It all started with Myron Curtis’ conversion of an Army surplus trailer into an RV. Someone offered top-dollar for his refurbished trailer and the World War II veteran found himself on the cusp of a new RV manufacturing business. Curtis built and sold a number of trailers after that initial sale but found selling RVs was easier than mass producing them. Now celebrating its 60th year as a dealership, focusing on towable RV sales rather than manufacturing RVs was clearly an astute decision for Curtis Trailers.

As one of Oregon’s oldest RV dealerships, the company now has two locations (in Portland and Beaverton), grosses $46 million in annual sales, employs an estimated 110 Oregonians and moves more than 1,600 units each year.

General Manager Morgan Philipp attributes the company’s success to hiring and training the right people, a low-pressure, single-contact sales process, and a focus on service that breaches the dealership’s property lines.

Curtis Trailers services a 30-mile radius around Portland but on rare occasions pulls customers from as far away as Seattle. Philipp has concerns about being able to service customers living so far away, but some customers insist on purchasing from the dealership because of its reputation for extraordinary service.

On one occasion where a new customer had a wheel bearing damage the axle, Philipp had his service team remove the axles from a similar model at the dealership. They then trekked to the broken RV to install new axles on the side of the highway as the customer watched.

Facilities and Location
While Portland is known for its rainfall, Curtis Trailers does not have an indoor showroom. The majority of indoor space is comprised of 16,000 square feet dedicated to 27 service bays and a 2,600-square-foot retail store for parts and accessories. Philipp says that while the city does get its fair share of precipitation, it’s rare that the temperature gets below freezing, making the showroom a low priority. The dealership has an additional 18 outdoor repair stalls under a large awning for RV repair and storage.

Between its two locations, more than 500 new and used RVs are kept in stock but the Portland location does 55-60 percent of the company’s total business. Philipp says its product sales leader is the Cougar brand by Keystone followed by Comfort by Thor. New unit RV sales are bolstered by $2.8 million in parts and accessories sales.

The Portland location resides on a mountainside bordering Highway 26 on an 8-acre parcel. More than 250 RVs are on display up the tiered mountain with an estimated 20 percent as used units.

“Normally it wouldn’t be like that but this is a little different year,” Philipp says. “A lot of them are fifth wheels and right now the fifth wheel market is down. Most years at this point I would be leaner on my used. We usually sell out of them. Normally I would be sitting on 365 units but would have well over 100 on order. Between both locations, I’m about 100 heavier than I would be. The other side of that is I don’t have as many on order this year. All in all, we are all in check. We still have about the same inventory coming and going, we just haven’t moved as many as we have in the past.

“We are fairly fortunate to have the location that we have. We looked at other locations that are in or around us,” Philipp says. “We are fortunate enough to have on the south side of us a big beautiful park, and north of us is a mountainside. So our trailers are kind of plateaued here; so we are sitting in a park-like setting to some degree.”

Quality Employees and Training
Philipp initially started as service manager in 1995 and now manages both locations under the tutelage of CEO Bob Schriever, the son-in-law of founder Myron Curtis.

“One of the challenges of managing two stores is trying to make sure things are done equally at both stores,” Philipp says. “We have a whole different culture over there (at the Beaverton location), so when we have a rule or policy that we put in place over here, that works here, it doesn’t always work over there.

“We have a great group of employees and they obviously are a huge part of our success,” Philipp says. “It sounds kind of cold and callused, but I was taught to hire and fire until you get what you want … I want to go to the Super Bowl, so to speak. If I got a guy who can’t get the ball down the field, I’m going to get someone else – whether it’s sales, or service or parts. The youngest tenure of our salespeople is three years. I’ve got a guy who has been here 20 years. That makes my job a little easier.”

Philipp says that when looking for quality employees, he tries to “hire for attitude and train to their aptitude.” He believes being a people person is an essential skill for every employee. Other key qualities he looks for when hiring are a willingness to do any task, an instinctive smile with good disposition and timeliness.

“Depending on if they are coming for parts, sales or service, if they have the rudimentary skills,” Philipp says, “like for a technician, if they know ‘righty-tighty, lefty-loosey,’ that’s half the battle.”

Coming from the service side of business, Philipp takes extra care to ensure his repair shop is top notch. The company’s technicians participate in online technician training provided by the RV Learning Center through the national RV Dealers Association and the Distance Learning Network offered by the Florida RV Trade Association (FRVTA). He says he also sees tremendous value when companies like Dometic and Norcold come to the shop for hands-on training.

Philipp was originally skeptical of the RV technician certification program because of his previous experiences as an automotive technician. He knew a number of techs with the Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certification who couldn’t apply the book knowledge to diagnose or fix autos.

“That patch didn’t mean anything to me. I had friends who had that patch and obviously they were able to be book smart, but they just couldn’t apply it,” Philipp says.

“That is what I was looking for here, people who can apply it regardless of what their patches were,” Philipp says. “Now, I think our clientele like to see that certification.

We have tried to get people trained and certified in that but only about ¼ of my techs are master certified. The rest are going through the training.”

RV Salespeople as F & I Agents
When customers shop at Curtis Trailers, they deal with a single person from the “meet and greet,” to the last minute addition of finance and insurance products, to the delivery of the unit. Each salesperson has set guidelines or minimums they are allowed to sell trailers for with commission based on gross profit. Philipp says that the system offers salespeople an opportunity to increase their personal income by offering extended warranties or service contracts, life insurance, gap insurance and paint protection in addition to commission on the RV sale. He believes having a single person handle the sales process helps establish rapport. High-end aftermarket products like satellite systems and generators are another source for salespeople to earn a little extra cash.

“My sales people are motivated because they sell the F& I products as well. They have a whole host of areas where they can generate their personal income, so they really don’t have to hold really fat deals or large margins on a unit – it’s developing that rapport with them. I have a number of my sales staff who are literally up-free. We use a no-pressure approach and it has worked well for us,” Philipp says. “I know we could probably increase sales by pushing hard as some dealers do, but we just don’t take that approach. I am sure to some degree we are leaving money on the table, but we are offering what we feel are the most value-added products that a person is going to want.”

Philipp says the dealership tries to maintain a 50 percent average for closing on F & I products with extended warranties being the No. 1 choice of consumers. His team pitches the product as a pre-purchase of labor. Many customers realize that labor rates will increase in coming years so the value of buying future labor at today’s lower rates is an easy sell.

“Obviously some will never use the product, but a great deal of my customers have used it to some degree to solve some issue that they have had. The best way to look at it when it comes to the service part of the contract is that you are prepaying for the labor,” Philipp says. “You are paying for that at the rate that labor is today.

“Seven years from now, I guarantee labor is going to be at least probably $14 higher.”

One F & I product that Curtis Trailers does not offer is carpet and upholstery protection because Philipps says he doesn’t feel it’s a good value for the travel trailer customer. Focusing on the customers needs so consumers have a strong sense of value for the company’s products and services is how Curtis Trailers explains its success.

“Without sounding braggadocious, we are ‘the’ competition. When we go into our expo shows we sold 119 in a down year. I believe one of my local competitors, the next behind us, was 40 pieces. In years past, we would do 130-140 pieces. Our highest was 137. We do great numbers at those shows but what sets us apart is our attitude.

“We really do want to take care of the customer,” Philipp says. “It isn’t a matter of making the largest gross; it’s a matter of putting people in a trailer so they can really enjoy the family camping experience. Our slogan is ‘Our business has been your vacation since 1948.’ We truly believe that.”