MC Fireside Chats – January 29th, 2025

Brian Searl

00:00:00.240 – 00:01:18.070

Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside chats. My name is Brian Searl with Insider Perks. Super excited to be here with you again for another week.

I see myself freezing during this episode, but Josef and Robert say I’m not.

So if you feel like I’m freezing, call them out in the comments so that I know that’s actually happening and we can see who’s telling me the truth or not telling me the truth. But really pumped. Like that was the second week we’ve had our brand new intro and I feel like I just come here to do the show just to see the intro.

So I’m done now if you guys just want to take over and talk about it.

Josef Hjelmaker

00:01:18.110 – 00:01:19.798

That was an awesome intro for sure.

Robert Preston

00:01:19.934 – 00:01:24.150

Thank you. I’m pumped up right now.

Brian Searl

00:01:24.270 – 00:01:27.792

The song behind it was actually completely AI generated.

Robert Preston

00:01:27.966 – 00:01:28.556

Oh.

Brian Searl

00:01:28.668 – 00:01:59.360

By a company called Suno. It’s suno.com. so it’s really hard to prompt it but like I actually got it to prompt it to say MC Fireside in there. So that’s pretty interesting.

That took me a while to do it, but so, yeah, super excited to be here with you guys. It’s kind of one of those weird fifth week episodes that we have every so often without our, you know, any recurring guests are scheduled to be here.

Normally we were supposed to have a campground owner here on here with you guys, so maybe they’ll show up too. But in the meantime, we’ve got you, Josef and Robert, two special guests here. So you guys want to briefly introduce yourselves.

Josef Hjelmaker

00:02:00.630 – 00:02:02.718

Sure. You want to go, Robert, or should I?

Robert Preston

00:02:02.854 – 00:02:26.410

Sure, I’ll kick it off. Welcome. My name is Robert Preston, the CEO and founder of Climb Capital and Unhitched Outdoors.

Married, five kids, couple adopted couple, foster, former military pilot. We’ll give you the rundown own own about 14 parks. And yeah, we’re. We’re here and happy to be on the chat today.

Brian Searl

00:02:26.850 – 00:02:30.270

So no pressure. Like just try to do better than that. Josef.

Josef Hjelmaker

00:02:31.650 – 00:03:36.124

Well, I tried to charm you with my accent though. Scandinavian, Swedish. So I mean, obviously you’re hearing something, but no. Super excited, super pumped to be on the show today.

Thank you for having me, Brian. I have the pleasure of running my own company, Electric Outdoors startup in the sustainable outdoor space.

We definitely try to bring people more sustainably to the outdoors and we do that by building destination platforms that are portable, off grid, self sustained, harvest energy from the sun, stores energy and then use that energy in many different use cases. Excited to talk about that. Of course. Like Robert, I’m married three kids spread out throughout the U.S. even if we’re all Swedish, we’ve been in U.S.

since 2015 and.

And just amazed about the opportunities here, but also the opportunity to play in the outdoors, which is a huge passion for me and my family altogether. So thanks again for having me.

Brian Searl

00:03:36.212 – 00:03:51.390

Yeah, I appreciate you being here, Josef. I feel like I’m the only person so far without kids. Like I did raise a stepdaughter for 12 years that wasn’t my own child.

But now I feel this peer pressure, like I’m doing the wrong thing with my life or something. So Karina and Matt, do you guys have kids also? Introduce yourselves, please.

Karina Torres

00:03:52.170 – 00:03:53.698

Hey, I’m Karina.

Matt Torres

00:03:53.794 – 00:03:54.546

I’m Matt.

Karina Torres

00:03:54.658 – 00:03:59.070

And yes, we do have two kids, an eight year old and a two year old.

Brian Searl

00:03:59.770 – 00:04:05.630

All right, I feel terrible now. So, okay, you’re from Bayshore RV park, right?

Karina Torres

00:04:05.930 – 00:04:07.938

Bayshore RV park, yeah.

Brian Searl

00:04:08.114 – 00:04:11.870

You want to tell us, just tell us a little bit about yourselves real quick, please.

Matt Torres

00:04:13.050 – 00:05:23.730

Well, so Karina and I met, I was doing an acquisition deal and she actually worked for the company that was acquiring an RV park from me.

And so I met her there and then we ended up, we started dating and started talking about how we wanted to pursue own an RV park and maybe multiple and looking into mobile home parks and that kind of thing. And so along the way we decided that mobile home parks weren’t really going to be the way to go.

We like the transient rents, we like having a few long term people in there to kind of help sustain the off seasons. And, and so we found an opportunity and jumped after it. We found several along the way.

And the way that we kept looking at it was it needs to be cheap and it needs to be perfect.

And so, you know, you keep finding these deals and, and there so much stuff wrong with them that we, we really had to kind of refocus and recognize that you’re not going to find something cheap that doesn’t need work.

Brian Searl

00:05:24.750 – 00:05:29.318

And so yeah, those were all picked up like late 20, 22 probably.

Matt Torres

00:05:29.494 – 00:05:30.870

Yeah, yeah.

Brian Searl

00:05:30.950 – 00:05:33.090

Maybe Robert has them all now. I don’t know.

Robert Preston

00:05:33.870 – 00:05:34.850

Trying to.

Matt Torres

00:05:35.230 – 00:06:11.812

Yeah, so we picked ours up. It’s on the Washington coast. It’s right on the Willapa Bay. There’s crabbing, clamming, everything right out the backyard.

Our property Overall, it’s about 20 acres and it has about 17 acres of that is all tide land so we can walk right out into the water. Found out there’s a really cool way of crabbing for Dungeness crab out here.

You just literally walk out into the water about knee deep and you can pick up Dungeness crab right out of the bay. You don’t have to drop, you don’t have to bait them. You just walk out and pick them up.

Brian Searl

00:06:11.916 – 00:06:15.108

And your marketing, this obviously is a unique benefit of the property.

Matt Torres

00:06:15.204 – 00:06:16.772

Yeah. Yep.

Brian Searl

00:06:16.916 – 00:07:20.256

Yeah, that’s one of my, like, I’ll tell you, like, I go, I mean, I don’t go on vacation very often, but I was just in September, I was in the Philippines.

We have, some of our team members are over there, so we take them to a, teach them to take them to a team outing every, you know, once a year to a resort and three days with them and all that kind of stuff.

And so we did like, we, there was a, a place we went to on the, off the island of Cebu where you could just walk out and do like, I mean, 10ft and do the most amazing snorkeling I’ve ever seen with coral reefs and stuff like that. So that kind of like I’m a big water guy, like I’ll eventually, when I have enough money, live by a river or something like that. Right?

Some kind of small body of water, not the ocean, but like those, those kinds of. We talked about it on the show before.

Those kinds of unique experiences that you can market and show people why you’re truly different are what are going to set us apart as we head into whatever we’re going to do in the next few years. But I think it’s going to be a not as pretty economic situation as we’ve enjoyed for a number of, you know, 10, 11, 12 years. Right.

So yeah, I want to, let’s talk more about that briefly. Do you want to just start with Karina? Matt, do we mind? Do we care?

Matt Torres

00:07:20.408 – 00:07:21.760

Sure. Great.

Brian Searl

00:07:21.880 – 00:07:27.260

Okay. So how did you, how did you get to this park? Is my first question. Because there’s lots of stuff, right?

Matt Torres

00:07:27.640 – 00:09:37.406

Yeah. So, you know, you start by shopping on craxy rv trader or rv park, rv parks.com and, and all these other sites.

And you know, I was, I was at gymnastics for my, for my 8 year old and Karina and I had just talked and, and we kept on waiting for the right opportunity to find something. And so I think it was, geez, it started like February, March.

We kept on waiting to find the right deal and I was on Facebook Marketplace and we found this guy selling a house at Ocean Park. And so she’s like, let’s just get it and then we can put it up on the Airbnb and Vacasa and all that stuff.

And so while we were in contract to purchase that, we kept on looking for the RV park opportunity.

And the folks that I were work that I was working for at the time, that’s what the business they were into also was manufactured home parks and RV parks.

And Karina, she’s really motivating, saying, we’ve really got to find something, and it doesn’t have to be the perfect deal, but we need to get our feet wet and find a deal. I was shopping around and I found one while I was at my daughter’s gymnastics class.

Called on it, and the thing had just listed within a couple of days. And I told the guy I wanted to come up and see it.

Karina and I went up there, took a look at it, saw the potential, and I was a framer for the first 10 years of my career.

General contractor, head of construction, general manager of operations for a large home building company down here for the next 10 years before I went to work for the folks that do all of the acquisition for the RV parks and the manufactured home parks. So I just have the.

I felt like the right skill set to stop shopping around for the perfect deal, but find one that I could put my expertise into and add the value. And that’s when we. We were able to put a deal together with the guy.

Brian Searl

00:09:37.598 – 00:09:44.570

I don’t want to take this in the wrong direction, but does your daughter. Is your daughter aware that you were not fully engaged during the gymnastics match?

Matt Torres

00:09:45.110 – 00:09:50.398

Well, when they’re that young, there’s a lot of awkward somersaulting and they have to take turns.

Brian Searl

00:09:50.574 – 00:09:55.326

So it wasn’t her turn. Is your story. That’s. You guys stick with that 

Matt Torres

00:09:55.326 – 00:09:56.330

Right Yeah.

Brian Searl

00:09:56.990 – 00:10:00.370

All right. Karina, you have anything to add or.

Karina Torres

00:10:00.670 – 00:10:42.078

Yeah, I think that, you know, with both of our kind of, like, brains put together, you know, with his expertise and my expertise of property management, handling all the reservations, customer service, the bookkeeping, marketing part of it marketing, I was able to handle all of that, um, and just kind of take that away from him and make sure that he’s able to handle the property, the infrastructure, all the issues that come with septic tanks, electricity pedestals and. And water lines and things like that. So I didn’t really have to get my hands dirty. I just leave that up to the man over here.

Matt Torres

00:10:42.214 – 00:10:43.998

She’d just tell me what was wrong with it.

Karina Torres

00:10:44.054 – 00:10:44.238

Yeah.

Matt Torres

00:10:44.254 – 00:10:46.810

And then I’d have to go and figure it out and fix it.

Brian Searl

00:10:49.200 – 00:10:52.940

Oh, we have a third guest. Is she want to add anything to the conversation?

Matt Torres

00:10:53.680 – 00:10:56.200

Is she probably gonna just let us know that she pooped.

Karina Torres

00:10:56.280 – 00:11:19.632

Yeah.

It’s funny because she usually, she usually comes with me if, like, if a guest is, you know, sometimes it’s.

Sometimes it can be a little bit of the older generation where, you know, they get up easily upset about something or, you know, as long as I have Sophia with me on my hip and I go talk to them, it’s kinda like the ice breaker, you know.

Brian Searl

00:11:19.656 – 00:11:21.984

You don’t want to make my kid cry. Do you?

Karina Torres

00:11:22.072 – 00:11:25.936

Yeah. How dare you?

 Yeah, 

Brian Searl

00:11:26.128 – 00:11:33.744

there’s a business there somewhere, Robert, if you need another business that’s probably like rent a kid while you’re getting talking to an angry customer for a park owner.

Robert Preston

00:11:33.872 – 00:11:38.336

Yeah, Sadly, I think I have. I have enough at this point.

Brian Searl

00:11:38.488 – 00:11:43.460

Well, not for you. No, I’m saying to sell it to other RV park owners.

Karina Torres

00:11:46.290 – 00:12:14.250

Eight year old, actually. It’s so funny.

Like, the best part about it for her is in the summertime, she makes friends, new friends every two days because we have new families coming in. And with one little group of girls that came in on a weekend, they set up a babysitters club.

So they were, they made flyers, they started handing them out and they’re like, meet at the park. You know, I think it was like at 11 o’clock. And babysitting service, $2.

Robert Preston

00:12:15.150 – 00:12:17.810

That’s awesome. It’s a great deal too.

Brian Searl

00:12:18.670 – 00:12:20.854

It’s not inflation adjusted at $2.

Karina Torres

00:12:20.982 – 00:12:22.010

Exactly.

Matt Torres

00:12:22.350 – 00:13:06.150

Works out great because the products that we do have to sell and the things that are profitable is like firewood, nice. You know, that’s the easiest sell. And so for us, we just send the kids out to go pedal. You know, they’re. They’re the pushers.

And so then she gets her friends involved that she meets at the park. And I told her, I said, look, we sell the bags of ice for three bucks. You guys get a dollar. You could split a dollar for every bag you sell.

And so those two are like splitting up the money at the end of the day. And we didn’t get anything. And so the other little girl, her mom comes over and goes, hey, my daughter came home with 11 bucks.

And I wanted to make sure that she was supposed to do that. And I said, look, we gave them an opportunity, but they started their own ice cartel. We had nothing to do with.

Brian Searl

00:13:08.160 – 00:14:34.140

I mean, that’s a good mindset, right? But I still remember that, like I was telling. Well, I think I said it live.

Usually I say in the back room when I was talking about different things and I cite it, but I was telling you guys that I raised a stepdaughter from, you know, 2 to 12 or 2 to 13. And like in the beginning when we were starting Insider Perks, like we would travel full. Like I was in a Jeep full time.

We were traveling to different campgrounds and creating videos of them for KOA. In the beginning, this is like 2011 or 12, something like that. And, and that was one of the biggest experiences that was powerful.

Like we homeschooled her, but like going to the different campgrounds, we moved every four or five days and just meeting new people and new places and hearing new stories and playing with new kids and like, I don’t know that, that it’s hard for me when I look back at it as a parent. Right. Would I have done it again?

Probably because it’s a good experience, but also like she lost that consistency with the same friends during that period too. So it’s an interesting dynamic.

But I think it sounds like you guys have the best of both worlds doing what you’re doing, you know, consistency and the people who are visiting. So that’s definitely exciting. I’m curious, what’s your future plans for the, the park like as you look toward what may or may not happen in 2025?

You know, I think there’s a lot of uncertainty. Like nobody really knows what’s going to happen.

It could be good, could be bad, could be terrible, could be the same as last year, could be, who knows? But assuming everything goes as you planned, let’s just take the high road. What are your future plans for the park?

What are you excited to kind of keep building on?

Matt Torres

00:14:35.480 – 00:17:18.594

I think the direction we would like to go is bring in possibly more rental type units, maybe little cabins, little, little studio units, something like that. Uh, there’s I. We have three hotel rooms and those rent out pretty consistently. Um, you know, we brought in.

So we bought a 43 foot fifth wheel, a Jayco fifth wheel in, in 2021. Uh, and we parked it.

We actually had parked it in a space that was a space that was kind of tucked back in that was not a space that everybody would go to. Nobody would really want that space because we actually have our, our, one of our like storage shops over in the.

Tucked into the corner of the property. And so I was able to back this thing in along the side of that that didn’t obstruct anything, still had parking out in front of it.

And we were able to rent out the fifth wheel, like for 115 bucks a night. And it was consistently rented throughout our busy season.

It’s like, well, you know, this thing has been sitting at home and we spent 130 grand on this thing. It’s Taj Mahal for, for a trailer. And so like since we have an RV park, what are we going to go camping for? Why are we going to take it?

We want to promote this.

And so at first I was like, you know, this is a great idea to let people see what it’s like to actually experience camping in an RV fifth wheel camper. That way they can see the things that work for them or don’t work for them.

So I wanted to put more focus this year on giving that opportunity to people. Like, hey, we have this if you guys are thinking about buying one.

Because there’s a lot of tent campers who come out to our property and so, you know, we try to push it on them. Like, hey, if you guys want to rent this thing, we give it to you for 115 bucks. I mean it sleeps nine people.

It’s a two bedroom, plus it has a loft, full size bathroom, got a washer and dryer in it. And for, for the money they can, you can’t, you can’t rent anything for 115 bucks a night. That is decent. And this, it’s a really, really nice unit.

So I wouldn’t mind going in a direction of adding more rental type units to offer something aside from tenting, you know, especially at the coast because the weather can turn at the Washington coast and just to have that to where they can take their deposit or their, their, their plans and they could convert that from a tent to like, hey, you know, we also have these available so you don’t lose them and they have to rebook, but you can actually push them to still staying the, the.

Brian Searl

00:17:18.602 – 00:18:23.642

Upgrade path is interesting because that like, we know that that works. It’s been long in the industry, right?

The, the ability for people to you know, get a taste of what it’s like as an upgrade from especially tent camping into a nice rv. And then you know, obviously not everybody purchases, but there’s an interest, there’s a desire, there’s, oh, I’ve done that.

And then they talk about it with their friends and all that kind of stuff. I’m still waiting for the business that’s like all tent camping is an advertisement.

And then you could like go to your dealer and create like a commission affiliate link for the people to have like a coupon code or something and then you just upgrade everybody for free into the nice RVs and then you get like a huge cash commission when they buy It. I think that might be more lucrative than the extra $20 or whatever it is. The $50. Right. But the upgrade, I don’t know. But. Okay, thank you.

I want to get to and feel free you weren’t here in the beginning of the show.

I was telling Josef and Robert, as we talk to everybody else and tell their stories, if you guys have questions of them, please feel free to jump in. We want to have your perspective throughout the show. So let’s talk to Josef. You’re in that. Did I hear you say you’re in the Netherlands?

I don’t know why that’s not in. My notes, but no, 

Josef Hjelmaker

00:18:23.666 – 00:18:30.350

I’m actually in Michigan, in Detroit. Michigan. I am Swedish. I mean, that’s the accent that you’re hearing.

Brian Searl

00:18:31.570 – 00:18:34.090

At least I got the dialect right.

Josef Hjelmaker

00:18:34.210 – 00:22:15.770

Yeah, sort of. Right.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s European for sure. And I mean, first and foremost, I love what Karina and Matt are saying.

I mean, and I can relate to, with my three kids, multitasking and figuring out, you know, things you need to do when you’re watching random things happening with your kids, if it’s soccer or tennis or practice or whatever, it might be so good way of killing time and finding ways to do good business, if you will. But I also love the experience that they’re talking about. Right? I mean, Electric Outdoors. And thank you for putting a Jayco on your property.

I used to be at Thor Industries, so I had the pleasure of working with the Jayco team and Airstrip team and Keystone team, whatever the brands are called. We founded. I founded Electric Outdoors with that mission to help create new, unique experiences and try to do that in a different way.

It was rooted in a sustainability wave or technology wave, I should really say, within the RV space, where new ways of propelling the vehicles, so electrification or hybrid vehicles or whatever that might be, and what kind of vehicles that. To tow the RV product to where it’s going. Right. Maybe turning electric or being a hybrid. So it was rooted in technology.

It was rooted in the next generation of people and what kind of. The next generation of our population and what kind of experiences we think they want to have.

And yes, from a technology point of view, we were thinking about that digital experience quite a bit. How do you make that more seamless? You know, how do we integrate new and different business model.

But it was also rooted in how do we democratize the way people go, you know, more sustainably to the outdoors.

And one thing we found when I worked at Thor, have the pleasure of working with that amazing team Was that one thing that was preventing the RV industry from really skyrocketing in terms of sales?

I mean, it’s a fantastic business and they’re doing great, but the lack of, of places to go to and the difficulty of finding them, booking them, timing it right, if I want to go to that amazing spot, wherever it might be, I didn’t realize as the next generation that I needed to book nine months in advance. And who plans that far ahead? It’s Monday and I want to go somewhere on Friday. So we found it.

I founded Electric Outdoors with a great group of people building portable assets. It’s almost like the cabins that you’re talking about, Matt, to some extent, it’s a portable asset that you can drop in wherever.

You don’t really need any permitting because we’re not hooking up to any amenities. We’re creating energy, we’re storing energy, we’re generating water, we are incinerating waste.

We have a self sustained asset with a very strong digital backbone that helps with energy management and booking and maintenance and all of those things. You can sleep in the unit, you can cook in the unit, you can shut the doors of the unit if you want to.

If the weather kicks in in Washington or if the bear in Michigan is knocking on your door or whatever it might be, we have a shower, we have a toilet in there, like I said.

But the primary mission was to help unlock new land, new destination, so that people can go more and explore and really, yeah, do what they want to go, you know, do what they want to do when they get to the outdoors, if it’s biking or hiking or fishing or just hanging out, having a good time by, by the fireside.

Brian Searl

00:22:16.350 – 00:23:46.270

Well, and I will say, like, and this is probably going to be really controversial, might get me into trouble with maybe some of even our clients who watch this show.

But like, I remember when I was traveling the country, you know, as I talked about early in the days of Insider Perks, and we visited hundreds of RV parks and so many of them, not all, but so many of them were in the same locations, like obviously different cities, right. But the same kind of mindset, either near a highway or near, you know, just outside of a downtown area or near a lake or near a beautiful forest.

But as, as I traveled, and I know this is probably a unique experience to me and maybe the full time RVers who have been doing it for, you know, 10, 11, 12 years, but it would be almost the same, like once you got to so many states in so many places, unless you were going somewhere like the Grand Canyon or Yosemite or something, A lot of it is so much of the same thing that you’ve already seen. And for us, I think maybe that.

I’m not saying that hits home for every traveler, but for us, it was because we had our stepdaughter with us, and we were trying to, you know, go to all the kids museums and go to all the science centers and keep her entertained and keep her educated. And we’re like, all right, this is another science museum. It’s the same thing we just saw. It’s the same thing we just saw.

So how do we get that different experience when we’re going anywhere, staying anywhere, but especially at campgrounds. And obviously we have that outdoor experience. But. But having the ability to.

To take that and put that somewhere that’s not the same as every other camping experience. Does that make sense?

Josef Hjelmaker

00:23:46.430 – 00:25:05.530

Oh, 100%. I mean, it’s one of the core values with what we are building as well. Right. I mean, you don’t. You’re not depending on any particular infrastructure.

You can drop in our assets pretty much anywhere it’s towable. So you don’t really need a prepared road or something like that.

All you need is a flat piece of land, and you drop the unit in and boom, you unlock that land wherever it is. Right. In whatever scenario, in the mountains, by the lake, by the river, just outside the city, whatever you prefer.

So there are many ways of unlocking these kind of experiences, but we are just excited about doing it in sort of a renewable technology point of view and also, you know, having enough energy to support alternative ways of going to the outdoors as well. We have built it to prepare for even electric vehicles that want to go to the outdoors.

I know that’s controversial to some extent, but our platform is really all inclusive and are not excluding even the couple in Detroit or Chicago or Denver, whatever, that has their Tesla Rivian and want to go out, you know, two hours in the wild. But right now it’s. There’s no way of doing that. So we tried to include, you know, all of those experiences and new use cases as well.

Brian Searl

00:25:05.650 – 00:26:35.160

Yeah, I mean, and don’t, like, don’t worry about being controversial. Like, everything feels like it’s controversial these days.

But, like, I mean, and to be clear, like, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with RV parks as they’re currently constructed. And I think that there’s a.

There’s a larger conversation that we’ve had on the show over the last few years off and on about places like Hip Camp or Harvest Hosts or staying at wineries or in Walmart parking lots or wherever else. And I don’t think that actually takes away from.

Despite what owner, many owners think, I don’t think that takes away from the audience who wants to stay at a traditional RV park, because I think those are easy in, easy out. They have lots of really nice amenities like swimming pools and miniature golf courses.

And I’m sure Robert will tell us about what some of his parks has in a second. So, like, I think there’s.

There’s a place for like today, this weekend, I want to go to an RV park and I want to be close to a city or I want to be by this national park. And then next week I want to go be dropped in the middle of the wilderness and maybe drive there two hours from Chicago with my Tesla or whatever.

Right? So there’s all kinds of people.

And I think the more that we can expose them to the outdoors, the better it is for everybody because they have a different sample size and, and kind of life experience that they can share with everybody is the way at least I look at it. So, Josef, one more question for you. You talk a lot, you talk a lot about the, you know, eco friendliness of your units, right?

Like the sustainability.

Talk us through, like, some of the engineering of that without giving away any secrets, obviously, but like, it seems like all the things you talked about are not as easy to accomplish as it might roll off the tongue.

Josef Hjelmaker

00:26:35.660 – 00:28:26.290

No.

When you open up the guts of our products and see the, you know, the components and technology that is in there, it’s a lot of things that goes on, you know, and it starts with the heart of the unit, which is a connected platform, right.

It starts with that digital backbone, having the connectivity, knowing how to manage the software, and that’s for the product itself and all the components that is part of the product. Solar panels, batteries, chargers, you know, the electricity panels and the outlets, the toilets, you know, all of those things, right?

The water generator. But it’s also knowing where you’re at and what the weather is going to look like. So you can manage your.

The storage that you’re having, or let’s say the resources that you’re having and how the users are using the resources. But it’s also about capturing the customer, right?

So having an app that can help you find the unit, book the unit, go to the unit, operate the unit, turn on the lights, play some music, you know, check out how much energy I have, you know, stuff like that. Right. But also help. All right, what can I do around this unit? Is there a good hiking spot here?

Can I take my mountain bike or E bike or you know, whatever that might be?

So linking the customer and bringing them into that experience altogether, all of that is physically form fitted in a way that requires some smartness as well, right? In terms of the structure and making it sustain weather and wind and renewability and biodegradability and things like that.

So it’s an exciting product, it’s exciting experience to work on all together with lots of elements that requires smart people in many different categories.

Brian Searl

00:28:26.480 – 00:29:16.410

But also that thought that goes into it, right? I mean that’s the, that’s one of the most important things.

I mean, again, we hammer this home where we talk about experiences and experiential hospitality and how those things are going to almost be required in the future. It’s not enough anymore.

Like we have clients who email us and say like, can you post on Facebook about, you know, my pool is open for the season, are going to open in two weeks. I mean, yeah, I can, but like that’s not going to go viral for you.

Like you’re one of 250 pools within the 20 mile radius that include hotels and everything else. What’s unique about your pool? Tell me that. And there’s probably nothing, right?

Because the pool is a pool in most cases, unless you have a nice water park or something like that. But come up with a story, come up with something that makes you unique and different.

And to do that you have to put thought into the process like you’ve done, even to the extent of the app that you’re talking about, right? Think about. Sorry, go ahead, please.

Josef Hjelmaker

00:29:16.450 – 00:30:00.592

No, no, no. I just wanted to echo. I really love what you’re saying.

I mean, in the end it’s about creating memories, you know, creating experiences and finding a way to provide a service. How you do that.

And you talked about earlier, right, how we all are different, are seeking different experiences, we all have a place to play and nothing is wrong, nothing is right. You know, it’s all a good mix of things. But yeah, we really like to talk about what we are doing from that.

You know, people can come to our platform and they get wowed because it’s pretty cool, but then they forget about it because it’s all about the experience. It’s the memories that they’re creating when they’re out there to some extent.

So yeah, bringing those platforms to life that, yeah, have people have amazing experiences.

Brian Searl

00:30:00.736 – 00:31:41.936

But that thought to that thought process is something that I think that.

And I’m definitely not lumping all owners into a group or saying anybody specifically did this, but I think we, we’ve just come out of especially over Covid. But really since 2011ish we’ve been in a campground industry that hasn’t required you to do much to make people come. Right.

And that’s been a combination of the economy and interest rates. And also social media was a free place that you could just all of a sudden post on.

You know, it started earlier than 2011, but really started taking off for business. Pages 2011 12ish and so I think that thought process almost.

There are lots of good people in our industry who are doing it well, to be clear, but there are lots who haven’t just who could do it well, who probably just haven’t thought about how do I do it or where to start. And it doesn’t require that much, doesn’t require a multi million dollar water park.

It could just be warm cookies when you check in or a friendly smile or the employees walking around or driving around a golf cart waving to people, things like that.

But I think that thought process is really important to just put yourself for a second stop and put yourself into perspective in the shoes of the guest who’s actually staying in the cabin of the tent to the RV site, what would they want that. Yes, they maybe have everything that would already make their stay comfortable.

But what is one extra thing I could do like curate an app or give a list of local experiences or something like that that would really make them remember me and then maybe they come back or maybe they tell their friends about me. So let’s go to Robert. Robert, I want you to know I didn’t personally choose you to be last.

There was actually an email that was sent out where people could send me checks and bid on who went first and Matt and Karina sent the highest check. So that’s fair.

Robert Preston

00:31:42.008 – 00:31:42.768

That’s fair.

Brian Searl

00:31:42.904 – 00:31:48.956

Tell us about. Yeah, Robert, like we’ve seen you all over LinkedIn. You got a good partnership with Climb Capital.

I know, but tell us about what you guys have going on.

Robert Preston

00:31:49.108 – 00:32:31.650

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for having me on the show. And guess and I think I’ve already heard like common themes here.

And for us, the reason that we got into the RV industry really was, you know, I was owning and investing apartment complexes and mobile home parks and whatnot. And it just kind of wasn’t fun. You know, I became an RVer and found, you know, we had, they got a Bunch of little kids, right?

And the Korean Matt were talking about, you know, how they quickly, they make friends. And that was an eye opener for us.

Like every park we went to in like 10 minutes, you know, they had formed their little biker gangs and they run around and they’re, you know, we would spend three or four days.

Brian Searl

00:32:31.770 – 00:32:37.314

Good. Biker gangs, right. What was the show that was on the FX or whatever? Not those kind of biker gangs.

Robert Preston

00:32:37.362 – 00:33:32.556

No, not the type of bikers. More like, you know, bicycle pedals. So they’d run around and you’re having fun and having good times.

And we’d leave somewhere and like, oh, we’re going to really miss our friends. And I’d ask my one son. What was your friend’s name? I don’t know.

I never actually asked, but it doesn’t matter, right? Because they had a great time. And then I realized, you know, actually as adults, we. The same thing happened.

You know, inevitably you’re cooking a hot dog or having a hamburger or you’re going to share a beer or something’s broke with your rv and you’re asking your neighbor next door, you know, hey, can you help me fix something?

And so for us, it’s, I think it’s one of the last bastions of community, of a neighborhood feel that exists in a park or even, you know, better, worse. Right.

But at the end of the day, there’s. There’s probably a lot of people who live their life in a neighborhood, a subdivision, who don’t know who their, their neighbor’s name.

That’s four houses, you know, they’re gonna live 20 years.

Brian Searl

00:33:32.628 – 00:33:34.844

That’s me, by the way. Sorry, but go ahead.

Robert Preston

00:33:35.012 – 00:35:22.770

I think that’s a shame, you know, too much, Brian. But, but, but, yeah, so, so one of our fundamental bases that we built or are building our platform around is the idea of disconnecting to reconnect.

Right?

And so disconnecting from those things that pull us away from each other and reconnecting to primarily each other and then outside, which, which is what I would call God’s creation of reconnecting to, to nature and reconnecting to that, I think is, is good for the soul, period. Right? And, and putting down the iPads and putting down the phones and sitting around a campfire and cooking marshmallows and burning hot dogs, right?

That’s just, it’s just good for the soul. And so, you know, to your point, Brian, we were talking about, hey, you know, last probably two decades.

It doesn’t take much to be a good RV park, you Know, we, if we, if we’re honest, the level is mediocrity. If you can get to the mediocre, you know, medium level, you’re probably going to be successful.

And so I think that’s, you know, something that we’re trying to change. And so as a company, as an investment company or as a management company, we have a lot of faults and failures and things that we’re trying to do.

But in general, we’re just trying to elevate the entire industry as much as we can, you know, so whether we’re out there helping other owners and educating them or providing management services or providing investment vehicles, et cetera, right at the end of the day, like, I want every park to get better, and I want every component of the parks to get better, and I want there to be more Josef’s out there, more products that make more sense. And so, yeah, that’s my soapbox platform of kind of why we exist is to bring people back to connection each other. And then I think we can do that.

We can do that by just elevating the industry in general.

Brian Searl

00:35:23.550 – 00:36:02.988

I mean, I think I agree with everything you said. In my defense, I work a hundred hours a week and have for 15 years, so that’s probably the only reason. I don’t know my neighbors.

Also, I’m in Canada now, and it’s a foreign country, and I just moved here a few years ago. But anyway, like, I’m very curious. So let me ask you. Maybe, maybe it’s an easy question for you. Maybe it’ll be a hard question.

Having traveled, as I said, to so many different RV parks and seen them, and I’m sure you have, too, as you’ve done your due diligence and acquired many of your parks, what do you think gives a park that community feel? Because we can talk about the marshmallows and we can talk about the things you talked about, but not every park feels that way, does it?

Even if it’s designed to be that way.

Robert Preston

00:36:03.124 – 00:37:16.780

No, it doesn’t. And even, you know, even parks that have the water slides and park, you know, the lazy rivers sometimes don’t feel that way.

So I think it starts with the absolute basics of safe and clean, right? You have to have. Things have to be. You have to feel safe, and you have to feel clean. You have to feel secure for anything else to matter.

You know, it doesn’t matter if you have water slides and bounce houses. If you don’t feel safe and you don’t feel like things are clean. The experience is not there.

And then I think the third part is just pure friendliness. And so training a staff, big emphasis. Again, we’re absolutely not perfect, but big emphasis for us right now is hospitality.

But that hospitality starts internal to the team. We have to. The team itself has to feel valued, and we have to have hospitality and love towards each other as a team.

Then that will pour out into the guest. And so, you know, safe, clean, and friendly. Right. Safe, clean, and friendly is the base of foundation for anything else to work.

Your experiences, all the uniqueness, et cetera, are totally negated and thrown out the window if you don’t have those three things.

Brian Searl

00:37:17.610 – 00:37:33.630

Did you have to learn that? And I’m curious, because I did. Right. Like, I always knew that my team members should be valued.

I should take care of them, I should treat them with respect and dignity and have a good culture and work environment in addition, obviously, good pay. But did you have to learn that? Because I had to learn how to execute that over the years.

Robert Preston

00:37:34.410 – 00:38:22.566

Yeah. Not only do I have to learn, I’m still learning it, for sure. And it’s not, you know, I would say as an individual, you know, as a CEO, that’s not.

It is inherent part of who I am, you know, personally, like, I’m more of a strategy, numbers, basics, you know, fundamentals. And so one of the ways that we’ve solved that is as I’ve hired, you know, amazing team members, that is. That is their love and passion.

You know, our CEO comes from a hospitality realm, and, you know, like, he. He has to. He has to drive that function into our. The life of our business.

So, yeah, you know, identified a weakness in who I am as a person and then went out and find someone that has the opposite strength. And that’s how you build a team, in my opinion.

Brian Searl

00:38:22.758 – 00:40:09.796

Yeah, I did that with organization at my company. But you’re 100% right. Right.

Like, I mean, and it really resonates with me because it all goes back into the whole entire experience we’re trying to build.

Like, you just talked about, like, your team, but your team starts with your team members, because happier team members lead to better customer service, lead to more smiles on faces, lead to more waves in the park, lead to more. It’s all a circle. And. And so often we see people who. And I. And I hate.

I’m not trying to lump specific people into specific groups, but there are a lot of people in our industry who have been used to hiring work campers for so long that. Because they’re cheaper. Right. And we won’t get into a huge discussion about whether I’m for or against that. It doesn’t matter what my opinion is.

Right. But who or who are only willing to still. Today I still see job postings for 10, 11, $12 an hour.

And I used to tell my mom like seven or eight years ago, she’s on a subway like, mom, could you live on $12 an hour? This is like, I don’t know, 2012. She’s like, no, but like, but mom. Right.

So, so I, I think there’s, there’s definitely something like, I don’t know if you know. Do you know who Josh I think is? Weisenstein from Team Outsider Land Lease America. Yeah, I commented on one of his posts.

He was talking about actually AI phone call systems and how those impact both the customers and the team members.

And there was a discussion, we were just briefly going back and forth in the comments about how that actually can impact your team in a positive way because it can allow them to do things besides answer the same repetitive phone calls all day and then let them get out there and then that changes the culture and perception of their work. I don’t think it’s ever going to make them want to come to work. Right.

You know, but, but like, the more you can make it not a roll out of bed and I have to go to work, the better that is for everybody. Right?

Robert Preston

00:40:09.868 – 00:40:58.020

For sure. I think it goes in the recruiting side of it too. Like, that’s fundamentally, you know, you have to start with the right person.

Can, can training and can things happen? Yes, but if you’re starting from the wrong, wrong standpoint. And so we, we actually target and go after entrepreneurs, future park owners.

Like I, I want, I want, you know, I want our park manager. Hopefully someday they go buy their own park and become a competitor. Right. That, that is the desire that, that I have.

And in that process, then, you know, means that we’re recruiting a lot more character than we are recruiting over experience or resume. And that, that I think has been one of our keys of building a pretty great team thus far.

Brian Searl

00:40:58.720 – 00:41:14.300

I like that strategy. I will say I’m actually the opposite when I, when I go to hire on LinkedIn.

Like, if I see you’ve owned a business in the past, I don’t want to hire you because I’m worried that your focus won’t be completely on me if I treat you well. But like, I’m not saying it doesn’t work. It works. Right? But yeah.

Robert Preston

00:41:17.020 – 00:42:17.046

It does mean that you will have turnover for sure. But Given you guys know like every park is so uniquely different even if it’s the same area, if it’s the same model transit, etc.

But each park is, is just different. And so I can’t be at every one of them. So I, you know, either have a choice, own one and run it myself or own many.

And, and I have to empower those managers to run it like it was theirs.

And those people that we recruit with entrepreneurial spirit, they run it like it’s theirs and they make the best decisions they possibly can at that park. Of course there’s got guardrails and oversight and systems and things in place to help them.

But at the end of the day for a park to be successful is that that manager, that GM has to, has to have the approach as a, from an owner, from an owner’s perspective and attack problems in that way.

Matt Torres

00:42:17.198 – 00:42:24.450

Robert, did you, when you started and you got your first park, were you guys, were you running it yourself with your family?

Robert Preston

00:42:25.390 – 00:43:10.090

No. No. And the reason is that we had started managing properties in a different asset class prior to that.

And I would argue that the reason that we were able to buy our first park is that we had already started managing, you know, mobile home or apartment complexes beforehand.

Otherwise I probably would have never bought a park knowing that there’s not a, you know, at that time and even today there’s not a lot of third party management companies out there that offer a service to, to people like you. Right. And to, to me when I was buying it.

So it’s almost a necessity to, or used to be a necessity to manage yourself or to have a, you know, management company. And luckily we’d start, we’d already started down the management company route.

Brian Searl

00:43:11.550 – 00:43:15.410

So I’m curious. Go ahead please. Did you somebody have a follow up? Do you have a follow up?

Matt Torres

00:43:15.710 – 00:46:58.480

Oh, I, I was just thinking about our, our start you know when, when we got the place we closed June 17th and so we’re mid swing a season like start a season for us is basically what Memorial Day weekend and, and so that’s the kickoff. So we come in and it’s kind of kind of like on cruise control autopilot to see, get our under us and figure out what’s going on.

And, and I think we, I’d like to say quickly but it was slow to recognize that the person in place running the park, nobody.

So our location is probably going to be different to compare because the population of Tokland where our property is on Willapa Bay is 120 and the median age is 62 years old. And so you have to go to the outskirts to find people.

And most people that are hanging out at the coast that are younger than that, they’re there to avoid civilization. They don’t want to really be around people.

So the folks that we had that were taking care of the property and we’re sitting back kind of watching it, but we want to engage with the guests and be involved. It just is not the same experience offered.

And so when Karina and I got into RVing, the properties that we went to, that the owner was there, or maybe not the owner, but somebody who is a friend, a close person to the owner, or that had a great relationship with the owner, they cared a lot more about the customer experience. And so this person that we had, we realized we got to rip this band aid off and we’re going to have to suffer this.

And it just happened to be at a time where I lost my mom to liver cancer. And then the shift in the focus started to change. You got to get back to the center of what was important to us.

And you spend all these years focusing on make as much money as you can, be successful, raise good kids, give them opportunities to where we realized that when I lost my mom, it’s like, you know, what with all the money in the world, you can’t buy back time. And so we started traveling more in our RV and started to recognize how critically important time was and spending time with your family.

And so we wanted to take that, shift that and put that into our business focus of like offering an experience, offering the opportunity for folks to have a good time. And it starts from the moment that they pull into the park. Because I don’t know about you guys pulling an RV with a family, kids, dogs.

I want to be out of the house by 10:00. So that means that Karina’s got to have everything ready to go, packed in there, right?

Well, when we leave at one o’clock, I’m already pissed, I’m already mad. We’re three hours behind schedule. So by the time I get to the park, my kids are annoying, my wife is annoying me.

And so I recognize quickly I’m not different than any of these folks pulling into our park. So it started from the second they get there to realize what they’ve went through. Like, hey, man, you’re here. Take a breath.

Let’s get you through this. I’m going to help you back into your space. If you need me to help you back it, I’ll do it.

For you, but like, you’re, you’re moments away from drinking a beer. You know, you’re just, you’re moments away from settling in here. And I think that once, once we kind of shifted our focus.

We watched, we watched the income like it, it was a huge difference, a huge difference on what the income impact was for us with reservations.

Brian Searl

00:46:58.980 – 00:47:57.182

And it’s interesting, you can’t always quantify that with data, which I think is what stops some people, not all or even most, but some people from taking that path. As you. And we deal with this with marketing clients all the time. We work with 500 parks is. You can’t, you can’t.

You don’t have that data that says, well, what if I treat people just a little bit more kind? Will that actually translate to roi? And so I think that’s why some people are afraid to take that step down that path.

Not only do I not know how to do it or execute it all the time, I’m unsure. I have to learn. I have to try it out. Maybe it’s not my personality, but is it actually going to make me more money?

And I’m not saying that that’s the only motivation to the industry by any stretch of the imagination. We just talked to Robert, whose motivation is making kids happy and creating neighborhood atmospheres and stuff like that.

But I think maybe that’s a hesitancy that exists. Would you guys agree with that or no? Yeah, I mean, I mean, not just about kindness, but many things that can’t translate into necessarily.

Robert Preston

00:47:57.326 – 00:48:04.512

I think where the industry is right now is it’s, there’s, there’s maybe a push for this new resort style. Right, this.

Brian Searl

00:48:04.616 – 00:48:05.360

Yep.

Robert Preston

00:48:05.520 – 00:49:22.070

Which is there and it is, it’s awesome.

But I would argue that the market is kind of also the customer base is pushing back and saying, that’s great, but I’m not paying 170 a night for a site. Right. And so there’s, there’s, there’s this big middle that exists between poorly run, poorly operated, not friendly.

And then all your resorts with all the stuff that there’s, there’s missing the gap. Right.

I think that’s, that’s sort of what we’re all saying that we can fill and can fill and, and then there’s many opportunities in that, in that middle space to be more friendly to. You know, I just wrote down a little note here, like, what. What’s our initial? Wow.

You know, that’s when someone pulls in like Matt’s talking about, you know, what’s initial is it Is it as simple as putting a dog, dog, little dog run, pee relief right by the check in because the dog’s got to go to the bathroom and the kids got to go about. Everyone’s got to go to the bathroom when you pull in.

You know, as simple as putting that little tiny dog park right there and then having some waters and stuff, you know, to set it off. Because it’s stressful driving those things down the road and trying to get through traffic and all this stuff.

Brian Searl

00:49:22.490 – 00:49:30.210

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s understanding your guests. But I have one more question for you, Robert. I’m curious. You said you own 14 parks now. Is that the number right now?

Robert Preston

00:49:30.250 – 00:49:30.562

Yeah.

Brian Searl

00:49:30.626 – 00:49:33.570

Okay, so how many are you going to get to or you want to get to?

Robert Preston

00:49:33.690 – 00:49:36.018

Well, three. I have three under contract, so.

Brian Searl

00:49:36.074 – 00:49:56.260

Okay. All right, Good ambition if I want to take over the world too. So. So I’m curious, when you first owned your. Did you purchase one by itself?

In the beginning, yeah. Okay, so when you purchase that one, what was the moment where you were like, this is kind of cool. I think I want to do 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 300?

Robert Preston

00:49:56.560 – 00:52:21.730

Yeah. First one I purchased was beta test. Wasn’t really interested, wasn’t looking for them. A friend of mine sent it to me. It was on a Facebook ad.

I was like. And he said, well, if you can run mobile home park, you should be able to run this. I was like, eh, okay, so it was worth the test. And.

And so we bought that one. It was relatively cheap. You know, it was 36 sites, but we bought it for like 525,000, something like that.

And it was not far from the house, so something I can have eyes, eyes on. And so we did that. And then, then I became an RVer. I bought. I got out of the Marine Corps, bought a motorhome and went on the road.

And then it started to start to click.

And on the road I talked to an owner at one of the parks we were staying at in Kentucky and ended up buying that part from her because she wanted to sell. And you know, she fit that typical demographic of someone who built it and lived there for the next last 20 years.

I was older and, you know, was ready for retirement. So I bought that one and then came, came back home. This is all in the same year.

Came back home for like a, you know, a two month on the road RB trip, fell in love with as a customer, saw the opportunity, saw the demographic there. And then another opportunity was presented to me.

Almost the exact same scenario, same, same type of owner, same type of property, same type of returns. Like so I think that’s when it finally clicked of this is a business that is, can be, can be and should be very profitable, which is awesome.

But it’s also business I can do with my family. It’s a two for one. Like you know, Korean Matt, love seeing the kid, you know, on the, on the show. Right. That, that is why I like this business.

I can pack up my family, go to a park, they think they’re on vacation and I’m working. And so it’s a two for one. That’s when it kind of, it all clicked.

Like I’m never going to, you know, go hang out in an apartment complex with my family. Not there’s wrong, but that’s just not a vacation. So. But we can go shopping for parks or we can go visit parks.

We do all this stuff, we can go develop and build parks and that can be part of the day to day life for me. And so yeah, that was, I think where the epiphany came in.

So that was three at that point and in a year and then we decided to really pivot and shift our focus from an investment perspective away from apartments and into the RV space.

Brian Searl

00:52:22.380 – 00:52:47.320

So how do you know? Last question I have and then I think we’ll run. Almost running out of time is a good conversation for you. You’re at 14 now.

How do you decide when you’re ready for 15?

And what I mean by that, is it, is it just a, is it just a I found a good deal or is it a I have the 14th park I acquired running well and it’s that community, neighborhood feel. Now I’m ready to do it again or something else.

Robert Preston

00:52:48.790 – 00:54:04.290

Truthfully answered, I’m probably more on the good deal side. You know, that’s, that’s, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s my forte is finding deals and putting them together, but in with constraints.

So knowing, knowing that it takes, you know, it takes a big team to run multiple properties well. So there’s a point where you have to grow to have a corporate, corporate staff. Right. A marketing officer and an operating officer.

So there’s, there’s a tipping point there where you have to grow to have those people or you can’t. And so that’s where we’re at. Like we’re at, we’re at a point where we have the team, we have the staff, we have the training, we have the processes.

And now we, you know, we have to continue to grow for a little bit.

More to be able to be support that and sustain it, but within the restraint of being in geography, you know, geographical of where the other parks are. So they still continue to mix. When we buy a new park, it should make the other parks more efficient.

If we’re buying a new park and it makes the team and the other parks less efficient, then we’re out of our growth path.

Brian Searl

00:54:05.430 – 00:54:08.900

Karina and Matt, are you still thinking about owning a second park one day?

Karina Torres

00:54:09.920 – 00:55:08.468

Yeah, I think actually, you know, Robert, just hearing you talk about you and your family and how that, you know, how you’re able to incorporate that, that’s like exactly our vision and what we’ve always talked about, because our biggest thing is just our family. You know, obviously we need money to survive on this, on this earth. And so how can we incorporate the two without taking away time from our kids?

And, you know, we both are. Our foundation is, you know, faith based.

Our foundation is also valuing our time with our children and not just putting them in daycare for other people to raise them. We want to be the sole people to raise our own children. And so just the combo of the two.

And so we definitely want to expand our portfolio and continue buying more properties.

Matt Torres

00:55:08.564 – 00:57:04.760

Yeah, and I think what the goal was when we started is to the park was run down. When you’re. When you’re on the coast, like, you get. You get a lot of that saltwater air that rusts and just destroys stuff.

And so we realized after the first year, when you pay somebody a wage to be there and you give them a space, like, it actually costs you a good amount of money that you could be generating for the business. So instead of hiring somebody to do it, we’ve decided to go the route to do it ourselves.

Save that money, Put that money that we would have been spending on somebody and the money that would be losing, put it right back into the park so we can get everything up to where it needs to be. And so we put together, we said, hey, let’s do three to five years of this. Put all the money back in, get all.

Because it’s been a money grab for previous owners. They take the money, they just take everything out of it. Never put anything back in. Squeeze all the juice, and then they get rid of it.

Because now they’re starting to go down in revenue.

So we want to take all the revenue we are making, put it all right back in the park, show the folks where their money is actually going so they have lots more years available to come to this place.

And then once we get to that point and we know that we’ve got it where it needs to be, then we can take that money, hire somebody that is going to feel the same way about it as we are. And there’s a lot of folks who actually travel to the park who are looking to retire, who love it there.

Those are the first people that I think of being so close to the business. I want to talk to those people. I want to approach those folks about, hey, how’d you like to actually live here and run the park? You love the place.

Like, would you like to do this for your retirement? And then it’s somebody who cares just as much about the place as we do and then we can go to the next opportunity.

That’s kind of the way that I see our future of this going.

Brian Searl

00:57:05.380 – 00:57:09.840

All right, so you guys are on the west coast. Robert, I should know this, but where are most of your parks located?

Robert Preston

00:57:11.380 – 00:57:14.028

Primarily southeast.

Brian Searl

00:57:14.204 – 00:57:24.350

Okay, so that’s perfect. So, Robert, you take the eastern half of the United States. Karina and Matt will take the western half.

And you, you guys will all buy cabins from Josef. Yeah, we’re fine.

Josef Hjelmaker

00:57:25.570 – 00:57:26.830

Sounds wonderful.

Brian Searl

00:57:27.250 – 00:57:29.882

You got this all figured out. See, it only took an hour.

Robert Preston

00:57:30.066 – 00:57:31.546

There you go. Thanks, Brian.

Brian Searl

00:57:31.658 – 00:57:40.986

But yeah, thank you guys for joining us. So we’re going to wrap up the show briefly, but I want to hear like, Robert, where can they find out more, more about your businesses?

If you want to cite multiple, feel free.

Robert Preston

00:57:41.138 – 00:57:59.134

Yeah, sure. The investment side is climbcapital.com and then the property management consulting kind of business component is unhitched mgmt.

So management abbreviated unhitchedmgmt.com and of course LinkedIn and all the other normal places.

Brian Searl

00:57:59.262 – 00:58:09.130

Yeah, we’ll have to have you back on the show. I’m sorry we didn’t get to your management company, although I felt like we had a great conversation though. That’s pretty good.

Karina and Matt, where can they learn more about your RV park?

Karina Torres

00:58:10.150 – 00:58:40.350

We’re on Instagram and Facebook. Bayshore RV park and guest suites. Tokeland Washington.

People can also find us on LinkedIn like our personal accounts or just at our personal Facebook accounts. We’re actually friends with a bunch of our own guests. Our big motto is just, you know, come as guests, leave as friends.

So yeah, we, we love to stay in touch with everybody.

Brian Searl

00:58:40.930 – 00:58:43.602

Awesome. And Josef, where can they learn more about your cabins?

Josef Hjelmaker

00:58:43.786 – 00:58:59.710

Yeah, pretty much same as the other ones, but electricoutdoors.tech or LinkedIn. Also on Instagram and Facebook, but primarily through the tech platforms. Right now, our website or LinkedIn that’s the stage we are in.

Brian Searl

00:59:00.010 – 01:00:13.990

Awesome. Well, thank you guys for being here.

There’s one quick thing I want to say is, and I told you guys at the beginning, I think I said I was going to talk about this in the beginning. And then we got into so many good conversations, I was just like, well, this isn’t important. We’ll save it to the end.

But I am launching a new podcast starting next week. So we’re going to keep doing this podcast, but we have another one that we’re going to launch.

It’s going to be called Outwired and it’s going to be with three co hosts. We’re not actually going to have guests on it.

It’s going to be myself, Greg Emmert from Camp Strategy, and Scott Bahr from Cairn Consulting Group, who’s been doing the KOA North American reports for, I don’t know, 20, 30 years, however long they’ve been doing them, and does our modern campground research reports.

And so we’re just going to have fun and we’re going to do like a, like an unfiltered assessment of data and AI and tech and all the things that I think there’s a need for a conversation to have in this industry that will prepare owners for the future, but also in a way that is not advertised or toned down or PR spend or we may cuss once in a while. We may drink whiskey.

I don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’re going to have fun and we’re going to tell our version of the truth and hopefully it will be valuable to people. So exciting just starting that next week. So. But thank you guys for joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats.

Really appreciate it as always. And we’ll see you guys next week for another episode. Thanks.

Robert Preston

01:00:15.050 – 01:00:15.990

Bye. Bye.