This transcript was generated with the help of AI and may contain some errors.

Luke Stoker [00:00:00]:
Not recreating the wheel. Right. We’re using what’s out there that works. Certified and preferred partners. Right. So here are the vendors that we see doing the best in the space. How do we lead our dealers and help be a good partner to. These are the people that we see being long term players that are, you know, pioneering.

Luke Stoker [00:00:18]:
Just like Winnebago is to really start layering in the best opportunities for our dealers and create a healthy dealer body.

Kyler Mason [00:00:28]:
Whether you’re going to market through dealers, distributors or some other partner channel. The mediated sale is complex. We call it B2B2X.

John Gough [00:00:36]:
But the leaders in the industry are the ones who are making it look simple. I’m John Gough.

Kyler Mason [00:00:41]:
And I’m Kyler Mason. And this is why youy win. Presented by Element3.

John Gough [00:00:46]:
Our guests today are Luke Stoker and Mike Oliva. Luke is the senior manager of digital programs and dealer enablement at Winnebago and Mike is the manager of dealer programs. Luke and Mike are building Winnebago’s dealer program and they’re trying to redefine how the RV industry supports its dealers. Both Mike and Luke have seen these programs from the OE and the dealer and the vendor sides of the equation. And they have a unique view of what makes them successful and ultimately why they think Winnebago is positioned to win. I hope you enjoy this conversation. Luke, Mike, we’re so glad to have you on the show. Thanks for joining us today.

Kyler Mason [00:01:19]:
Thanks for having us. Appreciate it.

Luke Stoker [00:01:20]:
Yeah, thanks for having us.

John Gough [00:01:22]:
Luke, turns out is the COVID of a recent edition of RV News where you guys were talking about doing in dealer programs at Winnebago. We read the story and we’re like, we got to talk to these guys. They’re thinking and talking about the stuff that we care about most. This B2, B2X model. How are we winning through the dealer channel? And so we’re glad you’re here and glad that you’re sharing your story to orient the listener. Luke, Mike, can you guys tell us about your roles at Winnebago? Kind of how you got there and what you’re thinking about right now?

Luke Stoker [00:01:54]:
Yeah, I can start. So I joined Winnebago about three years ago in a role that Winnebago was just starting to roll out. The idea of a marketplace bringing dealer inventory onto the OEM website. I’m like, hey, cool. I could sell the sauce on that, right? So they’re in this place with dealers where dealers really felt Ford at the time was trying to go direct to consumer and Then all of a sudden, Winnebago’s like, hey, we’re going to bring all this inventory in house, basically is what the dealers look like they’re, you know, thought that they were seeing. And Winnebago is going to go direct. When I walked Into Winnebago Day 1, $1 the day before, they had the dealer console at the dealer meeting a day early. And I walked in and basically every dealer said, f you, welcome to your role.

Luke Stoker [00:02:38]:
We disagree with everything that you’re doing. That’s what I walked into. And then all week, while I’m at my, at the dealer meeting in Savannah, I’m just getting roasted by every dealer I met. You know, I’m like, I finally stopped giving title and just started asking people’s opinions. But yeah, it was a, it was a tough hill to climb because bringing inventory forward, there’s. There’s so many different things that we can do for dealers as an OEM to make that advantageous. Through the dealer shopping journey, fast forward, we’ve really opened up the dealer’s eyes into how we can brand them throughout the shopping journey. If you’ve ever been on winnebago.com we advertise dealers right at the bottom of every page they go to.

Luke Stoker [00:03:15]:
And as you get deeper in the shopping journey and you start pairing with a unit or a brand that you’re looking for, it starts to narrow down the dealers that carry that brand. So each click that you go on, you get closer and closer to see who your local dealer is. And all of their information is there. The Google reviews, their telephone number, their click to their website. Right. Get directions or to view their inventory. So it took a lot of time. We run a digital roundtable every quarter, and we rely on the participation from our dealers in those roundtables to help us lead in what we develop.

Luke Stoker [00:03:53]:
And it’s been a great process. There’s give and take. Some things we’ve done have been great and have really helped dealers. And other things. Dealers are like, hey, that’s not what we expected. So we pivot my history in 15 years in automotive, eight and a half years in the marine and power sports space really layers into the outdoor rack. And coming from a family that grew up camping and RVing, it really hit close to home to me. Something that I really wanted to do with my family directly.

Luke Stoker [00:04:22]:
Coming out of Marine, we lived on the lake in my last role. So it was an outdoor brand that could really relate to us. It could lean into my family’s recreation and my major trigger for moving to Winnebago was work, life, balance. So coming out of the retail side, it was six days a week. The last time I worked for a large corporation was Cox Automotive with Autotrader. So it’s crazy working for, you know, a large corporation.

Kyler Mason [00:04:48]:
Now did you know coming into the role that you were going to be met with the resistance or did you find out when you started?

Luke Stoker [00:04:57]:
Yes and no. Like I knew the direction that Winnebago was going and I thought it was really exciting. I think what made me probably the best candidate for the role was a lot of the leadership that, that I work with on a day to day basis. Kim Wackert just announced 2025 Make Woman of the Year, which is awesome, right? In the manufacturing industry, she was at Polaris and they helped build the Ride now app. But she was there when they brought all of their digital initiatives forward. She also worked at BRP and brought all their initiatives forward. Both were brands that we carried as a dealer group and I had worked with those brands on their digital transformation within the dealer body. So it was familiar to me.

Luke Stoker [00:05:44]:
I knew the challenges from the dealership side of where the red flags were going to be because I had gone through them in the past. Right. So I really didn’t think that the uphill climb was going to be as big as it was. And I also didn’t think the sentiment walking in would be as brash as it was. But it was a little bit of a wake up call. It was a challenge I was definitely down to overcome.

Kyler Mason [00:06:09]:
You had the firsthand experience. How was that a surprise? Like why was it so different than you expected it to be?

Luke Stoker [00:06:14]:
So modernization in the shopping, digital shopping world. Right. In my previous life with the dealer group we were at, Mike was number one. It was his agency that he was partner director at. That’s how our relationship began. And then they were bought out and he came to our next agency of record that we had on file. And we are already having conversations about digital retailing during the COVID era when, when automotive was having those discussions. So here we are at marine and power sports dealer having these discussions that automotive OEMs were having.

Luke Stoker [00:06:47]:
How do we get live credit apps? How do we let the consumer go as far as they want the shopping process? Frictionless, right? Frictionless retailing. So marine and power sports typically are far behind, you know, the automotive, retail, grocery, those types of industries. And I felt that RV would be closer to the automotive side behind marine and power sports, which in. In all realities, when you look at technology in the shopping space, RV is definitely behind Marine, you know, outdoor, most out other outdoor rack, verticals and, and areas that you’d see.

John Gough [00:07:25]:
It’s like a number of wheels equation. You’re just sort of guessing. It’s like the no wheels I know is not two wheels, not as good. Maybe four. Four wheels is how it does.

Luke Stoker [00:07:35]:
You go back, like shop, click, buy with. With Chevrolet. I was with. With Chevrolet in 2000. I don’t know, 9, 10. And they were working on shop, click buy at that point, which was. Which was one of the first OEM digital retail programs. And I’m like, all right, well, automotive, we got to be close.

Luke Stoker [00:07:53]:
These guys got to be all about digital retailing. And, and this shouldn’t be hard to bring, you know, inventory forward. And we’re going to give them credit apps, right, from the OEM site. Like, why wouldn’t they not want that? Right? Like, we’re going to give them the best leads ever. And some of it’s education and some of it’s just willingness to adapt and change. And the other part of it is with change comes resistance because of that education part, right? So dealers are like, hey, you guys build them, we’ll sell them, we’ll service and take care of the customers together. But that’s. That’s where we part Cs and we’ll shake on the hands of taking care of the customer.

Luke Stoker [00:08:33]:
But other than that, you stay over there, we’ll stay over there and we play our part. And I think that we’re breaking down those barriers and we’re really showing that we really care for our dealers. And that’s where Mike’s role comes in. As I look at this, I’m not recreating a wheel great at pulling some technologies together that would be very advantageous and help can create better experiences for the consumer, better data and delivery for the dealer. But at the end of the day, Mike’s the people person. And I knew from our past life that I had to have Mike on my team. Because when you talk to any one of Mike’s previous dealers that he worked with in the marine space, he could call them today and be like, hey, I’m here. Do you want me to do your stuff? Right, I want to do your marketing.

Luke Stoker [00:09:23]:
And they’d be like, yes, where are you? Where do I sign? Like, they’d be ready, just ready to go. So knowing his relationship building skills, it’s definitely something that I needed as part of my team.

John Gough [00:09:34]:
So Luke walked in, he took all the bloody noses, and then did you follow him immediately in the door afterwards, or how much later do you show up?

Kyler Mason [00:09:43]:
Thanks for taking those early punches for me, and I do appreciate that. So I started in Winnebago in June, June 10. So it’s a little over nine months into the role. So a lot of the conversations you already started. You know, Luke is the brainchild behind this entire project. And he. From drawing it out to implementation, this all came from Luke. And he and I started talking about it early on in the process.

Kyler Mason [00:10:06]:
So it was just, hey, this is out there if you’re interested. And we kept in touch. And then once we got the green light, it was, let’s hit the ground running. You know, you asked the question, Luke, what was his thoughts about going into this? The dealers have been so receptive to this program because end of the day, we’re here to help. My background comes, as Luke mentioned, working with dealers. I started back in 2005 as an intern my senior year in college, working for a company that put boats on the website for the first time. Up to this point, there was no inventory online, so we’re the first ones to do it. I’ve spent a majority of my career working with dealers that don’t have marketing departments.

Kyler Mason [00:10:41]:
It’s okay. We’ll come in there, let’s work together. Let’s be an extension of your dealership. We can help you market the product. Everything we’re rolling out is to the overall benefit, and we’re going to help them out. We’ll also, besides the program tools we’re launching. Let’s sit down. Let’s go on the whiteboard.

Kyler Mason [00:10:56]:
What do you need? Moving inventory. What kind of branding work are you doing? Google Ads, search. We’ll get on calls. We work with dealers. This is an awesome, exciting role.

Kyler Mason [00:11:05]:
What objections are you getting?

Kyler Mason [00:11:07]:
None.

Kyler Mason [00:11:08]:
No way.

Kyler Mason [00:11:09]:
Yeah, we’re not getting any objections because there really is none. You know, the ad of that Luke mentioned, you know, you guys build RVs. Let us sell. I don’t build RVs. I can’t build a deck. I can’t build anything. But what I can do is I can help you with the digital marketing. And so let’s take advantage of this.

Kyler Mason [00:11:24]:
You’re getting this service that, you know, in the world they come from before, dealers would pay a lot of money to work with the agencies I was with. But they’re going to get this just by being a Winnebago dealer, by being a part of the family.

John Gough [00:11:33]:
I mean, I just love the perspective so much. I was talking to a guy who’s in a, in a tech co op, a different world entirely a couple of weeks ago and he was working on the side of one of their largest, I guess distributor groups in this case. But the complaint that he had was I can’t get the OEM to pay any attention to me. Even though we are like kind of a big chunk of their annual revenue. Because they want us to behave in this co op program and follow the rules and because we want to be creative and we want to deploy something different and interesting and still on brand but just not what’s approved. I can’t get anybody’s attention. And the difference in we are a shared service and we’re going to help the dealer win, we’re going to help our channel partners win versus we own brand guidelines and if you don’t perform then you’re not allowed to play completely different field to play on.

Luke Stoker [00:12:25]:
Yeah.

Kyler Mason [00:12:25]:
And John, you know, that’s something that really was so attractive about this role because that was one of my main complaints I had throughout my career, you know, and I’ve worked with dealers and OEMs and it’s just a huge gap that lies between let’s say no, let’s, let’s provide the tools, let’s help you move the product. It’s a win win scenario. At the end of the day we’re going to help you move more product and that’s a good thing for Winnebago as well. Let’s introduce them to your dealership. As soon as they go to winnebago.com let’s make sure we have all your up to date inventory on there are those leads being submitted to the right place. Let’s have the ability for them to text you directly from our dealer locator. Let’s introduce you as their local Winnebago dealer as soon as they interact with our brand.

Kyler Mason [00:13:02]:
What challenges are you guys facing with dealers that have a mixed lot where you’re bringing this tech and solution to their world? Do you see any friction there or like education that you have to work through? Like talk me, talk me through that.

Luke Stoker [00:13:17]:
Well, it’s that the technology side’s been very interesting to unroll because there’s a financial partnership with a banking facility with Aqua Finance which is a partner of Wells Fargo for their indirect side. The technology side is interesting because when you look at say the automotive space, there’s probably about five or six major websites players out there. And then you know, you look at a lot of the OEMs and they’re on Adobe AEM space and then each OEM has their different required OEM site platform. When you get into the RV space there’s really like one major player and maybe two small players. So Lead Venture owns the majority of the, the dealership’s websites through Interact rv. And so if we’re going to put tech on their site. Well now as we talk about the Rolex digital retail drawer and that, that where we’re really leveraging this technology, there’s got to be an agreement between Lead Venture and roll it, right? Well Lead Ventures like some other people in our industry and they, they want to make every nickel that they can because they have high saturation. Right.

Luke Stoker [00:14:26]:
So that deal between those guys took a little bit longer than expected. And the technology that we’re paying for, like we’re paying to put that digital retail drawer on the dealership’s Winnebago units new and used. Why? Because we want the same shopping experience from our website to the dealer’s website. It looks the same, it feels the same.

Kyler Mason [00:14:46]:
Do you have used inventory on your site?

Kyler Mason [00:14:48]:
No. Maybe they’re new inventory from the dealer, not pre owned. So new. All Winnebago dealers have new Winnebago dealer on our website.

Kyler Mason [00:14:55]:
Okay. Then on theirs they can use the same infrastructure for their new and use.

Kyler Mason [00:14:59]:
It’s called the digital retail drawer. You can have a call to action, any call to action that works, right? What’s going to make sense? And we did studies and looked into conversions and testing and the digital retail drawers on our website are closing 75% faster than most traditional leads with a conversion rate of 11 to 13%. You find any web form out there that’s converting at 11 to 13%, it doesn’t exist. So you know what, here Mr. Dealer, we’re going to pay for you to put this drawer on your website. It costs you nothing. We’ll cover it.

Luke Stoker [00:15:29]:
So there’s, there’s challenges. It took a while for them to work out. Hey, when you look at CTA on the website, how, how do we layer in and not create redundancy and, and those types of kind of topics and there’s, there’s been challenges with that and then building the connection between the financial partner that’s going to go live here. But so far even without the technology side we, we got our first credit app and 23rd of January I think right after, right after Tampa we are finally ready to start moving. And I think Mike’s got 41 dealers that are active on Aqua with our financial partner and another 60 that are waiting to onboard and we’re doing it at a very slow onboarding thorough training process to make sure that dealers really know how to utilize the program and what it means. Therefore, we’re seeing up to 580 something applications in under 45 days. So I don’t think we’re going to necessarily knock the COVID off the ball, but what we had paced out when I pitched the program and again we have one month of solid data for February and we’re going on month two. But we’re right on pace of where the program needs to be successful and we’re about ready to turn the dial up and allow the consumer that frictionless experience.

Kyler Mason [00:16:46]:
Are you measuring that through applications? Is that the word you used?

Luke Stoker [00:16:49]:
Yeah, consumer applications coming into the program. So there’s two ways for the financing portfolio portion of the program. The dealer can self submit on the Winnebago portal that Aqua has or the consumer can put in their application on the dealer’s website or on our website. Right. And then the consumer self submitting into it. So those are the two ways. On the finance side when we get looking at the success of the program, I don’t think it’ll just be in the revenue return. When you’re putting technology on multiple sites and you’re using the same technology, we use what’s called a universal ID pixel tag.

Luke Stoker [00:17:29]:
So even from an unsubmitted customer, we’re collecting UID data. And then once the customer is known, now we have a known UID and now we can start looking at shopping journey. And this is where for me, Mike can have all the personal conversations and build that relationship. I’m a data guy. There’s a third leg to this stool. His name’s Rich, he’s a data guy and a picture this. So what Target does well, Best Buy does well, what airline and grocery does well is they know exactly by the actions the consumer takes, how close their purchase intent is. And then when you do purchase, they take that purchase data and they model around the purchaser, not around the leads that we gather.

Luke Stoker [00:18:13]:
Our whole industry models our marketing messages around who submits leads and who we think that the buyer is. Well, if we get a submission into a credit application that gets approved for a certain unit and we have 10 of those in a month. I can take those 10 people, throw them at an experian, a transunion or something like that, pull out 270 data touch points on them, find where they align. Now have a data model of who actually purchases, not just submits leads and Then go out, find high quality, high target known people who are exhibiting the same traits and shopping behaviors and market to them instead of the vast audience. Now I can take my dollars that I’m investing from an OEM and make them work twice as hard for every one of our dealers out there. That’s when it gets exciting and that’s what we’re looking forward to.

John Gough [00:19:07]:
Luke, I think your comment though about the way that the industry models its understanding of the customer and builds messaging is really interesting. I remember working on a project a couple years ago where it was just like data science exploration. It’s just digging and mining through that stuff. And some of the questions sounded even like do they have horse property? Literally I think was one of the signals of what can we find about people in these towables versus motorized and the class A, B and C? What can we see if we can know all of that about the buyers and then model backwards is that’s the.

Luke Stoker [00:19:48]:
Gold mine at Winnebago. In 2019 they started working on their customer journey mapping and they started working on their customer Personas and they had just mass amounts of data going into the COVID era and they launched on the road ahead in late 2001 ish. When we launched the Echo, we launched a bunch of different products during that time and they just knocked it out of the park and they just grabbed share everywhere because they’re just coming out with all this great stuff and that data has really helped us drive a lot of different decisions. You know, I came from a marketing role at a dealership group and I’ve been exposed to so many cool things. We got Winnebago connects coming out at the same time we launched our first units were in in the field last year at about this time after Tampa and that’s a fully connected ecosystem. But if we can help in the shopping journey and then now if we can watch the data of usage and start to tell you and be predictive on maintenance or repairs or know something’s going to go wrong or hey, I’m on the road, I don’t know what’s happening. The service department at a dealership can, you know, go in and say hey, let’s run a system scan. Here’s what we’re seeing the your your closest dealer to you or is us.

Luke Stoker [00:21:01]:
We’re 25 miles away. The part will be here as soon as you get here or whatever. Right. We have all this cool data and technology that we’re going to start to be able to pull and leverage. That’s only going to create an experience that’ll be completely unmatched in the space.

John Gough [00:21:19]:
They’re music to a marketer’s ears because they are about CX and they’re about customer outcomes. And if you want to tie that back to these brand moments, you’re talking about the drawer that is literally the same shopping experience, no matter where you’re buying a Winnebago, and then your app is connecting you to a dealer, no matter where you are in the country. And that consistency is almost impossible to buy in this distributed model because these dealers, distributors, own their own entity and they control their own customer experience. And it sounds like Winnebago is putting real dollars and real humans into that ecosystem, not just mandating consistency, but delivering consistency in a way that supports the whole channel. I’m in love with the idea. And also my question for you, Mike, on that, on the heels of that, is, as you’ve developed these relationships and you’re sitting and whiteboarding with these dealers, where’s the firepower behind you to come back and say, we can help? Also help you deliver? Not just ideate. Do you have a corporate marketing team Dollars? Where, where does that come from?

Kyler Mason [00:22:27]:
A great, great question. And then to clarify, you know, the great thing about this adoption of the program itself, it’s not mandated. Right. The dealers have the option to sign in. And so these are people, I think we’re at 141 rooftops right now that have said, no, we want to do this. Let us take advantage of this without being a wrong mandate. So that’s great. So, yeah, because, you know, ideas only go so far.

Kyler Mason [00:22:47]:
Back to your question. I’ve been having a conversation with this dealer in Illinois the last couple of weeks, and we’re talking about, let’s look at your lead rate. Where are you generating your most lead from? I asked them for their last 100 units sold and created a perfect prospect map. Okay, Here are the zip codes of everybody, the last 100 people you’ve sold. Now, let’s see here. We have a majority of them in this little circle here.

Luke Stoker [00:23:10]:
Okay.

Kyler Mason [00:23:11]:
And we have a few that are 500 miles away. If you had a dollar to spend right now, where would you want to spend that last dollar? You want to go after where the majority of your market share is, so then we can get on the phone with an agency they’re working with and talk about that perfect prospect zone. We are rolling out right now a cooler promotion. So we’re going to also prepare to that any of the OEM literature that we’ve created, that we’re sending out. We’re also going to create a media kit down to the dealership level so they can put homepage banners on, they can put email campaigns, social assets, etc. So what the dealer needs, we’ll give them.

Luke Stoker [00:23:45]:
That’s a new commitment from us. I’d say that we did a really great job up until Covid and I don’t know where we lost it because I wasn’t part of the org at that point. We used to have pull out the toolbox and it have the cutaway of the side and it have samples of the materials and the interior and the curtains and everything else. And we kind of got away from the pop and the dealership branding aspect of things. And Chris west, our new president, is really committed to our dealers and he feels that we need to lay as much as we can to assist and make Winnebago the easiest to do business with. So if we’re the easiest to do business with and it benefits all parties to help the dealer all the way down to helping procure interest in our brand at the dealership level, let us provide email templates, let’s provide social assets, paid media assets. Here’s a promo, right? Here’s the social aspect, here’s email that you can send out to your people. Here’s the nurture series that goes out around it.

Luke Stoker [00:24:47]:
Here’s the, you know, some pop for your show floor. And I’d say that you look back at Marine and Power Sports, they’re great with their dealers on that and they just send them the kits when they need them. You have the materials at all times to help market the brand. And we’re going to be better partners than we have in the past at that. So in Mike’s example, just earlier this week with that dealer he was talking to, he was on the phone with their marketing agency helping them pick and select how do I spend my money to make it most efficiently? See ad rich and he’s like, all right, let’s talk about cpc. Let’s talk about click share and market share of this ad nad and how do we then pair what are we doing from an OEM on a keywords level and a targeting level. All right, we’re playing here and you’re going to play here because we want the low level attribution that in market actions to happen locally. So you look at the automotive Google guide, right? Or the Google’s Guide of automotive marketing.

Luke Stoker [00:25:43]:
We’ve all seen it, right? OEM here, dealer here, that’s not written in our industry anywhere. And we were buying when we started this project from the digital marketing aspect, we were buying dealership keywords. We were competing. I saw all of our dealers and all of our advertising. Like, why are we buying all this stuff? Like, we don’t need to be local dealership Winnebago, that’s where the dealer plays. Let us play up in the brand. And if we get low funnel attribution and we get conversion, great. And our philosophy has changed a little bit because we’re layering outside.

Luke Stoker [00:26:16]:
We’re learning that dealers aren’t doing as much as that. But every conversation that Mike and the team has, we’re getting more and more dealers that do that. And every dealer that we can layer into and create that awareness to where they’re playing with our brand, with their dollars, our dollar goes twice as far and we’ll see twice as much success.

Kyler Mason [00:26:35]:
One of the cool things as well, Luke, that dimension is this program we first came in. Is this going to be something that our smaller dealers take advantage of or larger dealers? And what we found so far, the answer is both. So we’ve been on these marketing calls with our largest dealer. We’re on there meeting with their marketing team, which might be bigger than ours, right? And we’re sitting there having these strategies, and then we’re on the phone with a dealer that has no marketing deal. They don’t have a CRM. They use Outlook to manage their leads. And so it truly is, let us help where we can. And they’ve all been open and receptive so far.

Kyler Mason [00:27:07]:
And we’re seeing a direct impact with.

Kyler Mason [00:27:09]:
The direction you’re headed. And these tools and technology are open to other OEMs to use. How are you going to create a moat and continue to win?

Luke Stoker [00:27:19]:
Hey, that’s Winnebago. Like, look at Winnebago going back to 1958 forward, right? We’re the pioneers in the industry. And then everybody follows and copies, right? So that’s our greatest challenge, I think, as a brand is how do we create the moat? How do we create that? We do it better and we did it first and we do it better. Right. I think that a lot of the digital stuff you’re going to see and you have seen in other industries. So how do we make it unique? Right. Aqua first went to Brunswick. They rolled out their finance program with Brunswick before they even came to Winnebago.

Luke Stoker [00:27:49]:
They’re in the process of rolling it out when our discussions were starting. So from a marine perspective, they had Some exclusivity period on that. We asked for exclusivity with stacking our technologies and having a VIN tied on the technology side to the lead submission. We asked for exclusivity on that when it comes to Rollick. Rollick is they’re an independent company, right. We’ve helped develop some, some great technology that they’re going to be able to take and leverage other places. We asked for, you know, exclusivity to. We need to get ahead of the gate.

Luke Stoker [00:28:22]:
And I think that we have a strong phased approach that we’re taking to this. So you see right now that the financial aspect of it with the financial partnership, you see the doctor drawer being available on dealership websites, the same that we have on our site. And the last thing we haven’t talked about is the communication side. So we have another partner, Connect. It’s not industry specific. A lot of outdoor rec, power sports and construction companies use Connect. We’re going to be able to layer in text messaging. You’ll text the dealer from our website, from our app, text the factory from the app.

Luke Stoker [00:29:00]:
We’re going to start to try to ingrain that technology all over the place and bring that forward. The next thing we’re going to look at is again, we’re not recreating the wheel, right? We’re using what’s out there that works. Certified and preferred partners. Right. So here are the vendors that we see doing the best in the space. How do we lead our dealers and help be a good partner to. These are the people that we see being long term players that are, you know, pioneering. Just like Winnebago is that we think could help our dealers in the best ways.

Luke Stoker [00:29:32]:
And it isn’t going to be just one. It’ll be multiples in every different space, whether it’s CRMs or websites or maybe it’s the next direct mail company, I don’t know. But that’s our next thing is to really start layering in the best opportunities for our dealers and create a healthy dealer body.

Kyler Mason [00:29:49]:
Us. What’s going to separate us? Because people will catch on and that’s fine. You know, competition is amazing and our product’s great that we have. We’re using some great products right now that any OEM can go out there and get. But I think besides the product, it’s the people behind it. And so let’s see who cares. Let’s see if they want to care as much as we care and then we’ll truly see what happens when they roll out of product. We can Give them the contact names of people we truly care about our dealers.

Kyler Mason [00:30:13]:
We want our dealers to win. So that is what’s going to separate us.

Luke Stoker [00:30:17]:
And you look at the tenure of our employees. So one lady on our team, her name’s Laura. Laura has been with the company 30 years. She’s in charge of our concierge department. So we have part of our performance team. When you submit a lead on our website, even though it goes to the dealer, I have a concierge person that follows up and says, hey, I’m from the factory. Just want to know, are all your questions answered? What can we do to help? We have a whole team of people that are underneath her. We have legacy in our employees and knowledge of our, in our employees in all facets that can’t be matched.

Luke Stoker [00:30:51]:
A young company is going to be able to come in and have that, that same legacy and that same passion for the brand. And what you’re going to see from our brand coming up, moving forward, especially with Chris’s leadership, is we’re really going to go back to our brand roots. The John K. Hansen era of pioneering the right product that the people are looking for, really embracing our people and our foundation and really listening to those facets in order to drive our business even further.

John Gough [00:31:23]:
I’m so glad you went back there. Look, and I caught that earlier when you were talking about that leadership component. Because if you don’t have that buy in from the very top about understanding the channel and the importance of the channel and how we’re going to support it and then the brand and all kind of the whole pyramid that gets built about why this works the way it works, then you’re going to be, you’re going to be fighting and cannibalizing paid spaces and creates so much friction in the system when you don’t have that clear, unified voice and vision that everybody can understand and get behind.

Luke Stoker [00:31:56]:
Yeah. And that’s something where, you know, Hugh Bauer is really the one that helped us get this program over the finish line and get it approved. And since his departure and Chris, Chris west coming on board, Chris has devoted the, the first, I think six months of being in the role to being on the road and listening to dealers. What do dealers want? What. Where are their challenges? Why are we not the easiest to do business with? Why. Why are we maybe losing share in some markets? What do we need to do better? And it isn’t mandating them to do XYZ trying to get orders. He’s out there just listening and he’s coming back to our internal teams and saying, hey, this is what I’m hearing. Even our program of this digital program has skepticism at the top levels.

Luke Stoker [00:32:40]:
But there’s some disconnect within our dealers because we’re talking to the marketing teams and the boots on the ground, and he’s talking to the higher level leadership of it. We’re finding disconnect in the dealerships there. And we’re like, hey, we might need to go on a roadshow and get the marketing teams all jazzed up and then let’s go walk into the GM or the principal’s office and say, hey, here’s what we’re doing together, right? And really bring that from the bottom up instead of the top down. So it’s, it’s an interesting approach. And again, our leadership, Kim Weckert, who’s, who’s our direct vp, she’s been an amazing leader with this and helping us really just refine and think through all the different scenarios. And she’s done this before. Right. And she’s just a great person to work from and very empowering.

Kyler Mason [00:33:28]:
How do you have the time to handle all of that change management and adoption? Well, because that is boots on the ground time.

Luke Stoker [00:33:35]:
If you go back to why did I come to Winnebago, right? Work, life, balance. We’re also in an ERP update from a mainframe and launching Salesforce Experience Cloud with a new dealer portal right now. We are taxed, I’ll be honest. But no, it’s fun. Every day is fun. And again, coming from the retail side of the business and Mike’s worked for some very high level performers that want every ounce as well. The appreciation for employees from your leadership, when you show genuine care for your employees, when you’re like, hey, I need to tap out, I need, I need a day, you know, and it’s understood there’s true care within our leadership. And, and that’s the difference between somebody that makes you, hey, we’re, we got to put hay in the barn today because tomorrow might be cold.

Luke Stoker [00:34:19]:
And every day we’re putting hay in the barn and we never get a day off. Right. Mike can attest, I think it’s been a great shift for him as well, of just having that care and the understanding that family comes first. And we do this again, we do this because it’s fun and it’s what we want to do. And I think that’s. That makes all the difference in the time of day for sure.

Kyler Mason [00:34:41]:
So background.

Luke Stoker [00:34:42]:
I.

Kyler Mason [00:34:43]:
Before I started Winnebago, I took a year off had a heart transplant. So March 26th will be my second year anniversary of my new heart. And so I took a year off getting my body right and just making sure I’m in the right spot, you know, thankfully, thank God, I’m doing fantastic. Everything’s great. But when I started, you know, I came up. I flew up to the corporate headquarters in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and Luke wrote a. A handwritten note to my wife saying, your husband will never miss a family dinner. Your husband will never miss a sporting event because of work.

Kyler Mason [00:35:13]:
And to have come from places where it’s seven days a week you’re on and you’re working 24, 7. If you’re up here working to have that kind of impact makes you want to go above and beyond. You know, I’d run, I’d run through a walk for Luke because of everything he does. He’s very appreciative. And as he sees it from Kim, I see it directly from him. This is a family. And when he’s busy, he needs help. He’ll say, hey, Mike, do you have time? Do you mind helping? Absolutely.

Kyler Mason [00:35:37]:
Take on new tasks? Because he would do it for us, we do it for him. It’s an incredible culture.

Luke Stoker [00:35:42]:
It truly is about people and relationships is why you win. I mean, we can talk about technology and, and all the different systems and data and all those things. At the end of the day, it’s driven by people and the people that care and people that show care listen with intent. That’s how you win.

John Gough [00:35:58]:
Why you win. Here it is. Why you win is presented by Element3, a marketing firm focused on modernizing go to market strategies for manufacturers that sell through complex distribution channels. We help leaders solve problems across demand generation, sales channel support and brand development.

Kyler Mason [00:36:17]:
If you’d like more from myself or John, connect with us on LinkedIn. And for more from element3, visit elementthree.com. That’s elementthree.com.