Being a deal maker is much more than just looking at RV Parks for sale and making offers. The best purchases often require forging a winning construction through the use of creativity and inclusion. In this RV Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review how to build better deals using your brain and people skills.
Episode 119: The Power Of Creativity And Inclusion Transcript
Remember back in school when you had those big final exams. Some classes, that's all you had for a grade, was your final exam. There weren't any pop quizzes, any essays, anything to turn in, just that one big test. Remember how much effort you put into getting ready for that? This is Frank Rolfe of the RV Park Mastery Podcast. We're gonna talk about those big exams that you get annually when you own an RV park, that you got to put a little more work into if you wanna get the best results. Now, what am I even talking about? Typically, with an RV park, you have at least one of these three items happening annually. Number one, a state, county, or city inspection of your RV park for some kind of annual permit or license. Or you're gonna have an annual bank inspection where they come to make sure that their collateral is still in good order. Or you may have an insurance inspection where they just come out to make sure you're complying with all the rules and regulations of your insurance carrier. Now, these are all a big deal because if you lose your operating license, if you lose your loan, if you lose your insurance, well, your business is really badly injured.
So this is something we really need to take note of and do things in a good fashion. And we've been owning and operating RV parks now for over 30 years, so we're pretty well versed in these annual events. And so here are some tips on things that we think that anyone should do to get ready for these inevitable inspections. Number one, start way ahead of whenever this typical inspection is going to occur. Don't start thinking, okay, well, I guess it's coming up time for my annual health inspection of my RV park. So wonder what would I need to do? And it's maybe a week before it occurs. That's stupid. You know full well based on prior experience, when these inspections typically occur because they happen every year and normally they happen at just the same time. So you don't start the day before it or the week before it or even really the month before it. Let's start several months back. Because sometimes our key things we have to do, capital expenditure items, things that require painting or concrete, things that may be seasonally impossible. There's some things you can't do when it's freezing cold out.
Most of everything that you need to do, you can do only when it's warm out. So we have to think into the future. Okay, when is this thing coming up? When do I have to start getting ready? Failing to proactively start way ahead, that is a really bad mistake. Also, make sure that you have a paper trail, particularly on your annual license. If you have an annual license issue with your RV park, make sure you have a paper trail that you turned everything in on time. You can't just expect that the bureaucrats are gonna keep track of this, and you would hate to be criticized later for them claiming you, oh, well, you know, you have an annual inspection to get your annual permit, your right to operate your RV park, but you didn't turn it in when you did. How many times have you been in your life frustrated when someone accuses you of something falsely? Oh, well, you didn't pay your power bill, but yet you had paid your power bill. You took it down to the post office, you put a stamp on it, put it in the box, but they lost it.
And people say, oh, no, well, you didn't pay it, and that's why you have this hit on your credit or maybe your power turned off. It's not fair. So to get out of those situations, you need to keep a good paper trail. So have a paper trail of when you send in whatever you send in. If you have to send in some kind of application for your annual permit renewal, make sure that you keep a copy of that, a good printed copy of that. One that you can't lose 'cause your computer crashed, one that you've got, not based on what happens in the cloud, but something hard and fast that shows that, yes, I did turn it in on time. That would probably be, at a minimum, dating whatever application that you send in coupled with dating the check, if you have to send in a check to start the process, and certainly sending it by certified mail or something that shows where it was sent and the date it was sent from the post office. Also, you got to get ready for these inspections. You got to doctor the place up. Now, I know there are some who would say, oh, that's not really fair.
Well, look, life isn't fair. You got to play the game, and you got to play the game to win. And what that means is, you've got to go ahead and go in there and get your property looking and operating the best it can, because you know what they're coming to look at. So say to yourself, okay, where am I deficient? What could I do a better job of and start cleaning that up. Now, it may mean if you say, well, this is the week that the bank is going to come out, that may mean you go out there and you blow the leaves every day that whole week, because we don't know when they will arrive but we want it to look its best. It's no different than when you go to get a photo made. Imagine you're back in school again, and you have to get your class photo. Do you look as good the rest of the year as you do on class photo day? Probably not. Probably on class photo day you're gonna really update your appearance the best possible because this will commemorate for posterity how you looked on that grade, on that year in history.
And it's no different with your RV park. You wanna go ahead and get that looking the best it possibly can. Also you've got to prep the manager for what to say. Now, if you self manage your property it's not an issue. But if you don't self manage your property, when those inspectors come out to do their annual look see as what's going on, more than likely they're gonna stop by the office and they're gonna ask your manager questions. Now your manager may be great at running an RV park but they may not be that good on Q and A. They may not know what they are to say and not to say regarding the questions they will be asked. So coach them, tell them, oh yeah, well they're coming out to do the annual inspection for the RV park, for insurance and these are the key things that our insurance carrier wants to hear that we're doing. And these are the key things that they don't wanna hear. And so make sure when you talk to them that you understand what the goal is here and what we're doing. Not trying to coach them so you've committed any fraud.
I mean if they say well gosh, you know on this annual banking inspection we just kind of wanna know what's the occupancy like. And if you're running at 10%, don't say 100%, you'll be caught in that lie. That'll be terrible for you. But explain to the manager in many cases in the gray areas, where to swerve the car in those gray areas. So if occupancy is down, tell them well it's down right now because of seasonal issues. Right now we've had unusually cold weather which is delaying the arrival of our regular, you know, winter campers, summer campers, but have a spin or a pitch to that. Don't get caught flat-footed by the inspector who will inevitably ask you some questions. The manager needs to understand what they're to say. Many times the manager has no clue what what they're supposed to say. And they would love to. I mean, there's this horrible awkward silence between the questions and the answers because they're trying to think, well, what does the owner want me to say? Don't put them in that position. Coach them before any inspection so they know exactly what is going on.
Also, if you've had issues from the past, make those repairs well before you file or well before that inspection. If they were there last year and they told you, oh, well, this item here, these stairs, they need a handrail. Can you imagine how bad it will look if they come out and you didn't do what you said you would do last year? Some RV park owners don't like to write things down. They don't take a lot of notes. And what will happen is if you didn't take any notes and you didn't focus on the repair, you didn't get it done, you could lose your insurance over that. The insurance carrier might say, this person is not RV park owner material because we gave them such a simple plan, put a handrail on these stairs, and they couldn't do that. I can't trust their other thought making processes. So maybe we should just go ahead and let them go. And if that happens, what a mess. Now other insurance carriers will learn from that one. Oh, yeah, I don't think this person's really cut out to run the RV park. So anything that was discussed in the prior inspection, you must immediately get a hold of and fix.
And if you look around and you didn't get it fixed since last time, you better hurry and get that done because not doing what they told you to do last year, could end it with a really, really bad ending. Also, you've got to micromanage the process as it is approaching. So I would call my manager every day. If there's a banking inspection coming up and they're coming out in the next two weeks, we don't know when. We just know the bank says, yeah, we'll be here between this date and this date, I would call that manager every day during that period and just go over everything you've discussed. Okay. You know, the inspection is this week, we think. We don't know which day. So these are the things you need to make sure you got done. All the litter picked up, everything looking perfect. Okay, good. There's flags flying out in front. Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. Now you know what to say when they come in, right? Let's go over that again. Let's role play. Okay. I'm the inspector and you're you. Okay, question number one, question number two, question number three. You got to make sure they're definitely on their A game before that inspection were to occur.
The bottom line to it is that if you put the thought and the effort that you would or should on anything of such severe consequences, then you'll be fine. But don't procrastinate. Don't let it slide. Kind of like school, we are all prone to procrastinate on doing that one big essay because it's not any fun and we don't really wanna do it. And do we just kind of have a mañana attitude. Don't get caught in that mañana attitude when it comes to these annual inspections. It could really come back to haunt you. This is Frank Rolfe of the RV Park Mastery Podcast. Hope you enjoyed this. Talk to you again soon.