Meet Blake and Leslie Spann, two Outdoorsy owners who have gone from being first-time RV owners only a few months ago to owning a thriving RV business today. The Tennessee natives own a 31-ft Forest River Sunseeker. Read their story — and check out their smart marketing tactics — below.
We started with a crazy idea: “Last year, when my husband Blake was in the middle of a job transition, we decided that we wanted to go on more crazy adventures with our kids. We had the wild idea of buying an RV even though neither of us had operated one until that point! Long story short, we rented an RV to see if we liked the lifestyle, and fell in love immediately. We also realized that owners made an extra income renting out their RVs, and we could too.”
We’re glad we made the leap: “We ended up buying an RV, and just hoped that we’d be able to pull off the rental thing. It was a risky strategy, but we took the leap anyway, and boy, are we glad we did. We’ve made a healthy profit in just the last seven months on Outdoorsy. The extra income helped us through Blake’s job transition and also allows me to remain home with the kids.”
We found success pretty quickly: “There are a couple of things that we decided to do early on to attract renters. Most owners give their renters about 100 miles a day, but we decided to give 150 per day. Renters have definitely gravitated towards our RV because of it. Second, our pricing is super competitive, and in the winter (off-season) we lower our rates. Finally, we decided to waive cleaning fees if customers clean up after themselves using a checklist. We are people people, so we like to chat with our customers, learn about their plans, and help them with their adventures.
We adore working with Outdoorsy: “We are so glad we chose Outdoorsy to help us on our rental journey. We love the insurance and the assistance, and we’ve had amazing experiences that we never would’ve had otherwise. The renters we’ve met have all been wonderful, and getting to know them is one of the best parts about this business.”
– Blake and Leslie Spann. Rent their Sunseeker here.
