Episode 3 : The Traveling Titans

Sam and Blake from The Traveling Titans join Mike and Elizabeth for a discussion on full time RV life, world travel and the state of the RV industry. 

#rvinspection #rvinspector #rvliving #rvlife #rv #rvlifestyle #rvfriends #podcast 

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;17;25
Unknown
Hey, y'all, I'm Mike, the RV inspector and technician. And I'm Elizabeth. I'm the wife of the RV inspector and technician. And welcome to our podcast.

00;00;17;25 - 00;00;36;16
Unknown
Should I go now? Yeah. Hey, guys. Welcome to the Cozy Camper podcast. Thanks, Rick. Hello. You're the Titans, but you're not the Titans. Now we're not the Titans. We are the traveling Titans. it always is. You're getting on the road. You need like, a name. You have to like, you know, identify yourself somehow. You're going to have a social media or whatever.

00;00;36;18 - 00;00;57;10
Unknown
And, I was like, the wandering whatevers or the, you know, like, there's all these kind of words. And I made a list of, you know, various synonyms for travel or whatever, and nothing just was really like feeling good. Right. And, Atlas obviously has both. My kids have strong names, Atlas and Zora, and Atlas is like Greek.

00;00;57;10 - 00;01;15;06
Unknown
And then we were thinking about, like, big things that incorporate the world or whatever, and it was like Atlas World, the Titan Titans and then Traveling Titans go as well. But yes, a lot of people think that last name is Titans. That is some expert level marketing. That really is. Yeah, yeah. We had no idea. And like because we talked once like we're coach camper obviously.

00;01;15;06 - 00;01;34;03
Unknown
But like we talked about rebranding like Mobile Murphy's or something. You talked about rebranding I put it on the team cozy camper, aren't we. We put it on our social media and the, the, our followers, like like we did a poll was like, I remember it was like this 90%. It was like 90% keep the same name. And I was like, yes, okay.

00;01;34;04 - 00;01;47;16
Unknown
Funny thing is, I never even considered that people thought our last name. Where was the Titans? Oh, really? Yeah. Didn't even occur to you? No, not at all. But somebody sent us something, or we're like, hey, tight and I was like, no, no, people just say like, oh, there's a Titans. It's like, yeah, that's our name off. Yeah.

00;01;47;16 - 00;02;09;10
Unknown
If we're like, there's a cozy camper city. I literally have you in my phone book under Titans. Yeah, yeah, I'm okay with that. I mean, the definition of Titan is like, yeah, awesome. I mean, and for privacy purposes, no one will know who you really know. And that's it's just. And that's legit, right? Because like, you do want like we saw that last RV park we were at, we sacrifice some pride, but we didn't know we were just getting started in the content creation world.

00;02;09;12 - 00;02;27;28
Unknown
And then we're like, oh, this RV park is so great. And then someone sent us messages like, I saw your camper from the road. And I was like, that's it. Yeah, like no more. I don't I don't need that in my life. You can go. I think you want to do it in the rears. It's like as much anonymity as you can maintain outside of the people who are offering you a drink.

00;02;27;28 - 00;02;43;09
Unknown
When you pulled in, you know, have it. I don't know, though. Like, I think it goes both ways because you have your, you know, you have your truck, your truck has your name on it so people can just look it up just the same thing. If you're a jerk on the road and like, you drive by them and they're, you know, you're giving them the finger.

00;02;43;09 - 00;03;06;29
Unknown
They're like cozy camber. Yeah. Bad review. Even though it's you. But I think, like, we put our logos on our camper as well. and we haven't yet, just because we just got the camper. So, but our last one had all of our stuff all over it, and we, we get a lot of when we meet people, obviously in the campground, they're like, oh my gosh, I, we've been following you or whatever, you know, and then we'll get people like, hey, I just passed you on a I-44 or whatever.

00;03;06;29 - 00;03;22;05
Unknown
You're like, hey, somebody chased her down in the parking lot at the campground. Yeah, it's like you're Elizabeth from my camper. I've just gotten out of the shower, so I. I'd like the towel on my head. I was like, still, when I'm, like, walking back to the camper, trying to be there quick because Nolan and Mae were there and like, they stopped me and I was like, oh, hello.

00;03;22;12 - 00;03;40;23
Unknown
Like like, it's awkward. But yeah, I feel like there's a difference, though, to meet you. Like, we're advertised, like if we're on, like right now our truck's over there and like, says Cozy camper on it because, like, we're advertising our business. And if I'm in this campground, like these 50 people know I'm here. Yeah, but, like, if I do that, if, let's say I make a real for this campground and a million people see it.

00;03;40;24 - 00;03;58;01
Unknown
Yeah, that a million people know where I am. Yeah. And like, I'm an ex-cop and I don't like that. Right? I don't want people to know that much. So like there's a, there's a, there's a given a take. Yeah. Where it's like hey, yeah. No, this is where we are clearly we're at Camp Landa. Yeah, but yeah, not we're not staying here.

00;03;58;01 - 00;04;16;09
Unknown
So it's a little bit different where there's a visit out and we'll be gone by the time you do anything. Yeah. So there you go. That's hopefully, you know, people are weird all the time. You know, the this lady literally in H-e-b earlier went saw Atlas and just walked up and tried to touch his hair. And I literally had to stand out of the way and say like, she's like, I need to touch it.

00;04;16;09 - 00;04;33;17
Unknown
I'm like, no, you don't. And everybody tries to touch his hair. It's very inappropriate. Like he think about how uncomfortable he is. Yeah. And she's just like, yeah, that's the right thing. And I'm like, I'm about to touch you. He she like you could just see she snapped it like saw it. And it's like almost a child. See something they want and they just can't help themselves.

00;04;33;17 - 00;04;47;26
Unknown
They're like their second brain's taken over and they're just doing something silly. And we do. We've taught them because it just happens everywhere. It doesn't matter where in the world you are. People are touching your kids like it's just their hair. And I don't know what it is. But yeah, we really do have beautiful hair. Not a way to touch it, but it is beautiful.

00;04;47;26 - 00;05;08;23
Unknown
People just get weird. So it's like you want to add as many layers in as possible, and it only takes like one person, right? So and like thankfully we haven't encountered that one person. But there was I was some other, RV influencer. Paige was talking about how they had a stalker for a while, and I saw their podcast and and I was like, oh, like, this is caused me to, like, I'm going to double down.

00;05;08;23 - 00;05;26;05
Unknown
And my kind of desire for anonymity to an extent like, obviously, like if you if you were to go on Google and look up Cozy Camper, it would direct you to my home, right? Like that's where I run my business from. But but I also don't need to go out of my way to be like, hey, this is where you can find us.

00;05;26;05 - 00;05;50;09
Unknown
And admittedly, on our social media, sometimes I get a little snippy with the like when she answers a comment. It's all nice and sweet. Generally, yeah. And then when I answer a question, I'm like, by now I know that I was just thinking your maybe like had two sides to you. Yeah. Yeah we do. Yeah. She's. Yeah. And even like since we've since Elizabeth has come on line in the business and she's answering the phone like, we get feedback.

00;05;50;11 - 00;06;04;16
Unknown
Whoever answered the phone was so nice, and I really. Whereas, like, before, I would be answering the phone, like, while I was on a roof and I'd be like, what do you need me to fix, right? Like, I can't talk right now and then, but then like, she's like, learning their kids names. Yeah. They just like to tell me things.

00;06;04;17 - 00;06;31;16
Unknown
Customer service. You do a great job of it. Thank you. But you guys, you're full time. Our viewers, we are so full time travelers. you guys just did like a crazy, not RV trip. Yeah we did. We've been traveling for four years. We actually just hit four years in June. technically. June. and, yeah, we just got back from three months, traveling in Europe, and we dip down to Morocco.

00;06;31;18 - 00;06;48;07
Unknown
we loved we love that. But North Africa, that was our first Africa, you know. What was that? I mean, that's like, how do you go from, like, when you like, I think we talked and you're like, oh yeah, I'm doing this, like dramatic Europe trip for like, am I, how do you I said that yeah, that's my words.

00;06;48;07 - 00;07;16;20
Unknown
But like but I'm like, how do you do I mean what is that like to switch from like, I mean, we have a whole conversation of RV life. Yeah. Yeah. And then like, oh no, because you guys, like, hop from Airbnbs and all that stuff, right? Yeah. it's like it's it's a perfect break. Like, we kind of figured it, like our first year, we, we traveled so fast and so aggressively because we were going to do this for two years, and that was it, like two years that then our kids need to be in school and, let's try to hit all the states.

00;07;16;20 - 00;07;34;22
Unknown
And so it was like getting Covid. It was just we just went fast. We would we we had so much stuff in our RV to begin, like the old RV, I can't even remember. It would take us like two hours to unpack everything, just like two days later to pack it all back up. but we were traveling so fast and we did like 17 states, like in the first, you know, six months.

00;07;34;28 - 00;07;49;03
Unknown
It was crazy. And then we took a break. We went to Hawaii. And, something about that like kind of started in my mind of like, it was such a great respite from, like, that tiny living, even though we lived tiny while we were there as well. Like we stayed in a really small apartment with a friend, and it was.

00;07;49;05 - 00;08;20;06
Unknown
But then like the next year, I think we, I don't remember we did the oh, the next year. Yeah. Do we go now? I don't remember Costa Rica, Costa Rica. And then we did Southeast Asia last year. And then this year we did Europe. It's like a great break. of like, you know, because you do every once in awhile, it's nice to like, get out, stretch your legs and like, you know, so but as far as, like, our children, and just the life of, like, traveling in, calling wherever you live home like that concept.

00;08;20;06 - 00;08;35;13
Unknown
Like, because we live in an RV, our kids literally can adapt to anything. Like we can be at a in a riad in the middle of, like, the Sahara desert in Morocco. Or we can be in this old woman's house in Switzerland that we stayed in or, you know, in our RV and our kids, like they have their noisemaker.

00;08;35;14 - 00;08;54;17
Unknown
We're good. It's everybody gets good sleep and then it's just adventure, you know, just that you still have your routines to mean we have routines with our family every day. So when we're going to places, we still maintain those routines. I try to exercise in the morning, breakfast. If we have lessons with the kids or what are we going to go to explore or just spending time to relax?

00;08;54;19 - 00;09;17;06
Unknown
but I think the nice thing, like she said, getting that respite is that it helps us just get perspective. There's a lot of niceties not being in the rig, obviously, like a shower. I can take like an hour long shower. Yeah. Like have space that that type of stuff. So you enjoy those niceties, the little differences. but coming back, I think you always have a different perspective on like, oh, I should be doing a little bit more of this, a little bit less of this.

00;09;17;06 - 00;09;36;26
Unknown
And I think traveling or just in general, it's like so easy to get complacent with what you're doing. So taking this break is nice to just kind of retool what, like our life's great, but it's like, you know, little things are slipping through the cracks. So when we take that time off, it helps us do do something new, but then come back and refocus and in a better way.

00;09;36;26 - 00;09;51;06
Unknown
I think it's easy. We were just talking like it's so easy to slip into a rut because we were in our RV. Then we went back to the house and when we went back to the house, we were like, oh, well, you know, we we found that like we were taking a two family walks a day and we were like going on more adventures, like, let's keep doing that.

00;09;51;06 - 00;10;07;25
Unknown
And then it took like a week, like now the dogs are getting like two walks a week and like, you slide into, like, routine so easily that you don't like, like I was like, so excited about my backyard because the green grass was like, lush and the dogs have destroyed it. And I was like, no, I'm going to walk them four times a day, every day.

00;10;07;28 - 00;10;25;19
Unknown
And like, it didn't happen. So like, yeah, I, I, I 100% hear what you're saying. Like we followed y'all on, on social media and we saw like kids are like, oh, they're going to today or they're like going to like this place over there. And I was like, oh, it seems like they're just like totally acclimated to this life.

00;10;25;19 - 00;10;44;22
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Which I think is like an obstacle for like a lot of people when they want to jump into this life, like, hey, can the kids handle the, the change in like our son and our niece who staying with us like she prefers when we're in the RV to like when we're at the house and like, kids are so adaptable to it and they're attentive adventures.

00;10;44;22 - 00;11;01;19
Unknown
Massive. Our nephew lived with us when we first started, where he was with us when we first started traveling in the RV, and, you know, 16 years old at the time. And he had the staples of his day to day stability, but then the rest is like, he's just got eyes wide open. Can't believe we're going to see these things.

00;11;01;19 - 00;11;22;11
Unknown
Like there's the unknown is there? And I think when you're especially when you're in the teenage years, the familiarity of life is just kind of dulling. And you want to try something new. You want a sense of adventure. You still want your parents to help you, but you want to brave the world, right? and I think RV really gives a nice environment to do that, you know?

00;11;22;13 - 00;11;47;03
Unknown
But one thing I was just going to say, right quickly, as you were mentioning, you know, getting back into that rut and kind of going back home, like, that's where the value, I think of staying at nice RV places versus more rugged ones comes into play for us in switching it up, even when we're on the road, we switch it up a lot because we go through these phases of like not wanting as many people around and wanting to make our own fires and wanting the woods and to battle the ticks and all those things.

00;11;47;05 - 00;12;05;21
Unknown
And then it's like, oh, let's go to a resort where the trimmings are all there, and it's just nice to not have to do any work and, you know, pick up our trash or we set up the valet park in the morning. It's like, hey, with the pool and all that stuff, I guess I think it helps keep their perspective and balance because like you said, the ruts just develop so quickly.

00;12;05;21 - 00;12;20;14
Unknown
And for us, change is a good way to prevent that, I think. And keep the eye on the prize. Yeah. Were you all like, oh, I'm sorry, I was going to ask like before you did the RV life, were you nomadic? Like, did you move from somewhere else and then to here or had you been close to home for.

00;12;20;16 - 00;12;42;01
Unknown
We have different stories, but, I was nomadic my whole life. My father was in the military. Okay. and then I was in the military. So, I mean, really the last we lived together nine years, I think, I guess even one of those years, I was gone. but that's the longest I had. Staying in one place was basically about nine years.

00;12;42;02 - 00;13;00;15
Unknown
Okay. so for me, it was always natural to move. And growing up, I think I had an appreciation for other cultures, like understanding that people were different and there were other experiences out there other than my own, you know, which I think is inspiring if you look at it that way, versus, oh, I'm not like them. It's like, oh, well, that's more stuff.

00;13;00;15 - 00;13;16;06
Unknown
I might be able to like myself. Yeah. You know, I grew up and lived in the same house like the entire time. And then I went to Mexico when I was 15 as an exchange student. And like that's when I like kind of fell in love with traveling. But I didn't grow up traveling like my family was it.

00;13;16;07 - 00;13;33;12
Unknown
My dad would have loved to have traveled, but we just didn't have any money to do that. So so but and then I left after school, I came back and finished high school, and then I went to college. And then. Yeah, I never looked back. and I think we always knew we wanted to travel more, but it was like.

00;13;33;14 - 00;13;52;11
Unknown
I mean, it's just so, like, all the same stuff everybody always talks about, you know, you get two weeks of vacation or maybe three weeks of vacation if you're working for a great company or whatever. And it's like, you use that and you're, you know, that's all you get. So, you pick one place or you can pick two places or whatever it is, and it's usually somewhere closer, or it's always the same, like same place.

00;13;52;14 - 00;14;17;02
Unknown
but before we started our being, I think we, you know, and I think that's something that, like, is probably an American, you know, we think like we are not you can only pick that one place a year. And if you fell in love with that place and families go back to that same place every year, and it's like to think about that now, knowing what we've seeing, what we've seen, it's like what, you're doing yourself such a disservice because there's just so much out there to see, you know, just amazing.

00;14;17;02 - 00;14;42;28
Unknown
So much amazing stuff to see. but we did a lot of impromptu travel, and now they were even talking about it like we started staying at places like ten days. And for us that was like, oh, that's kind of the sweet spot. Like, it's enough time to. You mean our being now? But when we just before we had kids in an RV go to like a Mexican resort in Mexico and stay there for ten days, you know, or longer, and we started realizing, like right around ten days, it's like you had the excitement.

00;14;43;01 - 00;14;56;29
Unknown
Then you kind of stabled out a little bit, and then you start to feel like you're starting to relax, you know? And that's where you get the perspective and stuff. But it's hard to have a full weekend anywhere or a full week of travel and then say, like, you get back from then most people are going right into work, right?

00;14;57;01 - 00;15;17;22
Unknown
And it's like, you need another week to decompress. You probably still need another week to just unwind a little bit from the stresses you're carrying around and saying like, hey, I can get rid of this, this I need to focus on type deal. So I think that's the other part of it for us. We really started thinking about like, what's the quality of life around the travel and excitement outside of just getting away for a short period of time?

00;15;17;25 - 00;15;32;05
Unknown
That's a good point because people always say like jokingly but not jokingly, like, I need a vacation from my vacation. Yeah, no. It's like like you. You don't have to have it that way. You have your cake and eat it too. Yeah, if you do it right. Well, I think yeah, people, so many people are like go, go go go go.

00;15;32;05 - 00;15;47;28
Unknown
And then they stop. And then like on day 3 or 4. Yeah, that catches up with them right when they're like, oh, like all the stress that I've been carrying now that I've had a beat to relax, now it's caught up with them. And then like maybe you get into it, but then your PTO is up. Yeah. It's time to go back.

00;15;47;28 - 00;16;04;22
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. And like that's kind of brutal. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't work. Like it doesn't really need to be that way. It's a selling point. When I tell people were coming to this time, I was there's going to be a train, guys. There's like a train every five of us here. And that's why we're just grateful it's a Union Pacific.

00;16;04;25 - 00;16;31;18
Unknown
we were the world's longest train. I think we're back. Everybody. this podcast is subject to rain on a tin roof and, literally a train. This is what we wanted it to be, though. We wanted it to be worry free. Podcasting. Just chitchatting. This is life. This is where we're at right now. We had a lot of not a lot, but we had like a number of people, we kind of like, ping us and be like, hey, have you thought at all about, like, building like a background for your podcast?

00;16;31;18 - 00;16;47;06
Unknown
Like I'm like, no, I haven't thought about building a studio. Yeah. I'm a guy who fixes our RV's for a living. I don't have podcast studio money. Yeah, which is why I bought this stuff so I could throw it in a box. Yeah, and bring it with me, would I? You know what? I like to build a studio 100%.

00;16;47;06 - 00;17;02;25
Unknown
But until then, we're going to have to deal with some ambient noise. Yeah. That's why honestly, though, that's why we chose. Because these are, like, broadcast, like your high quality ball game. Yeah, like the announcers are wearing. These is why we chose these. I'm like, if the UFC can figure it out, like, yeah, well, like, I'm at least as smart as those guys.

00;17;02;25 - 00;17;18;12
Unknown
Like also we want it to be comfortable. So yeah, eventually we're going to have some sort of backdrop where we go. Yeah, I have a vision, but we still want it to be casual and not. I'm going to take a cargo trailer and I'm going to turn into a podcast studio, but that's like, this is it did something like this already.

00;17;18;16 - 00;17;34;01
Unknown
Don't say, I don't want to talk about those guys, those guys in their frames. oh, well, that's a different discussion. No, you know, it's funny. It's funny that you chose Lippert because we were talking today, like, you know, because we have an idea of who we want to have on the podcast. And I was like, nobody's talking to you guys.

00;17;34;03 - 00;17;56;00
Unknown
Like, nobody is like in the podcast setting. Like, nobody's like all these, like, influencers are kind of in our orbit. Let me back up. I don't like to use the term influencer. All these people that are in like kind of our orbit, nobody really talks to them. Like I was like, I don't really want Jason Lippert on the podcast because like, what am I going to learn from him that isn't like, you know, corporate, like, I don't know what I'm going to get out of that.

00;17;56;00 - 00;18;12;15
Unknown
Yeah. But I was like, I'm interested to talk to people who are like actually on the ground living in the things and not someone who's going to sit across from me and be like, the Lippert Model seven frame is way better than the model six. And here's why. And like I get it. Like I push products too. And so do you guys.

00;18;12;15 - 00;18;32;12
Unknown
But like I'm also not super interested in your partnership with whatever company like I want to know about YouTube. Yeah. Like yeah that's what it's about. So it's just it's funny that you mention him then specifically, the reason I mention that is because we were at, one of the shows and the, actually, I don't remember where it was, but anyways.

00;18;32;12 - 00;18;49;04
Unknown
And they had like a studio in one of their things and I think it was another, another, someone else, like, had help them design and create it or whatever. So yeah, but that that'd be a lot for your truck to haul, like, you know, towing your trailer. Yeah. Double tow, double tell. Like my RV, a trailer. Yeah.

00;18;49;04 - 00;19;03;17
Unknown
It's better this way is then people will look at the video and know exactly where you were at when you started it. Yeah, you know what I mean. Like when you see somebody you like and they're like, oh, these are some from the beginning. And the roughness kind of brings. Yeah, charming, endearing feel. And that's our whole thing.

00;19;03;17 - 00;19;23;29
Unknown
And we bring this up like like our well, our company might know our company motto is worry free camping. It has been just the beginning, and the whole thing that we try to tell people is like, you do not have to wait for things to be perfect before you do it. Like that's a like, but like everybody in their brother will sit there and be like, oh, well, you know, I can't do this now because of this.

00;19;23;29 - 00;19;42;14
Unknown
And I have to wait for that. And it's like, maybe you get hit by a bus tomorrow. Yeah. So like, let's just make a plan, figure it out. We wanted to tour the southwest this fall because we expected our house to sell in, you know, 45 days. Yeah. It didn't like. Okay, cool. So we probably can't do that right now, but, like, we can still do the full time RV life.

00;19;42;16 - 00;20;02;03
Unknown
I'm not going to sit like and like we were talking earlier, like we're probably going to delay buying a bigger RV, but like that doesn't change my travel plans. Like we're just going to rip the Band-Aid off and figure it out like the second we have a viable offer, we're out. So that's really funny you're saying that because I've had this thought like, like this concept is so applicable in so many ways.

00;20;02;03 - 00;20;24;21
Unknown
Like, no matter what, you can take it in, like apply it to the smallest decisions you make in life, or you can take it and apply it to the largest decisions you make in life. And that is like something about RV life is like, you just have to accept things are not going to be perfect right now. Like, have you ever seen the videos of like, the guy that's driving down the road with his fifth wheel and like, both of his slides are half open and it's like, that's like the extreme.

00;20;24;21 - 00;20;41;12
Unknown
But it's like he had to go and he couldn't get a slide and he had to go. But like, seriously, like there's days that I'm like, oh my gosh, something else is broken. Or you know, I need this to be fixed before we end. It's like, why? Like, so what my water heater is not is, you know, kind of like the situation we had, you know, we picked up our RV.

00;20;41;14 - 00;20;55;05
Unknown
It's like, oh, let's just set some traps in, like, leave, you know what I mean? Like, no, like, get the RV, take it. It's not perfect. We have to figure it out. We have to make do, you know, but that kind of thing of, like, wanting everything to be just right in it for because. But it doesn't make it any better.

00;20;55;05 - 00;21;13;08
Unknown
It just makes it different. You know, you just you're delaying. Yeah. I think it's an anxiety response. Right. Like you're feeling anxious about whatever it is. And so we're avoiding it. and, and it's in it's like it's like no like so okay. And it was honestly we talked about this in the first podcast. It was the Thomases.

00;21;13;08 - 00;21;27;03
Unknown
It was it was Casey or it that when we were talking about doing our social media page and I was like, well, I got so much stuff to do. She's like, you're dumb. She's like, just go make content. Yeah. I was like, I gotta do this. She's like, stop making excuses. Just go make the content. And I was like, okay.

00;21;27;03 - 00;21;42;13
Unknown
And then like, there was a progression over time, right? Like, you get better microphones and cameras and like, yeah, the first stuff, we look back on it just like we're going to look at your podcast number three. Yeah, we're going to look back and after podcast number 300 and be like, poop. Like we'll be number 302. Nice. Every.

00;21;42;13 - 00;22;04;04
Unknown
Yeah. Every certain three CB 2330 33I go right. Yeah. Checking in but checking it on. Yeah yeah. But like but like so many people wait until forever and then it's too late. Maybe health concern creeps in in the RV space particularly. So many people like wait until retirement at 65, I can't. I can't process that, like doing all that stuff.

00;22;04;07 - 00;22;20;25
Unknown
Like they're not even doing it. But the physical side of it, it's like physical, like especially a fifth wheel, like there's a lot of physical. And I'm like, I could not imagine doing that when I'm 70. Right? And I it's like, okay. Yeah. So they got like one winter out of it and they're, you know, one summer. And then health concern crept in and now they can't enjoy it anymore.

00;22;20;25 - 00;22;41;18
Unknown
And it's like gosh like I understand like obviously you can't be reckless with your finances and just, you know, not work and live in an RV. Well, maybe you can, but but like, you also, if you wait until everything in your mind is perfect, you probably sacrificed a lot of time and capital to do it. Yeah, and that's like, okay, cool.

00;22;41;18 - 00;23;00;19
Unknown
So we bought some podcast equipment and we will figure it out. Like our camper is suboptimal. We'll figure it out. Yours is full of you know, yours was full of horrible alien creatures. And you came back for your trip. we didn't talk anymore. What? What happened specifically? Because we didn't talk about it. We talked about it before.

00;23;00;20 - 00;23;15;05
Unknown
Oh, yeah? Yeah, just that, like, I hate rodents. I don't do rodents. And then I worried for, like, a week before we're picking it up about there being rodents. And then we open the door and like because I thought if there were rodents, I wouldn't want them. I made him go in first and he's like, oh, that's a bunch of rodent feces.

00;23;15;05 - 00;23;34;27
Unknown
And then I was like, for lighting. Yeah, for lighting. I mean, we were under storage or whatever. But I mean, that's what they looked like. No, even with the lighting, we had to, like, get up close to examine it, see what it in fact was not rodent droppings. but instead we left chicken in the freezer, and, because we thought the freezer strong, we'd empty the royal.

00;23;34;27 - 00;23;55;15
Unknown
We? Yeah. So I that's I guess that was my responsibility. I, left, package of chicken in the top little secret drawer. And I say secret because it doesn't open, like, doesn't come out. And anyways, whatever, I digress. So, yeah, we had a nice new infestation of, like, dead. They were all dead because there was nothing else to to eat in there.

00;23;55;17 - 00;24;12;23
Unknown
maggots and then mega flies. So the question is, is it better than the rodents? Oh, for a for sure. I would take, like the whole fridge. She didn't clean it. So what? She's gorgeous is what she's saying. but yeah, you just move forward and, you know, there's like, you take the L and you move forward. Yeah, right.

00;24;12;23 - 00;24;27;20
Unknown
And it wasn't even that. It's always not that bad. And you know, you can just focus on this is what I get to do. But I just always think like especially in the RV, I think like now there's this small thing we can do and that'll be fun too, right? You know, like sometimes there's things that are nearby that we just overlook because we don't have time.

00;24;27;20 - 00;24;43;29
Unknown
So it's like, let's do the big things and then something happens outside of your control. It's like, well, we got time for these little things too. And yeah, right. It's okay. And where, you know, a bad day here. Like bad weather. They say a bad day. Fishing is better than a good day at the office. Yeah, yeah, it's like that all the time.

00;24;43;29 - 00;25;01;12
Unknown
Just to your point of living life. You want to live. And I'm waiting because people that I see in the RV space who are retired, who waited, they almost all of them have a diminished expectation and appetite for life. So that's where you see so many people who did retire just go between 1 and 2 places because it's easy, right?

00;25;01;12 - 00;25;19;02
Unknown
They've lost your ambition. Like every year, your first to do something kind of goes down for most things. And I think you see that for me it's a reminder with the retirees, a lot is like some of them are really hard to try, but that's like 3%, 97% are just like talking about the nice place they go when they're here.

00;25;19;02 - 00;25;35;07
Unknown
Yeah. And then the other part of the year here and they call themselves RV travelers, which they are. But RV life really has a lot more than that. And you need to have the spunk and gumption to do what I think. And we've talked about that. Sorry, not going to help you, but we've talked about the different type of our viewers.

00;25;35;07 - 00;26;00;02
Unknown
Yeah, there's what we want, our adventure. And we have we have a kind of, you know, we're a little unique in this space because we do have a business and we have clients in the Austin area. But it's like, you know, it's like, all right, well, we have identifiable busy seasons though, so it's like we can go and travel in between, like the two busy seasons and then maybe like trade away one of those seasons in Austin and have a second kind of location in the north.

00;26;00;02 - 00;26;14;27
Unknown
So like in the summer you're there in the fall, you're here when anyway. But it's like, you know, like to your point though, it's like the longer things go on, the deeper that road gets. And then like you said, you're like, hey, I'm just blastin back and forth from, you know, this place to that place with like, nothing in between.

00;26;14;27 - 00;26;34;14
Unknown
And that's when you kind of graduate, because there's a difference. We've discussed, like between people who live in their RVs full time and full time RV. Yeah. And like, they're both fine. I don't have an objection to either one. But like, if you wanted to be a full time RV for. But now you're just a that gives the reins back I that or like someone's got like a machine gun.

00;26;34;16 - 00;26;51;11
Unknown
Yeah. so, hopefully not. But like, if you're in that latter category and you want to be in the first one, like, it's not like maybe it doesn't scratch the itch or you settle for it. So like and it might take like 2 to 5 years to figure out like how you're going to do this thing. Maybe you need to get training and switch jobs, whatever it is.

00;26;51;11 - 00;27;13;01
Unknown
But like you can make a plan and make incremental progress towards achieving that plan over just a couple of years. Small steps. We get that question saving is fine. Saving money is still part of the yeah thing, you know sorry. Yeah. We get that question. Like I would say that's like I mean we have a list of ten questions that we are asked continuously and that is, you know, like how do I start?

00;27;13;04 - 00;27;29;11
Unknown
Like what do I, you know, and but I think, you know, everybody has their own journey and everybody has their own plan. But like, I'm more of a like do what you can. You know what I mean? Like, you know, if if you know, you want to do it like don't wait the five years so that you're comfortable doing it, it's okay.

00;27;29;11 - 00;27;47;17
Unknown
Like I'm now I'm not saying like quit your job and, you know, plan on only fans for the weekend or for, you know, on the weekends or whatever it is like to have an income source. Right? Because you do have to pay your bills, right? But outside of that, like the rest of it, like, you know, if you can only afford this much of a trailer, get that much of a trailer, start to life, like get on the road, start traveling.

00;27;47;17 - 00;28;06;29
Unknown
And that's the thing. Everyone's starting point might be different, but as long as it's a starting point, it's okay. Like whatever works for you just do it. Yep. Do what you can, when you can. And that's and that's the thing. Like, you know, waiting for things to be perfect is different than incremental progress. So if it takes you a minute to get organized, like, like you got to sell your house, you got to like, cash, okay?

00;28;06;29 - 00;28;23;24
Unknown
That takes time. I don't advocate just running out the back door. And, you know, being burning out in a trailer, that's not what we're doing. But it's like, okay, like make a plan and tell me where you want to be six months, a year, two years from now. Yep. And if it takes you that long to to do it, cool.

00;28;23;24 - 00;28;46;08
Unknown
But at least you're making some kind of identifiable progress. Yeah. to get that to to move in that direction. Yeah. So, but I think and we get asked all the time to or people talk to us and they're like, oh, how do you, how do you record podcasts in public places? How do you like, move, you know, get from A to B in something like that?

00;28;46;08 - 00;29;07;09
Unknown
Well, it's like figure it out. Like it's not it's not rocket surgery. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And like even two years ago we were like oh how are we going to do that. Well okay. Two years ago our answer is different than it is today. But like I feel good about both answers. Right. So I think if you're being honest with yourself too, because there's like I'm doing my best and then there's I'm doing my best.

00;29;07;09 - 00;29;30;29
Unknown
Like I'm doing my best means I'm putting money away. I have a plan. I stopped doing these things that were wasting my time. I started focusing on this. This is what my goal is. And then there's I'm doing my best. Like, I'm just saying that and it's not where it's not convenient for me right now. So I'm not doing anything right, you know, and I tell I'm always looking at stuff like, am I really doing my best because I want to achieve more and move forward.

00;29;30;29 - 00;29;46;02
Unknown
And that's all this is, is just like another like I tell people all the time, more so than RV travelers. We're good professional travelers, right? You know, so we learn things like how do you find good Airbnbs, how do you find good hiking trails, how do you find a good place to stay at? How do you do these things?

00;29;46;02 - 00;30;04;28
Unknown
And you don't have to have an RV full time, and you could still go on a lot of travel. You can still go hiking, you can still figure out how to explore an area. Like we lived in an area for years and there were waterfalls like maybe two miles into a trail. And we never knew that because we didn't explore our area with the same mindset that we have now as travelers.

00;30;04;28 - 00;30;21;13
Unknown
Right? So those are all little details, you know, to to be a full time traveler or to RV or, you know, whatever it is like getting get involved in the things that go along with it and then you can really build yourself up. It doesn't have to be such a glory story of risking it all or whatever. Right?

00;30;21;13 - 00;30;35;27
Unknown
And you could do that too, of course. But just don't procrastinate. But it doesn't have to be that way, right? It doesn't have to be. But I think you're moving forward. Then it's great. But if you're just sitting here talking right, waiting for the stars aligned like you're saying, then you're procrastinating. You're not getting anywhere. Right. Steps or steps, period.

00;30;35;28 - 00;30;48;09
Unknown
Right? Yeah. That's the thing with you. Like when you were you, he was the police. And then he did take a leap and he worked for another company. And we were at that company for not long before you were like, I can't do this. I was like, it doesn't scratch the itch. Like it's not part of my thought.

00;30;48;09 - 00;31;00;08
Unknown
It was not being the police that would help scratch the anger, bring me joy. But it actually isn't. It's the I want to do the RV stuff and I want to do it full time and I want more of it. And we were like, okay, well then let's do it. And he quit that job. He gave his notice.

00;31;00;09 - 00;31;25;12
Unknown
How lucky did you get, though? And when you got that job that you didn't like? Because if you kind of liked it, imagine you could have waited there for five years. And that's and that's like when you think back about your life, like, you know, I think back about like jobs I had where I was like, I was comfortable at this job and I might have tolerated a delay, not achieving like and I think a lot of people are either comfortable in their jobs and so they're willing to trade that sort of time capital for it.

00;31;25;14 - 00;31;43;13
Unknown
Or they're like, they don't see a way out and they're just like going to be miserable for 35 years. Yeah. And you know, like, you know, like I was a cop. And so I know, like you're talking about like retirees and what have you, like so many cop retirees do nothing but the job for 35 years. Yeah. And they talk about their retirement.

00;31;43;13 - 00;32;04;09
Unknown
I just had a friend pass away six months after retiring. It's normal. It's quite common and normal. It's. No, it's I mean, it's tragic, but, like, it's so common. It was like he had all these plans and he'd laid it out and it was over. And obviously people have to have careers and work. But there's like, if you're a schoolteacher and you want to be an RV or like be a schoolteacher, but then burn out for the whole summer.

00;32;04;11 - 00;32;20;07
Unknown
Yeah, right. Like make that part of your life where you have to leave. If you're a nurse and you want, like, be a travel nurse for a while, scratch that itch, move on. Like, if if you have something that's not translate able to, to RV life at all. Maybe you want to spend a year and acquire a new skill, right?

00;32;20;07 - 00;32;38;02
Unknown
Like maybe you want to go back to school and or get a certification. It might take a minute. Become an RV tech, become an RV tech and inspector in 2018, I didn't know what a slide out was, right? Right. And so I spent 4 or 5 years acquiring all this knowledge, right? Like now we have a podcast that like doesn't yeah, doesn't happen overnight.

00;32;38;02 - 00;32;56;09
Unknown
And like it didn't happen overnight for like I originally for the listener. I had the camera focused on that beautiful fifth wheel toy hauler over there that you all stand. But you didn't even start out in that. No, no. What was your first RV? Another big. Oh yeah, it was a voltage toy hauler. Yeah, it was big. But it, you know, you just your preferences change too.

00;32;56;09 - 00;33;15;13
Unknown
And, man, there was something I was going to say. You're saying some people feel like they can't do anything, and that's true. But some people are willing to sacrifice either. Right. And it's, you know, you it's tricky on the road sometimes because people do want to engage about being in the RV or traveling full time or because it sounds so grand and it's wonderful.

00;33;15;15 - 00;33;31;11
Unknown
but you know, the other part is like sacrificing. And how much do you want to sacrifice to do something? And I try to be careful about those conversations because people talk a lot about, you know, achieving a dream and you're trying to help them with their step stones or their blueprint. And then you're like, well, what are you going to sacrifice?

00;33;31;11 - 00;33;48;26
Unknown
Like, these are your problems you mentioned. Are you willing to give up this, this and this, or are you willing to go work camp? You know, are you willing to do this or that? And then you find, like the roadblocks where the hard work is and then you realize, like, I'm trying to get out of the conversation. Yeah, I was like, it's it's a suck on you.

00;33;48;26 - 00;34;07;27
Unknown
More so than anything. Yeah. Because anybody can really do any of this stuff. It's like some shorter, some faster time frame. But right, to keep anybody and it's, it's funny the way that you say that like talking about the sacrifices, like even the most luxurious RV comes with people interrupting your podcast. Now, Pete comes with sacrifices to your comfort.

00;34;07;27 - 00;34;29;08
Unknown
So, like, know everything I know about, like, these RV appliances. You you will not be as comfortable as you are in a house. It is impossible. Like you can you can make your water heater better. You can make your air conditioner nicer. But like at some point you're living in 400ft². Yeah. And it's got like a quarter inch of insulation between you and the outside.

00;34;29;08 - 00;34;54;25
Unknown
It's going to be warmer in the winter. In the summer it's going to be colder, like you're going to be closer. Like if you don't get along with significant other, your marital problems are going to be that much. It's going to be that much harder. Yeah. Right. and but like if, if you can sacrifice those things and then figure out finances, talk to Dave Ramsey, get all that stuff lined up and then hit the road like it can be done and it can be beautiful, but it isn't going to be perfect.

00;34;54;28 - 00;35;18;05
Unknown
Never. It's it's good. And even if you buy the most perfect rig and the most expensive rig and you say at the most expensive site and you have all the best accessories, it's not going to be perfect. It is. It is never, ever going to be perfect. Like, I mean, I'm looking at your RV right now, which is really nice, but like, I can see from here that the air conditioners are the same as like on that like cheaper travel trailer over there.

00;35;18;05 - 00;35;35;20
Unknown
Yeah. Like there's there's nothing wrong with it, but it's like that's that's kind of the sacrifice. Yeah. And like even like the better ones are. You aren't making fun of my air conditioner 100%. for for context, the the one in the back there that looks looks like a dometic brisket or two out there. The best. false.

00;35;35;26 - 00;35;59;20
Unknown
They're the worst. I'm very aware, but there's so many names in this podcast, they're still under warranty. And so in this point, I will tell you this. The the dometic brisket or two is what's going to put my son through college. Yes. I literally have a truck full of parts for that air conditioner to keep them alive. So, that is one product that if you have I tell clients all the time, I'm like, just always be budgeting to replace this product.

00;35;59;20 - 00;36;16;09
Unknown
Yes. For sure. And I think I told you that when I first met you, I was like, oh, I see you have this dometic on your. No, no. Because when you first met me, you saw all three of my rec pros, didn't even my original rig or did you meet me when I think you. Yeah. Because, so the, the,

00;36;16;12 - 00;36;38;03
Unknown
That saved me. I forgot to put myself. Oh. The, I'm like, what's happening here? The comments loud. You're serious? Yeah. How dare she's, Yeah. We. So the rec pros I we needed we went with the rec pro in our old rig, and, I was talking to Casey at that time, like, her and I were, like, friends on Instagram before we'd actually met.

00;36;38;03 - 00;36;53;19
Unknown
And I was like, these things are amazing. And then I think she'd started talks. I don't know if you found them through anyway, it doesn't matter. But yeah, from us is what she's saying. Give us a credit. No, that's. No, I think places for Casey. If Casey. Casey got them for you. So by default. Yeah, I get the credit.

00;36;53;23 - 00;37;16;10
Unknown
That's not what I'm saying, but. Yeah, sure. Yeah, because they weren't, like, they weren't a thing, like, a year and a half ago, like it wasn't. Yeah. We talked about that earlier. Yeah. Impressed. The, the so but so your old one had you had three rec pros on them. I replaced all of ours with rec pros because we had so many issues with the circuit board and going down, and our kids are trying to sleep.

00;37;16;10 - 00;37;37;07
Unknown
It's like 95 degrees in there, you know, just the joys of being a camper. And actually, when this happened, we were at a top tier location that didn't have, adequate power. Yeah. That happened. That happened all the time. Well, I have in this park all the time, too, but it was a rough go. But, you know, you have those, those things, and then you just.

00;37;37;09 - 00;37;52;07
Unknown
Yeah, I'm going to be really mad about it for a little bit, and then I'm going to forget about it and focus on the problem. Because it's a short term thing. So short term everything in an RV is short term. Everything. Literally everything. Right. Because you could put like the most, since we're talking about air conditioners, you could put like three rec Pro air conditioners on there.

00;37;52;07 - 00;38;10;25
Unknown
Right. And those are awesome ACS. Yeah. But like they're 3 to 5 maybe seven years like every other RV. Okay. Hold on. Time out. I have a story to tell you guys. This is a this is going to probably knock your socks off. There's a woman that works here. Okay? I already told them, but we weren't serious. We were recording you last night.

00;38;10;25 - 00;38;24;13
Unknown
I was in there. This is back. You should have seen it. It was. It. It. I can be a good actor. Okay. No. So my memory bank here's the thing is, there's this woman that works here, and she's, like, working for a friend, not a work camper. And she, she's just awesome. She'll be bartending at the swim up bar.

00;38;24;16 - 00;38;42;22
Unknown
She'll be, like, doing cleaning stuff. And she's a cool RV. She's really cool. So, we were just chatting one day, and she's telling me about her camper and how she's been having these air conditioner issues. And I was like, well, I have the perfect tech for you. And, she's like, oh, yeah, really? And I was close.

00;38;42;22 - 00;38;58;03
Unknown
And I was like, yeah, his name's Cozy Camper. Like, look him up, you'll find him. Whatever. I was like, he's a killer with air conditioners. So she's like, yeah, I was like, so what air conditioner do you have? Just out of curiosity, you know, she's like, oh, I don't know what it's called. And then she goes on to tell me that she's been full time for 24 years.

00;38;58;05 - 00;39;19;27
Unknown
And the first 12 she was traveling exclusively and, da da da da keep going. And then she goes, tells me that she's been in the same RV for 24 years. Okay. Which is shocking. Like, I've never had that same RV, but then I'm like, what? Like what? Camper list full time for 24 years. She tells me what she's got over there.

00;39;19;29 - 00;39;43;03
Unknown
And then, she had like, minimal issues with it. It's in decent condition. But then she goes on and literally my jaw hits the ground when she tells me it's the original air conditioners, the, the, the stuff of like that era, 24 years, that stuff. Because like, I had a client over the winter, he wanted two new air conditioners, like in anticipation for the summer.

00;39;43;03 - 00;40;01;23
Unknown
And there was like a 2002 and they were the original two pullmans. And like, we probably could have fixed the, the, the existing coalmines. but he just wanted new ones. Yeah. Like but so we just, we just did that and we were done with it, but like arv's like I just did an inspection on a 20.

00;40;01;24 - 00;40;21;09
Unknown
What was that? Winnebago? it was like a 2018. And the thing was wreck. It was a wreck. Yeah. There's nothing left to it. Right. So, yeah, when people are like, oh, like pre-COVID RVs were better, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no pre Great Recession like George W Bush era RVs. And before those might have been better.

00;40;21;15 - 00;40;49;16
Unknown
But like anything since like 2008 is like within a deviation of, everything else, I can tell we only have a matter of minutes. Like I was going to say on this site, large, amps. And so what they're having, they're they're having the show setup is different than the, the, the, the folks we have. the other thing you said just quickly, though, and I just think it's so important that I don't know if it gets talked about enough, but people creating budgets and figuring out how to live their life is it's kind of the only thing you have to do.

00;40;49;20 - 00;41;07;19
Unknown
Right? You know what I mean? Outside of exercising and trying to eat decently is like, create a budget and then you can do this. We created a budget. We went to Europe. You just do that and you work towards the number and then you execute. Yeah. It's like I see it with young people. I see it with people, you know, like I'm just that 20 years from when I joined the Marine Corps.

00;41;07;24 - 00;41;26;15
Unknown
So all my buddies are getting out and they've done well. They're still like looking out to what's next. And I wish they would have had this idea in their head before about just living this life. Like one of my buddies who we see here all the time. He's he spent like 10 or 12 years in the Marine Corps, and then he's been a police officer for a long time here.

00;41;26;17 - 00;41;44;10
Unknown
And he's starting to see this life. And he's like, you could tell he's never seen it before. And like the freedom that comes with it. And he's a huge planner, but he still has like this other plan based around this one style of living. I think there's a good chance in 2 or 3 years he might just quit, even though he's only like six years away from retiring with the second retire.

00;41;44;10 - 00;41;59;27
Unknown
Right? Because it's like with the budget, you can budget and hard work. You can kind of do whatever you want to do. Yeah. And that's and that that's the thing. Like we just had the budget conversation and like we went through, but we just like, yeah, just like looking at you know, let's look at like our monthly repeating.

00;41;59;27 - 00;42;21;14
Unknown
So and I'm like, oh my God. You know we have HBO Max and Netflix. And I'm like, when was the last time we watched anything on the Disney bundle that we're paying $25 a month for him, you know? And so like like we like, plucked like multiple hundreds of dollars a month out of our budget. Like I was still paying for a membership, but did it because we wanted to see, like, what it would look like if we stayed in our house.

00;42;21;14 - 00;42;35;19
Unknown
But we kept our camper and we, like, just traveled a little bit at a time. Like you were saying, just adjust what your traveling looks like. It might not be full time in the fall, but we're going to do some. So we sat down to be like, how can we make this work? And then we were like, because we need to pay for for health insurance, right?

00;42;35;19 - 00;42;53;27
Unknown
Because, you know, we're not going to be a benefited employee anymore. And we're like, oh, well, let's see if we can trim enough out. And then we, we trimmed out like without really what do we sacrifice the ability to watch Paramount Plus like yeah. And it was like we don't I don't need that. Let's be honest. You you now have to have ads on YouTube.

00;42;54;03 - 00;43;10;28
Unknown
I have to have ads on sacrifice. I actually don't mind the ads. I don't they don't bother. Guy. Yeah. As long as they're not the same ones I don't care for that. But we have one of those subscriptions costs like 20 bucks for a year, and they show you three minutes of ads before movie. And I'm like, I don't mind this.

00;43;10;28 - 00;43;25;25
Unknown
It gives me a bathroom break right now. Right now I check my phone and then I can put it down. It's like, I know I'm on a time magazine, you're taking notes, but you also I know the value of those ads when it comes to YouTube. So it's like you just kind of change your perspective. I yeah, as a guy that like, I love that.

00;43;25;28 - 00;43;44;24
Unknown
That's a good way to look at as somebody that has like graduated now and like like so, you know, we make content for multiple reasons. The number one is to advertise our business, right? Like we want to we want people to know about RV inspections one and then hire us to do them. But also like we were talking about Rec Pro air conditioners earlier.

00;43;44;24 - 00;44;08;11
Unknown
And full disclosure, both of us have I don't know if you're currently partnering with them, but like we've I've we're currently partners with Rec Pro. They're great right. Yeah. And it's like we recommend them. We get commissioned from that. for me one. And this is something since you guys are in this space, I will only talk about products that like, I actually truly believe in, like I get it and I'm like, this thing is great.

00;44;08;17 - 00;44;25;28
Unknown
That's not even negotiable. I see so many people go out there and they'll be like, oh, I love x, Y, and Z. I'm like, you have never seen that before today. Yeah, and that makes me crazy when I see that. And then like, that's kind of the whole thing. Is that like, I value authenticity. Authenticity over everything else.

00;44;25;28 - 00;44;45;13
Unknown
Yeah. Right. And so like we, you know, again, I don't want to trash it, but I saw like all these sort of like, you know, all these influencers coming out and they're like, we love this dealership chain. And you get a new mattress when you buy a used RV there. And I was watching it. I'm like, I went there and they had water pouring out of the ceiling, like, are we talking about the same dealership?

00;44;45;13 - 00;45;08;01
Unknown
And it's like, you know, either you don't know where you're just like kind of willing to sell it. but for us, We thought it was a little bit of like, it's very specific to one. We didn't really know anything before, but we think it's very specific to dealerships. Right. And so saying, like all X, y, Z are terrible because of this x, y, z, that's not always the case.

00;45;08;02 - 00;45;28;23
Unknown
Right. two was their big focus was on getting more when we was getting more diversity into the outdoor space. And for us that's really important. Like, we can count on one hand in every single campground we go to. How many people of color campground. And that's unacceptable. Like, I mean, to us like there's not the space isn't welcoming of diversity.

00;45;28;24 - 00;45;47;13
Unknown
Sure. So, having that like support behind behind that, you know, I don't want to get into details. Sure. Because that would not be like but they came to you and they were like, hey, this is our intent is to spread this message. it was a no. There's multiple conversations. Okay. and then they supported all the content that we produced for, like, for awareness.

00;45;47;14 - 00;46;08;22
Unknown
Okay. we've shifted a lot of our content, like, in what we're focused on and like, who we're focusing, like, who are content geared to what our what our goals are with our content. many times over the past few years, like, that's going to happen naturally. but but there are companies that have totally changed. Their whole entire marketing group has changed.

00;46;08;26 - 00;46;29;13
Unknown
And that specifically is one of them. Since when we were I don't even know if that's so much important. That's going to happen in business. Yeah. but we do care about being our event excels. We have integrity. Like people are depending on us to give them an honest opinion. And if they trust us, then nobody's going to come meet us and say, if somebody comes meet us on anything, we'd be like, well, this is what our experience was, right?

00;46;29;14 - 00;46;56;26
Unknown
And with a lot of it, we tend to actually go beyond like, oh, we own one product by them or something. Yeah, we actually know, like this company makes things. I'm probably going to go by it first if I don't have time to do the research, because we trust that, and we've lost money because, no, we, we weren't able to, we've, you know, lost out on deals because, you know, you wanted when you come to the table, you agree on something, and then you try your best to make it work within the parameters without, you know, really doing anything crazy.

00;46;56;26 - 00;47;16;01
Unknown
Right? But in some relationships it's like, yeah, well, what we're finding out, we're using the product. It's not what we're looking for. And they just want generic things and we're not willing to offer that. We were not going to if we use reference it. We walked away from a five figure contract because, we struggled with the customer service experience and it just was just the worst.

00;47;16;07 - 00;47;31;08
Unknown
It was just like, I'm not going to know. I would never put that in front of our our people or audience. And then just kind of not being honest about our use with it. And so but just to where your point is, I think that's what we're doing out here is. Yeah. And I think most in the RV space, you find a lot of good people who want to tell you good stuff.

00;47;31;13 - 00;47;50;12
Unknown
Yeah, finding it online can be a little more difficult. But we also understand everybody should know like people get online for different reasons. Right? You have to sift through the ether a little bit to find the good, you know, for like we were talking to kind of merge these two thoughts like our whole deal is like, yeah, we want a lot of revision, rough shape.

00;47;50;13 - 00;48;08;15
Unknown
You can fix them. Right. And you as a buyer should do your research and make sure that you're buying a decent product, right. Enter the inspector. But like we're talking to a dealership chain or we have been talking to them. It's been quiet lately where they were like talking about maybe doing some walkthroughs and reels of their RVs.

00;48;08;17 - 00;48;26;21
Unknown
And this is a chain that has been really easy to work with. And I met with their chief marketing officer. And you know, we have a good relationship. And I'm like, hey, the one like non-negotiable thing for me is that I'm going to say every time that before you buy an RV, you should think about having it inspected.

00;48;26;21 - 00;48;48;11
Unknown
Yeah. And you know, and his to his it's not an objection that his concern is valid, right? He's like, we don't care if you have an inspector or not. He's like, but this your industry is like the Wild West right now. He's like, you know, you don't like you could today declare yourself an RV inspector and go out and launch a business.

00;48;48;11 - 00;49;09;02
Unknown
And like, you're not certified. So, like, I don't fault him for that because it's a it's a legitimate it's a legitimate concern to bring to my attention. So it's like okay, well but but then he's like, but we really like what you're doing. Yeah. And if like they seem like they would be more comfortable if they were like, hey, call Cozy Camper for an inspection.

00;49;09;08 - 00;49;25;11
Unknown
Like they would be cool with that statement, but they were less cool with get an inspection. And like, I get it because not all of us are the same. And there's there is a body that regulates RV inspectors, but like it's not a legal thing. But hold on, I want to ask a couple questions here because this is so important.

00;49;25;11 - 00;49;48;16
Unknown
This is like one of my number one things I tell people who are getting campers get an inspection. It was a we did it the first time we bought a use camper and I it was a I was so glad we did not. We had like the boast a great with best experience. because it the RV we wanted to get like had no issues like and the guy went through with like a fine tooth comb, just like you guys do, like,

00;49;48;19 - 00;50;08;17
Unknown
And I recommend this, like, to, like, a fault, like, get an inspection. Get it. I don't care if it's new. I don't care if it's use. I don't care how old. Get an inspection. So one for a dealer to say. Like it's like the wild, wild West for the inspectors. Like who are we kidding here? Like it has been the wild, wild like world for RV manufacturers for the past however many years.

00;50;08;19 - 00;50;27;02
Unknown
Like so let's let's be like clear there to what's the worst thing in. While I would only recommend the the actual certified inspectors a non certified inspector. Oh they're saying they're going to damage it if they're saying things on and off. Like what are they going to do. But the issue is that so there's a couple issues here.

00;50;27;02 - 00;50;54;15
Unknown
So one Nvidia is the only body that certified. And but RV inspections as like a service are like eight years old. So the vast majority of RV inspectors are pretty new at their job. Right? I mean, it's only been a few years for us. Yeah. And, you know, so you have kind of two problems that are co-occurring even inside the certified space is you have people that are new, which is fine.

00;50;54;15 - 00;51;16;07
Unknown
There's nothing wrong with being new, doing a side hustle. And then like every industry, people that are not good at their jobs. Yeah. And so, you know, if you're the dealership, what you see is this at scale and you're like, okay, like, yeah, we have like these three people that are like really good at their jobs. But then maybe there's three more like two aren't certified and one isn't good and they're they're out there too.

00;51;16;07 - 00;51;30;07
Unknown
And so what his concern was was like, hey, like and I've done I don't know how many inspections that dealership that a bunch of him in Texas. And he's like, yeah, it's never drama when you come out like you find that there's photo, we fix it, then we move on with their lives. Yeah, but there's people that aren't good.

00;51;30;07 - 00;51;49;25
Unknown
So what I would recommend to you as like the second part of that statement is like, always get a certified inspection, but also do your research on the inspector, like if they're brand new or they don't give you contracts to sign or they've got a bad professional reputation, like don't hire that one. Do we really have to say that?

00;51;49;25 - 00;52;05;05
Unknown
Like, do people know I'm saying like, do people really not like buy a $100,000? So and I'll give you I'll, I'll tell you the story. Is that like somebody reached out to us and was not our inspection. It was in the Pacific Northwest. And they said, hey, I had this really bad experience with an inspector. Can I tell you about it?

00;52;05;06 - 00;52;21;29
Unknown
I'm like, yeah, tell me about it. So they said that they were, you know, they were certified and they hired this person. I looked at their profile, their website was defunct. You know, they didn't have any information and have sample reports. And then they told me they didn't have any contracts or points of inspection, which is technically a violation of the rules from that association.

00;52;21;29 - 00;52;39;01
Unknown
So like five red flags. But they hired this person despite that. And like there was a bunch of problems that report they were happy with the report. But I read it and I was like, no, it's not up to snuff. and there were all these problems. And I looked at it and I was like, I would not have hired this person because their marketing is horrible.

00;52;39;01 - 00;53;03;11
Unknown
Yeah. And they had no Google reviews. There's no way for me to check and see what they're doing. So yeah, the second part of that conversation has to be, you know, do your research, make sure they are or if they're brand new, there's nothing wrong with that, but they should be priced accordingly. I 100%. Right. And so if you're brand new, you tell them like when we first started, you know, I did a bunch for free like I, I literally like I went on outdoorsy and I was like, hey, I'm a new RV inspector.

00;53;03;11 - 00;53;23;06
Unknown
I want to inspect your RV for free. I'll give you the report. Just let me do it. That way there's no liability for me right? but not even Shadowed Shadow. That's right. I went out with some, but, like, you're not really required to do that. So to his defense, I see. Yeah. That objection when you just needed to immediately.

00;53;23;08 - 00;53;46;22
Unknown
Here, let me meet you. I don't want to hear from you anyway, but, so like their objection is valid. Yeah. So it's like when we have a marketing conversation like that, it's like, okay. Like what? Your concern in your concern is. Make sense? What my concern is make sense? Like we'll figure it out. I object when people are like, look, imagine if I was like, come to this RV dealership, it's the best.

00;53;46;25 - 00;54;13;14
Unknown
And then the comments would be like, oh, I went there and I got it screwed and it would burn my professional credibility. So that's not what I'm willing to do as an RV business owner, content creator. but people are. And as soon as I detect that, I'm out. Yeah. And that's and it should be I think that is and all all aspects of what you guys are doing, like content creation and with the, the business is like authenticity.

00;54;13;15 - 00;54;31;21
Unknown
It it wins every time. Like it doesn't matter because if you if you're not. And then there's someone asked you about it and you're like, oh crap. I remember it recommending that solution that didn't work or whatever. Can you imagine? Like, I would just feel terrible, but I think, now I know I've got a caveat. My get an RV.

00;54;31;25 - 00;54;49;17
Unknown
Yeah, we're going to we're going to do but yeah, we're going to do a video coming up here where we're like, hey, this is how you find an inspector. Yeah. And then this is how you vet them. Yeah. Because it's like, hey, they're ndVi certified. That's the low bar. Yeah. And then you want to look and see like because like you can ask me like, hey, what other training have you done?

00;54;49;17 - 00;55;03;18
Unknown
And it's listed, you can see. And then it's like, oh do you have Google reviews. Yeah I have 35 of them right here. Yeah. Right. Right. Do you have sample report. See I do, do you have contracts I do. And then like after you peel that onion back then you're like, okay well this person actually is probably pretty trustworthy.

00;55;03;20 - 00;55;26;03
Unknown
Yeah. That's the that's the rub. And then the other thing you speak about like authenticity, like I am probably the inspector with the biggest literal microphone. Right? I and I'm the only one who's going to talk publicly about that weakness in the service. Yeah. Because it needs to be addressed. And that's it's a weak. Yeah. And it's, it's I have we could do a we're going to do a whole podcast about it.

00;55;26;06 - 00;55;42;22
Unknown
But it's like I want, I have the same attitude when I was a cop. Right. It used to make me crazy when people shouldn't work. Cops. That shouldn't be. Yeah, right. It used to make me crazy. I'm like, you should self-select because you're the kind of person that's going to make this bad for all of us. Yeah, right.

00;55;42;22 - 00;55;59;25
Unknown
And I feel the same way about inspectors. And if you're a dealer now, they have a reputation with me and they know me personally, so it's not a problem. But I don't begrudge the dealer for being like, hey, it's the Wild West because one, they don't understand it. And two, you can get an inspector on Monday. That's awesome.

00;55;59;25 - 00;56;15;02
Unknown
And you can get an inspector on Tuesday. That's not it's true in every industry, right. There's doctors that are bad. There's lawyers get a bad review that was manufactured on a Friday exactly that weekend. You're very you're so right and like. And that's I tell people all the time like I see grand design looks great. And I'll see you grand design a week later.

00;56;15;02 - 00;56;38;24
Unknown
Then I'm like, what? What happened? Right. I see a heartland that that looks great. And I'm like, oh, this one's like wall has fallen out. Like what? What what happened? So all they need to put the good info out there to though, like as a dealer, like if you know what's happening, you if for me my position will be like, I want to empower people to figure out who the good inspectors are so they can come look at my awesome product and know why it's good.

00;56;38;24 - 00;56;59;19
Unknown
Outside of myself and be empowered to do it. But finding a good inspector is hard, but it's also some of it I think is a little intuitive. You know, you meet the person they everybody knows, the people who are very detailed oriented when you see them, that they have all the answers to your question, that they look like they're methodically doing things like, we had this inspector who was like that, and I didn't know anything about our being atom.

00;56;59;19 - 00;57;14;14
Unknown
Basic questions the guy could answer. He could have been lying. I would never know. But everything else I saw about him, he was like, just so methodical and detailed. And I saw the way he was writing notes. And he clearly had a system that he'd developed to make sure he was very tedious about what was going on. Yeah.

00;57;14;14 - 00;57;36;11
Unknown
And I've talked to other people just casually who threw in like, oh, yeah, I do RV inspections. And in my head I'm like, you, right? You know what I mean? Like, well, you just told me like, yeah, it doesn't seem conducive to being, you know, methodical and intuitive to how how much, goes into the rigs. Right. You know, as far as you're saying, as far as inspection is concerned.

00;57;36;11 - 00;57;52;29
Unknown
Yeah, there's there's a lot of really good techs out there that will and they're really good technicians and they'll say, oh, I do RV inspections too. And like sometimes people are better. Like, I appraise myself to be a better inspector than I am a I'm a competent. You're very methodical, but I'm a better inspector than I am a technician.

00;57;52;29 - 00;58;13;14
Unknown
Right. And that's why I like, focus on that. But like, that's when they all this is say like when this is on your periphery as a chief marketing officer of a dealership chain and you're like, oh, it's the Wild West. I can understand that for sure. I agree with you because there's there's something there. As a cowboy, you can understand, that's what I really like is like, yeah, exactly.

00;58;13;14 - 00;58;34;10
Unknown
But like, you know, 15 years from now, it's going to be a different animal. Yeah. You know, and that's we feel like we're like on the like we're on the cutting edge of this, like new space and that, like, we're trying to make, like, all the dealers in town know me and now her, she's come on board the one guy from, all throughout Blue Compass.

00;58;34;10 - 00;58;53;04
Unknown
Blue compass was like who, 20. Your phone. She's a delight. Yeah, but like. But that's new. Yeah. You know, two years ago, that didn't exist. At least around. We've seen it popping up around. Yeah, but that's good stuff. Like playing basketball at the end of a podcast. Yeah. I hope to see the RV space continue to change and modernize in some capacity.

00;58;53;04 - 00;59;16;04
Unknown
You know, we've spoken with the manufacturers just about the rigs themselves. And it's like this rig is built for one style of person, you know, who wears an orange. I hunt myself, so, you know, but orange hair, the decorum, the layout, all that. It's like the outdoor space is changing dramatically. Yeah. And campsites are changing dramatically. Rigs we can start to see a little bit more just at the normalized level.

00;59;16;04 - 00;59;29;24
Unknown
You mean you see unique rigs? It's like, well, you go for the unique price. You're going to get a unique rig. That's not what we're counting just for average RV, you know, not average, but just you're for a person who wants to be able to be comfortable and, you know, move around the country and enjoy what we have.

00;59;29;24 - 00;59;50;28
Unknown
It's like, I think a lot of changes need to be made at all levels, including the inspectors. Right? Which that's like the ground level, the entry point. Well, and to your point, I think that there is right now in the RV space, the demographics are rapidly changing in the RV space, right? Particularly in the age like the age of the RV is getting much younger and slowly moving down.

00;59;50;29 - 01;00;08;02
Unknown
Yeah. And and I mean, the I mean, it's like I think millennials now are the biggest single age cohort that are buying RVs. And here we are right. And it's like, I don't know if there's a difference. And I would love to get into the like the market research of this. But like I don't know if there's a difference.

01;00;08;02 - 01;00;27;24
Unknown
But like Colonials don't seem to be tolerant of the reindeer games from 15 years ago in the dealership space. Like they're intolerant of poorly constructed RVs. They're intolerant of going to a dealership and playing games like and maybe, you know, prior generations would be like, oh yeah, I'm okay with buying an RV. And then it sits on the dealer lot for six months.

01;00;27;27 - 01;00;50;08
Unknown
But it doesn't seem like that is the case because like somebody in this age cohort, when you're like, oh, RV inspections, they're like, yes, of course that is 100% what we should do. but then like a lot of times my, like, maybe a wife calls us and then I talk to the husband and I'm like, I've been doing this for years and like, I can't articulate yes, the need, like, I don't possess.

01;00;50;08 - 01;01;06;26
Unknown
I know all the words, but I don't know what order to put them in. Yeah. To make my case and but I think is that changes, you know, I think they're going to demand more from I mean I was literally at an RV show. I let me back up. I had a client that a fifth wheel because of a design flaw.

01;01;06;27 - 01;01;23;10
Unknown
The wall was like ripping out. Oh, and then I went to the RV show and there was a dude from that manufacturer there, and I saw that they had fixed that design flaw. Yeah. And I was like, hey, what about all those people that have these old RVs? He's like, they have them. And I was like, this.

01;01;23;12 - 01;01;43;09
Unknown
They're like, oh, well, statistically insignificant number of people that are going to be like, yeah, but I know one. He lives in driftwood. his wall is ripping out of his RV. Like, what do I tell him? Like nuts. And, like, I think over time and that particular manufacturers like, besieged right now, like, I don't think that that's going to be tolerated ten years from now.

01;01;43;09 - 01;02;08;05
Unknown
Yeah, I think that's on its way out. And like millennials, expect a lot more from their who they're buying goods from than previous generations. And there's also a lot less mechanics out there. You know, I mean your average millennial doesn't have a workshop next room from their neighbor where they can go get stuff fixed easily. Yeah. And so they can compare things, they can research, and then they can call you and cause a problem for, yeah, you know, their service to be reinforced, which I think is a good thing.

01;02;08;05 - 01;02;28;11
Unknown
This is when I went up to, you know, Elkhart, the Mecca, and saw the way that this was operating for people who live in them no less, or even, you know, you spent $50,000 on it, and it's in a parking lot for six months and maintenance and you just bought it. That's crazy. And 50,000. That is a huge but a huge assumption of service that you don't have to get back to your customer or in that way.

01;02;28;11 - 01;02;46;05
Unknown
Here's the exactly. And that's the when we were talking earlier about people that were just like getting out and doing it like the millennials are the age cohort that are doing that where they're they're choosing full time RV life. By far the most common RV inspection I do is fifth wheels, and it's for people approximately my age. Yeah, right.

01;02;46;05 - 01;03;05;00
Unknown
And it's like fat, like it's fifth wheel, mid bunks, right where they have the middle bedroom by far what we have. Right. That by far that's the most popular inspection I do to the point now where I've done so many where people ask me about like the air conditioners, like in the, in the bunkers, it's always warm and I'm like, oh, every brand has a different solution to this problem.

01;03;05;00 - 01;03;23;13
Unknown
Grand design does this and JCO does that. And they're like, you like people are like shocked when I like when I have them. Like, yeah, because I've done probably 200 of these and I've seen every manufacturer. Yeah, but that's the age cohort. And then like when I tell them they all have this design flaw and they all try to solve them differently.

01;03;23;13 - 01;03;40;00
Unknown
Brinkley's probably the most successful at solving that. But like, they're like, so this room is just going to be warm. I'm like, yep, yeah. The mid bunks is going to be a little warmer and a little colder than the rest of the RV all the time. And when I deliver that news like like they're not tolerant of it.

01;03;40;00 - 01;03;54;13
Unknown
Or maybe other groups would be like, oh, I still want to camp. Yeah, we still want to camp. But like, yeah. And like, imagine if I told you, like, our son's bedroom is always going to be warm. No. Like we're going to figure out a solution. Right. But I was like, you're here. Like, almost like instant reaction was no, no.

01;03;54;13 - 01;04;11;06
Unknown
Yeah. Like we're going to problem solved. We're going to figure this out. Yeah, yeah. We had a mid bunk toy hauler our first rig. Yeah. So that makes sense. Yeah. It was, it was but it was the only one they made at that time. Yeah. Well that's that company still has the only other one there, the Triton.

01;04;11;09 - 01;04;27;11
Unknown
but we have that issue too. Yeah. It's always warmer in the event. Right. It's it's doesn't have its own unit. We have to just redirect events. We did we had to redirect events and then we had fans and cover them up. Whatever. But we we taped ours. Yeah, yeah. You do what you got to do. Yeah. Grand design.

01;04;27;11 - 01;04;40;17
Unknown
Just kind of what they do is like the air. The duct is like up in the ceiling, and they make like a channel out of wood that comes, like, all the way down. Oh, and so by the time it gets down there, it's like warm air kind of. Right. So there's, like, turbulence doesn't really work. The only brand.

01;04;40;17 - 01;05;02;07
Unknown
And then, Alliance has two vents, but the vents are only like this tall for people listening. It's like a court. It's literally a quarter inch. I measured it, so, like, barely any air comes down. Brinkley's like the only one that seems to have, like, kind of gotten to the bottom of it. And it's like, how did it take all these different manufacturers have been making this floor plan for a billion years.

01;05;02;09 - 01;05;18;13
Unknown
Finally, Brinkley's like, oh, maybe we should reroute the air conditioner to like, this one's Fitz. Funny, because that's what we had to have this guy when we got new air. CS, he had to seal it up because that was the other thing. It was not to mention, oh, you're all over the place, but the sides of it were open and there's dumping into the air.

01;05;18;13 - 01;05;36;04
Unknown
Just dump it. Yeah, yeah, that's we discovered that which is a silly problem to have, right. You know, but but then like, you know, we, we're, we're talk about like the cool RV earlier, which is the product that you install. And like the most common question we get is like, why don't they just do this? Well, that's like everything, right?

01;05;36;04 - 01;05;48;24
Unknown
I'm like, I'm like, I don't know, you know, I can install it for you. Takes about an hour for me to do it, right. Like, you know, it doesn't it doesn't need to be that way. But. Yeah, that's that's the way it is. And then, like. But people are mortified when you tell them things like that.

01;05;48;24 - 01;06;04;10
Unknown
Like, yeah, it could be better. They just choose not to do it better. Yeah. You know, was it grand design had that the, the whole frame flex issue and it really wasn't frame was they used the wrong bolts to install like to mount the floor to the bottom of the frame. Yeah. It was a lag bolt issue.

01;06;04;10 - 01;06;22;04
Unknown
There's a technical service bulletin about them. They use too few of them in too small of them. And like for the cost savings of like a dollar. Yeah. An RV, they have a huge recall and a frame thing now and it's like they, in my opinion, torched a lot of their credibility over it. And it was like, you didn't have to do that.

01;06;22;04 - 01;06;39;14
Unknown
Like you guys were amazing professionals. So we've had part of our rig, the front part, come off on this other rig because they left all their screw shavings, like all they had to do was blow it out or just like, open it and shake it. Yeah. And they left them all in there. So when it's jiggling and jiggling, those screw shavings are going through everything.

01;06;39;14 - 01;06;53;19
Unknown
And when you open it up, they just all dumped right out on me. And that was it. I find that in air conditioners all the time. Like they'll be like, hey, Mike doesn't work, and then I'll open up. I got full sawdust like, oh, where the sawdust come from? When they built it? Yeah, it's just been in the duct this whole time.

01;06;53;19 - 01;07;16;17
Unknown
They couldn't run a vacuum across it, like. Oh, okay. Well, I vacuumed it out for you. Yeah, I hear the guys on the line get blamed, like, oh, they have to meet this quota and then they can get out. And I understand that. But the other thing is like, just incentivize them differently to, to to like where they want to fix these couple of problems because moving into it and having to deal with it is just well there's, there's even like is a guy who technicians.

01;07;16;24 - 01;07;34;11
Unknown
Right. There's, there's two technician cultures. One technician culture is like where people are proud of what they do. And and that's typically the small business owner that does that. And then there's more common, the dealer thing where it's like you are a cog in a machine and you're here to fix this and get these out the door. Yeah.

01;07;34;16 - 01;07;52;18
Unknown
And if, if your place has that culture, you're toast like you're not. And I see it at dealers like I can we could have a conversation offline. And I will tell you the shops in town where they have the, you know, the artisan. Yeah. Point in the cog in the machine viewpoint. And what comes out of those shops is entirely, entirely different.

01;07;52;18 - 01;08;17;15
Unknown
The manufacturers are the same, the one. And you can sometimes you can see as they slide into the cog in the machine mentality over time, you're like, oh, two years ago they were like this. But that's another like economy right now. Like and I think that applies to like everything, you know, not just the RV industry. Like I think because we've been we're so focused on profitability and we're so we're, you know, we're decreasing margins.

01;08;17;17 - 01;08;44;00
Unknown
you know, consistently pressing, pressing, pressing, pressing down. Costs are going up. Labor is going up or. Well, I don't know what it's actually whatever. But we're seeing the quality just decline. And I think customer service, like if I were a small business owner in today's economy, in the next 5 to 10 years, I would say the thing that's going to differentiate people is customer service, because we've moved so far away from customer service, because people are like, there's expect it, you know what I mean?

01;08;44;00 - 01;09;05;19
Unknown
Like and I think that so you can really differentiate yourself by having having stellar customer service is going to win the business in the future because of the exact thing you said, like millennials are getting into their prime spending years. Right. so they're going to start spending a lot more, you know, they've been work and work and work and work on working, and we're going to see them really start to live more and enjoy more life.

01;09;05;21 - 01;09;20;26
Unknown
because, you know, they've built their savings up and they're getting closer to retirement. And I think, as they start to spend more, they're going to say, no, hold on. You know, like, we got to eat like, think about the service at a restaurant versus ten years ago when you got service at a restaurant, like ten years, it was like 20%.

01;09;20;26 - 01;09;43;00
Unknown
Absolutely. Now it's like, man, she expects I'm giving her 20%. And she gave me 5% service or something like, you know, I'm I'm right. I'm being harsh, but you know what I mean? So I think the that cog like that mentality like I think we're going to continue to see it more and more. But I think that what will happen is the best dealers, the best manufacturers, they're going to really start to stick out.

01;09;43;00 - 01;09;58;22
Unknown
Yeah. And that's as a small business owner, the biggest improvement we've made is having a listen. We talked about this Elizabeth answering the phone. And the number one complaint that people would give us, like we go to Dallas, we're going to reason. Well, it's not us. We go to Dallas, we go to Houston. You know, I'm going to Phoenix.

01;09;58;22 - 01;10;15;08
Unknown
Coming up soon. Inspection. And the number one complaint like, hey, why am I going to Dallas for you? Well, nobody answered the phone in Dallas. Like, why am I going to Houston for you? I can't get anyone on the phone. They won't reply to my emails. Yeah, but you answered the phone, so I'm willing to pay for you to come from Austin and it would like I'm going to Phoenix.

01;10;15;08 - 01;10;33;06
Unknown
It is no doubt you can find an inspector in Phoenix, right? I'm. Yeah. Selfishly, for selfishly, I think I'm better than those guys, but, but like. Yeah, you are. We answered the phone and we do marketing and like, yeah, you can call me if you're my inspection client, you can call me because you have my personal number and like, we'll talk on the phone.

01;10;33;09 - 01;10;47;24
Unknown
And that for us has made a huge difference that we're willing to do that. And just the simple act of answering the phone and getting an answer and even like, you know, we had an inspection recently where there was a prop, we do fluid samples on the motor. There was a problem with one of them, and the client got it.

01;10;47;24 - 01;11;05;14
Unknown
And I was like, hey, it's like 6:00 on a Friday. I emailed the president the, the, the inspector, the fluid sampling company. He answered me on a Friday night at 8:00. And he's like, I'm going to address this personally and I will get you an answer on Monday morning. Yes. And I took a screenshot of that sent to the client, and they were ecstatic.

01;11;05;16 - 01;11;24;02
Unknown
And this was literally the last thing holding up their purchase of like a $200,000 motorhome. And I'm like, hey, it's, you know, not my fault, but I didn't just turn my phone off at, you know, Friday night. Right. And the customer service, the communication does make a big a huge difference. And and that president for responding is also like tells you it's a great company.

01;11;24;02 - 01;11;40;12
Unknown
That's what I'm saying. Like it's going to for us as millennials it is that is going to become more equal or just will snap back. There's just been a huge decline with outsourcing and this and that and people not understanding the risks that go along. I think it will come back in the picture, especially now. People are more health conscious.

01;11;40;15 - 01;12;05;18
Unknown
They want things to work. but I think that's incredible. And I think what you're saying earlier about not wanting to necessarily just sit down with people who are, you know, in the C-suite at some of these manufacturer corporations. I think that's it's a good roll, good move to take this path, because we've had these conversations with people at manufacturers, and a lot of what you get is not an authentic experience because you're using this stuff, right.

01;12;05;18 - 01;12;26;05
Unknown
You get a ton of statistical information, you get a ton of numbers. And like a callous feedback about how they think people should work based off the numbers of sales and the reviews and stuff like that. but it's not personal and it's not their lifestyle either. Right? And even more talking with people like, oh, and there's so many ones person specifically was like, oh, I designed it to be like this.

01;12;26;05 - 01;12;42;10
Unknown
And like why? He's like, well, people told us on the survey this and then I'm like, yeah, but you didn't, you know, I'm like, okay, great. I mean, I don't have a dog in the fight. I'm building these things. But as a user, I'm like, you clearly don't do the cooking when you're in the RV because these things don't go well together.

01;12;42;10 - 01;13;01;25
Unknown
Right? And, you know, it's always great to get a bunch of perspective, but having the authentic perspective of who's using it and getting the why behind it, that's something more than, well, this is what the moving numbers are telling us, right? I think is for me, it's interesting and gives me a lot more, texture to what's going on in what you're talking about.

01;13;01;26 - 01;13;22;04
Unknown
Right? Yeah. You know, yeah, it's when you can actually take some of the companies we've talked about, like, we can give them feedback on the phone and they will do it right. Like it's when you there's a manufacturer of air conditioners. Take a guess. 1 in 4. You figure out which one it is. And they have these terrible thermostats and people have us rip them out all the time and put in different ones.

01;13;22;07 - 01;13;38;28
Unknown
And I went to their I went to the manufacturer. They had like a little training course about them and they were explaining, like on the thermostat, you have to like you can only like use a finger extended straight out and you can only touch it like lightly if you use your hand, like if you like kind of grip it and then press the button.

01;13;39;01 - 01;13;57;23
Unknown
The heat from your hand is going to trip that, thermostat, and it's going to do all kinds of weird things. And so their attitude was, hey, as technicians, you should go out and train the public. Yeah. And I was like, okay, I am one single technician who, on a good day goes to three service calls, maybe four.

01;13;57;23 - 01;14;16;24
Unknown
If Elizabeth really wants to make some money with it. I'm like, it would be way easier for you to redesign this thermostat and respond to this because, like, if there's 40 of us in the room, all technicians and inspectors, there's 40 every single person was like, yeah, you walk by it and like, your arm can put it on Celsius, right?

01;14;16;24 - 01;14;33;08
Unknown
Like, you know, you can turn it on furnace by accident. And they were they dug their heels in. They're like, no, no, this thermostat is what we built. Yes. And they actually build other thermostats that are better. And this person, maybe they're just being corporate and didn't want to like take the feedback. But I thought like the answer.

01;14;33;10 - 01;14;53;19
Unknown
Be like, okay, thanks for the feedback. I'll take that back and you can throw in the garbage. But at least you've told me that you heard me. Instead, they literally argued with us in the class and I was like, okay, you're not going to be around much longer if this is your attitude. I think they pare down everything to the the accent so much that then they by the time they get to the end, they forgot about the quality.

01;14;53;19 - 01;15;13;22
Unknown
They're like, this is going to work for us. This has to work for us. That's it. Right? There's no room for discussion. Like if we wanted to spend dollars on the right thing, we would put the put that in there, you know? But yeah, they do some sort of, you know, the cost analysis on every little thing versus that little 10% of fluff of like this makes a significant difference for the consumer, right?

01;15;13;22 - 01;15;31;20
Unknown
We can spend a little bit more money on it. And it would it would help their lives to, to like merge the two points here. Like what's changed over like people. And we were talking earlier about like pre-COVID or even pre Bush Bush administration era campers. Right. Like well what's changed since then is the consolidation of all of the manufacturers into like four companies.

01;15;31;22 - 01;15;49;20
Unknown
And that calculation is just shareholder value. And so like when you see those two cultures, it's like, yeah, the guys that are independent or maybe it's 1 or 2, you know, companies under a single roof, they tend to do a little better. But when you are talking about the conglomerates, there may be small brands within this family that do well.

01;15;49;27 - 01;16;14;20
Unknown
But broadly, you have the, the worker cog in the machine mentality. And that's when you get sawdust in the, in the air conditioner. And it's like, I tell you what bothers me the most about all of that is that when you see things or when Mike makes a video and puts it on Cozy Camper sheets, you get to chase people out of the RV life that way because it's going to look intimidating, right?

01;16;14;20 - 01;16;31;09
Unknown
It's going to like you're going to be frightened. Like, oh my God, every single RV is bad. Okay, no, it doesn't have to be right. Like, we can steer you towards good products and good manufacturers and even even inside a questionable manufacturer. You can make that RV better, and living it like you're going to have to fix some of their failures.

01;16;31;11 - 01;16;48;10
Unknown
But like, you can do it. But like the prevailing wisdom on the internet is just like, oh, our RVs are bad. There's nothing we can do about it. if you want to, like, go in the life you have to do. I disagree with the sentiment. Like, you can totally do better. It can be okay, but you have to, like, kind of work for it, right?

01;16;48;10 - 01;17;09;02
Unknown
But like, it doesn't. I wish that the manufacturers broadly would step back and be like, all right, maybe we build fewer campers and we do better. I don't know why one single manufacturer has to have 50 brands, like maybe we have three brands that each have like two subbrands or something. Right? But then like if you could zero in on that quality, people would be happier.

01;17;09;03 - 01;17;27;07
Unknown
They might be willing to pay more money for it. And then people would be return customers instead of using, you know, literally the difference of 12 lag bolts. Yeah, that caused $10,000 damage to the RV, right? It's just silly. Like it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't need to be that way, man. Like we can do we can do better.

01;17;27;15 - 01;17;50;00
Unknown
We bought this knowing we even if any rate we buy moving forward, you'll know and your friends will know like the first couple things you'll just wait for to have a significant problem. Yeah, just replace them with a better thing. But you know you do sad commentary to but it's but it's true. It in some ways like so I think people do get scared because but we like I love sharing like that.

01;17;50;00 - 01;18;07;02
Unknown
It's not perfect. Like I love sharing that we have problems, you know, and some of them are my fault. I leave chicken in the in the freezer for three months, like whatever, you know. And then there's other things that are, you know, the seal of our bathtub isn't, well, okay. You know, but you pick just like a car or anything, they're all going to have problems.

01;18;07;02 - 01;18;23;07
Unknown
Some are going to have more problems. You know, I do your research. You know what I mean? We did our research. We went with the our with heartland. We have a heartland. We've been with heartland for a variety of different reasons. And I'm very pleased with with what we've we've got, you know, but do we have issues? Of course we have issues.

01;18;23;09 - 01;18;39;06
Unknown
and if anyone goes into RV life thinking they're not going to have issues because they spent more money there, I don't, I don't care. It's it's wrong. Right? You're wrong. Blake. It's wrong. All right. in no knowing what you're getting into and knowing that paying more money for your internet is the best thing. You know why?

01;18;39;08 - 01;18;57;28
Unknown
Because then if you pay more money, you can access YouTube, right? Wherever you are. And because you're YouTube your first year, unless you're parked next to Cozy Camper, right? YouTube is going to be your friend because you're going to learn how to fix things. And we were in the middle our first year. We were in the middle of, Idaho, northern Idaho.

01;18;57;28 - 01;19;17;00
Unknown
Not a place to really be, when you have any color in your skin necessarily. So, it's true that. Yeah. so we had to find a technician who would service us, and we ended up hiring a woman, and we hired her, and she was like, she drove, like, from three hours away, right? For as our water heater, I think.

01;19;17;00 - 01;19;39;25
Unknown
I don't remember, but no, it was our brakes or something. No, it was our water heater. She she did not know how to fix it and she wanted to she charged me like a huge fee. And it wasn't. It was it was a it was our water heater. And I was like, I mean, I and we ended up going on YouTube and we ended up fixing whatever it was that we ordered some part, and we fixed it right days later because, I mean, but we didn't have good internet.

01;19;39;25 - 01;19;53;14
Unknown
We didn't have, you know, whatever. And she was the only person I could reach. And we paid her way too much money. But either way, point being is like, you're going to fix things yourself. You have to be comfortable doing that. And we are not handy people, but we've become handy. Right. So it out. Yeah. So go ahead.

01;19;53;15 - 01;20;09;19
Unknown
No I was going to say like like to your. So yeah like even the best manufacturers, the ones we love the most. You're driving like a rolling earthquake down the road. Stuff's going to break up. And so like like I wish that we could like get to a place. And this is kind of like what we say is like, hey, let's do the inspection.

01;20;09;21 - 01;20;25;03
Unknown
Let's make your RV when you buy it as good as it possibly can be. So you're not starting with problems, right? But then no. And people complain about this. They're like, oh, inspectors don't give you a warranty, period. Well, yeah, you might hit a bump on the way out and then your refrigerator falls. It wasn't falling out when I inspected when I inspected, screws were in.

01;20;25;03 - 01;20;50;10
Unknown
But then you wrecked it, right? Yeah. But, so if we can just, like. Okay, cool. All you have to deal with now is maintenance. And when things break, you're not buying something with a rotten roof or like, axles that aren't connected or whatever. Right. And if, if, if manufacturers and dealerships adopted that mentality where it's like, hey, let's get this RV as close to optimal as we can before we give it to the customer.

01;20;50;10 - 01;21;06;27
Unknown
And some dealerships do have that mentality and full disclosure, and some manufacturers, but not all. And it's that not all where the devil's in those details. Right. And so like but like yeah we hear like we'll do the inspections, we'll get the stuff fixed, I said, and then eight months later they'll be like, hey, my toilet's not working.

01;21;06;27 - 01;21;23;00
Unknown
Right? Like, this is the first problem you've had since I inspected it. Yeah. Or we'll do an air conditioner. You are so lucky. Yeah. Hey, my air conditioner is leaking. What's the first question? How long has it been leaking? Well, it started today, Mike. Okay, cool. So it's a new problem. This is not something that's been going on for the first six months, right?

01;21;23;00 - 01;21;41;26
Unknown
Like, okay, there's nothing wrong with that. Like, we'll look, we'll address it. But it's when you you if you don't have that mentality on the manufacturer dealership side and you're willing and complacent, you're not going to have a repeat customer, like they're not going to come back. And that's the whole point is you want somebody to buy three, 4 or 5 RV 120 years, right?

01;21;41;26 - 01;22;04;11
Unknown
You're not you're not going to get it. Yeah. We we interviewed when we bought this RV, we interviewed I know we need to wrap up soon, but we interviewed I interviewed I think 16 dealerships, like, around the country because I knew, like, what model we wanted, like, I knew exactly what we wanted. And, and when I say interviewed, like, 16, I called 16.

01;22;04;13 - 01;22;27;07
Unknown
And, like, I think it was I have the exact stats, but I think nine made it through the first five minutes of the call because I had this basic call, like just just to figure out if these salespeople knew anything about a camper, right? Yeah. And very basic questions, you know, like, hey, can you tell me, I don't remember what I my basic list of questions were, but like, you know, do they understand how, is it?

01;22;27;09 - 01;22;46;09
Unknown
One was just like, hey, does a is a fridge AC or DC? Yes. a can you tell me. Well, it's a residential. Okay. That doesn't tell me whether it's an AC or because you can have a DC residential style refrigerator. Yeah. So so is it 120 volt or is it 12 volt? Tell me. Right. They if they couldn't answer that it was like immediate now.

01;22;46;09 - 01;23;01;18
Unknown
Right. Because that's their first person. Like that's their salesperson. That's the person who should be able to know everything. And and if they said, hey, listen, I'm not really familiar with this model. Let me go take a picture or talk to my bought, whatever. Great. But nine only nine made it past like the first five minutes. Yes. Yeah.

01;23;01;21 - 01;23;21;29
Unknown
And then I just kept dwindling down and down. And of course inventory was a question. And there were different things like that, you know, like maybe I really like to dealer and specifically in Michigan, they were great, but they didn't have what we were looking for, you know what I mean? And then when we found this one down here, like their their sales guy was like a new rep, but he was super open and super and I'm and we knew way more about our RV's than he did.

01;23;22;05 - 01;23;44;06
Unknown
But then he got the owner involved. Yes. And we and you know, where we bought from. I mean, we loved them. and we've had a lot of really great conversations about what they're doing and how they're doing things. And, I mean, I think there's a lot of room out there for RV dealers to kind of pick up where the manufacturers maybe, haven't been able to because of those pennies they're saving or because of their processes and stuff.

01;23;44;06 - 01;24;04;00
Unknown
I think the other dealers can do a lot to, to bring the customer experience back to where it should be. And and some do, like there's a dealer north of Austin that when I go there. So I was a big fifth wheel. And I said to the shop manager, I was like, wow, actually I'm really impressed. Like my inspection is really short.

01;24;04;03 - 01;24;16;24
Unknown
And he's like, yeah, because we came in on Saturday and Sunday and did the real PD. You know, he's like, we've been he's been working on it like it wasn't. And I could see where they'd done some work. And he's like yeah we've been like the water heater didn't work. We had to get a new one. The air conditioner didn't work.

01;24;16;24 - 01;24;35;00
Unknown
We had to put a new one in, you know, the fridge wasn't secured. And then like even after. So they did all of that and my inspection report was short, had a few more items. The client took it out, called me two weeks later, was like, hey, I was taking a shower. The frame failed. I fell through the floor, and I was like, oh my God.

01;24;35;00 - 01;24;48;17
Unknown
And he was like, well, do you have any? And I was like, well, you know, it's like a sealed area. And I did have a couple of I had some photos from that area because it was over like the web. Yeah. so yeah, I'd gone down in there, but like, you know, nothing at that moment would have indicated that was going to happen.

01;24;48;20 - 01;25;04;19
Unknown
And so it was like so like even like so this person bought what they wanted, and then they went to a dealer who actually went the extra mile to make this thing good. Right? Yeah. And then the floor fell out. But was it like just like a freak accident that like the like was the weld failed, and like, in no.

01;25;04;19 - 01;25;30;02
Unknown
One, no one cut aluminum. Well, it was an aluminum weld that was supporting the floor. Yeah, like up under the shower and that's outside of the scope of any inspection. Right. But aluminum welds are I don't know, I'm not a welder, but I mean, they're like the first to to fail. And for their aluminum welding, aluminum like I don't know for me that seems like kind of but the best the best was, you know, somebody asking them what kind of truck we should have for the rig.

01;25;30;02 - 01;25;50;10
Unknown
And they're like giving you advice on the truck and then saying, oh, by the way, we sell used trucks here to use this one. It'll carry it'll tow it. It's right. It's like it's the total like financial counter incentive for good advice that exists. And that's like for us when we do the inspection, we don't ever touch it again.

01;25;50;16 - 01;26;02;03
Unknown
Right. Like we won't fix it for at least one year. Right. Because we're not trying to sell you the panic and the ethics. Right? And it's like, yeah, how about I just be ethical? Yeah, I, I'm like, I'm a it's like a home inspector. It's not going to sell your water. He was broken and sell you a water.

01;26;02;03 - 01;26;22;09
Unknown
Yeah I shouldn't shouldn't. And I'm sure there are some I'm talking about bad inspectors. Right. Like but but like the state. State like vehicle inspectors can fix your car. Yeah. Which is, which seems silly. Yeah. Right. Right. And like, that's, you know, when dealers and I have this conversation, they're like, oh, the PD turned up this I'm like the PD at the dealership, especially on a used one.

01;26;22;12 - 01;26;41;19
Unknown
They don't want to find anything because because then they're going to make that much less on the sale. Yeah. Right. What they want to do is have you come back and be a repair customer. Right. And so it's like when you start thinking about all the counter incentives that exist is different on a new one. Yeah. But if you start thinking about like, yeah, oh yeah, well, you need a one ton truck for this.

01;26;41;24 - 01;26;59;29
Unknown
Convenient for you. I have this one for sale over there, and then you're like, oh, well, okay, well let their wants get them so badly though. Yeah. And that people say, yeah, the guy told us he can sell us or I'm like, they're RV dealers, right? So, you know, you don't go to the Pizza Hut restaurant and order your flaming.

01;26;59;29 - 01;27;21;22
Unknown
Yeah. I say, right, they're RV dealers and you're looking at a full size rig like ours, and you saw a truck and they're trying to show you an SUV. Yeah. Like, you know, are you understanding what I'm saying here? I'm trying to be really nice in there. People. I always say ambitious. You know, I say when people like my direction, when people are thinking about RV, life is like when they kind of already know where they're at.

01;27;21;22 - 01;27;43;18
Unknown
My first always thing is go to an RV show, right? RV show a non you know, non manufacturer sponsor sponsored show. Go if you can't find one because you want to buy it in the middle of this month. And then you know whatever go to a dealer. That's again also not manufacturer specific. You know what I mean. So you can go and you can walk all the floor plans and you can try all the different things.

01;27;43;19 - 01;28;00;23
Unknown
Go, go, go. But I say leave your purse and your ID at home. Yeah. And in there they laugh about it. But I'm like, no you don't understand. Like they will they that you will buy something, you know, it's in the right direction because you get in like you become. Yes. Like you said, people become emotionally invested in it happens to us all the time.

01;28;00;26 - 01;28;19;24
Unknown
It doesn't really happen anymore. For a while, they would be telling the dealers would be telling, immediate Elizabeth, I got, you know, we'd be telling clients like, oh, yeah, you get an inspection, and then they would go put a deposit down, and then they would say, oh, I talked to the service manager. They don't actually allow inspections.

01;28;19;26 - 01;28;33;21
Unknown
But then you're like, oh, I've envisioned my kids, they're going to sleep in here in the adventures we're going to go on. And I mean, it's a sales tactic. It works. They do same thing in cars, right? You imagine this car in your driveway tonight, right? And then you're like, well, I can imagine this car on my driveway tonight, right?

01;28;33;26 - 01;28;49;02
Unknown
Don't you want to reconnect with your family under the stars in this RV? You're like, yeah, I do want to do that. That sounds great. And, I'm going to get it as a guy that works in sales, like, yeah, I do understand it, you know, but maybe we could find a way to tease out the counter incentive that exists.

01;28;49;09 - 01;29;03;23
Unknown
Yeah. just just to make it. I don't like the IC. I don't like when I go to a place like, we went to a dealership because we were shopping, and they've been great, and, like, we put it on the line. It's like Ron Swanson from, like, Parks and Rec. The dealer came out, start talking to me. I'm like, I know more than you.

01;29;03;26 - 01;29;17;04
Unknown
And he was like, oh, okay. And then like, he was like, I'm just going to be the guy that helps you finance and shows you around. And I'm like, I'm totally comfortable with that arrangement. And then I was he was the keys. Yeah. He's like, I was like, listen to the things. And I asked him a bunch of questions.

01;29;17;04 - 01;29;32;10
Unknown
He's like, I don't know, I'm gonna go call the manufacturer and I'm gonna go find out for you. Yeah, and I'm totally fine with that ad. It's just like, I don't know, but yeah, it's when you start to, when you start to talk to me about things you don't know about, like, I know, like, you know, instantly most of the time.

01;29;32;10 - 01;29;51;03
Unknown
And you're like, the second I detect it, he's like, right. It's true. I'm out. Right? Like. And that's the thing about RVs that I've never understood. It's not real estate. That RV exists somewhere else. If you don't like the deal you're getting at this dealership, it is for sale somewhere else, right? 100% of the time I had, there was somebody that did.

01;29;51;08 - 01;30;14;23
Unknown
He wanted this very specific diesel polar toy hauler motorhome, and there was three for sale in the country. And he sent an inspector to each one to try and find the right one. There's only three in the country for sale right now, though. But even then he's like, cool, I have three to choose from. You don't only have this dealership to choose from because there's another dealer exactly 50 miles away.

01;30;14;24 - 01;30;35;10
Unknown
Yeah, I interviewed them. That's I mean, that's yeah. Has this RV in stock. And if you don't get the IC from that person and even if it's a thousand miles away two days up, two days back and cool on the way back, because what you get to do, you get to go camping. Yeah. Right. So that's I think your advice to do these interviews is perfect.

01;30;35;10 - 01;30;50;09
Unknown
Yeah. To go out and do it and I love you. I remember we talked about it last time. Yeah. You should do that thing. One of your questions should be what's your policy about inspectors. And. Oh it always is. Yeah. And that tells you everything, right. If the answer is no, no it's usually oh we do our own PD.

01;30;50;09 - 01;31;06;18
Unknown
Why would you need one. Well I do want me to tell you why. Because you should know why. Like but yeah. And if the answer is like I'm totally comfortable with the answer. We do our own PD. We don't think you need one. But if you'd like one that's okay. Yeah I'm totally content with that answer. You know what our dealer told us?

01;31;06;25 - 01;31;27;22
Unknown
Please, please. You know why? Because it makes their life easier. Yep. Because if we fix it now, before it leaves the lot, when it leaves a lot, it's not coming back in and adding to my list of my growing list of all the warranty work that needs to be done. And for used ones. What? Honestly, what I've encouraged dealers to do is throw the inspector under the bus.

01;31;27;28 - 01;31;47;24
Unknown
Yeah, right. So when the inspector comes in, doesn't they call back and they're like, hey, whatever. It doesn't work for like, your guy was here and he inspected it and he told you it was fine. So go to him first and see what he says, what they say. and it's like, yeah, that makes sense. There's a reason that the inspection takes as long as it does, but that even if you don't want to get an inspection, I play dumb all the time.

01;31;47;24 - 01;32;02;08
Unknown
I'm like all dealers now be like, oh, am I allowed to have to remember? When we bought our current camper, I wanted the one that was out in East Texas because it was like a special edition. And, excuse me, and I call. I was like, hey, can I have an inspector there? Like, no. And I was like, okay, thanks.

01;32;02;10 - 01;32;14;28
Unknown
He's like, well, no, we can do this. I'm like, no, I just want an inspector. He's like, well, you know, you can have one, I guess, but you can't use water or electric. And I was like, no, that's okay, I'll find another one. Yeah. And like I was on the phone with him, he's like, oh, actually I was like, there's one for sale here in Buda.

01;32;14;28 - 01;32;31;26
Unknown
That's a much closer drive. I'll just go there. He called me back like ten, 40 times trying to get me to come back. I was like, no, he already burnt credibility. I'm out. Right. And that's the way that the consumer should be in that space. Like it's awful. It's brutal. You always want to do it from a position of power.

01;32;31;26 - 01;32;47;04
Unknown
Like that's for us. Like if it doesn't work out for us to get this thing we want today, then we don't need it or we will get it another day. Like, there's always very few things you have to buy right now in this moment that are going to put you in a compromising situation. Yeah. And people are going to lie to you.

01;32;47;04 - 01;33;05;11
Unknown
As crummy as it feels they will. but I hope you know, and I hope that dealerships I think that's really the go between with the manufacturer and the RV space overall is a dealership. And if they empower the people who are purchasing, you'll come back. If they are saying, hey, go talk to the inspector. Here's some questions.

01;33;05;13 - 01;33;23;04
Unknown
Here's what you need to look out for. And then something doesn't work out in the future. And I feel like the dealer and empowered me to buy with them and to get my own independent knowledge, I'll probably go back to them and trust them versus that they're trying to get me back in the queue by just being nice enough and then having no answers when I actually need their help, you know?

01;33;23;04 - 01;33;42;03
Unknown
Right. because that's all it's based on. And outside of that, you have, the RV community, which can be hit or miss, you know, open, very open. But people always want to help you. but, yeah, it's RV dealers. It's like they have a lot of power, you know, it's over the manufacturers, the as a guy that is working in this space.

01;33;42;03 - 01;34;10;17
Unknown
Right. There's a lot of gatekeeping in the RV space. Right. And you know, when folks get up there that are independent, like we're not tied really. We have some kind of sponsors, but like, we don't we're not tied to any manufacturer help that. And when we leave trash talk to them already today. But but like, you know, when we're offering a view into the RV space that isn't sanctioned by Elkhart, like that can be a little frustrating for them because, like, they want to control that message.

01;34;10;17 - 01;34;27;21
Unknown
And I get it because it's their product. They want to sell it. But it's like, you know, again, integrity and honesty will go a long way. I just wish dealers would be like, yeah, they're not perfect. We'll do our best. Yeah. And that would you're talking around the earth, right? Which is spinning around the sun. And things are going to get torn up every day.

01;34;27;21 - 01;34;44;16
Unknown
To be honest, every single time we move our RV and we've loved it every time we break something 100% of the time. Last time I was the door, the time before that, it was the toilet. The time before that, it was the bathroom sink. we flooded out the kitchen the one time when the hose came, like every single time.

01;34;44;16 - 01;35;00;15
Unknown
But the memories in comparison, I think. Oh, yeah, it's worth it. Every year it's a thousand. Figure it out. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. All right. We do need to get to the end. I did want to ask, we're at, like an hour because this was on for about a half hour before we started recording. What? okay.

01;35;00;15 - 01;35;22;11
Unknown
So now that your, conquer of Europe is over, what's up next for you? so we are, going to have you fix a few things. I'm just going to, we are packing up on Tuesday, and we head north, and we're hoping to, make it up to Banff and Jasper, in August night. So we have, like, 6 or 7 states we have to hit.

01;35;22;11 - 01;35;39;21
Unknown
So, that's it. we're not going to make it to Alaska this year, but we're hoping to to maybe hit like five of them. I think we might hit we might Miss Nevada, but we're kind of up in the water away. Finish the map. Yeah, get to Canada. And. Yeah, we some old friends really along the way.

01;35;39;21 - 01;35;58;19
Unknown
Yeah. Where can people follow your travels? Oh, try to plug yourself. Oh yeah. So we're on I think all the platforms as the traveling titans, even though your name is not the type, not the traveling, the traveling titles. Yeah, yeah. That's us. That's our plug. If you don't see my handsome mug, it's probably a rip off website. Yeah.

01;35;58;21 - 01;36;20;10
Unknown
Yes. And if you very much, it's probably not. I actually was going to come without a shirt, but. Yeah. Well, much. We're just meeting each other. Oh, you dressed up. I got jokes for you after this, after we're done here. But, guys, thanks so much for being here for our first live podcast ever. Yeah, I mean, we learned all the pros and cons we we we're getting.

01;36;20;10 - 01;36;33;22
Unknown
Yes. you know what? I'm going to make it like a seventh camera video for footage where it's just what's happening like. Yes. So, like, if people fall. Yeah, it's gonna be great. Oh well, thank you. Thank you all. Yes, absolutely. We'll see you next time for you. That's great. Happy camping.