Part of bringing an older RV Park back to life – so it can be the best it can be – encompasses making structural repairs and upgrades to the infrastructure and amenities. But ever since Covid the availability of qualified workers is greatly diminished. In this RV Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review some creative ideas to find workers with the skills you need.
Episode 92: The Art Of Finding Contractors Transcript
So you found the RV park of your dreams, you did everything right, the due diligence, the financing, you've got it completely done now. You're out at the property and you're trying to bring it back to life, but you're missing one important ingredient, and that's a workman to help you go through the basic skills of carpentry and painting to get the job done. This is Frank Rolfe, the RV Park Mastery Podcast. We're gonna talk about the difficulty today in finding labor to get RV Parks fixed and some creative ideas to help solve that situation.
"So where did all the workers go?" You might say. It seemed so easy in a pre-COVID world to find people who would do work. So back then, people had this perception that you were supposed to work, and people had this perception that you were supposed to work in a reasonable price. And then both of those things left the building with COVID and suddenly no one wanted to work anymore. It's like all the adults had a big old snow day with COVID and they just could never get back in the swing of going to school. Many dropped out of the labor force and many retreated to only wanting jobs they could do from home, however low-paying it might be. You would have people who were masters of construction, who were making good money a year and yet they just decided after that one to two years snow day, they just really didn't wanna work anymore. They lost their enthusiasm. So as a result, finding contractors has never been more difficult.
And number two, since you're talking RV Parks and you talking typically not in urban centers, it's also harder just from a shared number of people. Shared number of population that does those kinds of jobs, it's more verified air. So that being the case, you've got the RV Park, and although you're kind of handy, you can't really go out and re-roof a structure. What do you do? How do you solve that? Well, the first item would be using work campers. You will find a number of websites in which you can obtain people who will come and stay in your RV Park and work for the rent. They basically will stay, you'll also pay them cash on top of that, but work campers are a great concept. We've been using work campers for years and years. And so that is always a number one go-to when you need people to do work, is to bring people in who will stay in their own RVs in your property. It's the best of all worlds also, because you're typically very enthusiastic about RV Parks, and since they stay on site, they tend to work harder and work longer and be more wanting of your approval.
Another item is you can put a banner ad on the fence of your RV Park, which typically has a pretty good road frontage and says something like, "Skilled carpenters needed," because in most cases, when you're trying to renovate structures, that's the thing you need, is you need skilled carpenters. You can probably paint things yourself, you could probably clean in a pinch, but the problem is you probably can't build stuff. You probably don't have the tools or the know-how, and it's too dangerous for you to go and learn how to use a power saw at this point in your life. So it's probably better to go ahead and let others do that kind of skilled work. And so putting up banners on your fence that says, "Skilled carpenters needed," that can also be successful.
Also, you can go around to any local laundromat and bulletin board in a grocery store and you can put up flyers, again, saying, "Skilled carpenters needed," and then your phone number vertically on the bottom, cut into fringe like a 1970s jacket so people can rip off the phone number. That's another way to get things going. And then just talk it up around the town. Tell everyone that you need help, you need workers to help you bring that RV Park back to life. Everywhere you go. I don't care where it is. Restaurants, City Hall. It doesn't matter. Tell people you need that work. You'd be shocked how many people know other people. Before the invention of Facebook, there was still a giant pipeline of people out there that we all did through just talking to each other. It's becoming a lost art, but that's a big social network. Way bigger than Facebook or any other group.
And speaking of Facebook, let's try that. Let's try any form of social media to let people know you need some workers to help bring back the RV Park. Solve by all means. Social media is there. It's widely adopted, hugely popular. Let's use that as a tool. Also, don't forget to call other RV Park owners. RV Park owners are pretty cordial crew, typically not life or death trying to cut each other's throat, but have no problem dispensing advice to others because they know you can't really do anything to their RV Park, and they're comfortable that it probably is true vice versa. And those RV Park owners, they probably know where you're at, because they at some point had to renovate their property and may still be renovated on a periodic basis.
And the good news is, they know if they can keep people employed who are doing that renovation work, then they'll still be there when they need them again. So there's every reason in the world that one RV Park owner would tell, honestly, the other RV Park owner who out there could do renovations. So feel free to reach out and ask them, because you may get some really good names from that.
We've also done some other outside the box ideas. For example, we had a property that was near an Amish area of America, and we went over to the Amish area, letting people know we need skilled carpenters with flyers with phone numbers, because they are not typically as attuned to social media or electronics in those areas. So any time you have anyone who you think might have a shot, but maybe off the radar as far as your reach of your marketing, by all means reach out to them. Bring a flyer, see what's going on. You've probably seen American Pickers. They always start off every show. Everywhere they go, they take the person who they think might have some valuable and takes a flyer of exactly what they buy. It does not hurt to do that yourself in normal life as you go around.
And then finally, any contractors you pass on the road, I don't care what they're building, working on a house renovation, building an industrial building, it doesn't matter, feel free to stop and say, "Hey, I have work too. Would you have any interest to work on my property?" You'd be shocked over the years how many contractors we obtained simply by doing that, by seeing people who are working on another project and just stopping the car and just saying, "Hey, I've got some work. When does this job end? Are you looking for some more clients?" If nothing else, they may know other people, and they would say, "Oh, well, yeah, I know someone who needs work. I'd be happy to reach out to them." Of course, that means it's time to whip out the flyer that you hopefully have, letting them know what your contact information is. And if you want to list exactly what you need as far as skill set, feel free to put that on there too.
The bottom line is that the world has changed forever, it appears, after COVID. Finding workmen has never been harder. They've never been more expensive. It's never been a bigger pain ever in American history to get simple things done. But if you cast a big enough net, you will find the right workman for your RV Park. You just have to get out there and really, really work it.
This is Frank Rolfe, the RV Park Mastery Podcast. Hope you enjoyed this. Talk to you again soon.