From Retail to Rentals: A Best-Selling Author's Hosting Journey

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Hi and welcome back to the Boostly podcast. The podcast that gives you the tools, the tactics, the training and most importantly, the confidence so you can go out there and get yourselves direct bookings. We have a mini series on this podcast where we dive behind a host. We find out what they're doing in their business, whether it's the tactics, whether or not it's the marketing, whether or not it's something which they're doing to get great reviews and they share that with you on this podcast. So you can take those tips and you can put it into your business. It's a great chance to learn from others and stick around for the next 20 to 30 minutes. And we're going to be diving in with Tanya. Tanya is full of energy. She's amazing host. She's an author, best selling author with hospitable hosts. She's a coach. And her property is from. Yeah, you're here Properties. Did I say that right, Tanya, Is that correct?

Yeah, yeah, you're here Properties is our little take.

Amazing. I love the name. I love the name. So, Tanya, welcome along. I mean, first question for you is can you just give yourself the introduction and what people can expect out of the next 20 or 30 minutes?

Yeah. So my name is Tanya rooney. I've got five properties in the Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota market. And I am really good at a couple of things I feel like. And it's like the reason I know I'm good is because of our ratings, like I guess our five star ratings. So I'm going to talk a little bit about those things and then a couple of systems that have made things really, really awesome in our business. Like it doesn't have to be this big hectic business. It can be something that some parts are on autopilot. So it gives you time to dig in when you have the crazy stuff that happens. So.

Yeah, that's cool. And in terms of your property journey, take me back. How did you get into hospitality? What, what gave you the hospitality bug?

Yeah, so I was flipping houses. Like I have a background in corporate real estate. I did that for like 10 years and then I wanted to get out of it because I was just sick of clients. Honestly, corporate clients are kind of high test. So a lot of stuff going on. So one day, like I got into flipping because of a friend. They told me I should start flipping houses. So I bought a house a couple of months later and then we flipped. You know, I think we probably flipped and wholesaled like about 20 houses in the last like four or five years. And then one of our flips just kind of wasn't selling. It was in a spot that, I don't know, it was a really weird summer. Honestly, there's a lot going on in Minneapolis and St. Paul because of George Floyd and like, just a lot of things like that really affected the market, so we opted to keep one of ours. When one of my friends said, why aren't you looking at air DNA, Tanya? I was like, because I have no idea what short term rentals look like. I don't know, you know, what to do with that. So he had a conversation with me. He's like, if you hit at least half of this number, he's like, you'll probably be really happy. But if you're. He's like, you're pretty good at things, like you put in the effort, so you might be able to, you know, beat this number. And we kind of haven't looked back since. So it was just by an accident actually. And it's fit really, really well. Like, I love hospitality. Like, I really love customer service. And this just kind of goes really well with my personality, so it works for me.

That's cool. And why do people come and stay in the homes? Who, what is the avatar of the kind of guests that you tend to host?

Yeah, so we have on like, my preferred guests are like large girls weekends. Like, honestly, that's truly why. So like one of the, like the last house that we bought is a six bedroom, four bath. And it's specifically because I was sick of not being able to find a big enough house for all of my friends to come over and hang out for to do real estate retreat. So we get a lot of large families and like groups just coming to town for that or coming into town for concerts and things. And then we have one of our other houses is very, very close to college, so we get a ton of parents. Like that one's really, really cool. So we kind of have two avatars, I'd say groups of humans that are adults. Like, I prefer adults. Families can totally stay. But I know that once we get more than six kids in our house, things go a little crazy. So.

Yeah, can imagine. I can imagine. So talk me through that. You've flipped 20 houses, which is amazing, you know, just, just to do that. And then obviously a couple of years ago you've, you've kind of stumbled into the short term rental, fell in love with, with hospitality and grown the portfolio since then. Do I take all the homes are purchased at the moment? Is there any kind of management or are they purchased as opposed to all the other kind of models out there?

Yeah, we don't, we don't do any arbitrage. We don't do any co hosting or managing of other people's things, we just do ours. And it's nice because I feel like I'm in control of the levers and so if I don't have bookings it's my own fault. I don't have to blame anybody and I don't want to blame anybody. So yeah, all of them are owned and they're all really different sizes. We have a one bedroom, a two bedroom, a three bedroom bedroom, a five bedroom and a six bedroom. But our six, five and three are like our biggest, like that's, that's where we make the most money.

That's really cool. And first of all, congratulations on buying and, and I was actually talking on a sort of panel this week about how the different models are for different people. And as you dive in owning, obviously you're fully in control of the house. You're fully in control of everything and it can allow you to have better reviews because you know, if something needs changing, I mean arbitrage and some of those other models are great. But if the bathroom or if the kitchen needs changing, you're not going to put in, you know, thousands of dollars of your own money to do that. So it can affect, you know, the quality of the stay sometimes. So this sounds really good. What would you say has been some of the biggest successes along the journey so far?

My favorite of any journey I've been through is like the network and the tribe that I build around it to the community. So that's probably one of the most successful things because it actually adds to my own life. And then I mean like I had already quit my corporate job so at that point like, I mean it makes us good money so I don't have to like it's crazy. Like I get up at a late time every morning. I go to bed really late. Like I get to like style my own life. And granted I could be out for dinner with friends, you know, at 7 o' clock on a Friday night and I might have to be on my phone because I of something that comes up. Like it's really rare that stuff like that happens, but it's true. But I personally am okay with the trade off. So I, I have a pretty cool lifestyle because of short term rentals and that's, it's a pretty big win. Like it's pretty amazing.

That's cool. That's cool. Especially, I mean I'm from a corporate sort of retail sort of background and moving into hospitality is kind of a natural move because this is customer service. Right. And I know we were talking before we went live about customer service is. Is so important when it comes down to the end result and the reviews that you get. When it comes down to some of the challenges that you faced, you know, we can go not just the hospitality, but even, you know, the growth of the flip into the 20 houses and that sort of thing. What have been some of the challenges along the way and how have you overcome them?

There are so many challenges, I feel like, because this is just like, you want to own your own business. Whether you're calling it a side hustle or not, it is a business. And there is a lot of things that you need to learn, and you can't stick your head in the mud anymore. Like, in a corporate job, you can just be like, well, it's not my problem, and it literally isn't your problem. Well, you can't. Like, ignorance isn't actually an answer in your business. You are like, you can. You can just put stuff on the back burner, but you have to learn the heck out of things. So I feel like there's challenges all the time of the things that we need to learn, but I think just being willing to learn them, like, I didn't. Some of the challenges I had, I didn't even know they were challenges until I had a conversation with somebody. So I feel like if you build your network and then you talk about your business enough, you will, like, learn things like crazy. Like, my biggest mistake, I feel like in the beginning was pric, and it's just because I didn't know what I was doing enough. Like, I thought I had wheelhouse. Like, it was fine. Like, we were getting bookings. I was super excited, but we were booked out, like, six to eight months in advance. And then I found out, oh, it's probably because you're priced way too low. So then my mind gets blown and, like, stretched, and I talked to somebody else who taught me a couple of tactics, and we, like, doubled our prices and we're still doing just fine. We have lower occupancies, like, over 12 months. But I personally don't care about low occupancy. I just want, you know, I want to make sure I make a certain amount of money. So because of her tactics, like, I was making more money with less effort, basically because I figured out how to price and how to, like, how to actually play with the numbers and things like that. So. And this all comes back to my community. Like, I'm such a tribe builder. Like, I find it to be the most important thing, because those kinds of conversations, if you're not having them, then you're never going to. You're never going to experience. I actually talked to a host yesterday who got my phone number from a friend and he asked me like a couple of questions and I heard him talk and I was like, wait a minute, you're not using a pricing tool. He was talking about how his prices in the winter are the same summer. And the folks that don't know about Minnesota, Minnesota is very cold in the winter. Like, we're not talking about this year. In normal circumstances it could be like negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit here, like all of January or even Golder. And then some Times it's like 90s and hundreds and it's gorgeous. We do not charge the same amount of money for those two days because they're not like, I mean, shoulder season, off season and on season are very different. And this guy, if he wouldn't have made the random offhanded comment he made, I wouldn't have told him like, oh, you need a pricing tool. Like, you shouldn't be charging the same thing for this, this month and this month. And it's because he doesn't use smart pricing or any of that. So he's just always priced at $150 a night, when in the summer he should be getting $350 a night and on the winter time he should be getting 130. So it's things like that. It's like when you build your community and you like start listening, like, you need to kind of find friends and be involved. You just start listening and you pick up on these things and then you make changes in your business and you make more money or you don't have to work as hard or you get a really good referral, like, oh, I find that to be like the most important part of our businesses. Like, how do we overcome those challenges? Like, I use other people's information. That's like, why wouldn't just hack it away?

And you know, I absolutely agree with that. And the thing I want to bring people's attention to there is revenue management is just so, so important. If you don't know how to do that, then there's plenty of people like you say, network and reaching out to communities. I mean there's. You can read the hospitable hosts book, which I know we're going to, going to dive into shortly. But when it comes down to the revenue, one of the early mistakes that I see people make is that lower cost and higher occupancy trade off. Whereas some of my units actually run at 50, 45% and they make way more money than some of the ones that run at 70% because that's the right revenue model for that particular property. You know, it is a high cost, low occupancy unit and that works perfectly well. And it's one of those things which as you find out more in hospitality, as you dive into this stuff, I actually feel like as I dive more in, there's this stuff that I realize is like, wow, I didn't know that there must be more that I don't know. And you know, this is like a, to quote Shrek that my son just watched, it's the peeling the the onion.

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So this feels like a great time to segue into tech. Obviously you mentioned dynamic pricing software, so feel free to name the the tech that you use is There pieces of tech within your business that's helped you along the way. Feel free to name as few or as many as you wish.

Yes, I actually wrote down three that are very important to me. Price Labs. If anybody asks me what's one thing that you know, if you could go back into time, what would be the thing? I would say I think everyone should start with a Price Labs or a wheelhouse, whatever. That's a pricing algorithm that's taking into consideration other things that are going on in your market. It's comparing to people. If there is no other short term rentals, price might not be the best because it's, it's taking data from hotels, it's taking data from other houses and all these things are happening. But it like is in control for you. You still get to control a lot of things. You got to pay attention. But like last summer when Taylor Swift came to town, like everybody knows if Taylor Swift comes to town, everybody's going to that concert. Well, my prices rose because Taylor Swift was coming to town. I don't have to follow the news, I don't have to read about these kinds of things. Hotels already do stuff like that. So pricing or Price Lab specifically takes that stuff into consideration. And it's kind of like surge pricing on Uber or Lyft or whatever you might use for an app wherever you are on the planet. But it just takes into consideration these things that we don't like. I'm not, I'm not planning to research who's coming to town. So use something like that because then you don't have to put in as much effort. Like why wouldn't you shorten the curve when tons of short term mental hosts do this? Like it's not, it's not rocket science or anything. You just let somebody else do that thing. But make sure you check into it. Like you still need to check it weekly and kind of learn some things. And then hospitable is another one. So that's the PMS I use. And the reason that I bring this up is all because of like automation and like some of the back end stuff. A lot of the things that we were doing manually I don't have to do anymore. Like Airbnb has great automated messaging, but VRBO doesn't. It's actually garbage in VRBO lan, because it doesn't, it just doesn't automate. Like I literally had to set timers to send something at 10am the next morning to check in with these guests and then at 3pm the next day to make sure they knew the checkout process and things like that. So if you have even one property, but if you're listed on multiple sites, this would be the thing that I would tell you. Get Hospitable, get any of the PMSs, honestly, you are going to go down a rabbit hole. Just pick one and start it because you're going to learn all kinds of things that you didn't know and you're going to have to learn all kinds of process. So just there isn't a right or wrong to this. Hospitable works the best for us because I'm really hands on. So I didn't need some of the robustness of a guestie and a host away and all those other ones. But it works really well. And then it works really well when you want to start doing direct bookings too because they've got some nice premium features. And then the last one is pre way. I feel like I am a really big super fan of Breezeway. A lot of people haven't even heard of it, but the mastermind that I'm a part of, they towed it a lot. It's about like safety, maintenance, inspections and cleaning. So it's all kinds of back end stuff. Well, I'm like pretty anal about how my house looks when every single guest comes in. Like if the pictures on Airbnb show the couches with this many pillows and this is what the table will look what look like when it's set up when it comes here. I want the house to look like that every time. I do not want a guest to feel like they got bait and switched in any way, shape or form. So Bruce Lee just has a back end. It's like a giant checklist. So my cleaners have to sign in to boot. Sorry, Freezeway. So I upload all kinds of like I upload the cleaning list, I upload all the things that I expect I upload. Like these are the kinds of things that need to be left out for guests, is how many guests that are checking in. So they go in, they have a big huge checklist, they have to take pictures. There's pictures for them to refer to. Like this is how it should be set up. And then when there's a maintenance task, like there's a hole in a door because stuff like that happens, they take a picture so that we have, you know, ways to do what we need to on the back end. But then we have timestamp pictures of everything. Like it is just. It personally makes my life better because I can control Some more things. And I don't have to have like these laminated pictures, which is what we did used to have of checklists of them doing things. Like every time they go, like, I want some kind of control and some kind of expectation for my cleaning team and my inspections team and my maintenance team. And that's how I control the back end of that.

That's really cool. I'm so pleased you mentioned Breezeway because I'm a super fan of Breezeway as well. We were like about three weeks ago, we had Jeremy, the CEO and founder of Breezeway, on the spotlight, Bruce Lee, part of the podcast. And he taught me a trick which we didn't do this live on air. That was actually on the conversation afterwards. But as your business grows, right. Not every task is something you can attribute to a particular unit. So I said, what do you do in that situation? He said, oh, just create a office. You know, like you will have to pay for that extra one unit as such, but just create a unit called office and then you can use that for all of your day to day operations. So ordering of linens or linen counts or, or stock, you know what, whatever it is that is outside of a unit, you can then have that as a separate one. I was like, why haven't I thought of that? You know. So we've now put that into the business, which is, is amazing. For what, 10, $12? I don't even know how much it is. I don't care. Like it's, it's the, it could be double the price and it would save, it saves me so much time from contacting cleaners like you say, and having to do a lot of the manual work so well.

And it's like, actually I have a friend, I just found out she does that too. I was like, wait a minute, how do you do this? And I saw her, I mean they have like 13 or 14 houses that they're managing for other people. And I saw her back end and I was like, this is incredible. Like she did the same thing though. They had like this random like property they, they did, they probably called it office or home or something. And they just. That was like their dump everything into here. So they don't use Monday, they don't use asana, they just use Breezeway. And honestly if you can manipulate it to do that and you're already in there anyways, like instead of having just another thing that you have to check on. And I have this problem where I'll sign up things and then I'll never Use them. So I don't sign up for things because I'm like, oh, it's never going to use, so why bother? So in this case, it's true. Like, I'm already in Breezeway. I'm using it a lot. I like, enjoy. Like once you learn how to do something, like just use it to your advantage. And that's such a good idea. Like we need to order these supplies or like when then you can assign it to somebody and it's not just an email getting lost in the system, you know, so fantastic.

I completely relate. I'm one of them people who I will try every software, but the ones that stick with me that stay, I know they're truly good and easy to use because they stick with me. And this is the thing I've tried all of. I've tried Asana. I've tried all of those different softwares. ClickUp is one that I use for organization at the moment, which has stayed with me the longest. But now I know you know this about Breezeway. ClickUp. Yeah, it's out in the cold now. Like, ClickUp is because everything's just going on Breezeway. So that's awesome. You mentioned there, like the people who help you with your business, how do you structure the people to help you? So in terms of. And I know with the five properties, it may be a case of you, you're wearing many hats at the moment, but who helps you to run the business and how.

I pay an assistant, like hourly. She's call her a va, but she's just in like Pittsburgh. So she's an American VA that just needed some extra hours that I think I found her on like maybe 5 orgs and she does all my laundry and cleaning coordination because of our huge houses, we send all of our laundry out. Like, it's really hard to do that many loads of laundry in like the span of a turnover. So we. So we actually just have someone else do that completely. And then. And so she does all that coordination. She does all the things that I'm like, ugh, I don't want to do that. Like cleaning and laundry coordination is honestly like my least favorite to have to deal with. So I just paid somebody else to do it. And you know, she's reasonable in cost, so it works for us. And then honestly, all my systems do everything else. Like, I get such good reviews on so many things that are automated. Like, people will talk about. Like, I love communicating. Communication to me is the most important thing that you'll ever do as a host because that's like, what decides if you get a three star or a five star. Like, how fast are you going to respond to this? Are you going to tell them, you know, you're sorry that it happened or are you going to challenge them? Because those. That doesn't make for good reviews. But it's funny because I get like, I've actually put all of my reviews into ChatGPT and said, Tell me what the top 10 things are about my properties. And every single one of them. Communication is top two. And all of that is automated. Like, absolutely. If they message me and ask me about a burger place and they didn't find one on our website that we already have all that information, I will say here, these are the top three right now. Like, I love answering those questions, but most of the time they think I'm fantastic at communicating. And all of those messages are automated. I don't have to do any of that. Like, I insert myself into some of them in the way that, like, I talk. My properties are called, yay, you're here. Because literally when I see friends, I will say, oh, my God, yay. Like, that's. That's truly like a thing that comes out of my mouth. So it just kind of. It went well. So we kind of branded all of our messaging the same way. Like, when somebody books. Like, I say yay. Like, it's truly in my messaging and there's a lot of capital letters and exclamation marks. And I try to be like, this is really my personality. Like, this is what you're getting in a house. Not everybody's like that because their avatar wouldn't like something like that. But my avatar doesn't mind. So I like, I think a lot of the stuff that I do, it's like, it's just fantastic because it's like I want it to be as hands off as possible. So when water is leaking out of one of the lights, because that's happened a couple of times, or when something is broken like this, this toilet's gone flush in this entire house. Like, I want to save my time, like, spent in my business for those kinds of situations, the everyday stuff, I don't have to worry about it. And it's delightful. So that, like, so I really only have an assistant. My husband helps here and there. And then I do have somebody that does our social media that I check in with every couple of months. So, you know, pretty hands off for me.

That's cool. And certainly the thing that I take from that is the automated messaging feels like Superpower when you first put it in place. And if people are giving great, you know, hey, communication's great. One of the mistakes I made in the early days was to have really professional, like, yes, sir, I hope you enjoy your set, you know, whatever it is, you know, and it was just too much. Whereas the automated messages that I get the most response from is like, like, hey, I know you've just checked out. Hope you had a cool stay. Was there anything we could do to improve? Do you know, I mean, really, like nine words or whatever it is, the nine word email. And it's so basic, but that's the one that most people will respond to or when they first check in, you know, like, you can keep it, you know, really quite basic, but it's got to have that personality, is, is what I'm going to say. So everyone listening to this, put your own personality into your automated messages because it makes it feel more personable. They think that you're typing it out. You know, it sounds more like you're typing it out as opposed to an automated message for everyone, which helps with your reviews.

Yeah. And don't try to be like an evolve or like a I, I. There's so many property management companies that, you know, it's just, they're churning things out and that's fine. But if you're not one of them, if you're 10 or less properties, or even 15 or less properties, like, be that person. Like, the reason that people are really good at what they do in that. That section, like, I feel like one house is to 15 houses. It's because they can still have personality in it and they're still, they actually know, like, maybe that is their house. And they're like, oh, yeah, that stupid tub. Sometimes, like, you know, the shower curtain doesn't get shut all the way, and sometimes, like, it leaks or whatever. Like, those are like. I mean, you truly can say things like that because they're your properties and they're small. But when you get up to 100 properties, I'm not saying anything bad about people that have property management companies. They're fantastic. But you still lose certain kinds of customer service. Like, I know people who have 50 to 100 or 150 properties that they manage and they don't respond to reviews on, on Airbnb. And I find that to be very silly because it's just another way for you to connect with somebody. It's another way for you to leave a cookie crumb for future guests that want to book offline or book at your direct site, like, you can leave these little cookie crumbs throughout by doing that. But Again, you have 150 propert, man. Like 100 properties, 100 or 200 reviews a week that you'd have to respond to. Like, that's a pretty big. That's a really big commitment. So if you're a little guy, like, be the little guy, like, be proud of being a little guy, that you don't have a big, huge thing of leverage. And you can't just move them to another place. You actually have to make friends with another, you know, house owner that you can say, like, hey, there's a leak. Do you happen to have any openings at your two houses? Like, you need those kinds of people and, like, act like, like the little owner that you are.

And, you know, it's great advice. And ultimately, just on that, I'm split testing at the moment because we look after 24, 25 homes. It depends. It varies throughout the year. But when it comes down to the split test I'm doing at the moment, I actually trialed on Airbnb as to whether or not it should say the management company, you know, brand. Oh, yeah, all of it should have a picture of me. And, you know, Liam, I'd still say the best thing, and this is this. What I found is by having a picture of a person, a smiley person on there and then a name, your reviews tend to be better. People are less harsh when it comes back to feedback. But also the reason I switched it was because I wanted to leave those cookie cut from reasons for people see the name and go and search the website. But actually having Liam from Kindergarten Management, Tanya from Yay. Yeah, yeah, it's. They. They know where you're from, but they also know it's a person that they're talking to. And it's just so important.

Yeah, I actually know people. Okay, don't quote me on this. I'm not positive if it works. But still, like, there are letter boards. You know, a lot of people's houses have letterboards of some kind that they can put whatever. So when you have your photography taken, zoom in on it and it says, like, follow us on ig. Like, don't even write out Instagram. Put ig because the people are on Instagram. Understand? And then put your. Put your handle and then put that in your pictures. Like I've heard people. Yeah, cookie crumbs. We say tag us on ig yyh Minnesota if you, you know, if you had a great stay. And that's the Kind of cookie crumbs we put everywhere. And some people are smart enough to find that, and some people will still, like, message you and be like, how do I do this off market or off the platform? And I'm like, I'm not getting kicked off. Like, we get, we still get a lot of business from Airbnb. Like, I'm not, I'm not gonna, I can't at this point in my business just like, you know, be that reckless to say, yeah, definitely, come here. That's. No, don't do stuff like, it's the.

Billboard effect, we call it, which is where you're leaving clues of your brand. Your brand exists outside of Airbnb. And if they want to book on Airbnb, absolutely fine, they can do. But if they can follow these clues and the ones that get it, get it, and the ones that don't, don't. But through podcasts like this, through us spreading the messages to our guests about the book direct message, they're more likely to be able to see these clues. And as we educate our guests to say, hey, next time you book, do you know, if you book direct, you'll save this or you'll get this. Then they win in the long run. And so do we as hosts. So it is amazing. One thing I want to touch on is you're a best selling author and I want to speak about hospitable hosts. So for those people listening to this who don't know what hospitable host is, can you give a short introduction on what hospitable host is and what they can expect to read in your chapter?

Yes. So hospitable host is an author movement. There are three books now. They're multi authored books. So that means there's 30 to 40 hosts in every single book that talk about what make them hospitable. And it's really, really cool to kind of figure out and to see other people's versions of what is hospitable mean. Like, I know a gal that gives every single guest like fresh eggs from the chickens in the backyard. I'm totally not that host. And it is completely fine because I admire her. Oh my God, I think she's so cool. But I'm just like, I don't want to be that host. I don't have chickens. Like, I don't want to. I don't even want to do that. But there's just, so there's just different ways. Like my favorite part about real estate, like in any way, like flipping wholesaling short Term rentals, midterm apartments. I don't care what it is. We can all do things so differently. And that's the beauty of real estate, is like, there is no one cookie cutter answer. And when it comes to hosting, it's the same thing. Like, there's definitely a recipe that works better than others, but everybody's recipe doesn't have to be the same. Like if you have wildflowers close and you want to cut them for every guest, fresh, like cool. But I live in the city, so I try to do some cool cities things that, like here, these are the kinds of, like we, we leave these things behind. We're starting to like, try to figure out different ways to maybe be more eco friendly. So like, how can we leave that kind of stuff behind? How do we brand things? Like, like just what are we known for? So in my specific spot in this chapter, in my chapter, I actually talk about communication because I find it to be the most important thing. It's how you get five stars and you can talk your way out of like the craziest things and still get five stars. And I have no idea. I don't understand, I honestly do not understand how somebody could still give you five stars and the toilets don't work for 24 to 48 hours, but you can still get five stars. Like, this stuff is true. And then I talk about like building your tribe and your network and how important it is. Like, like I don't. I have these houses and I have banking or I have loans on every single house while I also have private loans. So I'm like, I like creative financing. I like to use other people's money on my houses. Like, I don't have $180,000 down payment, so I find somebody else with those kinds of things. And then we leverage our networking or leverage our relationships to do things that we want to do that are way cooler than things than not doing anything at all. So. So that's the kind of stuff I talk about in the. And I, you know, speak on virtual stages and do that kind of stuff just to talk about like creative financing, communication and networking. Because those are the three things, at least for me, that make my business way more successful. It's awesome.

I mean, it's awesome what you've done in a relatively short period of time. I mean, even the flipping of the houses, the real estate stuff, not just the short term rental, but then the high reviews. I'm a passionate believer in what you're putting out there, which is networking has been instrumental to my success. And I can see that's really helped you along your journey. I know there's so much more that we could dive into, but I also want to be respectful of your time on the podcast. So for those who want to hear more from you and to come and find out more, what is the best.

Way to do so, I'm on IG the most. So Instagram is Tanya Rooney mn. So it's T A N Y A and Rooney is RR O N Y N mn for Minnesota. Because whoever owns Tanya Rooney on Instagram will not message me back because I'm like, I'll pay you. But she doesn't use it, so I really can't get a hold of her. If somebody knows that Tanya Rooney, I would love to know them get an intro because you know, if I say this enough, I might be able to find this.

If, if you do find that person, please message me because if this works, finding Tanya, Tanya Rooney, like who owns the, the Instagram where, you know, I.

Want that, like seriously. And I've said it on a few podcasts, so I'm like, maybe that's going to be my goal in the next two years. I'm going to find that lady so.

I can buy enough somebody knows her. Hey, somebody woke up today knowing that person who might listen to this.

So yeah, so that's probably the place to find me the most. And then I do have a website, tanyarooney.com and that's where, you know, I talk about like I do some consulting for commercial real estate. I still do some coaching for short term rentals. Like I love talking to people who are just about getting on to Airbnb and like starting to do that stuff and then maybe starting. I don't know a ton about direct bookings. Honestly, like the reason that, that you know, I am like Liam is one of the reasons I'm starting to learn about direct bookings. Because we just got a boostly site up and running like two weeks ago. So that stuff is all really new. So I can't really advise anybody on that stuff. But I love guest experience and that's the thing that I am probably the best at is like how what does it look like when a guest actually checks in? And sometimes it's just like basic stuff like what does the kitchen look like? Like what should be in these cupboards and stuff like that. Like I'm great at that. So if somebody ever wants to talk about that kind of stuff stuff, please do reach out to me and yeah, but those are the places I hang.

Out the most, and we will share those. However you're listening to this piece of media, we will share those links around this piece of media as well. So that brings us to the last question is, is there a motto or mantra which has helped you along your journey or one that really resonates with you?

Yes. I read a lot of books, like, a really lot, every single day. And my thing is, if it's not a hell yeah, it's a no, and it's by Derek Sivers. And I think that guy, he's like. I think he's so cool. I don't. I would love to meet him someday, but I don't know that he's actually pretty introverted, so maybe it wouldn't be as fun. But I love writing, reading what he writes, and I feel like that's a super important thing, is like, if it does not resonate, then don't do that thing. Like, for real. If you, if you're already dreading something and you haven't even started, it's probably not the right spot for you to be. And. And it's okay to go and learn something new and find something that does make you really excited because, man, we are only on this, this planet for like, a certain amount of years. And if you're doing things that suck, then stop doing them because you're in charge of what you do.

I love that. What a great way to. What great sentiment. And this has been really fun. I've really enjoyed the energy from it. And I know everybody listening to this is going to want to come and find out more from, from Instagram and, and some of those tips. I know there's so much more we could dive into. Thank you for listening to this on the Boostly podcast. If there's somebody who will get value from this, please let them know about this podcast, share it with them. And if you want to continue the journey into direct bookings, talking about hospitality, come and do so in the hospitality community on Facebook. It's a free community that you can come and join and we'd love to have you in there. So thank you very much, Tanya, for joining us and wish you all the best for the future.

Yeah, thanks.