When an OTA Bans You: A Host’s Story of Resilience and Reinvention

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Welcome back to the Boostly podcast. This is the podcast gives hosts the tools, the tactics, the training and most importantly the confidence so you can go out there and get yourselves direct bookings. We Do a mini series where we dive behind hosts who have got interesting stories and people who have run successful short term rental or hospitality businesses. And today we've got a special guest who's going to come on and talk about his story. And I'm excited to dive into this because this is something which will strike fear into some. But actually, once you know about how to deal with things like what we're going to be talking about today, then you're much better equipped as an entrepreneur and as a, as a business owner. So what we're going to be doing, we're going to be diving in in just a moment. But before we do, I just wanted to take a moment to thank our sponsors of this episode, which is hostfully, you'll see the logo around the screen. A short term rental. Sorry, a property management system which is available on the market. So you can go and check them out. So let's welcome along our guest today. We've got Elam King. Did I pronounce that right?

Elam King. Yep.

I love it. So we've got Elam here and he's going to be talking to us about a particular story which happened. So Elam, usually I'd go into a, you know, sort of a business pitch and stuff like that. But before we go into that, what would you like people to take away from this, this episode today?

So I guess we're talking about what happened in our business and it started about four months ago and just one thing after another went kind of sideways and one of those was getting kicked off the Airbnb platform. So there's a lot of like, standard advice that people will get, like diversify, don't put all your eggs in one basket, you know, maybe have a direct booking channel. And frankly, that was one of the things I wanted to work on more. We had it, but I wanted to work on more on it more. Yeah, so there's, there's a lot of like, standard business advice that people are gonna, that people will give. Another thing is don't build your business on someone else's business, you know, and it's true. Airbnb hosts, you know, we're kind of working for Airbnb in some ways. So there's a lot of things like that. And there's also the things, there's things that you can do to navigate and there may be shutdown and this and that and the other thing. But my piece of advice or my thing that I want people to take away from this podcast is sometimes there's macro things going on or a meta narrative going on that might have nothing to do with what you see on the surface. And I can go into more of that more in my story later. But for me, it's not just like, sure, I would do quite a few things differently looking back, but at the same time, it's like, I'm totally okay with it, with what happened. I've come to first with it. I'm sure it's painful. It was ridiculous. It was crazy. It was super stressful. But I'm at a point where I kind of came to like, hey, this is kind of actually cool.

Awesome. I'm excited to dive in before we dive into that. And I know it's going to be scary for many hosts who are listening to this. Can you give us, like, an elevator pitch of. Of your business before that? Like, what does your. Where is your business based? Give us the. The kind of rundown of. Of what your business looks like or looked like.

Which business? The one four months ago?

Yeah, the four months before the event.

Yeah. Yeah. So at the height, we were probably operating like 20 properties, doing a little bit over a million in revenue per year in eastern usa, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Amish country. Actually, I actually grew up Amish, so I got that in my. In my blood. And ironically, just before the blow up, I started talking quite a bit more about the company to people and what the vision is. I got super clear with the vision, and that was to design a hospitality brand that ignites people's souls. And what I mean by that is so often in hospitality, we look at it as like a bed and maybe breakfast. Now we talk about experience. We talk about, you know what. Although the word experience in a lot of ways has kind of gotten kind of become cliche, I think I kind of, like, don't like the word, but I don't have a better one. So. But anyway, back to that. You know, we often look at hospitality as like a bed. Starting with a bed, definitely. You know, then, you know, you tackle maybe breakfast for some people and maybe you tackle an experience, whereas what I was looking at so ignite people's soul. So we have. We are much, much more than our physicality. We also have a soul. We have feelings, we have issues, we have joys, we have sorrows, we have pains, you know, whatever. There's so much more to us as a human race than what first meets the eye. And my goal was to continue to develop our hospitality brand to where we give people. And here's the word again, Experience. An experience of a lifetime, an Experience that actually helps them like come to grips with maybe some of their problems. So maybe you're a stressed out CEO or whatever. I'm just using simple and you have some issues that you're working with and you can't, you just like, you just need time away and you need an environment where that stress can go away. You can think again, you can actually find solutions. You can come to grips with maybe your inner self and just, you know, different things like that. So that's, that's where I was like looking to take the company.

But yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense.

And I guess I hope that answers the question.

No, it definitely does. And like you say over a million revenue, over 20 properties and that. Which is, which is cool. What did you do before hospitality? How did you, how did you get started in this business?

Funny thing is, our first house, this was seven years ago, it's all about seven years ago that we bought our first house. And before that I had kind of started looking into real estate, or barely any of the word real estate. Buying a house. I had no experience in real estate. I had experience in the trades, but not real estate. So I was like, I'd like to buy a house that becomes an asset, not a liability. House hacking. Right. I didn't have that fear of thinking back then. It was just, that's how I phrase it now. You know, it's like, oh, that's what I was doing. In other words, I wanted a house that, you know, pays its own bills. And I forget the exact wording out of my head, but that's what I wanted to do. And so we found a seven bedroom house in Lexer City. We're actually living in Lexer City at the time. This is Lecture City, Pennsylvania, not Lancaster City, uk. But anyway, so we found the seven bedroom house and it had three external doors and so, and it was a complete mess. We, we, yeah, we completely redid the inside. And so then what we did is we closed a couple of doors because township or the city wouldn't allow us to just build walls wherever we wanted to. But we would close doors and put up bookcases and do different things like that. And we ended up making it three apartments. We lived in one and then we rented the other two out. And the house paid for itself very, very well, very nicely. And then we sold it almost a year ago and made a really handsome profit on that as well. So we got into that and then it's like, oh, well, this works. And then we got an arbitrage first One was my brother in law's house. They were moving elsewhere for a season. It's like, well, I mean, I'll pay your rent for it. I'll pay you rent. And if you let us use a short term rental. I didn't know what rental arbitrage was back then. I think year or two later I found. Oh, that's what you call that. Okay. So that's how we got into it. And then eventually it's like, wait, we have a business? And then we just kept growing it and then eventually got into management, managing for other people, so forth. So yeah.

Do you know, I love about this industry is that often people stumble into it, right? You know, like this, like you said, you, you had the house which is, is you've done well with a house hack in. There's something which we, we see on Bigger Pockets podcast and, and gets talked about a lot. And it goes to show that this stuff works and let's say arbitrage as well. The, the fact you start doing it without knowing about it, that ultimately there's so many opportunities around to, to do exactly that. And it's a natural transition, isn't it, to, to move into. Once you've got those systems and processes set up for your own business, it's quite easy to go. If somebody goes, hey, can you look after this house for me? You go, well, yeah, it's not much harder. I've got the, the kind of systems and everything in place. So. No, it makes sense. It makes sense. So I kind of get the, the business before the event that we're going to talk about and I kind of get what has got you into it. So let's dive into to what actually happened. Take us back to first of all, when was it and what happened?

Yeah, so March 19th. The forever famous infamous day in the history of the company. Right? March 19th. Actually, one of our clients sent me a message like, hey, I can't find our Airbnb listing. I'm like, well that's worth. So I log into your account and all our listings are suspended. So it's what they call a shadow ban, I guess. And I'm like, what? And my mind immediately went back to like two months prior when we had a guy stay at our house and we became suspicious after the fact that there was some sex trafficking. Bottom, horrible. I mean, I cringe just like mentioning it. So Airbnb policy says that if there's any kind of, you know, sexual violations like that, that and this is. They're pretty much verbatim I think that you should reporting it to Airbnb. And that is quite verbatim, but that's clearly the idea. Okay, so I did that. So they took us down.

That's crazy, isn't it? So. So you've done the right thing. You've seen something which shouldn't be happening. And I've got to be honest, I mean, as hosts, and those of you who are listening to this will know exactly what I'm talking about, is that there are times you suspect there's something which is happening in your properties which shouldn't be happening. So you've done the right thing, been responsible, you've reported it. And how have they repaid you? They've taken you down. So they've done that. That shadow band and.

Yeah, well, okay, so. So let me back up. When we got to shadow ban on March 19, my mind went back to this incident two months earlier, which I was just talking about.

Right.

And now they just took a listing down. They didn't take the whole account down.

Got it.

Now, the weird thing is, what really. What really tipped me off then with them was they then later called me or message. No message me, and said, hey, we have completed the investigation. We need you to change the wording, disclosing your cameras.

Okay?

So they were more.

They were more concerned about the cameras than the violation.

Here's what I think was the issue. They didn't find anything wrong, so they had to have something, something so that they can get my listing back up. They had a reason to accuse me of something, so they made something up. And it was like, you need to put in your listing that it. The cameras are recording 24 7.

Okay.

One, they're not. Two, I don't have to say that. Yeah, I have to disclose that they're there and where they are. That's all. That's all. You're pausing and arguing with them. I was like, whatever. Okay. And I told him, I told the person, I said, look, I'm going to do what you say. But then as soon as we're done, I'm going to change it back to the way it was. I mean, I was that brazenly honest with it.

They. So they.

Thanks for putting my listing back up.

Yeah, they just need reason to put it back up. But I mean, the fact that they've got the. The control over one of your listings, like that is. Is frustrating. Right. You know, like is in. It's just. And also the lack of. No. You know, if somebody said, hey, thanks for reporting this by the Way we've noticed, this isn't on your listing. So unless you change it, we're going to give you three days to change. You know, we're going to then take down your listings. It's the fact they did it before communicating, you know, which isn't good.

Yeah. And so. So my mind went back to that instance. Like, was it that or is it this? You know, So I got no answers. And of course, I obviously called Airbnb, which. Airbnb customer service, which is where it's just, you know, they're great for giving you warm fuzzies. Right. But that's all they worth. They're absolutely useless.

That first line where they say, hey, thank you. You know, before we get started, I'm just, thank you so much for being a super host. And I just cringe at that point because I'm like, this has been read off a script. This doesn't mean anything to that person or to me. Why are they even doing it? You know, like. And probably the first people who are like mom and pop type, you know, like, who have just listed. And that sounds good, perhaps on that call, but after that, you become numb to that kind of.

Yeah. And I haven't always been the most patient with Airbnb customer service, and I regret that I'm not proud of it, but I'm more than once just sort of like, can you stop? This is worth nothing. I have an issue to deal with. Come and do a hand. It's just like. Just shut up. Sort of nothing. Like, come on. Like, why are you doing this? So, yeah, an Airbnb customer service, not worth a squat. Unless it's just dealing with normal stuff. But then why would we have them there? We can deal with my normal stuff. Whatever. So, obviously, I mean, airbnb customer service is worth nothing in this case. Why is my listing down? Oh, we don't know. We don't know. And I probably called into Airbnb 50 times over the course of a month, and eventually someone told me, oh, there's an investigation. Investigation into what? Oh, we don't know. And I call back in, you know, and try to get a different person that would help you out. Oh, there's an investigation for off site payments. Off site payments? What do you mean? I mean, sure, we were collecting security deposits, which, according to Airbnb policy, we're allowed to for API integrated hosts.

Right.

So we did that. So what could be the issue? So then I think it was April 19th. This was a month later. It's right around that time One evening, canceled all the reservations. A full $140,000 worth.

Is it just for. For that listing or for the entire.

No, this is the entire account. So just making sure. March 19th. Everything was suspended. My mind went back to that one time when they took that one listing down. I was like, is there some kind of correlation here? I don't think there is, but I'm just saying. Yeah, let's just stay. Let's just take jump.

It gets the cogs turning, doesn't it? Like, what. What has caused this? Because ultimately you go, well, what is. What's up? You know, what have I done?

Yeah. So then, okay, so eventually. All right. Off site payments. Okay, well, I'm applying there, so that shouldn't be an issue. And in the meantime, I think a couple weeks into it, I got an attorney involved, Enrique Schaefer. I mean, he's the guy you want if you ever need to fight Airbnb. And I think you've. Guys. You guys have talked about it, am I correct?

I haven't in. In my podcast, but I think this crossed Mark's lips once or twice. So. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's the guy, so I got him involved. And so he, you know, he. He files his arbitration on our behalf and all that, but it's still just a very vague reason. Right. Then one of the people that had. She seemed very competent. She says, yeah, I see there's been about 20 other people calling in today with the same problem. There's a software glitch. Our engineers are working on it.

Whoa. So a software glitch, and that's caused for how much of your bookings? How many? Thousands?

Well, okay, so first into the shadow ban, March 19, a month later than they went. Canceled everything. So what the shadow ban was. We just couldn't take new reservations. Everything else continued as normal. March 19th and then suspended us. Or April 19th or April 20th, whatever it was, I don't remember the exact date. And then went and canceled and then told guests that this reservation appears not to be legitimate. This person. I forget the exact word. One of the guests send it to me. This guy is whatever, Whatever, Whatever.

What was your first. I mean, I know what my reaction would be, but what was your kind of first emotional reaction? And, and, and how did you feel when you first saw that? Like, what was the reaction?

Well, what. Why. Why? That was a big why. I mean, sure, I was upset and I was scared. I mean, this is our livelihood. This is how we're making our money now. We're like out to lunch. This is crazy.

There'd be an element of disbelief for me, I'd go, no, that can't be right. This must be. This must be.

There's got to be a mistake.

Yeah.

And even the thing with there's a software glitch, I mean, well, maybe there is.

Yeah.

And she actually sent me an email. I have that email. Someone was either lying or just ultra misinformed. And there was probably a combination of both. Probably someone lied, misinformed someone, or she was just lying through her teeth. I don't remember. But. Or I don't know. But yeah, that was. That. That was the case. And then. So, yeah, when they. When they went and canceled everything, then they suspended our. Like, I'm kicked off the platform for life. Like, I can't get back on. I mean, maybe I can, but don't catch it. So. And I actually. So, okay, software glitch. It's like an Airbnb policy, says that you shouldn't set up a second account, blah, blah, blah. Except in this case, you can. I'm like, I have no idea what's going on. So I set up a second account that they caught on to that one. Then two weeks later. And insane did the same thing. Same thing with my wife's account and one of our clients accounts.

Oh, my God. So they done all. So even one of your clients accounts, which is. Which is crazy. So there's a couple of questions, which is instantly. And I know if you're listening to this, this is what I'd be asking is. Is obviously the big question is why. But if we just park that for a moment, what was the initial plan after that in terms of the. These, these people who had canceled? Like, what. What did you do in the kind of days after that? It said it's cancelled. Obviously you've tried to get them back through Airbnb. What. What was the kind of like, well, okay, if that's not a way to do it is. Were you looking at other options at the time?

So, thankfully, with a direct booking engine, and I wouldn't share this publicly if I cared about Airbnb, but I don't really care what they think about me, so I don't. So I'll share it. I just literally went and called them up, a bunch of people up, and some of them booked. Now, we still lost lots and lots of money. I mean, between everything. It was $200,000 worth of canceled bookings and we're never going to get it back.

Sorry.

This. This has been such a gunshot. We're never, we're never going to get all that money back. Like, you know, like one of our properties is, is a property that booked at its. At the most it booked for $4,000 US dollars a night. I don't know what, how that translates, translates into pounds, but. And you know, and that was the three month lead time. Well here they went and canceled next week. Well and then they send this message that this isn't legitimate and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, of course the guests are going to scatter.

Yeah, yeah, I can. I mean kudos when you've done that thing straight away where you've called up as many guests as you can to try and get those direct bookings and at the end, I mean it's still.

Only a fraction, but hey, whatever, it helped.

Hey, and I don't care, I don't.

Care if Airbnb is listing, you know, whatever.

You know, I'd do the same. I'd do the same. If they've put a stop to the, the business effectively the, the lifeblood of the business, then you've got to take matters into your own hands and not the end if you've got the contact details.

Yeah, well in my, my thought always was offside paints. I mean if that's what it is or if it's not going oh, so many stupid.

At that stage that guest has just decided to book with your company. Now the, the, the damaging part from Airbnb is the fact they've said this seems not legitimate because if they're just cancelled without sending that, at least then you'd be able to contact them and go, look, I don't know what's going on with Airbnb but if you still are interested in coming to stay, which a lot of people would, then obviously they can book and pay through your software.

Airbnb is the big brother, so it's hard to get through that barrier.

Which PMS do you use, Elam?

Hostaway.

Hostaway. So Hostaway's direct booking system. So you're able to.

Well, we were using uplisting at that time and I have a lot of respect for uplifting but I don't know what happened in the whole transition and I had made sure that, look, if we, because our old account and then we had set up a new account and say when we make the transition, is everything, all my data going to be good? And then they erase the thing.

Oh no.

This is no way. I'm against uplifting. Uplifting is great. I have a lot of respect, you know, Whatever. I would still promote them. And it's just. I'm just saying that more of a. Not. It wasn't like, uplifting for uplifting, you know, but my thing was more like that happened.

Got it.

I lost years of data.

It's frustrating. And that's. That's kind of the. The blow after the fact, isn't it? After Airbnb has done this. So let's go back to. You've. So Airbnb has suspended the account. You've reached out to some guests, you've managed to get some guests to come and book direct. But obviously that question remains, which is. Which is why. So have you since then, at any stage got a full explanation from Airbnb or any kind of. Like, what. What's happened since then?

Yeah, yeah. So. So my. I. I paid Enrico $5,000. And so. And then the way it works is, I guess Enrico knows all of the Airbnb attorneys. I mean, he probably knows Airbnb like no other attorney does, is my guess. Kudos to the guy. I mean, it cost me $5,000. And I, and I, I think I sent him a message saying, I know this cost me $5,000. This was after we kind of closed the whole deal and I'll get into some more of that. And I. But I said it was worth $5,000 to get him to know a great person.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's great if you don't have to pay that, but whatever.

Yeah.

So anyway, so then Enrico. So the two attorneys were back and forth, and Enrico was like, oh, yeah, you know, you didn't wrong this. We should be able to win this. But then their attorney got back and says, like, pretty much the message was, we're going to win this slab dunk. And here was the issue. So, you know, we're collecting security deposits and on occasion we keep them for obvious reasons. Well, we didn't actually prove it to Airbnb. Nor did. I know you need to, nor do I think you should. It's like, airbnb, can you run your business and let me run mine? I know they're intertwined, but you're crossing the line here. Like, get out of my hair. I mean, that. That's how I felt. Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

But it was that. And then there we. Before this whole blow up, we had a guy, I don't know, insane guy. And this is on. On the property that, you know, booked for $4,000 a night sometimes. I mean, not regularly, more like 2,000. But it has already booked for 4,000.

Yeah. High end property.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he burned a hole in our countertop. He burned a hole in our table and just all kinds of crap. And so I sent these pictures to Airbnb and did a. Did a plane. Airbnb came back and questioned right and left. So, like, the countertop, for example, it was white, burnt. It wasn't a big hole. Burnt hole. And I was like, but it's a hole. And now I got to replace the whole countertop.

Yeah. I mean, it's damaged. At the end of the day, he shouldn't have done that.

So here's $1,500 to fix this countertop. Oh, no, that's just dirt. So there was. I don't know if in the whole Airbnb stratosphere, like, flags went up because it was a bigger plane. It was a couple grand, which, for that property and the type of money they're making on me is pretty insignificant, but whatever.

I mean, I know of people who have claimed, you know, significantly more for. For genuine. Genuine issues and, like, exactly the same thing where somebody's caused some damage, which is what is covered by the. The Airbnb, you know, a cover, host, cover, whatever it is. Ultimately, I know he had to jump through a few. Few hoops. You know, like, you have to. You have to prove a little bit more, of course, but ultimately, sure. That's not a reason for them to. To. No, Is it?

No. And, you know, my understanding was with Airbnb, if they don't agree with the claim, they just don't pay you out. I mean, really kick me off the platform. And actually, what made it more messy is I had also taken the guy's security deposit.

Right.

In our house rules, it says if you smoke in the building, and he obviously did. It's a $500 bond, and his security deposit was $500. So I just took that and then follow the rest with Airbnb Resolution center and blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, my thing is, if they don't like it, then make it clear.

Yeah, yeah. Bear in mind that you. You're not the one that broke the rules there. It was the guy who broke the rules. And your rules are clear. You know, like, we have terms of our own business, you know, so that's.

That was their thing. I think, again, Airbnb has never been super clear, but I think I put enough things together. It was the issue with his current deposits, and they didn't agree with my damage claims. And here was. Here's what made it even more sticky, is we have a sister handyman company that we use to create these damage. But nothing wrong with that, but they just didn't like it.

I mean, and I understand.

Yeah, but that's. So. Yeah. My. My attorney, Enrico, had come back to him. So you have. I. And it's got tape 20 or $30,000, and I'm not sure they're going to win. And he told me that, you know, I would not do it. You're not going to win.

You got to follow the. The right advice. You know, the good advice from.

Yeah. And if attorney tells you. If an attorney tells you not to do it, then don't do it.

Yeah.

If attorney tells you to do it, question, they tell you to do it. Question. If they tell you not to do it.

I like that.

Listen to. So.

So that's.

That's kind of where. Where it's like, okay, I'm not gonna fight it. I mean, it's a waste of my time. It's a waste of resources. I'm not gonna win. Sure do. I have, like, as. So through this whole thing, I met a bunch of guys who have had similar issues. And one guy told me Airbnb suspended him was a shadow band. They didn't, like, kick him off the platform permanently unless they did me and my wife and one of our clients. But they suspended him for two months, and then finally he got it back and then never told him why. He has. No. He doesn't know.

Yeah.

And he said to me. Little toxic language here, but he said, I hate Airbnb passionately. I don't blame it.

Yeah.

And I have the same feelings because of what they took. With.

Through. Yeah. And so where are you now? What. What is. Where are you now with the business, with things. Obviously, that is a absolutely catastrophic event that's happened completely out of your control. And from my view as a host, you've not done anything wrong. The guest has caused an issue, certainly. Even if they was to say, hey, this was wrong, and they were to take a listing a month back. What. Whatever it is, but actually be super clear on why and how and communicate beforehand. Maybe. And I say maybe loosely because I still don't like the idea that somebody's got full control over. Over our businesses as hosts. So where are you now? What. What. What does the business look like right now? Is it still. Are you still going? What.

What.

How are you operating at the moment?

Yeah. You know, I want to add something, and I'll get right back to this question then. So Airbnb stiffed me in so many different ways. Even my, my marketing manager, she turned against me. She pretty much called me a thief and a thief. And she didn't use those words, but that was her message. A thief and a fraudster. Like, she is like, oh, yeah, you know, you're, you. Like, this is very dishonest. It's just like, you know, they punched me here and then they punched me there. Another thing was, is I ask for, with customer service, ask for a supervisor, all right, Someone will be in touch with you in 24, 48 hours. Week later, someone calls me and then they act like they can't hear me, like, hello, hello? And they hang up. It's super frustrating. I mean, just the level of cricket in Airbnb.

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Yeah, and that's, that's the frustrating thing is the fact that they can and you know, the reason they'd have called you and then, then hung up is. So it's on their log that they called you. Do you know, I mean like as it is, it's just on their log that you called you. There's times and there's times where nowhere near as, as bad as this, but where I've had things, cases and claims and things like that and where you just want to speak to somebody sensible but you just go round and round the system for 24 hours where you get the message saying this person is into their shift but your issue is important to it. And I'm like, I've got gang of criminals in one of my properties and it's obviously not important, you know, I mean like, or whatever it is to them, you know, like it's, it's frustrating.

Because they're saying all the right things and it means nothing. Sorry. But anyway, where's the business at right now? So, and this wasn't the only thing that happened. It was just a series of unfortunate events. The other one is I'm having an issue with a township where they took her license and I frankly made a mistake. But it was, it didn't justify near what they did. And this was on a biggest property, so they took her license. Now I got attorney involved. I have never been involved in any kind of litigations and this year is like, good grief, what in the world. So I got an attorney involved and he's like, you know, they, they're not allowed to do that. Just keep on operating, we'll get this straightened out, we'll appeal it and we're taking the court, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, and the thing that happened with uplifting and this and that and the other thing, just so many different things. So probably about a month ago, maybe not quite, I finally came to the point, I was like, okay, what in the world am I doing? I mean, I'm fighting tooth and nail to try to save this company and it's not getting any better. Then I'm like, okay. And it's not like I'm, it wasn't like I'm giving up. It's more like, okay, this was a wonderful chapter. It was six plus years wonderful chapter in my, you know, biography, whatever I call it chapter of my life. It's coming to a close and if I fight it, it's certainly going to and tell me to bite me. And that's kind of back to this thing of there's macro things or meta narratives going on for me. So, so just, just being real candid and allowing. So I, I, I, I'm A Christian God is very important to me. Again, this is my story. I'm not trying to project this on anyone else. It's my story. God is a very important part of my life, and I follow his guidance. And it felt like it was coming to a point where I'm trying to redirect you. Are you listening now? I don't regret fighting tooth and nail trying to save the company. That was the right thing to do. But it came to a point where, like, I am utterly exhausted and we're hemorrhaging money and, like, what am I doing? And, you know, actually a year from now, but I'm going to guess that this is going to turn into a very pivotal moment in my life, in my family's life, that in a year from now, we'll be in a much, much better place than we would have been otherwise.

I've got no doubt at all. And this is where things sometimes aren't worth affecting health. You know, like, at the end of the day, there's, there's, you know, there's. You've got a chance to. Now go. Do you know what? Let's put that chapter behind this. And one of my mentors once said, sometimes you build a business, but it's not the business. And you create the business off the lessons that you've learned from business. And this could be, could be one of them instances, which is cool. I mean, it's with. And I know others listening to this because we always want the best. We want, you know, we want, and forgive me for saying this, but we're the underdogs, right? You know, like we are. We are the underdogs against the Goliath. That is, you know, these big corporate companies, Airbnb in this instance, who have got control over, effectively, they're actually not near.

They're not near as powerful as they think. They think they are powerful and they think that we are the underdogs. And there's an element to it. But I've been doing a lot of thinking. I'm even reading there's a book called Damon and Goliath. And there's actually some naughty thoughts that I'm actually not going to follow because that wouldn't be ethical. But I could create so much havoc for Airbnb. So much. And I know exactly what I do now. I'm not going to do it because it's not ethical and it's not right and it's not going to help me. It would hurt them, but not help me. But there's also some Right. Things we can do that. I think that could not necessarily take away the power from Airbnb, but just like, look. And frankly, I would love to walk up to Brent Jessica and shake his hand saying, dude, there's a level of where I am struggling with bitterness against her company, and I'm trying to lay it down and just let go of it. There's also another side of me to where you're a human being. I would love to get out for a tea with you. Would you do that? I would literally want to do that. I wish I could get the chance. I didn't. Where do you get old? Die. But. So there's a side of me that would love to get even because I'm a human, Right?

Naturally.

Yeah, naturally. But there's ethical issues with that. But I think there's a. There's a. A deeper way. And Airbnb thinks they have a tight ship. And I'm not going to talk about all the exposing all those things, but they have some. They have some things that. Where they're pretty exposed.

Yeah.

And they're not aware of it.

One thing that, that I love what you said there is that ultimately they're not as powerful as they think they are. And if you. If you're listening to this thinking, you know, how would I deal with this if this was me? You know, if. If tomorrow Airbnb suddenly puts that shadow ban on the account, what does that mean for. For your business? So, yeah, what. What advice would you have to those people who are. They're going along right now, They've got similar number of properties or maybe less, maybe more. Who to say? But what advice would you give them to avoid. To avoid some of the. The pain that unfortunately, that you've. You've gone through? What. What lessons can you spread or those for those people to save this happening again for. For others?

Well, there's two questions there. What. What. What would I advise to prevent what happened to me? The other question is, what. Okay, so the first question is, what would I do to prevent Airbnb from doing that to me? You know, name the person to you. The other part of the question is what would I do in the business to do the business differently to prevent something like this? Back to the first question. So I've learned a lot about the dark side of Airbnb through this, and some of it makes me sick to the stomach. And here is again, I'm not sure on this, but this is how it appears to me is airbnb wants to have a reason to kick anyone off the platform at any given time if they want to, for whatever reason, they decide they don't like you anymore. Right. But they can't because it might turn into a legal issue. That's the one thing, you know, for whatever reason, they decided to gang up on me. You know, what was the reason? I don't know. They say they have their reasons, but that's the facade. You know, maybe they felt like I wasn't profitable enough. I do not know. But it appears to me like Airbnb isn't following the logic on this. It's more like as the system dictates or as they decide, or for whatever reason, they can kick you off the platform. They would want to be able to kick you off the platform arbitrarily if they want to. So I don't know what you can do to prevent it. You know, people are like, well, maybe I need to be more careful. My damage, I didn't do anything wrong. And I talked to a guy and I said, what's your biggest damage fund? He's like $12,000. I never had one close to that big. So then there's the other part of the business. I mean, you know, direct bookings on the. Hey, I'll be boosting's advocate here for a little bit. Or diversify into vrbo and booking.com, different things like that don't just sit with Airbnb. And we weren't, which actually helped us, thankfully. We actually got quite a bit of verbo bookings then, which helped. Now the company never. March 19th was the beginning of the end of the company, and we never recovered. We never got back to where we were before, and we never will. I mean, I'm okay with that. It sounds dark, but it's not. But, yeah, just have a diversified strategy. I mean, Airbnb isn't the only jerk on the block, but just diversify. Most of the different jerks in the.

Year I'm going to take.

We had trouble with verbo, too.

I mean, I've had trouble with booking.com, you know, like, as hosts, we've all got issues. But. But I think you're absolutely right there, SP spreading the diversification amongst these different OTAs and at the same time building your own kind of. Your own kind of place where people can come and book. And I mean, the. The one thing I think from this story, which I'm so glad that you already had in place, is can you imagine if you didn't have a PMS and you didn't have a way of taking those direct bookings? No, no, there would have been no way to even acre some of those. So if you're listening to this and you haven't got a PMS or a way of at least taking direct bookings, then you know that that needs to be the very first thing is, is there a physical way that you can take a direct book and.

Which is a lot of these PMSs now have. Have very simple, affordable solutions to build your own direct site, so.

Oh, definitely, definitely 100%. And I think everybody listening to this should at least have one of those. One of those kind of sites, because it's just a method to be able to take a booking, isn't it? You know, like, without having to take a check or, you know, send us a, you know, sort of whatever it is through, you know, PayPal or whatever it is. It is a way that they can go on there. They can pay for it, and it's a legitimate website that they can go on to. So, I mean, listen to this story. It fills me with. First of all, it makes me double check, you know, tomorrow I'm going to go out and just double check. You know, what, what proportion is Airbnb? What proportion is this? You know, what. What listings would it affect most? Because certain listings are more reliant on certain channels than other channels. Just. Just naturally.

But also, I do envy you guys. In Europe, you're not. Booking.com is a little stronger there.

Yeah, yeah.

And in some ways, booking.com I think has. Has some edge over the future over Airbnb. But anyway, so.

So the, the only good thing about booking.com I say the only good thing is Airbnb gives you your rating across all your portfolios. If you take on somebody's property, and they are, it's not a good property, you're getting rated on their poor property. Whereas on booking.com you take on a bad property, that property is rated. You're not. You're not rated as, as a host. You know, you can still be a good host. And that's it. I think they've got that right there. And the only thing I would say is that most of the time, booking.com, by the way, don't have any kind of, say, any kind of customer service. They're. They're much. They're very much the middleman. They're like, hey, that's between you and the guests. They stay out of almost everything, you know, like, which is good in some ways, but obviously it can be bad if you've got a troublesome guest and things like that. But ultimately the real story here is that you know, against adversity that you've, you know, that you've gone through that. I think you're going to come out of this. I actually have no doubt that from these lessons that whatever you go on to do is going to be amazing. And is there a plan in place at the moment? I know things are still up in the air, but is there a plan?

Yeah, yeah, that was a great question. Well, let me go back a little bit now and I'll answer this question. So back to what I said earlier. What would I like people to take away from this? Is this thing of a meta narrative world macro, things going on. Again, I brought my belief in God into the picture and I don't believe that God makes bad stuff happen. He allows it at times and he in this situation, I strongly believe that God is using this. I didn't say create, but using it to redirect. That was a chapter and I'm actually pretty excited. Like you would think I would be depressed and angry and, and this and that and other. I'm actually excited.

That's good.

I'm will, I'm really enjoying life right now. For whatever reason. I sure I have a mess to clean up and some financial problems and this and that and the other thing. But now what's the next step? So I was really getting passionate about the vision that of the company, right. And it wasn't like, hey guys, look at my vision for the company. It was more like here's the vision. I'm looking at the vision like this is humbling. So I was really getting excited about that but obviously that all got buried. I laid that thing to rest. I have a Facebook post about it. So obviously I'm not building a short term rental company around that vision. But now I'm starting to get really excited about other people's visions and helping them fulfill it. So I might step into the role of coach. Strongly considering doing short term rental bookkeeping. Starting a firm for that. Yeah, I know there's a lot of need out there. Maybe I come back to you guys like, hey, you know, can you get.

Me out to your oh, 100? Yeah, anything that we can do to help. I mean ultimately there's so many hosts out there who need supporting businesses coaching and that side of things that there's a huge industry out there. And I also think you need to give. I'm going to give a shout out to Jody from Hospitable Hosts and she has got a book publication service. If you ever turn pen to paper to write your story, she'd be a great.

I, I, I know I need to, I, it's, and it's so I have, I have a book title From Amish to 100x now, now we hear the thing of 10x and Grant Cardon. And Grant Cardon is on to something 10x and I think it's amazing. Now when I talk about 100x, I'm not just talking about 10 times 10x, I'm talking about something completely different. And in 100x there is a death process. So Grant Cardone's 10x is improve yourself, get better, be smarter, scraped right. And it's not even a play on grand cartoons. Even though it's 10x100x and Salva cent bit, it's not even really related. But it's, it's this thing. When you give up one thing, sometimes you get it back a hundred times. But to get to 100x, there's a death process. So I have a, I have a book from Amish100x. I grew up Amish and then I left my family. That turned into a major fiesta. I lost all my friends, got cut off with my family and now I have a much bigger network. Many, many times fewer than what I had before. Much better network, if you would. So you get the picture. This, what's happening, what has happened in the company is probably going to end up being the catalyst in some ways the death and then the resurrection to something much, much better.

Yeah.

You know, again, it was a great chapter and the reason I'm going here is because I know I need to relate. Yeah, great chapter. I, I don't want to go back to the stress. That short term rental operator is stressful.

Yeah, I, I can imagine those, that moment where all of a sudden the phone's not going to be ringing overnight and things like that, you know what I mean? Like as in that there, there is a sense of won't miss it for a minute. Yeah, yeah, no, I can imagine, I can imagine. But do you know, big kudos to you, Elam, that he's just, you know, for, for sharing the story and for, for coming on here and for being inspirational, you know, like you say, so many people would be in a very, very dark place. But I can absolutely see 100 that this is gonna shoot you towards the next goal, towards the next big chapter and to the next story. And I look forward and definitely do keep in touch. Come on and, and tell Us. You know what, what that is in the future. You've reminded me of a quote that one of my mentors says, which is things happen for us and not to us. And he said it's a slight difference. Yeah, I'm just like, that's what this, this leaves me with, is that when things happen, it's for a reason for us to go and go off and do whatever it is. It's not to us, which then you internalize and go, this, this is, you know, yet bitter about and stuff like that. So that's very cool. So, you know, how can people come and follow your journey and find out more and stay in touch with you? And I think a lot of people off the back of this have been quite a emotional roller coaster of an episode. I think people will reach out and follow your story. So what's the best place to do?

So, yeah, Facebook, Umz King, Elmz King here. I'll put it in the chat and you can put it.

We'll. We'll pop it in the. We'll pop it. Pop in the chat now and we'll pop it into the comments around the podcast. However you consume in this content in the podcast or in.

And here's the thing, I mean, so what's next? I. I mean, I'm like, look, if I could talk to whatever, a hundred hosts or you name it, and just say, hey, guys, from an experienced operator like myself, knowing what I did and knowing what I'm discontinuing now, how could I, like what, how could it be the best service to you guys? Because that is really what's happening inside of me. I lost passion for my own company, but then now starting to develop a passion for other people's companies and I'm like, you know, maybe I should get into. I love bookkeeping, ironically, maybe I should get into a bookkeeping phone. Maybe I should do coaching, consulting. But I'd like to get into it to where I'm really in people's business and really help them grow.

I can see you doing it. And this is one of the ones which is kind of, watch this space. It's going to be, going to be exciting. So to finish off, Elam, what we always like to do this and I think this is an important question for, for this one is is there a saying or a motto which resonates with you that has either is either helping you on your journey now or has helped you at some stage on your journey?

Yep. Yep. One of the, one of the things I've said a lot to people is. So there's a lot of things that can separate successful people from unsuccessful people. But the biggest thing that separates successful people from non successful, the number one factor is people are taking action and people are not. That's it. There's a bunch of other things. The biggest thing is action. And even in this situation where I find myself now, it's a mess. But if I would sit back and just cry and trust me, I did cry, I mean, I buried my baby, I really did, and it was painful. You know, it's going to be another month or two and we're going to be complete, pretty much out of business just because we're liquidating, selling properties and doing different things. But the next step and what's going to make me successful, and I'm talking to myself here, it's like, oh, what's going to make me successful in the next step, whatever that is, is whether I take action or don't take action.

Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, ultimately it's what brings the metaphysical into the physical. Whatever we imagine, whatever we can project onto the world, this action joins that, doesn't it? So yeah, yeah, it's a great, a great sentiment to, to end on and Elam, listen, it is, your story is emotional. I definitely this is going to be a very memorable episode for me. What I'm taking away from it is, as I say, what, what happens for us, not to us. And ultimately I wish you all the very best on the exciting chapter which come along and I know it's going to be amazing. So thank you.

And I, I'd like to share just one little nugget or a couple of nuggets maybe. It's been a phenomenal journey and again, there's a lot more to life than just business. Right. I had been telling people my story and some of my close friends and actually one of my mentors said, you know, this is just bizarre. I said, yeah, it's not even normal. So yeah, but I also told him, I said I had never been so awakened to joy as painful. I mean, I literally cried. It's that painful. But it just, I, I, it just woke up in me, like it sensitizes you and just woke me up to joy. And then there was another thing going on. This is from the very beginning. I got this pit in my stomach in the same time, in the same spot. Call it Superman or call it what you want. It's the experience I had in the same spot, like a brewing excitement. It's the weirdest, weirdest feeling I don't wish anybody to go through the pain I did, but I wish everyone could experience the joy I've experienced. So now that I'm on the other side of this and decided to give up on the business, I'm not giving up. I'm just giving up on that business and making the best out of it, getting out of it, blah, blah, blah. Now the pit is leaving and now the excitement just keeps growing. I'm really excited about the next chapter.

I'm excited for you and that fire which is burning in the belly to create that is going to be amazing. So go out and give it what for. So, Elon, this has been great fun and thank you so much for sharing your story on the Boostly podcast. Thank you too for listening to this episode. As I say, if you do want to reach out to Elam, if you want to add to his network there, then you can do with the notes around in the show, make sure that you're building your business on your land. Make sure you're diversifying amongst the jerks, amongst the OTAs that we said about. So that's definitely memorable and yeah, really take action on this. So thank you so much. That's goodbye from me on this podcast. Yep. We'll see you on the next one. Feel free to say bye to the listeners. Elam.

Yep. Hey, and hit me up, guys. I really want to hear from people on what I should do next. See ya.