Having spent his RTO career entirely in Florida, and the last 15 years in South Florida, Summa opened his new store right in the middle of the market he knew.

Former Marine Drew Summa.

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Drew Summa got out of the Marine Corps in 1989. His next step was to find a civilian job – thus began the story of his RTO career. "I ended up answering an ad in the newspaper for Rent-A-Center," he said. "That's because I couldn't find anything in the Yellow Pages under 'field artillery'." All kidding aside, he has had a long and successful run in the RTO industry in Florida, and that has prepared him well to start his own Premier rental-purchase business. He opened his Premier store in Oakland Park, Fla. in May.

Summa started with Rent-A-Center in Central Florida, working his way up from driver to account manager to assistant and then to manager. He moved to South Florida in 1993 and joined ColorTyme as a store manager. He was promoted to district manager in 1998, and then the buy outs began. ColorTyme was sold to Action, which was bought out by Home Choice which later bought out Alrenco. Next, it was involved in a buy out from RentWay, and finally from Rent-A- Center. Full Circle! Summa started to feel that the fun was leaving the business. "The bigger the company, the more they look at numbers instead of the happiness of their people. After several years of being under RentWay's 'Welcome, Wanted and Important' work style, you get kind of spoiled and you think every company will treat you that great."

After almost 20 years in the industry, Summa was getting kind of complacent. That's when a friend, Ted Krygosky prompted him to think about going into business for himself. "Ted opened a Premier store in Portage, Indiana, and I saw the success he had with that. He talked about how great it was, and I got the bug to open up my own store. I was tired of seeing all the profits going to the home office. I wanted to send profits to my home office!"

Having spent his RTO career entirely in Florida, and the last 15 years in South Florida, he opened his new store right in the middle of the market he knew. Customers and former staff he had worked with over the years followed, and while the timing just happened to work out that he opened in the worse part of the year – summer – he has been happily surprised that business is good and that his first month and a half in business has gone beyond his expectations.

Summa said that Ted's recommendation was a big reason he chose to become a Premier franchisee. However, there were other reasons. Among them was Premier's approach of supporting rather than dictating to its dealers. "Premier has a different philosophy than a public company has," he said. "Premier attracts operators who have RTO experience but who may not necessarily grasp all that is involved in ownership. Premier is there to educate and support. Premier helps dealers understand how to open up a store and run it as an independent business owner. But it recognizes that its dealers know the industry and also want to have the flexibility to run their RTO business their way. In the beginning they usually need help. And from what I see, as things progress for the dealer, Premier is still there to foster growth. Premier helped me out tremendously."

Summa sites the business plan as a good example of how Premier initially helped him start as a new dealer. He and President/CEO Trooper Earle sat down together and prepared an impressive plan that, together with Summa's good credit, helped him secure a loan very quickly with the first bank he approached.

While still new to the game, Summa has already begun to see value in using Premier's payroll system, accounting services and other support available to new as well as experienced Premier franchisees. "I use everybody they suggest," said Summa. "I can just concentrate on what I know, concentrate on growing my store and being successful. I don't have to worry about "home office" stuff. I see long-term value with Premier."

A number of Summa's fellow Premier dealers have opened multiple stores or are making plans to do so. But he is content to concentrate on one store for a while. "I want a break from being responsible for many stores, like I was as a district manager for so long. Right now in this market, I can have one gigantic store and bring in lots of money."

His new 5,000-square-foot showroom looks different from other rental-purchase outfits in his area. He has very carefully decorated with high-end accessories like throw rugs on the sofas, expensive vases on tables and tasteful wall coverings, to make his look like an up-scale furniture store. In fact there are very few telltale signs that it is rental-purchase. "If you walked in here you would think you are in a retail furniture store," he said. "That is how I've chosen to differentiate myself. I couldn't have done that before in a corporate setting. Everyone had to look the same."

The national office of Premier Rental-Purchase is located in Williamsburg, Virginia. All Premier stores are independently owned and operated. Visit Premier's website at www.premierrents.net or call (800) 2-Premier and ask for Trooper Earle.