How To Build A Winning Business Culture || Interview With Jason Haugen

Jason Haugen, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much.

Good to have you on. For people that don't know you, never followed you before, can you give us a 30-second thumbnail, just clip of who you are, what you do? You do incredible stuff in the RV space. We've been friends for a while, been on your show before, but give us— give the listeners like a 30-second overview of you.

So Jason Haugen is the name. I'm the founder, CEO of the Haugen RV Group. We got 9 locations across Missouri, Oregon, and Utah. I also am the host of the Culture Camp podcast where we talk about culture and entrepreneurship and team building and all that good stuff. I speak, I consult, I do a lot of culture coaching in businesses with executives and different things like that. And got a lovely wife and a little daughter and just family dude and just me.

Yeah, I love it. I'm excited for the show. I got a bunch of fun stuff I want to ask you because you're very multi, multidimensional. I feel like you've got You got a bunch of cool stuff to talk about.

So, I'm kind of everywhere. It's good. It's good and bad, but I love it because I just— I feel like once I complete something, I have to just keep chasing something else.

Well, let's— I want to ask, I think this is cool for people listening. You have bought how many jets now?

This would be our 3rd one.

Okay, so walk us through why you're buying jets, number one, and then how you make the economics work behind buying 3 private jets.

Yeah. So a couple of them— well, one of them we have as a lease. So it's actually just— it's a super good deal because it basically just We buy a block, and then we use that block whenever we want to, and then we don't— it's a super good deal.

Cool.

Um, one of them is just a little jet that's pretty much my personal plane that we don't charter out. It just kinda chills and it just does its thing. OK, on the street. But we're a partner in it, which totally makes 10 times more sense than ever having your own airplane. A lot of the guys that get around wanna brag and own a plane outright, and I'm like, dude, you're an idiot. There's no physical possible way that a human being unless money is at any end, like, doesn't even matter to them. And they could just, like, piss away about $2 million a year just because it sounds cool.

Yeah.

Um, to own their own airplane outright. So we actually share it with a couple other guys. We have a quarter of it, which I'm not afraid to say, because that is the smartest way. You pay a quarter of the expenses and you use it the exact— I use it the exact same as I would use it if I had my own.

'Cause you're not flying every day and every weekend.

That'd be impossible, right? And economically, sometimes it doesn't make sense. And economically, sometimes it's cheaper to fly private, and people don't really realize that. I mean, then one of them, our big, big one is a Gulfstream. That's a complete charter plane. We turn that into a revenue stream and pretty much just mitigates all the costs and make a little chunk of change. But really, there's a lot of tax advantages to airplanes you can write off. I believe now it's 80% of the purchase price in one year.

Yeah, last year was 100%. This year is 80%. I think next year it's going to 60%, right? Yeah.

So we bought all of our planes last year, 100% write-off. And yeah, I mean, then you can move it forward so you can do like a 5-year depreciation schedule, 3-year, I believe, or take it all in 1 year. Yep. So yeah, that's pretty cool.

So that's vehicles over, you know, any vehicle over 6,000 pounds. So that can be boats, it can be planes, it can be cars, it can be whatever, which is— they're trying to adjust that tax code right now. It's pretty interesting. How much— so on that Gulfstream, for example, walk me through like the economics, like what's the breakdown of how much it costs to run, maintain, and then how much you make from chartering? Like, let's just say in a year or a month, just give me some examples.

Yeah. I mean, for Your hourly cost, like your, your maybe like my hourly cost is probably $4,000 an hour. And that includes your maintenance, your fuel, your pilots, your air, like everything.

So $4,000 an hour.

$4,000 across the board. You could charter it out for $7,000, $8,000 an hour. So, and I'm sure most people that have been like, yeah, charter plane, you know, you're in that $7,000, $8,000 an hour like it's nothing. My, my little I guess I call it a little plane. It's a little 6-seater. It's going to be 8 seats or I guess 9 seats because we're putting a couch in it and then belting the toilet, belting the lav, which no one's ever going to sit on it. Right. But we just call it an extra seat.

Yeah.

That is only about $1,800 an hour.

Interesting.

So, yeah, I mean, for me to go to— like, I flew to Colorado one time, me and one of my business partners flew over there and it was like $1,600 there and back for fuel. Yeah, dude, I can't take 6 people even on a Delta flight, not first class for $1,600. That's impossible. Now you are paying like on top of that, you're paying pilots on top of that, you're paying some of the things, but it's not as expensive as people think. Interesting.

So back to the Gulfstream one, how often is that rented out at $7,000 or $8,000 an hour?

So average—

Yeah, what does it look like?

You're averaging around 80 hours a month.

Okay.

So yeah, I mean, it's pretty good revenue. Yeah.

Are there a lot of fixed costs associated with the plane though? So if it's not rented out?

Oh yeah. I mean, just for the plane to sit there and you never touch it is about $1.5 million a year.

Oh wow, okay.

Yeah, I mean, you're paying pilot salaries for $20,000 or probably about $30,000 a month. Right. I think we— and we're hiring another crew. So we actually have 2 pilots right now. I think that we're hiring— I haven't talked to them in a little bit, but because they have to go through training. But yeah, we'll have 4 pilots and it will nonstop just run so that we don't have a hangar because I hope it never sits in a hangar.

I just want to always cruise. Wow. That's interesting. So 80 hours a month. What's your break-even point on per month? Let's just say how many hours is it going to be flying to like where we break even?

About 60, 65 hours to break even. Yeah. So, I mean, your net-net's not massive amounts of money. Yeah, but you're getting that, you know, that write-off and you're making a little chunk of change and you're paying off the principal. And, you know, and our interest rate's super, super good because we bought it when interest rates were super low. Cool. So it totally made sense for us.

Very interesting. Cool. So huge tax write-off. Massive. Number one. So if you have a lot of income coming in, passive or active income, you can write— and which bucket does that go into, by the way? Is it active, passive? Does it hit across the board on depreciation?

Yeah, it kind of hits across the board on depreciation, mostly on just your personal income and you just write it off.

Yeah, cool. So you get the depreciation and then 60 hours a week, you're about break even. Then if you hit 80, 90, if you guys are just full 24/7, I mean, you're going to probably hit a lot more than that. Yeah. And use a charter service to book those chartered flights out.

Yep. Yep. And like what we're trying to do right now is actually the Gulfstream we're trying to sell on a 365-day charter.

Oh, wow.

So yeah, there's a company that wants to— that will basically charter out for 365 days and it's guaranteed 70 hours a month. Guaranteed cover. Like, all these things are guarantees.

Oh, cool.

They'll pay for the pilot movements. And so we're really trying to sell that because then there's really no stress. You know exactly what you're going to get. This is it. And quite often with airplanes, they break down. I mean, that is a reason why, like, celebrities— I don't know, like, a lot of, like, music— musicians, like comedians, like, you know, Kevin Hart and all these guys, they charter 100% where they go.

Interesting.

Now, could they afford their own plane?

Why not buy private?

They break down all the time. They're always breaking down. And so when you charter with a service, it's guaranteed, right? Like, it's always going to happen.

You don't have to worry about it breaking down.

You don't ever have to worry about anything. You just show up to the airport, you get on, you leave. You show up to the airport. Even if you have a problem there, when you leave the airport, they're going to replace the airplane guaranteed and then you can fly somewhere. So that is a problem. Like with our, with our Gulfstream, it's been a few maintenance issues. I got a couple of buddies with other airplanes and charter fleets and they, you know, something goes down and especially during COVID you couldn't get parts.

Yeah.

So if it's down for 3 or 4 weeks and you just You know, you lost money. Yeah. And so it is kind of this dicey game. You know, it's high stakes. And like, we've had some conversations of like, man, do we want to keep playing this game? Like, it's sketchy because, heck, our Wi-Fi unit was $400,000. Wow. The couch in our little Phenom is $300,000. And so—

Hold on. Why is a couch $300,000 for a plane?

It's a great question. It's the couch and a couple of other things.

Pay me $300 grand. I'll get you a couch from the place. I'll just Bolt it in, dog.

For some reason, when you put aircraft or airworthiness or anything in front of it, it just boosts it by like a million percent. It's crazy.

Well, let's launch a company, Aircraft Couches.

That's what I'm saying.

Jason and Bridger, let's do it.

You know the skids on a helicopter? There's like one company who makes those skids, and they're about $50,000, sometimes $75,000. And it's just pieces of metal welded together, bolted on the bottom of a helicopter. But there's one company that is FAA-certified to be able to do it.

Gotcha.

And so it's kinda this game that is played by these manufacturers of these units. But yeah, $400,000, and the monthly service is like $6,000 a month for Wi-Fi. And so it's just— anything aviation just boosts through the roof of everything, especially if there's the name Gulfstream in front of it.

Interesting.

So, I mean, we've been, like, you know, chartering out, like, hey, this is awesome, but do we wanna keep playing the risk? Do we wanna play the risk? We love the write-off, but then you're out You know, a bunch of cash and stuff happens. Like, it's playing this game. And so have you heard of—

there's apparently government will rent your plane for like $365,000.

Yeah. No, I actually have a couple guys that I'm very close with that have rented a lot of their bigger jets. Now the government's looking for big, big ones. So they want big ones.

Yeah, they're looking for big, big ones that they'll rent out for a year and pay a premium or whatever. Yeah, cool.

Yeah, for sure.

Very interesting. It's a cool game. It's like, it's kind of like almost like Airbnbs or Turo, but just on steroids. Yeah. Oh yeah.

And it's a little— yeah, it's very Very cat-like. You know, you got to have that, you know, that cash and that nut to crack.

And how long are you guys into— like, how many— how long have you guys done this for?

So the charter plane is relatively new to us, but I do have some family members and some, some business partners and stuff that have done it for a very long time. So I'm very familiar with the model.

Yeah.

But actually, my mom and dad, when I was growing up, had their own jet for 7 years or 9 years or 11 years. I can't remember what it was. It was a long time. Most of my childhood they had their own jet. So I'm very familiar with it. And then we've had our, like, the little Pilatus for, I think, almost 2 and a half years. And the Phenom has been Only since September. We got that in September. But that is my favorite airplane. I mean, I love that.

The Phenom one?

Oh yeah, dude, I love that thing. And it's super fast, very comfortable, very quiet, very economical where I'm not just like—

Yeah, the hourly rate's not too bad.

I mean, I can go to Cabo and back for less than $10,000 with 6 people. You can't do that with first-class tickets. So I love that airplane.

What's that like flying over a border?

It's easy.

Do you do customs or something?

Yeah, I mean, it basically just come on. You good, good, good, good. Where's your passport? Boom, boom, boom, boom, and you're done.

Really?

Yeah, they give you, you know, flying to Mexico, they give you a little ticket.

They're not checking the hole for cocaine and stuff?

Not really, man. They really, they especially, um, places like Cabo, places like, well, in Mexico and other places, they're, they're really just wanting the, one of the business, you know. They don't want to, you know, want you not to come there. Yeah. Now I've never flown to Canada, never flown to Europe.

Yep.

And my sister lives in Canada, so we've thought about it, but the airport by her house doesn't have customs, so we'd have to fly into the international airport anyway. So I'm like, is it really worth the time and the money and stuff like that? Yep. Um, but so I don't know them. I, I've never— I mean, Canada is a little more strict of anything.

Yep.

Um, so I've never done that, never flown to Europe, so never— I don't know.

But Cabo is interesting. Cabo is easy. They just want you there. And 10 grand from Salt Lake City, Utah to To Cabo. To Cabo. $10,000. That's for 6 people.

They're in the back. 6 people. Yeah.

Wow.

That's really— and our plane can haul 6 people, all the luggage you can dream of. And dude, I fit a trailer. Like, I have a video of a picture on my Instagram, but I fit a little mini trailer in that plane.

What do you mean?

Like, Indiana one time. So I want a little— it looks like a little RV trailer.

Like a wagon or something?

It's probably— yeah. I mean, it's maybe half the size or a little bit, 3 quarters of this table.

Okay.

And I fit it in the back of the plane and it I have his picture I'll have to show you. It's hilarious. But, uh, but yeah, I mean, it can, it can haul the weight. But that's why I love the airplane, because airplanes are, especially jets, are very finicky on weight. I mean, I actually got caught one time where I had a plane breakdown, had a charter plane, and we all couldn't go on. Even there was enough seats, we all couldn't fit on the plane with our baggage. And so I actually had to have my father-in-law fly commercial home. Oh, I felt bad.

But you kicked him off?

Your father-in-law?

You picked somebody?

I tried to pick me, but I was like, dude, like I mean, it doesn't really matter, but then they— I'm the one that chartered. They wanted me on the plane. All these— it was just kind of— he's like, dude, he's like, I'll fly home. It was funny. It was a crazy story coming back from the Rose Bowl a couple of years ago.

Oh, okay, cool.

It was—

it was— it was good. That's awesome. So you mentioned your parents. Yeah. We talked about when I was on your show about second-generation entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

And I want to— walk me through what was your experience with your parents being, you know, having money or having cool businesses and how that affected you starting your businesses?

Right. Yeah.

I mean, tell us about your story.

You got a funny story because you didn't know that your dad had any money. We, we, we knew my mom and dad because they were motivational speakers and they had grew big businesses.

They're on stage. They're out there.

Yeah, they're doing all kinds of stuff. And we obviously had a plane and different things. Yeah. And we had a tour bus growing up, which is super cool. That's why I love the RV industry.

Yeah.

And it's been awesome. I learned so much from my dad and so much from my mom. Like, I owe them so much for my life personally because they've showed— they paved the way. I mean, they instilled a dream in me. They instilled vision in me. Um, like, they're— I mean, they are very highly paid. I mean, back in the '80s and '90s, they were getting paid $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 an hour to speak.

Wow.

I mean, I can't imagine what that is now.

Yeah.

And they— I mean, I got to hang out with them at the dinner table, and it was like a seminar every, every dinner table.

Yeah, cool.

And it just— I've learned so much from them, and it was cool to see them chase it. But the coolest thing, honestly, was them just like— to see them chase it together. That was very interesting because everybody's like, Randy Haugen, you know, my dad, my like I'm like, no, my mom was right there with them. I was speaking on the stage.

I mean, they, they, they're out there together doing it.

Very cool. Yeah. I mean, I've seen a picture of my mom when she spoke at the Georgia Dome when they sold out. It's still to this day the largest business meeting ever held. 97,000 people sold out of the Georgia Dome. And my mom's speaking out there and you see this little itty-bitty person.

Yeah.

Big, massive arena speaking. Wow. I mean, that's, that's amazing. And so I've always wanted to do what they did. So when I, you know, got out of high school, I joined a network marketing company because that's what they did. That's what they were in.

It was all through network marketing, right? All through network marketing.

And he also owned a ton of different businesses, like helped start Costa Vida, which we all know here in Utah.

Yeah, cool.

You know, a bunch of— a mortgage company, a real estate company, construction, homebuilding. Well, actually, like 12 Johnny Carino's. I don't know if you've heard of Johnny Carino's, like Italian restaurants. We own them in Atlanta. He's been, you know, with, with your dad back when it was the Rock Fund, you know, got in there early and with, with you or your, your dad and Paul and just has done so many different things. I mean, he's owned probably 40 different companies.

Yeah, cool.

And so, you know, a lot of it was, was network marketing. A lot of it was not network marketing.

Yeah.

And just watch them hustle.

It's cool to see you come and now be an entrepreneur as well, because oftentimes you see the kids of parents like that that are on stage, that are out there, that are so whatever, right? The kids almost go the opposite way, right? Right. And they whether rebel or go— walk me through that. Has that been with your siblings? You guys, how did your parents instill that, at least into you? How'd that— what was that dynamic like?

You know, it's— they never forced us to do anything. They never forced us to do homework. They never— I don't, I don't know of a single time my mom ever asked me if I ever did my homework, ever. We self-policed ourselves. I got straight A's, 4.0 my whole entire life. And it's just like— and maybe it's because we saw the work ethic. Like, my mom and dad, to be successful, you knew you had to work.

Yeah.

I mean, they were gone 300 days a year. I mean, they were on the road for 25 years.

Did you guys travel with them?

Sometimes. As much as we could. But we usually spend the summers on the road. So they'd literally pick us up from school in their tour bus. Like, they'd park it out in the front. Last day of school, we'd walk out there, get on it, and they would basically drop us back. the first day of school. And so, you know, it was cool. And, you know, let's talk about second-generation entrepreneurship. We actually have— we're statistically like less likely to become entrepreneurs than first generation because of what, you know, and I was talking with this actually person, a lady on my show, her name's Kalani Michelle. And she's like, do you know this? And I'm like, I kind of thought about it. And she's like, but I didn't know it was like an actual real statistic. And she's like, yeah, because you—

Interesting.

Like, a lot of second-generation entrepreneurs don't really know, especially if they're joining a family business or they're doing something like their parents did, they don't really know what it took to get there. And so they kinda just join assuming, hey, I'm gonna— something good's gonna happen to me, and when Dad dies or retires and moves on, I'm gonna get it.

Yeah.

And my attitude's never been like that. I wanted to be Jason Haugen. I didn't wanna be Randy Haugen's son. No disrespect to my dad. But I went under my own identity.

Yeah.

Yep. And it was a little bit different than my, my sister and my, my brothers.

Yeah. What's their dynamic?

What's— you know, my— they're my brothers, my twin. I'm actually twins. So my twin brother is an entrepreneur. He's got a couple of food trucks. I mean, he actually works for our, our dealerships and is the inventory director for our dealerships. And then my older brother is our parts director for the dealerships. And then my sister's actually— she owns a grocery store up in Canada. So that's where she lives. Like a little— it's called No Frills. It's like a little more of a discount shop or like a WinCo here in Utah or more of a grocery store like that, about that size.

Yep.

And so we're all like, have that in us. But really, like me, like I just wanted to take the reins. Like I wanted to be me and like keep the legacy going.

Yep.

Like the Haugen name going.

Yep.

That meant more to me than anything, especially with like speaking and stuff, because my dad has impacted so many people and lives. Like he's more well-known for what he's done and helped people than he is for really the money he's ever made. And you will never hear that. And you never even know that he's ever made any money because he shops at Walmart. Wears goofy little t-shirts.

Yeah, yeah.

Just chills and is a good dude, which is a great example. And you know, my mom and I have been together almost 50 years. Been married almost 50 years.

What a cool thing. Yeah. It's funny, I had a similar dynamic with my parents. I've always had just growing up the thought of, and I still have this, I'm getting $0 if they just are, if they die, whatever, I'm getting zero.

Right.

And I got to make, but I got to, I got 2 great mentors that I can tap into.

Yeah.

But I'm not getting anything. And my dad, we've never partnered on business ever. Never done anything together. I know he comes and like he'll help coach and like in our group and stuff because he does funds.

Right.

And been a great mentor, but no money, no partnerships, nothing. And it's been actually phenomenal for me, has built my own confidence.

Right.

I think it would be a big dis— I don't know. So you can maybe, maybe have friends as well, but I think it'd be a big disservice to your confidence if you were given mom or dad's business and that's what made you successful.

Right.

And in the back of your brain, you would always think, well, I was just handed this, or I was just given this. Or people would tell you that, right? And I've seen some big names in Utah that we probably both know, where the kids of these first amazing billionaire generation, the kids inherit it.

Right.

And they are miserably depressed and anxious their entire lives because they show up to an event and they're supposed to be really cool. And they know deep down, like, I didn't earn this. I didn't do any of this. I just got handed this. I was just born in the lucky family. And it's really interesting. I was thinking about that with my parents, my dad. I think did me one of the greatest services of my life of not— I pitched him for money. I pitched my dad for money, like he wanted to invest and still pitch him and he says no. And I think that's— it's given me a confidence of like, you know what? I can do my own thing. I can raise my own money. I can do my own business. I can run it myself. You know what I mean? And I— but I have a great mentor. He's the best coach ever. He'll answer anytime I call him on the phone. He'll be there and answer a question about an employee problem or a business thing, but he's not going to step in and do it for me. He's going to just give me great advice, which I think is phenomenal. Yeah.

No, I love that. And like a lot of people think that like, oh, like, you know, this is the family business, how can I be like, no, dude, it started in 2018. Like, the family business would be more network marketing than it would be anything else.

Yeah.

And like, yeah, like my dad and I, like my dad called me and was like, hey, do you want to do this? And I'm like, no, I don't really want to do that. Like, argued back and forth. He's like, I think it would be a lot of fun. And I'm like, yeah, it would be a lot of fun, but I don't really want to do it. I was building my own, like, thing with my, my, one of my best friends in construction and we were crushing it. And I'm like, I don't really want to go do that with you. And he's like, come on, man. Like, I'm, you know, he's— my dad's a little older. He's almost 70. And he's like, you know, I'm— I want to mentor you in a way, you know, that, that I think would be, you know, amazing outside. Because, you know, I was in network marketing, you know, out of high school for 7 years. And my dad's like, you know, network marketing is one thing, but I think we could do a lot of things together when with the RV dealerships and, you know, the— our family, you know, our money, you know, the estate is like, it's just kind of chilling there. Let's do something fun with it. Yeah. I was like, you know what? I've always wanted to work with my dad. And I think now it was time that I was mature enough and I felt strong enough that I wanted to work with him. And we kind of bit that off together. And he was like, hey, like, you know, I'll— like, we'll invest some money. We'll do it together. Um, we'll figure this out. But, like, you need to start as a salesperson. And I'm like, wait, what? And he was like, yeah. I'm like, that's completely downgrading, like, my everything, 'cause I was making very good money.

Yeah.

And I'm like, you know what? OK. I'll start as a salesperson and learn everything. And then I started to get obsessed with the RV industry. Then about 6 months into it, my dad kind of left and was like, hey, like, I'm out, taking my money, and you just do your thing.

Yeah, cool.

And we've been self-funded ever since. And so, like, a lot of people, like, I needed him just kind of to learn. I was only 24, and so I needed him to learn a lot of those things. But he was very silent. I mean, he still to this day, like, I talked to him about, you know, different things, and he's actually on our board. He's a very great I mean, he, you know, when he was back in network marketing, he led millions of people.

Yeah.

So, like, talk about building a team, especially with no internet, no social media, no cell phones, no nothing. I mean, he did it the old-fashioned way. And I feel like that's kind of been a huge disconnect with people, especially when, like, when social media and technology came out, it went extremely one way. And I think a lot of those, like, real raw relationships that, like, our parents had with other individuals is harder now. But like, you know, your event, Cars and Coin last night, like we're seeing people in face and shaking hands, right? Like that, that there's something to that. Like, literally, like psychologically, there's something to that. And so I had to learn a lot of that from him.

Yeah.

And it was amazing. Like, I would be an idiot for a person that's been very, very wealthy to be like, hey, I want to do this with you. And I'm like, no, because I have an ego. Like, no, I'm like, I kind of kept him at an arm's distance before, but I'm like, okay, now I'm ready. And so it's just been been a blast. And, you know, my brother came with me because he was a parts guy at a regional parts distributor distribution center here. And I'm like, hey, I need you to come be my parts person.

And how much, how much revenue you guys done since inception?

Probably $300 or $200 and close to $300 million, probably.

Yeah, it's amazing.

Yeah, we do about $100 million a year now.

Yeah.

So we'll do—

And how many dealerships you guys got now?

So we actually, we're just opening up our 9th one right now. So yeah, we're, we're Just ripping and rolling. We did $100 million with 5 locations, you know, so I'm looking forward to these 4 more that we just bought.

So that's cool. Walk us, walk us through. We talked about kind of before we started, but right now we have kind of this banking crisis. Interest rates are rising a ton. What is that like for the RV industry? And just, I'm just curious, dealerships in general, like how does this affect the industry and just prices? And just walk us through the game from your side of the table.

Interest rates are killing me. I mean, especially last year, you have You had interest rates rising at a massive percentage. We were paying 3%. Now we're paying 9.5%. Yeah. I mean, we're LIBOR or now we're SOFR. So we're SOFR plus 3.25%.

Geez.

Which SOFR the other day was like 5.5%.

5.5%.

Plus your 3.25%. So we're almost 9% and we're floating. It's going to keep going up. I mean, I got projections from Bank of America that we're going to go north of 10% in flooring. And for everybody that doesn't know flooring, and I use the term flooring, is It's basically a line of credit to buy my inventory.

Yeah.

And so I have like a $55 million line or— and so I'm paying almost 10% on that. I was paying 3%, right?

That's huge.

So in 2022—

Yeah, that's a $7 million difference.

Massive, right? So in 2022, we, we, you know, in '21, we budget for '22 at the end of the year, right? So we're setting up our budgets. Everything's good. We know margins are going to compress a little bit. But what we did not think— I thought the interest rate would go up around 5%, 4 to 5%. That's what we budgeted for. But margins and the sales crashed, like harder than it went up. I mean, we crashed. Margins compressed to nothing because now we're giving away the inventory because we— the demand's not there anymore. And interest rates shot through the roof.

Well, what's funny is you guys are buying them on credit.

Yeah.

But also the customer is buying them on credit as well. So the customer gets weaker as well. It's like, well, I don't want to pay that much because my payment, my monthly payment's going to be a lot higher now. And so I got to pay their lower price. So you're getting squeezed on both ends.

Well, yeah. And And the problem is, is the RV is— the RV industry and RVs are looked at like a want, not a need.

Yeah.

And so really, really good interest rates back in 2020 and 2019 and 2018 were 5% and 6%. Really good interest rates. Yeah. With really good credit. Perfect at a national bank. Yeah. Or a credit—

So what's someone getting today?

Oh, north of 10%.

Really?

Yeah. I mean, you're 7%, 8%. I mean, there's buydown rate. People are trying to do this buydown thing.

Yeah.

Like in the mortgage industry.

Yeah.

And it's just Kind of entertaining of what's going on. But yeah, it's just, it's crushing us, especially when— and now, you know, they're doing 20-year loans on, on RVs and it's just, it's a tough thing to watch. And so it's like there's like— I was reading and thinking the other day that they're thinking, you know, the car industry crash because people are so overleveraged and so upside down in their cars. And now they're thinking, oh, we're going to do 10-year loans on cars. And I'm like, what are we doing? Like, this is crazy.

Yeah. A 10-year or 20-year loan on a car is unheard of.

Yeah. I was talking with a gal last night. at Carson Coin, and she was like, that's just nuts right now because like prime rates in vehicles are 6%.

Yep.

And I'm like, that's nuts when they were like 1.5%. Like some, some car manufacturers are like 0% interest.

0%. Yeah, like 0%. 1% or 2%.

You know, it's kind of crazy.

And so, yeah, I mean, this feels like the housing, the housing bubble of 2005. People talk about the car bubble of 2022 or 2021. It's funny, I pulled up a chart from Fred the other day, economic data on cars, securitized car loans.

Yeah.

And it literally, for 20 years, is just a straight line.

Really?

Like, just straight up. COVID didn't— like, it barely went like that in COVID. I mean, people want new cars and they want them higher and pricier and better and new. All while savings rates are at all-time lows. We went from record savings rates in 2020 since World War II to now it's like 2.4% savings rates. It's the lowest. It's like one of the lowest spent in history.

Wow.

Credit card debt through the roof. So, people, it's like the consumer, is still spending, consumer spending is still up, right? Car loans, everything's still up, but savings are going down. There's— it seems like there's going to be a day of reckoning very soon. And it seems like a car or a vehicle would be one of the first things you would downgrade, probably before your home, right? You'd probably downgrade a vehicle first, I would assume.

Yeah. And then so we're playing this like game, especially in the RV industry, is like, what's going to happen? Because are people going to leave their homes and buy RVs and go full-time?

Yeah.

I mean, these like—

Yeah, true. That's another thing. Yeah.

These are— I mean, we, we have sold a massive amount to full-timers, especially during COVID Like COVID was great for that. that sense because now people are like, sell your house, go on the road.

I'm going to work remote. Yeah, yeah. Camp out. Starlink. I'm going to just be in the—

yeah, exactly. Yeah. I was talking with Dan Fleischman. He's like, dude, I'm getting Starlink in my motorhome. I'm like, oh, that's sick, dude. And like, it's just— I'm glad. Thank you, Elon, because it's definitely helped. It's going to help us because there are so many, you know, there's— and there's a lot of money on the real estate side in RV parks. But there's a lot of people that are floating, you know, going towards this and being on the road and being more out and about and don't want to be in the cities or whatever. And they're going in, dude, these motorhomes and these trailers are extremely nice. I mean, tile floors, dishwashers, quartz countertops. I mean, they got everything you need, you know, plus some cedar closets in some of them. It's kind of nuts. But so I'm interested to see what happens to that because we— our industry historically follows the housing market. So if you look at the housing market, we are almost right there. So—

Interesting. How so? Like it just mirrors it or is it 6 months behind or what?

Pretty much mirrors it in about Almost a quarter, like a quarter behind.

Okay.

But it pretty much will adjust always.

So housing market dips, about a quarter later you guys will dip. Yeah, we'll dip. Okay.

Or something. Sometimes it could be sooner. And imagine how big the dip is, obviously. So if it just crashes, we're like, hey, we're coming and we're going to, we're going to crash it. And we might be a little bit behind that because some people might not feel that, you know, the housing market, you know, crash immediately. And we're kind of— Utah is just a different ballgame, man. Utah is just crazy. I mean, we have one of the best economies in the country right now. And so that—

Utah is a little bit of a bubble or not a bubble, but like an insulated—

Dude, it's—

It's insulated from other things.

It's crazy.

You have a lot of people moving here. You have great businesses that are still hiring people. It's very interesting.

Yeah, for sure. And so we're like, our Utah market is very different than our Missouri market and Oregon market. So we're always having to like look at that. And it's hard to find like economists and people that you trust and like, hey, what's going on in Missouri? What's going on in Oregon? Like, it's just very different. So yeah, we're— I'm interested to see kind of what happens. This year is still going to be rough. Yeah. What happened a lot in Like we were kind of talking is a lot of people are going to get stuck with this old age inventory and banks, like institutions for the consumers, are going to stop loaning, you know, maximum amounts on them. And so it's going to start hurting a lot of these dealerships.

That's interesting. I wonder, I'm kind of just thinking now on the opportunistic side of that, right? That's how I always think with funds and where you can step in. And I'm sure you guys think the same thing. We've talked about this before, actually. You were like, should we start a fund or should we? Because you're like, we have all these other dealerships that are kind of I don't know, not doing well that we could pick up and buy for just pennies right now. And so, it's an interesting play of like, yes, there's contraction, but also it opens up a lot of opportunity to— for expansion.

Yeah.

And to take over maybe some poorly run businesses or businesses that just for whatever reason weren't managed well. And it's an interesting opportunity in the RV space, or maybe it's dealership, or maybe it's just across the board. Do you see— what's kind of the biggest opportunities you see in that space?

Oh, dealerships basically calling, screaming, just come take me over and like for free because When you really just like, just because they have so much liability. Yeah, they just basically assume the debt and come take me over because, you know, if you have cash right now—

And are most owners personally guaranteeing it?

Oh, yes. Oh, really?

Okay. So their whole life is on the line?

Oh, yes.

Oh, wow.

Yes. When you're, when you're a smaller, like, you know, small to mid, you're, you personally guarantee everything. When you start to get a little bit bigger, the bank will start to personally guarantee with the business. So the assets that the business owns, your inventories, your buildings, different things like that. So they'll look at that equation. So then it'll take the owner owner or the individual a little bit less out of it, which is kind of the point we're getting is like, hey, like, stop trying to tie up my whole life of everything. And I don't have to get written permission to basically buy milk, like, and stuff, you know, because the banks are that intrusive in your life. It's— the RV industry is wild.

Interesting.

But there's going to be a lot of deals out there, and especially with, uh, our RV industry is kind of archaic and old. I'm not going to say we got a lot of dinosaurs in our— in the industry, but we do. And so a lot of those guys don't want to deal with this down— they loved COVID. They rode it.

I mean, they Well, COVID was amazing for you guys because everyone was like, I'm getting an RV, I'm getting the kids out of school, we're going to go travel, right?

Margins went up 200%.

Wow.

I mean, you're— instead of making, you know, 10% or 12% on a, on a unit, you're making 30%, 40%, 50%. I mean, it's just crazy. And I mean, we're selling units for full MSRP, which doesn't happen in the RV industry. Usually sometimes $50,000 discounts on MSRP.

Yeah. Interesting.

So yeah, I mean, so these, these guys ran it. Then if you were doing okay in '18 and okay in '19 and then crushed it during COVID you're going to do really bad in 2022 and 2023 and '24 because of the fallout that's going to happen. And a lot of these guys just don't want to deal with that. I mean, they're in their 60s and 70s just saying, hey, I'm done. And that's most of the dealerships we bought are from older people that just like, I'm done. I don't want to deal with people and next cycle, this whole thing. I'm done. And so a lot of that, we're already getting phone calls of people that are like, hey, just come take me over. Just come, come do this and do that.

Interesting.

Like, hey, like, hey, I know you— I wanted this much money last year. I'll take this much money now. Millions, millions of dollars discounts.

Wow.

And so I'm glad that, you know, we, we've kind of held, you know, we're opening a location, brand new, green spanning it up in, up in Logan, Utah right now. So that basically just doesn't cost much because it's just, you know, leasing a building and calling it good. And it's a test for us. We're testing the market out because we already have a dealership there, but we're testing another one.

Okay.

And so that is very— a lot cheaper than going and buying, you know, your blue sky and a lot of businesses and different things that they got.

So I'm interested to see kind of what happens.

happens and who falls out. And I also think manufacturers are going to fall out. A lot of manufacturers are going to fall out.

They won't be able to make it either.

Dude, I have— I will, I will show you something off camera that will blow your mind about how much inventory is sitting on the ground in Indiana.

Really?

And that's where most of our trailers are made and RVs are made. It will blow your mind.

And so manufacturers are just— and dealerships aren't taking them, is that what they're saying? They're building them and dealerships are saying, we don't want them, we don't want the liability. Oh, interesting.

Oh, dude, it's like, huh, tens of thousands of units. Tens of thousands, like tens of thousands, man. Like where in COVID you couldn't see one trailer. In normal times, you might see a handful, like half a dozen or a dozen units in a yard. You would never see 20, 30, 40 units in a yard ever. I mean, in a manufacturer's yard. Now, in a shipping yard, it's a little bit different because they're going in that bullpen and they're getting shipped out and individual truck drivers in a pickup truck driving to all these dealerships across America. It's kind of barbaric.

Wow. Interesting.

But, but yeah, I mean, so it's—

You see them on Google Earth or something or like you got some satellite that's just like getting satellite images? I got satellite images.

Yeah, I got satellite images. I've seen the messages of the manufacturers out there and I cannot believe it. Like, I'm like in shock. And a lot of these manufacturers are like calling us and saying, hey, we'll do 30% off, we'll do 20% off.

They got cleared because they're having the same squeeze. They've paid for parts and materials. They've got to get—

And a lot of it's been on line of credit, right?

On lines of credit. And bank rates go up and now— so it's funny, people talk about interest rates, you know, how this affects— you know, some people are like, oh, well, it just affects like buying a home or— no, it's like it affects every business because everybody uses debt in some way, shape, or form. Most companies use debt for their business.

of that has been like a lot of that inflation has been driver, like a driver for the inflation, at least in my— in our world. I'll say a lot of our margins or the increases in prices have been increases because of increases of interest. And when you're talking about going from 3% to 9.5% in interest, I have to make up for that $7 million, you know, millions of dollars somehow. Right. Like, I just— I got to figure it out somehow. And then you look at the manufacturer and they're, they're doing the same thing.

Yeah.

They got to make up for it somehow. So I'm paying more. And so then the customer's paying like it's just, it's a domino effect. It's just, it's going to be a little tight. And I think the— we're going to feel it really, really strongly in '24, '25, and '26 because everybody bought at a super high interest rate and they're going to go to refinance and be completely upside down underwater in their unit and not really know what to do because they've paid so much in interest.

Yep.

Their principal is not. Not buy it down.

So yeah, very interesting.

We're, we're looking at now, you know, I love the industry. Yeah. You know, it's historically strong. Like we haven't really had these massive bubbles. And like I said, we follow the housing market.

Yeah.

I'm not saying like I hope I'm not talking anybody out of buying an RV. It's just like, well, on the dealership side, it's going to be a dicey situation. So like right now is the best time to buy because we're giving all our inventory away.

Yeah.

I'm losing money on my inventory.

Yeah. You should want to because you want to clear inventory.

I'm going to sell 300 units this month in March and I'm not going to make any Like, that's not cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very interesting, huh? And that's, you know, it's funny, it's, it's, this is very insightful to hear about the RV industry, but also I'm thinking through now, this compounds into pretty much every industry on earth.

Right.

I mean, we talked about cars for a minute, but you talk about t-shirt companies and clothes manufacturers, any product that's made, right, is probably going through this exact same situation right now, which is just so interesting, the ripple effects of, you know, raising rates at a high rate right now. Yeah.

Um, well, like, you go buy a building right now, like, OK, I'm a T-shirt manufacturer and I'm going and buying a building. Or even the building just got— now it transfers in lease rates. So the building just got bought. I'm gonna go lease a new building. Well, that lease rate's super high because their payment's super high.

Yeah.

Because there's not a lot of cash buyers out there.

They're gonna reflect that.

And so it's reflected on everything.

Yeah.

It's just— and then the manufacturer of the T-shirts probably is on a line of credit.

Mmhmm.

You buying the T-shirts from the manufacturer is probably on a line of credit or some way. I mean, it's just— that it's a domino effect that people just don't realize what's going on. And I like how Dan Young puts it, of when we try to curb inflation, it's like a giant pendulum, right? And it's like inflation's almost at nothing, and then we try to curb it, you know, the economy, and it's like they push so hard it swings so hard the other way. And it's like, oh, no, we don't want that, so we're gonna come back over here. And it's like— so we'll see.

Pretty interesting, huh? Um, well, thank you for sharing. That's awesome. Switching gears, you run a podcast called Culture Camp. Yeah. Talking about culture and and companies and culture crowds. You've had some incredible guests. I'm actually curious, what's a favorite guest of yours and what was one or two things that they shared on your show?

Oh man, that's tough, man. Obviously, you were great. I mean, it was—

Well, besides me, obviously I was the best guest of all time.

You know, I had a great time talking with Kyle Nilsson. That dude is just an awesome guy. He's the president of sales for Aptiv Environmental. Just an all-around great guy. Yeah, he's awesome, dude. He's been awesome. I had the—

He's the NBA elf guy. If you guys seen this guy that dresses up as, he looks like Buddy the Elf. He dresses up and he'll be front row at like the Utah Jazz Jazz games or other NBA games.

It's awesome.

So he's a great dude. Yeah, with him last night.

Yeah, yeah, he was right there and, you know, super cool card, super, super nice guy. He's the plug for the shoe game. If you want to listen to my podcast, great episode. He talks about how he got in the NBA and basically became everybody's supplier of sneakers. Yeah. And so, yeah, he was awesome.

Yeah, because he's got— I mean, he's got every— he was showing me like every NBA player apparently goes to him for shoes.

Yeah.

He's like the guy that's like, oh, I'll find you whatever unique shoe that they want. He'll get it, which is just cool.

He'll get it.

Yeah. He was wearing some shoes last night.

I'm like, like, bro, I like those. He's like, I'll get them for you. I'm like, okay. Yeah, you know, and I'm a big sneakerhead too. I gotta, I gotta stop. My wife made me delete the apps off my phone, but I got, I got some friends that are helping me out a little bit.

That's awesome.

Um, but yeah, I mean, so that, I mean, that was, that was awesome. There's so many different people. The reason I love my podcast is because there's— I can go any different way. Like, I've had athletes on there. Like, I had Darren Williams on.

Yeah, I remember that one.

That was a great time because talking about team and culture in, in, in athletic teams, right? I've had coaches on there. I've had business entrepreneurs on there. I've had kind of a little bit of everybody. And it's just been, been cool to understand because I'm more interested in building the team. Like, you know, and I've done a couple of podcasts with people that, you know, are big into real estate. Like this guy the other day owns about, I think he said 1,700 or 1,700 doors or something like that, or 2,000 doors currently, about $800 million, $700 to $800 million under management.

management.

Um, and they privately own it. Like, it's theirs. Like, it's not a big equity thing and not a big fund. It's just theirs.

Yeah.

And so he's like, I've never been asked how I built my company through people. And I'm like, that's what my mission is, is to finally figure out that, because I know that is really what built the company.

Yeah.

Um, you know, everybody's like always trying to interview me about how I scaled and how I got the loans and how I've got this and how I've got that and like what deals and this and that. I'm like, that's interesting to me though, but you gotta remember I'm not a real I'm just a trailer dude. Yeah. So it's not a whole lot that, you know, and I'm trying to get more into real estate and different things, but I love talking about culture and teamwork.

Well, talk it— yeah, talk us through some of the biggest takeaways or things that you've shared on your podcast or stuff about team, about that form of leverage and people. Yeah. People is like one of the greatest things you need or can destroy your company as well. Walk us through some of the stuff that's, that's been really impactful to you.

You know, a big, huge impact to me is love your people. And it sounds kind of goofy and sounds kind of weird, but at the end of the day, like you have to— so you think about it like this. If you, if you have ever played sports, which I know a lot of people have, a lot of people haven't, but if you've ever played sports or done anything with a good coach, a really, really good coach, you will go out there and play your heart out for a, for a great coach and a great team because you are sold out to the cause of the team, the mission, the vision of the coach, the vision of the team, what you want to go do. Maybe that's a championship. Maybe you've never won a game before. Maybe it's the win-one game. You're sold out for the team.

Hmm.

Now, we've always had those coaches that are horrible coaches that you could care less about what they say in the huddle and you go out there and you just play for yourself.

Yeah.

You don't care. And if you got traded or this or that or you got over here, you didn't make the team, you're like, whatever, I don't really play for that coach. Happened to me in football. I didn't love my coach. I didn't, I didn't ever end up playing football because me and the coach never really got along. I never— so that wasn't really another avenue I went down. I love football. I wanted to play my whole life like I— but me and the coach just didn't really, really jive. Like, he was just that— I went out there and had zero cares about anything. Like, yeah, and that sounds bad, but I cared more about my brothers on that team than I cared about the coach and doing anything for him. So think about that as a CEO in a business or a team leader or anything.

Interesting.

Yeah. Is how, you know, if you're telling someone something or, you know, you don't have that— we can call it respect— and you don't have that respect and you've never gained, you know, that respect or cared about figuring out your team and who they are, then why would your team play for you? Why would they do anything for you?

Yeah.

Most jobs out there, I would say 99% of the jobs, if it's a 40-hour, 9-to-5, quote unquote, job, how many times is everybody perfectly working from 9 to 5? Hardly ever.

Yeah.

So how am I going to get those extra hours? Why are they going to work those extra hours? Why are they going to help the team out more than— and that's kind of my mission, is to figure out how to, how to do that.

Yeah.

And different personalities. Like, I was talking with a gal last night, um, super, super awesome lady, and she was talking about her son, and he's kind of an introvert, but he's super smart. And I'm like, see, that's the psychology behind team building. What I'm trying to figure out is because Because when you're building a team, it's not like the Jazz don't have, you know, 10 or 11 guys on the field or on the court or 5 guys on the court at one time that are all point guards. Like, they won the Super Bowl with 11 different guys, 11 different positions.

Yeah.

You know, they have 2, you know, even if it's a receiver and receiver, they're used for different nickel, you know, or cornerbacks. You have a nickelback, you have a dimeback, you have different cornerbacks that play different playsets, right? So it's figuring out how to put the right butts in the right seats and taking the, you know, the great book called Good to Great to a whole other level of saying the psychology behind a company and how we're going to put these people in the right seats to be excited to come to work and to feel fulfilled and to go the extra mile for the team and build the team. And some people, we like, businesses just don't care about that or don't really know. And they think, oh, like, we're just going to have a mission statement and it's going to be up there on the wall.

Yeah.

We're going to have some values and we don't really manage through it. And I even talk to people that, oh yeah, we manage through it. I'm like, hey, tell me some, some ways that you manage through it. And we start talking about it. I'm like, you're not managing through it. Talking about it, talking about it and having people sign a culture statement is not managing through your culture. And so what I—

Yeah. So walk us through. And I love what you're saying here because it's so, it's so true. And sports is probably the best analogy of all time because it's so raw. It's so just points on the scoreboard tell you exactly how you did, right? And it's so true, coaches and the organization. It's just funny, coaches will go from team to team and keep continuing. There's a coach that's in Utah actually, he's been on multiple, 3 different like groups, and every time he goes there, ta-da, in like 2 or 3 years they have a state championship team. They do it for 5 or 6 years, then he goes to another organization across whatever, does the same thing. It's just, it's like, whoa, right? Like, this is amazing. So walk us through, I know I love how you described that, what are some things that, you know, to get on a business setting, to get get people on the same team, you know, yoked together? What's like some stuff that you've done or seen that's been successful?

Care enough to know. Go talk to them.

What—

like, I had a guy on my podcast, he's like, what do you love? What do you hate? He asked her, what do you love? What do you hate? And it's like, oh, I hate— I love doing this. I love selling. I hate the paperwork. I hate the paperwork. It makes me not even want to sell. Wow. So how are you 70% effective or 60% effective? Because you're thinking the whole time while you're selling how much you hate the paperwork.

Oh, interesting.

Okay, let's buy your time Yeah, let's, let's give you an assistant or someone to help you do the paperwork.

Yeah.

And let's move, like, let's get you selling 100%, because if that's your superpower, that's what you want to do. Let's get you doing that 100%.

Yeah.

It's like, you know, a center that hate— like, there are some centers and some big guys in the NBA that are like, hey, I hate being down low. But like, there's, there's some guys that just want to shoot 3s. Yeah, some big 7-footers that just want to shoot 3s.

Yeah.

Okay, well, let's get— let's figure out the team and make the dynamic where you just can sit out there on the end, shoot 3s, and kind of be the sleeper Hey, but you're going to have to be down low sometimes.

Okay.

So there's a kind of a give and take a little bit. So having those conversations with your people now, I break it down with a software. I have 2 different softwares that I make people take a test where it's a 30-page report on their personality, everything about them. And everybody has 2 personalities, a favorable personality and an unfavorable personality in situations. It's almost a reactionary personality.

Yeah.

So I figure that out and then I actually have them take a test of their management style. How do you manage people and how do you like to be managed? And so I know it's a playbook.

Yeah.

If I don't know my people and know my team and my family, how am I going to be able to coach them correctly with— I don't even have a playbook of what they like to do.

Yeah.

And so it's knowing that and it's sitting up there like a president or an owner of a team saying, okay, I got all these people, how can I best set them up for success? I believe my number one job as a CEO is to set everybody up for success. If I'm pigeonholed and I will never pigeonhole somebody because everybody can surprise you. And different styles can change and people can learn and shift. But why would I— if you hate selling, why would I force you to sell? If you don't like making phone calls and don't like— why would I have you in a forward face? So let's figure out, you know, if you're— maybe you're not succeeding.

Yeah, what makes sense.

Let's figure out what makes sense. And if not, then hey, I'm very well connected in the state of Utah. I'll make some phone calls because I think you're really good and figure out there's another— we can redeploy you out in the workforce and figure something else out. But you have to look at it like that of how can I best you know, the overall team and put the right people and set them up for success to be 100% effective. Yeah, like, I use this example a lot. Is a lot, a lot of people hate their job. A lot of people don't. Yeah, I was reading this book, a great, great book called Conquering Unfavorable Leadership, and it talks about how— was it like 77% of employees dislike their CEO?

Interesting, huh?

dislike their CEO. But I bet you they don't know that because they don't care to know, right? They just want to go and they want to operate.

Yeah.

Like, I give feedback surveys. I want to know exactly how I'm doing, how the team's doing, what we can do, how we can serve you better. But like, you have to, you have to care. And so I usually use this example. How do I get you— it's 6 a.m. on a Saturday. Everybody wants to sleep in, right? How do I get you so excited at 6 a.m. on a Saturday? What, what What do you like to do as a hobby that you get excited to 6 a.m. on a Saturday where your alarm goes off, your feet hit the ground by 6:01, and you're out, you're out the door by 6:30 because you're so excited? How can I create that environment in my company? Now, I'm not talking about everybody gets a trophy and, you know, oh, we're going to put, you know, a Monster fridge and we're going to get free Monsters and we're going to give this like that. That's a cool vibe. But that's— there's a lot more to culture and psychology behind that.

Yeah.

How can I make you that excited to come to work? love your job, love your team, and excel at 100% than you to come and hate your job and be there at 50%. Yeah. I mean, I've actually had conversations with employees of like, look, I think you're miserable and I don't think this is a good fit for you because you're just— you're miserable.

Yeah.

Why do you keep— why do you— you owe it to your family and yourself to be healthy mentally and to be healthy financially. Maybe go do something else. Yeah. What— like I said, I'm well-connected. I can help you out and do different things. So I care that much about my team and creating this And like with my software, I can plot map your team. So how your reactionary personality is and how your favorable personality is. So if a problem comes up, you know how you're going to react to it or your team's going to react to it. So you say, hey, I know this customer left us a bad review. Our reaction is going to be we want to kill the customer. It's probably not a good idea. So how are we going to get through this and serve the customer? At the end, at the end goal, our mission is what?

Yeah.

That's our mission. Does fighting the customer get us towards our mission? No. How can we get towards our mission? And so, yeah, that's cool. It's managing through it.

I got to ask you on the surveys. Okay. Yeah. So, and this is just personally, I have taken a number of personality surveys and I take them and I feel like they're way off.

Really?

Or I take them and I'm like, well, who should I take this as? My— like, this is my best version or my work version, right? Yeah. This is kind of how I am at work or like who I am at home or who I am at like with my friends is a different kind of personality a little bit. And so I take these tests and I'm like, I don't know, I've taken like 5 tests and they're all— they always come out different from each other. And I'm like, I just don't— I feel like it's so across the board. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah. So my test—

I'm kind of a hater. I wish they would work.

My test actually asks you to ask— ask you a bunch of questions how you are at home, ask you a bunch of questions how you are at work, and it will combine it together.

Yeah.

Put you in different situations. And like I said, you always have— and I actually— most, most personalities don't tell you 2 different personalities. Most tests don't have 2 different personalities, right? 'Cause it's like, oh, well, yeah, if I'm going to hang out with my friends, I'm a partier. I like to hang out.

Yeah.

When things are good. And thinking about, oh, yeah, I like— I got a putting green out in the front. I like to have a cool vibe at work. But then when a problem arises, how do you react to the problem? Is it you're a taskmaster getting through it?

Yeah.

It's way different. And so it's like, is it a reactionary personality? And it's putting those data points up— like, I put them up on a screen of myself like general managers of the dealerships and said, this is how I generally react to things.

Mm-hmm.

And here's why. My natural-born heart is a protector. So when I'm trying to protect you, I'm trying to protect the company, I'm trying to protect everybody because there's 180 of you guys that you— I'm probably, you know, I— someone did the math and it's like 5,000 meals a week or 7,500 meals a week that our company provides, right? Like, yeah, you can kind of put it like that. I'm worried about that. So when something arises, know where my heart's at, know where my intention is, because perception and intention are 2 different things. Whether you— I don't care what people— your intention is, it's the perception that was, was taken.

Yeah, yeah.

That's kind of what people— how people feel, right? And I'm always like, hey, I can never discount people's feelings. It's my job to make sure the intention is clear.

Yeah.

And so I put that up on screen and say, this is my— this is why. And I'm a natural adventurer. So, I'm going to do some crazy things because I'm a natural adventurer. I like to be on adventure. I like to take risks. I like to have a good time. And so, when I'm going and buying 5 locations in a year, sometimes some people have to check me and say, Jason, you're being too much of an adventurer.

Yeah.

Like, quit. I'm okay. So, we call each other out and it's putting— like, when you talk about teams, they're all keeping the same score on the same scoreboard. And sometimes in our businesses, we don't keep the same score on the same scoreboard. We're kind of keeping different scores for everything and we don't really know and it's not really laid out in how we're keeping the score. And so with all these tests and our manage— when we're managing style and all the leadership meetings we have, and I have book clubs and I have a whole management training program that you got to do, like we keep the same score with everybody. Yeah, they know how to keep the score with their teams.

Yeah.

And so we dive into it because I build— I fully believe you build a better person, you build a better company. Yeah. But I have taken a lot of the time to get certified in all this stuff. I mean, it's been 5 years that I've been taking classes to get certified in all this stuff.

It's amazing.

I've thought about going and getting a like, I don't know if like a PhD or something, but like a psychology degree.

Yeah.

Because I just, I dive down deep into psychology of why people do what they do.

Yeah.

Because I always felt like I was a broken kid. I mean, I was told of, you know, like, have you ever felt that? I'm sure. And I'm, dude, I'm rambling.

I love it.

Keep going. Yeah. Have you ever felt as a kid of like you did something and maybe you fought or like you, you, you like you did something or like you screamed, whatever, and you're like, and someone's screaming at you and mad at you for doing it. And like, you're like, wait, but I had every, like, I was just trying to help them or I was just trying to have every good intention.

Yeah.

And so I always had that of like, why did I always get overprotective of things? And why did I always want to fight? Or why did I always want to like be, you know, like outlandish, like just kind of just crazy sometimes and just care? But it's like, I care so much about people. I protect people. Like, I don't like— like, I used to fight all the time in school, other people that were fighting. And I'm like, hey, stop picking on this kid. Boom. But then all of a sudden, like, you know, insecurities and different things and And like, and so I always wanted to figure out why I did what I did. And so I really made it a point in high school to start reading psychology books.

Interesting. And you came out that, yeah, you're a protector. You mentioned that multiple times. That's what you're— a lot of your psychology is about protecting. Interesting.

Yeah. And it's like, you know, and why? Like, you know, you can dive down and this kind of get a little bit personal. My mom and dad were gone a lot, so it's like almost I felt abandoned. And so I had to be the protector at home because I felt abandoned. And so like there's different— and like diving down deep into things like that. that a lot of business owners don't really care to know, especially about their team. Now, I'm not going to get in their business or try to not get in their, like, trauma in their business. I do believe, you know, mental health is a real thing and it's really good to go talk to people. It's really good to dive in and figure out why you do what you do.

Yeah.

But oftentimes why we do what we do is just a few things that we can play to those strengths. And it's like in calling each other out, because I know if I know your heart and your intention, if you're overreacting to something, I can just say, hey, like, you're being You're being, you know, this person, you're dominant. You call it a D personality. I use DISC. So you're dominating director is what it's called. Hey, you're dominating director. Your D's coming out. And which is kind of— that sounds bad, honestly. But like, but, you know, that's—

Your D's coming out. It might be an HR—

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My HR might call me. But it's knowing that and calling each other out. And then even your management styles of L1 through L5. And I have a whole system on that. I was like, hey—

Are these systems that you've pulled from a bunch of different places?

Yeah. So I've teamed up with a couple of guys that created these softwares and kind of taken them to the next level, but made it like I'm, I'm labeling it mine and doing a couple different things with it.

Cool.

But I'm like, it just helps a ton. That's awesome.

That's something we've talked about in our company a ton the last 6 months. We've had employees, we've hired a bunch of people this last year, and we sat down, we did a full 2 days. We went through our— what's our true core values of our company, right? Which a lot of companies do. But we were like, once we pick these, we're going to live them, right? You know? So we like debated it for like 2 days, like 12 hours of like, If we put it on the board, we're gonna live or die by that, so you better defend that position. We had this whole thing, we came out with these core values, and we've used them pretty well, and now it's like the next step is, okay, how do we live and become those core values, and then also follow up and have clear scorecards, and have— I think this is awesome. I'm gonna have to get all the stuff from you after.

Yeah, I mean, I have culture cards, so every person in their wallet has a plastic culture card that has all our values and our mission statement on it, and our tagline, and every meeting that we have that's 2 or more people, We pull out our culture cards, card check each other, but we laugh. We have a good time. Put it back. Now, now you name the values to me. Memorize them. You say them to me. I'll say them to you. You said a mission statement. I'll say it to you. Yeah. And then I need 3 stories of what you've seen our values, how they've been working. One of them's family. Oh, we've been acting like a family. We had a dealership in Oregon that had a bunch of inventory that we needed. We needed down here. They sent it to us. One of them's giving back. Oh, our dealership in Salt Lake City. Is funding currently. Actually, this is a true story. Our dealership right now is funding one of the schools for spring break. So they— their kids would— like, a lot of these Title I schools, man, like, these guys don't do anything. They don't have food or anything for spring break. How can we take a school and how can we help them during spring break? So one of our dealerships is doing that. And so we talk about that and managing through the culture so we know that everything is, is through there. Our vendors have my culture cards because I'm like, hey, Hey, know that if you violate one of these values, what I call them is cultural realignment meetings. So instead of write-ups, we're realigning to the culture and my values because this is what we care about.

Yeah.

And if you can't adhere to these, we're not going to do business together.

Yeah.

So, you know, and we have a foundation and I ask like, hey, like, if I'm going to do business with you, I want you to do business with me. I would like you to, you know, whatever you feel comfortable showing. Like, we help veterans, single parents and kids. Yeah, cool. And we have like help donate to a foundation. We're trying to do some awesome things with it. And so it's creating that bond and that relationship and that culture within your vendors.

Yeah.

The people don't even really care about to know. They think it's a, oh, I'm inviting them to a golf tournament and having a good time. It's like, no, like, okay, that's one day a year. What about the other 364 days? How are you operating? How are you being? How are you? Are you stewards? Hey, people know that we're doing business together. So if you do something bad, how is that going to look like on me that we're doing business together? So know that I'm going to hold you to these values and I want you to hold me to the values.

Yeah.

And so I get like, I'm going to dealership right after this. I get card checked and I don't have a— I gave one away last night.

Oh, shoot.

And I'm going to— I'm going to have to do some push-ups or something. I'm ready for it because I know 100% of the time I go on location, they will card check me. But I love that because we are living through our values and our culture.

That's cool.

And then every training we have, we have a cultural like day or, you know, a couple of hours.

How often are you visiting your dealerships?

I'm trying to once a quarter.

Once a quarter. Okay. Yeah. Go say hi to every single person.

I mean, if I come in Salt Lake or something, I'll just pop over for 30 minutes. You know, that's the easiest one for me.

I really try to get there once a quarter. How do you pick good— for each dealership you have a general manager, I would call them the quarterback person that runs that. What's your, you know, I've— we were talking about, you know, it's just hard on businesses and stuff picking good quarterbacks and having— we call them quarterbacks of who's going to run that whole division or sector. And like, they're like, dude, you're running this thing. What's your thoughts on how do you pick someone that's going to be good for that position?

Dude, it's really hard. We've gotten very, very—

Because it can be so hard.

Blessed with buying dealerships with really good leadership, really good people with the, with the the capability of good leadership, and we've just had to kind of mold them into what we want.

Yeah.

But it's been, it's been hard. I mean, our culture is kind of— is tough because it's a high standard. We hold ourselves to a high standard, but I want that. But it's kind of a lot of people that raise their hand and say, hey, I want to be this, I want to do that, I want to do like— and I tell people that on our whole company-wide calls we have once a month, like, raise your hand. Like, if you look, I'm more apt to to come to you and promote you if you're raising your hand and helping you and you can join the MIT program or whatever, if you're raising your hand, not just like excelling. Because if you're excelling and just crushing it in sales and you don't ever say you want to be a sales manager ever, I'm just probably going to assume that, okay, he just probably doesn't want to be a sales manager. Or when it comes at a time, I might say like, hey, have you ever wanted to— you know, I might go interview that. But we're moving so fast. I need people that want to be here.

Yep.

And that's part of our culture is I want you to be here. if you don't really want to, want to go like, you know, excel the ladder, then I'm cool with that. Like, obviously, like, it's like a clock in a team. We need all kinds of different players. Like every football team in America, whether it's high school, college, NFL, anything, XFL now.

Yeah.

They have, they have trainers, they have water boys, they have water girls, they have all— we need everybody. And not everybody's going to be the quarterback. Not everybody's going to be the star.

Yeah.

But we need those second, third string quarterbacks for the team because it affects everything, right? Yeah. Cool.

And so you ask people to raise their hand. Yeah.

Yeah.

And you raise your hand. Raise your hand. That's cool.

Yeah. And then we have these, these programs, these leadership programs that we go, we dive in, we go into management, how to manage our general managers that we actually just— we're going to make them take the RV technical. So they're going to be like technician certified.

Oh, interesting.

Because I want all the GMs to know what it's like. And so we're going to roll that out. We actually have our— we're the only, as far as I know, and, you know, I I stand corrected and I don't— it doesn't matter to me. But we, we have a fully accredited RV technical school. We founded that school called Halgan University. And we also— it's a leadership side to it and a bunch more than a technician school. But we have our own technician school where we actually have a place in Salt Lake City that we run our technicians through because it's that level of standard, that service that we want to provide to our customers. Yeah. And so, yeah, we are making all the general managers go through at least level 1 certification.

Yeah. Yeah.

Which it's a week-long class and they have to test at the end of it and pass.

Yeah.

You don't pass, it's not going to be good. you guys, because I, and I think that's how you help them gain respect. And, you know, dude, I totally feel like I'm rambling, but like, you know, what my goal is, is to help those general managers gain the credibility through their, through their team. So if I see something or I want them to walk the walk and hold themselves to a standard and hold themselves to expectations that they, they are holding themselves to, not just barking orders at.

And how did you, how did you get all these, you know, systems or certifications or stuff? Like, did you, did pull them from other companies that were existing? Did you guys develop a lot of them in-house? What'd you guys do?

Dude, just developed a lot of this in-house.

You developed a lot of them? Really?

No way. Like, we— there was an opportunity for, like, we got a bulletin come out in an email that said, hey, the RV Technical Institute is, uh, is— hey, like, we're going to certify people that can do your own tests.

Cool.

And I went all into it. I don't know of anybody else that did.

Yeah.

I mean, I even asked the Utah RV Association to say, hey, let's do this together. And they're like, ah, no, not really. Okay, cool. We're gonna do our own thing because I want to hold myself to that standard. A lot of this personality stuff and the leadership stuff From books and just trial and error. But like, I, I have gone like an all-out blitz on it to just— I care so much about it.

So cool.

So that's really what my job is. And I don't really know of any other RV dealerships or any other companies that are doing this.

Yeah.

You know, I got a couple mentors of mine in the leadership space that helped me do a lot of things. But at the end of the day, like, I'm creating the systems and we are as a team creating the systems. Yeah. So it's implemented into our company and then others. And that's why like I've done a lot of this Culture Camp stuff, you know, my podcast, and then like getting really getting into culture coaching because I think it's a lost art. And every company that I've helped coach, their revenue has increased because people are feeling more appreciated, empowered. They're not being micromanaged. Like time is like we can get down to the nitty-gritty of how to operate the business.

Yeah.

And it's just been awesome to see. And I love that. I love people succeeding. And like, and that's been a huge mission for mine in the dealerships is to watch these people succeed financially, mentally, like leadership-wise. Like, I love it. Like, we have a 24 or 25— I think it's 24 or 25 general manager in Salt Lake City. Our number one store has everybody's respect in the state, in the country. Like, just— and it's so cool to watch him succeed. Like, he built a new house and I'm like his biggest fan. I'm like, dude, it's so— like, I'm just— yeah, it's so cool to see. That's what fills me up. That's fulfillment to me.

I love that. Okay, couple last questions. I'll get you out of here.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm rambling. This is so good. I love it. Give me a book that's changed your life.

Oh, there's, there's a lot of books, but honestly, like, this kind of sounds silly. There's this book that I'm reading currently that has definitely opened my eyes up to how more effective I can be as a human being. And it's by a guy I just met and a book I just found out. A guy named Dan Martell. I don't know if you've heard of Dan Martell.

Yep.

He just wrote a book called Buy Your Time Back.

And I'm starting our course actually on funds.

Yeah, that's so cool. Yeah, Dan is just So I just met him in Vegas like 2 weeks ago. And it's at a— it was such a pivotal time in my life because right now I have the dealerships and we got, you know, almost, you know, we got 180 employees. We got, you know, we're doing $100 million in business. Now I'm starting all this real estate stuff and kind of going a lot of like speaking and culture. I'm like, how do I manage all this? And I— he didn't even give me the book. I just saw that we kind of became friends on Instagram and I was like, oh, that's an interesting book. So I downloaded it on Kindle and started reading it. And I'm like, this has affected my life so much.

And so what's that? What does it go through? What does it talk about?

It's about buying, like hiring people to buy your time back, using the system more effectively and delegating more effectively to figure out like— and it goes a lot like— and maybe why it's kind of changing my life, because it has a lot to do with my leadership, like, and management style. Yeah. And a lot of my coaching, it's like, oh, I just didn't really know how the details of how to put this together, of like email lists and folders and different— like, he breaks it down of how to manage your time better. And he uses Richard Branson a lot because Richard Branson owns like— in the book he references like maybe 900 and something companies. And he went on a ski trip with them. And Richard didn't mention one thing about business. And all the other guys that were there on the ski trip were on the phone doing this, putting out fires. And Richard Branson was just chilling, having a good time.

Yeah, cool.

And so it was just a pivotal time in my life right now. I got so many things going on. And how do I manage all this and be the effective, the best me I can possibly be? It's changing the game for me right now. I recommend the book to everything.

Wow, really cool.

Yeah, that's been an awesome book. How to Win Friends and Influence People. Good to Great. It's a really good book.

We make How to Win Friends and Influence People mandatory reading for our whole company.

Yeah.

I make everybody read that.

Yeah.

And I read it every year. I've read that book probably 7 times, I think.

Really? That's awesome. Yeah, it's so important.

You read it and just like, you're like, oh, I forgot to do that. Or like, I need to do this better, you know? Because I suck at doing that, so I gotta get better. But right, okay, uh, big prediction for the next 3 to 7 years, just around the world.

Um, like economic?

Whatever you want. Biggest prediction for next 3 to 5 years, 3 to 7 years.

Man, that's hard. I definitely think, you know, I'll do economic. I think that we're going to kind of stay stagnant for a little bit. Things are going to correct. I think that different markets will go up, different markets will go down, but I think overall we're going to stay kind of stagnant. And I'm not talking about Utah because Utah is going to be an anomaly, I think, just due to the demand of what's going on in the state of Utah. And then I think that we'll climb out of it and we'll, you know, we'll rebound and come out stronger. Do I think it's going to go dramatically up like COVID? No. I think people kind of got to get that out of their mind, that growth in economy will never look like that ever again. I hope not. No one wants a worldwide pandemic. And so I think that it's going to keep going up and we'll see what happens.

Yeah, pretty interesting. Yeah. I know we'll see if the Powell pivot— everyone's kind of thinking Jerome Powell is going to pivot here in July maybe. We'll see. We'll see what they end up doing. But he's been pretty tough.

Yeah.

Pretty hawkish, especially with these banks closing. So we'll see, we'll see what happens. Yeah.

I'm hoping that it is sooner than later because my season basically ends in September. So, but then also it helped me in the offseason if all of a sudden interest rates started dropping and we'll see.

Drops whenever. Yeah.

But I think that the— I think that he swung the pendulum pretty drastically and hard one way. And which, which you can almost argue is instead of a really slow economic decline, It was like it was like a sharp boom and bounce up, you know. And I would I would almost rather yeah.

We'll see if we can get out of this deleveraging. Ray Dalio put out a great video called he called the beautiful deleveraging when they can beautifully go through a cycle where they're printing money and lowering debt at the same time. Right. We'll see if we can do that on this one.

But we got to coach more people to start saving saving money.

Yeah, I know. It's just good good principles. I think a lot of economic opportunities are coming up. It's it's interesting too. Talking about this last night if you were there. My dad was talking about the inflation going up. We're still at 6%, 7% inflation, right? Yet the US dollar is at 20-year highs, right? And it's, I mean, it's pretty interesting what the Fed can do. What they say and what they're doing is 2 totally different things in this macro geopolitical game with Russia, Ukraine right now. We can see with China going on, Middle East, the BRICS nations, that kind of this battle for world reserve currency, right? And it's interesting, the game the Fed is playing right now is saying, Yeah, you know what? Our economy might suffer a little bit, but right now, everyone else's economies are getting decimated.

Right.

I mean, way worse than— we talked about problems in the RV industry in the United States, but if you look at the Chinese economy, if you look at the Russian or even European economy or Western nations, I mean, they are getting just like blitzed right now. And they're saying, you know what? You guys really want to go away from the U.S. dollar? Cool. Let's put us in a global recession. We'll see how much you guys want to use U.S. dollars a year from now.

It's pretty interesting.

It's amazing.

It's amazing to see how much power they actually— like, people, oh, they will never do that. They'll never do this. Yeah, dude, the Fed, like your dad was talking about last night, the Fed, the Fed always wins.

Yeah.

And don't fight the Fed.

Most powerful organization on earth. 12 largest banks run the Fed. And it's just like, they are—

it's crazy.

It's unreal.

And they have a lot of power and they pretty much will do what they want. And they're not in the business of losing money. And, you know, they'll take a little bit of a sting sometimes to get what they want.

Yeah.

And yeah, I mean, when people make those threats of, you know, the US dollar and this and that and the other, like, okay, well, we're going to make it powerful. We're going to do first ever.

Yeah.

We're going to grow inflation a lot dramatically. Probably one of the biggest inflations we've seen in at least me and your lifetime.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. You know, maybe, maybe in the '90s. I don't really know. It was kind of crazy back then.

'70s and '80s.

Yeah. Yeah.

A little bit higher.

But yeah.

Yeah.

But in our lives, we're not that old. We're '90s babies. So, but then we're going to grow the US dollar. First ever.

It's unreal.

It's basically like, hold my beer, watch this.

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty crazy what they can do. Again, don't fight the Fed, don't fight the Fed, don't fight the Fed, right? The 2 things, it's just interesting to these countries that wanna move away from the dollar, they just put trade, we just put trade embargoes. We'll just park aircraft carriers out front and just say, okay, Turkey, you wanna trade?

Cool.

You can't get any imports now for the next 90 days. Let's see how much you wanna move away. This happened 2 years ago. It was like, Turkey's like, oh, okay, never mind. We will play nice all of a sudden. 'Cause it's like, you do not wanna mess with 14 supercarriers around the world. No, um, combined world has I think 11 aircraft carriers. US has 14, and they're supercarriers, right? And we can just project power anywhere.

And they can be out there for years. Oh, like 20, 30 years?

Well, they're— yeah, they're nuclear powered. They don't have to port. No, they're— it's unreal.

They can just be out there for— okay, what would you post it up for the next whatever you want? We'll fly in food for the next couple years.

I'm a geek about aircraft carriers. I like— my wife makes fun of me so much, but we have supercarriers. 2 nuclear-powered engines. It's like 2 nuclear plants in each one of them that power them so they can go 24/7. The combined world has, I think, 11 or 12, but they're World War II era. They're like 60 years old, the aircraft carriers.

Really?

They're like, they're a fourth the size. So like the combined world has 12, but they're a fourth the size. We have supercarriers, which are 4 times bigger. Yeah, I mean, they are unreal. And for a carrier to leave port, it leaves with like 15 ships. Like, it has to. Every time it leaves, it has to go with 15 ships. So, there's like a submarine, there's 2 battleships, there's like all these other— there's like, it's a carrier fleet for a reason. They don't just leave an aircraft carrier out in the middle. Like, it is surrounded. So, you talk about a carrier group. So, for example, when China was talking about Taiwan, right? So, this is last year. It's very interesting what happened just from geopolitical. So, China's talking tough. We want to take over Taiwan. They're starting to do all these military drills. So, the U.S., what do they do? They go park an aircraft carrier right in the middle.

Okay.

Aircraft carrier division. So, you imagine that's out of 15 ships. They park in the middle. China still does their tough talk. We park a second one there.

Boom!

Right in the— right there. And then what we do is we said, OK, we will— and then we said, we will defend Taiwan at all measures. Biden said that. This is like last August.

Right.

And then they said, also, we're going to cut off all chip manufacturing from China in like the same month. And you saw them still kind of doing drills in the area. We then took a third aircraft carrier. and put it in the South China Sea. So, we have 3 of our supercarriers there.

Wow.

And then guess what? Everything just kind of settles down. It's like this. And this is what happened. This is the 4th time we've had a Taiwanese conflict. I served an LDS mission in Taiwan.

Really?

They always talk about this and all this stuff. This is the 4th one. And every time, the US has showed up with 1 or 2 aircraft, this time 3 aircraft carriers, and said, really? Really? We're going to do this?

Right.

And everything just kind of calms down. It's really interesting. If you look at, I mean, geopolitical When something starts heating up, right, we go park an aircraft carrier somewhere, things settle down pretty good. Now, the problem with Ukraine and Russia was we can't really get an aircraft carrier in there because it's landlocked, right? But it's, uh, I just— it's really interesting.

We can go park, you know, something on the sea. We have long-range missiles and a lot of those.

But we've got satellites and everything. What's funny too about this— sorry, we're just going way off topic. It's fun. It's cool. The Ukraine-Russian war, I just— I'd love to hear your thoughts. It feels like they're fighting. I had this guy that was a super geopolitical Like expert military guy on my show. And he's like, it feels like they're using weapons from 30 years ago. They're not using modern weapons for this war.

Right.

They're using like archaic— like, it's like we're like fighting like World War II era war in Ukraine. The US is kind of just dumping our old ammunition to them and just saying, yeah, go fight. We're kind of testing stuff out.

Right.

'Cause like all the new tech of like drones, super soldiers, satellites, laser missiles, like they have all of them. Them. So we're not using any of them, right? But Russia's not using them either. It's like this weird, like, let's fight a war from the 1970s together, right? And we just barely sent the M1 Abrams tanks over, which are like our super tanks, right? They can drive like 70 miles an hour and shoot a target from like 2 miles away while they're moving. They're crazy. They can like— they're just cool. But I don't know, any thoughts on, on the war?

Yeah, I mean, I, I, uh, I was actually thinking about that because I've seen some pictures and seen some things and read some articles about like why Why is Russia not using what we think that they have? And this and that and the other. And then it's like, then I guess you can go like, do they have it? Will they show that they have it? Was the technology really there, or is it kind of more faking there?

Yeah. Like if they—

and then you have to like think about maybe like I'm way off topic and I'm by no means any, you know.

Yeah. Myself as well. I'm just a guy sitting in an armchair.

It's like if they really, really wanted it, why don't— why don't— like if Russia feels that they're that big and bad, why don't they just go take it. Like, why? Like, it's like— it seems to me that it'd be like us fighting a war with almost, you know, no talking with anybody, or like Mexico, and we're just over here, like, using BB guns. And it's like, if we really wanted it, we would just go invade it.

Go just do it.

We'd just take it.

But it seems like Russia's military just isn't as strong as people thought, right?

And I think that's like— it's almost— so, I actually know some, uh, some Russian— some Eastern Europeans and some Russians and people, and they're like— and this is just— I don't know how to even form an opinion, but they're like, they're all upset at Putin because he's, like, he's showing the world that they're not what he always brags that they are.

Yeah, they're super weak. Yeah.

And it's like, now it's like, OK, like, threaten anybody and you really maybe don't have— like, if you really wanna start a war and everything that you said said politically on camera and all these things and bombing this and bombing that and whatever. Like, if all that is real, then why aren't you just going and taking it? Like, how much you say that you want it and hate it and you're gonna do whatever it takes and bomb this and bomb that, whatever, then why haven't you just taken it over? Why is itty-bitty little Ukraine just doing okay?

They set a huge stand and they've done really well. And we'll see if this— again, a war of attrition. We'll see what happens. I mean, the only thing you go back to is they have like, what, 6,000 nuclear heads. And he's right. So that's the, that's the game that I think the United States is playing now is like, well, it looks like they're pretty weak. We can take them over, but we don't want to back them into a corner where they're gonna blow off a nuke because we don't want to have a— even a small tactical nuke would be detrimental for an area. So that's just interesting, but it's really shown the weakness of Russia. We'll see with China as well. We mentioned that we talked about this last night, but Peter Zeihan's put a ton of great stuff about, about the weakness of the Chinese economy and the weakness of of their supply chains with food, their import of oil and calories every day is just phenomenal.

Really?

And it's, I mean, phenomenal in a bad way. It's terrible how much they import. They're very dependent on other countries. Very easy to starve out. And yeah, his whole take is that, and China's right now, because they had the one-child policy, and then they had, so they had the baby boomers that was around the world, then they had a one-child policy. So they have this huge demographic that's aging, That's retirement age and they have one child policy. And now they're trying to incentivize like working age people to have kids. So, these people that are in ages from 25 to, let's call them 50 years old, have to take care of their 4, you know, in-laws and parents.

Right.

Maybe more because there's a lot of baby boomers.

Right.

They're just themselves and then they got to take care of multiple kids.

Right.

And there's this huge squeeze in the Chinese economy. And the best estimates put like by 2060, the Chinese population will be half of what it is today.

Wow. Wow.

Like, that's how much population decline they're having. And that hurts, you know, factories, production workers, it just hurts everything. And you have an aging population that's old that needs Social Security or to be taken care of, right?

Right.

And he just this, he goes through this whole economic play of China and he predicts China will collapse in the next about 15 years.

Wow.

In some way, shape, or form. And that's why actually they're lashing out now. So usually economic wars long precede physical wars.

Right.

You see that across throughout history. He's using economic, like Japan had an economic war, they're trying to get more oil and stuff.

And then finally they just said, well, we're just gonna take whole Sun Belt.

They tried to take all these islands, including Hawaii, which put them into World War II because that was part of their mission. But they were really economically squeezed at the time. And right now, China is becoming economically squeezed, especially with COVID They just opened up from COVID They've been shut down for 18 or 2 years.

It's crazy.

And we're watching this video, me and my dad, and these factory workers are opening their factories and like, hey, we're open for business. They have no orders.

Right.

And they're calling up US People, hey, where's the orders? And they're like, oh, we went to India. We went to Indonesia. We went to Mexico. We went to Vietnam.

Right.

We don't need you guys anymore. We had to run a business. You guys have been gone for 2 years. We can't just— And so, all these business owners in China are like, we just opened— There's this whole documentary. They're walking around. They're like, all these— They've just opened their factories and they have no orders for 30 or 60 to 90 days.

Right.

And they're like, do Americans hate Chinese people? Like, they're trying to figure it out. And it's really, no, you guys just closed your factories for to. It's called capitalism, right? And we just went somewhere else.

Yeah, you know, we had to do— I mean, we were talking last night about how important the United States is to the world economy and how much we consume, and everybody kind of relies on us for a lot of manufacturing, a lot of exports to us, and also we export to them. So it's this trade going on. And if you just say, hey, we're not open, we're not gonna do this, well, we're not just gonna say, okay, well, we'll see you in 2 years. We're just gonna go out of business and go bankrupt and the world's gonna end. Like, no, like we're like, it's the American dream burning inside of every business owner. We're going to do something else. We— my mom always used to tell me, if it is to be, it's up to me. And that's kind of a lot of business owners. A lot of people is like, if it is to be, it's up to me. We're going to make it happen. We're going to go somewhere else. And then you had all these other countries saying, hey, no, we, we don't care. Come to us. Please come to us. And they're like giving incentives and discounts and opening up factories and new construction and this and that and the other of like you're getting the same service, same product. product. Yeah, probably at a cheaper price. It's— it helped us instead of being so leveraged by a country where we so heavily relied on them for exports. Yeah, where they could kind of play and do whatever they wanted to do. Now it's— it's—

And then you— then you rise— you raise rates at the same time. Yeah. And you squeeze these countries economically even more. Like I said before, the U.S. economy will get hurt, but these other countries, it's now compounded, right? Because interest rates are now high, but you have no orders as well. And so you are squeezed across the board. And what happens 'Cause you squeeze the world economy way more, all back to the play of who, what currency you gonna use? Who are you gonna, you know, pay your dues to? Are we gonna go back to the Bretton Woods Agreement, right? It's interesting, this macro game of geopolitical sense. But anyways, we could talk for hours and hours. I got 2 last questions for you. We'll get outta here. I know you gotta run. Okay, second last question. How can people find you guys, follow you? What's the best ways to connect and all that kind of stuff?

So best way to connect, Instagram, just Jason Haugen. Last name is H-A-U-G-E-N. It's just my name. My handle's just Jason Haugen. You know, our dealerships are Haugen RV Group, so my last name RV Group. And yeah, I'll be on there, but my Instagram is the best way to get a hold of me.

Cool. So go follow Jason online. It's awesome.

Also podcasts, Culture Camp, everywhere where you can listen to a podcast. iTunes, Spotify. Yeah. CastBox everywhere. YouTube. Yeah, everywhere.

Okay, sorry, 2 last questions. I said 2 before, but I got one more. So 2 last ones. Favorite, like, brand of ice cream?

Oh man, dude, I fell in love. I was just in Hawaii. I fell in love with Dole Whip.

Dole Whip?

Okay.

Yeah, not Häagen-Dazs?

Um, I love—

It's your family, dog.

Come on. I know, I know.

You can't not like Häagen-Dazs.

I, I, I do. I, I grew up in Ogden. Farr's Ice Cream is just the best.

It is pretty good.

It is the OG up there. I love Farr's Ice Cream.

Yep.

Yeah, I mean, I thought Häagen-Dazs would be just a lock, a lockstep. I don't know, maybe we're always battling because last name is like, we're Haugen, they're Haagen.

Yeah, is it spelled differently though?

Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, kind of the same, but they're probably the same ancestor way back when, right?

Honestly, man, I'm just a big fan of cookie dough and cookies and cream. So like, whoever makes it good, whoever makes it good.

Okay, all right, final question. I just want to throw it in there because I— that one. All right, if you could leave this audience with one thing that you think is most important to you, so it could be religion, politics, science, family, whatever, what would be the most important thing you'd want to leave this audience with?

Lead from the front and love your people. People, whether that's your family, your your team, your employees. Lead from the front and love your people.

Love it.

Yeah.

There it is.

It they got to see you walk the walk. They got to see you talk the talk. They got to see you do everything and be the example in their life. Whether that's positive, whether that's you know being being a good coach, being a good mentor, being a good team leader, being a good owner, being a good CEO, whatever you want to call it. And then just lead with your heart. Yeah. And and I hope that you can. I I I feel like it's a disaster when people are leaving too much with what they just don't care about their people. And so you can kind of take it to you don't take it to an extreme and just you know love like it's just don't be don't be weird be normal but just love your people yeah just don't don't look at them negative I've been I've been if I didn't have a team I would just have a bunch of real estate and trailers with nothing no cash flow nothing yeah and so people need to realize how important that you can call it human capital you can call it team members people Human beings that are part of your company, yeah, and just care. There's no reason not to care. It's way respectable to care. It's I don't give a lot of people much respect and don't do business with people that I know that don't care about their team.

That's cool. Well, I love that. Jason Hagen, everybody go follow him online. Thanks for having. Thanks for coming on today.

Dude, thank you so much.

It's a pleasure to have you. So fun.

You're amazing, dude. Appreciate you.

All right, dog. That was it.

That was awesome.