card Our series of family-run rent-to-own businesses continues with profiles of the Homeiers in Kansas and two Texas-based sets of kindred colleagues, the Spangles and the Weisblatts.
Future issues of APRO's magazine will be available in this same new format. Click here to access past issues that are not yet archived in the new interface.
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Association of Progressive Rental Organizations 1504 Robin Hood Trail Austin, Texas 78703 800/204-2776, ext. 103 Fax 512/794-0097 |