NIRVC’s Angie Sieverts Morell is a fascinating woman.
In the span of a dozen years, she has transformed from a busy stay-at-home wife & Mom to three children, to the award-winning National Sales Director for National Indoor RV Centers, and NIRVC’s YouTube Superstar.
Many of us first encountered Angie as the dynamic spokesperson for NIRVC on YouTube. Whether you were searching for a brand-new or used luxury motorhome, looking for information or a walk-thru of a certain brand or model, or trying to learn how to RV in general…
There she was, with all the details and technical information, answers and reassurances to your RV questions and concerns. Always fresh and personable, exquisitely dressed, often in a skirt and heels – explaining power systems, diesel engines, chassis details, motorhome tire protection and fire safety.
When we first bought our 2016 Entegra Aspire 40P (from another dealer, not knowing about NIRVC at the time), we quickly discovered Angie on YouTube and in our Entegra Owners Facebook Group.
Honestly, her terrific four-part series of RV 101 beginner videos on YouTube got us on the road to living, working, and traveling full-time around the country in our new-to-us motorhome.
(As an aside: Two years later, I still use Angie’s super-easy & quick Instant Pot Shredded Pork recipe from Part 2 of the series for Travel Days! I wrote it down as best I could from the video. As an added bonus, Angie sent me the actual recipe, which I’ve included below. Enjoy!)
I have to admit, when we finally met Angie IRL – In Real Life – at the Florida RV SuperShow in Tampa, my husband and I were both starstruck and so thrilled to meet
NIRVC Angie! She is just as lovely, super smart, fun and genuine in person.
We then spent two weeks with Angie & NIRVC at the AIM Club Rally: California Dreamin’ in San Diego, and the FMCA International Convention & RV Expo in Tucson, Arizona.
We saw her frequently at both events: Going, going, going, 9am to 9pm (and working much earlier and later on text, email and follow-ups, I’m sure) – always looking great, full of energy.
NIRVC Angie & Sherri at FMCA Tucson – March 2022
I had the great pleasure of “going to work with Angie” on the last morning of the FMCA Tucson event. We had a chance to sit down for a few minutes, so I could interview her for this article. To ask All The Questions…
NIRVC Angie: 10 Things You Want To Know!
#1 – How does she do it?
As NIRVC’s National Sales Director, coordinating five locations across the U.S., attending NIRVC events, including AIM Club Rallies, Brand, and other RV association events, and keeping up with the industry, producing videos…
Angie travels. A lot.
She typically travels (by airplane– it’s a lot faster!) three weeks out of every month, and enjoys one week at home in Texas.
(I still don’t know how she does it!)
#2 – RV Life & Family Time
Fortunately, NIRVC locations and travel coordinate with family time on occasion, with her three kids, all grown up and living in different states: Tennessee, Utah, and North Carolina.
In fact, when I talked with her recently, she was “working out of Nashville,” and enjoying time with her brand-new grandbaby (May 2022), with her son, Sam, and his wife, Aubrey, a singer/songwriter, at their home in Nashville.
Angie’s youngest daughter, Shea, recently graduated from college in Utah. Shea is staying in Utah, launching her career in marketing with an innovative women’s health and supplement company. (Shea sounds a lot like her mama, with her ambition and enthusiasm.)
Angie’s daughter, Madison, and her husband, Austin Corbett, currently live in North Carolina, with Angie’s first grandson, now 18 months old. (They are expecting a little sister, due in September!)
We talked about the convenience of RV travel and grandparenting, as a means of keeping up with adult children and grandbabies. When you can visit and spend time with grandchildren and their parents, with everybody still having their own space: Win/Win.
While Angie and her husband, Mark, are not quite on the grandparent caravan yet (with plenty of access to beautiful RVs, but no time to travel in them), they are excited about eventually having more time for RV travel, for grandparenting, and for tailgating(?!). Not only is Mark an avid fan of college football…
Angie & Mark both look forward to tailgating in the future, following Madison’s husband in his career with the NFL. They were thrilled when Austin played for the L.A. Rams in SuperBowl LVI this year (they won!), along with the entire NIRVC family and cheering squad. Austin went to the Carolina Panthers after the SuperBowl victory.
Lots of tailgating (and grandparenting) ahead!
#3 – Angie’s RV Background?
Like many of us: None. (Look at her now!)
In the early 2000’s, Angie was a busy stay-at-home mom with three young children. She was active in her family, schools, community and church. She found time for “little” outside projects, like interior design and staging homes for sale for local real estate agents. She also loved running, for physical fitness and activity.
Brett Davis was a neighbor, family friend, and fellow church member, her son’s scoutmaster. Back in the day, Angie and Brett were in a running group together, and ended up as running partners, out early every morning.
On their early morning runs, her neighbor, friend, and running partner started thinking aloud, sharing his Big Idea and plans: RVs, indoor storage and service, and his vision of customer service.
It wasn’t long before Angie got pulled in–
#4 – Indoor RV Storage???
By 2009, Brett had an enormous, empty building in Lewisville, Texas. Angie found herself helping out: marketing, advertising, and selling storage space.
“Trolling the boat docks,” as she says, to sign up storage customers – any type of large storage – to fill Brett’s huge, empty building. (The very first National Indoor RV Center facility, outside of Dallas.)
#5 – From Selling Storage to Staging RV Interiors
Five years later, the Lewisville storage was full of big, beautiful motorhomes. The second indoor storage facility was built and opened in Lawrenceville, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta.
NIRVC started selling RVs – a partial line of Newmars.
As it turns out (I didn’t realize – wow!), selling different brands of recreational vehicles and luxury motorhomes – RV dealership – is a very competitive and complicated business, with licensing locks and territory restrictions. What you’re allowed to show and sell, where…
That’s all to say, in 2014, Brett started selling RVs and asked Angie to use her interior design skills and experience to stage brand-new motorhomes for sale, in Dallas & Atlanta. The traveling begins…
*OG noun \ ō-ˈjē \
Slang – originally a gang term for “original gangster”
Now defined by www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/OG as:
: someone or something that is an original or originator and especially one that is highly respected or regarded.
Early in 2015, at a sales training meeting, Brett Davis overheard a salesman refer to a client as a “50-pounder,” meaning a sale where the salesman had made more than $50K in commission.
Brett was horrified at common sales tactics in the industry, realizing that these were the very things that resulted in salesmen “ducking and hiding” from those same customers in the future, after the customer felt ripped off or taken advantage of.
Brett started NIRVC with a strong business ethic and customer service commitment to make “Customers for life.” He had visions and ideas from the beginning about rallies and “homecoming” events where customers would come back to NIRVC, as a family, for all of their RV needs: education & community, maintenance & service, storage, trade-ins and future sales.
He believed then, and now: “It’s much easier to teach someone product than character.”
So he fired the entire sales staff, and convinced Angie to “try” sales.
Of course, she was a natural. Within two years, she was earning industry awards from brand manufacturers and chassis makers for breaking sales records.
It wasn’t easy, at the time, for a woman to break through in the traditionally male-dominated RV industry. Angie recalls the “Big Freeze” from male sales reps at the manufacturers. She credits Entegra’s Ted Cook with always answering the phone and helping her work through questions to build product knowledge.
Angie truly is NIRVC’s ‘OG’ RV Lifestyle Specialist (designated job title for sales at NIRVC).
The NIRVC approach to sales and service is entirely the opposite of what happens at typical auto and RV dealerships. Instead of predatory tactics and making the sale (with expensive add-ons) at all costs, NIRVC is focused on customer service, listening to their clients, building relationships, and earning customers – and friends – for life.
#6 – NIRVC Family – Myths & Legends
“Did you sell your first RV to Tommy & Bonnie Townsend?”
(I never know what to believe with Tommy Townsend, the President of NIRVC-sponsored AIM (All-Inclusive Motorhome) Club! Tommy has a fantastic and mischievous sense of humor, as well as a big heart and willingness to help anybody and everybody, anytime.)
Angie laughed and didn’t actually answer directly. (So it may or may not be true?)
She did tell me about NIRVC’s very first Entegra Rally in May 2015, after she had just started selling motorhomes. NIRVC stepped in as sponsor to the event when another RV dealer backed out unexpectedly. It was held at the Buckhorn Resort in Kerrville, Texas.
Angie met Tommy & Bonnie at that event. The Townsends have been friends, Angie’s support team, and practically family, ever since.
Angie fondly recalls a core group of at least a dozen RVers-who-became-friends at that first Entegra Rally. And how, through subsequent sales and referrals, those long-term relationships served as a foundation for her career.
#7 – NIRVC National Sales Director
Obviously, with her success (and growing YouTube fame ;-), NIRVC needed to clone Angies, to keep up with demand.
As NIRVC’s National Sales Director, Angie has done just that. She travels and works closely with her team of 50 RV Lifestyle Specialists over the 5 NIRVC locations.
Her role now is to instill in them her own (and NIRVC’s) work ethic and customer service philosophy:
- Success is built on relationships, communication, and product knowledge.
- Focus on taking care of the customer for life.
It is refreshing to talk with Angie and hear her genuine love and respect for customers – her friends & family. She appreciates every customer, and whatever they’re spending to follow their dream. Whether they’re looking for an economical Class B campervan or a million-dollar Class A luxury motorhome, NIRVC Lifestyle Specialists are going to make the most of the experience for the customer.
As Brett Davis says: “With Angie, you don’t become a customer. You become a friend.”
#8 – NIRVC YouTube SuperStar
We have to step back a bit, to 2014, to talk about YouTube.
When Brett brought the idea up, none of the salespeople at the time wanted to do it. Angie was willing to step up.
With “zero” experience or training in video, completely unscripted, she jumped right in.
Angie has produced model year demo and walk-thru videos since 2015: Entegra, Newmar, Winnebago, Jayco and many others. Every year.
Beyond the annual new model demos, which are impressive, she produces factory tours, basic maintenance, RV safety and new product & accessory videos.
NIRVC has 64.4K Subscribers and 141 Videos on their YouTube Channel.
While Angie hasn’t starred in all of those videos, you can bet most of those subscribers know and love NIRVC Angie.
She is amazing: knowledgeable, technical on every aspect, inside and out. She talks as much about operational and maintenance details as she discusses decor and interior amenities. Never boring.
Always put-together: hair, make-up, jewelry and heels, well-dressed, usually in a beautiful dress, unless she’s doing a very technical video (like the RVing 101 series: packing, driving, setting up and breaking down camp – all on her own).
I can’t remember exactly when Angie came into our lives via Youtube. My husband, the RV researcher, found her first, before I realized what was ahead of us: Full time RV travel. What?!
He wisely won me over to the idea by showing Angie videos: Her walk-thru of the 2016 Entegra Aspire 44B. Those incredible RVing 101 videos.
BONUS – Pulled Pork Recipe!
#9 – What are you most proud of, in your career with NIRVC?
- Overcoming and breaking through in the male-dominated industry.
- Seeing and helping more women achieve success in the industry.
#10 – What are your plans for the future?
“Stay with NIRVC, a company I truly believe in, with a job I love that doesn’t feel like work. Lots of fun and exciting things ahead with NIRVC!”
While we were talking in a corner of the NIRVC tent that day, a confetti cannon went off just outside, gently showering the area with fluttering strips of brightly-colored paper. This is how NIRVC celebrates a new RV buyer at the FMCA Rally, with all appropriate excitement and fanfare.
Angie excused herself and ran over to celebrate and welcome her new best friends into the NIRVC family.
Sherri Caldwell is the founder of BooksAndTravelUSA.com – Full-time RV Travel Blog & Book Club/U.S. Literacy Project. With her husband, Russ, she is currently living, working, and traveling full-time in their 2016 Entegra Aspire: Charlie-The-Unicorn RV.