When I started working at Sunsation full time in September of 2021, my first week started as you might expect – tours of the facilities, endless paperwork, and meet & greets with the rest of the team. To my surprise, Sunsation had a great process for new employee onboarding in place.
After a couple of days, Sunsation’s owner (Joe Schaldenbrand) informed me that I would be joining the team for an event in Kentucky. Without much knowledge of what this event was, I agreed to join them (because who doesn’t want to go boating during their first week on the new job?) and 2 days later, we were on the road to Lake Cumberland.
Driving down, I heard stories of the Lake Cumberland Poker Run and how it’s the “End of season blowout” for many boaters & locals, capping the season off with a bang. It wasn’t until we arrived at State Dock that I truly realized that this event is unlike any other...
Loading up our carts with gear, luggage (and of course cold beverages) we headed toward our houseboat which was located front and center to the stage. From that point on, the weekend consisted of mingling with customers, meeting with our dealer (Performance Boat Center) to talk strategy, and of course, boating on the beautiful Lake Cumberland. 
Leaving the event, we discussed as a team if we thought this event was valuable enough to come back to next year...
Fast forward to 2022, and we were back on the road to Kentucky again. While driving down, we continued the conversation we left off on in 2021 and asked ourselves again, what is the value for Sunsation attending this event? While we could not quantify it, we all knew we would have to find a way to justify if this event was worth the time/money investment or if we should set our sights on a different event.
As we rolled up to the houseboat for my second visit to Lake Cumberland, our day played out in a similar format to 2021 - Unload the truck, set up our banners and promotional materials, and icing down the coolers. Since this was my second time at this event, everything felt normal, as if we had only been gone a few weeks when in reality, we had not been there in a year.
Within minutes of settling in, we were greeted by customers and other event attendees who see Sunsation as a staple of the Lake Cumberland Poker Run.
It was at this moment I realized the value in us attending this event is not something we can quantify or track. The value is in the intangible moments of running into a long-time customer on the dock, seeing a boat we remember building years ago, talking with customers who were beyond excited to meet the factory team, and finally, seeing our customers use our products to create experiences they’ll never forget.
As the weekend came to a close, we loaded up the truck and headed north back to Michigan. Picking up on where we left off on the drive down, it was obvious the team’s tone about this event had changed, as we didn’t go down with specific expectations and takeaways from this event, but we all left with new connections, friendships, and memories we will carry with us until next year’s event.
Why share this story? Well, simply put, the Lake Cumberland Poker Run helped me realize that while the main output of our team's efforts are luxury center console boats, the real value comes down to helping our customers create experiences, and Lake Cumberland is one of the few opportunities for us to be alongside our customers while they do just that...
So, how many days until the 2023 Lake Cumberland Poker Run......?
RW
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