Ever Dream of Buying a Campground? RVE #322

If you have ever considered buying a campground, don’t miss this episode!

Long time part-time RVers Mark and Karla Lemoine made their dream come true in 2016 when they purchased a KOA campground. Mark shares why and how he left a lucrative government job to start their campground career. Jim dives deep into the decision process, and sizeable investment. Mark shares tips for coping with the stress of daily operations, and the long term goals. We hear about how building the right team helps, and that includes workampers.

Thinking about building a campground versus buying one? Yeah, we cover that. We also hear about purchasing a larger established resort versus a smaller park in need of repair. Mark shares what to look for in RV resorts for sale, as well as common obstacles of campground management and how he overcame them. And in a discussion about purpose, Mark explains the work he’s doing with Care Camps.

Learn More about Coloma/St. Joseph KOA Holiday:
⁠https://koa.com/campgrounds/coloma/⁠

Ever Dream of Buying a Campground?

Get Tips from KOA Owner Mark Lemoine

Your Host: Jim Nelson

RESOURCES MENTIONED

CNBC Article
⁠https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/24/couple-quit-jobs-sold-everything-to-buy-million-dollar-campground.html⁠

Workampers Facebook Group
⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/weloveworkamping/⁠

Care Camps
https://koa.com/care-camps/

Listen to The RV Entrepreneur Episode #322

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The RV Entrepreneur #321 Full Episode Transcript:

Ever Dream of Buying a Campground?

MARK: I knew that if I got my day job out of the way and I was focusing my creative, you know, time and energy on something that I just again had an incurable passion for and a desire to achieve. You know, when you’re singularly focused on it, it makes it a whole lot easier.

RV LIFE: Welcome to the RV entrepreneur podcast. The weekly show for nomads, work campers, RV ers and entrepreneurs looking to earn a living or build a business while enjoying the RV lifestyle. This week’s host is Jim Nelson. Let’s settle in and enjoy the RV entrepreneur podcast brought to you by RV life.

JIM: Have you ever dreamed of owning a campground? I have, this is Jim with RV life, your host, for another fascinating discussion for the RV entrepreneur podcast. You know, when Renee and I first hit the road, we thought about buying a campground. I’ve also thought it might be fun to build one, too, but we quickly discovered how much money, blood, sweat, and tears it takes to manage and grow a successful park. We did look into it seriously for a while. Aside from the money, the time it would take to get any campground we could afford up to our standards and turn a profit scared us away. I mean, how do you ever get a break as a campground owner? We put that dream away in a box far up on a shelf, and we’ll probably never dust it off again. But earlier this year, I read the CNBC story about how Mark and Karla Lemoyne purchased a Koa campground and are now living a healthier lifestyle and happier life. But how could that be? Mark had a very lucrative, comfortable government job, yet they took the leap and bought a Koa for a sizable investment. Then they poured more money into the place.

JIM: I mean, how stressful can that get? Well, coming up on their eight year anniversary of fleeing the default life and launching their campground career, they couldn’t be happier with the decision. I talk with Mark about that decision process and what it was like, and the research they did before diving in. We discussed the importance of acknowledging your strengths and building the right team to foster success. Considering buying a campground versus building one? Yeah, we go there. Mark also shares some of the common obstacles of campground management and how he overcame them, as well as procedures they put in place to preempt the stress of day to day operations and that worry about the future. We talk about hiring, work campers and coping with the fear factor impacting major financial decisions. And finally, we dive into the importance of having purpose in the work you do with the discussion about care camps. So if you’ve ever thought about buying a campground, hear what Mark has to say and check the show notes for links to that article and more. But first, check this out and we’ll be right back.

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JIM: Mark, thanks so much for joining me. I really appreciate you taking the time here.

MARK: My pleasure.

JIM: You know, I first learned about you back in June when CNBC covered your story for their “How I Made It” series. That profile dives into how you and your wife, Karla, purchased a campground in Coloma, Michigan in 2016, I believe. It also details the considerable investment you poured into that place. So tell me, seven years later, do you feel like you’ve made it?

MARK: We definitely have. Although, you know, it was it was a terrifying process as well. But now on the other side, you know, I can see it in its full picture and hopefully give your listeners a little bit of encouragement if they’re thinking of doing the same.

JIM: Awesome. Want to dive into all that? Where is Coloma?

MARK: So Coloma, Michigan is in beautiful southwest Michigan. We are literally about a half an hour north of South Bend, Indiana. An hour and 15 minutes outside of downtown Chicago, two miles from beautiful Lake, Michigan, which is a freshwater ocean. If nobody if any of your listeners have never seen a great lake, you don’t see Chicago or Wisconsin on the other side. It is a freshwater ocean. People come for the vineyards, the beaches, the vineyards and the orchards in southwest and primarily in June, July and August.

JIM: This is a KOA Holiday campground, right? How big is the park and what type of amenities do you offer?

MARK: Sure. Yeah. So our park is on 40 acres of beautiful land. We’ve got 20 acres is what’s developed with the the sites on them. And then we also own 20 acres of woods with a nature trail and the river going through it, which is really, really tranquil. For given the area 2024, we will be celebrating our 50th year in business in Southwest Michigan, and my wife and I are really only the second owners. We bought the park in 2016, as you said, from its original owners, and have been very, very honored to breathe new life into it with our ideas and modernize the park a bit and, and, and really just meet the needs of, of our guests.

JIM: We’re going to get into about how you did that. And you mentioned summer being the peak season. Are you open year round?

MARK: We are only open seasonal middle of April till middle of October, which is pretty typical of the majority of campgrounds that are north of the Mason-Dixon line. It’s one part infrastructure and one part just sheer exhaustion. I bet. You know, there’s a you know, my wife and I, we say, you know, we genuinely love every one of our guests who come and stay with us. We’re glad to see them come. But at the end of six months, we’re glad to see them all leave as well.

JIM: Okay. So that kind of leads into my my first kind of question here about as a campground owner, you’ve got to be busy. I’m sure many of our listeners have toyed with the idea of buying a campground. You know, Renee and I did our first year on the road out there, and we seriously looked into a few, but the ones in our price range were pretty small, or they needed serious improvements. But the one thing that struck me was you never get away. Owning a campground is your life, right? I mean, it seems like a lot of work 365 days a year, always on call. Do you ever get a break?

MARK: We we do. And it’s it’s through, you know, managing it and building a great team that we now have, you know, think, you know, emotionally I describe owning and operating a campground. It’s like having friends and family at your house for six months straight, 24 hours a day. And we very quickly learned that we could never sleep, stay awake all the time, and we would still fail to meet our guest expectations. So you very quickly learn how to put some healthy boundaries in place. Overwhelming majority of guests are wonderful, but the responsibility of just making sure everything’s clean, everything’s working properly. You know, as Uncle Billy drinking too much, you know, all of those things happen, you know, on a on a regular basis. And when, when my wife and I bought the park, we inherited three staff members, two of whom were sisters in high school, and they were on vacation the first two weeks that we actually owned the park. So, um, that was like, what do you mean you’re you’re gone. But, you know, it was a planned vacation. But with our three kids and the two of us, we essentially started, you know, running our park with eight employees and the majority of which are, you know, part time and seasonal at that. Today, we have now, during our peak season, upwards of 24 staff. And that includes two full time managers, which we which we also employ year round as well. That has been a godsend. But you know, you can’t do that right away when we. About the park. I mean, it was literally the Mark and Karla show 24 over seven. We were doing everything because we had to and and I’m glad we did. But I’m also glad that, you know, we’ve been able to grow the business up to a level now and employ others.

JIM: And with a seasonal campground, you do get a break come winter time. You told me you’re now down in Palm Springs. You are living the life. And this is technically the RV Life Entrepreneur podcast. So I ask all my guests these first couple questions. When were you first introduced to the RV life and what does that look like now?

MARK: Yeah, it’s core to who my wife and I are. I mean, we both grew up camping. When our kids were younger. Irving literally was our vacation time. I mean, it’s what defined our summers largely at state parks. But we also, when they were younger, hooked up the trailer, leaving Michigan, traveling as far west as Yellowstone and as far east as Boston and Maine, and really just enjoyed, you know, the flexibility of seeing new places, meeting new people, but always being able to sleep in your own bed each night. Shifting gears to buying the campground. It was a natural transition. I mean, we we still love camping. We still love RV and being out and about and fixing up a, you know, almost at the time, you know, 46 year old campground or 42 year old campground. Fixing that up timed very nicely with all four of our kids leaving the nest. So my four kids are now all adults. They’re all married. We don’t yet have the gravitational pull of grandkids. So rather than sitting around waiting for them to, you know, invite us into their busy young adult lives, my wife and I, when the campground closes, we head out of Dodge and we chase the sun.

JIM: That’s perfect. And being an entrepreneur, what does that mean to you?

MARK: You know, I describe it as instead of working for the man, I now am, the man. With that, though, any entrepreneur will will know that. You know, that doesn’t mean you know that life is easy. It doesn’t mean that you know every day is vacation. I mean, I work every day, you know, whether it’s checking emails or paying bills and, you know, doing marketing taxes, you know, the administrative side of actually running the business. And that happens year round, you know, when we’re when we’re physically not on the property, you still have to make sure that the gears are moving to, you know, in preparation for the for the upcoming season. So but we do have the flexibility now to be able to travel. I can work doing the admin responsibilities from anywhere, and we take advantage of that and very much enjoy it.

JIM: Awesome. Let’s talk about your previous life just for a second. I understand you had a pretty comfortable, quote unquote stable government job. Was it in operations or anything related to what you’re doing or what was that prior job, and when did you leave to take over this campground?

MARK: Yeah, you know, I grew up. You remember the show Family Ties?

JIM: Oh, sure.

MARK: Okay. Well, I was Alex P Keaton. I grew up in a very well other than I grew up in an apolitical family, but just had this undescribable interest in current events. I abhor politics in the ugliness that, you know, most, most Americans share. But I truly, you know, got into the world of government thinking, you know, I’m going to make a difference. And and I did, I know I did, but after 24 years, I was a political science major. I worked in the Michigan legislature, lobbied for 16 years at the state and federal level. And after 24 years of doing that, I was I was exhausted. So I met with a mentor, you know, as I shared on CNBC, you know, very successful business owner who I respected highly. And I just said, I can’t imagine doing this for another 15, 20 years. Do you have any suggestions? And he posed two questions. He says, if you could do anything in the world, what would it be? And before you answer that, if you don’t change something dramatic about what you’re doing, fast forward to when you’re 80 years old. Looking back at life, what do you regret? Not trying? And the answer needs to be the same. And I immediately, without hesitation said, you’re going to think I’m crazy, but I’ve always wanted to own and operate a campground. And that was really the the impetus that started us on this journey.

JIM: That’s awesome. It kind of answers my next question, which is what on earth made you want to buy a campground? But how did that opportunity arise? And how did you find the one? That was the one. And when? When did you go for that? Yeah.

MARK: So, you know, as I shared, you know, with most of our travels through the years, I mean, we we to benefited and enjoyed, you know, the state parks and national parks largely because they’re gorgeous. Tracts of land relatively more affordable than private parks. But when you’re looking to getting into the business, obviously, you know, it’s a it’s a for profit model. And during our national travels out to Yellowstone and Boston and Maine is when we began, we became introduced with Kampgrounds of America, where we discovered, you know, hey, here are these, you know, private campgrounds that are run by, you know, private individuals with great amenities. You know, they’re clean, they’re safe. Our kids loved it, you know, and the ease with which we can make a reservation, you know, at any Koa across the system, we were we were pretty excited. So like a lot of now, my fellow owners, we simply, you know, at the bottom of Koaa.com is a link called own a Koa. And we clicked on that and ended up attending a buyer’s workshop where Koa, you know, for a three day period, you know, gives you the good, bad and ugly of owning a campground while also making sure that we were legitimate and credible franchisees that had more than a couple pennies to rub together. And through that process, it it allowed us access to all of the cars that were for sale at the time that we were looking. And so we identified four properties that we were very much interested in. Only one of them was in Michigan, but that ultimately ended up being the one that we that we closed on. So I can’t think of a better way to be in business. I’d describe it as I’m in business for myself, but I’m not alone, you know, does bring they’re a great partner, and they bring a lot of resources through the franchise arrangement that really supports entrepreneurs like myself and my wife.

JIM: So I know that wasn’t an easy process, but it seems like they had methods in place to help lead new campground owners down that road. But what was the initial decision process like? Was Karla immediately on board, or what kind of research did you do before jumping down the hole?

MARK: Yeah, you know, going into business with your spouse definitely is not for everybody. But, you know, we mastered wallpapering and painting. So, you know, the reality is, Jim, you know, through the years, you know, we always talked about doing this. And after that, you know, lunch meeting with the business owner and the challenging two questions that he’d given me. I came home and normally when I would talk to my wife about, you know, we should do this, she would tell me to, you know, suck it up, buttercup. You know, get back out in the marketplace, earn the living for, you know, she, you know, herself and the kids and and this is just who we are. And you know, the way life needs to be. But for the first time, when we would have that conversation, rather than telling, you know me to just suck it up and get back out there, she said, why not? And and I mean, no hesitation. And it actually, you know, floored me. So I had to confirm that, you know, was she serious? And she confirmed that she was. And she agreed that if we if we didn’t do this now, we would always wonder what if and you know, with with her support and her blessing, we, we put wheels into motion and started doing the research that we needed connecting with Koa very directly. And and it worked. Within a six month period, we sold everything we owned and bought the campground.

JIM: Sounds a little familiar. It’s definitely great when both parties are on board. My whole journey 16 years ago started with my wife saying, I got an idea and that ended up, you know, selling a business and hitting the road and putting stuff in storage and went on and on. But most people would really consider what you did a pretty serious, risky venture. I mean, you cashed out a good chunk of your retirement to make it happen. Then you turned around and invested even more on improvements. How did you know this was going to pay off?

MARK: Well, you don’t is the truthful answer. But I knew that if if I got my my day job out of the way and I was focusing my creative, you know, time and energy on something that I just again had an incurable passion for and a desire to achieve. You know, when you’re singularly focused on it, it makes it a whole lot easier. You know, it’s when people think that, you know, well, I’m going to I’m going to keep my job because that represents security to me. But I’m going to dabble with this business thing on the side. Some people make it that way, but that that wasn’t the path we were going to take. I mean, we needed to burn the ships and chips all in, make it work. And and it did. And you learn a lot. You don’t need to know everything starting out of the gate. You know what I also very quickly learned is that, you know, I’m not very good at plumbing. I’m not very good at electrical work. I’m not very good at carpentry. But there are a lot of very talented people who are, and I’m glad and happy to pay them to do their jobs well, while I focus on other things that I do exceedingly well. And then in the mix, everything comes together.

JIM: So let’s fast forward just a bit to about the time the CNBC article came out. They mentioned how they got into numbers and we don’t need to go there, but they mentioned you were making considerably less than your previous income, but that you were happier. And I can totally relate to that. I mean, Renee and I immediately started making much less, but we found a purpose and we had better feeling about what we were doing. But when it comes to feeling happier after this big scary thing you took on, was that immediately the case, or did it take some time to start feeling totally comfortable after making this leap?

MARK: I would say it definitely took some time. You know, the first probably six months to a year. I questioned whether or not we had made the worst decision of our lives. You know? But, you know, the outdoor hospitality is a little bit unique in that as a business owner, I’m living right on property, so I don’t have a home separate from my business. You know, my my commute is 15 steps, so I really only needed one vehicle. We got rid of one. You know, I’m in a you know, I work for a brand that, you know, wears yellow shirts all the time. So, you know, my my uniform was now already, you know, my, my, my daily clothing was already pre-selected for me. So, you know, in the end, you discovered very quickly that, you know, we just lowered our lifestyle and we lowered we lowered the demands that we needed on a personal level for for financial resources to support a life outside of work because work became our lives. And. Yeah, so, so in one hand, you know, there’s there’s definitely an element there now living in an RV, you know, we’re we’re able to, you know, travel the country. You know, the tax code supports a lot of the activity that we’re still doing on the road as legitimate business expenses. You know, we don’t abuse that. You know, we definitely still have personal expenses. But we can and we do leverage those opportunities as well. Again, running some lifestyle expenses through through the business because that’s what we’re doing now from the road.

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JIM: You mentioned lifestyle there a couple of times. And back to that article. We’ll get the link in the show notes. But Karla mentioned about as owning your own business. It’s a healthier lifestyle. She’s quoted as saying, as our own bosses, you create stress and manage stress. So what are some of the ways you both manage the stress of daily operations and about the future of this thing?

MARK: Yeah. You know, I think it really goes back to, you know, the the first and foremost, the development of the team. You know, a lot of a lot of campground owners really just they think that the only way to get anything done is to do everything themselves. And Carl and I took very much a different approach. You know, one, we know that we’re not gifted in all areas. And number two, we know we don’t want to have to do everything. So as as we as we grew the business, we began to leverage the work camper model and know, you know, you and your wife participated in that. That’s invaluable. You know, when when we discovered that our business and our dream linked very directly with other individuals who, for whatever reason, chose not to buy a campground but still enjoy traveling and exchanging some of their time in a particular area for some work at a campground. We got pretty excited about that. So now you know more than half of our team are work campers. And you know, we’re blessed that many of them come back year after year so we don’t have to retrain them. You know, they know the campground. They know our guests, they know the drill. And there’s trust and reliance. You know, that that is built mutually between us. But we’re still recruit, you know, new work campers each year. And then the balance is typically high school and college kids that come from the local area. And, you know, we could choose to do everything ourselves, you know, pocket a little bit more money. But I’m happy to, you know, exchange my sanity with a little bit of higher labor costs. And we’ve we’ve done that very intentionally. But I think all in all, it really boils down to just, you know, knowing your skill set and looking and knowing what you’re looking to get out of the business and being purposeful about just creating the structure to make that happen.

JIM: Yeah. Having the right team can certainly help things out when it comes to stress, but when it comes to like processes or principles of operating a campground in particular, have you put anything in place to kind of preempt the stress? Like are there common obstacles you’ve identified with owning a campground, and what have you done to prepare for those?

MARK: Yeah. You know, in addition to building the team in terms of human resources, we’ve also been very intentional about systemizing everything from, you know, how do we clean sites to, you know, how are things stocked our cafe operations, minimizing the variation of products that you would have in your in your store so that everything is everything works the same, you know, and then even out in the park, you know, we have one kind of picnic table on every single site. You know, we don’t we don’t have a mismatching of furniture. You know, all of the chairs are the same. All of the fire pits are uniform. It helps not only from an operational standpoint if anything needs to be replaced or repaired, but also believe it adds tremendously to just the aesthetically pleasing ness of of the property. You know, everything looks like it belongs, and it’s in order as opposed to just, you know, it’s a place outdoors. But then after that, all of the, you know, everything else, you know, kind of there’s variety. I don’t like variety, I like continuity, and I think our guests do too.

JIM: They do. And having a model like that does kind of preempt any stress because, you know, if something breaks, you know where to get it because it’s the same kind. But for anyone out there considering buying a campground, what recommendations do you have?

MARK: Yeah. I mean, it’s I’ll first say, you know, it’s never been a better time to be in the industry. You know, you know, record, record show, especially post-pandemic. Literally 30 million Americans who never camped a day in their lives or hadn’t camped in a long time are now coming out on a regular basis. And that was in addition to the 60 million that were previously doing it. So, you know, today, you know, about one third of Americans are pursuing very actively outdoor recreation. So it’s definitely a good business to be in. The need is there. The demand is there. There are a lot of good actors in this industry. I think, you know, most of us have a genuine heart and operate our campgrounds like we’re opening up our homes to them. But there’s also an opportunity for people who are not yet in that business to find someone who, let’s just say, you know, maybe not isn’t having as much fun or isn’t as youthful as they used to be, you know, like a like a good stock, you know, look for those properties, you know, look for the properties that are a little rundown, a little worn, a little tired, you know, and buy low and sell high.

JIM: So you’ve got the support of an established brand and kind of some processes that you can jump through to get into a campground. What advice do you have for someone considering starting a campground versus buying an existing one, like starting from scratch versus getting on board with something that’s already running? Any thoughts there?

MARK: Yeah. You know, for for Carl and I and I would think that this is still, you know, largely the case. You know there’s definitely excitement and energy with thinking I’m going to buy just, you know, native land. You know that that hasn’t hasn’t had anything on it. I’m going to build it all myself and it’s going to be beautiful and exactly the way I want it. You can do that. But the math is going to probably show that it’s going to cost you, you know, 3 to 4 times the amount of money. And then when you’re all done with that construction and open up your gate, you don’t have a single customer. You know, I’m not discouraging you from doing that, but it was more effective for us to just turnkey buy something that was already there, had a customer base. Literally on the very first day that we were the owners, we had money coming into us to support what we were doing, and we just continued to build it from there.

JIM: That’s really excellent advice, and I’m sure though, getting into a franchise or some sort of large resort operation is a far cry from buying a smaller, more affordable park, and definitely from starting one from scratch when you don’t have an existing customer base. But the ROI might not be there if you’re pouring money into improvements. Any thoughts on the folks that are leery of investing millions of dollars? I mean, when we were looking, it was like, oh, a couple hundred thousand dollars, we could get a park, but then you got to pour money into it or or the money, you know, the return might not be there, whereas this larger thing costs a million or more dollars. But the returns there. So what about those folks that are just like, scared of that million dollar number.

MARK: You know, think putting behind the fear factor what is indeed, you know, a big a big hurdle for anybody. And and Carl and I had to wrestle with it too, you know, I mean even though we’re on the other side of success now, you know, we, we bought that park that needed, you know, millions of dollars in upgrades and, and we just one bite at a time. We pulled it off. And as a result, then the benefit is to us. We bought it on a lower level. We made those investments timely, strategic and in nature. And now the park is performing. If you want to buy beautiful, you’re going to pay for it. If you want to buy and build, you know, into something that is nothing short of improvement, then that benefit is going to go back to you. You know, I will say too, you know, you’ve got the difference between building versus buying something that’s existing. But I also just want to give, you know, another plug. You know, even for K.o.a, you know, I know that it’s not necessarily a brand that’s for everybody. You know, there are some people that are repelled by the brand. But it worked for us as entrepreneurs. A lot of people think, you know, well, if I just buy a private campground and I run it, I get to keep all of that money. That’s true. But you’re paying for your reservation system. You’re paying for your marketing and your advertising. You’re paying for, you know, vendor relationships. You know, you’re spending an awful lot of time, energy and money that we got on day one in exchange for the franchise fees and the franchise fees. You know, I view, you know, being a part of a Koa rather than taking a piece of what Carl and I do in Southwest Michigan, I have hired an entire team of people in Billings, Montana to support my activities.

JIM: Well, you’re clearly doing something right. You’re living the healthier lifestyle. You definitely seem happier. So let’s talk for a minute about being happy and about purpose. I’m a big believer in service. First, I think true success is really attained by helping others and not just making more money. And you told me that you’re on the board of directors for care camps. I discovered that’s a program and it looks great. What is care camps and why did you get involved?

MARK: Yeah, Jim, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about that too. So I agree with everything you said. You know, I believe we have we all have natural talents that God has given us. And as a result, we have an obligation to use them to make a difference in the lives of others. And one of the ways that Karl and I both have been able to do that is through care camps. So care camps started actually from a caring group of franchisees back in 1984, where they they too were just looking for something good to do for others. And, you know, helping kids with cancer enjoy a specialized oncology camp experience just seemed like a natural fit. Well, through the years, Care Camps has grown both within K.o.a as well as now very intentionally moving outside about. You know, five years ago, we were very purposeful about reaching out and making intentional connections with the manufacturing industry. And we have great partners now throughout Elkhart, Indiana for forest River, Patrick Industries. You know, these are all, you know, organizations that build RVs, supply RVs and are also equally passionate and care camps. Now is its standalone separate 500 and 1C3. So even though we’re very rooted in K.o.a and have that as our history, we’re not linked only to Koa. So there’s a lot of brands too that have begun to support us outside of Koa. And even now, even moving beyond the outdoor hospitality industry as a whole. So there are 129 specialized oncology camps across North America, US and Canada. And since our inception, we have raised more than $24 million to send kids with cancer to one of these camps, which typically it’s a week long program where they get specialized instruction and support from the staff to just be normal and to enjoy everything that that you and I could think of as, as being a summer camp experience.

JIM: That’s awesome. Good for you for getting involved with that. So aside from that, what have been your biggest rewards since leaving the Default Life and launching your campground career?

MARK: Well, you know, we’ve been blessed as we’ve grown our business. We’ve been blessed now to host more than 15,000 guests each year at our property from all 50 states and as many as 15 international countries. So we just love being able to invest in the lives of our guests. You know, they’re exchanging their their hard earned money that they have made in doing whatever, you know, walk of life that they come from, whether they be retirees, whether they be, you know, just, you know, a family taking the weekend off or traveling across the country, you know, they’re coming to us looking to enjoy that time with their family and friends. And we feel privileged to be able to meet them and to deliver that in an exceptional way.

JIM: That’s got to be rewarding indeed. What has been the biggest challenge so far and how did you overcome it?

MARK: Well, you know, the old the old saying that you probably have heard is, you know, the best thing about this industry is the people. The worst part of this industry is the people. Yeah, sure. So, you know, the demand is high, you know, and yeah, there’s some bad actors, you know, that present themselves. And, you know, you realize that no matter what we do, we’re not going to make everybody happy. But, you know, we try not to think about those folks quite as much as the more wonderful people who clearly are the majority.

JIM: Finally, in the CNBC article, you describe how the park is now your retirement investment. So how far off is that? If you’re still loving what you do.

MARK: We do love what we do. You know, the the average ownership today of a Koa is only seven years. Wow. And you know somebody they buy it, they make it a little better and then they turn it. And you know, we now just completed our eighth season. You know it’s seven calendar years. But I include 2016 as year one because it was a big year for us. You know we’re excited. I mean Carl and I are still in our early 50. We’ve got a lot of energy and obviously we have time before we just want to play pickleball for, you know, 24 over seven. And we’ve even grown to you know, this defines who we are. I don’t know what the answer is. I mean, that’s that’s kind of the conversation du jour between my wife and I of, you know, when when have we had enough fun, you know, but I think probably as grandkids begin to come into the picture, that might begin to, you know, pull our heartstrings to different geographical areas of the country where we might not want to be, you know, spending it all in Michigan during the summer months. But we’ll see. I mean, that’s a great question. We talk about it all the time, and we believe that, you know, God will lead us when that time comes.

JIM: Well, I don’t I’m not a big fan of the word retirement. It almost sounds being put out to pasture. And I believe when you’re doing what you love, it’s not really a goal you’re striving towards. You’re just I see us, you know, keeping to do what we do. Do you feel the same?

MARK: I absolutely feel the same. You know, one of my one of my former pastors even once described, you know, God’s idea of retirement is death, which which means as long as we’re, you know, we got breath in our lungs. We’ve got something to do. And I’m excited with what we’re doing right now.

JIM: So real quick, what’s next for your Holiday in the coming years?

MARK: Well, you know, no moss grows underneath our feet for sure. Literally last week, we just replaced our septic tank. I know it’s not as sexy for people. You know, none of my guests will pay me more because we did it. But they won’t pay me a dime if it doesn’t work. So, you know, it was, you know, a 50 year old system that needed some attention and it got it. But in addition to that, we’re continuing to make other investments that are more guest facing. You know, we are in the process of upgrading the bandwidth on our on our property for high stream internet. So we look forward to introducing that or having that available to our guests in the future. And we’re even going to take some existing sites and convert them into something even better. And I’ll wait on that announcement. But more to come.

JIM: All right. So anyone listening, I hope they can get through Coloma. Visit the Saint Joseph Koa holiday. Is there anything else you’d like to share?

MARK: Yeah. No, I think, you know, we’d be honored to have any of your listeners, you know, come by, and I’d be happy to talk with them even more for more information. They can always find us online at SaintJosephKOA.com.

JIM: Thanks so much for that. We’ll get all these links in the show notes. And like I said, really appreciate your time. I’m sure you’re busy and you have to either go deal with a team member or a client or something that might have broken. So thanks again Mark.

MARK: No worries. Thanks a lot, Jim. Really appreciate being here with you.

JIM: Mark and Karla are clearly doing something right. I totally relate with being happier and having a greater sense of purpose while making less money than we used to, much less see what they’ve done at Koaa.com slash campgrounds. Slash Coloma. Stay a while if you’re passing through and let Mark know you heard him on the RV entrepreneur. This podcast is the primary feature you’ll find to fuel your nomadic venture. Along with our annual gatherings, active community group, and more resources at the Entrepreneur.com.

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