I was explaining to a friend about my various rent to own clients, their job challenges, credit repair issues, how much hand-holding I often have to do, how tough it sometimes is to get them to understand, then do the right things to repair their credit.
“So you’re really a social worker?” she averred.
CAROP (Canadian Association of Rent to Own Professionals) was formed by, and for, those who hope to create win-win-win outcomes. It’s not good enough to be motivated only by the dollar signs. We are in a people-helping business.
That point was hammered home to us in our basic rent-to-own training. (I took Dave Dubeau’s Three-way Payday course.) There are unscrupulous individuals out there who take their clients’ money without regard to positive outcomes. That’s not what we’re all about. And that’s one reason Dubeau promoted the client-first model: We succeed when the client succeeds.
That “people-helping thing” was one of the reasons I decided to go into this business.
In our training, we were also taught to classify applications as A (excellent prospect), B (may have potential if we get the rest of the story, or perhaps down the road sometime) or C (no chance). But I have to keep reminding myself that our A’s are mostly C’s in the real world (with our B’s being D’s and our C’s, F’s). Most of the real world A’s and B’s already own their own homes; they don’t need rent to own.
So I hand-hold my A’s and B’s whom I’ve assessed as highly likely to succeed in the end, those who have agreed with me in that assessment and signed up for the program. It can be a lot of work, but my win is greatly emasculated if they don’t win in the end.
I’m an entrepreneur at heart, as are most of us rent to own providers, I think. But I like the following definition of an entrepreneur: “An entrepreneur is someone who makes money by helping people.”
Members of CAROP are in a people-helping business, not just a money-making business.
And, to make that happen, I guess I really am a social worker sometimes, too.