RVBusiness, September/October 2017
territory managers Then theres administrative assistance dispatch more service people managing more units in the field to the extent that we think were going to end up around 150 to 200 employees when we transition out of this Chief among the staff additions was the need for a vice president of sales a position the company filled in August with the hiring of Steve Jacobs an experienced executive with nearly 25 years in the industry Steve Jacobs has an enormous knowledge base of both products and dealerships said Middleton He has worked with dealerships throughout the U S and has managed and sold all different types of products Were working to set ourselves up with some unique highly qualified dealers with big territories he continued Were not going to clone so were not going to do three brands with the same product and most dealers are going to appreciate that They know they will hold a gross margin a little better than they could with some other products because everybodys selling the same thing Nor do we intend to have a crazy number of floorplans he added We look at our competitors and they all may have 15 different floorplans on the E 450 chassis Our experience has been Have three or four Those are the ones that are selling Dont just put a floorplan through your system because one dealer in Louisiana or in Oregon said Hey Im selling this twin bed unit with a kitchen off the rear wall and an outside shower We dont want that anomaly We want to go with the three or four floorplans in each segment that generate 80 of the business NeXus also brought on longtime service and warranty executive Ron Levitz to manage day to day service and warranty needs as well as oversee dispatch to dealers all of which will take place at a recently purchased 27000 square foot off site Elkhart facility Thats a big step for us said Donati We have to get a structure in place an apparatus because when we were factorydirect we had 250 service centers across the country and we were approving all the work looking at all the repair orders ourselves Now were authorizing the dealers to do the work Thats something a little bit new so we wanted to bring somebody in that had a tremendous amount of experience in that field In addition to service and warranty demands that newly acquired facility also will house NeXus RVs pre delivery inspection PDI operations including a unique camping simulation environment We recognize how important that is The firms 20000 square foot showroom is being converted into a final finish area 100 RVBusiness S E P T E M B E R O C T O B E R 2 0 1 7
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