Kyle Clements (00:00):
Hey folks, for episode number 81 of The Rental Roundtable we had on Claire Torrans. She’s the director of operations at Dot’s Rentals in Texarkana, Texas. Really awesome story around how they got started. Third-generation, all women-owned. Dot’s, her grandmother’s 92, started the company in the late 1980s. DeMita has been running it now. Claire’s coming into the company and Dot’s still involved with the business. First one to open it at 5:30 in the morning, last one to leave at 92 years old. And talked about how her story really, she went to go work at Walmart and Accenture and other companies before coming back into the family business. Talked about what it’s like being a woman in rental. Talked about how they lead with more of a tech focus and considerations on expanding to a second location and maybe more after that. So, really awesome story here. I don’t know, I don’t think there’s any other rental companies in the United States who are third-generation all women-owned. So Claire’s an awesome person and really, really cool story. Hope you guys enjoy. Alright everyone, welcome to The Rental Roundtable, episode number 81. We have on Claire Torrans, Director of Operations at Dot’s Rentals in Texarkana, Texas. Claire, welcome to the show today.
Claire Torrans (01:01):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Kyle Clements (01:04):
It’s great to have you on. A lot of interesting story here. You have third generation at Dot’s, great successful rentals store women led. Potentially expanding a second location. So a lot to jump into today. I know you got a lot going on a fire at the store yesterday. So you’re at a workplace. Is everyone okay? What happened with that? Everything’s good there?
Claire Torrans (01:24):
Yeah, everything was good there. We had a skid steer catch on fire out in the yard, so we got it taken care of and of course there’s lots of equipment beside it. So it was one of those things like let’s try and put that fire out and also eliminate other things catching on fire. But it happens.
Kyle Clements (01:42):
Literal fire drill that people talk about in rental.
Claire Torrans (01:46):
You have those dumpster fires, like little things that you put on your desk and my mom actually has one and I was like, “Wow, that really did happen today.” That was one of those cases.
Kyle Clements (01:56):
Today was a dumpster fire. No, literally it was the actual fire.
Claire Torrans (01:59):
It literally was.
Kyle Clements (02:01):
It’s the thing about rental, right? So every day is interesting. Keeps it exciting. Well, I know a lot of the people at the Quipli team with Court, you at the A young professional event. You’re involved with a ARA of women events. So thank you for everything you do for the industry. But for people who don’t know you, Claire, I’d love to hear about your story, how did you get into rental, how’d you get to where you are today? And then after that we’ll go backwards, talk about the story with Dot. So yeah, Claire, how’d you get here today?
Claire Torrans (02:28):
So I always joke that I’ve been in the rental industry since I was a week old, so that’s been in a few articles that we’ve done. But my mom actually had them set up a nursery when I was born at Dot’s Rentals so she could work a week after she had me. It’s been that way for a long time and we’ve always been involved. But once I graduated college, I went to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Once I graduated, they always wanted us to go off, do our own thing, learn from different companies, see the world and live life a little bit before we came back to work for our family. And so from there I went to go work for Cavenders, which is a western retailer working in their advertising department. So I did a lot of their commercial photo shoots and marketing efforts and helped with their social media campaigns and things.
(03:16):
From there I was actually recruited by Walmart to move up to Bentonville, so I moved back up to northwest Arkansas, worked for Walmart, did the Walmart world supplier and helped their digital marketing efforts on their e-comm. And so from there I went to go work in influencer marketing where I ran a big book of business with Acorn and New Engine who’s out of Seattle, and then was asked to come on for Dot’s Rentals. So I’d always been working in the background and it kind of came to that point where we had to make a decision on whether or not I was going to keep working my full-time job or if I was going to come on and at the time Dot’s Rentals was at that place where they needed either a general manager or it was my time to step in and no one loves your business as much as you do and no one loves Dot’s as much as Dot and DeMita and myself. And so it just made sense at that time for me to come on board. And so from there I was voluntold as we say, Hey, when can you start? And I was like, well, I mean maybe by the end of the year my mom goes, oh, I was thinking in the next 30 days. So I packed up my house, I said goodbye to my life in Bentonville and I moved back to Texarkana and I’ve been there for the past almost two years.
Kyle Clements (04:33):
And what’s your current role responsibilities at Dot’s today?
Claire Torrans (04:36):
So kind of a jack of all trades. Officially I’m the director of operations, so a lot of what I’m doing is streamlining processes, making sure our staff is happy, healthy, everybody’s working under good safety techniques and kind of streamlining our processes. But outside of that, I’m the official DeMita babysitter, so I make sure that she’s staying in line and she’s getting everything done and helping her anywhere that she needs focuses on the counter. So we let her be the counter. And so I’m kind of the counterpart to my mom on filling in all the spaces that she can’t fill in.
Kyle Clements (05:14):
Yeah. Well, I met your mom in New York a month ago for a peer executive meeting. She said she listens to the rental round table. I’m sure she’ll listen to this one. So hello DeMita, shout out and Dot’s your grandmother. Right, so three generations of women.
Claire Torrans (05:28):
So it’s the three of us up there. I would say that there’s never a boring day at Dot’s Rentals with the three of us running around. You just never know what you’re going to get.
Kyle Clements (05:36):
Well, there’s a fire yesterday, so I don’t know if that’s an indication there. There’s a lot going on. So interesting you went to University of Arkansas. My cousin went there. Woo Pig Sooie, right?
Claire Torrans (05:50):
Yeah, heck yeah.
Kyle Clements (05:53):
And then you went and worked at other places, Walmart, some other places. When you finishing college, obviously you kind of one week old, the baby crib in the rental store. Did you sort of think in the back of your mind you would get the call to come back and you wanted to go work other places or was there a scenario where you’re like, “Hey, I may actually go build a career in marketing or at Walmart.” Was it always sort of a for foregone conclusion that you’d come back into rental?
Claire Torrans (06:15):
A little bit. There was a balance, so it was never forced on myself or my brothers. Now that they’re joining that we would join. My parents never wanted to feel like this is what you’re doing. It was more of we want you to do this and we want you to love it as much as we do because if we didn’t love it, it wouldn’t work out the way that it’s working out. So I did want to pursue my own career for a while in marketing and then eventually I knew that I would want to come back and work for the company. We thought it would be later in life when that happened, but I would say the timing is everything and we just kind of felt like this is that time, this is the correct time for me to come on board. And I think too, sooner or two later might not have been the right time.
Kyle Clements (07:00):
A lot of rental companies are generational. It’s first generation passing down the second generation, you guys are passing down the third generation and there’s a discussion of should the younger person coming in go work somewhere else for a period of time, two to five years, get other experience as an employee, then come back into the rental business. You did that. Do you think that helped you? You’ve been at Dot’s for a few years now. Do you think that helped you be a better rental operator having that external experience?
Claire Torrans (07:25):
Oh, absolutely. I think there’s a lot of things that you bring from the corporate world into the business at Dot’s Rentals and a lot of things that we’ve implemented have been from things that I learned from other companies. And I was fortunate to work for some of the best companies you can work for in the United States. I mean, I was with New Engine, Accenture, Walmart, Sam’s Club, and so you learn so much and you meet so many different people and you learn how to work with so many different personalities, your customer service, your techniques, the technology. There’s a lot of things that I’ve brought tech-wise from those companies over just to make things more efficient. I would highly recommend anybody stepping into a business, especially a family operated business where they’ve been family owned and operated since the beginning to go out and explore, see new options, see the way new cities work, it’s far more than just the business. Living in different cities and states, you learn so many different things that you can bring back to your community back home and somewhere like Texarkana who’s growing and they’re looking for fresh ideas, younger generations, this allows them you to grow with them and provide new ideas to the city as well in your community.
Kyle Clements (08:39):
It’s the whole life experience. And I think even when you first graduate college, being an employee for someone that you’re not a family, you got to start at the bottom. There’s no
(08:49):
Nepotism. You’re starting and you got to work your way up. And if you can make it at Walmart and Sam’s Club and Accenture, you’ve already proven that when you come back in, you’re actually probably the most qualified, one of the most qualified people. You can come into a rental business because worked in other places and there are a lot of people who go straight into the rental business. They started in high school and they sweep the floors and they just kind of grow into that. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but I do think there’s an interesting element of actually going outside and then making the conscious choice that, yeah, I want to build my life in rental. You made that choice by trying something new.
Claire Torrans (09:18):
There’s so much opportunity in rental too, I think especially in tech and processes. There’s so many new ways of working and I’m excited to see the future of where rental is going just based off previous careers and seeing different companies from an outside this industry. I think it’ll be really cool in the coming years to see what’s happening.
Kyle Clements (09:41):
Yeah, we’ll talk about leading with a tech focus. There’s a lot of happening with ai. I think your mom is part of our discussion now. We’ll talk about that in a second.
Claire Torrans (09:50):
She’s a big AI.
Kyle Clements (09:52):
Yes, there’s a lot of exciting things we’re excited about, but for the people who don’t know the history of Dot’s, it’s a really awesome story. Do you want to share that for folks? How did Dot’s come to be?
Claire Torrans (10:02):
Yeah, so Dot started Dot’s Rentals about 37 years ago. She had $500 that my grandfather, her husband gave her at the time to open it. She had always been in the service and rental industry, so we had a place called Stop Again, and her maiden name was Agan, which is a GAN. And so they called it Stop again, had the big airplane on top of the gas station. She was changing tires, filling up cars, renting out trailers, anything she could do to help her family make money. So it’s always been in her blood of the service and the rental part of it. When she started Dot’s Rentals, and like I said, she had $500 to her name and she started renting out anything you could think of, baby beds, tables, chairs, minor lawn equipment, anything she could get her hands on to rent you, she would rent them bucket.
(10:58):
Anything that she could think of in the store was for rent an office chair. If you want to rent it, she’ll rent it to you. And it’s funny because we still have that same office chair in our system from when she started doing that. And so she grew from that. One of our main contractors that is still our number one contractor right now was who kind of helped get her started from the very beginning. And so she had this group, this company that believed in her and they were going to help her do whatever she could to succeed From there, the business kept growing. We got into a bigger building. And so that is our current location right now where we’re at. My mom joined when she was 28 years old, which is funny. I also joined when I was 28. And so it was kind of the same situation.
(11:49):
Dot’s was growing a lot. They needed a lot of help. And so my mom was like, this is my time to step in and help Dot. And so she stepped in to help with more of the financial accounting piece of it and she still is doing that to this day. And then we’ve continued to grow tremendously over the past 36 years and much so more in the past 10 years. And then that’s whenever I decided to join. And so it’s kind of funny, it all happened at the same age and the same need. Okay, we’re growing, we need to add the next generation of our team.
Kyle Clements (12:26):
So Dot started this like what, 1980s, late 1980s and 500 bucks. You don’t need a lot of money.
Claire Torrans (12:33):
500 bucks.
Kyle Clements (12:35):
Is she still involved with the business today?
Claire Torrans (12:37):
She is. So it’s funny, she is about to be 93 next year in March, but she still comes to work every day. She opens up the store, so we technically don’t open until seven, but she opens the doors at five 30 and she gets there, she gets the coffee made, she does all the tickets, she checks to make sure nobody, she’s our past due, she’s collections. So if you get a call from Dot and you haven’t paid in, she’s our collections and she gets the store ready to go and she waits on customers all day. So that is what she loves to do. She loves to put in tickets, she loves to talk to the customers. And I’ve even seen her go back out to the dock and show people how to operate floor machines or any other piece of equipment you can imagine. So she’s very hands-on in the business and she doesn’t leave until five 30, so she’ll actually open the store and she’ll be the last to close the store. Wow. So she’s
Kyle Clements (13:32):
Putting more hours in than anybody.
Claire Torrans (13:34):
Oh, absolutely.
Kyle Clements (13:36):
What drives her to keep doing that? 92, 93 years old, first one in last one out still, what motivates someone like that to keep doing that?
Claire Torrans (13:45):
It’s what she loves. I mean, if you ask her why do you do it, she loves it and she’s dumped her whole life and her whole heart into this company. And I think that’s one of the things that my mom and myself and now my brothers are really trying to do is to really show off how much she loves Dot, how much she loves the equipment industry, how much she loves her customers and her staff. And I mean, it’s what she does. And during COVID, we tried to get her to stay home sometime and she was like, this is what I love. I’m not going to veer away from this or stay home if I’m going to get sick or if something’s going to happen, I’m going to do it at the place I love. And so we got her to finally take off one day a week on Thursdays and it just drives her nuts.
(14:35):
She’ll be like, “What are you doing at the store? What’s going on at the store? Who came in today?” She wants to know all the things. And we have me, my mom and Dot. And sometimes my brothers all have coffee on Saturday and Sunday mornings and we kind of use that time to just talk personally about things going on the business and stuff that we may not want to talk about at the store. Nothing bad, but just kind of conversation between all of us. And she wants to know all the ins and outs, she wants to know the numbers, she wants to know the week ahead, she wants to go through, okay, what do we think about this and what do we think about that? Can we buy this equipment? And so we call it Coffee with Dot, but we’ve been doing it for 15 or 16 years now. And so it’s a tradition and if we’re all away, we all get on FaceTime and stuff like that. But she truly loves Dot’s and that’s just what keeps her going. And she said the day that she stops working is the day that she dies. And so I was like, “Okay, well there we go.” But it’s very real, it’s very authentic and she gives it her all.
Kyle Clements (15:42):
Yeah, you could tell. And I think there’s all these studies around once people stop working, the chance of dying goes up dramatically because for a lot of people, a sense of work is a lot of their purpose, especially if this is your baby. You created this 37 years ago. That’s her legacy in many ways, right?
Claire Torrans (15:59):
Oh, most definitely. And I mean she gives it her all. She drives to work every day. She can still hang. She goes to all the shows with us, she will be on the showroom floor and she’ll walk the showroom and she doesn’t sit down, we try and get her to take a lunch. Nope. She keeps going and keeps going. So it’s funny to watch her just interact in the store. And that’s what I tell all of our new staff members. I’m like, just watch Dot, spend a couple of weeks and watch her. There’s so much you can learn from her the way she treats the customer, the way she handles situations. It’s unbelievable to watch her work in the environment.
Kyle Clements (16:36):
Not many rental companies last 37 plus years. What do you think the secret for Dot’s has been, especially early on? What’s been the secret to making it this long?
Claire Torrans (16:48):
Our customer service. I mean everybody that walks in there, there’s not a stranger. And I know that’s a very cliche thing to say, but anybody that walks in there just feels like they’re a part of the Dot’s community.
Kyle Clements (16:59):
And
Claire Torrans (17:00):
So I think that’s one thing that everybody will say, I can’t always compete with the prices and I can’t always compete with the delivery. And there’s a lot of things, but the customer service aspect of it and what she instills in our staff, everybody knows everybody. So you could be a completely new customer and she’s going to come up and give you a hug and welcome you in. She’ll be the first person to see you at the door. And so I just think she creates this connection to people. And I think that’s what a lot of people don’t realize is that emotional connection that you have with your customers is a big deal. And we’ll see customers out and about and Dot will be like, “Oh my goodness, how are you?” And you would think that they were best friends and we’ll sit down and I’ll be like, “Dot, who was that?” She goes, “I don’t know, but I know they’ve been in the store and this, that and the other.” And just that connection that she’s able to have with people even not knowing them or for the first time is unbelievable. And I think that’s what sets Dot’s apart and it’s been a lot of our success is just that her willingness to always do good by her customers and her staff. The staff takes care of our customers as well. And they see that and they see how Dot reacts in all these situations
Kyle Clements (18:08):
Starts at the top. And I think it sounds like the relationship, customer service, that connection, especially you worked at these corporations, it’s harder as you get a really big mega corporation. It’s hard to have that. But as a family owned rental company, you can still deliver that personal touch. You give ’em a hug, you shake their hand and you’re not going to have the newest equipment or you’re going to win on price. But that human connection, that relationship sounds like that’s how Dot’s has been winning. You found that
Claire Torrans (18:37):
Niche. Yeah, and I mean all of our contractors, pretty much all of them have my cell phone, my mom’s cell phone, our sales guys, Dot’s. I mean Dot will get phone calls in the middle of the night and she’ll call me and be like, “Hey, so-and-so needs a trackhoe right now or a light tower” and it’s three o’clock in the morning and we’re able to do that for them. I mean, there’s not a call that we try not to miss. There are things that happen, but I think having that reliability and that connection with our customers has set us apart in a lot of different aspects. They feel like they’re part of it,
Kyle Clements (19:12):
Part of the community. You mentioned that earlier, the Dot’s community and
Claire Torrans (19:14):
The Dot’s Community
Kyle Clements (19:15):
The way you do that is sounds like you guys lead with a service mindset. How do we serve the customer? It’s at three in the morning, we’re there if it’s eight o’clock at night, we’re there. And that consistency over decades, three decades, almost four decades now, you’ve built that reputation and
Kyle Clements (19:32):
I think there’s a lot of companies that take shortcuts. You got to hit your profit number, blah, blah, blah, blah, after decades of doing the right thing, consistently has been adding up, right? Compounding growth started with 500 bucks. You guys are doing way more than that now. And it sounds like the focus on the customer, no shortcuts has been the key to the success. Is that right?
Claire Torrans (19:50):
Oh, definitely. And I mean we would rather lose, and I tell our staff this, as long as we’re taking care of the customer, I don’t care to what expense it cost us because we’re still putting, we’ll have people come in, oh, this machine didn’t work the way that I used it to or this, that and the other. And a lot of people would be quick to say, well, you still used it, we’re still charging you. No. And then Dot will be like, “Hey, no, if you weren’t able to get your job done, we’re going to take care of that.” And we know, but she always follows it with, “but you better come back here. Okay, now I’m going to do this for you, but you better come back here.” And they always do. I mean they love her and I always tell people, “Learn as much as you can from her”, because as much as I love Dot, we know that Dot’s not always going to be here. And so that’s up to myself, my brothers, my mom to carry on that legacy and our staff on the front counter, but the way she takes care of them, no matter what, we would rather do right by our customers and our staff and we take the hit than anything else. They’re always right. And I will always have my staff’s back and we’ll always have the customers back. So I think that’s a true testament to what Dot has built.
Kyle Clements (21:00):
And the most successful people I know, they just take a long view, longer view than anybody. So you’re like, “Hey, we’re going to lose money on this rental, it broke down, whatever, we’re not going to charge them for it.” But she makes it clear we’re doing this, we value your business and we want to build a 10 year, 20 year customer, right?
Claire Torrans (21:16):
Oh yeah.
Kyle Clements (21:16):
I think that view of saying we’re going to lose money on the day-to-day on certain instances because we’re going to do the right thing for a customer. And she’s betting on and you’re betting on the next 10 years of that customer being there. It sounds like that’s been the key. You’re not trying to take shortcuts, you’re just focusing on doing the right thing for your customer knowing that over time you’ll build loyalty. That’s priceless, right?
Claire Torrans (21:35):
Oh, absolutely. And I think that’s what will keep us in business for the next 30, 30 plus years.
Kyle Clements (21:40):
Yeah, I love it. So tell me about being a woman in rental, right? So you’re third generation. I haven’t met Dot yet, I need to at a show. I know your mom, DeMita, I know you. So what’s it like now, third generation, all women owned? Has that been a challenge? How’s that experience been?
Claire Torrans (21:58):
A lot of people will come up to me and be like, “Man, that must be hard. You’re a woman owned business. That must be hard.” Or, “Man, I bet that’s tough going out on a job site.” And as much as I would love to say it’s tough, I do think that there are its challenges. So I don’t want to take away from that, but I do think that there’s an advantage to being a third generation woman in a woman owned business. We have a great relationship with everybody, whether they’re female or they’re male or we’re on a construction job site or we’re in the event side. It’s never been anything that’s been negative towards us. And I think the key to that is coming in with knowledge and a drama-free environment and things like that that really set us apart. And so I really haven’t found that being a woman in construction has been hard.
(22:50):
It’s been a great thing and we’ve had great relationships with everybody in town on our job sites. I will say that it is kind of intimidating sometimes that they’re like, “Oh my God, there’s three of y’all. What are y’all doing?” And then it’s even more so funny. They’re like, “Oh, y’all do know something about equipment.” And it’s funny because Dot’s favorite thing to say is we have one guy that works on the counter and a lot of people will come up and they’ll be like, “Well, we want to speak to the guy in charge.” And she’ll be like, “Well, I am the guy in charge.” And I’m like, “Oh my gosh, here we go.” And she’s very sassy and a firecracker, so you have to just kind of laugh it off when she says it, but they’re like, “Why do you not have any,” And she quoted this in one of the articles we did.
(23:36):
Someone said, “Why do you not have a man that works on the counter?” And she goes, “Well, when I found one that’s smart enough to stand up here with me, I’ll let you know.” And I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t just be telling people this.” But it is, I mean, she is the most knowledgeable person I know in the construction industry, and I think she set an example for other women and she’s given my mom the confidence to be a woman in the construction industry. And then as well as myself, sometimes I think, “Oh, I’m a woman, I don’t know as much,” or “I can’t go out on a job site.” And I think it’s all about how you present yourself and your knowledge and how you carry yourself on the job site. And truly it comes down to no matter what, just having respect.
(24:18):
That’s the biggest thing that I tell new people coming onto the team. I’m like, if you respect them, they’ll respect you. And I think that goes the longest mile no matter what. But she has been a true trailblazer for setting an example of how a woman can lead a company, lead company in construction and equipment and really set an example for others. And I would be lying if I said she hasn’t gotten comments or snarks and stuff like that, but it’s how you handle it afterwards. She lets it go in one ear at the other and she knows her purpose. She knows her business. She knows what she’s doing. She knows that she runs a great book of business and she’s just going to keep going and she doesn’t let it get her down. Nothing that bothers Dot will brush it off her shoulder and keep going.
Kyle Clements (25:02):
Well, it sounds like maybe early on for her, and maybe for you as you kind of were guess getting back into rental, there were some maybe some, all right, am I the imposter syndrome? I got to go to the job site, but what Dot’s been able to do is be a trailblazer. She’s been doing it for decades.
Claire Torrans (25:16):
Oh yeah.
Kyle Clements (25:16):
She’s proven that you can be a man or woman, it doesn’t matter. And it sounds like it hasn’t been as much of a challenge. There’s a big focus on women in rental, and I think even if you look at the podcast guests who’ve come on, there’s been less than probably five women who’ve come on, partly because there’s just so many men in rental. Everyone we talked to is a man in rental, and it is an industry that has not been the most, I don’t know what the phrase is, forward thinking in terms of having women come into rental for whatever reason, you guys feel like it hasn’t really been as much of a disadvantage for you at all, maybe even a strength.
Claire Torrans (25:48):
I think it plays in our favor
Kyle Clements (25:51):
Truly part of your brand. It’s part
Claire Torrans (25:53):
Of who you guys are. And that’s what I mean. I would say that not with that sets us apart, but they’re always like, “Damn, that’s cool.” That is really cool. That is three women running a construction. And it’s funny is there’s been some people in conferences I’ve been at and they’re like, “Oh, you’re on the event side?” And I’m like, “No, I’m in the construction side.” And we do have the event side and I manage that side, but predominantly it’s the event or the construction, and it’s funny. And then I’ll be like, “Well, what do you think I do?” And they’re like, “A nurse or real estate.” And I’m like, “Yeah, you hit, yep, that’s it.” So it’s funny, but they’re never expecting it. But
Kyle Clements (26:33):
It’s probably sort of a cool, yeah, it’s also, I can imagine, we were at visiting some rental companies in Omaha two days ago, and we went to Topgolf and I was like, “I don’t really want to play,” so just, I played high school golf. That was my sport. So they’re like, “Kyle, you want to hit one?” I was like, “Nah, not really.” And I went up and just hit the back net, right? That’s my thing I’m good at. And everyone’s like, “Oh my God,” there’s an element. Started playing coy. You’re like, yeah, I just got this little rental thing. And you’re powerhouse, third generation, third women generation of building an equipment rental company. There’s probably an element of, it’s sort of cool when you sort of play low key a little bit, people forever worse underestimate you and you get to prove wrong. Feels fine. I’m
Claire Torrans (27:11):
Sure I’ve gone to lunches with my sales guy and they’ll look at him and they’ll try and talk about equipment and they’ll just keep looking at him. And then he’ll be like, “Well, you got to talk to her about that.” And they’re like “Her?” And I’m like, “I don’t know what to tell you.”
Kyle Clements (27:27):
It’s a cool feeling, I’m sure. Yeah, it’s a cool feeling when you could do that. And I’ve got three daughters who are less than five years old, so it’s cool what you guys have been doing. For whatever reason, there’s not a lot of women in rental, and I don’t know if there’s any rental companies who have had three women run it over 40 years, maybe some others, but there’s got to be less than five.
Claire Torrans (27:48):
Maybe. I’m not, I haven’t heard anybody of anybody. Anybody. And so that’s what we were trying to figure out if there was anybody else. But I really haven’t heard of anybody, so
Kyle Clements (28:00):
I haven’t either. We about lot about companies,
Claire Torrans (28:01):
But I want more. I want, I think it’s an awesome thing. I will be serving next year on the Women and Rental board for ARA and I encourage more people to branch out, be fearless, get involved, and just own it. It’s not anything that you can’t do. And I think that’s the fear. That’s like it’s a male dominated industry and well, it is, but there’s still room for all of us.
Kyle Clements (28:29):
That’s right. And it’s cool what you guys have been doing. Other topic we wanted talk about was leading with more of a tech focus. I know your experience in other companies, Walmart, Sam’s Club, Accenture, you’ve seen technology and for whatever reason, rental has not been leading in technology. I do think that’s actually changing in the next two years. I’ll tell you why in a second, but tell me about how you’ve been thinking about leading with more of a tech focus than a business that’s almost 40 years old.
Claire Torrans (28:58):
So whenever I first came on to Dot’s Rentals, I could see not everything was paper driven. I don’t even think people, I mean my mom maybe used her email the most. And our office accounting specialist
Claire Torrans (29:14):
Were probably the two people that used their email. Everybody else was still paper, paper, paper, paper. And I’m like, “How do y’all track all this?” And my mom was like, “Well, it’s in a filing cabinet over there.” I said, “Oh my God, okay, we got to do something here to streamline processes”. And so we started off with the very basic level of, I was like, “Okay, we all need emails so we can have this.” And I was like, “We’re going to create a community calendar.” And so that was the first step. And she was like, “Wait, we’re going to create community calendar that we can see everybody’s days off?” And I said “Yes,” because I had a stack this big of PTO requests that I had to go through and write on a calendar in Dot’s office. And I was like, “How do you keep up with this?
Claire Torrans (29:54):
How do you wake up in the morning and know who’s going to be at work?” And she’s like, “Well, we just go in there and look at the calendar.” So it’s little things like that that just started to kind of streamline everything. So we’ve got the Google calendar and then I introduced the Google Drive and she was like, “we can all work on this at the same time.” I’m like, “it’s crazy.” So it’s little things like that. And then also putting our processes. So we’re putting everything to paper. So everything that we’re doing has a process, and I want the most clear step-by-step instructions on how do we get from point A to point B and there not be any question about it. And when there’s new hires, where do they go? And so now we have a new hire pamphlet that has everything in the Google Drive, and then also they get a packet whenever they go, but when they’re hired on, all that stuff is right there.
Claire Torrans (30:43):
You just have to click print and it all prints out for one person. And if there’s ever any question, they have a place that they can go to find these things. And so just being able to streamline and show people what our possibilities are, and they’re like, “Well, how did you do that so fast?” Well, there’s a great thing, ChatGPT has been a game changer. And I know as we all know, AI is such a cool way to use things, but we have done so many things using AI to be able to help Dot’s Rentals and move things forward. And I mean, it’s helped me with numbers. It’s helped me with scheduling, it’s helped me with processes and everybody now my front counter, they all have ChatGPT on the front counter. That way if they have a question about how so much a piece of equipment weighs, I’m like, “Guys, you don’t have to flip through a binder and find all this.”
Claire Torrans (31:30):
You can just ask it or you can just showing them the possibilities of ways that they can use their phones, the technology, the iPads, the computers, what they can do to help them get answers quicker to serve our customers faster. So when they’re on the phone, I’ve watched somebody be on the phone and they’ll want to know how much something weighs and they’re like, one second, lemme find out for you. They just have chatGPT pulls up the JLG link. There’s all the information you need, and they can give exactly what they need to the customer with no questions asked. And so really using a tech-forward thinking and ways that we want to use it to improve our business and ways that we can make things work faster and just more efficient ways. I mean, it’s the littlest things make the biggest difference. And so when you start, it’s like a domino effect. Once you start doing some of those little things, it just starts to fall over and all come together. I mean, it’s just one thing after the next and it all gets easier. And I do say though that it is a challenge at first introducing those things in a business that’s been set in their ways for 37 years.
Claire Torrans (32:40):
When you start to introduce that stuff, you do get a lot of, “That’s not the way we’ve always done it” or “I don’t like that”, or “I don’t use an email.” And I understand. And I think it’s finding that especially between generations. So I would say the gap between Dot and myself is a big gap. And even my mom, and she’s kind of the middle guy in all of this, but
Claire Torrans (33:06):
Making it work to a way that works for Dot and works for myself. And so everybody else falls in between those two. And I think if you can kind of find that happy medium, okay, maybe we won’t fully integrate with this, but we are going to start working towards that goal and taking it in baby steps and introducing little things at a time instead of just ripping one giant bandaid off and scaring everybody. Just take it small pieces at a time and let everybody get used to it. And then a lot of the technology advancements that we’ve made and processes that we’ve swapped, I think come with giving your staff the reason why. So why is this going to make it easier for you? Why are we doing this and why is this going to benefit and why is this going to serve our customer better? And I think if you can give them those answers, they see it instead of just like, “Oh, this girl came in and now she’s making all these changes.”
Claire Torrans (34:01):
We’ve been working just fine for 37 years. If I could tell you there’s one phrase I’ve heard a lot, “Well, we’ve done it that way for 37 years, why change?” And so I think this younger generation is here to bust that. And I told my mom, I said, “If I have to hear, ‘well, we’ve done it this way, why are we doing it this way anymore?’ Then my head’s going to spiral off.” You have to make those changes. I mean, there are critical changes you have to make. And I’m still a big fan of a good pen and paper, but not for 12 filing cabinets full of pen and paper.
Kyle Clements (34:33):
And there’s a whole idea of what got you here won’t get you there, right? So what it got you here for the first 37 years won’t get you to the next 37 years. Where did you guys add getting better on the email and the Google Drive? Is that in the last two years you said?
Claire Torrans (34:45):
It was, and now it’s been a game changer. Everybody loves the Google Drive, everybody.
Kyle Clements (34:49):
So there was some resistance at first, but now they’re like, “Oh, we love it. We’d never go back.” Is that where they’re now, right?
Claire Torrans (34:53):
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I mean, everything has been just kind of pivoting over to this like, “Oh, we can just get on the Google Drive. Oh, we can just send an email and then instead of calling our IT company,” the counter’s like, “Oh, we could just shoot ’em an email.” I’m like, “Yeah, if you don’t need an immediate answer, just shoot ’em an email. They’ll get right back to you.” And same with any of our support companies. Like shoot them an email, they’ll get right back to you, and they’re really starting to see the power of it. And then I also choose to communicate with them. So GroupMe, if I have something that needs immediate blast to everybody, and then other than that, I email. And so a trick, because everybody was like, “Well, I didn’t see the email.” So now at the bottom of the email I tell everybody they have to either give me a thumbs up or they have to respond to the email. So I know that you read the email and then it gets them checking their emails. So now they’re just like, “Oh, we don’t want to miss an email from Claire, so we’re going to check it. Oh, we got to check our emails.” So I’ve kind of created this, “Yes, guys, we got to check our emails every day.” Every day. Keep them up on your computers, check your emails because customers email now.
Kyle Clements (35:56):
Yeah, they do. And part of it’s like, what got you here won’t get you there. Well, if your customers are moving in a certain direction, you don’t really have a choice. If they want to engage with you via email or online, you’re either going to lose that customer or you’re going to have to adapt. And old dog doesn’t like to learn new tricks. I mean, there is a switching cost and my mindset shift and there is a period of slower productivity. But you saw with Google Drive two years later, everyone’s like, why did we ever to go back? Right. I’m curious on the AI stuff with ChatGPT at the front desk, how has that adoption been? Was that something that they were resistant to or are they just like, “No, we want AI.” We’ve used ChatGPT, ourselves. How has that particular component been adopted?
Claire Torrans (36:39):
So it wasn’t, they weren’t using it before, and so they were like, “Man, how are you getting that information quicker? What are you doing?” And so I showed them and it was kind of like this, like, “Oh my gosh, that’s cool. That is so cool.” And so now they use it for everything. They’ll be up there just having fun with it sometimes. And then other times they use it to find answers for things. So nobody was really resistant towards it, but they just wanted to know more and how they could use it in the different ways. So they were very curious. And now that they have that, it’s pretty much a tab on everybody’s computer. I don’t ever see it come off. And so they’ll use it for the most random questions. But again, working in rental, you never know what question you’re going to get. There’s some things that aren’t on an informational guide that you’re just like, I have no idea.
Kyle Clements (37:24):
Yeah, it sounds like you were getting answers to stuff very quickly. All of a sudden they’re like, “How did Claire become superhero?” So I think the biggest key here I’m hearing is when you show the value upfront, then the adoption happens much faster. If you just give people more homework assignment, we’re just going to do, we’re going to force technology for no reason, that’s harder. But people can see the power of it that makes the adoption much easier.
Claire Torrans (37:49):
Yeah. And then that goes back to your why. I think everything needs a “why are you doing this business? Why are you serving your customers?” Everything has to have a “why”. And when you give them that, it gives them a better understanding of their purpose and the purpose of doing it and the benefits of it. I think time is money and the more time that we can save, it’s just overall better for our customers, ourselves and leaders of the company.
Kyle Clements (38:15):
And for whatever reason, we’ve been talking to a lot of groups last month or two, your mom is one of the groups about where we think AI’s going and the adoption or the indication of adoption has been overwhelmingly positive to a point that I haven’t seen. Even with online renting and other things, people maybe they experienced it with your counter people using ChatGPT, they want more AI. So I think rental has been slower to adopt technology for different reasons. I think that’s changing, and I think when AI can start to do work within a rental company that people don’t want to do, they don’t have time to do and they see the power of it, I think that rental won’t be a laggard in technology adoption anymore. It’ll be in the middle of the pack, maybe the front of the pack. So I think things are changing and the pen and paper stuff, if you’re not using AI soon in a rental company, then you’re going to be really far behind.
Claire Torrans (39:02):
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I use it in all my meetings. I use an app, a software that actually records all my meetings and it’s just an assistant that I have and it puts all my notes together, gives me an agenda, emails it over to me, and then I just put in, I just tell it who else I want the meeting notes to go to and it takes care of everything else. And so that way I’m not sitting here with a pen and paper during a meeting losing focus because I’m worried about writing when my AI assistant has taken care of everything. I mean, it organizes my emails, it tells me my calendar for the morning. It’s crazy where it’s going. And I think it’s a scary thing. So when my mom and my grandmother are like, “We don’t know about all that,” I’m like, “Well, technology’s here and it’s staying and it’s going to be the next revolution.”
Claire Torrans (39:48):
And so I think that you have to get on board with it and learn how to work with it in the ways that you feel are appropriate for your business. It saved me. Then there’s an Excel sheet that was probably going to take me four or five hours to manipulate, and I was like, “Wait, why am I doing this?” And I put it in ChatGPT, and I said, “Hey, I need this column to match this column, to match this with these products.” And in less than four minutes I had everything that I needed right there. And that saved me a lot of time to be able to, okay, now I can just get this over and keep going with my day.
Kyle Clements (40:21):
Yeah, I think that’s why I think the technology adoption and rental for AI is going to be so fast is because it’s like your employees are now 50% more productive, not 5% or 2%, but 50% more productive. And people are going to see that. And we’re seeing the early stages of that, and I think that’s why we’re excited. I think things are going to adopt very quickly and you’re already experiencing that. So last quick topic before we wrap up here. You guys have had a lot of success, a lot of revenue in one location for 30 plus almost 40 years. Thinking about after all these years, go to second location, tell me about that thought process. And I know you guys haven’t launched yet, but you’re considering going to your second location. How did that come to be?
Claire Torrans (41:04):
Yeah, so I guess this can be the official launch because we just got all of our finalized approvals from the city, but we are opening our second location in Springdale, Arkansas, which is in northwest Arkansas, close to Bentonville. So a year ago we acquired a building and we were just going to use it for some real estate. So that was kind of a background. We have a lot of commercial warehousing and real estate. My brothers, so I kind of told my mom, I said, “I think it’s time for my brothers to join us.” They’re kind of like my missing parts. They’re my counterparts. We, all three, have worked together all of our lives with different projects. And so now we all three work together as partners in the business. And so we bought the building and the beginning of this year we decided, okay, this is going to be our second store.
Claire Torrans (41:56):
And we weren’t sure how we were going to do it. We went into it. We’ve never had another store. This was going to be a new adventure for us, but we didn’t know how we were going to run the store. And so after lots of back and forth, whenever, and I guess I can officially say this, that both of my brothers will be joining us in business. And so my older brother is going to be leaving his corporate job and my younger brother is leaving his job in Denver. And so they will both be in Springdale running that store. And so my current brother or my older brother lives there, and they’re going to come in and run that store. But we have had so many learning curves with opening store number two and lots of back and forth with the city of Springdale. But at the end of January, we’ll officially be opening our second location.
Kyle Clements (42:46):
Awesome. Well, congratulations. Thank you. For whatever reason, a lot of people we’ve been talking to is like they’d be going to second location, so maybe rental is doing well and people see the opportunity, but that’s exciting.
Claire Torrans (42:55):
I think it’s all about time. I think if we would’ve done it any sooner what we paid for the building, it all had to make sense financially. And so I’m lucky to have a great team of accountants that we’ve given everything to and they’ve kind of really helped us strategically plan the second store. And so with my brother and I’s background in the corporate world and expanding locations, I was a part of the Cavender’s team when they were in a big point of growth and opening a ton of stores across the United States. And so you see the processes. And so one of the things that my brother, we both agreed on, is that store number two needs to be treated as if it was store number 10. So we’ve taken this whole year to really get our ducks in a row with processes and procedures and how we want to operate and really fine tuning as much as we can just so the second launch and the third launch and the fourth launch,. We’re not opening store number six and saying, “Oh gosh, now we got to go back and change the ways of working for all these other stores.”
Claire Torrans (43:57):
And so the forward thinking and how we want to end game run this business was how we were going into it with store number two. And it is an investment. Making sure you’re doing as much as you can correctly is a big investment. But we see long-term, and I think that goes back to that long-term vision of making sure that you’re setting even store number two up for success in 30 years. And whenever we have way more locations now, our growth plan is to make sure that everything’s copy and paste factor, but as forward-thinking as possible. So we’re not having to backtrack too much on all these locations.
Kyle Clements (44:33):
Doing the work out front, going slow to go fast. So you’re building the template to go do the next 3, 4, 5. It’s very cool. Congrats on all your success.
Claire Torrans (44:43):
Thank you.
Kyle Clements (44:44):
Last question I have: Best career advice you’ve gotten. It’s helped shape your success and what you’re doing at Dot’s?
Claire Torrans (44:49):
So my dad always told me, and I wouldn’t say this is career advice, but it does allow you to think outside the box. So we always joke about, so whenever I worked for my dad when I was younger, he would give you a task and it would almost be unachievable. And so you’re like, “How am I going to,” it’s like having a 10 foot ladder and you have 40 foot ceilings. “How the heck am I going to reach the 40 foot ceilings? And he always would end it with, “I have faith in you.” And you’re like, “Okay, now I know that this task is about to be the most daunting thing.” And so I always tell people whenever I give them a task that they’re like, “I can’t do this.” I’m like, “There’s a way. You just have to think creatively.” And I always tell them, “I have faith in you”
Claire Torrans (45:27):
And that’s what my dad always told me. And I think that that has pushed us in our career to really, you’re going to get tasked and you’re going to think you can’t do it. There’s going to be a lot of things that you think are unachievable because they’re way too high in the sky. But with enough, I always say that “I have faith in you.” It drives people to really dial in to figure out “How am I going to do this?” And so that to me has been a piece of advice from my dad that I’ve taken for the longest time. And I wouldn’t say it’s like a quote or something like that, but it’s more of an actionable thing that you have to just, it might be too far and it’s really, you got a 10 foot ladder and 40 foot ceilings, but you’re going to find a way to make it work.
Claire Torrans (46:06):
And I think it’s been a big part of us as a business. And my brothers will say the same thing. We all laugh. We’ve all been told that same statement. “I have faith in you,” and you’re like, “Great. Now I have to get real creative on how I’m going to do this.” But being in leadership and having a business and our operation, it allows you to really think outside the box, “Okay, how am I going to get there? What am I going to do to reach where I want to go?” Even as unachievable as it seems, there’s always a way. And I think having that ability to be pushed and pressed to really think for yourself and about what you want to do to get there, and it slows you down a little bit to think about your process instead of just automatically having all the ducks in a row to be able to get it done.
Kyle Clements (46:49):
Yeah. Well, it sounds like setting really high goals and having someone who believes in you and expects you to achieve those goals, right?
Claire Torrans (46:55):
Oh yeah.
Kyle Clements (46:56):
Very cool. Well, Claire, thank you for all your learnings and sharing today. Awesome story with Dot and DeMita, now you. Amazing business over 37 years, and excited to hear about the second location and many more after that. So Claire, congrats on all your success. Thanks for sharing everything today.
Claire Torrans (47:11):
Awesome. Thank you for having me.
