MC Fireside Chats – May 15th, 2024

This is MC Fireside Chats. A weekly show featuring conversations with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and outdoor hospitality experts who share their insights to help your business succeed. Hosted by Brian Searl, the founder and CEO of Insider Perks. Empowered by insights from Modern Campground, the most innovative news source in the industry.

Scott Knepp: Hey, everybody, and [00:01:00] welcome to MC Fireside Chats. My name is Scott Knepp, and I am your guest host this week, filling in for Brian Searl, who is doing all types of fun things. And Brian, I am so proud of you for taking that vacation. And we are going to enjoy bragging about you and talking smack on you for the next 59 minutes.

Wonderful. All right. I am joined by some Very esteemed colleagues in the RV space. I want to welcome somebody that every time I talk with him, I say, gosh we’re becoming faster and faster friends. Greg Emmert, Senior Strategist at Camp Strategy. How are you today, Greg? 

Greg Emmert: I’m well, Scott. Thanks for thanks for having me on.

You, I might say that you are the you’re probably the smartest and best looking version of Brian that we have had so far. So it’s. Yeah, in a lot of ways, it’s good. Brian, for taking that vacation to double down on what Scott said. So it’s good to be here, man. I’m looking forward to the conversation with these two two entrepreneurs we got with us today.

Scott Knepp: As am I, as am I. So no further ado then, let’s welcome Mr. Jon Adams. Hey, Jon, how are you, [00:02:00] sir? 

Jon Adams: Hey, good. How are you? 

Scott Knepp: I’m great. So John is joining us owner at the Sandusky Milan RV Park. We’re going to learn a lot about that in today’s episode. And we are also with Steven Kramer who has who’s managed a campground, but also somehow in managing a campground, found the free time to start up his own business and start up campground support.

Hey, Steven, thanks for joining us. 

Steven Kramer: Thank you for having me. 

Scott Knepp: Oh, it’s my pleasure. My pleasure. Brian is one of the esteemed voices in the industry and has become a friend of mine over our years in working together. And one of the things that Brian has done for me is that Brian has helped me rethink Technology and how we utilize it as a resource in our campgrounds.

And a lot of our conversations started way over here and ended up talking about AI or applications or some neat things that you can do with it. So I want to start off with just a [00:03:00] rapid fire question to get the conversation started. And say, what are some applications that you use on your mobile device that has helped you personally or professionally, particularly in the campground environment?

Greg, I’m going to start off with you. Is there anything, any application that you have gotten excited about? You think that. Our audience that might be running campgrounds would benefit from. 

Greg Emmert: There’s actually there’s two, and one one is totally selfish on my part, and the other one is a byproduct of something that I like to do.

I’m an avid hunter, and I use the OnX app, and I don’t know if you guys know about that. But it, if it helps me to see parcels of land boundaries and also property owners names. And, I used it for years for hunting. If we were on, a grouse hunt in Michigan and you’re on state land, but you want to make sure you’re not getting onto private land, it’s great for that.

But It’s also great when I’m visiting a new property and I don’t, I don’t have [00:04:00] anything on my phone or I’m not savvy enough to know that I just go to this site and I can find out who owns that land or this land. OnX actually lets me do that. I can see not only the boundary, but the size of the parcel and find out who owns it right from that.

That was something I just happened to stumble onto when I was on a client’s property. I thought God, wait a minute. I never thought about that. And that was an off label use for that. And the other one is as Scott, I’m a huge birder and I, the Merlin Bird ID app is so cool.

It uses AI to, you, you turn it on your phone, you hold it out and whatever that thing hears. It’s going to tell you, it’s going to identify using AI. It’s going to identify the birds around you by song. So if you hear a bird song, I wonder what that is. You click on Merlin, you turn on the sound ID and you let it play.

And I’ve actually got my partner, Jeff Hoffman, and I have a client in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and they’ve got a, they’ve got a glamping resort that they’ve been building now for a couple, three years. They are actually going [00:05:00] to set up an outside mic. and plumb it into a a tablet, leave it outside in a weatherproof kiosk, and let guests come up and sit on this deck.

They’ve got a little coffee area where the decks, they can sit around and they can watch the tablet and see what is singing around them. So it’s a really cool use of Merlin, which I use to double check my own I know a lot of bird calls, but sometimes I get stumped. I use that to double check me.

They’re going to use it as actually an amenity for their guests. And I think that’s a, it’s a fantastic way of engaging your guests because so many of them are out there for that natural side anyway, right? To escape to nature. I think it’s an awesome way to engage them and connect them to your property because certainly people remember where they first saw or heard something.

And that’s connection is key, right? That’s going to drive return business and guest satisfaction. So those are mine. Those are mine. How about you guys? 

Scott Knepp: I love it. Now on X, how how do you, how would I search for that? How does, how’s that spelled? 

Greg Emmert: It’s [00:06:00] literally on like the word on the letter X hunt.

On X Hunt and the Play Store or Apple. Yeah, and it’s it’s a really cool app and even you can even use it hiking, right? If you’re I use all trails sometimes for hiking. All trails is user generated data. So if you get off that trail following somebody’s dotted line. You could be following them into a trespassing situation because they don’t necessarily know where they’re going, maybe, right?

Whereas Onyx is using verified data to show you parcels of land and who owns it. So you can even use it for like backcountry camping Hunting, all of that. And it works very well. You don’t need cell service. You just need your GPS location working. And yeah it has a lot of different uses now that I’ve used it for that.

My brain’s geez, I could also use it for this, for that. It’s a really useful app. It’s very nice addition if you’re an outdoorsman. 

Scott Knepp: Totally, and I’m so glad that you told me about it. Let me ask, let me throw a situation at you and see if it would be useful because I think there’s a lot of campground owners, [00:07:00] developers, managers that are that do this.

But, I was on a site visit and we were having 1 of those. It was actually at a Florida property where. There was some storm damage. We were rebuilding the fence and the property owner that came that was next door said, Whoa, we, this, my line, your line my territory, your territory. Is that would that application help to identify exactly where the property line is?

Greg Emmert: It would. It’s still going to be only as accurate as your GPS. So depending on where you’re at, how strong your signal is, it might get you down to 5 feet or 10 feet. In other cases, it might be as much as 30 feet. But you’re going to have a general idea. You never want to base a study off of it, right?

But it would give you a general idea. Yeah. Yeah, 

Scott Knepp: I think that’s so awesome because there are those countless times that you need a reference point or who do we reach out to make them aware of this project we want to do. Great. 

Greg Emmert: Absolutely, man. 

Scott Knepp: Really cool about Merlin, too. I we have I work with Ivy Management Group.

I guess I should have said that at the top of [00:08:00] the show. We have a portfolio of 18 campgrounds that we manage. And I put out on our channel to all of our managers the other day saying, Hey, check out Merlin. It’s a really cool. People love to be engaged in their, in the natural world, right? They love to learn.

And and I actually got an email back from a. from a park manager who said we have a bald eagle in our park, and I’m so glad you brought attention to this because I brought, I went out to the spot where we normally see the bald eagle because I was going to put a bench there and put a sign out to say to look out for the bald eagle, and I turned on the audio and noticed so many other bird calls, and so they’re going to make a whole sitting area and put on little placards with all the birds that we typically get.

We’re hearing more and more cool application, I think for bringing awareness and engagement in a. And I think a way that our guests are looking to be engaged. 

Greg Emmert: Absolutely. That is awesome. That is awesome. I’m glad you, yeah, I’m glad you shared that. Not enough parks dip into it. It’s a 90 plus billion [00:09:00] dollar industry in the United States.

Conservation travel. People spend a ton of money traveling to do this stuff. So advertise it, throw that stuff out there. You never know who else you’re going to hook. If you could get a one one hundredth of 1 percent of 90 billion added to your bottom line, it You’re doing pretty well, 

Scott Knepp: put, Greg.

Put, Greg. Now, Steven, do you have a market that can give us a percentage of a market that big? Steven, what’s an application that you maybe have gotten some benefit from in your world? 

Steven Kramer: I’m going to second on X. It’s funny that you brought that up. It’s such a useful tool for so many things, but it’s very cheap and it’s the most efficient way to figure out who owns a parcel without having to go to the county website.

It’s super efficient, but I’m going to go with ClickUp and it, ClickUp is an productivity app that is basically like a beefed up reminders on your iPhone and you can utilize it at your parks for Weekly checklists, monthly checklists. [00:10:00] You can organize knowledge centers in there for like handbooks and onboarding.

There’s so much you can do with the program. And I used Reminders prior to that a lot, and you can actually, talk into Siri and say, Hey, can you please remind me to do this in ClickUp? And so everything’s all in one place now, instead of having to jump through different apps. ClickUp is a very cool app.

Greg Emmert: That’s awesome. 

Scott Knepp: Thank you, Steven. 

Greg Emmert: We’re all taking notes at this point. Everybody’s looking down like, Oh, I gotta write this down. That’s a good one, Steven. 

Steven Kramer: Helps me not forget stuff. Cause as I get older, I’m starting to, my memory is questionable. 

Scott Knepp: And Siri helps with that. It’s nice just to have it, but the Siri integration, how many times I’ve been in the middle of something and if I could not say in that moment, Hey Siri, help me remember this thing, then I would have forgotten.

Greg Emmert: Yep. 

Scott Knepp: Sorry, Siri is now talking to me. All right. Hey, do you have any any [00:11:00] applications you’d recommend for us? 

Jon Adams: I will recommend a pretty popular system that’s been around, but a lot of people don’t seem to know what it is, but it’s Meraki Go app from Cisco Systems. If you self manage your wifi, it’s one of the most complained.

Things about in my park is that the Wi Fi is down, I can immediately see if it’s a problem on my side and 99 percent of the time I can prove to a customer that it’s actually user error, something as simple as entering a wrong password to the Wi Fi. And when I can prove that to the customer that, that disagreement ends right then and there.

With that app, I can even speed test everything in front of them to show them that it, it’s either their piece of equipment. Basically it’s very similar to our electric problems. When somebody has something wrong in their camp or they immediately. Blame the park.

Every RV park owner has gone through that. I’m sure multiple times every year, probably [00:12:00] every week, like I do until we bring a multimeter out there. The great thing about that is electricity that doesn’t lie. The Cisco the Meraki Go app by Cisco we only install Cisco Systems products.

We have a high speed fiber line that we installed on our campground it was very expensive. We have some of the fastest Wi Fi available in any campground around. I think at the curb we have 100 megabytes per second coming in or 1, 000, I’m sorry, 1, 000. We’re trying to get it to 5, 000, but I don’t think Buckeye offers that yet.

Yeah, I would say Cisco, the Meraki Go app for self managed Wi Fi. 

Scott Knepp: Yeah, thank you. That is a, that’s a great suggestion too. It is always nice having a resource that can provide that clarity. And yeah John, if you don’t mind, while we’re at it, I think we’d all love to hear more about Sandusky Milan RV Park.

Jon Adams: Oh, God, where do I start? Okay. All I bought this park [00:13:00] in the middle of the COVID outbreak. When was that? The beginning of 2020, right? Yeah, that’s when I closed on the park. It was a real dog of a park or investment terms. I guess you would call it a value add. There was a lot wrong with it.

The thing that I did like about it is that the infrastructure was there, obviously the licensing and all that came with it. But it had really nice bathrooms. Which is, believe it or not, what a lot of my repeat customers. tell me and that’s why they come back. There are parks that are beautiful.

We have state parks right down the street and I have people that have wives that refuse to go there because their bathrooms are disgusting. So that, that’s where I started before we started doing fixing deferred maintenance and CAP, CAPEX projects and value add. Items, we focused on that clean bathrooms, clean park simple and clean.

And then we [00:14:00] catered to overnighters and then over time, we got a lot of repeat business. We took all the money, most of the money and added it back in. The place looks completely different than it did from the day we bought it. We actually just finished we just repaved the whole park that ended three weeks ago.

The park looks brand new. It’s great. We’ve done some additions. We’ve added about 39 more full hookup sites in the back of the park. Been quite the adventure. I come from a real estate background. We used to manage Airbnbs in Tennessee. We sold them, got into the RV industry because I like the location of this park. Did not realize how management intensive it would be. Which is okay now. Now that we have a lot of our projects completed it’s a lot easier. Now we have staff that we trust. It was quite the learning curve. I’m sure that learning curve has cost us a lot of money, but we’re at the point where we’ve got everything streamlined.

There’s a couple little things here and there, but we’ve remodeled basically the entire park. It’s a great [00:15:00] place to visit, whether you do overnight, seasonal, monthly, weekly. We offer a little bit for everything, for everyone. We have parks, we got Cedar Point on the street, we got the Norwalk Dragstrip down the street.

We do overnighters, we’re exactly where I 80 and I 90 merge, so we have a lot of overnight traffic. Our crowds are very interesting and different every weekend for different events. Whether it’s a drag race, a big event at Cedar Point, a big event at Kalahari Bike Week. We get Bike Week. A very diverse crowd every week.

Different crowd every weekend. Very diverse. 

Scott Knepp: That’s what how nice that you got to come in and actually bring a vision to life, and that you got to address so many issues. One of the questions that jumps out off the page at me is, One of the parks that I manage right now has same park.

We realized that a lift station is running out. We were on our last leg with it, probably have about $160,000 [00:16:00] investment to make with that. The electric is, the part, probably large sections of it haven’t been done since the 70s, not in conduit. A section will go out, it’ll take out 30 sites. To address all that’s probably another 175.

We just redid the pool for, 50. Redid the hot tub. All I mentioned this for is, next is repatch and repave the roads. And when you start getting too many projects that are, that’s so CAPEX intensive, you It can make you freeze, it can make you go, gosh what do I give the priority to?

What needs attention the most? It sounds like you were able to move through a lot of projects at your park. How did you determine, how did you determine the priority and the approach and the order to address them in? 

Jon Adams: So the priority was obviously when we purchased the park to get everything that was existing and working properly, we were very lucky with that.

I think. When we did some electric, we [00:17:00] had to redo about 20 sites, which was expensive. But how do I come about that? It’s I’m a very seasonal, I’m a seasonal park. We close in the winter. So we put pen to paper, we closed November 1st. So on November 2nd we’re, pen goes to paper and we start analyzing exactly what project we want to take care of because Northern Ohio winters don’t allow for paving, in the middle of December, January.

So it is a very, you have to time this perfectly. 

So like for instance, last year, The remodel on the inside, that is something that we could do in the winter. So when we have that set aside on our budget, that’s what we use that money for. So we re remodeled the store, the game room, the laundry room.

These are things that can be done in the winter. And then you just gotta, you gotta figure out whether or not you want to put that money in your pocket, or if you want to put it back in and hope for the future, in our case, we had some competition, they’re building a mega.

luxury [00:18:00] RV resort down the street from us. So for me to compete, I needed to do an expansion fix a lot of different things to bring more income in and keep my price point low to compete with them. 

Scott Knepp: Now, one thing that you said that I just really appreciate, actually want to call attention to too, is I appreciate the simplicity of the mindset that you’ve brought forward, because I think lots of times it’s really easy to overcomplicate things.

It’s a strength that I have. My superpower is overcomplicating things. But I’ll say that just boiling it down to acknowledging that. Most comments are regarding the restroom. And if you can, if, just making it that simple. And I appreciate what you said about making sure that what you have is in good working order, and I can’t tell you the number of times that.

That I think concept out there is, okay let’s just distract people with enough amenities or side items [00:19:00] that they don’t give the attention to the core infrastructure of the park that, that really needs to be addressed. I applaud you and just, seemingly, at least at this conversational level, keeping it simple and addressing, making sure what should work, works.

Jon Adams: Yeah, and that goes back to the simple that was McDonald’s philosophy back in the day. Just keep the bathrooms clean. And like I said, our state parks in Ohio are incredible. They’re incredible, but their bathrooms aren’t. And when your bathrooms aren’t, the wives don’t want to go.

If the wives don’t go, no one’s going, right? And if you’re a family, if you’re geared towards a family park, like I am if your restrooms aren’t clean it’s just not going to happen. I know. I was, I know from my family that even stays with me, a lot of the, a lot of the wives won’t even let the husbands use the bathrooms.

Heck, a lot of these people have full hookups and they don’t, none of them use the bathrooms. They want, they don’t want the stink or whatever it is in their trailer, right? It’s, or the [00:20:00] RV, it’s. Yeah, 

Scott Knepp: Greg, I think you do a lot. You do a lot of consulting work, helping owners get their feet on the off the ground, do a lot of planning and things of that nature.

I, 1 of the things that I’ve heard in that early in the process is I’ve heard the question, do I need to have. If these folks have bathrooms in their rig, do I really need to make that a core thing of my business and do I need to allocate that footprint and the money for it?

And and I, the resounding answer I think is yes, right? Because what, one of the things that we know, just from being in the business is that people don’t always like bathrooms. showering and getting ready in their rig because you’ve got tanks that hold five gallons of water or, you, that makes for a really short or cold shower.

So yeah. 

Greg Emmert: It sure does. It sure does. 

Scott Knepp: Greg, do you have any insights or things that you’ve seen as you’re helping folks have these conversations and what you give attention to? 

Greg Emmert: Yeah. It’s funny to your point, and I was thinking this as John [00:21:00] was saying it, so you did an excellent job of throwing that to me with that.

I appreciate it. Is Even in my experience, so for 26 years before I got into consulting, I owned and operated a 240 site KOA in Northeast Ohio. And we always had an NPS score of mid seventies to mid eighties. And I always say that has nothing to do with the conversation, but I love to pat myself on the back for that because that’s a really good NPS score.

But we what we found is that. Is that exactly like John, right? And this is, that is no secret in the industry, right? If you want. It’s odd, when somebody goes to a hotel, they might go look at the pool, the fitness center, the lobby. When somebody goes to a campground to check it out, first place they go is your bathrooms.

First place they go, because it speaks to how everything else in that park is. And it also tells them what the bathrooms are like, because they’re going to use them all weekend long. Because I had, and this was really strange, my experience, not just at my park, but at clients parks as well, if a 30 [00:22:00] foot travel trailer comes in with a family in it, some of them might use the bathrooms.

If a Prevo comes in, and there’s a couple inside that thing’s got a bathroom way nicer than anything I provided. They were never in there, but they were walking. I don’t care if it was 200 yards to my restrooms. They were the ones you typically the larger, more expensive units and coaches are the ones using the restrooms even more.

To your point, we have gotten into conversations with people. We’re building a park or we have a small park. We don’t have a bath house. We don’t want to furnish one because we’ve got it. Then it’s going to be water usage and we’ve got to keep it up. And do you think it’ll hurt us? If you’re listening out there, people, yes, it will absolutely hurt you.

If you’re going for the high end business and you think that they’ll stay in their unit and you, they won’t, they’re going to want your bathrooms and they’re going to want them to be really well appointed, spacious, comfortable, and above all else. Exceptionally clean. So yes, 100 percent that investment is worth it.

100%. Perfect. [00:23:00] Greg. 

Scott Knepp: Appreciate that. Steven, I’d love to to turn it over to you and hear a little bit about your, the campground that you’ve managed, but also primarily about campground support. 

Steven Kramer: Yeah. So on that bathroom topic really quick at the park we manage it is super important.

If you’re not already reviewing your reviews, operators should be doing that daily, but that is the most common thing that people comment about is the bathroom, so I agree with all that. But my company is called Campground Support and originally it was my thought was, coming from managing a campground is, I would say, arguably, the most challenging thing other than project management with managing an RV park is the employees.

And because of the seasonal nature, whether you’re open year round or you close at some point during the year. The, you still have a seasonal [00:24:00] nature where you have to hire people and terminate and train and, take risks with, possibly hiring someone from across the United States that are traveling and it may not work out, and you don’t, you may not know that until after they, they get started.

This idea was originally a solution in lieu of hiring people, but I’m, we’re starting to see that there are more needs with. My call center now, and basically the way it works is a call will come into the campground and most of them have it set up where if the call is missed after a certain set of rings, it rings to us and that helps capture reservations that could be missed because we all know in this day and age that people, they get impatient anymore.

And they don’t want to wait for a call back and a lot of people, you can, call back a voicemail and they haven’t booked yet, but some have already, and that could mean if that was a group reservation. We’re talking a few thousand dollars [00:25:00] potentially. So that was the original idea was to help capture those.

Possibly missed reservations and provide a solution for people that are just tired of going through the cycle of hiring and terminating and training. It’s been fun. We started in December and we have 6 parks now and the 1st couple of months. We’re just trying to work out the kinks and now we’ve got it figured out.

We’ve got a good system and we’re ready for growth. And it’s pretty interesting to see what needs we are filling because there’s a 380 space park in Michigan that has us handling all the calls. And we’ve got a mom and pop owned in Kansas and they they just, Hey, I’ve been answering the phones for 25 years and I’m, I don’t want to do it anymore.

So they still answer the phone, but there are times he’s I’m going to take the weekend off. He said, I’m, I answered the phone, I’m on a boat, I’m at the grocery store and I need some help. So that’s been a lot of fun. 

Scott Knepp: How very cool. So how old is [00:26:00] campground support. 

Steven Kramer: We launched in December.

Scott Knepp: So congratulations. Yeah, five months and already up to six properties. That’s great. 

Steven Kramer: Yeah, we have a few more. Yeah, it’s been fun. 

Scott Knepp: Obviously the space is getting more and more. Filled with that AI conversation, and I don’t think I’ve been to a conference in the past 2 years where I haven’t heard about how technology is going to help me reduce my staffing.

I didn’t hear you say AI. It sounds like these are real reservationists. 

Steven Kramer: They are and they are located in the United States. 

Scott Knepp: Okay, another great selling point. 

Steven Kramer: So it’s Sad to see a lot of the large companies anymore huge companies and they all outsource their call centers and it’s frustrating.

And we didn’t want that. 

Scott Knepp: Yeah, I think that’s really cool. I think that you have found a niche by being somebody that is focused on real people in a real office here in the United States. So I think that is a really cool [00:27:00] niche of the market that you have. Another question, obviously, is we’re all on different property management systems, right?

John, what is your park on? 

Steven Kramer: We’re just using Camp Spot at the moment. 

Scott Knepp: Yeah, and Greg, are you guys also Camp Spot or a different system? 

Greg Emmert: We’re, I don’t have my park anymore. My partner Jeff has his KOA, so he’s on K2. But we do, we have clients all across this Staylist, Camp Spot, Camp Life, Firefly.

Yeah, you. To, to your point, boy, there are gobs of ’em anymore, aren’t there? There’s a bunch. There are. 

Scott Knepp: There are. And they’re all great, right? They’re all great. They’re getting, they’re all getting better every day. I continue to be impressed with all of our partners. And we’ve had a good many partners and I do have to give a shout out to new book that’s been our current partner that we’ve, that we’re moving all our parts to.

But I really. Every single property management system out there, every time I do a demo, everybody’s getting better. And it’s, truly all ships are rising. Steven, do you guys work with all different property management systems or is there like one that you need [00:28:00] your the parks to be on to be able to be of use?

Steven Kramer: We have parks with Camp Life and Camp Spot, and we are open to learn new software. You just have to be a little patient with us. But, yeah, we’re open for that. We’re working with a park that has ResNexus. We’re getting signed on with them. Yeah, we’ve got the staff that actually handles the phone calls.

They’re very tech savvy and, they’re very quick learners and, the functions of renting space are maybe different in each interface, but yeah, The concept of the rental is all the same, what’s your rig length and do you have slide outs and the same questions that you, that have to be asked.

Scott Knepp: Yeah. All right. That’s really cool. And to get to master all those and hop in and out, you guys are going to have quite a presence here in the future. That’s really cool. And when you get to the point that you can rectify guest folio issues in any given property management system, please let me know, [00:29:00] because I know some groups that could blow your phone up.

Greg Emmert: We will all be calling you at that point. You’re going to need three more Stevens at that point. Yeah, absolutely. 

Scott Knepp: Yep. Perfect. All thanks guys. It’s good to, it’s great to get oriented. And where’s home base for you, Steven? 

Steven Kramer: Where are you? We’re out of Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Scott Knepp: Okay. 

Jon Adams: Okay.

Right on. And the park I manage is in southern Utah specifically Hurricane. Okay. 

Scott Knepp: Okay, very neat. Thank you. All right. We’re going to switch focuses a little bit here and more talk about but we’ll keep continue to bring in our properties and our businesses as we talk about it.

But 1 thing is just to acknowledge all of the great shows that are going on right now. We’ve the Florida Alabama show is where we’ve had a lot of our Our esteemed colleagues who might otherwise be with us today, but down in Florida obviously none of us are there because that is happening right now.

Did it, did anybody attend [00:30:00] taco out of our group? Small group of four? No. Okay. So I’ve heard that was another great one. We were there last year and The Texas Association of Campground Owners. They do a great job. The Florida Alabama show also does a great job. If you are interested in that education and learning and networking you may have missed this opportunity, but put it on your calendar for next year that to be at Taco and to the Florida Alabama show.

So obviously it is, we are coming up on Memorial Day weekend. And our season is about to begin in full force. John, I’m curious, what have you guys been up to, to prepare for the season? 

Steven Kramer: List is too long, but as far as Memorial Day, we just do simple things, food trucks, cornhole tournaments, karaoke.

Obviously the pool is the most important part. We’re filling the pool as we speak. And then we gotta pray that the pump works when we turn the pool on. And then pray that the heater [00:31:00] works. All that stuff. In order for me to not have a riot on my sold out Memorial Day weekend, my pool needs to work.

So that’s the number one thing on my mind right now. 

Scott Knepp: Yes, and I think that you, there, there could be like a pool a CPO certified pool operator support group for all the pool issues and anxieties that are occurring right now, as people are saying that same thing of my pool has to be in great working order for Memorial Day weekend.

Yep. Steven, how about you down at your park? 

Steven Kramer: We’re actually in the thick of our peak season right now. You are? All right. Our peak season is like March, April, part of May, a little bit into June, but summer gets too hot in Southern Utah. So there’s not a lot of demand there, but yeah, it’s just making sure we have the enough staffing is particularly outside.

We’re noticing a lot more people are they can be technologically challenged whether the cable’s not working [00:32:00] right, and a lot of it’s user error. But, just getting the staff trained and to be able to quickly handle those so they can focus on what their job duties are normally, mowing the grass and making sure the park looks good and no liability issues.

Scott Knepp: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And Steven, just out of curiosity, there’s a lot of folks that that are, At the property level that might receive a question that they just don’t have the right answer to and maybe they have to check with their supervisor or the boss there to get information that’s property specific.

Clearly you see that at the property you manage, but how do you handle those the questions and the property specific questions that you get at with campground support? 

Steven Kramer: That’s a great question. During onboarding, we collect over 20 pieces of information that we think that are probably the most common questions.

A lot of those we do have, but occasionally we’ll get the 1 call that says, hey, I’m staying there [00:33:00] in a week and, where’s the closest hotel? That’s a pretty odd question. That doesn’t come up very often, so some of those we can just help on Google or whatever, but for the most part, a lot of that’s in the software and the the managers and owners have also been super helpful.

If we get to that point, we’re just honest and say, hey, you know what, we’re just helping out with the phone calls let me get back to you, I don’t have that answer right away, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. 

Scott Knepp: That’s all right. That’s great. That’s very well handled. That’s cool. Touched on just what a challenge the staffing is and, it made me think about the, I think he nailed it with talking about the cycles, that, that occur and it’s so interesting from a staffing perspective because, I’m one of those folks that that had done A lot of time in the hotel resort industry before coming over to the outdoor hospitality space.

And it’s interesting because what I saw a lot was young folks that are right out of college that feel like hospitality and tourism must be something [00:34:00] incredibly glamorous, right? You’re at a place where everybody wants to be. And you’re there on the nights and the weekends and the holidays and you’re there where people are wanting to have fun.

And then just as we were all giggling you get in and you find out that there’s a lot of pressure handling someone’s vacation. And it is not all the fun and games that you want it to be. You but, and so I think a lot of folks are expecting that to be a very glamorous career. They get in and they go, Oh, gosh, I’m going to, I’m going to change.

And what we see a lot in campgrounds is almost the opposite. We see folks that have had a career. As a police officer, as a paralegal, as a city clerk and they’ve done that for their whole career, but they have loved camping and now they’re finally going to retire from their career as a paralegal and they’re going to.

Come work in that campground that they have loved being at for the past, 15 years as they’ve traveled with their family and they’re going to be that work camper and adopt that lifestyle. [00:35:00] And but you just get them for the, you might get them for that 6 month period, right?

Before they’re off to their next work camping gig. So you, you do see a lot of talent and you see a lot of people that, that love this industry and are passionate about being a part of it, but they’re also nomads at heart, right? So it’s just cool. In regards to the pool, yeah we are doing that.

We are also super excited about showing off all of those CAPEX projects. As John mentioned, I had a little bit of sweat, right? You’re really hoping that you can make sure that it’s all taken care of and that you can get water in your hot tub before, before anybody arrives.

And then the other thing that I’ll make sure that to make some. Reference towards is to spend some time to make sure that all of your revenue channels are working as they should, right? A lot of us are on OTAs or it’s, this is a great time to just, walk through your website, making sure your booking link works, make sure those OTA booking links work.

Check your [00:36:00] Google My Business. This is really the time to just, and that’s a good thing to do periodically anyway, right? Because those booking links or something like that can get interrupted without any rhyme or reason. So just going in and making sure that you’re ready to collect the money that is coming your way.

That is, is a powerful thing. Greg, is there any guidance that you’re offering to your parks right now to say, Hey, start thinking about this or be doing that? 

Greg Emmert: This is, you mentioned capital projects and being excited at showing them off. This is when, you bought the new car, but it’s just been in the driveway for a while.

Now it’s time to turn the keys over and see how it runs, or maybe a better. Analogy is that, you built a hot rod over the winter, right? And you is it going to turn over? Is it going to perform the way I wanted it to? And so I’m curious from, actually from John and Steven for the capital projects that maybe you’ve done if it’s, whether it be campsites or and a lot of things are really hard to measure.

So maybe this isn’t The best question, it might not apply to any of the [00:37:00] capitals you’ve done at your parks, but what sort of, as you get into the season now you’re going to turn the keys over and run it. You’re going to see people occupying those new sites or using those new amenities.

Maybe throw it to you, John, first, what, how are you going to measure whether or not that thing’s a success. Do you have a specific ROI timeframe in mind? Are you just looking for smiles and good reviews? How do you like to measure it? Because as a consultant, as a strategist, I definitely have my own set of performance indicators, right?

That I like to use. ROI and other ones, if it’s maybe a governmental agency who owns campgrounds. They might be happy with a 15 or a 20 year ROI. So how do you measure them, John? How, looking at maybe at your new sites, like how are you going to measure them as a success or? Yeah, as you move forward into the season and start using them.

Jon Adams: Honestly, I do go by the smiles [00:38:00] right as of right now. Anyways, you couldn’t have said it better. It’s of course there’s a profitability ratio there. Obviously. I put a number at that as about, the goal is, it’s steep, but I want 10 percent more net revenues per year.

It sounds like a lot, but we’re, with the smiles comes the revenue, so as long as you take care of the smiles and numbers take care of themselves that also goes with the employees when you have good employees our turnover is very low. Actually, we have a line of people that want to work, that live locally, that want to come back every year.

They live in Norwalk, which is the town South of myself. And I’ll tell you what, they can’t wait for camping season. They can’t wait to be behind the desk. We have used work campers before. I have had some disasters, but as far as gauging the revenue I don’t really worry, I monitor it every week, but when I look too far into It causes some issues.

I look into a more mid season just because the money flows in at [00:39:00] different times every year. We had a very early arriving crowd this year. We also had an event, we had an eclipse this year where we were in the middle of totality. That was revenue that we don’t really depend on every year. So the numbers are definitely going to be up this year.

However I’m still going to continue with the smiles on the faces. Then those people tell their friends and then everyone’s fighting each other for a spot. And then we’re sold out on every holiday. With competition coming in down the street, they spent a ton of money on this, tens of millions of dollars on these parks.

I have to compete with that as well. So the smiles on the faces. The money will come with time. 

Scott Knepp: And I’m glad to hear you mentioned the smiles on the faces. Cause one of the things I want to throw out there too is you also quickly tied that to staff. And I think lots of times when you say that the smiles on the faces, everybody’s minds immediately goes to the guests, right?

Because that’s why we’re all in it is the guest experience. But one of the things that, I think a lot [00:40:00] of the best hospitality groups out there have recognized, and they consider this the hospitality Profit chain is that if you devote your resources to your leaders so that your leaders can devote their resource to their employees, so their employees can dedicate themselves to the guests, then the guests will return and there’s your profits, right?

So lots of times I think that we managers or owners or developers we rightfully have the guest experience in mind. We should, we always should, but all, but just remembering that it, It all trickles from the employee experience. And just to know that water pressure is great, not only have you improved the guest experience, but you’re saving that poor desk agent from having to hear from the seventh time that day about how terrible the water pressure is.

And as we can all imagine, if we’ve not done it ourselves to, to smile across from somebody, when it’s the seventh time you heard that day and go, Oh gosh, you didn’t have a great shower because the water pressure was bad. And I’m so [00:41:00] sorry. That takes a piece of your soul the seventh, sixth time you’ve done it.

Steven Kramer: Yeah, what I’ve also noticed in the industry and I still pay attention to WordCamping and I’m in their forums on Facebook. I go to their website. I still take a peek at it here and there, but what I have noticed that is trending is that the WordCampers, a lot of them feel like they’re getting robbed.

They, and if they feel like that, when they get there, they are, they’re going to be burned out by the third or the fourth month. It’s happened to me. I was absentee for a year. And I could see my reviews coming in. These people were nasty to me. These people were this you could just tell, and it was tough to find somebody.

It’s tough to replace somebody if you’re absentee. I had to ride the season out and that alone, it took me 10 times longer to fix those reviews than it was even worth. Absolutely. 

Scott Knepp: Absolutely. And Greg, I really appreciate your question about the ROI. One of the things that I can tell you with Ivy management is to your point, it.

It does vary per the ownership group, [00:42:00] right? Different ownership groups have different metrics for sure. One of the things that we explore with is price point. That’s an easy, quick metric to determine your ROI. If you updated the price point. Furniture in your cabins and you raised the rate 5.

Did you have the same occupancy? Did you listen to any kickback? Did you get any? What if you take it up another 5? And, that’s something that, that I think is a popular way to to determine that. That’s pretty You can see the results pretty quickly. Greg, are there without giving away any of your trade secrets we still want folks to, to reach out, to engage with you for business, but is there anything high level that you would say, give some attention to this and think about that as a method of ROI?

Greg Emmert: So again, awesome handoff. Rate and revenue management, it is such a low hanging fruit, and we see so few parks that really take an active approach to it, so they just okay, before the season, I’m going to set my rates, and these are my rates, [00:43:00] and maybe I’ve got a weekday rate and a weekend rate, or maybe I’ve got a peak and an off peak rate.

But to really actively look at your rates through the week and on the weekends, and to your point, can you squeeze out a few more dollars on a weekend or a higher rate for a special event? Are you using, you mentioned before, the advances in all the PMS systems, and they’re all really good and they’re all getting better.

Each one suits a different type of clientele. Vast majority of them now have what they call it dynamic pricing built in. It’s not really dynamic pricing as that exists for the hotel industry, but you can still use it to drive your revenue as your park is filling up, right? So you hit that 60%, your revenue your rates go up a little bit, 70 percent occupancy, it goes up a little bit more.

Taking advantage of those things can really add a lot to the bottom line and it seems like recently we’ve talked to an awful lot of clients that are not doing that, and that’s [00:44:00] where I wish Jeff was on the call with us, because that’s really his strong suit, but yeah, not enough people doing that, and that’s something that you can, that doesn’t take a massive Thanks.

CapEx project or you don’t have to redecorate anything but take a look at your marketing and your website and actively managing your rates. And again, my partner Jeff Hoffman, he is a genius at that. He’s taught that for the national school and at a couple of I believe the RVIC conventions when it was still RVIC.

He’s been around that long. I don’t know if you guys don’t know Jeff, he’s like father time, been here, Probably, I don’t know, 50 some years in the industry. And so I like to tease him about being old and he likes to take it for some reason. So if you’re listening partner, here’s to you.

Hopefully the hair is not any thinner today, but he is, he’s just genius level when it comes to that stuff and that is a very, It’s not necessarily easy, but it’s not hard either, because it doesn’t take a lot of outlay. Just take some of your time, watch your rates week to week, watch your occupancy, and can you tick it up, or do you need to take it [00:45:00] down, and how does that affect your reservations?

Because there is a lot to learn there, and certainly a lot that can be earned with just a few clicks of the mouse. 

Scott Knepp: Yeah, and, I think you touched on it beautifully. It does continue to surprise me how underutilized it is. I think it has blown up in the past couple of years. I think it’s a term that we’re hearing more and more, and to your point, I think that it’s something that can As simple or as complex as an organization wishes to make it, right?

Yeah, excellent 

Greg Emmert: way to put it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. 

Scott Knepp: You could easily make some adjustments in your property management system. And I think most of them have the capability to, to say, if it crosses this threshold, here’s what I want you to do at the rate, and there’s, but I think one misunderstanding that we hear a lot is Anytime that you get kicked back about the revenue management, it’s people saying nickel and diming, [00:46:00] money hungry, all this stuff, right?

Greg Emmert: Yep. 

Scott Knepp: One thing that we also know is people that are doing it well is it’s not always taking the price up, right? Sometimes it’s taking the price down. Sometimes revenue management is identifying your periods of low occupancy and dropping your rates. To encourage more bookings, right? So it’s not always about being revenue hungry.

It’s, I think it’s trying to give a fair valuation to your park and your park is going to be valued differently, whether it’s hard, like it, like all things, if I can. If there’s no room for it, or if there’s a lot of demand, then why wouldn’t there be an increase in the cost for 

Greg Emmert: it?

Absolutely. I had somebody tell me a long time ago that every one of those campsites is a banana and it’s brown at the end of the day. So do you, right? So to your point, sometimes you need to lower that because. Would I rather rent it for 20 percent less than my nightly rate is typically or get [00:47:00] zero? I’d rather have 20 percent less than zero for sure.

So if lowering it means a camper night, oh, by all means, let’s live on camper nights for sure. 

Scott Knepp: A hundred percent. Now, Steven, you might have an interesting take on this because not only do you manage a campground where you’re probably revenue managing of some sorts, but with campground support. A lot of times your desk agents are the people that see the smile to keep our, to keep that theme alive, right?

They’ll see the smile or they’ll see the frown and they’ll take the booking. They’ll say, no, I don’t want that at that rate. How often are your agents having rate conversations and is there feedback that you’re taking back to owners or management companies or to say, this is feedback that we’re getting on the reservations and the rates?

Steven Kramer: Yeah, so there’s a good question. There’s an ongoing discussion with all of them. If I see anything, that’s a no brainer. I’ll definitely mention it. Actually, none of the parks that we have do [00:48:00] that. So I think in lieu of that, I think the alternative is. Is if you’re doing comp surveys and just making sure your rates are competitive, I think that’s an alternative to that.

But I do think that revenue management is critical whether you do 1 or the other, especially for us, we had, I would say, at least 8 parks get built in the last 3 years in our area and we’re doing it every month. We’re doing comp surveys and just making sure we’re competitive because if you go all season.

And come to find out you were 10 higher than the next highest person. That’s a lot of bookings that you could be missing. 

Scott Knepp: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, I think that’s something that the benchmarking in our industry, I think is the hardest aspect to manage just because we have a lot of forums where people are happy to get together like this, right?

And talk about ideas and The concepts and conventions [00:49:00] that we use to manage our properties, but you pick up the phone and you call the RVs place down the street and say, what’s your rate in occupancy? Get out of town, right? Yeah John, how about you guys and anything I recognize whereas as a single park, you might not want to address revenue management, but I’m sure that you guys are just noticing periods of occupancy and demand and making adjustments.

Steven Kramer: Yeah, we do use the dynamic pricing. They have that available on CampSpot. It’s super simple. You talk to your rep. You can determine when to start that, what capacity rate to start that, whether it’s 50 percent full, 60 percent full, 70 percent full. We’ve experimented with that for about two and a half years now.

Kind of have that dialed into where we want compared to some of our competitors our area is very strange. We’re either all eating or we’re all dying. That’s what I’ve noticed. Especially with my brother being very [00:50:00] close to me. We can, we can share a lot of data. I actually speak to Jeff Hoffman probably.

Every other month. I’m 

Greg Emmert: sorry, I’m very sorry. I don’t know. 

Steven Kramer: I’ll probably see him in a few weeks. Pay him a visit at the KOA and then we tend to call each other. Are you slow too? And the answer seems to always be the same. Yeah, we’re slow. Are you slammed too? Or, I’m outta seasonals.

Oh, sorry, I’m outta seasonals too, or whatever the case is. It really all depends on the events. We’re weather dependent. But the great thing about Camp Spot, and I will recommend to the campground owners, is to get the insurance get that thing going that’s another revenue generator for us.

I forget what they call it, weather source, or whatever it is. Yeah yeah. The weather source, I would recommend to do that. In addition to the lock site fees, in addition to, Dynamic pricing. Yeah. And that will like I said like Greg knows Greg and Jeff would know our busiest time is between Memorial Day.

Anytime school’s out, when school’s out, [00:51:00] it’s crazy in Northern Ohio until school goes back in. And then it’s just crazy on the weekends and trying to fill the gaps, Monday through Thursday is a little tough, then we have to do a little something here and there. Then again, we’re weather dependent in October on our last month.

October is very hit or miss. We have some events that are held in Cedar Point, but Cedar Point’s only open on the weekends in October. So it’s, there’s a few different things. We changed our strategy to more of a family type park. I have two 28 year old girls and a 16 year old boy. So whatever my two girls want, it seems to work with everybody.

That has kids. So we’ve noticed a lot more kids coming. Our store revenues are up because kids buy candy. Kids want everything in the store. Don’t get me wrong. There’s still, there’s people that travel for a living and this and that, but, they will drive to Walmart to save five bucks.

And we do have a Walmart down the street. I compete with that too. We’re in the middle of [00:52:00] everything, and but if a kid wants something right away, you can’t tell him no or wait to go to Walmart. So we’ve changed our strategy a little bit. We started doing events.

We used to have just a simple, no frills park. We had a pool, two bathrooms, a game room, and a store, and that was it. And a laundromat. Now we do a little above and beyond, especially on the weekends. That brings us smiles, it brings more kids. Kids ride their bikes around, they come to the store, they spend money in our new arcade.

They buy candy in the store like crazy. Our store revenues are way up. And yeah. That’s all without even raising our rates. I think our rates haven’t been raised in three years, except for the dynamic portion of it we’re staying pretty static with the base price these smiles on the faces are increasing revenues.

Instead of a Nicklin diming, everybody should expect that if you buy an airline ticket. If you’re camping a day before you leave, you’re going to probably be paying a lot more. Okay, that’s the thing with camping. If race week’s coming up. We have the NHRA Nationals.

That’s always the last weekend in [00:53:00] June. That’s my busiest weekend of the year. These people, Are so loyal that when they’re checking in, they’re trying to book the same spot for the next year. A lot of these people have been in the same spot and the same pull through site for 20 years straight. When I purchased the park, I did not, I thought Cedar Point would be everything.

This is my biggest revenue weekend of the year. And it’s usually sold out a year ahead of time. It’s but anyhow, getting back to where I was going Yeah. I would put the, I would add WeatherSense. If you do have CampSpot, they have all this. You got to talk to your rep, just communicate with your rep, 

Scott Knepp: regardless of the property management system you use, yeah. Talk with your rep because they’ll sit down with you and they’ll tell you five features that you may or may not have been known about, and they can tie anticipated income from it to it, and say, we think you could have made this much on dynamic pricing and this much on the weather sense and camp spot.

And, we had a great rep, a great experience with [00:54:00] them. And I am seeing that it is 301. we’re Eastern. Just real quick, we’ll do another round robin and just say, what are you excited about? I’ll tell you, I’m excited about, I’ve got a cruise with my family coming up. Looking forward to that.

We also just had a property Sugar Sands RV Resort down in Alabama. And our portfolio score a 10, 10, 10 good Sam rating. And that is always a good feeling. Greg, what do you have? What are you going, what are you excited about? 

Greg Emmert: I’m excited about going out that door right there. There’s, I can hear.

Yeah, man, I can hear him through the door. I’m in Northwest Ohio right now. It is peak migration time. About a million birds moved overhead last night according to Doppler radar and bird cast. And I’m just excited to grab my binoculars, my dogs and go for a little walk here when this is over.

So thanks though. Thanks for having me. 

Scott Knepp: Steven, what are you excited about? 

Steven Kramer: My wife and I have a 1 and 3 year old, and timing wise, we haven’t been on vacation [00:55:00] since before the oldest, so we’re gonna actually go on vacation to one of the parks that we take calls for in next month. So we’re really excited about that.

Scott Knepp: Congratulations. Steven, we need to talk. We’re in a similar boat. John, what about you? What are you excited about? 

Steven Kramer: My wife and I will be married 10 years on Saturday. 

Scott Knepp: Hey, happy anniversary! 

Greg Emmert: Congratulations. Thank you. 

Scott Knepp: Yeah we all got a lot of great things to be excited about. Thank you guys so much for spending the time with me.

Give Kim a congratulations as well on the anniversary. I’m Scott filling in for Brian. This is MC Fireside Chats. Thank you, Greg. Thank you, Steven. Thank you, John. Have a good day, everybody. All right. Take care. 

Greg Emmert: Thanks guys. Bye bye.

This episode of MC Fireside Chats with your host, Brian Searl. Have a [00:56:00] suggestion for a show idea? Want your campground or company in a future episode? Email us at hello at moderncampground. com. Get your daily dose of news from moderncampground. com and be sure to join us next week for more insights.

Welcome to the fascinating world of outdoor hospitality.