Rough Rider Harley-Davidson – Minot, ND – Oct. 17, 2005

CONTACT
Rough Rider Harley Davidson
515 20th Ave SE
Minot, ND 58701
701 839-6330
OWNERS
Marge and Bill Stork
BUSINESS PROFILE
Bill and Marge Stork own two Rough Rider Harley Davidson dealerships; one in Mandan, ND, and the store thay recently purchased in Minot, ND. Formerly Dakota H-D, the Storks took ownership September 2, 2005. The Minot location only sells Harleys, (no Buells) but since the Mandan store carries Buell, they are available. When they purchased the dealership, the Storks kept all of the non-family employees on, including the department managers as well as service and parts people. Current full time employee count is 12, but the dealership is looking to fill several open positions. The facility is 21,600 square feet, with and additional 4,200 square foot multi-purpose loft area.
GREATEST CONCERN
“Probably safety on the bikes,” says Marge Stork. “That the riders don’t get hurt. That they take good safety courses. We do in house here we have the ABATE meetings and we have the meetings at this store.”
WHAT’S HOT?
“The new Dyna Street Bob,” says Stork. “That’s the hottest item right now.”
CUSTOMER BUYING TRENDS
“It’s everybody from 18 all the way up to 75,” says Stork. “The store has a big draw of all ages of people. And we found that to be true in our other store as well. We sell a lot of motorclothes and bikes excite them. We sell a lot of bikes to most everybody; to all ages. And especially women. There are a lot of women riding their own bikes now and that’s a big market for us.”
PARTS AND SERVICE
We’re bringing in Motorclothes,” says Stork. “(The former owners) didn’t carry much Motorclothes. We’re carrying a full line of Motorclothes and a full line of Harley boots, which is a big item. We hope to be doing some performance packages soon for people who want to upgrade their motorcycles — their motors. We’re a full-line service department. We have a dyno room and a dyno. We can take care of about anything where people want more horsepower. When people have their bikes down (for the winter) is a good time to do our performance packages. That way, they’re not missing riding time. We also store them for a fee if they want to store their bike, which allows them to have more work done on it while the bike is being stored. That way in the summer time we have more time to spend with the traveling customer or the riding customer, where in the winter we have more time to take care of the people who are not riding.” There are three Harley certified service technicians and a service manager, along with two people in parts.
PROMOTIONAL HOME RUNS
You know what, today I started to find people to advertise with,” says Stork. “I will probably do TV, radio and local newspaper advertising. We now have about half the state with the two dealerships, and we now reach over into Montana, so I can now advertise all my stores in all those market areas. Our open house is the 24th of this month. We serve food and sales discounts and we hope to have a band and some entertainment for the customers. It should be a good time for everyone. We are a little bit outgoing in terms of taking care of the H.O.G. people. We have special rates for our H.O.G. people and we ride with our H.O.G. people. We cater to the H.O.G. people more.” Rough Rider is also planning to launch a new Web site to reflect the change in ownership. It will be hosted through Power Sports Network.
WORDS OF ADVICE
“It’s a lot of work,” says Stork. “You have to work really hard, late at night. But it’s a fun business; people are having fun, so that makes it fun.” psb
—Blake Stranz