Ben Hirsch of Campers Inn RV

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

Ben Hirsch (00:00):

It's just like there's a whole package that we're framing and it's all focusing on the consumer experience first. We're leaning in on both what we deliver there and then our AI development is very consumer focused first as well, really trying to get in front of the consumer, make that a better experience so that our people, the humans, can actually deliver a good experience through technology.

Kyler Mason (00:21):

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 (00:29):

But the leaders in the industry are the ones who are making it look simple. I'm John Gough and I'm Kyler Mason and this is Why You Win, presented by Element Three. 

Our guest today is Ben Hirsch, the COO of Campers Inn RV. Ben has some strong opinions about what needs to happen in the RV industry to smooth out the supply chain between OEMs, dealers, suppliers, and ultimately the customer as well to improve the customer experience and make the whole industry more healthy. He outlined it in an article this summer and he goes into depth about both the Campers Inn strategy and how getting this right for the industry is going to improve the situation for everybody. This is a great one. Ben, we're so glad to have you on the show. Thanks for joining us.

Ben Hirsch (01:12):

Yeah, thanks for having me.

John Gough (01:13):

So you are in a pretty cool seat at Campers Inn, and as the COO, you see all sides of this business, and I think COOs in different businesses have different mandates. Tell us about what the business expects from you on a day-to-day basis. What are you focused on?

Ben Hirsch (01:31):

In my role, I'm the sole direct report to the CEO. So basically all the different functions report through me, whether it's the sales, whether it's the fixed ops side of the business, whether it's the back office. So my job is to execute strategy. That's really what it comes down to is I take the strategic, what we want to do, where we're going as a company, and I make sure that it happens all the way through to the front lines.

John Gough (01:55):

A pretty big job, Ben. Got a lot going on.

Ben Hirsch (01:58):

It's a lot of fun. It's challenging. It's certainly been challenging in the dealer space the last few years, so it's kept me on my toes. There's no question about that.

John Gough (02:05):

I want to talk to you more about that, but when we have people on the show who have a military background, I can't help myself, but ask a little bit about that because I think being in charge of all this and head of operations looks like it has a pretty direct tie to some of your early career work. Would you say that's fair?

Ben Hirsch (02:21):

Yeah, maybe less stressful sometimes. I had a bunch of different jobs in the military, but graduated from West Point, was an aviator, so I flew Black Hawks, even flew them in Iraq there. That was probably more stressful than this job can ever be, even in the toughest of times. Then the military treated me great, awesome jobs. I was a speech writer, I was an honor guard commander, picture spinning rifles and stuff and being the commander for that for a multinational honor guard. Did some really cool things in the military. To your point, you learn how to lead people, you learn when to be a forceful leader, when to be a more supportive leader and all the things in between, and it certainly lays the groundwork for operations and business.

Kyler Mason (03:08):

Do you ever have moments where you're just having a day and you're like, "This is nothing like what I was doing."

Ben Hirsch (03:15):

I do have to remind myself sometimes because there's those frustrating moments where it's like, "Man, nothing can go right today." I'm like, "You know what though? This is better than getting shot at."

John Gough (03:25):

At least I haven't been shot at today.

Ben Hirsch (03:27):

Yeah, exactly. There could be worse.

Kyler Mason (03:29):

Through somebody's eyeballs, right?

Ben Hirsch (03:31):

Exactly. Yeah.

Kyler Mason (03:32):

You mentioned executing on strategy. I'm actually curious, do you guys operate with any particular strategy framework or is it something that's homegrown for you guys?

Ben Hirsch (03:41):

The answer is a culmination of several different strategies. I also got my MBA from Wharton after I left the military. There was for sure a firm company strategy, but some of what I did was take a lot of strategy courses and some of the different frameworks, whether it's the five forces or whatever, and bring them back to the company and we set a strategy. We have a national strategy document that lays out the choices. I often tell our people strategy is as much about what you choose not to do as what you choose to do because a good strategy has all the things that you're choosing not to be. We have a national strategy document that lays that out and describes the national strategy and then every store or market describes how they fit into that national strategy, which is the things that we choose to do and not to do in each one of our markets.

Kyler Mason (04:34):

This podcast may not end up talking about your business. We might just talk strategy.

Ben Hirsch (04:40):

I'd love to talk strategy.

Kyler Mason (04:42):

I know.

Ben Hirsch (04:42):

It's one of the things that's a lot of fun. Yeah.

Kyler Mason (04:44):

It is a lot of fun. You've developed or kind of meshed a few things together. You said one's five forces. We're very familiar with playing to win, which is also a series of choices and where to play and where not to play and how to win. Is there anything else that you're kind of meshing into that?

Ben Hirsch (05:03):

I'd have to go back to it. One of the big, and I forget who wrote this, but you might remember the framework. The framework's about the efficient frontier and where do you want to be as a business on the efficient frontier? It's basically the trade-offs between cost and what you provide there and there's a theoretical optimum, and what often happens is people want to be the lowest cost and the highest service and it's like that's impossible. There's that framework.

Kyler Mason (05:26):

That's great. I haven't heard of that one.

Ben Hirsch (05:28):

Man, I'd have to find that article and send it to you guys. It was one of the things that really defined our very early strategy when we were going from, let's call it sub 10 stores and where did we want to be on the efficient frontier because we didn't want to have, think of it as high volume, low service stores and very high touch, lower volume stores that didn't make sense to us and we had to pick which section of the frontier we wanted to be on. So that one definitely framed some of our initial thinking.

Kyler Mason (05:56):

But there's related plane to win. Roger Martin, just like a strategy guy, says that you are either a low cost strategy or a differentiated strategy. And like you said, you can't effectively mesh the two of those things together on the extremes.

Ben Hirsch (06:15):

You're not going to be the Motel 6 with Ritz-Carlton service. It's just not going to happen.

Kyler Mason (06:20):

We will do it all. So you can't make those choices, man.

Ben Hirsch (06:23):

Exactly. I mean, there's other strategies. I hate to say that I read them and use the principles and quickly forget what the framework is or who wrote it. I know that's awful to say, but that's probably a lot of people that are lifelong learners.

John Gough (06:39):

I think that's everybody, right? You're picking and choosing and you're building the ball of wax as you go.

Ben Hirsch (06:46):

Exactly, exactly. Then you pull a piece in, you say, okay, what does this mean to us? Which pieces are we going to use? The reason why I remember Porter's Five Forces is because it's just so fundamental to really identifying the core of a strategy. I wouldn't say it does everything, but it's pretty good and you can apply it to not just businesses, but even government organizations and other things. It's pretty useful.

John Gough (07:09):

I'm a pretty big believer that brand and strategy look very similar from the inside and the outside of an organization. Without revealing all of your secrets, can you give us the public version of the strategy? If somebody's looking at you guys as an organization, what should they recognize?

Ben Hirsch (07:29):

Our brand for a very long time was, we called ourselves the trusted resource. The RVer's trusted resource. We would talk about what that means. Probably was a little bit too corporatey. Right now we are in the launch phase on our website and some other things where right by you is the phrasing that we're using, and we like that because internal and external, it works for whether it's our employees and how we treat them, right by you and the customers. The idea with the customers is we want to be the major dealer in our industry because there's only so many consolidators that really focuses on the customer experience first. We're not going for a commoditization strategy. You can already tell just based on what I'm saying. We're more of a differentiated strategy. So what does right by you mean? Even in the sales process, it's like how we present our pricing, fee structure, all that is high transparency.

(08:21):

How we build the ownership experience, how we package the benefits for them throughout their ownership experience. It's not just sell, see you later, hope you come back one day. It's the entire ownership experience. So memberships, free camping, which we're working on a bunch of stuff there. Some of the things that we do with the relationship through our insurance agency. So it's just like there's a whole package that we're framing and it's all focusing on the consumer experience first and we're leaning in on both what we deliver there and then our AI development is very consumer focused first as well. Really trying to get in front of the consumer, make that a better experience so that our people, the humans, can actually deliver a good experience through technology. We're not using AI, for example, to drive cost out of the organization as much. I mean, there's some of that, but we're really trying to use some of the latest technologies to drive the human element of it further.

John Gough (09:15):

How are you teaching that?You're at the C level, you need the layer below you to understand that deeply and then to communicate that to everybody throughout the organization. How do you do that well?

Ben Hirsch (09:28):

I was just thinking about this and talking to somebody about this. I think what you're getting at is the hardest part of meshing a higher service model and then meshing that with a workforce like we have, multi-generational workforce that's very frontline. Dealerships is just. Look, I'm not full of Google people. I'm full of normal people. And how do I get them to actually buy into a differentiated strategy that's AI-adapted is super hard. So how are we doing it? I think we're doing it okay because I think everybody's kind of learning how to do this and there's really no adult learning models around AI for our type of workforce yet. We see some of the initial stages of that. I've already challenged the senior leaders to really lean into AI and learn it, not just learn it from the surface level, but going ahead and using Claude Code and actually figuring out how that works so they understand it and then thinking about it for how do we actually make our employees better at what they do?

(10:32):

We're building tools that help the frontline, especially managers. For example, one of the tools that's in beta right now is helping our frontline sales management with all the things they need to be looking at in the morning and giving them all the really deep dive and they love it. The 10 stores that we're beta testing that just love it. We're trying to sell them on some of these ideas and bring them along. But to your point, it's difficult because there's resistance and there's fear, especially the fear side. Is this going to take my job? It's like, guys, we're going maybe with a competitor, but with a differentiated strategy, well, we actually need you to be really good at the human element of this. And that's what we're trying to do is take off some of the more tasky stuff. So that's a huge answer to your question, but I feel like we're right in the middle of this.

John Gough (11:21):

No, I think that is the answer and it sounds like your answer is I'm democratizing that as much as possible. I'm trying to get everybody in the whole organization to understand the whole thing. I think some versions of strategic implementation look like sort of a need to know basis. I just need you to understand your scope and your domain and you go just trust the process, believe that we are going in the right direction, and if you do your part, then we'll all win together. Maybe there's some merit to that, but I think that your description of it sounds a little bit more like I need everybody to get their hands dirty so that they understand the capabilities and then we can all ideate into this world together instead of mandate into this world together. I'm putting your words in your mouth, so you tell me if I'm getting it right.

Ben Hirsch (12:16):

I think that's a huge part of it, but it's also the communication piece. One of the hardest things for an organization, I mean, we started hitting this when we had, let's call it 500 employees, and then with the latest acquisition, we just inherited another 500 employees, so we're over 1500 at this point, employees. How do you get the information to 50 stores, 22 states, that many employees? It's super difficult. I was reading just recently, and I forget the exact number, but it's like if you're going to truly have a good company communication strategy, you need to have five different mediums to get out to people. We do emails, which nobody reads. We got to be realistic about it. We just kicked off an internal podcast. We have company flyers, an internal communications page. We're trying to do multiple ways to get information to our front lines, but it is a never-ending challenge.

(13:09):

We have not cracked the code. I feel like we're still on the surface, even though we're trying all these different mediums to make sure our frontlines know and are informed about where we're going as a company.

Kyler Mason (13:19):

In addition to those channels that you're talking about, do you have any sort of operating structure or cadence with management, how you're taking key initiatives, messages and saying, okay, now by the end of this month, we have to have now distributed this information to these levels at this time? Do you have anything that's in place like that?

Ben Hirsch (13:41):

Probably not quite as formal as the second half of your question, but probably spot on on the first half. I guess my military background, I like certain cadences. As my national leadership team, which is all the national directors plus all of my heads of various support staff, we have a meeting once a week. We talk about communication, we talk about all the things that we're each doing, and we'll have a focus area each week that we'll dive into. Additionally, I love one-on-ones, so coaching. I sit down with each one of my direct reports, and my expectation is they sit down with their direct reports. We have a pretty good cadence of that, and honestly, AI is making us better at it, a lot better at it because AI, you can transcribe things, you can feed it in, you can have much better action items, so you do have due dates on everything, and AI's really helped our organization along with that.

Kyler Mason (14:32):

You have what sounded like a documented strategy at the corporate level, and then you mentioned something about the stores do a version that ladders up to that, or is it regions? What did you say?

Ben Hirsch (14:44):

It's all one document. So the company level strategy is defined, then we'll have regional level strategies defined, and then store levels and where they go. So for example, we might have. New England's a good example. We have three stores in New Hampshire, two in Mass, and one in Connecticut. Well, if all of those stores went after the exact same brands, markets, all the things, cannibalization would be crazy, right? So we have to define who's going to be going after the competitive, medium, and premium spaces in those markets, what brands we're going to differentiate. So we work collaboratively with our teams, but transparently, the first draft of the store level strategies is done nationally every year, and then we go back to them and say, "Okay, give us any feedback that you think we might've gotten wrong, and there's collaboration." So then what happens is, same with the budgeting cycle, each one of our general managers has to present to the C-suite every year, like the execution of their strategy.

(15:40):

They take the strategy document, they've created the budget along with some of the support teammates, and they actually present to us, "Here's how we're going to go execute this strategy," and then we have a mid-year check-in at the middle of the year too. We actually just finished a whole bunch of rounds of all of our stores, and that's a lot of time, but it's one of the ways that we get our frontline managers tied in with the strategy because they actually have to present how they're going to execute on it and any adjustments they want to make to the strategy, and that's an operating rhythm that we have those two times a year. So my CFO just poked me and he's like, "Okay, Ben, it's time for you to update the national strategy so the guys are ready when we kick off budgeting here in about six weeks or so."

Kyler Mason (16:23):

Dang, that's pretty cool. We should steal some of that at a much smaller scale, but departmentally, I really love the, what is it, the accountability and even just the healthy pressure that you're able to put on the organization to stay aligned and make commitments, and I'm sure you're measuring follow through and all that kind of stuff. That's good stuff.

Ben Hirsch (16:45):

It has other implications that are really cool too. As you can imagine, in my position, I don't necessarily interact with the favorable managers as much, favorable GMs. If they're doing a good job, it's not that I'm hands off, but probably like most managers, we kind of migrate to where the problems are, and it's an awesome opportunity for our guys and gals doing a great job to really be like, "Look at what a great job I'm doing, and here's how we're going, and here's the next steps." It also allows me to see them in a really good element. At the same time, it also allows the managers who are kind of floundering and struggling, they have to do this presentation, and we start at the same way every single time. "Hey, the floor is yours. We're going to write down notes, and when you finish, we'll ask questions, have a discussion, that sort of stuff, but the floor is yours for the next 30 minutes, 40 minutes, and so we let them just go and then we get into discussion.

(17:36):

Well, stores that are more floundering or GMs that are kind of struggling, they need direction, and you can kind of tell because they're talking about things and they're unsure of the next steps and they'll be, "Well, I don't know if I need to hire this manager," and you'll pick up on it, and then you frame the conversation around it. So that is one of the things I learned in the military. As a new lieutenant and a really early captain, I remember I'd have to make presentations to battalion commanders, brigade commanders, and sometimes general officers, and it scared the heck out of me, and I hated it, but it was a great developmental opportunity to actually be able to present my plan to a senior leader and then get the feedback, and those are huge growth opportunities.

John Gough (18:16):

Was that format, is that where you got the line? We're going to sit, we'll take notes, floor is yours.

Ben Hirsch (18:21):

Yep, and it's scary because it's like, "What is this general officer thinking about me right now? Is he going to tear me a new one at the end?" Usually it's like, "Good job, Captain Hirsch. Great, great. Thanks for putting this together. I got a couple questions for you, move on." But every once in a while you'd be like, "Oof, that was a tough one."

Kyler Mason (18:37):

Yeah, and the stone cold dudes that are just giving you no body language, you're like, "How's this going?"

Ben Hirsch (18:42):

Exactly. Exactly.

John Gough (18:43):

So you and I started talking over the summer after you published an article, sounded like maybe you got frustrated and maybe just went full send on some stuff that you were seeing in the industry that wasn't to your liking. I messaged you, I was like, "Man, you got to come on the podcast and talk about that." We have a lot of OEMs come on here and talk about business and strategy and their perspective on things and their relationships with dealers and what they expect and how they are able to gain leverage in these relationships, not in a negative way, but just how do we get a sales force that we don't own to behave in a way that benefits our organization? That's their big strategic fight so much of the time. You, as a representative on the other end of that, are having this vocal moment in the market where you're saying, "Hey, actually, there's some issues that we're seeing." So rather than me represent that, why don't you give your pitch on what the issue is?

(19:47):

We'd love to hear that.

Ben Hirsch (19:48):

The retails and the wholesales weren't matching very well in our industry, and that's really the pattern that we were seeing, right? Inside the industry, there's lots of reasons why, and the reasons why makes sense from everybody's perspective. We're a seasonal industry, you typically build inventory before the season, so you're kind of guessing, you're putting POs out there on a guest as a dealer, and then as a manufacturer, you're incentivized to produce inventory, right? So there's incentives from both sides. We want to build inventory and the manufacturers, or we want to build inventory going into season pair coming out of season. The manufacturers want to obviously produce what they have, and many of the manufacturers are public companies, so that's not like they can have yards that they sit on either. So challenges on all sides. Yet at the same time, going back to one of the supply chain management classes that I took is that there's this thing called the bullwhip effect.

(20:40):

And what it is is when you have small changes in retail and information is not flowing consistently up and down the supply chain, by the time you get to the end of the supply chain, they're massive, massive variations. And anybody that's ever been through one of those bullwhip exercises, because every MBA out there has these things, it's like you can change retail by two or 3%, but by the time you get to the end suppliers, it could be a 30 to 50% production swing. It's just not healthy. How do you fix this? Well, you fix it by better information sharing in a couple different ways, and that's what I was really trying to get at is not only do we have to share the information dealers to manufacturers, manufacturers to suppliers and on up the chain, but we need to act on it. When we're seeing the retails not execute the way that we anticipated them happening, then we need to be working with the manufacturers and suppliers all the way up to adjust production.

(21:33):

And that's painful because what's really happening behind the scenes is us as a dealer, we're issuing a PO, let's call it six to 10 weeks out. Depends on the manufacturer. Some could be more or less. And what it means is that we're actually asking for adjustments well within some of those dates, well within those committed dates. As a manufacturer, that ask is we need to adjust that so we don't have this overstocking of inventory in the field when a year like this market's down, I think the last I saw year-to-date teens, let's call it 15 to 18%, something like that. Wholesales are only down, I think, 12%. Yeah, exactly. Wholesales are down less than that still. I know I just verbalized a lot of it, but it creates all sorts of challenges. The end user, the consumer doesn't benefit from this. They may from the short-term sale, but one of the problems that they have is when you're ramping production up or down, quality is going to be an issue.

(22:29):

Then the other piece is this has huge impacts on trade-in values for consumers. So this doesn't just affect us in the industry and profitability throughout the industry. It actually has a material impact on the consumer too. I think everybody wins if we can get better at this is really my argument.

John Gough (22:43):

I think it's a strong argument before I ask all of my questions about it. What's the reaction been?

Ben Hirsch (22:50):

Mixed, right? So from dealers, it was super interesting. A lot of dealers reached out to me and basically I think they amplified what I said as more pointed than maybe what I said it like, "Yeah, the manufacturers are overbuilding." I said, "Guys, I pointed the finger at us too as dealers. We need to be sharing the information. We need to be holding manufacturers to what we think is retailing." So this isn't a one-way street, but I got a lot of reaction of, "Yes, you're pointing the finger." I'm like, "I'm kind of pointing the finger at all of us, but okay, fine." Some manufacturers actually, it's funny, usually several manufacturers reached out and were like, "Thank you for actually saying this because we agree internally as well," which was interesting. And then I had several say, "Yeah, Ben, but you know that's not going to work and that's just not how our industry operates." Or, "I don't agree that we can get there," or other versions of I don't agree, which is great.

(23:42):

I like a good debate. I actually like arguments. Then from suppliers, I think suppliers unanimously felt like, yes, this would be better. That was probably one of the reactions I wasn't anticipating, but I think they're feeling it so much at the end of the bullwhip that they were saying, "Man, if we can get better at this, this would materially change my business." So I thought that was interesting too.

John Gough (24:06):

Well, what's happening at the end of the bullwhip? When you look at the picture and you think about the theoretical model, you're like, "Okay, yeah, that makes sense." But what we're really talking about is bringing on and laying off dozens or more people every couple of years to try and understand the cycle and accommodate either a frustrated customer who wants more and you can't make enough, and now that you're going to lose the business. Or on the other end, you're staring at all these employees and you're like, "Sorry guys, you're going to have to go find somewhere else in Elkhart to work," which is miserable.

Ben Hirsch (24:44):

And Elkhart feels it, right? Elkhart County feels the ups and downs of the market more than the market, right? The market's up and down much less than Elkhart County feels it. So to your point, there's real people that get hurt or benefit on the other side when this is going that way. I guess I'm just saying it could be more stable. There is a better way.

Kyler Mason (25:09):

So the data that we're talking about sharing, what are the barriers that have to be overcome to actually get that to happen? Because that's what I feel like is at the end of the day, when people are like, "We can't make it happen," they're saying probably the data sharing is impossible. V

Ben Hirsch (25:24):

I don't think it is impossible. We already share a lot of data with the manufacturers who are willing to take it. It is more clunky than it has to be. And what I mean by that is we've automated processes where we're dumping Excels or CSVs to manufacturers that want it based on what we're seeing on the retail side. That could be super automated, specifically if we actually had APIs between our DMSs and the manufacturer systems, that could be even more automated. My recommendation would be manufacturers turn around and do it with some of their suppliers so they can see the retail real time. People point the finger at Stat Surveys and I'd say, "Yeah, but Stat Surveys is super lagging. Six weeks is way too long to wait for real actionable data. It's the same as POs at that point." So I think the data does exist in the dealer's hands, some large dealers as well.

(26:14):

There are several other large dealers that reached out to me that told me that they data share with the manufacturers as well. So I think that there is some data sharing. I think there could be more. And then, like I said, it's the acting upon it and actually having the discussions about moving POs up and back and based on what we're seeing on the retail side. I

John Gough (26:32):

Think I saw another stat in the last couple of days that basically follows the Pareto 80 / 20. I think it's really more like 70 / 30, but these large dealer groups are massively representing the volume of units moving in the marketplace right now. And so even if you got that set of dealers together and unified the data and you got the OEMs to reference that in the same way, I think it goes a really long way into getting at least directionally correct in what's happening in the market. I think that the problem maybe is not the data, and it maybe is closer to the willingness of the people on the other end of the data to turn off the faucet, on either end of data, to turn off the faucet and acknowledge, "Hey, down 14% actually means that whatever projections we might want to be true in the market right now are just not true here in H2 of 2026, and we have to set our sites accordingly."

Ben Hirsch (27:38):

We're an optimistic bunch in our industry. I know you guys cover a bunch of industries, but in the RV, we're an optimistic bunch. And so we like to make excuses for ourselves, especially going into new years, all the reasons that the next year's going to be different than the last, why the shows aren't happening the way that we thought because of weather versus actual market impacts, all the things. You know what? The problem is if weather impacted sales, then we still need to pull back because we have too much inventory because we didn't sell the inventory we expected. And it's hard to really. You mentioned the willingness. I 100% agree because the willingness needs to be there because even if we do miss because of a weather incident, the rest of the year is fine, that still could result in having, you have to do the math, but thousands more RVs on the ground and there has to be some sort of adjustment to get that into line so that there's not even a small bullet effect that's happening.

John Gough (28:35):

And allow us to also take a moment to say this is not us pointing the finger at the RV industry either because this happens literally every day in our business too. As business leaders, you have to be an eternal optimist about opportunity and revenue in the future and what's going to come next. If you're not, then where is growth going to come from and where it's the role of the visionary is to believe that the future is bright.

Ben Hirsch (29:03):

I agree, but have good practices on the back end to make sure that you're handling your assets the right way.

John Gough (29:14):

Yeah. Well, because the future's not going to be bright if you have to write a coupon every six months.

Ben Hirsch (29:19):

And that's what we're experiencing in our industry, right?

Kyler Mason (29:21):

Let's play this out. Let's say that we have reached a point where we've enabled the data sharing and we've democratized that across the industry. Then what happens? How does competition change?

Ben Hirsch (29:35):

Well, competition, that's an interesting question. So there's two different questions. So if the data sharing's really good, then us dealers and the manufacturers, if we agree on this, we should be sitting down very frequently. And by we, I mean really it's the people managing the inventory on both sides of the equation. So I have a team that does that and they have teams that do that and they're flexing orders, the PO book, based on what we're seeing, and it's more of a sort of thing. Now, am I saying you're going to flex like something went online today and you're not going to take it? That's not realistic. I understand there's only so much you can shake out of the bullwhip, but I am saying that there is some of it that we can shake out. So that's kind of one perspective is the next version of this is much more frequent conversations, adjusting to it and not being penalized either as a dealer for wanting to push POs back or as a manufacturer when they are pulling them forward.

(30:29):

There's two sides of this coin and we all need to be kind of playing by those. On the competition side, I do think that there's some industry players and us sometimes too, if I'm being fair, that benefit from this. Manufacturer has a yard of inventory, I buy a whole bunch of stuff cheap and I go ahead and gain market share. Or I don't and I'm playing more conservatively and a competitor does the same thing or they're betting on the comm and all the things. I don't think that ever shakes out completely either, but I think it can get better. But once again, if you think of the consumer, put the consumer first. What is best for the industry long term? What's best for the consumer? And I would say that what's best for the consumer is a more consistent supply chain, better quality, not turning things on and off all the time and more consistent trade values and sale values.

(31:22):

Because right now we are now three, four years in a row of training our consumers to just wait for the next fire sale. Has impacts on the trade value, has impacts on everything, but we also know that the next fire sale may not be the highest quality RVs either, may or may not be, really depends. So I think that there is a better state where the consumer can just go and they can shop when they want to shop and know that they're going to get a relatively consistent deal. And I think that all of us inside the industry can benefit from just a more consistent, whether it's more consistency on the inventory, on the turn rates, on the profitability, on all the things. And I think everybody can win. So does it potentially hinder some people's strategy if their strategy is wait for the manufacturer to overbuild and just buy a bunch of stuff?

(32:07):

Sure. But oh well, in my opinion, I don't think that's a sustainable strategy for the industry though.

John Gough (32:14):

And I think that comes back to the earlier part of our conversation about how are you making those decisions for your organization and how is everybody else also, to use the phrase playing to win on their own terms. And I think that it requires a lot of trust to look. If I'm sitting in the OEM seat and I'm looking at you, Ben, across the table in this co-opetition moment, and I know that you are representing other OEMs and I know that part of your strategy across, let's say these three Northeastern states includes the value brands, the middle brands and the differentiated brands, and I represent only one piece of that portfolio. I also know you're a really smart guy and so you are looking for margin and opportunity in your business. How am I negotiating with this very savvy player in the industry and putting myself in the best situation?

(33:16):

And I'm betting on the industry as much as I'm betting on my own business as much as I'm betting on you being a great partner to me. I think it does require a lot of trust. Scary.

Ben Hirsch (33:25):

So what you're describing is a prisoner's dilemma, right? But the key here is this is a repeated game. The industry players change much slower than not. So even if people at the manufacturers or dealers shift from dealer to dealer, manufacturer to manufacturer, generally speaking, it's the same players mostly. Yes, people come and go, but it's the same players mostly. So you learn who you can trust and who you can't trust. So is Ben at Campers Inn going to go ahead and use this as an opportunity to shift shelf space or disadvantage the manufacturer? Well, then I'll gain a reputation of he's not trustworthy in these transparent negotiations or not just him, maybe it's his whole organization because he has a culture of taking advantage, one-sided deals, win-lose scenarios. And this is where I love the prisoner's dilemma because in isolation, the prisoner's dilemma, the problem with it is that we know where it kind of ends up a lot of the time.

(34:26):

But when you do have trust and you have a repeated prisoner's dilemma sort of thing, generally speaking, the players that are most in their own best interest will look for the win-wins. And it's because they know that that's the best outcome after a repeated sort of gamification of this. So anyway, so I know that's like, once again, I can talk strategy with you guys, but that's a huge part of strategy. If we have a repeated gamification, we know that win-win is what we're going to go to, but if it's a one-off and Ben's only negotiating once, we may end up with a win-lose, maybe even a lose-lose. But I just don't see the industry that way. I mean, the same manufacturers I worked with years ago, I'm still working with today. Yes, there's some retirements, there's some other people, but generally speaking, I have a reputation, my company does, and so do they.

(35:15):

And I think that's the X factor and where you can gain it. So in one off scenarios, will some dealers and/or manufacturers take advantage and they will, but then they have to get the reputation. And to me, that's where I think it can change over time.

John Gough (35:30):

I mean, I think that's the role. We talk about that as the Drucker model, what's the role of the CEO or in this case, the leadership of the organization. You're balancing yield in the present and investment in the future. And to make that good choice today for the business that is also the good choice long term is what you are describing. It is live in a world of trust that understands you're going to play this game again next year or maybe six months from now, and you better understand that if you screw your buddy today, then you're not going to get good cards next time.

Ben Hirsch (36:06):

And that's how we think about it. So I remember when COVID first happened, COVID ended up being good for us, but at the very first part, we made a conscious decision, for example, not to cancel any of our orders. And we did that because we knew that the manufacturers were about to be as hurting as we were at the time, March 2020. And we thought about it exactly the way you're talking about. We made a strategic choice to say, we are not going to literally dump things that are coming offline next week. Anything that was a back order, we work with our manufacturers on, but it was the orders. And we did that because we knew that this game is repeated and because we know that if we're a trusted partner today, we can be a trusted partner tomorrow. And that's how you build or crush your reputation, honestly.

John Gough (36:50):

I love it, man. We could keep going for a long time on this, but I think you've got me convinced.

Kyler Mason (36:56):

I'm still thinking about just how you get the industry to coordinate to make this possible in a way where along the way there's not unfair advantage because there's some participation and some not. Do you have to campaign for it and then set up some unbiased, neutral, central organization that then once we're all set up, you turn the switch on? What do you do?

Ben Hirsch (37:22):

I don't think it happens all at once. And I do think that there's gamification that happens throughout it and people abuse the system, but I also think that there needs to be spokespeople inside the industry that say, "This is the way we'd like to go." As you know, I can't go ahead and get a signed letter by a whole bunch of dealers that's called the antitrust. So the most I can do is say what our position is as a company and what we would like to see from the industry. And if other dealers reach out to me, I can ask them, "Hey, I'd love for you to go ahead and say the same things to your manufacturer partners." But it is a very small industry. There's very few big players on both sides, manufacturer and the dealer side. And so we can't dictate to each other how we're going to do business, but we can make recommendations.

(38:09):

So on the how, how I see this changing is a little bit at a time. I didn't expect to launch the article and then overnight, oh, everybody's doing it all of a sudden. This is great. It's like Nirvana did not come, but I think we can have the continued conversation with the manufacturers. We see more down months. We say, "Hey, look, we've had this conversation. We're pulling back on these. I'm asking you not to penalize me for pulling back." Or vice versa. We're seeing the market accelerate. I need more inventory. I need you to ramp up more quickly. It's iterative. So I don't think it's a revolution, but it's an evolution. But it's the same way that the original people that kind of invented the whole bullwhip effect, the Walmarts, the P&G, they didn't do it overnight too. They did it one product at a time, a little bit at a time, and then it just made sense.

John Gough (38:54):

Yeah, man. And this has been great. Ben, this has been great. Thanks so much for coming on. We really appreciate it.

Ben Hirsch (39:00):

Yeah, thanks for having me on.

John Gough (39:02):

Why You Win is presented by Element Three, 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. If

Kyler Mason (39:18):

You'd like more from myself or John, connect with us on LinkedIn. And for more from Element Three, visit elementthree.com. That's elementthree.com