[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to A Place to Call Home. I'm your host, Ed O. Bridgman, electrical engineer, developer and founder of EOB Consulting. Today I'm exploring how innovative RV destinations are redefining modern living. You're watching now Media Television.
Welcome to A Place to Call Home. I'm your host, Ed Bridgman and I'm excited to welcome Ryan Herpin here today. Ryan is the co founder and managing partner of Impact Strategies Consulting and brings more than a decade of experience helping companies streamline operations, strengthen leadership teams, improve employee engagement and drive profitability with long term strategy. What makes this conversation especially relevant to our audience is that in the outdoor hospitality industry, great ideas are everywhere, but the real differentiator is execution. Hey, it's not the easiest word. Today I want to explore what it really takes to build destinations that are not only attractive on paper, but operationally strong, scalable and sustainable in the real world.
So welcome Ryan.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: It is such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me on.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Well, thank you for being here, Ryan. When I look at the outdoor hospitality today, I see a lot of people are chasing the vision, but not everyone is prepared for the operational complexity behind that vision. From your perspective, where do businesses most often underestimate what it takes to run?
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Well, this is a really good question and I really think it applies to any industry that you're looking at, whether it's outdoor hospitality, which you're an expert there, and I had the privilege of having a conversation with you on my show about that. But in any business, I think there is a lot of complexity around a good plan.
A good plan is really where you have to start and you can't expect anything to operate well unless you finish it first. Now what I mean by this is why would you start a business without having an end destination in mind?
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Exit strategy.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: You got to know how you're going to finish.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you plan a vacation and just.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Do you plan.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: Go any direction?
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Do you plan a trip and don't know where you're going to go? You have to know where you're going to go and you have to know where you start.
A lot of people skip that step.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Okay. You got to know two things on this map. You got to know where you're at and where you want to go and then you can plot how to get there.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Exactly.
That's perfect. And it's just like with the different RV destinations, right? They have different reasons to go there. You have a park versus all these things and you got to educate me on that. Which thankfully. But to keep that relevant in this, it's, you got to have a good plan. If you don't have a good plan, you can't expect to operate well. You can't expect to move forward, achieve goals, and really grow an entity where you have people that want to be part of it in the first place. And also, whatever service or product you have, unless you have a good plan, it's not going to hit home with the people that should want it and should need it.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Well, in the Six Sigma world of define, measure, analyze, improve and control, you got to define that's where we start every time.
Well, you work across operational excellence, leadership development, and profitability. When you first assess a business, what are the earliest signals that you tell that tell you whether the company has built sustainable growth or just reacting in real time?
[00:03:38] Speaker B: Number one, I would say, is how clear is the vision?
Do the employees know what they're doing this for? Do they know the goals, the objective, the destination for the business as a whole? If they can't clearly articulate to me what the business is trying to do, I can tell you right there, there's major, major gap, major weakness.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Well, one of the businesses that you managed or ran or owned or something real early on had how many employees? A big one.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Started with, when I started, there was 350. By the time I left and started, the firm is 1500 employees.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: 1500 employees. So how does Ryan communicate to 1500 employees the vision and get everybody pulling in the same direction?
[00:04:25] Speaker B: It is intentional discipline in communicating in alignment with the, the team. So it's bringing people into the same rooms and having these conversations of, hey, so one of the concepts I implemented as I took over, you know, director role is, okay, instead of having these just quarterly board meetings, we're having quarterly leadership and employee meetings where, hey, here's how we've done, here's where we're going, here's what that looks like, here's what needs to change. It's transparency, but it's bringing them into the conversation of, hey, here's what we're doing, here's how we're doing it, and here's why we're trying to do this. It creates alignment from top to the bottom.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: So you called the janitor, the people on the lowest stream. You called them in quarterly into a big room and laid out the direction of the company.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Yes. And it was participation from me and the executives of the team where, hey, we start with upper level management. Well, first starts with board and obviously, and then goes to different levels of management. And then it's, hey, each production line, hey, we're starting with the supervisors, hey, here's where we're going. Then we can bring, you know, go out to the shop and go to each team and say, hey, guys, here's what this looks like. It is time consuming, sure, but it's intentional in the sense of now you have guys that are now doing this not just for a job, but for a career. And a big part of that is they see we care about what they're doing and how it makes an impact in the bigger picture and the service to, well, the clients.
So if you want sustainability, well, to mitigate weakness and instability, I.e. business growth of that rate, you need clear vision and alignment amongst the team from bottom to top, top to bottom. And if they don't know what the heck they're doing there and where they're supposed to be going, how could they possibly know what they're doing has any kind of value in the first place?
[00:06:11] Speaker A: That is so great. That is so good.
I apologize. It reminds me when, when I started out at Motorola as an electrical design engineer managing or designing microprocessors. Then I got promoted into management.
Didn't know anything about management.
Suddenly I have 40 employees reporting directly to me and I was struggling. I was underwater most of the time.
Not very long after that, Motorola came out with a new mandate saying that you had to spend one hour per week with each employee, one on one.
I had 40 employees. That's a 40 hour week.
What else would I get done if I attempted to do that? I remember pushing back and saying, I don't have time to do that. Let's make it one hour per month. Let's start there. Okay?
And so we compromised and we did that. But guess what? I learned so much. I had two people working for me who didn't speak English.
So when we had our opening shift meeting and we're telling everybody what we're going to do, these two ladies were. They were sisters. They were just looking at each other and somebody had to translate to them. After the meeting. Nobody knew that we had employees that didn't speak the same language that we spoke because nobody had taken the time to talk to them. I had one employee who didn't have a job function.
What?
[00:07:45] Speaker B: And these are things that are brought
[00:07:46] Speaker A: to the surface that made no sense to me. He was brought in on opening day. They were taking him a tour and showing him what he was going to be doing. They got a phone call, whoever they is, got a Phone call in the middle of the tour. They left him in this room.
That's where he stayed. He came into work every day, he walked into that room and he made himself invisible. And he'd been there for over a year and he didn't do anything. He didn't know what his job was. He had never been trained on anything at all.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: Wow. Having top down communication with every employee, that's amazing.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: It's relationship. And that's part of the reason why I had to kind of get out of that world is when you get to that level where a global giant is now asking me to, well, for lack of a better way to put it, cut throats from 10,000ft without ever seeing a face or shaking hands.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: Oh, that's tough.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: Based on the numbers. I can't do that personally. I had to leave and pursue this firm as a consultant because it just matters more to me to know that what I'm doing is making a personal impact. And I can't lead somebody if I don't have at least some understanding of who they are, why they're here and what their goals are. Because, well, making a decision on have somebody's life that impacts their livelihood, their families, without ever even seeing their face, that's just, to me, I'm just not that guy.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: So you got out of the big corporation and you started your own business consulting business. So how many employees do you have now?
[00:09:12] Speaker B: So it's funny, I've got people that I'll bring in, you know, under contract, you know, like 1099 type consultants and coaches that I'll bring in when there's overflow. But with what me and my business partner do, we've developed this efficient model. I mean, we are efficient by nature. That's what we do, right? We drive efficiency. So we've developed products and systems and networks and things that really help people on a bigger scale. But really it's just us and then our 1099 people we bring in as needed to help further different endeavors. But really it's system, system, system.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: Well, I'll close this segment by reinforcing that. Building an outdoor hospitality destination is not just about creating a place people want to visit.
It's about creating a business that knows how to perform under pressure and grow with discipline.
We'll be right back with more insight into designing communities that combine freedom, profitability and purpose. Stay tuned.
And we're back. I'm Ed O. Bridgman and this is a place to call home on NOW Media Television. Let's Continue this conversation.
Welcome back to A Place to Call Home.
I'm your host, Ed Bridgman and I'm here with Ryan Herpin. And we're talking about what really drives success behind the scenes in outdoor hospitality. Not just the property itself, but the leadership, the systems and the culture that determine whether a destination can actually thrive.
I want this segment to move from business mechanics into people mechanics. In outdoor hospitality, the guest experience is shaped by what happens behind the curtain.
Team clarity, leadership behavior, staff engagement, and ex operational follow through. I want to dig into the connection between the culture and the performance and how leaders create environments where excellence becomes repeatable.
Ryan, welcome back. Thank you. We've had some fun.
One of the biggest challenges in any growing business is making sure that the team can execute the vision the owner has in mind. Where do you usually see the disconnect between the leadership and intention and the frontline reality?
[00:11:36] Speaker B: A big disconnect that I typically see is when the owner or the leaders don't truly understand what it takes to do the job.
When they have never been in the position, they've never experienced it, or they did 10, 12 years ago and the atmosphere looks completely different now. That's a major disconnect. But not only that, when a leader does not allow for a feedback loop, you're just asking to not only have problems, but to grow those problems to much bigger problem.
And that's just the reality of it. So being a leader is ultimately being a servant.
The higher you climb.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Wait a second, say that again. Say that again.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: Being a leader is ultimately just being a servant. It's the way that for some reason we seem to think about it is, you know, it's a big pyramid, the owners are at the top and we're all cascading down. No, that is the wrong way of thinking. If you want to be a successful leader instead of a boss, you're just a big servant. The higher you climb, really the lower you are, it's the more people you support on your shoulders and back. Now you've got to open up those feedback loops because you want to improve. If you're not facilitating and giving your team and people everything they need to succeed, whether it's information resource structure, you can't expect good results. It is ultimately your responsibility as a leader to provide everything your team needs to be successful. In turn, that provides the best experience for your customers, your clients and, well, people that are there for those outdoor hospitality type places.
It starts at the bottom, which is the top as people like to think of it. And it's how you support them. And if they don't have a support and if you don't have a feedback loop and willingness to accept, well, constructive criticism, you can't expect to improve or change.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: So Jesus washed his disciples feet.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Oh, I like using this as an example. Yes.
He was a king of kings, the Lord of lords, goodness. He had every authority to never even consider that, yet he chose to wash their feet. Not because he was better than that, because he was humble enough to serve, because that was the model of leadership that really works.
Wow. Not, not because it's some fictitious idea of oh, this is conceptually cool. No, that's really what works.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: And it still works today.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: Still today. Not a, not a only reason I'm at. Where I'm at is because I just learned how to be a servant. That's it.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: That is so, so good. People. People don't care what you know until they know that you care.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Oh yeah, that's good.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: So that's right on topic.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: It's funny, you know, elaborate on it just a hair fall further.
Something that I find to be quite interesting and my mentor taught me early on as we were transitioning his business to this 33 times EBITDA exit was as I fulfilled that role, going from a welder all the way to director.
The people that were my bosses and managers, I became their chosen elected leader.
Not because I was the expert of any given thing, but because I understood how to serve the experts of all the things.
I learned how to have a good relationship with them, how to make sure they had what they needed, how to satisfy their requirements and stuff that they wanted for their teams and their atmosphere. And then I figured out how to get them all to work together efficiently. I never had to be the expert of any given thing. I just had to get the experts to work together and make sure they had all the things they need. So hence being a servant, I just. They say, hey, I need this. I say, yes sir, no problem, I'll get it for you.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: You might not know how to do it yourself.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Oh, but I'm gonna figure it out. That means I've got to go to this expert to figure out how to get it. I'm the connector. I'm the servant. He says, I need this. I say, yes sir, I'll get it. And then when it comes time to the goals, what are the goals you want to achieve? What looks like success for your department?
What does success look like for your team? They're giving me all the answers. Then I just hold them to the standard of that by, hey, here's what we said we wanted. Here's where we're actually at.
How do we get from point A to point B?
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Ties right back into the first segment.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: Exactly. It's being served, and it's just helping provide what's needed. That's the disconnect that I see consistently is we think we're a boss.
That's just not really it.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: In the outdoor hospitality industry, it was predominantly owned by mom and Pops for decades. Okay.
But now there is large segments that are coming in and purchasing 20, 30 different RV destinations. Now, the boss can't physically be. The owner can't physically be at each one of those destinations at any given point. And some of them own places they've never seen. Okay, so how does someone operate when they're not physically there?
[00:16:29] Speaker B: Easy. And this is easy. Okay, look, how about this? I'll put it this way. It's simple, but it's not easy.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:16:36] Speaker B: It's very simple, but not very easy. And I say that because. And this is through trial and error and just having to make it work, no matter what it looked like, and to put it simple, is you have to develop the right culture. You have to develop the right people around you to be that presence when you can't be managing all these different properties, all these different people, and ensuring that there's exceptional results from top to the bottom, bottom to the top is.
Let's say you and I work together.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: Okay, let's say I would like that.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Let's say. Let's say for this instance, let's say you're. You're a manager over these properties, and I'm. I'm this guy's way up that ladder or lower on that tree there.
If you and I have a really good relationship and I'm serving you as a leader, you're going to embody that same type of mentality, the same support to your team, your people for these properties. It's a culture you're creating. But it all starts with leadership. The leader models what to do, not tells what to do. That's the difference between a boss and a leader. Leader goes first, says, I'll pave the way.
I'll be the bigger man. If I have to, I'll bite my tongue, I'll do whatever and serve you to the point where you're like, oh, my gosh, that works. I feel good when I work with this person because he makes sure I have everything I need so I can be as successful as possible. I'M going to do that for my people and my people are going to do that for their customers, the people that want to visit. And it reflects all the way around. That's why there's a saying that I love now, don't think about this too deep, okay?
An army of sheep led by a lion will always defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.
Now you think logistically, and that still might not be completely there, but the concept is a business, a team, an entity is only as good as its leader because the mentality follows suit.
So if you want to manage efficiently and effectively and operationally across the board for all these places that you can't be as an owner, as a leader, the people that can be, support and serve them, embody it, show it to them, model it to them, what it means to lead successfully, what it means to serve successfully. And they're going to serve those different locations successfully. Because as soon as it doesn't align, they feel it, you know it, and you can address it.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Wow.
Say that saying one more time so everybody captures it.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: So are we talking about the sheep and the line? So an army of sheep led by a lion will always defeat an army of lions led by a sheep. Because the mentality, the focus, the energy all stems from the leader going first.
Simple as that.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: That's fantastic. That's super. If I can apply that to the outdoor hospitality industry, EOB Consulting. I am the largest consultant in the United States, but I'm also the only consultant in the United States that actually owns an outdoor hospitality destination.
Okay? So not only do I advise clients on how to spend their money, but I can show them how I spent my money. But even more importantly, I deal with the day to day babysitting of adults that you have to do if you own an outdoor hospitality destination. Okay, I've had someone die on my property. I've only been open five years, okay? I've had vagrants or people who are homeless come through and try to camp out inside the bathroom and charge their phones and take a shower. And I've dealt with that, okay? I've dealt with having to get people to move on or even guests to decide they don't want to pay anymore, how to get rid of them. I've gone through all of that as the leader.
So now I can work remotely as I do most of the time, and have one employee. But when they call and they go, oh my gosh, we've got this going on, I go, been there, done that. This is how you handle it.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: It Also bleeds over to your clients and customers. You've been there, you've done that, you're leading by example. You have a different perspective, especially in this industry, because you've done it yourself. You, you're living it yourself. So when you share an experience of knowledge, it's because it's the difference between knowledge and wisdom.
People say knowledge, there's a saying knowledge is power. I say BS because applied knowledge is power. Knowledge is useless unless you actually use it. But here's another step forward in that knowledge can be gained by watching a battle from afar, seeing what to do, what not to do. But wisdom is gained when you're in the battle and survive it.
So you're gaining wisdom that actually turns into results for your clients. Whereas you could be stepping back, you could just be. The guy thinks, oh, I can see the picture from 10,000ft. So I have knowledge of how it's supposed to work. Instead of just the knowledge, you bring the wisdom and experience to the table that makes all the difference in what you do. Is the reason why I'm good at what I do because I've been there, done that, I've been in it.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: We. Well, this is outdoor hospitality industry is a hundred year old industry, but it has changed drastically since COVID Our guests have drastically changed. And if you haven't owned an RV destination recently, then your knowledge is no longer relevant in most cases.
So that's, that's the difference.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: Yeah, and it's, it applies across the board. A lot of the stuff we're talking about today. I know. You know, with your specialty being in the outdoor hospitality world, it's funny how leadership, operations, culture and people, it all blends and goes really the same way no matter what the industry really is.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: That's fantastic.
So we're on a place to call home. Please stay connected to this show and you can watch us on NOW Media TV live or on demand anytime you like. Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and unlock non stop bilingual programming in English and Spanish on the move. Catch the podcast version at www.nowmediatv.
i hope you stick around and come back for our third segment. We're really enjoying this show. Ryan, thank you for being my first host. No, I'm the host. My first interviewee.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: We'll be right back with more insight into designing communities that combine freedom, profitability and purpose. Stay tuned.
And we're back. I'm Ed O. Bridgman and this is a place to call home on NOW Media Television. Let's continue this conversation.
And we're back on a place to call home. And my guest is Ryan Herpin. So far we've talked about operations and leadership.
Now I want to explore something every owner cares about. How to increase profitability without creating chaos, burnout, or a business model that becomes impossible to sustain.
I want this segment to connect the operational strategy to the owner reality.
Many business owners want growth, but Ryan's published profile also speaks to maximizing revenue while protecting healthier work life balance. That creates a strong angle for this conversation, how businesses can become more profitable without becoming more fragile.
Ryan, your work speaks directly to boosting profitability and streamlining processes. I love that because I'm a Six Sigma guy. So streamlining processes is reducing waste. When a company wants to improve margins, where do you usually look first before anyone starts talking about cutting cost?
[00:24:46] Speaker B: Before cutting cost, I look at structure.
That's the first place I have to look is redundancy. So if we're looking at before cutting costs, diving into, hey, where are we spending money pointlessly? Where are we wasting time? It's what is the structure of this business? If you were to give me a list of all the people here, who they report to and what the responsibility is, could you. And if you did, what kind of weaknesses would I see? Would I see redundant positions? Would I see these middlemen in operational flows that are just unnecessary? A lot of people think, oh, I want this to be from point A to point B to point C. Well, you've got a lot of operations where there's only supposed to be an input and an output and you got three other people in the mix that certainly don't need to be there. And it's, and the problem is, is when things like that have gone on too long, people guard it and protect
[00:25:36] Speaker A: it become the norm.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: Yes. And then it's, it's. Then they protect and have to justify their, the position that they're there. You want to avoid that and incentivize.
Let's eliminate waste together.
I've had people, I changed a culture in one of the businesses I worked with where, hey, your goal, your objective is to work yourself out of the job.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: I understand that.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Because if you can minimize, if you can maximize your efficiency, we'll teach you more stuff, we'll give you more opportunity, you'll grow in the business. That's always been my philosophy. That means how I got to go from welder to director of a big company and so on and so forth is if I work myself out of the job at everything I do. Then I have no choice but to learn more stuff. So the first thing I look at, if I'm not looking at, okay, let's where can we cut waste and stuff like that is structure of the business. Where are the redundancies? Where can we improve efficiency? Just on a few changes of, hey, move a couple pieces around and immediately you're going to have different results right there.
Then it's diving into, hey, okay, where are we blowing money? Where are we not being very financially responsible?
You'd be surprised how often businesses operate for five, 10 years and they don't realize the amount of things they're spending money on that they don't even use.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: I understand.
[00:26:49] Speaker B: It is absurd even when you have teams in place. Here's one of the problems I see as well that ties into that is as you dive into going from the structure to the, you know, the operational flow and the people, and you start diving into that way side of things, you got people that are afraid to voice up, hey, I think we're spending money unwisely, Doge. Yeah, yeah. Well, it boils down to back to one of earlier segments of boss to a leader. When you got a boss, you don't really want to voice up because you might be the guy that gets the kick for that.
Whereas a leader is like, hey, thank you for bringing that up. Let's fix it.
And I always encourage, when you bring to a superior or anybody else problem, always come with two to three solutions in mind.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: Always. Always. That is so important. Absolutely, yes. You know, at Motorola, we had an entire assembly line go down for hours one day. And I'm like, what is going on? I'm, as the leader, I'm dwelling in and trying to find out what's going on. And there was a form that wasn't being filled out. How come it's not being filled out? Because we don't. We ran out of forms. How can we shut down an assembly line for a form? Well, it was a five duplicate form you wrote on this one. But it transparency, you can see it on the fifth one. Okay. All the way down. Okay. So then I studied well, who needs this first one? Who needs the second one? Who needs the third one? And what I found out was the last two were being thrown away.
They were no longer used anymore. We had plenty of the three form paper. We didn't have any more five form paper. And we shut down an assembly line.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: That makes no sense, dude.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: Stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. That is just. That is the nature of the beast.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Oh, imagine that as being people.
Every step, every wasted process step, every person who's doing redundancy is adding another opportunity for failure.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: Another person calling it, oh, well, we can't go forward without that person. Well, what does that person do? He don't do nothing, but we can't go forward without him. Like what?
[00:28:55] Speaker B: And this is where, like my business partner and I, we have a little bit of a saying as far as the methodology we use. And we try to keep it simple because we believe in simplicity. And this really kind of highlights that. Our methodology of helping transform a business is cardboard and crayon. What it is, keep it as simple, simple as possible.
If you can make something so simple an elementary student can come in there and do it, then everyone else's chances of success are almost guaranteed.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: It's simplify everything as much as possible and continued, repeatable success is guaranteed.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: That is so good. So, you know, when there was a race to the moon back in the 60s, were racing the Russians to see who can get to the moon first. And they came up with, well, we need to be able to write things down. We need to be able to communicate in space.
Ballpoint ink pens don't work because they require gravity. So they were looking for what, what can we use to write? And how about, how are we going to restructure this ballpoint pen? How are we going to put a pump inside the ballpoint pen? What kind of ink are we going to use? How are we going to do this? You know what the Russians did?
They found a pencil.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: I was just thinking that I did not know this story. I was like, why would they just use a pencil? Doesn't require gravity.
But that's the exact point that I was kind of making. There is. We have this tendency to overcomplicate everything, whether it's structure, whether it's financial discipline, whether it's operations, communication, leadership. Doesn't matter what it is. We over complicate everything by nature.
And a lot of people's nature of doing that is to justify their importance. Whereas, and this, this boils into a societal problem we have. And that is piece of paper says your qualifier gives you the qualification to xyz. You know, people care more about your background and experience, knowledge. I don't have a formal college education. Really, I don't.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: I'm a certified welding technician. Became a master welder, found a good mentor that gave me no box. He, he took my box and erased it, Said, hey, here's your new responsibility.
You are the Problem solver. I've got people master's degrees. I've got people with 10 plus years experience on you when it comes to business operations, whatever it is. He said, you're obviously good at solving problems and working yourself out of a job.
Here's your objective. Every problem you find, you work it all the way to the end. You find the ideal solution. But here's the one requirement. You don't get to solve any of those problems on your own. You can only solve those problems through others.
He said. So there you go. No more box. None of that. My job was to keep everything as simple as I can.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: So you had to delegate to someone else. You had to train someone else the new way of doing things, just being a servant.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: And it was as simple as this. Okay, hey, we. This production line doesn't have XYZ material. I go to the guys, hey, why don't we have these parts? Oh, we haven't got it from parts Fab yet. Okay. All right, let me go talk to those. Hey guys, these guys need these parts. Why don't have these parts?
[00:31:53] Speaker A: We need a five page document.
[00:31:55] Speaker B: We didn't have the material come in from, you know, shipping Receiving didn't bring her. Logistics didn't bring it. Okay, let me go to those guys. Hey guys, these guys need this material and parts fabrication. Why don't they have it? Well, we didn't know what we needed. And then when we realized what we needed, we didn't have the material. Okay, so that's two departments there. It's production control and then that goes into procurement. Okay, let me go to these people and talk here. And then it's okay, we get to the very end and I bring these managers together. Hey guys, here's a problem I saw. Here's what I followed it all the way through to.
How would this been averted? What would have been the communication way to handle this? I think it's this. But what do you guys think they come to all this? Okay, well, how do we implement something that's going to fix this?
And it's like, well, easy. We just do xyz, duh. So like, okay, awesome. Let's do that. I'll write it up into procedure for you guys. I'll keep an eye on it and when I see something falsehood, I'll bring it to your attention.
[00:32:50] Speaker A: Awesome, Perfect.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: And then it works. Now here's the key. When it comes to delegation, if you want to delegate successfully, make it their idea.
Make it their idea because they take ownership.
[00:33:01] Speaker A: So when you word the question, you may already know the answer.
[00:33:05] Speaker B: I know the destination.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: But you word the question to lead them to come to the answer themselves.
They take ownership at that point. And they're much more likely to do that if it was their idea.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: Yes. And they own it. And then here's the key. That on a bigger scale with gentlemen like yourself, you're experienced, knowledgeable wisdom. When you're working with other leaders, you're a leader of leaders. The key to get a leader to start adopting that is once it's their solution, their idea, now you test the resolve. You try to poke holes in it. After you say, oh, you know, what about this? How is this gonna work? You get them fired up and passionate about it and say, no, this is gonna work. And I'll prove to you why. Now you've got a motivated, smart person who is owning that thing and wants to prove to you they're right. Oh, yeah. Now you can say, okay, awesome, I'll check in in a month.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: I'll bet you they're successful. They're gonna make certain they're successful.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: How that leader from 10,000ft can manage 30 different properties.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:34:07] Speaker B: By working only with the leaders responsible for XYZ properties.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: That is so valuable.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: It is just understanding how people work and is being a servant that knows a destination and just asks enough questions on how to get there, and then you start trying to poke the resolve until they own it.
That's why you don't. It's not rocket surgery. That's why I don't need a degree, in my opinion, to do this. It's why I took over the roles that I did. It's not because I'm the expert of all these things just because I understand what people want and what people need and well, we want to be successful and we need to be recognized for
[00:34:40] Speaker A: it and we want to be profitable. We want to make some money at the time.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: Simple as that.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: It's just that simple.
All right, real quick, we don't have much time left. But for developers and operators building toward long term enterprise value, what systems or disciplines tend to create the biggest return over time?
[00:34:59] Speaker B: The biggest return over time is investing in your own knowledge, education and abilities and then immediately investing that into your people.
And if you want to know more about that, I mean, it's pretty easy to. Matter of fact, you could find me on my website. This is a great example. You can find
[email protected] It's a great way to reach out to me, my team, we love to talk to people, explain these things and dive into what actually works and what doesn't. And then on top of that, you can find me on LinkedIn. I've got my own shows here on Now Media Television. I host two shows. There's so many ways you can find me. But we have free consultations and we do everything we can to help people understand. So if you have questions, you can find us.
[00:35:37] Speaker A: Well, thank you. Thank you for letting us know how we can find you. I'm going to end this segment by landing on a key insight. A profitable business is not just one that earns more, it's one that functions better, scales smarter, and becomes less dependent on constant rescue from the top.
So I hope you'll stay tuned to A Place to Call Home and come back with us as we wrap up the next segment with Ryan Herpin.
We'll be right back with more insight into designing communities that combine freedom, profitability and purpose. Stay tuned.
And we're back. I'm Ed O. Bridgman and this is A place to Call home on NOW Media Television. Let's continue this conversation.
Welcome back to A Place to Call Home with Ed Bridgman and Ryan Herpin, my very first person that I've ever interviewed. So please stick around for future episodes. I promise I will do better.
But as we wrap up this episode, I want to zoom out and talk about the bigger picture. Alternative living and outdoor hospitality are evolving quickly and the winners in this space won't just be the ones with the most exciting concepts, they'll be the ones that know how to lead, operate and adapt at a high level.
I want this final segment to connect Ryan's consulting lens to the future of the industry. This show is about the next generation of residentially inspired, experience driven destinations. So I want to leave viewers with a sharper understanding of what it will take to build organizations that can meet that future with strength and clarity.
Again, Ryan, I want to say thank you. I've put you through a lot here being the very first person I ever interviewed. But as you look ahead, what capabilities do you think outdoor hospitality businesses will need most if they want to stay competitive in the next phase of this industry growth?
[00:37:51] Speaker B: You know, this is a good question
[00:37:53] Speaker A: and I actually, I'm glad you think so.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I had the privilege of being able to learn from you quite a bit before all this. But, and so now I know a little bit more about this industry and specifically. But as, as it applies to any industry, if you want to be sustainable, you want to weather the storm, you want to stand out in a crowded market, that's only getting worse. Especially in a field where you mentioned that there's bigger players in the mix now. Used to be mom and pop, now there's bigger corporations coming in, buying stuff out.
It is about standing out. You do need to stand out, but at the same time, what needs to happen is absurd consistency.
Absurd, absurd consistency.
Consistency means predictability. Predictability means easy manageability, and easy manageability means easy profitability. So if.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Can you run through those again? Some people were racing to go get a piece of paper and a pencil, go. Because that was worth remembering.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: So absurd consistency leads to, well, just predictability. Predictability leads to consistent manageability. And manageability turns into, well, consistent, easy profitability. It's simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. So if you want to stand out in this crowded market, you want to stay ahead of the curve, just like you do with, you know, you're in this industry, you're not just consulting for it. You stay ahead of the curve by investing in the technology. You're consistent in your advancement in use of technology.
You're consistent in your advancement of keeping it user friendly and ease of access for your clients and customers. You're consistent in your endeavor to serve your customers to the best of your ability. That is the absurd consistency that makes you not only stand out in the industry, in any industry, but also keeps you weathering the storm against bigger players.
Because as a bigger an entity gets, the harder it is to be absurdly consistent.
And the output, it just gets harder and harder. The branding and marketing might be absurdly consistent because that's something that can be handled well. But when it comes to the actual operation, when it comes to the actual cleanliness, the respectability, the communication of people, the user experience, it's hard when you're a bigger entity.
So as you're growing, you maintain that absurd consistency.
It keeps, keeps a high, high standard for who you are, what you do, keeps you relevant, and people want to come back to that. So
[00:40:20] Speaker A: I'm thinking about how I can relate that to someone for the first time. And when you go to a restaurant and it's a chain restaurant, they're all using the same recipes. But there's different chefs. Yes. There's different floor managers, there's different servers at each one of these locations.
And even though you love this one location in your hometown, when you go to another hometown, you may have a different experience because they're losing that.
How did you put it? The absurd consistency gets lost in translation sometimes.
[00:41:03] Speaker B: Yep, yep. And that right there means you now have an inconsistent quality, an inconsistent output, inconsistent results.
And that's where that discrepancy starts to rise. Where it's like a restaurant, like you said, which is great analogy. It's literally the perfect example for this. Perfect example because yeah, like you said, you might like this one, not this one, because different chef, different stuff. But if you have a really consistent way of managing your business standard, you hold operational system, you're getting the same results again and again and again.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: And that's what we want. Because that leads to profitability.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: Yes, exactly, Absolutely.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: This has been fun. As more people look to flexibility, mobility and lifestyle centered living. How should operators rethink about the way they design the business side of the guest and resident experience?
[00:41:54] Speaker B: So the business side of their experience is make it painless, make it simple, keep the complexity out of it, keep it cardboard and crayon. You've been a great model for this in the way that you do. People don't have to interact, they don't have to call to book, they don't have to go to the office. They just show up, someone leads them to their space, they're good.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: Our office is virtual, our store is virtual.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: You are living example of what advice I would give in that sense. And it's just keep the business side for your customers, clients, whether it's service or product, keep it simple for them. Keep it concise, straightforward.
Don't make it too cumbersome with useless data and information.
Keep it relevant, keep it simple. They have an objective. Get them to their objective as easy as possible.
The results are much, much better that way.
[00:42:42] Speaker A: They'll pay you for that.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: Yes, convenience is very marketable.
[00:42:47] Speaker A: So we have an app.
And as soon as you decide you want to stay there, you can download the app from anywhere.
The app, we communicate about storms in the area, about activities that we're doing, bingo, night yoga, stuff like that. It all comes through on the app. We don't have some bulletin board with paper on it. We're not going to do that. Okay, but you can also look at the app. You can look at the laundry room. You can see if there's a machine available on your app before you ever carry your clothes. That's next level to the laundry room.
You know there's a machine there waiting for you.
You plug in the machine. You don't bring quarters, you don't bring a credit card. You control it with the app. You turn on the machine and it starts a countdown timer and says your clothes are going to be done in this amount of Time.
But if you don't want to look at the countdown timer, it sends you a text and says your clothes are going to be done in 10 minutes.
Okay. And so you can throw it into the next machine. Guess what? We get by with fewer machines, much fewer complaints. Nobody's waiting in line, nobody's got clothes that they're.
[00:43:52] Speaker B: Your cost of operations, less maintenance.
[00:43:55] Speaker A: I can't use this machine because it's still got wet clothes in it. We don't have that problem.
We eliminated that problem altogether.
[00:44:02] Speaker B: I mean you're, you're the gold standard for the type of advice I'd give there. It's. You make it so user friendly, so simple, so convenient that failure is just not really a thing. Like it's, it's. People are happy. You don't get bad add feedback from that because the experience is all in all simple, concise and great. I mean that's the whole thing.
You've got to adapt to what your customers really want. And that's.
[00:44:25] Speaker A: Well, today's customers want efficiency and they want consistency. As you have explained and as you do so well with your business, I have enjoyed having you on the show so much. When you think about legacy, this is the last question for you. When you think about legacy, what does a truly well run business create beyond profit for the owner, the staff, the guests and the industry as a whole?
[00:44:53] Speaker B: To sum that up, it is to be proud of being a part of something bigger than yourself. And legacy can mean many different things, many different people. You think of legacy of passing a business down or something down to your kids, but it's more than that. As you addressed in the question, passing it down to employees in a market and an industry altogether. It's setting a bar or standard that you're proud of, participating in a purpose that is bigger than you. And it all is centered around service to others.
There's no purpose I've ever found on this planet from somebody who truly pursues that is outside of serving others.
So when it comes to legacy, like for me, my business, it's not a get out rich scheme. For me, it's not, I'm not going to sell this thing someday. I want it to be an option for my kids to pursue this as well. Right now I'm modeling a business and a life of serving others in a way that actually impacts their lives.
I want this to be a legacy option for my kids where, hey, I want to serve people too. My dad taught me my, my purpose is very, you know, involved in that. How can I do that too. And so now my business, my entity is going to continuously be positioned as something they can assume to carry on the mission of making a difference.
We have this saying, it's your success is our mission.
That is really what it is.
[00:46:18] Speaker A: Your success is our mission.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Your success is our mission. That is our saying, our calling card or mantra, and, and our firm, because that's the whole reason I do this, is I want to see other people successful because, well, it is fulfilling. It's in my self interest. I get satisfaction, you get success. I also get paid doing it. So it's everyone wins, no one loses. I mean, that's the whole point.
[00:46:40] Speaker A: It's obvious to me that you're extremely passionate about what you do, and I think that's why we hit it off so quickly and so easily, is because I'm extremely passionate about what I do. And I was thinking about my mantra as you said that my mantra is I win when you win.
So helping people be successful is what I enjoy doing. That's why I offer free consulting. And that's one thing that I love about the outdoor hospitality industry, is because you can be right across the street from your competitor and he can be successful and you can be successful. There is so much demand in the outdoor hospitality industry that you can go across the street and help them be successful, and they can come across the street and help you be successful, and you can both be profitable and you may even be catering to a different guest. They might be a resort and you might be a community or something like that, but you can all be successful. There's room in this industry for everyone.
[00:47:39] Speaker B: There is enough food to go around.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: Exactly.
You don't need more, you just need a bigger table. I messed that quote up. I don't know. I don't remember that quote. I get your point, though, but it's something about, you just need a bigger table.
So I'm grateful to have had this conversation with Ryan Herpin. What stands out to me is that the future of this industry will not be built by vision alone. It will be built by leaders who understand how to turn vision into systems, culture, performance and lasting value.
That's how we create businesses that are truly built to last.
For the guests who are all looking for a place to call home, I'm Ed Bridgman and I win when you win, don't miss a single episode of A Place to Call Home.
