Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Welcome to the RV Rental Secrets Podcast.
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.999I'm your host, Stacey Maxson, and I'm thrilled to guide you through the journey of launching, growing, and managing a profitable RV rental business.
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All right everybody.
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Welcome to another episode of RV Rental Secrets podcast.
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I'm your co co-host today.
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We got Ben Cool Coffee Cup Kaiser on here with us.
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Ben, you're new to the show, so, or maybe you did one episode with Stacy, but I always like to come up with a fun nickname right off the bat.
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So go ahead and hold that coffee cup back up.
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Will you there? I couldn't.
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Is that a bunch of like fly lures or what is that? That's a killer whale and this came from Washington State, Bellingham.
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Awesome.
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Okay.
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Nice coffee cup.
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I'm a, I'm a coffee cup connoisseur.
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I've got a couple of 'em up at the restaurant there in the window.
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So I left c coffee cups.
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And then with Stacy the amazing mother Max in Stacy's just got into soccer season, so she's.
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Full-time entrepreneurial mom.
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Full-time soccer Mom.
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Stacy, do you have a soccer sticker on your vehicle that says soccer mom? No, I do not.
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You don't, okay.
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Well, no.
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In my defense, I did just buy a new car a few months ago, so I haven't had the opportunity, but Oh, did you? Is it a soccer van? No, I don't.
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We have three kids, so I don't have to upgrade to the van.
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I'm, I'm good with the car.
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Yeah, you don't need a van.
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You're right.
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Okay, cool.
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Well, hey, we were actually just on in our.
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What do we call it? Our Thursday meeting Stacy, Ben and I, were all partners on Fireside, so we, we called the Thursday Tribe meeting and we're talking about doing the work, and I thought, you know what, let's talk about doing the work today as our podcast episode.
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So let's talk about doing the work.
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If you are a follower of this podcast, I'm gonna automatically assume that you're an entrepreneur because this podcast is to those that are renting out their RVs.
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And I've said this many times before, if you didn't know this yet, if you are renting out your r.
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Guess what? You're in business, you have a business.
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Most people that start renting their rv, they think, well, we're gonna do it just to make some money on the side, cover some payments, this and that, which is great and true, but that means that you started a business.
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So when it comes to starting a business, there's things you didn't think about, right? Dealing with grumpy renters, or repairing campers, or figuring out your books.
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And stuff like that.
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And that's all part of just doing the work.
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So that's what we're gonna talk about today.
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Doing the work.
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Ben, what you gotta say about doing the work? Ooh, that sounds rough.
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Car.
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Yeah, I was gonna kind of go through some of my, my process that I currently do here at my branch in Gulf Shores.
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I wanted Stacy to poke holes in it 'cause she's a good consultant.
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That's true.
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She is.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So you want to talk about like your day-to-day of what you do at your Gulf SHO's location of the work that you do? Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I'd love to.
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So if you know the, the current process that I have, fireside sending the rv, that's your first, your first step, you know, getting your 10 RVs.
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So I'm asking this to, to more or less.
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Stacy, what I currently do is once they're on RVshare outdoorsy in the fireside website and my personal website.
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Renters are finding me online.
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I'm not doing any marketing, so these renters are finding me.
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Once they inquire, fireside Plus sends them the quote, they're going back and forth answering the renter's questions.
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Once that quote is confirmed, then I get an email saying, Hey Ben, you got a book reservation? Ben can then get on, whip around and assign a driver and a cleaner if declined.
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Assign a different driver and a different cleaner.
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I have a bullpen so that driver knows to go pick up that out of the storage lot, that RV and set it up at the end of it, the cleaner cleans it.
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When they're done cleaning, then it gets dropped back off in storage, rinse and repeat.
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If I get a phone call that the ACS out, I simply call my RV tech and I say, go to SOC 1 51.
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Please fix the AC bill.
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Me.
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I pay it.
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I take it out of the consignment owner's.
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Cut, rinse, and repeat.
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You make that sound way too easy.
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He does.
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Hey, just so everybody knows, Ben is a FA franchisee as well.
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So he is a, he's an equity owner in Fireside.
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He's a franchisee and he also does our franchisee sales calls.
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Okay.
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So yeah, so Ben does make it sound easy.
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We were actually just talking about this in our last meeting.
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Ben, you can't make it sound so easy because that first year you gotta do the work.
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You know, and because we've had a couple franchisees lately who are, are like, oh, I'm a little discouraged, this or that, whatever the scenario it is.
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And it's, it just comes down to doing the work.
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And, and I love what Myron Golden says, all work works.
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And then it goes on to say, it either works for you or it works on you so you can take an action.
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And get a result like Ben just explained an action result, but Ben didn't just step into action result, he built that over time.
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But before Ben got that action result, the work that he was doing was working on him.
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Right, Ben? Because I remember the calls I get from you, like, oh my gosh, I got this with my partner and that.
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I'm out here delivering a camper right now, and I wasn't planning on doing that.
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I should be at home wrestling my boys.
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So the work was working on Ben, and we talked about this several podcasts ago, is what was the saying? I came up with hard times, equal hard lines.
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When we do something enough that is painful to us, eventually that causes us to make a change.
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And we're either gonna change as far as we're just gonna walk away, we're gonna quit, or we're gonna make a change.
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Like, Hey, I need to figure out a good solution.
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And I don't wanna see anybody walk away and quit.
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I want to see you push into the pain of the moment and say, okay, I don't like this.
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How can I figure it out to where I don't have to be in this situation again? Or I situation the least, you know, amount of times is possible.
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What do you say about that, Stacy? Yeah, I think like really finding your why, like why did you decide to do this to begin with? You know, when we had our location, we had on average 20 units.
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My husband and I were working in the business full-time, and there were a lot of stressful moments.
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There were times where we thought about quitting.
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But when we thought about why we wanted a business to begin with and why we started doing it, it was so that we could, you know, lead a different lifestyle where we had time freedom and could spend more time with our kids.
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So I mean, we were a seasonal location, so we really only had, you know, five months out of the year that were crazy.
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And then.
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We worked really hard during those five months and then had the rest of the year where we could travel, homeschool our kids, and that was our why, so that we could show up for them.
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So, you know, really think about and even write it down what your why is and why you're doing that, and that helps get you through those hard times of when you're doing all of the work.
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Mm-hmm.
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Yeah, that's really good.
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You've gotta know the why, why you're doing it.
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So if you're just renting your single rv and the why is because you want to help offset some payments to where it doesn't cost you much to own it, well then extend your nightly minimum and only take one rental a month, you know, or whatever you know, fig, because you could easily create yourself a job when you didn't want one.
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Here was the original why of why you wanted to do it.
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Or if you're like us faith-filled entrepreneurs and you want to not have a nine to five or a, you know, corporate job or employer telling you when and when you can't work and how much you can make and all those things, and you wanna live life on your terms then you gotta know, hey, there's, I've gotta put in the work to get to that.
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And like Ben was just sharing, Ben has put in the work to get to that moment.
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And and so now he gets to enjoy the fruits of that.
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But in the meantime it just made me think what Myron Golden says in the meantime and in between time, I love Myron Golden.
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If y'all don't know who Myron Golden is, check him out on YouTube.
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Phenomenal faith-filled entrepreneur.
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In the meantime, in between time you gotta do the work and.
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Work is not enjoyable sometimes, right? There can be stress, sweat, all the things involved, but like Stacy said, have that why in front of you, so why I'm going to do this right now.
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And then that will keep you hopeful and motivated and encouraged.
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'cause one of the things that we've learned in the Fireside family is, you know, we're a group of Christian entrepreneurs doing life together.
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And a lot of people find us through one of our ads or YouTube or whatever it is, and they're like, man, these are my people.
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I wanna do life with them.
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And that excites them.
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And they, and then they sign up to start a fireside franchise and then they realize, oh man, now it's time to do the work.
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There's that lonely part of in the day-to-day where you're just doing the work, right? If first, one of your first goals is to build your fleet, you're reaching out to 50 or a hundred RV owners a day.
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That is not fun.
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I mean, if it is fun to you, then you're a little weird, but, but it's just not fun to do that.
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Right? But it's part of doing the work.
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So we just want to encourage you guys today, like Stacy said, have your why.
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Like Ben said, Hey, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
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You can get everything in place to where you can enjoy the fruits of that labor.
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But in the meantime, you're doing the labor, you're doing the hard part.
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It's good stuff.
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And I think too, like you can from the early days when I first started, it's easy.
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It is kind of like I can find, we overcomplicate.
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A common question that gets brought up is how do you, how do you find drivers, you know, how do you have a bullpen of drivers? I can find, go into Stacy's, you know, comment about around soccer practice.
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I can go to soccer, prep my kids' games and, and I can find two drivers.
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You just gotta put yourself out there.
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So I'll see somebody pull in with a truck.
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And, and, and I'll probably know that person.
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There's a good chance you know that person, especially if your kid plays ball with 'em and just ask 'em, say, Hey man, you know, do you ever.
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Have any interest of doing this.
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And another misconception is, Hey Ben, that's more money out of pocket.
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I, we charge the renter for delivery.
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So then I kind of figure out what that guy charges or what he would want to do that delivery.
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And that's what I charge in the delivery fee that the renter actually pays.
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So don't, don't get in your in your own way.
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That's the number one problem I see in this industry is people get in their own way.
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They're not, you know, getting their 10 units first.
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They're not actually talking and networking with the community and finding those drivers.
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I can find four or five cleaners at church.
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I can find five drivers at my kids' ball game.
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Like, just don't overcomplicate it.
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Yeah, that's a really good point.
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And I know the other day when we did our fireside chat with our franchisees, we had one location she had 16 units going out to an event.
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She mentioned how she was paying a cleaner more than she would normally pay, but she said how it helped her so much to have that load off of her mind, knowing that it was being done correctly, where she used to pay a different, cleaner, less money, but they didn't do as good of a job.
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So once you find that person, make sure that you know you're compensating them well so that they stick with you.
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But know that once you find that person too, that allows you to focus on so many other parts of the business that are gonna bring in more money.
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So don't be afraid to pay that person to do the work.
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Hundred percent.
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Yeah, definitely.
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You gotta, you gotta learn where and when to outsource and know that that time is gonna free you up to do other money making activities.
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It's so easy, you know, like the, the old book, the E-Myth, it's so easy to get stuck on one portion of the business thinking that's gonna be where you're gonna make your money.
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Where it's really, you gotta look at all facets of the business and see where is your time best spent.
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So.
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Awesome.
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Y'all we're gonna call that a wrap for this episode because I have a meeting.
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In like six more minutes.
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So we're gonna call that a wrap.
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That was fun talking about, just want to encourage y'all do the work.
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Lemme see if I can find a post-it here in front of me to share something encouraging about work.
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Proverbs 1423.
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In all labor there is prophet, so kind of like back to Uncle Myron.
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All work works.
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Don't ever feel like you're just spinning your wheels doing something.
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So say you're doing something, you feel like, oh my gosh, this is frustrating.
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I'm spinning my wheels.
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I feel like I'm getting nowhere.
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Stop.
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Realize that in all labor there is profit, and get curious and say, okay, what am I learning in this moment? And, oh, what I'm learning is I hate cleaning campers.
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I'm gonna hire someone to do it for me.
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Or what I'm learning is these Friday to Sunday rentals.
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Suck the life out of me and pull me away from my family.
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I'm gonna start doing a a, a longer minimum to where it's not gonna be dropped off on Friday and picked up on a Sunday.
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So just remember, in all labor there's profit.
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So if you're feeling frustrated, if you're feeling painful in the moment, there's a lesson to be learned there.
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So press into that pain, get curious and see what the lesson is.
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So thanks y'all for coming on to another episode of RV Rental Secrets podcast.
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We'll see you all on the next.