GOSHEN, Ind. — Coley and Ryan Brady were put on the spot. Standing on stage Wednesday, May 27, in front of about 800 owners of Alliance RVs, the brothers were asked whether they would be selling the Elkhart-based company they founded in January 2020.
To the delight of the audience, the two confidently said they have at least 10 more years in them.
“The good news for us is we got a fairly young team that has a lot of runway in front of us,” Coley said, later adding that it was “good to hear that question. It’s always good, as I mentioned at the very beginning, to go back to our roots to make sure that we’re staying true to what we originally said on Day One. Ryan and I are both relatively young. We feel like we can run for a lot longer. I’m talking 10-plus years.”
The question came during the Q&A portion of the 7th annual Alliance RV Rally, which is officially underway at the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds in Goshen, Ind. Coley and Ryan Brady kicked off the first day with their annual address to the owners of the 375 Alliance-branded rigs at the campground, which was followed by about a dozen questions from the audience.
In addition to factory tours, a jam-packed vendor building and on-site activities, the rally features service work from an army of factory technicians, and, of course, good fun, good times and great camaraderie among the Alliance RV team and the owners of the manufacturer’s Paradigm, Avenue, Valor and Delta travel trailers, fifth-wheels and toy haulers.
Who knows? There may even be an Alliance Benchmark destination trailer mixed in as well.
“We started this business with one mission, and that was really to be connected to you guys, to be customer-obsessed. That’s one of our core values, being customer-obsessed, and listening to you guys. And this is the week that we do that more than anything,” Coley told the audience to begin his and Ryan’s presentation.
“The second core value is relentless improvement,” he continued. “How do we constantly improve what we’re doing every single day? And that’s something we live by. And the last core value, devoted to relationship. Here we are with you guys being devoted to our customers, to being devoted to our community, being devoted to our team members.”
Coley later told RVBusiness that this is easily their favorite week of the year.
“The biggest thing is this rally gives me and our entire team energy. It gives us excitement. It takes us back to our roots of when we started this business and being really close to the customer,” he said. “Having so many people here — approaching 800 people, approaching 400 RVs — it’s just a great week for us as an entire team to really hear firsthand their thoughts and connect with those customers who are using our products every day.”
For his part, Ryan Brady asked how many attendees were new to the rally, and an impressive number of people raised their hands.
“Very cool,” he said. “In just looking at the room, I’m seeing some new faces, seeing some old faces. It’s great. We have a lot of highlights, but this is right there at the top of the list. This is a great week for us, for our team to connect with you guys. We see new RVs every single day, but the opportunity to connect with you guys and see how our coaches are used in the wild, it makes it more personal for us.”
Ryan noted that Alliance RV recently celebrated its 30,000th unit, the company is up to 1,100 employees and in February acquired B-van maker Midwest Automotive Designs.
“It was a nice opportunity to segue into the motorized segment,” Ryan said. “Our goal and what we’re working towards is to have an Alliance-branded B-van available this fall.”
