No Other Truck than a Dunning Isuzu for One Aaron’s Franchisee

RTOOnline:

Charles Smithgall works in big numbers. He owns 65 Aarons franchises, the largest number in the company, with several under construction. And over the past 13 years since he opened his first store, he has bought nearly 200 Isuzu trucks, all of them from Michelle Dunning, who recently joined Nalley Motor Trucks as a Sales Professional.

“I went down to Atlanta and picked up my first truck from her and drove it up to Louisville, Ky.,” says Smithgall. “Now we have her drop ship them. We started off with her, and we’ve done business with her since. She has done an unbelievable job, always gives us a competitive price, gets a fair price on my old trucks and delivers on time. We like the product she sells too! Every RTO dealer knows how important his truck is. We feel it better be a good one.”

Smithgall opened his first Aarons store in Louisville and has since added seven more in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Other stores are heavily concentrated in New York with more scattered around New England. RTO became his passion after his last career in radio broadcasting, where he owned one of the first CNN Radio News stations. That followed work in cable TV, a degree from Harvard Business School, a role within the construction industry and service in Viet Nam.

Smithgall formed SEI/Aarons in 1995 and has found his niche as an RTO franchisee. He enjoys the structure of Aarons in particular and attributes success partly from following their company program. That includes buying from preferred vendors, such as Dunning. Over the years he has changed back and forth, some years buying trucks, some years leasing them, depending on different state requirements. But it’s always been Dunning’s NPR Isuzu trucks.

“These are probably the best trucks on the road for what we do in RTO,” he says. “That’s why Aarons likes them. They are durable, have a number of features we can pick and choose as we like, and they hold their value when we sell them every couple of years to upgrade. We just keep coming back for more.”