ASTON INCORPORATED
The Entrepreneurs Pursuit of Personal Expansion, Tactical Success, Limitless Mindset, Manifesting the Impossible and making Legacy Impact on Humanity.
ASTON INCORPORATED
Episode 4- Unlocking the Secrets of Profitable Nightly Rentals and the Art of Hospitality Investment
Discover the allure of resort-grade amenities and higher revenue potential in nightly rental markets—could this be your next investment move? Wayne and Dallin Aston are back for another session at Aston Incorporated, where we peel back the layers of the real estate sector. From the charm of a 100-unit nightly rental to the diverse classes of multifamily apartments, we dissect the financial dynamics and emotional reasons that influence our choices in property investments. If you're looking to understand how deal quality impacts profit margins or why locations like Moab, Utah, are a goldmine for savvy investors, you've come to the right place.
Ever wonder what distinguishes a forgettable stay from an unforgettable experience? We reveal the secret sauce behind memorable Airbnb rentals, highlighting the fine line between generic accommodation and an authentic, personal touch that brings guests back time and again. We take you behind the scenes, exploring how independent owners can implement thoughtfully designed spaces and strategic amenities to carve out a niche in today's authenticity-hungry travel market. You'll be inspired to think differently about how to present your rental in a way that truly stands out from the crowd.
In a world where the bottom line often takes center stage, we argue that leading with love in business culture can be a true game-changer. This episode not just talks about love as a business strategy, but demonstrates how a culture of abundance and genuine customer care can elevate every aspect of the real estate experience. We wrap up our foundational real estate series with a heartfelt thank you to our listeners and a sneak peek at what's to come. Join us for a journey through the dynamic real estate landscape that delves deeper into asset classes and the nitty-gritty of the industry.
Welcome back to the podcast, guys. It's Aston Incorporated. I'm your host, wayne Aston. This is my co-host, dallin Aston. Hey, everyone, thus Aston Incorporated. I think I've said that before. We got pretty passionate, guys, with the last episode, real Estate 101. That was planned for just a single episode. There's just so much to it. We really could make a hundred episodes out of just talking about real estate, because we love real estate, we're passionate about it. I think today's goal, though, is to make part two of our Real Estate 101 episode just kind of continuing through. We started to talk about programming. Yeah, yeah, I want to focus on some programming without giving all the trade secrets away, because we do have some special sauce, but I think there's also going to be some value, because we didn't get very deep into the asset classes.
Speaker 1:Like there's still lots of other commercial stuff so we could touch on. So do you think we ought to pick up right where we were with programming on this multifamily stuff, because I think our listeners were like vibing on this nightly rental thing or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can go back into that. Okay, so let's recap, man.
Speaker 1:So in a nightly rental property with a hundred units versus a multifamily apartment complex with the same hundred units, we're going to spend a little more. In that nightly rental property it's going to be resort grade amenities and finishes, right, it might cost 20, 25 percent more. Moab is unique and all of the markets that we exist in, including Lake Habasus City, arizona, lewiston, idaho, moab, utah and some others coming online soon there are some anomalies in the market. Right, get into those anomalies as we talk about programming. But for all intents and purposes, we're comparing a hundred units to a hundred units, right, and I think we illustrated in that last episode that the traditional landlord model produces that average of five to seven hundred per month per unit, which ended up being, right, around a million a year gross for a hundred units. Was that about, right? If you do that, matt, I don't mean We'll let him calculate that for the refresher, but on the nightly rental side, same hundred, that's 600 grand, oh 600.
Speaker 2:So not even a million. So $600,000. That's where we landed, was about 600K.
Speaker 1:Gross, not including management fees and expenses. Yeah, this is after mortgage, some of the multifamily guys will be chiming in telling me where we're wrong. We've miscalculated.
Speaker 1:That's okay, we're being conservative. I'm sure there's multifamily specialists that have bought class C and B. So in the multifamily space there's three classes of apartments C, b and A. Class A is the nicest, that's like a fourth west. Well, fourth west is even like class A for diamonds, it's like a luxury class A. But a class A apartment building is the nicest typically. And class C is your section A, like government subsidized affordable housing, all right, yeah. And so the finished quality in each of those classes is different, and I'm sure there's multifamily guys that really are so good at buying a good deal their margins are better than what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Oh, 100%. So again, there's not just one way to do things, and I think it's important to also recognize that this is very like hey, we're taking. This is just super simple.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We're not getting the weeds here. If you wanted to get the weeds, it's a different story. But I mean, this is just hey. At first glance this is real estate one-on-one. Yeah, this is one-on-one, this is one-on-one First episode, part one, part two so this is one-on-one, simple.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:From afar.
Speaker 1:So other reasons why do I like a nightly rental programming so much? Well, I never have to evict anyone, so blame it on my big heart. And having been evicted from a property, having gone through a foreclosure, it's gut-wrenching to have all of your shit packed up by constables in plastic bags and thrown on the street and you own it one minute and the next you're done. You're here, you're out, you're like getting a bus and find some other place to live. That's the reality in some of the worst circumstances I've experienced myself and friends In 2008,.
Speaker 1:Many friends I was there watching them be evicted friends of mine and having gone through it, well, I just don't have the heart to do the landlord thing and deal with evictions. I don't even. It's just yucky man, it's like it's PTSD for me. Nightly rentals it's exciting, everyone's paying top dollar to be there, they're having fun, we're geared to experience economy and I don't seem to have a problem with the occupancy, like I. Just I provide enough value on the programming and everything about it that I'm full. I'm full most of the time.
Speaker 2:When you get good reviews, people leaving reviews saying this place is awesome and it feels good.
Speaker 1:I like talking to guests. I love it.
Speaker 2:I'll have guests reach out and say thanks so much for being so wonderful and what a cool feeling.
Speaker 1:That's a rewarding that's a very satisfying thing to get the instant gratification of your patrons who love the property.
Speaker 2:We can't wait to come back next year and many say that you start getting some brand loyalty because it's programmed right.
Speaker 1:So what have you experienced? Let's talk about Moab. We can beat up on Moab. We don't know anything to Moab, but Moab's an amazing place. You've got some amazing national parks. Why Moab? You've got Arches National Park. You've got Canyonlands National Park nearby, you've got Dead Horse Point State Park. So you've got all these natural amenities, these attractions and people visiting from all over the world. Historically, I mean, you know, utah sees over 4 million unique tourists a year. Zion's National Park is probably the number one producing park in Utah.
Speaker 2:Is it over Utah or is it just? Moab sees 4 million.
Speaker 1:Well, it's just, moab itself will see 4 million Okay. Zion's alone will see more than 4 million.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there are about 5 million. Yeah, that's right, and so you take that in perspective. It's not just the state that's 4 million, it's those places that are 4 million or 5 million or whatever.
Speaker 1:So I want to get into the weeds with you, Dallin, because I think you probably got, and I have a funny story, now that I'm thinking about it, of another friend investor contemplating getting into Moab. So you take all these common denominators awesome attractions, world-class location okay, Every property in that county shares those same common denominators yeah, absolutely. And so you got to get deeper into the programming of what sets the boys apart from the men.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:What is a top performing asset doing differently than the average performers? Right, okay, do you want to speak to what you experienced when you were trying to do some due diligence on what to buy in Moab, like? Was there anything that sticks out in your mind?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and again, I'm not going to point anyone out specifically or name anything, but I'd go down there and it was funny. Because let me take a quick back. You look on Airbnb first and foremost, and I could pull this up now and show you, but for the podcast's sake I'll just explain it. We're sitting here and you look at Airbnb and you look at the average listing the average place to stay, for lack of a better term. It's pretty. I don't know what's the right term.
Speaker 1:What are I looking for?
Speaker 2:It's like very Santa Fe it's. They're all the same in the sense that they're very. Oh, I'm going to grandma's house, yeah, and again, I'm not trying to be cruel or judgmental at all, I'm just saying this is kind of my, this was my experience and I thought Airbnbers pay close attention.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is programming gold. Yeah, if you plan to go make an investment and put it on Airbnb, this is gold for you, this programming.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's, if not the most important thing is up there among some very important things. But I'd see these people and I know some other owners of units down there. I've gotten connected with a few others and I'd be talking to them. They're like man. Yeah, we found on KSL a couple of. We found our fridge for $200 on KSL.
Speaker 2:It's got denset and I'm like, oh, gee. And they're like it was such a steal. And I'm sitting here. Now you have two schools of thought right this one side, where it's like, oh, we can't fail because it's Moab and we're just going to throw it up there. It's going to work. We're just going to save as much money because it's going to work on the furniture. We're just, we're not going to spend as much time or money on the programming because it's just going to perform. And then you have other guys and I'm sitting here. I'm sitting here looking at this and I'm saying you know what? I'm going to make this an experience. I'm not. I'm going to spend 25 grand on each unit to make these so amazing that when you look at a picture, you're going to go whoa. When you walk in the unit, you're going to go oh, this is amazing, Nicer than my house.
Speaker 2:I don't want to live here dude, and I have people telling me, man, you have such a beautiful, they'll walk in like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad that we stayed at your place, we'll be coming here again Then. You know, I've got some other things that make it unique and we can talk about that. But I mean, you take a look at the stark contrast. And it's so funny to me because you can go on Airbnb and look at the map in Moab and you can see price discrepancies.
Speaker 2:And I remember one time I was with my buddy and he was like, dude, I'm really interested to just do you have like a case study of how yours are doing? I was like, well, I mean, go on Airbnb. So he pulls it up on his computer and this is how I want everyone to really listen to this, because he pulls it up on his computer and he's like looking, and he's like, oh, they're, they're all around 200, but what's this $400 one? And he clicks on it and it's mine. And he's like, oh, what? And I was like, oh, that's fine, and I didn't plan that, I just told him to just go and look, you know, and he goes okay, well, here's another 400.
Speaker 2:It was like 405. And he's like who's this one? It was my other one, can you not? It was my other one and everything was the same project. Yeah Well, and so what's the same development project.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh my gosh. So what's?
Speaker 2:funny is Airbnb. It won't pinpoint like it'll have the prices, but it won't pinpoint on the exact location because it doesn't give that away until you book. Yeah, you'll take the exact address. So you have them kind of scattered out in the general location. So I had a 400, my $400 one was here and then just a little bit down on the map was the other 400, even though they're right next to each other. The same development. Yeah, they're a little off in the map and he's like I'm curious, it's the, it's mine, yeah, and and, and you know, the pictures show it.
Speaker 2:Now, people do better at this than others. But what I'm trying to get at here is if you are in any, you know, it doesn't matter what market you're in. If you're going to be competing with others in the area, you know, the only reason someone's going to choose you and not only choose you but pay more is if the experience, the perceived value and the experience is there, yeah, right, and having, you know, putting the extra dollar going to the through the ex, going through the extra mile to make it as amazing, as unique and as personable as possible, I think is very powerful when you have consumers looking at places where they're going to say yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1:So you know, people define programming many ways, many ways, and it's my experience that big franchise hotel operations have a certain franchise programming. It works for them globally. Part of the programming is a little archaic. It's like we want you to feel just the same comfort level in China as you do in the US, and so you go stay at a higher place over here. It's the same as a higher place over there, for sure. So the sameness is what a lot of franchises lean into.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you have what they call a PIP standard in a hotel. It's the improvement standard of a hotel. It's the finishes and it's the colors and it's the beds and the quality of this and that, and franchises are committed to having it be the same. And what I'm saying to your point is that today's XYZ generations are way more interested in unique experiences.
Speaker 1:They wanna go to the one place. There's only one of them in the world, and it just happens to be that your place is in Moab. One of my places in Moab it's not Moab, it's the fact that that's the only place like it in that region. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so you know I'm really excited and hyper-focused about what I call regional luxury resort destinations, and I'm really excited about regional luxury resort destinations because of this fact. There's an opportunity to create something unique, one of a kind. I'm not interested in duplicating it anywhere else. It's gotta be drivable. So what I'm getting into now is the recession, resistant hospitality investment Okay, all of our franchise properties nationwide, the bigger, the MSA. If you're in Orlando during COVID, you got crushed. If you had debt on that hotel during COVID, you're out of business.
Speaker 1:Now there are big hotel chains who were able to wade through the slug, the swamp of the pandemic, barely. But if you were on Las Vegas, you got crushed. You know, to go in Las Vegas and see the Aria booking out at $49 a night, that's not a profit. There's no profit, that's a losing. That's a hotel losing money. So you know the message here is hospitality and hotels and condos and Airbnb's aren't by default profitable.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of moving parts that go into what makes it profitable. I prefer being in a recession, resistant investment. I'd like to know and strategically consciously plan my investment strategies and my investment let's call it a thesis around what happens when a pandemic comes. What happens when a 2008 apocalypse comes? You have a way. Before closures, People stop flying to Hawaii and Asia and Europe and paying for expensive vacations in a recession, right, okay.
Speaker 1:And if I'm the guy who has a luxury that's nice enough amenities and nice enough finishes, that's also in a drivable destination, it becomes a safety. Then look, everyone's pent up in the recession, man, they still want to get out. They're families and wives and they want to pack the dog in the car and they want to get out of the house. They still are human and they still want to be on vacation. So if I'm only a hundred hundred and fifty miles away and it's luxury, guess what I'm picking all that business up when the big hotels in Orlando and Las Vegas are getting nothing Right.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's another reason why I like specifically the type of asset class that I prefer to be in, which is this regional luxury resort. You know there's other. I've done self-storage. Self-storage is an awesome asset class for investors. That's a very low cost to construct, low barrier to entry. It's not single family, so you don't get a mortgage. It's specialized financing, it's true, or two development, because you need like three to five in case of you know one project I did eight acres, so you need more acreage and you're talking hundreds of units, so you need a third party manager.
Speaker 1:But the cost to profit ratio is high, right, so you know. Anyone thinking about what type of real estate do I get into? Self-storage is a great one to get into. It's easy to syndicate. There's plenty of high net worth guys out there that have a few million bucks that would like to be in self-storage because it's safe.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm personally not focused in self-storage anymore because I've been there. I've done that. It's a little boring for me. I didn't get the satisfaction of the experience, economy and the programming for my patrons. Like you know what I'm really passionate about. I just it didn't light me up.
Speaker 2:Well, it goes back to why, right? So some people have different why's? Yeah, and again, it's not a matter of better or worse, it's a matter of different. True, you know? And so, yeah, it's important to consider a thing as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely so you know. Then you've got office space. You've got all types of asset classes in commercial yeah. So for the newbies, you know there's residential real estate and there's commercial real estate. Residential means you can live in it. Commercial means you can't live in it, typically. So commercial real estate is a huge subject, man. It's hotels, it's resorts, it's office, it's industrial, it's manufacturing, it's all self-storage, it's all of those things. I just grab a take to hotels and hospitality because it's satisfying for me when we talk more about let's go back to this programming. We were talking about these common denominators. You've got this world-class location, world-class amenities. You have all these different properties that share all. They share the same traffic. So it's the same customer, all the same people coming to Moab could choose from this hotel, that hotel, your property, my property. So what sets us apart?
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:You've touched on what I call pricing discipline. The psychology of pricing discipline in my experience is one of the most powerful factors of success that separates the men from the boys. If you naturally operate on a Groupon mentality, no disrespect to Groupon. But if you want the discount, if you want to be there for the fall discount or the holiday discount, you're running a special for Valentine's Day. That's not the space that I'm in. To me, that shows a lack of price discipline. To me, those discount and pricing schemes reflect weakness in your plan. You've got to rely on hedging your pricing lower to get the occupancy there. I prefer to provide more value and demand the top of the market price. I never provide a discount. Now people are sitting home on the couch in the audience today or in their car and they're saying oh that's harsh, man.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you're never providing a discount. No, it's not that I'm doing you a favor, because when you pay full price you're willing to go get this experience. That's well worth the price. That's the thing that I'm trying to get across is, my patrons will come and they'll pay $8.50 a night and they will leave so happy, so glad. I can't even tell you how many customers have texted me or left a Google review saying we are so glad we stayed with you instead of this other. We were thinking about this hotel over here, but you were almost double. But oh my gosh, that pool and the experiences and stuff we did, the rock climbing and everyone, just no one regrets paying good money for an experience that's up to the occasion.
Speaker 2:So that's a lesson.
Speaker 1:Price discipline is critical In order for you to survive the Google reviews and a true stewardship, fiduciary responsibility to your patrons. You have to provide value. Furnishing is one major way to do it. We go deeper than that. We go into the lighting. Our housekeepers are more like staging specialists In fact that's their title and they know that they don't just have to clean the unit, but they need to stage the unit for the next guest. So there's certain lamps that get turned on. The thermostat has to be the perfect temperature. So the lighting, the temperature, the smell In hospitality you get folks that will come in and cook that Asian barbecue and the whole unit smells like pork, pork, whatever, and it's very hard to get that smell out.
Speaker 1:So the staging specialist has got an extra heavy job to get the smell out, use the fans and then make it smell right for the next guest. But all of this plays into it. Smell is a critical thing. People remember If you walk into a unit that's a bad smell.
Speaker 2:You just got a bad review and they will not bring it down, they will not come back just for smell.
Speaker 1:It's a big deal If the smell is amazing you're halfway there and they're likely to come back if you get a great smelling unit. So programming now programming goes deeper than that. Even you know, at Sage Creek there's the resort itself, there's the pool complex and the amenities. There's things that I designed in that pool complex, like a movie side or, excuse me, pool side movie theater, High definition audio throughout the landscape. So when you're sitting around pool side we've got ambient music playing.
Speaker 2:It's like a resort, because it is a resort.
Speaker 1:It's very relaxing. The lighting is critical. Down in Grand County they're very particular about the Dark Sky Initiative and I love to take credit for being able to co-author the 2019 Dark Skies Initiative. Similar to this, moab in Grand County had this archaic. It was like a two-pager. We know that we value Dark Sky, but none of the hotels comply. And you drive down Main Street Moab all these hotels have bright lights. They're trying to do the Las Vegas thing.
Speaker 2:And it's just noise.
Speaker 1:It's light pollution to where you can't see stars. And so we brought in a specialized lighting engineer and we said look, we're very focused on the experience, economy and the programming, so therefore the lighting has to be exact in this pool complex. What does that mean? Well, we provided science to the county Specific lighting reports when they came out with measuring tools at night. And what we found was that the old code before we built Sage Creek was code required 50-foot candles of light per foot. And to equate that for our listeners, that's like daylight, that's like standing at noon, high noon, on the pool deck. They're saying, for safety reasons, you have to light it up to that level at night. And we were able to show science that says look, the body doesn't produce melatonin to start to relax until we get under 2,700 Kelvin rating. And that's the warmth and heat of the light. And as we showed it to them, we said look, what's your code?
Speaker 1:This 50-year-old's old says is we can never relax at the pool, but it's a resort, we're supposed to relax and it's so bright I can't even see the stars. So this goes against your current code, goes against your dark skies initiative. Isn't there a compromise? Interesting? And they thought about this and they looked at all this science and we were able to help persuade them to let us author an 18-page dark skies initiative that has teeth in it, that all of the hoteliers in Moab and Grand County are going to be made to conform to by, I think, 2023, to really support a dark skies initiative. But what we did is we were able to persuade the county to actually give a lighting variance to where we produce about 18% of what code requires at night and that hits that 2,700 Kelvin rating. But we've got safety switches. So if we have a casualty in the pool, we need to have emergency responders. We flip on the emergency lighting and it's like daylight.
Speaker 1:That's a great compromise, but we were also able to get the first pool in Grand County that's got multicolored lighting in it, which you've been there and it's magical.
Speaker 1:That's part of the details matter, programming. It's one thing to swim in a nice pool with the bright white lights in it. It's a whole other thing to swim in a really great pool with waterfalls, fire features and colored lighting. That's changing. It's like a living thing, very cool. So it's a major draw. It's the experience. It's the experience, absolutely. So, for all of these programming reasons, you get a natural polarization of top performers, cool shit, and average performers. But it takes money and energy and actually love. Yeah, okay, it actually requires an operator to put love in the equation. Yeah, people are like sitting home, like what. Like, what are we talking about?
Speaker 2:Well, I think this is part of what makes, I think, this show so unique. Right, and I think you know you go back and listen to previous episodes, but everything that we're talking about here stems from this place of love, service, value. Yeah, and I think you know I personally and I don't want to speak for you as well, but I don't want to just sit here and talk to everyone and make a show that is just repeat of what everyone else is saying. Yeah, you know, I want this to be different and valuable and unique, because and it's going to be a little bit different when you hear this, you're like what? Yeah, but at the end of the day, this is, yeah, this is what has worked and what continues to work and serves us very well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, what's interesting and liberating about this is I teased at the beginning of the episode about sharing trade secrets Very scarcity minded statement. I was just. I was teasing. I'm a very abundant thinker and anyone who's worried about their trade secrets is maybe leaning on that scarcity side, like someone might steal it. But when I explain to you and the audience that love is the primary driving force to what we're doing, and then you go back a few episodes and you think of the why and this plan and this calling that God has given us okay, so being clear about why, being clear about who we serve, being really focused with letting love be a driving energy on what we're doing love to our patrons, love for our investors it changes the whole dynamic.
Speaker 1:I can give you all the secrets. Yeah, and if you're not a loving person, if you can't operate with love and be genuine, you can't even compete with me. Yeah, it's a natural differentiator. Not everyone's gonna be able to do that. I'm confident telling trade secrets because you can't duplicate that if you try, because there's this authenticity. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's unique. That is unique, unrepeatable what's the right word? It's unrepeatable, it's not duplicate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's non-replicatable, it's a. There's only one person that can do this. Now you have your own unique way of showing love and you do a great job, because I've seen your reviews. Your Google reviews are fire Like it's all five star reviews Raving about how they love it, Because they feel how much you care about them Like they know it's not about the money and you charge them twice as much as the folks in the one next door.
Speaker 2:That's what's crazy, right, because and you know to your point, probably the majority of the reviews actually go back down to. They're like down, you are so amazing and we have such a great time at your stay, so they bring up two points. Or, at your place, they bring up two points. They bring up first of all, they love the property. Almost every review, I think, has something to do with how amazing the property itself is.
Speaker 2:But, a majority of them also include thank you for caring, and they say those words specifically. Right, and I think that's important because you talk about whatever asset class in real estate, you know your single family. You know I'd love to get your thoughts here, but single family is, you know, night rentals, it's storage, anything. If you have this mindset of we are creating this value for who we're serving, each of those classes is serving someone, yeah, so take it from that perspective and say, hey, we're focused. Whatever we're doing, we're focused on this individual and yours will perform better because you're focused on the individual instead of the cash or the actual materials or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. It applies to all the asset classes. You know, if you're doing office space and you've got tenants doing TIs and their own businesses, you know similar there's ways. There's ways for you to show that you genuinely care with amenities, with finishes, with programming, with your interactions, with the whole thing, the whole experience. Right yeah, hotels is just one of the easiest ones because there's so many ways you are directly doing this.
Speaker 2:There's so many guests on a very personal level, very personal level.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. So that's, I suppose, why I gravitate to it. So I love that it's recession resistant, I love that it makes more money than the other asset classes when you do it correctly, because I naturally like to be a service, for sure it's like again. So you know, do what you're passionate about. I mean, that's cliche and everyone talks about it, but that really that hits.
Speaker 2:I mean, leading with love is also kind of cliche. Yeah, do you think you've got it? Yeah, but it doesn't change the fact that principles that work are principles that work, you know, diverging off of kind of the real estate specific focus.
Speaker 1:If we're just talking about this lead with love philosophy, we would go back to the veterans. We go back to the foundation, go back to the rising tide foundation with that we mentioned in past episodes, you know, and speaking from experience.
Speaker 1:Look, training for combat loves not part of that equation. The more, the more predominant thought is stifle your emotions. Thanks, jaco. What are my favorite? Yeah, stifle your emotions, and it's true. Like you, you know you're trained in the Marine Corps and every branch to stifle your emotions. Hold it in, don't be emotional. Be logical, because in combat and chaos, you can't, you can't.
Speaker 1:That shows up as weakness and fear. Right, and so it's a kind of a shocker when we're dealing with workforce, and this applies to the staging specialists, it applies to groundsmen, it applies to veterans working in the factories and working as our fleet drivers and all of these jobs and how the culture that we're providing and cultivating is leading with love. We're going to be coming back to culture many times over the the long time. It's an ongoing conversation, but, but culture with our staffing is a great way for us to extend love to our staff, through our staff, to reach our customers. Yeah, when our, when our staff feel love and cared for and honored and respected and they're happy and we're the obvious employer that they want to work for. Right, money's not, I mean, they get paid well, but that's not why they're there. Yeah, right, and that translates over to.
Speaker 2:So good luck trying to replicate that If you're not like loving your staff like yeah, you know high turn over rate and you know all these other problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I also think there is an important balance. You know there is a line. Like you know, leaving love does not, you know, it does not give you the right to be complacent or allow complacency. No, not at all, not at all. In fact, it's the opposite, it's a higher standard.
Speaker 1:It's the opposite, right, yeah, yeah, you know you're going to have employees.
Speaker 2:You're going to have, you know, teens and you're going to be because it's. This is kind of a silly analogy, but if you have something stuck in your teeth and someone doesn't tell you, I'm like dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like. Or toilet paper hanging out the back of your patch. You're like if you love me, you'll tell me about it.
Speaker 2:It's the same principle.
Speaker 1:You'll love me enough to tell me the truth.
Speaker 2:Tell me, there's something in my teeth.
Speaker 1:Don't protect me from the uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Don't lie to me and tell me what you think you want me to hear yeah, yeah, because that doesn't serve it.
Speaker 2:That's a disservice.
Speaker 1:That's a disservice as an employer to employee or employee to employee. So part of love is integrity, yep, and commanding excellence and courage, and demanding excellence and being an example of all of that Right.
Speaker 2:There's a lot to that. I also think there's also an avenue of welcoming. You know, this is going to be kind of a unique approach, but I personally think this is very important Accepting mistakes right, Like you make it. It is human, Everyone is going to make a mistake. Yeah, the worst possible scenarios. You have employees or teams making mistakes and hiding them, Like I have a fear for punishment. Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:Future for response yeah, and so again no matter what asset class you're in, no matter what teams you're involved with, no matter what. I think this culture of love also elicits this sense of hey, you know what Mistakes are? Okay, let's do everything we can to avoid them. Yeah, but they're going to happen, yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't like. Let's make sure they're known, because I think, mistakes being hidden, the recipe. I mean you look at Russell Brunson yeah, for just a little example. You know he tells the story of one of his first companies, where one of his employees made a mistake on payroll taxes and he found this out. Or his father calls him up and he's like hey, you know, we owe X amount. You're going to go to jail in a month if you don't pay this. And Russell tells the story. He's like it was the most sickening day of my life, but because this employee felt embarrassed or whatever the reason that they made this mistake. But then it ended up being way worse than it should have been.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and so anyway, I think that also ties into this.
Speaker 2:It's commanding that excellence but at the same time you know it's the food and the tea thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So yeah it's. How can I incentivize and almost reward you for your courage and integrity and willingness to come forward and be honest so that we can use it as a case study for everyone else and it can be an abductive tool?
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:You broke this. Yeah, this mistake happened. Yeah, let's have that be an opportunity for everyone to see it. Yeah, and let's honor you for coming forward and then now everyone's going to remember that Not gonna happen.
Speaker 2:They're not gonna remember the mistake.
Speaker 1:It won't happen again, likely, but that's because everyone's gonna remember that it was a big deal and it was a lesson and it was a good thing, a positive thing. They'll remember the positive side of that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and again this, this will set you apart.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We're talking about stuff that is so. I mean, it's not. We're not reinventing the wheel. Real estate has been around for so long. Absolutely yeah, we're not reinventing the wheel here. This is you know, this has been done before modeling what works. But then how do you? Okay, now it's time to stand out. My cleaner, for example, texted me the other day and was like you know, I've never had a boss that cares as much as you do. She said that. She texted me, said that, yeah, and that's well, guess what that's gonna do? She's now gonna make the unit even better. Yeah, now, if the guest is gonna have a problem, she's gonna go. Can I actually go help them right now? Yeah, and she's done it. Yeah, you know, and that's what makes a truly distinct, unique, like a value proposition. That is what makes, that's what differentiates us, and it all stems from that. Oh my gosh, you're the best employer. I'm gonna make sure that I perform.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you get an extra measure out of a devoted employee. Yes, I had a similar thing with an employee on the Moab Resort where some guests didn't disclose the number of people in their party. I'm expecting seven people. They show up with 14 people and the unit wasn't equipped for 14 people. But what did we do? I call up my one guy who lives nearby and said hey, we need to move a couch. It was 1230 at night. They were checking in after midnight.
Speaker 1:He gets out his bed, he comes over and he and I move a couch into this unit, so they have a queen sleeper and they have two extra twin mattresses and we just we just rolled with it. But you do not get that level of committed devotion out of staff. If you're not showing up leading with love, if they don't know that you absolutely love them as family, you're never going to get that.
Speaker 2:So that's an exciting thing.
Speaker 1:It's something that feels really good. You know when you're, when you're getting that type of response. Yeah, I think, I think we've. I mean we. There's a hundred more things we could talk about real estate, but I feel like we're.
Speaker 2:Is there something else you wanted to?
Speaker 1:hit here in real estate part two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my thought is hey look, this is real estate one on one. Here's kind of the brief. This is you know, and we could go for hours and talk and I think you know, and you could absolutely and I could just pick your brain, you know and you know. But but I think we're going to dive into a lot of more, even more granular specifics of each asset class and, and even more so, with other different avenues that are that are, you know, in the process of what it takes. So I think we probably call it here and continue into you know, diving a little bit deeper throughout next few episodes and onward. That sounds good.
Speaker 1:Thank you, guys for tuning in Again. Aston Incorporated. We appreciate your support. Have a good night. We'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks, guys.