Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Integrity & Value: Debbie Brunaforte on Leading the Largest Family-Operated RV Dealership

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Integrity & Value: Debbie Brunaforte on Leading the Largest Family-Operated RV Dealership · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:03
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast
0:07
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:10
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:13
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:16
today's guest is Debbie Bruno Forte, vice president at Campers
0:20
in RV. They are the largest family
0:23
operated RV dealership group in the nation, founded in 1966
0:28
after his owners experienced a negative encounter at a local
0:31
dealership. Today, they specialize in no
0:34
pressure RV Sales, service and parts focused on treating every
0:38
customer like family. Under their leadership, Campers
0:42
in RV has grown significantly and is recognized for its
0:45
trusted approach and commitment to helping people find the right
0:48
vehicle for their adventures. Debbie has played a pivotal role
0:52
in overseeing operations in Arizona since June 2022, drawing
0:56
on her background from Arizona State University to guide teams
1:00
and streamline processes. Her achievements include helping
1:03
the company maintain its strong family values while driving
1:06
innovation in the recreational vehicle industry.
1:10
Through her leadership, Campers in RV continues to build on its
1:13
culture of integrity and teamwork, ensuring its customers
1:17
have the best experience possible.
1:19
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1:51
Now back to our guest today, Vice President of Campers Inn
1:54
RV, Debbie Bruna Forte. I appreciate you making the time
1:58
to Share your story today. My pleasure.
2:01
Glad to talk with you today afternoon.
2:03
So, Debbie, tell us, how did you first get into the RV industry?
2:06
What drew you in? Well, it's a family business.
2:10
Long before I became part of the campers and my family was in the
2:14
RV industry, so I grew up in the business.
2:17
I have one of seven children and my parents believed in free
2:21
child labor. So my brothers and sisters and I
2:25
spent our weekends and so forth at the dealership doing what
2:28
kids can do. Pull reeds, pick up litter,
2:31
clean trailers, clean RV's and that was my journey, my brothers
2:36
and sisters. And interestingly enough, the RV
2:39
industry has so many family operated small individual
2:44
dealership. So life story is not unique in
2:46
this industry. And so as you grew older, you
2:51
just sort of naturally kind of became a bigger and bigger part
2:54
of it and then eventually took over ownership.
2:57
Is that kind of how the path went?
2:59
Yes, yeah, exactly. I became, even though I have an
3:03
older brother that was involved in the business and my father
3:06
that was involved in the business.
3:08
I became the president of the company shortly before I was 30
3:12
and continued to work with my brother and my father and other
3:16
family members. But I just had more of a passion
3:21
for the industry and more of a drive for it than my older
3:25
brother did. My, my brother is, you know,
3:27
still one of my best friends to this day.
3:30
And he was very, very good at what he did.
3:32
He just didn't love it as much as I did.
3:35
And so at some point he stepped out and this became what you
3:38
did. Yes.
3:41
Mm, Hmm, yeah. And so you became president
3:44
before the age of 30 and what was the business like when you
3:49
took it over? And then tell us what the the
3:52
growth curve kind of looked like after that?
3:56
Well, we are fortunate to have quite a bit of growth.
3:58
We are just a very small dealership.
4:00
We grew to multiple locations. We became the largest RV dealer
4:04
in the state of Arizona on the towable side, not the largest
4:07
and motorized in the RV space. There's the motorized side which
4:11
represents about 10% of the industry and then the towable
4:15
side, all the different fifth wheels, travel trainers, Toy
4:18
Collins, pop up trainers, they represented that 90% of the
4:21
industry. So we did open up multiple
4:24
locations. We closed some and built new
4:27
ones and became the largest terrible dealer in the state.
4:31
So we are fortunate to have that level of success.
4:35
And then in 2022 is when we sold the company to Campers Inn.
4:43
So the owners of that company are good friends of mine.
4:46
I've known, we've been in a business mastermind group for
4:49
about 20 years. And so they knew me very well.
4:52
I knew them very well and it's worked out very good since then.
4:56
So prior to selling the business you were growing, you're opening
5:00
new locations, sometimes you close them, reopen them
5:02
someplace else. What is it that you think you
5:05
were doing well that allowed for that kind of growth?
5:12
Well, you have to have a level of success in your own
5:14
leadership before you can consider opening other
5:17
locations, at least in my opinion.
5:19
We always wanted to go where our customers want to go, Anthony.
5:23
And in my mind, the customers, the books, they've always been
5:25
the books and it's our job to provide that to them.
5:29
One of the one of our core values, our name is Little
5:32
Little Dealer. Little Prices was the name of
5:35
the business and we still in Arizona, we still operate under
5:39
that name even though we're owned by campers in RV.
5:43
And in the view of the customer as the boss, our goal was always
5:47
to give them the most value for the money.
5:50
And those are the products that we would seek out.
5:53
Being in business as long as we have and doing the volume of
5:56
business that we do, we're fortunate enough throughout the
5:58
years to be able to get pretty much whatever product or brand
6:02
that we wanted and we could represent those.
6:05
And the goal in doing that is what is the best one for our
6:08
customer? What are these provide the most
6:11
quality at the best price. And I think that that's worth.
6:16
And then we always discounted everything.
6:18
We never sold anything at MSRP. We always had a very low price.
6:22
Our goal was to be the lowest price, hence the name Little,
6:25
dear little prices. There's my father's philosophy.
6:28
When we, when he started out, he would use the saying, I'd rather
6:31
make, you know, a quick nickel than a slow quarter.
6:36
And that and that just grew, it grew momentum even during COVID.
6:41
Interestingly enough, because there was a severe shortage of R
6:45
DS, the demand was far greater than what the supply was.
6:50
And I'm the only dealer in the country to my knowledge that did
6:55
not raise prices. A lot of dealers were at
6:58
straight MSRP. Some dealers were over MSRP and
7:03
we never changed our prices. We still gave the same discount
7:06
that we always gave. We had the same pricing model.
7:09
We struggled with that a little bit, probably cost us a lot of
7:12
money, but it just felt like the right thing to do and.
7:16
That is surprising, right, because I know both in the RV
7:20
space as well as with automobiles, right, the demand
7:24
during COVID was a lot higher than what the supply could meet.
7:27
And so prices just went up and through the roof.
7:30
And so to hear that you just kept your maintained your
7:34
already low prices through a period where everybody would
7:38
have expect that you would increase prices is surprising.
7:42
Yeah, that that's, that's exactly true.
7:45
You know, the margins naturally went up a little bit because in
7:49
a normal business cycle you might have some aged inventory
7:52
that you marked down even further.
7:54
We didn't have any of that, that type of thing.
7:56
But yes, we kept to the exact same discounts as what we after
8:01
10 or 20 years, before COVID and after COVID.
8:06
Do you feel like that may have in any way hurt you as you were
8:09
coming out of COVID and things slowed down like your
8:12
competitors maybe they were, you know, charging higher, higher,
8:15
higher rates that, you know, they had a little bit of extra
8:17
cushion? Well, you know, it's one of
8:21
those things that I'll never know.
8:22
Could we charge more money? Absolutely we could have.
8:25
I mean, there's no question about that.
8:27
We could have charged more money.
8:28
We probably would have sold the same number of RV's.
8:32
Do you have residual value with your reputation in the
8:36
community? Hopefully when people would come
8:40
and trade in on something else, if they bought it from us, they
8:43
weren't completely buried as if they had bought it from somebody
8:47
else. That helped just a little bit.
8:48
So it's one of those things that we'll never know if it was if it
8:53
was better for the company or worse for the company.
8:56
But for you, it just felt like the right thing to do.
8:59
Like at your core, like how would I want to be treated?
9:02
This is how I would want to be treated.
9:04
Like keep, keep the prices the same, our margins stay the same
9:07
or improve a little bit. It's like you said, you you
9:09
don't have that aged inventory, but you were more concerned
9:12
about doing the right thing and what your reputation was in the
9:15
community. Right.
9:16
Yeah. Look, the what the margins like
9:19
I said naturally went up a little bit because you didn't
9:21
have all those other business constraints.
9:23
But the pricing that we priced our RV's at remained exactly the
9:27
same. And it didn't go through my mind
9:30
often as if you know, am I doing the right thing, should we raise
9:34
the prices. But we never did and things
9:37
worked out well. So it's not, it's not a decision
9:40
that I regret. I'm glad we did that.
9:42
So tell me, what went into the decision to sell to your friends
9:47
at Campers in RV, folks that you had met in the Mastermind?
9:52
Yeah, You know the biggest part of that, and they not be a great
9:57
reason, but the biggest part of it is because I just didn't have
10:00
a succession plan. I have three sons.
10:03
They all graduated college and were in careers that were in
10:07
alignment with their degrees. They were very happy, all three
10:10
of them, with what they were doing.
10:12
So I just didn't feel like I had a succession plan.
10:16
And therefore I thought at some point in time I need to sell the
10:18
business. I don't need to get out of the
10:20
industry. I love the industry, I love what
10:22
I do. I intended to still be in the
10:23
industry, but I thought at some point in time I needed to sell
10:27
the business. The time was right to sell the
10:30
business #1 #2 My very close friend who is the owner of
10:35
Campers, and he had 30, 35 locations, but they're all in
10:41
the East Coast. He wanted to expand out West,
10:43
not on the East Coast, but in the eastern half of the US.
10:46
He wanted to expand out West, but he just didn't feel like he
10:50
could do it efficiently from the other side of the country.
10:53
He needed a platform store. He needed a store from which to
10:57
grow in the West. And that's why he'd been talking
11:01
to me, you know, for some time. This wasn't new.
11:03
We had a few conversations and that's and the convergence of
11:09
all those things coming at the same time is why I decided to go
11:12
ahead and pull the trigger. And as you know, I stayed on
11:15
with them without any employment contract.
11:18
There has been quite a bit of consolidation of the RV space,
11:21
but normally either the owner is out entirely or they have an
11:25
employment contract where they have to stay on for a couple of
11:28
years. There's a non compete agreement.
11:31
She can't either open up another store and compete against or you
11:34
can't go to work for another competitor.
11:36
I didn't have any of that. None of that was even a topic of
11:39
conversation because, you know, I just know them so well, they
11:42
know me. It was never something that
11:44
we've been taught to talk about. Didn't even come up.
11:47
It wasn't like, hey, should we think about this?
11:50
It just it wasn't even part of the dialogue.
11:52
No, wasn't even part of the dialogue.
11:54
I would. I would never go and compete
11:57
against them. They know that.
12:00
So it was not even part of the dialogue.
12:02
So what is your role now in part of the larger group, right?
12:06
I'm assuming you're still running kind of the Arizona
12:09
operations. Are you involved in a higher
12:11
level in what's going on out East as well?
12:15
Well, we're, we're, we view ourselves as one company with 37
12:20
locations. So yes, we communicate almost
12:23
daily. We have lawsuit readings to
12:26
communicate with one another for different processes and so
12:29
forth. Basically though, I'm doing the
12:31
same thing that I always did because of COVID.
12:34
We haven't expanded out West as we had intended to.
12:37
We still will. It's just that I shouldn't say
12:42
COVID post COVID. So the RV industry has been very
12:46
slow the last couple of years. We feel that 2025 will be a year
12:49
where it picks up more. But for the past, since COVID,
12:54
it's been challenged, it's been a challenged industry.
12:57
So therefore the appetite for acquisition is just less unless
13:02
something was the absolute perfect deal.
13:05
Now we're getting to the point where, all right, it's this year
13:08
could be the year where it's good for us to go ahead and
13:10
start spending again. And why do you think things have
13:15
been slow slow the last two years?
13:17
Was it because everybody who wanted some kind of an RV got it
13:21
sort of during those COVID years?
13:23
And so now there's just sort of this natural tail off.
13:27
Well, you know Anthony, the RV is a large ticket discretionary
13:32
purchase. So when there's uncertainty in
13:35
the economic environment that inflows some lower sales in the
13:39
RV industry, number one. Number two, you're right.
13:43
I think we did pull forward some of the business because people
13:47
that were thinking about an RV were quick to pull the trigger
13:50
and COVID there's, there were, there were no options.
13:52
There's no other vacation options.
13:54
The whole whole world is kind of locked down.
13:56
But you can go with an RV and you can go out in the floor
14:00
someplace and have a great time, be by yourself, not have to
14:03
worry about the pandemic at all. And then the other thing is that
14:08
we watch in our business is consumer confidence.
14:11
That's the number one business metric that I have always paid
14:15
attention to. And as you know it's been quite
14:18
low the last few years. It started to tick up.
14:21
Now we're higher than we've been in I believe a year and a half.
14:25
The RV industry is expecting the 2025 is our turn around year,
14:29
it'll turn positive. Fingers crossed, huh?
14:33
Fingers crossed, yeah. So obviously you didn't, you
14:38
weren't one of the founders of the larger campers in family.
14:41
But I understand there's kind of a an interesting origin story
14:44
where the founders had a, a negative RV buying experience of
14:48
their own. Can you relay that story for us?
14:51
Yes, that's one of the reasons they got in business.
14:53
I never knew the original founders of the company before I
14:59
became, you know, you had a business sort of mastermind
15:02
group that I had mentioned with the owner of the company.
15:04
His parents had already passed away, so I didn't know them.
15:08
But yes, the, the, what happened is they had a pop up trader and
15:13
they went in for some service, had a very, very bad experience
15:17
and it kind of motivated them to maybe we should get in this
15:20
business ourselves. And they did.
15:23
And that's how they started. They bought, they started with
15:26
pop up traders. They bought a few pop up
15:28
traders, put them in their yard and was selling them.
15:31
That became successful and then they just expanded and it became
15:35
a real business for them. Tell me about the core values of
15:41
the company and why they're so important to you.
15:43
The. Core values on our company, our
15:46
integrity, teamwork, continuous improvement and sustainability.
15:51
It's interesting because when we sold the company the core values
15:58
and I never knew what their core values were.
16:00
That's not part of the conversations that we have in
16:02
our mastermind group, but it turned out that their core
16:04
values were almost identical to ours and our mission statement.
16:09
So the companies from the beginning were very much
16:12
aligned, just our thought process and our beliefs were
16:15
very much aligned with one another.
16:17
Those core values though, it's not just something that we
16:20
printed once and put it up on a wall.
16:22
It is something that is used on a continuous basis here at the
16:25
dealership. Yes, it's even used if we're
16:29
having some sort of a challenge with somebody on the team that
16:33
requires a corrective conversation.
16:35
We'll tie that back in those core values, which of those core
16:38
values are we, are we in conflict with in this particular
16:42
situation? And the other thing about the
16:45
core values, you know, when I was selling my company, there
16:50
are public, publicly traded RV groups and private equity RV
16:55
groups. I could have gone that direction
16:59
and the people on 19, you know, the CPA that we hired and and so
17:04
forth, they kind of counseled me that their selling price would
17:08
be higher if I would have gone that direction.
17:10
But one of the challenges is our North Stars do the right thing.
17:16
If you're a publicly traded company, the North Star is a
17:20
return to shareholders, which which is good.
17:24
It shouldn't be that way. If I'm going to buy stock and
17:27
Ford Motor Company, I want to return on my investment.
17:30
So they're not doing anything wrong.
17:32
They're doing it exactly as they should.
17:34
It's just different. It's a different dynamic than a
17:37
privately held company where the first thing that we do is we
17:42
just have to do the right thing with our customers and our
17:45
business partners. And then I also believe that
17:49
it's a longer term vision. We thought about joining a role
17:55
up at one time and going public and with a longer term vision.
17:58
When you're privately held you do have that long term vision
18:02
rather than you know we've done this quarter for example and
18:07
everything is not driven by the quarter and it's driven by the
18:10
longer vision. Is there maybe an example of a
18:17
recent initiative that kind of highlights one or more of those
18:22
core values? Josh, that give me a couple of
18:28
minutes to think of that. Maybe I'll even pick like one
18:31
specific one to talk to me about how sustainability shows up in a
18:36
regular basis in your business. What does that core value mean
18:39
to you? It is now that is sustainability
18:43
of the company that we're talking about.
18:45
We're not talking about green initiatives there, although we
18:49
believe in that as well, the sustainability of the company.
18:53
So the the idea there is what is best for the whole company is
18:58
what is best for all of us. We're all in this together.
19:02
What is a company, it's a group of people getting together for a
19:05
common purpose. So we have to do what's best for
19:07
the company and that has to take precedence over what's best for
19:11
an individual. In most cases, those two things
19:14
align. It's win, win.
19:17
Not in every case, so. You guys are known for a no
19:23
pressure sales approach. Explain first of all why, and
19:30
then maybe if you've got a story or an anecdote you can share
19:34
about, I don't know, a moment where that philosophy really
19:40
resulted in a very positive customer experience.
19:45
OK. So with salespeople here at the
19:49
dealership, what I try to communicate to them is our job
19:53
is to help people and get what they want.
19:56
I don't care if you are the greatest salesperson in the
19:59
world. If the customer doesn't want it,
20:01
they're not going to buy it. Certainly not an RV we're not
20:05
talking about. You know, some low cost item,
20:09
it's a high cost item that is a discretionary purchase.
20:12
So our job is to help people get what they want.
20:15
It's funny, I had so there was many years ago, but I had so
20:19
many, many years ago as a newly hired sales person who come out
20:22
of the auto industry and I hear them talking to another person,
20:25
another person on the teeth and he said that he laid them away.
20:30
I was. So-called.
20:32
I was so shocked with that. I said don't let anybody away.
20:36
That's not what we're here for. It's one of the reasons we have
20:39
the the pusted price with a discount right on that.
20:43
You don't have to negotiate, you can pay what does that term.
20:45
Even mean I can tell by the way that you're you're speaking
20:48
about it that it's not positive. But what what does that even
20:51
mean? Well, he.
20:53
Was talking in terms and, and I think that he was talking in
20:56
terms of the company that he had worked at previously where the
21:01
point of pride is getting the deal even though even if it does
21:06
not serve the customer. Oh.
21:08
Jeez, OK, clearly did not align with any of your core values.
21:14
That's right, that's right. We did align with our core
21:17
values. Our job is to help people get
21:19
what they want, find what they want, and then help find an RV
21:24
that fits staff. And it's not just their wants
21:26
and needs in the RV, but it's the budget also.
21:29
You know, for one of the things that we talked about is if the
21:32
customer really likes this one and they really like this one
21:35
and this one costs $5000, if you can steer them in One Direction
21:39
or another, steer them to the less expensive one, it'll, it'll
21:43
be easier for them to buy that one.
21:45
And if they like it equally as much as the more expensive one,
21:48
then they're better served so. I'm curious, maybe use that
21:54
particular story as an example for how when you see your core
22:00
values not being demonstrated from your team.
22:04
How do you approach? That from kind of a a learning
22:07
opportunity or a teaching opportunity.
22:10
Well, one of the most challenged, this hard
22:13
conversations or one of the most challenging things for
22:16
management in businesses. I'm sure you see it in your own
22:19
business, Anthony. And we just as managers, we just
22:22
have to have the courage to have difficult conversations, face
22:28
them head on. And what I always would want to
22:31
start a conversation is trying to understand, you know, their
22:35
point of view. One of the seven habits of
22:38
Highly effective people, if you know that book is seek first to
22:40
understand. So we want to start there, seek
22:43
first to understand and then try to change their thinking.
22:48
That's what's necessary. So we try to change their
22:52
thinking. And then, you know, basically
22:54
you let somebody know what's required to stay on the team.
22:57
And if they choose to do it or not do it, it's their choice.
23:00
I'm curious about that one particular, that salesperson who
23:04
laid that customer away, was that somebody that you were able
23:07
to kind of coach and train or was that somebody that
23:10
eventually found themselves employment elsewhere?
23:15
Well, I, I probably handled that situation wrong because I
23:19
coached and trained immediately in front of all the other people
23:23
with my reaction to, to the statement.
23:27
But that's good. You want everybody to know that
23:29
that's not acceptable. He was short term with the
23:32
company and it's the only time that I can ever remember that.
23:35
It's a very unusual situation. It's just you had asked for some
23:39
sort of example or demonstration of how the values work in the
23:43
dealership. Yeah, I'm kind of curious to
23:45
hear. This is a question I'd like to
23:47
ask all my guests about. You know, in most industries, I
23:51
still hear it's a pretty tight labor market you're talking
23:54
about that particular individual was a, you know, a rather
23:56
unusual, a kind of an outlier of an experience.
23:59
But in general, finding and then holding on to good people can be
24:04
really challenging. I'm curious to hear about some
24:08
things that you've tried and found success with, both from a
24:11
recruiting and a retention standpoint.
24:16
Well. Recruiting, you have two kinds
24:19
of recruiting. 1 is if there's somebody in the industry and
24:22
they're looking for something and you have the reputation that
24:25
we're fortunate enough to have in our industry, they might come
24:27
to us. But aside from that, outside of
24:30
the industry, recruiting, when I'm interviewing people, you
24:34
know, basically I'm only looking for two things.
24:38
I only want to know if they're going to be a culture fest and
24:42
if they can deliver the results that we need.
24:44
We start them. We start before we even go down
24:47
mentally. That path is trying to identify
24:50
if the person is more optimistic or pessimistic, because we have
24:57
found that if we get somebody who's negative in the
25:00
organization, they can be a tremendous drain on the other
25:04
team members. And it can kind of bring
25:07
everybody down. Because if you look at any
25:09
particular situation, there's going to be something negative
25:13
about that situation and there's going to be something positive
25:16
about that situation. And it's our individual choice.
25:19
We all have free will. Which one do we want to pay
25:21
attention to? So we're looking for the people
25:24
that just naturally pay attention to the positive side
25:28
of whatever the situation may be.
25:31
For example, I'll give you an example how when we first went
25:35
into COVID and we had to have a lockdown, everything has to shut
25:38
down. And again, again, I'm in
25:41
Arizona. So for us that happened about
25:43
six weeks. We never did shut down because
25:46
we are an essential business. So we never, our hours didn't
25:49
change at all. We maintain just our normal
25:52
operating hours, but there were no customers.
25:55
You know that the state's completely shut down, locked
25:58
down, there's no customers. What there was a tremendous
26:01
demand for was toilet paper. As we all know, if it seemed
26:05
kind of a joke, right, just run on toilet paper.
26:08
Even here in our own parts department, we had to start
26:11
limiting it because one person would come in and buy everything
26:13
off the shelf and then we would. And then the people that really
26:16
needed that, you know, we didn't have it for them.
26:19
So we just start limiting that. So our little joke at the
26:22
dealership is suing. RV's will be like toilet paper.
26:25
Everybody will want it and there won't be enough to go around.
26:29
Boy, were you right? Yeah, we didn't know how right
26:33
we were. It was just kind of old joke,
26:35
you know? But even when there's no
26:37
customers, we weren't sitting around saying, oh, what are we
26:41
going to do? This is doing blown.
26:43
This is so bad. We're making jokes and talking
26:47
about how this interest going to be positive.
26:52
And so, but that's a really hard time and place to be finding
26:57
your pessimistic, you're optimistic part of your soul
27:01
because things are shut down. There's no customers for we.
27:05
Nobody knew when. The world in.
27:09
General might get back to normal, or for you more
27:11
specifically, when people might start start buying RV's again.
27:15
I mean, was there still something sort of nagging in the
27:18
back of your mind that said I'm going to put on a happy face at
27:22
work, but I don't know where this is going.
27:25
And at some point we may need to shut our doors.
27:28
Yeah, at definitely, absolutely. And as I mentioned, I, you know,
27:33
I have several family members working here too.
27:35
So it's and all of their families are dependent on this
27:39
little business. So it is, it is a weight, it's a
27:42
mental weight and we did not layoff anyone or furlough
27:48
anyone, which is also very unusual during that time.
27:53
I was just hoping that it would turn around quick enough or we
27:56
wouldn't have to. And as it turns out, it did.
27:59
We were very fortunate that we did not lay off anyone and
28:02
furlough anyone, furlough anyone like everybody else was doing
28:06
because when it came back, it came back fast and we really
28:09
needed the people that we had. So that part really did benefit
28:12
us. But it was painful, very painful
28:17
for, you know, two or three months there.
28:19
And I and, you know, I didn't have a solution to that.
28:22
That was very worrying. And to your point, I never
28:25
expressed my worry, you know, to the team here.
28:30
It's we just have to be the beacon of light and be
28:33
optimistic and hope that it passes.
28:36
And again, yeah. For those listening who haven't
28:39
been responsible for other people's paychecks before,
28:44
there's a lot of stress just thinking about your own
28:46
paycheck. Hey, am I going to be able to
28:48
make ends meet? Can I pay this bill?
28:50
Can I pay that bill? You know, how do I manage this?
28:54
You can relate. Everybody can relate to that
28:56
kind of stress. But the stress of having to
28:59
think about are all these people and their families who rely on
29:03
this business and me to be able to sign their paychecks every
29:07
week, every two weeks, whatever it is, you know, are, are they
29:10
going to be able to afford to live if I've got to shut this
29:14
tap off? Like if, if everything has to
29:16
close down, that is a weight that is hard to put into words.
29:20
So everybody listening, you know, you haven't been in that
29:23
boat, you know, go give your, your employer, the, the owner
29:27
there a high 5 and and thank them 'cause they, they carry
29:30
that weight often times, as Debbie's pointing out in
29:32
silence. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
29:37
And and so. What were some of the, you know,
29:40
since you weren't really talking about it, you weren't voicing
29:42
that to your team members? How?
29:44
Like, what were some coping mechanisms for you during that
29:46
time? For me, the coping mechanism is
29:50
always make a plan and the the most stressful times for me is
29:56
if it feels like something is out of my control.
30:00
So for example, the economy could be a bad economy.
30:04
That's true. So we have to make a plan.
30:06
How do we adjust to that? How do we adapt to that?
30:09
One of my favorite quotes is it's not the strongest of the
30:14
species that survive, nor is it the most intelligent of the
30:18
species. It's the most adaptable to
30:22
survive. So one of the mantras that we
30:26
have in this business when things are a little tough is
30:30
it's not tough just for us. It'll be tough for our
30:32
competitors, it'll be tough for everything.
30:35
All we have to do is be better and quicker and adapting to the
30:39
new reality than our competitors and we win.
30:45
So the way that I help cope with things like that is make a plan
30:50
and start implementing the plan. So doesn't mean stress goes
30:54
away. What?
30:55
What was the? Plan in that first two or three
30:56
months there were you things were really slow and you weren't
30:59
sure what was going to happen well in the.
31:01
First two or three months, we really didn't have a plan other
31:04
than try to keep the team together, try to keep
31:07
everybody's spirits up because that, you know, the deposit
31:10
would just shut off. But we knew that that wasn't
31:14
pertinent. We knew that business would
31:16
return. So we didn't feel like we had to
31:19
make a plan. Now, if you felt like this could
31:22
last for say, a year, then you would have to start making those
31:26
cuts and adjustments right away. We just didn't feel it.
31:29
We felt it was temporary and so we could write it out so.
31:33
You said that the one of the first things that you look at
31:35
when considering hiring somebody is are you optimistic, Are you
31:39
pessimistic? Are there particular questions
31:42
in your interview process that helped to kind of bring that
31:46
personality trait to the surface?
31:49
Yes. Is it always effective?
31:51
No. Yes, there are things.
31:53
For example, I want to find out why a person would leave
31:56
previous employers, because one of the things that I have
32:00
learned is if their previous employer was in jerk and the one
32:04
before that was in jerk, we're going to be a jerk also.
32:11
So that's one of the things that we look for.
32:12
Another thing to even get an interview.
32:14
We, we, we really look. I don't view it favorably from
32:18
job poppers. If you can't get a job more than
32:21
a couple of years, even though it's your choice, maybe it's
32:23
your choice to keep moving on. I really have to question why if
32:27
it's a person recently out of school, OK, I get it.
32:30
You're trying to find a way. You're trying to find something
32:32
that kind of sticks with you. But other than that, I, I feel
32:36
like either you're a quitter and I don't want people who are
32:39
quitters. I want people when things get
32:41
tough, you, you dig in, you have some grit, you figure it out and
32:45
find a way or, or it's people that are asked to leave on a
32:50
frequent basis. So neither one of those are
32:53
people that I want on the team. Understandable.
32:57
I'm curious, Debbie, if there are maybe certain things that
33:01
are specific to different geographical locations as it
33:06
pertains to the RV industry. Like are there certain things
33:10
that you see in the Arizona market that are different than
33:14
what you know, maybe the the founders of campers in RV see
33:18
and some of their eastern locations that influences how
33:21
you have to prepare the business or or train people to to handle
33:25
customers. There are.
33:28
Differences. There's more similarities than
33:31
there are differences. One of the things that I learned
33:34
for years and being in this mastermind group is called a
33:37
twenty group is that there's more than one way of success
33:41
because she had business owners in there that one business owner
33:44
would do something this way and another one would do it this
33:47
way, another one did it the third way and all of those could
33:50
be successful. It was usually in the
33:52
implementation as much as the the idea or philosophy in and of
33:58
itself. So there are regional
34:00
differences in every area just has its own vibe, not only parts
34:04
of the country, but individual stores.
34:08
And it's you can be, you can be a store that is very successful
34:13
doing X and another store is very successful doing Y.
34:16
And that's OK as long as you implement it well and you're
34:20
following the the core values. There definitely are more
34:23
similarities than differences. One of the big one of the
34:25
differences we see though are in floor plans.
34:28
You might have areas where the normal camping is in a park
34:33
where you have full facilities and hookups and you have areas
34:36
where a lot of the a lot of the camping here in Arizona, for
34:39
example, is what we call dry camping.
34:41
So you can just go off on some logging road and be out in the
34:44
forest by yourself. You don't have any kind of
34:46
hookups. The RV does self-contained.
34:49
So you can do that. You can do dry camping, but
34:52
those things definitely have differences and that that.
34:55
Dry camping is more common in Arizona than other parts of the
34:58
country. Yes, I think it's more common
35:02
anywhere where you had that access and we have a lot of that
35:05
access here in Arizona. There's a a tremendous amount of
35:09
the state that's owned by the government.
35:11
You sell public land and you can just go off and any anywhere you
35:17
can get your RV is where you can stay.
35:20
You. Debbie emphasize enriching
35:23
customers lives by helping them find their way.
35:27
Is there a particular customer success story that illustrates
35:31
the impact that campers in RV can have on someone's RV
35:34
journey? Oh, Anthony, there are so many.
35:39
There are so many stories. I'll tell you.
35:41
It's one of the things that I absolutely love about this
35:44
business. I don't think I'd be in the
35:46
business if it were the automobile business because
35:49
nobody needs an RV to go to work tomorrow.
35:52
You buy an RV because you want to have fun, you want to go out
35:55
and you know, and live your life and have that adventure.
36:00
And the RV's bring freedom, adventure, family, togetherness,
36:05
bonding. You can explore the wilderness,
36:07
get out there in nature. It's healthy and it, it's just,
36:11
I love it with kids, especially because if you can get your
36:15
young kids out in nature, out in nature, that is so valuable for
36:20
them and the whole family bonding.
36:22
And we see that on a regular basis where people come in and
36:24
they're just, they're just so excited.
36:27
And then sometimes we'll get photographs or they'll come in
36:30
for service and, and tell us stories about it.
36:33
It's just, it's just really great.
36:36
I had one customer few years ago, Yeah.
36:39
And there was an elderly customer and they came in and,
36:42
you know, it's kind of sad story.
36:44
They were buying the RV because the wife had been diagnosed with
36:48
cancer and she only had a couple of years to live.
36:52
So they thought if we only had two years, we're going to get
36:55
out there and see as much of America as we can and go explore
36:59
and have fun. And they bought an RV and then
37:03
the man came back, I don't know, a few years, maybe six years
37:08
later and was wanting to trade it in for a new RV.
37:12
He was remarried to another woman and, you know, wanted to
37:16
start that adventure all over again, which I thought was
37:18
pretty cool. Well, it was just most the best,
37:21
though The best is I thought you know you find out you only have
37:25
a couple of years to live well, instead of staying home and just
37:28
being preoccupied with that and being so miserable all the time,
37:31
they decided to buy an RV and go have some fun.
37:35
Well, it. Sounds like the kind of person
37:36
you'd want working for you. There's that level of optimism.
37:39
You know when you're facing down, you know, the, the, the
37:42
worst time that you could imagine it.
37:44
We're going to get out there and make the best of what time we
37:46
have left that there's a there's an optimism gene in that person.
37:50
That's right. Yeah, they were.
37:51
They were an inspiration in me for sure.
37:53
I'm curious, Debbie. If your education at was it
37:57
Arizona State? Yes.
37:59
Yeah, if your if your education at.
38:01
Arizona State has influenced your leadership model at all.
38:07
Well, I would say no to that. And the reasons I never
38:11
graduated Arizona State University and it was never my
38:13
intention to anyway. The courses I took, I went
38:17
through a course called Advanced Business Administration.
38:21
There was another one as well, but that was I was there for the
38:23
skill set. I wasn't there for the degree
38:27
and it just wasn't that prevalent in my family.
38:30
You know, I grew up, my parents were entrepreneurs and starting
38:34
businesses and it just wasn't top of mind awareness for me.
38:39
So I wanted to participate in programs that gave me the skill
38:42
set. There were many programs with
38:45
not many, but there are a few programs within the RV industry
38:48
specifically and specific business programs that I
38:51
intended. I was a sponge in trying to
38:54
learn as much as I can and those benefited me much more in my
38:59
opinion than even the ass business administration the
39:02
issue. So although I'm an advocate of
39:05
that, all of all of my kids have advanced degrees, I believe, and
39:10
that my own personal journey that was not a big part of it
39:13
outside the university education courses that I check were more
39:17
influential than that of Asia. So we've already talked about.
39:23
How COVID has kind of paused the growth plans for the moment, but
39:29
once things pick up in the RV industry again, what do you
39:34
foresee the growth being like? Well, that that is our.
39:40
Intention is to continue to grow and especially out here in the
39:45
West, you know grow our footprint because we don't have
39:47
much of Arizona is the only one in the West.
39:51
So we do want to to grow that and we'll do it the same way
39:55
that has been done in the past. You know you just we have
39:58
certain key things in the current specific size of
40:02
business that we look for. And there are specific things in
40:06
the businesses that we look for that kind of fit our model.
40:10
So for example, our particular business model, if you have what
40:14
we call the industry, a plateau one business, which leaves a
40:19
plateau one. That's how we started out.
40:20
That's how it was when I started the company.
40:22
That's a very, very small operation that is only run by,
40:27
you know, 5 or 6 people run the whole dealership and that is not
40:31
really a good fit for the organization that we have now at
40:35
this point. So those are the kinds of
40:37
businesses that we would be least interested in compared to
40:42
the growth, the growth plans. Are all about acquisitions then
40:45
not starting up a new location Oh you know we we do internal.
40:48
Also, you know, if there's a good location, we'll buy a piece
40:51
of gram and we'll build a dealership up.
40:54
You know, that's how all the ones in Arizona were done.
40:56
Just buy a piece of ground and and build the dealership from
40:59
there because it's in the right location and everything's right.
41:03
So we do both. That's called Greenfield.
41:05
We do both Greenfield expansion and acquisitions.
41:10
Outside of. Acquiring locations, building
41:13
new ones. Are there any thoughts to expand
41:15
into any new products or services that you're not
41:18
currently offering? The the RV industry.
41:23
Is always evolving. One of the great things about
41:26
the RV industry is they are very quick to to pivot and to adapt
41:32
to the consumer demand and what the consumers want.
41:35
Even during COVID, for example, the RV industry adapted very
41:40
quicker than the marine industry, quicker than power
41:42
sports or motorcycle, quicker than all the other outdoor
41:45
leisure activities. So we do a good job of that and
41:49
that happens on regular basis. As far as expanding beyond the
41:54
RV industry, that is not something that we're pursuing
41:57
right at this time. Any other kinds of?
42:00
Internal innovations that you guys are looking at?
42:06
Well, it's, it's interesting. That you asked that question.
42:09
There's something in the RV industry where they recognize
42:12
the top 50 dealers in all of the USA and Canada.
42:17
So you know you're choosing from, I don't know, probably
42:20
2025 hundred leadership. So you're picking the top 50.
42:24
Well, in addition to that which which we have won that award
42:27
pretty much every year since they started doing it, but they
42:30
do have another one this and even one of the 50 is at a
42:35
higher level called the Innovation Award.
42:38
And this past November at the annual RVDA conference, we were
42:42
awarded the Innovation Award. And the reason I'll share with
42:47
you why. So you know, that is one of our
42:49
goals is to be a positive disruptor and really being on
42:53
the front end of that innovation.
42:55
You know how you have online chat, and one of our challenges
43:00
with online chat is because a lot of it occurs outside of
43:04
business operating hours. It might be at 2:00 in the
43:07
morning, maybe 4:00 in the morning, and we're just not
43:11
chatting with those people at all.
43:12
They might type in something, but nobody's going to see that
43:15
message until we open in the next day.
43:17
So we've gone to an AI agent. Her name is Fran.
43:24
And now Fran, if. You're on our website and you're
43:27
doing chat. Hopefully she feels like a human
43:31
being to you, but it's not. It's all artificial intelligence
43:35
and our big driver of doing that is, as I mentioned, so that we
43:38
could be there for customers whenever they had a question
43:42
rather than only during an operating horse.
43:44
Has it been in place long enough?
43:45
Where? You can identify any particular
43:47
success metrics like I don't know, converted more website
43:51
visitors to customers or you know, fewer like shorter
43:55
response times or anything like that.
43:58
Well, we definitely. Have shorter response times
44:00
because that that AI agent is on there and the response is
44:04
immediate you don't have to wait for somebody to respond to you.
44:08
So we definitely have that. As far as the success metric,
44:11
no, it's new for us and our our success actually went down.
44:18
But that might be because that's where you have to start, you
44:23
know, and then you build from that.
44:24
So we do have high expectations for it, but it's too early to
44:28
measure the success right now other than response time.
44:31
I'm talking about the success of actual sales.
44:35
So it could be. That the number of conversions
44:38
to sales has gone down because the AI still needs some
44:42
tweaking. It needs to learn, it needs to
44:44
be trained, it needs to do prompts, it needs to do a better
44:47
job of interacting with people. Doesn't mean that it's not going
44:50
to be helpful long term. It's just these are early days
44:54
and you're still kind of learning your way through that.
44:56
Would that be accurate? Yeah, that's exactly.
44:58
Accurate. And you do have to train it.
45:00
You know, we were training it before we went live with it.
45:03
But then when you go live, you, you see that there's more
45:07
training needed. Yeah.
45:09
You know, as business owners, as business leaders, Debbie, we're
45:14
lots of things we've got to keep our eye on.
45:16
You know, one of the biggest ones obviously is the bottom
45:18
line, the, you know, profit and loss.
45:21
And you know, myself, I kind of think about it, there are these
45:24
two big levers that you can pull, right?
45:26
You can pull one to increase sales.
45:28
You can, you know, pull another one to decrease expenses.
45:31
I'm curious across your long business career, are there any
45:35
creative things that you've tried and found success with and
45:39
pulling either one of those levers?
45:42
Yeah, you're exactly right. In times of a decreasing
45:46
business environment, we're pulling hard on that expense
45:49
control. And in times of.
45:52
Increasing business, you know, we're not paying as much
45:55
attention to the expense control.
45:57
You're pulling hard on that increased sales.
45:59
And it's always a balance between the two.
46:01
And that's what makes a company sustainable or not sustainable.
46:05
It's just being able to to manipulate that during the early
46:10
days of COVID. So as I mentioned, we did not
46:14
lay anyone off or furlough anyone.
46:16
We didn't raise our prices. What we did do though, and we
46:20
did this immediately, is we went to all of our business partners
46:24
and asked for either, for example, uniforms, went to the
46:29
uniform vendor and said we would like two months of free
46:33
uniforms. We we still want the delivery
46:36
service, but we don't want to pay for it for two months.
46:39
You know, we think that we'll get past this.
46:41
We went to every single provider that we had and asked them to
46:45
either let us pay it later or just eliminate it for a short
46:50
period of time. And that was very successful.
46:53
Most, most businesses did it like the new company.
46:55
They said, OK, you get it. So these were businesses that
46:59
must have been. Doing OK themselves during this
47:02
challenging time to be able to kind of float you that money
47:06
well that. Was that was up to?
47:07
Each individual business, you know, they could either say,
47:10
hey, we, we don't have it either we can't do that And, and I
47:14
understand or they could say, yeah, you, you know, you've been
47:17
a good business partner all these years and we can do that.
47:21
We can forgo the bill for two months or a month or whatever it
47:24
is. That's tremendous.
47:25
I mean, that speaks. Volumes to the relationships
47:27
that you've built up with those folks over the years.
47:30
We even did. That, by the way, with banks are
47:32
mortgages. Now that wasn't a forgiveness.
47:36
It was added back on to the principle.
47:38
You know, you're tacking it back in.
47:40
But even the banks did that for us.
47:44
Now mortgages, Yeah, again. Speaks volumes to relationships
47:48
and the importance of them. Any specific mentors, books, or
47:54
other experiences that have been particularly helpful to you and
47:58
your trajectory? Yes, when I.
48:02
Was young. He's not around anymore, but
48:05
when I was young, my dad sent me all these courses with Zig
48:09
Ziglar and I read all the books and I went through all the
48:12
courses. I went through so many of them,
48:15
all different kinds of people. That's the one, especially at
48:19
the young age that made the biggest difference to the little
48:22
principles that I'm used to this day.
48:24
For example, It used to be because I was young and single
48:29
and went out a lot. So it used to be the alarm clock
48:31
would wake, would go off and. I would hate waking up in.
48:36
The morning, especially if I hadn't had much sleep the night
48:39
before, I would hate waking up in the morning.
48:41
I needed that alarm clock. And one of the things that Zig
48:44
Ziglar said is you've got to train your brain on the alarm
48:47
clock and don't even think of it as an alarm.
48:49
Think of it as an opportunity clock, and when it goes off in
48:53
the morning, force yourself to bring something positive.
48:57
I still do that today. Yeah.
48:59
Even if you're sleepy or, you know, you went to bed late for
49:02
whatever reason, you know, and you still wake up with a pause.
49:06
I thought, OK, good. Yeah, I feel great.
49:08
I had enough sleep. It's going to be a good day.
49:10
Those types of things. What was the positive thing?
49:13
You. Told yourself this morning, do
49:14
you remember? It was the sleep.
49:18
Hey I. Had a great night's sleep.
49:19
I feel good. I mean, that's that's kind of a
49:22
normal one. Yeah.
49:23
Always something awesome. OK, shifting gears on you now.
49:28
Debbie, for just a moment, curious to hear about a
49:30
particular challenge that you've gone through.
49:32
There's something personal or professional, how you got
49:35
through that, lessons learned coming out the other side.
49:40
Well. Challenges in Business.
49:43
The Great Recession was a big one in the RV industry.
49:47
There was, I believe it's 1/3 of all the manufacturers went out
49:52
of business, about about 1/4 of all the dealers, 20 or 25
49:58
completely out of business. It was, it was really quite
50:03
devastating. So for so many businesses.
50:05
So that was that was challenging and we had to get through it.
50:10
And one of the things that put the dealers out of business,
50:13
interestingly enough was, you know, we had bank loans to buy
50:17
our inventory, it's called floor plans, but we had bank loans to
50:21
buy the inventory. All of those loans are demands.
50:25
And during the great reception. We had a lot.
50:28
We had not a lot, but we had a couple of big lenders completely
50:32
pull out and the dealers were not able to get lines of credit
50:37
with other lenders and so many of them just had to close the
50:41
doors and go out of business and that's what a lot of the dealers
50:45
said. So anyway that was that was a
50:48
challenging time. In fact, our own particular
50:52
lender, I won't mention which one, we had one month where we
50:55
turned in a profit loss statement that was a negative.
50:57
We'd lost money that month and even our Rep was telling the
51:00
bank, but it's December most of. The RV industry.
51:04
Loses money in December. It's just a soft month.
51:07
That doesn't mean so they said no and they cut our line of
51:10
credit from even though it's a demand enough, they still give
51:14
me a commitment for a year is the normal.
51:16
They cut it back to six months. So we thought, OK, well, what
51:20
can we do so that we never turn in a PNL statement with a loss
51:26
on it. And we knew that many of the
51:28
expenses are things that we control.
51:31
For example, we control my salary, we can control the rents
51:35
because we own the properties, so we charge rent on them.
51:39
And so we just started, you know, I went for a year without
51:43
a salary and when business turned around, I collected back.
51:47
I'm getting the net to be a forever gift.
51:49
That's one of the things that I get, went for a year with that
51:51
salary. So there was a little bit
51:53
stressful, but we were able to get through it and we made the
51:55
plans. The things that stressed me up
51:57
the most are things that I don't feel like I have control over.
52:02
There's something that I could do to improve the situation, or
52:04
I'm thinking, what should I do? What can I do those types of
52:07
things? So when faced with.
52:10
Something like that. How do you get through those
52:13
moments, those times when something is really difficult
52:17
and you don't feel like there's anything that you can do to
52:19
control the situation? Because I, I hear it like you're
52:22
a big planner, like, Hey, we got the, you know, the, the Great
52:26
Recession and we showed one month of loss and, and so, oh,
52:29
how can we not do that again? You're like, well, let's think
52:32
creatively and you came up with some things that you can
52:34
control. And there's some things in like
52:37
that you can't control. How do you cope with things like
52:39
that? In business I try to do it.
52:44
Personally also, but in business we often talk about IMC&BMCIMC
52:50
being in my control and BMC being beyond my control because
52:54
oftentimes we get so stressed out about things that are beyond
52:59
our control and things that are not even personal.
53:02
It's not like my sister, it's the weather, it's the traffic,
53:05
it's the, you know, the occasional or rational customer
53:09
or whatever it may be. And we get all worked up about
53:13
things that are beyond our control.
53:14
So we, what we try to totally, you know, out of your mind is
53:18
BMC. Just get over it.
53:20
Try to get it out of your mind. Focus on things that are within
53:24
your control. Those things are stressful too,
53:26
but oftentimes there's something you can do about it.
53:28
You might not be able to solve the problem, but there is some
53:31
impact you can make and some difference that you can make on
53:34
all of those things. And that's why I said, you know,
53:38
things that are things that I do care about that are beyond life
53:41
control might be some of them are stressful, like the one that
53:45
I shared with you or if you have a family member that gets the
53:49
severe illness. I had a brother in the hospital
53:52
earlier this year. We didn't know if he would be
53:55
able to make it or not. And those things are, you know,
53:58
if he pulled through, Thankfully, those are the kinds
54:01
of things that are really stressful.
54:03
But on things that are beyond my control, I just even with my
54:07
sister, I tried to not think about it as much as I could.
54:12
I told my mom, don't answer your phone.
54:14
Just don't answer the phone. Out of sight, out of mind
54:19
sometimes. Huh.
54:20
Yeah, do what you can. Debbie.
54:23
I just have one more question for you.
54:25
But before I ask it, I want to do 2 things for everyone
54:27
listening today. I know that you love today's
54:29
content. Debbie's been great.
54:30
So please hit the like share subscribe button on your
54:32
favorite podcast app. I also want to let people know
54:35
the best way to get in touch with you, which is your e-mail
54:38
address, de.brunofortesodbrunoforte@campersinn.com.
54:48
We'll also have that in the show notes.
54:50
And then the last question that I have for you, Debbie, is how
54:53
do you see the industry evolving in the next couple of years?
54:56
What do you see the big changes are that are coming?
55:00
Well, the industry we do expect. 2025 to be kind of a turn around
55:04
year for the RV industry. We're starting to see it
55:06
already. People seem to be more
55:08
optimistic. They want to get out there, they
55:10
want to get out in nature and have that that freedom to do it
55:14
in their own vehicle in their own RV.
55:16
I'll tell you, Anthony, one of the things that we look longer
55:20
into the future that I'm very excited about is, is the atomic,
55:27
when I'm saying the right word, autonomous.
55:29
Autonomous, yes, Thank you. Autonomous driving can.
55:34
You imagine if you. Have an RV if you're towing a
55:36
fifth Wheeler, travel trainer or driving in a motorhome.
55:39
Let's say you're driving in a motorhome and and you'd like to
55:42
have a sandwich when you could just keep the motorhome going.
55:46
You lost that and eat yourself a little sandwich.
55:49
Maybe you watch what over the beginning on TV and the
55:53
motorhome just keeps on going. Wouldn't that be fun?
55:55
That would be a blast. Yeah, sign me up.
55:59
Now you hear a lot about that obviously in automobile as you
56:02
hear about it in commercial delivery vehicles that it's
56:06
being worked on taxis. I'm not in the space, but I
56:10
haven't seen any articles about it coming to the motorized RV
56:14
space. Is there conversations, are
56:15
there people working on this actively?
56:18
Yes. Yes, you know what are the
56:21
challenges is the cost. And then of course.
56:26
We need more technology improvements to get the range
56:30
and there's there's still there's it's the same challenges
56:33
as what you have in the automobile space, but it's
56:35
coming. There are people working on it.
56:38
And I just think that would be so exciting for our industry.
56:41
Yeah, are. Are there any motorized RV's now
56:45
that have like a less advanced version of that?
56:48
Like I don't know if you start drifting out of your lane like
56:52
it turns the wheel back for you. Like does any of that exist
56:55
presently? I guess, OK, Yeah, yes, there's
57:00
some of that, some of that does. So you know it's not just Tesla
57:05
that's during that V stage 4 and they make the chassis.
57:10
So yeah. So that same tech that's being.
57:13
Worked on in the auto industry is getting passed into the RV
57:17
space as well. Makes a lot of sense and.
57:19
There are manufacturers that are working on battery powered only.
57:25
RV's so that's a. Little bit different than the
57:28
auto driving segment that I was talking about, but often times
57:31
those will come together. So it's not mainstream.
57:34
If you go buy a motor home right now, it's not going to buy.
57:36
You would have to really if you want a battery powered motor
57:39
home for example, you could do it, but it would be very
57:42
expensive and I'm not sure how dependable.
57:45
So it's not really integrated in our industry yet, but but it's
57:50
coming and people are working on that.
57:52
One of the fun things to look forward.
57:53
To All right, well, Debbie, I want to be the first one to
57:56
thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us
57:58
today. I really appreciate it.
58:01
Yeah, my pleasure. Anthony, thank you so much
58:03
folks. That's a wrap on another.
58:05
Episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
58:07
Thanks for learning with us today.