Unlock Your Business Potential - The Power of a Co-Hosting Model in Hospitality

Welcome back to the Boostly Podcast, the podcast that gives hosts the tools, the tactics, the trainings, and most importantly, the confident on how you can go out there and get more direct bookings. My name is Liam Carolan. I'm Mark Simpson's co host and this is the mini series on the Boostly podcast where we go behind the host with a successful and interesting host and ask all the questions about their hospitality business where you can listen to the answers, get inspired, and also hopefully implement some of the cool stuff into your business as well. So today we're going behind the host with Lindsay Siva. She's from Shannon DOA Host Services. That's one to not say after a few tequilas. And yeah, we're going to find out more about her and her business. So welcome along, Lindsay.

Thank you so much for having me, Liam. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for being here. Did I say that right? Did I pronounce that right with the first?

Very close. So there's actually a couple of different ways to pronounce it. So the valley itself, that's where it is. So it's in Virginia, Shenandoah Valley. And then there's also a town and it's pronounced slightly differently and they just say Shenandoah, which I don't know if you could pick up on the subtlety there, but that's something that I've gotten to know as I became a local out that way.

That's a very slight. It's closer together, isn't it, on the second one? So, yeah, yeah. So go ahead, let's go give an introduction to yourself, your business, where you are and what kind of model you use.

Sure, yeah. So my name is Lindsey Sievert and I am based out of Virginia in the United States, specifically in the Shenandoah Valley. So I started hosting in 2021, which feels like ages ago and also like yesterday. So I essentially just bought a home. I knew that it would work. I've been investing in real estate very lightly and it became very apparent to me very quickly that short term rentals were going to give me the return that I needed and the timeline that I needed with business partners that I have, which is my family who are a little bit older than I am. So, you know, scaling up with smaller, multifamily, something like that, the timing just was not going to work. So we bought a few and then quickly realized that we could service more than we could purchase because we just don't have enough cash to keep going. I don't have enough investors established yet to keep just buying. So I also started taking on clients, which is where my business, Shenandoah Host Services came to be only a few months ago. We already have several clients, so I actually just exceeded my number of client homes versus owned homes. I'm hoping to reset that balance someday, but they just kind of feed into each other as a good sister businesses.

Cool. And how many units are you currently under your control?

So I have seven live today that has fluctuated a little bit. As you know, we had like one client that it didn't work out and like that's going to happen occasionally. But there's about three in the pipeline that are either under contract, under renovation or under construction. Actually that's four, not three. So soon it'll be 11.

Congratulations. I mean to go in just two years from, from zero to seven controlled properties is, is amazing. And like you say there's. It doesn't necessarily have to be purchased or you know, sort of yourself purchased. There's so many ways you can do it through, you know, co hosting model or you know, using investor money, investor finance, which is really, what is it? Properties that appeal to your, your avatar. So who is your, your local avatar or your guest avatar and what is it that appeals to them about the properties that you look after?

Sure. So I have a like two avatars sort of. So I have a lot of smaller properties. I really like smaller properties. They're so easy. And it's mostly just couples. They're not high maintenance. They just, you know, they want to go do a couple things. They want to be left alone. They normally don't ruin things. They might have a puppy and they, they just want to go out, get away from the city and go hike usually. And then in my larger homes, it's families or you know, groups of families that are coming out usually to get together. If you know, we have people that come from like north of Virginia is Pennsylvania and then south of there, there's like North Carolina and Georgia. We have people meet up in the middle in Virginia. They do that every year after year. So it's a really good opportunity to, you know, get recurring customers that way who do their meetups. You know, they like to go visit the caverns or they have a hike that they go do annually, something like that. So it's kind of split between the couples and then also people just enjoying family for either reunions or weddings typically.

What, what has been the biggest challenge? I'm sure there's been a few.

Oh yeah. Oh, every day. But the biggest one by Far we. So to be clear, by helping my parents retire, I mean I'm helping them help themselves. They actually came on to work with me full time last January in 2022. That's been amazing. My father used to work for himself and then his business fell apart during the last recession. So it was really great to be able to facilitate him being able to work for himself again in this industry. He's super talented. He's a builder. He was a project or a program manager. Excuse me, a property manager. So he's more than well equipped to be on my team. We just have super complimentary skill sets. But was the original question.

I'm sorry, what has been the biggest challenge then?

Yeah, see, I don't even want to talk about it. It was so bad. So essentially we. He came on board and was helping me figure out what we could do to maximize one of my piece. My, my first property and it's 14 and a half acres. It has one cottage on it. It's two separate parcels. So I am able to build more than just the one property. However, we thought we were okay based on the local ordinance to do some glamping because if you have one on a property it's not considered a campground. So you don't need the same special use permit. However, as. As they do sometimes. Their attorney decided that because the properties adjoin that they are like to an area. And so then we were a campground and then we are in violation of our zoning. So we tried to work it out. We actually tried to rezone based on the recommendation. I am grateful that they gave that recommendation and then allowed us to run out all of our bookings through the entire season. So we had like fantastic numbers. And for background, it was one tent and a cottage on one land and then the other. We're still building a home there, but it's not built yet. So it's just one tent on the second parcel. So it was three units essentially on what was a very budget property. So the returns were just astounding. And unfortunately we had to just face the music and shut them down. Mind you, I could still be running one, but I realized with glamping that it's not always optimal at scale to just have one one off glamp site. The logistics are pretty challenging. So moving forward with projects that I have up, up and coming, I'm looking to do glamping where I can do at least 4, 5, 12, 20 units because the work and the chores are the same for one versus once you get to about five so it's really not that it wouldn't be worth it, especially if it was something in my backyard, but we just. The zoning, the, the planning, it went horribly at the meeting. You know, neighbors do not understand short term rentals. They especially don't understand unique rentals. And for some reason there was this perception that the people glamping were a different type of clientele than what would stay in a normal home. And that wasn't true. Sometimes it was actually more expensive to stay in the tent than it was my cottage, which was crazy to me. But I just trust in my tools and I let you know, price labs algorithm do its thing. So if people want to spend 400 plus to stay in a tent for a weekend per night, that's fine with me. So that was, that was the challenge though, is that we had to let that revenue stream fizzle out with the understanding that it wasn't a loss. I still own all the stuff. That's the other beautiful thing about glamping is you can just relocate it.

Thank you too for spending your attention with us on the Boostly podcast. We know there's a lot of places to put your attention, and we thank you for putting that with us. So was there anything I missed or any closing comments before we draw it to a close?

No. I guess the only other thing I have to say to anybody who's not already jumped in. Although if they're listening to you guys, they've got to be. They've got to be playing already. But if you're stuck in analysis paralysis, go get a coach and they will drag you along and you'll be very happy that you made the investment.

100%. I'm about to take on another mentor, which I always have a mentor myself. And it's just, it's. It really speeds up your journey and also opens up possibilities. So I love that. Thanks, Lindsay. And yeah, we'll see you again.

Thank you. You have a great day.

Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee, like Bruce Lee. Cause it's so hard on the T is loose leaf making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely.