MC Fireside Chats - January 15th, 2025 - MC Fireside Chats, an Outdoor Hospitality Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:10):
isMC FiresideChats,aweeklyshowfeaturing conversationswiththoughtleaders,entrepreneurs
andoutdoorhospitalityexpertswhosharetheirinsights tohelpyourbusinesssucceed.HostedbyBrianSearl,thefounderandCEOofInsiderPerks.Empowered
byinsightsfromModernCampground,themostinnovativenewssourceintheindustry.

(00:58):
Welcome everybody to anotherchaotic and crazy behind the scenes
episode of MC Fireside Chats.My name is Brian Searl with Insider
Perks. All these wonderfulpeople in here are watching me scramble
around trying to shut up mystudio for the second week in a row.
You see, I've got 10,000ft ofheadroom here that we'll try to fix
in the show as well. And mycamera's flickering, so still in
the process of getting thestudio built, but the plant's new

(01:18):
from last week, so we've madeprogress. Does that count? I don't
know. And it's a real planttoo, Mike. It's a fiddle. Fig leaf.
We actually researched it withChat GPT with my AI to figure out
what the best plant was forthat. So you can kind of see me like
I'm looking over here in amonitor at you guys and then back
here the camera. So we'll fixthat too. But anyway, how's everybody

(01:41):
doing? How's your ChristmasNew Year? Stuff like that?
Good? Excellent.
Good to hear. Good to hear. Sotoday we have kind of our new episode
format. We're going to talkabout business. Operations and management
is the overall topic of this.So I know Jeff is a recurring guest
on here. We've got Mike andMia as kind of our special guests.
And then we have, you know, acouple people who can make it today

(02:03):
that are going to be regularguests too, hopefully. But yeah,
that's going to be the overallfocus of just, you know, talking
about things that relate tooperations, to management, to, you
know, subtopics that relateto. To all those things. So I just
want to go around briefly, Ithink and introduce our two recurring
guests or just. Actually it'sjust Jeff, isn't it? Jeff, you're
the only recurring guest onthe show. I guess on the show it's

(02:26):
supposed to be. So that'sinteresting. We're supposed to have
Chris Chube here, who's theglamping guy. And then we're supposed
to have Ali Rasmussen fromSpacious Guys and Mike Harrison from
crr, all of whom apparentlycould not make it this week for our
first week episode. So we'llfigure that out as we go. But go
ahead. Yeah, Jeff, you want tointroduce yourself briefly and then
we'll Just go around the roomand Mike and Mia can introduce themselves

(02:49):
as well. And Brent as well.
Sure. My name is Jeff Hoffmanand I'm the managing member of Camp
Strategy which is a consultingfirm to help either starting startup
campgrounds from theconstruction phase on. Our specialty

(03:09):
though is in helping existingcampgrounds get over the hump and
become profitable cash flowingentities that will make so that they
can survive.
Yeah. Thank you for beinghere, Jeff. I'm really looking forward
to having multipleconversations with you over the course
of the year. You know, we'veworked together for a long time,

(03:31):
known each other for quitesome time. I have a lot of respect
for what you're doing at CampStrategy with Greg, so definitely
looking forward to diving intosome of those insights, especially
as it pertains to, you know,what's going on currently in the
industry as well as, you know,our special guest of the week. So
excited to have you here.Thanks for being here. Mia, you want
to introduce yourself next,I'm just going to pop in and out.
Don't pay attention to me,like I'm trying to fix my lights

(03:51):
and all that kind of funstuff. So go ahead. Mia,
thanks so much for invitingme. My name is Mia Johnson. I'm with
Northeast Campground Brokers.We're a full service brokerage firm.
I also provide consultingservices to owners. My background,
I have been practicing law asa real estate and corporate attorney

(04:12):
for 28 years and kind of fellinto brokerage a couple decades ago.
Became a campground broker 15years ago now and to date I've sold
95 campgrounds and soon to bejust over a hundred. I have also
given numerous seminars overthe years to different owners at

(04:36):
different trade shows, etcetera across the country on how
to grow your revenue. Growingyour revenue means growing your value,
so that's, that's key. And onhow to grow your revenue and operational
discussions as well on how tobecome more efficient. So I think
I come at this from a littlebit different perspective with my,

(04:58):
my legal background as well asmy brokerage background. But for
me it's always about how togrow the numbers in a business because
if you're growing your numbersin a business, you're putting more
in your pocket in the shortterm and also in the long run with
your value. So that's, I'mlocated in the Northeast in Rhode

(05:18):
island, but I servicebasically 10 states in the Northeast.
But I do go outside and donational on occasion deals as well.
Yeah, I'm excited to likewe've crossed paths before. I'm just
probably a littleinconsequential guy who has definitely
not sold 100 campgrounds. Butwe've crossed paths before the NCA

(05:39):
show with Cindy and. And allthat stuff. We'll be there again
this year. We're gonna give asession on AI, so hopefully we'll
cross paths again with eachother. But, yeah, like, a lot of
respect for all the thingsthat you've done in the industry
over the decades and lookingforward to many, many good things
to come. But excited to haveyou here to talk about, you know,
all those things that you'retalking about really, I think, add
up to a really gooddiscussion, especially now with the

(06:01):
way that I think you wouldagree the market has kind of changed.
We'll just leave it at thatfor now and let you expand on that
recently and may even changefurther going forward. So excited
to have you here, Mike.
Hey, Brian, thanks for havingme on. I didn't get a chance to catch
up with you at the recenttrade show, so this is the most time
we've spent together in alittle while. Mike Sorensen, founder

(06:24):
and CEO of Wild Energy. We'reutility sub metering company based
in Sarasota, Florida. And, youknow, we've grown quite a bit this
year and have hundreds ofparks across the United States, so
it's pretty cool to be in thisindustry. And thanks for having me
on the show.
Yeah, I'm excited. I mean,it's only been, what, like, 15 days
and you've already grown quitea bit this year. That's pretty impressive.

(06:45):
This year, right?
Oh, okay. All right. You metlast year. All right. But still,
it's very impressive. Yeah.Like, obviously, how many years have
you been in the industry now?It's only been.
We've been commercial forabout 4. You know, we were in development,
product development for abouta year before that, and then we started
selling the product.
But, like, from where. Like, Iremember you coming in, right, like,
from where you came in towhere you are now is very, very impressive.

(07:07):
I mean, again, I don't. Ican't say that I follow utilities
religiously, but, you know,like, the only company like that
I had ever heard of that wasdoing any kind of metering before
you was Utility Supply Group.Right. Which obviously have a lot
of respect for them, too, andall the years of work that the Wade
and his team have put in. But,yeah, you've come quite a long way
and lots of people have goodthings to say about you. So excited

(07:29):
to hear about, you know, thedifferent ways that obviously electricity
and Meet smart metering andpaying attention to your usage and
things like that.
Right.
Can help from an operationalcost. So Jeff, you know you're my
only recurring guest here.Where do you think we should start?
First up, business operationsstrategy. Oh,

(07:49):
I think we should introduce Brent.
I'm sorry, Brent. Like I'mlooking the screen. So I was looking
at the camera, I'm like, hey,there's nobody else in my little
camera lens. And then Irealized I had to look over here.
Brent.
Cool.
Great background.
Oh, that's, that's a fake oneby the way.
Yeah, same one I got.
Is it really? I'm old.

(08:14):
Yeah. My name is Brent Parker.I am the, the owner of Open Campground
which is a cloud basedproperty management software, reservation
software for campgrounds andRV parks. A little bit, little background
of myself. So I started moreso on the property management side.
That was a general manager fora company called Rent Payment. It

(08:37):
was a division of MRIsoftware, which is a big company
for commercial propertymanagement, residential management.
So I was able to run thatdivision for them and then I decided
to kind of go to entrepreneurroute. So I started a business called
Marina Payments where weprocess payments for marinas. Marinas
and boatyards and individualboat owners. And then I finally realized

(09:01):
that I said, hey, I think Ineed a software to partner with this
Marina Payments product that Ihave. So I acquired this business
last summer from a previousowner who ran in about 14, 15 years.
And so now I'm just trying to,you know, add my little flavor into,

(09:22):
you know, the short termspace. Trying to add some long term
functionality, you know, for,especially for RV parks and mobile
homes who need, I think, adifferent product than short term,
you know, software. So, soyeah, that's, that's what we've been
doing for the last year or so.And I'm excited to be on this call.

(09:46):
So thank you for extending the offer.
You're like, well, you're lessexcited since I almost forgot to
introduce you, but now you'remore excited.
It's all good.
I'll live that down in shameanother time. But yeah, I appreciate
you being here. Honestly, likeI don't know much about your software
system. I will admit that. Youknow, from my perspective, just being

(10:08):
in the industry for so long,you tend to go toward like the people
you heard repeatedly from acamp spot, new book, Res Nexus, other
people perspective. Right. Butwho you see and who come up in conversations
so more, so much more oftenthan the smaller players. Not that
they're necessarily better inall facets but that you just hear
their names more and so youget more familiar with them. And
so I'm excited to hear whatyou have to offer. Especially. You

(10:29):
said long term, right?
Yes.
Lisa is going to turn up myspeaker over here. I was trying to
motion with her to, like, turnup the little dial on the keyboard
so I can hear you better. Butyeah, long term is a need for sure.
So I'm excited to get intothat. So, Jeff, where do you think
we should start?
Well, actually, because we dohave someone from PMS on, someone

(10:51):
that tries to implement valueand Mike that tries to save us all
money, I think the best way tostart is discuss the. What everyone
thinks 2025 is going to be asfar as revenue and camper nights,

(11:12):
rate fluctuations. Are wepeaking in demand, RV sales, are
they going to continue to,although they dropped a little bit,
are theytogrow?Becauseobviouslymost ofthese
peoplenow,ifthey'rebuyinganewoneortradinginanoldone,thatstillstays intheinventory.So

(11:36):
Itrackbothnewsalesandusedsalestoseewhat's selling,andright
nowusedsalesseemtobebeatingnewsales.Thattellsmethatmoney'stightinthepurchasing beating
new sales thatjustattheClevelandRVshowand it was

(11:58):
packed,whichisagoodsign.ButI'dliketojustkind of
pullthemembersthatarehereandfindout.Wheredoyouseedemand forexistingcampgrounds?Wheredoyouseedemandfornewcampgrounds?Up,down.Whataboutrevenuebasis?Are

(12:21):
you thinkingthatthere'sstillroomtogoinratesorare weplateauingin
rates?
Wow, you just went for thereally, like, good question first
off, didn't you? Like, we wantpeople to tune until the end. You
know, Jeff, you're supposed tosay the good questions to the end.
Oh, by the way, I love your look.
Oh, yeah, my. It's very weird,the hat, but it.

(12:43):
Looks like if you wouldn'thave pulled that off. Like, it looks
like a. It looks reallysophisticated. Like.
Yeah. While it covers one. Onething, it's cold as hell in my office
because we're like minus 11 outside.
Well, it doesn't look like it.Your pool's uncovered.
Yeah, but my son got me thishat when he went to Scotland, and

(13:05):
I have never worn hats, but Ihave one picture of my grandfather
because I never met him. Andhe has on the same hat. So we're
in tribute to him now.
That's awesome. That's a greatstory. Okay, well, who do you want
to start because you don'twant me to start because I'm kind
of negative. I'm, I havepositive solutions.

(13:27):
You'll just bring AI up andlet him talk.
So no, I have clients aboutthis. So you'll probably want to,
like, maybe people will wantto hear what I have to say. But,
but other people are more important.
Okay, whoever wants to start,go ahead.
I'll start this from theproperty management side. So. Okay,
I may not have all the answersas far as new sales, as far as like

(13:48):
RV new sales, but what I'mseeing is that a lot of our customers
are wanting to get rid ofshort term and start moving more
into taking their sites into along term vision. Right. So let's
just say they have 100 sitesand let's say they had a 50, 50 split

(14:10):
at one point or maybe 60, 40.I'm starting to see more people trend
towards, hey, I want to getthis to maybe 80, 20, where it's
long term. And some are evensaying, hey, I'm just gonna almost
get rid of all. Of them and gostrictly all
of the transients.
All the, all the transients,right. Because I, I think they're

(14:31):
looking at it financially andsaying, listen, if we could, if we're
seeing new sales of RVs andyou know, sprinter vans, those types
of things, then why not meetthe demand and say, you know what,
let's put those guests in oursite six months, three months, nine

(14:52):
months. And I get way morerevenue from those customers, existing
customers versus the personthat's transient that's only there
for three days. Right. Andthen I have to remarket to that person
to get them back into thecampground, which is, you know, a
bit of a challenge. Right.Because the average campers camping
about two to three times ayear, give or take. So if, if you

(15:17):
have to extend a lot ofresources and marketing efforts just
to get somebody to come backto your campground two to three times
a year versus somebody that'sthere for six months. You're gonna
probably take the six months, right?
It's an easier path. For sure.I agree with that. The easier path.
It's an easier path. And then,you know, so that's, that's, I'll
say that's what I'm seeingfrom a revenue perspective and also

(15:41):
just from a changing ofstrategy on the property management
side.
I'm curious, you know, myinitial thought with this is not,
is partially based on what yousaid and partially based on other
conversations I've, I've hadwith this about our client, with
our clients. And for clarityfor if you don't know, like I run
a four or five hundred person,like we are marketing company that

(16:02):
services four or five hundredcampgrounds. Four or five hundred
people would be a lot tomanage, Jeff. But you would help
me if I got that big right?
Oh, absolutely. We'd put inthe EOS system and you'd be great.
Good. That's what I'm countingon you for. But I've had these conversations
and so I'm curious if there'sdata on this and maybe like I wish
I had Scott Barr on the callto, to maybe help with this. How

(16:25):
many people do we like? Let'sassume, let's assume 25% of the existing
inventory of parks that aremostly transient right now were to
switch to even 8020 long term,80 short term, 20. Is there actually
enough people who are stayinglong term at camps campgrounds to

(16:46):
fill up just 25% of that?
Good question. I One of thetrends that people are going to the
more long term is it's a morestable income and if they're buying
these for investments, theydon't want to manage them. And it's

(17:09):
way easier to manage aseasonal park than it is to manage
a transient park. But you arelimited in your revenue to what the
market will bear for aseasonal campground. If you're a
transient campground, you're,you're usually looking that if you

(17:32):
would rent that site for thefull 30 days for the month, you're
going to triple your incomeversus what you get for, for a monthly.
So it comes down to how hardthey want to work at their campground
and what type of investmentthey're looking for. Taking it to
a more seasonal type situationor year round people. Quasi mobile

(17:59):
home park basically is theeasier solution. You don't have as
much management, you don'thave as much cost and you know, it
works out good for Brentbecause right now most of the PMS
systems that are out there arebased on reservation revenue. You've

(18:23):
got a good niche market withyour product depending on what your
cost is because nobody'sservicing that industry because that's,
that's not how they make themtheir money. They make their money
on the reservations. So if youcan be a low cost operator in that
sector, you're going to do great.

(18:44):
This is fascinating to me whatyou just said Jeff, and I don't want
to get you off topic, butthat's actually very fast. I was
watching a long video lastnight about the future of work and
I know you told me I was goingto bring up AI, right. But like the
agents that are going to dothe work and they were talking about
what you just talked about.They were talking about how software
is currently priced from likea Zendesk HubSpot perspective, all

(19:05):
that kind of stuff. Right. Andhow they're all priced based on seat.
And so what happens when theseats aren't filled with humans anymore?
Like Zendesk is a $2 billion ayear revenue company. What happens
when they're not charging perhuman anymore? They've got to rethink
all of these models and howall this stuff works. And so I think
there's for sure a place forsoftware that focuses on long term.

(19:27):
I think everybody's got torethink how they're doing things
depending on how the marketshifts. Right. Not always short term
reactive, changing yourpricing every year. But I think we're
seeing perhaps a clear shiftin the way things are going to go
for the next little while atleast. Would you agree or no?
Yeah. And some of that comesfrom, you know, you know that I work

(19:49):
with a couple other PMSsystems as, as a consultant for them.
And that's one of thedirections that we're, we're looking
at is how do we, how do wereach that market in a profitable
way while still offering, youknow, high quality back backdrop

(20:10):
service for the program?Because there's going to be a limit
to what a seasonal park isgoing to pay for a PMS system. I
think probably one of yourbiggest competitors is rent manager
that can do that. But they,they are not cheap. I used to use

(20:33):
them.
So how much are they?
I have, I sold all my parks. Idon't know anymore.
How much worth, how much werethey that made you think they were
expensive?
Between 475 to 650 per month?
Hundred?
Yes.
Okay.
But they handled the wholepark from billing, water bills, everything.

(20:56):
So it's a very good system.
But for, but for long term Ican see now I'm like, I'm thinking
out of my head like that's,that's like a fifth of what I pay
for like my mid tier shop. Butlike I'm not thinking it from a long
term cap on. Okay.
Yeah. And a lot of theseseasonal parks that Brent was talking
about are probably 50 to 100spaces. That would be a, you know,

(21:21):
that nut would be a killer. Sothere's a market for that. But I,
I, you know, and I have peoplethat would be in the market for that
system because I do consult toQuite a few seasonal parks also.
And they're always looking forways to get good data but keep the

(21:42):
cost down. So.
So I want to. Sorry, finishyour thought. I thought you were
done.
That was it.
No, I was just going to say Iwant to make sure we answer it. Like
not my question because it'snot necessarily the most important.
But I am curious, like did weever talk, like we ever finalize
that, like how many people dowe actually think are on the road
staying long term? Becausethere's that piece of it. Right.
We talked about. I think youtalked about how easy. Which is an

(22:04):
important discussion to haveto be is how easy it is. And I think
that was, you know, the point.But how many of these people are
actually out there? Can theyactually fill these properties if
you convert to long term?Because it might be easier on you
up until the point whereyou're like. Because we've had calls
with these clients. Right.Middle. Middle of the Texas is a
good example of where it's nowoverbuilt and a lot of people are

(22:27):
switching to seasonal becausethey thought they could attract or
maybe they started that way.But then they have the same amenities
as everybody else. I have apool, I have a miniature golf course,
I have a great store, I havenice bathrooms. But so does the 15
other parks that within a fivemile radius of me that were just
built in the last four years.So what is the. Assuming there's
enough people to even begin tomake those businesses profitable,

(22:50):
all they're close together,right? At what point? Like what is
the difference maker that'scausing them to change? Choose your
property over the other.Because it's not that you also have
something, it's that you have.And we'll talk about experience later,
but you have something different.
I, I think that it definitelyjust your region will distinguish

(23:13):
whether or not you're going tohave much more demand. You brought
up Texas, that's a greatexample where you can build a new
thousand site campground inthe Northeast. You cannot build a
campground from scratch. Can'tdo it. I can count on one hand how
many people have built acampground from scratch in all of
the Northeast in the lastdecade. And it took them years and

(23:35):
years and years and it justwasn't cost effective. So you, you
get a region here where evenadding new sites to an existing campground
can take years if you ever getthe approvals. So we have a different
model up in the Northeast thanyou would have in a place like Texas
where they're popping up leftand right. So In a region like that,

(23:56):
which is also similar to someof the other regions out there, there
are some states that are, youknow, much more highly regulated
and won't be able to build as,as easily as Texas. The demand in
the last several years sinceCOVID for seasonal sites has been
astronomical. Before COVIDalmost nobody had wait lists, right.

(24:17):
For seasonals except thepremier parks. Since COVID almost
everybody has a wait list andthey still have a waitlist. Now,
I saw last year a little bitof a shift that the seasonal rates
went up so much. Theybasically offset the reduction that
we saw in the transienttraffic. A lot of parks were a little
bit down on transients lastyear for various reasons. It could

(24:39):
be weather, could be marketrelated, depending on the park, depending
on the region. We still havethe majority of the parks having
wait lists, at least in thenorth northeast for seasonals. So
it's that market factor ofwhere, when do we stop, how much
do we switch over to theseasonal. And you know my attitude

(25:01):
when I'm, when I'm talking tothese owners, I always say, look,
same thing with your rates.You go up until you no longer have
a waitlist, right?
Yeah.
And if you have a wait list,then add more sites if you can. Otherwise
consider converting. Butconversion from transient to seasonal
takes a long time becauseyou're already taking reservations

(25:23):
for next year at most of theseparks. So if you've already taken
a reservation for next yearfor that site, what are you going
to do? Call the person up andcancel it because you want to? You
could, but not necessarily thebest approach in terms of customer
service. But that's what someof these campgrounds are thinking
in terms of the newer owners,the newer operators out there. I

(25:47):
see since, since COVID 100 ofmy sales have been to investors.
And that's for anotherdiscussion for another day. I'm sure
Brian's had these discussionsas well. But the market is going
to completely change in thenext 10 years because we're losing
most of those owner operatorsand we're switching over to an investor
model. Now there's two kindsof investors out there. There's the

(26:10):
multi park investor that hasowned campgrounds for years and they
run them themselves. And thenthere's the majority of the investors
out there who are new to theindustry or newer and are looking
for property managementcompanies. And there's not a lot
of options out there for, youknow, a property management company.
Good quality one. Yeah.

(26:30):
Do the entire portfolio forthis group. You know, they'll, they'll
have a hotel Managementcompany coming in and running a campground.
Well, it's different. It mightbe hospitality but it's still different.
And that's where we're havingsome reduction in some of these.
Especially the like theprivate equity buyers, the private
equity investor out there,they're kind of backing off. They

(26:52):
bought a few and then theyfell flat on their face because they
didn't know how to run themand they didn't have a good option
to run them. So there is ahuge need for property management
companies nationwide to offerthese services in campgrounds. Not
all hospitality, butspecifically campgrounds. And that

(27:13):
need is only going to continueto grow for the next decade as most
of these owner operator parksare going to be switching over to
investors. Kind of similar towhat happened in motels years ago
where most of those motelswere smaller owner operators and
now they were bought up by,you know, the Hiltons and the Holiday
Inns of the world and they're,you know, multi park owners. So we're

(27:37):
seeing that switch. But backto what Brent said earlier about
the cost to run these sites.Absolutely, absolutely. It is cheaper
to run an all seasonal and orall annual park. Long term state
park. It is probably about a40% expense ratio is what I generally

(27:58):
see on a long term park versusanywhere from a 55 to a 75 expense
ratio. 55% to 75% expenseratio on a transient park. Right.
The higher the expense, it'susually the, you know, the Koas,
the jelly stones, they havehigher fees but you know, generally
it depends on the size. Butthat's a decent range. But certainly

(28:22):
it is much, much cheaper torun those and much easier to run
those long term parks. And Isee a lot of those new investor buyers
leaning towards that model.Unfortunately you don't make as much
money. Right. So it all comesdown to cash flow. Right. That's
how they value these parks.That's what they want. They want

(28:43):
their return on theirinvestment. It's all about, you know,
it's their investors. It's noemotion here. It's, it's not a hobby
for them. They want to makethat return and they're going to
do that. They're going to runit whatever model they can to make
the most out of it. And in anarea that has know incredible demand

(29:04):
for transients because you'rein a tourist area, well chances are
they are going to buy up thatpark and they're going to kick everybody
out and go transient eventhough it costs more to run it because
the demand is there for it.But then there's a lot of other regions
where they become thedestination location. They're not
going to fill that park withtransients unless they become the

(29:28):
amusement. Right. And that'svery expensive to put, you know,
three million dollar waterpark in or whatever, you know.
Yeah. The most famous one Iknow is Howard Port here on Koa.
You know him, Jeff?
Oh, yeah.
Very, very well. Createdsomething out of nothing up there,
but. Go ahead, Mia.
Yeah. So I mean, and when I,when I talk to owners about this,

(29:49):
in particular about thinkingabout what your business model needs
to be, it can't be, let'schange it next month. Right. Because
this is a long term again, itgoes back to if you want to convert
a seasonal to a transient or atransient to a seasonal. Right. More.
That's probably more what'shappening right now. If you have

(30:09):
a reservation, you've got tothink about the long term play. Same
thing as you're thinking aboutgas prices. All right. Gas prices
are up. People want to stay inone location. Right. Gas prices go
down. It's not rocket science.Right. They're more willing to drive
further if gas prices arelower. So I always talk to owners

(30:30):
about thinking long term.Actually do a business model. Use
your software. Right.Everybody has, almost everybody has
software. And these softwareprograms can do tremendous things.
They just don't know how touse them. Right. Brent, I'm sure
you could talk about that allday long, that there's so many features
that you can utilize andreports that you can run that they're

(30:54):
just not utilizing to helpthem guide their business model in
three months, six months, 12months from now. That's what they
need to be doing this year.They're already done. They've already
got reservations. There'snothing they. Some stuff. But you
know, in terms of the biggerpicture, there's nothing much they
can do for this year, but theycan still grow revenue in other ways.

(31:19):
But in terms of conversion,seasonal versus transients, I think
that it's. We're going to seea consistent shift. It's going to
go up, it's going to go down.Right now there's more demand for
seasonals than parks need to address.
Even in the Northeast.
Even in the Northeast, we,most campgrounds have seasonal wait
lists.

(31:40):
So. So the reason I ask hereis twofold. You know, a lot of a
ton of what you said I couldfollow up on. Right. And I'm old
and probably remembered 22% ofit. But the couple things that stuck
out in my and in my head whenyou were talking is we went through
something similar in Canadawith an over. I don't know if it

(32:01):
was an overcorrection but inOntario specifically where they have
so many seasonal properties inOntario that none of the transient
people can find anywhere tostay. And so I think it's important
for us to consider where thismarket is going. And I know there's
a lot of we don't know. Right.A lot of intangibles, a lot of data

(32:22):
that we have never seenbefore. But to understand, you know,
I don't think that anybodyhere is saying like you should do
this at your property rightnow because every property is unique
as Jeff knows, consulting formany different people. But I think
there's a general rule herethat we can kind of establish that
says, you know, I think wejust said it Mia right. There's plenty

(32:43):
of people out there who aregoing for seasonal. Do you convert
to transient? I think itdepends on where you are and how
much you're willing to investin marketing and all that. But to
your point to me aboutproperty management companies, there
are some that are very goodlike CRR Hospitality is one. Mike
who's nor. I shouldn't evengive him a shout out because he missed
the show. But SierraHospitality is one that specializes
in RV parking, campgroundmanagement, Blue Waters right there

(33:05):
in the northeast. Right. They.They have a very good. I know they
do hotels too but they have alot of experience in campgrounds.
So there are a couple outthere and there are more, right Scott?
There's certainly a couple butthey're a lot of these.
They're not a lot don't havecapacity. Yes.
And they also for. For acompany like Blue Water, I'm not

(33:26):
quite. I don't think they'lldo a lot.
Of the smaller part and that'swhat my secondary point was is when
you get to the long term orthe seasonal just like we talked
about how it doesn't makesense for a camp spot or a new book
and I'm putting words in theirmouth to be clear. They may think
differently about this to, tochange their pricing model around
and figure out how to makemoney from long term the same thing

(33:48):
as the third party management.
Well, I actually just had. Iwon't say the specific software unless
you want me to. I just had ameeting because I am actually in
the process of buying acampground myself and it's mostly
congratulations. So my partnerand I had a meeting with the software
company Monday and I haveanother company that I'm meeting

(34:09):
with on Friday specificallyAbout the cost. So I'm chuckling
when this brought up earlierabout the cost of long term and the
way this particular companyworks is they charge $2 a month per
seasonal site. So that'spretty, that's $2 a month, actually.
I thought that was pretty good.
Yeah.
And they have a lot of otherfeatures that, you know, I can work

(34:32):
in reimbursement for electricMike. Mike's point, if I needed to.
And when I, when they get onthere and they have to do some sort
of reimbursement, I can justpass that cost off to them. Similar
to what, you know, the, theper, per reservation fee. Right.
If there's a $350 reservationfee for every reservation. These

(34:56):
companies are making a lot ofmoney because you might have a transient
park making thousands ofreservations every year.
Right.
But if you have 150 seasonals,I got 150 reservations. That's it.
Right.
So now I'm getting charged orvery, you know, we only have probably
10 or 20 transient sites, verysmall amount. Right. So now I'm thinking,

(35:17):
okay, well how do I pass thatcost off if I'm only getting charged
$2 a month? Then I thinkthere's easy ways for me to build
that into my cost, either intheir rate or when they log on to
do something like pay theirtab. Because I'm going to run a tab
for them in the, in the storeor pay their electric reimbursement,

(35:39):
I'm just gonna add aprocessing fee of $3. Right. Because
I'm also getting charged 3%,just under 3% credit card processing
on top of that. So let's sayinstead of $2 a month, I'm charging
them three or four dollars amonth. Right. There's ways to build
that in so it's palatable tomy customer. Right. So there's lots

(36:02):
of ways to do that. And Ithink that some of the software companies
now certainly need to startfocusing on a better business model
for them to offer long termpricing. Right. Because a lot of
these parks do have that. Andoften what happens is they don't
even put those sites in thesystem. Right. They might have 100

(36:23):
sites that are seasonal and. 100.
Yeah. Because you don't needonline reservations because you're
calling and asking a bunch ofquestions. Yeah.
But now you're passing up allthe other opportunities, things that
you can link your store, yourpos, your electric, your, you know,
gas, whatever it is that you.Even the gate, gate chart, you know,

(36:44):
the gate, linking the gatecodes and stuff. You're passing up
all of those otheropportunities. So I think it's worth
it, paying a little bit moreto have, have all those seasonals
in one spot right along withyour transients. But that's just
me.
Swear to God we're going toget to electricity, Mike.
Right. Well, some of thepoints that she brought up, Brian,

(37:06):
lead up to Mike.
Because they do so sorry, theydo. But one second real quick because
I want to just, I want tothink about pricing here for a second
because the same thing appliesand I don't think we're going to
solve this on this call, butthe same thing applies to the reservation
system. I, in my head I'mthinking of them and again I'm putting
words in all of their mouths.Right. But in my head I'm thinking

(37:27):
like, well, you want me tohire how many developers to work
on a feature for something Imay or may not make money from. That's
going to take me a coupleyears to build out a feature set
for. And then will there bethat many seasonals in three years
as there is now? And will iteven be worth my time? And then how
do I then like, how do Idifferentiate that? Like Scott Barr

(37:48):
and I were talking about this,about how campground owners view
long term stays as seasonal,but campers view long term stays
as a couple weeks. And so howdo you actually define that process
to make sure that you'recharging versus, you know, the correct
rate to the campground whomaybe has a mix of 80, 20 or 50.
50. So it's interesting.

(38:08):
Yeah, I was going to say the,as you know, being in the market
a long time, people buy RVsand their first year they're going
to travel everywhere and thenthey found out, find out kind of
what a pain in the butt it isto travel everywhere. So they end

(38:28):
up becoming a seasonalsomeplace and then if they want to
travel, they'll unhook and go.But how many.
Okay, I'm sorry, I know I'minterrupting you, but I'm going back
to the, the same. We don'thave an answer for this. Right. How
many of these people areactually out there that are full
time RVers in 2025 that don'town a house? I think it's a lot less

(38:52):
than it was a few years ago.
Yeah, it's, it's heading backto where it was. But one thing that
you've got now that you, youdidn't have before is mobile work,
WI Fi and the ability to stayon the road. So we have a lot more
people that can go out on theroad for months at a time.

(39:14):
Okay.
They may still have apermanent residence, but they can
go out on the road for a longtime because you can get a mail server
that basically will send youby email all of your mail and it's
still a good market. But yeah,to answer your point, where, where's

(39:37):
the market driving? I, youknow, we do see a big demand in seasonal,
especially in the Northeast.One of the reasons is because of
what Mia brought up was it'svery difficult to get a park built

(39:57):
in the north Northeast. So youdon't have a lot of new transient.
If you do, they're full. Youknow, a few of my friends own campgrounds
out there and they're full theyear out. You know, after they close
for the season, they're fullyreserved for next year, both transit

(40:17):
and seasonal. It's a, adifferent market than say North Dakota
where you're scrapping forevery tenant you can get whether
they're seasonal or, you know,a transient. And also the east coast
pricing makes, yeah, it makesthe seasonal park attractive because

(40:38):
if I was getting 8, 8, $500 asite, I have a lot more seasonals,
but we're not getting that inthe Midwest. But to her point about
how you can charge back theseasonal cost, I see a trend not

(40:58):
only with electric, butcharging back the water and sewer
eventually. Because even theparts that have septic and well that
tell me they have no cost intwo years when they have to replace
that well or re drill it orchange the septic system, they'll
find out that they've had avery big cost all those years that

(41:20):
they've been ignoring.
Yeah.
So somehow they've, they'vegot to work that into their formulas
to, to get paid for that. Iwon't go down the financial hole
that I, you know, I go downfinancial holes.
So I would like to hear whenyou're done. I want to hear from

(41:44):
Brent on the. Because I thinkhe was going to talk. Sorry. And
then I also. Then I want topivot to Mike.
Yeah, I was, I was going totouch on what Mia mentioned about
pricing. And this is not thetwo open chem crowns horn by any
stretch, but just kind of giveyou an idea of how we were thinking.
So we were again thinking longterm of saying, okay, if more people

(42:08):
are going towards long termstakes and the average software is
really reservation based orthey charge, you know, $2.50 per
transaction or per seat or persite. What I've seen as well, we
didn't Want to copy thatmodel? So what we did was said, okay,

(42:30):
how about we just let thecustomer keep the per reservation
fee that they want to charge.So hypothetically, if they want to
charge $3 per reservation,they can keep that. We're not going
to take any of that money.Right. So our system is geared that
way to where you can chargewhatever you want. And we kind of
tell the customers like,listen, if you don't want to use

(42:51):
the term booking fee, useservice fee, use maintenance fee,
use, you know, property fee,whatever it is, it's up to your,
you know, that's your choice.Only thing that we do is we say,
okay, we're just going tocharge the guests 2.95, whether it's
Visa, MasterCard, MX for theguest day.

(43:12):
That's it. Right.
So we don't charge any monthlysubscriptions. We just say you can
pass that on to the guests,but if you're generous then, you
know, we'll give you a betterrate if you want to absorb the fee
yourself. Right. So that's howwe've taken it because we're gonna,
we're recognizing that ifyou're gonna have long term guests,

(43:34):
most likely those guests aregoing to pay, you know, hopefully
with a credit card and, andthat way you can, you know, they
just pick up the charge andyou don't have to worry about it.
Right. So we're, we're tryingto be configurable with our pricing.
We're not trying to be kind ofone way. We're trying to say, listen,
you know, your, your, if yourpark is configurable, if it's 50,

(43:58):
50 split or 80, 20 split, thenwe will accommodate that need.
Can we go to Mike or Mia? Doyou want to, do you have questions
for Brent about your park? I'mmessing with you. I'm just kidding.
I'm going to be talking toBrent after this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not theexpert here, but let me catch up
on it.

(44:19):
When you talk about electric,didn't you tell me some, at some
point you're going to go intowater too?
Yes, absolutely. So we'lltouch on that as well. I'm not an
expert on rates or site types,but what I can just listen to the
conversation. I think the onemistake is that we're lumping everything
into long term. Right. Andthere's different types of long term
there. You know, we've gotparks that are an hour and a half

(44:41):
from major metropolitan poundsand those are, you know, they, they
do a site lease but It's aweekend thing. People are going there
to stay the weekend and theyjust happen to leave their equipment
there all week versussomebody, to Jeff's point, that's
on the road, you know, fulltime RVing. That's a very different
clientele than, you know, apark that's catering to weekenders.

(45:02):
That's their second home.Right. That's where you go for the
weekend to go fishing and hangout with friends. So that's, that's
a very different clientele.The one thing we have seen is oversaturated
markets. So we can tell wheredevelopment has slowed, like in the
Houston area and then marketsthat are still expanding and booming.
I would say Florida. You know,I'm working with a lot of new development

(45:25):
projects in Floridaspecifically. They are still building,
they are big parks. They're,you know, 500 plus site properties
still coming out of the dirt.So, you know, different markets are
seeing different types ofthings happening for sure. And then
I can't go into it, but we'vegot an interesting client in Florida
that is building a uniqueproperty with lots of amenity types

(45:47):
on property, you know, andthat will attract and fill up a thousand
spaces that they're working onjust because there's so many things
that you'll be able to do withtheir property. So you do have to
consider all the differenttypes of properties out there.
Will those people. I don'twant to derail you. Sorry. Yeah,
no, like again, you talk aboutFlorida still being built, right.

(46:07):
Will that new thousand sitepark with all its amenities attract
a thousand new people toFlorida though, or will it pull a
thousand people from otherexisting parks, in your unscientific
opinion?
Yeah, unscientifically, itlooks, it appears to be still new,
new growth. You know, it's newequipment still hitting the park
parks. It's not people pullinga rig that's five years old, six

(46:29):
years old from another park.It is still new rigs coming in there
because they're, you know,they're nicer, high end parks, the
ones that are being built. Sothey are attracting the higher rates
and yeah, new people. Andthey're doing it in phases. Right.
So when I say a thousand sitepark, they're not opening day one
with a thousand sites. Youknow, they're bringing on 350 and
then another 200 and then, youknow, just phase after phase after

(46:51):
phase. Phase coming up online.
Right. Hey Mike, quickquestion on that. On your new builds,
how many of them are buildingand then selling the lots outright?
Yeah, very few. Very few. Aredoing that anymore. I, you know,
I saw that more four years agothan I do today. So. Yeah, they're

(47:13):
not. They'll do an annuallease, you know, that type of thing.
Okay. Because I've, I've. Afew of the parks that I visited for
comparisons down in Floridawere member, you know, not member
parks, but you actually haddeed to your lot.
Absolutely.
And you know, some of them hadsurprisingly quick uptake where they

(47:37):
sold out, and then others werekind of slow to develop. For a developer,
it takes the operation of itout and then you have the HOA where
you make your money from.
Right? Yeah.
And in Florida, I don't wantan HOA because their laws are tough.

(47:57):
They are tough. You'reabsolutely right. Water is an interesting
topic. We are being asked moreand more and more for water. It's
kind of surprising, but, youknow, even the water rates, you've
got some parks that are indirectly in major metropolitan areas
like Tampa, and they're oncommercial water. And, and that's
one of the big expenses.Right. Right next to electrical is

(48:19):
they've got a water billthat's huge. Quarter million bucks.
So you got to recover thatsomehow. And it's funny, I have so
many videos and pictures ofwater spraying out of RVs and spigot.
You know, if people don't careand you're not measuring it, you
know, it's that that's anuncontrolled expense. Same with electric.
Electric, if you're notcharging for it, it's an uncontrolled

(48:40):
expense that you were. You gotto eat no matter what the end result
is. If the power companyraised your rate, you're eating that
because you booked, you bookedthe reservation and the rate last
year. So you didn't build that20 rate increase in.
Is it easier to teach aconsumer about electricity versus
water, though? Because like, Ithink they're. Because people at

(49:02):
their houses get a separateelectric bill and can see the cost.
I mean, I know it's hardregardless, saying, hey, we're going
to charge you for something wehaven't before. But from a water
perspective, like, I mean, Iknow it's like up here it's bundled
with my trash and it's thesame. Like, I don't see it as often.
And so is there a perceptionthat it's just like, inconsequential
and that's why they're. Ithink they're more wasteful with

(49:22):
water than they are electricity.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.Especially because, you know, everybody
pays an electric bill. There'svery few people generating their
own water. But you know, a lotof people in the country have well
water. They're not paying awater bill. And so that is a new
concept to start paying forwater and sewer. The hardest thing
is to teach a park owner aboutbilling their guests for electric.

(49:45):
It's funny, the consumers getthat and the park owners don't. We
had one new park in Alabamacome out of the ground, started charging
electric, you know, on dayone, you know, you stay there one
day, you're getting anelectric bill. And they've had zero
consumer pushback. And it's,you know, they've been running now
for almost a year, nocomplaints. So the consumers get

(50:09):
that billing for electricmodel. It's the park owners that
are hesitant to change the paradigm.
Yeah, I mean, I think thatsome of that is. A lot of these park
owners have been going to thesame conference for 20 years, talking
to the same people who go tothe Same conferences for 20 years
who all have never charged for electric.
Yeah.
So it's a completely foreignconcept to them to think about doing
something differently. Andthat's not a slight on any of them.

(50:31):
Right. That's just like ifyou, I mean, the common example I
give to people when they askme about like, do you believe in
certain things is Santa Claus.Right. Like if you, if you grew up
believing in Santa Claus andthen from like whatever age 6 or
7 when you started havingdoubts, from that point on until
you were an adult, you onlyever talk to people who still believed
in Santa Claus. You wouldbelieve in Santa Claus. Like you

(50:53):
would.
Right.
And so it's the same thing.It's, it's just who you're, who you're
surrounding yourself with.
Yep, that's absolutely true.
But tell us more about likeelectric. I want to hear more about.
Because this plays right intowhat we're talking about. Right.
Optimization operations.
Yeah. I mean the cool thingand the reason, the whole, the whole
reason Wild Energy got startedwas to make it possible to charge

(51:15):
for electric on short stayutilities. I was a camper, I was
on the consumer side and Icouldn't understand why I paid the
same to camp as somebody whohad a bigger rig or a smaller rig,
because I, you know, I justknew that I was using a different
amount of that utility. Andagain, being a consumer, you're used
to paying for it at yourhouse. So that's where the whole

(51:36):
idea came from. And every timeyou explain that to a consumer, it's
like, well, do you pay foryour neighbor's electric. Do you
want to pay for that guy who'sgot a Tesla plugged in at his pad
or.
I'm thinking about buying,just to be clear.
So, yeah. And, you know, samething. You know, Brian, you got campgrounds
that don't want evs in theirpark. No EVS you can't charge. And

(51:57):
that's true. If you don't havethe, the infrastructure to do it.
You.
You absolutely should notallow people to do that. But if you
do, if you do bill them forit. That's, that's a great guest
service. Let them charge theirev. You know, you're giving them
an amenity that they wouldn'thave at another park. And if you're
able to capture that cost andfill them back, go. Great.

(52:19):
That's all you got about electricity?
No, no. ask questions.
We have a couple minutes leftin the technical end of the show,
but we plan to kind of justhave conversations. So if anybody
else needs to drop off, pleasefeel free. But if we're having a
conversation, probably.
The big thing I would talkabout is the regulatory side of it.

(52:40):
I do a lot of education onwhat you can and can't do around
electrical billing and whatkind of equipment you can and can't
use to bill people. And Ithink we need more education in the
industry on what is allowedand how you should be doing it, because
there are people that aregetting public utility notices that
of non compliance. And, youknow, you're putting your campground

(53:04):
at risk. You know, you'reopening yourself up for class action
lawsuits. That's not, that'snot something that anybody wants.
You know, we're working withone very large property management
company that is going to auditevery single property they manage
to make sure they're doing itcompliantly. And I think that kudos
to them for trying to do itthe right way and make sure they're
doing the right thing for, forthe customers that they're managing

(53:26):
for.
Hey, Mike, we need to hearthat voice at OHI so that we can
make it a national program, right?
Yeah, OHI is actually. I'mworking with OHI to change some of
the regulations. Specificallyin California and in Mississippi,
there are some tough utilityregulations that don't allow for

(53:46):
recovery. And again, that goesback to it's not fair. Fair for the
business owners. I've talkedto the public utility commissions.
They're open to changing therules. Nobody's ever asked. So. And,
and then you just have to walkthrough the red tape of, well, how
do you get that right changedand, you know, publish it. And it's
got to be open for publiccomment and push through and you.

(54:06):
Know, like utilities, right?Like, this is only like, what if
you have private solar? Areyou still governed by the same rules?
Nobody's got enough solar torun their camp.
I'm just making something up.Right. I'm just.
But so you have to abide bythe, the public utility regulations.
Right. And every state isdifferent, even depending on the

(54:28):
city. Some cities have theirown ordinances about.
That's right.
You know, New York, of course,there's no campgrounds in New York
City, but they have very weirdrules on electric chargebacks.
Yeah, San Diego is a greatexample of that. You know, they went
hard after a couple ofcampgrounds that were charging inappropriately

(54:50):
for electric and fined themsignificantly until they got their
stuff under control.
So what are the common waysthat you see campgrounds usually
making mistakes with the waythey charge electricity? Because
I think that's maybe a goodplace to like. We're not going to
be able to talk about this forthe next two hours, although maybe
we'd like to.
But number one, building theelectric into your rate is a huge

(55:10):
mistake. And it's funny, wejust did a property for a very large
group, you know, a couplehundred parks, and we put meters
in and started measuringthings and gave them the data. And
they're like, oh, my God, thenumber that we baked into our rate
was way off. You know, wedidn't know it, that we were not
recovering enough. And so, youknow, they have an opportunity now

(55:34):
to improve the cost recoveryand improve their bottom line. And
just that data is very, veryhelpful to make informed decisions
instead of just taking averages.
So besides, so besides that,which is obviously a very important
point, and you're in your,like, with wild energy, they would
be measuring this exactly. Andthey would be then recouping the

(55:55):
exact dollar amount. Like theycan't go over right. In. In depending
on jurisdiction.
Yeah, that's. That's exactlyright. It also brings the, you know,
when you start meteringsomebody, it brings the consumption
down. You know, the numberthat's hanging out over my shoulder
is carbon reduction. So theminute you take a campground and
you start metering and shiftit to the consumer, they use less.

(56:17):
And so that's better for the.The overall infrastructure of the
park. You're not going to bedoing capital improvements as often.
You're not doing breakerchanges as often because, you know,
they're not jamming your powerso your maintenance costs go down.
And you know, we provide an onscreen view so that the, the end
camper can look at whatthey're using so they're informed.

(56:39):
That cuts down calls to thefront desk that, you know, hey, I
don't trust my meter becausethey can look at it themselves. So
there's, there's a ton ofintangible benefits that you get
by shifting that to theconsumer side.
Makes sense. Jeff, any goodquestions for anyone on the.
Well, Mike, you know I loveyour product and when you figure

(57:04):
out the water 1.
Did you write Jeff a check forthe show? Because I didn't get it
to check. Yeah, you'respreading some love around.
Well, we're working withMike's product at other places. I'm
actually installing it thisyear in, in my park because, and
I hate to admit this, we havenot been billing electric for the

(57:26):
last two years because theprogram wasn't working correctly.
So this year we actuallyreduced our rate for seasonal and
now we'll be billing them backfor electric. And in the end I believe
that we're going to gain about200 hours a site over the season.

(57:49):
We are one of the campgroundsthat limits the amount of seasonals
we take because we're locatednext to big amusement park. So yeah,
we do well with transient. ButI have other parks where we took
where they thought they weregoing to be transient. And when I
worked with them I, I said,why are people going to be coming

(58:13):
to this park on a visitation?You need to be a seasonal campground
where people are coming torelax for the weekend. And we actually
filled them up with seasonalsand got rid of all the transient,
cut all the costs, operatingcosts by about 20% and now it's cash

(58:34):
flowing very well. But it'salways, I mean it's not a straight
answer on a park or foroperations whether it's going to
be a seasonal park, transitpark, a hybrid park. It's a function
of cost, it's a function ofdemand, it's a function of rates.

(58:54):
There's so many variables thatenter into it that you, you can't
have a standard answer. That'sone of the things we specialize in.
And my. If you need duediligence, it's one of the things
we specialize in is doingperformance on parks and looking

(59:14):
at the parks to find all thethings that might be wrong with it
that would come up later for anew purchaser because most got most
people buying a park, parkdon't know what they're looking for.
Building a park usually andPlease, please talk to Jeff or some
similar company right beforeyou build or before you buy, please.

(59:40):
Even with design, there'sbeen. I. My hobby is I visit parks,
of course, and I go to a lotof new parks that I look at them
and go, oh my God, the sitesare so narrow. The sites are too
small, the roads are too, youknow, hard to get in and out of.
They built a 30 million dollarclubhouse. Who's going to use it

(01:00:02):
and how you're gonna, how areyou gonna spread that over the rates?
So, yeah, that clubhouse thingfascinates me, Jeff. Like, I know
people use clubhouses morethan the use case. I'm gonna go,
but I still to this day willgo to any conference or any travel
and I'll stay in a hotel andjust desperately wonder who sits
in the chairs outside theelevator of the hotel.
Well, I do. That's how I met you.

(01:00:24):
Is that really true? No,that's not true, is it?
No. You got those chairs.
Get lots of stuff. It could bepossible. How long have we known
each other? It's been like 15 years.
Yeah, it's getting there,right? I remember you when you were
a baby and you were a U.S. citizen.
Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah. I mean, Jeff. Jeffbrings up a good point. You know,

(01:00:46):
we have investors that lookfor parks that are not metering because
they know there's an instantopportunity to start recovering that
cost and improve the NOIinstantly. So they will go and buy
parks, you know, knowing thatthey can make money day one by putting
metering in.
Well, and, you know, goingback to that, you know, operations,
it's the same thing. Ifthey're not charging a fee for credit

(01:01:08):
card collections, we can boostthe revenue 3% just by instituting
that. And people are gettingso used to that charge. When we first
started it, you know, peoplewould just back off in horror that
we were going to have themstart doing that. But people are

(01:01:29):
starting to accept it. Andthe, you know, the cost for us to
take credit cards is gettingup there because they're dinging
us for a lot of little things.
And what about crypto, Jeff?Just take crypto.
Different. Different episode.

(01:01:50):
How do you, Mike, how do youpass off? How does Walk me through
how you charge a transientwho's coming for the weekend? What
are they doing? Are they justbilling it when they check out? How
quickly is that comingthrough? Seasonal. We all get. We
know they do it once a monthor even monthlies. That's easy. But

(01:02:13):
the transient. Walk me throughhow it works with your company.
Yeah, so the great news iswe're integrated with about almost
a dozen property managementsystems now that do that, automate
that whole process. Right. Soon check in that PMS will go grab
the meter reading and then oncheckout, you know, whether it's
a day, a week or two weeks,they grab the meter reading at the

(01:02:36):
end, do the calculation andfill it right on the guest folio.
So automatic, it's allcomputerized. You don't have to have
somebody go to the site andcheck the meter and correct.
Okay, yeah, yeah, Mike, don't.Most of the places they have a, basically
actually a charge built in forsay, and just a number one kilowatt

(01:03:02):
is built into the price. Whatyou do is if you use over that, then
you're billed for the excess.And what it does is try to get to
the people that have two airconditioners, electric heaters, things
like that.
Yeah. So, you know, I'veworked with the PMS's and those features

(01:03:23):
are, in some of them, it'scalled power allocation. It's, it's
an okay strategy. It's not agreat one. It does help ease people
into being billed forelectricity. But I, you know, I had
a good in depth conversationwith Rafa at Bluewater about that.
I said, okay, Rafo, you goover by 1 kilowatt and you get a
bill for 39 cents on your, youknow, you get a charge 30 cents.

(01:03:46):
How does that make you feel?And he says, yeah, I don't like that.
So I think it's better to, tojust, if you're gonna bill, decide,
you know, what duration you'regonna start building utilities. And
I would go down to five daysplus, you know, if you want to start
somewhere that is not daily,you know, that is long term or, you
know, short stay or whateveryou want to call it, but start it

(01:04:09):
with five days plus and startgrabbing that expense recapture right
to the bottom line. And then,you know, once that is kind of the
norm, move it down to daily.
Well, put a meter on each ofthese sites.
The cost roughly in the $150ballpark to put a new meter in there.

(01:04:29):
You know, I tell people thatis a better capital investment than
a fire ring, a picnic table,because it's actually recovering
your cost and it's going to bethere 20 plus years versus, you know,
you're going to replace that,that $800 picnic table in six, seven,
eight years. You know, it'sgoing to have to get replaced over
and over.

(01:04:49):
Mike, is that per, I'm sorry,is that Is that first per site per.
Okay, yeah. And then there'ssome, you know, there's some.
Is there a monthly charge?
There is a monthly charge.Yeah. And that's in volume. So it
starts at about six, sixdollars and drops down. So again
that, that gets passed throughusually on the rate because people

(01:05:09):
don't want to have all theseextra charges. We do have some campgrounds
that do administrative, theycall it an administrative fee and
they'll make it six and ahalf, seven dollars. I've got one
property that does 25. And youknow, his thought process there was,
you know, I'm charging themfor the seasonal site. 25 bucks a

(01:05:31):
month isn't going to kill themand I'm going to pay for all my equipment.
So it's just the mindset andyou know, again, what your clientele
will bear. Yeah. I always sayon an average daily rate, you know,
you got to add 20 cents andyou got, you've got that covered.
So if you can increase yourrate 20 cents a day or you can increase
your monthly by six bucks, youknow, you're covering that. You want

(01:05:51):
to increase it by 10. Nowyou're paying for your equipment.
So you're saying we could justincrease the rate by those guidelines
and then not buy wild energy meters.
No, you're paying for them. Yeah.
Mike, do you, do you see thedaily billing or even, you know,
going from three days outbilling? I picture that as being

(01:06:13):
from being drawn down from themega parks down to the mom and pops.
Not. I don't see the mom andpop hops starting that phase because
they don't, they don't havethe demand and most of the places
to be innovative on that. Butthe mega parks do like Margaritavilles

(01:06:34):
and some of the bigger jellystones where they're the destination
park. I think they're the onesthat can start that trend. But just
like the credit card fees, itgot started, but now it's being accepted
across the industry.
Yes. It's funny you say that.The, the smaller parks are starting
first. They are the quickestto adopt new technology and make

(01:06:57):
changes. The big park owners,multi park owners, are very hesitant
to change. You know whatthey've been doing? I've been doing
it this way. I don't want tochange it. So they're more hesitant
to make, to make that changethan the individual park owners.
You know what's fascinatingthough? I bet you, and you tell me
if I'm wrong. I bet you whenthe big part of people come and talk
to you at the Trade shows.They're like, we're going to do this

(01:07:18):
tomorrow. And then they. Thenthat flips into what you said when
they go back home.
Yeah. I mean, if you. Itdepends if they're financing them.
I'm not picking on them.Right. But just.
Yeah, no, if they're. Ifthey're financially oriented and
they can run numbers in theirhead and they know how to. Then they
get it right away. It's thepeople that don't understand their

(01:07:39):
financials that struggle with it.
Yeah. Well, my point is, is Ithink the big park owners get it
right away, and I think theywant to do it right away, but then
they run into the machine thatis there.
Yes.
Big. Huge. Yeah. So that'swhat. That's what my point was.
Overall. one, one executive'slike, I don't. You know. Yeah. It's
decision by committee instead, that.
That's why they need my NI. Totalk to them and say, you're throwing

(01:08:04):
money away.
We should just put together,like, Mike, you and I should just
put. And maybe we can sneakJeff into this package. And Mia,
we should just put togethersome kind of like, epic, like, package
where we take one meeting amonth so there's like crazy demand
and we look like we'rebacklogged and we have a wait list
for people who can just comein and purchase a park and put in

(01:08:24):
wild energy and use AI andlike, just cut their expenses by
80% there.
Have a. Have a good casestudy. For sure.
Yeah, case study if you want.
Which one?
I said you can use my new parkas a case study.
Oh. Oh, you're a realtor andyou bought a park?

(01:08:45):
Were you not paying attention?She just said that earlier. Jeff.
But it's insane.
Come on, Jeff.
You know, I gotta. Jeff, Igotta put my money where my mouth
is. Right.
Well, I'm not allowed to buyany more parks. Or. Or I will be.
I'll be single because I gotrid of all of mine. Now I can. I

(01:09:07):
have a technicality that I caninvest in a park, but I don't own
it.
I mean, that's fine.
Yeah. Because if my wife askedme, I say no. I have not bought a
park. Absolutely not.
Seems like a very dangerousfine line that you should navigate

(01:09:28):
offline away from. I don'twant to take sides.
So it's like you were a lawyerin a prior life, Jeff.
Well, but accountants can readthe law.
But there is, for as much aswe joke about it, right. There is
a market for that. For notlike just being that exclusive and
putting together, but Justwhat you said, Mike. For people who

(01:09:50):
can come in and reduce thatoperating expense of a park and know
for sure they can do it whenthey're looking at a cap rate or
whatever the NOI is or. And sothat's like, that's what we tell
people too with AI when youcome in, like especially with labor.
And so I think there'ssomething that could be put together
between multiple providers inthis, in this space to market that

(01:10:11):
in a better way to theseinvestors who are trying to come
in and be more cost efficientbut also still provide a better guest
experience because this isgoing to be. You know, going back
to your very first question,Jeff, what do we think 2025 is going
to look like? I think 2025 isgoing to be down or flat for a lot
of people. Unless you're juststarted marketing off. Right. And
you've never done anymarketing before, then maybe you
have a chance to be up alittle bit. But so I think you're

(01:10:32):
going to have to pay moreattention to many things. But one
of those things is going to beyour margins. What are your costs
for things? And there are waysthat through metering or through
credit card processing orrequesting cooping fees or using
AI or whatever that you can dothis very easily in 2025. And so
I think maybe it's aconversation we're not gonna have

(01:10:53):
in the show, but.
Right. Because yeah, one ofthe, if you have an older park, one
of the new fixes to save somerevenue would be to put the investment
into your WI Fi and get rid ofyour old kids cable systems and your
cost of fixed cable. Letpeople stream and the WI FI is going

(01:11:18):
to work. Everybody streamsanymore anyway.
Just buy a bunch of Starlinkdishes and rent them out to people
per night.
Well, there you go.
You can have them installed onpoles outside, but just flip them
on when they want Internetrent them out. Wouldn't that make
more money than maintainingand revamping a WI FI system system
X number of years and tryingto figure out all the signals and

(01:11:40):
hassles and trees and I meanmaybe that to trees you start to
figure it out with Starlink,but you only figure.
Out once people want trees.Until they want WI Fi.
Yeah, until they want theirStarlink dish to work. Right.
Yeah, but if you, but if you.
Were renting the dish and itwas on a pole and it was in the same
exact location, you would knowwhere it was that it got coverage.

(01:12:00):
It'd be screwed in and lockeddown. You just flip that dish on
if they pay for it.
Yeah, we. I don't know. My. Myprofile is we want to. Internet is
one of your biggest amenitiesanymore in a campground.
Yeah, but everybody has cellphones. Everybody has 5G. Everybody

(01:12:21):
has hotspots. So, like, Idon't know that there's a. Like,
there was even five years ago.I don't know that there's a need
with a capital, all capitalletters for people to absolutely
have that. Like, there wasyears ago. So I think maybe there
you can get away with it.
I'll have you come to my frontdesk when the WI fi goes down.
Okay. Because, like, I'll justpull out their phone and be like,

(01:12:43):
did you know there's thisbutton here that you can toggle on
that's a hot spot? Oh, your WIfi's back.
Yeah. No, they don't know that.
I know that could be part ofthe education process.
Right. Well. And you know thatI carry. Along with my phone, I carry
two other hotspots just sothat I've always got my own signal
no matter where I am. So.
I don't know that I actuallydid know that, but. Good. That's

(01:13:04):
awesome. Yeah, I used to do that.
Yeah. But there. There's somany avenues that we can go down.
We haven't even touchedoperating systems for your campground
management systems procedures.
Well, that's why we have thiscall, though. That's why we restructured
the show, because every time,like, again, I don't, you know, Mike

(01:13:26):
and Mia and Brent aren't goingto be here, but you and I will be.
And. And so the. The idea is,is let's dive into those operational
things week by week so thatpeople are interested that can tune
into the show.
Okay. So that's pretty muchgoing to be the standard of this.
Yeah.
Time when I'm. When we comeon, is going. Going over building

(01:13:47):
systems, operations, costsavings, financials.
Why do you think you're here?That's why we picked you for this
episode, man.
Hell, I never know why I'm here.
I mean, I don't know why I'mhere either, too, but just to mess
up my mic and screw aroundwith the studio and curse at things
before the show starts.
So I'm gonna have to get allfancy then like you and get my, you

(01:14:07):
know, my Rush Limbaughmicrophone, golden microphone.
And, yeah, we need to create areal plan. Yeah, we need to create
better plans for people who.Who are on the show, not just for
the current guests, but for,like, Mike. I mean, Mike was asked,
like, trade show Questions. Soshould we require guests to have
their booth set up behindthem? I think so.
You mean you want me to havemy banner instead of my backdrop?

(01:14:29):
Yeah.
Mike, were you at OHI last summer?
Yes, sir.
Okay. I don't know if I ranacross you or not, but we. We had
a booth there in Orlando. Theone in Orlando, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Down there. Done that. Yep.
Last year. Last year.
Wasn't that two years ago?
Two years ago.
Two years ago.

(01:14:50):
Oklahoma.
Okay. I think we're talking.
Oh, Orlando is three years agoin OHI.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah. Kansas. Kansas City.Oklahoma City. And beautiful Louisville.
Where did your hat go? Putyour hat back on. Honor your grandfather.

(01:15:11):
It got warm in there.
Well, you guys are asking me.Yeah. Right now I'm asking questions.
When I was alive, I didn'thave air conditioning. Suck it up,
Jeff. Leave the hat on.
Yeah. Come on, Brian. I admitI'm old. You don't have to remind

(01:15:32):
me.
I admit I'm old.
Yeah.
So.
And. And you've completelyruined my partner.
I've completely. Why have Iruined your partner?
Greg is so far down the AIhole that every time I talk to him,
he can't talk to me direct. Hetypes it in and has AI answer me.

(01:15:52):
You watch, Jeff, you watch. Inless than two years, and I'm telling
you this, in less than twoyears, you will turn to Greg and
you'll be like, I am so gladyou started learning AI two years
ago, because we would befucked without you. Can I just say
fucked. I don't know if I can say.
It's your show.
That's true. But, like, Idon't know if people get offended
by that. But it's. It is. Itis what it is. Right? Like, I. I

(01:16:13):
think you're gonna do that inless than two years.
I do admit I use it, but Istill. When I'm building strategic
plans and doing other things,it's still. I want to use my experience
to. Well, of course, you know.And he keeps telling me, well, it
is, you know, if you run yourthoughts through AI, it's still your

(01:16:36):
thoughts. And it's like.
It's true.
It is, but that's not the wayI talk. If I'm talking to you across
a table, I want the samethought process to come out of my
mouth as I would put down on paper.
Of course. But how. How muchcan you scale a table? And I don't
want to divert into the AIthing, but how much can you scale

(01:16:58):
the Jeff across the table?Like, I mean, I do, but Like, I don't
in this conversation. Right.So like. Yeah. How much can you scale
the Jeff across the table ismy point. You can't. You can scale
Jeff on the phone more, youcan scale Jeff on email more, but
you can't scale Jeff acrossthe. So there has to be a difference
in that in order to scale.Anyway, let's go back to Brent. I

(01:17:19):
want to talk more. And by theway, like, anybody's welcome to leave
if you guys want. Like, we'rejust having a good conversation.
I know everybody has things todo except for me apparently, but.
So I have to go shovel mydriveway. Brian.
What? You don't have a robotfor that? You know, I, I bought.

(01:17:39):
I bought my girlfriend'sparents. They're my. I guess I don't
know, my in laws. We're notmarried yet. Right. But I bought
them those snow melting.There's a company called Heat Track
that I've been using for like20 years. I bought them from my dad
like so long ago. But they'rewonderful. You just stick them on
your mat and you like plugthem in and like your doorstep and

(01:18:01):
they sell. And they selldriveway path ones and they sell
ones for your roof and theysell. So you don't have to shovel
anymore. Like if you justfigure out you're looking for an
investment and you had capitalsitting there, invest in your back.
So Brian, you need to solvethe freezing water line to an RV
problem because that, youknow, that keeps. You can keep a

(01:18:24):
campground open and keep thewater flowing.
Well, you can monitor it.Monitoring it or solving it. Yeah,
I don't, I don't want to.That's your department. You got.
You're building all kinds ofwizard hardware things over there,
right? There's got to besomething though that I bet you there's
some kind of. Because like.And I'll tell you, and this is just
the weird things that I may ormay not know. Years ago, I remember

(01:18:48):
backing this project onKickstarter where it was like a.
It was a butter knife, but itlike vibrated in such a way if you
held it that it would likeslightly heat up to slice through
the butter easier. So I betyou like 15 years later there's probably
some kind of similartechnology that would at least vibrate
it enough to where it wouldkeep it above freezing depend like

(01:19:09):
not, not in Canada, but likein, in North America. Not that it
would vibrate or anything.Right. But I'm sure there's some
kind of technology right therethat would. We just have to figure
it out.
Mike, it's all heat tape usingelectric. I like it.
Right. Well, we invented aheat tape. Oh, God. Well, company

(01:19:31):
that I had a piece of, weinvented a heat tape called Frostex,
which is, is a great littleone that you can put because it'll
even work on a water hose andnot melt it, unlike some of the other
heat tips. But it doesn'tsolve the problem for me as an operator.
Why?

(01:19:52):
Because we get 36 inches offrost. So. And unless I had put in
heated terminals at the verybeginning of my construction, I can't,
I can't keep them warm enough.My water. We were built as a summer
park.
Yeah.
We'll never be. You know, I'vegot some main water lines that are

(01:20:15):
maybe 12 inches deep.
So here's, here's what I wantyou to build, Mike. I want you to
build a self contained watermeter system for each site that will
apparently make my camera gooff. Lisa, I think you're rolling
on the cord, but try to moveyour chair now, Lisa. But anyway,

(01:20:40):
so I don't know what happenedto my camera anyway. Better looking
without it. But build a, aself contained, you know, water meter
system that can recyclepeople's water in real time. And
then you can keep like. Youdon't have to build water pipes.
You can just have like a watertank on each individual person's
site that can clean the waterand purify it and so quickly that

(01:21:03):
they will never need to havewater pipes.
Yeah, I think NASA did thatfor the space station. So I think
mass produce that and put itin every rv. We're good to go.
You'd be. Yeah, you'd be evenricher than you are now, which is
probably pretty red with allthe people who need electricity.
It's coming soon anyway, so.Is that crazy? Is that too crazy

(01:21:24):
of an idea? Like in 20 years,though? I don't know.
Hey, nothing's. Nothing'scrazy if you can figure out how to
do it. That's the. It's thecrazy people that made all the innovations,
so.
That's right.
But yeah, it's. It's interesting.
I'm gonna have to. To go. Igot a 3:30 coming up. It was very,

(01:21:45):
very good meeting you, Mia andBrent. I probably have seen you at
a show or two, but haven'tstopped and talked to you if you
want. All my informationshould be on Brian's page someplace.
But I'm willing to talk to youanytime off the air because this

(01:22:10):
is what I love doing istalking. Campground.
Definitely. Nice to meet You,Jeff, appreciate it. Appreciate all
your insight.
Yeah, we should probably wrapup at some point anyway. Now especially.
Yeah.
Don't have a camera, so. Butyeah, like Mia, tell us about your
prop. What's the name? Are youable to say that? Did you close already
or.
No, not yet.
Okay, so don't say it. Yeah,but we want to hear about it. Like

(01:22:32):
we'll try to have you back onthe show. Maybe tell us about your
experience as a campgroundowner, but I wish we had more time
to dive more into thebrokerage aspect. I'm sorry, we didn't.
We had. We think we had a goodconversation though.
Invite me back. We'll chat for sure.
Absolutely. So. But where canthey find out more information about
your brokerage if they'reinterested in selling the property?
On my website isanycampgroundbrokers.com and yeah,

(01:22:58):
give me a call. We'll chat ifanybody has any questions. Like I
said, I also do a little bitof consulting, usually trying to
assist in people thinkingabout succession planning and, you
know, growing. Growing value.
Awesome. Thank you for beinghere, Brent. Where can they find

(01:23:18):
out more about yourreservation system for long term
guests?
Yeah, sure. So the website isopencampground.com and there's a
section where we couldbasically give you a demo of the
website or of the app and kindof just walk you through what we
have to offer.
Awesome. Thanks for beinghere, Brent and Mike. Where can they

(01:23:40):
find out more about Wild Energy?
Well, best thing is to askyour local campground. I mean, we're
all over the place now. Ithink there's only a couple states
we're not in north and SouthDakota, so you might not get a good
reference there. But everyother state we've got dozens of customers
in, so, you know, asking yourpeers is probably the best thing.
We can answer the specifictechnical questions and implementation

(01:24:03):
questions. And we're at www.wildenergyco.com.
Awesome. Thanks for beinghere, Mike. Thanks for joining us
for another episode ofFireside Chats. I swear I'm here
and I'm not an AI somewhere inthe background. But we'll see you
next week for another episode.And thanks here. Thanks. Take care,
guys.
See you.

(01:24:23):
Take care. Bye Bye.
Thanks for joining us for thisepisode of MC Fireside Chats with
your host Brian Searl. Have asuggestion for a show idea? Want
your campground or company ina future episode? Email us@hellooderncampground.com
get your daily dose of newsfrom ModernCampground.com and be
sure to join us next week formore insights into the fascinating

(01:24:45):
world of outdoor hospital hospitality.

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MC Fireside Chats - January 15th, 2025

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