Launch Marketing For Glamping Resorts - Nick Purslow is Back on the Pod!

Welcome And What’s Changing

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Welcome back to the Outdoor Hospitality Podcast. I'm your host, Connor Schwab, joined by the OG hosts and my good friend, Nick Burslow. Did I say it right?

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Yeah, you actually did for once. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

It only took three years. Well, we're really excited to have Nick back on the show. He has been running and gunning, working like a madman on all things Posh, Skyridge, and their latest property logum retreat. So we're really excited to dive into what he's been working on and get kind of the updates on the entrepreneurial journey he's been, you know, slogging through the trenches in. And then also at the same time, I also have a you know career update that's probably long overdue. I haven't really talked about it on the podcast yet, but I ended up taking a new position as head of asset management at a company called Clear Summit Investment. So we could give a I could give a little update on that as well. Both Nick and I are kind of in launch and heavily in marketing and advertising right now. So that might be kind of the focal point of this episode is to have both of us kind of, you know, argue with each other or share tips and strategies on what might be working for us or pain points or maybe have some differing opinions on what the best solution is. So that'll be kind of the bulk of the content. But maybe I could start and turn it over to you, Nick.

Posh Outdoors Update And Model

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Yeah, give us. I think you the last time you were on was probably nine months ago, but give us the update. How are you? What you've been working on?

SPEAKER_03 1:30

I'm good, I'm good. Always, always, always busy. I think I think last time I was on here was my last episode, just after we'd announced that Sage was acquiring, acquiring the podcast. Wasn't huge billion-dollar deal, but it did fund some concert tickets that summer to go and see Oasis. Huge deal in the UK. I think less of a big deal in in the US. But thank you, Sherry. Um and I think at the time we had just launched Units at Skyridge. So just as a reminder, if you if you weren't listening at the time, I'm a co-founder at Posh Outdoors. We build and expand boutique outdoor resorts through revenue share partnerships with landowners. So if a landowner wants to add unique accommodation, if it makes sense for us, we will deploy these high-end modular lodging units, uh, help with the marketing as well, and have some kind of split of the revenue on those lodging units. So we just launched at Skyridge, and people who have been listening probably heard the story from start to finish, really. And yeah, we just launched five units at Skyridge. That went really well, and I think that was the last we heard. So since then, they've continued to perform really well. Uh, we added another four units in March of this year. They're doing great as well. We did add a spa to to Skyridge. It wasn't a posh deployment, it was just landowner funded, but that's cool too. And then yeah, we have a we have a second partnership in in just outside Hill Country in sorry, just outside Austin, Texas, in Hill Country, a Lagone Retreat with a great landowner there in Leslie Martin. So we're we're actually full on taking on the marketing services for her existing 10 units, and we are deploying nine posh units later this year, and then we've got plenty of other partnerships in the pipeline about to go on a like serious capital raise, you know, potentially kind of series A style raise. So lots going on, it's basically going exactly as we'd hoped, which is which is great. Obviously, lots of lessons along the way, not everything's gone smoothly, but we're here and it's going well and we keep on moving.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

I love it. The I guess I probably should have said this. I figured most listeners know this, but this podcast was actually created by Nick. He's the the father, the founder, started it around five years ago. And is that right? Five?

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Five in a bit, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was probably January 2021.

unknown 3:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:43

Wow. And you'd think I'd have a better setup behind me here. Like you've just got an empty wall, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Yeah. So Nick, Nick is the father, and then I started co-hosting with them, and then Sherry, and then Nick got super busy with Posh, and then Sherry and Sage bought the podcast from him, and then I stayed on as the co-host. So, and then yeah, like Nick was saying, Posh, uh awesome company. I vetted the opportunity pretty significantly and ultimately decided to invest a decent sized chunk of change in with Nick. Really happy that I did. It's been awesome to follow and see all the

Raising Capital Without Buying Land

SPEAKER_02 4:15

progress. I imagine you guys are like just starting the capital race for the the Series A. Is that what you're calling it?

SPEAKER_03 4:22

Kind of, yeah. So I mean, uh, that's the other thing. People who listened at the time will remember is we were we we went on a year-long community crowdfunding round to get to get into business. So people would have been sick of the ad reads I was doing on the podcast at the time. But thanks to people like Connor and Sherry and and others, we we we got we we got into business. And so yeah, I think we we originally raised three-quarters of a million US dollars, and then we did another $500,000 straight after Skyward launched. I think we've done another $400,000 since then, mostly friends, family, network, and they're all convertible notes. So essentially a loan that becomes shares in Posh outdoors once certain requirements are triggered. So we still have that ongoing, probably looking to close out a few more of those kind of just just you know, call it $50,000 checks. So that's going on all the time to fund you know more units. We're also looking at maybe refinancing our units at Skyridge with the Canadian bank. We may do some site level stuff as well, but yeah, we're we're we're we're starting to gear up to do a much more ambitious, hopefully institutional, maybe family office raise that would allow us to really start scaling. Because the whole point of Posh is that it's it's a scalable model. The RevShare model means we don't have to go out and buy land and set up operations each time we partner with people who can do that. And so, you know, conceivably we could roll out several projects at once. And so that is what that's what we're working towards. It's gonna take a lot of work, obviously. It's easier said than done, but we're the wheels are starting to turn on that.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Is the WeFunder still open? Can people still invest in that?

SPEAKER_03 5:52

No, it's not. That was the that was the community round we started with. That's closed. But again, if if there's anyone fifty thousand dollars of upward upwards that's interested in in getting involved, then we can we can absolutely have a chat.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

How should they get in touch with you if they are interested in that?

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Emails fine, so nick at posh-outdoors.com. You can also head to our website as well. We've got some contact info there too.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

And you know, I was always a big believer in posh because it solves a really important problem, and that is you know, entrepreneurs who are trying to launch glamping business, one of the most expensive pieces of their development is going to be their units. Posh helps solve that problem by financing the units up front, so they're not paying an upfront cost, and then they just pay a split of the revenue. And then it's good for Posh because Posh doesn't have to worry about going through the permitting entitlements process, and that's on the entrepreneur. So it kind of divide and conquers those two biggest hurdles to getting open.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Yeah, the the entitlement one is huge as well, particularly when we're going into this bigger like Series A raise, is you know, you see autocamp under canvas, postcard cabins, etc. They they have to, you know, start permitting processes for three projects, knowing that only one might might get approved, right? And that's expensive, time consuming, you know, bandwidth heavy. Whereas we we only partner really with with shrivel ready projects. Like we don't invest any any resources until we know that the landowner's acquired the permits. That means we can sit around and wait until something's ready and explore other opportunities ahead of that. So that's that's a huge one for us. And and then, yeah, the the capital raising element, sorry, the capital saving element, the capex saving element for the landowner is is huge. We bring in these call it $200,000 units with decks of furniture. But in some cases, you know, the the landowner is well capitalized and sometimes they just really benefit from marketing services, for example. So there are lots of different ways that that we can that we can help, and it it it does, it is working well so far. We've got a lot of interest, and so we are hopeful that that it will really start to scale once that once we have the capital to deploy.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Heck yeah. And maybe

Skyridge Results And Proof Of Concept

SPEAKER_02 7:53

you could give us a little bit more originally, maybe about a year ago, the the kickoff project for Posh was Sky Ridge, which is this epic, epic property in the Canadian Rockies and Canonicus with these unreal views of the Rocky Mountains. Maybe you could give us a little update on that project, how it's going. I did just peek at the Google reviews for Skyridge, and you guys are at 4.9 stars of 260, which is insanely good. So big ups there. And then on Instagram, I was just pointing up the followers, but maybe you could give a little update there.

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Yeah, so we uh the Skyridge deal, we don't we don't supply marketing services to Skyridge. We ran the pre-opening launch campaign, but beyond that, it's it's good for us really because it's a proof of concept and we don't have to m mess with it too much. Like we've got a great team on the ground at Skyridge. So you mentioned a foot 4.9 out of five average Google review score for a for a site that charges you know over a thousand US dollars per night in in peak rates, like that's that's crazy good. And that's all down to Christelle, the the operator on the ground. That's a big part of Posh's thesis, is is picking the operators who we can trust to deliver that that that world class experience. So that's nothing to do with us, really. Obviously, the units are part of the experience, but really it's it's her expertise on the ground. And then yeah, the team have been doing a good job on marketing. A couple of things I would do slightly differently, but the uh the the the numbers speak for themselves, so we're we're very, very happy with that project. And yeah, yeah, I think with I think you know, in the first so we opened those first five cabins in June to accompany the 10 resort owned cabins, and our occupancy from June to the end of the year was 87%, I think. AD ADRs, just a touch under 500 US dollars. And the the ADRs are going upwards because we we underpriced to begin with, although it was you know fine because it filled the rooms. Um so yeah, going really, really well. Couldn't be couldn't ask for a better proof of concept. It's a great market, like fantastic property. We're you know, very lucky with that one. So it had to go right, but thankfully it had a lot of a lot of things going for it. And so yeah, that that that resort is full, fully, fully built out. We did have a a chat yesterday with with some of the team involved in that about maybe expanding that partnership to to other locations. So we'll see where that goes. But yeah, super, super happy with that.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Hell yeah. That helps a lot to hit the first one out of the park. It looks like they're up to 75,000 followers on Instagram as well, which is obviously a nice sign of some good momentum. What so tell us more about what you know what's next with other properties, or you can just dive into LaGombe.

LaGombe Retreat Brand And Momentum

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Yeah, so we signed a partnership agreement with LaGombe Retreat just before Christmas. They have they're just about an hour outside of Austin, Texas, in in Hill Country, which, if if you're not aware of the Texas Hill Country, it's a great spot, very different, obviously, to the huge mountains in the Canadian Rockies, but it's got its own kind of beauty. Leslie, Leslie Martin, the the landowner in that case, is the the true example of like the passionate landowner partners that we're looking for. She put up so much into that project financially, physically, just took a lot of risks to get that project off the ground. And they opened in November with 10 cabins, six of which are kind of unique. And so, you know, there's a flagship cabin and a unit, which is like a basically an architectural masterpiece, it's crazy. Uh, and then a few tubo structures, which they call Stargazers, which people might recognise, they're the tube-shaped, transparent structures that um Posh can deploy, and a few other cabins, and so they they they opened in November, doing doing doing fine, but you know, the they just didn't have the bandwidth as a team to execute the marketing, social media marketing properly. And so I'd known Leslie for a long time. I'd actually consulted for a few years ago. Ed, my business partner at Posh, had supplied some of the units, and so she needed she wants more units, she needed help with the marketing. So Posh came in, and it's a great kind of due diligence tool for us is to do the marketing services for a period of time to see if it's a fit before deploying our units. And so we've been doing that since January, taking on you know full control of the social media, running the paid ad campaign, setting up the email automations, and that's been like so much work, obviously. But it's been first of all, we've driven some some good results, like really impressive results compared to where they were, and it's just been huge, huge source of learnings that we will apply to other locations because we want to make sure that people, you know, that the units that we deploy are being filled, and so we think we we can market these these these places, and so it's been a great kind of crash course in in fine-tuning our marketing strategy.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

I love it, and I could comment on it. So I actually Sage and myself, we did the feasibility study for Leslie on this project like over three years ago, maybe when she was starting, and then went through two or three rounds of revisions to get the project approved. And yeah, just huge props to her. She just like ran into so many hurdles, would not take, you know, she would just refuse to lose, just kept pushing through, finding solutions, getting more people involved, and sunk, you know, everything into this. And I was listening, I've been like holding my breath, like, please, God, I hope this gets open and is a success. So I was unbelievably happy to see, you know, their website pop up and all the units were there and you know, got the permitting. And then you know, one of the things that Logum did very well is they're in Austin, which is one of the more maybe saturated markets as far as unique stays in clamping goes. You know, they've got to compete with the likes of two O'Neill properties, Walden Retreats, Hurt Topia, I think Collective Retreats is there, probably postcard cabins.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

A man of just opened, just announced a new resort as well.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Amon? Amon group. Damn. And so there's there's a lot, there's a lot of competition, but and their property is nice. It's pretty solid. It's it's like nice, it has mostly natural kind of rolling hues. It's not the sky rich glamping views, which are like 10 out of 10, but it's solid. But Leslie picked, in my opinion, some of the pretty much all the best units in the industry. I think she got kind of a lot. I think she's opening with like five different units, which is a little complicated. But six. So she has the Anna cabin, which is they only ever built 20 of them. It's like a transforming glass cabin roof. It's crazy. It's an amazing lead generator. And then the uh the wild wood, what are those called again?

SPEAKER_03 14:27

Wild Wildwoods, yes, they're supplied by the the the company. Well, EGH supplied them originally called Stroboid. Yeah. Stroboid. Like kind of woodsy, woodsy, woodsey cabin kind of hybrid cabin tent kind of structure.

Shari Heilala (Sponsor) 14:42

Hello, listeners. This is Sherry Halala, founder of Sage Outdoor Advisory. If you're launching an outdoor hospitality project like Clamping, we can help. We offer feasibility studies and appraisals. What that means is we look at your specific market and proposed business offering and complete an in-depth analysis to make sure that your planned business will be profitable. Getting a second opinion on your proposal and forecasted financials is critical to understand before you spend years of your time and hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is particularly important if you are looking to raise money for your project from a bank or private investors. They are going to want to see this type of deep dive analysis from an independent third-party specialist in the industry. We at Sage have completed well over 250 feasibility studies and appraisals in outdoor hospitality in North America in the last four years. So we understand what it takes to bring a project from concept to reality. If this sounds like it could be helpful to you, you can go to our website, SageOutdoorAdvisory.com, and schedule a call with our team. While you're there, check out our proprietary glamping database map too. Thanks. Now back to the show.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Yeah, in my opinion, they're the best canvas-based unit out on the market right now for uniqueness and just looking cool, those those stroboids. And then the tubos, which I also think are epic and very, very unique with you know the ability to have the transparent roof, the mirror cabins, and then they have these the nomad, the nomad things, which I don't know, I don't have much of an opinion on those, but really some really some epic I will not saying anything. But some awesome units that I don't think any of those units are in that area currently, as far as I know, except for maybe a couple mirror cabins, not a ton of them, but so it's a really cool property.

SPEAKER_03 16:24

Yeah, and if if I can add on on Logome, yeah, the units are cool. You know, we're doing all the right things on the marketing front, but I think what the real strength of logom is is is the the brand that they've built and how that you know how that's done in the guest experience. So before long before we came along, long before the you know stakes are in the ground, Leslie and you know a couple of people on her team developed this this brand. And logome is a Swedish word meaning kind of not too much, not too little. You're just right. And that's whole philosophy around the site and kind of the experience that she creates. And she you can just tell how much she cares and how how welcoming she is. And it's you know, it's the the Swedish kind of principles of being at one with nature whilst also having that kind of Texan hospitality. She's you know, Texan born and bred with with Swedish heritage. So it's uh she's got it, she's got a great thing going there. There's still a lot of work to do, like not everything about the site is perfect, which which you know we all we all know, but like day by day it it gets better. And the review the reviews are are just you know fewer fewer reviews than Skyridge, obviously, because it's a younger resort, but it was literally all five stars until I think last week we had our first four-star. So bastards, yeah. I know, I know. But like, you know, a few dozen reviews and and and all but one five-star. And that that is one thing that's kind of opened my eyes to I've worked a lot kind of closer at the coal face with Leslie than than I did at Skyridge. And you do have to make compromises when you're building these things, you do have to make choices day to day in in the operations, but as long as you're kind of getting a little bit better each day and you've got that long-term vision, like it it does work out.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Very cool, very cool. All right, well,

Connor’s Asset Management Role

SPEAKER_02 18:02

maybe I could give a little bit of update. We could pause there before we get into the nitty-gritty on all that stuff, and I could give a little bit of update of what I've been working on. I think I filled you in on most of this, Nick, but maybe for the audience. In October, I took accepted a role with Clear Summit Investments as the head of asset management, which basically means I'm in in charge of making sure our properties are profitable. I hire, oversee, and manage the GMs basically.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

And LV properties, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:29

Of so Clear Summit's been around about two and a half years now. I met them because I did the feasibility study on two of their projects, which is how I met them. And then when I step back to take a break from Sage, they reached out to me about coming on board. The Clear Summit, it's outdoor hospitality real estate fund. So they raise money from accredited investors with promises of returns. So if you invest a million dollars, you know, you get a hundred thousand in returns and then you 10% returns basically is the structure. And then and you have ownership in that in perpetuity. So they raised 20 million, I think it was 17 million in cash, three million in seller contribution for fund one, which closed December 31st. With that, they purchased our five first resorts, and they'll probably purchase one more in the first fund. And then we're gearing up for our second raise, which will be another five, which will probably be in the next 12 months, which will probably be larger. Our first fund was Glamping RV camping. We did purchase one RV resort at Rice Ranch in Corsite, Arizona. It's very seasonal. It's an inverse market, so it's really, really popular in November to March, and then it totally shuts down in the summertime when it's like 115 degrees. So that's our only RV property. And we decided that market's honestly getting slammed right now. I think a lot of the I think RV in general is taking a little bit. I mean, everything's taken a hit. Yeah. I mean, everything's taken a hit, but I think RV's taking a little bit more of a hit than maybe unique stay. And so we're we're shifting, so we're not doing any RV or camping anymore unless it's a conversion opportunity to convert an RV or campground into like a cabin resort or something like that. So we are moving forward, we're focused on bigger deals in the like instead of three to five million, more in the five to fifteen million dollar purchase price and larger, probably like two million, three million plus in revenue potential once it's been expanded or renovated.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

I want to ask what where where'd you get your capital from?

SPEAKER_02 20:27

They cried from scratch. They did a whole paid social media funnel and they just built this whole fundraising engine from scratch. You should probably give them a call.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

Yeah, no, but we thought about it before. So obviously we, you know, we we did we did we did from scratch crowdfunding raise originally, but like there was no no like paid ads got got gone behind it. But I think that's what that's what you guys do, right? And I think I think I spoke to Xander a couple of years ago, like webinar like weekly webinars and stuff from for everyone who you know signed up and we thought about it doing it again, and it's something we might do. It's just if we can find a one and done without having to constantly be on the phone again, you know, allow us to execute, then then you know, we would rather do that. But yeah, maybe maybe we give them a call if we if we go that route.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

It's definitely preferable just to find a couple big, couple million dollar checks. Yeah. Way easier.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

So so yeah, the we have two larger or two m largest properties are hot springs resorts in Colorado's. One's eight units, the other one's 35. They're they kill it with day passes to the hot springs, and they both have a lot of expansion potential. So those will be updating. One's gonna be added probably 10 units every six months. It's entitled for 100. That's Desert Reef. And then Cottonwood Hot Springs is this like legacy project, 32 keys, and then we bought an adjacent parcel and might be able to expand there. We're gonna go through the entitlement process. Then the three that I oversee are the three in Arizona. There's one that's outpost Grand Canyon, which is uh I did the feasibility study on like three years ago. It's how I met the guys. So it's 12 airstreams, all with private hot tubs, communal sauna, cold plunge, dog park, barbecue area. It's directly en route to Grand Canyon South Rim, the main entrance. And then there's Rice Ranch at the RV park I told you about.

Ponderosa Pines Launch In Flagstaff

SPEAKER_02 22:14

And then the big one that's super exciting is we're opening Ponderosa Pines Resort, which is a it was kind of a dilapidated 65-unit RV park that we purchased and then basically got an entitlement wind to put clamping and RVIA certified cabins on it. So we designed three distinct cabin units, an A-frame, a peak roof cabin, and like a slope-proof cabin, all with like a wall of windows, all technically RVs, so we could skirt so we didn't have to go through a re-entitlement process. So we've got 25 of those, five renovated airstreams, and then 12 individual bell tents for six-month seasonal bell tents. That has been taking most of my time, certainly our biggest revenue opportunity at the moment. And we'll be opening with those 42 keys, probably like late July, maybe early August. And I'm really excited about that. It's 17 acres, 1,200 ponderos of pines. It's 15 minutes outside Flagstaff. It's uh sandwiched in between historic Route 66 and the major interstate 40. And then it's about 75 minutes from the Grand Canyon. And what's really cool is it's at 8,000 feet when it gets snow. And it's uh one of the main demand drivers in the summer is that it's like 25 degrees cooler than Phoenix. So like when Phoenix get and Tucson get to 115, you know, 110 degrees, people flock up to the mountains into this area to get some respite from like the those heat temperatures. And we're really one of the only, you know, like Arizona Alpine Forest is kind of rare, and snow and cool temperatures are kind of rare. And all of our cabin units will have private hot tubs. So I'm pretty bullish on our winter demands. One, we're 40 minutes from Snowball, the most popular ski mountain. And then we have this kind of cozy cabin in the woods with hot tubs and saunas. So I'm pretty optimistic about our winter demand. So I think we should have very low seasonality and be pretty strong year-round with like a good diversity of demand generators.

SPEAKER_03 24:20

Nice to have like with garage, scourge is year-round, thankfully obviously the shoulder seasons, but it's much easier when you've got strong summer and winter demand than just summer. Like obviously. You say one of them's near um Route 66?

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Yeah, Ponderosa is sandwiched, it's literally directly, it's got historic Route 66 on one side of the property directly, and then I-40 on the other side.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

It's the hundred-year uh centenary of Route 66 this year.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a good call. That's a good call. So, yeah, that's been the the big updates for me and working on the launch of those properties. But you know, what I guess maybe you could walk us through the launch at log. You know, lessons learned from that property and Skyridge if there's any from there, but just like lessons in launch, and then particularly we could dive into like marketing and advertising. What's worked, not work, what would you definitely not do again? What would you definitely do again?

SPEAKER_03 25:25

Yeah,

LaunchBoom VIP Deposits And Pre-Bookings

SPEAKER_03 25:26

so best place to start probably is we did a we did a launch campaign for the our units at Skyridge. People have probably heard of them by now. We we we work with a company called Launch Boom who have this strategy where you run paid ads on social media using renderings of of your units that you're gonna place. You charge a deposit fee, so $25 to $50 for people who want to become a we call it Skyridge VIP. But that basically gives if you if you pay pay the $25 or $50 deposit to become a VIP, you get first access to the booking calendar when it opens and a discount on your stay. That's that's how we did it. And so we ran we ran ads, uh, we worked with LaunchBoom, we ran ads for three months, it was. We'd like to do more next time, and built up a list of I think it was around 2,000 VIPs by the time we were ready to open the booking calendar. And we did it where we opened the booking calendar a couple of weeks before we were ready to open, and because we wanted to just we used it as a marketing strategy. Some people use it as a as a as a funding strategy, they'll they'll advertise it as like a crowdfund, and you know, guests can directly contribute to the construction of the resort, and they'll open the booking calendar you know a year before they actually open the units, so the the revenue will fund the build, but we just use it as a marketing strategy. Yeah, we built up a list of around 2,000 paying VIPs and we opened to them and we did 250,000 US dollars in the first 24 hours, so just under $50,000 per unit it was. And then by the end of the week, we gave the VIPs a week of exclusive access to the booking calendar. By the end of the week, it was just under $60,000 per unit, so it was around $300,000 US dollars. And then we opened you know the the calendar to the public. But that worked really well. We will definitely roll it out again at every parch location we can. It just makes complete sense. It's also a good demand validator. You know, if if you don't get the response that you want, then maybe it's an indicator that people don't want those units or whatever it may be. And yeah, lots lots of learnings from that. For for one, we'd we do we do it for six months rather than three months. We would definitely get the people on the ground more involved. So basically, the you've got to keep the the VIPs who maybe you know they signed up in the first week of the campaign, and you've got to keep them excited for the next three months until you open the calendar. So we'd be a bit more creative about how we do that. It was just basically just me kind of posting construction pictures in a in a Facebook group that we'd want to get the landowner a lot more involved for future things. And we'd probably go more video content on the ads. Like we go all in on video and organic social content for our resorts, and we would definitely like to do that more for any launch campaigns. But that's what we did, and it went went really well. And as I say, we'll we'll be rolling out every location to to kind of I guess you you you're cutting out a lot of like the the ramp up period that a new resort would have because you've got a paying list of people ready to go before the units even open.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

You you brought up a really good point that's interesting, or that one thing that's really good for launch boom. If you're in design phase on your property, like this is I wish I used this strategy more, but you can you can test your concept. If you're like, hey, I don't know whether to use A-frames or mirror cabins or domes. You know, like I really don't know what people are gonna be more interested in. Or I'm not sure whether people are gonna be more interested in saunas or hot tubs. You can run ads with all of those units renderings dropped into photos of your property, and you can run those ads and you can see what gets the most signups or email collections. And you can see what people are most interested in. And it's not something I've ever executed on, but it's an amazing unlock from your your design process. If you have the luxury of the time and you know, put a couple hundred or a couple, you know, like a grand into that, it would be amazing market data to validate your concept.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I I was thinking more kind of in terms of you know, you run it for a couple of weeks, and if it doesn't work, then you know, we look at other projects. But but absolutely, I mean you'd yeah, you know, the first you can test it with like you don't have to take deposits, you can test it with email signups, or you can do like a one dollar deposit and refund if if it if you know if if if needs be. So yeah, put it putting putting ads behind behind a concept to expose it to a an audience and test that. I mean it it works. I know, like you know, Stephen Bartlett, one of the biggest podcasts in the world, he does it for thumbnails. Like he'll he'll put ads behind a hundred different thumbnails for it for each podcast episode and he'll choose the one that gets the best response. Like it's it's it's a good like devalidator.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Yeah, yes, and you brought up an even better point, which is you know if you're in due diligence or you have a property under contract, but you haven't closed running ads on the concepts before you have 100% gone through with the transaction is genius. I mean, everybody should do that. We haven't because it takes it takes a little bit of effort and and knowledge, but you know, it's it would be a huge unlock. And you know, we probably will do that, honestly, with our acquisitions now. Let's see. And how about for all right, so launch boom. Did you but you didn't you didn't use launch boom at Logome, right?

SPEAKER_03 30:49

Logoam did, but before we we got involved. So they did it for their 10 units. I I had nothing to do with it, as I say. We we came in in January to apply our kind of full suite of marketing services, but they had done a launch boom campaign, I think kind of September, October time for their 10 units, and it was the the dip in between. So that went that went pretty well, and then there was a dip in between where they just couldn't keep up with the content flywheel that you need to to keep the momentum going just purely because of bandwidth, like it's you know, they're running around checking guessing, making sure the experience is right, and so that's where we came in after to to uh you know continue that momentum. But we will when we deploy our nine units to Legombe, which would be this year, we will do it for those new units like we did at Sky Ridge.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

How did how did Lagum's launch boom perform relative to Skyridge?

SPEAKER_03 31:39

It was similar kind of ballparks. I I I I was again, I wasn't involved in it. I'd had a quick look at how it did when we were assessing the game as a potential partnership, and yeah, did did well enough to validate that there was demand for for those experiences, and those have become you know early guests that have rebooked, so it you know it it it it did do well. But yeah, I I wasn't I wasn't involved in the in the in the day-to-day.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Maybe

Video-First Content That Drives Traffic

SPEAKER_02 32:04

you could walk us through your you know, you you come into log home or any property for that matter, and you take well, maybe you could tell us ex what you did, and then if there's anything you do differently, but you know, you walk into logum, you take over marketing and advertising, your overwhelming goal is to drive bookings now. And and you can maybe sort of answer this question over time, but like if you had for easy math, you know, ten thousand dollars of monthly spend, where would you be prioritizing your budget in all the different marketing and avenue streams, where would you be putting that? And also a good placeholder for folks if they're not sure what they should spend on marketing and advertising. What we usually recommend is you look at your stabilized year three revenue and do about five percent of that. Five's kind of average. You know, some groups recommend eight to ten percent, but like I I think at least five's a benchmark. But you let me know if you have a different opinion on that, Nick, or how you guys calculated it.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

Yeah, so I mean our model is is we we charge the game like a monthly fee and like a basic performance bonus as a percentage of booking receipts if we know exceeded the if if you know if we hit certain targets. We go all in on video first content. I've spoken about it before, but ever since ever since TikTok like exploded in the early 2020s, all the all the social media platforms have shifted to to video first. Like TikTok realized before anyone else that people care more about uh people stick around on the platform longer if it if they're watching videos than if they're looking at static pictures. Not only that is they they they stick around longer when they're watching videos from strangers on the internet than if they're just watching things that their friends post. So that's why you open up Instagram five, six years ago, you'd scroll down and you just see pictures posted by your friends. Now you just see real after real after real based on whatever you're interested in, not based on who you follow. So ever since the platforms have gone in that direction, video is just massively out form static. So we went all in our video, we sent in a content team to capture six months' worth of video footage of all the units. So that's the kind of content bank that can be repurposed into three posts per week across each platform. So that was the first thing we did. Well, actually, it wasn't the first thing we did, it was the first thing we booked in, but there was like a two-month wait time for the team that that we booked in to do it. So in the meantime, we had to work with like static pictures, and you know, I was doing it remotely, so I couldn't go and try and film new stuff on the site.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

So what did it cost you to go get that big bank of videos?

SPEAKER_03 34:41

Uh we use a team called the Content House, and that's it depends on the project, but it's a few thousand dollars each month. So yeah, the first thing was there were there was there weren't enough people visiting the website basically, so we wanted to get more eyes on the website, and we thought the way to do that was through video first content, mostly on Instagram but TikToks actually proved to be huge for us as well. So I kind of made a few homemade reels based on using kind of whatever footage we had, and then you know, a couple of months in we were able to get the content team in with professional videographers to to capture these shots, and it's not just about you know, don't whatever you do if you get a spend big on video for a resort, do not just find a local videographer to get you to get it to capture videos, find someone who understands that who understands what kind of video performs well on social media for a start. That's vertical rather than horizontal footage, very basic. And two, it's you know, about those there's all sorts of different ways to do it, but you know, you want to hook something that's going to attract people in to get them to stop scrolling and watch your video, and that's often you know, kind of cinematic or some drone shot of of your coolest unit, for example, or something like that. And you're creating content not for people who already follow you most of the time, you're creating it to reach new audiences, and there are other there's other content that you want to create to reach those people that are following you to kind of build that connection. But most of the content you put out will be seen by people who don't follow you, uh, and you've got to remember that. So, yeah, we brought in content team. They they they shot all the footage, vertical, made for social media, repurpose it into three three Instagram posts per week. That has had a huge effect on on kind of the number of people visiting our website, and you know, it's it's partly as a numbers game. Like, if you increase the number of people visiting your website by tenfold, like you are probably going to see a big uptick in bookings, and that's what happened. We did notice that the conversion rates were lower than we would have liked, and so we had to tweak a few things. But the the first point was we were getting more people to the website. We did repurpose that footage into paid ads as well. You want to elevate your best performing organic content into paid ads, and so we ran Facebook and Instagram paid ads, may get involved in TikTok at some point as well. So that's the core thing, really. Getting a team who could handle that took my kind of me away from the editing studio after a couple of months, which was important, so I could focus on other things like making sure that the email, the welcome emails that we send out for a new email lead are welcoming in the voice of the brand and really start to foster that connection. So I guess if we're to break it down, it's one is we put a lot of effort into getting new people into this funnel, getting them visiting the Instagram page into the website through this kind of sexy eye-catching content. And then we're putting things in place to make those people learn about the brand, feel what Le Game is about, get a sense of who Leslie is and what experience they might get if they book. And we do that through follow-up content, on-the-ground content, well, friendly, welcoming emails and and you know, Instagram stories and things like that. That's the that's the bulk of it, really. The other one

Influencers, Admin Pain, Real Upside

SPEAKER_03 37:48

is influencers, but again, that's kind of an extension of the video first social media strategy. Find influencers who know how to produce high-performing, high-engaging reels that the algorithm will like, and you'll get more more eyeballs on your brand. And you know, ideally ones that can tell your story and are aligned with with the experience that you're creating too.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

Lots of good actionable gold in there. Thank you. I learned a lot, actually. So thanks. Who's actually running your paid ads?

SPEAKER_03 38:15

Me, me at the minute.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

How's your paid ad skills? Have you done that before?

SPEAKER_03 38:19

And and outside of launch boom, no, which is is great because it's it's I'm working in the weeds and learning stuff that will be applicable or other locations. And it's going well so far. Yeah, we're we're it's it's going it's going pretty well. We are looking at Posh is looking at bringing in some kind of paid ad specialist, whether it's you know, it probably won't be a full-time member of staff, but someone just to guide that strategy at a partner locations. That that will probably be our first kind of hire or consultancy hire just because it's a real value ad, because it's something that you know I can do, but someone can definitely do it better than me. So we're building up the team.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

Have you utilized or leaned into videos with Leslie in it? You know, casual videos of her talking or selfies and like leaning into her personality, or are you being focused on the property itself and the amenities, or are you using models? What's the content strategy there?

SPEAKER_03 39:11

Yeah, Leslie will tell you we are starting to focus more on that because I keep telling her, please get your phone out more and film and film stuff. Again, it's going back to that kind of two-pronged strategy is one is hooking new people in with this, you know, algorithm-friendly eye-catching content that you know show off the cool units, whatever. And then it's you know, the the one-two combo by pairing that with the authentic founder first content of you know, Leslie whipping a phone out and saying, Hey, look at this beautiful sunset. That's the kind of stuff that turns that initial interest into the booking, and that's what we're really focusing on now. As I say, the first few months I was the one making or trying to make the the kind of sexy content. And then once we had a team able to take that off my plate, I was able to kind of direct focus on other areas. And one of those those areas that we are working on, starting to work on a lot more is that on the ground content that that kind of as I say takes people from interested to to paying guests. And I think I think it's so important because it that's that's you know, Leslie is the brand, she's the owner, she's the one that's put so much into this property, it's her vision, and it's important that the guests or potential guests will you know know who she is and knows what she's created and might start to feel connected to her and her and the brand. And you know, it's it's a hard job to convince people to pay, you know, call it 600 bucks a night for a stay. So, you know, you need to you need to hit those touch points.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

Yeah, yeah, that I mean from conversations with people on the podcast and otherwise, it it seems like that's a big, you know, people buy from people they know, like, and trust. And so having a face and a personality and a why, a why behind the person, the entrepreneur, a why behind the stay and the guest experience is important.

SPEAKER_03 40:59

And it's also just, you know, there's there's that old old principle in in marketing of you need to hit someone, I don't know, eight times, twenty times, however many times it is before they're before they're ready to buy. And just sometimes it is a numbers game, and getting more content out there and reminding people that you exist is is also part of it too.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

So it sounds like your big emphasis, number one strategy, we need to get a bank of good, high-quality video content, vertical, that's got a hook that's meant to perform in regels on on social media. That that's the number one focus. Then it's doing paid ads for those. Is that right?

SPEAKER_03 41:36

Yeah, yeah. The organic content would follow naturally, you know, so non-paid content, three, three organic posts a week, you know, in that style is is what we do. And and I it it's not easy to do. Like I would recommend, probably recommend we use the content house who who do that all they'll capture it, repurpose it into three reels, and they know what they're doing, they know what the algorithm likes. Ben Wolf's OASI is another one, similar, similar kind of service. They're more leading into kind of bigger hotels, they're they're absolutely killing it. And there's there's a couple of others as well. But yeah, just just people who understand the importance of understand how a a high-performing Instagram video is put together and what the algorithm looks for is such a such a value add that it's it's something I I would recommend hiring out if you can.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

What what's the next priority?

SPEAKER_03 42:25

Yeah, turn that into paid ads and collaborate with with influencers on on more organic social content. So we generally offer a complimentary two-night stay. Would definitely like to start building out a budget for you know the real high-impact influencers as well. Because again, they know they know what what what kind of videos perform well on Instagram, like that's their job, and they'll probably do a better job than you or I in putting putting one together.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

What is your thoughts on I have heard from folks in media that the value of influencers is going down, partially because so much content can be remastered with AI, and it's like, how much do you need how much do you need an influencer to do those things when you can do so much even from a static image to turn it into video or even put models into it or whatever. And then I have also heard, and I know from experience, that coordinating and working with influencers is a royal pain in the ass. It's just like so annoying. It's just it's a ton of brain space, it's a ton of back and forth, in my opinion. And you gotta you gotta coordinate, you gotta do the contract, you gotta coordinate the stays, you gotta do the follow-up. It's just like it's a ton of effort. And I think if you're going for m mega influencers where they're got like a million plus followers, it's you know, obviously you get a little more bang for your buck for the effort. But otherwise it's it's hard. And so much is to chance, you know, like you never know what influencer ads will perform. You know, some might hit and go. Nuts and some might not hit at all versus paid social is much more scientific, it's much more controllable, it's much more testable, it's like in your hands. So I guess I don't know how how would you respond to maybe that question?

SPEAKER_03 44:15

Yeah, as someone who really likes things being trackable and and and easy to understand, I I I get that view. Paid ads are also a black box, like you so often don't really know what's going on there as well. Like you you obviously it is easy to track, but it's it's not as straightforward as paid ads are trackable. Influencer organic collaborations aren't. I'm sure macro maybe like there is a saturation on the influencer market, and a lot of them overcharge for what they bring, and maybe not aren't worth the time, but frankly, I don't care about the macro picture. Like I know influencers work. If you you know, if you you can waste your time picking the wrong ones, you do have to accept that not everything will land, but if you get the right one, it like it's huge. Like before I arrived, Legombe did one did a collaboration with the Texas Explorer, like a just a local lady in Austin. It was paid I don't know how much, maybe 15, 1500 bucks, maybe, maybe less. But like that that one video got 800,000 views and like was the big thing that kind of tied them over until until kind of we started you know putting together a real content strategy. A couple of collaborations we've done have done 200,000, 250,000 views per video. If we had a budget, I think we could we could certainly be getting into the millions. Getting those kind of eyes on your property, like it it it does equal bookings in the long run if you've got your system set up. So they are worth it. Pick the right ones, definitely. You're right, it is a huge time time drain, is is doing the admin, getting them booked in, getting the contracts, doing the follow-up. That is one thing that we have looked at. Just the the you know, the the kind of the admin stuff we have maybe looked at kind of hiring out to maybe like a virtual assistant or something, just because it's not booking them in isn't isn't something you need kind of skill or or or value for, but it it does take time. But picking the right ones is a is a bit of a skill, knowing what to look for, and they they can they can be worth it. Some of them can be bad guests as well. Thankfully, I don't have to deal with that side. That is more Leslie, and she has got a couple of horror stories, and that is the reality of it. But overall, I would say net positive, pick the right ones, and you'll you'll get bookings off the back of it.

SPEAKER_02 46:38

And probably for the listeners, the single biggest thing that you want to look for for influencers is people that have a local following. You know, stuff that's relevant to your state or to your city or to your region are gonna perform so much better than you know, like a swimsuit model who has, you know, millions of followers in the US, but like their customers aren't following this person because they want advice on where to go stay for their honeymoon.

SPEAKER_03 47:05

Yeah, largely, yeah, but also remember that not like a lot of people that view that video will be non-followers of that influencer, and sometimes you just need someone to create a really good video that does really well and generates a lot of interest that's not necessarily directly their following audience. So, yeah, we we we we've done basically exclusively Austin, Houston, Dallas, etc. But if there's a good one who you know will create a high-performing piece of content that will reach the local areas, then consider doing that as well. The one one other thing I would add as well, sorry, is if you can't afford to hire a full you know videography team to capture all the vertical video, then partnering with influencers and getting that content bit by bit from them is also an option. Um, so you might want to put in your agreement with the influencer that you send us 10 short video clips that we can repurpose and put into Instagram reels if you're making them yourself. It won't be as good as a one consistent videography team, but it can work. It's actually what Skyridge have done. I've been trying to bug them to get a videography team in, but it but yeah, I can't complain because the results it's brought have been have been excellent, and that's all from influencer footage, basically. So that is a little hack as well. If you don't want to or you can't afford to bring in a full videography team and full editing team, as you can collect that footage from people who know what kind of footage to get that goes into a good reel and and that the algorithm likes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:32

Yeah, that's that's good. So what's what how about after that? After influencers, what's next priority?

Email Capture That Converts Bookings

SPEAKER_03 48:38

Well well, everything I've talked about is mostly getting people to your website, you know, getting eyeballs on the business, getting people to your website. You've also got to convert them. Part of that, as I say, comes from that authentic on-the-ground content that people see on social platforms, but there's other stuff beyond that. Email capture is a very easy one to set up. You know, when people visit your website, do they go to a landing page with an email form, or is there a pop-up form where if they give their their email, they get 50 bucks off their stay or something like that? That means you're in this, they're in the system, you can market to them directly, you can spend them, send them special offers, you can do automated welcome emails that really get across the essence of of the brand and the founder. And so we're right now implementing we we started off with like a a pretty kind of salesy get your 10% discount email that when people you know gave their emails, they'd they'd get hit with that. We're now changing that to a kind of welcoming email from Leslie saying, hi, this is who I am, this is what I've built, this is the kind of experience we'd love to have you. And things like that can, you know, the get-them in system allows you to re-market to them and also gets across who you are. So making sure that when people do get to your website, you've got everything in place that is most likely to maximize those that that interest converting it to a booking.

SPEAKER_02 49:56

What are you leaning into as far as like the story that you're telling or the brand voice, you know, with both the posting and the emails and like because you know we've talked about you and I have talked about a lot on the podcast, like good hospitality is good good storytelling. And like, is are you have you found a way to implement that or how how are you?

SPEAKER_03 50:14

It's a work work in progress. So I mentioned earlier, you know, not everything on on any site is perfect, and you kind of have to make compromises as as the the on-the-ground operator, you know, Leslie has learned that, Christelle at Skyridge learned that, every every operator will learn that. And it's the same on the marketing side. Like, I would love to from day one have have the perfect balance between algorithm-friendly content that's going to do well and kind of well-told storytelling, brand aligned kind of posts. Ultimately, some of the content we put out does kind of follow a formula for what Instagram will like. That's maybe not the premium feel that we're trying to create. But you know, you you do have to compromise. So that that is something that that that we we are working on that I'm I'm in the process of figuring out. So I don't know if I'm the best person to ask that yet. But yeah, I think I think the big thing is is when people land on your website or on your profile, they can get a sense of what you are pretty quickly. Uh, and that's in the copy that you use on your website or in your Instagram bio. And that is again the stories that you post that are more authentic and more grounded. So yeah, work in progress. Don't know if that's the best answer or not, but yeah, no, it's good.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

And you, you know, you have the advantage of a face of an entrepreneur, of a story behind it, which is super helpful. For Ponderosa, for us, we don't have that, right? We could when we I'm hiring our GM right now, which maybe we could lean into some piece of that, but it's not quite the same as a GM as it is for the entrepreneur and the founder. But so that is gonna have us really lean into two things, and that's gonna be the property itself, and then maybe a little bit of the storytelling of like Flagstaff or that area. So, like the story that I think will continually lean in and tell is you know, this was a derelict and forgotten campground that had been abandoned, and it's 17 acres, and it has I was able to count with AI the exact number of trees on it, it's like 1128 uh mature Ponderosa pine trees. And we, you know, we were able to add 42 units without cutting down a single tree. And these, you know, so these units are integrated in the forest, and like one of the main taglines is you know, disconnect, soak and unwind beneath the canopy. So it's just like the the main core experience is like, hey, especially if you're in Arizona, like you don't get a lot of opportunities to be in the forest. And our main thing is like come soak and like sink into your private hot tub and look up at the beautiful canopy above you, which might be kind of a rare thing for most people in Arizona.

SPEAKER_03 52:52

Yeah, that's the classic marketing thing as well of don't don't sell don't sell like the physical aspect of what you're saying. Don't go on about we've got these 10 great cabins, it's sell sell the feeling, sell the experience, right? You know, it's classic, classic marketing.

SPEAKER_02 53:07

And then like with our cabins, you know, they're nothing super crazy. It's like A frames of it, they all have kind of a wall of windows. So, you know, our our whole thing is all our units are all black on the outside, so it's like, hey, we've designed these units to like blend in with the landscape, and then we have a wall of windows so that like when you're in your bed or in your nook, you know, we designed it so that the outside is in, and you know, you can work or you can have a cup of coffee or snuggle in bed and like look out at this forest and like leaning into that storytelling.

SPEAKER_03 53:40

Yeah, that's that's great. And honestly, because I think sometimes because we've been in the industry for so long with sowing the weeds, that is easy to forget just the simple act of you know, when I was staying at Legombe after the the content shoot days were were done, I was you know, I I sat outside my unit on the uh in the outdoor furniture with a beer and a cigarette and just looking for the stars. I was like, I'm here, I might as well. But just that, like, that's the essence of of these outdoor stays, and you can get lost in fancy marketing and fancy units and all sorts, but sometimes just sitting out outside your cabin in the trees or in the mountains or looking at the stars, like that's what it is. And if you can convey that to someone who's constantly on their phone and who knows they need a reset and a recharge, like I think you know you've you've won half the battle.

SPEAKER_02 54:38

Yeah, the so did are they gonna turn that into a reel? You know, and just maybe Nick just tarps off with a beer and a symbol. There'd be too many ladies put it to the site if that was for the colour.

SPEAKER_03 54:51

But it's it's it's a it's it is a good one. We we ran it, we ran again. There's a good one. Yeah, yeah. There's a there's a you know, there's a bit of a formula to some of the content that we're putting out, which is cool shot of the units, spliced with models walking in the units, showing the different features, right? It it works. It's not I don't love the lack of creativity, but it but it works. But then we did one where it was just we ran it as

Selling The Feeling Without Overpromising

SPEAKER_03 55:16

an ad, actually. We we had an influencer stay, and she she filmed like she was in the like in in the in the in the shower, like from the back, and it was just her, yeah, it was just her, like with the the w the water running down, she was clothed, and that was it. And like we used the caption like quiet, comma, finally, and the only sound was just the sound of the running water, and that kind of that will contrast with everything else that people are scrolling, which might be memes or lots of loud stuff, and and just something simple and quiet, maybe the birds tweeting but with you know a simple view, like that that can be effective content as well, because it very quickly gets across the vibe that that a guest will get when when they stay.

SPEAKER_02 55:58

Yes, I think we talked about this a long time ago when we were going over the ultra luxe websites, and I think it was maybe pause up or something, like you get onto their website and it's just pans of nature, but you just hear the sound of wind moving through the trees. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love that. Like, you know, can you bring in a very subtle audio cue that's memorable and conjures you know an emotional response?

SPEAKER_03 56:21

Yeah, and if you're if if you if you set up an Instagram account for your retreat, resort, whatever, and just make sure that you spend a little bit longer watching other resorts content and seeing kind of what content they put out, the algorithm will soon figure out that you you want to see that kind of content, and you'll get a ton of ideas for content to put out. And honestly, you'll be surprised about how how how how well content does that can literally just be like a pan of a field with birds tweeting and like a one-line caption, and it goes viral again and again and again. It does it does well again and again and again just because it works, and so just a dead easy hack is just follow lots of other resorts, spend time watching them, and you'll get loads of ideas. Like there's very few original content ideas, it's just applying them to your to your place.

SPEAKER_02 57:11

I love it. Oh, I'm gonna share my screen with you so you can see this. But on the storytelling with Ponderosa, we came up with a verb which is kind of our tagline. It's called the Ponderosa Reset, and it's a verb and it's our motto, and it's disconnect, period, soak, period, be, comma amongst the pines. So disconnect, soak, and be amongst the pines. And then it has like root word to weigh ponder to to weigh and consider thoughtfully. Penis ponderosa. Pinus ponderosa is up there. Pinus ponderosa is a large carnivorous evergreen part of the pina key family. And then terra ponderosa means New Latin for heavy earth. And it's just, I don't know, it's just kind of like a fun way to go a little bit deeper. I actually wanted that to be the name of the property, but I got outvoted. And so now still I just pondered.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

No, the challenge, the challenge then, though, as well, obviously, and we talked all day about marketing, but you got to make sure that the experience matches the vibe that you're selling, right?

SPEAKER_02 58:13

I know, and we're kind of in a challenge because our property is sandwiched in between two highways. So, you know, we're this property because of that, is it we're being super careful with our marketing. We're not putting quiet, we're not putting peaceful, we're not putting secluded. We're talking about the trees and we're talking about disconnecting and we're talking about soaking. And but we also want in a lot of our video content and on our website for it to show that we are by the highway. We don't want people to. I'm sure it's gonna happen. People are gonna show up and think it's this like nature retreat because it's so hard to fully distinguish that. But I want to be really careful with our photos and videos that people aren't misled, and I want them to see that. And I I want on our homepage to be like a map, a satellite map that shows that we're directly between the highway. And I'm sure that's the biggest challenge with the property is the noise. It's a big it's a that's why we couldn't go premium on this.

SPEAKER_03 59:13

Yeah, it's a tricky one.

SPEAKER_02 59:16

Yeah. That's we're trying to be in that two to three fifty ADR range on the hardware units with private hot tubs, because it's just not going to be that like secluded luxury experience that you might get at LaGombe or Skyridge.

SPEAKER_03 59:32

Yeah, it's it can still work though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It is annoying sometimes when there's like a perfect property, and then you find out it's like or you hear the hear the noise. Like we had to, we had to because we are shooting for the kind of 500, 600 ADR, and we had a couple of great properties that we really like the look of, really like the partners involved, and you know, Ed, Ed went down on our behalf to check them out, and just just to just too noisy for for the the level we were going for. So but then sometimes you compromise.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:05

Yeah. Well, and we'll have to see what guess feedback is, but we might even have to say in some of our like on the booking page, like we might even say, hey, just so you know, like there is some road noise, and there's a train, there's train tracks too, so we get train noises, which is gonna be a real problem for our soft, like our soft walled units, because I'm sure I'm gonna have to deal with that when the time comes. But on the flip side, we're right off the highway. We'll get a lot of good traffic from signage and things like that. So it's kind of a double-edged sword. What else?

SEO, AI Search, Google PPC

SPEAKER_02 1:00:40

You know, what are you thinking? Are you doing anything in regards to SEO, Google Pay-Perclick, PR? Are you messing around in that world?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:48

Not personally, but you see, Posh went in with a remit at Lagom where we would focus on areas that we thought were our strength. I I don't know too much, yeah. I've never done paid ads, paid search ads, PR. I did do SEO, but it was very kind of for Glamy Text, like a service-based SEO. So no that we are looking at doing pay-per-click on on Google search. Like someone in Team Lagoma is looking at doing that. I think it absolutely makes sense. Like, and that is way more easily trackable than than you know paid ads, paid social ads. SEO, not an a huge area of expertise of mine. I think the main thing to to f think about now is SEO in the age of AI and how do you show up in in AI search. Um so that is something that we do need to kind of develop an expertise in. Right now, we don't. And what was the other on PR? Yeah, again. I think if I had you know if I had $2,000 to spend on marketing, I wouldn't go down the traditional PR route, I would think about. I I've spoken before about like Instagram PR, so rather than partnering with a PR agency who will get you a placement in like the Calgary Herald, for example, like I don't think many people are reading reading that compared to a partnership with Date Night Calgary, who are an influencer who are an Instagram kind of an Instagram publication, I guess. Like they're they are an official public organization with kind of journalists, but they're very much kind of made for Instagram, and I just think that's way more effective at getting eyeballs on a property than getting a placement in an online article about about your thing. And I think it's like net negative, but I think if you're limited on budget, then you you you go all in on social because that's where that's where your guests are probably gonna come from if you're targeting people between the ages of 25 and 55.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:43

I think you're dead on. In in my list of priorities, like and and maybe I'll answer my own question, which is if I had a 10,000 a month budget, probably I mean, you you mostly kind of pay for content one time. I mean, you do continue to pay for it, but maybe content, like getting content might be 2,000 of that, or you know, and then paid social and social management might be 4,000 or close to half, like probably half or more, 60% of my budget, maybe even 75, would be going to high-quality video content, like you're saying, and the rest on paid social or influencers. And the main reason being that our properties and our units and our experience is unique and can do very well on social media. That's a big reason why it's one of the more powerful tools because it's so visually aesthetic. And then the other areas where I'd be looking in. So I'm a big fan of SEO. I fortunately have an awesome contact who's a friend who does it for us for super cheap, like 450 bucks a month per property. And that's basically reformatting our website with the right titles and back link, you know, being back linked on directories and doing having certain information and keywords on your website, blog posts, things like that. And SEO is like an investment because you do that, you could do that one time and it will, you know, it might take three to six months to take into effect, but you'll always have those reoccurring, you know, forever. There are things that are ongoing, like maintenance to the SEO or blog posts or backlinks, like you can always do more, but like that first initial step, making sure you get someone to format your website for SEO up front, hugely important.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:32

Yeah, yeah, no, I think I think I think it's great. I have found, particularly since taking on this engagement with the logging, is is you want to do everything, but you have limited bandwidth and you have to pick and choose. If I was thinking about SEO, I'd be thinking more about how you know are people are people people obviously still search on Google glamping in Texas Hill Country. But I think well, I don't think I know like more and more people are instead of going to Google for that query, they're saying to Chat GPT or whatever kind of AI platform, I am going to, I want to a weekend escape in Texas Hill Country, find me something that hits this criteria, and it's how do you show up in that in that search? And that is where like with Posh developing it its expertise and its toolkit that we can apply to our partner resorts, that is gonna be a bigger priority for us than Google-friendly SEO, uh, just because I think that's the way that's the way things are going.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:36

And you know, for AI search, I forget what the technical term is called, but AI search and SEO, there's probably 80% overlap. Yeah. If you're if you're creating a website to rank for SEO, it's probably also ranking for AI search. There is a little bit of nuanced difference with language and how you're filling things out, but like what's good for one is almost certainly going to be good for the other.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:00

Mm-hmm. The one one thing that I would suggest is particularly good for AI SEO, just again on a hunch, will be getting great reviews and getting them out, like getting them out there in in multiple places, so that that will re you know it can re AI will not just rely on on what you say on your website, it will rely on what other people say. It will say, you know, lots of people said this about this property, which aligns with with what you're looking for. So I think that's a big one, and just yeah, I think it's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:28

That's probably that's probably a good time to chat. So

Review Strategy And Service Recovery

SPEAKER_02 1:06:31

I think we've had a pretty kick-ass review strategy. So like Outpost has been, I've basically been in charge of it for kind of like really since January. And in that time, we've gotten basically a hundred Google reviews. Google's what we're mostly focused on because it's the most public and it's the most related to SEO and and AI search. But we have gotten a hundred reviews, and our average rating is 4.8, which we're stoked about. And actually, and there's some really important pieces to that strategy. And one is encouraging your staff and your GM to connect and go the extra mile to delight your guests. That's kind of obvious. But the second piece of that is in all of our units, we have like a cutout, like a sign, and it has two QR codes in it. The first QR code says, We're a new business, we're always trying to improve if something could have been better during your stay. Please use this QR code to give us feedback on how we could be better. And then right next to that is a second QR code and it says, if you had a great stay, we're a new business trying to get traction in the market. It would really help us out a lot if you would leave us a Google review and they can do that with the other QR code. And then our PMS, new book, a lot of PMS will the default is to get people to leave surveys and things like that. But we were like, we want to go all in on getting good Google reviews. So we didn't do any of the net promoter score stuff or the survey stuff. We simply would send our guests both text in an email after their stay, and it would say, Hey, you know, the same thing as the sign, basically. How could your stay have been better? Leave us feedback here. If you had a great stay, we're a small business and we could really appreciate your feedback. And that has been working amazingly. And we also have a GM who like really goes above and beyond. And I always tell him like, if you can spend $10 to $20 to delight a guest so that they'll leave a review and not ask them necessarily to leave a review, but like just try to delight them above and beyond, that will be worth it for us. And I think so far that strategy's really paying off. I don't know. You have any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:49

Yeah, I'd first of all absolute reviews are super important. Put even putting aside like a AI search and what that will be looking for, just in general, when people are looking to book and especially spend thousands of dollars, like social proof is very important. Again, it's another classic marketing thing is show show social proof, like just do it. The other thing I've learned from Leslie the game is a lot of it is yes, surprising, delighting your customers, but it's also setting things down if they go wrong, like being and and Crystal at Skyrige I was speaking to her about this yes, uh, the other day as well. Is yeah, some things will go wrong, obviously. You know, maybe the air conditioning might be broken in one of the units or whatever, and it's how how you deal with that, how you make the guest feel heard. Friend Jacob Helverson could talk to you for days about this, and I think kind of damage limitation is just important for getting a good review score as kind of creating that that great experience. Couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:45

Yeah, feeling heard and then figuring out mostly just being heard and being human will solve the problem. And then this is a big thing that I'm hammering home with all of our GMs and staff is if someone is upset, first treat them like a human and listen to them and don't be corporate bullshit. Just try to connect with them on a human level and be empathetic. And then the second piece is if that doesn't solve the problem, then say, what can we do to make the situation right? And make them tell you the solution. So, like before offering a free night stay or offering something for free, make them tell you what it is they need to feel better.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:24

Well, if it's the stay for a month.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:26

Yeah, then you'd be like, get out of it, get the hell out of here. Yeah, I don't I don't know what you do in that scenario. If you're like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:32

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:36

And Google Pay-PerClick, we're about to start messing around with that right now. We'll probably play around with it prioritizing paid social, but I do think there's certainly there's certainly a the the good thing about Google Pay-per-Click is it's so you get so much detail and analysis and you can boost things up or down. We just ran into a thing where we were really, we're really quiet in May because we're in between, you know, we have had no influencers, we're in between all of our DMS, we're transitioning to like all new people. So we we did no marketing and advertising, and we're increasing our prices. So we got a little bit more flat in terms of demand. And I'm like, oh shit. I don't have like a lever to pull to be like, hey, let's go spend 500 or a thousand bucks on paid social or Google Pay-Perclick to like try to get some heads and beds for this software occupancy, you know, two, three-week period. But that is one of the good things about that is you can see exactly how much you're spending and how much conversions it's leading to. And then you can ramp that up or down with some decent flexibility.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:41

Yeah, and the other thing, yeah, and just on a basic level, everything we've talked about in terms of social strategy, paid, paid social ads, etc., like that's putting things out into the ether and hoping it'll kind of catch fire and that people will take an interest. Whereas paid search ads are people actively searching for, you know, clamping in your area or whatever it may be, and there's a lot more direct intent there, and you're kind of hoovering up existing demand rather than trying to create create new ones.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:11

Yeah, and you don't you don't really know what markets are going to be really good for paid search until you try, but it's really a combination of two main things, and that is how high is the search volume. It could be grand clamp places to stay near the Grand Canyon or Grand Canyon clamping, but you need to know the volume, the demand, and then you need to know the supply or the competition, that is how many other businesses are paying for and driving up the price to get priority placement on those keywords. So your market or your high search terms, it might be really competitive, and maybe the actual cost of conversion is not that good. Or maybe there's really high search demand and there's not that much competition, and you can get really high conversion rates for a really low cost. So you just you have to experiment with it and find out. So we'll be trying that soon.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:59

Nice. Well, keep posted and interested. We we'll we'll be doing the same, just not through Posh, but through through Team Legame. So we'll be interested to see how it goes.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:07

Are you

OTAs, Direct Bookings, Guest Data

SPEAKER_02 1:13:08

using OTAs? Like Airbnb booking Xpedia. How's that going for you?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:14

Great, great. Like there's a I went on a bit of a rant on LinkedIn the other day because like us, there's obviously this whole like direct booking movement, OTAs are the devil, etc. And obviously you want as many direct bookings as you can, you want to own the customer data, you don't want to pay commissions, whatever. And I appreciate you know, sometimes maybe the OTAs do squeeze the more commoditized hotels, right? Fine. But in in our industry, like unless you're 80, 90, 95% occupied, like list on the OTAs, paying 15, 18% commission for a confirmed booking is is like absolutely fine. Like you you might pay similar effectively for you know your social strategy that leads to booking. So absolutely do it, in my opinion. So we do it, probably need to put more folks into optimizing it to be honest, to really get the benefits. But yeah, it's it's been been, I think maybe for April, for example, it was we had a 73%, 27% split between direct and indirect, and 20%, 27% of revenue is not insignificant.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:20

So that's pretty healthy. That's really good for your first year. We're the exact opposite outposts. I mean, this property started so flat footed, we didn't even have a website or social media when the property opened. It was just like textbook, textbook failed launch. But then we got on booking and expedia, and by our second quarter in shoulder season, we got up to like 70% occupied. And it was a really low ADR, but it was like, hey, you know, we were making money. And Grand Canyon is super international, so booking.com is huge because it's mostly Europeans. So we get big, big traffic from there. But it's an absolute frickin' nightmare for us to work with operationally. I I can't even tell you how much I hate it. Like the they they make the communications difficult. Check. We have guests that check in all the time. They're like, I never got any check-in instructions. And we're like, it's because the communication barrier that they put up makes all that really painful. So that's a massive pain. Uh is your property offer Wi-Fi?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:27

Check out StaFi.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:29

We just signed up with them. I think I think Legame uses that, yeah. It's it's decision making. Yeah, probably it makes not us, but yeah, I think I think they do it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:37

Well, for the listeners, this was huge for us for Outpost because 80% of our traffic was OTA, so we didn't have their contact information and we couldn't do any upsells, like room upgrades or anything, because that wouldn't reach them. So now it basically was like $350 for the hardware one-time fee, and then it's like $30 monthly fee. But it's basically a landing page for your Wi-Fi that collects the customer information for them to access the Wi-Fi like a Starbucks or like an airport. So they put in their name, phone number, email, and then we collect that for our guest, all our guests, and then also their guests. So instead of just get the person who placed the booking, we can also get whoever comes with them, which can be two, three, four people. And then on top of that, we have a landing page where we can sell romance packages, s'mores, excursions where we get referral kickback. So we just rolled that out. I'm super excited about it to see how that goes.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:36

That was a lot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:41

The uh so is this a new so is so this is all through Posh, this like marketing advertising service, which is basically you, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:51

Uh yeah, by the way, I need to need to wrap up fairly soon. Yeah, yeah. So the it's it's all through Posh. Yeah, I'm the one leading it for Posh. And yeah, the idea is is we you know, we're deploying units, but we want to make sure that they're filled as well, and you know, we're backing ourselves to do that. And so we've started doing these marketing agreements. Initially, kind of, you know, with Legomit's marketing with a view to deploying the units, and we're looking at maybe doing similar, is like a call it six-month trial period to make sure that they're happy with us and we're happy with with them and the result, and we know it's it's got it, it's it's worth sending units to. And yeah, there's a separate agreement to the unit deployment, but it means that we can be confident that there are going to be guests filling filling our units, and that's where we make our money, obviously, is on the the rev shares on on these $200,000 units. So yeah, it's it's it's it's yeah, we split it between prop co, which is the units, and opco, which is the marketing. But it's good good fun, and I think it's the best way to make sure that we're making sensible deployments.

Partner Criteria, Investor Ask, Goodbye

SPEAKER_02 1:17:53

Absolutely. What's what's next for you and for Posh?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:57

Keep on doing the keep on doing the marketing at the game, keep on driving those results, we hope. Got a couple of pro partner prospects on the go at the minute that we could could get deals for initially on the marketing front. And then work through the cap raises, raise some more money with a view to doing this big Series A raise and really start to scale next year. That's that's the plan. And start you know getting getting lots of projects going for next year.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:24

What's the ideal either property or client you know that you guys are looking to partner with? If people want to, if they if people, if listeners own a property and might be interested, what's like your ideal type person?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:38

Existing on-site business, so wedding venue, winery, ski resort, ranch, whatever it may be, where there's pre-existing demand. We will look at new developments, but it's got to be great and it's got to be shovel ready, and we've got to have a lot of trust in you as an operator. Great markets, preferably within two hours of a major metropolitan area, and a great operator that we can trust, is competent, reliable, and is capable of delivering a $500 plus per night experience.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:08

Heck yeah. Any other asks of the audience?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:11

If you're interested, as as mentioned earlier, we are we probably will do a few more kind of private placement convertible notes. So if you're an accredited investor looking to put $50,000 plus to work, let me know at nick at post-outdoors.com and we can chat. And if you happen to be the head of an institution capable of giving us $10 million, then also let's let's chat as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:36

I love it. Well, thanks. So lovely to have you back on, sir. I miss you.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:42

I miss you. I miss you. I've enjoyed getting the mic back out again.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:47

You going to the glamping shows here?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:49

Yes. Yeah, I won't have a booth this year, but I'll be mingling.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:53

Good. All right. Well, I'll see you then at the very least, if not hopefully sooner.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:57

Yeah, I've actually got to do a panel show, which I'm nervous about, but a what? A pat like a panel talk.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:06

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:06

Oh, you're you're gonna be on the panel at the glam theater.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:10

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:10

I hate I hate public speaking, but good practice, in it. Gotta get better at it.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:14

You know, you'll be fine. You're a natural. You're a natural. Oh, and most importantly, how are things on the girlfriend status situation?

SPEAKER_03 1:20:22

Still going somehow. Still going. She she listened back to uh she probably listened to this, but she listened back to the one that you where you interviewed me about like my life story, and I think I'd like it was so dramatic. I said I think it had my heart broken or something like that. And that came out to bite me, obviously. But no, very, very happy.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:44

I guess all is well and right in the world. Nick has a girlfriend, and and Posh is up into the right.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:49

Yeah, no, yeah. I mean, yeah, sometimes it's like on the posh side, obviously, any business is always it's never straight, never straightforward. There's always lots of ups and downs, but we have consistently kept going in the right direction, and it's been a great, great team effort, and we're very happy with the way it's going. And the big challenge now is you know, we've we've proven the initial concept. Now it's time to continue executing and then start scaling. So fingers crossed this time next year we'll be we'll be, you know, we'll have a few locations.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:18

Hell yeah. Well, thanks for coming on. Always a pleasure.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:21

Thank you for having me back. You enjoyed it.