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“I think I was just looking for that opportunity for where I was the man. And I wasn’t working for the man.”
All Howard wanted to do was store his RV out of the elements.
A simple request, except that RV storage has been booming the past few years. I know from experience that whether you need a place to park for a long weekend or a few months while you’re out of the country, quality RV storage is hard to come by.
In Atlanta, Howard searched but couldn’t find a single opening for covered motorhome storage In fact, when he called up U-Haul, they said they had a waitlist 70 people long and weren’t even bothering adding names to it anymore. Clearly, there was a market for RV storage.
Being an entrepreneur, Howard saw an opportunity to build a higher-end solution to RV storage. Not just an empty lot full of parked RVs, like most storage facilities. But a climate-controlled warehouse that protected RVs from the elements.
So began the first RV Loft.
In this podcast episode, we dig into the inception and creation of RV Loft (and even learn a bit about the unique gigs Howard uses his RV for, like driving on country music tours). What I love about Howard’s business is how he saw a need in the market and executed at such a high standard. He could’ve easily bought some land, constructed a few carports to offer covered RV sites, and called it a day.
Instead, RV Loft safely stores your RV safe from the elements in a climate-controlled warehouse, cleans it before you pick it up for a trip, and even offers an onsite RV tech so you can get repairs done on your rig without having to drive it to a service shop. If you’re a part-timer or have ever had to put your RV in storage, you know how incredibly above and beyond this service is.
One thing I noticed as I listened to Howard telling the story of how he started and scaled his business is how he has established trust and rapport with his customers. He really approached this business with the focus of solving a need for his customers and it shines through every aspect of his business model.
What else we talk about in this episode:
- How Howard developed his idea for RV Loft
- The search for property & how many no’s he endured without giving up on this idea
- RV Loft’s business model
- How Howard generated business leads…with pizza!
- Howard’s financial runway and how he could afford to pay $19,000/month leasing a warehouse
- What had to happen once the warehouse was completely full of RVs
- How Howard identified and solved a problem his customers had with their RVs
- The mindset of an entrepreneur
- Scaling from one location to two
- The biggest thing Howard has learned this year (and how it earned him a 6% commission)
