MC Fireside Chats – January 25, 2023

Brian: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Searl with Insider Perks. Here as always with Cara Csizmadia from the Canadian Camping & RV Council. [00:01:00] We’re excited to have our first episode of 2023 focused on the RV industry and outdoor recreation. And as many of you who are involved in this industry know this is a very.

Busy time of year for all of these people on the show. There’s lots of RV shows. Shane’s gonna touch on his show maybe a little bit even though I didn’t prep him for that. But super excited to see how the RV shows have gone so far. I think the Tampa super show just wrapped up last week. So if anybody was at that or I heard some talk about the NTP show too.

Just give a pulse on the sentiment of consumers and the industry as it relates to the industry. And so I’m super excited to talk about that today. Before we get started, I need to thank our show sponsor Campspot Software I tend to always forget to thank our sponsors, so I’m gonna try to remind myself at the beginning of every show and hopefully my streak will be greater than one week in the future.

But thank you Sue Campspot Software for being a regular sponsor of this fourth week episode. For those of you who don’t know, they provide some amazing Campground in RV park management software for glamping resorts and the all of outdoor hospitality really as well. So super thankful to them. And then the [00:02:00] last bit of housekeeping before we get started is we’re gonna introduce this brand new segment here at the end of the show.

For the last five minutes, we’re gonna talk about some future tech, some ai, some geeky stuff and how it can possibly tie in and help your business in both the RV industry, outdoor rec, RV parks, Campground, stuff like that. Have a little fun, but just the last five minutes of the show, it’s gonna be called the CampVantage segment here, which is a super secret project that I’m working on that will make sense to you all a little bit later in 2023.

But for now, let’s switch back to the RV industry and who wants to start what’s happening here? We’ve got so many things that are going on. Do we wanna start with Tampa, NTP? 

Cara: Yeah. I’m keen to hear about how the, how those shows went. We’re on the verge of Alberta shows actually starting tomorrow.

Yeah, I’m interested

Eleanore: susan was at ntp and so was Phil

Susan: NTP Stag and now also was at the Aero distribution show in Las Vegas. NTP had, stag was in Denver. These are aftermarket distributors that supplies, deal supplies, dealers, [00:03:00] and the aftermarket for products.

And, the outlook was great. The attitude for the dealers that attended was really, optimistic. As most people know, when things go a little bit more quiet on the OEM side and that so many units are being built the aftermarket tends to pick up really well because people are now taking their RV and fixing the broken products or spruce it up or whatever.

But the attitude was really great. It was well attended, it was great to see our neighbors from the north attending again. Future looks bright for the aftermarket 2023. Phil was there as well.

Phil: Yeah, I was there with, and Susan and I were next door neighbors with our booth. So we got a lot of traffic and talked to a lot of dealers.

I thought it was very interesting some of the new technology that’s coming down the pike for RVs, especially in power generation as regulations on, traditional fuel powered generators start to come into effect in California and elsewhere. The industry’s looking ahead [00:04:00] on solar and battery powered systems for RVs and Cummins just announced at the Florida RV Super show, a new hybrid battery system for their generation.

Things are gonna be changing as we move forward. But the industry’s got a lot of exciting new products to look a, to look ahead. We did have some people down in Florida for the Florida RV Super show. I think they had their second largest attendance ever at the show. So there was a lot of good buzz coming out of there.

And also we’re hearing great reports outta some of the bigger shows in Pittsburgh, Boston, and Cleveland that were kicking off January. And I can’t ever remember the industry looking at these consumer shows so closely. As we’re coming off these big shipment and sales years in 2021 and 2022, there’s a lot of interest to see, are the consumers still ready to make a purchase?

And I don’t know what you saw in Canada, Sean, but I mean, there’s a lot of intense interest in what’s, [00:05:00] what kind of show activity. There 

Shane: is that from media, Phil 

Phil: Media and just the interest of the industry watching, what’s going on, what’s the demand gonna be like? In, in the displays and our dealers gonna be making sales.

Susan: Consumer interest was very well received as well. I know a lot of them were still looking at units. A lot of people were saying they were still going out Camping, so that was really great to. , 

Brian: do we have a sense of, …..I’m sorry, go ahead…

Eleanore: I Was gonna say we’ve only had, really one show so far in Canada.

It was last weekend the Halifax RV Show, which is a smaller show. Now there was a snowstorm on one day, so the Friday was a little bit more difficult for people to attend, but overall it was, it went quite well. And the one dealer I spoke to, he had a lot of interest in park models and in fifth wheels and motor homes, which is interesting because, we were saying people were shifting back towards maybe smaller units, but that seemed to be what what he was able to sort of move and where his interest was.

So it’d be interesting to see when Calgary [00:06:00] comes up this weekend as well as Winnipeg to see what kind of what kind of interest there is and what product.

Brian: That’s what I was gonna ask, if you guys have a sense of what the consumer is more interested in 2023 and beyond, because it’s very easy to say, and we all know that Camping is mostly recession proof and I stand behind that, right?

But what type of Camping people are doing, I think might shift in addition to the normal demographic changes and things that we’re seeing in the industry overall as far as preferences go. So have you guys seen any of that change or shift, or have you heard about any of that? 

Phil: One of the, one of the things that we saw at NTP Stag and I’ve been hearing elsewhere is the interest in kind of Oberlin, Camping , where people are not hooked up to traditional Campground things. And whether that’s a big trend or not.

Certainly it is an emerging trend as. Campers get younger and they’re looking for different types of experiences perhaps. So there was a lot of overland equipment we saw at the NTP Stag show. And as, as that grows that’s gonna have a lot of different kind of things for [00:07:00] dealers and campgrounds to think about and what kind of offerings they have and are dealers equipped to, number one, equip those types of campers who are looking for a kind of an unhooked experience.

And number two to the campgrounds have spaces that will give that. And we’ve had some of those conversations on this program before about how the traditional campsite are evolving where people are looking for more dispersed kind of camp…

Susan: yeah, I agree. It’s the boondocking that, because campgrounds are getting filled up faster, so they’re find, trying to find other ways to camp without having to find that needle in the haystack at times.

And true to what you’re all saying is about innovation and solar. Phil, you were there. You seen the huge crowd around the RV that was next to us. And what they were showing was an awning and instead of fabric, it was solar panels. So you can the pan, it would come out and it, as it came out, it would be just nothing but solar [00:08:00] panels on top.

And then it would go back in when you’re done. And it could run everything from your microwave, your air conditioner and the crowd around. That was incredible. People were really interested in this new innovation of how to hook solar, hook it well to …

Brian: How do you mean the awning? If a bird flies over it, though.

Susan: That’s A good question. I don’t know. 

Brian: Microwave doesn’t work. What could it be? That’s the last thing that I would think of. But.. 

Shane: Was it a number of solar panels, Susan? Or was it one large one?

Susan: No, it was a bunch of small ones and there were all hooked together and there was space between it. So the de I was talking to the lady who kind of invented it was her company.

And I, I was curious because you could see through it in spots and what about rain? She goes it’s not rainproof. Rain will get in. But quite truthfully, if you’re an RV, which I’ve always been in our beer, when it rains, you don’t generally sit underneath your awning anyways, cuz if it blows, you’re gonna get wet anyways, right?

. So [00:09:00] what really you sit under your awning for is to get out of the. . And that would definitely provide shade. And what was neat about it is because there were some holes in it, spaces in between is, it was more windproof. So now the windows comes up and it doesn’t catch that awning, which lifted up, it actually gave some air to it, which was, they also had like systems in it that if you try to drive away with it open, it makes an alarm.

I mean, it was really pretty swift. 

Phil: Yeah. The advances in solar panels are quite remarkable. Sometimes we think of ’em as thick, bulky items and some of the companies there are have these real thin very durable flexible solar panels now that that can cover the top of the unit and can actually be used as replacement.

So for the older type solar panels. There’s a lot of technology coming down the pike. Hopefully it all works and that it can give, our veers the experience they’re used to with a fuel generation situation. And, fuel [00:10:00] generators aren’t going any away anytime soon. But certainly with some of regulation out there, is a, a horizon out there if, if those regulations, seriously do take effect.

Brian: I think there’s prob what you’re saying is there’s probably no interest if they do go forward in purchasing something brand new that might be not kosher in a few years. 

Shane: It’s funny about you mentioning over landing, Phil, I, and solar’s.

Fitting right into that. But I was talking to a major one of the three major vehicle manufacturers about some things. And we were talking about our show and they were more he was more interested if we were gonna show over landing product. . And if you look at their commercials now from all of these vehicle manufacturers, they’re all in the, on the boondocking.

They’re all in the middle of nowhere. You don’t, unfortunately, you don’t see them at campgrounds, although, express that. But they’re all by a river or ocean or a stream, and that’s what they wanna show. 

Brian: I think those images probably evoke more emotion regardless of, whether [00:11:00] they’re, where they’re actually going, Camping there, or splitting time between a private park and there, or whatever their interest is.

I think it’s more about the Wow, that’s an amazing nature experience. 

Cara: The trouble is the genuine accessibility of that, the actual ability to go camp in a place like that is not very simple . And that’s, that can cause… 

Brian: You got a $50,000 TV crew, that’s all you need. 

Cara: Permits from federal governments and all kinds of things in some cases, right?

There’s areas in our parks where vehicles cannot even access . To think you can camp there is tough, right? So there is, I know it’s a conversation we have operators at CCR C all the time is, this the marketing concepts are visually stunning and beautiful, but sometimes cause them concern around 

Brian: misleading 

Cara: perception.

Brian: I mean, not really misleading, but just not, 

Cara: yeah, a consumer wants to go and experience. Creates that. And [00:12:00] typically that’s hard to achieve right. That commercial worthy campaign experience can be tough to find. 

Phil: Yeah. And that’s what marketing’s all about, right?

You’re selling the dream whether you’re, you’re selling a sports car or whatever, you’re not really going to be driving on wet surfaces doing figure eights in your, Acura or whatever it is they’re selling. The reality’s a little different, but, that’s where marketing goes.

It, and the fact of the matter is when we look at the data for campers, right? You may be thinking I’m gonna take that once in a lifetime trip to the Grand Tetons or whatever it is, but you end up using it with a short trips to nearby campgrounds. Yeah. And that’s the main use of it.

But it is interesting how we we try to, sell the sizzle and but we all end up using it for meat and potatoes anyway, . 

Brian: And let’s be fair it’s not just the RV industry, you’re right. It’s everybody that does that through marketing. I mean, I remember seeing the new Ford trucks that would come out towing, like a whole thing of concrete trying to stop in three seconds and who’s doing that?

I mean, maybe somebody, but they’re not [00:13:00] really buying the trucks do that. So I think that’s a valid point, Phil. 

Susan: Yeah. I’m Still waiting for my car or something like on Christmas morning with that big bow on it, 

Brian: I thought everybody bought their spouse a car for Christmas and wrapped it in a bow. 

Shane: I always turn those commercials off before they get into the end. . 

Brian: Before your wife sees it or…

Shane: Yes. But speaking about marketing, I was doing some research when I was making this pitch to these guys and, it’s amazing how many other companies not associated with the car the automobile business, are using RVs in the commercial.

Absolutely. And it’s tremendous to see that they see this industry as attractive. To be able to show them in in what they’re pitching, which is, insurance, banking. There was the one it was a gambling commercial. He, it was, him relaxing at the end in an airstream.

There’s just tremendous examples out there and it’s just great to see. 

Cara: Wait, did he use his casino winnings to buy an Airstream? 

Shane: No. He he didn’t need strategy casino winnings. It was just a… 

Brian: I mean, if your airstreams there and you have a big gambling [00:14:00] problem, what if he bes his Airstream? , I was gonna say dangerous.

Your whole house there. Right there. I’ll just throw that in the poker ship pile

but you’re right, Shane, you’re right. It is good to see the mass adoption of, it’s becoming more, it’s always been mainstream, but it’s becoming more visible in the mainstream. Yeah. 

Shane: And maybe it’s because I’m in the industry that I notice all these little things, 

Brian: But Everybody who’s in their own industry notices that stuff too, . 

Susan: I think it, once upon a time you’d say you worked in the RV industry, and people are like, what’s that? Nowadays, I think it’s more mainstream. 

Brian: Requires less explanation. What are you seeing for your show, Shane, in, in Toronto? Do you have any early numbers you wanna share with us or tell us at least if it’s good or bad?

Shane: Yeah, we’re we’re up so far. I think there’s a lot of buzz. It’s just, it’s great to be back to normal. You follow all the Facebook comments and people were complaining about how last year went, which was in the middle of Covid, so it didn’t go so well, and not all the exhibitors are there.

So it’s just nice and I’m sure all the shows in the US [00:15:00] too, but we’ll say this, it’s nice to be back to normal without having the restrictions. and we’re really happy now that Susan’s there we’re, we’re gonna be sending a release out shortly but we’re gonna be hosting a an RV Women’s Alliance meeting and during one of the days, and we’re really excited about about that.

Having, I’m excited to be there and, it’s, it it was ki it was timely Yesterday. We received this application from this 13 year old girl who started up her own Camping fire accessory store. And she’ll be ha she’ll be at the store 13 years old. And we’re really excited to have her and I think we’re gonna invite her to the.

To the meeting. Hopefully she’ll be able to come out and see and meet Mostly older. Mostly older. 

Brian: You should hire her right now, Shane. 

That was me. I was hustling selling baseball cards and mowing lawns or whatever. People who do that when they’re that young are gonna be crazy.

Cara: I should discipline my kid who I just found selling candy at school and [00:16:00] stuff? . I should applaud him for that. 

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I, my daughter talks, she’s 14. She talks all the time about wanting to be an RV tech, and I’m always like, I could probably get you a job right now…

Susan: we’re doing all female RV tech classes.

She’s more than welcome to attend any of ’em. 

Cara: Yeah, no, she, I’m excited to… 

Susan: It would be really cool. Good for her. Yeah. That’s awesome. 

Eleanore: We need more Techs, that’s for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. 

Susan: It’s just not squashing those dreams. Right. So that 13 year old must have parents that embraced her idea. 

Brian: And that’s, yeah, that’s let the child evolve to however, and we’re not gonna get a new parenting discussion. Right. But let the child evolved to wherever they wanna be within framework. Right. That’s reasonable, of course. 

Susan: Depends on where they got the candy from, that they’re selling type of thing.

Cara: old mother who’s buying the product that he’s profiting off of. . 

Brian: That’s, I, yeah, I would argue that’s different though. So yeah, he’s got a, yeah, that’s halfway there. Halfway there. [00:17:00] Figure out a way to buy the candy

Susan: Was just gonna say, come up with a business plan for him.

This is how you buy the candy and then this is your profit margin and… 

Shane: great to start him young, that’s for sure. Yeah. Great. But going back to what you guys are talking about I don’t know I, I’m not getting a feel of of what products are gonna sell.

It’s awfully awfully difficult. We there was some false shows that Eleanor said that the small units were going , the small, adventurous units. And and now, from what you were saying, Halifax a bigger unit, so it’s really hard to, I guess it, I guess for us we don’t care as long as they, they sell

Susan: Yeah. I was in a meeting today and they said the same thing. Usually the smaller units, the lighter units, the stick and tin as we call them, start to go. But we’re not seeing that, which is very interesting. Yeah. 

Phil: Yeah. One of the lenders I was talking to, and they see a lot of, RV financing deals across their desk.

What they were saying is that some of the smaller [00:18:00] affordable stuff is moving, and then on the other side, the high end stuff is moving quite well because those people are less, the higher price you’re paying, probably the less impact some of the ups and downs of the economy might have on your personal finances.

So they’re out there buying, motor homes, fifth wheels things like that. And and then on the other hand, you got the people that are really looking for a bargain, the affordable stuff. And so that stuff’s moving and that’s what they’re seeing where the activity is at the real low end and then at the high end.

Brian: And that’s what I would expect, like coming from outside the industry, right? Like the RV industry. Just focused on campgrounds, and this is what we’ve been telling our clients is top 10% of the income earners, the luxury RV resorts, luxury campgrounds are gonna be fine unless the economy gets really bad.

And so if you cater to that 10 of the market, I think you’re gonna be good. And I think, again, the blm, the overland, the state parks the cheaper campsite are also gonna be fine. And I think the middle is gonna be [00:19:00] more competitive. I think there’s gonna be plenty of campers to go around, but I don’t think it’s gonna be as many as 2021’s

I think it’s gonna be a little bit more competitive. 

Susan: And you gotta remember, people are still working remote, right. That has not gone away. That’s continues to go on. And now that people have had the taste of it, they don’t wanna let go, but, so you have that client out there as well? 

Shane: Some of the people up in Canada, the government I saw are being asked to go back. . I’m wondering what kind of pushback we’re gonna see and. . 

Eleanore: I think we’re seeing that for sure that people are migrating back to the office. , 

I don’t know if it’s, weather related, that there are fewer people working remotely in Canada than in the us. I Mean, it could be Right. Especially in their RV. But we are seeing people sort of go back to that. But I still think, in talking to consumers, you still have people that are wanting to explore their own backyard and not completely comfortable traveling necessarily far away. And so I think, we, the campgrounds should potentially have a very good year this year, even though it might be a little bit soft on the dealer side.

I think the campgrounds will be [00:20:00] busy. 

Cara: I think it’s, for all of us, it’s tough to follow the couple years that we had. And so keeping that perspective too is important. But it’s still great. We’re still doing great. Just maybe not as skyrocketing performance as the last 20 21 especially.

Brian: Are you hearing anything from campgrounds, Cara , so far? 

Cara: Yeah. I mean the majority of them are up here, are closed right now. Right. 

Brian: Yeah. Early reservations, sentiment, things like that. 

Cara: Yeah, a lot of them are only just opening for reservations for the year, so it’s early I think to start to say.

But I think through last year even, we were starting to see folks book less far in advance. Waiting till closer to their travel dates to, to make reservations and things like that. I, it’d be pure speculation for me to say why that might be. But I would guess probably just volatility with the economy and things like that, waiting to see if how things go before they make those reservations and stuff.

But overall, the few parks I have had a chance to [00:21:00] talk to are seeing good, numbers that nothing really out of the ordinary or unexpected at this point. But we’ll see the coming months, weeks and months will be the big kind of tell, will start to have a better idea of how this summer will..

Shane: And hopefully we’re gonna see the return of international traveling, right?

Cara: I agree. I was just in a couple of Travel Alberta sessions, they are spending some significant dollars and resources to do targeted advertising in Europe and Japan and China and places like that to, to try to reopen interest in coming this way.

And so I think absolutely we’ll start to see a return to that. We’ve also got the rental agency companies preparing fleets in advance to, to get those numbers back up. They had sold off some inventory and things like that the last couple of years, and now are prepping for things to get busy again.

I think they’re definitely seeing a huge increase in reservation numbers based [00:22:00] on what I’ve heard here in Alberta. So I think for sure that’s a great kind of opportunity for campgrounds specifically that they can harness in 2023. 

Brian: So what else are we looking for forward to for the RV industry in 2023?

What’s on what’s on people’s minds? Some goals we have for this year, or things you’ve heard manufacturers talk about? I know somebody just announced a Starling partnership. Is that Thor I mean, again, interesting, right? 

Shane: what are they doing given a, I didn’t see any more in that.

Is it a subscription for a year or something? 

Brian: I think they’re building it into their units, aren’t they? Is that, do you know Phil? Are they Phil?

Phil: That they certain units, I think it was Tiffin and Airstream, they’re starting with , and putting it in the units. And certainly that gets to the larger point of, people wanting to be connected when they’re out in their RV.

And certainly here in the US we’re gonna see an a lot of investment, both at the federal and state level in modernizing Campground infrastructure with with wifi and [00:23:00] other connected devices so that this remote from work can happen as well as just the needs of the everyday traveler which is certainly when you look at some of the research that is a big want for travelers, whether they’re Camping or recreating outdoors they still want to maintain that, that connection and that starlink partnership is a, that just reads right into that narrative, right? 

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. So what else is new? What’s what else is changing in the industry?

RV one’s lines just, isn’t there a report that just came out from you guys ?

Susan: Our impact, our 20 22 impact report. So it just it’s a year in arrears of what we’ve accomplished in 2022 and what’s gonna happen in 2023. I mean, one of our big things is as we, I said earlier, is the all women’s tech classes.

And so those have gone nationwide. We did a pilot program in 2022 where we were gonna have 12 women. Go through the RV Technical Institute’s Tech level one tech class, and we had over [00:24:00] 120 applicants, so it just blew us away. So we graduated 24 women out of the Alhart class. So what we decided to do is to take that nationally.

We have a Florida, a Dallas, and Oregon, a Pennsylvania and an Elkhart class this coming this year. And of course RV dot org. If anybody, any women out there who would love to take that class. What we learned is. You lower that barrier to entry to having it all women. And it’s not like I laugh at this.

It’s not like men go out of their way to make women feel uncomfortable in these classes. It’s not that at all. It’s within ourselves. We go in these classes feeling intimidated. While some do, I wouldn’t, but anyways. But you know, it makes them more comfortable. We’ve had we’ve followed some of the graduates have gone on to be the female tax or they worked for their, they’re working at the OEM plant.

Some, we had one woman who owned her own Campground and she wanted to help her customers more because where do things break down most of the time [00:25:00] if you’re not on the road, you’re in the Campground and something breaks. And so she wanted to have the ability that when her guests are there to at least for through level one, to go out and be able to help her customers.

So that was, that’s a really big plus. , and of course we have leadership training and mentorship and educational round table discussing all the different parts of the industry. And of course, here’s my plug RWAs free to its members because of our partners.

But there’s a lot. And this industry is a wonderful industry to work in, as we all know. It’s big, but small and somewhat …..

Brian: yeah, it’s definitely interesting to see how that’s changing and evolving. I’m super glad that you’re able to start that and have more women feel comfortable.

Susan: So 2024. We weren’t Canada. We weren’t quite ready. I think our Vti wasn’t quite ready to bring it up to Canada. But we did tell Stacy at Greek Canadian RV that 2024 is our goal to bring those glasses up. Also in Canada and have at least two of ’em, one at East Coast, one at West Coast for you guys as well, for all women.[00:26:00] 

Awesome. Yeah, we’re excited about doing that with you guys. 

Brian: Are there any opportunities to do, not replaced within person ever, but supplementary virtual courses to allow more people to attend? . So 

Susan: the RV Technical Institute does have a hybrid where you can do it all online, at least for level one, and it’s relatively really inexpensive.

The studies just came out I don’t, I’m not sure where they, when and where they released this, but there’s one tech for every 5,000 RVs out there on the road, which is just mind boggling right now. We know why everything’s so backlogged, and that’s giving this industry a little bit of a ba black eye.

So the focus is to get more people trained out there. Level one, you can do it, your own pace online and then toss. And then level two is a three week program where you can do two of the weeks online and then come into town for a one week in Elkhart to finish that up as well. So they are trying to work with people.

[00:27:00] Not everybody can come out to Elkhart, Indiana, especially in the wintertime. So it’s a really great program to get involved in. 

Brian: I feel like I know the answer to this question, but we had a LinkedIn comment here from Rob Nutting that says, is there still a high demand for RV Techs? ? I’m sure it’s washy and Phil’s mind, but huge

Phil: Yeah, ab, absolutely. And the thing about what’s going on with RV, t I, I’m on the board of directors there and really tech training and the opportunities to get into the service and manage service management side even have never been more accessible or affordable in my view.

So whether it’s through R B T I the online training that’s available there the RV Learning Center, which is a RV DA’s educational arm, offers three online training courses right now, one for service writer advisors. One for parts clerks and then one for parts managers. And then we have service manager and warranty administrator online courses coming later in the year.

So I [00:28:00] think between RV, t I and the RV Learning Center, the accessibility of these courses is really outstanding. And there’s a demand in all these areas at dealerships for certainly techs and for service management people. 

Susan: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. I was just gonna say, and it’s never been more affordable, and especially for those, I mean, there’s this big movement of kids not going to college, right?

One, it’s expensive. And two, they’ve come to realize there’s a lot of jobs out there that you can make decent living at without going into debt or going to college. And RV, DA and RV, DI I mean, you can start a career with very little investment. , it’s an amazing way of life that you can get involved in 

Brian: what are the biggest, and just from coming from a place of ignorance.

Right. What are the biggest roadblocks to creating more of these tests? Cuz you say that test is coming out later in the year, later in the year. Phil, what is the biggest, is it coming up with the questions? Is it figuring out the knowledge that people need or, I [00:29:00] mean, what does that look like?

Phil: Yeah. For I, RV, t I and RV Learning Center use what they call develop a curriculum or a daycom process. So you have to get the subject matter experts together, pull everything out of them. And then it’s gotta be synthesized. And in our case, it’s the Ohio State University Center for Employment and Training.

Does that for us. Puts it all together in into learning modules. And then we have to. Put those learning modules in a learning management software program, and then we have to test that to make sure that we did it the right way. And then you can put the online training together and then ultimately a certification test to validate the knowledge that they went through.

So it is a process and it does take some time. We’re very pleased to have these three ready to go, and then we’re gonna have two more following And it’s not exactly the same on the technical side because you’re [00:30:00] turning wrenches and things like that. So there’s a hands-on part of that is very important as well.

Brian: I have a reason I asked that question, and we’ll get to it in the last five minutes of the show, but , 

Susan: Oh, dangling that carrot again. 

Shane: Exactly. I’m like, can’t wait for the last five minutes.

Susan: I know, and I know Phil, you guys have scholarships and so does RV. T i, so you know, there’s ways to get into it with no money.

Phil: Right. And Canada does too, right? 

Eleanore: Yeah. So it’s, yeah. So it’s interesting cuz our program is a little bit different. I mean, first of all, we partner with with Phil and the RV Learning Center for the fixed ops courses. If there are Canadian dealership personnel that wanna participate, I mean, it’s very affordable.

It’s $150 US per course. It’s a great opportunity. And then RV, t I fits in, it’s an interesting space because in Canada we have a. A National Apprenticeship Red Seal program. So there’s national standards for every trade in Canada. So the [00:31:00] RV service technician trade there’s a national standard that was actually just updated.

A new one was just released this past year. And then each province has apprenticeship programs, which they’re in charge of putting together. And so they have schools, they have ultimately a standardized National Red Seals exam that they have to pass. So similar, we have subject matter experts, technicians, people from the industry come together, develop the curriculum, develop the testing, the curriculum’s, then given to the colleges to implement so that, the end goal is that now it’s, it is a little, it’s a three year program, but I tell it’s not available in every province.

So what we tell our. Technicians and our dealerships is, a great way when you’re trying to bring people in, especially when we’re at career affairs, we’re saying yes, the training may be out in British Columbia, but you can start off with RV t i Tech training, right? Because it’s available online.

Level one is a great way to learn about the, the basics about the electricity and. Some things like that. So it, it can be used up here for some of the basic training. We do have scholarships as well. We have, it’s after the fact. So I know your, yours are [00:32:00] often before, like if you’re registered for this course, you may have access to it.

Ours are actually sponsored by ntp and we have, we call them bursaries. They’re both for technicians as well as parts personnel. And we award them. We have just over $12,000 that we award annually to people in those industries providing that they’ve taken the training and passed it successfully.

Again, a bit of an incentive and, our tax season is just everybody’s getting their tax, their T four s and their T four a s in Canada with and the text were all like, oh, thanks so much for giving me, this, a thousand dollars. It helps to pay for, we, we get these beautiful stories of how they’ve used that funding.

So things to keep in mind if you’re a technician or a dealership in Canada and there’s a huge demand..

Brian: And we talked about this before, just briefly, like really the problem is the intricate training with RVs as it relates to the difference between the abundance of auto mechanics, right? They have to know the individual parts and the differences and things like that. 

Eleanore: There’s about 14 trains.

I think we said in the RV technician trade. There are 14 individual trades. You learn to [00:33:00] be which encompasses many trades. If you’re a carpenter, you learn carpentry. But in your RV tech you learn carpentry, you learn electricity, you learn welding, you learn, I mean, you learn so many different areas.

Brian: My question is let’s pretend, and again, I’m leading somewhere of this, but if you have an auto mechanic, right, who wants to maybe go to, to learn RVs to level up or whatever else maybe doesn’t have the time, always has to be with his business. If he, if there was a database that he could query, how far of a stretch is it that he could do some of that 25% of the work of an RV tech?

Is a big stretch. I mean, I’m ignorant, 

Phil: so I’m just asking. No, I mean, I think it that the it’s very transferrable skills for auto mechanics, boat mechanics, one of the things that is attractive that we’ve heard over and over again from existing Texas, the variety of work.

Okay. They’re not doing the same thing every day. In a lot of dealerships. Now, that’s not true. Every dealership and some people do like to specialize, they just wanna work on generators, for instance, or they just want to do [00:34:00] collision work or whatever. But, for the majority of techs, there is a variety of things that they’re working on, whether it’s the plumbing, electrical system hydraulics with slide outs and things like that, or they’re, roof, roof repair.

So it’s a lot of different Tech, skills that are needed to be an RV tech. And the other thing on the other side of it, on the, like the service writer advisor side and parts, we are getting people coming in from maybe they worked at an advanced auto parts place or some kind of a national chain and they end up for an RV dealer and they find out, oh wow, this is a lot different than working at an auto parts desk at a dealership or at a store.

So that’s where our training comes in to help them navigate that. And as they take the training, they become more confident in their job. They’re more efficient for the dealership. And of course that ends up, on the other end is better customer service. And that’s the main thing.

But it is difficult to, recruit some of these folks to get [00:35:00] ’em in, into the job. And that’s what Rvt I is working very hard to do, spread the knowledge about why. This is an attractive field. 

Brian: I don’t think it’s hard to sell. They just have to talk to these people. Right?

Susan: Yeah. And some dealerships out there are already certified to train their own technicians so they can just get a job at the dealership without any of this education. And the trainer at the dealership can certify them in some of the lower levels. 

Phil: Right. They use the RV t i training and they have a mentor right at the dealership who does that.

So there’s a lot of dealerships going to that model. It’s the train your own model because just having somebody qualified walk in the door, probably least less likely to happen. . 

Brian: So what else is happening in the RV show world? RV from consumer standpoint, right. Cause we have a lot of Campground who watch the show too.

And we touched on it briefly we’re happy with the attendance. We’re not sure which way the model buying is going, but maybe high end and. And also some lower end with some middle, maybe possibly we don’t know yet. Falling by the wayside, at least in the early shows. What else do we, what else are we hearing or what do we think the [00:36:00] outlook is for 2023 for the rest of the industry?

Susan: Your Campground should be full. Yeah. I don’t think there’s gonna be… I wish that money asked that one. . So be prepared, . 

Shane: Okay. To go back to what you guys were talking about before, there’s a tremendous demand about what parts and accessories they can get at the show. Like more than ever.

Maybe they’re not looking for a new unit right now. They want to still shop for one, but they’re really interested in picking up knickknacks and parts and everything that 

Brian: makes sense given the amount of fees that were sold. Right. That makes sense. 

Susan: Yeah. Yeah. They wanna personalize and customize their RV once they buy it.

There’s a huge trend in that. You see it all over that people are painting this or putting, decorating it this way, decorate it just like your home. Whereas before they buy it and just go Camping, now they accessorize it. So there’s the huge opportunity there as Wow. 

Brian: Yeah. And I think that’s good for the whole industry, the more accessor accessorization they do.

Cuz the more you put that personal feel in the more time [00:37:00] you wanna spend it. Exactly. Yep. At least you would assume so, right? 

Shane: You’d hope so. Yeah. Yeah. And for the first time too R V D A and C R V A and CCC r c have all got together and we have these career booths that we’re gonna be for the first time bringing out to all these RV shows across Canada, or at least most of them.

And you need to get face-to-face with potential. Em employees as well. Not only try to sell ’em some stuff, but maybe they want to work in the industry. So we’re, we had our first booth, at Halifax. Eleanor..

Eleanore: We’ve got photos and I think it went, I think it went it went really well.

I don’t know how many, we had some brochures to hand out just to talk about the career paths for all three segments of the industry. And, you we also go, I mean, to career fairs, but here you’ve got a captive audience. They’re already here because they’re familiar with one aspect of the RD industry.

So why not, give them more information. And sometimes it’s not necessarily just the person there that may be looking at a unit they’ve got, children or grandchildren or, it’s a great opportunity [00:38:00] to capture people who are already engaged with us on some area. 

Brian: A hundred percent. Makes sense. Are, is there any move to do that at any of the US shows that we know of or, 

Phil: They RV t i is out there doing some of that. Not so much at consumer shows, but at some of the trade shows, I know that they’re out there at career fairs. And this is actually just getting started for RV t i but it’s certainly gonna be a focus in the future.

And I know, we probably all heard stories about people who are in the RV business because they started Camping and it became something that they were, became, a career for them. And certainly there’s a lot of folks out there that are potential employees because they’re predisposed to Camping and RV travel.

Cara: It was the number one thing I used to hear from guests when I was a Campground owner was, oh my gosh, it’s my dream to have a Campground. Yeah, campers. I mean, if they’re bought in, they love it. I think they’re, it’s a great opportunity to make that available at the consumer shows. I’m excited to [00:39:00] see the booth this weekend in Calgary.

Brian: how long does it take to actually take a Level one course? 

Susan: You can do it in one week. 

Brian: With studying and everything. 

Susan: Yeah. , you can do it at RV t i in one week. But they offer it online where you can just do it at your own pace. If you have a day job, you can do it at night, yeah.

Brian: Let’s say, so let’s say you studied for the whole thing in advance. How long would it take you to actually take the test? 

Susan: Test is only two hours or something. Yeah. 

Brian: So you could do a live test at…. shane, you should do a live test at your show. And if they pass it before they leave, then they get a free ticket 

Phil: one of the things we found with online learning is it really varies on people’s ability to process information. I mean, we can, we’ve got people who can take our service writer, advisor course and all the modules in it within three hours, Others take, five hours or whatever.

So it, there’s a quite a wide variance on it. And then some people like to go back and, see what they’ve review what they’ve learned before they move on. But, that, that’s one of the nice things about online learning. It is something, if [00:40:00] it’s designed right, it is truly self-paced and you’re not rushing through it.

And you can always go back if you didn’t understand something, which isn’t always, possible in a live setting. 

Susan: Absolutely. Yeah. And it depends on how you learn. I’m a hands-on person, online learning’s. Okay. But I love to be hands-on. And so there’s options, it just all depend.

The sky’s the limit, COVID really pushed that farther than ever faster, which was actually a good thing because now all these technologies that they pushed people to be able to access things in different ways. That was coming all along. It just got here a lot faster than we thought.

Brian: For, yeah, for sure. Technology is here faster than we thought, but we still have five minutes with you guys else. You wanna talk about ….

Do we have anything else to talk about before we pivot? I was only planning to do it for five minutes. No. Anybody else have anything? All right. If you guys have not heard of this already, this is, we did a little demo of this last show at the end of the show too. We’re gonna start a new segment on this show.

It’s gonna be called camp Vantage, and that’s a secret project I’m working on. [00:41:00] You guys will know what that is. I said think at the beginning of the show a little bit later this year. But the intent behind the segment is just to spend the last, five minutes of the show talking about technology and in the beginning, maybe a little bit about AI and stuff, cuz that’s where I’m focused on.

But just things that can help push this industry forward. And eventually, I think when we launch the business, it’ll push off into its own separate podcast. But for now we’re gonna start with this. Has anybody seen this buzz around this tool called ChatGPT?

How many played with it?

Okay. Cara’s played with it. Susan’s played with it. That’s it. Shane’s seen it. 

Phil: I have seen it

I haven’t played 

Brian: All right. So this is basically a artificial intelligence that was built by Open ai, which is a company in California. It’s been around since 2015. Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman started it.

And recently big announcement, I think Monday was that Microsoft was already investor at a billion dollars and put 10 billion more dollars into it. And I’m gonna show you why. So let’s pretend here. We’re gonna take our conversation that we talked about [00:42:00] RV tech, right? So I am designing a test for certification, and you, somebody can tell me if I type something stupid.

Here I’m designing a test for certification of RV technicians. What are the top 10 things they need to know to properly service a recreational vehicle? Does that sound like a good question? Yeah. Terrific. See what it does.

Somebody can tell me if this is accurate or not. 

Susan: can’t really read it. . Wow. You know what it is? It’s scary, accurate. 

Cara: Electrical systems and wiring, including DC and ac. Power generators and burgers, plumbing, heating, propane chassis and suspension systems. Engine maintenance and repair, transmission drivetrain.

Interior systems, lighting, appliances, furniture, exterior systems, awning, slideouts and leveling. Yeah. Safety systems. Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. And fire distinguishers. So you [00:43:00] loaded it to 10. 

Brian: Oh yeah, we get, I mean we get 10 more, but let’s just do this. Let’s say, okay, so let’s start with, and we’re just gonna talk to it like a human, right?

Let’s start with section number one. I need to come up with an outline for what this training would look like. 

Susan: Let’s say a couple instead come up with, but I think they’ll figure it out. ? 

Brian: Yeah, maybe. So here’s a possible outline training program on electrical systems and wiring for RV technicians.

Introduction to Electrical systems and RVs. Overview of concepts, DC electrical systems, types of batteries, understanding DC circuits, safety considerations, ac electrical systems, troubleshooting, safety considerations, generators commonly used, 

Cara: I’m sorry, murders. I’m gonna interrupt you. The problem that, the concern I don’t, not necessarily personally have, but that I could see coming up out of this is you need someone, you need a human who knows what they’re talking about to vet that this is accurate, right?

Of course you do. 

Brian: And but this is a shortcut to helping the human [00:44:00] give this program is what I think. 

Shane: Yeah. And me typing it out 

Susan: and you’re just curious, instead of Googling it, what do I need to know? Just so you, you get a better understanding. Is this the career route for me? Do I wanna learn this?

, really outlines it a lot better than. 

Cara: We touched on this last week too, related specifically to like the standard Google search or search engine op optimization, where like now you get one answer as opposed to a million results on Google that you have to comb through and filter through and use your human skill.

Brian: Then we’ll get to that. But yeah, this is, again, Microsoft invested 10 billion in this tool. They’ve announced that this is going to come to Bing and they want to do it by March. . So this is the future of actual search, which we’ll touch on in a second, but let me just finish this real quick and say okay, so I’m the test taker now, so give me five examples of multiple choice [00:45:00] questions for this section that would test their knowledge.

like what is the function of a converter A, B, C, D? Like it’s literally giving you everything. And again, human vetted. Of course you have to have it human vetted. Right. But the ability of this thing to save so much time Absolutely. 

Susan: Is in space. I mean, those are great questions, but if I remember this correctly, how this works is it goes out and gathers a lot of information out on the internet, 

Brian: almost the entire internet up to 2021.

Yeah. And this is the beta. . Yeah. 

Phil: But this is here today. What does that mean? 

Brian: The beta means, it means it’s the first version. You’re just, 

Susan: it’s not even as good as it could be. . Yeah. And that’s why Microsoft obviously invested 10 billion in it. My son works in this field in some aspect.

He’s a data miner, so to speak. They also call him, I think, a data [00:46:00] engineer. I don’t know. But he’s seen this coming for a while and he’s still blown away by it. 

Brian: Tell me why someone should be an RV technician while we continue our conversation in case you need any marketing points for RV. T I Phil.

Yeah. 

Phil: It looks I gotta tell you, it looks like they’re pulling some of this stuff right off the Yeah, 

Susan: Some, they 

probably do. 

Brian: Some they are like, I don’t, but it’s all original. It’s definitely, yeah, 

Announcer: I got, 

Susan: Yeah. Pulls it off of everything that defines out on the web and . And what amazes me is the speed it does it at 

Eleanore: oh, it’s incredibly fast. Yeah. 

Shane: So are they people using this as their like chat bot to answer questions?

Brian: Yeah, you can. So this is interesting. I was telling you guys, I think before the show started, but I was reading about the let me find the article. The class that was using this in education.

We’ve seen some problems with this, with students writing essays and stuff like that, right. In New York City schools I think have banned and stuff like that. But we saw, there’s another article here that I find it [00:47:00] from, let’s see if I can share. Here we go. Can you see that? So Alvi, I don’t know what that is.

Yeah, it just popped up in my Google feed cause I read a lot about ai but five Days includes the ChatGPT and he’s talking about this guy does coding and stuff and he’s saying, everybody had chat g p t open, which was shocking. This, the professor like made them have it open and then during the class he says, five days later, I had no, no longer any doubt this thing will transform higher education.

The first use case is that machine filters mundane questions as one of our students put it eloquently, meaning you can ask the dumb questions to the AI instead of in class, which stops them interrupting the professor, right? The second benefit is you no longer disrupt the flow of class, for example, with a question like what’s an offset or binary file or whatever.

Think of it in RV tech terms, right? Everybody could keep up another benefit. We remain, we had a highly uneven level of technical expertise from no technical to computer science, but everybody could keep up by asking those questions to chat g p t if they didn’t know [00:48:00] without interrupting the thing.

And then this thing can code, it can do all kinds of stuff. So this is just super, 

Announcer: yeah. 

Susan: Put that on your website. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s just crazy. And you know what’s kinda nice about that too, is sometimes you’re in that class and you don’t wanna ask that question, right? Because you feel stupid. And you can ask a question to this and at least get an answer where you feel a little bit better about what you’re talking about.

Shane: Wouldn’t it be neat if this incorporated sarcasm too though? Oh, you can 

Cara: if you tell it to, it’ll 

Brian: to be an RV tech, but make sure the answer is 

Announcer: sarcastic. I don’t know if we want, I don’t know if we 

Eleanore: wanna 

Announcer: post that

because who 

Brian: doesn’t wanna spend?

It’s the ultimate combination of And excitement. [00:49:00] 

Shane: That’s 

Phil: fantastic. 

Cara: The right order. Shane? 

Shane: Yes. . Give an answer. We’ll make it funny. 

Brian: Yeah, that’s it. I mean that’s the thing can do literally almost anything that you ask it from a knowledge work perspective. And so the ability for this to save time and make us, there’s nothing been like this since the industrial evolution.

when we took hand sewing and put it into a factory. That’s, the internet wasn’t even like this. Yeah. And this is coming very fast. What Cara was talking about is a search engine called, and Bing is gonna put it in there, but right now is a search engine called Perplexity that you can ask like, how do I don’t know how good this is, but an RV tech, and instead of, so if I take this answer and I put it into Google first, I’ll go over here.

, I’m sharing, you should see Google now. . So how do I become an RV tech? Then there’s sponsored stuff at the top and RV t. RV t i a, and then I’m scrolling through a bunch of things and clicking links and learning, and it’s gonna take me a little bit, right? [00:50:00] Same thing over here on Perplexity.

This is the future of search. It’s gonna give me an answer 

Cara: one, so I can see A few concerns for me with this. Number one is, are we. pushing humans to a place where we no longer have discerning capability to comb through information and decide what’s best for us, because we’re just taking one answer from a robot 

Brian: but don’t we do that already by clicking the first link in Google? 

Cara: I don’t, maybe you do, 

Brian: but a lot of people do though, continue. 

Susan: It’s if this is actually gathering all that information together and putting it into one thing, then it’s more than one opinion. I would think we’re 

Cara: it from but things like, when we look at doing a Campground search on this, how soon does it become a scenario where the Campground that buys the ad is the one answer instead of being the right answer?

And that concerns me. Who gets to govern and decide? What [00:51:00] criteria go into choosing the one answer. And so I’m, as a human being, going to be very cautious going forward with these things. I wanna know, are you filtering this with genuine information or is there somebody deciding these things with dollars behind the scenes or maybe not even dollars, maybe just, I like this guy better who gets to and so those things concern me.

Otherwise, I said on last week’s show as well given that’s coming as an operator of any business, I would be paying attention to how I make sure I’m the one answer. . And I’d love to know . 

Susan: It’s kinda, it’s scary. I mean, you gotta admit, when you put a human element to it

Yeah. Where is this information and where none of the data is verified. Right. And neither is it on Google, but if you went to WebMD compared to, just Joe Blow who has the same problem. Yeah. You’re gonna give a little bit more. Totally, yeah. Validity, the 

Cara: WebMD [00:52:00] to completely agree. I said this to Brian the other day as well, when we were talking about news articles and things like that generated by ai, I pay attention to who’s writing my article, the article I’m reading, because that does, their perspective changes how I perceive that article and the information contained inside of it.

So for me as a human, and you argued with me that not everybody’s like that, but I do think a lot of people are like that. And so I think, I do have some concerns about some of this. I want to. Know that, like Susan said, you can go to WebMD and feel like you can trust that information, but now we’re just compiling everything from the internet.

So Tommy Joe Blow on the dark web can write whatever he wants, and now it’s impacting those 

Brian: sorts. So no, to a certain extent because they cut off the lower, I think 50% of the junk content when they’re training the models. But who decided? But I do share your concerns. I share your concerns.

They’re very [00:53:00] real. We’re already outta time. I feel like this maybe validates the, I should have a separate podcast for this. 

But yeah, this is, I mean, this is the important thing here is bringing it to your attention that this stuff exists and it can help you streamline your workday.

The other day we had, we put in Cara’s schedule and said, Cara has these 20 things to do, optimize her day. And it gave her a day by day, including eating breakfast and taking care, even though 

Cara: you didn’t tell it to children at this time. The if we want to, the robots can just dictate at all now.

Brian: And if you don’t think it’s gonna be in a voice assistant, if you don’t think it’s gonna be in your car, if you don’t think you know where should I’m 40 miles. I’m really getting tired. I wanna stop within the next hour. What Campground should I go to? It’s gonna give you an answer.

Shane: One, did you give a 23 hour task day? Cara, right? . 

Brian: I got her. Did you get done by six? It had her done by six. 

Cara: Close though. Really close. Yeah, we tested it out. Yeah. Really 

Announcer: close. 

Brian: And that, and even built in breaks for her too. Wow. 

Shane: Short ones. Hopefully . 

Brian: Anyway, okay. Thank you guys [00:54:00] all. 

I appreciate you joining us.

The whole intention is to spark a conversation and get you guys to play with us. So if you want to, that tool I just showed you is free. Yeah. Open AI’s website. Register for it. It is in free, open beta, and you can do exactly what I just did to your heart’s content. 

We’re all gonna get ready Tech Homes this afternoon, thank you so much. I appreciate it. We’ll see you guys next week on another show. 

[00:55:00]