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Evergreen Hot Tubs

MISHAWAKA, IND.-BASED Evergreen Hot Tubs has been in business for almost a quarter century. The company has spent those years building its reputation in the community, but during the recession the Evergreen team truly saw the value of its staying power.

Sales manager Wendy Boyer has worked at Evergreen for 17 years and says it is now “laser focused” on the brand.

“We were a little shy about [branding our own business] before and probably answered more about the differences between our product versus their product,” Boyer says. “Through the recession, a lot of customers have realized it’s more about the relationship, about how we’re going to stand behind the product and find the product that’s suitable for them.”

As Boyer watched her high-achieving, overextended clients seek relief, it proved an opportunity. “To me, the recession is just a bigger stage where that stress played out,” Boyer says. “We saw people more catalyzed than ever to go forward and find something that would help them reduce the stress in their life.”

While the hot tubs offered customers physical comfort, working with Evergreen gave them peace of mind.

“There is so much credibility in saying — in the right way at the right time — ‘Hey, I’ve been doing this for 17 years, Evergreen’s been here for 24 years. We have weathered storms before; this one will be no different, and we will be here. We have the track record to show and prove it,’ ” Boyer says. “And that’s huge. But it has to be timed well so it comes across as credibility and not bragging.”

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Prerecession, Boyer says many of the hot tubs Evergreen sold were in the upper echelons of the Hot Spring line. But during the recession, mind-sets changed, she says; customers wanted to justify the purchase. “They wanted to come in and say, ‘Show me your most expensive, show me your least expensive, and I’ll buy something in the middle,’ ” Boyer says. “So we started to look at what we offered in that range and became very competitive with our pricing in the middle.”

Evergreen saw the necessity of selling to everyone, and its closing ratio reaped the benefits. Boyer says she would discuss strategies on “how to hang in there during a presentation” with owners Joyce and Dennis Dudycha.

“We began to use things that underlined our credibility, like iPads on the sales floor,” Boyer says, adding that she gives full credit to the Dudychas for the company’s success during tough times.

“They held on to their beliefs and their philosophies like a life preserver in a storm,” she says. The Dudychas also created an environment where the employees took ownership of the company’s success, hiring people for whom the company vision resonated. “We realized the survival of the company was not on the backs of the owners — it was on all of us,” she says. “It was going to take everybody to accomplish what we needed to accomplish.”

EVERGREEN IS A DEALER WHO HAS A HEART FOR THEIR CUSTOMERS. EVERY CUSTOMER WHO VISITS THEIR STORE WALKS OUT WITH A SMILE BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT THEY MATTER — THEY ARE TREATED LIKE FAMILY. THE TEAM AT EVERGREEN IS PROFESSIONAL AND KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT THEIR BUSINESS AND THE INDUSTRY. EVEN WITH ALL THIS EXPERIENCE, WE APPLAUD THEIR COMMITMENT TO CONTINUING EDUCATION. THEY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL THE TRAINING THAT WATKINS OFFERS IN ORDER TO GIVE THEIR CUSTOMERS THE BEST EXPERIENCE.

Mike Dunn, executive vice president, Hot Spring Spas