Inside Pink Walls Designs: Mastering STR Interiors

Hi, 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 there and get more direct bookings. We do a mini series on the Boostly Podcast where we shine the Boostly spotlight on businesses, people and services that you need to know about as a hospitality host. And these services can help you or inspire you in some way. So today we're going to dive. We're going to dive into a business and understand their kind of model and what kind of services they do. We've got some amazing co founders. We've got Heaven and Aaron. Their business is called Pink Wall Designs. And we're going to be diving into a lot of the interior design and what that means for direct bookends today. So welcome along. Heather and Erin, thank you for joining me today.

Hello. Thanks for having us.

So first question I'd put to you is what can the person listening to this podcast expect from the next 15, 20 minutes? What will they get by the end of this that they don't necessarily know?

Now they are going to realize and learn that their guests can do their marketing for them.

Nice. I like that. I like that. So give me the elevator pitch for your business. Who is Pink Wall Designs?

So, we are a hospitality interior design company. We focus on vacation rentals and boutique hotels, and we are design, interior design and marketing. And the reason why we are both is because it's kind of all in the same when it comes to vacation rentals and boutique hotels. Those things are products. They're not like investment properties. Like, yes, they are. But ultimately those things are products just the same way a Starbucks coffee and McDonald's cheeseburger are. Those are products. People are buying, you know, time spent in those products from you. So they need to be designed properly, they need to be packaged well, they need to be marketed correctly, and you need to be treating these properties like a business, not like a side hustle or, you know, I have this one Airbnb, I have this one rental property. You are in the hospitality industry as a business owner, and that's, that's our main, like, mantra sort of thing for our business. And then we facilitate and help people operate and do that.

Nice, nice. And we're going to dive more into how that helps people within the industry. But before we do, can you give me, like, a brief history of. Of how did you guys get into particularly this area of design and particularly within. In hospitality? Take me back through the history.

Yeah, I'll start off so both investors first and then we developed through our own investment and our own experience, you know, the need in the market for interior designers, specifically focusing on vacation rentals, short term rentals. So Heather and I, we met completely random and from there kind of developed both her and my experience together. Like, I have the real estate background and she has the marketing background and we were both doing short term rentals at the exact same time. And then developed, you know, this natural interior design aspect as well and developed pink wall designs.

Nice. Have you got short term rentals yourself then? Have you both, you're both involved in short term rentals in some way?

Yes, yes. And we are all always actively looking to joint venture with other people too. So we're not only, you know, have our business going, but we also are looking to build our own portfolio as well.

That's cool. That's cool. Whereabouts in the world are you both at the moment? And I'd love to know, you said you met randomly. How did you randomly meet? And can you give me an idea of where you tend to have your clients mainly? Is it, is it localized, is it statewide, is it national, is it international?

We are both currently just outside of Toronto actually, and we work anywhere in Canada and the U.S. so we have like digital packages where it's more remote and then we also have packages where we will go out to the properties as well. So we can go anywhere. Canada, US and yeah, that's what we're currently located in Toronto. And then the second part of your question was how did we. Oh, more on how we met. Yeah, so I was actually making content for real estate investing. As Aaron mentioned. We were both investors first, you know, both had design backgrounds as well. And so I actually, I was sort of wanting to do some more work on like people doing flips and whatnot. So I reached out to her, her husband, they had a flip that they were working on. And I had said, hey, can I come by and just film some content, like ask you some questions, do like an interview style kind of thing. And he was like, yeah, sure. And so then I went out there and he was like, you need to meet my wife. Because just I feel like you guys would be friends at bare minimum or something. He's like, there's something there, I don't know, but you guys need to be. So we just literally like went for dinner completely blind, you know, chatted and clicked in instantly. And then we both realized that we love design, we love bringing properties to light. But we had both agreed on the fact that it was a lot of Work for one person. Because if anybody listening to this knows it is so much work to get a short term rental off the ground. And then we were just like, you know, I would be interested if like we were to do it together. We both kind of said that. And then, you know, a couple weeks later we had gotten things started.

Nice. Nice. I love the way that hospitality does bring people together. And like you say, there's so many businesses and strands to hospitality and in particular the design is, is so important, which I know what we're talking about today. What can people expect from your own short term rentals then? Is it, what kind of design do you tend to, to lean towards or does it depend on the property?

It definitely depends on the property. Go ahead, Aaron.

Yeah, I was just gonna agree. So we really hone in on understanding the market and who are your guest avatars and why are they visiting your properties. So that is number one as to why we are going to be designing the way we are going to be designing. And that's very dependent on location, you know, amenities that are around you, demographics. So it can be a number of different things. And from there we really, you know, focus on bringing that experience to a property as well. You know, people nowadays, they're not just wanting to go and have a place to sleep, right? They want to actually spend some time in this property, especially if they're choosing between going to a hotel or versus an Airbnb. So from that we're bringing all of those elements together, bringing in that wow factor and allowing people to just have a great time and appreciate the design.

That's cool. That's cool. So let's dive into some of the, the stuff which helps to do some of that, like bring the experience what aspects really attract guests. And is there any kind of top tips for, for the people listening on the, on the call?

Yeah, there is a lot of things that you can do. Like you just have to kind of get creative, right? And you can still get creative in small properties. You don't have to be these like large, huge mansions. Just think about what people would like, what would you like to sort of see if you're going to a property, right? Like you can start there and instead of just having a bed and like a bathroom, those are kind of bare minimum things. You know, even just a basic feature wall is like really like wow. Like it makes you like take notice, right? Like that's what you want to do is evoke emotion in the guests. Evoke like some sort of like oh wow, this is Cool. Or like, you know, that type of thing. So basic feature walls are very easy to implement, very easy to, like, incorporate into a design. Also, things like, you know, people say amenities, right? And that doesn't just necessarily mean like pools, hot tubs, that type of thing. Even if you don't have the budget for those types of things or the property doesn't allow for it, there's a lot of ways that you can utilize even games inside of, you know, living rooms. We've had clients before where they've been more of like long kind of narrow living rooms that you look at and you're like, can't really do much here. But then, you know, shuffleboard is a great example of a very thin, long game. Very narrow, doesn't take up a lot of space. But now that's an entertainment zone that you've just created for your guests, right? So anything that kind of like brings people together. Our thing that we really kind of focus on is making the property the destination and then having the location being secondary. And so if you get a good property in a great location and then you design it properly, it's a home run. If your location isn't amazing, but the property is still like the destination, you can still make great money and still post a lot of very happy guests if your property's done well. So there's just more opportunity as an investor as well to, you know, utilize different types of real estate in different areas while when designing things properly.

And to add to that too, like, the design is your curb appeal. Like, people who are doing direct bookings, they are going online and they're looking directly at how your property looks. So incorporating anything that can kind of be that hero photo, you know, like fun features in the house, those feature walls, like Heather was saying, neon signs. Anything that's going to bring attention to your listings will be popular in the market and be a reason why people choose your properties.

Another thing that's really great about direct bookings right now is that the only other competition is like OTAs, which are so bad. Like, you go online and it shows, like the outside of like, you know, the structure of that. Like, there's never really any interior photos and stuff. So right now, in 2024, it's such an amazing way to differentiate yourself with direct booking because you're either forced and pushed over to like a booking dot com, but with your direct bookings, if you have all of your photos, they are designed properly and everything, then people will just be that much more invited.

Into book your property 100 and especially, I mean there's a stat, I think Google said 43% of people are influenced by videos. And you can't upload a video on, on most of the OTAs, but on your own website you can definitely upload a video. And that just gives you the benefit where if somebody was unsure and they just there was a video tour or one of the 3D tours or maybe even the drone shots and you know, know the panoramic sort of shots that you don't always get the opportunity to upload onto to some of the OTAs it makes a difference, right? Especially if the interior design is, is, is good. So what would you say to somebody who is listening to this going, I'd like to do interior design, but one, I'm not too sure if I've got the budget for it and two, I'm not sure if it makes a big enough difference. What would you say to those people?

I would say we would say if you're going to be in the hospitality business, you have to have design in order to be profitable. Like you can't skip out on paying your property taxes. If you're going to buy like a house, you have to pay the property tax, right? So you, you cannot skip design. Like you just have to have it. So you either got to like raise more money if it's that kind of deal, you got to find more budget, you got to get a bigger loan, you got to figure out something because it is just necessary. There's too much competition now. It's too saturated to just throw up your own furniture from Facebook Marketplace or like, you know, the stuff that you have in your house that's not working anymore. So it needs to be properly packaged and that's, that's proper design. So design is like a non negotiable in our opinion. And then the other thing that you asked was oh, the budget. So. Oh no. Yeah, okay. So they like I was just going.

To say it all rolls into one because I've seen this happen to many times where people, you know, they spent a lot of money to get this property and say, oh, I will focus on design, you know, after I get some bookings and it gets rolling. Well, the problem with that, with that is you put it on the back burner and you won't ever have time because you will still get bookings, right. And they may not even be great bookings. But when is going to be a good time for you to go back in there? Take you know, like a couple weeks, a couple like months. Even if you're going to really revamp it and you're going to end up paying more out of your pocket because you're going to have to alter certain design elements, certain furniture. It's just a disaster if you go that route. Which is why we always encourage you, just add it up front, then it's not nothing to worry about and you're doing it right from the get go.

Just to add to that. Like it's also too about thinking of it from a business standpoint. You know, there's different types of clientele, right? Starbucks and you know, your basic coffee chain are different things. Like you know, a high end steak restaurant and then like a fast food burger chain. Different clients, right? And both are profitable. But you just have to decide what you want to what, what you want to be and what product you want to put out there. And at the end of the day like you are going to get a higher quality guest with nicer design. So if you want, you know, just better ADR and like people willing to pay, then you got to have a higher end design. A lot of times we find people that you know, still get like, they don't really have designs, they still get bookings though. So they say I'm still profitable. Well, okay, but like how many times are guests like, you know, messing something up in your house where you have to like get a handyman and like fix it or like how many times are people asking you for discounts? How many times are people like complaining about stuff? It's just like that type of headache. So you know, it's always, I mean I would think that if you're going to get into business, you would just want the best type of client willing to pay the most money and complain the absolute least. And the way to do that is get proper design upfront.

Yeah, absolutely. And just the things I want to draw out from that thread on there is that you're absolutely right. How many times have I had it where I manage and separately from Boostly, I have a short term rental management company. And so many times I hear people go, oh, we got to the last sort of little while and we just wanted to get it live. So you know, we'll come back and we will, we will put that, that amazing picture in or we will, whatever it is, you know, whatever is the X factor. And so many people get to that last that they do 90 and they get to that last 10. And it's just that last 10 is what separates most of the market. And that can be the difference between being in the 50th percentile where you get an average daily rate to a, you know, 90th percentile where actually you get more occupancy, you're getting a better average daily rate. And that is the little attention to detail that is the design is spending that little bit more now it to pay off long term. And I think that's really important that the thing that you mentioned there about know who you are now more than ever it's important to, to niche down and and I've said this a few times on, on this podcast but or on on boosted podcast, you need to niche down and your niche needs to be an inch wide and a mile deep. So whoever you're going after, you know, if you're going for that Instagrammable look, go deep on that. If you go in for family oriented, go deep on the amount of games and you know, the games room and the themed rooms and all of that sort of stuff. It's really important that you deep dive into it because ultimately when you get known for for that and then you get a portfolio which are similar, it's easier to build that audience as a marketing point of view. It's easier to get direct bookings and it just works for everyone, right? So 100% agree.

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My next question really is I, I think I've got the understanding of, you know, the history of the business, why you do what you do, you're passionate about it, and I kind of understand why it's important for, for guests. You know, as we've mentioned, you know, interior design is important. What, what are your services and how do they help people and feel free to deep dive on this one.

Yeah, so I think kick that off. So Heather mentioned earlier we have two tiers of service. So our first service tier is kind of on the lower end for our fees. We are mood boarding, we are designing your entire property, we're sending you floor plans, we are space planning and we send you a shopping list. So that is for the kind of like the DIYers people that still want to be involved but also use our expertise for doing the designing. And then from that we do our tier 2, which is completely all in white glove service. We do everything for you, down to ordering. You also get our industry discounts. So that can help when you're, you know, furnishing and designing an entire property. That can save you thousands of dollars. And then Heather and I, we will actually go out and execute our designs. So we have a team who will do the complete setup. And I feel like that is something that, you know, like the seasoned investors and short term rental hosts really appreciate because once you've done a few or after your first, you realize how much work that actually is. Down to, you know, hanging the curtains, hanging the photos. We get your property staged properly and we will actually take your photos as well for you to be able to just be totally hands off and ready to launch after we are done with it.

Nice. And who would you say if there's somebody listening to this? We get many hosts from all over the world listening to this. When should they contact you as part of their journey? And who is that? In the same way that I guess we're looking for guest avatars for us in hospitality. Who is your perfect kind of customer? Not to put anybody else off, but who are you, who are you looking for and when in their journey should they contact you? Both?

I think we always say like as soon as possible. We would rather somebody be unsure if they're going to like, even go forward with the property and just get quickly in contact with us and then like end up not, you know, moving forward with it versus waiting. And then we're kind of just blindsided with like, you know, this property. And what do we need? Because the earlier you get in touch with us, we can. And the earlier we get some photos from you, or maybe there's like a Zillow listing or whatever it is, we can then be like, okay, we're going to need this, this, this, before he closes, she closes, whatever. Or, you know, okay, we can kind of like no cruise and wait a little bit or whatever. At least that just gives us more of a. Like, allows us to schedule ourselves because we have multiple projects going at once. So we have a calendar of like, you know, and we're not personal home designers, so we're on people's clocks of like when they wanted to get launched. And it's always asap, right. People are hosts and investors. They always want to get things off the ground as soon as possible. So, yeah, the earlier the better because we can at least have, you know, it in our wheelhouse knowing that, like, okay, you're going to make an offer, we're going to hear back soon. So, like, we need to kind of keep attention over here and whatnot. So that's that. And then. Sorry, I keep forgetting the second parts of your questions. Can you just.

I throw two parts at you at any one time. So who, what kind of traits of. Yeah, with the avatar have.

I remember this? So, like, there's. I wouldn't say that there's necessarily like a perfect one. I think more focusing on like the caliber of person. Right. You can get like families who are fantastic guests. They're clean, they, you know, they'll pay good money. A really great avatar though is, I will say, like high end bachelorette kind of parties. And people get very afraid when they hear bachelorette parties. Because I think it's going to be like this college frat house with like holes in the wall. If it's like very female oriented, I can almost guarantee there's not going to be a hole in the wall. And for the most part when it's high end, very luxurious, very like Instagram y, that guest avatar is for the most part very respectful, very clean. You know, they treat it like their personal home. Like they're very good about taking care of their property. And a lot the. The interesting part about that avatar and are those groups tend to kind of know already in their head that they're going to be shelling out more money for X occasion because it is a bachelorette party or some sort of like one time celebration. Therefore, they're already setting themselves up to kind of pay more. And so oftentimes with those groups, you don't get as much like, you know, haggling and like, hey, can we have a discount? Because it's like, well, it's the only bachelorette party that XYZ is ever going to have. And so they're kind of like in a better mindset. So I actually kind of encouraged people to not be so afraid of that avatar. And that one tends to be pretty good.

That's cool. That's cool. And I know there's, there's a lot that we could dive into around interior design, but one question I do want to get in there is, is, is why the name? Why pink wall designs?

So funny. Yeah, you should ask that. We had no idea. Like, we went back and forth, Aaron and I both, like, a bunch of times I forget exactly how it sort of came to fruition, but we landed on it. And kind of the meaning behind it is like, don't be afraid to be the pink wall in a room. And that stands for so many different things. That means like, you know, go all in with what you're feeling, be confident, don't be afraid to stand out, make a design choice and, you know, follow through, stick with it. But then also to, you know, in life as well, like, don't be afraid to be audacious. Just like, you know, do what you want to do for your own path and like, stick with it and do it. And that's how we are with design, that's how we are with business. And we love to surround ourselves with people who are like that as well. So that's kind of a bit about the name.

Yeah, you kind of. I'm gonna piggyback on what you mentioned earlier, Liam too. Like, you made a point where, you know, when you are making these, like, these decisions, you want to go all in. And sometimes new, like short term rental hosts, what they do is they go on to Airbnb, they look at properties and they say we should be like, this one, this one, this one, this one. Right. There's a good fine line between, like doing your comps and comparing to properties, but sometimes you actually, to be better, you need to go and do your own thing to be able to stand out. So learning and understanding what amenities and like, what things are working is Great to know, but you still need to differentiate from, you know, the crowd to be able to stand out and do.

Your own thing 100%. And I know we, with the tips and with the knowledge that you both have that people are going to want to get in touch with you. What, what's the best way to do.

So probably our Instagram's the best just because, like, we have a website, we have an email and all of that. But, like, our Instagram is just our jump off, you know, page to everything. So you can contact us from there, you can get to every. Get to all the other places that you need from there. So. And that's just pink wall designs with an S. Nice, nice.

And of course, we will add that to the, to the show notes. If you're listening to this on the podcast or watching on YouTube, have a look around in the show notes and you'll be able to click those links and go and see the cool stuff. So that leaves us with the last question. Is there. And I know we probably touched on this, but is there a sort of motto or mantra which really resonates with you or kind of something which you want to share with the listeners?

Yes. Our famous line to literally everyone is this an Airbnb, a boutique hotel, a vacation rental. This is not your personal home, so do not get emotionally attached to the design. Like, we are truly so objective, which is kind of ironic because design is very personal, tasty. But because we're in such a unique niche in the hospitality industry, we are literally designing for your target market. So when, because we do have this, we have clients. Oh, we don't really like those. We don't love this. But it's like, are you going to be living there? And if the answer is no, then you've got to take your emotions out of it, take your personal, you know, opinion out of it, and trust us, because we are here to make you money and help you run a successful business at the end of the day. And the business owners and the serial investors get it and they're the ones that completely back off and they say, do what you do. And then there's some newer designers who, I mean, sorry, newer hosts who. And to be fair, they're a little bit nervous. It's maybe their first one. You know, they're. They have sometimes a little bit more of a harder time of, like, letting go. But exactly what Aaron just said is like, and you mentioned earlier, you've got to niche down short and long, not design it like your personal home. Be fair. To your comps, but then do your own thing, state, you know, pave your own path to truly stand out and trust the experts. And if you want to be in that top 1%, if you want to have your property just be like the spot in your submarket, then that's the secret sauce. And if you do that, trust me, it will. We have the case studies, we have the results, it will work out for you and you will have a great business and make a lot of money.

Awesome. Thank you so much and I completely agree with everything you said. I mean, it's so important and it does help you. I think at the start of this we mentioned that, you know, how does interior design help with direct bookings? Will they do go hand in hand? The, the more attention that you can get, the more likely you're going to stand out. The more likely they're going to come and find your, your website or you're going to be so booked up from the OTAs that eventually you'll be able to just turn off those channels and just have your direct booking website. And of course we talk a lot about direct bookings. Anybody who's interested in direct bookings, feel free to go to boostly.co.ukbook and you can get the book Direct Playbook as a bestseller on Amazon, teaches everybody listening on how to get more direct bookings and comes with a video course just in case you're like me and don't get time to read, you can just watch the videos instead. So thank you so much. And the thing I'm going to take away from this podcast is it's hire good people and get out of their way. You know, like it does work when you hire good people and then you get out of their way and leave them to, to do what they need to do or to advise in the way that they need to advise because that's why you hire them in the good in the first place, which is why good investors do so all the time and why people get great results from it. So thank you so much, Aaron. Thank you so much. Heather, was there anything we missed along the way or any last shares before we say say goodnight?

No, just thank you for having us on. And a thing to add is we do offer free consultations for anybody who, you know, does have questions for us. If we have suggestions to give you or if you have an upcoming property, we are happy to hop on and chat with you there.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you and we'll see you on the next one.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

Thank you. Bye.