MC Fireside Chats – October 25th, 2023

[00:00:00] 

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of [00:01:00] MC Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Searl with Insider Perks. Super excited to be with you and my dog who missed me because I was gone for the last few days and I can’t really kick her off my lap. One, because she’s a lap dog and I love her, but two, because I’m also flying out again tomorrow.

So you guys will have to just enjoy this, which like anything makes me look better. So there’s a dog here for you to enjoy throughout the show. But super excited to be here with you guys again for week four for our RV industry focused episode. We got a couple of our regular guests joining us here, Phil and Gracia from RVDA.

Susan Carpenter from the RV Women’s Alliance, Shane Devenish from CRVA. We’re going to talk a little bit about them, about some of the new things that have happened in the industry, and then excited to welcome our special guests for the show as well. We’ve got Joe and Coley from Alliance RV who are going to dive into all the great things they have done in the past and are looking forward to doing in the industry.

And then we’ve got Craig and Victoria from Wild RV Life as well. Super packed show. Before we get into our special guests, Phil, Shane. Is there, Susan, is there, and welcome back, Susan, it’s been a while, is there anything that you guys would like to bring [00:02:00] up that you feel was like, amazing since the last time you’ve been on the show in the RV industry that we need to be paying attention to?

Phil Ingrassia: I’ll get it started Brian, I, it’s been interesting over the last several weeks, there’s been a lot of coverage of RV travel in some mainline publications. Wall Street Journal this week had a big story on… Retiring in an RV and they interviewed seven couples who basically have become nomads in retirement and Some of the rewarding things, as well as some of the challenges they face.

Some of the couples were RVers, some of them were in boats, but it was pretty interesting, and then the Washington Post did a story on overland camping, some of the opportunities there, as far as people using vans and… And Overland type [00:03:00] units as well. So it’s been interesting to see as as we get into snowbird season, some of the The mainstream press picking up on some of the things that Craig and Victoria probably experience all the time 

Brian Searl: So i’m curious phil like you bring up a great point.

I’m curious from your perspective. How do you feel and I know? It’s nuanced. It’s the rv industry side. It’s the campground side. It’s the associations. It’s everybody who’s involved in communicating with the media with telling the story with Driving that narrative forward with making sure the Washington Post reporters know that they are the industry, right?

So there’s a lot of unpacking to do there that we don’t want to do and have time to do on this show. But from your perspective, how do we as an industry work together to put more of that content in front of those writers so that they have the knowledge and facts and data to write more about the industry?

Phil Ingrassia: I think the associations have done a good job over the years of being out there in front of people with data go RVing in the US as well as,[00:04:00] 

Brian Searl: Oh. Did you lose Phil? 

Shane Devenish: I think we did. 

Brian Searl: Alright, that is stay tuned everyone for part few ofv fireside chats. That’s our cliffhanger. It was actually built into the show, so wasn’t really Bill’s fault, just so you all know. But let’s go on and we can come back to Phil when we get a chance ’cause that’s definitely a good point.

Do we wanna just briefly go around, we’ll introduce our special guests. And then obviously Susan and Shane, you can talk a little bit about yourselves as well. And then maybe if Fopox pops in, we’ll finish the thought before we deep dive in. But Craig and Victoria, do you want to get us started? 

Victoria & Craig: Yeah I’m Victoria, Craig, obviously.

Hey. So we started full time RVing in 2021 about mid 2021. And we have been on the road full time ever since. We sold our house that we lived in Tallahassee, Florida, and have traveled. A big, huge loop around the entire US. We’ve even been down the Baja Peninsula, and we just recently did a little shortcut through canada.

Craig & Victoria: [00:05:00] We did three countries this year, if you include the US. 

Brian Searl: What did you do in canada? 

Victoria & Craig: We went from Michigan to New York, actually. From Michigan to buffalo. 

Brian Searl: That’s the semi boring side of Canada. You gotta come to it. 

Victoria & Craig: There’s not much there. 

Phil Ingrassia: That’s where I am. Oh, sorry Shane. 

Victoria & Craig: I know, it was still enjoyable.

We got to see Niagara Falls, that was the first time. And we stopped off in, the Kitchener area and Kitchener, Waterloo, and we went to the Laura Gorge and it was really nice. Next year we have big plans for Alaska, so we’ll be also doing more of exploring Western Canada next year. And, 

Susan Carpenter: the Niagara Falls is always better from the Canadian view.

Victoria & Craig: That’s what we heard! 

Yeah. We haven’t even seen it from the U. S. side. What’s the point? We already saw the best side. 

Susan Carpenter: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, for sure, absolutely. I want to jump back in with Phil here, and sorry, I had to get up for a second, my laptop wasn’t plugged in, so that was almost a disaster, but Phil, go ahead and finish your thought.

We actually built it as a [00:06:00] cliffhanger, so everybody has been waiting for you to come back to finish your thought, 

Phil Ingrassia: okay, yeah, I don’t know what happened there, but anyway, I think the associations through Gorving U. S., Gorving Canada, have done a good job teeing up reporters with interesting stories, as well as giving them accurate information for some of the stories they do, both on the general consumer side and the business media side of things.

So kudos to the Go RVing staffs on both sides of the border who do a lot of PR work. 

Brian Searl: Do you think there’s an opportunity for, outside of the associations, who obviously have, bigger budgets, GoRVing has a bigger budget, they have dedicated PR people and agencies that they work with and things like that.

How do you feel like some of the smaller dealerships on the RV industry side specifically, or, a little bit less about campgrounds and RV parks, right? But how can we join this push to get even more content out in front of these journalists? 

Phil Ingrassia: Through goRVing US and GoRVing Canada that you [00:07:00] can sign up for a GoRVing dealer programs So you can leverage some of the resources of the national GoRVing campaign right in your local markets Whether you’re a dealer or show promoter or we also work with agencies Who work with local dealerships and local shows to get them information that they can spread out in fact at our upcoming convention Go RVing is going to be doing a workshop on how dealers can do a better job of liaison with their local TV stations and get coverage for special events.

Kick off of holiday camping season when there’s a three day weekend. A lot of times, those local TV stations are just looking for things to tie into. And certainly RVs are a very visual story camping’s a fun story, and perfect for morning shows and afternoon type lifestyle shows.

There’s a lot of strategies out there that local dealers and campgrounds could use to tell the story. [00:08:00] 

Brian Searl: And I think that’s perfect. Like you led me right where I was trying to lead you, right? Is that if you look at us from a marketing PR perspective or the PR agencies that you guys work with, the PR people you have in house, right?

From RVIA, from RVDA, from everything else like that. That’s a, we can function very well on a high level basis, sending and distributing press releases on the wire liaisoning with national journalists, right? In your guys case. But you’re right. There’s a segment of the PR world. It requires, in this case, the dealer to be more involved with their local journalists because they are the story, their dealership is the story, their expertise, the impact they have in the economy is that story.

And so enabling them to build those relationships with that local journalists just feed up into the whole funnel, right? 

Phil Ingrassia: And you don’t want to, discount the digital folks that are out there like Craig and Victoria. They’re very important now and have grown in importance over the past five or six years.

As more and more people, especially in certain demographics, are [00:09:00] getting pretty much all their news off of Facebook and YouTube. That’s super important as well. 

Brian Searl: And I do, we’ll definitely dive into that with Craig and Victoria in one second. I, we were in the middle of introducing people and then you came back, Phil.

So it was a shorter cliffhanger than I intended, but let me toss it over to Coley or Joe, which one of you guys wants to lead off first and tell us about Alliance. Give it to Coley. 

Coley Brady: All right. My name is Coley Brady with Alliance RV. We are a, independent manufacturer here in Elkhart, Indiana, the RV capital of the world.

We are a producer of high end fifth wheels, toy haulers. And now recently laminated trailers travel trailers. And we operate like I said, in an independent structure. We have a team of 600 people now operating out of four production facilities. And have a great dealer network across North America of approximately 200 dealers strong.

And certainly excited about we launched our business in 2019. So [00:10:00] it’s been about four years now of production. And we’re certainly excited about where the future is going for our business. Turn it over to Joe as well here. 

Joe: Yeah. So I work for Coley here at Alliance. I’m the director of marketing.

You talked about Phil, you hit on the importance of YouTube and social in that world. So Coley brought me on board about a year ago now we’re getting close to it. To just. Just really elevate the presence that we have on social and digital and the digital front as well. So I’ve come on board and just really helped elevate the brand, get the brand in front of more people.

A lot of new time owners, first time owners. And then helping educate our continue our existing base, which we call the allies. 

Brian Searl: So let’s dive into this for a second, right? So either Joe or Coley, whoever wants to take the lead on this, tell us a little bit about Alliance as a new company, right?

2019. 2019. So how did you get into the business? What was your mission when you got into the business? 

Coley Brady: Yeah. Alliance started, like I mentioned we started the business in 2019, but it really [00:11:00] took from the time it was co founded by myself and my brother, Ryan. So when we started the business, we had come from a, another OEM.

I had spent 15 years there and Ryan had spent nine years there and we ventured off for this new business and we brought a team together to really come up with something unique and different that wasn’t already being offered in the industry. And so we took really, like I said, the first nine months of development with just on the product side.

And when we went to the, we went to actually end consumer, so we had experience. From our previous roles to knowing a number of different customers, RV enthusiasts. And we went to those enthusiasts and just, we started a Facebook group. We quickly had over 2, 000 people on our Facebook group. And we basically asked them, what do you like about your products?

You’re currently living in or camping in extended camping. And what don’t you like? And we got, we sat in a conference room for our first six months of [00:12:00] operations with our key core members from the very beginning. And all we did really was just listen and take notes on those key initiatives and key ideas that we we heard from consumers what they wanted.

And and then we took those ideas and incorporated those into our first brand, which was the Paradigm product. And our Paradigm is a… It’s a it’s a product that’s capable of being full time living. It’s a product that’s good for extended season camping. And then, that whole year of 2019 was product development.

We took it to the market, to our dealer base. We had a, we had an early dealer base that was quite strong. And we were in some of those early RV shows in the wintertime in January and February, that would have been January, February of 2020 ahead of COVID. And we were in 17 RV shows and quickly learned that what we developed into the product was resonating with the end consumer.

And was selling quickly with our dealers again, across North America. Of course, COVID hit, we were shut [00:13:00] down for a period of time, but we knew early on we were hitting all the right marks for what not only dealers wanted, but the end consumer wanted. And then we got into the the next year and we developed the Valor toy hauler product which was again, listening to the end consumer.

And we. Throughout all of these brands that we developed, and there’s only four brands in our company, and we were really strategic and smart about not coming out too quickly with product. We needed to obviously make sure the product was right, we needed to listen to consumers, we needed to build product, get that feedback and that’s why we didn’t rush to market with our latest product offering, which was the Delta Travel Trailer.

And there again was another product that took over a year to develop, and again, just getting that feedback is… Kind of what we’ve done from the very beginning, listening to the end consumer, not necessarily what I want or what Joe might want, but what the actual product user wants. And that’s been core to our belief from the beginning and it’s where we’re going.

As we continue to develop product into the future. 

Brian Searl: So would [00:14:00] you say like obviously discounting a global pandemic that nobody prepared for from 2019 to now Where would you say you are on your path? Have you completed the initial strategy? Are you beyond that? Are you still working towards goals? Like obviously you have new ones that you’ve created 

Coley Brady: Yeah, no, I think the initial plan and the initial goal is playing out as we intended we had a big dealer meeting in 2019 during the open house, the industry comes together each year in September for an open house.

We invited an open meeting for any dealer that wanted to come meet with us and laid out our business plan. It was really about four to five years out, which is where we are today. And we told those dealers early on that our strategy was going to be only one brand per year no more.

We told our dealers that we would only have one dealer in each market. So for example, in the Denver market, we were only going to have one dealer. We weren’t going to have, one brand with. XYZ dealer and another brand with, ABC dealer. And so we’ve lived out the [00:15:00] plan these first four years and I’d say we’re right on track for what we intended to do from the beginning.

Brian Searl: Awesome. So Joe, I want to involve you just briefly and just say how have you helped driven this from a obviously you came in three years later than they started longer if they count all the sessions and market research and data that they just did that the Coley was talking about. But how do you take what traditionally is more of an offline, just generally speaking, not Alliance speaking, an offline consumer brand and modernize it for the, are we in the 21st century now? 

Joe: I think so. Yeah. When I came on board, obviously I had seen Alliance when they started there was a lot of buzz and hype around them.

And it was cool. I was energized because it’s, all the attention the industry can get the better. And then you really learn and you dive into the Alliance story of do the right thing and relentless improvement and the course, the core statements that we have for our company and it just, it continued on.

So when I first came on, I was tasked with, how do we grow and elevate our brand, [00:16:00] mainly from a social standpoint. And so what I did is I just I knew that Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, those were where the audience was. So we went to the audience and we started creating content for them.

And so with the content that we drive, I just did a report for Coley, what was it? 1900 percent increase in our socials. And, we’re one of the only verified accounts on social now as far as Instagram, Facebook go. We’re growing like crazy. We’re implementing new strategies daily as far as interacting with our consumer and engaging with them.

And then what’s really cool that’s something that I think is missing out at some of the other companies is I can walk downstairs to Koli or Ryan or the sales team and be like, Hey, this. Customer had this issue, not even an issue, but had an idea, and then we’re able to actually implement it slowly into the plants quicker than anyone else could possibly do.

And I’m able to show that through the content we’re creating. And then another piece of the strategy was how do we show love to the [00:17:00] entire company? ’cause it’s not just me, it’s not just Coley. It’s not just the customer service team. It’s everybody in this company has a role and they’re all equally important.

So we do a little thing called Manufacturing Monday, where we highlight the production teams and we just we call to attention the good work they’re doing. And it’s funny. Sometimes I’ll walk through the plant and I’m either Mr. TikTok or Manufacturing Monday guy. 

Brian Searl: So how do you think, and all good stuff, right?

How do you think coming, and I know you have a background in the RV industry before you got to Alliance, but how do you, from when you came into Alliance and you had a ton of ideas in your head and on your plate and things that obviously you told Coley to get hired, right? That he believed in you doing, how do you think that’s been adjusted, changed, or how have you seen that grow as you’ve been there over the year?

Joe: It’s funny you say that. So before I… I had a week off intermittent between when I left and when I started, and I was probably texting Coley every day I started this like notepad with a bunch of ideas, and I actually went through it [00:18:00] yesterday, and there was like 57 ideas on there, 42 of them have been done already.

There’s a few that we’re still chasing, they’re big dream projects. 

Brian Searl: Joe, that’s not good for long term job security. You’re supposed to work little by little. 

Joe: I just took the bite. I’m not a, I’m not a guy that just sits back and does one thing. I do 20 things at a time. 

Phil Ingrassia: Hey Brian, if I could just jump in here real quick, I want to congratulate Coley and Joe for earning the RVDA Dealer Satisfaction Index Award for 2023 again.

I think Coley, every year that you’ve been in full production. You’ve been recognized by your dealers with that award, and what that award does is it it recognizes the top manufacturers based on a dealer survey that RVDA does, so they don’t have anything to do with it and it measures their just their overall satisfaction with the company’s management practices, product quality, and back end support of the product.

So [00:19:00] when they’re talking about some of the things that they’re They’re doing, it’s not just PR spin. Their dealers are seeing that and rewarding them each year so far that they’ve been in full production. with the Dealer Satisfaction Index Award, and they’ll be getting that award at our upcoming RVDA convention.

Congratulations guys for good work. 

Coley Brady: Thank you. That is awesome. It’s a huge honor to get that you’re right, the three years we’ve been eligible. And it’s great to get that feedback and, yeah, Joe and I will be actually in Vegas here in a couple weeks and really excited about getting in front of our dealers.

And we’re also going to be doing a Partners in Progress meeting one of the mornings that we’re out there. I think it’s Thursday morning. And that’s such a good period to that time just to discuss with the dealers. Hey, what are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? And they give us invaluable feedback that helps us get better when we come to that convention each year.

So excited about that and really thrilled that to get that award once again. So thank you, 

Brian Searl: Phil. Awesome. Congrats, guys. [00:20:00] Joe, I want to ask you one more question. I don’t want to toss it to Craig and Victoria and this is my segue, right? I’m making this up as I go along. So if, as we talk about the things that you create, Joe, for Alliance the YouTubes and the TikToks and the things that you do in house with manufacturing Mondays and stuff like that, at what point in your thought process as a marketing guy for obviously a large manufacturer do you look externally to influencers like Craig and Victoria?

Joe: Oh, day one. They were doing it before I even got here. So when I got here, I think what you guys had five, right? I think we’re going to seven or eight now, just off top of my head. And the importance of, influencers, brand ambassadors is huge because not everyone that’s looking through the RV buying journey is going to go to the manufacturer or the dealership.

They’re going to find a Craig and Victoria, follow them and really become interested in the lifestyle. So it’s incredibly important to part of the marketing strategy we have here at Alliance. And, we’re continuing growing that, that side of the marketing arm as well. Nope, 

Brian Searl: you [00:21:00] need a soundtrack. 

Susan Carpenter: Sorry. 

Brian Searl: Let me, you have to contribute more than just your ringtone, Susan. 

Susan Carpenter: The thing about that ringtone is everybody loves it because, and then they hate it because they can’t get it out of their head.

Brian Searl: It’s a good way to Craig and Victoria and just say tell us a little bit about wild RV life and then I will work into some of your thoughts about influencers and your strategies and things and how you work with people. 

Victoria & Craig: Yeah. So I guess evolution of wild RV life back when we first. We’ve gone through two RVs in our time of full time RVing.

We renovated our first RV, and that was when we launched Wild RV Life on Instagram. And over the years, since 2021, I’ve shared on there. And we’ve grown a bit of a following there. And then… About January we decided to try YouTube for a bit, but [00:22:00] any content creators out there, Joe, you’ll know this.

It’s a lot of work. It’s a full time job. And I work remotely full time as a VP of marketing for a health tech company, self decode. I tried YouTube for a little while and then gave up, but then in January. Somehow roped this guy who has no background in marketing or anything like that into editing the videos and boy, he could have been in charge from the beginning because it really took off.

Craig & Victoria: To tell the truth, we got lucky and we, we knew we were going to Mexico, Baja, Mexico, and, we’re like, let’s video it. We’ll put it on YouTube. It’ll be great. 

Victoria & Craig: It’s a good story. It’s a whole journey. 

Craig & Victoria: And we started out from Tampa, Florida, right after the RV show down there. And along, we had, we gave ourselves three weeks to get to Mexico.

And that was the video. That was the premise of the video. However, it did not go that way. And literally everything on the RV decided to break within that three week drive. And I think that’s what kind of [00:23:00] set our… channel off just cause Misery Loves Company, I believe. So that that got us going and then it’s it got to a point where we had enough subscribers.

Or, now I feel obligated to keep going, and 

Victoria & Craig: it’s been so cool, honestly, to see hear people’s stories, and the comments from people, and people sharing their experiences, and being able to connect with people on the road, and, have people be like, Oh, I watch you on YouTube, and be able to make those connections.

We have made more friends since RVing, and never living in one place for more than about two weeks. Then we date living in a house full time just because we meet so many more people and it honestly comes a lot through Connections we make via social media, which is really awesome 

Brian Searl: So how do you pivot from a, this is just my launch, right?

I’m going to Baja, Mexico. I’m dealing with all these problems in my RV and building an audience, maybe mostly surrounded around [00:24:00] that identifying like you’re talking about, right? To a more positive RV centric audience going forward. Like how do you keep them hooked when your rig isn’t breaking down all the time? That’s a one off thing. 

Craig & Victoria: So I don’t know how many. RV or YouTubers you guys watch there’s a bit of like video quality difference from like other YouTubers you may watch that’s not RV related. And there’s, it’s like a, just a gap. And it came to where like anytime I watch YouTube I’m analyzing them, seeing what this YouTuber is doing and how can I implement it into our RV lifestyle.

And Turns out it’s a lot similar as everybody else is doing. You just gotta have a fun challenge or a video, basically, that week that you’re doing. And it’d be fast paced. Everybody likes it to keep moving. And we, so it’s been a learning process. We’re still learning. And I feel like we just feel different.

You’ll go and watch somebody. 

Victoria & Craig: [00:25:00] It’s very story based. It is. We often, one video may be a whole week’s worth of… Timeline. And I think that what we do is we really try to bring people in on the fun moments. 

Craig & Victoria: Be more than just a talking head video, for the most part.

And since a lot of them are just talking heads, you come to our channel and it’s wow, they’re, this is RV life, and I think a lot of people get hooked in that and in the adventure of the RV world that we’re having. 

Victoria & Craig: Because our goal with our channel is to really showcase the RV life, the ups and downs.

Yes, there are days that are amazing and we get to see amazing things. There are also days when things break or they don’t go according to plan or you can’t find reservations anywhere because you planned at the last minute, which is what we always seem to be doing. And being able to like…

Connect, show those struggles and the highlights and kind of weave that into a story to be able to connect with people and anybody who’s RVing can usually relate to that in one way or [00:26:00] another. 

Brian Searl: I’m curious, Joe, your take on this, right? Is there value in showing the kinds of internal things that even manufacturers go through? Or maybe you already do that. 

Joe: Yeah we started a little series over the summer called Alliance RV Chronicles and we dove into Not necessarily the everyday, but like the weekly highlights that happen. And it’s, it was, the challenging part of it was there’s so many moving pieces to a big company.

So I would try to hone in on mainly Ryan and Coley and what they were doing. We kicked it off at the Alliance Rally. So we interviewed them, talking to a bunch of customers. It was a cool experience. But a lot of the times what I’ve discovered in my, Almost five years in the industry now.

When consumers are looking at the manufacturer, they’re looking for information on a floor plan or specifications, typically, or some type of education. Education goes really far in this world. So customer service. So [00:27:00] we hit pretty hard on those. But any type of storytelling is awesome and that’s why we partner with people like Craig and Victoria because they’re able to tell the Alliance story more organically and transparently versus sometimes it can feel forced as if it’s from a company.

Victoria & Craig: I think it makes a lot of sense having like I said, I have a marketing background myself for as a company, as a manufacturer. To allow the storytelling to come more through your partners because, people connect with people and they want information from brands typically, and they want to be able to trust the brand, but that trustworthiness is built through being able to see people that they know and trust have those experiences that are good and are trustworthy. 

Joe: Yeah, 100%.

Brian Searl: I’m curious to flip this from Coley’s side for a second, right? Coley, as you look at this from a top of the funnel perspective, right? And you’re marketing, people are coming to you and saying, we want to do influencers, we want to do YouTube, we want to do TikTok, obviously you [00:28:00] trust them, but how does that decision making process go from the top to say, I want to spend here?

Either money or time, and not here, money or time. 

Coley Brady: Yeah, it’s a lot of gut, quite honestly. You gotta evaluate the people that you’re looking at. We get asked weekly, people are always approaching us about, becoming a brand ambassador or an influencer. It’s really a, we get in a room as a team.

We interview, quote unquote interview, and have a discussion with those folks. And try to decide, what makes the most sense. And I think too, what we do here is I think to the, the organic approach and not. It’s not necessarily us telling the story. It’s great to have the consumer tell a story.

That’s why, back to social, our Facebook group is over 25, I think 25, 000 now strong. And we get feedback and pictures and storytelling and, experiences that the consumer is having each day on our group page that really is unfiltered. We don’t delete anything [00:29:00] off of there, good or bad.

And that really allows us to tell that story from not just like from maybe it’s 8 to 10 influencers or ambassadors, but for thousands of people that, that own our product. Cause we’ve now retailed over 10, 000 RVs since we started. And and there’s quite a few product users out there that are telling our story every day.

Joe: And we, we actually have some, it’s pretty early in owners that are, what do you call, what do we call them? Owner advisors? Is that what they’re called? OEAs? Owner Empowerment Advisors. And there, there’s four of them and they were what, within the first 200 units bought? Yep. And they’re champions of the brand.

They’re not huge on creating the content side. But they are champions on helping consumers. And we, Ryan and Coley saw that early on and we’re like, Hey, let’s make you guys, we call it, we term them OEAs. And they are incredibly [00:30:00] powerful, especially through the Facebook group. And then even some of the online forums that are out there that, that are independent of us.

So we don’t, we look at it, we pay attention to them. But we let them be organic, and they get in there and help, and it’s tremendous. It’s super impactful. I’m curious, and obviously I want Shane and Susan and Phil to weigh in a little bit more if you guys want to here. 

Brian Searl: of all, I should ask, is Alliance RV in Canada yet, and do you have plans to go there?

Shane Devenish: They they are. They’re a very valued member of the CRVA, Brian. 

Brian Searl: Alright, awesome. Then I can ask Shane about Alliance. 

Shane Devenish: Yeah, I’ll chime in. I, I just came down and saw Coley a few weeks ago at, during open house and went to their new plant. As soon as I walked in where all the units were, there were had to be about four or five videographers walking around the units doing videos.

And I’ve seen these guys more on TikTok than any other company. And they’re always great [00:31:00] videos. Joe, Coley, you guys do a great job. 

Brian Searl: I don’t want to interrupt you, Shane, but I just really don’t picture you as the typical TikTok demographic, but maybe we need to re look at that. 

Shane Devenish: I am the demographic 

Joe: Brian.

Brian Searl: Alright, thank you. Please continue, go ahead, sorry. 

Shane Devenish: No, really and I’ve known Coley for a long time, and… I think now that he’s reached out on his own here, I think he’s really doing things that he’s always probably wanted to do. And and listening to the customers is really obvious because they’re, they are everywhere.

And ironically, I just talked to a group here in Ontario. Who one representative was talking about an alliance meeting up here next year. It’s funny timing seeing you guys on the show. But congratulations you guys, a real success story so far. 

Brian Searl: Thank you. Susan, I want to throw you a little bit maybe.

Just a question that you weren’t prepared for, right? But maybe you can probably answer it. As we look at all the social things that we’re talking about, both [00:32:00] from an influencer standpoint that are reaching the consumers and people who are getting into the RV lifestyle, as well as the things that Alliance RV is doing, that the associations are doing through PR and getting covered in Washington Post, like we talked about in the beginning, how do you feel like all that impacts The greater participation we’d like to see from women in the industry.

Susan Carpenter: I think it just, in general, brings light. The best, one of the best things to ever happen during COVID was brought the RV industry to light. And then one of the things we also realized is a lot of people from outside this industry were looking to come in. And, one of the biggest barriers to entry is just being dropped in the middle of an industry that works totally different than everybody else’s industries.

It’s mind boggling when you get people from the outside coming in. I was born and raised in it. So to me, it’s just like home, but I learned a lot from other people of how difficult it is to come in from the outside. And then, make it a kind of More of a male [00:33:00] dominated industry.

And then it gets very uncomfortable for a lot of women that come into this industry. And I think the Alliance just gives them a place to explain, it gives them an opportunity to talk to other women in the industry and not feel so intimidated. So when people are coming to into this industry, they realize that we have this Alliance out there. They feel like, okay, they’re trying, they’re moving forward, they’re getting, they’re doing better with these types of things and we have moved the needle.

Yeah I just think, any kind of press brings people, male and female awareness, because I think before when people graduate from high school, un, unless you lived in Elkhart, Indiana. When they asked you what you wanted to do for a living, how many people said, Oh, I want to go work for, be an influencer industry.

I think it’s all great. Anything we can do. 

Brian Searl: Have you, and just to be clear, we have a lot of alliances on this show, so do you want to just briefly talk about the RV Women’s Alliance for those of you who might not have… 

Susan Carpenter: Yeah, so the RV Women’s Alliance was formed in [00:34:00] 2019. It’s a free membership for men and women.

And what we do is we try to elevate… And women within the industry and bring light to the roles they play and what they can do and also support them throughout their career in the RV industry by giving them mentorship and opportunities to network. We just had our big symposium 10 days ago in Chicago.

It was their second annual where we bring in women and, This time it was about disc profile and emotional intelligence and conflict resolution and a lot of networking opportunities to meet other people in similar roles and non similar roles. And so that’s what basically our alliance does is just, gives a place for our community.

Brian Searl: So I’d love to talk to you just briefly a little bit more. Tell us about your symposium and how it went and some of the wins and successes you got from it. Before that, I’m just curious, have you thought about working with influencers? Like Victoria, like you could just [00:35:00] sponsor a segment where she’s fixing her RV and says, Wow, this is the most fun I’ve had in years! I want to be in this thing now! 

Susan Carpenter: Yeah, there’s women out there doing it with their other half or with other women or alone. So yeah, I think it’s a great story to be told. 

Victoria & Craig: Make sure we connect. I actually know of a podcast that focuses on women RVers and highlighting women who are RVing. Might be a good connection for you. 

Susan Carpenter: Yeah, absolutely. Especially if anybody wants to work in this industry. Because we also have Janine Pettit out there for Girl Camper who… It works a lot with on the retail side and then, us that work on business to business, but we get a lot of our referrals, especially women that want to be techs out there from the people that are out there full time RVing on their own.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Go ahead. Tell us a little bit about your symposium. We want to hear about it. 

Susan Carpenter: Our symposium, yeah, so it happened in Chicago. And yeah, like I said, Jenna, we had our awards banquet where we [00:36:00] recognized actually we recognized. Lisa Legal Reese from Forest River for a Champion of Women Award, and that goes to somebody who champions women within the workplace.

And then we had Champion Women Company, and that’s a company that exemplifies everything that we want to see in a company for raising women up within the workplace. And that went to Thetford Corporation. And then we also had the Trailblazer Award that went to Tracy Engelmeyer with RVTI.

Which is the RV Technical Institute. And that is basically for women that have been in this industry for over 25 years that really did blaze the trail for other women coming up behind them. So those were really great awards. We had a speed networking I don’t know how many of you guys remember Speed Dating.

I was never a victim of that. So thankfully, but we did it with networking. So you get to meet a lot of people. And then, like I said, we, we brought in Christine Cashin, which is she’s, If you ever want to hire somebody who [00:37:00] has a great sense of humor and a great motivated speaker, she’s it.

She’s out of Texas and she was the hit of the show. She was really fantastic. And then we, we talked about and educated on, getting to know yourself better, conflict resolution, how do resolve that? That’s probably one of the toughest things a lot of us do, unless you like to create conflict.

And then emotional intelligence. And I don’t know if any of you guys have taken the DISC task. Where it tells you where you rely on your personality type of thing. Yeah, so D is a dominance, I was the high D. I is an influencer, S is steady, and C is compliance, right? It just hones in on…

Your tics, how you operate, and how you can take that into your team and make sure your team is very well rounded and you talk to each other in a respectful way, knowing, me, I’m Heidi, come into my office, tell me what needs to be done and then get out.

Brian Searl: Some people fall on the wheel right there. That’s what they need to have [00:38:00] happen. 

Susan Carpenter: Yeah. Some influencers like people to come in and have a chat about, how was your weekend and going and on about it. They want to know a lot more before they get to the point, it was really great.

We had about 175 women participate this year, which was up from 150 from the, previous year or so. It was fun. It was a lot of fun. And then exhausting, because I slept 13 hours after it was done. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. I’m glad to hear it. I was at the, Monday I was at the RVDA of Alberta, AGM, and I was speaking about AI, which is unrelated, right?

But, we did have some side conversations about, we were curious if RV Women’s Alliance has some plans to expand into Canada. Because obviously they need techs up there too, not just that you’re only focused on techs, right? But we definitely want more women involved in the industry. With the conversations I was having with women, right?

Not coming from me. 

Susan Carpenter: Yeah, no. And Shane’s been a great supporter of this. So during his show over here last year, We had a show and [00:39:00] we did a networking event with them and Stacey Robinson from Great Canadian RV is on our board and she is a great supporter and she’s really pushing to get Canada more involved.

The young lady who won a ticket to our symposium was only 14 years old and she started a a company and it was so impressive and she’s Oh, I don’t know if she should go. And I’m like, as long as a parent. Yeah, so she came and she met all these other women and there’s a lot of them reaching out, wanting to help her out.

Continue her business. She’d be a great guest on your show. It’s really cool how her journey came about. But and we’re going to do the breakfast again with Shane as well. And for Canadian techs, we’re trying to work on that because we’ve had a a cross country tech courses for women only.

We had it in six locations this year. And We’re trying to get a couple into Canada and trying to figure out with RV TI how we can do that because the standards are a little bit different. [00:40:00] So we’re still working through that. We’re hoping to be able to do that in 2024. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. So I do, I always forget our sponsor here that I have to play a video for.

So we’re gonna do that real quick for 30 seconds, but then I want to come back and I want to just talk a little bit, maybe throw it to Coley and Joe on how, and Shane too, right from a Canadian perspective, maybe Shane first, since we were just talking about Canada, but then to Coley and Joe on just how.

If they want to give their thoughts on how manufacturers are working on their side to… Bring more women into the industry and to and then tech specifically too, right? If they want to comment on that. So first, let me play this brief video from our sponsor, Acris Parks, and then we’ll be right back to that.

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It’s Wi Fi that just works. Guaranteed broadband is here. Super grateful for Access Parks for sponsoring our fourth week episode of the RV industry here. So just to go with you, Shane, first, if you just want to briefly comment. Because I know you are like, because you are CRVA now, but obviously you have years and years of experience on the campground side too, and in all facets of this industry.

So I’m just curious how you feel I guess you can work with RVWA and expand or your thoughts on just the tech desire to, to solve that problem or wherever you want to take it too. 

Shane Devenish: Yeah, it’s a great a great association of women and men, and we, it’s just a matter of spreading the word around Canada to get more more women involved in the association.

I I couldn’t speak highly of its value enough. And I think we’re going to build on what we started last year at the show anyway and invite more and make sure we get to more [00:42:00] people sooner. I those participating, both exhibitors, manufacturers and and suppliers that are vendors in the show, to get more people there to, to learn more about the Alliance.

We’re really looking forward to that. And commenting on, I think her name’s, is it Olivia, Susan? 

Susan Carpenter: Yeah, it’s Olivia. 

Shane Devenish: Started this company called roasty Toasty Campfire, where they’re after I don’t know if it was a school project or… Or a nudge from her dad or whatever. And and she was a a vendor during her show and we really tried to pump her up and it’s great.

I’ll bet you she’s met more people in the last year and got more great advice than she ever could have imagined. And it’s fantastic to see such a young person get some involvement, but, I think, we’ll talk about it, I think. We’ll, we will. Our VDA Canada has their board meeting in Vegas coming up in a couple weeks.

I’m sure it’ll be topic of conversation, and we’re looking forward to, supporting wherever those conversations go. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Coley, I think I want to start with you and just, if you want to [00:43:00] briefly touch on RVWA or, women in the industry, that would be great, but then also, like, how do you, I think there’s a demographic conversation here, right?

So as Alliance RV continues to move forward, you look at the studies that you’re doing and the ways that you inform decisions on who you target, how you target, what you build for, who you build for. How does demographics in general play into that thought process? And then we’ll go to Joe to talk about the social demographic side and then maybe Greg and Victoria too.

Coley Brady: Yeah. On the RV Women’s Alliance, we have actually our Director of HR, Courtney Runyon actually is a part of the the Alliance. And she spreads the word here internally often about various activities that are happening with that RV, EWA. In fact, we took we had a couple of, we have some demo product, demo units in our fleet here at Alliance.

And we we sent a couple actually out to a The camp out that they did over the summer was quite awesome. And they had such a great time networking and being a part of that that camp [00:44:00] out. And then of course we sponsored a portion of that as well, which was great. But, from our viewpoint, our team here at Alliance, we’re, it’s between 25 and 30 percent of our team is is women and and they’re in various leadership roles in our company and doing great work for our team.

And and then when you look, I think you asked about the demographic of our buyers. And we’re always like I mentioned in the beginning, that’s one of our core. We are always listening to the end consumer. And a lot of times it’s the woman that drives the decision making in a lot of ways when they’re buying an RV and it’s got to be appealing to them in a lot of ways.

And so those are things as we go to RV shows and as we’re just getting feedback on the product, we’re always listening on that end as well. So yeah those those, I think one of the reasons I think why we’ve been so successful is because we’ve appealed to all types of buyers and and are hitting the right marks on, on the [00:45:00] product side of things.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Joe, I’ll toss it to you. And then I think this will be a good maybe place to close the show. Obviously watch some time for final thoughts, but just Joe and Greg and Victoria talking a little bit about demographics and both the things that they do. 

Joe: Yeah so obviously I pay pretty close attention to all of our social graphics and surprisingly enough, women are our biggest viewership.

We get a lot of viewership on our Instagram account and our TikTok account. I think our TikTok is actually like 70 percent women and our Instagram is like 60, a little under 60. But it’s still the highest portion. 

Brian Searl: I want to interrupt you, but how much do you think Shane impacts that percentage?

Joe: Are you a follower on our TikTok account, Shane? Good. I’ll send you a hat. 

Brian Searl: Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. 

Joe: No. So we pay pretty close attention to that. So we are constantly evolving the way we do content. And we’re, Obviously, touring the units is one of the most fun things to do but we change it up and [00:46:00] we get people more interactive and so we actually work with some of the sales ladies and sales coordinator people to actually help demo the unit for us and their women.

And I, what I’ve noticed is we get more engagement from other women feeling comfortable that it’s being shown by a woman. And we’re super active, like Coley said obviously we’re part of RVWA. And we Courtney sent a bunch of pictures and we posted them online. We took group photos at the beginning of each, at the beginning of the summer of each plant.

And was it National Women’s Day? I think it was the big day. And it plays a huge role. And like Coley said, they’re a big part of the buying decision. So we have to make sure we create the content for them to also be interested in the idea. Because if you’re in a partnership… If one person has an idea and the other person doesn’t agree, it’s not going to go far.

But if you can get both of them to agree, then you create an alliance. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. 100%. Craig and Victoria? 

Victoria & Craig: [00:47:00] Yeah, so demographics is interesting for us. Our two major platforms are YouTube and Instagram. But on YouTube it’s about 75 percent men and 25 percent women. And then on Instagram it’s… It’s flip flopped and it’s about 75 percent women and 25 percent men.

So it’s interesting for us because we definitely reach very different audiences and demographics based on the platform. And I think it’s probably due to the fact that for a while it was, I pretty much ran the Instagram and so probably as a woman connecting with other women and drew more of a female audience.

Whereas on YouTube, Craig is much more involved. And takes more of a starring role and such. 

Craig & Victoria: She forces me. They just don’t know that on the other side of the camera. So she still runs both. 

Victoria & Craig: Yeah, there you go. But I think it’s a, I think it’s interesting to see and being able to see the reactions from people we do the types of comments, [00:48:00] interactions that we have varies.

We’re by platform to platform, but overall, received on those by most people, you always get a few anywhere you are. 

Brian Searl: Does it impact your strategy as you think about what content to create on a weekly basis when you look at those demographics? 

Victoria & Craig: Somewhat, yeah, especially for Instagram, I focus a little bit more on the aesthetics.

As a woman, I like aesthetic pretty things. And so I like to focus on that personally a little bit more. And on YouTube, I think we we bring more humor into it. Definitely, there’s a lot more kind of the humor. And Craig’s good with, really good with one off comments. He’s a good… 

Craig & Victoria: He’s… my superpower, 

Victoria & Craig: he has, all the one liners and those resonate very well on YouTube. 

Craig & Victoria: Yeah. I think with YouTube, a lot of times just because of the way we do it. I would say more the age demographic really would impact it more 

Victoria & Craig: [00:49:00] those are also very different from Instagram to YouTube. We, skew older on YouTube and younger on. Instagram. 

Brian Searl: All right, I want to close out the show here. We’ve got about five or six more minutes left. I just want to give people some time for some final thoughts. I think we had a decent discussion. Obviously we never planned for where these things are going to go.

Maybe we should in the future, but I think it turned out really well. I think we got, a nice blend of everybody talking on some things that they’re passionate about and telling their stories and things like that. As far as your superpower goes, Craig, that’s, I’m still looking for mine. So we’ll go around and get everybody’s final thoughts and they can tell us what their, what they feel their superpower is and maybe we’ll find out I’m the only one who hasn’t.

Discovered Mine, but any final thoughts guys that you want to talk about? We’ve got five minutes. So you it’s mandated, it’s required that you 

Shane Devenish: I spent this week in Moncton. They had the Atlantic RVDA board meeting. They had 30 percent of their dealers attend, which was awesome. And a great bunch of guys.

And they were all talking about customer service and with a [00:50:00] focus on on the consumer and the customer. So what everybody can do is it was really a pleasure to be there. Awesome. 

Craig & Victoria: It was my week 

Victoria & Craig: And Shane had win. 

Craig & Victoria: Pardon me. 

Brian Searl: Oh, Shane’s win. Yes. Let’s talk about win 

Shane Devenish: Shane. It was a group win. It was RVDA of Canada.

US and RVA got together, we had a an issue with transportation up here with commercial drivers not wanting to come up to Canada if they had to attach this electronic device to their truck. And we’ve lobbied for a couple years with the government up here and, just found out that they agreed with us and we were very grateful for that.

So now we can Get some more units up here quicker the better 

Brian Searl: All right. Awesome. Super excited for that. Congratulations, Shane I know like I think I was talking to Cara and she said you’ve been working out two years on that or something Yeah, at least two years Awesome, glad to hear. Phil, what have you been up to today?

Did you do [00:51:00] anything or just what? I’m kidding. I’m kidding. 

Phil Ingrassia: I’m kidding. I just got back from the Oklahoma RV Association meeting in Tulsa. And as Shane was talking about customer service, that was a huge topic of conversation in Oklahoma as well. Gary Enyart, who’s heading up a team of folks to help us improve repair events cycle time.

Which is the time, between when you drop it off to get it fixed and the time you pick it up and it was nice to see the state focus on that and it’s a national focus as well as we try to do better for end users like Greg and Victoria. 

Brian Searl: So you both, I’m interested, both you and Shane touched on customer service briefly, irrespective meetings, two different countries, two different places.

Is it just that? Is that just the focus primarily right now on customer service or are there other things that dealers are looking to improve on? 

Phil Ingrassia: There was an overall update on the market. It’s been well documented that retail has been softer this year. And we had some discussions about that as well.

Services [00:52:00] is really important and it’s important now more than ever. And there, there’s a lot of discussion about how manufacturers, dealers, the suppliers can work together to get people back on the road quicker. 

Shane Devenish: Yeah, and and also how to look internally to do your operations better.

That was a big focus as well and what the dealers can do to, keep employees happy and attract new employees. How to really be more efficient, which we’re all great things to hear talk about. 

Coley Brady: Yeah, that’s something that we hear daily at Alliance RV from our dealers is how do we put our dealers in a position to win day in and day out?

That repair event cycle time is so important and you have to have the infrastructure and you have to stock the parts in the right manner to make sure that we are getting those parts out to our dealer partners in a timely fashion. And that’s. I think one of the reasons for our success is we’ve been able to really drive that part of our [00:53:00] business and make it one of our strongest areas.

And then I think it comes down to is the, complexity of the product and making sure that you’re not changing product too often, because sometimes if you change the product too quickly, you don’t, you have to stock even more parts. And we’ve got a lot of consistency here from day one, which has allowed us to really.

Execute quite highly on the back end on the customer service side, which is such a critical piece of the business from the dealer side and from the OEM side. Yeah. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Joe, do you want to close out and tell us how they can learn more about Alliance RV, the social media, all the cool things you guys are doing?

Joe: Yeah we are on every single social media platform. So whatever you prefer.

Brian Searl: Every single one, I’m going to find one that you’re not on. 

Joe: Go do it. I dare you. I’ll pay you 10 bucks if you do. And just search Ad Alliance RV. And you’ll find it we’re mostly act, we’re more active on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook getting active in the threads world, we’re exploring a couple others we’re not [00:54:00] super active on X there’s just a lot of unknowns with that one right now in my opinion, but we are there And we have a couple others as well.

So just search at Alliance RV and you’ll find us, go to our website. If you want to learn more, see our floor plans and we’re super engaging. We have an awesome customer service team that if you do own an Alliance, they’re going to take care of you quickly and promptly. Great sales team. If you have questions, just email sales at Alliance RV or give us a call.

And we also would encourage you to come take a tour of the plant if you’re ever in Northern Indiana. Get on our website, click Factory Tours, and April or Chandler or one of us will take you through the plant. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Joe and Coley, thanks for being here. Appreciate you guys and learning more about Alliance RV.

So if you’re interested in that, definitely go find them on social. They’re on 99. 9 percent of platforms, except the one I’m going to find. And then Craig and Victoria, how do they find more about Wild RV Life? 

Victoria & Craig: We are also on, I’m not going to claim every single platform, but we’re on most of them, [00:55:00] mainly YouTube, Instagram, all at Wild RV Life, one word also Facebook and TikTok.

Talk and yeah, also wild rv life.com. If you wanna visit us on our website, send us a message, connect with us. We will be happy to see you. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks guys. I really appreciate everybody for joining us for another episode of mc Fireside Chats RV Industry Focus. Super thankful to our sponsor Access Parks again for supporting us during this episode, and we will see you all next week for another episode of Mc Fireside Chats.

Take care, guys. Hey everybody. 

Coley Brady: Thanks.

Joe: Brian. 

[00:56:00]