Progressive Rentals October-November 2006

RTO and Sports by Richard May
Product Liability by Ed Winn III
Coming Around Again: An APRO file of John Darden by Kristen Card

RTO and Sports
by Richard May

The immense popularity of sports, as shown by the number of loyal fans around the world and the sale of related paraphernalia, demonstrates the power that branding has to tap into the emotions and psyche of people. According to Plunkett Research Ltd.—a leading provider of industry sector research, analysis, trends and statistics—a reasonable estimate of the total U.S. sports market might be $375 billion to $425 billion yearly. Advertisers are smart to become interested in a group like this. As the rent-toown industry matures and companies strive to improve customer satisfaction and profitability amidst increasing competition, more organizations are teaming with sports giants in a new wave of image branding. The rent-to-own industry has several opportunities within this arena: increase name recognition, improve its image and attract potential customers. With the recent sporting event sponsorships and national advertising tie-ins with famous sports figures, Aaron’s Sales and Lease Ownership and Rent-A-Center are attempting to do just this—and are introducing millions of Americans to rent-to-own companies in a manner never before seen.

Will Aaron’s affiliation with the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) and arena football translate into a new and loyal customer base of its own? Will Dallas Cowboy fans become Rent-A-Center fans? Will their national sports presence raise awareness and improve the image of the rent-to-own industry? Only the market and the future results will truly tell, but preliminary results indicate that it is worth every penny to try. Sports marketing expert Matt Belew of advertising agency giant GSD&M works with groups such as the National Football League, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Professional Golfers Association and says that sports marketing is purely an exercise in company branding. Branding is a long-term campaign designed to permanently brand or leave an image in consumers’ minds about a product or a company. Branding is not a short-term advertising campaign to generate immediate traffic.

It is a long-term commitment to the future growth of your company. To date, the current leader in sports branding for rent-to-own, in terms of number of sponsorships and investment, is Aaron’s Sales and Lease Ownership. Aaron’s has affiliated itself with NASCAR, arena football, the Atlanta Falcons, bass fishing and many others. With each sport, Aaron’s positions itself using different branding and advertising strategies to maximize the company’s presence and affiliation with the sport. “Our branding strategies have shown significant growth for our company and our sports branding has been a big part of that growth,” says Ken Butler, chief executive officer. “Frankly, we’re trying to get a toehold in every community with one of our sports affiliations.” Aaron’s uses a form of “sponsorship integration” that markets its product in a non-traditional manner.

This strategy has been effective for many advertisers. For example, when Gatorade approached the NFL years ago, the company offered exclusive access to coolers, cups and towels for every team and every game. Now, every time a viewer sees a running back who just scored a touchdown, saying “hi” to Mom, that viewer sees him tipping his Gatorade cup to the camera and millions of viewers. What kind of exposure do you think Gatorade gets when the coach is shown on highlight reels across the nation being doused with a cooler of Gatorade? Gatorade did not pay for that television time.

The cost to Gatorade was only the expense for the products, but the return on that investment is the memory that will remain in people’s minds for decades. Aaron’s is achieving similar exposure through its NASCAR race sponsorship. “When people watch professional car racing, millions of people watch the Aaron’s dream machine race around a track for hours,” says Butler. “No other sport really does that. It’s an ongoing branding commercial with a very loyal fan base. And we think the same loyalty will be transferred to Aaron’s.” Butler believes that his company’s sports branding has introduced Aaron’s to a new group of customers based on the “halo effect.” In marketing, the halo effect refers to the perceived positive features of a particular item extending to a broader brand.

In other words, think of how the iPod has had a positive effect on perceptions of Apple’s other products. Butler emphasizes that you have to be involved in your sports marketing to maximize the results. “You can’t just slap your name on a team and hope something happens,” he says. “You’ve got to have some fun with it and really get involved and get your employees involved.” For example, when Aaron’s first had the opportunity to sponsor NASCAR star Michael Waltrip’s car, Butler thought the car’s number could provide another marketing opportunity. So, they picked number 99—to coincide with the company’s $99 monthly big-screen specials Aaron’s was promoting at the time. Aaron’s participation in the NASCAR advertising campaign featuring the Waltrip brothers paid off more than expected.

The campaign featured Darrell Waltrip and his brother, Michael, in a series of commercials highlighting some brotherly competition and the question of if, or when, Darrell would return to the NASCAR Busch racing series. Waltrip’s eventual decision to return to the Busch series after a 14-year hiatus spawned a frenzy of discussions with race enthusiasts and sports commentators for months. Aaron’s reaped the unexpected benefit from the increased exposure. Aaron’s sponsorship of the Arena Football League—and its name placement on the Georgia Force team uniforms— helped introduce Aaron’s to yet another audience. Additional creativity helped the company’s branding, name recognition and image even more. The company helped create the Aaron’s cheerleading dream team and the Aaron’s Lucky Dog mascot, both of which are featured throughout the AFL’s Arena Bowl championship game and seen by millions of viewers.

Aaron’s recently entered new territory with its sponsorship of professional bass angler Janet Parker. Parker is one of the pioneers of the bass profishing sport that has been dominated by men for decades. Aaron’s seized the opportunity once again to be a pioneer in new sports arenas such as women’s professional bass fishing. She is one of the first women to be a part of the recently created Bassmaster Women’s tour. Parker, who is currently number 36 out of 122 on the national tour, is making a splash as a female pro-bass angler, as are the companies that sponsor her. Already, she has generated more sponsorships than many male counterparts and Aaron’s is one of those key sponsors. “It was a symbiotic deal with Aaron’s,” says Parker. “Aaron’s gets introduced to my industry’s audience and to the 80,000 miles a year I drive as a traveling billboard for them.” Parker is referring to her Aaron’swrapped bass boat that broadcasts Aaron’s sponsorship at the many media opportunities professional bass fishing attracts. The traveling Aaron’s “billboard” is another example of how Aaron’s sponsorship integration propels the Aaron’s name in non-traditional methods.

The power of professional sports marketing is a multi-billion-dollar business that attracts worldwide attention, but the same dynamics and the same success easily can be achieved locally. Many smaller rent-to-own dealers have been just as successful sponsoring local college teams, semi-professional leagues or by using national sports figures locally. “Many towns do not have a professional sports team, so their loyalty is on the local team or favorite sport,” says GSD&M’s Belew. “Local sports affiliations can be the most successful in terms of comparing costs versus return. Many local sports sponsorship opportunities are not expensive at all and are hugely popular and successful for the local sponsor.” Many APRO member s are familiar with the successful branding of “Tiger” John Cleek’s rent-to-own company with the local University of Missouri Tigers football team. Every week during the Tigers’ football season, Cleek spends hours working with local media and writing predictions for the local team. He then displays these predictions in his storefront, a visible sign of the business’ community pride. His predictions have become famous and his brand entrenched in the community—a result of local branding that spans three generations over the past four decades.

RTO dealer Mike Tissot scored a touchdown with the successful affiliation between his Ohio-based Rent-2- Own store and Cincinnati Bengals running back Rudi Johnson. When Johnson first became a running back for the Bengals, Tissot helped furnish his home. In return, Johnson lends himself and his likeness to Rent-2- Own’s marketing. Johnson has a presence in every Rent-2-Own store. A six-foot cutout of Johnson features “Rudi’s Specials.” Alternatively, you can see Johnson featured on RTO TV, broadcast throughout the store. Johnson also is on the radio for Rent-2-Own and there are plans to feature him in the company’s upcoming holiday specials. “Not only did our relationship with Rudi help our image with customers, it was an internal boost, as well,” says Tissot. “Employees feel real good talking about their company when it has an association with a professional athlete.” David Moore, Rent-2-Own’s advertising manager, attributes the campaign’s success to the relationship between Tissot, Johnson and Johnson’s publicist.

They did not involve any agents, NFL or Bengals logos or trademarks. This kept the relationship simple and smooth and the costs to a minimum. Karla Welbourne, Johnson’s publicist, is currently looking at other APRO member companies throughout the nation to create a similar relationship in other areas. Chappy’s Rent To Own in Anderson, Indiana, also has been successful in its local sports sponsorship. Chappy’s has been sponsoring the front-wheel drive division at the local Anderson speedway and racetrack for the past four years. Owner Kenny Chapman is not only a racing fan but also is becoming a local fixture at the racetrack. The announcer likes to broadcast Chapman’s presence in the stands for the fans to cheer. Chappy’s has its logo on all cars in the division races. The company also sponsors “Chappy’s Night Out” every year and employees hand out tickets to their customers.

Chappy’s sets up a tent on the track with some of its merchandise for all to see. Chappy’s received national industry distinction because of its sponsorships being so prevalent on racing Web sites and in electronic newsletters. Go to any Internet search site for rent-to-own and Chappy’s will likely show up prominently throughout the year. Chapman has fun with the sponsorship and it has paid off. Many of Chappy’s customers come from seeing the Chappy’s name at the racetracks. Some customers are drivers in the local competition. Chapman, himself, has even raced on one occasion. Chappy’s is featured frequently in the local papers and on radio and Chapman is a guest on the local radio race show periodically. Chappy’s sponsorship is a perfect example of how to be creative in a sports integration campaign that combines name placement and customer involvement. Rent-A-Center combines sports marketing and community involvement in its work with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. The company sponsors sportsthemed rooms, donating televisions, DVD players, furniture and computers, to 33 Boys & Girls Club locations in 11 markets across the nation. The rooms “Local sports affiliations can be the most successful in terms of comparing costs versus return.

Many local sports sponsorship opportunities are not expensive at all and are hugely popular and successful for the local sponsor.” also are furnished with local sports memorabilia reflecting the town’s professional teams such as the Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Bulls and San Antonio Spurs. The Boys & Girls Clubs of America are safe places for children to learn, relax, play games and/or exercise until their parents get off from work. The combination of community involvement and association with the local professional sports team helps Rent- A-Center establish brand recognition within the community. Additionally, the Rent-A-Center rooms, while a charitable donation, also introduce Rent-A-Center to working parents. “Sports marketing and sponsorships are some of the most popular ways for companies to promote their brand,” says Mary Gazioglu, Rent-A-Center spokesperson. “Sports teams appeal to a variety of people and can often result in new customers.” From the national chains to the local racetrack, rent-toown stores are establishing identities, improving their image and creating customer loyalty through successful sports branding partnerships. By current measurements, this looks like a partnership for the future of the rent-to-own industry.

Follow these guidelines for a successful sports sponsorship: Do not expect overnight results or immediate sales. They can occur, but sports sponsorships are branding campaigns designed for the long-term commitment and execution. Get involved with your sponsorship to maximize the marketing and advertising opportunities your sponsorship provides. Be creative—sports sponsorships can involve games, events, personalities and media-hype. There are many dimensions beyond a sign on the field or a name on a jersey. Finally, do as Kenny Chapman says regarding his sports sponsorship: “We enjoy it. We have fun with it and it’s really been good to us.”

Product Liability
by Ed Winn III

Every now and then, catastrophic events occur that involve rental products. Just this year, a rental stove tipped over, scalding a young child with a pot of boiling water. In another case, a rental computer’s cord mysteriously caught fire and burned down a house, killing two young children. Though rare, these kinds of events haunt every merchant. When things go badly wrong, injured parties generally sue everyone who is even remotely connected to the incident. If rental property is involved, the rental company will almost certainly be sued as will the rental company’s supplier, the manufacturer of the product, the manufacturers of the component parts and possibly others—property owners, homebuilders, electricians, etc.

This article provides a brief summary of one of the legal theories that plaintiffs use in such cases and what rental dealers can do to be as prepared as possible for bad things when they happen. Strict liability in tort is a legal theory that allows a plaintiff to recover damages without having to prove that the defendant did anything wrong. The legal theory was created in the California and New Jersey state courts in the second half of the 20th century and since the 1960s has been adopted as a valid legal theory almost everywhere. Prior to adopting the theory, an injured plaintiff had to prove that the defendant had been negligent in the manufacture or sale of the product that caused the damage or had breached an express or implied warranty that existed on the product. The economic and social justification for doing away with the need to prove that the defendant is at fault before taking money out of his pocket is this: The plaintiff has suffered some grievous loss. The defendant, usually the manufacturer or the seller (or lessor) of the product, or both, has the ability to pay for the loss and then spread the cost of compensating the plaintiff for the loss among all of the other users of the product—by raising prices to all of the other users. Compensating the plaintiff for his loss by taking a little money from all of the other users of the product lowers the overall cost of the catastrophe to society.

The choice is to let the harm lie where it falls—an unfortunate but unavoidable accident that the injured plaintiff must now live with, which was the law until the 1960s, or spread the cost of compensating for the harm by making the defendant pay for the loss, which is the law today. The notion of spreading the cost of the injury and thereby lessening the cost only works if the marketplace allows the merchants involved to raise prices, which in reality is not always the case. Courts in Massachusetts, North Carolina, Virginia and Michigan have recognized the economic realities of strict liability doctrine and have been slow to adopt this legal theory. It may not always be possible to know which manufacturer made a specific product or which seller (or lessor) handled it. Think of pipes, or wires or other component parts of a product that are destroyed in an accident or a generic drug that is made by several manufacturers over time. Some courts have been willing to extend the doctrine of strict liability to all manufacturers of the product and make them jointly and severally liable, so that any one company can be made to pay for all of the plaintiff’s damages and then seek pro-rata contributions from the competitors. This is what happened in the asbestos litigation. Strict liability is generally applied to the sale (or lease) of products, as opposed to services, and has been applied to used products as well as new.

The product must be “defective” for strict liability to apply. “Defective” does not mean broken under this legal theory. Rather, it means, “in a condition not contemplated by the ultimate consumer.” A defective condition can be found in the design, manufacture, installation, delivery or from failure to give adequate warnings or instructions about the dangers involved in the normal use of the product. High diving boards have virtually ceased to exist in the country because manufacturers and swimming pool sellers are held strictly liable for any injuries that occur in or around such boards. There is no way to design or install a high dive or adequately warn of its dangers and escape liability. The tobacco industry has been under attack on strict liability grounds for decades. It has been able to remain in business by making a multi-billion dollar settlement with state attorneys general, who agreed to take the money on behalf of citizen smokers in exchange for the industry’s agreement to beef up warnings on cigarette packaging, quit marketing to children and make other changes in business practices. The gun and alcohol industries are currently under attack in courts around the country on strict liability grounds.

Plaintiffs are arguing that these products are inherently dangerous, i.e., “defective,” and that the manufacturers and sellers of these products should pay for all damages that are caused as a result of their use. Plaintiffs must still prove causation in a strict liability lawsuit. Did the “defective” product legally cause the plaintiff’s injury or did something else cause it? Manufacturers and sellers (and lessors) of products are not quite in the position of guaranteeing that their products will never cause any harm, although the law is moving steadily and insistently in that direction. Manufacturers and sellers (and lessors) are not generally held liable upon proof that the plaintiff’s injury was the result of some abnormal, unforeseeable misuse of the product. However, manufacturers and sellers (and lessors) are regularly held liable when a court determines that the way the plaintiff misused a product was foreseeable by the defendant. This means that the plaintiff’s own negligence—the misuse of the product, e.g., using a dryer with the door open to heat a house for an extended period of time, which resulted in a fire—is not a bar to the plaintiff’s recovery on strict liability grounds.

Some states do recognize comparative negligence principles in strict liability cases so that a plaintiff’s misuse may reduce the recovery by the percentage of the plaintiff’s fault as determined by the jury, but it will not bar recovery altogether. So, what is a rental dealer to do? If there is no way to escape exposure for having handled a product that ultimately causes serious injury to some consumer, the only practical answer is to insure, insure, insure. Rental dealers want to carry as much products liability insurance as they can afford. This movement in the law, such as no-fault insurance and no-fault divorce, is part of the trend to destroy all sense of personal responsibility. In the meantime, as rental dealers trying to provide a service, we must do what we can against the onslaught of this redistributive legal doctrine.

Coming Around Again: An APRO file of John Darden
by Kristen Card

“When I got into the rent-to-own business, my son was just born. I had no job and no insurance,” says John Darden. “We had no electricity in our house; my wife had to take cold showers. We would drive down the road and collect Coke bottles for the deposit money, just so we could make sure we had enough gas in the car to get her to the hospital. “There was an ad in the Norfolk [Virginia] newspaper,” he continues. “It was for a company called Remco and the classified ad read ‘Area manager needed’—which was a nice way of saying ‘collector and delivery guy’—‘six days a week, 60 hours a week, $660 a month.’” There was no way Darden could have known that by responding to that ad, he was launching a 30-year, roller-coaster ride of a career in rent-toown.

His journey included soul-searching, Godfinding, a recurring business relationship with a man named Trooper, and an eventual partnership with his son, Christopher—the same baby whose dad was collecting discarded soda bottles to ensure his safe arrival into the world. Darden, today one of three owners of Charlottesville, Virginia’s Premier Rental-Purchase (www.premier rent s.com), is a native Virginian, born in Norfolk to a former police officer and his wife.

When Tony Darden left the police force, he went to work as a manager for a company selling sewing machines and vacuum cleaners; Darden often accompanied his father on collection runs. Darden’s brother, Bob, contracted and became disabled by polio as a child, so the family’s finances were often stretched by medical costs. While they never went without the essentials, there was little spending money to go around. Darden, a natural optimist, says it taught him to respect and value what he has. Darden graduated from high school and married young, to his bride of 31 years now, Donna. A newborn and a newspaper ad later, Darden was working at Remco for a man named Joe Arnett. “Joe hired me and he’s the one who really trained me on the ins and outs of the rent-to-own business as far as sales and credit,” says Darden. “I’ll always credit him with bringing out a positive attitude in me I didn’t know I had until I worked with him.” Darden was with Remco for a couple of years, promoted first to assistant manager of the store, then to store manager. His upward climb suddenly struck a cement ceiling. “I hit a block,” Darden says of his promotion to manager. “I was good at renting and collecting, but I didn’t have a clue about managing people. My regional manager at Remco was a yeller and a screamer, and I thought, well, that’s all you gotta do to manage people. It didn’t work.” Darden gives a chagrined chuckle. “I subsequently lost my job at Remco.” Arnett had hired Darden once and he didn’t see any reason not to do it again.

Willie Talley, vice president of rental operations at Curtis Mathes Corp, had hired Arnett away from Remco to oversee the startup of the company’s rentto- own division. Arnett brought Darden on board in Texas, where Darden began an apprenticeship under Talley. “Willie and my regional manager, Jerry Linaweaver, are the ones who really taught me about the management and financial parts of the rental-purchase business,” says Darden. “Jerry really helped me with the financial part, while both he and Willie enhanced my managerial skills. I always recognized this as a customer-service business, but Willie really brought it home for me.

He had a real passion for our customers.” About a year-and-a-half later, Talley and Darden decided to launch their own ColorTyme store back home in Virginia. The Darden family settled in Charlottesville and, together with Talley, John and Donna opened their ColorTyme doors for business in August 1980. “When we came here, people had never heard of rent-to- own before,” Darden remembers. “It was truly a family business—my daughter, Jamison, was still in a playpen we had set up in the back room and Christopher would run around the showroom while we unboxed TVs or took care of customers.” It was while Darden and his wife were running their busy lives and fledgling company that Darden experienced a kind of rentto- own epiphany, an incident that changed his way of thinking about his industry and remains a vivid recollection even now. “We had a customer who came in to rent a TV from us,” recalls Darden. “The way you got to her house was you went down a paved road which became a gravel road which became a dirt road, which eventually turned into just a path. We went in to deliver this Rutherford console TV to her; and—I remember this like it was this morning—the lady had dirt floors, but everything in the house was spotless. I got down and hooked up the TV for her.

They didn’t have an antenna, so I got a coat hanger and made a UHF antenna to put on the back of the TV for her and I fine-tuned in cartoons. It was the first time her family had ever seen color TV. I looked at this woman’s face and she was crying, she was so happy. “When I got back into my van, I had left the back door open and I had to ‘shoo’ out some chickens that had flown in. Then I just sat in the van and I said to myself, ‘John, if you’ve ever questioned it before, this proves it. This is truly a customer-service business. Without ColorTyme, these folks wouldn’t have anything.’ And I’ve lived by it ever since.” Within three years, Talley and the Dardens owned three stores and began hiring manager trainees. One of them had the memorable moniker Trooper Earle, and by 1990, the Dardens were selling their trio of stores to ColorTyme corporate. Darden went to work at a ColorTyme location he owned with Earle and Jerry Linaweaver. Later on in the year, Earle bought Darden’s and Linaweaver’s shares of the deal and became sole owner, with Darden continuing to run the company’s operations. With Darden and Earle at the helm, the company grew to 16 stores within a year, making it among the largest ColorTyme franchises nationwide. Just a few years later, in 1995, unexpectedly, almost inexplicably, Darden decided to take a break from rent-to-own. “I had a lot of things going on in my life,” Darden fumbles vaguely for an explanation. “I had hit a real high career-wise a few years earlier; I had been requested by ColorTyme to teach a class on selling at our national meeting and it was voted the number one seminar of the meeting.

I think that is when my ‘block’ began. I was 42, so I don’t know whether it was a mid-life thing or I got physically tired or what. I can’t honestly tell you. I just wanted to try something else.” Darden spent the next five years with Trader Publishing Co, a leading publisher of classified advertising, where he achieved an unprecedented profit margin with a new magazine called Auto Mart. He also did some soul-searching. “I started evaluating my life and I recognized what was a real kind of emptiness,” says Darden. “A friend of mine called me up one day and invited me to church with him. I started going to church and started a real relationship with the Lord.” So when another call from a friend came in 2000 with a request to return to RTO, Darden accepted, but powwowed with his higher power over what it all meant. “I remember praying to God, saying, ‘Why did you bring me back to the rental business?’” Darden says. “What I realized after a couple of years was that there was a need for the customers to be treated right. That’s what we’re preaching here. We’re really committed to our customers.”

The “here” Darden refers to is Premier Rental- Purchase, the store he opened up late last year with a strong sense of familiarity—déjà vu, even. Not only does Darden co-own the business with his son, Christopher, and friend and fellow RTO veteran Mike Hubbard, but daughter Jamison serves as their banker and the store is a franchise of the firm now owned by Darden’s former management trainee, Trooper Earle. “I see it as God giving me an opportunity to redo some things in my life,” says Darden. “Not everybody gets a second chance.” Darden can’t make it much clearer: At Premier Rental- Purchase, it’s all about the customer, a tenet he has held to tightly since he and Donna opened their first family store more than 25 years ago. “We were pretty innovative,” acknowledges Darden. “If somebody was renting a product from us and they had to turn it back in, I didn’t care when they came back—it could be five years later—if I had something I could give them full credit on, something comparable, then we’d do it. I never want customers to ever feel like they’re losing money by doing business with us.” This kind of customer commitment has kept folks coming back to Darden—some of them for decades, some for generations. “I still have so many customers today that I had in 1980,” Darden says. “Some of them still have TVs I sold them in the early eighties, and they say, ‘John, you told me this was a good TV and you were right.’ Now, I’m helping their children and their grandchildren. It’s very gratifying and humbling. “I’ve always believed the customers deserve the best quality product we can give them,” he says. “Some companies think you shouldn’t give customers the good stuff, because it will get beaten up or whatever.

I raised my son to believe our customers are entitled to have the same sort of nice stuff we’ve been blessed enough to have, and our partner, Mike, shares this philosophy, too. Customers respect and appreciate that. And our customers know we’re going to take care of them. If you’re one day late, we’re not out there banging down the door, demanding, ‘Where’s my product?’ We work with our customers.” Darden says the success he and his partners are experiencing with Premier Rental-Purchase as his store approaches its first anniversary is primarily a result of just such customer care. While reluctant to talk too specifically about the company’s business model or financial situation, Darden says that what they have accomplished in months rivals what some stores take years to reach. As for future growth, Darden is again rather tight-lipped, but indicates a slow-and-steady approach to success. “We have a plan; we will be growing,” confirms Darden. “We’re considering opening up a new store next year, but we’re just being very methodical about it. Back in the early days, it was all about grow, grow, grow. There were a lot of heartaches caused by growing too fast. Sometimes, I think we opened new stores before we were ready. It’s not just about cash; it’s about your mentality, your maturity. We’re being very conscious of being proficient at everything we’re trying to achieve. We’re not doing anything halfway.”

Despite its franchise status, Premier Rental-Purchase has an undeniable family feel. It’s the only locally owned RTO shop in Charlottesville and likely among the few with direct, 24/7 access to its trio of owners. “I think being able to go one-on-one with the owners really makes a difference with our customers,” Darden says. “Our business cards have our cell-phone numbers on them, so if our customers ever want to reach us, they’ve got full access. Our pricing and service are our other competitive advantages. We don’t say we’ll beat anybody’s prices; we just don’t charge as much as others to begin with. And if we’ve got to be out there at 10 o’clock at night to fix something, we do it. I can say this with all conviction: Nobody’s going to out-service us.” Catering to the customer via day-to-day nuts and bolts like attractive pricing and after-hours service is a key element of Darden’s vision for success. The foundation of this customer-centric practice is Darden’s absolute belief in his industry and the service it provides. “I’ve been up and down in this business,” concedes Darden. “I’ve seen it change incredibly, and all for the best. When I first got into the rent-to-own business, sometimes it was taking a real chance to tell people what line of work I was in. But I was proud to be in the rental-purchase industry, because I understood from day one what we were all about and it’s really instilled a passion in me. It’s truly about giving people the opportunity to get things in life they can’t get without us.”

Telling that story publicly, Darden says, has been the top priority of the Association of Progressive Rental Organizations (APRO), an organization he has a 15-plus-year history with, and of which he is a current member. “I love what APRO has done to make the rental industry a real, legitimate part of the business community and of our culture,” Darden says. “APRO legitimizes what we do. Having APRO fighting for us gives an independent deal like ours a real voice. When APRO’s up in Washington, D.C., talking with senators or congressmen, it’s shining the truth on what we do. APRO puts into the proper context what we do and exposes the untruths often spoken about us. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in 30 years, but I’ve got a lot to be proud of, too,” says Darden. “One thing that’s been proven is that if you believe in your business and you’re committed to your customers, then nothing else really matters.” Darden is a self-described “people person.” Once you have talked with this garrulous Virginian, with his easy conversational style and mild Southern accent, you are bound to agree. Just ask what his favorite thing is about his job. “Lovin’ my customers,” he replies. “We’ve watched each others’ children grow, we’ve shared heartache…that’s what this business is: It’s relationships.

Good customer service is going to come back around to you, and eventually, it’s going to grow your bottom line. Isn’t it incredible that you can have a profitable business and know that you’re taking the best care of your customers that you can? Does it get any better than that?” The only other topic Darden speaks of with such enthusiasm is his family: wife Donna, daughter Jamison and particularly his partnership with son Christopher. “I remember when I was working with Trader Publishing, I’d go to a lot of car dealers where father and son were in business together,” says Darden. “And I remember sitting out in my car one day and saying, ‘Lord, I just pray for the day when I can be in business with Chris.’ I prayed for it and now it’s happening, and it’s just been a blast.” When he is not spending quality time at the store with Chris, Darden spends a lot of family time with his six-yearold granddaughter, Hayley. He also is extremely involved in his church and is active in politics, having successfully managed several campaigns for local politicians.

Darden is acutely aware of the many prayers that have been answered for him over the past three decades. Even though his meager past happened long ago, he continues to live his life and run his business as though it was just yesterday, which is just the way he wants it. “The ability that I’ve been blessed with and that has helped me be successful is not forgetting where I came from,” Darden says. “I can empathize with customers who are between a rock and a hard place. When it comes down to paying for a refrigerator or buying medicine for their kids, I want them to buy the medicine. They can pay me next week, or next month. I’ve been there, and I pray I will never lose that sense of understanding.”