169. This is the ONE Thing That Will Make or Break Your Investment... NEIGHBORS - Interview with Ali Haney

25:42And it was a long time. I still went and got quotes for like multiple general contractor quotes for that reception hall. We still furnished the whole big house. We were living in the tiny house at the time, the guest house at the time. So we were still like traveling down the path of like, maybe I can do this. And then I remember having a conversation with my husband one night where I was like, is this just, is this my pride getting in the way? Is this me saying someone told me I can't do this, so now I have to at the expense of our family's finances and well-being? I really had to have an introspective moment of at what point does this dream cost too much?

26:30And for what? And for what to be potentially put out of business by these neighbors that were literally standing at the property line blasting explicit music at us as we came home.

26:42Natalie Palmer:Oh, so you weren't allowed to play anything besides soft ceremony music, but they can play that music at you. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. Like it was, it was rough. And like being in that, that mindset of, like I said, being kind of on a 90 acre Island, not knowing which way, you know, we were going to be coming at from. So like, um, it was really, it was a hard transition. um thankfully we have been able to i won't say fully make amends but be at peace with with the neighbors um they when we decided to transition it over to a short-term rental as opposed to the wedding venue they were much more amenable to that property use and although we were told by the county that we would not have to go back in for a short-term rental permit because we had already had overnight guests on the original wedding permit.

27:38There was an issue again that the neighbors brought up that we were on Airbnb and we did not have an Airbnb specific permit for our house. So we had to go back in. Little backstory. I was like 38 weeks pregnant in the middle of August, like so hot, so miserable. And they were making me go waddle back into this board of adjustments to get the Airbnb permit. We got it. No problem. It's been running smoothly ever since. And it's been over three years now. We have a perfect five-star rating. Like I said, we've come to terms with the neighbors. We have long-term tenants in the guest house since we moved away.

28:22And those long-term tenants, they help us with some of the day-to-day stuff, like filling up propane tanks for fire pits and grills and doing the mowing every week because mowing 15 acres is no small feat. So they're doing all the things that we were doing on a day-to-day basis there, which has been a real blessing for us and for them. So it felt very dark there for a little bit, but we were, and we were thinking, you know, I told you in Host Like a Mother, like we were like, yeah, we're getting rid of this property. We're trying to figure out when the best time it is to sell because we had it listed for about six months back in 22 and didn't get any bites on it.

29:02And then I stopped and like, again, checked my pride. It was like, am I doing this because I was hurt or, and like my dream on this property didn't come, um, come to fruition or is this like, what's my, my motivation behind this? And we ended up deciding to keep it about four months, three or four months ago. Um, And we're reinvesting into it. We just purchased a hot tub for the property. We're doing some interior design updates and really going all in on the Commonwealth. Speaking of branding, bringing it back to the name of the property. So yeah, if you want to dive into branding next, I'm happy to do that too.

29:43Natalie Palmer:Sorry, I feel like I derailed everything. I hate to harp on this in any way, but in hindsight, looking at the whole situation, is there anything like just as a warning to future hosts or something is there anything you guys think you could have done differently that would have helped like maybe getting to the neighbors ahead of it or just like with your background like in branding and marketing like so much of that is storytelling and I wonder please don't take this as me saying you like did anything wrong I'm just like curious if they're like it just seems like the neighbors had made their opinion on this before you had ever had a chance to even tell them what was going to be happening.

30:20Natalie Palmer:So as a cautionary tale, is there any advice you'd give hosts of maybe how they could navigate something like this differently? Yes. So first, if I could do it all over again, I would go into the local Facebook groups before I purchased anything and just see the general attitude of the people that live in that area. We lived a lot of places with the military. We've lived in Virginia, North Carolina, multiple places in both states. And the mistake that I made was that I took my background with the welcoming arms of most military communities. I assumed that every community was going to accept new people with open arms.

31:09That's not the case always in civilian world. And I learned that the really hard way. So if I had done more research on those intangibles, I could see the location of the property was perfectly centrally located between Louisville, Bardstown, and Lexington on the Bourbon Trail. That's perfect. Check in the box. I could see that the structures were there to be to be a wedding venue, check in the box. But the things that are off the paper, right? Like the intangibles of how people accept the community. If I had done any type of research like that, I would have known that Spencer County specifically was not the county that's looking for growth.

31:53Because if you go just a little bit north is Jefferson County where Louisville is. Just a little bit south is Nelson County, which is experiencing a lot of growth with Bardstown and the Bourbon Trail. So I picked centrally located because I thought, oh, okay, that makes sense. Both of these areas are going to see growth and that's going to skyrocket our property's value in the next 10 years. But there's a reason that that was a pocket where there was no commercialization. And so that's, I guess, one thing, go and join local Facebook groups because that will tell you a lot about their attitudes towards growth and commercialization.

32:38And then in terms of the neighbors, I don't think it had anything specifically to do with us. I think that whoever bought that property, they were going to pass the same judgments, whether it was us or someone else. So I don't know that I could have done anything differently there. In fact, the day that we moved in, I had already written a letter and was like, hey, we're a veteran family, small business owners. We have two young kids. This is like a little bit about us trying to humanize us and tell that brand story. That is not even like a personal brand story, I guess would be what that is. But it just, it didn't matter.

33:24We could have told the most beautiful story in the whole world and it wouldn't have really made any difference. I will say that now that I feel like I have my feet back under me, my confidence back, we've been looking to expand our own short-term rental portfolio for a while now and just trying to find the right property to move forward with that. And if the property that you're looking for is already an established short-term rental, please read the reviews. like look and see what other issues current guests are having because there was a property that we were looking at in the mountains of North Carolina.

34:02And I would say the top two things that I see people get dopped on on reviews are guest communication. Like the expectations don't match the experience and cleanliness. Both of those things are very easily fixable under a very good host, but some things you can't change are geographical location, what you have to pass on the way into the property and neighbors. And so this cabin that we were looking at, you had to pass multiple, kind of just like the double wides that you would think just were unkempt and didn't look great from like the curb appeal was not there. And then they had dogs from neighboring properties that would come and greet the guests.

34:44And I'm like, this is what looks like a really great deal on paper, but I know better now. You can't change neighbors and you can't change your location. So I guess all that to say, if you're looking at a property that's already an established short-term rental, take those reviews, run them through chat GPT, and you don't even have to read all 160 of them or whatever it might be. Just say, hey, what are the top three things that people are complaining about? And what are the top three things that people love? and that will tell you exactly what you need to know when you whether or not you can fix whether those things that are issues are fixable with this kentucky property obviously you're still

35:23Natalie Palmer:using it you've decided to hang on to it but you're using it differently now it's a short-term rental instead of a wedding venue um what are like the numbers on this like are you guys still profitable i'm sure you're not bringing in the revenue you imagined you would but you probably don't have as many expenses either because operating a venue is hard. So how's it been overall? Correct. We do have pretty low expenses and that is a lot due to we do not have to pay out a management company because we have those long-term tenants on property, but we are profitable. At this time, we are profitable, which I'm excited to say.

36:02Like I said, I'm an open book. The property was purchased in cash, but we still pay rent back to the family member that purchased the property on our behalf. And so that is a pretty low rent payment. We are covering taxes and insurance on her half or excuse me, on her part. So we are very lucky in order to have that family connection too. Yeah.

36:26Natalie Palmer:Okay. Well, that's good. I mean, such a bummer how it all happened, but at least you guys aren't losing money on this situation. No, no, not losing money. And in fact, it was a pivotal moment that when we realized that other larger investors were coming to the area, I'm not going to name any names, but you can probably quickly find out who just recently opened an over the top Airbnb and the bourbon trail. And so I was like, wow, okay. That kind of brought my confidence back that they saw what I thought I saw three years ago. And so if they're coming to the area, then I think it is in our best interest to double down on this because our expenses aren't even going to match theirs.

37:12They probably have some sort of mortgage on their property. So we are able to beat them out. I'm going to say that in quotation marks in other ways. So because we can be more competitive with that nightly rate because we don't have as many expenses as they do. Although of course we want to, we're inching up by adding in amenities to increase our nightly rate. But just generally, I like that they are coming to the area and serving a different ideal client, talking about branding. Their client is not our client. And so we're able to be competitive, but in a different vein, if that makes sense.

37:49Natalie Palmer:Yeah, totally. Maybe it'll happen for a reason. And yeah, you guys will end up like finding the short-term rental path for this property is just better use and what it was meant to be. But yeah, so disappointing. It just sucks that you guys were such rule followers. And how many people would just start running the wedding venue not even caring about the permits and stuff? So many people would do that. And you guys, by trying to do everything by the book, that's what got you screwed. Yeah. And a little bit of salt to the wound was one of those two wedding venues that we had like no like noticed before we went in they almost immediately renovated a house on property and are doing the exact same business model that I proposed in a public hearing meeting yeah less than a year later so that's a little bit of of salt in the wound and they're doing really, really well.

38:48So yeah.

38:51Natalie Palmer:Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing all of that. I'm sure that there are some people who have dealt with like difficult neighbors and got a lot out of hearing that like, it's not just them, this can happen. But I think you handled it the best you could. And I love that you were able to pivot. Okay, Ali, let's get into some branding talk. Right before we started recording, you told me something I kind of asked you like your overview on branding. And you guys, if you want to learn more, again, Allie is the host of the Brand and Market podcast where she has like tons of episodes that go more in depth on this.

39:20Natalie Palmer:So this is like a high level overview we're doing. But one thing you told me before we hit record was branding is the blood of your business. It flows through everything and touches every organ. I love that. Like, can you break down what that means? That's such a, that like packs such a punch saying it that way. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't remember when I came up with that, but I think it was probably in a hysterical midnight big planning thing of my own business on the giant sticky notes on the wall. But yeah, so I always say that branding is the blood that touches every major organ in your business because it touches your marketing.

40:02It touches your operations. It touches your sales. anytime that a guest is walking through your front door, they're going to notice the doormat they're stepping on. They're going to notice how they make, how they feel when they walk through the threshold. What's their first impression? And even backing up before they even get on property, how are you communicating to them what their experience is going to be in your onboarding messaging and your welcome message as soon as they book? Like all of those small pieces really impact how they're going to feel when they enter the property. And that's what branding boils down to.

40:40It's how you make someone feel because those feelings are what's going to be remembered.

40:45Natalie Palmer:So how would you approach branding with a short-term rental? I know that your background was like with wedding vendors and stuff and other creative businesses, but with a short-term rental, where would you kick it off? Is it when somebody's buying the property? If somebody's trying to do a rebrand? What are we going through with them? Yeah. So it's interesting. I love having experience in other industries because in the creative industry, your service is exactly like everyone else's service. A photographer is a photographer. They have the same set of skills, but what differentiates them is them as a person.

41:20It's their personal brand. But when you take that knowledge and you apply it to short-term rentals, every property has its own personality. And I know that people don't really see this, but like, let me give you an example. Actually a woman that I met at level up your listing earlier this year. She, we were just chit chatting at level up and she was like, you know, I have a cabin in a severe or no, excuse me as pigeon forge. I have a cabin in pigeon forge and it's one bed, one bath. It doesn't have internet. So I feel like it's not competitive with other people in the space. And so at face value on the piece of paper, it's going to look very identical to the next cabin that is one bed, one bath and Pigeon Forge.

42:10But I said, I think actually what you think is your weakness of no internet is actually your brand's differentiator. Yeah, I agree. And, but like people just don't really think like that. They think that this is just a shortcoming, but I want to find a way to spin it and make it why people visit your rental in the first place. So we created this entire brand off of it being a place where you can disconnect to reconnect. We gave it a name, Tennessee Together, so that they immediately, as soon as someone sees, encounters that brand, they know that they're going to be focusing on the time that they have together with their significant other.

42:48They have, once you get to the rental, um they actually hired summer led designs and pitched this brand design to summer led and summer led took it and ran with it it was amazing um so they have a specific like little box on their um coffee table where you can put your phone and that way you officially disconnect not only do we not have uh wi-fi so we can't like connect by by uh but we're taking your phone away too yeah right Exactly. And then I had this, I think of Tennessee and I think of Johnny Cash and June Carter. And so I was like, I love this. For some reason, this quote stuck out to me when he was asked what Paradise was.

43:31It was this morning with coffee talking to her. And so they have that as a mural inside the cabin. And so we're doubling down on disconnecting. We're doubling down on the Tennessee theme, something that's specific to that property that without Tennessee Together, without Disconnect to Reconnect, without that record player playing Johnny Cash, without that cell phone box on the coffee table waiting to be take your cell phone away, that's what differentiates this property. It's the brand. It's not the property itself.

44:05Natalie Palmer:Yeah. Yeah, because it's the same features, but otherwise it was just like a basic one bedroom cabin that doesn't have internet. Like who wants to stay there? But yeah, you just repainted it in a new light and suddenly there's this whole appeal to it. Yeah. And like I said, it touches every single piece of the operations, the guest experience, the objects that they have inside for the guests to use, the messaging that they get beforehand to say like, be prepared that this is what the experience is when you arrive, put your phone in the, in the box. Um, so like all of those, this is what I think is key too, is like, so yeah, you can, I think people will, will grant you like, okay, yes, branding is great for coming up with the name.

44:48Natalie Palmer:I'll get like, you know, my, my photographer needs to be in touch with the brand. I pick my designer, obviously. And then I think after this and after people launch their listing into the world, that's where like the branding stops a lot of the times. And in your case, like this, this property is such a good example. Like you still need your co-host or your management team to be in the loop because who is going to make sure that that box goes back on the coffee table every time and doesn't get shoved like in a shelf somewhere. Who's going to make sure that the record player is playing Johnny Cash as people are walking in the door.

45:21Natalie Palmer:There's this whole layer of Disneyland didn't just make the rides and stuff and take the pictures and then sell tickets. Every day, they have to make sure that this area smells like this and this area is playing this music and that this character is walking through here. It has to just continue. And that's where I think people start to fall short. So what's your advice for carrying that branding through your day-to-day operations? This shouldn't just be something that you launch and then that's it with branding? Yeah. So I think where people overlook in the process is the brand strategy portion in the beginning of it.

46:00A lot of times when people think of branding, they think of those visual aspects because they're tangible. They think of like a color palette or they think of just the logo. And yes, absolutely. Those are important, but the brand strategy behind it is going to be what guides all of those smaller decisions throughout the execution of the guest stay and the setup of the listing itself. So if you sit down and you have your brand strategy in front of you, the main things that I want to focus on are first, who are we serving? Who's going to be our ideal guest client avatar? Second, I want to focus on what's going to make your property different or your stay different and ultimately your brand different from the next person that might have a similar property or offers the same to sort of stay as you.

46:44So I want to know who we're serving and what we're doing differently. Those are the main two. And then I would say that brand values are also important. So if you know exactly what you want to have lead the guest experience, then incorporate those into your messaging, into your client message, or excuse me, guest messages when you're welcoming them, into the welcome guide that's sitting there waiting for them on the coffee table. All of those things. You use those brand values and that brand strategy at the very beginning to be able to guide all of those different touch points. That's why I say it's the blood that runs through your entire business.

47:28Natalie Palmer:Can I ask you, so those are, so that's, I like how you summarize that. So like kind of three questions to ask yourself when you're starting your brand journey. who are we serving what are we doing differently and what are your brand values could you briefly touch on like how you would even begin to answer each of those like the person who's like who are we serving everyone like how would you help them like narrow down actually who they're serving that's a great question um so sometimes the property itself lends a very obvious answer in the case of a one bed one bath cabin in the middle of severeville with no internet couples boom.

48:04Right. It just, it makes sense. Now I would love to share a little bit more about this property that we went under contract with this morning because we're walking through this exact path right now with that property. So this property, it's technically two bed, one bath, but has a loft. It's a dome house. I'm so excited. It's so unique. But right now it looks like they are not having a super clear ideal guest. It's about 50 % split between families and couples groups, like two couples going. So this is already an existing rental? It is an existing rental, yes. And so I was able to do that trick that I mentioned to you earlier, pulling the reviews.

48:49And then something else that was really good when we were going through the process to figure out whether or not we wanted to move forward with an offer was because it's in, it is very similar in that it is very rural. Um, it's got internet, but it's not great internet and it has zero cell service. Um, but I wanted to know where the people were, where guests were coming from. And so I was able to run those reviews through and be like, okay, who is leaving these reviews? Like, are they male, female? Who's the booker, the like booking person? Um, and then where are they coming from and what the issues are.

49:26Right. So I did all of that and it came back about 50 % families and 50 % couples groups. And so I'm like, to me, as we move forward, I don't want to ride this 50-50 wave. I really either want to go all in on families or go all in on couples groups. and based off of the property, we actually rented it and stayed overnight at it just to see like what the experience was like. And funny enough, we have three kids. Two of our kids were with their grandparents that day and we only had one of our kids, which is like totally rare for us. But he was the youngest, he's three. And just seeing how his face lit up when we got to do marshmallows in the fire pit, seeing how he got to play in the little like shallow water creek, like seeing how he got to like walk across the bridge and play.

50:15Like it was just like, this made it clear. This is who our ideal guest is. So that would be my next thing is I would say, go through, run through those existing reviews. If it is an existing short-term rental and see if the data brings back anything that's conclusive or inconclusive, that will give you an idea of how to move forward. But if you don't have that data, then I would say try to go and put yourself in the guest's shoes. I think that the other issue that people face is that they always expect that they are their ideal guest, and that's not always the case. So a lot of times when people purchase a property that they want to become a short-term rental, they make it into what they want it, as opposed to what the person that's going to rent it wants it.

51:04And I think that's something to watch out for as well.

51:08Natalie Palmer:So in this case, so you decided with your new property, like who are we serving? We're going to lean into families. So let's go through the second question now. What are we doing differently? So what would you then, what would be the next step in your branding process to be like, okay, with the knowledge that we're going to lean in towards families, how do we like really cater this to a family? So one of the main things that we're going to have to do is that right now there's only a standing shower. And I'm thinking with my kid, we need a bathtub. That was like one of the first things that I told my husband.

51:39I was like, our little three-year-old was trying to like take a shower by himself and his water was all over the floor because I had to open the door and help him put soap in. So I was like, okay, we got to, the design has to be there. The amenities, like not that a bathtub is really an amenity, but you know what I mean?

51:54Natalie Palmer:Like we have to have things that we're almost somewhere with my kids. If there's no tub, right. Right. And like, it wasn't really down in the backyard. Like, what am I going to do? That's when my husband was like, can you go take a bath in the Creek? I'm like, no, sir. I'm sorry. The reason that he has to take a bath is because he was playing in the Creek. Right. Okay. So good catch. So now you guys have to put a tub in. So you're going through. So if somebody is not, in this case, you are your ideal client, right? Like you just said, sometimes you wouldn't be, but like you guys are. If you're not, and you're not going to have that moment of like, let's say you want to change your trust families and you don't have the three-year-old there to like, you know, stress test the property, like what would you do in those situations?

52:38Well, I think almost always that you know somebody within your circle that fits that that ideal client avatar because, um, take Kentucky, for example, that main house is five bed, five and a half bath. The great part about that, that people rave about is that every bedroom has its own bathroom. So if you're going with a five different couples, each couple has their own space to retreat to without having to share a bathroom with someone else. So the very, like the main client or main guests that we get there is older, probably 55 is like the low end up to like mid seventies. They're coming either for like an annual trip that they do in a different place every year, an annual trip that they visit the bourbon trail every year, or they're coming to cross off the bourbon trail off of their like bucket list.

53:30And so I'm not, I'm not 60 years old with my husband going with a couple of couples friends, but I do know somebody that is my parents, his parents. Okay. What do you guys think of when you walk through this property? What do you want to see? And it went down to... I pulled even pieces of my personality and Caleb's personality, my husband, for the bourbon trail scene. He's an avid bourbon drinker. He wants to go where the good bourbon is. I'm not an avid bourbon drinker. I just want to go where the good time is. Where's the fun tour that we get to go in the gift shop that's really pretty? So creating two different itineraries.

54:13Hey, if you're here and you're a serious bourbon drinker, these are the top five distilleries I would go to. If you're not and you want to just cross this off your bucket list because you want to go to the bourbon trail, these are the five distilleries I would want to go to. So even down to that, just pull on the existing knowledge that you have of that ideal guests and of what they are doing when they're actually there.

54:34Natalie Palmer:And I wonder too, for this type of avatar, it's like, okay, we need to make sure we have like grab bars in all of the showers, you know, or like right now like tech is so trendy. I'd be like, maybe a digital guidebook isn't the right fit for this group. Like maybe just like a hard printed, like a hard copy binder on the coffee table. They love the bourbon trail maps, the actual physical map. There you go. Okay. Okay. So you would recommend have somebody that fits. If you're not the ideal client, that's okay. Recognize that, but then bring somebody in who is to give you feedback. Absolutely. Okay.

55:14Natalie Palmer:Okay. And then last one, how do you determine your brand values? Oh, that's a hard one because it's so personal to so many people. And a lot of people that are short-term rental investors, they have more than one property. So they're like, do I create brand values for just this individual property or do I create brand values for my real estate investment portfolio as a whole? And I think if you have multiple properties, I think it's best to create brand values that are going to span across all of those properties so that you can apply them and pass them off to a co-host if you're getting bogged down with the day-to-day operations and you want this to be back to a passive income that you originally thought it was going to be.

55:58But that way you can still retain those personal values and apply them across every single property. So it really does require a bit of introspection of what is important to you and what you think is going to guide your business in the future. So let me give you an example of what my own personal, like my brand values are. First is knowledge. I love just consuming all of the education within the short-term rental world to be able to use it in the operations to make it as smooth as possible. So learning, you know, the Airbnb algorithm or learning, you know, updates and zoning laws for our areas, those types of things.

56:42Harnessing that knowledge to be able to serve my own properties as well as the ones that I co-host to. Second would be clarity.

56:50Natalie Palmer:So that's a brand value that's not even like guest facing. Like your guest wouldn't know that you care about zoning, but that's just something that you for your like business, that's a value. Yes. Okay. Got it. And then clarity is the second one. I want to be clear in all of my communications. I think that probably stemmed from everything that happened in Kentucky where I thought I was being so clear and like clean cut and it wasn't. So being clear with expectations, not only from me to guests, but also me to other hosts and owners that I am serving. And then finally is intention. I love being intentional with my guests.

57:31I love being intentional with my owners. And that comes down to anticipating, you know, what their needs are. It's always going to be important to me. And I, like I said, that's why this whole founder story kind of like came together in such a beautiful crescendo, because I think anticipating needs of my students really in my, in my classroom, that one year that I was teaching has now transitioned over into intention with, you know, having those two different itineraries and having a box for your phone, like all of those small intentional touches, a lot of times what it looks like to a guest, they can't really put their finger on it, what made them feel the way they did, but they remember the feeling regardless.

58:13Does that make sense?

58:14Natalie Palmer:Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So, okay, let me like throw something at you. So we're in the process of, it's actually the first time I'm saying this and when this is like finalized, I'll do a whole episode on this, but we're in the process of buying a summer camp, which I have so much more to say on this, but this is going to be a really cool project. They do like Girl Scout groups, like Boy Scouts, like church camps and stuff. It's very much if you've seen The Parent Trap, like it's that. Like they literally have fencing there and like it's so cute. That is so funny. My daughter just like, it was her birthday on Sunday and she was allowed to pick where she wanted to eat dinner and she was allowed to pick which movie she wanted to watch.

58:54And it was Parent Trap. And I was so proud. I was like, I've done something right. That's my favorite movie.

58:59Natalie Palmer:Yeah. They are obsessed. And it makes me so happy. That and the Lizzie McGuire movie. So they have great taste. But yeah, so we're buying like a summer camp right now. And again, I'll go into all this on a future episode when this is legit. We have lots of partners. It's a whole operation. Congratulations, by the way. Thank you so much. And I've sort of been tasked with like the one who's going to like do like the branding and the marketing on all this. Um, and like one struggle I have, like right now, like the cabins in there, the current owner, it is very much heads in beds. There are just bunk beds.

59:36Natalie Palmer:And I mean, think of like a Boy Scouts there. There's literally, you can barely even like squeeze between the bunk beds. Like he's fitting them so close. And as a group, we already decided like, this is way too many. Like we will be removing some bunks and give it a little bit more like breathability. But it's just for me, like this is not like in my dream world, I would love to turn every one of these cabins into like a luxury experience, like a whole glamping thing. But that's not what the business is. Like we do have to be able to fit 120 campers. And so I'm like really struggling right now where it's like, what are the brand values?

1:00:12Natalie Palmer:Because they're so different from me. I'm not the ideal client here. like how like what advice do you have for me and like something like this like it's just so out of my comfort zone like I've never operated anything like this I haven't stayed at a summer camp since I was in like fifth grade so like what is your advice for like navigating like what the brand values are and how I should approach this oh my gosh that is so exciting isn't your husband a teacher yes that's part of it we're basically what is U.S. history so it's like high school juniors yeah this is how this happened again i'll do a whole episode on this but like just because we're here basically a teacher at eric's school um he has ran he's taken students up to a summer camp at this one camp every year for like three or four years now and this summer when he was there he was talking to the owner about like oh yeah we'll be back next year and the owner said well you might not see me again I think I'm going to sell this place but it's off market right now if you know anyone interested and this teacher went back to Eric my husband and was like hey like you and Natalie should look this over I know that like your wife does a lot of real estate stuff tell me what you think and I instantly like fell in love and I was like we have to do this but we need like a million dollars to pull it off so now there's like three teachers investing the principals investing one of the counselors a couple people at the district like it's like a whole like rag tag group of like district employees now and I'm the only one that actually has like short-term rental hospitality experience so I'm like okay like you guys bring the capital I will figure out how to rest do this but this is like so out of my comfort zone.

1:02:03Natalie Palmer:It's just such a great deal we couldn't say no to. And it kind of fell in our lap. It was literally an off-market listing. But yeah, I'm just like, I don't know how to appeal to fifth grade camps and Girl Scout groups. But it wouldn't necessarily just be fifth grade, right? No, it could be anything. But that's the last time I was in camp. So that's how I associate this. So what I would first do is don't underestimate the value of the opinion of that group that's already been there. So I would, if there's a way for you or for Eric to get in touch with them and say, okay, what did you love? What did you, what would you wish were different?

1:02:40Because that's going to be the person that you serve. And then I don't think it's, I don't think it's bad to take inspiration from like, from parent trap. Yes.

1:02:50Natalie Palmer:Oh my God. I'm not joking. I ignored is parent trap. Yes. because I think that there are like really good nuggets to be able to pull from that movie. And I'm glad that it's like fresh in my mind because we just watched it on Sunday, but even down to like the isolation cabin. Do you remember that? There literally is an isolation cabin here on accident because there used to be like a whole section where there was like four cabins leading up and then there was a big flood on this property like three or four years ago that washed away three of the cabins and it only left one like at the top of a hill and as we were walking up there it was like this is the isolation cabin like if there are bad kids we're sending them here and I think that it comes down to like an isolation cabin yeah that's so funny because I think it comes down to like put yourself in fifth grade Natalie's shoes and think about what what you would want as a fifth grader but also put yourself in mom Natalie's like you as a mother, what would you want your kids to be experiencing?

1:03:51Because I think although you are not the person that's going to be at the camp, you are going to be the person that's purchasing the ticket for that kid to go to camp.

1:03:59Natalie Palmer:The parent is the one paying. They have to see the appeal. Right. And so immediately I think of simplicity. In a world full of technology with my little girl who's in first grade, I want it to be back to the good old days. I want it to be like when I went to 4-H camp and flipped out of the canoe. That's what I want my kid to experience. So although, like I said, you're not the one that's going to be sleeping in the cabin, you are the one that's going to be sending your kid to camp. So I think you are your ideal client. You just are looking at it a little differently. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. Like commercials, like when Nickelodeon plays commercials for a toy, they're not appealing to the kid.

1:04:42Natalie Palmer:They have to appeal to the parent who's going to buy that toy. Right. Exactly. Okay. Okay. That's good. Okay. I think I'm going to be like texting you about like, do it, help me, help me do all this. No, that's such good advice because I've just been so torn of like, I am not the, you know, fifth, sixth, seventh grader that wants to like go learn science right now and then fence during the day. Like how do I get in the mindset of that person? I don't want to go do archery. No offense. Yeah. No, no, but you have such, like, you have, like I said, you have like access to the people that, that are already have attended that camp.

1:05:20You are going to be the person that's sending your person, like your child to that camp. And Eric has a lot of insight into the current generation of like high middle school, high schoolers that he teaches every single day.

1:05:31Natalie Palmer:Like even all them. Yeah, exactly. I'm serious. I'll make a survey for him. U.S. history, U.S. history, warm up today. You're going to answer my wife's quiz on Quizlet. This is very good. Okay, perfect. See, you guys, Allie knows her stuff. I just put her on the spot with a pop quiz here, and she's already helping. Okay, Allie, this was so helpful, and I will be texting you for help with this whole rebrand. Like I said, you guys, I will do it when this deal closes. We will do like a full episode on it. It's very complicated. We can't get loans because it's like on forestry land. There's like a whole thing.

1:06:04Natalie Palmer:So it's just taking forever to like close this. But once it's finalized, I will do a whole episode breaking this down. But Allie, thank you so much. If people want to work with you or they just want to go binge a bunch of branding advice, where can they go to connect with you? Absolutely. Everything. Another thing that I preach is consistency in branding. So anywhere you can find me, it's brandandmarket.co. So that's on Instagram. That's where I hang out the most. That is also my website. And then the Brand and Market podcast is where you can catch me. And I know that sometimes this can feel a little, branding can feel a little overwhelming because it feels intangible.

1:06:39And if you have no idea where to start with your short-term rental property, regardless of whether that's branding or marketing, we didn't even get to touch on marketing today because branding is such a big topic. But I offer free 30-minute discovery calls. And that is specific to you, your real estate portfolio, your short-term rentals, what that looks like now. There's absolutely no judgment there. I am so excited to just talk through exactly what Natalie and I just talked through about the summer camp. So I'm going to send Natalie the link to schedule a free discovery call if you would like to do that with me.

1:07:12I'm so excited to hear from you guys.

1:07:13Natalie Palmer:I will be booking one and then I will put the link in the show notes so you guys can book too and take advantage of Ellie's brain over here. Perfect. Thank you so much again. I'm really grateful for this opportunity, Natalie. Thank you and congrats on your new clothes. I can't wait to hear more about the property and see how all that comes together. Thank you. Thank you. And with that, it is now checkout time. Thanks for listening. And I'll see you back here next week. Lastly, as Airbnb hosts, we all can appreciate a good five-star review. So you already know a great review on this podcast would mean so much to me.

1:07:47Natalie Palmer:Please subscribe, review, share, and connect with me in the show notes below. Bye.

1:08:00Thank you.