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Sometimes you back into the good life!
Greg Goebel, now a youthful 56, came from the high, cold North Dakota
prairie (Fargo, which rhymes with Largo, to be exact), arriving
in Key Largo in the 1950s with his parents. By the late '70s the
family sold the hotel they owned and looked for another life, an
easier one that didn't require 24-hour service to all kinds of patrons.
What the Goebels had in mind certainly wasn't what they ended up
with the friendly, well-managed Holiday RVs, a family business Greg
now owns. The business is intimate, like a family tree: his dad,
Ed, partnered and worked with Greg until his death in 2000. Greg's
wife, Barbara, serves as the controller and one of his twin daughters,
Kara, who came back from college, married her boyfriend and now
works as the business manager. The shop also supports about 10 workers
at any one time.
"My father and I started the business together," Greg
recalls. "Our thoughts at that time were to have a business
where we could work winters, close summers and go on vacation. We
wanted few or no employees and a simple business."
He pauses then adds, "It was a great idea that didn't work
out."
An idea that was based on renting out office space. But somehow,
through trades and deals and happenstance, four or five travel trailers
ended up on the site, and that changed the family plan forever.
"We finally took on the Prowler Fleetwood product and began
selling," Greg remembers.
Almost 25 years later, the family business is booming from its roughly
one-acre site on the Overseas Highway (US 1) across from the post
office, where some 50 to 60 motorhomes and travel trailers are displayed
at any one time.
Safari is the main motorhome line on the Holiday RVs lot, supported
by a range of travel trailers, including Coachmen, Forest River,
Nomad by Skyline, Freeport and Sunnybrook.
But in the limited-space Region 2 environment of the Keys, "Bigger
wouldn't be better," notes daughter Kara. There just isn't
any more room, at least not affordable room. "We have a very
short selling season here, from about January to May, and the bigger
RVs can sit on the property for too long, and then the floor plan
goes out on them."
Customer service is the key (pun intended!) to a business in the
Keys, where competition is fierce–and the Goebels provide
the best. Customers come from all over the country, Kara says, "but
we also get a lot of people who come down from the Miami area."
The simple motto of Holiday RVs: Keep Customers Happy.
In part through the Florida RV Trade Association (where he served
15 years as Region 2 secretary, two years as president and finally
director), and in part through his own gentlemanly honesty, Greg
has insured that competition becomes a boon to everyone, rather
than a detriment to some.
"Out in the Dakotas or Michigan there may not be many dealers
in a 200 mile radius, but in Florida, and especially here, they're
packed in," he explains.
"In a business as competitive as this, you're dealing with
customers who know you have competitive units close to you and every
dealer is aware of that. So it makes a whole world of difference
if you know the guy selling RVs up the street, if you've had drinks
or dinner with him. By being able to talk to those owners or managers,
you get the camaraderie, the closeness and it's not that devil down
the street giving things away."
But there is a caveat, Greg says. "The business owner also
has to be careful not to get into antitrust issues–such as
prices. But the business overall becomes more professional."
And while businesses have become more professional, buyers in Region
2 have become more sophisticated as well, he says.
"The product hasn't changed that much," Greg explains.
"It's basically the same motorhome as it was years ago, give
or take a few slides or storage underneath. But when we first started,
most consumers who came in were cash buyers. Think of what happened
in the Keys in the '70s and early '80s–there was a big influence
of drugs. They'd come in with shoe boxes full of cash, and they'd
buy a brand new Imperial–we were a Holiday Rambler dealer
then–and they plunked down $80,000 in a shoe box.
"Now we have a higher quality, more sophisticated buyer who
is normally 90-percent financed. So, buyers have gone from cash
to financed and from unaware to very sophisticated."
And the Goebels have gone from good customer service to very good
customer service. And that's where they will continue to go.
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