ColorTyme is the fourth largest RTO company in the world, and as we've proclaimed in our convention theme this week, We're Getting Better All The Tyme.
Bob Bloom, President, ColorTyme

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Bob Bloom, President, ColorTyme. See photo galleries of past ColorTyme conventions.

ColorTyme, Inc., America's oldest franchisor of independently owned-and-operated rent-to-own stores, concluded its National Convention in Frisco, Texas last week. The high-energy event included the presentation of more than 100 awards to top-performing franchisees and store managers, a vendor trade show featuring the RTO industry's first look at the newest laser and 3D HDTV technology, and a series of special financing and training seminars and workshops for owners and managers. A gala 30th birthday party complete with gifts for all attendees concluded the annual gathering.

ColorTyme President and CEO Bob Bloom opened the convention with a retrospective look at the company's history and a stirring prediction for the future. "In 2008, ColorTyme franchisees continued to show our company's strength lies in the quality and tenure of our people," Bloom told the 300 attendees. "Through the years we have attracted superior people to become ColorTyme franchisees and we have built a strong in-house team of operations, legal, marketing, training and public relations professionals to support them. In the past four years alone we have welcomed 45 new franchisees – that's more new franchisees than most RTO companies have stores!"

Bloom said ColorTyme's ability to offer an attractive array of financing options over the years has been the key to the company's appeal to entrepreneurs. "While other franchisors and small operators are struggling in the current tight commercial credit marketplace, ColorTyme is expanding the lines of credit available to our franchisees," Bloom said. "In every hometown ColorTyme store across America, 2009 promises to be a year of great opportunity for us to serve our communities and customers."

Mitch Fadel, President and COO of ColorTyme's parent company Rent-A-Center, echoed the upbeat outlook of the convention: "I've never seen a better time to be in the rent-to-own business. It's 1959 all over again – it was during that credit crunch ColorTyme's founder, Willie Talley and his brother Ernie, first introduced rental-purchase options to their cash and credit-strapped customers," Fadel said. "Today we are seeing the same economic environment, with more new faces coming into our stores to get the things their families need."

Recent video interviews with ColorTyme pros.	Amy Woods ColorTyme
Louis Hall ColorTyme	Tim Hogan ColorTyme
Larry Hill ColorTyme	Ted Schlaack ColorTyme

With other retail segments faltering and announcing record layoffs, Fadel added, ColorTyme has a great opportunity to grow and prosper. "With the rent-to-own segment bucking the downturn in retailing, this is the year for ColorTyme to attract cream-of-the-crop new franchisees and for current operators to recruit the best employees available," Fadel added.

ColorTyme Director of Franchise Development Jim Deering reported ColorTyme has maintained its momentum in attracting new franchisees, with an upturn in interest among new franchisees coming from outside the traditional RTO industry. "In 2008 we moved up on Entrepreneur's list of the Top 500 Franchises in America, and entrepreneurs noticed. In addition, we've been able to garner increasingly positive national and local press coverage this past year."

Amy Woods, ColorTyme's Director of Marketing, announced significant new improvements to the ColorTyme consumer website that allows each franchised store to maintain its own website in both English and Spanish, capture customer and prospect information online, take rental orders and process credit-card payments, and post local job listings. In 2009, the ColorTyme marketing department will be offering enhanced and customized promotions, flyers and advertising support to franchisees and local stores, she said.

ColorTyme's new Vice President of Operations, retail and RTO industry veteran Albert Kohut, said the company will be offering increased services to individual operators in 2009 with more in-market support and more courses added to ColorTyme's online training and the ColorTyme University curriculum. "ColorTyme places high value on each of our franchisees and their management teams, and we make sure they feel our appreciation," Kohut said. For example, at our National Convention we never charge franchisees a registration fee, most meals are included, and we even pay for their hotel room. No other RTO franchisor invests so heavily in its people."

"ColorTyme is the fourth largest RTO company in the world, and as we've proclaimed in our convention theme this week, ‘We're Getting Better All The Tyme,'" Bob Bloom said in his remarks. "We're thirty years young and going strong."

ColorTyme, Inc., founded in 1979, is America's oldest franchisor of independently owned-and-operated rent-to-own stores. ColorTyme franchisees operate 210 rent-to-own stores in 34 states, and the company's custom-wheels-and-tires franchise brand, RimTyme, operates 18 stores in eight states. ColorTyme is headquartered in Plano, Texas, and is an independent, wholly owned subsidiary of the largest RTO company in the world, Rent-A-Center (NASDAQ: RCII).