Behind The Host With Andrew Hanson

Hi and welcome back to behind the Host podcast. And today we're joined by Andrew Hanson. He's based in New Hampshire in the usa. He's got an awesome business called Pond Life Rentals. And today we're diving into his business, getting to know a bit about him and also his hospitality business. But also we're going to be talking about Hospitable Hosts. And he is one of the authors in Hospital Hosts, which is a project where we're taking 40 authors from across the world, set up by Jody Sterling, and putting them all into one book where people can listen to it and read it and get some awesome advice on becoming a host and being an Airbnb in general. So, Andrew, I'm so excited to have you here today.

Great, great to be here. I'm excited to be here with you and excited about the hospitable host and pretty much everything going on in the SDR industry. It's just a great, great space to be in. So I'm happy to be here with you.

Amazing. So talk us through your business, Pond Life Rentals. That is pretty, you know, specific when it comes down to it. How did you get started with Pond Life Rentals?

Well, you know, honestly, it's one of those things where it was a time of adversity. Of course, the pandemic was going on, but it was a different, different situation. You know, I've been in the rental business for a while and really we call it the Pond Life, basically because me and my family fortunate enough in 2016 to buy my first kind of waterfront property, you know, and was kind of sitting there and we had to kind of flex a little bit, what we were doing. And we said, why don't we call it Pond Life Rentals? You know, we're living on the pond. This is our lifestyle. We were kind of doing our own little internal hashtag, pond life. Our family, you know, being able to be out on the water with a pontoon or kayaking and, you know, New Hampshire is great, great outdoor recreation. And it was kind of like, you know, let's share this pretty much with everybody. You know, I come from very, very humble beginnings, you know, very low income family. So very, very fortunate to be in this position and be able to provide this to other people, create memories. It's just great. So, you know, 2016, I bought that first waterfront property. We kind of had it as long term rental, but we still got to use it. Senior family kind of dip this, feeding the water off the dock. I got a picture of kind of my Wife and my nephew on that first property. So I was in the business for a long time. Property manager, kind of maintenance guy, owned a real estate development company. So this is a great flex. And then I just never realized how much even more I love the hospitality side of things. So, you know, we got eight properties, two kind of working on doing like tiny home structures on foundations, kind of unique. I'm working on one now which is two tiny homes on one front property, 125, 5ft. So yeah, time adversity kind of flexed, got into it and now kind of full board with it. So I'm in love with it. I love being able to hear all the stories. Even if it's just simply in digital form sometimes, you know, you don't need that guest but you, you get the digital while they're coming to the area, you get that review at the end. Everything that they got to appreciate. Even sometimes on what you can, there's always room for improvement. So yeah, it's been, it's been great, great for us. My wife is tremendously great at running guest services and the complex parts of all these things that go into it. You know, there's a lot of people. For me, I'm in real estate, I do long term rentals, I do commercial space, both storage. So I have some skeptics saying, you know, hospitalities, you know, stay out of that, that end of it. You know, a lot of skeptics would say, but I've been reading way back I had someone tell me you can't buy water for a property and if you're going to wait till you're 55, that's a retirement thing. And you know, I'm glad he's a great friend, I'm glad he takes his advice because I've been waiting a long time to get my dreams accomplished on that. But so we're just rolling with everything going on in the industry, trying to, trying to adapt. I'm trying to grow in a space too that's, that's new to me. Property management. I come with a really strong background but hospitality is a little bit different.

So the passion shows through. And definitely the thing that I've picked up from that is when you're staying in these places and you've enjoyed it yourself, you know, others will come there and start off with one and then to go to, you know, you now. Eight properties, did you say that?

Yep. Yeah, eight properties. Yeah. And then we got two in the works. I got a landlord that I'm thinking of doing maybe three or Two kind of micro homes, a little bigger than a tiny home. And they're, and they're starting to do this stuff in like Texas and Florida and, and a little more affordable space. But that's not a 10 acre lot with nature trails on it. You know, it's 6, 700ft from a boat launch. That's kind of what our mission is, to provide people with access to what water's life. And I want to be able to provide as many people to access to come up. You know, we get a common question. A lot of people from New England come up here. They'll say, is the water swimmable? It's a common, of course it is here. You know, the water is great. You can, you can do everything in the water here. But it is a common question. You don't have those benefits that we have here. So we're trying to kind of, our goal is aligned with those type of things. We got a property in Florida too. So we want to go up and down the east coast. Which is why I'm excited about this book is I can't get anywhere. I can maybe meet some great people, maybe I can buy the real estate, maybe they can manage it for me as well. So I'm really excited about this collaboration for that reason. But the same thing, it's gotta be access onto water, life, nature trails. I'm a rural guy. I live in Croydon, New Hampshire. It's a town very small. You still go and vote, you got to raise your hands. It's a little, little, little tiny schoolhouse still. So it's, you know, that's very important. Why I moved to New Hampshire when I was a young man was to kind of get out of the Boston rat race, get up to the wildlife, nature. It's a beautiful place to be and we're really enjoying it.

So that's one of the things which when you land on your website, Pond Life Rentals not advise everyone who's listening to this to just go and check it out. Because that lake, you know, such a pool, literally I could feel what it's like to be there. So, and we talk a lot obviously on behind the Host about who is your target guest avatar and that side of things. And would you, would you say being your target guest avatar, that person who knows to go there and enjoy yourself and get out on the water, is that helped you with growth and of the business?

Yeah, without a doubt. You know, we have, you know, New Hampshire is a very unique spot too. So we have like four seasons here. We say five good Mud season, kind of off season when all dirt roads melt off from the frost and everything. They're on kind of travel. But you know, we have the sea season which is very big here. So that happens right well too for the guest avatar for species and so we target that. But the water is special. We're adding things like we can rent a, a pontoon boat from us, you know, paddle bullet kayaks. We have all those add ons that, that we do as well because everybody's a little bit different. But yes, that guest avatar with the water to me is, is unique. You know, a lot of people are searching for that. You know, we get everything from couples to families. I'm fortunate to have two cabins right next to each other so you can book those two properties kind of together and get both those and they kind of stick one family, one one and the other, which is really nice. One of those cabins is dog friendly, one's not. So that allow some flexibility as well for families traveling. You know, some I travel. You know, my guest avatar for me is got be dog friendly. You know, I'm not saying there, it's just I bring my French bulldog everywhere with us. You know, she's, she goes everywhere with us. She followed our family. So for us, I mean, we love traveling a lot. I go up and down to Florida quite a bit now and I look the same in SDRs, which is. That's where I learned a lot from. You know, I, I had encountered a B and B and was traveling long before I was hosting. And you know, the whole time I was traveling I was saying, wow, this is great. We can totally do this too. This is amazing. But that experience is great, you know, being a traveler as well, knowing, you know, getting that experience, you know, what, you know, what people to expect. For me, I understand what it's like to work paycheck to paycheck. I worked W2 Income for a long time before I was transferring over into real estate, you know, and build my business. I was able to branch out on my own. So I understand, you know, a weekend vacation or a week, it can be expensive for a family. You know, they're putting their hard earned money out there and they're expecting a certain type of service and stuff and that. And that's me very important. So we have people all the time and I get to deliver people kayaks, you know, and give them advice on going out on the pond here and stuff. It's not just this pond. It's. We have surrounded by, you know, three or four lakes and ponds right here in this town so you can kind of fan out and fish and do all these great things out here. So we're having a lot of fun. I'm having a lot of fun with it. I'm an outdoor guy, so you can find me kind of relax in swim shorts. A lot of people working, it's like, oh yeah, I'm working. I just prefer to work in a pair of swim shorts to put the docks in, you know, have have fun, try to live a more free spirited lifestyle. That's kind of what New Hampshire is about. So people that are listening, you know, you come into New Hampshire, it's a great business friendly environment for people that do want to buy real estate or invest in. STI is very vacation friendly and it's also just a great state to come and unwind and unplug. You know, one cabinet, we probably book a lot more, but there's no WI fi there. It's one of the cabins that you come in and we do good with it. You know, I'm sure we book anymore because you know, WI fi is a huge thing for people. But it's in the write up, you know, it's come unplugged, grab the canoe, get out on the pond, unplug for a couple days. Probably be good for you. More people need to do it.

One of the biggest problems when it comes to converting a looker into a booker for a direct booking is the trust factor. Whether you like it or not, your guest is looking to make sure that you are who you say you are. So how can you do that? Well, the number one accreditation and recommendation certification service in the industry is iprac. And I'm so happy to say that IPRAC is sponsoring this podcast and is the lead sponsor for all Boostly content. The reason why we partnered up is because I have been working alongside IPRAC for many years. I recommend them to every Boostly customer, client and team Boostly member. The reason being is that unlike other accreditation services, they are not just country specific, it is global and it is worldwide. They've got over 10,000 members and they've got over 250,000 properties. Which means that you can display your IPRAC certificate on your website and on your socials and know that you are going to be providing that trust that your future potential guest is looking for. I reached out to IPRAC and I asked them if they've got a special offer for Boostly members. And so if you go to boostly.co.uk trust t r u S T You will go to a special Boostly landing page where you can book in a call and a demo. And if you sign up, you get a very special exclusive discount that only Boostly members can get. So thank you, Iprac, for being our sponsor. Thank you to listening to this very short message. I hope that you go and check out I practice today. I hope that you go and join them just like hundreds of other Boostly members have done because it will help massively with you increasing your diary bookings. Right, let's get back to the show.

One of the things I always say is that the vibe attracts the tribe and if, if it's really clear with people, look, you come in here to experience the lake, you're coming here to experience nature, you're coming here to get away from, you know, like you say, get away from the rat race and, and that, and that's really clear with, with what it, what it shows on the, on the website and that. And yeah, and the other thing that comes across is that most people we talk to who are hosts themselves, do travel and understanding both sides of that, like you say these people are coming away, they might, that might be the one holiday this year. So actually understanding to make it special, give them the experience, well, that's going to give you that five star review. It's going to get you, you know, them talking about this day and them talking to their friends about it and that's going to get you more customers and you get to do more of what you love. You know, and that's really a cool little thing, is that we don't have to run our businesses with suits on and with, you know, very corporate. There are stays like that and we do talk to people, you know, hosts like that. But one of the nicest things is when hosts are being themselves and they can go out and talk to their guests and, you know, just have a good chat. Well, business is meant to be fun, you know, that's exactly what it is. So.

And that can be trying to create a life. You don't need a vacation from, from my buddies. I need a vacation. It's like, what do you do? And everybody needs a vacation. But I'm telling you, I go on vacation, we go to Florida and stuff and go to different areas. I end up at a real estate auction and I end up looking at two or three properties. So I enjoy the architecture of, of real estate. I like the shapes inside, I like seeing the hospitality markets, I like getting in and out of the areas you get to learn about, you know, so many different things. Everything's so different, so the same, but yes, so different in different, different areas, different, different markets. So I, I enjoy that part of going on vacation is, wow, look at what this guy is doing. What's. Let's, let's bring that into what we're doing. The new recent thing we're doing for our guest is my wife is, she's leaving like a postcard behind. So a little New Hampshire postcard. We pay for the post stamp. You know, you can send yourself just a postcard of your stay here to remind yourself that you stay or you can send it to a relative while you're here. We already paid for the postage for you. And it's just one thing on top of a bunch of different small things that we try to do to just hit the, hit those little things. We also provided a little bottle of maple syrup. It's New England. We're known for our maple syrup runs for certain times. It's a great thing. And some of these, some of these guys that produce this stuff, you talk to three or four generation farmers, you know, there's a whole other conversation with their special thing in themselves and what they're doing. They make a great unique product kind of here to our region. So we, we try to leave that out as well. So we try to do, you know, every little thing that we can do. We're always, like I said, we're always improving. There's always room for a lot of improvement. I'm constantly learning, like I said, when I travel around, you know, how, how people really can up the scale, you know, so there's been a lot for me, there's been a lot of learning curves, a lot of technology over in the space.

So it's definitely the technology is something I want to come onto. But that, the knowing your niche, it sounds as though you've got your niche down and you know that niche. And also like you say these things where they can send themselves a postcard when they get home that is going to remind them or their relatives. Yeah, we got your postcard. That's special. That is something which not, you know, we talk to a lot of hosts. Not everybody's doing that.

So that is definitely listening. All the other hosts. Think about it, you talking 25 cents for the postcard a lot of times or even, you know, 20 cents, you get five for a buck. It's $40. To put it me, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a tiny investment. It's under a dollar to give them a, you know, a welcome or greetings from Florida, New Hampshire. You know, we do it at all of our properties now. It's a tiny thing to do. Like you said, they're going to get that memory of it and hold it and hopefully come back and rebook. I mean, that's something we've been tremendously trying to work on. You know, I come from really sound property management principles. You know, used to manage 144 unit complexes in one spot, you know, multiple buildings, you know, up to, up to 450 units at one time. And so really sound, you know, property manager principles and a lot. And that's one of my things is you see sometimes that lacking in the industry. So we try to really bring that over, kind of cross it, cross it over. And I think that that helps us out provide a lot better safe for people. Right. That's why I'm an advocate for people to get a consultant, you know, talk to these other great people in the industry, pay to take marks. What's pay to take some of these courses, especially if you don't have any background on property management. That way you can really get up to speed a lot faster. So my advice, a lot of people is to truly sour those, to make sure they get proper consultant, get trained.

Get, get trained and you know, get, get somebody who's walked those steps before to, to walk you through it. So that, that, that element of doing something non digital, which is the postcards back, is a nice different thing. One of Mark's quotes is when everybody else zigs or zigs, you zag. And that's exactly what that kind of when everyone's going very digital, you go completely the opposite.

And that's old school, you know, that's kind of a rural thing and something that's kind of gone away. I think it's a neat special touch. I mean, that's just the type of person I am. I've always try to be like that, you know, even for my employees. I try to, you know, bring myself right back to. I know what it's like to be the main guy. I changed the wax ring, the supply line, it's two bolts, you know, they also can't fool me on, on their hours and what it takes. But it puts me in a very good perspective. And you have to have a huge appreciation for everybody, including the guests.

Well, they say people, you know, they don't remember what you said or what you did, but they remember how you made them feel. And a bit like your Guests and your staff there, it's obviously you make them feel quite special and valued. So let's go on to. You mentioned the tech side of your business and that what kind of softwares or tools do you use within your business to help you to, to, to host?

Yeah, so I use, you know, I use. I started out kind of going with basic old school comps how I do things. You know, that's just. I'm very good at doing real estate comps performance. I'm very lucky to have Meg, my wife who's 15 years commercial banking as far as underwriting and analysis goes for those type of things. So really we started kind of old school ways. But as you know I get more and more friends, you realize that you got, you got to use technology to kind of really stay ahead. So we use technology many as far as channel management to kind of push everything out there. Direct booking, website, you know, different types of pricing tools to help with pricing. Even though I must say I do very well regular calls because you can get on there. I tell you, you know, when you're signing up you don't have to go spend everything either because there's a lot of different things trying to get in a bunch of directions. So try to remember Google comfortable work. But yes, there's, there's ways to speed things up and people use DNA and all these different tools and price labs and wheelhouse and all these. And there's all these different gizmos that can really help you out, get you the data quicker, can help you put deal decks together because you can use those screenshots and those type of things, you know, using it from a professional resource in that kind of sense. But technology helps us out a lot of ways. Guest communications I think right away and automated messages has got to be by far. I don't handle that. So I can't sit here and say that I can take all the credit for the guest communication and things. But I see it if it's an escalated issue, I try to use my property management judgment to come in and help the team try to get this issue resolved. But overall, you know, the guest communications to me is huge. That's a tip I gotta share. I wanna give it all away, you know, in the book. But it's one of those things where that to me is, is something that you really gotta land. It's one of my top five tips is, is making sure you have some type of automated getting right in touch. You know, there's nothing like that type of solid quick communication to really the person too and make sure that they know, oh you know, someone who's professional. It just, it seems to me seeing myself I'm getting thrown a lot of things and a lot of people solicit me for different type of attack type of thing. So like for now we're trying to work on some awesome things like brand identity and then we're working on our own direct kind of booking website that we're kind of building our own technology on our stuff. So it's a really expensive approach for me to go through this way. So it's like we use logify now as a, as our overall thing. This work for us. It's worked well for a lot of direct bookings. My wife can send direct quotes out and all these other great things. But we're actually looking at kind of doing our own complete software ourselves. You know you can revamp and do so much coding and all those different things. And then it comes to a point where should we invest kind of in our own technology. So I like always going a little bit bigger on things. So we're looking at that now. It's kind of a, it's a big money thing but it will be very unique to what we're doing. We can be able to grow with it. I think it'll be worth the investment. But I think that people should try to use all the stuff as possible. I mean I've watched some of my stuff and, and, and I learned so much in a short amount of time. I mean you know, tons of nuggets always going out there, information especially having a direct book and those type of things. So I'm just trying to pay attention to. I do get, I've taken so many demos honestly being in the industry, get solicited a lot that hey jump on my thing and, and we can provide this better. And my wife comes from her really cool kind of corporate banking and that background, she's very direct, has a lot of really ser process like what are you actually going to really provide more different than this other brand that's already really on the market. So you know I do suggest that people again that's when get to help find what other people are using, find out what technologies you can make. It seems to you I think if you're going to be an active investor, like I'm an active investor so I'm hands on with everything. I like to be that way. That's a big part of who I am. I can choose to step back when I want to on certain things and Be more passive. But I think if you're an active investor like me or anybody, you're starting out or you have one unit to, you know, 100, you need some type of technology. It is, you know, it's largely the biggest part of any company. And then for us, one of the things we lack the most would be our social presence and social media. It's something that we just procrastinated on. We've, we've done well with our companies. We don't, we don't typically advertise for a lot of our things for different niches and markets we're in. But so the power of social media and the power of marketing can be huge for direct booking. So that's what we're really, we're getting into that now and learning how to, how we want to do things better. We're getting a virtual assistant, another type of technology to help out. I kind of manage, you know, if you want to reach out to me on that, you know, social media marketing, content creating, that's kind of something we're trying to work on for a lot of our companies. A couple other companies that have been very successful as well. I want to keep up to the times with them. So that's kind of where we're looking towards some help and learning more about the technology is over in that space.

It's one of the things where obviously I'm so pleased you've mentioned direct bookings on there because obviously it's one of the things that boostly specialize in with the direct booking websites, the training academy and that side of things. But also just in general, you've also touched on a couple of points there of it doesn't really matter what your technology is, it's how you communicate with your guests and having that person who is good and direct and able to communicate well with guests, but also like you say, having some sort of automation in place, having a good PMS. You mentioned there, there's, there's lots of good PMSs where you can set up those automations for guests as they stay. And as you say, there's so many bits of tech, but it's actually knowing what you need and when you need it. So, you know, it's so important to trial these things. But you don't have to go in every different direction at the same time and get, you know, the stable and that sort of thing.

Oh, I think that's all advice. I think some, I mean, just for me, it's like I got into the world of the short Term run and it is overwhelming. Get hit from every direction. There's so many taxes, so many be thrown at you so on. I think people do need to dial it back and say, hey, what, what do I need at this time? What do I need as I'm growing definitely. And that type of thing kind of take a breather so they're not overwhelmed, not saying, well I gotta take this much and this much and they start looking at all the monthly deductions and that type of thing. But to me, the number one thing I think is direct bookings. I go back to that. Being a property manager, you have so much more control of things. You know, it breaks down property management principles. I think that's very important. You lose a little bit of that with certain OTAs and things. And that's just, you know, you can navigate and you can put things and we have, we have certain policies in place. We're very, very strict. You know, I only, we only write to people that are 25 year old. That's just one of our, our things. I'm not saying, I'm not saying everybody should do that. I'm saying that's just one of our things that we do and it just helps us out. It streams l what we're doing. We get better qualified people in and out of the door with less hassles. There's a market, there is a market, you know, for everything. And I believe it really goes down to everybody's individual approach, how much you will tolerate what you're looking for, your brand. There's a lot of people doing it. They're trying to build their own personal stuff. We do any exception. Sometimes we'll have a party that say, hey, almost 25 and I've got X amount of people. And I'll say not a problem, but I want a copy of everybody saying properties, driver's license and you know, we're going to put some extra things in place and make sure that they had prior reviews and positive things in their history. And we do get a lot of people chances do that that do reach out to us directly. And a lot of times I think if you handle a good property management approach, you'll have successful results at least 98% of the time.

So exactly. Treating them as individuals. And like I say, there's nothing more personal than building your own business. You can build it in the way that you want to and with the rules and the people that you want to host ultimately. So one of the things which comes across especially for yourself, I mean you mentioned Social media, you know, your, your brand and you know the, the setting in New Hampshire there against that lake. I could see you doing very well with like Instagram and all of that side of things because that would be such a destination and even your energy, Andrew, coming on to, you know, if you were to post lives on there and even say you mentioned about, you know, the best place to go kayak and if, even if you was to post, hey, I'm out on the kayak, this is where you can come to. I mean you're going to get people.

Doing a lot of that. So we do a lot, we do a lot of active stuff. I mean we got snowmobiles and we got ATVs and we got all the, all the good, we do all the goodies. You know, we like all four seasons here in New Hampshire. And that's kind of what we're providing to people. So, yeah, something that I'm, I'm working on pushing out my boundaries on. I haven't told my story a lot. You know, I just, I told my story a bit in the book here for the first time. So, you know, that was a kind of push over the edge for me to kind of just put something on paper which is very special, be able to kind of tell my story how I got up here to New Hampshire and kind of work my way through real estate. You know, I don't come with a, with a huge fancy college degree. You know, I was a ground up guy who kind of worked in construction with my dad. Kind of worked my way up into the ranks. Just so I have great appreciation for kind of everything I'm doing and people around me and everybody to the vendors that support what you're doing, you know, that's crucial to me, their success as well. So I think people should put emphasis on that, you know. You know, I'm sure a cleaner is, in this industry is priceless.

You got to have a good team around you. You've got to, you got to have.

You got to have a great team.

So, and obviously coming on to the book, I mean that nicely brings us on to the book. We're in the project together, which Hospitable hosts. I'm so excited first of all to read your chapter, Andrew, but also for the people listening, you know, the book Hospitable Host is out on May 16, 2022 and you'll be able to get it on Amazon and it'll have the stories in from amazing hosts across the world, including Andrew, including people like Mark Simpson, Julie George, Tia, Castle, there's so many awesome people in this book and so many stories that you can learn from just to come on to the book. Then what got you involved in Hospitable hosts and what does it mean to you to be a hospitable host?

This is like huge for me, man. This is. First of all, I've always wanted to be an author. You know, I have a couple books that I actually have registered in the Library of Congress and some manuscripts I've sat on and did more on maintenance deep in real estate. And really for me, books changed my life. I had a great friend hand me a book at 24. Well, 24 years old. And it was just simple Rich dad, poor dad book by Robert Kiyosaki. You know, at that time I worked my way up as certified maintenance guy, you know, multimillion dollar places and beautiful real estate and you know, as a property manager already and you know, listen to that audiobook. Listen to the ABCs by Ken McElroy of Property Management. As I drove around managing young man managing a bunch of real estate. And really for me, you know, growing up, you know, I lacked that type of mentorship and capital, things like that. And I leaned on books. Audiobooks and books were pretty much really what helped me out. You know, I met with a state plan the other day and I have, you know, five real estate holding companies. I have Cityscape llc, which is pretty much our service real estate development construction company. Then we have Pawn Life Rentals, which is our real vacation rental management company. And I've got a lot of structure in place, you know, succession plans and all this stuff.

And.

And I met with this guy, he says, andrew, where did you learn all this stuff? I said, books. And he said, really? Yeah, books. I was not good in school at all. I got so much energy, I need to be outside. So school wasn't really a positive thing for me. I needed to be doing stuff. I was very highly energetic as a kid. It was more hands on. And so, you know, really books changed my life.

So, you know, especially audio as well, audiobooks you mentioned, like, particularly like that, that's such a game changer because all of a sudden you can be driving to maintenance jobs or, you know, anywhere you need to and you're learning as you're going. So yeah, amazing.

I did it for years, you know, I mean, I did it and I still, I still go back to some audiobooks and every spring I pop one in. I learned something that I, you know, didn't know, learn. Wow. I actually Accomplished X, Y and Z, you know, and those type of things. And I've used it for motivation. So yeah, getting, getting the email, a message from Jody, you know, just it's awesome to be able to put down my story and for me I come from very little so I was able to kind of just work my way up through real estate. 38 years old, you know, I'm pretty much financially free due to my hard work and dedication and I'm just going to keep going. I'm building generational wealth for my family. My nephews, luckily they've been able to grow up working in a construction company with me. So they've been able to see, you know, their uncle do a lot of great things. So open the way to keep people out of that type of stuff going as well. So we're a family business. My dad does a lot of construction development. He's got a lot of hands, you know, said on the projects. So we're very hands on family and you know, very blessed to be we're at. And so for me to be able to take part and actually getting my something in print for my family with so many great people, it's just, you know, it's awesome. It's one of the things we, it's a, you know, kind of a dream come true in a sense. And so I'm excited about getting it done with you guys, you know, seeing what we can. Everybody has to go out, get their copy because you're going to hear, you know, all kinds of great stories and I'm sure there's all kinds of other people like me, all the different backgrounds. That's why I love real estate. You know, all of its forums is because it can do so much for so many people regardless of your background. It's such a creative thing, you know, whether you, you own the real estate like me. I own all my real estate. We don't arbitrage. So you know, I'm very invested in this stuff. But whether you're even doing the arbitrage, you know, there's a special touches. There's so many ways to get involved, to be a host and then even other types of real estate that can help your family out. So I'm a big advocate for helping teach people that it can be done no matter what your background. And why not do something like real estate and being a host where I think you have to be more imaginative. So you're really creative. Actually I saw a picture you, you posted of one of your bed setups, you know, towels, lay Just right and everything. And I have a huge appreciation for that because you know, I watch my wife learn to do all this towel stuff. You know, there's a whole nother ox at and it's a whole nother touch, you know. And so I have a deep appreciation for those things. I think it's artistic and creative and I think if you have a desire and some passion with a little creativity, you can do this by anything, especially when it comes to hosting and real estate.

So I'm so excited to, to dive into the book and your chapter especially Andrew because the passion comes through and like you say this sort of stuff with books and knowledge and the audiobooks, you know, it can change people lives. You're proof of that. I, I certainly feel thankful for the books and the audio stuff that I've listened to because if not we wouldn't be standing here having this conversation for either of us. So it goes to show for anybody listening that you know, definitely dive into to books like Hospitable Host. Definitely get that one. And just some of the audio mentions that you've just mentioned, you know, you know, rich dad, poor dad, you know, there's so many out there which, which you can dive into. Mark's just done his book Direct Playbook as well.

That's why everybody should get mine's waiting to be delivered. I don't know if he was prepared for the inflection but I'm happy for him. You know that's going to be one that's going to be on my shelf that again you got to read these, these things, they're, they're great. Even if, even if it's just for inspiration and hope, you know, everybody needs to find their why. You know, if you can find your why, that's a big help, you know.

So Simon Sinek, awesome book. Find your why as well. There's so many ones out there and just looking at it, it reminds me of a quote, you know, somebody who, somebody who doesn't read has no advantage over somebody who can't read. But that kind of thing used to apply to me because I couldn't, I didn't have the time to read. You know, we're busy people in general but having audio was a game changer and being able to learn these things. There's great apps like Audible Blink list as well where you can kind of listen to bite sized books and these, these little snippets and little nuggets, golden nuggets of information that you can just take one little thing and put into Action in your business. Change your entire, you know.

Yeah, change it. For me it was the same, you know, reading books. I was a young property manager. I was also a board of director on the Chamber of Commerce and a couple non profits while I'm trying to build a company on the site, you know, a full time job as well and everything, you know, you don't have. Not everybody has the time to read and like I said, I gotta have the patience as a kid. So I saw a lot of. But I do read that and I do like with March I got in a H and I'll take the time to hopefully sit on the beach, you know, and really dive into that one and enjoy or out here on the pontoon boat because I'm back in New Hampshire for at least four or five months before I head out of here. I came back to some raw New England weather.

Fair enough. Well, when you do get a chance wherever, even if it's in New England or if it is on the beach, you know, take a picture of it and tag Bruce Lee in because we'll get, you know, we love seeing where that book ends up in the world. It's gone all over. So that's amazing. And Andrew, what we tend to do as we get towards the end is we want to ask you some quick fire, fun questions basically. So the answers can be as short or as long as you like, but they're not necessarily about hospitality, just in general. So.

Yeah.

And you know, one of the things you mentioned is all the different seasons that you've got there. So what is your go to hobby there? Is it, is it the kayaking? Is it the, the you know, sort of snow?

It's boating for me. I love boating. It's just like sometimes we just call it floating here because we're all tied up here on the pond. A bunch of us kind of float, you know, and we do. One of my favorite things we do as a community here, we do pontoon potluck on Wednesdays and everybody brings out a meal, we tie up and we all share a meal together. A bunch of us here on the pond, we keep it kind of simple and we shut it down at 8 o'. Clock. So it's not hiding like that. It's just a sheer meal here in the pond together. And that's my thing. My biggest thing is finding constant outdoors. So really if I'm like, I just went to Florida, it was, you know, what, what new state park can I find? You know, what, you know, that's kind of who I am and I'm, I'm really going for it. You know, it's really important to me to try to get as much of this stuff in with my family as possible. I suggest that to everybody. I have a really good friend, he told me I got married in Hawaii in 2007. I came back, told people I'm gonna live a more casual lifestyle. I'm just gonna kind of try to be more, a little bit more free spirit. And I think a lot of my good friends, he taught me a lot with that, you know, family's very important because he's running a million dollar company. I said, you know, you gotta slow it down sometimes, make that time because we don't know what we got for time. You know, there's all kinds of things that can pop up. So one of the big things is I really like to enjoy myself. I'm a, I'm a ton of fun. You know, I'm the firework guy here on the pond. So 4th of July we got a bunch of us owners, we would come together to build a custom raft. Got bigger every year. So we built a huge custom raft and floated out and put on about a 40 minute firework show for the entire community here at our own cost. And so we'll, you know, celebrate our freedom here in America. So it's a lot of fun. So yeah, finding myself with nature is key and getting other people out there, but boat is my, really my number one favorite thing to do now. So.

That's incredible. That's incredible because you know you can really. The, the energy and the free spirit definitely comes across and it's, people will be drawn to that, you know, like certainly for your social media and, and hopefully listening to this, they can really sense what it is.

So get out there. My link trees are going to be out there so people can find all my websites and everything we're doing. Or if you got a property you want to buy in Hampshire and maybe have us help you out with it, you know, I'm here for you. We do everything from fix and flips to full developments and we bring that. You know, like I said, the cleaning is one of the most important things. We offer great cleaning here. My wife's a great team. We were already in the foreclosure cleaning industry doing sales cleaning for realtors and stuff. So it was an easy flex for us. But we provide five star cleaning. We have a lot of high network clients that we do help out with bond lift rentals on the site. So if anybody's looking for that type of service, we'd be happy to help them to bring that energy farm.

That brings us really nicely on to if people do want to reach out, what is the best way to reach out to you? Did you say it was LinkedIn or.

Yeah, LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn, so you get me Andrew Hansen at LinkedIn. Pretty easy to find. We have a Palm Life Frenchie for Instagram. I'm on Facebook. We kind of, we're kind of building all social now. So Follow notification rentals, we'll have some Facebook page. All that stuff is being done. So I, you know, the fire has been lit, we gotta get going. I think I have a book launch with you guys here May 16th. So I have a deadline to get some of these things done myself personally. And so we're working on, on all that or you know, quite frankly, you get my LinkedIn, get everything on there. My email is right out there. Info on liferentals.com you reach out. Love the chat, love sharing with people. So reach out.

You're going to be inundated with people after the book launch and after listening to this as well. Just because it's so cool that getting to do this behind the Host sort of podcast, I really feel we've got to know you, your business and really what makes it unique. And every business has got a usp and that is you guys, yourself and your team there. And that energy and that local knowledge is amazing. So I feel like we've covered so much in terms of the cool postcards, just knowing that area in general, the books and that side of things. Andrew, thank you so much for coming on behind the Host and yeah, I look forward to the book launch and to reading your chapter. So thanks again and we'll speak again soon.

Okay, sounds great. Thank you so much and I appreciate you and Mark everybody giving me a platform here today. So thank you so much.

No worries, buddy. And yeah, we'll speak again soon.