MC Fireside Chats – December 7th, 2022

Jenna: Hi everyone. Welcome to Modern Campground Fireside Chats. I am not Brian, nor am I Cara. I am Jenna Celmer, and I am a [00:01:00] random special host here today to talk to you all and some amazing guests from just across the campsite industry. If you have heard of me, you might know me from something called Basecamp Outdoor. We are a community for the outdoor industry. We help folks find their dream job. We help people find the best talent for their organizations and we really just connect folks in all capacity across the or across really the industry. And that’s Fish, Hunt, Camp,. Marine. It’s absolutely everything. So if you’re looking for a network Basecamp might be a cool place for you to do that. wearetheoutdoorindustry.com because I will never waste a platform. But moving on to the important things that Brian told me I had to do. We are sponsored today by Fireside Accounting, and you know what, Scott actually uses Fireside accounting. So Scott, are you a fan of them? I think that would be the best way to know if anyone else should use them or not. Scott: I am a fan, but I also feel like I should [00:02:00] disclaim that statement by sharing that it’s actually my wife’s company. So I’m a little biased, but yes. You know, they work with independently owned campgrounds on just an accounting basis and have been doing so for the last six years or so. Jenna: Well, there you go. Okay. We love transparency. And we love a disclosure and we love an accounting firm that can do what they say they’re gonna do to help you reach your goals. Right. So, thank you. Fireside Accounting. Scott: I feel like transparency in accounting go hand in hand. Jenna: you would hope, right? But that’s not Mark: They should. They should. Jenna: We’re gonna hop into meeting our guests because they are far more interesting than I am. So I’m just going to actually do a little loop on my screen. Maybe it’s the same as everyone else’s, but Sandy would love for you to introduce yourself, the company you’re with, and then please give us a favorite memory from that company and your time there. Sandy: All right. My name is Sandy Ellingson and my background is [00:03:00] technology. I had a consulting firm for many years and then retired and was a full-time rver and kind of fell into working in this industry. And I really love it. I serve as a liaison between manufacturers and OEMs and campgrounds because up until about four years ago, nobody recognized campgrounds as being a part of the RV industry. There was the industry and then there was campgrounds. And thanks to Covid, one of the great things was we’ve the industry figured out how important the campgrounds are. I guess one of my favorite memories is when I first started getting into this, I was invited to an invitation only event where they were doing quite a bit of commercials and things like that. And because I was kind of snuck into this event, they gave me, I didn’t get a name badge. And all of the press were told that if they’re not wearing a name badge, they’re somebody don’t ask their name. You should know who they are. So I kept being interviewed by the press and. Of course, you know, [00:04:00] I was answering and the next thing you know, I’m invited into the VIP tent and they’re wanting to know how I knew the information, I knew and you know, who was I talking to? What did I, they wanted me to repeat what I’d said to some of the the reporters. And I said, well, you’re gonna have to be a little more specific because I’ve talked to several, but that literally was my introduction into doing what I’m doing. You know, open your mouth and insert your foot. And it was one of the best days of my life, cuz I love what I do. Love that you just hopped into it because I mean, no one in my experience, no one knows what they’re doing and you just gotta walk up and you just gotta, you know, live your truth and be there. Jenna: Really, it’s just all about being there. So, thank you for that. I love Casey, you are up next on my screen. Casey: I am next. Yeah, I’m Casey. I’m on our business development sales team over at Campspot. I’ve been with the company about four years now. So been through a lot of the fun growth that we’ve had. Best memory, I mean, there’s been a lot of good ones. We’ll go recent. [00:05:00] We’ll do some shameless promotion here. We, we were recently named supplier of the Year this past season, which was a cool award for our team just to be recognized. Obviously there’s a lot of hard work that’s gone into you know, what everyone’s business does and to get that recognition sometimes is a super cool thing to share with a big team that we had present there. So, I’ll say that was my you know, between that and the technology of the year award, that’s been a really cool season of you know, kind of like showing what our team has built right and getting some of the recognition that’s been really cool. Jenna: Casey, how long has Camp Spot been in Operation? Did it take you to get there? Casey: Yeah, it was realistic about five and a half, six years. So yeah, it’s 2016 is really when it kinda got started really released closer to the 2017 timeframe and then, you know, really started to open itself up to kind of all parks of all shapes and sizes, you know, in the two, around 2018. Jenna: Cool. That’s still like five or six years is pretty quick for that. That’s like prodigy level of achievement. So congrats to the team. Casey: Yeah, thanks. Jenna: Mark. Tell us about yourself. Mark: [00:06:00] Hey everybody, Mark Koep family and I, were full time RVers for over 12 years. We’ve developed these new Campground virtual tours, and as of Black Friday, we released our 1000th Campground virtual tour for a park out in California that are now using this to bring guests into their location. So solving the big problem that all campers face, which is they have no idea where they’re going or what it looks like, and actually giving them the tools to see the sites and then, you know, get a better place to stay. And number one experience, or best memory is really kind of a broad memory. Our industry serves people at a time when they’re trying to decompress and de-stress, and it’s always fun to be able to help them do that. Life is really stressful, really crazy right now. There’s all sorts of noise being pumped at everybody. And so what’s great about our industry is we give everybody a release from that. And so it’s always fun to see that happen. Jenna: Yeah life is very stressful. Well,said. Randy. Randy: Hey there, Randy Hendrickson. Currently United. Sorry. Good lord. [00:07:00] I changed too many companies. Sorry about that. The Intrepid Group, that’s our brokerage firm, also just launched a new company with a business partner, Michelle Oliver, called Expotality that we’re extremely excited about. And Jenna, you were good enough to spend some time with us at the Glamping Show. Really appreciate your feedback. We’re really excited about that. I’ve been around since, I think, since the letters r and v were first carved into a clay tablet. So I’ve been around a little while, but I’m still standing. I literally can’t fathom being in any other industry. I’ve had other micro careers prior to, but this is the thing that has always fit and suited, and it literally is a passion every day of the week, 24 7. It’s not what I do it it’s who I am. It literally is. I don’t even know how to separate the two. This is just a living, breathing entity and I’m blessed to have been a part of it for so long. Best memory, I gotta be honest with you, is the people and the teams that I’ve worked with over the years that’s where it all begins and ends, right? I mean, I have been completely blessed to have the very best people with the greatest, what we [00:08:00] call the used to call the care gene. About wanting to do things right, for the right reasons, for good people to be of service. That’s been the ultimate blessing every day of my life. It continues to be my fond, my fondest memories are really just brainstorming. What do we do? How do we get better? How do we improve? Where do we lack? How do we reinvent and reinvigorate very core of our cause? That’s the beauty of it. And the clients we’ve worked with over the years continue to work with absolutely amazing challenges. Yes, but so what you plow through ’em, you figure out a way, you innovate, you learn, and you move forward. So I’m blessed to be in this industry and with this esteemed panel here who I’ve come to know a very well over too many years, Jenna: And Scott, well, Scott: I feel like Randy stole exactly what I was gonna say about working with teams, but, so now I’ll have to improvise a bit. I am Scott Foos. I am the CEO of Horizon Outdoor Hospitality. We’re a third party management firm that [00:09:00] exclusively serves the outdoor hospitality space. I’ve been in the business since 2005 and with Horizon since 2011. I’d say my fondest memory it’s hard to pick one over the 11 or 12 years with Horizon, but I think my fondest was when my wife and I sold everything in our possession, bought an RV and traveled for a year and a half to visit all of our properties that we, that were under management. Properties that were you know, aspirational to us as well. We met with our onsite teams and our client partners and and our guests and really got to see the, our industry, or our side of the industry from a different perspective, which you know, if anybody that saw her read before with their wife or their partner full-time knows that in itself leaves a lot of memories and challenges and fun times. So, we’re really incredibly blessed to, to be in this industry and work with with great people. Jenna: And Scott, since you’re here, I’m just gonna leave you up [00:10:00] for the next line of questioning. Okay, sure. Scott and I met, you know, I think on LinkedIn, but then at the Glamping show I was like, who’s here? That’s cool. I was asking all the people in the booth and everyone was like the history is here. Scott Fuss is here, the celebrity of the show. And I just thought it was so great cuz you are like, , absolutely you are a celebrity, but you’re also just so down to earth, like you are so easy to relate to. And another way that we were, you know, chatting was about work and culture, and that’s really where my subject matter expertise is. I find it absolutely fascinating. I think that the Campground industry is in one way, like a very traditional and older industry, but in another way a very burgeoning industry with a lot of opportunity to have leadership in terms of attracting and retaining amazing talent and giving people opportunities to work in what they would consider a dream job. So can you just maybe launch into, you had a your hiring recently and you had some [00:11:00] success and you attributed those to just kind of being real. Were you able to dive into that for other folks that might be hiring now in the future? Scott: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think. It, for context, we were recently hiring for an HR director position, and we were blown away with a number literally hundreds of applications within just a few days. And we ended up having to, for my sanity, turn off the the job posting for now. And I was really surprised by how many applications we receive. And I think that, you know, while I would like to think Horizon has, is a special culture I think it was really more so the success benefited or was attributed to being able to create a benefits package in a work environment that people would want to spend their time with. I mean, we are here, we’ve said this from day one as a team. While we’re here for our investors, we’re here for our team first. It’s our team first, and then our guests, [00:12:00] and then our investors and in our partners. And you know, I feel that in in your time working with the company, you’re spending so much time and so much of your life working with them, you should be able to ensure that you’re getting way more out of the job than frankly what the job is getting out of you. And I feel like by focusing in on that simple premise, we were able to achieve some great results with that hire. I think it’s also something that we’re working hard and we’re not perfect at, by any means for working hard to try and implement at our onsite teams as well. You know, the cost of attrition and employee turnover is exceptionally high. And in this industry it’s just there’s some level that’s just always going to be there. You know, we have seasonal employment and, you know, in, in our industry specifically with work campers, they come and go, but to the extent that we can focus on retention and you know, fostering employment opportunities that allow people to, or really want, people want to come back and work for it, it creates better operating margins for [00:13:00] ourselves as well. So there’s not only the feel good side of it, but there’s also the the economic benefits as well. Jenna: Absolutely, completely agree. If you have to rehire people, it’s thousands and thousands of dollars to do that. More importantly, maybe it’s time to do that. So I think it’s really savvy that. That you had you know, Randy helping with a lot of leadership in terms of culture and making sure that people just feel good when they’re, you know, like the Sunday night. Like, they’re not, like dreading going to work in the morning or, you know, they’re seasonal people. They’re just, they’re happy to be there and they’re gonna treat your customers ultimately better. It’s really gonna be a trickle down effect. So I think you really have nailed it there, and good luck going through hundreds of applications. I do not Scott: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And to real quick, to your point that the best compliment that I’ve received, And the last year was from our, she’s been newly promoted to a chief of staff role, but she served our project manager role for the last year. And she said, [00:14:00] this is the first time I’ve ever worked somewhere where I am excited to go back to work, coming back from vacation. And you know, that to me it means everything. And I think the more that park operators, I mean, that’s who just watching the show, the more that you really think about investing in your team, and the more that you truly understand that your team drives your business and that, you know, in today’s economic climate it’s difficult to think about, you know, maybe providing raises or paying a true living wage. But your business will benefit from it. Jenna: Very cool. I wanted to Sandy, ask you about a topic you had brought up a little bit in our email chat, and that’s experiential Camping. And I just thought that was such a, like, fabulous thing to start thinking about and like how does that differ from what’s been going on and what are the, you know, differentiators for that, that maybe somebody could make lucrative [00:15:00] even? Sandy: Well, Randy was the first one that I heard coined that phrase, and when he first said it honestly it didn’t the light bulb did not go on what he was really talking about, but it stuck with me and the more I started thinking about it and listening to conversations, the more I realized that we are moving and transitioning from a place where we’re all talking about providing good customer service or guest service. And that’s great once they get there, but it doesn’t get them there. and so, you know, repeat business, yes. But initially getting them there, and we are moving into a season where we are competing across so many different kinds of markets now, especially with the growth of glamping and some of the things we’re seeing there, that understanding the definition of experiential Camping and understanding what that is is super important just to help get the guests there for the first time. And it’s not only important to reach the Gen Zers who are really looking for that but it’s [00:16:00] also important to reach, I mean, I think campgrounds that are just your basic Campground from years ago where you go in and there’s no paved site, but it’s just a mom and pop and you go and you build a fire and you cook s’mores and maybe there’s a trail that you. But all the amenities aren’t there. But there is still the opportunity to create this experience and focus on this experience. And so, you know, again, every time we’ve had these conversations on some of these podcasts, Randy will usually throw something up and it’s really been something I’ve tried to ingrain in my philosophy of how I’m moving forward and what I’m talking with parks about doing. And I even have a park now that’s a new park gonna open in January. And they are having, they have zero hookups, none whatsoever, but they’ve got regular RV sites and tent sites and all of that. And because the entire thing is built around [00:17:00] experiences and so, and people are paying as much for that site that has no hookups because of the experience he can offer as they’re paying for one of the sites that’s got all the fruit free stuff. So I really, as I talk apart, I’m trying to talk to them about understanding what that is and learning how to make that shift. Everybody can create different experiences that somebody is looking for. And so I just, you know, every time we talk about this, I get so excited because multiple kinds, I mean, they’re pulling on, this particular park is pulling on their agri license and so it’s all agricultural. And so literally they’re gonna be able to have families come, they’ve got goats and sheep and bunnies and chickens and you name it. And then they also have three and a half miles of water frontage where they can fish. And it’s all about sustainability. And families come, kids will go, you know, raid the chicken houses and [00:18:00] collect the eggs, and that’s what gets served for breakfast at the Chuck House. So I just love those kind of opportunities and sharing ’em with the parks. Jenna: Yeah, because it’s, you’re right, it’s not necessarily that everyone should be doing, you know, this new trend or anything like that. However, if I leave a campsite, if there’s nothing around, I do wanna have maybe a special, maybe something that I tried for the first time and learn something new at that place. Maybe my child did, maybe I just got to experience something that I’ve never even understood before. Could be true. So it sounds like, you know, owners need to understand what’s different and potentially lean into that. Try new stuff, see what sticks. You never know what it could be like, and like picking fresh eggs. That sounds absolutely lovely. Like I would remember that forever. You know, it’s gonna be the simple Sandy: I keep having to go back to Randy, but he’s [00:19:00] also the king of saying that it doesn’t have to be something you have inside your park. You know, if you’ve got a state park or a fishing area or something that’s going on outside your park close by, you can pull those things together and market those experiences for people. And so I just, I love that. I love, you know, doing the work before the camper gets there. I stay in campgrounds all across the country and the, and I get out and walk and one of the first things I do when I see a new camper coming in to say, Hey, do you know anything about the area? What are the things you like? And that is the best conversation cuz they’ll either say we don’t know a thing about it, and then I get to share everything I know about it. Or they’ll say, oh yeah we come here every year because we love to go here and it might be a restaurant or, you know, a hiking trail. They do. And those are the kind of conversations I think really add to the value of Camping. Jenna: I agree completely, cuz also the last thing I wanna do I’m just busy. So when I’m planning a Camping vacation or really any [00:20:00] vacation I can get there, I can do that much planning. And then once I’m there, I want the experts to help me a little bit. I mean, I just wanna relax and learn what other people like. And truly, if you’re there all the time, you’re the expert and you can guide people. And that’s really a cool thing that, you know, I would want to know the local flavor and really what’s the culture and really what can I do here? What can I do here that I can’t do anywhere else? I would like to know when I go places. So thank you. Yeah, that’s, I’m gonna actually bring Randy up. Randy, do you have any more thoughts on that? I do wanna ask you about fertility and you know, like what gap that’s truly filling, but you might have some thoughts on that topic. Randy: Yeah, You know, I mean, experiential hospitality has been, I think what we’ve all been doing anyway as consumers as business owners. When you think about it, Yeah, well actually, hotel’s been doing this for many years. Hotel has really understood experiential travel, experiential stays. When I think of outdoor hospitality, there’s the, from my tenure, [00:21:00] there’s been a real morphing from RV parks and campgrounds that then took on additional accommodations, became outdoor hospitality. I think experiential hospitality is the next stage of the evolution. What I mean by that is any visit as consumers, if we’re contemplating going somewhere for a weekend, it could be a boutique hotel, it could be a marina, it could be a Campground. You have an expectation in your mind of what you want to have when you get there, right? So you’re at the website, you’re viewing the materials, you’re seeing what they’re saying. Do I picture myself there? When I’m there, what will I be doing? Well, we’ve been doing this anyway as travelers, if we’re adventures, right? Because we go to a place and we’re not necessarily sting there because that’s where we intended to negotiate commerce and sleep. We went there because that was a base camp, to learn the culture, what’s around it, what’s in the community, what can I experience? And so really experiential hospitality is, if you will it’s almost a simplification of everything that all of us do in this. If nobody travels, because I think I’ll just go spend money somewhere.[00:22:00] You’re traveling because you want an experience. So it behooves the Campground owner, the boutique hotel operator, to think, well, if I want to listen to what they want, and I want to provide that for them. So I, as the operator, I’m gonna be more keenly aware as Sandy brought up a external accommodations, right? If I’ve got a park somewhere and there’s a great museum, a great steakhouse, a great bike ride to do, there’s a hiking trail. It behooves me as a business owner to say, well, you’ve come and stayed with me. How can I increase that experience for you? Make this a place you remember that provides something significant behind, besides just a place to stay. So the truth of matter is it’s been experiential hospitality since its inception. But what’s happening recently the demographic trends and we could all cite dozens of articles and studies and hotel operators and glamping operators and what have you that say the same thing. Buyer sentiment is pivoting more towards, I need an experience. If I’m going to spend money and a good amount of money, by the way, I want to know it’s immersive. [00:23:00] It involves me. I feel part of it. I wanna know the business cares about me and what I want to do. You’re gonna spend, they are spending the money the data all proves that out. But it’s got to be more than a place to stay. It’s a place to go experience. So really it’s something that’s been near to and dear to me for many years Anyway. I for 1:00 AM just extremely grateful that there’s been increased focus from institutional capital and from the consumers to say, you know what? That is why I do this. I want to learn. I want to explore, I want to grow. I wanna take something from that, reflect some of me. And it does become something that can really be transparent or transcendent for a lot of guests beyond just, we stayed there. Who cares? What did you do? It is kind of like the why as opposed to the where the, where is where you stay. The why is everything that goes around it. Jenna: Yeah, I definitely choose like a place to go hiking or a place to, then I’m like, what campgrounds are around that experience. So you’re very right about that. I like that. [00:24:00] I’m gonna ask you about your new venture in a second, cuz I have a question now. For both Mark and Casey. Casey. So Airbnb. They launched an experiences you know, portion of their website, and I look to Camp Spot as very similar to Airbnb in a lot of ways. Is that something that you would also consider doing maybe and almost focusing less on the stay and more of why stay is happening to drive Yeah. You know, customers? Casey: Yeah. No, I mean, it’s a great, it’s a great topic. I mean, obviously for us starting, you know, kind of from Square Zero, we wanted to get listing the sites and that availability in real time. We wanted to get that portion right. Right. We wanted to be able to embrace a parks rules and their terms of conditions and their, you know, there are variable rates and their add-ons, right? So I think for us the main concentration was obviously having enough inventory to provide a relevant search experience for guests, right? That’s the first thing. And the second thing was, Really the energy or what we’re [00:25:00] talking about the experience to some extent that these campgrounds provide with their images, their descriptions again, everything that kind of comes along with that outside of just listing a site. But I do kind of see that as really the next way as far as for that guest experience, right? Cause I mean, we really went into this thinking, well, there really isn’t a good centralized place to find Camping sites, right? There’s lodging, there’s really good, there’s good areas for that. There’s good search for, you know, backyards and things of that sort. But you. Private campgrounds and as far as be able to aggregate that type of inventory and show availability, we thought there was a good opportunity there. But to your question, I think absolutely, and I think that is the next phase is, you know, the way that I kind of look at it is people love filters, right? People love to be able to like, get themselves to where exactly what they’re looking for as quickly as possible. And so to me, there’s just this open world. If you have the inventory and you have the traffic, okay. Now what is it that people actually intrigued to click on or click through to get to exactly what they’re looking for? Right. You know, that’s kind of one of the initial, you know, [00:26:00] sales things that we use when we’re talking about our software. It’s like, Hey, someone’s at your website. They’re, they want to click to see what’s available. Let’s get them to exactly what they’re looking for as quickly as possible, right? They’re a lot more likely to convert. If you can show them exactly the type of inventory that they’re interested in that’s gonna fit their rig or fit their family and in the area that they’re looking to go Camping in. The next wave of that on our marketplace, similar to like how the Airbnb thing is. Well, what else is gonna add to that experience of not only finding that site? And a lot of that would be things like, things to do around this area, hikes around this area. And those are all things we’re doing from a from like a blogging standpoint to get people like, Hey, these are the best campgrounds for hiking in this state. Right? And that’s bringing them to look at the campgrounds that tie to that. But you could reverse that, right? Someone’s looking for a Camping experience or looking for a place to go Camping. What are the experiences that we could share? Kind of reversing that, right? So instead of the experience, bring them into the Campground could potentially bring them to the experience. So love the concept of that. Something that we’ve been putting a lot of thought into without wanting [00:27:00] to cloud up, obviously providing that transaction. For the campgrounds, right? Our goal is to make them more money. It’s to get them more views on their sites, and it’s to get them more traffic and essentially get them more reservations. But could that experience without, you know, sending them down a rabbit hole of, you know, all these things to do and not having them focus on actually converting and getting that reservation done. What are the things that we can do in between there? And again, I think there’s a huge opportunity with filters. Jenna: Yep, for sure. I love that you’re like the business this can we go beyond that and still help our parks? I love that you are absolutely just focused on your client, which is, you know, it’s good to know for clients watching. And Mark, I think that what you folks are doing and going and really giving the customer like that inside look is probably super helpful in terms of experiences and giving people, you know, the. the imagery that they need to even start that imagination and that [00:28:00] curiosity, and then get their minds going. Are there any other ways, like how do you contribute to. Mark: The underlying problem that our industry faces is that there is a lack of consistency across the spectrum. So you’ve got, we’re one of the few industries, I mean, somebody can correct me if I’m wrong, we’re half of the operators in the business are public agencies, so federal parks, state parks, city parks, and county parks. And I’ve had conversations with a state level folks who flat out said they don’t want any guests in their park. They don’t want anybody there. They would, they’d be happy if the place was empty. They don’t want. So as a private operator providing an experience, the problem is that there’s other entities that are not. And so when you look at that’s on the business side. But flip it over to the whole reason we’re on in business, which is people want to go Camping the customers. So there’s nobody actually addressing that customer’s need. And that customer’s need is very basic, where am I gonna stay at? And what’s different about Camping from hotels is, We all don’t fit in the same spot in a hotel room. You can both a hotel room cause you know you’re gonna fit in the bed unless you’re shaquila knee. But everybody else is gonna fit in the [00:29:00] bed. When you’re talking about Camping, everybody has different Camping equipment. Even if they have the exact same truck and trailer, they probably have different stuff they wanna stick outside and so forth, right? So everybody’s Camping equipment is uniquely different as a result. Their needs are different when they’re looking for camp sites and there’s no solutions out there that provide that. So when you talk about, I completely agree with Randy on this. Ran and Randy brought this whole experiential Camping idea on the show. Actually I think it was Randy, where you broke this whole concept out, and it’s right on the money because that’s the next phase of things. And that’s actually the underlying reason why people go Camping, is they’re looking for an affordable experience to go stay in places, right? So when you’re, when you look at that journey that the camper. That’s the gap. In fact, the average camper spends two months visiting 56 different websites, over 78 different sessions, planning their Camping trip. They go and try to find all sorts of information online and the information is lacking. Basically, it’s all review based, right? And so as everybody knows, reviews are either truthful or not truthful and then it’s [00:30:00] left to the consumer to figure out what’s what. And that creates a really painful process for them. And what ends up happening is they end up at the wrong place for them, whatever that is, right? It could be a really fancy, it’s the wrong place, or really not fanciness the wrong place. Whatever the wrong place is for them, then that leads to a bad experience for that camper and then they don’t do it again. Or on the flip side, the folks that are not gonna take those two months to plan that trip, they never get the chance to actually experience Camping in the outdoors. So the good thing is during Covid a lot of folks, the only thing they could do was go Camping. And so we as an industry experienced that, that massive boom of campers. And the cool thing is that we did a relatively good job of. Keeping these folks engaged and entertained and they enjoyed it. So we’re seeing a lot of carryover go forward. But now it’s that next phase of how do you keep them coming back and get them excited to go visit more places. On our end, we’re trying to help with that visual experience, allowing them to see what they’re gonna get into. Jenna: And do you think that people just want, like, do you think that they want the same experience over and over again once they’ve [00:31:00] found a good one? Or do you think that people seek something new each? Mark: I think that it’d be too broad to answer that. So basically, you know, somebody asked me, actually yesterday, it was like a firm asked me like, Hey, who’s your audience? And I said, people that camp, like literally when you look at it, it’s 51 million people or so. I don’t even know what the current number is. 51 million people in the United States are gonna go Camping this year. It’s everybody in the United States. It’s a broad spectrum. Old, young, rich, poor, white, black, Hispanic, Latino foreigners, everybody’s gonna go Camping. They all want to go do that. And so that underlying problem is actually the. That not problem, that underlying breadth of visitors is what allows our industry to be so diverse in experiences. Because everybody wants a different experience or the same one, whatever’s right for them. So in the end, if I’m a single operator operating a park, I simply wanna provide the best experience I possibly can’t for the guests that are coming to my park. And I wanna communicate that experience out to people who are looking for me, right? That’s in a nutshell, that’s our business. And then following up after [00:32:00] the fact, after their stay, making sure we either delivered or didn’t. And if we didn’t improving what we did, and if we did do a good job, you know, re reinforcing that in our future marketing. So in the end, we just serve such a wide diverse audience. You know, it’s important, right? You can go camp at a Forest Service Campground right now for 15 bucks a night, or you can go down and spend $250 a night at a high end luxury resort. It depends on what your wants and needs are, and it creates this really broad and vibrant industry that we’re in right now. Jenna: So pictures obviously important. What else? You just said? Providing a great experience, but also communicating that experience so people know it exists, aside from pictures that are really clear and, you know, transparent. Here’s what you get what can owners be doing to communicate their offering? Mark: Oh, wow. That’s a really broad topic. So, at a basic level, like what Casey mentioned with the blogging right at a basic level, that provides a ton of information, cuz it’ll get picked up in Google search results. So when somebody’s looking for, you know, hiking in Colorado, or best [00:33:00] campgrounds for hiking or Colorado, those type of things will come up. The problem is as a, as an operator, you need to communicate with your guests in a way. Gives them a broad idea of what’s there and then maybe dive deeper. Some of the most successful parks I’ve seen that do this, they actually build out and they spend a lot of time and a lot of money doing this. They build out a whole portfolio on their website of things you can do in the area, and they do a really good job giving you that information. So what their hook is that people are gonna get into their. Website because they’re interested in a Campground in that area, but then they give ’em all these other reasons to do that. Your Airbnb example is exactly that, right? Airbnb knows people are coming in to look for a spot. Now we can sell them experience because they don’t have to look for that. They can just sign up for here and get that experience. Think of it as the same idea for a Campground if you’re running a park, is you wanna provide a turnkey solution for your guests. Make it really easy for them to, they don’t have to do it, but give ’em the opportunity to potentially do it cuz they may not have even thought of it. Right? I just stayed, we just stayed at a a state park in Florida where a. [00:34:00] On the site of the state park was the old mill that built the fort, and you could hike over to it from your campsite. Right? So that’s a cool experience. There’s no signage at all. I found out about it when we visited the fort and found out that it was there, right. So, you know, it would behoove that park to encourage people to know about that history and know about what’s going on. So, you know, details like that. It’s not an easy solution and it’s definitely not something you can do with a snap of a finger, but really understanding why your guests are coming there, you know, and listing out simplest exercise I encourage people to do at their parks is when somebody checks in at their park, ask ’em why they’re there. Right. And just start doing that more and more, and you’ll start getting a list of the top 10 reasons why people come into their park. And then you build your content from there. Jenna: That’s a very good thing to say. I would also add to that a lot of the times that I find places I wanna stay, I find it via social media. And so I will just be like, Talk on Instagram, wherever I am, and I’ll see a random person posting, here’s this great experience, this great hike, whatever it was. Or maybe just, you know, a glamping place and it’s just a [00:35:00] beautiful and fabulous and look how nice it is. And so of course you can’t do that. It’s exhausting to do social media all the time. I recommend everyone get on TikTok tok. It’s an absolute juggernaut if you want to push out what you’re doing. But a way easier thing to do is when guests do come say to them, we would love for you to post on TikTok or on Instagram, and here’s exactly how you can tag us and give them all of the information and push it easily. Cuz like they’re definitely taking pictures and videos, like they’re definitely getting that content and asking them to share on your behalf that one very simple step of just asking can usually work wonders. So, if you’re strapped for time or cash, that is very free and very easy for folks to do, and I highly recommend it. Scott, are you able to, you know, in this conversation, talk about anything Horizon is doing in particular, because I know that you’re one of the leaders, so would love to hear any insights from your team. Scott: I think that Sandy and Randy and Mark and Casey all hit a lot of really great [00:36:00] points. And I don’t know that I have a lot to add outside of that other than, you know, there’s I threw a pitch for them last month and I’ll do it again. But investigating a service called way.co. Ay co they, to Mark’s point, If you are creating an experience at your property, it’s either, it could be onsite or offsite, or both. And if it’s offsite, that’s where I’ve found, at least from a personal experience with our company and our managed properties, it’s really difficult and time consuming to partner with with local businesses and find all the best hiking spots and find the best guides. It takes a lot of time. And if you don’t do it right, it can just leave kind of. A bland taste in your guest mouth. And so what I really encourage people to do is check out way.co. And it is an expense, but what it does is it allows a property to easily and seamlessly create an experience page on their website where a guest while they’re checking out your [00:37:00] property, they can go and they can book a local hiking tour or, you know, kayak rentals through a partner agency. That partners with way.co has different package levels. And if you opt for for some of the higher packages they also help to connect with those with those local guides. And. You know, I’d like to take credit for finding them, but the good folks at auto camp to my knowledge, are some of the first in the outdoor hospitality space that have been utilizing them. And they do a, an excellent job of integrating it into their individual properties website. So I would encourage you to look there. The other thing that we’re doing is we’re looking into the new year. And again, kind of tying back to what Mark said is focusing on onsite programming. You know, you don’t, through experiential hospitality, you don’t always just have to focus on natural amenities that are onsite or offsite. You can also help to to create those those really unique onsite experiences that. That guests might not find elsewhere. There’s a property we manage, for example, in Bakersfield, [00:38:00] and it is in the middle of an orange grove and like literally there’s orange trees between every RV site and we encourage people to pick the oranges and you can pick as many as you want. And we have great guest service there. It’s a clean property, but you don’t ever hear anything about that. All you ever hear about is I got to pick the oranges off the orange tree at my site. And so being able to focus on what those things are, but then putting it into messaging on your website in a clear, easy way to find is really impactful and integrating that in with your marketing efforts so that your marketing team is fully aware and integrated with what’s going on site and able to push through your upcoming activities and those things that make your property unique. Casey: One, one thing to maybe add a different like layer to that, Scott, that we had a good, kind of a good thread going on earlier this week was we were talking with some different park owners about, you know, the guest experience that they were kind of providing, right? Like their training, their staff. And really the topic kind of came up as far as [00:39:00] incentivizing their staff, right? what they could do cuz obviously came spot. We’re always pushing things like, Hey, make sure your staff is offering to, to lock the site. Make sure your staff is offering the different add-ons that you have. And the software that we have obviously kind of navigates that for them to some extent. There’s still the act of saying it with confidence, still offering it in some sort of like positive light. And it was a really interesting topic cause I’ve known a couple campgrounds that have had really good success doing this. And the idea was to incentivizing your staff to essentially sell the extra. That your park has, right? And make them part of that kind of that goal to drive revenue, to help drive, you know, additional occupancy, things of that sort. And it sparked like a good conversation cuz it’s like if you’re charging $20 for a lock site and your entire staff might get a dollar for each one that they successfully pitch. And ideally those are getting done online, but it’s inevitable that you’re gonna have some phone calls and things of that sort. Or they’re getting some sort of percentage of, or a dollar amount of every ad on every golf cart or every kayak, every hammock. And then that idea of not [00:40:00] necessarily hard selling it, but there’s some sort of incentive or goal there for them to contribute outside of just kind of going through the motions. And it sparked up all just sorts of really interesting ideas of like kind of this all. Team mindset of the park. That’s not only adding to the guest experience, cuz those things they do matter, right? When you go to a park and you do get the full kind of wave of what that park has available and you have someone with enthusiasm kind of sharing with that person, everything that’s there, and it doesn’t come at the time of necessarily when they’re checking in and it’s kind of chaotic. People have been traveling for a little while, they just want to get to their spot, they wanna relax. Kids in the car have been complaining the entire time are like, okay, I don’t wanna be sold anything necessarily right now. I just want to get to my spot. But when there’s like that level of excitement, right, when you’re booking something that’s like the best time of when you’re in a great mood, right? Because you’re in the spending habit and you’re excited about actually making this transaction. And so it just sparked a lot of really cool ideas of saying like, is there team goals for like your reservation staff or your manager to [00:41:00] have that’s gonna help you as a park owner significantly. Drive more revenue and add to that customer experience. But bringing it back to, well, is there ways that we could impact our bottom line revenue by having them be a part of this, by having them being incentivized in some capacity by that. And you don’t wanna necessarily make it too complicated or, you know, to where it’s something where it’s adding a significant amount of admin to like you as a park owner or a manager, but the simple idea of getting buy-in and what’s gonna kind of add that extra layer just when you’re kind of talking about. Having a culture, having kind of like this, providing this experience, a lot of times that does come from your staff, right? Some owner operators have the ability to kind of do all that, right? They wanna pitch everything their park has, but in some parts you don’t have the liberty to do that. You’re rely on staff to do it. So it was an interesting topic and I it was, I thought it would be somewhat correlating to what Scott was saying earlier as far as hiring and culture, but then also as their way to incorporate incentivizing naturally what would probably be an hourly position with things that are gonna make your, not only your park more [00:42:00] money, but it might make the experience for that guest that much better because they’re then kind of giving the full wave of what your park has to offer. Scott: And if I could just to layer on even further with Casey, cuz I, I think that’s super brilliant and you know, if we put into the context of today’s economic climate and, you know, mark, you had a really great post maybe this morning or last night, I can’t remember in the Facebook group about, you know, RV shipments following back eight years, we’re moving backwards, eight years in, in our RV shipments. And Mark had a good point about ensuring that we’re doing everything that we can on our side of the business to retain the Camping demographic and the strength of Camping with the new campers that have come in over the last couple of years. And to ensure that we as a whole, as an industry are working together to to. The guest experience and ensure that we keep that strength. So to on that note, and with what Casey was saying I think it’s more imperative than ever that our onsite teams are feeling charged and [00:43:00] responsible and empowered to try to make those guest experience moments really special through delighting guests in ways that could lead to ancillary sales and to help offset their their payroll cost. I was meeting with a client last week who who said, do we really need site guides? Do we really need to guide every site to their, every guest to their site to check it? Of course I explained that. Yes, we do, and you know, it’s the customer service. Cleaning off the table and cleaning the pedestal and showing them that, you know, we really care and we’re preparing the site for you. But it’s also that opportunity to have firewood at the back of their golf cart and to let them know that you’d be happy to drop by a bag of ice as soon as they get settled in. But maybe think about going one step further in, in your 2023 planning and bake in a bundle of firewood into your rate. You know, it costs you what, a couple bucks you know, maybe two, three bucks, but have that bundle of firewood on the back of the cart. [00:44:00] Have the site guide, put the firewood in, in, you know, next to the firing at the site. And let them know that there’s more up at the office that we can bring down for an extra charge. So they get a bundle of firewood for. That experience and that hospitality win far outweighs the two or $3 and allows you to try to cover that payroll cost as you’re thinking about inflation and how to create better margins in 2023. Casey: And you think about that, even Scott, I mean, with the thing of firewood such a great gesture, right? But then you think about it, again, I maybe need to take myself outta this mindset, but even in terms of like driving more revenue, I mean, typically you go through one bundle. A lot of times it’s just getting them to start the fire, right? Like once they start the fire, they’re like, okay, this is, and so there’s probably some statistic out there, but the people that go Camping in actually get that initial bundle of firewood. They probably go through two or three different, you know, bundles. But the person that doesn’t like it isn’t like they’re just going through one, they don’t start it, period. Right. So there probably is some sort of data there that I [00:45:00] probably just task myself with as I’m thinking about it, but to think, okay if you’re selling one, right? Does that typically sell two or three more bundles of firewood? Simply because, you know, it’s, the fires started, right? You don’t want to go out, the conversation’s going well, or the next evening you’re like, yep, let’s run this back again. Or, you know, you still have some s’mores left, or whatever the case is. So naturally you need to get another fire going. So yeah, it is that’s a great thought. As far as on, you know, I wasn’t even thinking the little, those lines as far as providing something for free. I was thinking let’s incentivize a staff to sell that first one. But maybe by giving that first one, it’s gonna sell you two or three more bundles of firewood and maybe you raise the cost of your firewood 50 cents to cover that. Cause you know you’re gonna sell two or three on average anyway. So, yeah that’s a great thought. Jenna: And just to further the incentivizing your staff, I mean, it’s like goal to have folks that can understand the of your customer, right? And can read the room. And I am a huge advocate for paying people what they’re worth. Of course, if you follow me anywhere, you will get that message. But of [00:46:00] course there’s also budgets. And so if you can’t pay someone more, something savvy to do might be to say, Hey, can I get you some professional, maybe the sales domain? Or can we help enrich your skills in these areas? So not only will they be, you know, helping your bottom line, but your staff will feel really, you know, taken care of and invested in, and they will want to do even more for you. So, anytime you can up level the skills of your staff and help. Like, hey, like maybe if you see people with kids coming in, yeah, they might want this and this based on, you know, other people with kids coming in. Or if you see a couple, hey, they might be having a romantic evening. Like, don’t assume, but be ready with some suggestions for people. Maybe after advance as well. Like you said, like, why are you here today? Have you been here before? Are you celebrating something? And then help really guide them any, again, any mental load you can take off of me as a person on vacation. I will love it. And again, a smile goes a long way. Personal recommendation or any small [00:47:00] gesture from anyone wanting to make my stay better, I will remember that for a long time. And that will show up in my review often in tips and in my repeat consumerism. Casey: Yes. Yeah. And as an owner, I mean, you have, you know, responsibility I think to not tell your staff what to do, but to show them, right? Like, I mean to me even still like. The best that I can do with my team is arm them with the speaking points and success to, to do well. But the number one thing that, that I can do for my team is to physically show them, right? To show them exactly what I say or do. And that’ll go a long way for your staff, right? If they see the manager or the owner participating in that, the expectation means that you’re gonna do 95% of it, even. But to see the owner, you know, execute on what you’re asking you know, will go a long way. Especially if they see the success in it, right? They see the customer success in it and they see that, you know, the own, as an owner, you’re bought into you know, kind of what this expectation is that will go a long way. And just again, show them the way, show them what the expectation is and them seeing [00:48:00] that every new staff seeing that. It’s interesting cause even if you trust someone to do it a certain way, we learn this as we come back, like on the sales side every few months. We’ll go into one of our own team’s demos, right? And just hear just how things might just sway a little bit different for each person. And it’s really eye opening for our entire team. To kind of hear how they’re doing things differently now. Right? Things are being said a little bit different just because everyone kind of has their own way and there’s the good of that, but then there’s also like, oh, well let’s get back to like what our core is, right? And so as an owner, if it’s, you know, two or three different people down now training the staff, is it exactly as you pictured it, right? Is are they saying exactly what you want being said? Is that experience exactly how you’ve written it or had it in your mind? And unless you’re kind of checking in on that, on a, you know, a weekly or monthly or quarterly basis, it might not be, so, it might be food for thought. Randy: Hey, Case I wanna jump in on that? Jen, if you don’t mind, Jenna: I would love for you to, and I would if Sandy, if you thoughts after Randy, I’d love for you to hop [00:49:00] too before we close out cause this is a cool topic. Randy: I’m gonna go as quickly as I humanly can, cause I know we’re running outta time here, so, I don’t wanna make this a completely shameless pitch, but everything we’ve been talking about today is exactly why Michelle, Oliver, and I formed exp totality. Okay. So very briefly. Michelle and I have known each other for years, but only recently started to really start talk about what each other does. She has an experiential hospitality background. She really ran a RV Resort concert venue restaurant and did, she was like the whole community. She was the community for this property. So she and I began talking about some of the things that we think are missing in the current environment, and we came up with this exp totality. Exity is basically, it’s called a port manto, but it’s basically the beginning of one Lord, the end of an neck. So experiential, hospitality, mash ’em together, its totality. So a very quick example of this. Jenna, you’re the host of this show, and we’re your guests, if you had put out a survey saying, rate your [00:50:00] career. Five. Well, how satisfied are you with your career? Five. You just have data. Data doesn’t create data. People create data. So what we’ve just done here is shared our experience. With you. Now you have something that says, now I understand who they are, what they’ve done, why it matters, what’s important to ’em. When you go through your fours and fives, you have fours and fives, but you miss the entire context. So what Exity aims to do, what we are doing on my way to Arizona right now with Michelle for our first client, is to humanize that whole process. So when you’re creating a brand and you have a brand and you’re creating experiences for your guests, look what happens there. It kind of goes top down. You start with who we are, what’s our brand message, and we want them to experience that when they get there. If you give them a survey and they send you fives, You have data? How did they feel about it? So when Michelle is out amongst guests and owners talking to ’em about you, you started to start thinking [00:51:00] about this trip. You imagine yourself there. You wonder what it’d be like you got here. What was that like? What happens as a result of that is we can take conversations that are videotaped. They can use ’em as marketing collateral on their site if they’d like to. It’s all theirs to own. They own the content. But when we present our findings to the owner or the manager and say, you’ve said this in your brand. Your guests have actually told us that you missed on family friendly, but we’d love the whole aesthetic. We’d love the community engagement. So we can tell you what they’re actually saying about how they felt about this day. Then go back to the people crafting the brand and say, here’s some what we call experiential intelligence. The guests are actually telling us this as an objective Third. If you’re a staff member, it looks like a commercial. If it’s a third party, like totality, it’s objective questions and data. We call it experiential intelligence because it isn’t data we give you, it’s intelligence, but that intelligence goes back to your brand to help drive your message. So now your branding team can go back and [00:52:00] say, we totally miss this. They’re all about the jacuzzi. We never even talk about it. They don’t think we’re family friendly. You can’t imagine what your brand, you can imagine what your brand is supposed to be. Then you hope for the best surveys, can’t tell you how your brand management is working, they just can’t do it. Experiential conversations and relaying those findings is the way to get there. So Michelle and I both feel very strongly, we spent a lot of time thinking this whole thing through. We think that doing this strengthens brand and it does one other very important thing as well. If I’m a guest at Jenna’s property and somebody comes around and says, we just like to talk to you. surveys are great, we love data, what’s this place like for you? I as a guess, I’m gonna feel like ownership took the time to engage a third party to ask me how I felt about the property. If I have a choice between talking with her or circling a five, I wanna talk about it. That’s the experience. That’s what we’re aiming to do. Jenna: And where can folks find you if they wanna Randy: expitality.com. E [00:53:00] X P I T A L I T Y. Jenna: That sounds great. Listening is a very important thing that not all businesses do, but it’ll get you ahead of the rest, won’t it? Randy: Absolutely. Every time. Jenna: Sandy, I’m gonna bring you up. If you have, we’re just running out of time, unfortunately, if you have any thoughts about experiential campaign if not, you know, just like what you’re up to, how folks can find you and tap into that. So, shameless promotion time. Sandy: Well, I have more than I can do, so I don’t need shameless promotion, , but what I do wanna say that I think encapsulates the conversation is, in a career struggle ends when gratitude begins. And I think that what Scott is doing that I love every time I hear him talk, is he is creating an environment where people are thankful to have that job. And that transcends across jobs, into our Camping experiences. And so when people are so thankful they got a chance to come to the park because of the [00:54:00] way they were treated or what they got to do, then that’s when we can stop struggling and we can keep enjoying what we do. It’s the other thing I love about this group. I think everybody in the group is here because they passionately love what they’re doing and they would do it whether they got paid or not. So, that’s, you know, that’s kind of what I really try to give back to my customers and help them live out. Jenna: Thank you, Sandy. That’s fabulous. And I have heard from so many people. Just like a wealth of knowledge and provide so much help and value to the industry. So thank you for that. On behalf of many people who saw your name today and were very excited mark, how can folks find you and how can you help them out real quick? Mark: We can get guests in your park who know what they’re getting into. So just go to campgroundviews.com/omg, like, oh my God, and you’ll discover why it’s that domain name . Jenna: Casey. Casey: Yeah, campspot.com or [00:55:00] software.campspot in the software. But either way, yeah, happy to always chat with Campground owners and let ’em know what we do and what we offer and not a solution for everybody, but for some. Jenna: Awesome. And Scott, where can folks find you? Scott: We are horizonoutdoors.com and. If you’ve tried to send me an email in the last month a carrier pigeon would probably be faster. So, but horizonoutdoors.com is how you find and learn about us. Amazing. Jenna: We’re a little bit over. I did. Okay. One more thank you to Fireside Accounting. Thank you to all of these guests for this riveting conversation. I will just throw out there, it sounds like the experience for Camping starts with your staff. So of course, that culture of building that first, that you can really help those guests sounds like the best plan for joining us. And I will now do this cool dramatic video to play us out. Randy: Thanks all. Bye. [00:56:00]