625: Getting Paid to Rent Out Other People’s Stuff

0:00:03 Getting paid to rent out other people’s stuff.
0:00:05 It’s true. What’s up?
0:00:05 What’s up, Nick Loper here.
0:00:08 Welcome to the Science Hustle Show, part of the entrepreneur
0:00:13 podcast network, because your earning power doesn’t have to stop when your day job does.
0:00:16 Now, you know, I love a rental business model.
0:00:19 It’s one of the four types of passive income.
0:00:20 You can quiz your friends what the other three are.
0:00:22 I’ll fill those in at the end of the show.
0:00:26 But today’s guest scaled his rental business in a unique way
0:00:30 by renting out other people’s RVs with their permission, of course.
0:00:32 Could you do the same thing?
0:00:34 Could you apply the same idea in a different niche?
0:00:41 Let’s stick around to find out from fireside RV rental.com Gar Russell.
0:00:42 Welcome to the Science Hustle Show.
0:00:44 Hey, Nick, thanks for having me.
0:00:45 Excited to be here with you.
0:00:46 Well, I’m excited for this one.
0:00:50 We’re covering how Gar convinced other owners to trust him with their RVs.
0:00:50 That’s a big step.
0:00:55 The logistics of running this thing and the bumps in the road along the way.
0:00:59 I want to start off with you have this idea like it’s going to be a fantastic
0:01:03 birthday present for your lovely bride or an anniversary present, rather.
0:01:05 And hey, honey, we got this RV.
0:01:07 Let’s go. We’re going to have all these fun times in the woods.
0:01:11 Imagining the years of outdoor fun and adventure ahead of you.
0:01:15 And her reaction is not quite what you’re hoping it will be.
0:01:18 Yeah, we got to the campground and we got set up.
0:01:23 I thought all was going well the first morning when she’s chasing our toddler
0:01:26 around and seven months pregnant with number four.
0:01:28 And she said, I’m going home, baby.
0:01:31 And I thought, oh, what did I forget?
0:01:34 And I didn’t forget anything.
0:01:36 She was just miserable and she was done camping.
0:01:39 And we were supposed to be there six more days.
0:01:43 Yeah, so that’s not how anybody wanted it to go down.
0:01:45 No, no, not at all.
0:01:50 And I went right into panic mode of, oh my gosh, I just bought this RV
0:01:53 for a lot of money and my wife doesn’t want to be here
0:01:56 and jumped onto Craigslist and threw it up for rent.
0:02:01 OK, so you’ve got this big expensive asset slash liability at the moment.
0:02:04 But hopefully it turns into an asset sitting in the driveway and said,
0:02:06 well, shoot, what am I going to do with this thing?
0:02:09 So you turn around and put up for rent on Craigslist.
0:02:12 What kind of reaction does that get?
0:02:14 Any takers? Yeah, you know, it blew my mind.
0:02:18 I literally had inquiries coming in within a couple of hours.
0:02:21 So the light bulb like immediately went off.
0:02:23 People are, hey, I need it for this weekend
0:02:26 because that was in July when I purchased it for.
0:02:29 So it’s like in the middle of summer and people are, oh, hey,
0:02:31 we’re going camping this weekend or that weekend.
0:02:33 You know, sure. So it was it was wild.
0:02:37 Any sort of like driver vetting?
0:02:38 Do you need like a commercial license to drive on these things?
0:02:41 I’d be intimidated driving around something in that size.
0:02:43 No, you go right to what people typically ask
0:02:47 when I ask them for their RV is, OK, who’s going to be driving this?
0:02:48 What’s that going to look like?
0:02:51 And so, yeah, there’s just like Airbnb and Toro.
0:02:53 There’s peer-to-peer platforms for this industry.
0:02:56 So they have the insurance and the driver
0:02:59 verifications and security deposits and, you know, all the things.
0:03:02 All right. So that is in place now.
0:03:05 What was your process early on of starting out?
0:03:10 Well, no. So when I started, there was who is still the main platform,
0:03:12 RVshare.com. They were up and running.
0:03:16 They started in 2013. I started in 2016.
0:03:19 I just sort of running rentals like right through RVshare
0:03:21 to use their insurance and all that stuff.
0:03:25 Oh, OK, OK, so we got some initial traction on Craigslist.
0:03:28 But hey, go check out my listing or go check out my profile book
0:03:32 through RVshare, one of the leading platforms outdoorsy being the other one
0:03:34 where it’s the peer-to-peer marketplace.
0:03:37 It’s the Toro. It’s the Airbnb for renting RVs.
0:03:40 So there was an existing demand here.
0:03:43 And I think that’s probably an important place to start is saying, well,
0:03:45 wasn’t necessarily reinventing the wheel.
0:03:48 It was like, hey, I’m going to go put my buy button up for sale on some place
0:03:52 where people are already looking for this thing to go rent this thing.
0:03:55 And so there was a precedent for doing that rather than
0:03:58 trying to create demand out of nowhere.
0:04:00 Exactly. Yeah.
0:04:02 What did you charge for those first weekend rentals?
0:04:06 Maybe like 100, 125 dollars a night or something like that.
0:04:09 OK, gosh, I imagine I remember these things were
0:04:12 completely blown up during the pandemic.
0:04:14 Like, well, I can’t do anything. I want to go camping, go rent an RV.
0:04:16 Or I rent a spinner van.
0:04:19 And sometimes it’d be like two fifty, three hundred bucks a night
0:04:21 for some of these like nicer decked out vans.
0:04:23 Oh, yeah, yeah, you can pay a premium.
0:04:27 We’ve got some nice like Super C diesels and some nice class B’s
0:04:33 and some big class A’s that, yeah, rent for four hundred dollars or more a night.
0:04:36 We just had a guy that paid six thousand dollars
0:04:40 to have an RV delivered from Alabama to Michigan
0:04:43 for a festival because he liked that unit so much that
0:04:45 it just was an incidental.
0:04:47 The money was just OK, what’s the cost?
0:04:50 And wow, he had had it for teledague races
0:04:52 and he wanted it for another event he was going to.
0:04:57 Was there a target occupancy or target monthly income
0:05:01 that you’re trying to hit to offset the payment, the depreciation?
0:05:04 Like something that would make it less of like, ah, you know,
0:05:06 this big money pit sitting in the driveway.
0:05:09 In the heat of the moment, no, it was literally just getting away
0:05:13 from the pain of feeling like a weirdo for buying a camper that my wife hated.
0:05:15 Then as things scaled and escalated,
0:05:19 yeah, then you start getting a little more granular and like, OK,
0:05:22 for the wear and tear on this and ours was a total, I always say,
0:05:26 towable travel trailer or drivable RV to help people differentiate.
0:05:29 Ours was a towable travel trailer.
0:05:32 So there wasn’t as much wear and tear like engine, you know, mileage,
0:05:34 generator, stuff like that.
0:05:37 OK, I’m picturing like an airstream or something
0:05:39 that would like attach to a hitch or like a fifth wheel.
0:05:40 Yeah, exactly.
0:05:43 That was our first that started this business.
0:05:44 Yeah, it was a towable.
0:05:45 Interesting.
0:05:50 And then for somebody starting out on RV share,
0:05:56 what kind of best practices did you find to get listing to your attention?
0:06:00 He’s like, OK, Craig’s list kind of I guess people will be seeking it out.
0:06:02 But now, all of a sudden, if you’re on these platforms,
0:06:06 you’re competing with dozens of other listings in your areas.
0:06:09 Like, well, how do I make mine the one that they click on and want to book?
0:06:12 Just like anything else, honestly, real estate,
0:06:13 throwing something up on marketplace.
0:06:17 Pitchers is obviously a huge one painting a picture for somebody
0:06:21 like them seeing themselves inside of that travel trailer,
0:06:24 seeing their family inside of that is the layout going to work.
0:06:26 Is it going to have the right amenities that it needs?
0:06:30 So that’s something that I realized was important right off the bat
0:06:33 is really helping people understand because these people that were renting
0:06:35 my camper, they weren’t campers.
0:06:37 They just wanted to go camping.
0:06:41 So I was really painting a really clear picture for them fast forward down the road
0:06:44 to we’ve got 45 locations across the country now.
0:06:47 Franchise is doing this competing with others.
0:06:51 It’s all about creating value, showing the value where so many people
0:06:55 that jump on these platforms are just lowering their prices, lowering their prices.
0:06:58 You know, like, hey, $40 a night rent my camper.
0:07:00 So our whole thing is showing value.
0:07:03 It is interesting as you walk down that road and you scale
0:07:07 and you start to really think about your market and the best way to serve them.
0:07:11 Right at a certain price per night, it doesn’t pay for the hassle
0:07:15 of dealing with the logistics and the wear and tear on the thing.
0:07:18 And just I don’t know if that’s worthwhile.
0:07:19 It’s going to make sure it is worthwhile.
0:07:24 Exactly, yeah, especially on the drivable RVs, where you’re putting miles
0:07:29 on an engine and wear and tear as you’ve got to be very mindful of depreciation.
0:07:33 Depreciation is a great side of this because just like real estate, you can depreciate it.
0:07:39 But also, like you mentioned at the beginning there, this is a liability to start.
0:07:42 It’s not like a piece of real estate where it’s going to appreciate.
0:07:45 It’s depreciating the moment you buy it.
0:07:47 So it’s very mindful of that.
0:07:47 All right.
0:07:52 So you start to see some traction on RV share a little bit through the Craigslist ad.
0:07:54 You say, OK, there might be something here.
0:07:59 I’m no longer losing money on this thing or I’m no longer losing as much money on this thing.
0:08:03 You’re like, well, the way to scale is more inventory here.
0:08:05 There’s only so many weekends in the month.
0:08:07 There’s only so many days in the month somebody could rent this thing.
0:08:10 So if I want more inventory, I got to go out and find more RVs.
0:08:12 So what is this conversation like?
0:08:15 How do you find the first people to say, like, have I got it?
0:08:16 A business proposition for you.
0:08:20 I’m going to rent some strangers or let some strangers into your vacation vehicle here.
0:08:22 And I’ll give you a cut of the proceeds.
0:08:24 Like, what are these conversations start?
0:08:28 So it didn’t start with that model, what I call the OPRV model.
0:08:32 It really started with I need more RVs.
0:08:35 So literally, fast forward to the end of August.
0:08:39 We’re having number four that my wife was miserable with in July pregnant.
0:08:42 All of our kids were born on C sections, VSC sections.
0:08:44 So literally, it’s like scheduled, you know what you’re going to do?
0:08:47 You check into the room. It’s like, OK, maybe it’s here.
0:08:48 You’re in the room.
0:08:52 So I get my wife and baby checked into the room.
0:08:55 And then literally, I’m like, all right, honey, I’ll be right back.
0:08:57 And where was I going?
0:08:59 I was headed to the dealership to buy four more RVs.
0:09:01 Oh, my gosh. OK.
0:09:05 And she’s like, oh, OK, she’s been an entrepreneurial spouse for long enough to know.
0:09:07 Like, we just do weird things like that as entrepreneurs.
0:09:14 But literally, as I’m doing that, the Lord was like, OPRV.
0:09:17 That’s when I got the OPRV method was God telling me that.
0:09:20 I still went and bought the RVs because I’m already driving there.
0:09:22 I’m a little dense. It takes me a little bit to catch on.
0:09:27 But a couple of weeks later, that’s when it clicked like, no, it’s other people’s assets.
0:09:30 So that’s when I started reaching out to other people like, hey,
0:09:31 I want to take your RV and rent it.
0:09:33 And it was literally one or two things.
0:09:37 First person I asked was my sister-in-law, and she’s like, that’s gross.
0:09:38 Like, someone’s not sleeping in my bed.
0:09:40 That’s a very bad idea.
0:09:44 That’s what I imagined the reaction was going to be like, I know, thanks.
0:09:46 We bought it for our own family.
0:09:47 Like, yeah, that’s weird.
0:09:49 And then I reached out to my best friend, Jeremy.
0:09:51 And Jeremy was like, dude, that’s sweet for sure.
0:09:53 Sign me up, man.
0:09:56 And so there was unit number two and it went on from there.
0:09:57 What was the proposal?
0:09:58 What was like the rev share?
0:10:00 What kind of pitch did you come to it with?
0:10:01 It was very simple.
0:10:05 It’s, hey, I’ll do all the work and we’ll split the revenue 50/50.
0:10:07 So he had a nine to five.
0:10:11 I didn’t, I owned some businesses in real estate and I had freedom in my
0:10:13 schedule to do different things.
0:10:17 That was the presentation was I’m going to do all the work.
0:10:19 We split the revenue 50/50.
0:10:22 How did you deal with getting the RVs to the customers?
0:10:26 I guess it’s all local or they come to your place and pick it up.
0:10:30 Or, you know, just, I think of like moving vehicles all around, like with rental
0:10:33 cars, like I pick it up at the airport and then I fly away and drop it off.
0:10:35 Like it’s somewhat easier.
0:10:38 But in this case, it’s like, well, where do I store the thing?
0:10:41 Now, if you got five of them, where do I store these things?
0:10:44 Plus, you know, trying to meet people where they’re at.
0:10:49 Yeah, it was me and my truck and moving units around.
0:10:50 And I lived on some acreage.
0:10:54 So I decided, OK, I should probably start grouping these things together
0:10:56 logistically to make a little bit easier myself.
0:11:01 And then I got a violation from the city that I wasn’t zone to do that.
0:11:05 So then it moved into, all right, well, I want to keep doing this.
0:11:07 So we got a parking lot that we run it out.
0:11:11 OK, OK, one from there to we got our own facility.
0:11:15 We’re like, well, we can collect storage on these when they’re not being used.
0:11:19 So we’ll get a facility that’ll cover overhead for the facility, the storage fees.
0:11:22 And it just, yeah, one thing to the next.
0:11:26 Next thing you know, I have RV tax working for me and I and I have storage
0:11:30 and I sell propane and we have a dump station and all these different things.
0:11:32 Oh, sorry, explain the storage fees.
0:11:34 Sorry, I’m confused on that part.
0:11:38 Most people pay to store their RV a storage facility.
0:11:41 So OK, yeah, we just ended up grouping them together.
0:11:44 And that’s how a lot of our franchises run today is they just partner
0:11:48 with a storage facility near them and they group the RVs there.
0:11:51 So for them, they don’t have a lot of that overhead
0:11:53 as far as having to have like a brick and mortar and all that overhead.
0:11:58 Got it. OK, here’s the centralized parking lots to come and pick everything
0:12:01 and go on your way for your trip. OK, exactly. Yeah. Got it.
0:12:04 All right, Gar’s got his first OPRV on board.
0:12:06 He’s proven out the concept.
0:12:11 And now he’s on the hunt for more owners who will let him run out their RVs.
0:12:14 That process and more coming up right after this.
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0:14:55 All right. So you get the first OPRV on board and say,
0:14:59 “Hey, all the other work, we’ll split the revenue, sounds good, deal, sign me up.”
0:15:00 What happens after that?
0:15:04 It’s like trying to find, you know, RV campsites nearby
0:15:06 and like canvassing people, although those might be renters themselves.
0:15:10 Or you go into RV owner Facebook groups and saying,
0:15:16 “Hey, have you ever thought about this, but trying to approach it in a non-skizzy way
0:15:18 and get kicked out of the group? How does the scale?”
0:15:22 It’s scaled on the finding the renter side.
0:15:25 I would create ads on Craigslist for rent.
0:15:28 And then really, I just leaned on the peer-to-peer platforms.
0:15:30 So RV, Share, Outdoorsy and there’s a couple others.
0:15:34 They were basically handling my lead generation as far as finding me renters.
0:15:39 Sure. And then defining owner side, that’s really easy.
0:15:42 I mean, there’s RVs, there’s over 12 million RVs sitting around doing nothing.
0:15:46 So what I did was someone had an RV in their driveway and knocked on their door,
0:15:51 went to storage facilities, tried to strike up deals like mom and pop facilities
0:15:52 to talk to their owners.
0:15:56 And then just like, you know, if you’re renting your house on Airbnb,
0:15:59 they have Airbnb Facebook groups.
0:16:03 I started joining those groups for people that were renting their RV
0:16:06 and just kind of sharing, hey, if you find like this is too much work for you
0:16:10 with your nine to five, I’m happy to do the work for you.
0:16:14 And then just kind of sharing my entrepreneurial history and real estate.
0:16:19 OK, like an Airbnb property manager or like a co-hosted Airbnb thing,
0:16:21 like where you still own the asset.
0:16:22 Hey, we’re not going to buy it from you.
0:16:24 We are going to take a percentage.
0:16:25 We’re going to handle the booking requests.
0:16:28 We’re going to handle the customer interaction, the cleaning, all that stuff.
0:16:30 And you can still make money from it.
0:16:34 Yeah, exactly. If you like renting your RV, but you don’t like the work so much,
0:16:36 we’ll do the work for you.
0:16:40 OK, so targeting, it sounds like people starting out who were used to that idea
0:16:46 rather than trying to force yourself upon the market of just those 12 million
0:16:49 RV owners who maybe hadn’t considered that as an income stream.
0:16:51 They just have it for personal use and they don’t really care.
0:16:54 I imagine you could probably convert some of those, but going after the people
0:16:58 who are open to renting it or have proven to be open to it already.
0:17:01 That’s a warmer market to tackle.
0:17:04 Yeah, and especially now post COVID, like you talked about everybody
0:17:07 RVing and everybody buying an RV during COVID.
0:17:08 Yeah.
0:17:12 Now, a lot of our pool that we draw from is just Facebook Marketplace.
0:17:15 Just going on there and just sharing the concept with people.
0:17:16 Hey, I see your RVs for sale.
0:17:18 It’s beautiful.
0:17:21 If you find that you’re getting lowball offers and maybe you need to pay
0:17:25 your principal down some, we’ve got a program that we’ve created to help with that.
0:17:27 If you want more information, we’d love to tell you.
0:17:28 Interesting.
0:17:33 Yeah, it’s a really interesting product class because of that super,
0:17:37 super low utilization rate where it’s like, it probably sits around 50
0:17:38 weeks out of the year.
0:17:43 I mean, some of the stats on cars sit idle 22 hours a day or something.
0:17:46 It’s like, for this, it’s got to be even more average it out on a daily basis.
0:17:50 And so that makes it a really interesting asset to try and try and improve
0:17:51 that a little bit.
0:17:53 Hey, sitting around, let’s let some other families enjoy it.
0:17:56 We’ll put some money in your pocket and go from there.
0:18:00 So you start to get some traction doing that and trying to manage primarily local
0:18:03 or is it kind of branching out geographically at this point?
0:18:06 I imagine with different Facebook groups, it’s a nationwide or international audience.
0:18:09 Yeah, when we started, it was primarily local.
0:18:11 We kind of found our niche.
0:18:15 A lot of people going to specific state parks for family camping trips.
0:18:20 And so we would kind of figure out where we would want to serve as far as how
0:18:22 far we’d want to deliver and stuff like that.
0:18:23 Yeah, it’s just amazing.
0:18:24 There’s campgrounds everywhere.
0:18:26 There’s storage facilities everywhere.
0:18:27 There’s RV dealerships everywhere.
0:18:30 It’s kind of like you buy a red car, then all of a sudden you realize somebody
0:18:32 red cars are out there on the roads.
0:18:33 RVing is everywhere.
0:18:35 It’s what a lot of Americans do.
0:18:40 What’s the one I used to always see in RV America?
0:18:43 Or it’s like one big, it seems to be a nationwide rental outfit.
0:18:44 Yeah, Cruise America.
0:18:46 Yes, yes, yes, yes.
0:18:48 Yeah, so Cruise America is still around.
0:18:50 They’re the billboard on wheels, basically.
0:18:55 It’s really interesting because learning the RV industry now over the years, a
0:18:57 lot of dealerships used to rent RVs out.
0:19:00 And that was a lead generation tool for them.
0:19:03 That was a way to take new inventory, make some money off it, appreciate it a
0:19:05 little bit and then turn around and sell it used.
0:19:09 And then there was like this mass Exodus and basically who’d you have left?
0:19:10 Cruise America.
0:19:12 There’s a couple other guys out West.
0:19:16 And then in 2013, this industry just came up out of nowhere.
0:19:20 It was literally the founder of RV share took his family on a camping trip.
0:19:24 When he got back, he’s like, all right, well, I traveled across the country
0:19:25 like I wanted to do.
0:19:27 Now I have this RV.
0:19:28 What do I do with that?
0:19:29 I’m going to rent it out.
0:19:31 And he went online to look for a platform and there wasn’t one.
0:19:32 Yeah.
0:19:35 And that’s how RV share was birthed.
0:19:39 Is the Cruise America model more like a rental car business where they own the
0:19:40 units or is it similar?
0:19:44 Whereas like, well, the ones that I remember seeing were all pretty uniform.
0:19:46 It seemed to be like the same model.
0:19:46 Yeah.
0:19:50 Cruise America, they have them built in batches and it’s similar models.
0:19:55 And they kind of operate a little bit like U-Haul, like they’ll partner with
0:19:57 businesses that have a little bit of real estate where they can park some
0:20:00 RVs and they give them a percentage of the revenue.
0:20:00 Yeah.
0:20:03 No, I love the rental business model.
0:20:06 If I’m pausing, it’s because my gears are turning and like, well, what other?
0:20:08 Maybe it’s industrial equipment or something.
0:20:11 I’m thinking about the stuff that I would go and rent for my painting business.
0:20:14 Like, well, this big 40 foot ladder.
0:20:17 Or I wouldn’t make sense to own that because you only needed it maybe once
0:20:22 or twice per season, but you go to the United rentals, I think was the place.
0:20:25 And you rent this for the day or rent this for the week.
0:20:28 If you needed it on the job site, it’s like, what are the other things with
0:20:33 like super low utilization, maybe kind of a high upfront cost?
0:20:35 Where do I really want to buy that?
0:20:38 Especially from the point of view of the RV vacationer.
0:20:40 Do I really want to buy this?
0:20:41 I would love to just rent it for the week.
0:20:44 Like that seems lower risk, lower overhead.
0:20:47 We’ll see if we like it, a trial run type of thing.
0:20:50 So if I pause, that’s where I’m like, what else could you rent out?
0:20:51 So yeah, I like that.
0:20:53 It is amazing with RVs.
0:20:55 It’s almost like a time share.
0:20:58 When you buy it, it’s like, it seems like the best idea ever.
0:21:01 You know, my gosh, we’re going to go there all the time and memories and all
0:21:05 these things and you realize Johnny’s got practice and you got X amount of
0:21:10 weeks of vacation a year and I don’t know, do we load the RV up just to go away
0:21:12 for the weekend and you know, is it worth it?
0:21:14 And you get your avid RVers.
0:21:18 I mean, heck, we literally full time RV for almost five years while we were
0:21:22 building this business, we had a blast and we loved the lifestyle.
0:21:27 But most Americans, it’s like, yeah, it’s our most of the year.
0:21:32 You think that full time RV experience was an asset in having conversations
0:21:34 with RV owners.
0:21:37 I guess if people are doing it full time, they don’t have the capacity to go
0:21:38 and rent it out for extra income.
0:21:40 But like you were in the space.
0:21:43 Like you knew you could speak the lingo, you know, it was funny.
0:21:49 I didn’t really spend a lot of time sales and marketing like on the road.
0:21:53 We would work hard during the summer with our business, make a really good
0:21:55 amount of money and then we would just travel around all winter.
0:22:00 And so it’s kind of like the brain was turned off a little bit and hindsight
0:22:02 what I’ve learned about marketing the last couple of years.
0:22:05 I’m like, oh my gosh, I could have created so much content and done so
0:22:09 much blogging and this and that, but I wish I could do that all over again.
0:22:11 But yeah, it was really it was the business model.
0:22:14 When I started to duplicate it, that’s how I presented it was.
0:22:17 I called it the six figure summer.
0:22:19 You work your tail off for about five, six months.
0:22:22 You have about 20, 25 RVs in your fleet.
0:22:24 Do you crush it during the summer and then you travel during the winter?
0:22:28 That’s the business model I built because we, we homeschool our four kids.
0:22:30 We love to travel and do life together.
0:22:34 That was the thought when we created it, when we turn it into a biz opportunity
0:22:35 that we sold to others as well.
0:22:36 Yeah.
0:22:38 I admire the ability to turn it off.
0:22:41 And say, hey, six figure summer, had a great season.
0:22:44 We’ll do it again next year versus, well, what about the fall season?
0:22:47 What about if we did six figure, maybe we could do multi.
0:22:52 You have this kind of concept that I call gravy time.
0:22:55 How long into the year do you need to work to cover your annual expenses?
0:22:59 The average, I want to say, based on a five percent savings rate is like
0:23:02 people are working to the second week of December before they’re like,
0:23:04 okay, I’ve covered my expenses, right?
0:23:07 And I have this really thin margin at the end of the year.
0:23:09 We’ve met other people who are like, I’m good.
0:23:10 By March, I’m good.
0:23:11 I booked enough work.
0:23:12 I’m happy.
0:23:15 It’s like, ah, you know, the ability to kind of turn it off, dial it back.
0:23:16 I really like that.
0:23:19 I really like this concept of the six figure summer.
0:23:25 I wanted to ask for, as you’re signing on other RV owners to kind of be
0:23:30 their rental agent, their property manager, so to speak, handle these rental bookings.
0:23:33 Is there a typical target?
0:23:37 And it’s going to vary based on market and seasonality and all that.
0:23:44 But in terms of the monthly occupancy rate or the monthly income, any metrics
0:23:47 that you could share on that front for like, what is this thing sitting in the
0:23:49 driveway realistically worth?
0:23:50 Even ballpark ranges would be fine.
0:23:55 Yeah, I can tell you our average is based on our historical data.
0:24:00 Like this year, the average booking is six days this year.
0:24:05 The average net to the travel trailer owner is right around three to five
0:24:06 hundred dollars per booking.
0:24:11 If it’s a drivable RV, it’s about five to seven hundred dollars per booking.
0:24:15 And then based on the location, if it’s a seasonal location or if it’s
0:24:19 Florida, Arizona, California, somewhere like that, if it’s a seasonal location,
0:24:22 they’re going to do about seven to 10 bookings per summer.
0:24:25 And then a year round location could do double that.
0:24:30 So that’s kind of a starting point that we give people as far as the owner, as
0:24:32 far as how much they can earn.
0:24:36 And then also there’s the right offside of it, too.
0:24:38 They get to depreciate the RV, which is great.
0:24:41 They get to write off, you know, the insurance and repairs and maintenance
0:24:42 and stuff like that.
0:24:46 If you’re not renting it out, then there’s no depreciation you can claim
0:24:49 because it’s not seen as like a business asset.
0:24:50 Exactly.
0:24:51 Yeah.
0:24:57 I’ve had investors that have literally purchased Class C drivable RVs just
0:24:58 to offset taxes.
0:25:02 Yeah, I imagine that depending on the vehicle, that might be worth more than
0:25:04 the 500 bucks per booking.
0:25:04 Yeah.
0:25:05 Interesting.
0:25:07 Okay, that’s helpful.
0:25:11 And are you still doing 50/50 rev share split or has that adjusted over time
0:25:13 during this kind of like pre-franchise phase?
0:25:16 Yeah, so we still do a 50/50 revenue split.
0:25:19 We just now we have a platform fee that comes off the top.
0:25:24 So like RV share, they get 25% commission.
0:25:25 Okay.
0:25:25 All their owners.
0:25:29 We have a corporate agreement with them because we’re their largest customer.
0:25:32 And then outdoors, you know, so all the platforms have their fees.
0:25:37 So just across the board, we take a 15% off the top and then we split the revenue
0:25:38 after that.
0:25:39 Okay.
0:25:43 And the reason I ask is, well, if I’m going to take the OPRV model to another
0:25:46 niche, to another product class, like, okay, what’s typical?
0:25:50 So yeah, there’s going to be the platform fee and then the kind of like agency fee
0:25:53 that will do it all for you fee of handling the stuff.
0:25:58 And then after they come back, is it like Airbnb, you know, attack on a cleaning
0:26:01 fee or is that kind of taken out of the booking?
0:26:04 And you got to coordinate cleaners to come through and make sure it’s ready
0:26:05 for the next guest.
0:26:09 Add-ons are a great extra revenue source for the franchisees.
0:26:11 We have some bookings that you’d be amazed.
0:26:13 It’s like a weekend booking.
0:26:15 It’s cost them like maybe $600, $700.
0:26:17 They have $800 in add-ons.
0:26:19 Like they got the linen’s package.
0:26:21 They got the kitchen package.
0:26:22 They got the s’mores kit.
0:26:24 They got the chairs.
0:26:25 They rented the kayaks.
0:26:29 So the list goes on and on and on, especially when people are like flying in.
0:26:34 If they’re coming in, like we work with Talladega, Bonnaroo Music Festival,
0:26:38 Burning Man, the different events like that, equestrian events.
0:26:38 Okay.
0:26:43 People will pay a premium like to fly in, have it loaded with groceries.
0:26:47 That’s at the airport ready for them or it’s delivered right to the infield of
0:26:48 the raceway.
0:26:52 Yeah, we have bookings where somebody will literally come in for a weekend and
0:26:55 they’re dropping $3,000 to $5,000 for a weekend rental.
0:26:56 Wow.
0:27:00 Okay, catering to a different level of affluence in certain cases.
0:27:03 Like, hey, we’re going to make it easy for you.
0:27:06 That’s the cool thing about it is it’s wheel estate, right?
0:27:07 It’s a house on wheels.
0:27:09 So it’s so multifaceted.
0:27:11 Like we work with insurance companies.
0:27:16 We’ve had several RVs in the last couple months go just to be parked
0:27:17 alongside someone’s house.
0:27:19 There was fire damage, water damage.
0:27:24 The insurance company is paying us $4,000 to $6,000 a month to set up an RV on
0:27:26 the side of the house or hurricanes.
0:27:32 During COVID, I get a power plant in Michigan that orders 72 travel trailers
0:27:35 as quarantine units for their electrical engineers.
0:27:38 Okay.
0:27:42 Yeah, maybe not the intended use case, but a use case nonetheless.
0:27:43 Yeah.
0:27:45 So I facilitate that order.
0:27:47 I go and I buy three rental properties from that.
0:27:48 That was phenomenal.
0:27:49 That’s interesting.
0:27:53 And then to go back to the cleaning and turnover thing, is that just have a team
0:27:59 of house cleaners that could also clean RVs on location near these kind of
0:28:03 parking center storage center type of places that can handle the turnover.
0:28:04 Yeah.
0:28:08 So you find people that clean air B and B is, you know, it’s such an interesting
0:28:10 concept to people that a lot of times if you, Hey, I’m looking for someone to
0:28:13 clean campers, like they don’t even respond to the ad.
0:28:17 But if you go into a Facebook group and you’re Aaron, you say, Hey, I’m looking
0:28:19 for somebody who cleans short term rentals.
0:28:22 Now all of a sudden you got 35 people messaging you saying, Oh yeah, I can do
0:28:23 that for you.
0:28:24 And then he’s, okay, great.
0:28:27 It’s the same thing with like delivering the campers.
0:28:31 My famous ad was always, Hey, I’m looking for old retired guys with
0:28:35 trucks that are bored, you know, and then you get a bunch of people that laugh
0:28:36 and comment and this and that.
0:28:37 And then they message you, Hey, what do you got?
0:28:39 I’m an old retired guy with a truck.
0:28:42 Like, well, actually I need someone to deliver campers for me to the campgrounds.
0:28:46 I have guys that literally they’re like, God, just give me gas money.
0:28:49 They’re like, I’m having so much fun doing this.
0:28:51 I just like it’s camping growing up.
0:28:52 This is a blast.
0:28:56 Husband and wife teams are cleaning the campers, delivering them, having a blast
0:28:57 together.
0:29:00 It’s amazing how quick you can pull together a team when it comes to this.
0:29:01 Okay.
0:29:02 Fascinating.
0:29:03 I love that ad.
0:29:04 Hey, we’ll do it for free.
0:29:08 Just cover the gas more with Gar in just a moment, including some of the things
0:29:11 that can happen on the open road and how to protect yourself from those.
0:29:15 And why he chose the franchise model to scale operations even further.
0:29:18 All that and more coming up right after this.
0:29:20 Obviously you have the bad side to it too.
0:29:21 Just like anything else.
0:29:26 We had people show up to pick up RVs that had no business being in an RV that
0:29:28 we’re just mad because they couldn’t go to Max score or whatever.
0:29:30 This thing is horrible.
0:29:32 It’s, I’m not taking this thing.
0:29:33 And there’s nothing wrong with it.
0:29:34 They’re just miserable.
0:29:39 Anything else on that horror story list or the mistakes or.
0:29:40 Oh yeah.
0:29:41 We’ve got horror stories for sure.
0:29:41 Yeah.
0:29:42 Yeah.
0:29:46 The biggest one we have that we get a hoot out of is there was a couple of
0:29:47 ladies in Pennsylvania.
0:29:49 They were renting an RV for a couple of months.
0:29:55 They were going all the way to California and back brand new RV day.
0:29:56 Number two, they wake up.
0:30:01 They have bed bug bites like head to toe bed bug bites.
0:30:03 We’re getting treatments.
0:30:05 We’re getting them hotels.
0:30:06 We’re getting them rental cars.
0:30:09 We’re like, ladies, do your, you’re like, my saying was always like, no rental
0:30:13 canceled, like we’ll get them through because if you’re an RV or you get it,
0:30:15 like things go wrong, things break.
0:30:17 That’s like part of the RV experience.
0:30:19 Like things are going to happen, right?
0:30:23 It’s a house going down the road shaking and things are, it just, things happen.
0:30:28 We got these ladies all the way to California and back and come to find out.
0:30:30 We’re just, you know, we’re like, what in the world happened?
0:30:34 We’re talking to the owner of this RV and trying to just figure this out.
0:30:36 She’s like, well, it’s not me.
0:30:37 I work at a women’s shelter.
0:30:38 I deal with bed bugs all the day.
0:30:40 I know it’s nothing to do with me.
0:30:41 Nothing to do with you.
0:30:43 The light bulb goes off.
0:30:44 Well, you work at a women’s shelter.
0:30:48 You deal with bed bugs all day long and your brand new RV has bed bugs in it.
0:30:50 You don’t think there’s any connection there?
0:30:52 Yikes.
0:30:53 Yeah.
0:30:54 That’s challenging.
0:30:58 Have you ever had the example of, I guess if you do enough volume, it’s
0:31:03 bound to happen, but somebody damaging the vehicle or trashing the vehicle or
0:31:06 like, how do you protect the owners from something like that?
0:31:10 Same as Airbnb and Toro, there’s insurance, there’s security deposits,
0:31:14 there’s driver verifications, there’s contracts, but it definitely happens.
0:31:17 That’s one of the things that I encouraged by franchisees on.
0:31:21 When you’re talking to RV owners, if they’re super hyper sensitive about
0:31:27 people being in their RV or damages is just let them know, hey, this
0:31:30 probably isn’t the program for you because obviously there’s, you know,
0:31:33 some emotional connection to that RV, which makes sense.
0:31:35 And damages are going to happen.
0:31:39 I mean, I just had issues with my Airbnb last weekend, whether it’s a
0:31:40 house and RV or whatever.
0:31:45 I mean, people are going to not show proper respect and certain scenarios.
0:31:47 And two, just things are going to happen.
0:31:48 Things are going to break.
0:31:49 So that definitely does happen for sure.
0:31:56 Yeah, you found the platform insurance is adequate or they’re reasonably
0:32:00 responsive to customer service requests when stuff like that does come through.
0:32:00 Yeah.
0:32:01 Yeah, they’re great.
0:32:02 RV share is phenomenal.
0:32:07 We just had a situation with RV share where there was some damages.
0:32:11 The security deposit did not process on their credit card.
0:32:12 The renter’s credit card.
0:32:14 We caught it too late.
0:32:16 RV share just sent us the money.
0:32:17 They’re phenomenal.
0:32:20 Do I need a commercial license to go drive a 30 footer?
0:32:22 Like, it seems huge.
0:32:23 Yeah, you would think so.
0:32:29 You really would because you can get a drivable RV up to 42 foot long.
0:32:31 Yeah, it’s the size of a school bus.
0:32:35 Yeah, people are literally buying these things at the dealership.
0:32:38 You got a 70 year old retired couple that are like, all right, thanks.
0:32:39 This is great.
0:32:41 We’re hitting the road and they’re just pulling out the road.
0:32:43 Like, there’s no licensing.
0:32:44 There’s no requirement.
0:32:49 They can be in these huge, monstrous diesel built on Freightliner chassis.
0:32:54 That’s a six figure class A’s and they’re just on the road.
0:32:55 Okay.
0:33:01 Yeah, that’s, I mean, I guess positive that it’s accessible to everybody.
0:33:05 Nerve racking, if that is your baby that some Rindo, no experienced person
0:33:07 has taken out onto the highway for the first time.
0:33:12 Yeah, the class A’s definitely, those are the number one damage RVs out of all of them
0:33:16 because they’re just huge the way that you’re sitting on it and you’re turning
0:33:18 radius and the swing in the back and stuff like that.
0:33:19 Yeah.
0:33:23 Is there a sweet spot that you like to play in in terms of the class or the
0:33:25 size of RV or trailer?
0:33:29 Bunkhouse, travel trailers and fifth wheels are very popular because the
0:33:34 audience that we’re seeking to serve is families typically.
0:33:35 So it’s typically the family.
0:33:38 They’re going on their summer family camping trip.
0:33:41 They’re going to be at a state park for a week or it’s the family.
0:33:42 They’re getting in a driveable RV.
0:33:43 They’re going to Disney.
0:33:46 They’re going to California and so on.
0:33:51 And then the big class A’s, those are typically rented more for like the high
0:33:53 end events where people are flying in.
0:33:56 They want everything top of the line.
0:33:57 They’re not even driving their RV.
0:34:00 It’s getting delivered there and they’re just showing up to use it.
0:34:00 Okay.
0:34:04 Talk to me about the next stage of this business because I think this is an
0:34:06 interesting fork in the road.
0:34:08 So you find something that works.
0:34:09 You’re signing up these other RV owners.
0:34:11 You’re collecting your fee.
0:34:12 They’re getting booked.
0:34:12 They’re making money.
0:34:13 Everybody is happy.
0:34:16 You’re dealing with the headaches as they come up like any entrepreneur does.
0:34:18 So we found something that works.
0:34:22 But to really scale this thing, we need to go really broad.
0:34:25 We need to be in more geographies and it’s just difficult to do.
0:34:26 So we need like boots on the ground.
0:34:29 We need franchisees in these different areas.
0:34:35 So you start to franchise fireside RVRental.com versus, you know, an alternative
0:34:38 path would have been like, I’ll create the online course on how to start an RV
0:34:42 business or just continue to hire local branch managers.
0:34:43 Like there’s different paths.
0:34:44 So what attracted you to the franchise model?
0:34:48 Because this is mired in red tape, regulatory standpoint.
0:34:51 Does it get a franchise approved if my understanding is correct?
0:34:52 Yeah, very much is.
0:34:55 I think it was my entrepreneurial that kind of led me up to this one.
0:34:57 My entrepreneurial journey.
0:35:01 I owned a credit counseling company and I created like a business in a box
0:35:03 opportunity to show other people how to do what I was doing.
0:35:05 And my whole niche was creating homeowners.
0:35:10 I’d build a real estate portfolio, multifamily unit rental properties.
0:35:16 And I’d done a good job of automating and systems and people running my rentals for me.
0:35:18 Like I didn’t use property management companies.
0:35:20 I had people that worked for me and then my credit.
0:35:25 So it was kind of all the combination of things that led up to this to where once
0:35:29 I decided, okay, to continue to scale this, what do I want to do?
0:35:34 And really what I wanted to do is I wanted to create passive continuity.
0:35:35 I wanted to create reoccurring income.
0:35:42 And what was a way for me to do that, it was to have the model where I’m showing
0:35:46 somebody, but I’m also offering them support and I’m getting a percentage of the revenue.
0:35:50 So it actually happened through one of the Facebook groups for this industry up here
0:35:51 to peer Facebook group.
0:35:53 I was just in there sharing.
0:35:55 You know, you’re all excited about the thing that you’re doing, you know,
0:35:57 something there and I’m teaching people and sharing and this and that.
0:36:01 Some guy says, Hey, why don’t you start one of those up here in the upper
0:36:02 peninsula of Michigan?
0:36:03 Yeah.
0:36:05 And I was down in the lower peninsula, West Michigan.
0:36:07 I said, Yeah, let’s do it, man.
0:36:10 I said, tell you what, you be my guinea pig and we’ll start it.
0:36:11 I won’t charge you anything.
0:36:13 And then we’ll prove the model and then go from there.
0:36:14 And so that’s what I did.
0:36:18 And he’s still with us today, Kim, Kim in the upper peninsula of Michigan.
0:36:19 Okay.
0:36:19 Okay.
0:36:20 Yep.
0:36:22 And then I turned it into like a biz in a box.
0:36:26 I charged $995 and then I got a percentage of their revenue.
0:36:29 And then I had my office girls who were like answering the inquiries and
0:36:33 offering ongoing support to get a percentage of the revenue.
0:36:34 Oh, okay.
0:36:34 Okay.
0:36:38 So it was kind of a hybrid model, like this education component, plus
0:36:41 ongoing support, plus we’ll still take a, you succeed.
0:36:43 We succeed type of thing.
0:36:44 We’re still going to take a fee.
0:36:44 Okay.
0:36:44 Yeah.
0:36:48 So it’s like, yeah, kind of a white glove service and we offer this and that.
0:36:51 And then it went to, okay, now it’s $5,000.
0:36:53 Now it’s $10,000.
0:36:55 And now we offer this and we offer that.
0:36:58 And now we’re going to manage your website and your social media.
0:37:01 Oh, we negotiated a special agreement with RV share.
0:37:03 You get part of that agreement.
0:37:06 And I had a handful of locations.
0:37:09 My location was running on autopilot.
0:37:11 I had sold my credit counseling business on owner finance.
0:37:14 I had built a decent real estate portfolio.
0:37:16 So I had a good amount of revenue coming in from all these sources.
0:37:20 And so I just, I really got kind of passive and was just hanging out.
0:37:22 And there was the Lord again.
0:37:24 He said, it’s time to franchise.
0:37:26 I said, no, thank you.
0:37:30 And a week or a month later, he’s like, it’s time to franchise.
0:37:31 And it was a couple of months conversation.
0:37:34 Finally, I did it just like you said, right?
0:37:35 Red tape.
0:37:37 I mean, this, it cost me six figures to do it.
0:37:39 It took over a year to do it.
0:37:43 It was, I mean, our franchise disclosure documents, like 200 pages, not wired that
0:37:43 way.
0:37:45 I want to run and hustle and grind.
0:37:50 I don’t want documents and red tape and FTC and all that kind of stuff.
0:37:51 But I did it.
0:37:55 We walked through the process and here we are today.
0:37:55 Well, very good.
0:38:00 You’re signing up people all over the place to start their own fireside RV
0:38:03 rental chapter franchise in their local area.
0:38:05 You said 45 locations around the country at this point.
0:38:06 Yeah.
0:38:10 I think we got about 45 locations and hundreds and hundreds of RVs under management.
0:38:11 Yeah.
0:38:12 It’s just world domination.
0:38:14 One RV at a time.
0:38:15 Fascinating.
0:38:20 Is there a target that you say, we want to be in the top
0:38:21 hundred RV market?
0:38:22 Like, how do you even measure?
0:38:23 Like, where does this thing go?
0:38:25 We want a hundred franchisees.
0:38:27 We want some level of bookings every season or something.
0:38:31 You know, it’s interesting as you grow as an entrepreneur, your goals are
0:38:32 constantly changing, right?
0:38:39 The goal was, okay, I want a eight figure valuation by the end of 2024.
0:38:42 That was the goal, the beginning of last year.
0:38:47 And then the goal, I just went to a conference mastermind junkie.
0:38:49 I just, I love going to conferences and learning and all that.
0:38:52 And then after I just went to this recent conference, I’m like, okay, the
0:38:56 goal is 250 locations by the end of 2024.
0:38:59 One of the speakers there was Dr. Benjamin Hardy.
0:39:03 And he spoke on his book, 10X is easier than 2X.
0:39:07 He just talked about just set goals that like completely blow out the floor.
0:39:08 You have to rethink everything.
0:39:09 Like you’re starting from scratch.
0:39:12 So I talked to my business partner like 250 locations.
0:39:13 That’s the goal.
0:39:17 So we hired a marketing firm and we got leads just flooding every day.
0:39:22 And then it was really, it was like, none of those are my goals anymore.
0:39:27 It’s really just serving the people that join our community and just living a
0:39:29 balanced life is the goal now.
0:39:30 So we do that, right?
0:39:32 We’re generating 40, 50 franchise leads a day.
0:39:36 I’m on 30, 40 calls a week, I hire a sales rep.
0:39:37 He’s on 30, 40 calls.
0:39:39 And I’m in this extreme imbalance.
0:39:40 I’m like, I don’t want that.
0:39:41 You know, I want the balance.
0:39:44 I want, you’re constantly reevaluating, you know, as an entrepreneur.
0:39:48 It’s amazing how quickly the goals turn and shift.
0:39:49 Yeah.
0:39:52 You get used to a certain level of success and comfort.
0:39:54 And then the goalpost moves again.
0:39:59 It’s some level of hedonic adaptation, but it’s some level of going back to
0:40:02 your six figure summer and saying, well, how much is enough?
0:40:03 What are we doing this for?
0:40:06 Are we, we’re good, you know, it’s going back to the time with the family,
0:40:10 supporting the people in the community, being a part of that community.
0:40:12 I think it’s definitely an interesting one.
0:40:14 I appreciate you sharing all of that.
0:40:20 Mywheelestatestory.com, that’s Wheel Estate, like wheels on your RV.
0:40:22 You can check out Gar’s book over there.
0:40:25 Mywheelestatestory.com, love it.
0:40:29 And FiresideRVRental.com, you can check them out over there.
0:40:33 Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side hustle nation.
0:40:35 All work works.
0:40:39 I’ve really been digging that saying the last year is as entrepreneurs, we do
0:40:43 something and it doesn’t work out the way that we think it does, that it should.
0:40:49 And we think it was a failure, but really all work, all action that we take works.
0:40:52 And it’s either working on us, it’s changing us.
0:40:56 It’s helping us to grow as a person, overcome insecurities, fears, doubts
0:40:59 worries, or it’s doing the thing we want to do.
0:41:01 It’s working for us, like there’s results, right?
0:41:04 We’re generating, we’re adding customers, the business is growing.
0:41:07 But I just, I want to encourage people in that all work works.
0:41:10 So it works on you, it works for you.
0:41:14 But the biggest thing is don’t stop doing the things, don’t stop doing the work.
0:41:19 And do you have an example of some work that didn’t work out the way you wanted it to?
0:41:21 You’re like, I reached a dead end and now I got to go back.
0:41:25 You know, just with the recent marketing that we started doing, we hired a marketing firm
0:41:31 that just for their monthly services, it was $10,000 a month plus our ad spend.
0:41:33 And that was a huge step of faith for us.
0:41:39 And what we realized was after these two and a half months that we were with them is
0:41:42 all we really needed to do was increase our ad spend.
0:41:46 But it was when I had that all in, like we’re going to 250 locations.
0:41:47 Yeah.
0:41:49 Kind of dropping the floor out from under me.
0:41:51 It was, OK, we’re all in.
0:41:53 So we hired this marketing firm.
0:41:55 Yeah, we learned a bunch of amazing stuff from them.
0:42:00 But the biggest thing we learned is really if we would have simply just increased
0:42:01 because that’s part of what they had us do.
0:42:03 We increased our ad spend by five fold.
0:42:08 If we would have just done that to begin with, we would have been very similar results.
0:42:09 Save the $10,000 fee.
0:42:11 Yeah, but you think, right?
0:42:13 OK, we’re going big leagues now.
0:42:14 We need to do all these things.
0:42:18 And we did learn some amazing things and we’re still using them on a lower scale.
0:42:20 But it was funny in hindsight.
0:42:23 We learned like really, we just could have increased our ad spend.
0:42:27 But we learned a lot about our metrics and how much it costs us to book a call
0:42:29 and our average customer value.
0:42:31 We learned a lot of important things.
0:42:35 So the work definitely worked inside of us and taught us a bunch of stuff.
0:42:39 But really what worked for us was just increasing our ad spend by five times.
0:42:41 All right, fair enough.
0:42:44 But it’s one of those things where, like you said, all work works.
0:42:47 You don’t know until you test it out and see what happens.
0:42:49 So I appreciate you sharing that.
0:42:53 And I think that is definitely relevant for side hustle show listeners.
0:42:56 Like you might be feeling like you’re grinding away at something.
0:43:01 But even if it’s not getting you the results you want, it is still hopefully
0:43:06 resulting in some level of education or improving your skills and processes
0:43:10 in some area that you can pivot and apply to something else if need be.
0:43:14 Or, you know, to keep on going and breaking through all work works.
0:43:17 That may be a new one from six hundred and something episodes.
0:43:18 I may not have heard that one before.
0:43:22 So I like that one couple of takeaways for me before we wrap.
0:43:26 And number one is thinking of these expensive underutilized assets.
0:43:29 That’s the sweet spot to make a rental business work where especially
0:43:33 and maybe a bulky item that somebody may not want to travel with.
0:43:35 Like we had a mobility scooter rental episode.
0:43:37 That was really interesting.
0:43:39 We’ve seen people do this with photo booths
0:43:43 with what’s called like a champagne wall or like a donut peg board
0:43:45 that we rent out for like weddings or something.
0:43:49 It’s like it’ll cost you one afternoon and a hundred bucks worth of materials
0:43:50 to build this thing.
0:43:52 You rent it out for a hundred bucks per wedding.
0:43:53 I love businesses like that.
0:43:58 So I think that’s fascinating stuff and then just tapping into existing
0:44:00 marketplaces, the RV shares of the world.
0:44:04 Like if something like that exists in whatever niche that you are considering,
0:44:06 that’s probably a good sign.
0:44:10 And if you can go and recruit other people to say, hey, have you ever thought
0:44:13 about putting your thing up for rent there or even if you are.
0:44:16 But maybe it’s a pain like you mentioned with the other RV owner.
0:44:18 Like is it really worth the time effort?
0:44:20 Oh, hey, we’ll do all the work for you.
0:44:22 Just pay us half the fee and we’ll take care of it for you.
0:44:24 Make it easy, make it easy.
0:44:28 Now, we’ve been chatting RVs in this episode, but like we’ve kind of tossed
0:44:32 in here or there, certainly not the only things that you can rent out for a profit.
0:44:35 Get your creative juices flow and I want to invite you to download
0:44:38 your exclusive listener only bonus for this episode.
0:44:43 That’s my list of 25 other unconventional rental ideas.
0:44:45 Just hit the link in the episode description.
0:44:47 You’ll be able to grab that for free.
0:44:50 Now, as promised at the top of the show, we talked about four types of passive income.
0:44:54 One is Gar’s model, renting out other people’s stuff or renting.
0:44:57 You don’t have to be other people’s stuff, but just renting something out.
0:44:59 Get paid over and over again from something that you buy once.
0:45:01 Love it. And maybe maybe you don’t even have to buy it.
0:45:03 I think it’s a creative example.
0:45:04 So that’s number one.
0:45:07 Number two is to buy cash flowing assets.
0:45:09 This is the old takes money to make money option.
0:45:11 This could be dividend investing.
0:45:12 This could be real estate.
0:45:14 This could be business lending, stuff like that.
0:45:15 Great model.
0:45:18 If the important part, if you already have money to invest.
0:45:19 That’s the bottleneck for most people.
0:45:21 Third one is to build assets.
0:45:23 This is the sweat equity option.
0:45:25 This is building something of value.
0:45:27 It could be a digital product.
0:45:28 It could be a website.
0:45:32 It could be a collection of YouTube videos on a video channel.
0:45:34 Could earn advertising revenue.
0:45:37 This is the space that I have typically played in the sweat equity option,
0:45:40 trying to build passive income assets.
0:45:43 Obviously takes a lot of time, takes a lot of creative energy to do that,
0:45:47 but can run relatively passive or relatively time leveraged.
0:45:48 Sometimes for years, if set up right.
0:45:51 And the fourth one is probably the most overlooked one.
0:45:55 And this is what I call reverse passive income is what you earn when you cut
0:45:57 your ongoing monthly expenses.
0:46:00 You switch your cell phone providers, you cut out the gym membership.
0:46:01 You start working out from home.
0:46:04 It’s the saving money is go straight to your bottom line.
0:46:06 Reverse passive income model.
0:46:09 Those are the four that I teased at the top of the show.
0:46:12 But Gar, thanks so much for sharing your insight.
0:46:15 Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:46:20 You can hit up side hustle nation dot com slash deals for all the latest offers
0:46:22 from our sponsors in one place.
0:46:24 Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show.
0:46:25 That’s it for me.
0:46:28 Thank you so much for tuning in until next time.
0:46:30 Let’s go out there and make something happen.
0:46:33 And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the side hustle show.
0:46:34 Hustle on.
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