MC Fireside Chats – September 18th, 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.

Brian Searl:

Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Searl with Insider Perks and Mondrian Campground. Excited to be here with you guys for another third week episode featuring mostly our campground owners focused show here, although that’s going to change in 2025. We’ll outline more of those plans, be more topically focused for those of you who want to zero in on, you know, data analytics and things like that. So we’re excited to make that switch. But for now, we’re all about campgrounds. So we have A brand new recurring guest here with us to join our panel, Hallie Rasmussen from Spacious Skies Campgrounds, who I’ll let introduce herself in one second. And then we have our recurring panel of guests who you guys are used to seeing, Tom Mason from Ivy Group, Greg Emmert from Camp Strategy, Joe Dornig from At My Community, Rachel Williamson from KCN Campgrounds. I feel like we have a lot of people. We’re maybe missing one or two people. And then we have a couple of special guests here, Zachary Cooper from Blue Metric Group, Peter Bingaman Is it Bingaman, Peter? Yeah, Bingaman. Anyway, I know you, I think. Sarah Krause from, where are you from, Sarah? Like, I know you’re a consultant wizard guru for like all the shows, and you, where are you from?

Sarah Krause:

Okay.

Brian Searl:

So let’s go around and just briefly, Ali, do you want to start being a special recurring guest and we can go to the special guest from there?

Ali Rasmussen:

Yes. My name is Ali Rasmussen I am the co-founder and CEO of Spacious Skies Campgrounds. We are owners and operators of currently 15 locations from Maine to Georgia. And our amazing Cosmic crew serves our amazing Cosmic campers.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Excited to have you here. I know you’ve got a lot to unpack and a ton of insights from owning 15 parks and being so deeply involved in the industry. Excited to chat with you over this week and the coming weeks too. Peter, you want to go?

Peter Bingeman:

Yeah, so Peter Bingaman, part of the CGRV group. I’ve been in the industry for over 50 years. The family business being Bingaman’s and Kitchener. That’s where I grew up and cut my teeth there for the first 25 years. And of course, family ways sometimes had a way of making things happen. So on my own with my brother, now this is 25 years at this property. We have three properties represented for 50 sites. Been in the industry, really involved all my life as past president of the Provincial Campground Association and the National Association President as well.

Brian Searl:

Oh, Canadian, right?

Peter Bingeman:

Yep.

Brian Searl:

Okay, so you’re camping in Ontario? Yeah, camping in Ontario, yes. Yep. Okay, very cool. I’ll be, well, I’ll be at the conference that is now a merged thing here.

Peter Bingeman:

In Niagara Falls, yes.

Brian Searl:

I’ve been there a number of years. I know Alex very well, so. Excellent, yes. Sarah, you want to go?

Sarah Krause:

Sure. My name is Sarah Krause. I am the CTO at C&D Hospitality. We have three campgrounds in central Wisconsin.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Thanks for being here, Sarah. I know you have a lot of knowledge. I’ve seen you speak at a couple conferences, so excited to dive into some of that with you. And Zachary?

Zackry Cooper:

Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, my name is Zackry Cooper. I’m with Blue Metric Group. We were founded about three years ago. I found my way into Blue Metric Group as a LP investor, serial real estate investor out in the marketplace. Always had a fascination with RV and dove in really deeply into that. I cut my teeth in the industries of real estate through mortgage lending, mortgage banking, operations and all of that stuff. And that’s what I spent a lot of my time doing inside of the Blue Metric Group. and trying to uncrack the gift of RV. Awesome.

Brian Searl:

And you do like investment, right? RV park investment is what I have in my notes. Excuse me? You do RV park investment. That’s what I have in my notes, like investing in RV parks.

Zackry Cooper:

Yes. So yes. So Blue Metric Group, our specialty is RV parks, predominantly in the southeast and some of them up in Montana, where we’re at. So. Awesome.

Brian Searl:

One of our recurring people just briefly introduce themselves and then maybe that’s a good place to start where we can have you kind of tell about your company and how you got into it. And then I know many other people on this call will probably be interested in weighing in and maybe asking you a question because they all have a lot of investment experience in the space as well. Not all of them. I don’t. I just run a website and do some marketing. But Tom, you want to introduce yourself real quick?

Tom Mason:

Yeah. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Tom Mason. I’m the COO of Ivy Management Group. We have 20 parks across the United States and been doing it since 2017. And we are strictly third party management. So we have ownership groups that we’ve partnered with, and we manage their assets for them.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Excited to have you here, Tom, as always. Joe, you want to introduce yourself?

Joe Duemig:

I’m Joe from At My Community. I am the owner. We’ve been making mobile apps for Campgrounds for about seven years. We also are fairly avid campers. I spent about two and a half years on the road. Not the most time ever, but just indifference first.

Brian Searl:

All this makes me feel so old, because I remember working with Tom in 2017 and meeting you, Joe, for the first time. And I had already been in the industry. This is why I’m bald, so the gray hair doesn’t show.

Tom Mason:

You’re right.

Greg Emmert:

Hello, everybody. Thanks for having me on again, Brian. Greg Emmert been in the industry now for I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we just I just cracked 30 years. So 26 years as an owner operator.

Brian Searl:

Now I feel young again. Thank you, Greg.

Greg Emmert:

You’re welcome. Yeah. And I left all my wisdom hairs in so you can you can keep shaving yours and I’ll just show mine. Yeah. So 30 years, 26 as a park owner and operator. here in Northeast Ohio and now the last four as consultants looking at strategy and contrary to popular beliefs and evidenced by my presence here today, I do not just show up for the episodes that I’m asked to guest host.

Brian Searl:

Did that go well last week? I haven’t watched it yet.

Greg Emmert:

I think so. You can act like you didn’t watch it, but you know you couldn’t wait to tune in when you found out I was hosting. It’s true. It’s there. It’s true.

Brian Searl:

Is that your real background behind you, by the way?

Greg Emmert:

It is. Yeah, this is my man cave-ish second story bedroom slash office. So if I get really tired, I just sack out. Yeah. That’s a beautiful wall. I like that.

Brian Searl:

Thanks. Rachel, last but not least.

Rachel Williamson:

Hi, I’m Rachel Williamson. I’m with KC Encampgrounds, their marketing manager. Been in the industry for about 10 years. Awesome.

Brian Searl:

Thanks for being here, Rachel. Yeah, big background from KOA and excited to to see what you’re doing with KCN and all that kind of stuff. So let’s start with you, Zachary, from Blue Metric. I said we were going to talk a little bit about RV park investing first, because I know some of our people on here have that experience and would probably jump at the chance to maybe ask you some questions. But tell us about Blue Metric Group. How did it get started? How did you get involved with it? And what are your goals?

Zackry Cooper:

Yeah, so I work with our founder, John Cascarano, who had founded the company about three and a half years into it. I came into it about two and a half years into it as an LP investor. But John’s background was he was a commercial attorney, and he was working with a lot of mobile home providers wanting to maybe get a little piece of the action wasn’t really getting in on it, but started to notice a lot of deal flow around the RV space and started to understand the numbers inside of that. So it kind of happened organically. But you know, John’s got a better story than I did. He sold his first house to buy an RV park. And his wife was on board for that, surprisingly. But anyway, bought his first park, really had some great results with it, really loved the space. So let’s do it again. Did it about three times and then quickly realized if you don’t own the management company and you don’t want to drive a tractor and manage the park every day, you’re going to have to go big or maybe it’s not the best investment. Uh, you know, everybody wants to own an RV park until they actually own one for that matter. And, uh, so either way, so we vertically integrated and we decided that we were going to go all in. And that was about the time that I met John as an LP investor. And here we are, uh, three, just over three years, uh, 24 parks into it, about a hundred million dollars of the valuation on there. About three more of the have to close this year and a big plans for the coming year as well. And, uh, so we’re just having a lot of fun with it.

Brian Searl:

So I’m curious from like, you know, many people on this call have attended numerous Ohio shows used to be known as RVIC, some of the provincial and state association shows. And we see, especially over the COVID years that many more people are jumping into this industry, you know, headfirst, I want to acquire RV parks. This is a good investment for many different reasons, but mostly because they are a sound investment, right? So I’m curious, what is your kind of guiding principle there? Like, what are you, how do you differentiate yourself from everybody else who wants to buy the RV park down the street?

Zackry Cooper:

Well, there’s a lot there to unpack. Like I said, everybody wants to own it. It kind of goes for everything. Everybody thinks it’s really sexy, but they don’t really understand the work that all of us probably go through to the end of the day. We own a business, right? This is a business. It is an RV park. It is cool. It’s in the outdoors and it’s all those things. But it is a hospitality business located in a rural location. Not easy to employ. And when you talk about scale, what we learned quickly is you know, a lot of times you have one park, you know, you’ve got a lot of fixed expenses related to that park. So in scaling it, we were able to create a lot of variable related expenses, which allows us to allocate like our head of development for a period of time, you know, three or four hours a week, as opposed to having a full time development person and things of that nature. So The side of it is that there’s a lot to manage, and unless you have a lot of variable rate features in regards to how you run your expenses, maybe the numbers aren’t as sexy as they may seem. So you really do have to run it as a business to make it work. That’s for sure.

Brian Searl:

So what do you think are some of the things that kind of set you apart as far as your philosophies? Don’t give away any of your secrets if you don’t want to, but just…

Zackry Cooper:

We’re pretty transparent. I would say to you that a lot of our secret sauce is our acquisition process. We’re dealing with sellers directly. Predominantly, most of our parks are in the Southeast. So if you can imagine Tennessee and a lot of the surrounding states, we like the tax-friendly, landlord-friendly states. They allow us to maneuver. They’re also open 365 days a year. A lot of RV parks, if you’re in Arizona and it’s 114, you may not want to go RVing. We also look for three unique features. We like to be by a lake, off a freeway or next to a national park. Why? Because these are fixtures that are not going to change and, you know, they’re not going to go away. So, you know, you might hear a lot of times when I share the story of RV, people go, well, Zach, this sounds amazing, but, you know, what could go wrong? And I’d say, well, the only time I’ve ever heard a lot of bad stories is like the ghost town park. And we’re not in Texas. I don’t have anything against Texas for that matter. Anybody watching this in Texas? But there’s a lot of RV parks. But when you hear about a park all of a sudden becoming vacant, typically that was next to like an oil field or something like that. So we’re not pumping oil anymore, or maybe administration says you can’t pump oil for that matter. And that park now becomes a ghost town. So we like those three fixtures. Our acquisition process is that we’re usually predominantly dealing with sellers directly. So we’re buying family owned operations directly. So we’re not dealing with brokers or realtors. So, you know, half of real estate is buying right. And I think that we buy right from day one. And that’s by design. We have a very amazing acquisitions team. I won’t give that sauce away how they’re so good, but I will say this, they will knock on doors that I typically wouldn’t knock on just to find out who owns these parks sometimes. But that’s what we do. We buy right. We set ourselves up well. We run it as a business. And at the end of the day, we think we set ourselves well up for a roll-up strategy in about five to seven years or so.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Does anybody smarter here on the call want to ask Zachary a question? Tom, Allie, Greg, Joe? Please. Please. You all have something for Rachel?

Tom Mason:

You said over the past three years you’ve acquired 24 parks, is that right?

Zackry Cooper:

That’s correct. Yeah, predominantly most of them in the two and a half years to tell you the truth.

Tom Mason:

During the time of high interest rates and all that?

Zackry Cooper:

That’s right, and that’s the magic right there, is that if we can buy in this market with rates where we are using 8% rates, 8.5% rates on some of those parks, and we’re all happy rates are coming down right now, so this is a good thing. But yeah, we are turning the numbers, typically paying people at an 8% minimum preferred return to a 10% preferred return on those parks, and never missed a preferred return on any of our parks.

Brian Searl:

I think that’s a good question, but I’m not smart enough to understand all of it, so go ahead, sorry.

Zackry Cooper:

Please ask, Brian, as you wish. I love to explain things as well. So please, I spend a lot of time doing this.

Brian Searl:

Please, I think, Allie, you were going to talk?

Ali Rasmussen:

Yeah, I do. So we acquired our 15 properties at a pretty quick clip, right? It was May 2021 to April 23. And we, you know, for a lot of reasons, including like the macro reasons, had paused our acquisitions program to, I mean, take advantage of the time to, like, focus on operations and, you know, honing, like, various elements of it so that we could really have a well-oiled machine for when another acquisition cycle begins. So Zachary, Zachary? That’s correct. How are you, because you’re owning and operating, right?

Zackry Cooper:

That’s correct.

Ali Rasmussen:

So what kind of resources are you putting into your operations platform? How are you keeping up with, uh, you know, like what I’m very familiar with, uh, is like the chaos of, you know, bringing in new, um, assets into your like platform and into your systems and, um, like making sure that your, um, you know, like guest experience is kept up and your, um, your, you know, team is, is satisfied and cared for. How are you handling all of that?

Zackry Cooper:

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, we’re talking about assets, right? We’re talking about RVs. But I would say one of the philosophies that we carry inside of Blue Metric Group is, you know, people are the assets, right? So I would say to you that we hire right, we have one of our head of operations, he headed up Darden restaurants, maybe the Olive Garden, we might have heard about that. at one point when they were popping up on every corner across the nation. So he’s really got the labor side of it down from the cost and expense thing, but he’s also a beautiful human being that understands how to identify talent. And you’re always hiring, you’re always building your bench. The chaos, I don’t know if it ever stops. Management, if we could do without management, this would be easy and probably everybody would do it, right? Yeah, right. Everybody wants to own it until they actually have to do it. But we focus on it really hard. We use the EOS management operating system inside of our world. So we use that to build up our management processes, setting our annuals, our 90 day rocks. We meet religiously. We have KPIs that are in place. Some of the KPIs are related to experience as well, right? I mean, it’s not just about numbers or investment returns. You know, obviously managing reviews and things of that nature. But, you know, and we model who does it well, right? There are some people out there that do it really well. So we’ve got some really strong connections of some people. I think was it Rachel, you were used to be with KOA. I heard that. So we’ve got some really special people inside of the old KOA world, the Yogi Bear world. And so we’ve really been able to tap into some of the things that they did really, really well. And we also learned some of the things that they said. Maybe you want to avoid these things as well. you know, not that we didn’t slip and stand, you know, slip in some slippery sand at one point. But I guess my point, though, is that we’re managing it well. It doesn’t come without its headaches. And when we bring on a park, it’s very timely. Everybody knows it’s going to come online. We know when it’s going to close. The bank’s in alignment. Everybody’s in alignment. Boots on the ground. And we’ll be there to get that park you know, successfully turned over and then we manage it from a KPI standpoint and hiring. Right. And we keep the best of the best people that they had in those parks. A lot of people don’t want to leave these parks that they’ve been around for a long time. We like to keep great talent around. So we will definitely do that and assess their abilities as we move forward.

Tom Mason:

So I would agree with that last comment. I mean, as we take acquisitions on, we there’s I’m always asked, you know, are you going to bring in all new team members, and I always say no. I mean, there’s no reason not to, unless someone just decides they want to move on, that’s of course their choice. But we usually try to retain as many people there as possible with the understanding of an evaluation process for 90 days, but they have institutional knowledge of the park and how it operates. It’s always very helpful for us.

Brian Searl:

It is an interesting dynamic. And obviously I’m not brave enough to own a campground, but it is an interesting, like from an investment standpoint, if you come in and you see the people who, like you said, know the park and the operations. And in some cases, if there’s a lot of seasonal guests, they know who they are. They’re on a first name basis. And then there’s a balance with like, you bought the asset and you want to make it more profitable and better. So are they part of the problem or aren’t they? Like it’s a, it’s a, but it’s a deep evaluation. It’s not just a, I can do this strategy always the same way at every place.

Tom Mason:

Yeah. Each park is different.

Zackry Cooper:

People make it different. Every park is different. I would echo Tom’s sentiments there. There’s always a lot to unpack.

Peter Bingeman:

There’s lots and lots of uniqueness about every park for sure. For those people that have large acquisitions and large numbers of parks, how are you guys looking at supporting your different associations? Because again, the camping industry, There’s state associations, and up here there’s national and provincial associations. But how do you guys support, do you continue to support their local associations? Or some people say they’re big enough, they don’t need them anymore.

Ali Rasmussen:

Oh gosh, I would love to answer that. So we make sure to support and keep our memberships active with all associated state associations and the National Association, OHI. Really find a lot of value in like just maintaining that that relationship and that support system. In fact, our Carolina parks right now are participating. in the Carvick Park Crawl, I forget what the official name is for it, but there’s so much value in just sharing those resources and that knowledge and connecting with peers in the industry in that regard, just for my team members. So there’s so much value in a lot of ways.

Brian Searl:

I think that’s a, it’s a very interesting question because like, for me, like owning insider perks, like we’ve long been, you know, supplier members of almost every association we can be a member of. And I, and I don’t know that we get like a ton of value from it, from a supplier standpoint, outside of the trade shows and things like that. And certainly some people are better at recommending us than others from a supplier standpoint, but I always want to support those because they make the industry go around. And I think it’s really interesting from a perspective of these new people, new being five, six years old, or more recent, who have gotten into the industry. I think just there’s a lack of communication sometimes between certain associations and those groups to make them understand, to show them the value. Because it is there, but sometimes they’re just not maybe used to communicating that in the way that these different types of investors need to be communicated with. Is that fair, Sarah? Like I know you’re involved a lot with Waco and with the campground owners.

Sarah Krause:

Well, and I think that is fair. That’s it. That’s a totally great statement. And I do think that a lot of people that are coming into the camping industry also came from a different industry and they’re not used of being in an industry where people work together. So a lot of these associations are people sharing info and, you know, lifting each other up. And that’s not always the case in other industries. So when you say, let’s join this association, they think, well, whatever.

Peter Bingeman:

But there’s no other industry out there that shares any more than the camping industry. I find that day in and day out, you find other industries, whether it be even the, I do a lot of trailer sales too, and that industry, again, very, very different. But again, the camping environment, boy, those people are sharing everything.

Brian Searl:

Well, so, I mean, you’ve opened this question, right? So let’s, like, Peter, do you want to just briefly introduce yourself and the parks that you own and where you come from? And then maybe some of your background, just so they understand where you’re coming from as former leaders of those associations?

Peter Bingeman:

Yeah, well, for me, my first 25 years, family business, and again, big amusement park, 500 campsites, very well known in our local area, and big catering business, doing the most in Indies to when the Pope came over doing the food service, all those things. But again, family business, family dynamics, that’s a whole nother story. But in the family business, decided to separate our ways. And so again, went out and again, I love the industry, and would do nothing else but this. And so went out and found my own spot. And along with my wife and my, my son and daughter. So now we’re up to three parts. My wife says if it’s number four, you have to find a different partner. So three is enough. But again, we do keep extremely busy. And, and for us, In our industry, in our campgrounds, we do absolutely everything we possibly can. So we’re selling trailers, we’re building decks, we’re doing adder rooms, we’re doing service work. Absolutely everything that has evolved with the campground, we are keeping in-house to maximize every cent we possibly can from that. That’s why in the summertime, I have 45 staff. I’ve got 14 staff full-time year-round working. We’re building buildings. And so we’re just in closing here now. So keep those guys busy all winter long. so I don’t have to replace staff and turn them over. So I like being able to guarantee whether it be students in the summertime, you’re going to make enough money so you can go to university for the people here and the healthcare programs, everything else that you don’t have to go anywhere else. So, and then through that industry, my dad was a founding member of our provincial association. And then I’ve been a past president, it’s been 25 years ago now, it’s been a while. 25 years ago, I was president and then president of the national association when it came on. I live and breathe it every day, love it. And again, sometimes I’m going to say, I have, there’s always a concern, I’m going to call it corporate parks coming in and taking some, you know, is the heart beating still inside those campgrounds? And that’s why in the association side, sometimes looking at the big corporate parks, it’s all about spreadsheets and dollars and returns. And sometimes a little short-sightedness looking at We’re only here because of the associations, the work that they’re doing day in and day out that they’ve done in the past and will be doing in the future. And to drop those guys just for the sake of the dollar, I’m not sure if that’s the thing.

Brian Searl:

Yeah. I mean, I think I agree. I think there’s definitely a widespread or wide gamut of people who are coming into the industry. I would, I would say that based on my experience and all the people I’m connected with on LinkedIn and talk to on the show and everywhere else through Modern Campground and Insider Perks, that I think most of them are not like that. I think most of them want to support the associations and be good stewards of the industry. But I think just like any new cycle, right, the bad actors stick out in your mind more than the good actors do. And so I definitely know there are some of those out there, but I choose to be glass half full and think most of them are not that way. But walk us through, do you mind briefly just telling us about your parks and kind of what your philosophy is and how you, how they are a little bit, you know, stand out different, special.

Peter Bingeman:

So for my parks, you mean? Yeah. No, so yeah, so we’re within, they’re only 15 minutes apart to three parks, so they’re right side by H almost. And with our local area here, three quarters of a million people right within, well, not including Toronto, but let’s just say within the half hour around us. So we’re quite urban that way. You know, if you need Tim Hortons or Canadian Tire or Walmart, it’s five minutes down the road, but we’re all in the country. So we do a lot of, The parks are primarily seasonal parks. There are overnight sites in each of the park, which again is absolutely key for the, to keep the strength in the parks and the atmosphere and the growth of parks. You have to have overnight sites. There’s a lot of people that have gone to, especially those that are sort of semi-retired, that they’ve said no more overnight guests. We’re just strictly into seasonal camping now, but you’re losing the lifeline for your future. So that’s one thing. I think with the big park model trailers that we have up here, a lot of the American price is all 400 square feet with the loft and such like that. Ours are 540 square feet. So that’s sort of the maximum size we can build too, but no lofts. But I think that’s the way the industry is going more because the cottages and stuff like that, people can’t afford that anymore. And so this is their true cottage getaway and they’re not getting any cheaper, that’s for sure. And we’re down to, Indiana next week for the big RV open houses. That’s all happening next week. So we leave here on Sunday to go down there for a couple of days to meet up with our manufacturers. And even they’re bringing on brand new manufacturers that are brand new to the Canadian industry. Well, I’m not going to buy it until you become a member of the Canadian Association of Manufacturers. And so I brought two manufacturers on just by stating that. So that’s where I feel strong about that kind of stuff.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Well, there’s one nugget that you pulled out. And if anybody else has any questions, I want to make sure that we get to Sarah and give her a chance. There’s one nugget that you said, though, I want to come back to after we talk to Sarah. And that was the interesting thing about keeping your employees employed year round. Because I think that’s going to kind of like there are there’s a lot of devil’s advocates and people who also can’t maybe figure out a way to do that. And so I’m interested to talk to you about how you do that, why you do that. But I think it will also lead into a conversation that I had with Ali about just paying attention to maybe the needs of various different groups and people and how they, you know, and so we’ll come back to that in one second if you don’t mind, but Sarah, hi. Hello. So I know like I came across you the first time when we, well maybe not the first time, but I think you messaged me or emailed me or something related to AI maybe, but we came across each other at the Campground Artists Expo in Branson I think is where we met for the first time, right, and you were giving a session I think on AI. Yeah. But so tell us a little bit about your

Sarah Krause:

Uh, but I started as a manager about eight years ago of one of the parks. And then he, they have acquired two other parks since then. Uh, my background is in food and Bev and I ended up in the campground industry. Uh, and so that now we’re overseeing the operations of three parks. All of them have a restaurant on site and then I’ve just kind of delved into all of the different marketing aspects of the park and all of the fun things in the camping industry.

Brian Searl:

So we’ve talked a little bit, we’ve had some conversations here with people about how, like, um, Zachary was mentioning, you know, when he acquires a park, he has certain KPIs and certain metrics and things he goes through, like from, from your perspective and you, do you focus heavily in marketing? Is that an accurate statement? Not Sarah. Okay, well, we’ll figure it out. So, Sarah, just from we had a couple people who were talking to us about Zachary was talking about the KPIs and the things that go through when you acquire a campground. So from your perspective, coming into the industry with the food and dive experience, and then your eight years, you said, of this experience and dealing with associations and you know what has what is something that you can say is you know not necessarily when you acquire but when you come into a park and you’re Sarah for the first time hitting her boots on the ground what is something that you know you’re going to look at first to say I want to make sure that this is done right?

Sarah Krause:

Definitely the infrastructure of the park is the first thing that we’re looking at. This last time we took on a much older park And then just focusing on if the park’s going to be family friendly or where we’re marketing towards, and that is what we market towards.

Brian Searl:

What is something consistently that you’ve kind of seen as you’ve come into these three parks that you always know has room for improvement? Is that a fair question?

Sarah Krause:

All of the parks are older parks, so electric is always something. Electric and the infrastructure, the sewer systems, all of that stuff is an improvement, and it’s a pretty easy investment when you move to full hookup sites and 50 amp sites, and then you’re able to charge more for your sites.

Brian Searl:

So I’m interested in food and beverages specifically real quick. And if anybody else has a question, please, I’m happy to shut up because nobody wants to hear me talk more than they already do. So for food and beverages specifically, this is something that I think it’s probably fair to say, if it was easier to learn about and there were more use cases in the industry and people could clearly see a path to profit, that perhaps more people would add at their campgrounds, especially the RV resort side, the luxury side. What are some of the benefits that you see because you said you had food and beverage at everyone? Are we talking about like restaurants? Are we talking about ice cream or pizza or what are we talking about?

Sarah Krause:

All of them have a restaurant and a concession stand and a short order. place as well. So all of that is just adding to your ancillary income. And I’ve seen some people say, well, you know, the campers are making their own meals and you just have to give them stuff that they can’t make on their campfire. And everybody wants to feel like they’re at a resort and that they’re getting resort style food. So when you’re focusing on drinks and tropical drinks and all of that kind of stuff, People are going to buy them and the nice thing about that is people are also on vacation.

Brian Searl:

So usually the sticker shock isn’t there either Is it a target demographic like because they’re I think what you’re saying is mostly true But there are also certain demographics that are probably more likely to purchase drinks and more likely to go to a restaurant So do you find that’s the case? And then I think my second part question to that is, we’ve read a lot over the last few years about how restaurants, especially during COVID and the shutdowns, but afterward and now with people cutting their expenses, have a hard time making a profit that would make a difference in the eyes of especially larger investors. So how do you see that as a challenge that can be overcome?

Sarah Krause:

I think RV campers are the ones that are still spending money. Your rustic camper, if that’s what their campground is focused on, those people are the people that are still cooking over the fire and their pudgy pies and all of that fun stuff. And it is a very volatile industry right now, especially when you’re dealing with food costs. Food costs and labor in the restaurant industry is way out of hand. um Convincing them not scaring them away You just have to really pay attention to what’s going on and and and do your best to kind of watch your food prices and um and keep good staff when you got them, um and and really just evaluate who you’re marketing, especially in a campground, because again, they want to cook the s’mores on their thing. They want to make the brats and the burgers and all of that stuff at their site. So you’ve got to convince them that it’s stuff that they can’t fit in their freezer, you know, in their camper, and that they want to come out and purchase those items from you instead.

Brian Searl:

Well, it’s, yeah, it’s a convenience. And then depending on your demographic, it’s a selling point, right? I mean, this is marketing kind of 101, like everybody will not all the things you’re talking about from food and beverage. But from a convenience standpoint, this is why they have Hunt Brothers Pizza on the East Coast. This is why we have Hershey ice cream. This is why, because it’s very easy for like mom and dad are tired and the kids are running around all day and they’re playing all over the yard and with all the activities. And I don’t want to come home and cook after all that, right? I’m on vacation. The kids can go to the playground. I can sit outside, right? So that convenience aspect is huge for it. But then if I’m a campground owner and I’m looking at, I want to add some type of food and beverage, Beyond the demographics of it, what are the ways that I can potentially look at to make it profitable enough for me to actually divert my attention toward that? Like full food impact is what I’m talking about.

Sarah Krause:

And alcohol.

Brian Searl:

Yes. Yeah, whatever you want to talk about it’s your expertise. It’s not mine, right?

Sarah Krause:

Yeah, um you you want to keep everything small enough that you can keep a Low staff but still pump out enough drinks and food. So Don’t let somebody talk you into building a 8 000 square foot bar that you can’t manage. Um Without 12 people working I think is a big deal. Um, and okay

Ali Rasmussen:

Oh, so Sarah, I mean, I would love to dig into like yours for like formula, I guess, because we have, you know, our parks are on average like 100 to 120 sites, our market, we are definitely trying to be like a very easy to access option for the most people, right. So we’re riding like a 50 to $60 a night kind of rate on average throughout, you know, the collection, we are Um, you know, if we are thinking about how to add, um, like a food or beverage amenity, that’s like how we look at her. We actually look at it as an amenity. So, um, if it’s going to be like a snack shack that we’re running, like that’s how we approach it. We’re not trying to, we’re like thinking about any profit being sort of like a bonus. Um, we much prefer to partner with like food trucks in the area, or even in certain cases, bringing like a, uh, you know, a catering partner. And so, you know, it’s thinking about all those variables, right? Like, your, you know, seasonal demand, your weekly demand, your number of sites, your market, like, what is your formula to get to a point where you are, like, you know, operating and managing that service yourself and expecting a return from it?

Sarah Krause:

It’s just I mean, I mean is it that’s a huge animal. Um The food and beverage industry obviously our parks are um larger than yours. Um, I think that we also have the ability to pull from um the outside so Our our marketing isn’t all solely based on the campers. We are marketing to our local um market as well with all of our food and bev stuff um

Peter Bingeman:

If you didn’t have that, it’s really hard to do. If you have day use coming in to utilize that, just to depend on your own people in the park, that’s a hard nut to crack. With two of my facilities, I do have food available. We don’t do any alcohol at all. I guess you can call it a snack shack, but it’ll do all your scooped ice cream, fries, burgers, fish and chips, and do some wraps and things like that. And, you know, if at the end of the day, if I make something, I’m ecstatic. I think it’s a it’s a great amenity that that basically separates me from the other guys in providing that as a having a great water play area, things like that. It sets you apart. And the other facility, we’re just building a brand new one now, but I purchased a food trailer. And in there, on a Friday night doing fish and chips, I got four girls working just nonstop, and they’re pumping the stuff out. But again, to depend on outside people coming in, we’ve done that before too, but when we’ve really been sent out to dry on that because set hours and this is what you’re supposed to do, but they never do. And if you’ve got your own staff, then you’re committed to it. And when you advertise, we’re open from 11 till eight, you’re open from 11 to eight, whether there’s any there or not, that you made that commitment. And that’s how we look at it anyways, but it’s, it is a great amenity and to make money, that’s a bonus.

Zackry Cooper:

Our experience has been with the food trucks and we going back to the conversation about engaging local talent. That was an easy way for us to engage the local talent and also get local exposure when we called in the food trucks. And, you know, to make a little on something is great. And that’s kind of how we looked at food, even if we tried to do it on our own. So, and you can also change up the menu a lot in the food truck world. And, you know, in certain states or different things, you can also do alcohol and food trucks because they can have certain alcohol permits, much like a wedding permit and things like that. So I’m not giving you alcohol advice here, but I’m just saying that the food trucks was a great experience for us. Make it a little, like you said, as a bonus, but we were able to do that through the food truck side of it. And it’s a great amenity and our people like it. And our food trucks want to come back.

Brian Searl:

Tom, you’re unmuted now, I think, if your mic isn’t making staticky noises.

Tom Mason:

Yeah, hopefully. Sorry about that. But it was going back to Sarah. So when you said outside locals and all that, we have a couple of parks like that. What have you seen as kind of the mix? Or did you measure that at all, what you get locally versus what you get from inside the park?

Sarah Krause:

It’s definitely mostly campers. I would say 80% of our business is campers. So the locals are the bonus on top of all of that.

Tom Mason:

And it really does depend on the location of the park, you know, if it meets their needs, meaning what’s the closest store nearby, things like that. Okay. Thank you.

Brian Searl:

Yeah. I mean, what’s the, like, it’s an area question, like you’re just talking about, right? Like this is, this is, we’ve, we’ve talked for people for years about, you know, some people will come to us. I don’t know why, cause I’m just a marketing guy and ask, what should I carry in my store? And the issue is, and the real thing is, is, well, you’ve got to carry something in your store that’s yes, you want to carry the staples that people need, but also something that is unique that they can’t just run down the street two minutes to get from Walmart at a cheaper price than it’s in your store. And so we’ve worked with a lot of park owners who carry like the grass fed beef and the local farm, fresh eggs from the people down the road. And, and I think that kind of stuff makes a difference, but it’s the same thing with a restaurant. Like you can’t have. just the local burger, like you can’t sell frozen burgers, you can’t sell that they can also get right down the street. Now, if you’re in a rural area, it’s easier. But if you have high competition and like where Bingaman’s was saying, like where everybody’s around them, you have to have something. And that may be the food, that may be the atmosphere, that may be the price, that may be the quality, that may be. But you have to have a difference maker. Would you agree with that, Peter?

Peter Bingeman:

No, I think the convenience of being right there and that people do not have to go anywhere speaks volumes.

Brian Searl:

I’m sorry I should have clarified I was talking about just to draw the outside people in this.

Peter Bingeman:

Yeah so to get the day use coming in you know our one part basically we’re at the point now we’re because we’re so close that we’re It’s going to limit the number of people to come from the day use because of the beach area that we have there and the play toys in the water. That’s it’s maybe a little overcoming of the rest of the park and being a disservice to our campers because that is our primary business is our campus. So we may have to go back and say, okay, we’re going to limit to a hundred people. And once we’re at that moment, we’re done for the day, the gates closed, but you know, people for pizza. phone call, it’s here in five minutes type of thing. That’s how close they can get pizza for it. So I think the convenience of having it right there, yes, is great. But again, having the consistency of time, the food trucks are great. And I think it’s a great asset to have them come in, do a three, four hour spiel, and then they’re gone again. But to cover the period of time, that’s where, you know, if you have a snack, and if you, let’s say, rent it out to somebody to utilize for the year, and they look after all that problems, the headaches, the problem, you know, and stick these hours, that really, at the end of the day, didn’t work either, because there’s hours that are sitting there doing nothing. But our own staff, we can keep them busy doing other stuff, for sure.

Brian Searl:

There’s always a list. It’s an interesting thing that you bring up about the day use, though, because this is a common thing, I think, that I hear from campground owners, and maybe not food and beverage related, but day use, swimming pool related. I don’t want to do that because it’s going to get too crowded, because I can’t manage it, because my campers are going to get, think it’s too crowded. that is a negative, but what are some ways that you or anybody else who wants to jump in here would find to manage that to make it as effective as possible to balance it so you can have the best of both worlds?

Tom Mason:

We’ve tried to do it like over, you know, during the week, you can, you know, bypass for during the week. Um, and, but on weekends, obviously when you’re busier, it’s not available. That’s, but generally we haven’t, typically leads to, um, c inside the park. Uh, when for those to come in from has a lot to do with the and our pools. Um, you kn space, then you can, you In our parks, we typically don’t have that luxury. So we’re somewhat constrained by the size of the pools. And it’s only at two parks that we’ve done it, or we’ve attempted to sell the outdoor passes. And quite honestly, it hasn’t been overly successful.

Greg Emmert:

And at that point, Tom, do you feel like you’re just, you’re not really losing out on day pass people. You’re sort of gaining for your seasonal customers or your regulars, right? Because now when you’re Value prop comes up when you’re selling. Well now I’m selling exclusivity. No one comes in from the outside folks This is all yours all the time. Do you find a way to leverage that?

Tom Mason:

Well, we haven’t I haven’t been in that position where I’m selling but at the end of the day that definitely it has to do with customer service scores and you know and how it reads so if I don’t have those complaints then my customer service scores are higher and that’s probably another selling point I would I would use that at a sale. But the revenue generated from outside sales is minimal compared to what the managing, if you do it, the managing of the campers inside, if they don’t have a chair, or they don’t have the space, or they find out they’re from outside, and it just, it typically has not ended well.

Peter Bingeman:

For our swimming pools, they’re actually, they’re all gated specifically only for campers only, so outside people cannot use the swimming pools. this is a day beach area only, they cannot use a swimming pool. And that’s also due with health regulations too.

Zackry Cooper:

We don’t have any outside access in our parks. You’re either staying at the park or you’re not in our world. So we just never have delved into that. I don’t think it’d be a moneymaker even if we tried to. I would echo Tom’s statements. It probably causes more challenges than it might be worth.

Brian Searl:

I think there are some unique parks where it could go ahead, Ali. Sorry, I’ll shut up.

Ali Rasmussen:

It’s like, you know, just a bit of a contrary approach or opinion. We do at many of our campgrounds offer day pass. It depends on like the amenity mix. So our, you know, campground in the actually in middle Tennessee, Zachary, where we have just like all of this acreage and natural swimming hole and hikes to waterfalls and all that. We offer a day pass there or a, you know, our location in the Western Carolinas where we have a giant water slide and like large, you know, Junior Olympic swimming pool. So we have day passes offered there, but we manage it, you know, by day of week and we manage capacity and we especially find it helpful in these early years for us as we come into these communities as a you know an out-of-state ownership group and it allows us to like make friends with our local community where we you know can offer a day pass usage to a local scouting group or the local officers can host their kids’ birthday parties at our pool. So it gives us a little bit of a way to join the community. And it doesn’t come without its challenges as far as managing a day use gas with your campers, but is just another thing to manage. And if it is done well enough, it can provide like a net benefit in our first, you know, that’s our view. And it certainly can depend on like timing and where we are in our evolution.

Zackry Cooper:

Yeah. And like you said, like part of the park has its own story. So it sounds like you have a lot of trail systems and you can kind of, you can usher them one direction while the park owners or park stayers are over here. So I can kind of see how that could work in that model based on the demographic of the park, I guess.

Brian Searl:

Rachel, I’m curious what you think. Oh, you’re already going to talk.

Rachel Williamson:

No, it depends on the demographic of the park area though.

Brian Searl:

Finish your thought, but I wanted to hear what you thought about from a KOA perspective, just working with all the different breadths of campgrounds, and then obviously with KCN with your seven properties now, eight properties.

Rachel Williamson:

Well, with KCN specifically, we’ve seen success with both. Honestly, it depends on the demographic for the specific park. Our little park in Goodland, it’s so small there that when we have locals ask for a day pass to come and use the pool, it’s not the end of the world. But if we look at a place like the Wisconsin Dells, most people aren’t interested in a day pass to our Wisconsin Dells Park because all of the water parks are there. So demographic is a huge key piece when it comes to that. As for a K-way perspective, when I was working with Oak, we did not do day passes under any circumstances for a legality standpoint.

Brian Searl:

What was the main legal reason for that?

Rachel Williamson:

We couldn’t be held accountable if an outside person came onto the property and was injured. We didn’t have that included as part of our insurance. So we did not allow outside people to come onto the property.

Brian Searl:

So how would you, I’m curious, you have a lot of marketing knowledge, obviously. How would you, like if I was a campground owner and I decide I want to do this either from a day use perspective or food and bev or whatever it is right to get more people onto my property to build ties with the local community like Ali said, how do I market that in a way that ensures that both sides of those people are happy both the day use people and the people who are camping with.

Rachel Williamson:

I would say leaning more towards keeping the park specific for your guests on the weekend and opening up during weekdays, depending on your demographic, of course, and when your seasonality for your park is. But really playing to letting your guests enjoy all of the amenities possible when they’re there, which typically for most of our parks tends to be the weekends, and letting the weekdays be the days that you can have locals come in. And a great way to advertise all of that is working with a local chamber.

Brian Searl:

1. Makes sense. Uh, Joe, you’ve been so quiet. I’ve tried a few times. How can technology help people manage this?

Joe Duemig:

Well, actually we have two parks that, uh, at least two parks. I think there might be more, but, um, that actually managed to use passes through their app. So I was just actually looking up one of our customers. What they do is they have, um, three hour blocks, three blocks a day, um, where they can book, um, on there. They have 20. And so it only, that’s only going to allow 20 more people in at any given time. And they’ll have, I was looking and it’s between, I mean, they have some days that have nothing, obviously, but they’ll have up to 40, 42 people book at, I think it’s $10 a person. And so that’s, that’s what they’re doing with theirs. The way they do it is they do it, they started, I think, noon on Sunday. And so they can get Sunday in as well. And that seems to be a pretty busy day for them. and then close it off at three o’clock on Thursdays.

Brian Searl:

Sunday’s interesting because most people are departing, right?

Joe Duemig:

So they do have to check out time on Sunday because that still gives them a weekend day to do day use. Since they do three hour blocks, it makes sense for them. If they were doing it all day, then people might look at it, well, I get half the day then. And so it kind of works out well for them. And so people go on their app, they see the times it’s available, just like if you book a calendar entry on someone’s calendar, select their time, pay, and then move along.

Brian Searl:

How do I police the three-hour block if I’m a campground owner?

Joe Duemig:

I haven’t asked him how he manages that. But it’s worked. I mean, he’s been doing it. This is his third year of doing this. He tweaks it a little bit every year, asked me to change a few things for him. But yeah, I mean, it seems to be working. This year he added a certain group and gets free passes if they can follow the specific link into their app. And then I think he’s also messing around with doing some full day mixed with the performance as well.

Brian Searl:

What are, and certainly if anybody else has any questions, but what are some of the ways that, you know, I know we’ve talked about your, you’ve been a recurring guest here for a while, but just generally speaking with technology, what are some of the ways that you, that you see tech being able to help some of the, alleviate some of the hassle that are involved with some of this stuff? And we just talked about day use, right? But certainly there are other examples.

Joe Duemig:

So many parks. Well, so from what we do specifically, the, probably the number one thing that our parks, um, is solving problems for them is by getting information from their campers. So whether it be bathroom maintenance, whether it be signing up to have a snowblower from the Canadian properties. We have a few properties there that have snow removal forms on their app or forms for anything where they need to get information from their campers. That seems to do really well. Recently, we added ticket sales. So buying tickets that are limited to a certain amount and then go to a wait list. That gets a lot of usage in our snowboard parks. That’s a very big thing for our snowboard parks. So anything like that basically saves a lot of time. And then obviously getting information right in front of them. So that way they’re not going and when you have 100 check-ins on a Friday night, there’s not somebody sitting and waiting in line to ask a question about where to go to eat. They can just get the answer right away because that’s typically not something that’s on a campground owner’s website or people would ever think to even do.

Brian Searl:

I’m interested in the future with like how we can make more money as technology improves, right? I need a robot lawnmower at the campground, and then we need surge pricing like Uber, and people can bid like eBay for, I want my lawn mowed first, and they can just keep driving up the price, and that’s an extra revenue.

Joe Duemig:

You want to be the most hated man in America, or at least the RV industry.

Zackry Cooper:

We have an automated mower service if you need a recommendation, Brian. We have not employed it on the parks yet, but there is a gentleman in Middle Tennessee that has automated

Brian Searl:

I really want to do it like I looked at those they were like five $6,000 for a small one that like half a yard and I’m like, Well, I’m paying 100 bucks to have them cut my lawn once. Maybe it’s not worth the price. Yeah, some of that stuff does fascinate me not just from I mean, I’m clearly just joking around with this, although maybe not in the future. But yeah,

Zackry Cooper:

I love what Joe said, by the way, about the technology and with this community. And one of the things that we’ve been able to do to get more feedback is a lot of QR codes throughout the park where people can engage us throughout the park based on whatever amenity or thing that they’re at. And we’re able to get that feedback live in real time. And it’s been very, very powerful for us.

Brian Searl:

Yeah, I think that’s something like I really, Ali, swear wanted to get to the diversity and accessibility conversation. I think we’re like, once we passed that, we didn’t have less than at least 20 minutes to talk about it. I think we maybe can devote some time to the next show for that. But I think that’s part of that process is just making sure like the QR codes is an example of just making sure that people can reach you the way they want to reach you so that they have good service. However, they decide that they want it right. So I’m excited, like I definitely want to do more justice than rushing through it right here now, but maybe we can have that next month if you’re willing to do that.

Joe Duemig:

In regards to QR codes that you were just talking about, Two or three of our campgrounds now have QR codes instead of printing out sheets for their mini golf and putting out pencils. And the QR code goes directly, opens their app. They can put their stuff in. They can submit to the campground to have like a contest for their golf scorecard, a mini golf scorecard. They can also see their history. So like we have some Palm Springs properties that they’re going to be keeping track of how people do at individual golf courses in the area. And so you can see all of your history and everything there. So it’s kind of a neat addition.

Brian Searl:

How do I account for my handicap, Joe?

Joe Duemig:

You would probably subtract about 100, right?

Brian Searl:

Yeah, at least. 100 or 150. It varies depending on the day, how long I sleep the night before.

Zackry Cooper:

We don’t have a golf coach as an amenity on our park. I’m sorry, Brian. Maybe that’s a good idea, though.

Brian Searl:

I definitely need it. What else we got, guys? We got a couple minutes left. Any final thoughts?

Sarah Krause:

Rachel, about marketing for day passes and with our new park, with our new aqua park that we put in, in a very rural community, the way that we were marketing for day passes is we were utilizing things like Groupon. We were using the back of a grocery store receipts and really hitting our SEO heavy on Google as well for that.

Tom Mason:

Did you get results that you thought

Sarah Krause:

We did, probably better than I thought. Like I said, it’s very rural, so we did have a really good showing for day passes. I was surprised.

Brian Searl:

Were you able to track that back? You mentioned a couple different things you tried, and obviously we know we can track SEO, but were you able to track the other things that you did?

Sarah Krause:

Yeah, well if you use Groupon or the company that does the receipts, they do a really good job of showing where people are getting that stuff from, and we save all our anything that came in. We have a license plate reader so we asked people where they were from and where they got their stuff and that’s all entered into that kind of stuff too.

Rachel Williamson:

So that’s a really cool way to diversify the funnel.

Joe Duemig:

Yeah well and speaking of the rural versus non-rural areas, we talked about on-site food. We were at a park in rural Oklahoma. They actually have two restaurants on sites and they only they only have probably 30 to 50 sites somewhere in there, but they have a sports bar and like a nice restaurant, but they’re the only, they probably wouldn’t exist without the RV park, but they’re the only gig in a half an hour. And so we actually ate at both of the places and they were both completely full, both met and so we went there. So, you know, it kind of really all depends on your area and what’s available.

Brian Searl:

Yeah, your demographic and what is available in the near plan.

Joe Duemig:

There were probably only five campers that were like people that were camping in those restaurants that night.

Brian Searl:

Yeah. And we’ve talked about that before. Like, we obviously don’t have time to get into it right now for multiple reasons, including we have 36 seconds left on the show. But I think that’s another good thing to bring up, though, is just to talk about like drive home that when you’re investing, when you’re purchasing, when you’re going into this campground RV park industry, it’s so important to do that due diligence and understand who that guest is, who your local area is. you know, what type of restaurants are there, what’s your competition, not just from a, you know, maybe an RV site standpoint, but from a whatever I’m going to do day use a restaurant or food and beverage, ice cream or whatever it may be. And I think I know I’ve talked to a lot of people who did not do as much as they should have over the pandemic when they jumped in very, very quickly.

Rachel Williamson:

So make sure to get your market analysis. That is for sure.

Brian Searl:

Greg, do you do this?

Greg Emmert:

Yeah, we do. That’s what I was just gonna chime in with whatever little time is left here. And that is that is certainly I would say seven out of 10 of the people that contact Jeff and I are usually going help because they didn’t dig deep enough. And it’s, you know, then we get to look at things and we go, oh man, okay, you didn’t make a bad buy, but we’ve got to, we need to take the ship and just change the heading a little bit. Right. But, and we’ve, we’ve talked a little bit with, with John actually from blue metric and, and Kevin as well at KCN been talking to those guys. They definitely, those two have awesome approaches to it. And, and Allie and Eric as well, fantastic approaches to their due diligence, but a lot of people out there don’t. you know, it’s expensive, right? It’s, it’s not a, it’s not like going.

Brian Searl:

How much does it cost, Greg?

Greg Emmert:

We want to know right now. I need a dollar. It’s a buck, buck 280. I’d say right in there somewhere.

Brian Searl:

But 280,000 or $280. You’re underselling yourself.

Greg Emmert:

Yes. Tall. So yeah, it’s, you know, campgrounds an expensive purchase. So if you take due diligence from somebody, you figure that in, maybe it’s only a percent or a portion of a percentage of the, you know, tenths of a percentage of the total purchase price that pays you back so well in the end. But yeah, that market data to Rachel’s point is absolutely priceless. You’ve got to have it so you know where to start because that year one and two and sometimes even year three, when you first buy that asset as Um, so many of the people here on the panel know that’s, those can be really tight and having that data and having it, having your focus in the right area, it can change the game for you for those first few years.

Brian Searl:

All right.

Rachel Williamson:

I know we worked on their acquisition team and that was always huge of making sure that we would take that time to really dig into our due diligence.

Greg Emmert:

Yeah. All right.

Brian Searl:

I want to unpack that in a future show too, a little bit more, but I know we’re over. So Greg, where can they find out more about camp strategy real quick? We’ll just wrap it up with everybody real quick.

Greg Emmert:

CampStrategy.com. Thanks, Brian.

Brian Searl:

Rachel, KCN Campgrounds.

Rachel Williamson:

KCNCampgrounds.com.

Joe Duemig:

Joe? AtMyCommunity.com.

Brian Searl:

Allie?

Ali Rasmussen:

I’m going to really throw it off. It’s SpaciousGuysCampgrounds.com, at SpaciousGuysCampgrounds on most socials.

Brian Searl:

She got her social media in. Take notes, guys. Fuck the game. Zachary?

Zackry Cooper:

Bluemetricgroup.com. You can find us on Facebook there as well. You’ll find us on Instagram. We like to hang out in the social world, too.

Brian Searl:

Thanks for being here, Zachary. We appreciate you being a guest. Tom?

Tom Mason:

Bluemetricgroup.com.

Peter Bingeman:

Peter? CGRVpark.ca.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Thanks for being here, Peter. You’re going to be at the conference? I’ll be there.

Peter Bingeman:

I think I’ve got eight staff coming in total.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. I’m sure we’ve met. We must have met. I’ve been there for four or five years, but looking forward to seeing you again. Sarah?

Sarah Krause:

stdhospitalitywisconsin.com.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Well, thank you guys. I really appreciate you joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats. We’ll see you next week for an RV industry outdoor rec focused episode. Take care, guys. I appreciate everybody being here. We’ll see you soon.

Greg Emmert:

Bye-bye. Thanks, Brian.

SPEAKER_00:

Joining us for this episode of MC Fireside Chats with your host, Brian Searl. Have a suggestion for a show idea? Want your campground or company in a future episode? Email us at hello at modern campground dot com. Get your daily dose of news from modern campground dot com. And be sure to join us next week for more insights into the fascinating world of outdoor hospitality.