Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Alrighty. So Justin, thanks for your time coming over. We're over here at the national conference talking RV parks and you're a park owner and, and we're working on some projects together. But tell us, tell folks a little bit about what you do.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Well, my background is in entitlement. So I started off in, in primarily manufactured housing space and then we branched out and doing RV space and single family, multifamily storage, a little bit of everything. Yeah.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Whole lot of entitlements. I love it.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: I love the development world. And on a personal note, I have a few acres in Winningwood, Oklahoma. We were going to divide it and you know, put a mobile home on it and get it fha ready and then sell it. But what I can't figure out is how the hell do you get comps in a little town like Winniewood, Oklahoma where nobody's doing that?
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Yeah, well the way they're supposed to do it, they can't find anything there. You got to find like kind property. So they'll go out and find something somewhere else that's similar.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Because I don't know of a mobile home on one acre that's all set up for eventually buyer. If we get 180 or 140 for. I don't even know what the heck we would get. But yeah, we're gonna find out. Yeah.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Yeah. There's a, there's a, there's a lot of people doing land home package kind of deals like that. So. And that's really what that falls into. You just gotta find you can go through the MLS and like I said look for like kind properties right around different areas and stuff.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I, RV parks are my jam but that was just kind of natural beast and the same things. We were going to build a park there but couldn't get water. But I don't know. We'll see. So tell us about your camp. Quit your.
How long has it been open?
[00:01:31] Speaker B: So we actually officially open.
Our grand opening was on Labor Day weekend, so just a couple of months. Okay. So. But we had opened the cabins two years before that, so.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: And that saloon.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: First year, huh?
[00:01:44] Speaker A: That saloon is open.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: The saloon's open.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: So I'm due for another visit then. Yeah.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Oh, it's actually rocking. We're actually, I'm very, very pleased with my team and all of our stuff. We're, we're really getting.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: For a brand new place opening up. I mean it's, it's actually done really well. Yeah. So.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So do you think in the. In the winter occupancy will still be good, or you think it's be more of a summer destination or.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Actually, last year on the. We're on the lake, but last year, you know, all the way Thanksgiving, New Year's new, we were booked not for the RV sites because we didn't have them open last year, but we still did the cabins. We think all of our other, you know, lodging will be really packed. I mean, we were. We had a camp sellout this last weekend.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: So, I mean.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: Yeah, so it's because you're on. Because you're on the lake and you pretty much created its own destination because you have all these amenities and freaking. You can buy your steaks there, the ice cream shop and all that stuff. So everything is. You created a destination, which I think is great. And it's just hour and a half outside Dallas Fort Worth. Yeah.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: An hour and a half from 8 million people.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, come out for the weekend, family.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: And it's just kind of a play with the name can't quit your bitch. And we have a beach there. We named that some beach. And we have the son of a Biscuit house and, you know, Joe Mama's Pizza. And. But all of our food, we elevated it to kind of the, you know, a little bit more Chef inspired, you know, but it's A lot of these campgrounds are. They have just like Brothers Pizza or Checkers, you know, those kind of deals. And. And we really still took comfort food, but we elevated it. And then the experience, we always have some kind of activity, something going on.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Live music and.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Live music every Friday and Saturday night
[00:03:28] Speaker A: on the side there.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Our Friday and Saturday nights. It's amazing. We're getting, you know, originally we were. Are having about 80% of our bookings were coming through Airbnb or other OTAs. And now we've converted with our marketing. We're getting about 80% direct bookings. Wow, that's awesome.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: I mean, so Airbnb is like freaking 30% fees or something.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. All the fees from the OTAs and everything else. And so we really started going after influencers, that kind of stuff, and. And it definitely paid off.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: A free stay and.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: Yeah, we give them a free, free stay, feed them and.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: And then it's up to them in the world to review.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've talked about that, but I've never actually done that, so I think that's pretty. Yeah.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: We hold them at gunpoint, making sure they're going to give the review before they leave.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: You got to post your content before you go.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like Hotel California. Yeah, that's a good review.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: So did you find that very difficult or was it just a simple reach out? Hey, here's our park. Here's what we're looking to do.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: No, I just told them, you know, I didn't. I looked at, you know, a campground, live oak down in Waco.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: And I watched some of these other ones. But it was, he said he had lost, you know, some of his Airbnb and some of those types of things. They thought it was devastating. And he actually tapped into this and he said he hit gold. I mean, the amount of followers and the stuff. So we're, you know, we've been open since Labor Day. We started our marketing and stuff a little bit before that, but we've already got 17,000 followers.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: For a little independent.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: Right. Campground strategies.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: And it's part of the strategy just
[00:05:06] Speaker A: offering the influencers come free place, free place to stay and tell us what you think.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: And then they collaborate with each other and we're going to host, you know, influencer type parties and, and a lot of that kind of stuff. But we also get so much content from people. And one of the things that, that's really great is that with economy and everything else right now people are looking for staycations. Like they're saying Vegas is lowest it's been in 20 years occupancy and all this other stuff. And here we have so much repeat business. And we have people that's been there 10 times.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: The last two years. And they'll come and stay in, you know, one type of way to stay and then a different type or they'll come back or they bring their families. And we're starting, we have unbelievable repeat business. So.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's where it's at.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: And we still got OTAs repeat business. I mean, it's a good recipe.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Yeah. We've got, you know, our, we've kept our stuff. You always get a couple of stragglers that aren't happy about anything.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Oh, right, right. Can't, please.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: But we've got, you know, 4.9 stars, you know, and we've got hundreds of reviews now.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: And.
And it's just, you know, the customer experience has been really good. So I, I call my team the, the, the Land of the Misfit Toys.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: I love it. I love it. I take my camper out, spend a weekend over there.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. No, it's, it's actually, really, it's exciting. I want to see what happens through. But I think through January, I mean, through December, I think we're going to be pretty packed. We got a lot of events. Weddings, some Christmas parties.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Some guys are doing a lot of weddings or.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we've been having an event for a weekend.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Because you got.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: We're really going into that. Trying to get into the corporate. So we can get that Sunday through Thursday.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Booked up for corporate.
So now we've got about six people that we've kind of reached out to. They're in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. One of them is in radio sales, and another one, she works for the Dallas Cowboys and a title company and. But they have a huge, you know, corporate clientele base with their core business.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: And so we just. We developed an affiliate program with them. They can still get paid. They bring them up, we bring them out, we show them. And here it is. All you got to do is create the lead. You send them to us and you get paid.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: You know.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: We take them and from there we. We handle everything from that. Give them the tours, do all that kind of stuff. And then we're using our podcast also.
Our goal is to try to get companies. Most companies want to talk about themselves.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: Yeah, Naturally. Naturally.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And so instead of knocking on their door, hey, do you want to come book at our resort? We'd love to put you on our podcast. And yeah, we want to have you come out and talk about. And we've gotten some sponsorship dollars, so we just got.
We got 35,000 the first year from Pepsi.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: For marketing. So we got 10,000 just recently from Twisted X Boots, you know, Western wear. And. And now we're reaching out because we're going to do a summer concert concert series next year. We're going to start going erasing our level of. Of music that we have kind of more b artist, you know, maybe like a Stone Eagle roux. And.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say bring some Texas country guys in there so I can come.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, that's. That's all we're gonna do.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: We got.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: And we have. Every Friday, Saturday, we have live music right now. Yeah, we have acoustic. You know, somebody in there. Most of these guys have a pretty good following. They're awesome talent.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: You know, that's awesome. And so we've been tapping into that.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: That's awesome. Yeah, I love to hear. I love how the, like the corporate retreat, the annual chapter get together, you know, Yeah, I was looking at buying a park in, in Oklahoma and that was what was our focus was going to be. We didn't end up buying it but it was just really like hey, those type of guys will travel about three to four hours for their annual retreat or whatever. So how do you tap into it and then. Yeah, setting up an affiliate program would be the first thing and them. So I think that's pretty cool when you can just really, really tap into it.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: I heard up in Oklahoma that birds fly upside down because nothing worth pooping on is what I heard.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. This is a strange place. It's a strange place. It just, it's never, it's never disappointing. We're. We're working on a construction site in Ada, Oklahoma and it's just. I don't know, it's just always something different about Oklahoma. It's funny. Oh yeah.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: Actually rebuilt. I used to build rebuild churches all over the country and catastrophes. Fires, floods, hell. And I redid a church. City church. That was in Ada.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: Oklahoma.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: It's an interesting little town. It's not bad.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no it was good. It was good. So went up there and we. I think, I can't remember what we did. I think it was reroof their whole deal but it was. We, we traveled and we worked with a company that was out of Illinois, one of the top general contractors in the country. And I had a gig with the Southwest Baptist association. So all the Southwest Baptist churches and were part of this organization and they had to deal with their insurance company that they would use this construction management to come in on catastrophes and stuff like that.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: So interesting.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: It was, it was a good deal for a while but we, and I got tired of going. I went Mississippi did a deal and harden Simmons University. We did a whole roof out there
[00:10:33] Speaker A: and it's always out of state.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Always out of state. And we were traveling doing tons of construction.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: Well it seems like there's a common theme with you is strategic partnerships is what I keep hearing.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: You know that's, that's cool. It's smart. You know what are ways that you can work together? Affiliates. Just, just strategic partnerships I think is great.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah, there's people out there that got such a big Rolodex, you know and everybody knows those people. Hey, come out. Just all you got to do is go to your low lying fruit and send them to us. Yeah, we're going to great. We're going to treat them right. They're going to have a great experience and you'll get paid and yeah, they'll, they'll have a good, they're going to get somewhere. Yeah, they're going to do something.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: Why not do it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The offer they can't refuse, you know. Yeah.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: And we have something that's pretty unique. I mean, it's different than because of all the unit to stay. Yeah, yeah, it's.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it definitely is.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Especially, you know, for, not for privately owned and not a, a big REIT or anything else. It has been blood, sweat and tears to build this place.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, I think you did a great job with it, so I appreciate your time coming over here and yeah, I think this will be good anytime.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: So look forward to working with you on our other stuff.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
