Hello, welcome back to another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant, and together we are. Thanks for Visiting.

Let's start this episode like we do each and every week in this celebrating one of you our dedicated listeners who's heading on over to strshare.com, giving us information about your short-term rental so we can celebrate you here on the podcast. Annette, who are we sharing this week?

Before I say it, I liked how you said back.

I, yeah, I was feeling don't know what you fresh feeling.

I liked it. I liked it. Thank you. This week we are sharing Vista A-Frame.

Ooh.

And one thing that just caught my eye that I loved in their bio established 73, reborn 23.

I loved that.

So here is one thing that I think. We talk, we've talked about this so many times, but I wanna reiterate it. Please start documenting in your story before you ever are ready and before you think you have anything to share. Because this host and I go back, they have all their before and afters and you guys, I just wanna share like their first post, one comment, one comment. Someone just put fire emojis. Okay? So you have to start somewhere to their pin post 20 comments now, you know, like you have to start somewhere and you have to be willing to share your story before you're ready, um, and be willing to pivot, be willing to maybe change the handle. You don't have to be so devoted. So I just wanna give a shout out to Vista A-Frame, because A, they took this property. 73 bought it and they have redesigned all of it and they've showed their blood, sweat, and tears that they put into it. They've been sharing their story and I felt an immediate connection. Okay, and you wanna go stay there, so please start your story. And you know what? Even if it's like you didn't start it. First when you started, you can go back, do those old throwbacks, and show some before and afters, tell the story about you buying it. It's never too late. Even if it's like you have that curated feed and you wanna pop it in, or maybe there's something on your direct booking site telling the story, um, putting those old pictures in there. But I just really like when anyone is authentic, shares their story. And that grabbed me with the vista A-frame. I'm invested in them. I'm invested in what they are doing, and I'm invested in their success. So the next thing I wanna say though is give back. So just like Vista A-frame, they reached out to us, they gave us, uh, their information via strshare.com, and we are now sharing them. So if you are gonna go and share your space online, make sure to go in like a couple other short-term rental host, heart their properties. It does matter. Okay? So if you're out there posting and think, no one's responding to you, but have you given the love, have you, um, supported someone else? It all comes back to you. There's a flow to it. So. And this is all flowing right now. Vista hopefully listens to our podcast and they came to our website. It takes action. It takes action, and then it takes flow. It's all about like reciprocity here. So @vistaaframe, I'm gonna say it again. I'm gonna ask all of you go give them a follow comment on some of their photos. Go stay with them. If you are in the Flagstaff, Arizona area. They've got some, I'm just gonna tell you they've got some reels with some major views on them. Check 'em out, see what they're doing. They do a really nice job of showing you all the seasons there and they just continue to highlight their the A-frame ness of their A-frame.

It's so cute.

Yes. But well done. Thanks for sharing. We can't wait to share one of your properties soon, so if you haven't reached out, reach out.

All right. I have a question for all of you. You had a project you wanted to bring to life. Maybe you have one right now in your brain and you called your favorite bank, asked them for a loan. They said, no.

Actually, they say yes first. And you go, really? Do you go far down the sure far down the runway?

Yeah. And then they tell you no, but let's just pretend they're being kind and telling you no upfront. And then you call the second bank, then you call the third, then you call the fourth, and then you're like, you know what? This probably isn't gonna happen. Four banks said no. When we tell you that today's guest went through 40 banks to get the job done, that's when you know someone is dedicated. Someone wants to see it to the other side, and that's exactly what Andrew Llewellyn did. Andrew is a, is now a real estate developer who's turning old buildings into awesome short-term rentals along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. He, in his episode, he shares the real, the behind the scenes journey, the wins, the setbacks, and everything in between. He is fun, he is relatable. He is in the thick of the day to day.

He was really inspirational.

He really was, and he's delightful. And he, he experienced, again, Colin, 40 banks and that, that's just one part of his story. And he's got another project on the horizon.

And for all of you out there. In his property, he can host up to 42 guests and believe it or not, he does a back to back same day turns. So talk about inspiring. He's got a system he's gonna share.

Andrew, welcome to the show. Let's dig in. What were you doing before short-term rentals.

That's a really good question. I was running two ice cream shops and I had a food truck with the same ice cream shop concept on it. And um, that was a blast. We had a ton of fun, um, always just providing smiles and anytime someone was upset, we were pretty sure it wasn't our fault. So.

Was it a franchise or was it your own startup?

It was my own startup. So our, the concept just quickly was like ice cream. And then we did the European liège waffle, which is like a yeasted dough waffle with pearls of sugar in it. And um, it just happens to be that those waffles and ice cream use the same toppings. And then you've got these, like your one piece of equipment, one item, you get a whole new menu. And so then we were like, man, we should just put that ice cream on top of the waffle and serve this thing. We came up with the name, the Waffle Sundae, and, uh that was a ton of fun. The place was called Liège and Dairy, kind of like legendary, but the Liège Waffle. So.

Okay, so what happened is, is it, did we sell it? Is it still happening? What, what's, what's going on?

Um, so well we, that's a great segue into how I got into what we're doing here. Um. I during COVID of course, like classic entrepreneur, I got super bored and I was like, there's not too much going on. The governor's like, you can't have people in the restaurant. And then I had this chef that I really liked that um, prepared a lot of the food for the ice cream shops and he was like, I'm not getting as many hours as I need. And so I was going to coffee shops and noticed they didn't have. Like muffins. And I was like, why? And they're like, our chef can't deliver during COVID. And I was like, that's, I was like, that's the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. I'll get you blueberry muffins. So I got my chef some more hours. We were making some money and so we were doing kind of like basically Starbucks 'cause they're food. I knows short-term rental podcast. But,

No, I love this. We're on the ADHD train. I'm bringing it back. Um, and so anyways, um. We, you know, we're like, this bakery business is blowing up and we, uh, need to move outta the back of the ice cream shop where we're doing this. And I called my dad and I was like, Hey, we need to rent another place for this bakery. And he was like, I'm tired of seeing you pay rent. I'll help you buy a building. And so. Um, I took him to the showing and it was a 10,000 square foot building and had this little Airbnb on top two long-term tenants and an office on the first floor. And he was like, this is not what I was thinking. I was thinking this was like, no, I was thinking like 2,500 square foot little thing. And I was like, no, no, no. The Airbnb and the long-term tenants will pay the mortgage on the place while we get the bakery going. And you know, that way. We've got some cash flow on it, at least break even. And so he's like, okay, I get it. Not a bad idea. So we do this, buy the building. And we're starting to send permits, building permits to the city to build a bakery. Well, the city had other ideas and they wanted us to add a hood system. We had like a little hood system for an oven. They wanted us to add a hood system for like fryers in McDonald's. And. So that took our little, like three, you know, $350,000 bakery, uh, to like over half a million. And I was like, I don't think I can sell that many blueberry muffins. And I was like, I don't think this works. This might just be like, uh, good money after bad.

Mm-hmm.

And. You know, in the middle of the night I woke up at like four.

The muffin math wasn't math on that.

The muffin math was bad. Yeah, yeah. Not that many people need to eat muffins in Louisville and uh, so. Um, a buddy of mine that had one of the original kind of 16 person call it large Airbnbs in Louisville, had come on the tour with me and he had jokingly, well, I think he was joking. Um, he had said, you should Airbnb this whole place, and ha ha ha, you're funny. 10,000 square feet of Airbnb. Airbnb. That's crazy. That'll never work. And so now I'm like kind of backed in the corner. I can't do this bakery. It's four in the morning and I'm sweating and I can't sleep. So I go downstairs and I'm like, maybe we should Airbnb the whole place. So I start looking up comps and sure enough, by the, you know, maybe like 3:00 PM that afternoon, I'm totally exhausted. But I built out like a financial model of what the building would look like with Airbnb in it. And he was right, we should Airbnb this place. So that's what we did. We took our bakery, build out money. We built two apartments on the first floor in this retail space and the long-term tenants, they didn't wanna stay. So we furnished their places, gave 'em, you know, some nice paint. And then I had this idea where you guys can pick up here is I was like, I think we could do large groups in this space.

And for all of you listening right now, if you want to head on over to Andrew's website, it's superstaystr.com I think as he's talking, it'll, if you're, you know, if you're available to look it up, you'll be able to understand the layout. Uh, we're gonna go through that with Andrew here of what the property actually looks like, because Sarah and I were doing a lot of, uh. You know, studying before we jumped on, and one of the things that Andrew does that we love and we teach so many people is about parent child listings. So if you are listening to this episode and you think, oh, this isn't for me, I don't host 42 guests, by the way, is the amount of people that he can, um, have overnight. There is a huge lesson here for you because parent child listings can work in most properties. Okay. So, um, and we have a lot of other content about that if you wanna look it up. But Andrew, you have the guest house. Mm-hmm. Which is 42 guests, 15 bedrooms, 21 beds, and 10 baths. Woo. That's the full property buyout. So that would be all 10,000 square feet, correct?

Yep.

You have the retreat, which is in the same building, but. You know, some of the, um, units withdrawn. So 24 guests, eight bedrooms, 13 beds, six baths on two floors, and then the estate, which is 16 guests, which be seven bedrooms, eight beds, four baths, one floor.

Yep.

Here is our first question for you. First of all, 42 guest. Bless your heart. Okay. When you are doing the full buyout, do you try to get the full 42 guest buyout? Is that your ultimate goal with the property first when you're with your calendar?

Um, yes. That listing is always my goal. Okay. And my calendars are actually blocked, so, um, you can't book anything else. At, I think our retreat listing opens up at like six months. Okay. Out, but anything past past six months, uh, six months in perpetuity, um, is guest house only.

Okay. So that is the goal revenue wise, is to do a full buyout of property. Okay. So six months out, you're like, okay, maybe the 42 people have probably already have their plan. You'll open up the calendar for the 24. What's the booking window then when you're like, all right. We gotta bring it back to the estate, or I think you can even do less than that too, right?

Yeah. Um, so we have the, uh, the retreat and the estate open up at like 90 days out, and then we hold those, we hold all three listings open. Um, and at 30 days then we open up our individual listings because that's the booking window for smaller apartment style Airbnbs and here's another like little inside baseball tip that we do. We start just burning down the pricing all the way to, I think we go to like $59 a night at like a couple of days before. Um. And we just, we just keep burning it down until people, people take it. So.

We normally, we, we normally say booked and blessed and we try to keep the hold the floor, but I You're burning it down and booked.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll just, we'll just burn that price down, you know?

Um, well, hopefully that probably doesn't happen that often. You're in a very popular area, correct?

Yeah. Okay. That's correct.

Now, if we would take a year and, and these are just, you know, numbers. I know we didn't ask you to prepare too many. On average, how many nights does the guest house, the full 42 guests buy out the entire building?

Yeah. Um, probably like a hundred nights a year. So most weekends.

Okay. Yeah. Gotcha.

And then, and then we're, um, so our typical, our typical guest is not 42 people. Okay. Our typical guest is, um, a milestone event on the weekend. So that's a bachelor party, a sophisticated bachelor party, not 22 year olds having a rager. Right. Uh, and then, uh, or if dad's 50th birthday party, whatever it is, and then during the week we do corporate retreats. Mm-hmm. So those, those, that guest profile wants everyone in an individual bed with their own room.

Nice. That is nice.

So we're like 15 guys.

Perfect.

And maybe a bachelor party is like 24.

Gotcha. How long have you been open for business?

20 we finished, um, the concept fully out, fully built out. It took us some time to do it, uh, in November of two. November of 22.

22. How has it been? Has it been fun? Has it been challenging? What has been the best part of it? That you didn't expect?

My favorite part is meeting, uh, meeting the guest. I love giving, I love meeting our, our large groups of guys, whatever they are, and giving 'em a tour of the place. And the tour is like kind of amazed. Through the building, the way the units connect and they're always like kind of super confused. Like, I don't know, how do we get back to the back porch? And, um, just learning about learning about those guys and where they're from and what they do for work and why they're here, why bourbon's interesting to them. Um, and you know, we've met some really cool people and, um, it's hard sometimes they, sometimes they even request like, Hey, do you want to come like, party with us? And I'm like, well, no, that's probably where the line is. No, I'm good.

But that's great. You're connecting with your customer and I'm using that word customer purposefully because I think sometimes we forget that they, our guests are our customers. Right. Did you, looking back at like past Andrew, would you have ever, and did you grow up in Louisville?

Yes.

Did you know you'd be in hospitality in some respect, or what was that journey for you?

Um, no, I never thought I'd be in hospitality and I never thought I'd be in restaurants. You know, growing up dad was like, you don't wanna run a restaurant. That's like the worst thing ever. And like, you definitely don't want to be in hospitality. And here we are, like, I've done both. Yes. So, um, Yeah, it's, it's, um. I really like it. Um, it's really rewarding and I really like our, I really like our types of customers that we attract.

Sure.

We've been really thoughtful with, with the type of customer we want.

Mm-hmm. You are very, and that was, I share with everyone listening is that Andrew is very, even when you've been talking just now, very specific on who your guest avatar is. Right? That ideal customer that's really going to enjoy your space, get the most out of it. Did you know that from the beginning that that would be the smartest thing you could do is talk to one kind of person? Or did that naturally happen because you're also a gentleman and the bourbon trail lends itself to to batch? Like how did you make that connection that that would be your ideal guest?

Um, you know, I knew we needed to like select a customer, but we spent the first, I wanna say like 18 months just kind of renting to anyone and everyone that would give us money. And then kind of like making notes about like, yeah. Never again on like one of our, here's one of our groups weddings. I dislike doing weddings. Like it drives me crazy. It's unmet expectations. Um, we just don't do well with them. Mm-hmm. And so anytime somebody with a wedding comes to us, I'm like. You can rent it, but don't call me. Yeah, I can't help you. Um, but, you know, uh, dad's 50th birthday party. Here's my personal number.

Right? So, so interesting. Yeah, it's been because expectations are different for that

Uhhuh. Yeah. Um, so we've been really thoughtful about what kind of guests we want to attract and don't want to attract. And, um, you know, for the listeners, you can even go on our listings and see our, our group units are really about like, we can help you. Um, and then our individual units are like, this is a self guided vacation. Like, you're probably gonna have the worst Airbnb experience you've ever had, but rent at your own risk.

Um, well, what I love here is, um, scroll. Um, we're, we're looking at Andrew's site. Everybody, while we're chatting with him, one of the things that I love. Is, you can tell he's really catering to these groups. One, one thing is he has like book a free planning call today. Number one, I love that you wanna talk to this person. Is this truly the guests that should be booking the entire property. Two, you have cl- a free gift to start their party, like Ultimate Kentucky Bourbon Trail Bachelor party starts here. Everyone, you think Andrew is not smart with his SEO, his search engine optimization right there that is killer by the way. Nice.

Yeah. Thank you.

And this is, I mean, he has best trip ever group chat, chaos to best trip trip ever. Like he is.

The copy is clever.

He is, taking guest on this emotional like, yeah, they're right. This group chat is going to be absolute chaos until we lock something in and turn it around. So I just, I, I really do encourage everyone, please go to his website, check it out. And, and there are, there are a lot of lessons to, to learn here for sure. And I love your, um, your experiences. Can you share with us, this is one thing we really haven't had too many, um, guests on the show, corporate events. Like you said, because of the separate bedrooms, even Sarah and I have wanted to do some, some retreats, but that's always gotten a little like, what's the bathroom situation, what's the bedroom situation? So when someone from a corporation reaches out to you. So number one, do you do the outreach or do you wait for them to come to you? And then what are some things about corporate retreats that similar probably to weddings there's some different things that you need to deal with with those.

Um, so we're, we're a tiny little team here. Um, it's, it's two of us in the office, and then I've got anywhere between five and eight cleaners at any time. So corporate outreach is, is not, it doesn't happen.

Okay.

They really come to us.

Okay.

And when they do come to us, um, we try to capture 'em and just treat 'em like royalty and, um, do everything we possibly can for 'em. Now, the biggest differentiator we found with corporate customers is um, whether they're on a budget or not. The guys that are not on budgets don't have expectations and they're, they'll just keep. Exactly, they'll just keep paying. But if, if somebody starts talking about price and like, oh, we need to hit this much per person, it's kind of like, well, maybe we're not your place. You know, it's like you're gonna be looking at every little thing and, Um.

Trying to save on the budget. Mm-hmm.

Trying to save on the budget and like, oh, you know, sorry, you know, the, um, the whiteboard didn't get put out, like our cleaning team forgot. And like, that's a, that's a natural disaster in their lives, um, where the, where the other guys may not even call, you know, that had an unlimited budget.

Okay. So, and the, um, when someone calls like this free planning call. Is it really a planning call? Like what happens there? Do do, I know your team is small, if it's you or your teammate, like is there, uh, a checklist that you go through to like make sure they're the right guest or what does that look like? The, this plan, this free planning call?

Yeah. It's, it's a. It's essentially a, a sales script.

Okay.

Uh, that she takes 'em through and, um, basically it just call it agitates the pain that they, they have. Um, we really don't give 'em specifics. We just try to kind of show them like they have a problem and we have a solution and, um, kind of sell them the, uh, the dream, sell 'em the vacation, and, um, don't talk to 'em about TSA.

What's TSA, TSA?

Like, like when you have to take your shoes off at the airport.

Oh, like the details of, of does the security.

The details, yeah.

No one wants to hear about that one.

I thought that I, what? That was what we were talking about, but I thought we might have went somewhere else. Okay. Next question. Booking direct versus on the OTAs, what's that percentage for you?

Um, we could probably do a lot better at that. We're about 50 50.

Okay. 50 50 though. Yeah. That's, that's pretty impressive. Yeah. Re repeat guests.

Oof. We could do a lot better at that. We're, you know, people don't what we found and maybe I'm just not good at it and we could get better at it. Maybe y'all have some tips for me. But, um, people celebrating milestone events, it's one and done. So bachelor party, you know, hopefully you don't have a second one.

Well, hopefully there might be other guys in there that ha know someone.

Yeah. Or other guys.

They brag about it. I, I think that's where we actually all hosts could do better is, yeah, maybe they came for grandma's birthday, but that doesn't mean that someone else doesn't wanna, gonna wanna come back just for a family vacation or bring, um, a different party of people back that didn't get to experience it because they had such a great time. So, um, I think. You probably could do a better job at that. Um, yeah. And the referrals that those people could, um, could, could give.

I wanna talk to Andrew about this renovation process and the funding for the renovation. What was that like?

Oof, man. That's, uh, that was a painful experience.

Can we re, can we relive it with you?

We've been looking through the pictures, like this was not easy. To, um.

Did you take down walls? Like Yeah. Talk us through all the things.

Yeah. Um, the renovation of this, I'm actually sitting in it right now. Um, the renovation of this building was like, call your mama hard. Like, there were times that I was just like, I just had to call my mom. You know, I'm like a grown man and I had to call my mom. And, uh, so I hope your listeners are appreciated.

I they're gonna love that. I, I've never heard the term call my mama hard. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. So. Yeah.

All of the moms out there actually are swooning right now 'cause they hope that their adult sons are still calling them.

Yeah. Yeah.

When times get hard.

Um, it was, it was excruciating. Um, and. It didn't help that I was still running an ice cream shop. I had approximately 20 high school girls on staff that were supposed to be scooping ice cream, and then I was trying to manage construction workers as well as the general contractor.

And were you still supplying muffins to all the coffee shops?

We were still supplying muffins to the coffee shops. Yeah, it was a real low point of entrepreneurship.

Oh, they're the best, aren't they?

But yeah, I'm so much better for it now. I wouldn't trade it.

Yeah. There we go.

And I, I would. I would push anybody that's serious about getting into short term rentals or doing this, like, I know we're having fun here, but, um, I, I would push them to go through the experience. I mean, it just makes you grow as a person and, um, you know, learning how to communicate with learning how to communicate what you want, what your vision is, and, and getting that across, uh, to somebody that has the skills that you don't. Um, it's pretty cool.

Well, it must have not been that bad because we, when we hopped on. There's a new project underway.

There's a new, I hired a general contractor this time.

Oh, okay.

You didn't hire one last time, Andrew?

No, I did it myself. That's why I was call your mama hard.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Does Louisville not require like, 'cause this is a commercial property, right? Did you not have like commercial restrictions or?

Louisville has this weird, um, loophole where you can, um, if you own the property, you can get this type B contractor license. And I had gotten it before to do, uh, my second ice cream shop. So I had done like.

You knew that.

So I was like, yeah, I can do this. But this was like, two apartments was different than like a knee wall and a couple of drains for

a

sink.

Did you have, did you have an architect or an engineer on your team?

Um, I had an architect.

Okay.

Uh. And he drew this, he drew the amazing space out there on the fir first floor.

Okay.

Um, and it wasn't until we were like, had the place torn out, that we learned that we needed a mechanical engineer as well.

Oh yeah.

I mean, we did the whole thing, like as hard as you possibly could.

It is beautiful.

Like we learned the lesson at each stage.

That's okay. What if you could. And help some other hosts out here.

Yeah.

With this large property, if you could go back and change something that's realistic, change that, like now, you know, especially with these large amount of guests, what, what would you, what are you going to do different on this next property? Just because of the guest count and making sure the hospitality is.

Um, so this is actually kind of probably like a deep cut and maybe specific to Louisville, maybe specific to other areas. Um, I would bypass the short term rental permit completely and just go to the hotel and build and put the laundry room and the three compartment sink and all of the health department requirements for a short, short term rental inn. To just get off the radar of short-term rental and participate with, um, Marriott and all the flagged hotels.

Okay.

Uh, from a regulation standpoint.

Really?

I see.

Okay. What, what sort of pain points are you feeling right now? Because this property is a short-term rental.

Um. We're just kind of like, we get lumped into the short term rental category and like we, we just kind of get the angry neighbors that are like, the list is public and it's like, hey, they sleep 42 people and the limit is 10. And then the city calls me and I'm like, well, I can sleep 50 legally. Do you need me to submit the taxes five times?

Oh, okay.

Um, so it's like, it's that kind of goofy stuff and just, yeah.

Okay. No, that's a really great tip, because then you're like.

That's not what I was expecting.

Here's my, here's my hotel shingle outside. Come at me, bro.

Yep.

Like they're not gonna be able to say anything when.

And then here's, here's the other thought with it that goes a little deeper. Uh, even, um, you know, if they decide to like regulate out short-term rentals completely, and they're like, well, you forget to pay your permit one time at some year, you're done forever. You know, there's no grace period. Nothing. We're not giving out anymore. You're kind of dead in the water. And so if we ever got that far from a regulatory standpoint in Louisville. We'd be done With this property. And it would just be like 10,000 square feet of like nothing that we couldn't really do anything with. So, um, you know, I kind of look at it and said, okay, you have a whole bunch of hobby business owners ish, you know, for the most part Airbnb guys, um, you know, it's. Usually not sophisticated. There are some very sophisticated people out there. Um, do you want those guys that can't even afford to call a lawyer to talk about a lawsuit or do you want to be with like angry neighbors in Marriott that love lawsuits? Um, and will just regulate it out? So I was like, I kind of like that hotel position better.

No, it's very thoughtful.

That's very, very thoughtful. So will your new building, is that the route that you're going?

We're going with that route.

Okay. And we're, how far are we? Well, let's, let's, let's talk about this decision to do the next property 'cause you just told us that was a low point in your entrepreneurial career, but you're coming back for more, so maybe we have to. Talk off the mic about that, how you like this punishment situation, but why, so obviously do, do you see this current property as a huge success and you wanna repeat it? Are you like, look, I've learned a lot, I think I can do better. Why the next property? Give us all the, like, some of those bullet points for that decision.

Yeah. Um, one of the main decisions was we have basically squeezed as much, you know. Squeeze as much juice out of this thing that we have here currently that we possibly can. And we're kind of just getting into like diminishing marginal returns. Like I can write more and more blogs, but I really can't push the average daily rate up anymore. And we already kind of are like full on occupancy. Um, so it's the next clear solution is to go build another one. Um, and I really like the, I really like the niche that we, that we play in of large groups. It feels very, um, defendable from a competitive standpoint, um, that, you know, there's not a lot of people that the bank will loan the money to, to go do these types of properties from an operational standpoint.

Yeah. So why, why are they lending to you and what was that experience like? Getting the, was it a construction loan? And then did you refinance. Like what, what was that like?

Um, so this one, this property was, um, a construction loan. It was small enough, um, that the, the bank was like, sure, we'll take a shot on it. Um, and it, again, that was back in 2021, 2022.

Different time.

So. I remember getting an email from the bank, I probably shouldn't say this publicly, but I got an email from the bank and they were like, Hey Andrew, um, we've got a whole bunch of money in the vault with your name on it. And I was like, this is a joke. Right? And so, yeah, they were basically just like handing money out. Um, and so I don't think that that would happen today. No chance. They would take a, they would take a flyer on a, on a guy.

Um, well, did you have a relationship with them though on the ice cream shops?

I did not.

Oh, really? Okay.

The, the banker was just kind of a, a personal friend, acquaintance that I had known for 10 years.

But you did, but see, you had a relationship. We always like to tell everybody, I mean, your net worth is your network. And it might not have seemed like a deep relationship with that person, but they had known you for 10 years. You'd done other businesses. You still had those businesses where you're going over another one. So people take note of that. You know, they are, as Andrew keeps showing up, he's from this town. He's, his face is about these business. Those businesses didn't go under and you were trying to do something else. You know, you were like, Hey, what's going on here? So that's very interesting that they, they would rather lend to people that they know. Also, I'm, I'm sure very interesting.

Yeah relationships and, and the mentorship you get from those relationships. Yeah, so this one, this one was a construction loan into permanent loan. Um, and it was, we hit it right before the rates skyrocketed, so we were super lucky in that aspect. Um, and so, so that was, that was great. My dad was actually surprised. He was like, I don't think you can get that loan. And I was like, watch. And, uh, so he was, he was super proud of me. And, um, so then, um, when we decided to do the next project, um, I learned a lot about right sizing the, um, right sizing the bank to the project. So as you get bigger and bigger, um, you kind of need a bigger and bigger bank that, that the risk of you failing is about the same to them.

Gotcha.

So.

That's a good tip.

You can't go to, you can't go to a small community bank to do, to do a hotel.

Yeah.

Um, so. We ended up talking for the new project. We talked to 40 banks, um, to get one to say yes.

That's a great, and we talk about that too, where people feel that they get a no from bank, one or two, or maybe even three. That the, well, I guess we'll just try something else. And it's like, if you really believe in it, and the math is mathing.

You're like, Colonel Sanders down there, how many people did he go to for the, to accept the recipe? It's like 999.

Yeah.

No. Colonel Sanders was,

I did not know that story.

And he was like 78 or something. I'll have to fact check myself. But legit.

Colonel Sanders was like, uh, over 65 when he started KFC.

Did you think you were gonna be compared to Colonel Sanders today?

Um, no. That was not on my Bingo card today.

You never know. We're gonna get here and thanks for visiting.

What let's, I'm, let's just get it out there. You're cleaning team though. This is a beast. Can you do a back to back turnover? Does that happen in your world?

It does.

Woo.

Almost mul- multiple times a week.

They've got it down.

No. Listen, I wanna say this, to all those hosts out there that have to take a day in between each reservation and they're cleaners only clean on Tuesdays, say what you just said again, Andrew.

Don't believe it. They clean every day. They clean seven days a week you can do back to back. Like you just, you just gotta get better at it.

Gotta get it done.

Better cleaners. Don't, don't have a flexible sense of self with your cleaners.

So, back to backs, like, how do you incentivize your team though? Like, let's say there was the bourbon. Bourbon. Boys went wild. Okay. Bachelor, even though it was sophisticated, it, it turned to a little sophist of funk 'cause a lot of dudes in there.

Yep. It's,

How do you, how do you incentivize them? How do you get them fired up to like, we gotta turn and burn this one down. We gotta get it turned quick. What do you do?

So, um, let's go back to relationships real quick. I and, and mentorship. Um, one of my dad's friends is a, is a mentor and a friend of mine as well. And he has a brain that's at least three times the size of mine, and he gave me a book called The Goal by Elliot Gold Wrap and it talks about manufacturing and this idea of throughput and bottlenecks. So we, we had this same problem that you are talking about with like, oh, I don't think we can do a full buyout to full buyout. We need to put a day in between. And we were doing that and I was like, we are just leaving like thousands and thousands of dollars on the table. This is unreal. And I was like, there's gotta be a solution. So, um, we had a checklist and we started like. Massaging that checklist. And I was like, just put more, the original solution was just put more cleaners in there, so we had like six or seven cleaners in here to do it. And I was like, that's not profitable, but it's slightly better than not doing a night. And so we ended up, I, I wanna say it took us six, maybe eight, 12 months to, to get this system. Now when we do a full buyout, clean over. Um, one person does all 10 bathrooms. One person does all 10 beds. One person does the five kitchens. Um, one person does, uh, I forget what she does. Uh, something, I'll have to check the checklist and, um, and then I have a floater. Their job is to do all of the walking. Because what we found was when you're walking across 10,000 square feet, you're just eating up time and it's a function of time, right? So one person, they, as the bed maker, strips the beds. They just throw it in the hallway. And the runner, the first thing they do is go put a new set of sheets and towels at every room. So when the bed maker gets there, they have what they need. And that they load up the washing machines.

Nice.

So it's a, it's like an orchestra.

Systems save everything. This is why they're so cool.

Yeah. Know. It's so it. Well.

They're so cool.

The other part about what Andrew said, and we just got off several calls with a lot of hosts today, and we just hear the words. I'm overwhelmed, I'm confused. And it's like you, you have to be solution based. And you just heard, I mean, you just said it took six, maybe 12 months to figure it out, but hasn't that unlocked this next level for you? You wouldn't have been doing this current, this new project had you not solved for that problem, right?

No. No, for sure. We wouldn't be doing it and our cleaning costs would be out of control and our, our girls that come here and clean for us would be stressed out and our turnover would be higher and we wouldn't be able to do, like, one of the fun things I like to do with them is like, they're here, like, let's just, I have to eat lunch, so why don't I just get lunch for everybody, like occasionally. And we can sit around the, there's plenty of dining room tables here, and so we can sit around and, and just, you know, chop it up with them for, you know, at half an hour, 45 minutes, eat some lunch. And, and they love it and they feel appreciated and. Um, you know, it's, it's special.

Building a team. You have a team, you have a culture that you are developing and, and you didn't, we were reading an email today from, you know, from a business, uh, educator that we enjoy, and just saying how you have to comparing it to the, the amount of people, if you wanna succeed, be a successful entrepreneur. That you have to be the best and every level that you wanna climb to, you have to be better, okay than a thousand people. And then what was the next level? Like 30,000, 35,000 people? In the next level. And just thinking in that way, like, are you, and if you think you're working hard, you're probably not working as hard as.

Are you an outlier?

Yeah. As person next to you and right. And so for you not to give up and be tenacious is a really great example of, and you probably know this next project is gonna be hard, right? Yes. You have that experience. It's gonna have a new, new challenges, but the reward pays off.

I had no idea it would be 40 banks.

Right. Did you ever wanna quit though? 'cause I'm, you're telling me that and I'm like, dang, that's a lot of rejection.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did want to quit.

Yeah. Seriously.

It's a lot of rejection.

It's a lot.

But you couldn't quit. Like what was the, what if you would've quit? What have, what would you have had to done sell the property?

Well, so here was, here's the interesting story behind this new building. We thought that the. And, and let me go back to right sizing the bank. We went to the bank that we were going, that we worked with on this property and they were like, we love it. We actually have passed on a couple projects 'cause we knew you had one coming up and we wanted to work with you. And we got into it and they were, and the board of directors said, we're not going down that road. It's too big for us. It's pushing our, it's pushing our limits. Um, we don't want to do it. Well, we, they had helped us acquire the building on a, just a, a two year note. So I had the building and it was office space with tenants in there that were at half the market rent and no leases. So, yeah. So going in, I knew we were gonna bleed for a little bit. I didn't think we would be bleeding for 12 months trying to find another bank when they told us no.

Woo.

Yeah.

You kept after it.

So good.

And, and so our choice was to have this just dog of a property that had been on the market for, I don't know what it was on for like almost two years.

Okay. Well, you spoke about something earlier. I wanna circle back to, you talked about blogging. I'm still, I'm looking at your site, you guys please. It's a masterclass right when Top left corner, prime Real Estate, there is a phone number that is trust. I trust them right next to it's their email. Next, schedule a free call. Next book. Now next have any questions? They have chat. The trust that Andrew is, um, getting across to his guests immediately is like, we wanna talk to you, we wanna host you. We're not gonna put any friction between you having questions and us answering them. So please. Take a look at that. But the blogging is the new, you said you kinda like, well wait, we only get 365 days of inventory. We're kind of maxed out there. Why was blogging, why was the SEO why was your direct booking site, like when did, when did this become a part of the important part of your, of you owning this building?

Um, it, it was, it was from the get go and it was just kind of like, um. Yeah, that's, that's a very interesting question. No one's ever asked me that. Um, it came from w, uh, a podcast or something. I had listened to back when I had the ice cream shop and they were talking about Uber and Google and these tech companies, how they create a marketplace platform and they get both the users and the suppliers on the platform and then they just open up their margins. Right? And they did it with Uber and we saw it with like. When we first got into it, it was like all the Uber drivers had like great cars, and they were like super friendly and they were making good money. And you're like, man, this is so cheap. And now you get in an Uber and you're like, oh, I don't know if I'm gonna make it. And you're like, this is really expensive. And the driver's, like, I, I'm working for $3 an hour. And so Uber has basically taken the margin out of it. And I was like. Airbnb is Uber and I was like, they're just gonna take the margin. And so I was like, we have to get off this platform, um, from the get go.

Boom. Love that.

And um, so, and sure enough, they have, we've seen it over the past couple of years.

And they've been going in on us the past eight months, you know, just, it's been, just hit after hit.

Mm-hmm.

And I want everybody to understand, um, you don't have to have a 42 guest property to blog about your area. You can have a one bedroom people are, are searching for you. Your blogging matters. Your SEO matters. We're actually seeing it be even more important now with AI because AI still needs to crawl actual real content from us.

Yeah.

Okay. So luckily, I mean, if you haven't started doing some sort of direct booking, any sort of content creation, whatever that might be, you need to, um, and if you have been doing it, you're gonna probably see, I bet you if I went to chat GPT right now, I'm sure you know this, you probably come up super stays. If I put in bachelor party, Louisville, I, I guessing you come up in chat GPT, right?

I, i'd hope so.

I would hope so too, because you've put the, the work in here and what's so great too is if anybody listening, if you have goals to add onto your properties. Think when Andrew gets this next property up and running, there is gonna be so much rocket fuel on it because he's already been laying the ground. The, the groundation.

The groundation.

Wait, I made a new word today.

That is great, isn't it? That's our book. The groundation.

But, but seriously, I think, um.

Well, let me say this too about it. The, um, the customers, they, they don't wanna book through Airbnb is what we're finding. Like the, the best customers are actively using Airbnb to search and then to figure out how they can get off the platform because they know that the, the fees are there and that the price is definitely lower direct. I mean, the hotels have trained, trained that if you go look at, you know, you can book on price labs and it's usually pretty good. And then, or price. What is that?

Price line. It's called price, price line.

Yeah, price line. And it's usually pretty good. And then, you know, you go direct and it's like a couple dollars lower. So like the customer's been trained to go direct.

I, I have a question that, this is so interesting what you just said 'cause we just, we just got, we get this all the time too. You spoke about comps earlier. You just spoke about price Labs. Do you use dynamic pricing software?

Unbel- we, I use every setting in that.

Listen, because Andrew, we just got off a call. We get this every day from hosts. It doesn't work for me. I can't use dynamic pricing. I have a unique property. I don't have any competition. Now you like, we would still, obviously you're using it, but like if anybody, you would be someone to come with that, like, well, yeah, no one, no one can sleep, 42 guests. Can you please share why that is such an important part of your business to everyone out there that isn't using it yet?

Well, um, let me, let me just start with this, uh. Your property is not that unique. Hospitality is fundamentally a commodity. Um, so.

Mic drop.

A mic drop.

I'm just tired of hearing it. I love that. That's great. Say that again.

So.

Say it again.

Uh, yeah. Hospitality is fundamentally a commodity. So, um, it's, you, your yours is not that unique. Maybe you're a British seafood restaurant in Palo Alto. Like that's my favorite, uh, you know, comparison. Um, read that in a book, but that's not original. But yeah, I mean. Cool. You're unique, but no one wants to go to you. Like, yeah, my theme is Betty Crocker. It's like nineties Betty Crocker accessories. Like, yeah. You've, you're, you got a monopoly on that.

So good. No, and we're not, you know, listen, we say this because we want to help hosts, and it's like, let us help you.

Right. Let us help. Exactly. You we're saying this. Yes, absolutely. From a heart of like, this technology exists for all of us. To Uplevel and to help everybody make more money, truthfully. Yeah. And when, when we hear these statements, we just like, we, it, it pains us because we know for a fact those are the hosts that are leaving money.

They're in their own way.

On the table. Yes. They're in their own way by thinking. Um, that they're.

I mean, you, you, if you're gonna be successful in this, in this business and in this industry, you have to use the, you have to have dynamic pricing because the, the supply and demand changes every single day of the week. There's different events happening in every city. Um, and the, the pricing software is a, an amazing tool to easily get to where you need to be.

Yes, yes.

We have a weekly meeting. Over, over pricing.

Yeah, because it's it's essential to your business.

It's the life blood.

Yeah, it is. It's the pulse. Okay. I cannot let this episode end without asking you my number one question that I haven't got to ask you yet. Hosts are terrified of hosting large parties. What, what's your secret sauce to this place? Still standing today. Hopefully it still smells great.

You actually invite parites. I mean, you're inviting people to come party.

Yeah. You're actually come big groups. Let's go gentlemen. Let's have a bachelor party here. Tell us the good, bad, the ugly.

Yeah. Um, just a, a really, you know, selecting good guests, vetting guests, uh, talking to them, understanding what they're looking for, what their expectations are, why they're coming to Louisville. Are they from Louisville? Big Red flag? No, probably not gonna stay here, um, unless you're 65 years old. Um, and then, um, and then just a really, um, firm set of house rules. With fines attached to each each house rule to kind of set the expectation on the front end. Like, yes, you can come here and party. Um, I know you're probably gonna spread apart the dining room tables and play beer pong. Um, but if you don't clean that up to some normal extent where my cleaning girls are here, um, this is what you're gonna be charged. And if you decide you're gonna, um, turn my place into an ashtray. Um, this is gonna be the charge. Uh, so just really clear expectations and, um, but first and foremost, vetting good guests and understanding who's staying there.

Do you make sure these larger guests, do you have a phone conversation or someone on your team with every single one of them?

60%, 60, 70%. And usually, usually we can tell through some, we usually have some communication with them through the extra experiences.

Mm-hmm. Right.

And then our price point kind of mm-hmm. Weaved out as well.

Exactly. Great. No, this, this is awesome. Um, the, the last question that I have is you do have experiences. You do have upsells on here. Can you walk us through a little bit? Do you partner with people and then is that a rev share? How does that work? Um. Upsell rev share wise?

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, uh, you know, I've mentioned here we're, we're a small team, so we really can't, we have to be careful about what we take on and, and, uh, don't take on. But, um, everything we do, we look through the lens of can it be done from a keyboard? So all of our extra services are provided by, um, vendors that we've, uh, vetted. And we know that they can perform, um, and we don't have to babysit them. Mm-hmm. So, okay. And then we, we usually put a, uh, a markup on top of whatever they charge.

Nice. I like that. Can it be done through a keyboard?

Yeah.

Interesting. Anything you wanna share with hosts, um, where they can find out more? I think I gave your website earlier, the superstaystr.com. Anything you wanna share with hosts though? Just a word of encouragement or let them know.

Keep, keep going. Keep working it to the bone. Um, you know, wake up every morning, ready to, ready to start swinging and, um, don't give up. You know, there's, there's, uh, there's, there's something magic in, in everyone's property. Everyone's property is unique in some way. Um, it may not be, uh, it, it'll work on Price Labs and, um, um, but uh, yeah. And then, and then if you want to follow, um, my new project that we have going on, uh, in downtown Louisville, you can follow me on all the socials. I am Andrew Llewellyn. And, uh, we're gonna be doing, uh, weekly updates on YouTube and stories and.

Cool.

Yeah.

Awesome. When, when is it gonna open the new project? What do we think?

I still have guys in there like tearing out the walls from the office. Oh, okay. So we're like months and months away.

Okay, okay. But everyone, if you are planning a milestone trip. Or someone around you is please reach out to Andrew and his small but mighty team and support each other.

Book your stay.

Yeah. And please. Um, Andrew's so giving here today, really it is a masterclass. If you go to his direct booking website, um, please check it out. Don't plagiarize anything but. Take some of the tips and tricks and then reach out to him and give him a thank you. If you use some something that you learned from the show today, we would appreciate that.

Andrew, thank you so much for time for your transparency, your wisdom, your story. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant, and together we are. Thanks for visiting.