Small Business Saturday

A Note from the Peace Vans “Corner Office” (aka a van)

Before I ran my own small business, I thought the whole Small Business Saturday thing was a bit overwrought. Nine years into Peace Vans, and 14 years onwards from my personal exodus from corporate life, I now know that Small Business Saturday and anything that calls out the reality of owning and running a small business is real and needed.

If you’ve followed Peace Vans over the years, you undoubtedly know that this whole enterprise was built from almost nothing—with a force of will, and built in partnership with the hard work, support and perseverance of the world’s greatest set of customers, partners, employees and community cheerleaders that ever existed. 

The reality of running a small business is messy and rarely related to the images you see on social media. As a leader, I try to be vulnerable with my team and the larger community. There are days I simply don’t know what to do next. The last two years of managing and trying to grow a business in the face of a global pandemic is just one of the many challenges we have faced. But there’s also days where everything lines up and it’s just magic—there’s really no other work for it than that. The sun is out, we’re surrounded by a sea of amazing memory making mobiles (our vans!), the team is productive, renters are picking up and dropping off, Mercedes vans are delivering to customers, parts are arriving, vans are getting built, and so much more. The latter days are the easy ones, but it's the former hard days, where the meaning really happens.

These last almost two years of operating in the COVID environment have brought all those lessons home. When we shut down for a month in Spring 2020 there was so much unknown. I remember standing in a deserted shop, and a deserted downtown neighborhood wondering not only was going to happen to us, but what was going to happen to everyone? It was scary and I didn’t know how to navigate it. By late April, the governor ok'd us to open as an essential business and we were chomping at the bit to come back. Slowly the phones began to ring, and sticky gears of a manufacturing operation began to turn again. The next few months were another kind of whirlwind—COVID became an almost blessing to our business as the world wanted vans, socially distanced travel, and more connected and intimate experiences. COVID became a huge tailwind and we rode that as best as we could.

Interestingly, what was a COVID tailwind became a COVID headwind sometime in early 2021.  Supply chains started backing up, our OEM partners struggled with their own issues, our rental business was very busy but with a different type of customer, we struggled to fill key roles. Alas, we persevered and are still working hard to this day—managing the ups and downs and doing our best to continue to be stewards of the trust our customers place in us.

So, on this Small Business Saturday, we wanted to send a message to all of you—a message of Thanks!, a message of Hope!, and a message of Love!   

While there are certainly ups and downs, we want to be clear—there are way more ups than downs and that is thanks to all of you. We love what we do … every single day. But it’s all of you who make it real and to whom we owe the gratitude of enabling us to do this fantastic work.

Our final wish for today is that you find a small business—not us, we’ll be fine—that may not have had such an easy time these past 2 years; or perhaps a business that took the massive risk of opening this past year in such an unknown environment and find a way to support them today. Small Businesses operate from the heart and the world needs more of that.  

If you did want to support us we have a very small handful of 2021 Metris Camper Vans available (get these before the long wait and price increase of 2022 vans), book a summer rental now, or if you’re local to Washington consider our new Membership program with access to our rental fleet with no minimums and lots of other great benefits.

Again, I can’t thank all of you enough for the support, kindness and love over the journey that is Peace Vans. Speaking personally, rarely does one get a chance to steward and lead such an amazing team doing such amazing work. Thank you for letting us do what we do best.

Have feedback for us or questions? Contact me directly at harley@peacevans.com. 

Happy Small Business Saturday!

Harley