Latest / MC Fireside Chats, an Outdoor Hospitality Podcast / MC Fireside Chats - August 19th, 2026

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MC Fireside Chats - August 19th, 2026 · MC Fireside Chats, an Outdoor Hospitality Podcast

• 0:46
  Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats.
• 0:48
  Brian Searl: My name is Brian Searl with Insider Perks Modern Campground.
• 0:50
  Brian Searl: I'm excited to be here with you.
• 0:52
  Brian Searl: Got a little bit of a different background today in British Columbia on Lake Shuswap.
• 0:56
  Brian Searl: I don't know if you can see the lake, but like it's a really nice view from here.
• 0:59
  Brian Searl: Let's throw it up so you guys can all see that and be jealous for a second.
• 1:02
  Brian Searl: But yeah, excited to be here.
• 1:04
  Brian Searl: Got a couple special guests as my phone does circle the search when I type it, so that's a new feature on Google Pixel, self-promotional if you wanna do that.
• 1:10
  Brian Searl: Welcome Landan Dory, one of our special guests.
• 1:13
  Brian Searl: John McMahon's gonna join us as a new recurring guest on this episode.
• 1:15
  Brian Searl: Excited to have you here, John.
• 1:17
  Brian Searl: And Jeff Hoffman-
• 1:17
  John McMahon: Good to see you
• 1:18
  Brian Searl: and we got a few other people who are traveling this week and can't make the show, but we're gonna have a good discussion today.
• 1:22
  Brian Searl: We're gonna talk about all kinds of different stuff and we'll see what comes up.
• 1:25
  Brian Searl: So let's briefly go around the room and just have everybody introduce themselves real quick.
• 1:28
  Brian Searl: You wanna start, Jeff?
• 1:30
  Jeff Hoffman: Sure.
• 1:30
  Jeff Hoffman: My name is Jeff Hoffman, and I'm the partner and founder of Camp Strategy.
• 1:35
  Jeff Hoffman: We work with RV parks and campgrounds almost exclusively doing valuations, operations pretty much anything to do with the campground industry we report on.
• 1:49
  Brian Searl: Awesome.
• 1:50
  Brian Searl: Thanks for being here as always, Jeff.
• 1:51
  Brian Searl: Landan?
• 1:53
  Landan Dory: Give me a second.
• 1:54
  Landan Dory: I apologize, my computer's ringing right when you said my name.
• 1:57
  Landan Dory: There we go.
• 1:57
  Landan Dory: Okay.
• 1:58
  Landan Dory: Sorry about that.
• 1:59
  Landan Dory: That's okay.
• 1:59
  Landan Dory: Landan Dory.
• 2:00
  Landan Dory: I am the founder and CEO of North Star Brokerage and Advisory.
• 2:04
  Landan Dory: We're an outdoor hospitality focused company.
• 2:07
  Landan Dory: Brokerage is the name of our game.
• 2:08
  Landan Dory: Advisory is something that we've tacked on in recent years to help owners run a more profitable business today that's worth more tomorrow.
• 2:15
  Landan Dory: We also just started and are working to build up our North Star Owners Collective, which is a community for campground owners across the country.
• 2:23
  Landan Dory: It's exclusive to owners and that keeps the, the sales people and the brokers and that type of thing out, except for myself.
• 2:29
  Landan Dory: Happy to be here, and this is a cool and unique opportunity for me.
• 2:33
  Landan Dory: Thank you.
• 2:33
  Brian Searl: Awesome.
• 2:34
  Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, man.
• 2:35
  Brian Searl: John?
• 2:35
  John McMahon: Yeah.
• 2:36
  John McMahon: Hi, I'm John McMahon.
• 2:37
  John McMahon: I'm the operations director at Camp Door County in Sister Bay, Wisconsin.
• 2:41
  John McMahon: We have a high-end adventure resort, mountain bike trails, a lot of primitive and RV camping, cottages.
• 2:49
  John McMahon: And I'm glad to be here.
• 2:52
  Brian Searl: Yeah.
• 2:52
  Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, John.
• 2:53
  Brian Searl: Excited to learn more about your property and what you have going on down there.
• 2:55
  Brian Searl: Wisconsin's beautiful.
• 2:56
  Brian Searl: I haven't...
• 2:56
  Brian Searl: I haven't spent as much time there as I would like to but I do go to the WACO Show usually every year.
• 3:02
  Brian Searl: I don't think I'll make it in next year, but that's too far away.
• 3:05
  John McMahon: Yeah.
• 3:05
  Brian Searl: I was there last year.
• 3:06
  Brian Searl: We sponsored and brought a musician with us and everything but I haven't been f- like as fur- further north than I'd like to be in Wisconsin.
• 3:11
  Brian Searl: I don't-
• 3:12
  John McMahon: Yeah, you were in Stevens Point, I think, when you went to WACO.
• 3:15
  Brian Searl: Yeah, central Wisconsin.
• 3:15
  John McMahon: And we're northeast of there about two and a half hours.
• 3:19
  John McMahon: We're out on a peninsula that's surrounded by Lake Michigan from the east and the Bay of Green Bay from the west.
• 3:27
  John McMahon: So we have a really unique climate.
• 3:28
  John McMahon: We have more shoreline than any county in the United States.
• 3:32
  John McMahon: We have more state and local parks than any county in the United States, and we get 2 million plus visitors a year.
• 3:38
  John McMahon: So it's a very tourist seasonal location to be in.
• 3:43
  John McMahon: So it fits our model really well.
• 3:46
  Brian Searl: Very nice.
• 3:46
  Brian Searl: I think the furthest north I've been in Wisconsin is, and maybe this is north of central Wisconsin, I don't know, I'm not looking at a map, but Warrens, Wisconsin.
• 3:53
  Brian Searl: We used to work with a Jellystone up there.
• 3:56
  John McMahon: What's the name of it?
• 3:57
  John McMahon: Lawrence?
• 3:58
  Brian Searl: Warrens.
• 3:59
  John McMahon: Warrens.
• 4:00
  John McMahon: Not familiar.
• 4:00
  Brian Searl: Like it's a big cranberry festival up there, cranberry something.
• 4:03
  John McMahon: Oh, that's in the that's on the west side of the state,
• 4:05
  Brian Searl: yeah.
• 4:06
  Brian Searl: Yeah.
• 4:06
  Brian Searl: Yep.
• 4:06
  Brian Searl: Yeah.
• 4:08
  Brian Searl: I don't think I've ever been to Green Bay either, which is really interesting.
• 4:11
  Brian Searl: I traveled the country for four and a half years.
• 4:12
  Brian Searl: Anyway, we sh- we'll digress.
• 4:14
  Brian Searl: We'll talk about our travel stuff offline sometime.
• 4:16
  Brian Searl: Jeff, so normally we turn this tour over to our recurring guest kinda first question of the show.
• 4:20
  Brian Searl: Jeff, you're the only john, you're a new recurring guest so I guess you can weigh in on this too.
• 4:24
  Brian Searl: Is there anything that's come across to your guys' desks that you think we should be talking about on this show since we last got together about a month or so ago that you think we need to?
• 4:31
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.
• 4:31
  Jeff Hoffman: Actually, what I'd like to do, because Landan is a new guest, and I'd like to talk to him about the real estate industry and the in the campground sector, the RV sector, where he sees it going, what he
• 4:46
  Jeff Hoffman: sees with valuations.
• 4:48
  Jeff Hoffman: Because in my research and what I've been doing lately, I'm finding a little bit of a fallback on pricing and a little bit wanting to get a little bit higher cap rates because everybody's afraid interest rates are going
• 5:07
  Jeff Hoffman: to go up.
• 5:08
  Jeff Hoffman: And I tend to agree with them.
• 5:10
  Jeff Hoffman: So I'll let you start
• 5:13
  Brian Searl: off, Landan, over to you.
• 5:14
  Brian Searl: Well, let's do this.
• 5:14
  Brian Searl: Can we do this for a second before- 'Cause I want Landan to talk about that.
• 5:17
  Brian Searl: Yeah.
• 5:17
  Brian Searl: I said that before the show, right?
• 5:19
  Jeff Hoffman: Okay.
• 5:19
  Brian Searl: But can we set the stage for the people who are watching this show, because we have a lot of people who are watching the show who are just campground, obviously campground owners, operators, suppliers, vendors, stuff like that, but
• 5:27
  Brian Searl: I don't know if any of them are familiar with, maybe they've never sold their park.
• 5:30
  Brian Searl: Maybe they don't know how valuations work or how appraisals work or how they should be valuing their sites or their properties or if that's relevant or has changed in 2026.
• 5:38
  Brian Searl: So maybe Jeff or Landan, both of you either are qualified to answer this question.
• 5:42
  Brian Searl: Oh.
• 5:42
  Brian Searl: But maybe we just start there, not in a long exercise that takes 30 minutes, right- but, like, a brief overview of how you would begin to get started understanding the worth of your campground in 2026, and does the
• 5:52
  Brian Searl: economy impact that or not?
• 5:54
  Brian Searl: Does the demand-
• 5:55
  Jeff Hoffman: Sure
• 5:55
  Brian Searl: for camping or the type of camping they offer impact that or not?
• 5:58
  Jeff Hoffman: Okay.
• 5:59
  Brian Searl: And has anything changed since COVID, that kind of thing.
• 6:01
  Jeff Hoffman: Why don't we take a look at both ways because I generally am valuing campgrounds for the buyers and investors, and Landan, I think you probably are on the opposite, not quite opposite side, but generally you're getting listings and
• 6:17
  Jeff Hoffman: trying to sell them.
• 6:19
  Jeff Hoffman: So why don't we approach it from two different sides and I think it'll make an interesting discussion.
• 6:25
  Landan Dory: I would agree.
• 6:26
  Landan Dory: Yeah.
• 6:26
  Landan Dory: Why don't you, why don't you start us out with how you look at it from the buyer's perspective and then I'll hit on what we do in working with a prospective seller.
• 6:35
  Jeff Hoffman: Okay.
• 6:35
  Jeff Hoffman: That'll work.
• 6:36
  Jeff Hoffman: Generally with a buyer It doesn't matter what you did to your campground, how much capital you put in.
• 6:45
  Jeff Hoffman: It does matter what the campground looks like because if I have to put a lot of CapEx, or if I have to spend a lot of capital to get it back up to industry, that means I'm gonna want
• 6:58
  Jeff Hoffman: a higher cap rate because I'm putting more money in, and I also want...
• 7:04
  Jeff Hoffman: will probably ask for a lower offer price because I'm gonna have to put capital in.
• 7:10
  Brian Searl: Okay, for...
• 7:11
  Brian Searl: Sorry, just to interrupt you.
• 7:12
  Brian Searl: For the people who are totally ignorant, cap rate in 10 seconds.
• 7:15
  Jeff Hoffman: Okay.
• 7:16
  Jeff Hoffman: The cap rate is the amount of return that I expect to get off of the campground, and it's gonna, going to be based off of a percentage of your net operating income, which is revenue minus expenses, take out
• 7:37
  Jeff Hoffman: depreciation and interest, or amortization if you have it, but most campgrounds don't.
• 7:43
  Jeff Hoffman: And that's, we end up with the NOI number, and that's mainly, that's my area that I work in.
• 7:52
  Jeff Hoffman: Everything is based off the NOI, and that's where I was headed.
• 7:56
  Jeff Hoffman: You can have the prettiest park in the world, but if your occu- occupancy is 13%, it's not pretty to me.
• 8:05
  Jeff Hoffman: I'm strictly going on your financials when I'm valuing a park.
• 8:11
  Jeff Hoffman: We'll add some for some aesthetics and location because, as in real estate, location is everything.
• 8:20
  Jeff Hoffman: And the potential for out- value add, that's the other thing that we look at, is how is the park operating now, how can it operate better, and what, through our expertise, can we add to this property that's going
• 8:37
  Jeff Hoffman: to make it worth more money?
• 8:40
  Jeff Hoffman: We normally try not to pay for that value add because that's our equity gain.
• 8:46
  Jeff Hoffman: So in a nutshell, that's my view of valuation.
• 8:52
  Brian Searl: So how do you...
• 8:52
  Brian Searl: What are some examples of value adds for people?
• 8:54
  Brian Searl: Is there a fixed list for our industry, or could a value add be, like, John's great beard or
• 9:01
  John McMahon: That's expensive.
• 9:02
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.
• 9:03
  Jeff Hoffman: It probably is.
• 9:03
  Jeff Hoffman: That would probably add something if he stays.
• 9:07
  Brian Searl: Yeah.
• 9:07
  Jeff Hoffman: But we've gotta com- we've got to carve the company's initials in it
• 9:11
  Brian Searl: But give people some examples, right?
• 9:13
  Brian Searl: And the reason I'm asking this is because you're if you're the owner of your campground-
• 9:17
  Jeff Hoffman: Yes
• 9:17
  Brian Searl: then obviously your value adds, and I know they're, we're not talking about exactly the same thing here w- with what you're describing.
• 9:23
  Jeff Hoffman: We are.
• 9:23
  Brian Searl: Your value adds and what your valuations are and how you perceive things and all that is way different than how somebody else comes in and perceives them.
• 9:31
  Brian Searl: And then also is there a value or perceived value of what I could do with this property that maybe the owner's never done marketing or never had a good website or, right?
• 9:41
  Brian Searl: Does all that come into play?
• 9:42
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah, and that's what we evaluate when we're looking at this to see if there is value add.
• 9:48
  Jeff Hoffman: We look at the marketing, we look at their rates, we compare demand for the industry as a, we break it down by region what the demand is, what the demand is for that city or attraction.
• 10:02
  Jeff Hoffman: Then we take a look at what percentage they're getting out of that versus everybody else.
• 10:08
  Jeff Hoffman: If they're getting the standard percentage, then if they're not marketing and they're not really qualifying the park- then there's a reason to think that we could draw some more demand to that park.
• 10:23
  Jeff Hoffman: We also look at all the rate structures, all the ancillary income, how that might be affected, what it can bring in.
• 10:33
  Jeff Hoffman: And, on the opposite end, if I was working with a seller We wanna work like a year or two ahead with a seller to get this income onto their books.
• 10:49
  Jeff Hoffman: And the same thing y- and I preach this to them, if you're not reporting all of your income, that 10,000 that you might think is, you're saving 25% on taxes, by taking that out, you're knocking $100,000 of value
• 11:07
  Jeff Hoffman: or more off of your park.
• 11:09
  Jeff Hoffman: So my...
• 11:10
  Jeff Hoffman: If you're going to sell, report all of your income, because if I show up to your park and I can't prove those numbers, if it didn't go through a checkbook, it didn't go through some, a credit card, it
• 11:23
  Jeff Hoffman: doesn't exist.
• 11:24
  Jeff Hoffman: You can tell me you took some money, but if I can't prove it, it doesn't exist.
• 11:31
  Jeff Hoffman: Other-
• 11:31
  Brian Searl: Go ahead and finish.
• 11:31
  Jeff Hoffman: Sorry.
• 11:32
  Jeff Hoffman: Go ahead.
• 11:32
  Jeff Hoffman: Okay.
• 11:32
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.
• 11:33
  Jeff Hoffman: Other areas that we can improve on are the marketing.
• 11:37
  Jeff Hoffman: I- And generally, what, w- with the way things are now, we normally recommend they take a look at an actual professional agency to handle marketing, because y- we know most people know just enough to get dangerous, but not
• 11:56
  Jeff Hoffman: how to truly market.
• 11:58
  Jeff Hoffman: You can break a...
• 11:59
  Jeff Hoffman: Marketing, you can break down now into specific sections, specific people, specific income groups, people that actually own RVs.
• 12:10
  Jeff Hoffman: You don't do the shotgun approach anymore on marketing, where you're just firing until you hit something.
• 12:17
  Jeff Hoffman: We're getting very direct.
• 12:18
  Jeff Hoffman: We're using a rifle scope now instead of just blasting.
• 12:22
  Brian Searl: Which is good, 'cause if you fire im- just in- randomly until you hit things, you'd run out of ammo like the US military is apparently, right?
• 12:28
  Brian Searl: No, sorry, that's a bad joke.
• 12:30
  Brian Searl: Okay, we shouldn't dive on.
• 12:30
  Brian Searl: Yeah.
• 12:31
  Brian Searl: Okay.
• 12:31
  Brian Searl: Sorry.
• 12:33
  Brian Searl: All right.
• 12:33
  Brian Searl: So question for you, Jeff.
• 12:35
  Brian Searl: So if I'm an owner and you said you wanted to work typic- or if I'm an owner thinking about selling my park, you say you typically wanna work with them a year or two in advance.
• 12:43
  Brian Searl: How does it impact what they're, or how you wanna work with them or when or I guess how does it impact them that there's an economy that is seemingly not headed in the right direction right now?
• 12:55
  Brian Searl: Does that set them back four years potentially, or six years?
• 12:59
  Brian Searl: Because it stacks, right?
• 13:00
  Brian Searl: Like you wanna look at, you wanna start tackling the problem that you can tackle and have two years to tackle is what you're saying.
• 13:05
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.
• 13:05
  Jeff Hoffman: What's changing in the economy?
• 13:06
  Jeff Hoffman: We are having a bit of a flat, maybe down year in the camping industry.
• 13:15
  Jeff Hoffman: But what I've studied over time, in a 10-year period, we have two great years, we have two horrible years, and then we have six flat years generally.
• 13:28
  Jeff Hoffman: So if you're improving and improving you're going above the average.
• 13:33
  Jeff Hoffman: So I w- I would tell them, "We're gonna look at the average of what you've done over X amount of years.
• 13:41
  Jeff Hoffman: We project into the future what demand might be."
• 13:45
  Jeff Hoffman: Because we're not, we're not gonna have 425 gas forever, at least we hope not.
• 13:51
  Jeff Hoffman: We're gonna have inflation unless they do something.
• 13:55
  Jeff Hoffman: So what's gonna hurt his sale is if we raise interest rates.
• 14:02
  Jeff Hoffman: That means I have to be further away from the interest rate on my cap rate.
• 14:08
  Jeff Hoffman: 'Cause what a cap rate is a spread rate between what you're paying in interest and what you wanna receive.
• 14:17
  Jeff Hoffman: So if I can put my...
• 14:21
  Jeff Hoffman: Right now, I can put my money in the Fed at four point, I think it's now up to 4.56.
• 14:26
  Brian Searl: It was 4.68 this morning.
• 14:30
  Jeff Hoffman: Was it?
• 14:30
  Jeff Hoffman: Okay.
• 14:31
  Brian Searl: And then the treasury started buying back bonds again.
• 14:33
  Jeff Hoffman: But I don't ha- You know, I can earn that 4.68 without doing anything.
• 14:38
  Jeff Hoffman: I get a check.
• 14:40
  Jeff Hoffman: I don't worry because it's backed by the US government and my taxes hopefully.
• 14:46
  Jeff Hoffman: So I wanna get a spread for that risk that I'm taking, and it depends on how comfortable you are with risk.
• 14:57
  Jeff Hoffman: Some companies that can buy at a lower cap rate are well-funded and have lots of revenue streams coming in, so they can go down lower on a cap rate because they know in five years they're gonna grow that
• 15:13
  Jeff Hoffman: cap rate up to 1520 through just raising revenues.
• 15:20
  Jeff Hoffman: But your average, average mom and pop, if they're taking their money out of a 401where you know the average is gonna be 8% without you doing anything.
• 15:35
  Jeff Hoffman: You definitely wanna get 9 to 10% because you're gonna be working this property.
• 15:39
  Jeff Hoffman: It's not gonna be a passive income unless it's huge
• 15:45
  Brian Searl: All right.
• 15:45
  Brian Searl: I wanna come back to the rates and the 5 and 10-year thing, but I we could talk and then I wanna make sure Landan and John have time.
• 15:50
  Brian Searl: So Landan, what do you think?
• 15:51
  Jeff Hoffman: You know I can talk about this forever, so yeah.
• 15:53
  Brian Searl: I wanna talk about the 5 to 10-year thing later specifically really as it relates to the big groups, 'cause I don't know if that holds up long term.
• 16:00
  Brian Searl: And also the raising rates versus inflation prices, is that really making more money?
• 16:04
  Brian Searl: So we'll come back to that.
• 16:05
  Brian Searl: Don't let me forget, Jeff.
• 16:06
  Brian Searl: You're young and I'm old, and you'll remember.
• 16:08
  Brian Searl: But Landan, go.
• 16:10
  Brian Searl: What you, what do you think about it?
• 16:11
  Jeff Hoffman: You always gotta get that old thing in there, don't ya?
• 16:13
  Brian Searl: I said I was old, man.
• 16:15
  Brian Searl: What are you talking about?
• 16:16
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.
• 16:16
  Brian Searl: Look at my gray hair.
• 16:17
  Brian Searl: You see that?
• 16:18
  Brian Searl: I'm bald, too.
• 16:19
  Brian Searl: I have nothing.
• 16:20
  Brian Searl: All right.
• 16:21
  Brian Searl: Sorry, Landan.
• 16:21
  Brian Searl: Go ahead.
• 16:22
  Landan Dory: No, you're good.
• 16:23
  Landan Dory: First and foremost, Jeff's spot on with everything that he's saying.
• 16:27
  Landan Dory: These properties are not valued based on how much money you spent on them, or how much you love it, or what you think it should be worth.
• 16:33
  Landan Dory: It's based off of what somebody can actually walk into a bank and get financing for.
• 16:38
  Landan Dory: And whether it's an SBA loan or a conventional loan or some other type of debt, you're capped at a certain point because banks require a couple different things.
• 16:46
  Landan Dory: There's LTV requirements, that's loan-to-value.
• 16:49
  Landan Dory: There's a debt service coverage ratio that's a requirement.
• 16:52
  Landan Dory: And if you're not within the realm of where a bank needs you to be, then even if you like the property as a buyer, you want to own it, you put a contract on it, and you start down
• 17:01
  Landan Dory: that track, the bank's gonna come in, look at it, and veto it if the cashflow coming in off the property is not enough to cover the debt service on the property.
• 17:10
  Landan Dory: So that's a very critical thing, and that's the things that a lot of people miss, especially when they've dumped a lot of money into their property to improve it, but those improvements were on maybe non-revenue producing things like
• 17:21
  Landan Dory: infrastructure that just doesn't produce, any cashflow for the business.
• 17:27
  Brian Searl: I know you're just getting started, but tell me I, I'm just curious for the people out there.
• 17:30
  Brian Searl: Is the line moving because of this economy?
• 17:32
  Brian Searl: Is, are the banks moving the line at all?
• 17:34
  Brian Searl: And does that, how does that impact the market?
• 17:36
  Landan Dory: The banks, from what I can tell, and I talk to a lot of banks are becoming more skittish of this asset class.
• 17:43
  Landan Dory: This was a darling asset class in the 20-teens leading up to 2020.
• 17:47
  Landan Dory: A lot of private equity money moving into the space, a lot of new owners wanting to be in the space, a lot of new developers trying to get into this space.
• 17:55
  Landan Dory: And everybody had this theory and this business model and this pro forma of what they thought was going to happen with the space, and then COVID hits.
• 18:03
  Landan Dory: And then everybody's theories got proven right.
• 18:05
  Landan Dory: Every single park, every single The majority of parks had some of their best years between 2020 and the first half of 2022.
• 18:13
  Landan Dory: More people were traveling, the cost of capital was extremely low, and that means that more people started building these things, more people started buying these things.
• 18:22
  Landan Dory: And especially for the people that were buying them, if you bought with 4% interest and you bought maybe a 6% cap rate park, you're finding yourself in a tough spot right now because- Especially right now in 2026.
• 18:34
  Landan Dory: So 2021, a lot of people paid a lot for these types of properties.
• 18:38
  Landan Dory: Fast-forward five years, a lot of people are facing their, the bank maturity dates, and now they're having to play the pretend and extend game with the bank, and they either need to refinance at rates that are probably depe-
• 18:50
  Landan Dory: depending on your park, 6.5 on the very low end, up to 7.25 on the higher end.
• 18:55
  Landan Dory: And if you are making less money than you were before, which is pretty common in the space right now, that's a very difficult payment to make, especially if the payment goes up.
• 19:04
  Landan Dory: So if you can't refinance, what are your options?
• 19:06
  Landan Dory: To sell.
• 19:08
  Landan Dory: Well- In, in our analysis and our research, the market's been pretty down and to the right in terms of sales prices for these since 2022, 2023.
• 19:18
  Landan Dory: Matter of fact, last year we underwrote and analyzed 78 parks just in Texas, and 68% of those parks saw both a simultaneous decrease in revenue and increase in expenses.
• 19:29
  Landan Dory: So that profit margin for a lot of owners is getting squeezed in a really tough manner.
• 19:34
  Landan Dory: So now we're in 2026, a lot of people are facing those refinances.
• 19:39
  Landan Dory: There are plenty of people in the marketplace, many of them are our clients, who they can't refinance because there's not enough equity in the property for the bank to loan on again, and if they sell, they owe the
• 19:49
  Landan Dory: bank money 'cause they can't get the cash out of the sale.
• 19:53
  Landan Dory: So banks that are very familiar with this space have a much better lens into what the risk level is right now, and we're starting to see a little bit of pullback and a little bit more scrutiny in the
• 20:04
  Landan Dory: underwriting.
• 20:05
  Landan Dory: And then the, the banks that are not very well known in the space, or they don't have a, a large allocation or exposure to the outdoor hospitality space those guys are getting hammered just as hard, but they don't
• 20:16
  Landan Dory: have as much data to compare it to see if this is anomaly on a single park basis, or if this is a more widespread problem that a lot of people are facing.
• 20:24
  Landan Dory: And the reality is, especially down here in Texas where we're located it's affecting a lot of people.
• 20:29
  Landan Dory: And the thing that augments this and makes this a lot harder is the sheer overdevelopment that we've seen in the space, both in terms of people who've expanded their campgrounds and then people that have built them from the
• 20:41
  Landan Dory: ground up.
• 20:41
  Landan Dory: And there's a really interesting study that was done in 2018, I believe it was Horizon that put out the report for Texas.
• 20:48
  Landan Dory: It was tracking, I wanna say 2,100 RV parks in the state of Texas.
• 20:53
  Landan Dory: We've got an internal tool that we're using to track the market as well, and we're tracking at least 3,800 operational RV parks in Texas right now.
• 21:01
  Landan Dory: It's a 70% increase in about a six-year time span.
• 21:06
  Landan Dory: So there's a lot of things that are making camp ownership today way more difficult, and it's the reason why, it's the reason why we started our advisory practice.
• 21:15
  Landan Dory: We didn't wanna be advisors, 'cause again, I'm not an operator, I just see a lot of businesses.
• 21:20
  Landan Dory: But what Jeff said is exactly correct.
• 21:23
  Landan Dory: If somebody comes to me today and says, "Landan, sell my park," I say, "Sure, absolutely I will."
• 21:29
  Landan Dory: And then I open...
• 21:29
  Landan Dory: I pop the hood on their business, I start to look under it, and I see what's going on, and Oftentimes there's a lot of things that can be fixed and changed with just a little bit more time and
• 21:40
  Landan Dory: a little bit more intention.
• 21:41
  Landan Dory: And if you don't have that time, you can't just solve those problems in a six-month time span because most of these things, these opportunities in your business for improvement, most of those things take time to implement, and then
• 21:53
  Landan Dory: it takes time for that to be reflected on your trailing 12-month profit and loss.
• 21:57
  Landan Dory: So it does take time to get to that point.
• 21:59
  Landan Dory: Jeff hit the nail on the head there.
• 22:01
  Landan Dory: And which is why, this is a very much an operator's game.
• 22:04
  Landan Dory: This is not an apartment complex.
• 22:06
  Landan Dory: This is not a retail property.
• 22:07
  Landan Dory: This is an operating business, and that's a double-edged sword, right?
• 22:11
  Landan Dory: Because it, it means that you have the potential for very high highs and low lows.
• 22:17
  Landan Dory: A good operator can come into a bad property and significantly outperform everybody else 'cause he's got a better toolkit, he's got more experience, and he knows how to run better than a previous operator.
• 22:27
  Landan Dory: And I, I encourage every owner out there really take seriously your operations, really take seriously how you're running your business, and be a little bit com- comforted by the fact that even at the highest level, the institutional level
• 22:41
  Landan Dory: for the owners that have these types of properties, even those guys have some pretty gaping holes in their business models, and just a little bit more attention and a little bit more knowledge can help fill that.
• 22:52
  Landan Dory: And that's everything from the financial literacy side, that's everything from the operational side.
• 22:57
  Landan Dory: Marketing and revenue generation is obviously key.
• 23:00
  Landan Dory: Infrastructure, you can't ignore that.
• 23:02
  Landan Dory: And all of that, at least in our practice, leads up to exit readiness.
• 23:06
  Landan Dory: All of those things are decisions you make in your business today to run a more profitable business, but those are the same things that will yield you a higher exit value when you actually go to sell.
• 23:15
  Landan Dory: So thinking about a sale, it's not something that's way off in the distance.
• 23:20
  Landan Dory: No, you need to start making those decisions today, even if you're planning on owning and operating your park for the next 20 years.
• 23:26
  Landan Dory: Install these practices in your business today because not only are they gonna help you run a more profitable business today, but it's gonna yield you a higher valuation when you do go and exit.
• 23:36
  Brian Searl: I don't wanna take this in a negative direction, but I have one specific question, and then we'll flip back to the positive.
• 23:41
  Landan Dory: Okay
• 23:41
  Brian Searl: with related to what you just said about the overbuilding in Texas and the cheap money for a while.
• 23:45
  Brian Searl: Is it possible, and Jeff, maybe you wanna weigh in on this too- Is it possible that because of the cheap money and because of the overbuild aspect of certainly not every area but Texas and a few other places,
• 23:58
  Brian Searl: is it possible that COVID is going to drive our own mini version of the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008 in RV parks?
• 24:07
  Landan Dory: It's an interesting way to look at it.
• 24:08
  Landan Dory: I don't know if I would say yes or no on that 'cause I don't have the crystal ball.
• 24:11
  Landan Dory: But what I can confidently say is that valuations have been down year over year.
• 24:17
  Landan Dory: And I think that this year and the next probably 18 months are gonna be pretty defining for property valuations because of that debt maturity is affecting a significant portion, small comparative to the total sample size, but a significant
• 24:28
  Landan Dory: portion of parks have refinances that they're having to deal with right now.
• 24:31
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.
• 24:32
  Landan Dory: And if those parks sell, they're selling on an NOI margin that's been squeezed harder over the last four years than ever before in history.
• 24:40
  Landan Dory: Every time one of those properties sells, it puts a pin on the map right there for what value is, either on a cap rate basis or a price per pad basis.
• 24:48
  Landan Dory: And then everybody after that who's going to value a park, be it a broker, a buyer, a lender, is gonna look back at that comparable sale and say that's a comp.
• 24:57
  Landan Dory: I'm gonna use that comp for your valuation."
• 24:59
  Landan Dory: And comps are comps.
• 25:01
  Landan Dory: These businesses are all so different that putting any of them in too tight of a box is a fool's errand.
• 25:07
  Landan Dory: And it's just likewise.
• 25:08
  Landan Dory: So you have to take every single valuation, you put it in its own silo.
• 25:13
  Landan Dory: What is this property?
• 25:14
  Landan Dory: How is it producing revenue?
• 25:15
  Landan Dory: What type of revenue is it?
• 25:17
  Landan Dory: Is it recurring revenue?
• 25:18
  Landan Dory: Is it one-time revenue?
• 25:19
  Landan Dory: Is it cost of goods sold type revenue?
• 25:21
  Landan Dory: What is it?
• 25:22
  Landan Dory: And then you look at it on an individual basis then.
• 25:24
  Landan Dory: But no matter what you do, you always get to the point where no seller, no owner, or no broker sets the price for a property.
• 25:33
  Landan Dory: Something is only worth what somebody else is willing to pay, and somebody else can only pay up to what a bank can lend them unless they're using seller financing, some other creative structure, or paying cash, which is just
• 25:44
  Landan Dory: the dream buyer.
• 25:44
  Landan Dory: But those are few and far between.
• 25:47
  Brian Searl: And as those parks come to market at potentially lower or higher rates, but lower in this direction that we're talking about, that in some ways artificially can set a cap.
• 25:57
  Brian Searl: Is that what you're saying?
• 25:58
  Brian Searl: Obviously you still evaluate it individually and it could exceed that on a micro level, but on a macro
• 26:03
  Landan Dory: It, it puts a lot of data against you is what it does.
• 26:07
  Landan Dory: Because you don't have to go back too far.
• 26:09
  Landan Dory: 2021, go look at the comparable sales.
• 26:11
  Landan Dory: Some of the properties that sold just make absolutely no financial and economical sense.
• 26:16
  Landan Dory: But they were-
• 26:16
  Brian Searl: Yeah, it's like the Cleveland Brown- It's like the Cleveland Browns giving Deshaun Watson all the guaranteed money they did.
• 26:20
  Landan Dory: Oh.
• 26:22
  Jeff Hoffman: It's like that.
• 26:22
  Jeff Hoffman: God.
• 26:23
  Jeff Hoffman: It's- Good God, leave me alone.
• 26:23
  Landan Dory: It's exactly like that.
• 26:26
  Landan Dory: Okay,
• 26:26
  Brian Searl: sorry.
• 26:26
  Jeff Hoffman: We
• 26:27
  Landan Dory: still
• 26:27
  Jeff Hoffman: gotta suffer with him.
• 26:28
  Jeff Hoffman: Leave me alone.
• 26:30
  Landan Dory: People between two, b- basically running up to the teens and then 2020 to 2021, the trend was hot up and to the right, okay?
• 26:38
  Landan Dory: And a lot of people made purchase decisions based on the belief that trend was gonna continue.
• 26:42
  Landan Dory: And then what happens in 2022?
• 26:45
  Landan Dory: COVID's basically over.
• 26:46
  Landan Dory: Down here in Texas, it was definitely over, so people stopped traveling as much because they got back to their day-to-day lives.
• 26:52
  Landan Dory: And then what happened in Q2 of 2022 or basically second, first, end of sec- end of first half of 2022, the rates jumped up for the first time.
• 27:00
  Landan Dory: So now you have fewer people traveling, that's fewer revenue for parks, or less revenue for parks, and then you have all the new competition and interest rates go up.
• 27:09
  Landan Dory: So that's just taken a hammer to what these things are realistically worth.
• 27:12
  Landan Dory: So a lot of people, what they did is they just didn't transact if they didn't have to.
• 27:16
  Landan Dory: They, there's a belief this is a blip, or next year will be better, or they say, "Gosh darn, I really need to focus on my operations or my marketing because this year was way worse than last year."
• 27:25
  Landan Dory: But that's been the song that's been sung since 2022, and I think that 2026 is a defining year.
• 27:32
  Landan Dory: I think that if there's a floor, we're very close to it, if we're not sitting on it right now.
• 27:36
  Landan Dory: And I'm very interested to pick Jeff's brain on his belief on that six-year timeline of flatness.
• 27:41
  Landan Dory: I hope it's not flat for that long.
• 27:43
  Landan Dory: But, that,
• 27:44
  Brian Searl: so let's do that, and then I wanna get to John.
• 27:46
  Brian Searl: But, so my last question for you though is I don't know if that's a floor.
• 27:49
  Brian Searl: Maybe this is more of a statement than a question, but we'll see where it goes.
• 27:52
  Brian Searl: I don't know if it's a floor, because I see the, when I talked about subprime, I see a perfect storm here coming for campgrounds, some, right?
• 27:59
  Brian Searl: But let's say you're in a position where your five year is renewing and you have to, you're faced with higher interest rates and you're also faced with lower demand in 2026, higher diesel prices.
• 28:08
  Brian Searl: The trend seems to be heading that way for 2027 if everything, if I step back and look factually at the economy with my emotion out of it, right?
• 28:17
  Brian Searl: So I think you're headed toward a perfect storm of I don't know that 2026 is the floor.
• 28:21
  Brian Searl: I think it might get worse in, on a macro level, not on a micro level.
• 28:24
  Landan Dory: It...
• 28:25
  Landan Dory: That's a good distinction to make.
• 28:26
  Landan Dory: A- and it very easily could.
• 28:28
  Landan Dory: My hope is that it doesn't.
• 28:29
  Landan Dory: But that's why I tell people this is an operator's game.
• 28:33
  Landan Dory: You can out-operate your competitor right down the road, even if they have an identical park, because this is such a dynamic business.
• 28:39
  Landan Dory: So what everyone needs to be focusing on right now is just running the best possible business that they can, because that's what's gonna affect your cash flow today.
• 28:46
  Landan Dory: Your value only really matters when you go to transact or when you go to do something, some sort of capital event like a refi.
• 28:53
  Landan Dory: But today, just focus on running the best business you can.
• 28:56
  Landan Dory: Get really tight on who your customer profile is and how you acquire them.
• 28:59
  Landan Dory: Get really tight on how you run your staff and run your teams and run the operations of your business.
• 29:04
  Landan Dory: Really think critically about your infrastructure.
• 29:07
  Landan Dory: There's infrastructure decisions you have to make as a, as an owner.
• 29:09
  Landan Dory: Do you make the infrastructure decision that's gonna generate revenue?
• 29:12
  Landan Dory: Like in Texas, it's hot.
• 29:13
  Landan Dory: Site covers are one of the h- highest ROI things we see people do.
• 29:17
  Landan Dory: Up in you guys' neck of the wood, it's less valuable because it's not as, as brutally hot down there.
• 29:22
  Landan Dory: Or do you make the revenue decisions that's gonna give you a lower operating cost for the next five to 10 years?
• 29:27
  Landan Dory: Better roads, better infrastructure, higher quality materials when you do installs.
• 29:31
  Landan Dory: Those are decisions that owners are having to make, and you really make that with whatever your end goal is in mind.
• 29:36
  Landan Dory: If you're wanting to sell in two to three years, you need to be making improvements that are gonna generate revenue now.
• 29:41
  Landan Dory: If you're planning on a 20-year hold, you need to be thinking about durability long term, and that's a, it's a different business model, but it all falls under the same umbrella of just running the best possible business that
• 29:51
  Landan Dory: you can run in your individual park or your portfolio.
• 29:55
  Brian Searl: Yeah, I know I said I was gonna go to you, but I think that's a perfect transition actually to John to talk about operations, because-
• 30:00
  John McMahon: Yes
• 30:00
  Brian Searl: I think we, and we've talked on this show many times before about how yes, that there is, the world is wide open for RV park campground camp resort owners to actually focus on operations.
• 30:12
  Brian Searl: Because on a macro level, there are certainly lots of micro operators, but on a macro level, I'm of the opinion, and so are very smart people that I talk to, not all of them, but some of them that
• 30:23
  Brian Searl: we've been basically building parking lots since 1960 in the RV industry, and I think there's a ton of room for doing unique things.
• 30:29
  Brian Searl: So John, take that from there.
• 30:31
  John McMahon: Yeah, thank.
• 30:31
  John McMahon: First of all it's been a fascinating conversation because I've actually been in another market that had similar circumstances with like the RV market, except it went on a lot longer.
• 30:43
  John McMahon: So when I retired in 2012 my family and I, we built two breweries, and that's when the craft beer market was on this side of the curve.
• 30:55
  John McMahon: And we the, when we started out in 2014, when we first opened our doors, it was all about expansion.
• 31:03
  John McMahon: It was about being distributed in all, every state and be distributed in Canada.
• 31:09
  John McMahon: That's what it was about.
• 31:10
  John McMahon: So it was about investing lots of capital into equipment.
• 31:14
  John McMahon: And when we started here in Wisconsin, which is one of the largest beer states in the world we had 91 breweries.
• 31:23
  John McMahon: And when I say 91 breweries, the anything beyond 15 was just a mom-and-pop garage outfit.
• 31:32
  John McMahon: When we got out of the business during Covid, there was 367 breweries in the state of Wisconsin alone we saw, we quickly and money was available.
• 31:45
  John McMahon: It was inexpensive.
• 31:47
  John McMahon: We saw a lot of growth.
• 31:49
  John McMahon: Too many people thinking that if you build it, they will come, and getting caught with an infrastructure that they could never get an ROI on.
• 31:57
  John McMahon: So there were all these breweries trying to sell to other breweries, to larger distribution companies.
• 32:04
  John McMahon: And at the end of the day, it was just too much everywhere and too much of the same thing everywhere.
• 32:11
  John McMahon: And the, and it was always about being big.
• 32:14
  John McMahon: It was never about being profitable and run a tight operation.
• 32:18
  John McMahon: And I think that's what the RV market, and I have to say the boating market is the same.
• 32:24
  John McMahon: During COVID, it just shot sky high, and now there's an abundance of used inventory.
• 32:29
  John McMahon: So new new boats don't sell anymore.
• 32:33
  John McMahon: But anyway, so we were lucky when we got into the campground business.
• 32:37
  John McMahon: We had looked at it since 2012, and what we did when we planned is that we wanted to make sure that we had to have as little amount of institutional funding for it.
• 32:49
  John McMahon: So we tried to map the correct size for a lot of reasons.
• 32:55
  John McMahon: One, obviously we needed the revenue in order to service our debt, and we needed the profitability to service our debt.
• 33:02
  John McMahon: We also, because we live in such a, a faraway place, you don't drive through Door County to get anywhere, we have an issue with staffing.
• 33:12
  John McMahon: We have to bring in a lot of J1s or we bring in college students or we get high school kids.
• 33:18
  John McMahon: But the downside to all of that is they go away, so you're constantly trying to retrain and rehire and hope they last through that season.
• 33:25
  John McMahon: Because if you lose in August, you're not gonna find a replacement, 'cause everybody's employed.
• 33:32
  John McMahon: We have no unemployment in this area during the summertime.
• 33:35
  John McMahon: So The other things we did was we wanted to make sure that even though we were small, we had a portfolio that would attract the tent camper all the way up to the Class As, and they want nice
• 33:49
  John McMahon: Scandinavian cottages.
• 33:51
  John McMahon: So we wanted to cover the gamut there.
• 33:53
  John McMahon: But we really focused on who our customer, who we want our customer to be, and that would be 35 to 55-year-old they own a Sprinter van, and they don't like to be in the same place at once all
• 34:07
  John McMahon: the time, right?
• 34:07
  John McMahon: They wanna keep going, they're travelers.
• 34:09
  John McMahon: They're not on vacation.
• 34:11
  John McMahon: But they also have a good, steady income.
• 34:14
  John McMahon: A lot of them work work remotely, but they're software engineers or th- you know they're doing things with...
• 34:20
  John McMahon: These people have a lot of income.
• 34:22
  John McMahon: We also looked at our market, and most, not all of our market except us, I would have to say, is simply a parking lot.
• 34:30
  John McMahon: And I think people are tired of paying for just dirt on the ground.
• 34:36
  John McMahon: And not everybody, there is-
• 34:38
  Brian Searl: boomers are still fine with it, which is why they haven't really changed since 1960.
• 34:41
  John McMahon: Yeah, they're good with that.
• 34:41
  John McMahon: And so we also could create, You could build more parking lots in Door County and sell them, but we didn't want that kind of, we didn't want that business like everybody else.
• 34:51
  John McMahon: So we did target a higher-end market that's willing to spend more money but also expects nicer amenities, but they are willing to pay for an hour in the sauna even though they're there for 10 minutes.
• 35:03
  John McMahon: They're willing to pay a higher site fee because we have a beautiful lodge and a bar and everything you can imagine, right?
• 35:11
  John McMahon: We had we, we charge 10,000 for a seasonal site that's only 168 days long But we did that on purpose.
• 35:20
  John McMahon: I had a guy last year on a Sunday call me to tell me that he'd never come to our campground because our prices were too high for him.
• 35:29
  John McMahon: And I s- I was I said, "And what else did you want?"
• 35:33
  John McMahon: He goes, "No, I just wanna tell you I'll never come there."
• 35:35
  John McMahon: And I hung up the phone and I thought for a second, did I do something wrong?
• 35:39
  John McMahon: Are we doing something wrong?
• 35:40
  John McMahon: And then went back said, "No, you aren't our customer, and we didn't build it for every person."
• 35:46
  John McMahon: And I think the thing that we're most proud of is that kind of pre-opening commitment to not think about being big, but think about being profitable, tighten the operation, make sure that we, everything's locked down tight, learn from
• 36:04
  John McMahon: history, and then decide what do we do next.
• 36:07
  John McMahon: Do we expand our current property or do we add a new property to our portfolio that is maybe not even in our backyard, but we could mimic that?
• 36:18
  John McMahon: And then, a couple weeks ago, I think Campspot put out their mid-season state of the industry, and the only, only campgrounds that are making money, are growing, are small campgrounds under 100 sites that have 20% of their portfolio
• 36:34
  John McMahon: is lodging or the super glamping sites.
• 36:39
  John McMahon: Those are the only two categories.
• 36:41
  John McMahon: So had we overbuilt from the beginning and thought about, we would be out of staff, we would be, we'd be out of customers.
• 36:50
  John McMahon: We...
• 36:51
  John McMahon: And so I think the smart thing to do for new operators or new builders and owners is to look at exactly what Landan and Jeff were saying.
• 37:00
  John McMahon: You gotta focus on your operations.
• 37:02
  John McMahon: You gotta keep it as tight as you can, and you have to make those decisions on where's the best investment, i- are we building for the long term?
• 37:11
  John McMahon: Are we building for immediate ROI?
• 37:14
  John McMahon: And I think we do a good job because of our history and not in camping, but in other industries like this.
• 37:21
  John McMahon: It's really helped us out
• 37:23
  Brian Searl: But like you said, I think it's important to emphasize again, like running good operations requires you to understand who you're targeting, and it's not everybody.
• 37:31
  Brian Searl: Absolutely.
• 37:31
  Brian Searl: Absolutely.
• 37:31
  Brian Searl: Like we did marketing for 15, 16 years in this industry.
• 37:34
  Brian Searl: I guess we still do, but I'm trying to run away from it as fast as I can, 'cause AI's gonna kill me and I'm doing other stuff now.
• 37:39
  Brian Searl: But but the, but I have so many people still who call me on the phone and book appointments with me and we talk about marketing and that lots of existing clients, we work with hundreds of parks still for
• 37:46
  Brian Searl: marketing.
• 37:47
  Brian Searl: And the answer is always "Who do you want me to target?"
• 37:49
  Brian Searl: "RVers."
• 37:50
  Brian Searl: What do you...
• 37:50
  Brian Searl: Like-
• 37:51
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah
• 37:51
  Brian Searl: that's not an answer.
• 37:52
  Brian Searl: Like what type of RVers?
• 37:53
  Brian Searl: Where are they coming from?
• 37:54
  Brian Searl: What do they want?
• 37:55
  Brian Searl: Have you studied what they want on their site, or what amenities, or what, whether they have kids or don't have kids, or whether they wanna be noisy or not, or whether they're traveling nurses or who?
• 38:02
  Brian Searl: Nothing.
• 38:03
  Brian Searl: And so that's what I mean, the opportunity is so huge, but you've gotta figure out the opportunity or have a hunch of what it is, or multiple different opportunities- And then target operations toward that, right?
• 38:13
  John McMahon: And for the most part, you have to stick with your decision.
• 38:17
  John McMahon: You know-
• 38:18
  Jeff Hoffman: Yes
• 38:18
  John McMahon: And also, listening if you start getting a trend, but you have to stick to that.
• 38:23
  John McMahon: Just, it's like my example before, "Why am I paying that much money to come there?"
• 38:27
  John McMahon: I didn't des- I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be rude, I didn't design it for you.
• 38:31
  John McMahon: And so when we look at the operations of the business, we have to make sure...
• 38:38
  John McMahon: So our three priorities are customer service excellence, cleanliness excellence in all of our facilities, and an amazing landscape.
• 38:48
  John McMahon: Okay.
• 38:49
  John McMahon: So we take care of our property.
• 38:50
  John McMahon: So when we hire, we have three directors, adults, full-time adults that live here running those departments because we need consistency.
• 39:01
  John McMahon: So they can hire all they want, but as long as that, that management team manages to our specifications and requirements, we can get that done in the long term.
• 39:11
  John McMahon: If we didn't hire for those three goals I think we'd be completely lost, and I think a lot of people just hire because they think they need an educational, someone to do the educational programs or do kids programs
• 39:28
  John McMahon: or other things.
• 39:29
  John McMahon: But when we...
• 39:31
  John McMahon: Every time we talk to a, a new employee or even our guests or someone who's looking to come, and we tell them about, what is our mission and our vision, and I tell them that, here's the three things.
• 39:42
  John McMahon: You wanna come here for these three reasons.
• 39:43
  John McMahon: We're the cleanest park you've ever been to.
• 39:45
  John McMahon: We're the most beautiful park you've ever been to, and you will leave thinking we're the nicest people in the world."
• 39:53
  John McMahon: And w- we, when we interview, when we talk to our banker, when we talk to our guests or, even when we have articles written about us, those are the three principles that we're building this around, and if we
• 40:06
  John McMahon: grow too big, we'll never be able to take care of the, the facilities the way we take care of it today We'll never give-
• 40:13
  Brian Searl: We could probably have-
• 40:14
  John McMahon: Say it again.
• 40:15
  Brian Searl: We could put, we could probably have a whole episode on hiring is what I was gonna say.
• 40:18
  Brian Searl: I thought you were done-
• 40:18
  John McMahon: Oh, yeah.
• 40:18
  John McMahon: Sorry
• 40:18
  Brian Searl: so finish what you're saying.
• 40:18
  John McMahon: No, I am done.
• 40:18
  Brian Searl: We could have a whole episode on hiring because I feel like that's the same analogy as the parking lot on a macro level again, but I think there's a whole lot of people just putting a body where they
• 40:28
  Brian Searl: can put a body and not worrying about what their specialization is.
• 40:31
  Brian Searl: Are they good with kids?
• 40:32
  Brian Searl: Do they have good communication?
• 40:33
  Brian Searl: Are they cheery?
• 40:34
  Brian Searl: Are they sad?
• 40:34
  Brian Searl: Are they mopey?
• 40:35
  Brian Searl: Are they- Hate, whatever, isolated, depending on what kind of activity or whatever they're doing, which I think ends up being solved by robots at some point, where the robots do the mundane tasks and then you can hire, like
• 40:47
  Brian Searl: you're saying, your three great roles that are consistent that require higher thinking because in hospitality you're never gonna lose the guest touch, but that doesn't mean the guest touch has to be with every person or thing in the
• 40:58
  Brian Searl: case of robots.
• 40:59
  Brian Searl: It has to be with the people that really make a difference.
• 41:01
  John McMahon: Yeah.
• 41:03
  Landan Dory: I wanna dovetail off of something that John was saying here, which I for people watching this this cannot be this cannot be overstated.
• 41:10
  Landan Dory: But the value of defining who your customer is, like your ICP, figuring out who that is, and then catering everything that you do around that profile or a handful of different profiles because what happens is, especially right now,
• 41:24
  Landan Dory: like if we were to start-
• 41:25
  Brian Searl: Sorry, one second.
• 41:26
  Brian Searl: Can you explain what ICP is for everybody?
• 41:27
  Brian Searl: Ideal customer profile, I'm assuming you mean, but just so people at home-
• 41:30
  Landan Dory: Ideal...
• 41:30
  Landan Dory: Yeah, ideal customer profile.
• 41:31
  Landan Dory: It's who you wanna attract, right?
• 41:32
  Landan Dory: It's everything that you just mentioned, from the traveling nurses to the this, to the that, the other.
• 41:36
  Landan Dory: And you can't create a park that caters to everybody 'cause what happens, if you have everybody on your park at the same time, you've got the spring breakers, you've got the retirees, the long-term stays, the, the, the low-income
• 41:46
  Landan Dory: housing.
• 41:47
  Landan Dory: Those, those personalities will conflict and you cannot possibly have the amenities and the staffing and the infrastructure to s- to serve everybody nearly as well as you could pick one customer profile or maybe three customer profiles and be
• 41:59
  Landan Dory: the best possible thing to that person.
• 42:01
  Landan Dory: 'Cause the mistake that people make is they say, they say, "My occupancy's the lowest it's been in years.
• 42:07
  Landan Dory: What do I do?
• 42:08
  Landan Dory: I'm a historically long-term park."
• 42:09
  Landan Dory: And they say maybe I'll just open up these 20 spots over here for transient campers and, we'll get some revenue that way."
• 42:15
  Landan Dory: The problem that creates is if you are a park that has predominantly long-term renters, maybe they're workers, maybe they're construction guys in town for six to eight months on a project, whatever it is, someone that's working 12-hour days,
• 42:27
  Landan Dory: when they come back to their trailer, they wanna sleep.
• 42:30
  Landan Dory: They want peace and quiet.
• 42:31
  Landan Dory: And if you start opening up sections of your park or even just individual spaces to people that are in town, traveling through or they're on vacation, they're staying up till 2:00 in the morning drinking beer, being loud, guess
• 42:41
  Landan Dory: what?
• 42:41
  Landan Dory: Both of those people are gonna be upset when they leave the park and your entire, the hospitality component of what you're doing, your guest experience gets tainted by decisions like that.
• 42:50
  Landan Dory: Another mistake I see people making is when times get tough, they cut important things like marketing.
• 42:55
  Landan Dory: They go down their line items on their P&Ls and they see marketing, you know- "What is this actually doing for me?"
• 43:01
  Landan Dory: Because they can't track their customer acquisition cost and their lifetime value.
• 43:05
  Landan Dory: They say we need to cut back on this."
• 43:06
  Landan Dory: That disproportionately and negatively impacts their top-line revenue because now they don't have a customer acquisition channel, and that is so critical.
• 43:13
  Landan Dory: So John, what you're saying is and it's I'll speak from the brokerage side for a second.
• 43:18
  Landan Dory: I'm not valuable to any of my clients if I'm selling RV parks and campgrounds, as well as office buildings and apartment complexes and all this stuff, because my attention gets spread too thin.
• 43:27
  Landan Dory: Yeah.
• 43:28
  Landan Dory: I don't have any value for any of those individual profiles.
• 43:31
  Landan Dory: When we decided to just niche down on the outdoor hospitality industry, our value to every single one of our clients just increased significantly, and that, that's reflected in the relationships and the clientele and the value that we can
• 43:43
  Landan Dory: actually bring people.
• 43:45
  Landan Dory: And if anyone's listening to this that cannot be understated.
• 43:48
  Landan Dory: Don't fall for that trap of trying to service everybody, and really questioning whether or not you made the right decision by what you said, like telling this guy, "You're not the right guy for us."
• 43:57
  Landan Dory: It's a very important decision that an owner has to make.
• 44:00
  Landan Dory: It can be a hard decision, but that really sets the tone for what you think they're out to be.
• 44:05
  John McMahon: Yeah, I agree.
• 44:06
  Jeff Hoffman: John, I just I like that you're brave enough to charge a seasonal rate that's in line with what your operating expenses are.
• 44:16
  Jeff Hoffman: Most people that have seasonals never run a formula to find out what they should actually be getting.
• 44:23
  Jeff Hoffman: They just kind of go with what everybody else is doing.
• 44:27
  Jeff Hoffman: Every park has a different cost structure but you have, it seems like you have-
• 44:32
  Brian Searl: That's what you, that's what you see the, I don't think you watch Outwired very often.
• 44:35
  Brian Searl: I don't know if you do, actually.
• 44:36
  Brian Searl: I or how many people do.
• 44:38
  Brian Searl: But Outwired for Scott and I, or Scott Bahr and I were talking two weeks ago about that very thing, about valuations.
• 44:42
  Brian Searl: We saw a, a post in Mark Koep's Facebook group where some lady was like, "I don't understand how my neighbor is charging $500 a month all in for electricity and everything else a month for seasonal sites when some
• 44:55
  Brian Searl: of my customers who I charge electricity for are averaging 300 to $450 a month for their electric bill in Texas."
• 45:02
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah,
• 45:02
  Brian Searl: And so that's what you're talking about, though, on a, on an extreme level.
• 45:05
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah, and those are the people that actually need our help because they have no idea of what they're doing in business.
• 45:15
  Jeff Hoffman: Sometimes their idea of customer service is not that good and can be improved.
• 45:22
  Jeff Hoffman: John, I think, you staff, it sounds like you're staffing somewhat heavily so you give great service, but that's gotta reflect in your prices, and I congratulate you for telling the guy, "You know what?
• 45:35
  Jeff Hoffman: I'm too expensive for you."
• 45:37
  Jeff Hoffman: That's good because I'm looking for a certain guest that appreciates what they get for their dollar.
• 45:45
  Jeff Hoffman: And that everything's gonna be clean, well-kept, and not have problems.
• 45:50
  Jeff Hoffman: So- Yeah I congratulate you.
• 45:51
  Jeff Hoffman: I love your ads.
• 45:52
  Jeff Hoffman: I see them all the time.
• 45:54
  John McMahon: Oh thank you.
• 45:55
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah, just thought I'd let you know that your marketing is out there.
• 45:59
  John McMahon: Thank you.
• 46:00
  John McMahon: Yeah.
• 46:00
  Brian Searl: How come you haven't gone, Jeff?
• 46:02
  Jeff Hoffman: I'm retired, so I,
• 46:03
  Brian Searl: You're not retired.
• 46:05
  Jeff Hoffman: I stay home a lot now.
• 46:07
  Jeff Hoffman: Actually I'm going to Wisconsin for an Expo in September.
• 46:12
  Jeff Hoffman: John, maybe I'll try to come up and take a visit.
• 46:15
  John McMahon: Yeah, that'd be great.
• 46:16
  John McMahon: Yeah, love to show you around.
• 46:17
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.
• 46:18
  Jeff Hoffman: It'll be a re-
• 46:18
  Brian Searl: He's got one, he's got one seasonal site left for $10,000.
• 46:21
  John McMahon: That's right.
• 46:22
  Brian Searl: Yeah.
• 46:24
  John McMahon: Yeah, we have a special.
• 46:25
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.
• 46:26
  Jeff Hoffman: And I got a s- And I got-
• 46:27
  John McMahon: No,
• 46:28
  Jeff Hoffman: there's a- And I got a bridge they just built in Detroit that I can get you in on the ground level
• 46:32
  John McMahon: Yeah I saw the lines the other day.
• 46:35
  John McMahon: No, thank you
• 46:37
  Landan Dory: There's a really good research paper that was put out by Rafael Correa over at Blue Water recently about what this new market looks like in terms of identifying your customer profile.
• 46:49
  Landan Dory: And what he basically, the, the claim that he makes and he backs up with his data is that in this market where there's an oversaturation of rentable spaces that people could choose to save- stay, he's seeing the the
• 47:01
  Landan Dory: renters move in two different directions, right?
• 47:03
  Landan Dory: So you have the super premium renters, the guys who wanna stay at a park like John's because it's got the cold plunge or the sauna or whatever else amenities you got, and they'll pay a premium for that because
• 47:12
  Landan Dory: they're not cost-sensitive in the same way that somebody is on fixed income.
• 47:16
  Landan Dory: They're trending in the other directions.
• 47:18
  Landan Dory: They're never even considering John's property because if they save themselves $50 a month in lot rent, that's real money.
• 47:23
  Landan Dory: That's gas money, that's grocery money.
• 47:26
  Landan Dory: And if you are a under amenitized park and you don't have much more to offer, then the only thing that you have on a competitive basis is either your location or your cost and you can't control your location
• 47:37
  Landan Dory: and you really don't wanna be in control of your cost unless it's moving up and not down.
• 47:42
  Landan Dory: So it's a really good paper if anybody's watching this.
• 47:44
  Landan Dory: Go check it out.
• 47:45
  Landan Dory: It clarifies that and crystallizes it and it really-
• 47:48
  Brian Searl: I haven't seen the paper, but Raf is a guest on our podcast once a month, so I know he's super smart and so I'll trust your judgment with that it's a really good paper.
• 47:56
  Brian Searl: It assume he would put out nothing less.
• 47:58
  Brian Searl: But we've been talking about that on the show too for a while, like not necessarily his paper, but just the K-shaped economy in general.
• 48:04
  Brian Searl: Yeah.
• 48:04
  Brian Searl: And how people are being pulled up and pulled down and I think there's man I'm scared, I was about to say as fuck, but I don't know if I can curse on my own show.
• 48:11
  Brian Searl: The FCC is here, so I gotta watch what I can say.
• 48:13
  Landan Dory: It's your show, you can..
• 48:13
  Brian Searl: But like the, I, like the middle ground, like if I'm a middle of the road, let's just call it a KOA holiday, right?
• 48:20
  Brian Searl: But like a middle of the road middle class park, right?
• 48:24
  Brian Searl: I'm really worried about where the next few years go and then the other side of that too is I was, and I follow the economy probably more than I should 'cause I have no life, but, we, the, the
• 48:33
  Brian Searl: ca- There's a lot of data in the last month's report that the K shape, the top of it is starting to collapse because of the prices going up so much.
• 48:40
  Brian Searl: Not completely, but like the spending is starting to go down.
• 48:43
  Jeff Hoffman: One of the, one of the things we have in this industry is, our top tier has disposable income but our strong base is on the other side of that K.
• 48:56
  Jeff Hoffman: They're being affected by the economy right now.
• 48:59
  Brian Searl: Can I play devil's advocate for a second?
• 49:01
  Brian Searl: 'Cause I don't know.
• 49:02
  Brian Searl: I used to think they had disposable income too, Jeff.
• 49:04
  Brian Searl: But I think most of their wealth is in stocks, and I don't know that's easily accessible disposable income.
• 49:10
  Brian Searl: I think they're seeing their $150,000, $200,000 a year salaries on the upper side eaten into just as much as somebody else when your electricity is up a percentage, and your hot tub maintenance is up a percentage, and your
• 49:22
  Brian Searl: insurance is up a percentage, and everything, gas and everything else, right?
• 49:24
  Brian Searl: So continue, take that.
• 49:25
  Brian Searl: I don't wanna stop you from talking,
• 49:27
  Jeff Hoffman: but- Yeah.
• 49:27
  Jeff Hoffman: I do understand that.
• 49:29
  Jeff Hoffman: The, the scariest thing that I look at is with the stock market I don't And this is just my basis.
• 49:39
  Jeff Hoffman: I don't see the value.
• 49:41
  Jeff Hoffman: It's got to correct at some point.
• 49:43
  Jeff Hoffman: I don't know what keeps driving it because-
• 49:46
  Brian Searl: The AI bubble keeps driving it, but that's a whole nother show, too,
• 49:49
  Jeff Hoffman: so Yeah, but the, the AI value is only a percentage of that market, but it's driving-
• 49:57
  Brian Searl: It's 60% of the S&P, man.
• 49:59
  Brian Searl: It's like a big chunk of that market.
• 50:01
  Jeff Hoffman: But it's driving people that don't have the revenue to drive up their stocks.
• 50:05
  Brian Searl: I know, but they're not accountants like you, man.
• 50:08
  Jeff Hoffman: And most eventually, yeah eventually that's going to, somebody's gonna look at it just like they did in the 2000s and go...
• 50:16
  Brian Searl: Only it's gonna collapse 100 times worse than the 2000s.
• 50:19
  Jeff Hoffman: God, I hope not.
• 50:19
  Brian Searl: It's gonna be ugly, man.
• 50:20
  Brian Searl: But that's another show, man.
• 50:21
  Brian Searl: That's another show.
• 50:22
  Brian Searl: Go back to RVs.
• 50:23
  Brian Searl: You were making a good point.
• 50:24
  Jeff Hoffman: It just, that, that does affect it, because I do think our people that have wealth are starting to wonder, they've grown and grown, but anybody that has more than five years of experience in the market knows that.
• 50:41
  Landan Dory: So Jeff, in your opinion, does that impact, if you make $200,000 a year-
• 50:46
  Jeff Hoffman: Yep
• 50:46
  Landan Dory: does that impact your decision to stay at a high-end park versus a maybe middle of the road or lower end park, or does it impact your decision to just travel that season at all?
• 50:56
  Jeff Hoffman: I think it's impacting the decision to travel at all, because the people that are making that money, when they travel, they're gonna go to John's park.
• 51:05
  Brian Searl: They want the luxury, yep.
• 51:06
  Jeff Hoffman: The other people that would go to the lower campgrounds, right now I think they're concerned about getting school supplies, paying for their kids' athletics and all of that.
• 51:19
  Jeff Hoffman: I have never seen August up in our area drop off the way it has.
• 51:27
  Jeff Hoffman: I don't think you guys have seen any of the reports, but August is looking, the last two weeks are looking horrible.
• 51:36
  Jeff Hoffman: Labor Day is still good, but these last two weeks, everybody that I'm working with, it's fallen off the board.
• 51:43
  Brian Searl: Yeah, we track that a little bit.
• 51:45
  Brian Searl: The, I think the- Oh, we- oHI comes out, but we look at occupancy data 'cause we track it for I don't know, 28,000 cities.
• 51:50
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah, we lost-
• 51:51
  Brian Searl: And 90% of our parks.
• 51:52
  Jeff Hoffman: We lost one week that's normally good.
• 51:56
  Jeff Hoffman: Last week is normally a good week because everybody figures out their kids are going back to school, so they all travel that last week.
• 52:05
  Jeff Hoffman: And in our area, because of the rainstorms, it didn't come.
• 52:10
  Jeff Hoffman: So I wanted to bring up-
• 52:12
  Brian Searl: The evidence is already there, Jeff.
• 52:13
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.
• 52:13
  Brian Searl: If you look at the retail spending report in the US, we don't wanna d- diverge into economics, but if you look at the retail-
• 52:17
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah
• 52:17
  Brian Searl: spending report from last month in the US, you can see the top of the case, like-
• 52:21
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah
• 52:21
  Brian Searl: starting to tighten their spending.
• 52:22
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.
• 52:23
  Brian Searl: And that top of the K, that top 10% of people are responsible for 50% of all US economic spending.
• 52:28
  Brian Searl: If they pull back 10%, we're screwed.
• 52:32
  Jeff Hoffman: Don't pull back, Brian.
• 52:33
  Jeff Hoffman: You just keep spending.
• 52:34
  John McMahon: Keep spending money, Brian.
• 52:35
  Brian Searl: The top 10%, man.
• 52:35
  Jeff Hoffman: I'm down here in the, I'm down here in the other 10%-ers.
• 52:39
  Jeff Hoffman: But- That's me landan, I d- I did wanna bring up one point that you kinda hit on.
• 52:45
  Jeff Hoffman: There was a lot of these purchases that were done with very little money down, a lot of owner financing, blah, blah, blah, and they were getting owners to finance at rates of 4%, 3%, blah.
• 53:00
  Jeff Hoffman: Now those balloons are coming up, and that owner wants his money because he can get more than that rate at a bank, but the value of that campground has come down, and they didn't have equity to begin with,
• 53:18
  Jeff Hoffman: or very little That's really what's causing a lot of this.
• 53:23
  Jeff Hoffman: We've...
• 53:23
  Jeff Hoffman: i've had some people that have just walked away, and I think that's gonna happen more.
• 53:29
  Jeff Hoffman: Those may be bargains for buyers, but they're gonna be at a, at more of a reasonable price than they were selling for.
• 53:38
  Jeff Hoffman: St-
• 53:38
  Landan Dory: I just, I'll s-
• 53:39
  Brian Searl: Wait.
• 53:39
  Brian Searl: Before you answer that, Landan-
• 53:42
  Jeff Hoffman: I don't wanna see that happen, but it's going to
• 53:43
  Brian Searl: I don't wanna see that happen.
• 53:44
  Brian Searl: Before you answer that, Landan, are you ta- are you talking about there's a danger of some of these larger groups that have come into the industry who have all owner-financed, or 90% owner-financed, potentially collapsing?
• 53:54
  Brian Searl: Or having them not as a large entity organization, but losing a bunch of their parks underneath them?
• 54:00
  Landan Dory: Depends on how well they're capitalized and depends on what their exposure is, but there's already I...
• 54:04
  Landan Dory: If I'd have known this question was coming.
• 54:05
  Landan Dory: There's a great...
• 54:07
  Landan Dory: First off the creative financing, guru phase that we're in right now, I'm not gonna say names, but that's, I think it's very problematic and very predatory.
• 54:14
  Landan Dory: And that type of structure is the most at risk because in some cases you've got two loans on your property, and oftentimes the owner is of a second position to a primary lender.
• 54:23
  Landan Dory: So you get wiped out if something goes sideways.
• 54:25
  Landan Dory: Yes.
• 54:26
  Landan Dory: But there's a really recent story out of Florida where this portfolio, maybe eight to 10 parks that were put together under these creative financing structures, that these same economics that we're talking about started negatively impacting them.
• 54:39
  Landan Dory: And it got to the point where they realized that it wasn't just the amount of work that it was gonna take them to get back to a profitability standpoint.
• 54:45
  Landan Dory: They looked at the numbers and said, "There's no profitability standpoint.
• 54:48
  Landan Dory: We can continue working and doing this and have nothing to show for it.
• 54:51
  Landan Dory: So let's give this back to the bank.
• 54:54
  Landan Dory: Let's wash our hands and let's go focus on something completely different."
• 54:57
  Landan Dory: The bank doesn't wanna own the park, and then the owner who's in a second position on that note, you get completely wiped out.
• 55:04
  Landan Dory: So it is happening.
• 55:06
  Landan Dory: It's, that's probably one of the larger scale examples I've seen.
• 55:09
  Landan Dory: If you're a big operator, you probably have a fragment, a, a sliver of your portfolio that's feeling this.
• 55:14
  Landan Dory: I know several of them that have very problematic parks.
• 55:17
  Landan Dory: But really where we're seeing this is on the individual mom-and-pop level.
• 55:20
  Landan Dory: You made...
• 55:20
  Landan Dory: You had a single property, you made a single deal, and now that deal's gone bad.
• 55:24
  Landan Dory: I've got one client right now who is, we've- I'll gatekeep some of the information 'cause it's very, very-
• 55:35
  Brian Searl: Yeah.
• 55:38
  Landan Dory: private.
• 55:38
  Landan Dory: But-
• 55:41
  Brian Searl: Nobody watched the show anyway, don't worry.
• 55:42
  Landan Dory: He's a million dollars upside
• 55:42
  down on his, his park.
• 55:42
  We've, we've, we've
• 55:42
  Landan Dory: brought plenty of activity.
• 55:43
  Landan Dory: We know what the value of the property is.
• 55:45
  Landan Dory: We know what the market's opinion of value for the property is, and he's either facing a personal bankruptcy to, to get out of the situation or basically liquidating his entire 401and his stock portfolio, whatever other investments he's got,
• 55:59
  Landan Dory: to make up that delta between what that thing sells for and what the bank is owed.
• 56:03
  Landan Dory: And that's a very dramatic representation of what's going on, but that is not uncommon at all in, in...
• 56:11
  Landan Dory: i'm speaking primarily in Texas and some of the surrounding states, 'cause that's where I'm most familiar.
• 56:16
  Landan Dory: But when I talk to...
• 56:17
  Landan Dory: I got plenty of brokerage friends in this industry, we kind of swap notes from time to time.
• 56:21
  Landan Dory: It's very prevalent throughout the entire country.
• 56:23
  Jeff Hoffman: Yep.
• 56:24
  Jeff Hoffman: And that's, I enjoy working with banks and the owners to try to, to- Come up with something where we can work it out, because I hate seeing people lose everything on a bad investment.
• 56:41
  Jeff Hoffman: Sometimes you just, you can't get 'em, but maybe we can figure out how to make it less stressful and less damaging.
• 56:49
  Jeff Hoffman: But-
• 56:49
  Landan Dory: And these types of things aren't all preventable, but some of these things are preventable.
• 56:53
  Landan Dory: It just takes a little bit more knowledge in a specific area that might not be your, your expertise on the marketing side or the operational side.
• 57:00
  Landan Dory: Yeah.
• 57:00
  Landan Dory: But you can make some significant improvements.
• 57:03
  Jeff Hoffman: Yep, and that's unfa- a lot of times when people bring me in, it's when right before the bank's gonna get rid of him, and it's I need time to perform miracles.
• 57:14
  Jeff Hoffman: I can't just-
• 57:14
  John McMahon: Yeah
• 57:15
  Jeff Hoffman: do this.
• 57:17
  John McMahon: This is a great thing.
• 57:17
  John McMahon: How many of those deals were financed during COVID?
• 57:19
  Jeff Hoffman: That, quite a few of them.
• 57:21
  Jeff Hoffman: That's-
• 57:21
  Landan Dory: A lot
• 57:22
  Jeff Hoffman: and-
• 57:22
  John McMahon: It's the same thing I was talking about in the brew- in the craft beer world, that-
• 57:26
  Jeff Hoffman: Cheap money
• 57:27
  John McMahon: you can blame us for all growing too fast, but the money was, they were begging you to take the money.
• 57:34
  John McMahon: They knew- It was a bubble.
• 57:36
  John McMahon: They knew it, and they knew at COVID that boats, and RVs, and camping is gonna, when things change, they're gonna go down.
• 57:43
  John McMahon: The odds are they're gonna drop, and they did.
• 57:45
  John McMahon: So it is It should make operators pay attention more, and owners pay attention to how they operate their company.
• 57:53
  Jeff Hoffman: Yep.
• 57:54
  Jeff Hoffman: The other thing that we don't, and it's starting to happen, and for a long time it happened in the hotel industry because they knew that we were overbuilt.
• 58:02
  Jeff Hoffman: That's why hotels are now going more to a stronger investor base to build and not financing, 'cause the banks withdrew from hospitality as far as hotels for a long time.
• 58:16
  Jeff Hoffman: We, we're gonna end up maybe having seven, eight strong banks that will finance RV parks, and those are the ones, they're going to just butcher your statements-
• 58:28
  John McMahon: Oh, sure drill it down.
• 58:31
  Jeff Hoffman: There might be some fun money out there that is willing to invest, but-
• 58:37
  Brian Searl: I need to go back and look at that, Jeff.
• 58:39
  Brian Searl: I had a conversation with Claude two years ago that you just remembered.
• 58:42
  Brian Searl: Probably maybe it was Claude, Chat GPT, I don't know.
• 58:44
  Brian Searl: I've been using Claude since it first came out, way before everybody thought it was cool.
• 58:47
  Brian Searl: But I want- I had a conversation with AI two years ago, where I actually ran those numbers for Independence Bank that helps KOA then.
• 58:53
  Brian Searl: Yep.
• 58:54
  Brian Searl: And I said "What is the..."
• 58:55
  Brian Searl: I think it was when the banks were collapsing two or three years ago, right?
• 58:58
  Brian Searl: What would actually be a trigger that would cause Independence Bank to collapse if RV parks went down this percentage, whatever else.
• 59:04
  Brian Searl: I gotta go back and look at that conversation and see how well it held up.
• 59:06
  Jeff Hoffman: Out of all of the banks-
• 59:08
  Brian Searl: They're one of the safest and strongest
• 59:10
  Jeff Hoffman: Oh my God, they are so conservative that there are so many that are gonna fail before he does.
• 59:17
  Brian Searl: Yeah, for sure.
• 59:17
  Brian Searl: I was just using him as an example 'cause that's the name I, it popped in my head.
• 59:20
  Brian Searl: By the way, if anybody has a hard stop, feel free to jump off.
• 59:22
  Brian Searl: I just don't wanna cut everybody off.
• 59:23
  Brian Searl: So if you guys have meetings scheduled, please-
• 59:25
  Jeff Hoffman: I've got a partner meeting, but that can wait
• 59:27
  Brian Searl: No, you don't have anything.
• 59:28
  Brian Searl: You just said you were retired, Jeff.
• 59:30
  Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.
• 59:30
  Brian Searl: Did you just make up something now-
• 59:31
  John McMahon: Yeah, I heard that
• 59:32
  Brian Searl: you don't wanna talk to me anymore?
• 59:34
  Jeff Hoffman: No.
• 59:34
  Jeff Hoffman: I said I have partner meeting, but they can wait.
• 59:37
  Brian Searl: Oh, okay.
• 59:38
  Jeff Hoffman: I enjoy talking to you, Brian, and Landan, and John, I definitely wanna come up and see your park.
• 59:43
  Jeff Hoffman: It sounds amazing.
• 59:44
  John McMahon: Oh, thank you.
• 59:45
  Jeff Hoffman: I just I'm, you know me, I love talking about the industry.
• 59:48
  John McMahon: Yeah.
• 59:50
  Landan Dory: Yeah.
• 59:50
  Brian Searl: All right.
• 59:50
  Brian Searl: Let's be cognizant of everybody's time though, and let's wrap up.
• 59:53
  Brian Searl: Landan, final thoughts, and then where can they learn more about North Star?
• 59:57
  Landan Dory: My final thoughts for if anything that we're talking about today really resonates with owners and you feel like you- you're on an island and these problems are isolated to you, just know that there's, they're not.
• 1:00:06
  Landan Dory: There's a lot of people out there that are trying to navigate a, a complex and changing market all the time.
• 1:00:11
  Landan Dory: And just take a little bit of solace.
• 1:00:13
  Landan Dory: And if I could make a recommendation to anybody, don't isolate yourself as an owner.
• 1:00:18
  Landan Dory: They, there's the age-old saying that says, "You are a, a good average of the five people that you spend the most time with."
• 1:00:23
  Landan Dory: Yet most people I know that own these campgrounds aren't talking with other owners on at least a weekly basis.
• 1:00:29
  Landan Dory: Find some people in your community, find some other owners who have similar properties, and put together little groups, pods, calls, meetups, whatever the thing may be, because you can learn so much from other operators, and you have so
• 1:00:40
  Landan Dory: much knowledge that you can give as an operator to other people.
• 1:00:42
  Landan Dory: So don't isolate yourself.
• 1:00:44
  Landan Dory: As far as where you can learn more about North Star, North Star, you can check out our website, N- N-S-T-A-R-B-A.com.
• 1:00:51
  Landan Dory: We're on Facebook, Instagram we're everywhere.
• 1:00:54
  Landan Dory: We're pretty easy to find.
• 1:00:55
  Landan Dory: And then if that community concept like really resonates and someone wants to check it out, we've got a community we've built specifically and exclusively for owners.
• 1:01:04
  Landan Dory: Check it out.
• 1:01:05
  Landan Dory: The conversations in there are It's just a breath of fresh air to see operators getting in a room, sometimes 25, 30 people at a time, and just talking about their business, sharing the problems that they're facing, the solutions
• 1:01:16
  Landan Dory: that they've found.
• 1:01:17
  Landan Dory: And inevitably there's somebody else out there who either already has a solution to that particular problem or is struggling with the same thing.
• 1:01:23
  Landan Dory: And then those two people can cohort up and keep each other accountable as they grow.
• 1:01:27
  Landan Dory: I can't understate the value.
• 1:01:28
  Landan Dory: We don't make any money off of it really.
• 1:01:29
  Landan Dory: It's just a place for owners and owners only to go build relationships with other people that are just like them
• 1:01:36
  Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, Landan.
• 1:01:38
  Brian Searl: John, final thoughts, and where can they learn more about your resort?
• 1:01:41
  John McMahon: Yeah, no it's great to hear you guys talking about this, and it just kinda reinforces what we started to do, how we plan to build the company.
• 1:01:51
  John McMahon: And I think it would help any campground owner, operator to hear exactly what you guys said today.
• 1:02:00
  John McMahon: Yeah, I think that a lot of this would change how they look at their future and how they build profit within their, in their properties.
• 1:02:09
  John McMahon: So I wanna thank you guys for sharing all your knowledge.
• 1:02:13
  Brian Searl: It was mostly all three of you guys.
• 1:02:15
  Brian Searl: I don't have any knowledge.
• 1:02:16
  Brian Searl: Jeff knows that, so I just show up.
• 1:02:17
  Brian Searl: I can't even say I show up and look pretty, 'cause look at this.
• 1:02:20
  Brian Searl: Anyway John, where can they find out more about your resort?
• 1:02:22
  John McMahon: Online at camp-door.com.
• 1:02:26
  Brian Searl: Thanks, sir.
• 1:02:26
  Brian Searl: Appreciate you being here.
• 1:02:27
  Brian Searl: Last but not least, Mr.
• 1:02:28
  Brian Searl: Jeff.
• 1:02:29
  Jeff Hoffman: Ah, thank you.
• 1:02:30
  Jeff Hoffman: Landan, also through OHI, which is the national owners association, we have things called 20 groups that get together we're a peer support group, and it's very, it, you should take a look at joining one of those, joining OHI,
• 1:02:48
  Jeff Hoffman: joining your state associations.
• 1:02:51
  Jeff Hoffman: It keeps you from being isolated.
• 1:02:53
  Jeff Hoffman: We all, I still own a campground, so I'll put it that way.
• 1:02:57
  Jeff Hoffman: We all have problems.
• 1:02:58
  Jeff Hoffman: We all have issues.
• 1:02:59
  Jeff Hoffman: Not everybody has to reinvent the wheel.
• 1:03:02
  Jeff Hoffman: On a lot of this stuff, just ask another owner.
• 1:03:05
  Jeff Hoffman: They probably have been through it.
• 1:03:08
  Jeff Hoffman: Where we come in as advisors is at the, somewhat the next level and try, the biggest thing is you can set all kinds of priorities, but you actually gotta get them done, and that's what we kinda do, is
• 1:03:23
  Jeff Hoffman: help you get s- get stuff done, take a look at your park, get the value back.
• 1:03:29
  Jeff Hoffman: I, I love working with people and trying to help.
• 1:03:33
  Jeff Hoffman: That's why I founded the business, because yes, I did retire and then said, just through my other things in the industry, I knew there were people that needed help.
• 1:03:42
  Jeff Hoffman: So that's why I started doing it, and I really enjoy helping people.
• 1:03:49
  Jeff Hoffman: That's why we do it.
• 1:03:52
  Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, Jeff.
• 1:03:53
  Brian Searl: And yes, please do not try to reinvent the wheel.
• 1:03:55
  Brian Searl: Flying cars are coming and it's already been done.
• 1:03:57
  Jeff Hoffman: Oh, Jesus.
• 1:03:57
  Brian Searl: So-
• 1:03:59
  Jeff Hoffman: Camp- campstrategy.com.
• 1:04:01
  Brian Searl: Campstrategy.com.
• 1:04:02
  Brian Searl: Thank you guys for joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats this afternoon.
• 1:04:05
  Brian Searl: Scott and I are off again 'cause I'm at the lake.
• 1:04:07
  Brian Searl: We'll see you next week though for another episode of Outwired and another episode of MC Fireside Chats.
• 1:04:11
  Brian Searl: Thanks guys, I appreciate y'all.
• 1:04:12
  Jeff Hoffman: All right, thanks Brian.
• 1:04:13
  Jeff Hoffman: Nice meeting you both Landan and John.
• 1:04:15
  Landan Dory: Likewise.
• 1:04:15
  Landan Dory: Nice meeting you as well.
• 1:04:16
  John McMahon: Yeah,
• 1:04:16
  Landan Dory: John.
• 1:04:17
  Landan Dory: Thank you, Brian.
• 1:04:19
  John McMahon: Go Bulldogs, right?
• 1:04:20
  Jeff Hoffman: What's a Bulldog?
• 1:04:21
  Landan Dory: Go Bulldogs, that's right.
• 1:04:22
  Jeff Hoffman: What's a Bulldog?