Untitled - Cold Springs RV

PHOTOS BY ALAN MACRAE
REINVENTION IS KEY
for Cold Springs RV
The Northeastern
family-owned
dealership has
prospered by
modernizing its
facilities, expanding
its online presence,
and offering unique
RVs for its area
while staying true
to its roots.
By Jake Rishavy
8 • RV PRO • DECEMBER 2015
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B
ack in 1987, Scott Silva was
already hard at work, albeit
doing work that was quite different than what he does today as president
of Weare, N.H.-based Cold Springs RV.
Back then, Silva’s parents, Robert and
Gail Silva, operated a 15-site campground
on a modest piece of land about 30 miles
southwest of the state capitol of Concord. Over the years, Robert Silva began
to dabble in buying and selling campers
to locals and visitors who were passing
through. Eventually, he took on a new
line of campers called Blazon.
While this first foray into selling RVs led
only as far as the front yard the family originally sold from, it was also the Silva family’s
initial leap into the life of an RV dealer.
As the business outgrew the lawn, the
family purchased a 5,000-square-foot
building in nearby New Boston, N.H.,
and became a full-line RV and boat dealer,
and Scott Silva began selling boats for the
family business. As business continued to
expand, new space was needed.
For Scott Silva, Robert’s and Gail’s eldest
son, that meant some long days excavating
the lot and assisting in the construction of
a series of new structures that remain home
to Cold Springs RV. In the years since,
Scott Silva has worked in sales and then
later joined the management team, learning
every facet of the business along the way.
He says the hard-earned perspective gained from growing up in the
camping and RV dealership business benefits him greatly today. That knowledge
has become even more valuable since
family patriarch and founder of Cold
Springs RV Robert Silva passed away in
January 2013 after a battle with cancer.
Loss & Growth
Robert Silva’s passing hit the family
hard. Scott Silva – who succeeded his father
as president of the bustling operation that
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he co-owns with his brother, Todd – has
channeled his emotions surrounding the
loss into a dedication to see the dealership
thrive to honor his late father.
In the years since their father’s passing,
Scott and Todd Silva have made numerous
improvements to both the physical facilities and the operation of the business. But
none of that work would have been possible
had it not been for a thorough succession
plan put in place by the family in the years
ahead of Robert Silva’s death.
Scott Silva credits his father’s foresight
in that regard for saving the business and
ensuring a consistency during the challenging transition.
“We were fortunate to have about six
months of advanced notice, which ultimately
was a blessing in regards to the business,” he
says. “When (dad) passed, everyone knew
what was going to happen. I explained in
advance what the transition would be like.
My dad had a solid estate plan so the busirv-pro.com
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ness would continue to operate. Our banks
were made aware in advance as well, so we
had no issues with loans and floorplan, dealer
licenses, etc. There are a lot things to do when
a business changes hands and the first six
months we had to focus on that.”
Scott Silva notes that so many familyowned businesses neglect this critical process,
oftentimes because the reality is a difficult – yet
Cold Springs RV sells a
variety of motorized and
towable RVs, but takes
particular pride in carrying
the largest selection of toy
haulers in New England. The
business got its start as an
RV campground and later
added RV sales to the mix.
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essential – one to address. For the Silvas and
Cold Springs RV, that estate planning process
not only likely saved the business, but also
allowed for a natural evolution of the company.
“One thing I cannot stress enough for any
family business is the importance of having
a solid succession plan and estate plan,”
Scott Silva says. “It’s also critical to have a
good accountant who knows your business.
Without that, the business could easily fail.
“My father had started and grown a great
business and had been a great steward over all
of those years,” he says. “But he had different
priorities toward the end of his career. Where
he had started and maintained the business,
I saw my role as being one of modernizing it
and taking it to the next level operationally.”
That modernization started with the
physical facilities, which hadn’t been updated
substantially in more than a decade.
“During this transition, we renovated our
bathrooms, started (remodeling) our store,
sales offices, and then on our entrance,”
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he says. “The goal was to make it a warm,
friendly, inviting atmosphere to put our customers in their comfort zone. We chose warm
colors, lots of wood trim, coach-style lighting
where we could, lots of stone both inside and
out, a nice 1967 Scotty camper with a handpainted background of a campsite in the store,
and a nice stamped concrete entrance under
a post and beam entryway.”
Top: Key team members of
Cold Springs RV stand next to
a 1967 Serro Scotty camper in
the dealership’s renovated parts
showroom. Pictured are (left
to right): F&I Manager Scott
Wood, Office Manager Jennifer
Quinlan and owner Scott Silva.
Above: Parts department
employees stand ready
to assist customers.
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Beyond the physical space, the dealership’s
operations were also ripe for improvement,
and Scott Silva’s decades of history with the
dealership provided a proper foundation
of knowledge to employ in making process improvements. In addition to his own
experience, he relied on years of knowledge
he gained from being a part of a Spader 20
Group, where non-competing dealers share
best practices.
“I had a solid background in the business
and with my years of experience being in a
Spader 20 Group, I had a good understanding
of the financials and key ratios we needed to
monitor,” he says. “I was fortunate to be in
a Spader Group with … Jim Shields, John
McCluskey and John Spader, who all shared
a lot of knowledge.”
With the benefit of that shared knowledge, Scott Silva has grown the product
line at Cold Springs RV to include a variety
of travel trailers and fifth wheels, Win-
nebago motorhomes and Canterbury
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park models. Sales of used units currently
contribute about 30 percent of net sales,
Scott Silva says.
Over the years, the business has grown
to include three buildings totaling 19,000
square feet and an additional 3,600
square feet of winter showroom space for
pop-ups and hybrids. The main building
includes a 3,500-square-foot parts and
accessory store, and the Silva family also
Top: RV technician
Jason Coe works on a
plumbing fitting on a
Class C motorhome. The
dealership’s six technicians
are capable of tackling
nearly any repair job.
Above: Detailer George
Willette washes a used
camping trailer that the
dealership took in trade.
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Technician Christine Azotea performs a
pre-delivery inspection on a travel trailer. In
addition to motorhomes and standard towables,
the dealership also does well with park models.
owns 60 acres across the street that allows
Cold Springs RV to have three additional
levels of RV storage and parking for sales
and service.
Hard-Earned Experience
Beyond merely learning on the job and
sharing best practices with his peers, Scott
Silva attributes much of the continued success and improvement to the business in
recent years to his experiences during the
Great Recession.
During that period, Cold Springs RV –
like most dealers – experienced some trying
years as numbers fell across the dealership’s
balance sheet. In those tough times, Scott
Silva learned a great deal about properly
managing inventory and staffing, among
other lessons.
“Our experience in 2008 was a big factor
in our success after (dad) passed,” he says.
“During that time, we made lots of changes,
as we saw a 40 percent drop in sales. We
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remained profitable by really managing
expenses and inventory.
“At that time, we started a weekly managers meeting and progress toward a budget
that we still use today,” he says. “Most
importantly, we learned from 2008 how to
be adaptable.”
In the years since, Silva also has become
more convinced that parts and service should
be a critical focus for any successful – and
stable – RV business.
“My goal immediately after the initial
transition was to get parts and service up
to a standard that would meet and exceed
customers’ expectations” he says. “That
was my goal, and we still work at it, as
consumer expectations have risen dramatically since 2008. We were a sales-driven
organization, like most dealerships, but I feel
that outstanding parts and service will retain
more of our sales customers.”
Scott Silva credits much of his success in
growing his parts and service functions to his
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staff, which includes 23 full-time employees
and four part-timers total, with three fulltime and two part-time employees dedicated
to parts. That’s in addition to a service manager, two service advisors, six technicians,
one detailer and one lot attendant in the
service department.
“We were able to find a top-notch service manager and store manager who have
made a big impact and our store has grown
by adding more accessories, expanding the
size, and increasing our store’s online presence,” he says.
Northeastern Nuances
Scott Silva credits his hard-earned years
of experience, the hardships of seeing the
business through the recession, and a heavy
focus on parts and service as being critical to
the dealership’s ongoing growth and success.
That experience also helps to offset some of
the particular challenges of operating in the
Northeast, where sales seasons are shorter.
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“The Northeast has a greater seasonal
trend range than a lot of other geographic
regions,” he says. “A lot of dealers in my 20
Groups were profitable month-to-month
with smaller swings in trends, while the
Northeast has a very slow January and February, as well as November and December.
“In order to absorb those slow months
that lose money, we really focus on our
Cold Springs RV owner
Scott Silva expanded
and renovated the
dealership in recent
years. Improvements
included revamping the
parts department and
creating a children’s play
area inside the store.
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11/12/15 3:42 PM
budget and progress towards budget and we
constantly monitor where we are and where
we are trending; then we make changes as we
need to along the way,” he adds. “We also
accrue expenses in the busy months that we
give back in the slow months so our trend
is more even and on paper the months are
more consistent.”
That includes planned seasonal layoffs to manage the budget during those
lean months.
“We do a seasonal planned layoff in
December for some of the sales staff and
store staff, keeping service producing revenue in our slowest month,” he says.
Scott Silva also augments slow months by
taking a somewhat novel approach for an RV
dealer in the Northeast: Cold Springs RV has
become the go-to dealer for toy haulers and
destination trailers, a relatively underserved
market in the region.
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“A specialty area for us are toy haulers
and destination trailers,” he says “We are
known as the toy hauler king in New England. No one stocks as many or carries as
many brands as we do, and our staff is welltrained on the features and benefits of all the
brands we carry. The Northeast is the lowest
toy hauler volume region in the country, so
many dealers don’t carry them at all, as the
volume is low compared to travel trailers and
fifth wheels. But that has created a niche for
us and it serves us well.”
Being located next to the family campground, now the Cold Springs Camp Resort,
a 10-star Woodalls-rated RV park with 275
seasonal sites and 125 transient sites, doesn’t
hurt, either.
“We are also known for being the place
to go for destination trailers,” Silva says.
“With our 400-site park next door and a
lot of campgrounds nearby, we have always
done well with them. It takes a lot of extra
effort because they all require road service,
so we have a delivery driver and a mobile
service van to take care of all our on-site
customers. It’s another way we differentiate
ourselves from the competition.”
That differentiation has had significant
results, garnering the dealership more than
$10 million in annual revenues.
Beyond merely financial success, however, is the pride that Scott Silva and his
team share about how the dealership has
weathered significant challenges over the
years. It’s a durability and tenacity that
he believes his father would appreciate.
“With my children and my brother’s
children now working at the RV Center
and the campground, we are a threegeneration dealership,” he says. “That
would have made (dad), and does make
(mom), proud.”
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