MC Fireside Chats – February 1st, 2023

Brian: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name’s Brian Searl with Insider Perks. Normally here as always with Cara Csizmadia, who I thought was gonna show up for the show [00:01:00] today, but maybe, hopefully nothing happened. Hopefully she’s just running a little bit too late late for the show, but we’re hopefully be welcoming her to the show as well here with our recurring panel of guests.

That usually happens every month, but I feel like we haven’t seen some of these people in forever because life and things apparently exist other than the show which nobody told. But apparently that’s so super excited to welcome back Sandy Ellingson and Scott Fus from Horizon Outdoor Hospitality.

And Mark Koep, who hasn’t been here, I think, from Campground Views for the last few episodes. I think we’re gonna maybe be joined by Casey Cochran from Camp Spot a little bit later, and then Randy Hendrickson is gonna miss this week. He is moving to a brand new fancy place, so maybe we’ll have pictures to share from that next time.

Do you think we can get pictures from Scott? 

Scott: I like our chances, . 

Brian: All right, we’re gonna try. First of all, let me take this opportunity cuz I always forget to thank our sponsor for this episode, which is Fireside Accounting. As you all know, if you have ever done accounting, which well, you should have because otherwise that’s probably tax evasion and you’re in violation of some kind of law somewhere.

It’s [00:02:00] really terrible to deal with numbers and I would probably, if I owned a Campground, just give Lindsay and her team like 50% of my revenue. So I never had to look at numbers. That’s how much I dislike them. But it is that time of year where you, if you’re running any business, right, it’s filing tax time.

I think March 15th is the corporate deadline in the us. I don’t know what it is in Canada, I’m in too many countries. But definitely pay attention to that stuff. Obviously it’s a year long year round thing to prep for those numbers, to optimize, to make sure you’re saving on taxes wherever you can.

So having that specialized team in Campground accounting is super important. So if you are in the market for that or panicking because you don’t have it done on time and try to do it yourself. Lindsay is the person to call at Fireside Accounting. So we’re super happy to have her as a sponsor for the show.

And then later at the end of the show, after we get done with our discussion, we’re gonna have this new segment for the last five or 10 minutes, depending on the flow of the conversation. It’s this secret project that I’m working on called CampVantage but we’re gonna talk about a little bit about AI technology, how [00:03:00] some of that stuff is gonna impact the industry.

And I will also try to convince you that I’m not as crazy as I sound when I talk about AI more than everybody else does. Whether I succeed, I don’t know. It’s very possible. I am crazy, but we’ll try. Gentlemen first show of the year, right? Yeah. Were we here? No, I think, 

Scott: no. I think there was one 

Mark: down your deck.

Brian: First for Scott. And first for Sandy of the 2023 years. So what is, what’s going on guys? What’s what’s new? 

Mark: Well sandy was at Tampa. Give us a rundown on that, Sandy. 

Sandy: Oh, the Tampa show was amazing. Probably for one of the best I’ve been to, they had just about 3000 less people attended this year.

It was just under a hundred thousand. But the people who were attended were more qualified buyers and more interested in buying. So a lot less looky-loos much better weather. It was just, I mean, you could hardly move down there and a lot of the manufacturers had their new rigs that they [00:04:00] were showing.

You can tell that they are really starting to listen to the camper. And so you saw a lot of very innovative things on some of the new rigs they were showing. And and then what I found interesting was there were so many campgrounds that actually had. I think they, the number of campgrounds that actually had boost increased by about 20% and they were super busy.

In fact, I had was talking with one Campground and they said normally they’re in a very, a location that’s very hot, so summer is their slowest month, and they had booked their entire June, July, and August at the. Completely booked it out. It, it was funny a lot of the people that you would talk to that were more, what I call industry people, like the manufacturers and suppliers, they were talking a little bit like, oh, you know, I think the economy’s gonna impact us, but what the campers were telling them is, we are Camping, we are buying.

And so I kept telling ’em that they had [00:05:00] to change their language because they were gonna create this self-fulfilling prophecy. And so a bunch of the sales managers were overhearing me picking on their sales guys. So I even got invited to, to give my spiel to the sales team. He puddled ’em all together and I’m like, like a mama going, okay, now you guys gotta be positive because I believe this is gonna be one of our best years.

So it was a lot of fun. 

Brian: All right. So I maybe don’t a hundred percent agree with you there, but I do agree that they’re shopping still, which, oh, they were buying exacerbate inflation in the long term that people are still spending money. But that’s a whole nother thing. I’m super glad that the show was great.

I did hear great things about it too, but we talked a little bit. I don’t wanna spend too time, too much time on RV shows because we just had, like our RV industry one last week on the show. And we had Phil here from R V D A and Eleanor from Canada, and Shane from C R B A. And we, so we talked about a lot about different shows that had happened already.

And is it nta, the NT NTP stack, the show , that they were at. And so [00:06:00] some of the sentiment we landed on is that yes, people are definitely still interested in buying, but maybe some of their behavior has shifted in that they’re still buying some of the higher end rigs. They’re a lot of people are shifting toward these Class B smaller rigs, and then kind of in the middle is an unknown right now as far as where that’s going.

I don’t know if that pattern will continue to pick up or be, you know, show specific or state specific or how that goes. But it’s I mean I think we’re definitely seeing a shift where it goes, 

Sandy: Well the news from the shows for the campgrounds is that we see no lack of desire to camp and nobody saying they are not going to camp as much as they did the previous year.

They’re just gonna camp differently. 

Brian: Right. And well, so that’s the question though, and we did discuss that briefly, is Camping differently? What does that mean? You know, again, Scott and I have had these discussions and a few other people have these, like I think the top 10% of the market is very well insulated.

So if you’re running either a luxury resort or a glamping destination or someplace that’s maybe, let’s just pretend it’s above a k o a holiday to give kind of a [00:07:00] brand, you know, guideline. Right? Then I think those parks are, for the most part, gonna be fine as long as they’re doing some form of marketing.

And they’re not sitting on their hands because it’s gonna be more competitive. I think the lower to mid-tier, the lower mid and lower tier underneath that are gonna be where the campers are starting to consider shifting to the state parks and BLM lands and dry Camping and stuff like that. And I don’t know that’s gonna come true, but that’s my sense.

So the two things that I had as takeaways from some of the research I’ve 

Sandy: read is one, people will count just as often. They will just count closer to home. And so that cuts their expenses. So they’re still gonna count and sometimes they may even count more. So marketing, if it’s focused closer to where you are, they won’t be driving.

300 miles to a location, they’ll be driving 150 to 200 miles. The second thing again, and I always, you know, have to give credit back to Randy because he kind of brought up this idea first and then I introduced it into the research we were doing. [00:08:00] And it is just rock solid that people are looking for experiences and this new group of campers love everything being bundled together for them.

So for the first time, I’ve got parks that they’re not a destination park because they don’t have the amenities, they’re not a transient park cause they’re not close enough to an interstate where somebody would just stop and stay. But they’re creating, they’re finding what is close to them that they don’t even have to have the amenities themselves or the activities.

And they’re creating these destination, I mean, these experiences bundling it all together. So instead of saying, you know, pay us for the night and then add on these things, they’re working with the different people that they can do things with. Whether it’s the one has the world’s largest flea market happens like six miles from where they are every weekend.

So they’re marketing this, they’re buying the tickets, they’re bundling it together. And so they’re buying a weekend, not just a night. Yeah. And [00:09:00] they’re bookings are increasing and their ADRs are going up. So that’s what I love is cuz a lot of my parks that are smaller, kind of in the middle of nowhere, they can really take advantage of the market this year, 

I think.

Brian: Well, and that’s what I’m saying. I think the shift is there’s going to be plenty of campers who will take adChatGPT of these experiences or the higher end resorts or the like. There’s not gonna be a shortage of campers. It’s just gonna be less than there was in 2021 and 2022, and maybe in some areas, in some extents to 2019, depending on where this economy heads, right?

But I think if you’re willing to set yourself apart in whatever way that is, whether it’s cookies at check-in, or a real full-fledged experience, or a package like you’re describing, or unique accommodations, or se whatever it is, right then I think that’s gonna set you apart from your competition and very well gonna insulate you during these period.

What do you think, Scott? 

Scott: Yeah. No I completely agree with you guys. And we’re continuing to see that with properties that are under our management as well. And I think, you know, [00:10:00] looking at Brian’s point, I mean looking at k o a dropped there January you know, monthly research report yesterday, and one of the takeaways that I had was something that we continue to see, we saw through the pandemic, really highlighted in the pandemic.

And we’re continuing to see as a lack of inventory of being able to get into the areas and parks that they want to get into. Brian, to your point, those properties that are really well positioned, that are higher end, that are very unique, I think will continue to be more insulated. Yeah. From what we’re continuing to see.

It’s those other properties, the other 90% of locations that you know are you know, that need to work a little bit harder to differentiate themselves and provide that unique experience. But the other thing that we’re really kind of keeping in mind and maybe to, to kind of share what we’ve been working on, is really understanding the trends of this time the booking trends we’re currently seeing versus this period last year.

And you know, we are, you know, we thought we were sitting on the edge of our seat in 2022. I’m about to fall [00:11:00] off the seat right now. It’s been an interesting it’s been an interesting analysis to see how people are booking differently and for us you know, I’ll share that generally. You know, we were seeing slower bookings come in the first couple weeks of the year.

And in the last week or two that’s currently that’s picked up quite a bit. 

Brian: So this is interesting to me. I don’t wanna interrupt you this. Interesting. No, please do. We were analyzing another large group that we work with yesterday for, you know, for marketing and we’re running Google ads for ’em.

And we were seeing the opposite trend where like the first two weeks of January everybody was like, oh, Christmas is over. Let’s go quickly book our RV sites. But the last two weeks it’s kinda qu And so I think maybe it’s, I don’t know what it is, but I think it’s, I don’t think we know yet which two weeks it’s gonna be the trend and how that’s gonna shake out.

But go ahead. 

Scott: Yeah, no, and I think it really depends on the property type too, right? Like those properties that are at the higher end that, that have,

Brian: Did we lose Scott? [00:12:00] We may have lost Scott. Yep. So we’ll wait for Scott to come back. I’m sure he’ll be back in a minute. But yeah, I mean, I, what do you think, mark? Yeah, 

Mark: I think the biggest part of that trend that you’re gonna see is if you remember over the last two years, the booking window.

Compressed people weren’t booking out. 

Brian: We’ll let you finish, Scott. I’m just, I just had Mark carry on for you. 

Mark: Yeah, I’m filling in the dead space so you can jump back on Scott. So then what we’re, I think we’re gonna see this year is you’re gonna start to see that booking window start to expand out again.

Cause the uncertainty of travel has kind of gone away, especially in RV and e Camping. So you’ll start seeing that extend out. So I’d be interested to know the difference between the property types, between Scott’s and the ones you’re talking about, Brian and where their locations are. That may be part of it, right?

So maybe that’s it. 

Brian: Yeah, for sure. It’s all and that’s what it’s always been. It’s, where are you located? What are you near? Why are they coming to the area? What are you like? It’s everything. The problem is in my mind right now, is going into this year, and depending on how the economy goes, there’s just not enough of those campers to go around.

So it’s not a situation where you just sit back and not pay attention to your website, not run ads, and not do socialist and just yeah, close your eyes and [00:13:00] open ’em and, oh, my park’s full. This is not gonna happen anymore, I don’t think, unless you are. 

Mark: I just print an article for co that’s, this is the year of the marketer 2023 if parks.

And it’s not just marketing it’s not just marketing though. It’s the right marketing. That’s the key. So there’s one thing just to throw into a print ad. It’s another thing to make sure your website is freaking rock solid. You know, I share, Brian understands this. I share internet marketing concepts of funnels.

Your website’s a funnel. You’re dropping a whole bunch of people at the top, and then you’re funneling them down into some sort of desired action. That’s a foreign language for a lot of folks, but, and the reality is, when you look at your website, That’s the first thing the majority of your guests will ever see of your park.

And if your nephew built it, you need something else. And I’m not even, I don’t even sell websites like you need a…

Brian: how do you know their nephew isn’t a marketing wizard? 

Mark: Well, he’s probably working, in, you know, he’s focus on things. So yeah. But the point being is that it’ll be the year of the marketers, the parks that will succeed this year are the ones [00:14:00] that can adapt to this new audience, utilize digital and effective digital marketing. Not just, I posted on social media last week, but doing it in the right ways to get folks 

from the park.

Just be clear, we loves if you’re out there and watching the show. But go ahead, Scott, do you wanna finish your thought? 

Scott: No I’m sorry I dropped out there. No I think we were kind of trending in the direction that you guys were were talking there, but I think I was starting to say that it really depends on the location of the property and the type of properties and, you know, recognizing that outdoor hospitality inherently is a varied industry, right?

I mean, it’s everything from remote, you know, small mama pop parks to, you know, high-end you know, luxury destinations. And I think we often. You know, up until this point have kind of grouped them all together as outdoor hospitalities, RV, but they are very different. And so really understanding those segments and how booking patterns might differ between them I think is really the interesting thing to look at.

The other piece that I’ll throw in there, to your point mark I love that concept that this is the year of the marketer. That makes a lot of sense. And you know, we’re working [00:15:00] harder to fill those nights. Primarily those we’re kind of falling back to that pattern of shoulder seasons do exist.

Believe it or not, they’re still a thing. We did not have them for a year or so. And there was no differentiation between weekday and. But that’s all back. So I think where we are as a company is really you know, understanding that Camping is still an extremely popular recreation and leisure opportunity, and always will be.

And it always has been. And that’s continued to gain traction, but we don’t have that captive audience that we had, you know, over the last couple of years. So how are you marketing, how are you filling those shoulder seasons and those weeknights? And for us, where is 2023 occupancy relative to 2019 occupancy?

Brian: The comparison? 

Scott: Yeah, that’s, yeah, exactly. Yeah. 

Brian: What are you seeing from your parks that you work with, Sandy? 

Sandy: Well, I’m definitely seeing that the booking window is shorter. So most of my parks are [00:16:00] averaging anywhere between a 45 to a 60 day booking window right now. Okay. , I’m anxious to see what happens.

The northeast just opened up a lot of their booking. They, you know, they shut down and they don’t let you book until after January one. Some of ’em didn’t actually open their booking until the 

Mark: Sandy. My advice, I saw Scott shaking his hand. Brian, I think I could speak for all three of us.

If you’re a park that does that, you’re missing revenue.

Sandy: I know. 

And listen, believe me I try to convince them, but a lot of these parks, they have families that come every year over and they are trying to protect the families. Right. And they’re their long-term guests get the first right to come.

So they kind of quietly book the first to the 15th and then they opened it on the 15th. And so you kind of get this rush in January with a lot of those, which to me, kind of, if you’re looking at overall excuse some of the numbers because they’ve booked out for the whole season. , you know, in the first month, right?

And they’re still doing [00:17:00] that, but it’s not, that’s not the right picture of the average camper from most other places or other campgrounds. But I do see their booking. I’m seeing, I mean, the, it takes longer to get there and I’m seeing a lot of anxiety with them because they’re used to that longer booking window.

And so they’re so afraid that they don’t have everything booked up. And I do have to talk a lot about, you know, the first line of defense to me for every park when they don’t get their bookings filled up as maybe we should take monthlys . And I’m like, please know, we work so hard to get enough known and desired sites out there.

Don’t go ahead and fill up, you know, with monthlys, because I promise you they’re coming. And so I think they are seeing that, but I do think that’s a concern for a lot of parks right now. 

Brian: You’re braver than me. I don’t know if I’d promise anybody is coming. Being confident. . 

Sandy: I’ve got a big enough family that I can, at least I can send family their [00:18:00] way and get on some sites there.

You, my family constitutes a rally when we camp. For real. 

Brian: That’s a good perk. Like higher Sandy and your park will always be full . Exactly. 

Mark: He guarantees it. 

Sandy: The problem is if, you know, I don’t charge campgrounds for any of the work I do, so I wouldn’t make any more money but yeah, 

Brian: I mean, I think I agree with all the sentiment.

Like it’s just it’s very much unknown for me. And I was telling this same person yesterday who we were analyzing the properties for is this kind of a I think I. But it, and so for any of you who know me, like my brain works, like when I wanna know something, I’ll go research the heck out of it and I’ll learn it and I’ll be an expert on it in two days or a week or whatever, because I’ll just crash course on it.

And this is something like, I think I know where it’s headed, but I don’t really know, and I don’t know what the trends are and what states and how people are gonna react and how and so it bothers me really bad that I can’t go and read about something and figure out what’s about to happen. And I don’t know again I [00:19:00] think the Camping industry, just like all you guys are saying is awesome and great and I’m not worried about it.

But for some clients I am. . 

Mark: Yeah. No, the biggest risk are for the parks that have, are either just recently built with unrealistic expectations of occupancy or ones that have been recently acquired with those same unrealistic expectations of growth that they can generate. And their financials are based on that.

Those are the ones that are the biggest worry. And it’s my it’s like the macro environment right now, if you look, if you saw data this week a vehicle re repossessions are at like an all time high, right? And the reason being is the average car payment’s over a thousand bucks, right?

You know, if money gets tight, Yeah, the average car payments a thou over a thousand bucks, which is, geez I’m, yeah. Wow. But anyway, so you see those macro, and that goes to the macro change that you’re referring to, Brian , with the differentiation of the RV audience. Right. So high-end resorts generally gonna have somebody who’s financially secure, they own the RV, they’re gonna do it anyways.

In the middle though is where things get tight, and that’s where parks feel it. I do know with seasonal parks that I’ve talked to, they [00:20:00] still have their waiting list. They’re still good on their seasonal stuff. And to, to Sandy’s point, the question mark, is those short term sites, will they fill up?

The good thing is a lot of ’em, you know, it’s. It’s the friends of the seasonals who are showing up on the weekends to hang out and do stuff. So they’ve got kind of got some built in demand. What I’m hearing on the consumer side though, is there is literally no conversation right now. There was like, almost this time last year, it was like March April when prices of fuel shot up.

There was a lot of conversation about that. There’s not now, like people are just talking Camping, you know, Hey, what RV d got? Where are you going? It’s just, it’s general Chatter versus any sort of real worry within, at least within the RV groups that I monitor, that I feel are a good gauge of where things are going.

Brian: Well. And that’s what I think that’s, this is where my line is. Right? And again, I was having a couple conversations about this in the last few weeks is I don’t think consumers are gonna stop spending yet. And I, you know, originally, like last year I was saying like March, April spring is when I think the flipping point is gonna be.

I don’t know if that’s gonna be the same now, but I don’t think they’re gonna stop spending until we start to [00:21:00] see, or if we start to see layoffs. because as long as you still have your job and it’s high paying and you’re continuing to get your raises and there’s competition for workers, so you can go back, like you can get a better job that’s better paying.

And I think they’re gonna continue to spend money both on leisure travel and in their lives. And I don’t, I think at some point more than the tech companies are gonna lay people off, but I don’t know when that is.

Mark: You still go into regular service related businesses and they have a staffing shortages. Right? So there, there’s a, there’s been a lot of articles about that, about what’s going on. I mean, you’ve got the great retirement, right? Baby boomers leaving the industry. You’ve got, if you’re young, I mean you can actually go make money digitally.

A lot of, not a lot. I mean, there’s a group of folks that are younger who figured out how to make money online doing different things that don’t require them to get a job somewhere. What 

Brian: about me? I figured out how to turn on a podcast and have other people talk smart while I just sit here.

I’m…

Scott: there you go. 

You’re proof. Yeah, you’re proof. 

Mark: And you’re young. I mean, what are you [00:22:00] 23? 

Scott: 23. You were close. Yeah, 

Brian: but continue. Sorry. You’re right. Yeah. 

Mark: We’re the other, if you look at any sort of concern, if you wanna watch something in the economy, generally housing’s a big thing to watch.

And regionally, housing sales have gone down and in some areas housing new listings has frozen. So the question mark is what happens there? I mean, in a previous life I was a business analyst in the foreclosure department at Countrywide Home Loans. If you know the name, like back in the day, that was actually my role leading up to, and so this is 2004.

So leading up to that crash, I saw the loans back then, the loans were crap. They stated income loans. You had somebody just, you know, Hey, I make a million dollars. Okay, sweet. Here’s the mon, here’s the money. Right. It was literally that. You don’t have that now, people actually bought homes here recently at incredibly low interest rates.

So unless they have to move, they don’t have to move. Right. They can cover their mortgages and stuff. So what that means is you’re not getting the home equity bumps where people are making money off of flipping homes or whatnot, but you’re not seeing the negative asset feel. Cause your house on [00:23:00] paper could drop in value, but that only happens if you have to liquidate it.

If you’re paying, you know, a 2% mortgage on it, there’s no reason to sell it. You just sit on it and wait till it goes. I don’t know, Brian, you know, I know personally, finance wise, I’m not worried about it, you know, and everybody I have not spoken to and I live in a, in an area that’s primary, middle.

I’m not hearing worry out of folks like they complain, right? Eggs are eight bucks for a dozen or whatever. You hear those complaints. But what they’re doing is they’re adapting their spending in other places, which could impact us, right? And they might spend less on Camping or whatnot, but that’s all a gray area.

Is there enough people that jumped in the industry these last two years to supplement people who aren’t gonna travel to where we still see, you know, a nice trend? Again, it goes back to my statement. This is the year of marketers. You, if you see a reduced number of campers, it behooves you as an owner to be, you know, you like your competitors, but you want the guests that was gonna stay at them staying at your park.

So you gotta beat ’em with the marketing. 

Scott: Sure. And I, can you guys hear me okay? Sorry I had to re-log back in. This may have already been said, and I’m sorry if it has been, but you know, the value of [00:24:00] Camping in this market, you know, it’s fi the, there was a recent study, you know, that was shared where I believe RV travel was 50% that of airline and resort travel.

And even 70% that of of traditional vehicle road trips and hotel stays. So I think what’s interesting to me is understanding the number of new campers that have come into the space through the pandemic and how they perceive Camping rela, you know, relative to the cost of these other traditional Yeah.

That they have historically pursued the Camping demographic that has. For, you know, before the pandemic, I believe really understands the value. And I don’t wanna say, I wanna be careful about using the word loyal, but there may be more of a repeat camper than that demographic that came in through the pandemic.

So that to me is the bigger variables. What are those folks doing during this period? And do they really understand that value [00:25:00] and the economics of of Camping as an opportunity, as a great vacation option during a downturn? 

Mark: Well, Scott, do you cheer like I do in kind of a mean way when you see that there’s been a thousand flight cancellations?

Because I mean, if there’s any more motivation for a road trip and seeing people stuck in an airport, you feel bad for ’em. But, you know, those, these translations drive that. Right. And there’s been a lot here recently. 

Scott: Absolutely. You’re, yeah, you’re absolutely right about that. And I do every time I see an article talking about how.

How poor an airline’s customer services or something like that. Yes. I’m cheering viciously from the sideline. But it’s so true. But I think that is also where we, as, you know, operators and people that serve the space have to do better. We have to continue to push the envelope for what hospitality means to be able to match that experience that that this new demographic has experienced in other in other segments of the travel industry.

So that we keep them coming back and they understand that Camping isn’t, [00:26:00] that, you know, doesn’t have to be that roadside very limited amenity experience unless they want it to be. 

Brian: Yeah. I mean, I don’t think I disagree with any of that. I think you’re all right. I think nobody’s pulling back on spending. right now. And I don’t know what that is. I’m not an economist. I could sit here and speculate till the ends of the earth, but I have no credentials to back me up. And you should definitely not listen to anything that’s coming outta my mouth related to that. Right. But I mean, in my mind it’s like Jamie Dione just said CEO of Chase at Davos or whatever, like he’s thinks August or September.

Great. I’m on board for that cuz Camping season will mostly be over for most people. Right. . So let’s get through that and get all our money and then if we have to go through recession, let’s do it in September. But who knows? We’ll see what happens. Go ahead. Sandy. 

Sandy: Yeah. Oh, I was just gonna say, getting back to what mark said about it being the year of the marketer.

I agree. And I think there’s some other nuances involved in that because. . Prior to the pandemic, we still had a significant number of parks who had no online presence. [00:27:00] They did no marketing. They were just, they just relied on word of mouth and you know, existing customers. And what was sad was we were growing and we needed to know who they were and where they were, but they had no online presence.

Then Covid happened and they needed something. And so a lot of those parks did shift over to being online. But then they got online and they had this, they got this unrealistic awareness of what a hundred percent occupancy looks like, right? . And they had never had that before. And now we’re going back to some normal occupancy.

And they don’t know what to do. They need somebody they’ve never marketed because they didn’t market before, because they weren’t online, they didn’t have to market during Covid. And now they need that marketing. And my thing is that, you know, I always talk to them about, , anytime they’re considering marketing is ask that marketing firm, do you camp

You know, do you have [00:28:00] anybody in your organization that camps? Do you understand Camping? Because it’s very unique and if you don’t understand it, you can’t do the right kind of job. You might can be a marketing guru, but I’m sorry, Camping is different and you need to have some experience in Camping. So I always tell ’em, pick a firm that has that kind of experience because they’re gonna do a better job for you and be more efficient in what they do.

So I do think we…., 

Brian: why need firm? I thought you were doing it all for pre Sandy . 

Sandy: Oh, I give the overviews and then I turn it over to the younger guys who really like doing that stuff full time. Oh, okay. I did my time . 

Brian: You’re just dangling 

Sandy: mentoring the young ones. 

Brian: Okay, I got it all. Sorry. Continue. 

Sandy: No, that’s okay.

So anyway, that’s just what I feel like, you know, we need more people that understand the industry getting involved and doing some marketing and we need our campgrounds to look for people that understand marketing. For [00:29:00] campgrounds, no. 

Brian: Okay. For I agree with half that. We don’t need more people like Mark and I are already here.

We’re fine . We don’t need competition. Are you doing 

Sandy: well? We need you guys doing more work with more of my campgrounds then. There you 

1. Yeah. just split it down the middle. 50 50 mark. And 

Mark: we’re just focused on VIR virtual tours, so we can work fine together. Brian. Well, there you go then. Perfect. 

Sandy: You know, and speaking to what you were talking about, Scott, with the experience I think it’s so important that we improve the experience of those campers that are trying to book.

And I know I sound like a broken record when I talk about this, but we are gonna have somebody who’s gonna bust through and be the really truly awesome OTA this year. They’re already out there. I won’t mention names cuz they’re not paying for any kind sponsorship. 

Brian. 

Brian: No, you’re just stop, you’re biased.

I can’t even take it. Sam, 

Sandy: I’m not biased. 

You’re, my background is technology and so I know technology and I’m paid by venture capital [00:30:00] technology. But that having a true OTA for our industry is gonna be huge. And being able to go one place and book a Campground, whether it’s a state park or a federal park, or a private park, it doesn’t matter.

in a way that honors my campgrounds, right? So that they don’t, they’re not burdened with that. That integration is gonna be phenomenal and Campground Views really needs to be integrated with them. 

Mark: make an introduction. You know, it’s an, it’s actually an interesting topic cause I was thinking about it this week.

So one of the things, you know, there’s not a lot of people that know our industry, right? There’s people, we’re in the industry, we know our industry, right? But when you step outside of our industry, I mean, somebody comes in for the first time, It is like landing on Mars. Like you really don’t understand our industry.

What makes it very unique is the mix of owners, right? So half the industry is public agency campgrounds. Half of it’s private. When you look at the private, the corporate owners make up a really small percentage. Most of ’em are mom and pop independently operated. [00:31:00] And it, you know, when you look at the software business, like the reservation software business, that’s the last business.

And I’m not, no offense, I think the people that work in it great is the last business I ever wanna be in. It’s highly fragmented, highly competitive, and sharing that data is very hard. So the problem in OTA faces is the integrations in getting that data. And the reality is you might be able to get it, part of it on the private side.

You might be able to get the recreation, well, you can get the recreation.gov data right now. You’ll never be able to, that’s coming. You’ll never be able to book a recreation.gov site. You’ll never be able, one, you’ll never be able to book most of the state park sites, period. And you look at the federal government.

Sandy: That’s what I’m telling you, mark. The contract signed April one, it will be here, there will be one place that you can go and you will be able to book anything that’s on reservation.gov. Anybody that’s using new book, anybody that’s using any of the other property manage or most of the property management softwares, 

Mark: recreation.gov.

Sandy: Yes. Including recreation.gov. I that’s [00:32:00] I love, I’m so excited.

Mark: I’d love to see it cause. I won’t drop a name, but if he’s watching this, Hey, somebody’s hacked into your system and is gonna send you bookings in it. It’s a, it’s all about, it’s a federal, it’s really a federal line. You cannot share user information and send it over.

So I’d love to see it happen. 

Sandy: No these are authentic APIs that are being worked out. I mean, it’s un I mean it’s, I’m telling you, this is what I have been fighting for five years. I have no part in it. I don’t make any money for it. , you know, it is just something the industry needs and, you know, and it’s now gonna be coming to fruition.

Mark: Second, lemme challenge you, Scott, as a manager. Do you need an OTA on the reservation side for campgrounds and RV parks? 

Brian: Mind view, comment. Welcome, ….

Sandy: scott. If you are if your campgrounds can get reservations that go directly into whatever software they’re using. It saves them the credit card fee because the booker’s paying the credit card fee.

So if they’re charging $70 a night, they get $70 a [00:33:00] night. And it doesn’t cost them a penny to participate 

Mark: the park. There’s no fee to the park. 

Sandy: No fee to the park whatsoever. 

Mark: That’s smart. 

Sandy: Yeah, it is. It’s always just, it’s a general booking fee to the guest that that books, and it’s a small fee. It’s no, I mean, the largest it can ever be is $10.

So it’s, it just makes sense. It honors everybody. And I’m a camper. I’ll go there all day long to keep from having to go Google search. Find me a park. Okay, go there. Oh, they don’t have, 

Brian: hold on. So now you’re touching on the real problem here, right? So I’m gonna, I’m just gonna make everybody mad here, who’s a software provider and a marketplace person right now.

Sandy: Right. 

Brian: Because that experience that you just described on Google search is going to die this year forever. 

Mark: Do you think it’s that fast, Brian? 

Brian: Yes. Like they’ve already announced that ChatGPTGPT is coming to Bing, hopefully by the end of March, like this is here. 

Sandy: So you’re saying I’m leading you into the next topic.

So [00:34:00] cleverly 

Brian: no, I know, I’m not really I mean we’ll talk about that at the end, but I like it is really relevant to the conversation that we’re having. 

Mark: Let’s back, cause I wanna frame this, I don’t think, have you discussed with the audience of this, the ai, just AI at a higher level and then drop it down to how it impacts our industry?

Brian: Well, a little bit. 

I’m not gonna get into the AI right now, but I wanna show I mean, I am in some ways, but I wanna show you guys this experience. This is what’s, it’s gonna be better, but this is what’s gonna come to Bing. This is based on open AI like AI where you can ask it anything and it’ll give you an answer, right?

And we’ll go, maybe we’ll go into that a little bit later. I don’t know, I don’t wanna spend too much time on that yet, but, This is the search experience. So what Sandy’s talking about is you’re gonna go to Google right now and you’re gonna give me an example. Sandy, make something up. 

Sandy: Find Campground in Chatanooga, Tennessee.

Brian: Okay. Campground in Chatanooga, Tennessee. Okay, we got that. We’re gonna pop it into Google search. And here’s what we got. We got a bunch of places. 

Mark: We’re not saying that, Brian, we’re not [00:35:00] saying that. Sorry. There you go. 

Brian: You might we got a bunch of places. Find me at Campground in Chatanooga, Tennessee.

You might have some ads at the top here, depending on what you search for. And then you’ve got your Google Maps listings. And just like Sandy is saying, you got RV, share, RV life, all these places, right? And you have to browse and click and browse and click and browse and click, and everybody has got an agenda.

You know, maybe someone is sponsored, maybe somebody had an art. Like it’s all, and it’s lot of, it’s a bad experience, right? Is that what you’re saying, Sandy? Or We agreed. 

Sandy: Yes. It takes forever, 

Brian: right? So the problem is if you …

Sandy: only can’t twice a year, it’s okay. 

Brian: But the problem is this is the future of search.

Putting that same thing in here, except it’s gonna be better than what you’re about to see, cuz it’s gonna be in Bing and Google will eventually release their version of it. I think by this year too, you’re gonna be able to put an answer in there like this and it’s gonna give you an answer. Now that is a 9000% better experience for the customer.

Now the question here is two-pronged. Number one is, how do you make sure [00:36:00] that answer includes your park? And number two, what if that answer only includes a link to the booking engine that charges you 10% instead of your own website because you’re not doing marketing or SEO or whatever, right? And then which marketplace does it choose?

Mark: Yeah. Like this example, 

Sandy: This still doesn’t solve the real click fatigue of the camp. . And so you know it, you still have to figure out or go and until it’s kinda like exactly where we were when we first started talking about an OTA for the industry. It looks like it was gonna be okay to have it and then put a booking button to their website or to send an email to them and say, Hey, we have somebody that wants to camp at your website.

Right? Or do like some of the other integrators do for just the general ota. So it sends ’em and says, you must hold two sites in case somebody tries to book from our site. That was all didn’t work. [00:37:00] What needs to work is I wanna stay in ChatGPTanooga, Tennessee. I want a lake view and I need 50 amps. And it does exactly what, you know, Expedia or Airbnb does, and it comes back and shows you sites and then you click it and you book it.

And that goes right into the. This has to be able to go into the park systems. That’ll be the next level. And it will come. 

Brian: No, it doesn’t. We’re not gonna have it this 

year. See, I don’t, so the direct booking, you’re right. But here’s the thing is I’m doing exactly what you’re saying, except I don’t have to go to an OTA search for a city and then look at all the filters and check all the filters one by one.

I just have to ask it, and it gives me an answer. That’s a way better experience than any of two. 

Sandy: gives you an answer, but it doesn’t tell you if there’s availability. It doesn’t tell. And you know, 

Brian: I mean, I’m not saying that, I’m not saying that it wa doesn’t yet. 

Sandy: But that’s exactly right.

It doesn’t yet. And it will. 

Brian: Right? And so then the question is how are you gonna adapt to all this? And I don’t like I disagree with you. I don’t think that there’s a big need for an [00:38:00] OTA unless the OTA has a differentiator. If you have something that’s a differentiator for example, camp Spot, just pick on the CampSpot Marketplace.

Right. They’ve got a differentiator because a lot of the properties on the marketplace can be direct booked through Camp Spot because , they also offer the software, right? That’s something that’s a differentiator that sets them apart. But eventually I think Camp Spot integrates with Bing and integrates with Google search and partners with them to feed their data in there and to get and all marketplaces can do it, right?

I’m just using Camps Spott as a example. Right. But then who is that ad based? Is that, how does, like this is gonna change a lot of things that people have been used to for a lot of years and it is going to happen this year. Yeah.

Sandy: The good thing is that ultimately is we won’t, we will not have just one ota, we’ll have multiple OTAs or multiple ways of doing this, and then that camper gets to choose the one that they like best. . 

Brian: But that’s the thing is what I’m saying is they don’t, because if it’s [00:39:00] just an answer in Bing, if you’re, even if you ask for what’s the best OTA to book my campsite in, it’s gonna give you an answer.

So you’re not gonna have a list of OTAs to choose from anymore. Yeah. 

Sandy: So remove OTA and think about, cuz what I’m trying to do is change the language is I think we need to talk about online booking partners and at that point, Bing or Google using AI would be an online booking partner because they would help.

It would be the same thing. It just makes that process of booking easier. But I don’t think it will for a long time completely take 

away No, 

Mark: I like Michael’s on the spot with that last question cause I was gonna actually pose it to Brian cause he is the AI expert on this group and he says, will website or Yeah.

Will websites be irrelevant other than a source to train ai? 

Brian: I think in 20 years they will be. I think it’s gonna take a lot of behavior change to do that. . But I think eventually, like I’ve told clients this, I think eventually you’re gonna have an answer in search, and then you’re gonna be able to have a conversational, real, like conversation with a it’s very clear you can do that with Chay bt now [00:40:00] all they have to do is put it in a voice assistant.

Yep. To where it’s not dumb. Like Alexa and Google Assistant in Siri are right now who actually has a conversation with you to where you can say, find me a part, even in your car. It’ll be in your car, in your Tesla or your Ford or whatever else, right. Where you can say Hey, I’m driving down, you know, it’ll know where you are.

Right? I’m, yeah. I wanna stop in two hours. What’s the Campground that’s, you know, in two hours away? And it’ll give you an answer. . And you can ask, it’ll know your preferences and it’ll know your amenities. But then maybe you’re at home and you wanna see photos. Sure. Show it, throw it up on my tv, it’ll put it on your tv.

It’ll give you the pictures that’ll maybe it scrapes from a website, maybe it gets from Google. I don’t know. Maybe it’s provided through a Binger or Google listing that over owners control. But yeah, like I don’t think websites are here for the long term. 

Scott: Yeah. I think the challenge that, that I see this has been really interesting to kind of, be a part of.

And Brian, I know you’ve been you know, preaching on this for a while and rightfully I think the challenge that I have personally with [00:41:00] OTAs in our space right now is how fragmented everything is. And the booking experience is terrible with, when you go to an OTA that’s, that doesn’t have a direct connection with properties, but it appears that they have a direct connection.

Right. They’re not gonna name them. , it leads to a, you go to book you go to check availability and you can’t quite tell if it is you have to chat with somebody. I think that’s doing us a disservice. I’ll say it. And I feel like Brian’s, you know, I don’t wanna name Drop, but CampSpot Marketplace, Has, 

he’s……

great timing. 

Brian: Does anyone know anything about Camp Spot that they wanna just throw into the conversation? 

Mark: I think that we should go 

Brian: to expert on it. Anybody? Yeah. Sandy, do you wanna 

Sandy: speculate? Do I wanna speculate on what? Wanna speculate on Camp Spot? On Camp 

Mark: Spot? Yeah. I think that somebody there, he’s, 

Sandy: I heard somebody

Mark: That’s [00:42:00] what you get Casey for not being here on time. One time 

Casey: I’m a little late and it’s just getting sled. No, I’m just kidding. Good to see everyone. 

Mark: No, you’re not. You know, actually it was real fast. I think Michael hit it again and I was gonna bring this up, Brian. So one of the things about the ai I, how do you gain it?

I know you’re saying it’s gonna come fast, the ChatGPTbots and stuff like that. The risk you run with it is the underlying data feeding it. And whether that’s trustworthy. It’s the same thing when I built Campground views, it was the number one problem we had and we addressed it right away was somebody’s gonna do a test of your system to see if you have information on areas they know, right?

So do they have this information? Same thing with these Chat bots I’ve been playing with and I’ve been testing. That’s my first test. Let me see how smart this thing is. Let me do a test for something I know and see what its response is and if the response is inaccurate, I’m out. Right. And so that, right.

So anyways, I think that’s what Michael was. 

Sandy: Yeah, this is the interesting, that’s exactly why I think we need to change the language. Most people don’t [00:43:00] know what an OTA is anyway, and we need to move to something like an online booking partner when we talk about it, because so many parks have been burned by trusting people who said they had an OTA and they were not.

Or by trusting the big guys, you know, Expedia and Airbnb because they would put their cabins and stuff on there and it was just such a nightmare dealing with it. . 

Brian: Well, I think I wanna take just a second and address Michael’s direct question, right? Just, and obviously it’s just my opinion, but I think that’s a problem that we already face today in Google.

like I don’t think Google is always necessarily trustworthy too. And one of the most powerful things I saw, I’m probably gonna give away a secret here, I’m just gonna share my email cuz I, I searched through this and I don’t know if you know who Seth, you know who Seth Godden is? Mark, yeah. Yeah.

. Yeah. So Seth, I get his daily emails. He’s a super famous marketer. Been doing it since 1998 and send daily emails out. It’s crazy. But he wrote this thing, and I’m not read the whole thing, but it says overconfidence in ai and it basically talks about part of the magic of Google search was that it was not only cocky, it was often correct.

The [00:44:00] combination of its confidence in its utility made it feel like a miracle. Of course, it never was completely correct. It rarely found the exact right page every time that was left to us. But the aura of it persisted. You know, in fact, when Google failed, we were supposed to blame bad hackers and bad SEO people, not an imperfect algorithm and a greedy monopolist.

And now ChatGPTGPT, shows up with fully articulated assertions about everything we ask It. . I’m not surprised that one of the biggest criticisms we’re hearing even from insightful pundits is that it’s too confident that it announces without qualification. That biani is part of a, I don’t know what that is, but anyway.

But would it make a difference if every single response began, I’m just a beta of a program that doesn’t actually understand anything, but human brains jumped to the conclusion that I do. So take this with a grain of salt. In fact, that’s our job. When a simple, convenient bit of data shows up on your computer screen, take it with a grain of salt.

Not all email is spam. Not all offers are scams and not all G P T responses are incorrect. But it can’t hurt to insert your own preface before you accept it [00:45:00] is true. Overconfidence isn’t the AI’s problem. There are lots of cultural and economic shifts that it will cause. Our gullibility is one of the things that we ought to keep in mind.

Mark: What I mean, right on the mining there, good timing. 

Casey: What’s your thoughts though on like the cost of this? I think that’s gonna be a big unknown for me. I mean, if you look at what the cost is to power These things, like the computer power, the energy that it’s pulling to even kind of start surface on this.

And so eventually there’s gonna be a cost, right? I mean, the idea of that free information right now is nice, but it’s, it has to be monetized, right? They have to make money on it. 

Brian: They are already, yeah. They’re gonna monetize. Yeah, they’re monetizing everything. They’re monetizing the AI or the api. Sorry, already, but yeah, I think I read somewhere that it was like 3 million a day in compute costs that open AI was paying for it costing money.

Casey: And so I think for some companies and industries it is going to make sense and I think for some it, it may not, right away, may take a little bit longer based on either how much something like that costs or the input that you need to do for it. I mean, taking this like [00:46:00] a bunch of steps back, it was like pulling teeth for us to get parks to give us images, let alone load an entire AI chat bots box of everything that they could possibly think of to answer for their park

I mean, there is gonna be, it’s gonna be. It’s gonna take some time, right? I mean, I think it’s gonna be…

Brian: for sure it is. Yeah. But I, what my thing is, my argument with this is if they put this in Bing, and if they put this in Google, and if they put this in voice assistance, that in some ways is gonna force people to adapt faster.

Agreed. Because if their park isn’t showing in that result, it’s no longer I can sit back and just, you know, kind of wait whenever I feel like it…

Mark: And what I’ll add to that, Brian ChatGPT, this ChatGPTGPT, is to Seth’s email right there, it’s very much, it reminds me of Windows 98. It reminds me of Google when they came out.

I mean, we, I think everybody on this ChatGPT in this video remembers those days when those came out and we all probably did the exact same thing. We tried it, right. We started playing with it. And you’re seeing the same thing with the ChatGPTGPT to Brian’s point. That’s the transition. Now the next thing is how is it pushed into the market?

How is it adapted? All that type of stuff. [00:47:00] I don’t, I mean, maybe it does happen fast and maybe, I mean, the data on ChatGPTGP T is the amount of people using it and trying it. That’s what ends up. Creating the ideas on how to adapt it and use it, it creates, well, I think 

Brian: AI is, I’m not saying AI itself is gonna be super quick, but No, 

Mark: the tools that are built around using it, right?

Brian: Yes. And if being puts it in front of you in March or April, like they, like everybody, like you can Google it. That’s what they claim. Sources say that whatever. Right. Whether it’s accurate or not. Then if everybody’s flocking to CahtGPT, even though it’s down, as we talked about before the show, they’re very frustrated with it.

But they’re still like refreshing. Refreshing because it’s amazing and it’s exciting and it’s valuable. And so if Bing turns that on, then people are gonna start to flock to Bing pretty quick. And then Google’s gonna have to respond pretty quick. Yeah. And then Google’s gonna turn something on and then it’s gonna be quick because it’s in front of us every day.

AI itself won’t be the adoption of the individual parks and small businesses and accountants and lawyers won’t be necessarily, but everybody else is gonna see [00:48:00] it and start getting used to it very fast. 

Mark: Well and that it creates that arm, arms race. I guess I’d use the word for that. Much like when the Bitcoins came out and you saw all these bitcoins come up to your point.

So you’re gonna have, you know, in the legal field, you’re gonna have an entrepreneur who’s dang, I can replace, you know, you know, some of the examples you talked about, I can replace 30 paralegals with this thing. I’m gonna program on it. I’m gonna create a business around it and put it into the market so the lawyer doesn’t need to go figure it out.

All of a sudden there’s gonna be a service offering that solves a big problem for them. And that’s the, that’s where the money is made is actually, you know, if you look at the gold rush in, you know, the 49ers in California, you know, that made all the money. Wells Fargo and all the shops, the gold miners, you know, some of ’em did well, but most of them, they spent money buying stuff to actually do the gold mining.

Same thing here. The tools that are….

Brian: ….built around hundred years too late , they shoulda had franchises there. . 

Mark: Exactly. 

Man caps. 

Casey: Yeah. You guys touched on earlier, like the idea of a marketplace. Obviously that perk the interest there. I mean, when we talk about the flaws of a marketplace, I think. for Campground specifically to, to me, where [00:49:00] there’s can, there can be a breakdown is does it embody everything that the park has, right?

I mean, does it clearly show what they’re gonna get? Does it clearly show the same site type descriptions, the same experience that they want to provide? Does it have them sign the same terms of conditions that they’d sign? If they book direct, does it offer the same add-ons? Does it share that that, that customer information with them so they can do whatevers they want to do?

And some of them do and some of ’em don’t. The ones that don’t. I’ve always just been really intrigued by like the outside of the audience, right? The audience is important, right? The amount of people that know your park exists and the wider that audience is, that know you have cabins is big. But then you like all the other flaws, right?

You don’t get a tokenized credit card with it. You can’t you can’t charge a security deposit if you need to. You can’t, sometimes they’re always siding in the favor of the ota, not necessarily inside of the park. But I mean, for us, I mean, it, it moved us way faster on, on the need to integrate with Airbnb and V R B O and [00:50:00] booking because it’s like all these campgrounds demanded it like, we have to have this.

And so it’s okay, yeah, we’ll build it for your lodging. But then in execution, Scott, you know this better than anybody. I mean, in execution for your part of your management, you still deem that as absolute necessity because of the volume of bookings that you get from it, even with some of the pain points, right?

Even though you’re not getting some of the other stuff, the volume of booking trumps that. Correct? 

Scott: Yeah. Yeah that’s right. And you know, it depends on the property, but yes, I mean, Airbnb and VRBO push bookings at a velocity that make sense to go through the pain point, even to the point where when those integrations don’t exist, we’re managing inventory and dual systems.

So it, it is, I. , but I don’t believe, I mean, camp spot marketplace, in my opinion. I mean, we have a couple, we have a few parts on the marketplace does it really well because it’s integrated into the booking system for all the same reasons that Casey said. And you’re, as an operator, you’re more likely to put more time into your listings within and how your site types are [00:51:00] described in your pmms, making sure you have images showing up.

Then you are to spend the time in keeping all these other OTAs updated with current information, especially when they don’t integrate directly. And that’s where my comment earlier was, it still seems so fragmented. It’s what’s going to, what is gonna outpace the other is, are we gonna have this, you know, the continued growth of AI through, you know, being in, in Google search results and tapping into what I would say are the market leaders right now with say, camp spot marketplace.

And generating results that way, or the integration of OTAs into the myriad of different PMSs that serve our industry and what’s gonna outpace and what’s gonna be more cohesive. I think that’s gonna be interesting to pay attention to. 

Brian: It definitely will be. All right, I’m gonna cut off the conversation like we could have that, you know, forever, but I wanna spend the last five minutes on this and I know I didn’t mean to talk about AI earlier, it just kind of fit into the conversation with what we were talking about.

I thought it was important to bring up at least in my [00:52:00] opinion, but I was gonna, you know, we’re gonna spend the last five minutes to try to do a each show. This is a new secret project that I’m working on called CampVantage that you guys will hear about probably a little bit later this year. But it’s just kind of a way for me to segment into this technology focused AI type discussion.

And I don’t want it to be the same every year. So today I was gonna highlight this website, which is donotpay.com. And for those of you who haven’t heard of it, which is probably most of you, this is, they claim they’re the world’s first robot lawyer. They’ve been around for a couple years actually, and they’re using the underlying technology that preceded ChatGPT, but it’s from the same. and they’re basically saying, you know, we can help you get refunds and negotiate bills and do all those kinds of things by basically writing a better email to customer service or whatever, right? And so they’ve got all kinds of different services and stuff like that. And so I was browsing through here and I was kind of, you know, interested to check out, you know, the different services that they could do for consumers, warranty claims and all those kinds of things.

I actually signed up for an account and I [00:53:00] paid for a month, and then within 10 minutes I canceled it because relevant to Campground owners, what I found in here, and I don’t know where it is on the actual website here maybe it is actually here. It’s not. There’s actually a tool in here where you can scan a website and see whether it’s ADA compliant, and then you can click a button and it will write an email and compose it.

Threatening to sue someone. . . So they’ve made it that easy. They will send the email from you within the platform. They will do everything here. . So this was really like I, that’s why I canceled it because I didn’t wanna support a company that was supporting something like that. But it’s really interesting where some of this technology is not always going to be used for good.

It can be used for bad sometimes too. And that’s why it’s important for me to kind of share you know, what we’re talking about here and figure out ways that the industry can be aware of it so that they can, you know, fight back against some of this stuff. And you have these tools and these capabilities now, so we’ve talked about ChatGPTGPT

let’s say you get one of these [00:54:00] things from do not pay and it’s a demand to pay. Well, obviously you should consult a lawyer. No one’s saying you shouldn’t. Right? But you can very easily go into this ChatGPT thing and compose a response if you decide that’s what you want to do with the help of this thing.

And so you can literally come in here and say, I just received, oh, an email from someone who is threatening. To sue me for ADA non-compliance on my website. Can you please give me an example of a professional response and it gave me there cuz I’m probably logged out. We’ll see. So this is what Mark was talking about, like it’s just totally overwhelmed.

I read the other day, mark, that they have 10 million daily users. Is it really? Yeah. Of people who are working. So there you go. Your threatener name. Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention. I take accessibility very seriously and committed to ensuring that our website is fully [00:55:00] compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Could you please provide more specific information regarding the non-compliance issue you have encountered on our website? This will allow me to investigate and make any necessary changes to ensure our website is accessible to all users. Thanks for your cooperation and I look forward to resolving this issue as soon as possible.

That’s a great email that would’ve taken, but probably no one would’ve ever come up with. But we’re taking a long time for you to sit there and think, how do I respond? How do I not get myself into a legal mind? And again, still consult a lawyer. I’m not suggesting that you use this to replace a lawyer, but this is a very good template that you can start off with the same thing.

And then, I don’t know if you guys are aware, this is what we were talking about with prompt engineering, but you can tell it to do whatever you want. So you can say, act as a lawyer with 20 years of experience defending. ADA lawsuits. 

Mark: You know, I recorded a video last week, I think it was Brian, that I haven’t posted up in the Facebook group, where I show owners how they can use this prompting [00:56:00] that you’re doing right here to update the content on their website so they could say, Hey, ac, you know, you as a Campground owner, you already know your, the demographics of your best guess.

So act as a 45 year old doctor with a class A RV and write a page describing the amenities at this Campground. Put your Campground name in and include descriptions about our pool and amenities, and it’ll do exactly what it’s doing right here. 

Brian: Yeah. So again, this isn’t it’s not really changing the email.

It didn’t do exactly what I wanted it to do, but it’s still it’s giving you basic advice that like, again, nobody’s saying that use this as legal advice, but it does understand all of the thing, like it scanned the internet and looked at all these different things, and so it’s gonna give you a starting point to at least have a consideration.

And so these are ways, my point is not to use this as a lawyer. Again I can’t emphasize that enough. Right? But my point is if you’re dealing with websites like this or you’re dealing with situations where you don’t know how to respond, or you’re uncertain or whatever else, that there are tools that will help you [00:57:00] get a good starting point or figure it out what to do next.

Or just you could, whether, not even writing an email, but ask it a question, what do I do next? How do I solve this problem? How do I and so I, I think it’s important for people to be aware that those things exist and that people are, there’s gonna be some disingenuous people who use it, but if you’re not aware those tools exist how can you defend yourself against it?

So that’s part of what I wanna try to do. Very cool. Yeah. Anyway, any final thoughts before we go? We’re already off over by a couple minutes. I know everybody’s super busy. All right. Well thank you guys. Appreciate you joining us for another episode. Sorry it was so much focused on ai. I didn’t really mean it to be, but you know, it’s important.

Maybe I’m crazy, maybe I’m not. We’ll learn pretty fast. 

Mark: You’re not crazy. Brian, you’re ahead of time on this. Yeah. 

Brian: Appreciate all you guys joining us in another episode and we will see you next week. Take care. Thanks so much guys. 

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