The business environment in Upstate New York has been hit hard over the last ten years. Many companies packed up and left. Whenever there is an election, the candidates stomp the political trail and promise to bring new business and opportunities back into the region.

The management team at Meyers Campers obviously never heard or listened to these stories. They never stopped growing.

The company that opened it first store in Caledonia, NY in the mid-sixties, has just opened its fourth store, a superstore, at the intersection of the New York Throughway and Route 690 … with incredible visibility from both major highways and the interchange entrance and exit ramps.

How they did it was clearly on display the day that I interviewed Mark Meyer, the president. As we sat in the well appointed indoor showroom, surrounded by elegant Damon motorhomes being prepared for a Damon Open House weekend, the CFO, Mark Calzone, tended to a sticky situation.

Calzone noticed that a customer had left the parts and accessories store because he had to wait to be served due to floor traffic. Noticing that the customer was upset, Mark ran outside and greeted him on the sidewalk. The man had wanted to purchase two recliners but wasn’t going to wait any longer. Calzone urged him to come back into the store, offered him a discount for his inconvenience and turned a bad situation into a great customer service story.

Calzone said, "I wasn’t going to let him leave this lot without his recliners. If I had to, I would have given them to him as a gift, for being inconvenienced while trying to do business with us. That man is going to buy a new RV someday, and we are going to do whatever it takes to make sure he buys it here."

It’s that level of customer commitment and marketing sense that has allowed Meyer and his management team to take his business very close to $100 million dollars in sales this year.

Don’t forget … this isn’t Florida, this isn’t Texas, and it isn’t California. This is Upstate New York where you can spend half your Winter buried under six feet of the white powdery stuff that never makes it to those other places.