Midmorning With Aundrea Special - Viewer's Choice Awards #3

(Part 2 of 2) In a special Midmorning With Aundrea, we present this year's Viewer's Choice Awards for the best businesses in North Mississippi!

060320-pkg aundrea self: we're back.

Special edition of mid- morning, and we are still saying congratulations and talking to our viewers choice winners.

Aundrea self: joing us now from the best rv center category, rocket rv, michael is joining us.

Colin krieger is here, the winner in the best realtor category, and best mattress store, mattress clearance, brad is joing us.

Gentlemen, welcome and congratulations to each of you.

Brad: thank you.

"rocket rv michael: thank you.

Colin krieger: thank you.

Aundrea self: so let's get started.

We're going to start with rocket rv, our best rv center location.

Michael, tell us about the rv business.

How's it going?

"rocket rv michael: actually, it's booming pretty well right now, with things clearing up with coronavirus.

But yeah, traffic's definitely picked up.

Things just getting back to normal.

Aundrea self: when people come in looking for an rv, i mean, what do they want?

Do they want just sort of your basic, let me take it on the road, or do they want luxury, give it all to me?

"rocket rv michael: kind of a variety.

Weekend campers, full-timers, actually people working on the road needing to upgrade their rvs.

Aundrea self: what kind of service can people expect when they come visit you, depending on what they're looking for?

"rocket rv michael: top notch, like everybody.

Aundrea self: that's right.

"rocket rv michael: the best service they can actually get.

Aundrea self: that's why you're in here, right?

"rocket rv michael: that's right.

That's right.

Right.

Aundrea self: so what's the trend now in rvs?

What people are looking for?

I mean, you talk a little bit about there are certain kinds of things they're looking for, but what's the big trend you see going now?

"rocket rv michael: like i say, that's kind of a variety across the board.

You got your weekend campers, then you got your full-timers that's on the road.

It just kind of depends on the customer when they come in, what they're actually looking for, if just a weekend thing or a full-time thing.

Aundrea self: if i'm getting a weekend camper, what's all going to be in there?

I'm sort of a glamper.

I want a little more glam than cam, so what am i going to get in a camper?

"rocket rv michael: well, actually the grand design solitude is their top of the line of the fifth-wheels they carry, so that's more along for the ... they retail over a hundred thousand dollars, so you get residential refrigerators, residential convection microwave oven, so it's more residential.

Also, they got a entry level, which is the transcend, for you weekend campers.

Also, we carry the cherokees, as well, by forest river for more like a weekend thing.

So, a week, two weeks, that type.

Aundrea self: well, your customers have spoken and they love what you're doing there.

By the way, i'm more of the girl that wants the residential stuff.

"rocket rv michael: right.

Right.

Aundrea self: well, congratulations again to you.

Thank you so much.

"rocket rv michael: thank you.

Aundrea self: all right.

We move now to our best realtor, voted best realtor in our contest.

Colin krieger, congratulations.

Colin krieger: thank you so much.

Thanks for having me on here.

I appreciate it.

Aundrea self: so colin, how's the real estate market right now?

Colin krieger: it's actually doing very well.

We've been surprised, with the exception of the first two or three weeks of the pandemic, it's doing exceptionally well.

Columbus, caledonia, new hope, starkville, west point, our whole areas is kind of trucking right along.

I think that low, low interest rates right now have been a big factor in that.

Aundrea self: colin, you are in the business of helping people to find a home of their dreams, but you are also very community oriented and i think that's one of the things people love about you.

Colin krieger: well, i appreciate that.

My wife and i came up here from new orleans after katrina, and the community really welcomed us with open arms. since that moment, we thought it was our turn to really give back.

So, that's our ties together as a business is to invest in the community, and we really think that just a few people's actions can make a big difference in a town.

Aundrea self: we've seen you host a lot of events.

Anything upcoming in the near term?

Colin krieger: well, we've had quite a few things shutdown the last couple months, so i do want to encourage people to keep in mind that these charities have lost these events, not just in columbus, but across your whole viewing area.

The homeless coalition in our area and the humane society both lost their biggest fundraisers of the year, and so they still need your money.

Colin krieger: so as the world starts opening up again, besides supporting small businesses and restaurants and the rv guy and the other folks here, please keep in mind that these charities, from the arts council to everybody else has been hurting.

I think he's probably going to be this fall before you see any in-person parties, unless we can maybe have eight people go through my house at a time, if we can work that out.

Aundrea self: you can have a zoom party.

Colin krieger: hey, why not?

Aundrea self: byob for the zoom parties.

Well, congratulations again to you colin, and thanks for the great work you're doing.

Colin krieger: all right.

Thank you.

Aundrea self: all right.

Best mattress store, mattress clearance.

Brad is joing us.

Congratulations, brad.

Brad: thank you, aundrea.

I appreciate that.

Aundrea self: so, tell us about ... first of all, you're in tupelo, but you have a new location in starkville, right?

Brad: correct.

I've got a buddy that opened up a store down in starkville on stark road over there.

He opened about six months ago.

Aundrea self: so in terms of what people are looking for when they come in, we all want to lay down to a comfy bed at night.

So, what are you hearing from your customers?

Brad: well, everybody likes comfort.

The thing is, is they don't want to pay a high price for it.

So the nice thing we offer is we got mattresses at 60 to 80% off what you're going to pay in a retail store.

So people have been out looking for a really nice mattress and they're seeing prices of $3,000, $4,000, you can get them for $800, $900, under $1,000 easy.

So people are saving a lot of money getting that comfort, because a good night's rest, you can't put a price on that.

Aundrea self: you cannot put a price on it.

So when people come in, talk about the service they can expect to get from you.

Brad: yeah.

So we really try to help the customers make an educated decision.

We teach them about the different mattress constructions, the different spring system supports, because it's really more about support, to be able to wake up in the morning not feeling stiff and sore, and so we really want our customers to be able to make the right decision based off what we can teach them about a mattress and the construction of it.

It's a fun process to help show customers the differences in mattresses and how they get a better night's sleep, and help them make a wise decision in that.

Aundrea self: i can see a lot of people coming in, of course, during the week to shop, but you're probably real busy on weekends when people aren't working.

Brad: we are.

The nice thing is we've always done this kind of by appointment.

We do this around our other jobs, and so with this whole pandemic stuff it kind of makes it nice that we can spread customers out and do it by appointment.

So we pretty much do it almost every single day by appointment, but saturdays are definitely our busiest day so we do ask people just to message us on facebook or call us to set up a time to meet.

Aundrea self: all right, fantastic.

Well, rocket rv, colin krieger, mattress clearance, congratulations again to all of you for being voted the