17 - Scaling Boutique Hotels with Systems and Teams with Rashmi Bhat

In this episode, Rashmi Bhat shares her journey from restaurants and short-term rentals into scaling boutique hotels. She breaks down hotel management as an entry point, building systems and teams, leveraging relationships, and why patience and saying “no” to most deals drive long-term success. 

Connect with Rashmi: 

Find her on Instagram: toastyindian, resohospitality 

Connect with Micah:
Instagram: micahinvests
Tiktok: micahinvests1

Connect with Adam:
Instagram: adaminvests1
LinkedIn: adaminvests1
Tiktok: adaminvests1

Thinking about Boutique Hotels?Schedule a call:
https://bit.ly/4t1q3bb

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I would say you're supposed to turn down all of the deals you're supposed to get. So if you're at a 99.99 rejection rate, you're probably doing it correctly. And if you're taking on more, then there's something wrong. Either with the deal or there's something somewhere. There's one deal that's going to work on, it's going to be amazing, but let's wait for it.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Hey everybody, I'm Adam Walls, and I'm here with my co-host Micah Thomas. We're short-term rental operators who made the jump into boutique hotels. And we're in it right now. Raising capital, renovating a 50-room property. We're figuring it out as we go.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

This is the Boutique Hotel Secrets Podcast, and these are our secrets.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Welcome in everyone to another episode of the official Boutique Hotel Secrets Podcast. My name is Adam Waltz. Pleasure to be here with you today. It's not just me, but it is the Mr. From Another Sister, Micah Thomas in the house. Micah, how you doing, man?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

How was Labor Day? Doing good. Had a good Labor Day weekend, really relaxed, and had a chance to go to Baltimore for the weekend with my wife. Really enjoyed that. And now back at home, getting ready to head to Page, Arizona for our site inspection. So excited to take on that journey as well as talk to the interior designer, a few general contractors, and get some bids. Yep, that's what I got going on. Big things, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

And by the way, you sent me a link to a boutique hotel in Baltimore. Did you go there? Did you check it out?

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Are you like me just always scoping out like the latest in hospitality? I did go, and I'm so glad you asked me. The guy's name is Eddie Brown, who owns it. He just so happens to be a billionaire, and he had the number one boutique hotel in all of Baltimore. So I went on site, uh, concierge greeted me, security came out. It's all very locked tight because it's in the middle of the city. But the security guard took me on a tour around the entire building. Turns out it used to be a mansion who and the mansion was owned by a banker who owned the banking firm across the street from it. Very historical, such a good story, and was just in awe at the architecture. They have leather on the walls. It's such good interior design. And after hearing the story of Eddie Brown is the owner's name, just really inspired. So who knows? Maybe one day we'll be able to talk to him and ask him a few questions one day.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Yeah, maybe. Okay, putting that out into the universe, manifesting a little Eddie Brown.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

What was the name of the hotel again? It was this the Ivy, the Ivy Hotel in Baltimore.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

It's a 17-room hotel. Okay, amazing. So we'll link that in the show notes if people want to check that out or give them some love on Instagram. Or if you know anyone traveling to that part of the world, please hook them up with a fellow boutique hotel owner. Can I say that already with a guy who almost owns a boutique hotel? I think I'm part of the brethren. Okay. We're knocking it out the door.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

I think it counts.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Okay, I love it. I love it. Excellent. We're recording this just after Labor Day. My family and I had a great visit to Yosemite National Park. Got to do some biking, some hiking, see the waterfalls, all the things, man. So it was fantastic. Although I will say, this is Micah, you're gonna hate me for this, but I haven't signed up for host buddy yet. You've sent me your referral code like nine times. There's no Wi-Fi in Yosemite, and literally I had four different issues with smart locks and all the dumb things. So anyway, if other people are listening, maybe you two can empathize about you're probably running your portfolio a bit more loosely and side hustle as it should be. That's part of what got me into STR Secrets to try and go from amateur to pro. And eventually, I think this is the new asset class, which is Boutique Hotels. And by the way, it's not just me and Micah on the mic today. We brought in one of the mentors, one of the coaches from Boutique Hotel Secrets to again introduce herself, share a bit of her story, her journey, just talk about her ride in boutique hotels because we're all learning together, but she certainly is a few steps ahead on the mountain from us. So love that she's throwing down the rope. We can learn from her, she can help us up, and we can all learn together. Without further ado, let me bring in Rashmi Butt. Rashmi, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

I'm so good, guys. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Hey, we're good, man. Hey, by the way, I am really enjoying following the Toasty Indian online. And it looks like Matt's Hindi is progressing quite well.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

There we go. It's been so much fun posting online. It's brought back my we're in a we're in a messy business, right? Like things go wrong all the time. And when we're talking about Labor Day, I was literally dealing with shit because we had two septics that went out over which literally.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Man.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

My team is handling it. It's not like I have to be involved in it. But you deal with all of this, you're looking at cap rates, we're looking and you forget what a fun business we're in sometimes. And so Justin Indian, which is my social media channel, it's just brought back the joy of having a hospitality business, as opposed to just dealing with like the numbers and all of the problems that come into business.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

I love it. And you it seems like you feature a lot of as a day in the life of a property manager. That's one of your go-to's. But have you always been like this hip to Instagram and all the things? I feel like you're pro already at sharing your journey and bringing others into this space.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

It's been exactly a year since I started posting. It's literally just been a year, and I love doing it. And I post three, four videos a day, and people are like, that's so much. I'm like, I have so much more to talk about. Um, but I think if the way I started with social media is it's just a diary for myself. And I think sometimes we get so lost in the end goal and the journey that we forget, hey, this is how far you've come. Relax and enjoy. And this is a really fun business. Like you're helping people create lifetime memories. So let's like halfway of that when everything, including the shit, literally hits the fan.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

I love that. I feel like you have definitely come a long way. So for those who do not know, could you talk a little bit about your portfolio, maybe how you got started and maybe what your properties look like now?

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Yeah, absolutely. I graduated when I was 21. I came to the States when I was 15. I graduated when I was 21 from University of Houston. And I always wanted to do something different. So I turned down three job offers to start my first restaurant. Did that for a couple of years, and then I opened my now Indian restaurant in 2019. We all know what happened March of 2020. I'm genuinely thankful, like everything happens for you. And one of the things that happened for me was we were always my boyfriend at the time, husband now Matt, was really interested in real estate. We're trying to figure it out, couldn't quite make all the pieces work. And two months into COVID, like when May stuff had started opening up, a friend invited us to an Airbnb they had. And I was like, oh my God, like the light bulb just went off. And I was like, we could do this. So that weekend I went to tour some properties in that area. We, long story short, we ended up buying a few kind of out there with partners. And then because I was so busy in my restaurant, I was like, I have to figure out how to delegate stuff in the Airbnb. But just like physically wasn't enough time in my life to be able to, so it's either property manager or self-management. And so with that, we bought our first couple, then we started going out of state to buy more deals, and things were going pretty well. Like I was self-manager, and I was like, I don't really need anyone on my team. I had hired VAs for my restaurant, and VAs are virtual assistants, and uh things were going until December 24th, 2022. Christmas Eve dinner. I'm hosting. We have property in three or four different states. And I don't know if you guys remember this, but everything froze over.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

That's right. Oh my refrigerator was stuck in Texas. We were literally in a newly remodeled house. I was running like a little mini fridge, like I was in college because it was in that storm.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yeah, it was in the storm. It was insane in like in Tennessee, it had Oklahoma, and like I was dealing with every contractor under the sun, and I was like, this will never be me again. So that January, I joined STR Secrets, and I had somebody reach out to me on Facebook and they were like, Hey, I'm looking to be a BA. Do you know? Are you looking? And I was like, everything's already hit the fan, like, whatever, sure. Let's just we'll just try out.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Say yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Uh that's usually my tagline on Toastin, and you start saying yes to things. And so I said, Yeah, let's work together. And those three months, like straight up, were just brutal. Um, and you spent all this money on a mastermind and you're like, What have I just done? Um, and then you're like working double, triple what you were working before because as sexy as it sounds to put systems in place and have your business run without you and all the stuff, like it is a lot of work on the front end to like get it stuff offloaded. And so we did that, things were coasting along, and then I like got my eyes on hotels and I was like, ooh, this seems fun. I ended up joining the boardroom at that time where you had half yet. And I got there and I got my first hotel management deal through that. And then I went to STRI WealthCon, not the most recent one, but the one two back, yeah. Yeah, found two more, two or three more hotels there to help manage. And as we're closing, I literally had a trip to Europe. Like, we signed on a hotel to manage March 4th. I left on my trip March 5th, and I was like, this is going to rate it. Like, I just know it's not. And I told the R I was like, let's not do this. And they're like, no, like we're so burnt out, we really just need you. And my team was like, dude, we felt like we were back in a call center. This is insane. And I was like, no matter how much anyone warns you until you get like that influx. So I still get nightmares from like an open phone ringtone. And that's how we got started. So today our portfolio is a little bit different. We manage eight boutique hotels, hopefully, to be 10 if I can get two more deals signed by times that podcast launches. Uh, we have just shy of 100 short-term rentals under management. We're really focusing on the luxury um and we're located in the central Texas Hill Country area. And then I bought my first hotel last year. We're under reno, hopefully, it gets done in the next couple of months. And then we're looking to do another be coming up either this year or next year. So if anyone has any opportunities, hit me up. I'd love to do another deal.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

I think this is a great example of how you can scale and you don't have to purchase every single hotel that you're involved with because you went from more or less owning some Airbnbs, but this is more or less the co-hosting model in the hotel space. So could you speak a little bit more on how you were able to land a management deal for a hotel before even purchasing your first hotel?

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Yeah, absolutely. And so to backtrack a little bit onto I was always looking to buy a hotel deal and I was trying to figure it out, but like the numbers weren't working. And so the way the first deal came about was that they were like, hey, I want to sell. And I looked at the numbers and I was like, listen, there's no way I can make you whole on the deal. You would sell it's not even a loss, it was just a bad deal. But I was like, I know nothing about hotels, but I will learn. Would you be open to us just going on a month-to-month contract? And I'll let my team figure out how to manage this deal. And I was very open with the owners. I didn't know how to do this. The good thing for me is they also didn't know what they were doing because we both had like a pain point. And I was like, but I think we can do a really good job and we'll go all out for you to bat. And we really did. And that's how I got the first deal. And so any listings that you see on the market, like this was on loop net, like it's on Crexy, and you the numbers don't work for acquisition. Talk to them. They're like, hey, would you guys be open to a management deal? And like now we're positioning. So for my short-term rental company, we do a lot of things really well. Like we're great at revenue management, we're great at listing optimization, we're good at boots on the ground in any business. And I come from restaurants, is always the toughest part. And so with the hotels, we were like, what can we do that really makes us stand out? And a lot of, especially in the 12 to 20 rooms, I think it's just like ballpark, the owners are actually great at boots on the ground. They said a lot of times they live on site, they're pretty dialed in on maintenance, like they know their stuff, but they just don't have time to sit down and optimize their listing on Airbnb. And so what we're building now is apart from like a full hotel management company, is really focusing on building a sales and marketing hotel management company that, hey, we can do your management if you're interested. But we're really good at is your revenue management, your sales and marketing, getting you on every OTA, getting your direct booking, building out your marketing campaigns, and building a company that is really built for that small boutique hotel owner while making sure like they're not getting overburned. Because you just don't have time. And I know that because I have a restaurant and I didn't have time to go update my DoorDash.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Totally. Can you talk about maybe one of those early deals about how you partnered with or maybe got the broker out of the way? Because I'm in context, I'm thinking about the first hotel that I fell in love with and I almost overpaid for it, and it would have been way too small and too much work, but so desperate to get in the game. Paid this money, I'm around all these hotel operators. I've told my friends and family and loved one this is what I'm doing. So I thought if I'm persistent enough, I'm creative enough, I'm willing to roll my sleeves up and put in the sweat equity, I can make anything work. That was my attitude, but it just didn't pencil. And anyways, there was just this I don't know, I don't feel like the broker was necessarily helping me. And I think Joel and some others were actually pitching maybe if this deal doesn't work as an ownership opportunity, maybe a few months down the road, this could be a co-host contract for you. So can you talk a little bit about how do you either partner with or sidestep around for lack of a better terminology? Like brokers that might be presenting the deal, and again, their name's all over on Qurexi and LoopNet, and they want to stay in the middle, right? So again, they get their commission, they get paid, and that they can manage the expectations on both ends. But I suspect that you're more successful when you're going direct, but is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah, 100%. And just so we're clear, I would never tell you a broker or any of the real estate people to put in a lot of hard work. What I will say is go out and make those connections with those workers and tell them exactly what you want. I tell all brokers, like, hey, I don't have a hotel to sell right now or to buy. But here's what I do. And if there's any way I can help you, please let me know. And the other thing I always tell brokers is like, hey, if you have a listening that's not selling, I'd love to take a look. And I'm just honest with them. If I have a problem buying this deal, most likely 90% of other environments have the exact same problem. If there's a way I can help you, and maybe we can manage this deal for a couple of months, get their numbers up, and you can sell at a higher multiple, like I'm here to help. The other thing I like to always say, and this is where all of my deals have come from beyond just being online, is go to real estate conferences, like start networking. Business happens with other people, it happens in relationships. And I always like to, I love the STR and the hotel space. But if you want hotel deals, go one step out of the STR community. So go to multifamily conferences, go to conferences that are about real estate, but not necessarily hospitality, because a lot of those people might have a hotel deal, but they just they're like, hey, I'm not specialized in this. A lot of people get capital raising, a lot of people get lending, like all these real estate has so many different parts. So be the hospitality expert for those people, and you'll find a lot more deal flow coming here, right? And honestly, like we're in a people business. Go cold call on a couple of hotel owners, go show up on Tuesday afternoon at 11 o'clock and be like, hey, I'm gonna buy my first hotel. What can you tell me about the business? We're in a hospitality space, no one's really gonna turn you away.

unknown 14:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

And be genuine and be real about, hey, this is what I want to do. And you'll find a lot more doors opening up. I go to every owner today, I'm like, hey, I just want to learn. Like just genuinely curious. Can I buy you a coffee and can we just can I just learn about your business?

SPEAKER_01 14:57

I agree with that. Relationships are gonna get you so much further than I think any official class or thing you take. You need to build a relationship. And I'm learning more and more that people are buying into your story. They believe in you a lot more than they believe in what you tell them is the bright idea. If they believe in you as a person, then they're gonna partner with you, they're gonna follow behind you, they're gonna do whatever it takes to see you in a success just because they like you as a person. With that being said, how hard or how easy do you think it might be to find partnerships or to what would you tell somebody who's just getting started and say, I don't know anybody in the space, I don't know any other hotel owners outside of cold calling? Do you have any ideas or even conferences? Any ideas you could think of to get people connected to like-minded individuals?

SPEAKER_02 15:49

If you're getting value from this, follow the show and share it with one person who's ready to move beyond short-term rentals.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

And if you want to learn more about the boutique hotel secrets community, the link is in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Yeah, for sure. And one thing I just want to add, just on something you said previously, is say you're cold-calling an owner, right? And they're like, Who is this person? We send out cold emails and we have a whole campaign, right? You know what the first thing people do is they go to Google and they're like, What is this place? And if you search my company Rise Hospitality, there's a likelihood I pop up. And you know what? The first thing that everyone else does is a toasty Indian. And they're like, okay, like this person's real. Okay. And you'll see on my social media, I don't really talk about we do hotels, we do property. I'm just like, this is my life and this is what's happening. But people instantly build that connection that this is like somebody that's real behind it. And so building that in real life, but also building that platform online, it's a two-way street. And it's so I see a lot of people who post once or twice and then it's the face of the earth. And I'm like, are you alive? What happened? But if that's how you're gonna treat your owners, then maybe not gonna sign up with you, right? So the consistency you show in whatever discipline it is that you do, have it through the rest of all of the things that you do. So I just wanted to add that. So yeah, if you literally type into Google hotel conferences, CloudBeds is an entire article for the entire year about every hotel conference for independent hotel. So you could attend a ton of those, get a ton of information. The other thing is, geez, guys, like just go to Google, do a hundred-mile radius, find every boutique hotel owner there is, and honestly, they're probably not even gonna be online. That's part why this business, like we've there's so many people we've brought online, which is crazy. But start talking to them and going, hey, what can I do to help? Start making like picking up the phone, drive out there, meet these people like what you did, Micah, which is go to Baltimore and just be like, Oh, this looks like a cool hotel. Let me just go walk it and let me just get some inspiration. That's exactly what I do. And you'll start meeting. And honestly, if the goal is to go from STR to hotels, just by sheer number of emails we send for our STR business, we get enough hotel deals. Because you're just naturally gonna progress into them and you're gonna find somebody who has eight cabins and is like, hey, I'm like not an Airbnb, but I'm also like not a hotel. What do I do?

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah, we just talked with an investor earlier today that is a little too heavy in real estate and wanted to rotate out back into the stock market or something else, or just more passive, right? They saw a couple of years ago the Airbnb kind of that pent-up demand and travel after COVID. Everyone was listing new properties, right? So I think was it Riley throws out the stat? I think 600,000 new Airbnbs in three years. Not that it's completely saturated and done, but you have to bring your A game. You really have to level up and be thoughtful. But I think you're right, huge opportunities for people to scale up naturally into the commercial space. So let's uh I like this idea of you've scored multiple deals through going to conferences and just organically networking. So great that you're getting contacts, you're following up, putting them on your campaign. But what is it that you think you're doing differently? Because I went to Nashville, I talked about hotels, I talked to people with money, I walked away with zero hotels. Clearly, I'm doing something wrong. What is it that you think you're doing right or that maybe you could point to that you think gives you a leg up to then go from two hotels to four to six to eight to ten? Like you've scaled very quickly in this game. So I'm curious if you've got any thoughts about first-time, second-time conference attendees. What should they be focusing on?

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Yeah, it's just reps, man. It's just reps. And everyone hates that answer, but there really isn't a different answer to the question. I could go to Crexie right now and I could find you a hundred hotels, and I'm like, these would be good deals. Like, I so we have an Excel sheet for like hotels I think that would be cool to manage versus acquire. And I just went through buy, business, sell and I was like, oh, here are some amazing hotel deals that like could be great for acquisition, they could be great for management. Like just talk to the talk to the owners. And like at some point in business, it's just about who's gonna be there the longest. There's a lot of owners we have inside that I would love to assign. And it's following up with them at six months and being like, hey, I'm just striking in, like, how are things going? Being and just having your patience. I've been doing this, it's gonna be about two years. Most people are getting space in the last couple of months.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

So just sitting there and having the reps and finding those people, like conferences are great, being online is great, but go offline and if you can drive up to the hotel being like, Hey, I noticed you don't have an Xpedia listing, what's going on? Oh no, they haven't had an Airbnb booking in two or three years. And I'm like, What do you mean? So I'm no, that's a problem we can help you solve.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

I I love that. And I want to pivot now, I want to ask about systems and processes. And the only reason being is because I'd see you as the best systems and processes operator out there. I think you have some of the best ideas and some of the best systems, and you talk to us about this during your operation calls. So I would love to kind of ask you, what do you what do you do or what would you recommend someone do who has no systems and processes? They may be flying around by the seat of their pants, just doing every single task that comes up. How would you talk to them on how to streamline that? And then how does that translate over to the boutique hotel space? I'm right here, Micah.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

I'm right here. You're talking about me right now. Okay, rough me. Hit me. What do I need to do?

SPEAKER_00 21:03

I guess all you need to do is call Adam and have them fix it. No. So the first thing I did is I'll tell you exactly what I did, is I hired a general EA, is basically what it is. So an executive assistant, because you want somebody that's a jack of all trades at that point. It's not justifiable, like cost-saving-wise, to hire somebody that's like specific for Airbnb or booking.com and start offloading your email inbox. Start offloading just little tasks. Like for me, I was noticing spending a shit ton of time on Canva doing graphic design. And it's like people are like, it's so easy. But I'm like, yeah, but like formatting just takes forever. And I'm like, why am I doing this? So I hired my first kind of graphic designer, EA, whatever you want to call it. And that helped me like get out of at least like the minor task of sub ten dollar tasks, and then get into the 50. And then that's so that was number one. Host buddy AI were just talking about it. That's great if you have sub 10 properties, 10, 20 properties. It's a great option. Beyond that, I really do think you'd Start investing in a team because the hose buddy can handle tier one stuff, but like tier two, tier three, you really need humans that can get on there and be like, ah, like this isn't quite the other thing is any system you implement, it's gonna take more time away from you initially, but it will build up so you have less. So I was literally on online jobs.ph finding my first people. That's how I hired at the gate. Accounting is another one you can really give up, and a lot of people do their own books. So I'm like, come on, guys, that's a very easy. You're probably not good at it. So I'm just gonna be honest. But it's like the little task, just start adding up, and then now all of a sudden you're just boggled on doing all the little stuff and not working on the big stuff. And it's baby steps, have grace with yourself. Like romance and built in a day. It's not people think like they're gonna hire a VA and then the next week they're not gonna have any problems, and the VA is gonna be on it. That's not how it works. And so putting in that time, and something that we just covered in operations college was like, how do you build a team culture that's virtual? So I've been spending a lot of my time because I'm always like a talk about I haven't read the book The Gap in the Gay, and I probably should, but I can probably tell you I've spent my time in the gap. And so I'm always problem solving, and I'm always like, Oh, we could improve this and this, but like, hey, we do 95% of things correctly. Let's build a team culture that reflects that. And the new motto at our company is just like have fun. What are we like we're in a fun business? Yeah. And so, how do you build a team culture where everyone on your team is having fun and they're not always just seeing you, which is was me for a long time, just being like, here's a subject problem, here's the Airbnb problem, why did we get a four-star review? Blah blah blah blah. And we're like, calm down.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

I love it. You're bringing home the report card, and you've got five A's and then one B. All the attentions on the B. But it is, I don't care if you're in Hong Kong, India, Atlanta, like it's a worldwide phenomenon, I think, where we're programmed or hardwired to pay attention to stuff that's not working. So I love that a leader's job, right, is to provide a bigger vision and some of that energy. What is it that you like doing? What is it that you love doing? What do you hate doing? How can we craft or reorient this job to maximize and play into some of your strengths? And if you hate this stuff, let's find somebody else. Back to that team concept. I think of some of the best high-performing teams in the world in different disciplines, it's about complementary skill sets, right? So again, it's understanding how can I minimize or ideally eliminate some of my weaknesses.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

The other thing I'll add is I love being an entrepreneur. And if you give me a new idea, I'm like, always think about it. But the other thing I have to realize with my team is they have a job, right? And so they might not like me having this idea and just tossing it out half baked and then being like, figure it out. A lot of the thought as a leader is like thinking it through and being like, here's what I'm thinking, here's the vision. Does this actually align with the five-year vision? Or am I just getting and so one thing we've done in our business, which is almost anti is with scale back on software because we were having all these moving parts and the team was spending all this time doing that and not actually supporting a great I guess experience. Yeah. And so having that balance as you grow your team.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Yeah. And can I ask, I know we just got a couple minutes left, but I'm thinking about okay, you've got all this experience now. Obviously, every week you're coming, sharing kind of your thoughts, your ideas, what's got your attention. Students who are walking in for the first time have a zillion questions. But I don't know. If you're looking back and could give advice to yourself, going from zero hotels to one hotel, that's where Micah and I are at. And I suspect other people listening right now might be in that same position. What advice comes to the top of your mind? I heard the team piece seems huge. This is a team sport. Don't go alone. But are there any other, I don't know, cuts, bruises, scrapes that maybe you could avoid or learn from others? So yeah, what advice would you offer?

SPEAKER_00 25:42

I would say you're supposed to turn down all of the deals you're supposed to get. So if you're at a 99.99 rejection rate, you're probably doing it correctly. And if you're taking on more, then there's something wrong either with the deal or there's something somewhere. There's one deal that's gonna work on, it's gonna be amazing, but let's wait for it. Yeah, let's have the issue. I think a lot of people join and they're like, I want my first deal. If you join Care Secrets or BHS and we stop you from wanting one bad deal, then that's job well done. And I know it's a really hard thing to, but the last thing we want is for somebody to buy a five million dollar property that's not performing. Yep. And so a lot of times we're always so again, like we stay in the gap, right? And so like we don't look at the gain part of it. And so have the patience, like it's gonna happen for you. But then let's not overlook the stuff that is happening. I know people who like want their first hotel and they stop completely selling on their short-term rentals, they stop talking to their nurses, and it's whoa, we spend the last three years building a short-term rental business. Let's not abandon everything to buy your hotel. Like I can have this and I can also have this and have the taste gonna come. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

Amazing. Look, I think hopefully you've got a book in you, by the way, or your own podcast because you're a font of wisdom and knowledge. It's been a pleasure getting to know you over the past few months. And if you're game, we'd love to have you back. I feel like our coaches are the perfect participants to come back and join us with guests or just continue sharing with the audience about what you're learning, what's got your attention, and just try and make that transition from short-term rentals to boutique hotels a little bit smoother. And I can attest BHS saved me from buying a bad deal. So already the money is worth it. But Micah, do you got closing thoughts or one final question for Rajmi before we pull up the tent here?

SPEAKER_01 27:26

I think this was great. This was an absolute masterclass just on how to approach getting into the boutique hotel space and even talking about operations and mindset and networking. So many different facets we went into just in this short period of time. I don't have a question, but I do want to say thank you again for coming on and dropping your few gems of knowledge. And I would love to have you back as well so you can share with the class some more of your expertise.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Absolutely. We'd love to come back anytime. Happy to do workshops, whatever you guys want. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

Love it. All right, the Toasty Indian being toasty as always. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, the audience, for listening in. Again, if you've got questions, you want to DM us, we'll share everything that we talked about in our show notes. But please reach out. Please let us know what topics are interesting to you. And we look forward to yeah, future episodes with more boutique hotel years. Okay, have a great time and uh ciao.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

All right, that's it for today on the official Boutique Hotel Secrets Podcast. If this helps, be sure to follow or subscribe and send it to someone who needs that bigger push.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

And if you want the community or the resource and playbook to find what we're learning, the link is in the show.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Quick note we're BHS community members sharing our own experience. And if you have questions or topics you want us to cover, reach out and let us know. We're building this show for operators just like you. Catch on the next one.