Rent-to-Own with a Purpose with Charles Smitherman

**SPEAKER_1** (0:04)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:18)
Well, come back to the show, everyone. I'm Stephen Sakach here with my co-host, Mike Liwski.
And we've got a special guest who we'll introduce in a moment. So Rent to Own is a business model that has evolved over time, shaped by consumer need, policy, regulation, and the responsibility companies have to serve people fairly and transparently. It's an industry that serves consumers who may need flexible ways to obtain essential goods for their homes and families. And we're going to talk about this intersection of affordability, access, regulation, and trust today. Mike, introduce our special guest today.

**Mike Liwski** (0:58)
Hello, Stephen. I'm absolutely delighted to.
Our special guest today is Charles Smitherman. He's the CEO of the Association of Professional Rental Organizations, also known as APRO or APRO. Now Charles leads national advocacy, policy strategy, and industry positioning for the rent to own sector. And this is quite interesting. His work focuses on advancing consumer access, dignity, which we'll talk a good amount about today, and responsible innovation through the lease purchase model. He's also the co-author of The Rent to Own Revolution, The Definitive History of Advocacy and Consumer Access.
Quite interesting. It was the first comprehensive history of the rent to own industry. The book explores the evolution of RTO, or rent to own from the 19th century installment retail, all the way down to a modern regulated model that provides flexible access to very essential goods in our society. Now, Charles also works really at the intersection of advocacy, narrative, and artificial intelligence, including generative engine optimization strategies that are designed to help AI systems, search platforms, policy makers, and the public understand the RTO industry accurately and the way that they should. So Charles, we are so delighted to have you on the show with us today. Welcome to The Bliss Business Podcast.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:34)
Okay.

**Charles Smitherman** (2:34)
Thanks, guys. Likewise, I'm really excited about our conversation today. So thank you for having me.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:40)
Charles, so the topic today is rent to own with a purpose. Why is that such an important lens to understand the rent-to-own industry?

**Charles Smitherman** (2:50)
So that's a great question, and I think, you know, you've got an industry representative here to talk about something, and you framed it exactly, I think, why it's important. There is a purpose behind it. There's a need.
You know, rent to owners are really about consumer access. It's about providing the ability of anyone to obtain essential items, household goods, appliances. A lot of things that, you know, we almost take for granted is having an existence. That's a good night's sleep, cold milk in the refrigerator, clean clothes, being able to access those. So that's really what it's about. And I love the framing of this because it really is a, puts it in the consumer personal lens.
What that our business does, our industry does is really, it's very personal, it's very relationship driven. And as part of that, it recognizes the person for what they need and how we can work with them to provide them access to these things that they need just to live a good, fulfilling life.

**Stephen Sakach** (4:02)
Yeah, maybe like, let's talk about like an example of a scenario where someone might need that.
You know, I think I was reading like the, your fridge goes on the fridge, it breaks out and you've got your child's medicine in there and you've just had your carp needing a repair and now you don't have those emergency funds and you're kind of in a bind, right? And this is like a way to be able to access something. Is that, that's kind of what we're talking about here.

**Charles Smitherman** (4:32)
Yeah, that's, I mean, that's exactly it. So rent to own, also known as least purchase.
It's been around for a long time and it really is just an option for obtaining what you in those circumstances and whatever the circumstances are, because it's really multifunctional in that someone needs a, an item doesn't either have the money to pay cash for it, doesn't have the credit to go take out a loan, put it on a credit card or really just doesn't need it. So we really service the full spectrum from students, military families that are in kind of transitional situations, to households that gig economy, people that can't really predict too far in the future because of their own uncertainty. And we provide a way to provide access to these goods that's not contingent on, or committing to, well, I'm going to pay this credit card off over this period of time, or I'm going to take out this loan and commit myself to, to that over that time. And that's what it is. It's really the ultimate flexible transaction, not say transaction.