MC Fireside Chats - May 21st, 2025 - MC Fireside Chats, an Outdoor Hospitality Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian Searl (00:45):
Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats.
That almost didn't happen'cause I was in the wrong place.
But thank you guys all for being here.
I appreciate it.
I think Sharah was trying toplay a joke on me or something.
'cause this episode says May 14th.
We're just trying to see if Iwas paying attention to my toes.
But welcome everybody.
I appreciate everybody being here.
Today we have a couplegood discussions in place.

(01:06):
We have a couple of recurringguests here, as always.
Mike Harrison from CRR Hospitality.
Ali, welcome back, fromSpacious Skies Campgrounds.
Jeff, you're there too.
You're a little, you're flickeringin and out, like a ghost.
You're okay.

Jeff Hoffman (01:18):
Yeah.
I, pretty much.

Mike Harrison (01:19):
It's a virtual background.
Same thing happens to me.
It's a setting in Restream that it just.

But I understand you Mike, but like Jeff should
have a budget for a background.
Heidi with Utility Supply Group is here.
Welcome Heidi.
It's been a while.
We haven't seen each other since the show.
And then Jim's here as well.
So do we want to go, just go around theroom and introduce ourselves briefly and
we'll obviously spend more time divinginto Jim and Heidi's stories today.
But Mike, you wanna start?

Sure.
Mike Harrison with CRR Hospitality.
We are owners and operators of luxuryupscale RV and glamping resorts, as
well as do third party and consulting.

Awesome.
Thanks for being here, Mike.
Ali?

Ali Rasmussen (02:00):
I'm Allie Rasmussen, co-founder of Spacious Skies Campgrounds.
We also own and operate campgrounds onthe East coast from Maine to Georgia.

Awesome.
You excited for the season?

Pumped, like really pumped.
Looks really good.

Awesome.
Great to hear.
Jeff.

Yes.
I'm Jeff Hoffman and I have CampStrategy, which is a consulting firm that
specializes in the campground businessand it's work that I really enjoy trying
to help camp owners get profitable.

Awesome.
Thanks for being here as always, Jeff.
Heidi, do you want to introduceyourself and tell us just briefly a
little bit about Utility Supply Group?

Heidi Doyle (02:42):
Yeah, I'm Heidi with Utility Supply Group.
We are an electrical distributor for theoutdoor hospitality industry, think RV
parks, campgrounds, also marinas, and anykind of resort glamping or an RV resort.
And we dig a little deeper than justputting products out on the shelf.
We work hard with theNational Electric Code.

(03:03):
I'm on the UL one-seven code.
And so any kind of power outlets, Ihelp decide if they are safe or not.
Like if you buy a new hair dryer,you'll see that it's UL listed.
I work on the same type of code.
But it's just for power outlets and so wejust try to dig a little bit deeper and
work a little harder for this industry.

Awesome.
Thanks for being here, Heidi.
I'm excited to dive intoa little bit more about

Thank you.

Can I call it USG, is that fair?
Or do I have to say the whole thing?

That's what, yeah, that's what a lot of people do.

Okay.
It was just in your name title,so I wanted to make sure it
was okay for me to do that.
Jim Omstrom, did I pronounce that right?

Jim Omstrom (03:38):
You did.
I'm impressed.
Brian.
Thanks for having me.
Nice to meet everyone.
I'm co-founder of Open Road Resorts.
We own a handful of campgroundsacross the us, a couple in Dallas,
Texas, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Just acquired one in Wyoming just outsideof West Yellowstone and Omaha, Nebraska.
So we own a couple of campgrounds andlooking forward to getting the number one.

Yeah.
Very cool.
I've definitely seen your branda lot of different places as
you continue to acquire park.
So excited to hear a little bitabout what you're all about and your
backstory in a few minutes here.
Mike, Ali, Jeff, for our recurringguests, is there anything that's come
across your desk in the last month orso or longer that you guys feel like we
should talk about or is important for us?
We obviously have Memorial Day comingup, the season starting, but anything

(04:22):
that's notable that you guys wanna touchon before we get to our special guests?
No, everybody's gonna be quiet.
Nothing happened at all.

It's the same topics.
AI continues to grow and grow and thegenerational camping report they just did
the presentation an hour before this one.
And I don't even wanna say this outloud 'cause like Sharah, can you
mute Brian for a moment, please?
Just mute him.
But 30% of.
Campers have already used AI for search,and they expect that to go to three

(04:58):
fourths of campers using AI for searchwhen looking for a campground to stay in.
So insider perks, which is obviouslynot modern campground, but an affiliate
certainly is ahead of that curve.
But it's something that, we need tocontinue to stay on top of and be ahead
of as clearly the, generative search andall how Google's, prioritizing search.

(05:19):
That's all going to change foreverover the next year to three.

Yeah, we'll touch on that a little bit later in the show.
And I have them on my list as this briefvideo to show what Google introduced
yesterday with related to AI search.
But I wanna get to ourspecial guests first.
Anything from you, Ali or Jeff?

Just that the more I have used AI to research
projects and just in general, I am.
It is learning at a massive rate.
It is so much better thanit was what, a year ago.
And it improves daily.
So especially as I keep training it.

(05:58):
So Brian, you were correct.

Be careful.

That hurts.
But

I just talk really fast and sometimes I happen to get one
or two things right, that's all.

If we're on the topic of AI without searching in
my inbox, I wouldn't be able totell you who it was or what group.
But something came across my deskthat is built within Chat GPT.
Somebody, built a little demo forone of our locations as like a little
like itinerary and trip planner,almost a little travel agent.

Oh, cool.

And it had, it was just something, I used Chat GPT.
Constantly.
But I didn't realize that you couldwhatever it is built within Chat GPT.
It occupies a space in the left hand menuwhere Dolly, the other things aren't.

It's probably a custom assistant

Okay great.
Because I was like, oh, Iwonder if I don't have to pay
for this, which is terrible.
Like if I can figure out how to doit myself, I'm always gonna do that.
But I thought that was really neatand something that I know that our
guests would really be interested in.
Not on the topic of AI.
I know that there have been a lot ofemails swirling around from OHI today in

(07:11):
regards to the Credit Card CompetitionAct and like making our voices heard from
our industry and, campground ownershipin particular because it affects us in
a unique way in comparison to, all theother industries that accept credit card.
I did wanna bring that up in case I wassitting in somebody's inbox who may be
listening, who maybe, feel compelledto contact their representatives.

Do you want to touch on that briefly?
'cause you're on the board of OHI, right?

I am on the board.

Do you wanna just touch up for the people who are watching,
some who know what it is, some whomaybe don't know why it's so important?

Yeah, absolutely.
The Credit Card Competition Act,which is a bipartisan bill, is on
the table in a more significant way,like a real way, than ever before.
And it intends to address thisduopoly that has been created
by visa and MasterCard which hasallowed them to drive up the fees

(08:07):
associated with swiping credit cards.
And it affects us asbeen as business owners.
It affects consumers certainly.
But OHI did some research to find thatcredit card fees are at minimum a top
five expense for a campground owner.
If not, worse than that.
In my own sample size of 15properties, I can say it is

(08:29):
definitely a significant expense.
And there's only so much thatone can do to like negotiate.
You barely can.
We have our booking softwareand some booking softwares.
You are allowed to, pick your processor.
Some you cannot, you are bound.
And as the client we in manyways have our hands tied and

(08:50):
it's just started running away.
And in our case in particular, Ifind it interesting that we will
accept a swipe from a guest creditcard when they book online, right?
Which has a different set offees associated with it than
paying for something in person.
And then there is the capacityfor someone to make a change to
their booking or cancel it andthen rebook and it's swipe fee.

(09:12):
And we do not get those fees back,even if we are refunding our guest.
And so it just, it drives it up.
This bill intends to combat likethis duopoly feature and do what
it says, increased competition,which in history has been favorable
for the consumer and soapbox.

Is there a place for the people who didn't get the OHI
email or maybe aren't members ofOHI, is there a place they can go?

Yeah, Jeff and I actually lobbied in DC twice on this.
There's a rare picture of Jeff in a suit.
If anybody wants to see it.

I believe you're in a suit too, Mike.

I wore a suit then too, guys.

Yeah, mine's not as rare.
But if you go to OHI's LinkedIn page ortheir Facebook page, they have the links.
We should probably includeit in the audience chat here.
And then anybody who's watching thisModern Campground should go in and it
literally takes 60 seconds to clickthe link, fill out your information,
and click submit to make sure thatyou are, providing your voice.

(10:16):
And it doesn't just haveto be RV parks, right?
The Credit Card Competition Act is forevery industry in the world, in the
country, I should say, in this case.
That has credit cards thatuses MasterCard and Visa.
And whether it's a glamping operationor a storage operation or if you own
other businesses and it's a gas station,the Retail Association of America is
obviously helping with this as well.

(10:37):
They're the main leader of the lobbyists.
They have a far bigger voice than we do.
But it's not just for RV parks.
It's a national issue that youshould share out as much as you can.

And there is a priority because it's coming
before the Senate today.
So if you.

What time?
Do we stop the show and go?

If they can just send it, it's not gonna move that quickly.
But yes, definitely contact yoursenators and let them know that
you would be in favor of this bill.
And Ali, I just got out theexec meeting and I should have
brought up that point myself.
So thank you for bringing that up.

I'll do your homework for you.

And for covering my butt.

What don't we how do you guys feel about this, Jim and Heidi?
How does it impact your businesses?
Just briefly, the credit card stuff?

We generally have large purchases.
So someone orders, let's say a hundredpedestals or they're doing an expansion.
We have a lot of maybe $80-$90,000purchases and we, with something
like that, would pass that on to thecustomer, the credit card charges.

Yeah.
Huge.

The piece with that would be passed on.
But also a lot of timesthey'll send a check in.
We reserve the inventory, they'll send ina check and we'll take payment that way.
So it depends.
Am I frozen for all of you?

No.
You work.
Yeah, you look fine.

On my picture I'm frozen anyway.
So, the smaller orders, replacementparts are one and two pedestals,
something a little bit smaller.
We just eat that.

Yeah, I will admit, like from my perspective
too, something has to change.
Like I will admit there's 10% of methat's I really like my credit card
rewards and all my pot moist andmiles and traveling for free for sure.
But also it's everywhere.
We try to shift clients to like ECHon Stripe 'cause it's so much cheaper.
But the credit card fees that even thethird party big systems that a lot of
people use, like AVID pay or bill.com,

(12:36):
like they take a big chunk out of our, notas much as the credit card fees, but they
take a big chunk out of our payments too.
There's no real way to escape.
Some of this stuff.

It's the cause of doing business, that's for sure.
We like being able to accept credit cards.
Just to say, I think thatyou've probably absorbed some
messaging that is counter, right.
You just brought up the topic of rewardslike the payout and Jeff, maybe you
have the bullet points on this, butthat is a false argument from what I
understand, where it's like the payoutin rewards each year, like pales, pale,

Small.
Yeah.

So like when the credit card companies are coming
back with that is an argument that'spretty jerky from what I understand.

For sure.
And they've completely devaluedthose programs and all that stuff.
To be fair, I did say it was10%, a very small amount, but a
hundred percent agree with you.
Yeah.
We can't have those it's not definitelynot a reason to do anything about this.
Jim, did you wanna, doyou have anything to add?
Jim disappeared.
That's a pretty good hack.
I don't know what happened to Jim.
No, but okay.
Hopefully Jim wasn't too upset by thecredit card thing and maybe he left to go

(13:38):
fill out the form and he's coming back.
We'll assume that's what he's doing.
But yeah, like for sure if anybody'sout there again, Mike said, OHI's
LinkedIn page, OHI's Facebook page.
Go there, check out the link again, ifyou're at all involved in the outdoor
hospitality industry, not just anRV park, campground owner, glamping
resort owner, but anybody like Heidiwith a Utility Supply Group or a
vendor or anybody who's involved thisimpacts everybody who accepts credit

(14:02):
cards in any form of capacity, smallbusiness, large business, whatever.
Let's go do what we can to help movethis forward in the right direction.
All right we'll start with you,Heidi, with Utility Supply Groups.
So like obviously longstanding youhave known Wade Elliot for years.

Yeah.

Obviously he's not involved in the company anymore, but just
saying like the Utility Supply Grouphas been around the industry for a
long time has had a big impact on it.
Talk to us a little bit about theunique things that Utility Supply
Group does for the industry.

Sure.
So you are right, beenaround quite a long time.
I believe this will be the 26thyear and Wade started it as outdoor
hospitality electrical distributorship.
So it never has reallymorphed from something else.
And we've never done anything toadvertise other than some type

(14:49):
of trade show or conference.
We don't put up a little garage sale or wedon't go into stores to put our products.
We don't go from campgroundto campground in a car and try
to get our names out that way.
So trade shows and conferencesare really how we meet people.
It's also the only place wherewe can go in one spot and meet

(15:10):
up to maybe 80 campgrounds.
So that's one of thegreat things about that.
We also have a huge base of loyal fansand customers and people who will just
walk right up to our booth or call andsay, yep, I'm placing my annual order.
And so they're happy to comeback to us year after year.

(15:33):
That is always something that makes usfeel like we're doing the right thing.
We also don't just sell something.
That was a big thingthat Wade set into us.
We aren't just here to sell you something.
We want to help you makesure it's the right thing.
Maybe you've never ordered this productbefore, or maybe it's someone new to the

(15:53):
industry, new to owning a park or beingnew to their role as the maintenance
manager, this is us trying to help youmake sure that you have the right product.
So that you don't get it, realizeit's wrong, we have to ship it back.
And then more credit cardfees, as you mentioned.
And so the idea here is to be moreof a resource than just someone

(16:15):
selling something to a customer.
We were talking about the, excuseme, I was talking about the
National Electric Code and theNFPA 1194, which is the governing
body for Campgrounds and RV parks.
We also dig really closely into that.
And so when a customer has aquestion about it, we're happy
to be a resource for that.

So for the people out there who haven't caught you at a trade
show recently, like I know you offer anumber of different things the unique
things that you offer that really youfeel park owners should pay attention
to, if you wanted to tell that.

Of course.
Yeah, of course.
Pedestals anything that's a power outlet.
So a pedestal or a surface mount box.
Anything that would take power fromyour utility company to that site.
So distribution panels, transformers,if they're needed, wire, and any
amenities that you want at the site.

(17:11):
Maybe lighting.
The other thing is that somethingthat's unique to us since EV charging
became an issue for some campgroundsand a way to make money for others,
we have different products that canhelp so that campers don't try to
plug their RV into the 50 and an EVelectric vehicle charger into the 30.

(17:34):
So it keeps that double dipping fromhappening and products that are metered.
Metering has become a big thing.
Not that it ever wasn't, but it hasbecome front and center with, of course,
expenses for utilities getting so high.
If there's a campground that can getan expense back, sub-metering where

(17:56):
you charge your camper for theirspecific electrical usage, that's huge.
And so we help people learn how todo that and whether they use a meter
like I'll call it a dumb meter opposedto a smart meter where they have to
physically go out and read the meter.
Send someone out or they do itthemselves, or they would use a product

(18:18):
where they have it, where it comesback to their reservation system, that
information is wirelessly transmittedand it makes it pretty seamless.

All right.
Awesome.

I think that's about it.

That's a good overview.
I appreciate it.
Mike or Ali or Jeff, do any of youguys meter electric at your parks?

I would suggest that every park meter at some of them.
We do seasonal and monthly.
I have seen campgrounds where theydo it on a daily basis if they go
over a predetermined fee, number ofkilowatts used during their stay,
which gets back at some of the unitsthat have two air conditioning units

(19:04):
and all kinds of other electronics.
But generally they haveinternal mechanisms that
limit what they're gonna draw.
But yeah, we, at least I do,I always recommend metering.

A lot of campgrounds that are underpowered.
Maybe they're older or maybethey're in a location where
they physically can't get power.
The utility companydoesn't have it to give.
And when we have a metered pedestalthat the campers see and realize
that they have to pay for theirutility usage, they tend to use less.

(19:40):
And of course that means less money.
But it also means less of astrain on the infrastructure.
So they don't use as much of course,but less trouble down the line if
everybody's got, like you mentioned,two air conditioners going and the
windows open and whatever it might beless strain on that infrastructure.

Yeah.
Heidi, do you see your company, Iknow you, you're very involved in
electrical, but do you ever seeyourselves coming out with water metering
that would blend in with your meters?

So we don't sell anything that's wireless.
We don't do wire.
Is that what you're referringto, is something that's wireless?

Yes.

Okay.
Yep.
We like many products that are currentlyon the market, we decided we're not
software people and so we're gonnaleave that to the people that are.
We like, Energy's product.
We've dabbled a littlebit with marine sink.
There's a difference betweenmetering and monitoring.
There are a monitoring system isone where campgrounds will put

(20:52):
these in to make sure that they'recharging enough for their sites.
So let's say it's my park and I'mnot planning to charge my customer
for each kilowatt they're using, butI wanna make sure that I'm charging
enough for that overnight site.
If the kilowatt usage is muchhigher than I'm expecting, then I
need to charge more for that site.

(21:14):
So that's more of a monitoring situation.
And then a meteringsituation needs to be exact.
You need to be able to accuratelycount those kilowatts to
charge the customer back.
Getting to your question about the watermetering we have just like meters, we
have dumb meters for water, even gas too.

(21:35):
But right now there isn't much ofa seamless product that does what
the electric metering systems do.

Yeah.
That's your opening, Heidi.
You could be a billionaire.

Again, we're not software.
I can't even figure AI out, remember?

Jeff will be your software person.
Jeff knows all the technology.

Jeff, if you need someone, I don't wanna mention them
on the call, but reach out to me.
I've got a contact for you.

No I'm sure you do.
I was just wondering if they wereinvolved because I do see eventually
where we're gonna be meteringwater and sewer and electric.
Because water is going to beone of the things that's going
to be increasing dramatically.
I know that my area, theyput the sewers in 1910.

(22:24):
And they are in violation ofeverything the EPA stands for.
So once they replace those, my swer beltis gonna go through the roof and I believe
that's gonna happen in a lot of places.

I know that Wild Energy had a product going, I don't.

That's what I was gonna say.

I dunno if he's selling it or not yet.

Yeah I deal with him a couple times.

He said he was, I dunno if he ever got it approved,
but he was working on one

Okay.

With hydro.

Mike does a nice job, a really nice job with his software
and their tech support is great, butI don't know if he is selling that
water product or not at this time.
It looked promising.
I don't know if it's out in the wild yet.

No, we do work with them, but yeah, it's just
something that I think is coming.
So I.

All right.
I wanna make sure we give Jim enoughtime here 'cause he was gracious
enough to join us from Open Roads.
Welcome back Jim.
Hopefully you don't disappearwhen I ask you another question.
No it's my fault if you disappear twice.
But welcome back.
So tell us a little bitabout Open Roads Resorts.
Let's start, I wanna start at thebeginning, like the early years, how
did Open Road Resorts even come about?

Sure, yeah.
Blame my business partner Chase for that.
It's called a midlife crisis.
We've been good friends foralmost 20 years now and back in
18 we started thinking about justdifferent entrepreneurial paths.
We can go down and fell into RVparks and we've been investing in the
public space and knew the RV OEMs anddealers and suppliers really well.

(23:53):
And a friend had mentionedwho's a lender RV Park.
So was just digging in and we'vealways been into, I grew up outside
of Pittsburgh, Chase, outside ofScottsdale, grew up camping and hiking
and, biking and hunting and skiing.
So we loved the outdoor lifestyle andjust started digging into RV parks.
Thought it was really interesting.
The two of us bought our first park inDallas and he went full time 'cause he

(24:15):
lives down in Dallas to operate, manage,learn how, just the ins and outs of the
parks, how to expand and everything.
And quickly bought three more parksand took a pause during covid just
given how things were, results tooka big step, function higher and
evaluations didn't make a ton of sense.
So we paused and expanded the parks,went through that process, got a little

(24:36):
bit better on the operational side ofthings, started to expand the team.
And then last year we ended uppartnering with L Catterton, which
is a consumer private equity fund.
THOR Industries, which is an R-V-O-E-M.
They own Airstream, Jayco,a handful of other brands.
And we've been close friends of thatmanagement team for a long time.
So we're fortunate topartner with them as well.

(24:56):
And then two other family offices.
So now we're, we wanna say in smart growthmode, but we're in growth mode and we're
all looking for additional parks thatmake sense and fit into, our brand of
really clean, safe, highly amenitized,family friendly parks across the us.
So that's what we're focused on nowand just trying to build a brand.

We'll talk about that brand first.

And what was the name of that partnership?
Could you repeat thatpartnership name please?

THOR Industries.

Not THOR.
Did you say L Catera or something?

Yes.
L Catterton.

Catterton.
Thank you.

Yes, you're welcome.

I've not heard of that.

Talk to us a little bit about the brand 'cause that's what I
think doesn't interest me above all else.
But it's definitely, everybody hasan interesting story when it comes
to how their brand was formed andwhat they wanted to achieve from
it in the early days and then howthat kind of vision has evolved.
So just talk us through some kind ofwhat your vision is for that, and then
I hope like some of my other guests willallow me to stop talking and they'll

(25:56):
have great questions for you too.

Sounds good.
Yeah, chase and I came up with the brandback in, I guess it was late 19 or early
2020, and we were sort putting pen topaper and coming up with different logos
and we went through a whole host ofdifferent things and we're asking friends
and family what they thought and startedgoing through a naming exercise as well.
And similar, came up with a hundred ofthem and trash 99 of them and really love

(26:18):
the Open Road Resorts and what it means.
Hitting the open road and gettingin your RV and, piling the
family in and going for a trip.
So we came up with that and now thegoal is really, when we got in the
industry and started really diggingin, the one thing we kept hearing
over and from, different industryparticipants on the RV park side, the
OEM side, the supplier side, et cetera.

(26:40):
And just talking to RVs waspeople experience or have a really
inconsistent experience across parks.
So when we set out to acquire parks andwhat we do now the goal is, each one,
our park outside of West Yellowstoneis gonna feel and look very different
than a park in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
But we wanna have those kind ofconsistent attributes across the

(27:02):
parks and, we want people to have aconsistent experience when they check in.
They're gonna have a really friendlyfront desk staff, really friendly,
general manager, really clean, areally safe highly amenitized park
and it's just a great experience.
So that's what the brand meansand stands for and what we're
trying to build over time.

Where do you, unless somebody else has a question
before I ask another one.
Mike, Ali, Jeff, anybody?
Nope.
You guys, you just gonna letme run with the whole show.
Okay.
All right.
It's not gonna be as good.
Sorry for the audience.
Tell me where you seeOpen Road Resorts going.
If you had your, if everything linedinto place, which we all know it never
does with entrepreneurship but ifeverything fell into place the way you

(27:41):
wanted it to, where would you see OpenRoad Resorts in 10 years, let's say?

That's a great question.
Our goal is just to continue to buildthe brand, continue to build our team.
We have a great team in place rightnow and we're continuing to add to it.
We wanna continue to acquiregreat parks and great locations,
as does everyone else.
But our goal is to continue tobuild a brand and build a network
of parks across the country.

How do you approach the operational aspect of it?
Obviously each park brings its ownchallenges, as you were talking about, a
little bit with your different locations.
From a different audience to the differenttypes of people who would stay there to
the different types of staff that youhave to recruit to, obviously location.
So how do you differentiate andsegment and approach that from
an operational perspective?

Sure, yeah.
We've been hiring on that side ofthe team and we continue to add to
it just as we continue to build.
And, I think a lot of people that camein the industry the past few years
have realized that, it's not just plugand play, you just leave it as is.
These are very operationally intensivebusinesses, especially if you wanna
give the customer a great experience.
So we continue to build outthe operational side of things

(28:41):
as we do everything in house.
So we're adding, team members, head ofoperations, and then we're gonna start
adding, team members underneath that.
But we have a GM at each parkwho staffs up the actual park.
We work directly with the generalmanagers as is our head of operations.
And then go from there,but it's a big task.
I'd love to hear what you know, Ali andMike and Jeff have to say on how they

(29:03):
break things down on the operational side.

Yeah.
For sure the reality of it being a muchdifferent beast than any other form of
hospitality or real estate management orproperty management in general has been
the lesson we've all learned, right?
We have a general managerat every property.
We have done a lot ofexperimenting over the years.
There have been like some, twoproperties under one general manager

(29:28):
attempts or, our earliest idea wasto have our regional managers oversee
a number of GMs, but they would alsobe the GM of their home campground.
And that didn't work out, but wereally, we gave it our best shot.
We now have, general managers that wehave our portfolio split into three
regions and they report to theirregional directors who report to me.

(29:52):
And we used to have a fewlayers within there as well,
and we have definitely trimmed.
So they're, I am defacto, director ofoperations and COO and this and that.
And we intentionally trimmed becauseI think that you are doing it in a
linear way versus us doing it cartbefore horse where it was like,

(30:15):
we gotta build up this whole team.
And then it's, a real corporatestructure and what you end up losing
at the beginning is like a whole lot ofcontrol, so now we're back to control.

Yeah.
That's interesting.
That's interesting to hear that youhad gone with the regional manager
also managing a park and then back.
That's helpful to know.

Yeah, we do have senior general managers as well, and they,
it's like general manager plus someownership of something that affects, or
that benefits the whole, so we still, wecan't get away from wearing many hats.

Exactly.

I like how you tried one thing and that didn't
work, tried something else,great to just keep revolving and
being kinda like a chameleon.

Yeah.

That's what you have to do.
We talked about that on the show beforewith Ali, but on other shows as well.
Key tenet of entrepreneurship, right?
You gotta be able to fail.

Yep.
And if you wanna scale up as you grow,you have to have that foundation in place
as you grow so that you don't fall apartas you start reaching a critical mass.
Things are a lot easier, I'm gonnago back to the old guy, things are a

(31:30):
lot easier now than they were when Ihad parks all over the nation in that
you have cloud-based PMS systems andaccounting systems and all of that.
You don't actually haveto visit the properties.
You can look at security cameras.
So that's made it a lot better.
But the one thing you've gotta dois make sure that you build your

(31:52):
business correctly so that it'scompartmentalized so that not
everything has to run through you.
Because if you do that, eventuallyyou're gonna fail because you're just
gonna run out of hours in the day.
And that's speaking from experience.

I wanna know what you mean by it's easier now, Jeff.
Is this like the Jordan LeBron debate?
Where was harder and Jordan played and.

I would say data is a lot easier to obtain than it was
back, even say seven years ago.
You're so much more advanced.
We were using our own server and havingto come in and through it wasn't even
called anywhere back then, it was, wehad to have our own little network that

(32:39):
logged into our server to share data.
Now you can do that almostseamlessly on everything.
What hasn't changed?
And this is where everybodystruggles, is finding the right
person in the right place.

Yeah.

That's gonna be your struggle forever.
By building the accountabilityand structure, that's the only way
you're gonna make it through it.

And, so Jim I would recommend, having done this for 30 years
and overseeing regions of hotels and 21hotels at one point, and then, having
scaling this, the answer to your questionis, what works or doesn't work for us
isn't necessarily going to work for you.
Because there is no perfect scenario,there's no similar scenario.

(33:27):
Every situation is unique.
Having an opportunity to have dualGMs at hotels and properties, I've
seen it work extremely successful,and I've seen it utterly fail.
And, it always comes down.

Depends on the individual to Jeff's point.

It does, and also to the properties and how they're set up.

True.

I've seen area managers succeed.
I've seen area managers fail.
I've seen corporate directors ofoperations and VPs of operation.
And so I think, and we pivotbased on our circumstance at CRR
depending on what we're doing.
So I think it's, you gotta, withoutsounding like we're preaching and
clearly you know this, but you balancewhat your revenue stream is and
what you can afford from a supportstructure, from a corporate office

(34:09):
based on what your income is, versuswhat you can layer into the property
and, set your structure around that.
Or as you're scaling, where you're gonnastabilize in a year, two years, and
you're layering in the property staffand the leadership staff ahead of time.
Ali and I have both gone throughthe same growing pains and
the same time, fulfillment.

(34:30):
Where what we did four years agoisn't the same we did two years ago,
isn't the same that we're doing today.
As you're growing and scaling, it's a verydifferent model than when you stabilize.
So I'm sure that wasn'tvery helpful whatsoever.

No, it was.

I have a question, Jim.

Sure.

So when your announcement came out that you had partnered
with L Catterton and THOR and all.
To hear the THOR connectionI found really interesting.
'cause I don't know, it is very possiblethat there are other like partnerships
out there, but I hadn't heard of one yet.
Could you tell us like, more abouthow that, came to be how that, is

(35:09):
structured, whatever you can share.
'Cause it's really interesting tohave the manufacturer and the, the
campground brand in partnership.

Sure.
Yeah.
So before we got into campgrounds bothChase and I were public equity investors.
So we we knew the THOR managementteam for a long time prior to 2018.
When we started looking at campgroundsand bought our first one Dallas Northeast
just outside of Dallas, we reached out toBob Martin at THOR and mentioned it to him

(35:41):
and were like, about six months after hebought, we were like, we love this space.
It's a lot of fun.
The guests are great, our team's awesome.
We were gonna look to expand and we wouldlove to have kind of a like non-official
advisory board we'll put together.
And just, I pick people's brainsthat we think are really smart
and could be helpful over time.
And he was like, I love that.
And he had mentioned to us, theissues with the inconsistent

(36:04):
experiences across, RV parks.
And he's a big camper as well, and toldus some of his experiences and he said,
I'd love to, help in any way I can.
So over the years we maintained thatrelationship and, we talked to him once
a quarter, every couple months and justexplain what we're doing, what we're
acquiring, what we're seeing, et cetera.
And then when we decided, what pathdo we want to go down, slow growth

(36:27):
the two of us, or do you wanna look tothe partner with some other groups and
accelerate the growth of the brand.
We'd reached out to the THOR team andexplained what we were thinking about
and how we were having conversationswith Catterton, a few other groups.
And they thought it was really interestingto become strategic partners and owners
of the business as they could shapesome of the campground experience for

(36:47):
our guests and potentially test outsome new things at different parts.
They've been great partners and,no, it's been awesome so far.
So we're testing

That's awesome.

All different things.
This summer at Red Rock, we're doinga kind of a camp within a camp at
our park outside of West Yellowstone.
We're doing, it's an Airstream onlysection a small camp Airstream,
they call it, at Yellowstone.
So we're activating aspace for Airstream guests.
So we're starting to test out different,interesting things within the partnership.

(37:17):
So we're excited to see what happens.

That's really cool.
'cause I am in the RVIA Campgroundcoalition, the RVIA, they're trying to,
I think, Heidi, you're, are you familiar?
Are you on that as well?
Yeah.
Or they're trying to get allof the sides of the industry,
and talking in the same room.
And I know that one of the thingsthat is hot with like some of the

(37:41):
executive directors of the stateassociations is rigs coming out that
are like huge and souped up and requireall this additional, like electric.
And they're surpassing like the,I guess like what Heidi you were
just talking about, like theelectric load or, that is you able
to be delivered at the site level.

(38:02):
Like it is a mismatch almost with,especially these older legacy campgrounds.
And so that is aninteresting topic, right?
Like, how can we, ensure thatthe products coming out and the
campgrounds like infrastructurecan keep up with everything.
And so I find that interesting, so.

It's a great idea to have all of those groups of people together.
Wade Elliot still has communicationwith, I guess I don't know the bigwigs
at THOR, and as the last time he spokewith them, I believe it would be 2022.
I'm thinking they had no plans tomake an RV that would have a hundred

(38:48):
amp plug, that would need a hundredamp receptacle, which would be
like, they don't even make them.
And so for us, we would need time to beable to produce a product that could, fit
a hundred amp plug and nobody's doing anyof that right now, until we hear from THOR
that they're planning on creating one.
So we better plan on creating something.

(39:10):
Nothing right now.

It'll be interesting for me to think.
Sorry, go ahead.
I didn't mean to cut you off, I apologize.

That's fine.

I would be interested to see how, generally speaking, electricity
and the reliability as it relates tocampgrounds, but everything changes in the
United States in the next 20, 30 years.
Because this is all for my side,I'm in my little AI bubble, right?
But this is all you hear from theAI side, like Elon saying this, and
Google CEO, Microsoft CEO, they'reall investing in nuclear power

(39:40):
plants and AI's gonna run outtapower and it's eating all this stuff.
And you gotta you have to thinkthat investment in power will
have some downstream effect on.
Everything else thatconsumes power too, right?
Positively or negatively, who knows?
But there has to besomething that gives, right?
And I would think that if allthat money is pouring into it,
that eventually would downstreambenefit campgrounds in some way.

(40:01):
Like it'll take longer to get there.

We have a lot of different solar options and some of them are just
to provide a couple of outlets in atent area so that people who are tenting
can plug in their phone to charge.
Some have it in an area where they havea dog park just to provide lighting.
It's not a huge RV park thing right now.

(40:25):
It could be, but nobody is doing somethingwhere it's all solar, where all of their
property is being energized by a solar.
And so.

That's I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, but there's
a guy on our show last week who hasa huge resort outside of, I wanna
say Big Sur in California, has likea sushi restaurant and all kinds of
stuff completely powered by solar.
So there is at least one person.

Yep.
And so he, I'm aware of him.
He is one of the only ones and he had aton of funding from, I believe it's the
state of California and or grants maybe.
But there are probably, I don't know,there's probably gonna have to be a
lot of people that might turn to that.

Yeah.
I mean it makes sense.
Anything else we wanna talk aboutfor electric or anything else
that we missed for Jim that youwanted to say about Open Roads?
I wanna spend just a coupleminutes and talk about this AI
mode 'cause it's important forpeople to recognize this happening.

No, that's it for me.
I appreciate you guysletting me tell the story.

Yeah, I and we'd love to have you back on the show too.
I'm sure we'll havemultiple conversations.
We're excited to see where you guysgrow and as you continue to acquire
and what you do with the brand.
And I'm sure you're gonna have areally amazing growth story like
you already do, but it's gonnabe, it's gonna get any better.

I appreciate that, Brian.

Let's talk briefly, like Jessica, there's a video
that you can share over there.
I don't wanna watch this whole thing.
I've got it queued upin the middle of a cut.
So if you just select that YouTube one,this is Google IO that was yesterday.
They announced a ton of stuff, but I'vejust got it queued up here for AI mode.
So just take a look at this for a coupleseconds and then we'll talk about it.

Video Presentation (42:05):
Google Search is bringing generative AI to more people
than any other product in the world.
In our biggest markets, like theUS and India, AI oil views are
driving over 10% growth in thetypes of queries that show them.
What's particularly exciting is thatthis growth increases over time.

(42:27):
We are introducing an all new AI mode.
It's a total re-imagining of search.
With more advanced reasoning, you can askAI mode longer and more complex queries.
We're excited to start rolling out AI modefor everyone in the US starting today.
Over time, we'll graduate many ofAI mode's cutting edge features

(42:47):
and capabilities directly intothe core search experience.
That starts today as we bringthe same models that power AI
mode to power AI overviews.
So you can bring your hardestquestions right to the search box.
AI on search, transform with Gemini 2.5
at score,
like having my very own sports analystwrite and search, search figured out

(43:12):
that the best way to present thisinformation is a graph and it created it.
Complex analysis and datavisualization is coming this summer
for sports and financial questions.
Using your camera search can see whatand give you helpful information as
you go back and forth in real time.
We're bringing Project Marinersagent capabilities into AI mode.

(43:35):
Search can take work off my plate whilestill under my control search, helps me
skip a bunch of steps linking me rightto finish checking out tickets secured.
With AI mode, we are bringing a new levelof intelligence to help you shop Google.
Search dynamically generates a browsablemosaic of images and some shoppable

(43:59):
products personalized just for me tocreate a try-on experience that works at
scale, we need a deep understanding of thehuman body and how clothing looks on it.
To do this, we build a customimage generation model specifically
trained profession and it's back.

(44:19):
This is the future of Googlesearch, a search that goes beyond
information to intelligence.
Our goal is to make.

Okay, you can pause it, Jessica.

Video Presentation (44:29):
Personal, proactive.

So this is something we've been talking about.
Obviously in my little AIbubble for a long time, right?
Google's been yeah, youcan stop screen sharing.
For a while.
Google's been slowly marching toward this.
Many of you have seen the AI overviewsthat appear at the top of search results.
They haven't really hit thecampground industry vertical too
hard yet, but they're coming forit pretty quick, especially after

(44:52):
these announcements yesterday.
But AI mode is somethingcompletely different.
This is the complete removalof the 10 blue links.
This is taking over the whole page andgiving every single user a different
page based on whatever they're asking.
So this is apparently wasstarted to roll out yesterday.
I'm in Canada, so I tried on aVPN, I couldn't see it on my end.
I've had access to it in labs for a while.

(45:14):
But I can't see it onregular Google search yet.
But it's coming very fast.
And I think that this, from what they'retalking about, not just replacing the
search page, but using things likegeeky long conversation, but Project
Mariner that can actually go out anddo things for you on the web, including
store your credit card number, Visaand MasterCard are playing into this,

(45:34):
I know we don't like those guys rightnow, but they're playing into this
stuff where they're gonna tokenize yourcredit card and allow agents to use
it to purchase things on your behalf.
That's coming for campground reservations.
Maybe not as quickly as hotelreservations, depending on our booking
systems like Camp Spot and New Bookand ResNexus and so on and so forth.
Get on board with some of these things,but eventually the consumer's gonna go

(45:56):
to search and it's gonna do the wholejourney for them or Chat GPT and it's
gonna do the whole journey for them.
And that's gonna changehow your website's used.
It's gonna change how people lookat photos, how they interact.
The conversion numbers on yourwebsite are hopefully gonna go up
even though your traffic goes down.
But all this stuff is coming veryquickly and you guys have to pay
attention to this as operators.
I know a lot of you on this call, ifnot most of you know, all this stuff

(46:18):
already, but for the people who arewatching this stuff is gonna dramatically
impact how people discover you and findyour park and want to go camp with you.
So any thoughts?
'cause I know I can rambleon about AI forever.
I just need to probably shut up.
As Mike said, somebody needs to mute me.
But is there any thoughts that youguys have as you look at this and how
you approach it from a discoverabilitymarketing standpoint at your properties?

I'd like to ask what we might use instead of keywords or hashtags.
I know hashtags are going along thewayside, but is there a different prompt
or searchable slang that we might useto do the same thing that you did when
searching for campgrounds or RV parks?
Or electrical.

Yeah, I think what's, sorry there's somebody at my door and my vicious
Yorkie is going to answer it for me.
So I think you're gonna see what youdo in Chat GPT become more frequent.
Like people are gonna type longercomplete sentences instead of keywords.
And that's especially gonna betrue when it comes to voice.
Alexa's rolling thisout on all the speakers.
So is Google announced yesterday, they'regonna put it on your TV and put it on your

(47:18):
watch, you're gonna put it on your carand Android Auto, all the things, right?
And so I think at some point it'snot gonna matter what we type.
And I think that was our safety net.
I think Mike and I, and maybe Ali andI have talked about this before, but
that was, I think maybe Stacy havetalked about it before Ali, but this
was our safety net for a while, was likepeople will not change their behavior.
They'll still go to Chat GPTand type RV park, San Antonio

(47:40):
or whatever in the search box.
But Google announced yesterdaythey're gonna take that query and
split it off into 20 differentsearches, basically rewriting it into
completely different keywords now.
And Chat GPT announcedthat a few weeks ago too.
So it's basically the end of any attemptyou have at targeting keywords whatsoever.
And it's all based on content psychology,all the things that are new and different.

(48:05):
And so it's still something we're feelingout, but I think that's your answer.
Like maybe too much long-winded Heidi.
But I don't think.

No, it's good information, thank you.

Yeah, I don't think it's gonna be something the
consumer needs to figure out.
I think the AI is gonna figureit out and give better answers.

Okay.

Brian, I think this, it's an interesting topic and we've been
talking about this and exploring itinternally over the past few weeks.
And I'd love to know if Ali or Mike oryou or Jeff or Heidi have looked into
this, but we are looking into, andwe're introduced to a couple of groups
that, I don't know if SEO is the rightword, but focus on it's, call it AI SEO.

Yeah.

And we're starting to have initial conversations just to
see what they have to say about it.
But have you looked into that at all?
Because a lot of people are, and I thinkMike, throughout the stat earlier about
the percentage of using AI now and whereit's going in the future has anyone
looked into that yet in terms of howdo you get to the, if I go in the Chat
GPT or Orkrock or any of them right nowand type in, fill me a list of the best

(48:58):
RV parks outside of, Savannah, Georgia,or pick an area will, has anyone looked
in how you get on that list within AI?

Hey, Ali.
I obviously I have an answer, but.

I think, my answer is contingent on your answer,
since you are who I consultwith regarding stuff like this.
I don't know if Mikehas a different answer.

The answer is yes.
And if the answer to your question,Savannah Lakes RV Resort will
come up as the best RV resort.
Oh, sorry, maybe, sorry, I forgotthere was somebody else who
actually has a property here too.

I'm gonna step away.
You guys can battle it out.

One of those two, one of those two will come up.
But yes, Brian, we're bothcustomers of Insider Perks and,
he was well ahead of this curve.
And traditional SEO, and we havethese conversations all the time,
it's still important because yeah,people are still, like Brian just
mentioned, the migration to ai, isn'tgonna happen just in the next week.
And I know Google's changing theirsearch, but people are still gonna do

(49:58):
the traditional search in the Googlesearch box, it requires training.
And so there'll be this balance ofboth still doing traditional SEO
and the AI search, the generativesearch and all those other different
ways that people are looking.
And your website provider, yourSEO provider, whomever you're
using needs to be educated on it,otherwise you will not show up.

(50:20):
It's just like how mobile and laptop ormobile and PC changed over the years when
you know how many percent of your onlinebookings, PC used to be 80% and mobile
is 10 or 20, and now it's gone like thiswhere mobile's now 70% and, your PC is 30.
That's exactly how Google versus AIsearch will change over the course
of the next whatever years it equals.
So Brian can give youthe technical answer.

I think that the easy answer without getting too technical is,
you're right Mike, as which traditionalSEO being blended with AI but there
are some things that cross over, right?
We know brand is important.
We've already talked about Open RoadsResort, Spacious Skies has a great brand.
CRR has a great brand.
Camp Strategy.
Has a starting of a great brand.
Seem to be king of the world, Jeff.
You'll get there like you're new.

(51:04):
Come on, be fair.
Obviously Utility Supply Grouphas a strong brand, right?
But the brand and so things, think aboutthings like press releases, conversations
about your brand around social media.
Not what you're putting out, butwhat people are saying about you on
the different social media networks.
Those things help AItrust your brand more.
Backlinks are still important.
Like they're not as important to AIbut they're a trust signal to AI.

(51:28):
And so there's lots of studiesthat show those work well.
So backlinks brand andthen the architecture of
your site is very critical.
There are so many people who justpay attention to the prettiness of
their site and forget all about,you have to have fast hosting.
You gotta make sure yourimages load quickly.
All that stuff is really expensive.
But also things like, and this is alittle geeky 'cause they can't avoid

(51:48):
it, but it's like schema markup.
Is like what you're telling those robotson the back end of your page that you are.
The easiest example is like insteadof listing you have a playground, how
does the AI or Google's traditionalbot even know that's a playground
that you have available for kids toplay on for free versus when you're
selling outside of a Home Depotstore or something like that, right?

(52:09):
There are ways that you can structurethat markup to give Google and AI
search more information about that.
So just thinking through that stuff andmostly focusing on the user experience
and trying to figure out, as we allare, like, I've been in this for two
and a half years studying this stufflike crazy obsessively and if you put
a gun to Sam Altman's head, he wouldn'tbe able to tell you how AI ranks

(52:30):
certain things that it ranks in search.
But there are ways weknow you can get included.
There are ways we know that arebest practices on your website
and those are the things you needto start with the fundamentals.
And you'll probably be aheadof, I'm guessing 90, 95% of the
rest of the campground industryif you do for a while, anyway.
Did that help?

I asked Chat GPT for the best RV resorts outside of Savannah, Georgia.
First one was Creek Fire, RV Resort.
Then Redgate Farms.
Third one is Spacious Skies.

I just asked too.
The first one's Redgate and the secondone's Hilton Head, Spacious.Skies
doesn't even show up.
And we show up number five.

See?

See there's that gun to Sam's head.
That doesn't help.

This is where your keyword.

So what it means is you guys both, need to work on your marketing and

We should call our website developer.

And view who your markets are.

This is the why, like keyword ranking and all that
personalization is important becauseit's gonna start personalizing.
Everything's gonna bedifferent for every person.
Chat GPT's memory is showing Mikesomething different than it'll show Ali.
Then it'll show Heidi.
Then it'll show Jim or Jeff.
And so that's why the best practiceson your site and the fundamental
things are critical, and that's whyyou're gonna end up with less traffic
on your website because you're notgonna have all the looky-loos who

(53:50):
aren't for you when they get there.
They're more likely to convertis where we see it going.

I think 'cause in your own AI, you can build your camper profile.

Yeah.
Without even telling it.

And it's only gonna show you the parks that have
full hot got deluxe with x, X.
So it definitely is gonna change.
You know what, I've got a three o'clock.
I didn't realize it was that late.

That's alright.
Yeah.
Mike just waved at us.
He was like, I'm going we should wrap up.
So we do a hard stop here.
Final thoughts from anybody?
Heidi, do you wanna start and then justshow, tell us where we can learn more
about Utility Supply Group briefly.
Your website here.

First of all, thank you.
I've really enjoyed this learningand great to see people again.
Final thoughts, you can get to knowUSG better by looking in Woodall's.
We have ads every month.
We're very excited about a lot ofthe information you can learn there.
We do a little bit in social media.
We're trying to get our marketing personto do a little bit more, so I'm hoping we

(54:47):
can advance that a little bit or just ask.
We're happy to provide anyinformation that we can.

Awesome.
Thank you for being here, Heidi.
Ali.

Thank you.

Where can they find out more about Spacious Skies?

Yeah it's spaciousskiescampgrounds.com
of course.
And then we're all oversocial media as well.
And yeah, I mean we're in a reallyexciting phase right now where we , my
questions over partnerships and whatnot,Jim, are more personal since we are doing
a pretty broad marketing campaign rightnow with the intention of finding a new

(55:23):
partner to recap our current partners out.
And it's been a really fascinatingexercise with record engagement as
far as I understand and some amazingconversations have been coming out of it.
So like it's really been fun forspacious skies and where we're gonna
be at the end of the season is I thinkgonna tell us a lot about our future.

Awesome.
Thank you for being here as always,Ali, Jeff, where can they find
out more about Camp Strategy?

You can go to campstrategy.com.
That's our website.
You can always make an appointmentthrough there or my number's there.
And I dearly love totalk about campgrounds.
It won't cost you a thing.

Awesome.
And Jim, last but not least.

Yeah.
Thanks so much for having me.
It's nice to meet everyone.
openroadresorts.com
and you find all the informationthere on all the, all of our parks.

Awesome.
Thank you guys for being here andI appreciate you joining me for
another episode of MC Fireside Chats.
If you're not sick of hearing me talk,you can come back and watch my second
podcast Outwired in about 50 or sominutes with Scott Bahr and Greg Emmert.
We're gonna be deep diving into thetypes of people who typically stay
at RV parks, and there's a lot thatScott feels like some people are
missing when they're just targetingthe traditional type of RV Park guest.

(56:35):
So we're gonna do a deep diveinto that with some data.
We're also gonna do more intothe AI announcements and things
that Google came out with too.
We'll see you later if you'renot sick and tired of me.
Otherwise, have a great weekand we'll see you next week.
Take care.

Thank you, Brian.

Thank you, Brian.

It was nice seeing everybody again.
Bye.

All Episodes

MC Fireside Chats - May 21st, 2025

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

The Joe Rogan Experience

True Crime Tonight

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}MC Fireside Chats - May 21st, 2025