MC Fireside Chats – February 12th, 2025

Brian Searl

00:00:45.880 – 00:01:00.700

Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Searl with Insider Perks and Modern Campground. Super excited to be here.

It’s our second episode of the year with this group of people. Although we didn’t have Zach for the first week and we didn’t have our new intro. So what do you think about that, Kevin? You like that? Is that better?

Kevin Thueson 

00:01:00.820 – 00:01:03.596

That made me want to go camping. I loved it.

Brian Searl

00:01:03.668 – 00:01:06.492

All right, can you just. Please just wait an hour, though? We’d like to.

Kevin Thueson 

00:01:06.596 – 00:01:11.724

Yeah, I can. I’ll work on, like, packing while we’re doing this, and then I’ll be ready.

Brian Searl

00:01:11.852 – 00:01:44.660

That works. That works for me. So thanks, guys, for being here. I appreciate it. We got a couple people who are out sick this week.

Flu seems to be going around, so we’re missing Scott Foos and Joe had something come up, and Devon was one of our special guests. He had to cancel because he was sick. And then Casey is from Camp Spot is somewhere in Peru or something on some kind of midlife crisis or.

I don’t know what’s happening with him, but he couldn’t make it here either, so. But we’re gonna have a good conversation here. So we have Garrett, who’s the owner of Cameron Ranch Glamping.

Garrett, do you want to briefly introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about your property and then we’ll have Zach and Kevin do the same.

Garrett Brown

00:01:44.780 – 00:02:04.770

Yep. Happy to be here. I own a four site, four structure site near Houston, Texas, called Cameron Ranch Glamping.

We’ve been open for about two and a half years, and it’s been amazing, and it’s been definitely one of the biggest, biggest adventures of my life in the positive and just learning a lot about real estate.

Brian Searl

00:02:05.110 – 00:02:10.846

Awesome. I’m excited to dive into that with you and learn more about your property. Kevin, KCN Campgrounds.

Kevin Thueson 

00:02:11.038 – 00:02:38.380

Yeah, we’re a group of, we’re kind of, I guess you’d call us an investment firm. Started as operators with one park, and we’ve grown to. We’re closing on our ninth property.

All KOA franchises close on number nine here in a couple of weeks, spread out over seven states.

And, you know, we’ve been doing this for about seven years, and the last two or three years have been really focused on building out our team and trying to scale the business.

Brian Searl

00:02:39.080 – 00:02:45.550

Awesome. Excited to have you here as a recurring guest, Kevin, as always. And Zach, first time we’ve seen you in a couple months. How was your Christmas?

Zach Stoltenberg

00:02:46.290 – 00:03:57.452

Holidays are good. We actually took the whole family down to Puerto Rico for A week and got to see my brother in law, sister in law down there.

I mean, tons of stuff in the works and things moving.

And my big announcement that I’ve been working on for a couple months is we are formally branching the outdoor hospitality studio off and away from my soon to be former employer, Clockwork.

And we’re gonna build out the studio, kind of bringing on a new partnership with an engineering firm to be able to do not only the architecture and the design, but also landscape architecture, also civil engineering, and really have the resources and the people to build out a full dedicated team to do resort and hospitality design and development.

So kind of, it’s been a lot and a lot of back and forth over the last couple of months to get some of those things in place, but we’re officially launching the new venture in the beginning of March.

Brian Searl

00:03:57.636 – 00:04:16.180

That’s awesome. We’ll talk to us a little bit about it. Like I said, it’s obviously relevant news, right?

Like, I mean, we all, we all have heard of Clockwork for a number of years. We’ve crossed paths with you at the shows.

I mean, I have a light understanding of what you did there, although architecture is way above my pay grade. But generally speaking, like, what do you want to accomplish with a new company?

Zach Stoltenberg

00:04:17.120 – 00:07:27.070

So the firm that we’re partnering with is called LJA. They’re predominantly a civil engineering firm, but they’ve done resort development, they’ve done RV parks.

They’ve been in this space, in this world for a number of years. And they kept seeing a need to add architects. They said, you know, a lot of these developments, like, we know the.

The engineering side of it, but they’ve worked with several architects around the country to varying degrees of success and expertise. And they said, you know, we see an opportunity here to. To move this in house and open an architectural division.

And we’ve done a couple projects with them jointly over the last year. Got to know the team. The main guy, Shannon Gordon, who is leading the Kansas City office, is actually somebody that I’ve known for 15 years.

He and I have worked together at three different firms.

And I had approached him kind of at the tail end of last year and said, hey, I’m thinking about branching this off independent of Clockwork and just launching my own studio. And he said, well, what if you could do that, but with the backing of a multimillion-dollar engineering firm helping you do it?

And I said, well, that certainly sounds easier than taking all the risk on my own. And so we’ve kind of gone back and forth they had to make the decision first that they wanted to actually open an architectural division.

And so that was sort of in the works for several months, but we’ve squared everything away and what it’s going to be is basically they’ve opened a new office in Kansas City just for us, for Shannon and I. Shannon is a licensed landscape architect with extensive resort and hospitality development experience over the last 25 to 30 years.

I’ve been an architect for 15 years, so he was working professionally while I was still going to school.

And they’ve got a team already started, five different people, varying mix of backgrounds and perspectives, but everybody’s dedicated to resort and hospitality. And then I’m coming over from Clockwork, potentially some of my team that’s there will be coming to join me as well.

We’re still working out details on some of those things, making offers, but essentially it’s taking kind of the success that we’ve had over the last four or five years and really putting us in a position to really grow this business to launch, to have a more complete, comprehensive team of people and really a dedicated vision to investing and partnering with people in the outdoor hospitality space to build and develop incredible resorts.

Brian Searl

00:07:27.680 – 00:07:58.320

The one thing I think it’s important for us to talk about here is, like, there’s tons of campgrounders who are watching this show. I think there’s probably very few who have envisioned, like, why I would need an architect at my campground, for example. Right.

So just briefly talk us through that because I think I was under the impression before meeting you at least, that just the cabins, this is how it works, right, Kevin? The cabins just come in on wheels and you just like back them up and you’re like, that looks good. And then the guests come.

So explain to us why you need an architect.

Zach Stoltenberg

00:07:59.700 – 00:09:36.750

Well, I would say the easy answer is a lot of what I do in this space doesn’t have anything to do with architecture. The longer answer is good design is applicable everywhere.

And a lot of what we do with the clients that we’ve worked with, it’s not really just construction drawings and plans, but it’s all design.

So having a comprehensive, well thought out site plan, having, having a phased plan, as most of these end up being, that you sort of have step by step, not just for what you’re going to do year one, but year three, year five, year seven, year ten, that you. You’ve got a plan in place.

And then I would say, most importantly is on the entitlement side for anybody who’s buying an existing campground and Wants to flip it, reposition it. Somebody who’s trying to build a new campground from the ground up.

Getting through that planning, zoning, permitting piece, you need an architect or an engineer to help you do that. And so that’s been a big part of my job over the years, has been helping folks navigate that entitlement process.

And in order to do that, you have to submit drawings and documents.

They want to see a site plan, they want to see what your units are going to look like, what is your base camp structure, your office, your check in, your staff housing. You need floor plans, you need elevations, you need drawings, renderings. And so that’s what we do.

Kevin Thueson 

00:09:37.290 – 00:09:47.302

Yeah, Brian, we’ve experienced both sides of that. To your point earlier, um, we, we’re only buying existing campgrounds. We’re not doing any true ground up development.

Brian Searl

00:09:47.486 – 00:09:52.182

But you do like rip apart stores. I’ve seen photos of you 3. I can’t remember what campground that was.

Kevin Thueson 

00:09:52.206 – 00:09:55.462

From, but that was probably for any of them.

Brian Searl

00:09:55.646 – 00:10:00.502

Okay. I just remember seeing the three people with sledgehammers and they were busting up stuff.

Kevin Thueson 

00:10:00.566 – 00:11:19.270

So that was probably Wisconsin Dells, but we’ve done that in, in many locations.

No, I mean, like when we go in, we buy a park, if it’s already up and running, it has all the infrastructure and we’re taking the RV site and turning it cabin and we’re using a park model or deluxe cabin. Then yeah, we, you know, we order it gets dropped off, we, we block it, hook up the utilities, put some skirting on it and it’s ready to go.

But that’s a lot different than what Zach’s talking about because we’ve also gone through the process of trying to do expansions and buying land adjacent to our parks. And you, you really do have to go through all of the hoops. So it just depends on really the scope of what you’re doing.

And you know, having those, those multi year, multi phased plans like Zach was just talking about, the, the better you get that up front, the easier it is to get through all of the approvals and permitting. And you know, we, we’ve tried honestly not to, to skirt the rules, but we’ve tried to shortcut in some ways and it just takes longer.

And so like, for, for bigger projects, we, we’re learning that it’s just a lot more efficient and timely to use the right people, get it done the right way. Because the, you know, it really doesn’t matter which jurisdiction you’re in, they’re going to require that level of detail.

Brian Searl

00:11:20.610 – 00:11:22.442

What does that look like for 

Zach Stoltenberg

00:11:22.626 – 00:13:09.500

For buyers too You know, we.

We worked with a lot of clients that are buying existing assets, and, and one of the things that we do is, is sort of an evaluation of that property where we’ll come out and spend a day or two walking around. And we’re looking for code issues. We’re looking for, you know, what are the immediate things that need to be done? What are.

What are potential health safety risks to your guests and to the public? What needs to be addressed, you know, now what are things that we feel are important and should be addressed in the next, you know, six to 12 months?

And then working with that owner, what. What do you see? What was your vision here, you know, for that adjacent property that you might want to expand on or buy at some point in the future?

You know, we’ll sit down and do a test fit and say, hey, if you bought that, we think you can get, you know, 20 glamping units over there or 35 RV pads over there.

And then they can run the math and work their numbers and say, well, you know, at this purchase price, that doesn’t really make sense for us right now. Or if we can get that many on it, then maybe what they’re asking makes sense and it would have value. We look at a lot of accessibility issues.

There’s certain requirements, and then there’s also just kind of general good practices. And I like to tell people often when they say, well, do I have to do that? Is that required?

I’ll say, well, no, it’s not required, but it won’t stop you from getting sued.

So evaluating existing properties, both for potential future development as well as just what is the current state and what, if any, issues are we looking at? That’s also a big part of what we do.

Brian Searl

00:13:10.280 – 00:14:03.540

Kevin, I’m curious. You mentioned acquiring campgrounds versus building, at least so far, right.

Nobody knows where KCN will go in the future, as big as you want it, hopefully. But when you’re coming in and you’re acquiring a property for the first time, or maybe it’s before that, before you close. Right.

Like you mentioned, your ninth one is coming up. But what does that process from a. Because we’re really talking about the foundations of user experience here, right?

Like guest experience, eventually. They’re not experiencing it quite at that point yet. But we’re thinking of the accessibility.

We’re thinking of the design and the flow and the landscaping and the all the stuff. Right. In addition to the permitting, that doesn’t really impact them, but will obviously, eventually, if you are able to open.

But how does that process go with, in KCN’s mind, when you’re looking at a park for either evaluation or you come in after you’ve closed, like what. How do you decide to rip up the store or not rip up the store? Those kinds of things.

Kevin Thueson 

00:14:04.960 – 00:17:05.140

So we, I mean the, the, the process we go through, when we look at it, I mean there’s the initial kind of high level. Does the market make sense? Is there a reason for people to be there?

We look at the history and that’s the real reason why we focus on only buying existing parks, even though a lot of them are old and need a lot of work. The infrastructure is outdated, there’s deferred mainten.

We can, we can look at how has this park performed over time and is there a loyal customer base and do we know that people are going to come versus when you’re developing something from scratch, you don’t have that data to base it on. Right.

You can, you can go through the process of doing feasibility studies and all that and understand traffic patterns and you can get comfortable with that. But it’s a little bit different than when you can look at and say we had 15,000 camper nights last year and 12,000 the year before.

This is what our reservations look like as of right now for the future. So that’s, that’s kind of been our focus at the high level. Let’s check those boxes.

And then when we get into it, we look at, you know, we are, we are all active outdoors adventure campers within our company. And so we look at it from the lens of what would we want?

If I go into a property and I’m looking at it to buy, is it somewhere that I would want to stay? Would I want to bring my family back? What do I like about it? What do not where.

You know, been to enough campgrounds and done enough camping in my life that I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t. But then we also go back and we’ll look at what guests have been saying about the park as well. Right.

There’s a lot of information you can pull from guest reviews and look for trends. You know, if you have people complaining about accessibility issues, then you know that that’s something that needs to be addressed.

If they’re complaining about, you know, WI fi not working or being really spotty, then you know that that’s something you need to look into.

So we evaluate all of that and then we, you know, we apply a Lens of what, what’s working well and is there enough demand that we can take that to the next level? Right. You know, our cabins or glamping units performing really well. Is there an opportunity to add more of those?

Is it RV sites that are performing well and that would be the focus of what we try and build out in the future and then we’ll even dig in a little bit more.

And it’s not just, you can’t just look at RV, you need to look at, are they 50amps, are they 30amps, are they full hookup, are they back ends or they pull through? What’s the length? Right.

You could have, you know, really well performing sites because they are big enough to fit a nice long motorhome that’s towing a vehicle. And then you could have an RV site right next to it that has all the same amenities, but it’s just too short so it doesn’t perform.

And so that’s kind of how we go through our evaluation of what’s the strategy for the park. Where’s the, where’s the low hanging fruit that we can attack right away and where’s the real meaty value add that we can do over time?

Brian Searl

00:17:05.520 – 00:17:42.290

So two part question, and I want to get to Garrett. First part I think is if I’m a park owner watching this show right now, hearing what you’re saying, how do I identify what my weaknesses are?

Not to buy a property, but I already have my property. I’ve maybe I’ve owned it six months or two years or 10 years or 15 years. Where do I begin that process to figure out what guests like?

Obviously you can read reviews and things, but a little bit more deeper than that, right. How do I figure out what I can improve?

And then once I figure out what I can improve from a guest experience standpoint or all the things you just talked about, how do I prioritize?

Kevin Thueson 

00:17:42.780 – 00:19:19.400

Yeah, the pri, the prioritization I think is the, is the hard part. It’s really not that hard to identify where you can get better. Right.

You’ve got data, you’ve got numbers, you can look at what sites are performing well. You can look at seasonality. You can look at a lot of different things in your numbers and your registration history.

You can also look at your competition, right?

Like go and drive through or you’ll go visit the other parks in your area and look, you know, if you’re slow on a busy weekend, are the other parks in town, are they busier than you are and try and see what’s different about what they’re doing. Is it their location, is it their, you know, do they have someone greeting you when, when you pull in is do they have a better set of amenities?

Right. And so you have to do that kind of comp comparison. Is it rates, is it, you know, any number of things.

And then once you, once you’ve built that list out, I think for, for us it comes down to momentum. There’s going to be some things that are you, you, you need to do you need to invest in and, and they may take some time.

So we’ll look at is there anything we can do today that’s going to have an impact on tomorrow and try and get, get the ball rolling while we work on some of those longer term projects.

So like if we know that the feedback is we just need more of this particular site type or we need to have a, you know, just a better wi fi system that might take several months or longer. So we’ll, we’ll work on that in the background.

But what can we do today to make sure that our guests that are with us today are going to want to come back tomorrow?

Brian Searl

00:19:20.780 – 00:19:29.040

Makes sense. I’m glad I don’t own an RV park. I’m not brave enough to do all that stuff. Sit behind my little mic here and talk.

Kevin Thueson 

00:19:29.980 – 00:19:33.480

You can always invest with us, Brian, and we’ll do that for you. You can just.

Brian Searl

00:19:33.520 – 00:19:41.688

That requires me to have money first. Kevin. I don’t make any money like this. These two plants back here were basically a month salary for me.

Kevin Thueson 

00:19:41.824 – 00:19:45.700

Well, figure out all this AI stuff you’re working on and then let’s talk.

Brian Searl

00:19:46.000 – 00:20:06.816

I’m trying. I’m working on it.

Garrett, Cameron Ranch Glamping, so you heard what we’re kind of talking about here with guest experience and obviously, you know, all the way from the permitting process to, you know, guest experience down to the things that Kevin mentioned. How did that thought process go for you when you, did you develop, or did you buy Cameron Ranch or?

Garrett Brown

00:20:07.008 – 00:22:36.450

I developed it and I can definitely attest to how impactful a good architect is and to have in your, in your plans going forward and how smart it is to have the vision for where you want to take the site in a few years. And not just especially I do, I try to be more.

I don’t want my sites to be, you know, I try to keep them smaller and have more room and so I have maybe four or five that I develop and then try to be more high end.

And working with an architect helped me get the exact site plan that I needed to be be a commercially permitted facility in an area that had never heard of glamping. I brought this to the permitting department and you would have thought I was asking them if we could, you know, build a rocket ship or something.

They were more than welcome to hear my ideas. And I had a great architect that was local.

He helped me develop a site plan, he helped me get my geodome commercially permitted, which a lot of people told me I was never going to have an opportunity to do that.

But when you work with, you know, people that are very, very experienced in that field, you’re, they’re going to be able to help you counteract what you don’t know when you’re getting into it. But I did develop it and I did have a big vision going forward for how, how many sites I wanted on the property. It was just a house with 11 acres.

I knew I wanted to end up with about five sites in the end and keep a high end feel to them. And now we’re, we’ve already had our fourth and fifth permitted and we’re starting the building processes on them.

But I’ve been working with the same architect the whole time and developing, you know, making sure there’s enough ample space and road work and you know, accessibility was a big thing even within my county.

We had to plan for, you know, an ADA unit as well too, because that was one thing that was a, a holding, A holding point within my county is once you hit a certain amount of units, some areas are going, you know, there’s a, it’s kind of a legal gray area and I’m definitely not the person to talk about it, but they say once you get over four units that you’re probably entering the space of, you know, like this is when you’re going to need some type of accessibility unit like that.

And, and working with an architect helped me plan all those things and keep my, kept my cost down because I was able to plan ahead for tying in septics, tying in my water wells, the road work, all those things that go into it.

So that helped build the guest experience before I even started working with somebody very reputable and made my permitting process honestly easier than I ever expected. But I leaned on people that knew better than me.

Brian Searl

00:22:36.910 – 00:24:33.450

I mean, I think the takeaway that I have here just being, you know, not deeply involved in the space from an architecture building standpoint to, you know, actually owning properties is that this, is this what comes before and what comes during and what comes after is much more complex than I think people from the outside looking in realize.

And certainly you can choose to make that more or less complex based on what you want to accomplish at your property, you know, how good a service you want to provide, how good of amenities, you know, landscaping, all those kinds of things. Right. But I think it continues on past what we’ve talked about to the I have it in camera.

Garrett’s going to talk about this personalizing guest experiences as well. Maybe he just heard that the first time in front of the show. You said that, Garrett.

That’s the first time I’ve heard it too, that you were going to talk about it. But do you do specific things with personalizing guest experiences?

Because, like, I, I think, you know, a lot of what we’re talking about here is feasibility studies, is understanding what your guests want is looking back at, you know, in Kevin’s case, the guests who have been there have been coming there for years.

What they think, what their behavior patterns are, why they come back looking at our competitors and understanding what they have that we can either build or we can make better. But that extends all the way to the guest experience too, is understanding deeply who your guest is.

Like, we’re doing a lot of this work with our clients this year, who it’s a big emphasis on us on creating like the ideal customer profiles through market research, doing, you know, focus groups that are backed by both real data and by really smart thinking AIs that can pull different buyer personas by creating audience style guides.

And some of that leads us to deeper comp analysis, deeper understanding of who our guests are or who maybe some guests are that we aren’t marketing to that we’re missing.

And so I think that leads to what I hope you’re going to talk about is personalizing guest experiences, but a little bit of just making sure that you’re doing that to the specific guest type that you both want to attract and that you are attracting. Is that fair?

Garrett Brown

00:24:33.570 – 00:28:38.414

Yep. I would. One of the main things I identified before I started building my first glamping site was what my target guest avatar was going to be.

I visited different glamping sites all around the country, all throughout Texas. You know, some they may have, you know, 20 or 30 structures on a small piece of land, and they go after their specific demographic.

I went to others that, you know, may have had four or five structures sprawled out over, you know, a myriad of acres. And each one had had specific things that you could tell were catered to the guests they wanted to attract.

And I realized that I needed to hone in on that. Before I developed my site and personalizing this guest experience, one reason why I, you know, going staying in these sites, I learned quickly.

I would go with my girlfriend and we would see like we wanted to create a couple’s retreat.

Basically coming from Houston, we knew we were by a major feeder city that didn’t have anything like it in the area and we wanted to be able to build this type of guest avatar for them.

We noticed quickly that you know, the more space you have in between some of these sites, the, the higher ADR you can get average daily rate and then the more space you have within them too, the more amenities you can pack in for that particular structure that you’re building.

I, I knew that private amenities were going to drive a much higher occupancy and an average daily rate for what I wanted to do with my guest avatar and so personalizing that experience for them. Each unit has its own private hot tub. Each unit has its own private sauna.

I, I knew that those type of things were going to be able to really draw the impact that I wanted to from you know, different couples, guests and things. And as we’ve developed the site and had it going on further, I have a hospitality background. I went to school for hotel management.

So I knew the one key that I always wanted to implement with when I started attracting guests was figuring out, you know, what, what brings them to the site or what brings their interest to the site and then how they heard about us because we knew that that was going to be able to really customize the experience, experience for them going forward with how we can, you know, add these little touches to make sure that they’re their stay is word of mouth marketing is by far the best thing you can have from any of these type of sites because obviously the spend is is is next to nothing. You’re, you’re having paying guests give you the social currency you need on social media and these type of things like that to draw in.

Usually your guests that have already stayed with you have like minded friends and like minded people in their circle that would want to do similar things. So we always would tend to, we always would, would ask them on our first, you know, messages to them is, you know, are you celebrating anything?

And how did you hear about us?

Those are two things that I really tried to hone in on and then we would make sure that we provided as top notch of an experience that we could but really play into some even simple things like if a guest is coming because they want to celebrate their anniversary, which is by far probably the biggest celebrity between birthdays and anniversaries, the biggest amount of guests that we have come out there, something as simple as a happy birthday card or a happy anniversary card will go a long way for them to give that social currency going forward.

I’ve had numerous guests get these cards and then they post it on their Instagram or they post it on their Facebook and like talk about the thoughtful little touches that you can put into each, each guest stay. And even a cool trick we’ve implemented recently to personalize it even more.

Talking about AI specifically is we will get the guest name, we’ll have some type of AI system, chat-GPT or something to write a very simple song of 20 to 30 seconds in lyrics.

And then there’s, there’s apps out there for $5 a month that you can put these lyrics in and it will make the quickest custom song that you, you can have for the guest. And this is something we send out, you know, a week before they book. And it’s very silly. It’s, it’s nothing, it’s nothing groundbreaking.

Brian Searl

00:28:38.542 – 00:28:41.742

But they’ll share it and they’ll remember it. And now, yep, all the time.

Garrett Brown

00:28:41.766 – 00:29:53.708

The amount of people that have shared this on their social media and tagged us in it, like, look at this cool feature that, that somebody sent us. We’re going to stay.

And then that just starts the snowball for the, the word of mouth bookings to start rolling in, which is, you know, the holy grail of, of, of any marketing person is getting that word of mouth out there and doing unique things like that, utilizing AI and really just trying to understand why the guest chose your property out of the, the myriad of options they have to do nowadays. They can, they could go stay in a five star hotel somewhere, they could go stay at a campground, they could, you know, go to.

There’s so many things people can do nowadays too.

So the people that have actually decided to book at your property and spend money with you, you showing them how much you care with little personalized things like that is, is the thing that goes above and beyond and they’re going to, to, you know, talk, talk highly about you for, for weeks, months, years to come about how good of how, you know, how pleasing of a time they had and how welcomed and, and heard they felt going to your property.

And that’s, that’s all we really wanted to implement when we, you know, we’re starting this kind of venture to really just hone in on that guest experience and provide something above and beyond.

Brian Searl

00:29:53.884 – 00:30:33.230

I think we’ve got a lot that I want to dive into there in a few minutes because that’s something that obviously I’m passionate about with AI and just personalization too, from a marketing side of it. But I want to back up just briefly and talk to Kevin and Zach about ’cause Zach you do branding too, don’t you?

Okay, so I’d love to just talk about that buyer Persona piece with each of you and I, and specifically, like, maybe you can start, Zach, because you do like branding as a thing, right.

But then, Kevin, I’m curious because you, you kind of come with at least one built in buyer Persona, which is the KOA loyalist to your property. But then how do you expand those and look at those from your perspective?

Kevin Thueson 

00:30:35.010 – 00:32:39.256

Well, yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s a good point. Right. The.

When we look at our parks and any time we’re evaluating a new property, we’ll look at what’s the history of the guests and how many people are coming back multiple times. You know, are they coming back every year? They come in multiple times per year.

And if we dig into the numbers, I mean, we’ve seen some parks where the KOA rewards members are, you know, 65 to 70% of overall guests and revenue that’s being driven by that. Right. So that’s a big, that’s a big number. It’s a big draw.

And so we know, we know who they are, we know why they’re coming, and it helps us tailor to them. And then, you know, to, to try and build out more, you know, a bigger demographic of campers, people who, who haven’t been to our parks before.

It’s a combination of a few things of, you know, just some, some basic blocking and tackling of how do we make our parks more visible, more visually appealing. Right.

So you’re going through the SEO process, making sure we have good photography and, and videos on our websites that we’re marketing, you know, all the reasons why people would want to come there.

So one of the things we’ve been doing the last couple years is trying to figure out itineraries so, you know, to really make things simple for, for people.

Okay, if you’re going to come to this area, here’s three days of all the places you can go and see and what to eat, what to do, and so they don’t have to think about it. Right. So that’s, that’s one thing we’re doing. And then, you know, we’re, we just brought on a new Role in house for a content creator with the.

The goal of really building out organic social media presence to promote and try and get that like Garrett was talking about. Right. That word of mouth.

And how do we, you know, instead of just doing the basic paid ads and pay per click that that we’ve been doing and people have been doing for so long, that can work well, but isn’t really gonna solve those problems. Right. Is there’s so much.

Brian Searl

00:32:39.328 – 00:32:39.720

Yeah.

Kevin Thueson 

00:32:39.800 – 00:33:42.520

It’s not. Yeah. It’s not cheap. You can spend a lot. And the reality is like, to fill to your question, how do we get people who are non KOA campers to come?

We need to reach the broadest audience possible. And there’s a lot of people out there who are just looking for experiences and they don’t know about.

They, you know, they don’t know that campgrounds like what we run, what they’re really like, you know, they’re thinking state parks, they’re thinking national parks. They don’t realize that we have luxury sites and high end amenities and, you know, these types of experiences.

And so the more we can do to show what it’s like to actually stay at one of our properties, the more likely we’ll be in attracting, attracting that new audience. And also like the, the shift in the camper demographic over the last few years. Right.

It’s, it’s completely flipped to where now I think the latest stat that I saw is 50% of new campers are under the age of 35. Right. So we’re now trying to target a whole different type of avatar.

Brian Searl

00:33:42.860 – 00:35:29.872

Yeah, that’s fascinating to me.

And Zach, I want to get to you in a second, but that’s fascinating to me what you just said about like getting people to understand what your camp, what our campgrounds. Well, your campgrounds we’ve already established I’m not brave enough to own one.

What your campgrounds and RV parks and resorts and glamping places, you know, whether they have cabin rentals or not offer. Because a lot of people don’t understand this, you know, the first time.

And really like I’ve thought about this from a marketing aspect for years, but I’ve never really put myself in the position of doing that until I met Earl from Black Folks Camp Too, who’s a really good man and he has a message of like, you know, there’s a lot of underserved black people who don’t understand the outdoors, period. Right. Like they’ve just never been exposed to it. And then I just started kind of going on A downward, I don’t know, downward spiral.

That’s not the right word. Right. But just a deeper research path into looking into that.

And I’m realizing, like Scott Bahr and I were looking at Gen Z research of how to convince Gen Z’s who stay in hotels normally or Airbnbs to come stay at campgrounds or cabin rentals. You know, why, what’s the experience? What’s the, the, the pitch there? And that’s the same thing.

They just have no idea that there are actually luxury experiences available at campgrounds, I don’t think. And so it’s more than just black folks. It’s a lot of people who have not been exposed to this.

Because, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there’s been a lot less marketing to groups that are not full time RVers who have been doing it for 20, 40 years. And some by age perhaps that demographic is shrinking. And so now there’s perhaps an impetus for us to, to do that a little bit more. Is that fair?

Kevin Thueson 

00:35:30.056 – 00:37:17.288

Yeah, I think, I think that’s probably fair. I mean, I’ll admit before I bought my first campground, which happened to be a KOA, I’d never been to one before.

I’d seen the signs but didn’t, like, if I’m being totally honest, I didn’t know that it was a campground that was open to the public. I didn’t, I thought it was either private or like a scout camp or something. You know, I had, I really had no idea what it was.

And so that was a little eye-opening for me.

But I come from the background of if I’m going camping, I’m going to throw everything in a backpack and go up in the mountains as far as can take me and then I’ll go, you know, hike up the mountain. And so there are a lot of people that just aren’t familiar with what it is.

Like you said that traditionally, especially within the KOA world, where it’s really, you know, heavily catering towards RVers and not just, you know, campers. Right. It’s, it’s, there’s a, there’s a difference there between, yes, you know, your traditional tent camper and an RVer. Right.

And so it is, it is making it possible for people to know what they can experience at a park like this, even if they don’t have an RV. Right.

Like, how many people really understand how nice it is to stay at an outdoor resort in a cabin that is going to provide you with more sleeping than a hotel room? Your kids can be actually in a separate bedroom than what you’re in, plus you have outdoor space, plus you can take your dogs. You know, that’s.

That when people realize that. And the different types, you could still be in the same markets, go to the same places, but it’s a whole different type of experience.

And, you know, it’s not that I want to bag on hotels, because I stay in them a lot, and, you know, I can enjoy them, but if I had the option of a nice cabin in a campground or a, you know, standard double queen hotel room, I’d much rather stay in the campground.

Brian Searl

00:37:17.384 – 00:37:48.308

Well, that takes us back to what Zach’s going to talk about here, right, which is the buyer personas, is that there are definitely a lot of people like you, Kevin, who would do that. But there are also people who are like, no, I want. I don’t want to walk to my cabin when it’s raining outside. How dare you make me do that? Right? But.

But there are people, then, that are other ways that you can convince them to stay that, you know, even though they have that. I don’t want to call it a negative experience, but. Because I don’t think it’s negative either. I would stay the same place as you, Kevin.

But there’s that. That goes back to understanding that buyer persona, doesn’t it?

Kevin Thueson 

00:37:48.444 – 00:38:11.080

Yeah. Well, and, like, you don’t have to capture the entire market, right?

There’s a whole river that’s flowing by, and all you need is a ladle, and you got to find a spot by the river and just start scooping out. Right. We’re not trying to capture every traveler, but there’s a lot of people that I think would really enjoy the experiences that we can offer.

We just need to make sure that they know that it’s an option.

Brian Searl

00:38:11.420 – 00:38:13.400

All right, Zach, I’m shutting up. I’m sorry.

Zach Stoltenberg

00:38:14.300 – 00:43:41.582

Yeah, I think. I mean, I’d echo a lot of that. And I’ve actually got some. Some questions for Garrett and Kevin both.

You know, part of what we do when we start a project, I mean, before we put pen on a paint, pen on paper, or. or, you know, draw anything, is we start by doing a site visit. And Kevin kind of talked about that, like, before they buy a park, they.

They want to check out that area. You know, designing for the guest experience, it’s not just about, you know, picking a tent or a cabin or a covered wagon.

It’s really about telling a story.

And it starts with an evaluation of not only the property that we want to build on or the campground that they’re buying, but it’s what’s in that area.

So, you know, Kevin, when you talked about like, we built these like two day, you know, excursions or three day excursions, like, here’s the itinerary, here’s what we recommend. That’s phenomenal and that’s great. I think from a design perspective, a lot of that has implications too on what we decide to develop.

You know, we, we looked at a property last year. It was in South Carolina and it was very near a kind of quaint little mountain town. We went downtown that night, we walked around.

It’s a healthy, vibrant downtown. There was lots of, with like new businesses that had been built or opened. And I think I counted 14 different restaurants or bars or places to eat.

And this is five minutes from our site.

So, you know, coming back to start that design phase, you know, the client said, well, you know, we need a store and we need a restaurant because we really want to cater to families and kids. So we want a full kitchen, a full blown restaurant. And I said, why?

We, we’ve got 15 great mom and pop restaurants and bars and things five minutes down the road. Like, we don’t need to make a big investment in F&B on this property because you have it, it’s all around you.

And, and by the way, that’s their business and they’re going to do it better than you do.

And so understanding what’s there, prioritizing that and then, then secondly is, you know, part of what we go through is just kind of what you talked about.

It’s what Garrett talked about, deciding like, who is my ideal guest, who is my target guest, building out a profile for them, you know, call it an avatar or whatever. But we’ve identified like these are our two or these are our three kind of main customer demographics that we’re shooting for.

And then figuring out if we’re going to appeal to that person, what do they want, what is, what’s going to make their stay more comfortable, what’s going to, you know, draw that person, attract that person to come here. But also what is in the area that we would consider as competition and what is not. And how can we differentiate ourselves?

Because, you know, again, if we’re, if it’s just about making money, it’s providing an accommodation only and a good price point, it’s a race to the bottom. What separates and differentiates outdoor hospitality is that we’re delivering more than just a stay.

It comes down to that whole guest experience beginning to end, have we told a story? Are they getting what they expected?

Is our messaging consistent with what we see from that person or that resort on Instagram and then on their Facebook page and then on their website and then in their email marketing and messaging that they get to us in the text message that we get after we book our reservation, in the messages that we, we get? And then when we walk in that, that, you know, office or check in or we walk into our unit for the first time, is all of that consistent?

Because consistency with brand delivers trust. And, and the two things that, you know, you, you can’t buy in the word of outdoor hospitality is trust and authenticity.

You can’t fake it, you can’t buy it. You’ve got to deliver it, and you got to deliver it consistent every single time. And so I think it’s.

When I think about guest experience, it needs to be interwoven into every single part of what you’re doing. It’s not just the design of your site or the interior design of your units. It’s. It’s that consistent brand.

And, you know, we’ve seen, especially over the last, you know, year or two years, I, I’ve seen examples where it’s been done really, really well. And, and these are the, the places that are. They’re printing money and it’s like, it’s, it’s not, it’s not a difficult equation to figure out.

Like, there’s no magic to this. They’re. They’re doing the very basic stuff. They’re just doing it really, really well. And they’re building that trust.

They’re building relationships with their clients, and they’re consistent across the board at doing it every single time.

And so that’s to kind of tie those two worlds together of what I do from a design and permitting and architecture perspective back to guest experience. You know, there’s no one big thing that is the answer to guest experience. It is. It’s every single little thing.

Kevin Thueson 

00:43:41.766 – 00:44:04.558

Yeah, you’re totally right. It’s. It’s the. It’s an aggregation of little things done consistently. It’s easier said than done. Right.

And, yeah, we’ll all slip up from time to time, but, you know, if that’s the focus of how do we just do one thing a little bit better today than we did yesterday and just keep moving forward with that mindset, then over time, it’ll compound for sure.

Brian Searl

00:44:04.694 – 00:44:06.638

And what am I? Go ahead.

Zach Stoltenberg

00:44:06.694 – 00:44:55.280

One of my questions for you, Kevin, was, you know, you mentioned that you guys have nine different sites now, and are in several different states. Because so much of what we just talked about is region specific, is site specific.

I want you to talk about maybe some of the challenges that you’ve had in having vastly different states, different regions, different locations, and then maybe give us a little peek into whether that’s, like, back a house or your internal process or a consistent, you know, thing that you go through or if it’s just been. No, we didn’t. And we made a mistake here, and we learned from it. We learned, you know, we did something here that didn’t work either.

So we learned from it. And now, like, how. How has your process changed?

Kevin Thueson 

00:44:56.100 – 00:45:36.242

Well, we joke a lot internally that, you know, the only thing that is consistent in our business is change. Not all of our people like that, to be honest. Right. Is the change is hard and uncomfortable, but most people don’t. Yeah, yeah. We’ve.

We’ve done this, you know, enough times that we’ve learned that it’s never cookie cutter.

And when you’re dealing with, like you said, different states, different counties, different jurisdictions, different, you know, if I’ll go out on a limb and say, egomaniacal building departments and things like that. Right. Like, you. You.

Zach Stoltenberg

00:45:36.266 – 00:45:37.826

That’s not going out on a limb.

Kevin Thueson 

00:45:37.938 – 00:45:45.682

Yeah. Just, you know, I’m not gonna say where, in case, you know, anyone’s listening. I know Brian’s really popular, so I.

Zach Stoltenberg

00:45:45.706 – 00:45:49.762

Think being a sadist is a prerequisite to be a plans reviewer in most counties.

Kevin Thueson 

00:45:49.906 – 00:45:50.546

Yeah.

Brian Searl

00:45:50.658 – 00:45:54.666

Check this week. There’s four people who are list who are watching. Guaranteed.

Kevin Thueson 

00:45:54.778 – 00:48:45.950

Yeah. Well, then at least it’s not someone from every one of our parks. No, it’s like we. Yeah, Zach, we.

We’ve made a lot of mistakes, and we have made assumptions where we thought that we’d be able to do things in a certain time frame or do it in a certain way. And some of that’s based off of past experience. So one of the.

One of the benefits of being a KOA franchise is they have a whole design department that supports franchisees. Right. And so we can go to them and say, you know, here’s our park. Here’s these five acres. Here’s our occupancy data by site type.

Help us figure out what makes the most sense. Right. A lot of the stuff that you’re talking about that you can do for your clients.

So we can come up with those plans, and they can do CAD drawings and do the electrical, you know, amp draws and voltage drops, calcs and a lot of things. And we’ve had experiences where that’s all we’ve needed to take to the city or county.

And we’ve had other instances where we’ve taken Google Maps screenshots, and with an iPad and some colored pencils drawn, okay, here’s the road, and here’s where the RV sites are going, and, you know, here’s the. Where the water lines are going to be. And some people are okay with that.

And then, you know, we’ve had others where we feel like it’s just cut and dry. And it takes 18 to 24 months to get approved because it’s.

It’s the building department, then it’s the Department of Environment comes in, and then it’s the state, and then to the city.

And, you know, we’re going through the same process multiple times and can be really frustrating because we’ve already got the approvals, but someone else feels like they need to put their stamp on it. And then some people come in and say, you know, we don’t need engineered stamps.

But then if you say the wrong thing and upset the wrong person, then they say, well, I have the authority to require you to get these plans stamped by an engineer, so get ready to write another $20,000 check for this.

And so I, you know, I don’t know if I have a real answer to your question, Zach, other than every time we go through it, we learn something new and we try and improve our processes, and we just recognize that internally, we. We. It’s not our skill set. We’re not engineers. We’re not architects. So we.

Last year, we brought on someone in house as a construction project manager who had a lot of experience with another operator going through that and doing large projects. And so, you know, just.

I think it’s important just to recognize where you have a gap and try and find someone, whether it’s hiring them, whether it’s finding the right contractor or vendor or partner. And so the.

The hope is that every time we go through one of those projects, we get it a little bit better and then update our process and our system so that when we do it again the next time, you know, we get better again.

Brian Searl

00:48:47.370 – 00:48:50.370

But there’s no the bureaucracy problem, right?

Kevin Thueson 

00:48:50.490 – 00:48:53.442

No, you can’t. And there’s no. There’s no silver bullet for any of this.

Brian Searl

00:48:53.466 – 00:49:01.350

Well, there is, actually. I, like, give Elon a few months and, like, maybe we can bring him into the cities for the campground permitting.

Kevin Thueson 

00:49:02.010 – 00:49:59.810

Well, let us. Let us know how that goes. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, it’s. You know, it’s always going to be.

It’s always going to be a struggle, but at the end of the day, it’s worth it because there’s so much value you can add to these properties by going through it. So, you know, it’s. Some people, some people don’t want to do it. We’ve bought.

We’ve bought campgrounds from owners who have been overbooked and had so much demand and so limited inventory, but they’ve refused to. To do anything because it would require scaling up their operation, and that’s not what they want to do. So that’s a great opportunity for us. Yeah.

You know, and so it’s just. It’s not for everybody. And, you know, one of the things that we. We’ve been trying to. The puzzle we’ve been trying to solve is how can we can.

How can we be the group that can do this effectively so we can deliver to our investors on the things that, you know, we. We believe are possible with these properties when we buy them?

Brian Searl

00:50:00.750 – 00:50:03.590

Garrett, go ahead. Sorry, I know I keep cutting you off by accident.

Garrett Brown

00:50:03.750 – 00:51:11.230

Oh, no, I just think those are all very valid points, that it’s. Every single city and planning department, everything is going to be totally different.

Even when I was developing mine, I was picking between two counties nearby, and one was I. I talked to local contractors to get an idea of what their thoughts were, you know, and unique builds and things.

And one, and I had a few great pieces of advice, like, hey, this county is going to make you, you know, run for two, you know, two years before you get a permit on something like this. This other counties a little more lax. You probably should look to. To them.

And yeah, it was. It was just kind of night and day, and they were next neighboring counties, you know, so you’re never. There’s never a one size fits all for it.

But, you know, understanding these things, learning, enhancing your processes and, and start. I. I personally started smaller so I could learn some of these things.

And then for my next bigger projects, I’ll have a little more, you know, experience under my belt to be prepared for these kind of things, too, because you don’t know what you don’t know until you tackle some of these projects. Because, you know, there’s not. There’s not a exact bible to this for any type of structures that you’re building like this.

Brian Searl

00:51:11.930 – 00:51:17.746

Zach, did you say you had a question for Garrett earlier? I can’t remember. You might have covered it.

Zach Stoltenberg

00:51:17.898 – 00:51:58.330

Yeah. So, Garrett, you mentioned.

And it kind of curtails into just what you were talking about, where every jurisdiction is different and that’s part of the value of working with professionals.

You mentioned that you got one of your domes permitted for year round use and I’ve done that and in some very difficult jurisdictions for some of our clients. Talk a little bit more about that process. Was it just building code issues? Was it energy code, was it H Vac?

Maybe talk about some of the challenges and the changes what, what you did different that allowed you to do that.

Garrett Brown

00:51:58.710 – 00:54:26.386

I think the main thing that I can like really give advice to people on is if, especially if for geodomes in particular or other structures is buy from a reputable company that has architecture plans from them already. Like there’s you people. I bought mine from Pacific Domes. I, you know, they have architecture plans.

Yeah, they’re more expensive than other ones because you, you get, you’ll get you know, ads all day for buying one off Alibaba or Temu or something and it’s very enticing to get one of those for $2,000.

But one, they’re just not the same quality and two, you’re not going to be able to probably get that permitted or get somebody to make plans for that to get it a commercial permit. Like you could have the, like. I wanted full on grid utilities, I wanted electric, I wanted a premium bathroom, I wanted septic, all these things.

And the only way my county was going to allow that is having these enhanced architecture plans that, that were not cheap. You know, I think they were 3, 3 $4,000.

And I had to get the upgraded steel structure that was, was more wind and snow resistant even though I’m in Houston, which is hilarious to say that about snow resistant. But I did not go cheap on that. And that made my life so much easier because I found a company that had these plans.

My next one was a mirror house that’s only 220 square feet.

But I worked with a company that does these modular, had all the plans, had, had the electrical, had, you know, plumbing, H Vac, all these things that are needed by the county. And it made my permitting just.

I do, I do consulting for glamping people all over the country that have tried to build things and the horror stories I hear from them trying to get something permitted like this and then they don’t, you know, work with a reputable company or something. It, it’s, it’s almost next to impossible. Especially as this is growing and everybody is really trying to develop different things like this.

That, that it. Pacific Domes made my life so much easier that I can only.

The only thing I can attest to is just don’t go cheap on that and don’t think you’re going to be able to, to skirt that because it is something that is your county, if they have any, you know, any bit of pushback on it, it’s going to be on those type of plans that you have or your lack of plans, you know, and then you have to pivot and you know, then you’re talking a whole different type of operation that you may be developing that you weren’t anticipating.

Kevin Thueson 

00:54:26.578 – 00:54:44.708

You’re, you’re probably going to pay for it one way or another. It’s either an upfront cost for a higher quality product.

With those plans, you’re going to pay for it in your time if you go cheap and have to go back and forth or you’re going to pay for it in lost occupancy, poor guest satisfaction.

Garrett Brown

00:54:44.804 – 00:54:45.108

Right.

Kevin Thueson 

00:54:45.164 – 00:55:19.262

Like there’s any number of outcomes and it’s not that I’m saying and we definitely don’t just like find the most expensive thing and do that, but you have to consider those things, right? Like, you know, budget is important and you got to plan for it and you got to stick to it.

But to the extent that you can get ahead of some of these things and like I said before, get some momentum, that’s worth a lot more than trying to save a few bucks. Right. You know, stepping over dollars to save dimes.

It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense with if you’re in, you always get long term paid for and.

Zach Stoltenberg

00:55:19.286 – 00:55:21.130

You get what you don’t pay for too.

Brian Searl

00:55:21.430 – 00:55:51.770

Yeah. It all comes down to the fact that you have to do the work, you have to do the legwork.

Just like you’re saying it’s not always the most expensive one. Like it could be, but like in a lot of cases it’s not. But you have to look into what exactly you need and what that company’s provided. And all the.

Just like Garrett was talking about, talking to the different contractors in the different counties. Like it just requires work, which again, another reason why I’m sitting here in a studio because my head hurts just with you guys.

I can’t even imagine what I would be like in front of a planning board. They’d kick me out in about five minutes, so.

Kevin Thueson 

00:55:52.790 – 00:56:39.030

Well, you can take that same concept, Brian, and apply it towards how you’re interacting with your guests. Right. Like the, the unfortunately, the mentality is as. Well, everything’s about price.

So if I give somebody a discount or if they’re upset And I give them a refund or something that’s going to solve all their problems.

But it’s, it’s not usually it’ being willing to put in the effort to, to show up for them to create a personal touch like Garrett was talking about, you know. And yeah, it’s a little bit of an investment of time and, and effort and just headspace.

But again, you get what you pay for, you get what you’re willing to put into it. So, you know, just offering the cheapest rates in town is not necessarily going to give you the best guest experience.

Brian Searl

00:56:41.000 – 00:57:59.500

100. Yeah, I, I don’t think we ever got to the discussion I said I was going to have about personalized guest experiences.

So maybe we’ll have to tackle that next week. Maybe.

Garrett, we’ll see if you can come back on here, if you want to come back on here, talk about some of the personalized guest experiences in a month or something. Because like, that’s really important to dive into. Like we did that years ago when cheap chat GPT 3.5 came out.

I had like a form that was never public, but it was internal that I built for actually Verity Ranch RV Resort where you just put in your name inside a form or whatever and then put in and then you hit submit and it would trigger like a zapier automation and it would go through AI and write that like obviously they’re way, way better now.

And now like you’re talking about you can use something like a Suno or a, I can’t remember the, the name of the other music generators to actually put music to it. Right.

But doing those kinds of things, that’s what excites me about the future is, is the, the ability of technology to unlock better guest experiences. Because I think previously all a lot of the talk around technology has been it’s maybe makes you more efficient, but it doesn’t necessarily.

Isn’t necessarily a good thing. Think a phone tree, right? Or something like that. It isn’t necessarily better for the guest experience.

But now I think for the first time ever, we can have both. We can have a better guest experience and cheaper operations. And that’s amazing.

Zach Stoltenberg

00:58:00.640 – 00:59:19.962

So I think the thing too, and I think Kevin alluded to this earlier, if you have a. Automation, a system, this takes me, like Garrett said, this takes five minutes and it runs it through and we do it.

That’s freeing you up to also take care of the other parts of that business. Right?

I’ve seen it happen time and time, you know, walking on some of these properties where there’s, there’s 10, 20 years of deferred maintenance and just everything has been neglected. And you could tell that they’re just flying by to the sea of their pants and just putting out each fire every day.

But they’re never getting ahead and they’re never delivering, you know, a really premium experience because they’re trying to do everything.

And so, you know, the more that you can automate, the more that you can make passive streamline, put systems in place, work with professionals to take some of that, those things off your plate. That frees you up to really focus on just being an operator, just being that personality, engaging with guests.

You know, if you’re not running around putting out fires for everything, then, then you have the ability to sit down and spend that five minutes and do something fun and unique and personalized for your guests.

Kevin Thueson 

00:59:20.106 – 00:59:26.510

Yeah, that’s totally key. Right. Buying back your time is only useful if you refill it with other value add tasks.

Brian Searl

00:59:28.130 – 00:59:33.390

It’s the full circle execution of everything. Right. I just posted on LinkedIn. I know. You’re a big reader, aren’t you, Kevin?

Kevin Thueson 

00:59:33.810 – 00:59:34.858

I know how to read.

Brian Searl

00:59:34.914 – 01:00:08.410

Yes, well, but you post about your books that you’re reading on a regular basis, don’t you? I see that on LinkedIn. That’s why I’m calling you out for it.

But like I posted on LinkedIn yesterday, I can’t remember where I came up with this thought process. It was some, sometime late last night. But just like reading is only the first step, what do you actually do when you’re done reading?

And very few, like we always see the, and I’m not saying this is from you, Kevin, at all, but like generally speaking, just all over social media, you hear people say, I’m reading this book, I’m reading this. I’ve learned how to do this. Okay, what have you done after you’re done reading the book? You just read the segmentation, right?

Kevin Thueson 

01:00:08.960 – 01:00:57.464

Yeah, yeah.

Like one of the things I’ve started doing, Brian, and probably can attribute this to you, I feel like if I don’t do more with AI, then you’ll cut me out of your life.

But like as I’m reading or listening to a book, when I’m done, I’ll go in and I’ll ask Chat GPT to summarize that chapter, those pages, what are the, what are the key takeaways? What are the highlights? What are the quotes? And so you kind of create your own Cliff Notes as you’re doing it and then sharing that out with my team.

Putting that into, like, you know, the. The weekly or monthly or quarterly goals, if it’s something that I feel like is. Is going to be beneficial for our team, that we need to do.

Yeah, using that, right? Not just reading it, hearing it, feeling good about it, but how do you take it and then push it forward and do something with it?

Brian Searl

01:00:57.632 – 01:01:06.990

100. All right, we’re running out of time here. You guys have any final thoughts?

I hate to cut a conversation short, but I’ve got another podcast in an hour. Zach, any final thoughts?

Zach Stoltenberg

01:01:11.970 – 01:02:50.660

I think the biggest takeaway that I got from this conversation is, you know, I talk to three to four people a week about new properties, new projects, you know, land they’re considering buying, or we’re going to buy this whole campground. And, you know, we. We always get to that discussion point of, what is this going to cost me?

And I’ve always felt like our fees are very, very reasonable. I tell them, usually you’re going to pay less to work with us than it costs you to even build one glamping unit or renovate two RV spaces.

So I see value in it.

But the thing that just really jumped out at me for this discussion was that both Garrett and Kevin have somebody that they worked with, and they found value in that, and it saved them time in the long run, it saved them money. So it’s nice to hear, especially the glamping industry in general, I think, kind of started with a very kind of grassroots bootstrap.

I’m going to go set this up on my backyard, kind of operators.

And as the industry’s evolved and we’ve gotten a lot more sophisticated and planning departments are waking up, like, I don’t always see that from operators in this space. So that was a big thing.

Big key takeaway for me that jumped out was that both of you weighed in on that, that that made a big difference in the stuff that you’ve done. And I tell everybody, like, you don’t have to work with me, but please work with somebody. Don’t try to do it all on your own.

Brian Searl

01:02:50.700 – 01:02:53.930

You know, Kevin, I.

Kevin Thueson 

01:02:53.970 – 01:03:04.010

You know, I only have so many good thoughts. I gotta save them for the next time. I don’t want to run out in February and not have anything valuable to say the rest of the year.

Brian Searl

01:03:04.050 – 01:03:07.050

Kevin, you’re buying a new park. Think of all the ideas that’s going to come from that.

Kevin Thueson 

01:03:07.170 – 01:03:09.390

Well, I’ve already. Yeah, I’ve already got the ideas.

Zach Stoltenberg

01:03:10.450 – 01:03:11.670

Where’s it at?

Kevin Thueson 

01:03:11.970 – 01:03:13.150

Pennsylvania.

Garrett Brown

01:03:13.490 – 01:03:14.202

Nice.

Kevin Thueson 

01:03:14.346 – 01:03:18.230

So I’ll be our second park in Pennsylvania. We Close end of the month.

Zach Stoltenberg

01:03:18.870 – 01:03:19.342

Nice.

Brian Searl

01:03:19.406 – 01:03:23.534

Well, you can tell us all about it maybe next month once it’s public.

Kevin Thueson 

01:03:23.622 – 01:03:25.950

And I will. So I will.

Brian Searl

01:03:25.990 – 01:03:29.410

Thank you, Kevin, for being here. As always, Garrett, final thoughts.

Garrett Brown

01:03:30.070 – 01:04:25.420

This is just, I, I agree with Zach, how he kind of framed it, that it’s always refreshing to hear people with going into the mindset of, you know, this type of industry thinking about it in a much larger scale, you know, and it really just adds value to everybody in this industry as we kind of lift the space up as a whole. You know, a lot of people don’t know about these type of experiences that we were able to provide.

And people, they’re seeing people in the space that are doing it right and trying to really provide that ideal guest experience that they, you know, even if it’s not my, my Glamp site that they rent, they rent another one and they have a great experience, they’ll tell somebody else, like, hey, glamping was awesome, you know, or like, I, I, I think you should check it out. And that just lifts everybody up as a whole.

And it’s refreshing to hear, as you know, you hear a lot of bad operators and in the short term, rental space in general, it’s good to hear people that are really taking this serious and trying to provide an experience that people will hold with them for the rest of their lives.

Brian Searl

01:04:25.960 – 01:04:35.872

100 percent. I’ll have Sharah reach out to you if you really want to come back in a month and we’ll talk about personalized guest experiences as part of the show next month. Is that okay with you, Kevin and Zach if we bring him back and.

Zach Stoltenberg

01:04:35.976 – 01:04:37.216

Yeah, absolutely.

Brian Searl

01:04:37.408 – 01:05:11.716

Okay. All right, well, thank you guys for joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats. We’ll wrap it up. I know we’re a couple minutes late here.

I have another podcast coming up in about, well, less than an hour now called Outwired. If anybody who’s watching wants to join me. It’s a little bit different than this one.

It’s with myself, Scott Bahr and Greg Emmert, and we just kind of talk about AI and tech and data. And I think we’re going to talk today about the RV industry and whether that bubble might or might not have burst.

A little contrarian opinion there to get people to watch a little bit about AI agents and some other fun things. So we’ll see you guys later. And otherwise, we’ll see you next week on another episode of MC Fireside Chats. Take care, guys. See you.

Kevin Thueson 

01:05:11.788 – 01:05:36.550

Thank you. Thanks, Brian.