Meet Rick Showers.  He does not sell gum.  He sells used RVs and he applied the lessons from Wrigley’s and is growing like crazy.  New sales record after new sales record.  Learn what he is doing to grow and the lessons he has learned along the way.

Clockwise from upper left: Rick Showers, David Young, Stephen Semple

David Young:

Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast, teaching business owners, the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those.

[No Bull RV Ad]

David Young:

Stephen, today we're heading off in a different direction almost. This is our first interview podcast episode.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. And I am so excited today. We have a real empire builder on our show with us today as we have Rick Showers, he's an owner of a small business that applied one of the lessons from the Empire Builders podcast to his business. He's just exploded from that. He's having record months, months after months. And the reason why I'm excited about this is so often people listening to our podcasts will say, "Well, that worked for Wrigley's and I'm not Wrigley's." Or "Wrigley's sell candy, and I sell RVs, or that was in 1920s, how about today? Or that was New York, and I'm in a small town outside of Edmonton," All these reasons why it wouldn't work well. Here's Rick to share a story. A small RV dealer that's outside of Edmonton that applied the lessons of Wrigley to his business in the spring of 2020.

David Young:

Wait, in the spring of 2020. What happened in the spring of 2020?

Stephen Semple:

There was this little, let me think, what is it? It had a number of next to it, oh right, COVID. The pandemic happened.

David Young:

So right at the start of it.

Stephen Semple:

Right at the start of the pandemic, we're taking our story back to that moment. And here's the thing, from that moment, he's doubled his business. So for full disclosure, Rick is a client of ours. And the ad that you heard at the beginning of this podcast was written by one of our partners, Mic Torbay. And it has run on several radio stations in Rick's market. If you've not heard the Wrigley podcast, I suggest you go back to it and listen to it now, before listening to this interview.

Stephen Semple:

So I just want to set the stage. It's the beginning of the pandemic, frankly, the world is going to shit, everything is closed, people are panicking, and Rick sells a luxury item. In the vast majority of the times when a recession or panic happens, the first thing that goes in the shitter is luxury items. They're the first thing that get nailed, right? So at the time, no one knew RV sales would benefit. Like that was a surprise. We've got to remember that was a surprise. So here's all this pandemics stuff going on, Rick's shop is closed, everything's closed. There's worry about sales and we come along and suggest to Rick, Hey, here's what we think you should do. You should increase your marketing budget, which he did. And I'm going to tell ya, I mean, that took guts. Most people would've kicked me out of their office and we know advertising was getting cut right left and center because we saw it with our media partners.

David Young:

Well, thanks Stephen. Rick, thank you for being on our podcast.

Rick Showers:

More than welcome. Glad to be here.

David Young:

And I know this is an audio podcast, but as we're recording this on a Zoom meeting, you're in the woods, you look like you're in a way better place than either Stephen or I, enjoying yourself, enjoying some nice weather up in Canada. How long have you been in this business?

Rick Showers:

Oh,