About five years ago Carefree became a mass producer of custom products with same day turnaround where the minimum economic product scale was a unit of one.

"It will also give us an opportunity to give our managers, who have tremendous talent, signifi  cantly greater responsibility and make us more nimble than we have been in the past."

Certainly it took some dexterity as well as hard work for Carefree to redefine itself and become a formidable competitor to such a large company as The Dometic Corporation. Nine years ago, Dometic was the dominant force in awning sales through its earlier acquisition of A&E, and then there were five or six other companies competing for the remaining part of the business. No one doubted that Dometic would remain strong no matter what direction the awning business took, but it was up for grabs which of the other companies would or would not emerge as formidable competitors ­ or even survive. At that point the playing field was relatively level, each of these companies having the same opportunities and challenges as the market changed. But it was Carefree of Colorado that emerged from the pack. It's undeniable that Faludy's energy and creative genius as a marketer is a key element in Carefree's success.

And after emerging from the great struggle for survival, a clear winner, we wondered how Faludy manages to keep his ex-citement level as high as he does.

He said, "There are a number of drivers that sustain your excitement level. One, it starts with the people you have around you. You want to keep them excited, and as long as you have big opportunities to master you can be excited about the challenges.

"Then of course we have our distributors. We have an excellent relationship with our distributors and we are excited about revealing opportunities to them. We are thrilled about the fact they are setting sales records at a time when the traditional product ­ patio awnings -- that they used to carry is becoming a smaller part of their mix. And nonetheless they are eclipsing old sales records on Carefree products. That's got to get you excited because it reinforces the fact this idea we started six or seven years ago, of replacing lost store sales with new products, really is working."

Faludy admits that along with the excitement he is also frustrated. He explained, "We are seeing signs of our own growth as well as our distributors' growth that says, 'Yes, you are absolutely on the right track.' But yet you know and are challenged by the fact that you could be running twice as fast on that track as you currently are. So finding ways of stimulating the market and in some respects reinventing the market is also something that keeps you pretty well motivated and excited.

"And I also get excited about growing the business, which is a principal mandate from Scott Fetzer - to grow your people and grow your business. It's a great industry and we provide a tremendous product."

And Faludy is also motivated to overcome the challenges of becoming a significant supplier to OEMs. It has taken Carefree a few years to effectively compete for the OEM business, but the growing list of OE customers confirms that those growing pains are past. And while being a supplier to OEMs basically boils down to giving them what they want at a price that is competitive, Faludy likes to challenge the traditional thinking and give RV manufacturers something extra so their products will stand out in the market place.

Faludy said,  "We have excellent relationships with our OE customers and fight hard to keep the business. We do that with a combination of staying competitive price-wise, but at the same time trying to get those customers further ahead by supplying them with something other than a commodity. That really is the key to what we are trying to do. There's an overwhelming preoccupation in this industry with 'commoditization.' And while you have a lot of people who would argue that they are trying to make their products unique and different, my observation is that there is a fixation with price-point versus product. I think in part that fixation is driven by the fact that our industry, to a great extent, has lost its confidence in selling skills. And this focus is making too many products cheaper. I don't mean more economical to buy, I mean cheaper. It's making too many products look the same. So you have this homogenization of product lines that ends up keeping a lot of dealers from realizing the appropriate value of what they are providing. And it is keeping a lot of OEMs from realizing the value of what they are providing because they are more focused on what the competitor is providing in terms of a price point rather than what their customers need and would be willing to pay for.

"Nonetheless, we are trying to compete within this environment in a different way. The product offering that we try to take in front of our OE customers addresses differentiation more so than the commoditization. What we are trying to do with our line of products is to be an influence that says to that OE customer, 'Instead of giving you something that will allow you to compete with a product that is the same as your competition, we are going to give you something that allows you to compete with features that are better than your competition.' If I were an OEM the last thing that I would want to do is take a check sheet of features and compare the competitor's product with mine and come up with the same features on both sides.

"Yes, it's a different brand, but the product is essentially the same.

"What we try to do in our own little way is to see that the accessories we have to offer provide differentiation rather than homogenization."

Faludy pointed out that the Dutchmen phenomenon was based on this principal. During that period all RVs were equip-ped pretty much the same except for Dutchmen. Theirs had all the bells and whistles such as factory installed awnings and air conditioners. Dutchmen enjoyed a tremendous advantage and their early success in the marketplace attests to that fact. continued