MC Fireside Chats- August 16th, 2023

[00:00:00] 

Brian: Welcome everybody to another episode [00:01:00] of MC Fireside Chats. My name’s Brian Searl with Insider Perks. Stuck inside today against my will. I am in British Columbia and unfortunately we’re dealing with some wildfires in the area, so got a beautiful setting outside, but unfortunately can’t enjoy it today. So inside next to my trustee tomato plant, which was the only green thing I could find that represented the outdoors.

So super excited to be back here to today for another Campground owner focused episode. We’ve got a recurring guest, Joe Dume from at my community joining us. Got Sean Re from Four Points RV Resort, also off resorts. Did you see that? I almost did that singular, Sean, and you keep growing. It’s definitely been a plural for a long time.

So Four Points, RV Resorts, and he’s gonna talk a little bit about some really cool things that he’s been up to since he was last. A guest on our show. And of course we have Leanne who is, and she didn’t get the reference for those of you who’ve seen the Lincoln lawyer. This is Leanne from the Campground space.

I feel like there’s must be some kind of fancy office that is not showing in the camera, but. Super excited to have Leanne here from Tigers [00:02:00] Trail. RV Resorts. Can talk a little bit about her RV Resort, how she got started and things like that. I guess let’s start with Leanne. Tell us about Tigers Trail RV Resort, Leanne.

Lee Anne Miracle: Tigers Trail, RV Resort is under construction still, which is why I’m in my fancy office. A wonderful, it’s a great office. 

Brian: I would keep the office 

Lee Anne Miracle: some days it’s closed. 

I think I will, 

I told you this, Joe 

Brian: have I, I’ve told people that I will have an RV one day, as long as it’s self-driving and I can work out of it because that would be cool.

Then I could really go everywhere. But, go ahead, sorry. 

The best 

Lee Anne Miracle: of every world. The Jeep’s really been helpful when during construction at some needed to put it in four wheel drive to get out of a little muddy spot, but no mud these days it’s all very dry and the grass is beginning to grow.

This morning we had our first permanent permanent visitors. Our fish came into the pond, so our pond [00:03:00] got stocked. We’ll be ready for our guests to catch something. They didn’t bring hush puppies, though. I don’t know if they were bringing me that much fish. They should have brought some sides with that.

We’re getting ready for our soft opening on September the first. We’ve got our pickleball courts. We’ve got our pool and lazy river. Just about finished. I. Everything’s coming along nice. And we’ve gotten lots and lots of people interested in making reservations already. I can’t wait to get ’em all here.

Brian: So I’m curious from a development standpoint, and we’ve talked to a number of people who have developed parks from the ground up, and so I want to try to ask you a little bit of very different questions, right? You talk about your soft opening on September 1st, which is now what, 15 days away, 14 days away.

How do you, as somebody who’s developing a park, get to the point where you say and I’m sure Sean could weigh in on this too, right? But how do you get to the point where you say, this is good enough for a soft opening, September 1st is the date I want to do it, versus two weeks later? Or two weeks before?

Lee Anne Miracle: For [00:04:00] us, and I’m the general, for us being open, we’ve gotta be open for the first football games of the season. We’re very close to L S U. We’re direct. Across the street from a world class casino, LA Bird with all the entertainment here. All we had to do was make sure we got our lady and our services ready and then we’ll be ready to go.

You’re never completely ready for anything, but we’re gonna get started and make the best of everything. 

Brian: So that’s a good point. One, I think it’s, and Sean, please feel free to weigh in on this too, as far as the opening question. ’cause I we will get back to Tiger Trail and talk more about that.

But I think it’s an interesting question. Maybe it’s a little different for Leanne because I guess if you have a giant football crowd who’s coming down to see L S U play football, they probably don’t care that all the amenities are perfect and polished, whereas another type of crowd might or might not.

Again, not negatively stereotyping L S U fans. I think that’s just, they’re there to see football. So the Campground is secondary. But what do you [00:05:00] think Sean? 

Sean Vidrine: Yeah, I think she’s right. For sure you’re never 100% ready whenever you’re opening up new sites or cabins. For example, in Pittsfield, Illinois this year, we added 40 sites and 30 new cabins, and we were taking reservations for them before they were ready because we had a target date of what we wanted to hit, and we were able to meet that target date.

But, for example, the sites at that particular time during opening did not have grass fully covering, in between the sites. So what we did in that is rather than cancel reservations and whatnot, since we were able to at least let people use it there, what we did is we just offered a promo code to where they got a discount on that because it wasn’t, a hundred percent complete.

But people knew that going in. So I think as long as you’re clear and people know exactly what you’re doing, that way they don’t have a different expectation. Most people are generally fine with that. 

Brian: Yeah, that’s a good point is setting expectations for people. And we talk about whether it’s a soft opening regardless of what that is for you.

[00:06:00] And did you wanna weigh in, Joe? I’m sorry. Oh, I thought you said something. I apologize. But regardless of what that soft opening level is for you, I think we talked about expectations on this in the past, right? So whether it’s reviews for your park or communicating that stuff on your website or social media or whatever it may be, just letting people know even long after you’re open and two years into the process, right?

What kind of stay experience can I have? Is it more family friendly? Is it quiet and geared toward more elderly, seasonal, snowboard type, snowbird type people? I think that’s really critically important. Yeah, I don’t need to agree with you because you both are trying. 

Lee Anne Miracle: Yeah. We’ve endeavored 

Brian: relates to all that stuff.

Lee Anne Miracle: Stay in touch. 

Brian: Go ahead Leanne. Please. I’m sorry. 

We’re, we, make sure to 

Lee Anne Miracle: stay in touch with all our guests who made. We’ve made a great effort to stay in touch with all of our guests who made a reservation so that they would know exactly what to expect. And if they really wanted the lazy river, they lay their weekend, and if it didn’t matter to them, then it would be all ready to [00:07:00] go.

But you’re right, expectations makes all the difference. And my expectation makes sure that whatever you’re for, you’re gonna have a really good time. 

Brian: So here’s a, let’s, here’s an interesting flip side, and maybe Joe, you can weigh in on this a little bit. Let’s think about this from the consumer perspective, right?

Like obviously when you’re building a resort, in the case of Leanne or the past, right? Or any resort, right? The flip side of that is the consumer. So if I’m a consumer, and I, and you are right Joe, you travel around with your family. Yep. How do I decide, like obviously Lean Ann’s got a great experience.

I know it’s gonna be brand new. I know it’s gonna be great. How do I decide as a consumer, I’m okay with a trade off of a partially built thing? Because I think that will be better than something else that’s nearby. Is it just the amenities? Is it. I wanna see something new before everybody else. I think it’s a little bit of everything.

Joe Duemig: I think, yeah, I think it’s gonna be different for every every different, every camper, right? In Leanne’s case, football season starts so it doesn’t [00:08:00] matter, like where you’re gonna stay is where you’re gonna stay for a resort. Some people, have shiny object syndrome and they wanna see the first new and shiny thing that exists.

Which can be good and bad, right? Because those also might be the people that are giving you the most, most likely to give reviews. And if things aren’t there yet, as long, they should be good, as long as the expectations were set. I think when for the consumer, same things that Sean and Leanne just said is communication upfront and setting expectations needs to be done because I’ve seen, we have some customers that are in the process of building still and they’ve been building, for the past two or three years.

But we see on some Facebook groups and stuff like that, that they get blasted because this wasn’t there when and guests were expecting it, or it’s advertised on their, it shows it on their website, and you’re making their website look great and showing all the awesome things that they can do when they get to that Campground.

But that might not be in yet. [00:09:00] And so the expectation doesn’t necessarily meet reality. Those negative reviews don’t exist if the communication was upfront, 

In terms of, 

Brian: You’re right. Like we have a park we’re working with in Canada, I’m just not gonna narrow down the Regions center. Nobody we can pick on it.

But they have a pool that they were planning on building this summer and they’ve been waiting for the Health Authority to approve it for months. And it’s literally a super quick instruction as soon as they can get that final approval to start building. But so it’s been on their website for a while we have a pool and we’re gonna put it in and it should be here in May, and then it should be here in June, and then it should be here in July, and now it’s August.

Joe Duemig: And at this point you missed the entire season. 

Brian: But they, but the point is they’ve continually updated their website to communicate that with guests. And that’s the key thing. If you can’t control anything else, you can control that. 

Joe Duemig: And to, to that point, people that have already made those reservations.

Just updating the website is one thing. But the people that made the reservations, they were expecting in May that was going to be completed. And as Sean mentioned, maybe you offer a discount because the amenities that they [00:10:00] expected when they booked are not available.

Maybe you offer them a discount on the next trip there when the amenity is available. There’s different ways to handle. I think there’s different ways to handle that than from a consumer side that they would appreciate. Really they just appreciate being heard and being communicated with the most I think from my standpoint, I should say, there’s, you’re never gonna please everybody, but from my standpoint. 

Lee Anne Miracle: Absolutely.

Joe Duemig: Most people wanna be heard. 

Brian: Are there ways that you can hedge that bet as an owner though because and I don’t, we weren’t actually in the picture of the Canadian property when they started putting the notice on their website. Are there ways you can hedge that? Instead of saying, we expect our pool to open in May of 2023, period, hard stop.

And then people make reservations expecting that. Or can you hedge your bet from a marketing standpoint and say, we expect our pool to go in sometime this summer. It’s contingent upon health department approval. So then when they make their reservation, they know this is the expectation but not a specific date, and it’s not within our control.

So then you no longer [00:11:00] have to give a discount. 

Sean Vidrine: I will tell you from our experience is we never give a date whenever we never ever give a date. And whenever people ask, whenever you post pictures or you’re, on Facebook, on your Facebook pages of the construction and seeing how things are coming along, you’re gonna always get people that are ask, gonna ask, Hey, we’re coming in two weeks, is it gonna be ready?

And our position is we’re working every day as hard as we can to get it completed as quickly as we can. And leave it alone. Once you start giving a date and something does happen, then you certainly are opening yourself up, to problems. But with regard to the discount I think that if you do communicate like that and you’re not, and you’re not committing to something where people do have that expectation maybe you don’t have to offer it.

We just chose to do it on these particular sites because of the fact that, we had shipping delays with picnic tables as well as fir firings and things like that. And we were still waiting for the grass to finish growing. But, we wanted to generate revenue and [00:12:00] if people were willing to come knowing that they were not gonna have a fully grass site, not gonna have a firing and not gonna have a picnic table, and we let them know that we decided that, you know what, since you’re not gonna get the full experience that we want to deliver, we’re gonna go ahead and offer you something in lieu of that.

So that was just a choice that we made. Did we have to do that? No, but I think that it builds, it’s just goodwill. And I believe that, whenever you build goodwill like that with your customers you’ll start, getting more return guests. We just chose to do it that way.

But there’s no right or wrong answer. But not committing to something is the easiest way not to have to go back and explain to people why it didn’t happen. 

Brian: That’s the thing, right? I’m not arguing against the discount. I think you’re exactly right. That’s good marketing, that’s good customer service.

That’s taking care of your guests. That’s building long-term loyalty and appreciation for you. So I think that’s always a good thing. But if the owner can have that option to. Make it less harmful Sure. For themselves, if they choose not to, then Yeah. 

Joe Duemig: And I have two things of what Sean just said.

One thing with his is it wasn’t [00:13:00] necessarily an amenity like not a side amenity, but amenity that was not offered. It was the particular site that they’re paying for was not up to the standard that he would charge. If that was the end of the site, you probably wouldn’t be charging the same rate for it in the first place.

And you were making up that they were getting what they pay for, so you were giving them a discount before that. On the o the other thing you mentioned was about not setting dates, six years ago when we were a new company, I would say, oh, I’ll have that done for sure.

Brian: Wait. It’s really been six years. It’s been that long. 

Joe Duemig: Six years. Yep. 

Brian: Geez, I’m old. 

Joe Duemig: I’ll say, I’ll make sure, I’ll make sure you have that by the start of your season. I’ll make sure you have that. And I, Up until probably about a year ago. I, I had those and I met those and it was all great.

And, as customers balloon, as legacy code exists now it’s just not, it’s not feasible to say, here’s the date it’s gonna happen because things come up, things get in the way life gets in the way. Employees that were there are no longer there. Like all of that stuff happens.

And I [00:14:00] realize now, I used to work for Oracle, I realize now they move a lot slower when I worked there. And there’s reasons why. And we still don’t move that slow. We’re not a big company like that, but there’s reasons you don’t set dates. 

Brian: That’s, so this is interesting to me because this is part of like my personal mindset, right?

I used to do the same thing, Joe, when we were early in our company, right? And I learned hard lessons because I feel like I can push myself to work crazy hours to deliver almost anything. And that’s pretty cool. That’s fine. When I have 20 clients, but when I’m at four 50, it doesn’t really work.

I dunno what that number was. It was probably like maybe 50 or 60, eight or nine years ago when I had to realize that. But I would, I used to, I remember telling people like, I’ll have your social media posts done by next Wednesday, and it was like 90 posts I had to do, and it was, I dunno, Monday or whatever, right?

Two days from now. And so yeah, you have to learn those kind of hard lessons, but that’s always my mindset. Like I want to give that date and I have to restrain myself now because I want to make sure that people feel like I’m taking [00:15:00] extra special care of them. 

Joe Duemig: Yeah. And I have a question for Leanne in the same vein.

And it’s very similar to the soft launch, but when and what do you do, what that kind of goes into your thought process of when you decide to start opening up reservations for your actual launch. ’cause you don’t wanna open up to an empty park, right? You, when you open up and you’re doing a full launch, you wanna be sure, 50, 75% occupied.

That means that you have to open those reservations, I would imagine, prior to you knowing that everything’s gonna be ready. How, what’s the calculus of how you decide when to start opening reservations? 

Lee Anne Miracle: We have a crystal ball and we just shined it up really good and made a good guess.

1. We had to move that gas just a little bit because things didn’t quite work out as expected. And I’ve got my fingers crossed, you can’t see, but my toes are crossed too, that our electricity comes on just any second now, because that’s the [00:16:00] one thing that’s really the last big thing that kind of needs to come on.

But everything’s on track to make that happen. And you really have to take a stab in the dark and make an educated guess and run with it. We have a lot of reservations already and we’ve had to move some of those. But the thing is, if you’re honest with people and somewhat transparent as without telling more than they really want to hear, but giving them a real good reason as to why things have to change.

People are very understanding about it. And in this area, there’s not a luxury RV resort like this anywhere. You have to go an hour or more away and. People wanted something like this in the area as a place to stay and a place to play. And so they’re willing to roll with us a little bit in the beginning to get something that is really gonna serve them well for a really long time.

Brian: [00:17:00] So how did you choose and what, 

Lee Anne Miracle: So I’d advise you 

Brian: No. Okay. I was just gonna ask you a follow-up question. So how did you choose, I don’t even know if I know what area it’s in. Sorry, my team does, I didn’t do my research as perhaps in deep as I should. But what area are you, and what do you, what’s your vision for when it’s completed?

What is Tiger Trail gonna look like? 

Lee Anne Miracle: We’re in Baton Rouge Road directly across from La Burge Casino. So we’re right on the Mississippi River. We’re seven miles down the road from the L S U football stadium. Also Alex Box Baseball. We’ve all, we’ve got a very large soccer complex about three miles away and.

And a little league park with traction sports very close by too. So there are a whole lot of people that come here and need someplace to go that maybe isn’t a hotel 

and there’s no luxury. There are a lot. 

Brian: You work in Baton Rouge already. I’m sorry. We’re just on a delay. I’m not really trying to talk over you.

Lee Anne Miracle: Not in Baton rouge. [00:18:00] 

Brian: Okay. 

Lee Anne Miracle: It’s okay. I haven’t done very many of these, so I’m working my way into Neither have I. 

Brian: That’s okay. 

Lee Anne Miracle: You all have to flag me down. If I do something wrong. 

Joe Duemig: I’ll say, 

Lee Anne Miracle: I say we’re lives. No problem. 

Joe Duemig: You’re doing excellent for not having power.

Brian: She’s got power in her Jeep Joe.

Lee Anne Miracle: I can tell a few jokes too. 

I’ve got power. 

Brian: This is exactly why I can’t own, 

Lee Anne Miracle: I’ve got everything but a bathroom in the street. 

Brian: This is exactly why I can’t own an RV resort because if I owned an RV resort, I would just pretend that my electricity was off until everybody got in and then throw the switch and light it up like Christmas lights or something.

Surprise. That would be fun. And then obviously no one would come back. No, it would be, until then, everybody was like giving me bad reviews and no one came back to my park and I went out of business. But it would be fun for a couple minutes. 

Lee Anne Miracle: We’ll cut the wifi off so they can’t make those bad reviews. How about that? 

Brian: I like… 

Lee Anne Miracle: As a matter of fact, we’re gonna have, [00:19:00] 

Brian: This is good advice. Sean, are you paying attention and taking notes here?

Lee Anne Miracle: We’re gonna have amazing wifi here also. We’ve got little polls everywhere with all the little wifi connections. So you’re gonna be able to stream the Netflix movie when you don’t want to go outside and play. 

Brian: Alright, so I interrupted you. Finish telling us what Tiger’s Trail is gonna be when it gets done.

Lee Anne Miracle: Ah Tiger’s Trail’s gonna be the most fun place to hang out ever. We’ve got six pickleball courts. We’ve got the Lazy River, we’ve got a hot tub. Of course, every everybody of water’s a hot tub here right now. We’ve got a pool, we’ll have a Tiki Hutt bar in the pool area. Our clubhouse features a Campground store, a bathhouse, a laundry room, a fitness center a lounge area.

On the grounds. We, every site has picnic [00:20:00] tables, fire rings. We did get all of those in. We’ve got great trees. We’ve got a stocked pond. The fish are a little small right now, I’ll feed ’em, they’ll grow. There’s so much to do here on site and in the area that people are gonna want to come here over and over because we’re across the street from La Burge Casino, we can also work together with them.

And if you’re at the pool or at your site and you don’t wanna make dinner, or it’s lunchtime and you need to feed your kid a burger, we can go across the street and pick that up for you and bring it back. We’ll even work with some other restaurants to bring food here, and our concierges will go get it and bring it to you if it’s a.

Time that you want to go over and visit the casino for some of their other dining activities, gaming activities, events that they have concerts, they have comedy shows, they have every kind of fun you can imagine. We’ll drive you over there [00:21:00] and if you come back, you want to come back and it’s after our office hours have closed, the casino guys will bring you back.

So we’ll get you back and forth without you having to drive anywhere. It’s as though we’re one giant campus here 

Brian: And that it’s a free service driving them there and bringing them back. So if they lose all their money at the casino, they can still get safely back home at night, which is a market. 

Lee Anne Miracle: They won’t even have to tip me to get me to drive them back and forth.

And I tend to tell a few jokes as we go. So if they lost all their money, maybe I can cheer ’em up a little bit.

Sean Vidrine: Leanne, how many sites and cabins are y’all gonna have? 

Lee Anne Miracle: We have 220 RV sites, and currently we have 10 cabins. We have room for 18 more. We just didn’t get ’em in yet. All of the cabins are stocked with all the furniture you could need.

Pullout couches in the living room. Queen size bed in the bedroom. Eight of them have [00:22:00] a loft with a queen size mattress there, so you can throw all the kids up there and let them have their own little party. Kitchens are fully occupied with everything you need down to the last fork. Each one of ’em has a, their own patio area with a picnic table and 

a grill.

Brian: Very nice. Okay, two things real quick. Now what we want to clarify that we shouldn’t really throw kids, I’ve got Christine Taylor, a lawyer on my show the first week, and she’s been cleaning up my language to make sure that I don’t say anything crazy. 

Joe Duemig: And that one was specific. She specifically said, don’t say that one.

Brian: Don’t throw kids. Yes, that’s a thing. And then three and then two. Sorry. Three. I was skipping two. Two. And there are only two points. I wanna clarify that when you say all the kids, you have not met Joe’s family.

That’s, 

Joe Duemig: Yeah, we traveled. We traveled, 

Lee Anne Miracle: are they not inside they’re not feral? 

Joe Duemig: No. Wow. Sometimes we there’s just a lot of them, so we just kind throw ’em outside and just let ’em run for the [00:23:00] day. But so maybe sometimes they’re feral children now.

Lee Anne Miracle: He throws ’em too. 

Brian: Okay. But there’s, but to be fair, there’s a lot of them. So the one queen bed in the loft was my point.

I wasn’t trying to accuse joe of having, 

Joe Duemig: Yeah, we only put three and a queen at a time. 

Brian: Alright, so what what else do we gotta talk about here? Tiger coming. I’m excited, 

Lee Anne Miracle: I’m looking for kids. 

Brian: I’m sorry, you broke up. I didn’t hear what you said. You’re looking for to 

Lee Anne Miracle: I’m looking forward to the kids coming here because I get to, when the kids get here, I get to play with them and that makes life fun for me.

So we’ll do some s’mores. We’ll do some. Who knows what kind of fun things we’ll do. I’ve been known to play red light, green light, whatever it takes to keep ’em entertained. And that might help some of the parents out too. 

Brian: Yeah, that’s always a good thing. Identifying what is your target market down there.

Now you talk about like you’re gonna have lazy River, right? Is that what you said? Or was that [00:24:00] Sean? 

Lee Anne Miracle: Yes. We have a lazy river and a pool. Our target market is everybody. There’s something for anybody here, the football fans. Great spot for you. If you’re here with your your kids’ soccer team or baseball team.

Bring the whole team over here. Everybody can have their own site, have plenty of room, and there’s a little spot over there that’s not fully developed yet. They can go practice kicking a ball if they need to. So our audience is everybody. 

Brian: Okay. So that looks…

Joe Duemig: I did have a question too on, on your audience.

So you’re right by the stadium or not far from the stadium, do you, I’ve seen some parks that are in your setup. They have like football packages. Are you are you offering stuff like that? ’cause I would imagine there that would be interest to some Campground owners, what people do there? 

Lee Anne Miracle: Yes.

We’ll be offering some football packages and eel deals where we can include your bus ticket because there is a bus system that runs [00:25:00] from La Burge to the stadium back and forth several times I believe, during every game so that you’ll be able to leave your cars and everything here and we’ll take you over to the bus and off you go to the stadium.

Brian: That’s right. So I’m curious, logistically speaking, right? And this is not, I’m not saying this is a problem you’re gonna have, but I’m sure this has come up for some Campground owner, RV resort owner in the past, right? As you blend that mix of, and maybe this isn’t early in the days when you’re soft opening, but as you continue on, as you blend that mix of football fans and families with young children, how do you foresee avoiding any conflict between those two groups?

And there may be none, but if there is, 

Lee Anne Miracle: You’ve never been to Louisiana, have you? Everybody’s a football fan. When I moved to the state, they stopped me at the border and handed me my LSU jersey. So if you’re not a football fan… 

Brian: I was trying to be nice. 

Lee Anne Miracle: Everybody’s a football Fan

Brian: Here’s what I, here’s what I’m really saying. How do you [00:26:00] blend the football fans that are over exuberant with too much alcohol with the parents whose children go to bed at seven or eight o’clock at night?

Lee Anne Miracle: We’ll manage, the sites are far, 

Sean Vidrine: I think a good way.

Lee Anne Miracle: Part that I don’t think there’s gonna be any big problems. 

Sean Vidrine: What I was gonna say, Leanne, and you probably already have this in your policies and procedures, but I’m sure you’re gonna have a quiet time whenever things need to calm down.

And that’ll probably be posted on your website, in your check-in package. So here’s the deal. If your quiet time is 11 o’clock at night, people can have as much fun until that time. And people that want to go to bed at eight o’clock understand that, hey, people are gonna be up at 11 o’clock at night and I gotta deal with it.

But yeah. We deal with some of that in our parks, Brian, people that wanna stay up and party a little bit longer than they should. And you, and, especially at the jelly stones whenever you have younger families there with kids. We do run across that issue.

But again if you just, if you stick to your policy and just. You can manage through those [00:27:00] situations. 

Brian: I think it was just more in the forefront of my mind and it has nothing to do with campgrounds, right? But my specific use case, so I live in a, an apartment building that’s five stories and I have a big balcony and right next to mine is the community area balcony outside.

And so I think a couple weeks ago we were dealing with somebody was, had rented the space to have a birthday party. And so at five o’clock in the afternoon they started blaring DJ music. Like literally thumping my entire apartment and then didn’t stop until 10 30 when we had to have multiple noise complaints.

So it’s very interesting to me now where I wasn’t cognizant of before yes, there’s a quiet time, yes there’s a line, but is there a crossing of the line before the quiet time where you have to shut some things down? And that’s why I brought it up. Yeah. And I don’t know that there’s an answer to that.

Lee Anne Miracle: Always be, always somebody who breaks the rules. You have to just manage this. 

Brian: They’re not really breaking the rules. They’re, they, there is no noise rules from five to [00:28:00] 10 in my place, or if they’re right. So that’s really the, it’s a hypothetical. I don’t know that there’s a one size fits all answer for everybody.

Lee Anne Miracle: There’s still a reasonable amount of noise. That’s true. Okay. I, everything should, everybody should be able to get along so that everybody gets quiet enjoyment of temporary home at an RV park. And as long as they’re being reasonable, I think everybody will be okay. But if somebody’s unreasonable, we’ll deal with those people individually.

Brian: Awesome. Sounds sounds good to me. So Sean, I wanna switch to you for just a minute. We talked about, briefly before the show started, just talking a little bit about some of the things you’ve been up to in the last few months, and then maybe covering a little bit about a conversation into amenities.

But start with what’s new with Four Points RV Resorts. 

Sean Vidrine: Yeah. So I would say the the most recent transaction that we had probably prior or after the last show that I was on is we closed the Jellystone Park at Lake Monroe in Bloomington, Indiana, [00:29:00] and I’m actually up here this week. Basically right now, I mean we’re get, we’re coming to the tail end of the season, we’re getting ready to get, hit Labor Day weekend, and then we will, roll in the October to Halloween weekends, and then after that the parks up in the north are gonna be on the, on the downturn as far as getting winterized and closed up.

So we have, we’re, we’re working to have a strong push to the end of the season, at least up here in the north. But yeah, this was a great acquisition for us. We really like it. We like the area, the population density is very strong. We’re only about 45 minutes south of Indianapolis, so we really like the market.

And we do have plans to to make improvements here at amenities as well as, more campsites and cabins in the future. Just working through the regulatory issues and trying to get the entitlements in place before we can actually start breaking around on those. 

Brian: So one of the things I was talking to you about before the show was you have this large portfolio of RV resorts.

They’re located in different areas around the country. Yep. And we’ve been dealing on and off with this talk of recession, not recession, and I don’t wanna talk about that specifically, but there certainly is a lot [00:30:00] of parks out there who I’ve seen common in Facebook groups. So I’ve talked to personally who some are down in revenue and camper nights, some are down just in camper nights.

But revenue has been holding steady because they’ve been managing their rates appropriately. And I think that varies both on area of the country as well as type of camper, as well as all kinds of variables. So what are you seeing across your properties that maybe might help shed some light on this that could help some of the other owners out there?

Sean Vidrine: We’ve actually been very fortunate. I’ve heard mixed stories like that as well from other camp grown owners that I have a relationship with. But so far this year we’ve been up in occupancy and revenue across the portfolio. Again, we’ve been very fortunate, very blessed.

We’re happy about that. But yes there, there certainly is. There certainly are some campgrounds that are experiencing a different occupancy, but, seeing revenue growth or at least maintaining revenue year over year in most of that is driven by rate. We have a little bit different strategy as far as that goes because we want our parks to be full because we [00:31:00] really are also heavily driven by ancillary revenues, not just site revenue.

Brian: Yeah. Especially at Jellystone. That definitely makes sense. Joe, what have you heard from your clients? Anything that you can point to as a pattern or helpful advice or. 

Joe Duemig: I have not heard from our clients. As far as I’ve, I’m aware most of our clients have had a a great summer. I haven’t heard of any of them that they’ve told me of being down in terms of occupancy or reservations.

Things have been just pulling along. Now, we normally don’t have in-depth conversations about their revenue. It’s just not the nature of the way we work. But I haven’t had any complaints about it. 

Brian: Yeah, to be fair, that would be more in, in my neck of the woods when we’re optimizing for r o I and marketing campaigns and things like that.

But yeah, I haven’t heard any terrible stories from anybody either. It’s just there’s less camper nights. But again, if you’re managing your rates, which most of our clients are, then you’re fine. But it’s interesting to me how I can’t quite put a pattern to why some parks are different than other parks yet.[00:32:00] 

In the traditional sense of, sometimes you can blame it on more touristy tourist areas versus nont tourist areas or, areas of the country or, and so it’s just interesting, but, all right, Sean, what, go ahead. 

Sean Vidrine: Oh, I was just gonna talk about a little bit where you were talking about there, Brian.

What we see at least what I’m seeing is that when having conversations with campgrounds that are down in occupancy, what we’ve noticed is those particular parks were really driving rate hard from 2020 to 2022. And I think we’re a, we’re in a different place in the country right now with regard to, covid and and obviously the recession.

I think that maybe not raising the rate or, so fast. Is I think that hurts some people at least now I would rather see, I would rather incentivize people to come to the parks by maybe taking a little bit less of a rate and knowing that I’m gonna be able to capture the ancillary revenue.

And overall our occupancy and revenue as a total goes up. So different [00:33:00] strategy, but the ones that seem to be struggling at least or at least seeing the dip in occupancy, I think a lot of it has to do with rate. 

Brian: And I think this is a very interesting discussion, so I’m very glad you brought it up because often when you hear people talk about rate of revenue management, I think most people that I talk to tend to ask how much are you raising prices to compensate for less camper nights using the example that we’re just talking about?

And I think the flip side of that is very brilliant, exactly what you just said. And certainly other people are doing it too. It’s the I wanna get people in the door, and so I can accept a little bit less of an overnight rate because I know they’re going to, and certainly in the case of Yogi, there’s more merchandise, right?

But in a normal RV resort, they’re gonna buy firewood. They might rent a golf cart, they might shop at my store, they might, whatever. And so I think there’s sometimes a tunnel vision that happens in all businesses, right? I have tunnel vision in mine. Joe probably has it in his with certain things, right?

And so nobody’s saying this is a Campground or a specific thing, but it’s interesting that there are [00:34:00] multiple different tactics you can use out of your kind of arsenal to solve this problem. Yep. All Sean, I was gonna ask you too your other question about, we were talking about amenities before the show, right?

Yeah. So as far as, you, you’re pretty well known for, producing some very high quality jelly stones with larger amenities like watersides and water parks and things like that. How do you, as someone who comes in and either acquires the Campground or is looking at, what do I renovate or add as far as cabins or sites or new amenities?

How do you decide from an ownership financial perspective that this a makes sense for the guests that I currently have? Which admittedly, perhaps is a little bit easier with the Jellystone brand, but how do I understand one, does this make sense for my guests, but two, is it financially a good investment for me?

And then what are my kind of criteria for ROI do I need to make a five x? Do I need to pay it off within X number of years? Those kinds of things. What factors into those decisions.[00:35:00] 

Sean Vidrine: There’s actually a lot that we put into our business model whenever we’re looking at adding amenities. And a lot of it’s gonna depend on how many sites in cabins can I get at that park?

Do I have room to expand? Can I put enough revenue producing assets, meaning sites, cabins, lodging opportunities, glamping units. Can I put enough of those items in this park that can justify spending x amount of dollars on the amenities that we want to have? For example I wouldn’t wanna put a lazy river in a park that I can only have 75 sites in.

So it just, you can’t justify it. You can’t drive enough occupancy and revenue to pay for an amenity like that. So it’s really gonna depend on, how big can your park fee And and then what you know, can you, what kind of return on investment can you get by earning the number of site nights per year to be able to pay for that?

So you know that’s the short answer of it, but as far as the type of amenities, water features are always gonna be the most popular. 

Brian: So let’s talk about, let’s unpack just briefly this from a revenue [00:36:00] standpoint, right? Let’s pretend you have enough sites to justify it and your campground’s been going strong for a number of years, right?

They’re the people are happy, they’re coming there, they’re great, but you’re looking for ways to maybe bump up your rates a little bit, which is a much trickier situation, right? Like maybe the market will support it, maybe not. Obviously there are studies that you can do to ease your mind, but how do you take that leap as to far as like maybe I have 400 sites, I want to add a waterpark because I think it’s cool.

I think my guests will like it. I think I can charge more. How do I get comfortable knowing as much as I can? 

Sean Vidrine: So the approach that we take is, number one, is we look at the latitude that we’re operating in, and if we’re earning on the high end of the nights per year that we can earn at that latitude, then that means that we have the ability to raise rates without affecting our occupancy.

If I have a 400 site park and I’m at the high end of my occupancy and I cannot expand. I cannot add any more sites. And there’s, there’s no need to [00:37:00] add more amenities to that park if you’re already there. Now, if you have a park that you have 400 sites and you’re only earning 50% of the nights per year that you can earn, maybe by adding a really nice water feature will help drive demand and get more interest and allow you to earn more nights per year.

So I think a lot of it is gonna be based on where are you performing and where can you go up if you add it, or is it gonna be the same if you add it no matter what? We would never want to add something if our revenue is not gonna change. And an incremental increase in rate is not enough to drive that, in my opinion.

It has to be driven by occupancy and rate. Brian, I need to plug this computer in before I lose you. Can you hold on one second? 

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. Joe, what do you think as far as amenities being added? What’s important to you from the camper side of the space? 

Joe Duemig: I think I’m, I definitely think Sean is completely right.

Water features is definitely a driver. Having anytime we go to a park, as you mentioned earlier, I have six children until with me if that resort has a lazy [00:38:00] river, if that resort has a place for them to swim, a nice pool like some with something fun, a water slide or something like that’s the one that they talk about.

And the one that they continue to talk about is the one that we’re more likely to go back to. And I mentioned before the show my children and I were actually just up at the Jellystone in Pitfield pine Lakes that Sean has. And we got there. We pulled in, we were bringing our camper.

Sean donated a stay for our school’s dinner auction. And we were parking it for the people that rented our RV for that. And my children wanted to come right away and they’re like, can we stay and play? No, we actually don’t have a site here. So now we have to go back because they saw, it’s probably the second largest amount of water equipment in the lake that I’ve seen at any park before.

And then two big water slides that they were just added and two huge jumping pillows. And it was probably for the size of the park and the the. How big the amenities are. See might almost [00:39:00] be one of the ones that have the most amenities per site that we’ve been to. Sean, that’s gonna go a long way to make our children happy.

Sean Vidrine: So speaking of that park in particular is, part of that whole expansion was we added 40 sites and 30 new cabins at the same time that we built the new water features. So we still have room with the existing land that we have. Even if we’re not able to acquire adjacent land, we still have room to add more sites and cabins.

So us putting in those water features, certainly with the assets that we have there now can certainly justify having it, but we also have room to expand even more without having to add more water features and more amenities because the, there’s enough there to accommodate more people. 

Brian: I think that’s really an interesting discussion that you bring up that there, there’s this.

There’s this desire, like for me, right? I always want bigger, better, more exciting new things, right? And so I can certainly understand the debate [00:40:00] inside your head as far as I want to have a water slide, but then what are the calculations? Go into it. And maybe I only have 75 sites, or I have 200 sites, or I have 600 sites, but I’m already 90% occupied.

So like you’re talking about, there’s that I want that water slide, but that rate justification increase doesn’t work. So if I’m in that position, is there a situation where I would consider converting RV sites to cabins or glamping to make more money for my sites to justify that? If that’s the direction I really want to go, 

Sean Vidrine: Again, it’s going to be.

It, we look at everything based on demand. So let’s just say for example, at that latitude, if I can earn 130 nights a year in a cabin and I can get 250 to $300 a night for that, and I’m at the very high end of of my earning potential for that type of unit, and I’m down in my sites and there’s nothing that I can [00:41:00] do to get my site occupancy up or whatever.

But so the demand for lodging is higher, then I would certainly be leaning toward, okay, do we want to cannibalize some sites in an area that that might more sense to be more of a cabin village rather than sites? But we don’t like mixing unit types amongst each other. So for example, I would not want to take a section of sites and put cabins in there in the middle of a section of sites.

I like, we like a design to where. This type of unit is in one location versus another type versus sites. We like to have it broken out that way in sections. 

Brian: Is there any calculation that goes into your mind as far as maybe I could open this to the public or maybe I could make ancillary revenue through two rentals or Right.

More food or anything like that? 

Sean Vidrine: Sure. Some parks, we do have day use offerings and other parks we do not. And a lot of that has to, A lot of that really depends on how much parking do I have available for people to come in outside the park? Can I accommodate those people? And another thing that we look at too, in certain [00:42:00] markets for sure is, do I wanna charge somebody $20 a day to come in here whenever, let’s just say at a park that’s high demand and I’m getting a premium rate.

If I’m charging somebody, let’s just say a hundred bucks a night for a site. And they’re, and they have use of the amenities in the park, and they’re spending $300 on the weekend for a three night stay, plus whatever they’re gonna spend in the park. Do we wanna allow somebody to come in for a little bit of additional ancillary revenue at 15 bucks a night to enjoy the same amenities?

So we look at a lot of that, and a lot of it’s, driven by the market, where it’s located, what do we have available? Parking it. It’s, I don’t think that there’s a just a yes or no answer to that. No, there’s not. We just have to do a lot of analysis and see what that really is gonna do for you.

For the Jellystone Park that, in Pittsfield that you went to, Joe, we do have a day use offering there. We also have one at our Jellystone Park in Monticello, Iowa. We do not do day use offerings at Paradise Ranch in Mississippi. I think it really, it just, it depends on a lot of factors, but if you do have a BBT water [00:43:00] course like we have up there, day use can be a very nice ancillary revenue stream.

Brian: So the key takeaway I got from all that is that Joe could have let his kids stay even with us. 

Joe Duemig: Yeah. It was, it would’ve been cheaper. It would’ve been cheaper to rent a site for our family.

I, I actually did the math on that. I was like we’ll just stay for the weekend. With that, we actually have a customer that this summer asked me how to set this up on their app to implement it out. But what they do is Sunday after checkout until Thursday before check in, they do day use and three hour increments.

So they have three hour increments I think 15 people per increment that they can just go online and book and then pay their $7 and 50 cents per person, or $5 per person. And they’re only allowing 15 people in at a time. And it’s during the week when they’re slow, so it’s not overwhelming the amenities.

And at the same time, it is not it’s [00:44:00] giving locals, this is in a larger city. It’s giving the locals the ability to use their amenities and also, it’s advertising, right? More word of mouth because people seeing, oh yeah, we really like their pool. And I thought that was a neat thing to add and it was a good idea the way they time boxed that.

So they didn’t overwhelm anything. 

Brian: The word of mouth thing is actually really interesting to me because obviously that’s been talked about for a long time in Campground and Harvey Park spaces. I’ll get more people in here and they’ll see my campsite and maybe they’ll wanna come back and stay at the RV Resort, either in an RV rental or eventually buying their own rig one day or in tent, right?

I think it’s very interesting how that conversation has changed now though, because now if you’ve got cabins or glamping, you open yourself up to a whole, like probably. 30 x audience that now sure has the ability to very easily say a hotel guest would versus somebody who has to purchase an RV.

Joe Duemig: For sure when I had a family that actually I’m, I’ve talked to up at Sean’s Park that we know and they [00:45:00] asked we were thinking of where we should go on our next vacation. We wanted to go a little further away, but they don’t actually have a camper. They were renting ours. And so I said a great Campground that we’ve been to that has a lot of cabins and isn’t too far from us in St.

Louis area would be the Jellystone in in Mammoth Cave. They have tons of cabins there so they can bring in that audience. There’s also a large IC course as well there. And they’re next to a national park. And we’ve been there twice. Enjoyed it thoroughly. And so I pointed them in that direction because yeah, they don’t have an RV.

Here’s a great place that I know that you can go to and enjoy Camping. But not Camping. So 

Brian: Who owns the name of Gabe? Now? I know that’s completely off topic, but I know Bill and Kay saw it. 

Sean Vidrine: So that’s a park that’s owned by Sun and managed by Blue Water. 

Brian: Okay. I thought it was a okay.

I thought it was a big group. Took it over. But anyway, sorry. We don’t wanna get distracted on that, but yeah, that’s a great park for sure. I’ve never been there, but we used to work with Bill and Kay. So what else do we have to talk about [00:46:00] guys? Do you wanna keep down the revenue pass?

Lee Anne Miracle: I like the idea of those of day use passes for certain things because we built a six, six pickleball court, courts, pickleball, courts aren’t readily everywhere here. There are a few and different, we have enough space that we could have a pickleball tournament here. I don’t know how to play pickleball yet, but I guess I’ll have to learn.

But our…

Brian: I don’t really know how either.

Lee Anne Miracle: To the front nearby. So we’ll try to, during the week that…

Brian: We’ve played a, we’ve played a couple games of it and I just like on a tennis court where the hybrid court is in between it, it’s not a few pickleball court and we just decide at random intervals which tape lines we’re gonna follow it.

There’s no random, like I’m sure there’s rules it, but…

Joe Duemig: Yeah, we’ve played two or three times this year. And now starting next Tuesday will be the first time in 11 years that we have three days with no children in the house. And our plan is actually to [00:47:00] play pickleball some of those mornings after drop the kids off at school since we have a little bit of childless time.

And that’s one thing. But I was gonna say we have another customer actually in Louisiana that they’re building a pickleball court and they were asking, okay, how do we go and rent or allow our guests to reserve these times? Then what if people that aren’t in the park reservable charge ’em?

If it’s free to reserve it if you’re a guest, if you’re not charging for it and make that ancillary revenue. I said, just make sure you’re not doing it in a way that impacts the guests, kinda like Sean was saying, and impacts the guests that are actually already there to enjoy your amenities.

You gotta make sure that you’re engaging them the most and making sure that their experience is the best. 

Brian: I’m about to do something that’s gonna impact our guests that are here to enjoy Sean and Joe and Leanne, and that’s like somebody’s back with groceries and is about to walk in and make a bunch of noise.

But anyway I just wanted to set the preface for that in case you guys hear any banging or anything. It’s all okay. 

Joe Duemig: Setting [00:48:00] expectations. 

Brian: Yeah. 

Joe Duemig: You’re going full circle back from the beginning, Ryan. Exactly. Segwaying 

to the end planned the whole thing was planned to do that. 

Sean Vidrine: Leanne if you’re contemplating on doing a day use program, one that works very well, Uhhuh again we’ve, you.

For us, it’s really very market specific on how we decide what we’re gonna do. But a very friendly thing to do is a Sunday through Thursday offering for day use. That way your guests that are staying there on the weekend, paying your weekend rates are not impacted by that. Yeah.

Lee Anne Miracle: I like what you were saying about those times. 

Sean Vidrine: Yeah. The day you, 

Lee Anne Miracle: Sorry, the boss is here.

Brian: Oh. Is the boss actually getting in the Jeep? I was confused there for a second. Whether she was joking or it was the dog or What’s that? Who’s the boss? Do you wanna see the boss? 

Lee Anne Miracle: It was the boss. He brought me checks. 

Brian: Oh. 

Lee Anne Miracle: Important things about…

Brian: That’s a good gig. By parts 

Lee Anne Miracle: On the construction. Sometimes you have [00:49:00] to pay the people.

Brian: I think Sean lost Sean. Yeah. But he looks like he was about to say so. He is far north impactful and important which is typical for Sean. So that’s why we have him as a guest on the show. So what else do you wanna think about in the last five minutes? 

Joe Duemig: The last thing I was gonna say, Leanne, is you’re in a very similar to the one that I spoke to that does that day use on a time basis throughout the week.

You’re in in a similar, similarly sized location as well. And that’s sit in the city that they’re in your city, probably both about mid-sized cities and you have a large audience to pull from there. And you might even have people coming from the casino. It might come in very handy.

I don’t know. If it were me, I probably wouldn’t. And I’ve never owned an RV park as Brian says all the time. But I think I would probably wait and be open for a little while and understand what your season, your clientele looks like before implementing that. Unless you know that you’re going to be very light on certain days.[00:50:00] 

Lee Anne Miracle: Yeah. But, hey, if you wanna come down, I’ve got a cabin for you. And all the kids can play pickleball at once. 

Joe Duemig: We bring our Class A and we, there’s a good chance it’ll happen. 

Brian: Yeah. Are you’re offering Joe a free cabin? Is that what you’re doing? So I feel like Joe will come.

Lee Anne Miracle: We, we’ll see… 

Joe Duemig: We don’t fit in any cabins. We don’t fit in any cabins. 

Brian: A free site is what I meant own She said cabin first, didn’t she? And then you correct it. And then I just 

Lee Anne Miracle: we’ll talk, Joe, we’ll talk.

Joe Duemig: Sounds good.

Brian: Imagine the people, Leanne, like this is a long-term investment for you.

This is a long-term investment for you, Leanne. There are six children who for the next 40 years will only talk about Tiger Trail’s RV Resort because they have a great experience there. You can’t buy that brand awareness anywhere. Absolutely. Joe’s an investment. 

Joe Duemig: That is true. 

Lee Anne Miracle: That’s that’s an amazing investment.

Joe Duemig: Two or three campgrounds. There’s two or three [00:51:00] campgrounds that they tell everybody about. So that’s it. 

Brian: All right. 

Joe Duemig: And they love their lazy rivers so it’s got a lazy river that’s already made the list, they haven’t even been there yet. 

Brian: All right. What else do we gotta talk about?

Anything else real quick for the last four minutes? How do now I’m just getting ready. Tiger Trail RV Resort is gonna open September 1st. How do we find more information about Tigers Trail RV, 

Lee Anne Miracle: September 1st? tigertrailrvresort.com. You’ll look us, you can start looking up the dates and make your reservations now. Hurry. Before, 

Brian: Why is the, why is it named Tigers Trail? Do you have a trail with tigers throughout the park? 

Joe Duemig: Brian, I didn’t realize that until this call. 

Lee Anne Miracle: This is a trail to the Tigers, 

Brian: The LSU Tiger, Louisiana, sorry.

I’m a, I live in Canada now. I’m disconnected from this. 

Joe Duemig: I saw an ad for Tigers Trail, not an ad. I saw one on the a developer that I think worked with [00:52:00] you that had a booth at one of our shows that we went to. And I saw a Tiger’s Trail, RV Resort, and I wasn’t sure like what the premise of the concept was there.

And then when you got on the call and so you’re Baton Rouge ah, that’s the premise of it. 

Brian: Sorry, I’m…

Lee Anne Miracle: Everything’s a tiger here. 

Brian: I’m a Canadian. 

Joe Duemig: Everything’s purple. 

Brian: I’m an American transplant to Canada, so now I’m gold,

so I’m not a yeah. 

Lee Anne Miracle: On Sundays everything turns black and gold for the saints. 

Joe Duemig: That’s right. That’s right. 

Brian: Alright, anything else? Any closing thoughts, Joe? 

Joe Duemig: Nope. 

Brian: Joe, obviously from my community, we should give like a plug to Joe once in a while, right? 

Joe Duemig: Yeah. You can go to our website. We actually got a new website about I don’t know, two weeks ago @mycommunity.com.

Brian: What’s new about it?

Joe Duemig: And it’ll show you what we do. 

Mainly copy. We we are not marketers and we, I’m a developer and we get excited about features and here’s the things we have and this is what we do and we, and the nice, shiny things that we do. Whereas we had [00:53:00] to work with somebody, say, no, tell ’em what you’re doing for them, because that’s just not what we the way we had marketed ourselves.

And we don’t look at it in that direction. And just a new copy, new design, new layout. 

Brian: Awesome. I’ll have to go check it out. Thank you Leanne for being here from Tiger Trails RV Resort. Super excited to hear all your jokes and love the fact you, thank you for having me. And we’re excited.

We’ll have to check back in with you and see how things are going maybe early next year or something to see how your progress is going and maybe some of the things like, I love hearing your story. 

Lee Anne Miracle: Yeah, gimme few and we’ll be rolling. 

Brian: Yeah I’m excited to hear the things like, I thought this was gonna go this way, but it did go this way.

Or It might be better and it might be worse, or it might be a little bit of both, or whatever. I think those insights are very useful for the audience to hear. As always, thank you Joe for joining us from at my community. Sean had thanks drop off internet connections here, but super excited to have his insights and thoughts as always from four points.

And we will see you guys next week on another episode of MC Fireside chats. 

Take care guys. 

Joe Duemig: Bye. [00:54:00] Thanks Brian. Nice to meet you, Leanne,