Latest / Outdoor Hospitality Podcast: Glamping, STR, Resorts, Unique Stays, RV Parks, RV Resorts & Campgrounds / Ben Wolff of Onera & Oasi: What It Takes To Sell Your Property To A Public REIT

Transcript

Ben Wolff of Onera & Oasi: What It Takes To Sell Your Property To A Public REIT · Outdoor Hospitality Podcast: Glamping, STR, Resorts, Unique Stays, RV Parks, RV Resorts & Campgrounds

• 0:02
  Connor Schwab: Welcome back to the Outdoor Hospitality Podcast.
• 0:04
  Connor Schwab: I'm your host, Connor Schwab.
• 0:06
  Connor Schwab: Today we have special guest on the show, Ben Wolf.
• 0:09
  Connor Schwab: Welcome, Ben.
• 0:09
  Connor Schwab: Thanks, Connor.
• 0:10
  Connor Schwab: Great to be here again.
• 0:11
  Connor Schwab: Yeah, of course.
• 0:12
  Connor Schwab: And just a little bit of an intro on Ben, if you're not familiar, hopefully you are with his background at this point.
• 0:17
  Connor Schwab: But if you're not, he's the founder of ONERA, which started in Fredericksburg, which eventually is basically a unique stay in landscape resort style development, which sold to Summit REIT in 2022, which was one of the first public REITs of its kind.
• 0:33
  Connor Schwab: And then he opened O'Nera's second location in Wingberly, which was much larger, and I've had a chance to visit personally.
• 0:39
  Connor Schwab: It's beautiful in 2024, and that's 23 keys.
• 0:42
  Connor Schwab: And we'll get an update on how that's been going.
• 0:45
  Connor Schwab: And then he is the CEO and founder of Awassi, which is essentially a third-party marketing and advertising and research firm for unique and outdoor hospitality hotel operations, uh, which is excellent.
• 1:00
  Connor Schwab: So he definitely knows his stuff in terms of marketing and advertising.
• 1:03
  Connor Schwab: And then he's also working on his newest development, which is Baya, which we are excited to dive into as well.
• 1:10
  Connor Schwab: So yeah, quite the long pedigree.
• 1:12
  Connor Schwab: But yeah, Ben, how how are you?
• 1:14
  Ben Wolff: I'm good, man.
• 1:14
  Ben Wolff: Yeah.
• 1:15
  Ben Wolff: When you read off that list, it just reminds me, you know, certainly how busy it is.
• 1:18
  Ben Wolff: But we I've got some amazing partners today.
• 1:22
  Ben Wolff: And so that's kind of what is allowing me to do all these things at a high level, which is really cool.
• 1:27
  Ben Wolff: And it was not always that way.
• 1:28
  Ben Wolff: I feel, you know, I've I've developed those and cultivated those relationships and partnerships over time.
• 1:33
  Connor Schwab: What is the most key personnel to have to do what you do, to enable you to focus on what you do best and like have this growth and the success?
• 1:41
  Ben Wolff: It depends on which area of the business, but I would say in general, to be building multiple enterprises at once, you need true founder level 100 or 1000 X employees, really partners, right?
• 1:56
  Ben Wolff: Not employees that have materially material equity and upside in what you're building.
• 2:01
  Ben Wolff: So I have that in each, you know, each of the things that I'm really focused on right now.
• 2:05
  Ben Wolff: So both AWASI and Baya, um, I have that, even on Air to some extent as well.
• 2:10
  Ben Wolff: I have partners that have a big piece of the pie, a huge incentive, and they are people that I've known for years, kind of vetted for years.
• 2:19
  Ben Wolff: Um, I've seen their execution and ability firsthand.
• 2:23
  Ben Wolff: And, you know, I just know that they can, you know, they can 100, 1,000 X themselves and stand up entirely new business lines.
• 2:31
  Ben Wolff: Like those types of partners are the people that I need.
• 2:34
  Connor Schwab: And are these folks coming in who are investing or just bringing equity to the development of these projects, or are they helping strategically?
• 2:40
  Connor Schwab: What do you mean?
• 2:42
  Ben Wolff: Yeah.
• 2:42
  Ben Wolff: So when I say partners, I'm not talking about LPs.
• 2:45
  Ben Wolff: I mean, our LPs are great and I can talk at length about them as well.
• 2:47
  Ben Wolff: I'm talking about true partners.
• 2:49
  Ben Wolff: So in Baya, my partners are Steve Turk, who you probably know, who's has a podcast himself called the Hospitality Mentor.
• 2:55
  Ben Wolff: That's actually how I met him.
• 2:56
  Ben Wolff: Um, he's been doing the LinkedIn personal brand game in hospitality for much longer than I have.
• 3:01
  Ben Wolff: He's got a bigger following there.
• 3:03
  Ben Wolff: And he has been in luxury hospitality at the executive level for decades.
• 3:08
  Ben Wolff: So he's been, you know, number two in command, I think, at Lowe's Hotel, which is a $300 million a year hotel, similar FB director at Nobu Hotel, amongst others.
• 3:18
  Ben Wolff: And so, and oh, by the way, he actually had the first location for Baya on lock via a family friend that we got a very attractive 99-year lease on due to his relationship largely.
• 3:30
  Ben Wolff: So, like that kind of partner, right, is is kind of what I, you know, what I need to be able to do multiple of these types of businesses well.
• 3:38
  Ben Wolff: Um, and then in addition to Steve, we've got Banks Chisholm, who you know, the founder principal of JB Chisholm, who was the builder on and really did a lot of some of the entitlement and development work on the last two Onera builds, helped us come in on time, on budget, you know, broke his and his team's backs to make sure that we did no matter what.
• 3:59
  Ben Wolff: And really through the experience of working with him, I'm like, I don't ever want to work with another GC or construction person.
• 4:04
  Ben Wolff: So brought him in as a basically a full equal partner on the bio project.
• 4:08
  Ben Wolff: So it's like those kind of partners that I need to be able to focus on vision, concept, you know, future strategy, personal brand, getting the message out there, communicating the vision.
• 4:19
  Connor Schwab: Your projects coming in on time and on budget.
• 4:23
  Connor Schwab: You don't hear that very often in the last five years.
• 4:26
  Connor Schwab: Uh I've had a chance to get to know banks.
• 4:29
  Connor Schwab: And I he's just the type of guy who I trust completely.
• 4:32
  Connor Schwab: Uh, you know, having not spent hardly any time with him, uh, he just builds that trust quite quickly and he definitely seems like he knows his stuff.
• 4:39
  Ben Wolff: And yeah, and look, he he is exceptionally good at gaining trust, which can be dangerous if if you're not, you know, if you don't treat that with care, but he really does, right?
• 4:48
  Ben Wolff: He he lives up to the billing.
• 4:50
  Ben Wolff: He is, you know, yes, he he earns trust and gains trust very quickly, I feel like, because he's so competent, but he just does an amazing stand-up job and and you know, has always been willing to take an L where necessary to make sure, you know, for the good of the project.
• 5:04
  Ben Wolff: And and that's what we need on the team.
• 5:05
  Ben Wolff: Like I have, he has, we all have, right?
• 5:07
  Connor Schwab: Yeah.
• 5:08
  Connor Schwab: Development in your GC.
• 5:09
  Connor Schwab: I mean, that's what I expected you to say, you know, because that's to me, that just seems to be the part where where these projects, that's where I see projects get tripped up the most is going through the development and and the construction.
• 5:20
  Connor Schwab: And yeah, so that's that's amazing.
• 5:23
  Connor Schwab: Any other like really key personnel to get a project done successfully?
• 5:27
  Ben Wolff: Yeah.
• 5:27
  Ben Wolff: So from the development side, you need obviously construction, development experience, and somebody who's a rock star.
• 5:36
  Ben Wolff: If that's not you, like you need a, I feel like a partner, whether that's a partner for hire or a true equity partner.
• 5:41
  Ben Wolff: And then I would say, I mean, you really need an amazing capital markets and you know, capital raising person.
• 5:48
  Ben Wolff: And that that you know, that happens to be me, by and large, for a lot of these projects.
• 5:52
  Ben Wolff: I mean, banks helps quite a bit with the debt side, I would say, less so the equity.
• 5:57
  Ben Wolff: And I have probably uh uh I've done more conventional, I've done less conventional, like more leveraging my personal brand, which is becoming more common to raise equity capital.
• 6:07
  Ben Wolff: And, you know, I always have to talk to a zillion, you know, lenders of different types, you know, government-backed programs like CPACE and USDA and SBA and local community banks and you know, private specialty hotel lenders.
• 6:20
  Ben Wolff: Like we always have to talk to so many different people on the debt side for every project because what we do is so unique.
• 6:25
  Ben Wolff: And typically lenders have their checklist.
• 6:27
  Ben Wolff: And if we're not fitting exactly within it, it doesn't work.
• 6:31
  Ben Wolff: So you need a great capital markets person, both on the equity and the debt side and the construction portion.
• 6:36
  Ben Wolff: And then, I mean, of course, you need a good concept, vision, and product.
• 6:39
  Ben Wolff: So I'd say those are probably the three most crucial components to get something built really well.
• 6:45
  Ben Wolff: And then, I mean, you need a great operator, marketer, all the rest.
• 6:48
  Ben Wolff: But in order to get to the phase of opening and at least setting yourself up for success, I would say construction development, capital markets, which includes investors and product.
• 6:58
  Connor Schwab: Hello, listeners.
• 6:59
  Connor Schwab: I wanted to share a quick story.
• 7:01
  Connor Schwab: I recently started to help a client set up their three properties, two RV resorts and one glamping resort.
• 7:07
  Connor Schwab: And they wanted me to help roll out their new tech stack.
• 7:11
  Connor Schwab: And at the center of that is the PMS or the property management software.
• 7:14
  Connor Schwab: These clients decided to go with storable new book, and thank goodness they did because the property management software is the nucleus of everything that you'll set up your website, your social media, your bookings, your cleanings, everything.
• 7:27
  Connor Schwab: And it really handles the entire process from both the front customer facing side as well as the back end and coordinating cleaners and things like that.
• 7:35
  Connor Schwab: So it's, you know, setting up your photos and your pricing and your dynamic pricing and revenue management and your unit information and ensuring a smooth and customizable shopping cart experience to ensure a high conversion rate with your customers.
• 7:51
  Connor Schwab: And then they have all these great automations.
• 7:53
  Connor Schwab: It can send texts and emails to your guests before they arrive, on the day they arrived or after to get feedback and reviews, and you can track all your financial performance.
• 8:02
  Connor Schwab: And then it also helps with the back end and analyzing your data.
• 8:05
  Connor Schwab: I honestly couldn't be happier with the experience.
• 8:08
  Connor Schwab: If I called the New Book helpline, I get an answer right away with someone who can help me with like three or four standing meetings each week with different members of their teams to set up the different capabilities and softwares.
• 8:19
  Connor Schwab: We're even using them to set up these property websites, we're using them for digital marketing services and SEO.
• 8:25
  Connor Schwab: And honestly, it has been excellent.
• 8:28
  Connor Schwab: I saw I chased down storable new book to ask them if they would be sponsors of the podcast because I really believed in their product.
• 8:35
  Connor Schwab: Fortunately, they were willing.
• 8:36
  Connor Schwab: So they are today's sponsors.
• 8:38
  Connor Schwab: So if you're unhappy with your PMS or you're launching a product and shopping, definitely give them a call.
• 8:44
  Connor Schwab: They'll give you a free software demonstration.
• 8:46
  Connor Schwab: And if you let them know that you came from the Outdoor Hospitality Podcast, they'll give you 15% off your new book signature subscriptions.
• 8:54
  Connor Schwab: Can't recommend storable new book highly enough.
• 8:57
  Connor Schwab: Go check them out.
• 8:58
  Connor Schwab: Thanks.
• 8:58
  Connor Schwab: What was your strategy around fundraising in the beginning?
• 9:02
  Connor Schwab: Like before you had these, you know, brands and successful projects and followings and things like that.
• 9:08
  Connor Schwab: How how did you get your first project funded?
• 9:11
  Connor Schwab: What did that look like?
• 9:12
  Ben Wolff: The first O'Nero project, ground up, it was a very unique time.
• 9:16
  Ben Wolff: So I will caveat all of this by saying that.
• 9:18
  Ben Wolff: It was late 2020, early 21.
• 9:21
  Ben Wolff: Rates were effectively at zero.
• 9:23
  Ben Wolff: Everybody is chasing yield.
• 9:25
  Ben Wolff: So it was one of the easiest times to raise money ever.
• 9:28
  Ben Wolff: So I do have to caveat it with saying that it was very easy to raise money.
• 9:33
  Ben Wolff: With that said, I had a really good track record with the people that I went to.
• 9:37
  Ben Wolff: So I had a short-term rental management company.
• 9:40
  Ben Wolff: And the first people that I went to were people that we managed for their short-term rentals.
• 9:44
  Ben Wolff: And then I had made money, I had garnered their trust.
• 9:46
  Ben Wolff: They saw me as a responsible operator and they trusted me.
• 9:49
  Ben Wolff: So I went to all those people, took a couple, you know, one or two phone calls apiece, and we had checks between 50 and you know 200 grand from each of them, which allowed us to raise, you know, the 800K to a million dollars we needed in equity for the first phase of that project.
• 10:05
  Ben Wolff: So that's how it happened the first time.
• 10:08
  Ben Wolff: I will say that it's never been that easy again, which is counterintuitive because I have more of a track record today.
• 10:13
  Ben Wolff: And it's actually been harder to raise money, largely, I think, because of the economic environment.
• 10:18
  Ben Wolff: And for those of you out there who are trying to get these projects done and built, like it is hard.
• 10:24
  Ben Wolff: It's even hard for me, right?
• 10:25
  Ben Wolff: And I've done this now a couple of times over and have a strong track record.
• 10:29
  Ben Wolff: But if you, if you leverage your friends and family network, if you build up a personal brand and leverage that, if you, you know, spend the time that it takes to develop relationships with family offices or institutional partners, like you will ultimately get there.
• 10:42
  Ben Wolff: It's just, it just takes time and it takes a lot of no's and you got to have thick skin.
• 10:46
  Connor Schwab: Could you maybe just give the high level of like the O'Neill journey with the first location, the second location, you know, and and where they're at today?
• 10:54
  Ben Wolff: Yeah, happy to.
• 10:55
  Ben Wolff: So I started in more commodity Airbnb world, right?
• 10:58
  Ben Wolff: That was the start of my real estate hospitality journey.
• 11:01
  Ben Wolff: And I quit my full-time software sales job early 2018 to really go all in on hospitality real estate.
• 11:08
  Ben Wolff: And at that time, it was specifically Airbnb, short-term rentals.
• 11:11
  Ben Wolff: And it was mostly lease arbitrage, right?
• 11:14
  Ben Wolff: So we were leasing units, designing them, photographing them, you know, subleasing them basically on Airbnb.
• 11:19
  Ben Wolff: And this was before a lot of the cities were having big crackdowns and there was just not enough supply.
• 11:25
  Ben Wolff: So it was your classic arbitrage, right?
• 11:27
  Ben Wolff: I mean, not enough supply.
• 11:28
  Ben Wolff: People wanted short-term rentals, they wanted multiple bedrooms.
• 11:31
  Ben Wolff: And so I quit my job because of how that was growing.
• 11:35
  Ben Wolff: And then when I saw other people wanted me to manage properties for them, we really spun up a management company when I quit my job.
• 11:40
  Ben Wolff: And so we grew from eight units under management to 200 in about 18 months.
• 11:45
  Ben Wolff: COVID hit early 20, early 2020.
• 11:49
  Ben Wolff: So in March, I was actually at an off-site with the team that we had built up in the Philippines that was our guest communications and really our entire VA army for the short-term rental business.
• 12:00
  Ben Wolff: And it was when I was over there, you know, trying to have this like, you know, morale boosting retreat that COVID really hit in earnest.
• 12:07
  Ben Wolff: All of our bookings got canceled overnight.
• 12:10
  Ben Wolff: And, you know, it was terrifying at the time, but I think that it really pushed me to think outside the box and to pursue something that had kind of been gnawing at me for a while.
• 12:21
  Ben Wolff: This idea of Onera, I had sort of been thinking about for well over a year.
• 12:26
  Ben Wolff: I had friends that were doing unique stays in Joshua Tree.
• 12:29
  Ben Wolff: I did this, you know, road trip for my honeymoon across the southwestern US in an RV.
• 12:34
  Ben Wolff: So I like I was re-falling in love with the great outdoors and I saw, you know, the trend of these unique experiential outdoor stays doing, you know, better and better.
• 12:45
  Ben Wolff: Um then when COVID hit, it was just like gasoline on the fire.
• 12:48
  Ben Wolff: And so, yeah, started looking for land within a couple weeks of COVID really hitting, I think.
• 12:54
  Ben Wolff: And we, we, you know, I took some developer lumps in that year.
• 12:58
  Ben Wolff: And then by the end of that year, we had found our property after, you know, kind of screwing it up on two deals prior.
• 13:04
  Ben Wolff: On our third one, we we found the property that became O'Neill Fredericksburg, this amazing, you know, seven-acre piece of property just a mile from Main Street, but really felt like it was, it was tucked into the this enchanted forest with a creek.
• 13:17
  Ben Wolff: And it really felt off the beaten path and remote, but it was super close and convenient to Main Street, which was really important to the concept because I didn't want to get into FB.
• 13:27
  Ben Wolff: I didn't want to get into like full service hotel land.
• 13:29
  Ben Wolff: So being that close to Main Street, restaurants, bars, shops was was super important to have, you know, as a complement to this limited service, you know, limited amenity product that O'Nera is.
• 13:40
  Connor Schwab: Do you think that that opportunity or that climate still exists to have, you know, like one influencer come out to your property and it, you know, is kind of like an overnight excess.
• 13:51
  Connor Schwab: Like, does that still exist in the world of social media and influencers these days?
• 13:55
  Ben Wolff: Massively successful influencer social media posts definitely still exists.
• 13:58
  Ben Wolff: I do think that there is a lot more, a lot more noise.
• 14:02
  Ben Wolff: There's a lot more fluff, there's a lot, you know, there's a lot more sort of landmines that that you're potentially stepping on because influencers are charging more.
• 14:10
  Ben Wolff: A lot of them are not worth what they're charging, I don't think today.
• 14:13
  Ben Wolff: And then there are the few that are worth what they're charging and more.
• 14:17
  Ben Wolff: Right.
• 14:17
  Ben Wolff: So the way I look at influencer marketing today is it's kind of on a bell curve.
• 14:21
  Ben Wolff: There's like the really good influencer marketers who are the best creators in in market, right?
• 14:27
  Ben Wolff: So Texas Explorer, the one that came out to us, she's still the best, you know, in in our market.
• 14:32
  Ben Wolff: There's a couple others in our area, I would say like three to four that are the best.
• 14:36
  Ben Wolff: And they charge, you know, three, four, five grand a pop, and they're totally worth it, right?
• 14:40
  Ben Wolff: I'll pay it all day, no problem, as long as there's not audience fatigue.
• 14:43
  Ben Wolff: So you only want to have them out every, you know, once a year, once every two years, something like that.
• 14:47
  Ben Wolff: And then on the other side, you have all of these, you know, what might be called micro influencers, right?
• 14:53
  Ben Wolff: Much smaller followings, they're on the come up still, you know, you're just giving them a free stay.
• 14:58
  Ben Wolff: And if I'm very unlikely to be displacing revenue, so you know, it's a weeknight or a day that I'm very unlikely to be fully occupied, I'm happy to have a micro influencer come, you know, share our property with their audience and and you know, hopefully we get some conversions, we help grow our following, et cetera.
• 15:15
  Ben Wolff: It's it's very low investment.
• 15:16
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): Connor, do you want to talk about glamping permits for a second?
• 15:20
  Connor Schwab: Yeah, it's it's hugely important.
• 15:22
  Connor Schwab: The two biggest roadblocks to getting you know glamping projects built is the funding and the entitlement and the permitting.
• 15:29
  Connor Schwab: So it's it's a really big deal.
• 15:31
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): Yeah, and it can be a very challenging and you know, sometimes quite intimidating process, not just putting all the materials together, but presenting it to the county, often going through the public hearing process, which can be really scary and sometimes quite nasty.
• 15:45
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): And that's why it does help to have people who are used to doing this on your side.
• 15:49
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): And that's why we're delighted to announce that uh today's sponsors are Clockwork Architecture and Design.
• 15:55
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): They're an architecture firm based in Kansas City.
• 15:57
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): They have a specialist outdoor hospitality division that have done tons of work in the glamping and RV resort space.
• 16:04
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): They're experts at designing and permitting glamping resorts or whatever kind of outdoor hospitality project it is.
• 16:10
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): They'll come to your property, walk the land with you, work at work through a concept with you, design the whole layout of the site, and then gather all the materials for the county, deal with the county, deal with the public hearings if you'd like them to.
• 16:22
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): And they're just you know all-round fantastic partners to have on your side.
• 16:26
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): And Connor, I know you and Sage have had some pretty good experiences with clockwork as well.
• 16:31
  Connor Schwab: Yeah, we've we've been working with clockwork literally the entire time that I've been at the company, so for four years.
• 16:37
  Connor Schwab: And so we've done dozens and dozens of projects with them.
• 16:40
  Connor Schwab: And love the chance to get to work with them because you know they are the best and most experienced in the industry.
• 16:45
  Connor Schwab: They they really know outdoor hospitality and they've designed some world-class sites.
• 16:50
  Connor Schwab: It's just, yeah, they're they're very talented.
• 16:53
  Connor Schwab: You'd be in good hands to work with them.
• 16:55
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): Yeah, and I can't vouch highly enough for Christian Arnold at Clockwork, the owner.
• 17:00
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): He's a you know fantastic guy who cares about what he does, looks after his clients, very reliable communication-wise as well.
• 17:06
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): And yeah, we're we're super excited to partner with them on this.
• 17:08
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): So if you are looking for site designs, you know, entitlement help, whatever it may be in that field, then do contact Clockwork Architecture and Design.
• 17:18
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): And the way you can do that is by emailing Christian at clockwork-ad.com.
• 17:23
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): All the details will be in the description as well.
• 17:25
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): So go check that out if you want.
• 17:27
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): So, yeah, thank you, Clockwork.
• 17:28
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): We couldn't recommend them highly enough.
• 17:30
  Nick Purslow (Sponsor): Go check them out.
• 17:31
  Connor Schwab: At the beginning of your journey, you were on all the OTAs.
• 17:34
  Connor Schwab: And then so obviously going direct marketing is better.
• 17:38
  Connor Schwab: I wonder if that's harder now, just with all of the noise in social media, you know, to be found.
• 17:46
  Connor Schwab: It's not as much of a barren landscape, it feels like, on social media.
• 17:50
  Connor Schwab: There's just there's a ton of commercial advertising, right?
• 17:53
  Connor Schwab: So it doesn't cut through quite quite the same way.
• 17:54
  Connor Schwab: But so I imagine a lot of people are starting on OTAs.
• 17:57
  Connor Schwab: What is your strategy with OTAs, you know, at least at the beginning, while you're like building a brand and a following?
• 18:03
  Connor Schwab: Or you just don't use them at all?
• 18:05
  Ben Wolff: So again, I think it's actually kind of binary.
• 18:07
  Ben Wolff: So with my last company, we were commodity short-term rentals in cities.
• 18:12
  Ben Wolff: So, in my view, sort of more commodity short-term rental company, you shouldn't invest anything in your brand.
• 18:18
  Ben Wolff: And we didn't, right?
• 18:19
  Ben Wolff: Just go all in on the OTAs.
• 18:20
  Ben Wolff: You know, your brand is your profile, the review score that you have, you know, constantly trying to optimize those listings, stay ahead of the curve, add amenities, add better photos and designs that make your listings pop.
• 18:32
  Ben Wolff: And I know people that do well in that space, but don't waste a dollar on brand, right?
• 18:37
  Ben Wolff: Because I don't think personally, I don't think consumers care.
• 18:40
  Ben Wolff: But if you do have some a product that's very unique, it has potential on social media, and you do want to invest in a brand, then yes, I think that it is still very possible and optimal to go all in on content marketing, video, social media.
• 18:56
  Ben Wolff: And it is harder today, you're not wrong.
• 18:59
  Ben Wolff: But if you have a great product and you know you get smart on content and video, or you work with a company or contractors that are really good at it, then I think you can definitely still cut through.
• 19:10
  Ben Wolff: And with social media, like it's constantly evolving.
• 19:13
  Ben Wolff: So you have to be staying ahead of the curve.
• 19:15
  Ben Wolff: Like what worked a year or two ago may not be working the same way today.
• 19:18
  Ben Wolff: I mean, we've seen that with giveaways, right?
• 19:20
  Ben Wolff: Influencer giveaways was like, you know, almost a sure thing a couple of years ago.
• 19:25
  Ben Wolff: And now it's very dependent not only on the influencer and your account.
• 19:29
  Ben Wolff: By the way, if your account has trash engagement and you do a collab with an influencer, a lot of times that post will get throttled.
• 19:36
  Ben Wolff: So even if it might have done well otherwise, because your account has poor engagement, you know, it won't do as well as if the creator just maybe posted it on their own if they have good engagement on their page.
• 19:45
  Ben Wolff: So there's all these nuances.
• 19:46
  Ben Wolff: It's definitely harder, but we have found it to be the most sticky, highest paying guests.
• 19:53
  Ben Wolff: We control the entire customer journey.
• 19:56
  Ben Wolff: So, you know, I still think there's huge value in that.
• 19:59
  Ben Wolff: Today for us.
• 19:59
  Ben Wolff: Us the OTAs are really a way to fill in lower demand days, you know, to try to, you know, just reach a different audience that, you know, allows us to get to the occupancy thresholds and the rev bar that we're trying to get to with our properties.
• 20:14
  Ben Wolff: I know some properties that almost exclusively do direct bookings.
• 20:18
  Ben Wolff: I think that's also a mistake, right?
• 20:19
  Ben Wolff: Or they do 100% direct bookings.
• 20:21
  Ben Wolff: Like there's no downside, in my view, to having broader distribution because you're reaching a guest that you wouldn't otherwise reach, in my opinion.
• 20:29
  Ben Wolff: So there's incremental occupancy there.
• 20:31
  Ben Wolff: So our golden rule, typically what we look for is about 80 to 85% direct and 15 to 20% OTA.
• 20:38
  Connor Schwab: Awesome.
• 20:38
  Connor Schwab: What what advice would you have for someone who's starting their brand from like a social media or a content creation perspective?
• 20:47
  Connor Schwab: Is there any just like basic fundamentals, like one, two, three steps for them to start to start to get their brand going or tell their story?
• 20:54
  Connor Schwab: And do you do you think it's more about the business and and the product?
• 21:00
  Connor Schwab: Or do you think it's more about the person behind the business and their story or any any opinions there?
• 21:07
  Connor Schwab: Either one can work, right?
• 21:09
  Ben Wolff: I think that it's harder to do it's harder to do like build in public and grow this big audience just based on the product before it's built.
• 21:19
  Ben Wolff: I think that is challenging.
• 21:20
  Ben Wolff: There are ways to do it.
• 21:22
  Ben Wolff: I mean, you know, I know you're aware of the strategy of like advanced crowdfunding or advanced reservation crowdfunding through like Indiegogo, running ads to build a list.
• 21:30
  Ben Wolff: Like I think that's one way that you can do it based on product, but you are running ads, right?
• 21:34
  Ben Wolff: It's not organic social.
• 21:35
  Ben Wolff: With organic social in the development phase, the best and most proven way to do that, and again, it's not easy, is the build-in public model.
• 21:44
  Ben Wolff: And I think the the probably the best example right now is Rajan Cheetah.
• 21:48
  Ben Wolff: I don't know if you've seen his stuff, but he's got almost half a million followers.
• 21:53
  Ben Wolff: I think he, I think he might have only started in 2025 this project that he's doing that's like a unique stay, kind of like live oak at Live Oak Lake-esque type cabins.
• 22:03
  Ben Wolff: Is this the young the young guy?
• 22:04
  Ben Wolff: Yeah.
• 22:05
  Ben Wolff: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:06
  Ben Wolff: And like he's he understands social media, right?
• 22:09
  Ben Wolff: Like he's he's got visual hooks in every video.
• 22:12
  Ben Wolff: He's building in public, he's you know asking the audience what what they would do, you know, X or Y.
• 22:18
  Ben Wolff: Should we do a you know a wood burning or an electric hot tub, right?
• 22:22
  Ben Wolff: Like he's he's like engaging the audience in these questions and literally making decisions, at least partially based on you know audience feedback.
• 22:29
  Ben Wolff: So he's really engaging, he's got a very engaged community, right?
• 22:32
  Ben Wolff: And and it's it's also it's very relatable, right?
• 22:34
  Ben Wolff: I think he's doing one or two units.
• 22:36
  Ben Wolff: It's not a huge hotel, which is sometimes my challenge and has been my challenge with the build-in public.
• 22:41
  Ben Wolff: It's like, you know, if I'm doing a 15, 20 million dollar resort, there's a much smaller audience segment that that is relevant to, right?
• 22:48
  Ben Wolff: Whereas like Isaac, you know, Rajan, like they're doing smaller, more achievable projects that have a bigger, you know, mass audience potential.
• 22:58
  Ben Wolff: So I build in public, Devin Lurup, right, is another great example.
• 23:02
  Ben Wolff: He did Pacific Bin.
• 23:03
  Ben Wolff: It's five shipping containers oriented in this, you know, crazy, I think he has multiple now, uh, short-term rental in in Washington, in the beautiful forest.
• 23:12
  Ben Wolff: So those, those would be the two shining examples, but it's a big commitment, right?
• 23:17
  Ben Wolff: I mean, you need to be posting daily, documenting the journey, understand visual hooks, audio, and and on-screen hooks as well.
• 23:24
  Ben Wolff: And so I think that has the longest term value.
• 23:28
  Ben Wolff: You're building a brand and an audience well before you open.
• 23:31
  Ben Wolff: It can lead to future media opportunities, it can lead to investment, it can lead to you know selling out your property easily with a single post.
• 23:39
  Ben Wolff: So huge value in that.
• 23:41
  Ben Wolff: And there's huge value in personal brand in general.
• 23:43
  Ben Wolff: I mean, I didn't start sort of from the personal brand lens and posting a lot, you know, on LinkedIn, Twitter, now Instagram.
• 23:51
  Ben Wolff: Um, I did not start that way.
• 23:53
  Ben Wolff: I was kind of heads down building Onera, but really delving into that in the last two, three years, it's been incredible the results that have come from it.
• 24:00
  Ben Wolff: Like Baya, our property in Florida, is due to a podcast that I landed on with my partner Steve Turk that only happened because he saw me posting on LinkedIn and Twitter.
• 24:10
  Ben Wolff: And, you know, almost all of our investors in Baya came from people that follow me on social media.
• 24:16
  Ben Wolff: So it's it it there's tremendous value with arguably, I don't have that big of a following, right?
• 24:22
  Ben Wolff: But it's it's niche, it's high authority, um, it's a very engaged community.
• 24:26
  Ben Wolff: And I only have, you know, 15,000, 20,000 followers on each platform.
• 24:30
  Connor Schwab: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:31
  Connor Schwab: Very cool.
• 24:32
  Connor Schwab: And all right, so what was next for uh on the Onera journey?
• 24:36
  Connor Schwab: I know we kind of got a little bit off topic.
• 24:39
  Ben Wolff: Sidracked there, yeah, yeah.
• 24:40
  Ben Wolff: There's a lot of rabbit holes that we can go down.
• 24:42
  Ben Wolff: So Onera, Open Fredericksburg did immediately, you know, really well out the gate, transitioned to doing more social media content marketing in 22, really with influencers, and then 2023 our own content.
• 24:54
  Ben Wolff: And that's when we stood up the OASI team.
• 24:56
  Ben Wolff: We tried to outsource it to an agency that fell on its face because traditional hotel marketing agencies, in my view, don't understand content usually.
• 25:04
  Ben Wolff: They're not content first, they're not content creators, they are marketers purely and oftentimes PR people.
• 25:10
  Ben Wolff: So watch out for that because content is the whole gig.
• 25:14
  Ben Wolff: That is the gold.
• 25:15
  Ben Wolff: So we built a team for our own properties, content first, really focused on that.
• 25:20
  Ben Wolff: Videographers, editors, content creators, copywriters, all the people that we needed to create incredible organic content.
• 25:26
  Ben Wolff: And that's what led us to this 80 to 85% direct booking ratio, which I think is kind of the gold standard.
• 25:32
  Ben Wolff: So that's what led to Owasi.
• 25:34
  Ben Wolff: And then we started doing it for third-party clients that saw our success and were asking, you know, asking us to do it for them as well.
• 25:40
  Ben Wolff: So that's kind of what happened with O'Neira.
• 25:42
  Ben Wolff: And we had a public REIT that you mentioned, some at Hotel Properties that saw our early success.
• 25:49
  Ben Wolff: I think we actually connected with them around the time that we opened.
• 25:51
  Ben Wolff: They really liked what we were doing.
• 25:52
  Ben Wolff: They needed to see a little bit more.
• 25:54
  Ben Wolff: We spent like a year negotiating.
• 25:56
  Ben Wolff: And by the end of 2023, we sold to them a majority stake.
• 26:00
  Ben Wolff: So 90% interest at a $7 million valuation, which, you know, was a really big win for our investors and, you know, track record on that project.
• 26:11
  Ben Wolff: And another reason that they bought, I think, was that there was expansion potential to Fredericksburg, which we've now realized.
• 26:17
  Ben Wolff: So we expanded O'Neill Fredericksburg from 12 keys to 35, which just opened in June of June, July of this year.
• 26:28
  Ben Wolff: And we have some of the most audacious, crazy designs yet at that at that location.
• 26:33
  Ben Wolff: And they also liked that we had a second location in the works at that time.
• 26:37
  Ben Wolff: In 2023, we were kind of in the planning and pre-development stages at O'Neill-Wimberly, the property that you went to.
• 26:43
  Ben Wolff: So that's about an hour and 15 minutes from Fredericksburg, still Texas Hill Country, but a very different vibe and type of property.
• 26:49
  Ben Wolff: It's got these incredible long hill country views.
• 26:52
  Ben Wolff: It's it's very close to this quaint town of Wimberley, whereas Fredericksburg is more like tucked in the woods.
• 26:57
  Ben Wolff: So yeah, that Wimberly one we opened end of 24.
• 27:01
  Connor Schwab: Amazing.
• 27:01
  Connor Schwab: Yes.
• 27:01
  Connor Schwab: The I've seen Wimberly, it's beautiful.
• 27:04
  Connor Schwab: Really well done in terms of building into the landscape, creating views and separation.
• 27:11
  Connor Schwab: Well imagine like a really, really well done resort pool.
• 27:15
  Connor Schwab: And you know, very unique units with lots of wonderful views, floor to ceiling glass.
• 27:22
  Connor Schwab: All of your units have hot tubs.
• 27:23
  Connor Schwab: So I was really impressed.
• 27:24
  Connor Schwab: I haven't had a chance to see Fredericksburg yet, so I need to get out there.
• 27:28
  Connor Schwab: But I forgot that you guys had just done that massive expansion.
• 27:31
  Connor Schwab: So how how are how are Wimblerly and Fredericksburg, you know, doing today in the last maybe in 2025?
• 27:38
  Ben Wolff: Yeah, so we're we're getting close to stabilization in Wimberley.
• 27:42
  Ben Wolff: You know, I thought that we actually hit, we're gonna hit stabilization this summer.
• 27:45
  Ben Wolff: And then those really nasty floods where you know some really horrific things happened in the hill country, really kicked us in the teeth.
• 27:51
  Ben Wolff: Not that we were super impacted by the flugs, but just from like a market standpoint, things softened a bit July, August, September.
• 27:58
  Ben Wolff: But we're seeing big pickup, October, November are looking very strong.
• 28:01
  Ben Wolff: So my, you know, it feels like we're gonna stabilize in 26.
• 28:06
  Ben Wolff: But yeah, Wimberley, we're consistently seeing ADRs month over month, anywhere from like low to mid fours to low fives.
• 28:13
  Ben Wolff: So, you know, 400s to 500s with occupancies anywhere from 70 to you know 85%.
• 28:19
  Ben Wolff: So still performing pretty well, I would say already.
• 28:24
  Ben Wolff: And looking at, you know, looking the goal is to get that to, you know, 500s, you know, close to 500 consistently on the ADR side at around a 75 to you know 80% occupancy.
• 28:35
  Connor Schwab: Man, very impressive.
• 28:37
  Connor Schwab: Very impressive.
• 28:38
  Connor Schwab: And maybe let's take it to uh let's take a minute to chat about Owasi.
• 28:42
  Connor Schwab: Can you tell us about Owasi, when you started it, what what you do, the services that you provide?
• 28:47
  Ben Wolff: Yeah, happy to.
• 28:48
  Ben Wolff: So Owasi really grow out grew out of a massive need of ONERA and some of our other properties as well.
• 28:54
  Ben Wolff: We had a hotel in Palm Springs that I was involved in the renovation of and raised the money around.
• 28:58
  Ben Wolff: It was part of my fund.
• 28:59
  Ben Wolff: So that property, Spirit of Sophia and ONERA, really wanted to invest heavily in social media and create amazing organic content, but we could not find an agency that would do it well.
• 29:11
  Ben Wolff: So we ended up building up the team ourselves and it started small.
• 29:14
  Ben Wolff: You know, videographer and and my partner in that business, who I didn't really get to talk about a ton yet, Jesse, who's been a longtime friend.
• 29:20
  Ben Wolff: I actually used to work for him.
• 29:22
  Ben Wolff: He's largely the like content marketing genius that has stood up AWASI from a you know, building out that social media marketing team.
• 29:30
  Ben Wolff: So he was really the brains and pattern recognition and sort of geeking out on content that led us to the success that we had early on.
• 29:37
  Ben Wolff: And he's helped to kind of grow the team.
• 29:39
  Ben Wolff: And now we have an amazing team of 25 people at AWASI, over half of which are on the marketing side.
• 29:44
  Ben Wolff: So we're getting ideas and new formats and and all of that from you know across the team.
• 29:51
  Ben Wolff: But uh early on, it was largely Jesse's brain and the videographer that we hired first, this guy, Josh, who is our head of content and videography now.
• 30:00
  Ben Wolff: And so that's kind of the humble beginnings of where we started.
• 30:02
  Ben Wolff: Josh was editing all the videos.
• 30:04
  Ben Wolff: And today we're yeah, 25 strong experts across, you know, every area, videographers, editors, copywriters, creative associates, like even like true content creators that can do the full stack to test new concepts or viral hackers, right?
• 30:18
  Ben Wolff: They're looking at trends, seeing what's working, seeing how we can replicate it and incorporate it into what we do.
• 30:23
  Ben Wolff: Email marketers, we have a great partner when it comes to SEO and Google ads.
• 30:27
  Ben Wolff: And then we're really strong at meta-ads internally.
• 30:30
  Ben Wolff: So we have someone who runs all of our meta-ads.
• 30:33
  Ben Wolff: And that's on the marketing side of things.
• 30:35
  Ben Wolff: So today we can effectively operate as your fully outsourced chief marketing officer with specialists in each of these areas.
• 30:44
  Ben Wolff: And it all comes down, you know, the linchpin of the whole strategy and how we add value is with the content.
• 30:51
  Ben Wolff: So it starts with amazing content.
• 30:53
  Ben Wolff: We get high organic engagement, we get great awareness from organic social.
• 30:57
  Ben Wolff: We take the winners of our posts.
• 31:00
  Ben Wolff: So the best video that we have from an organic engagement standpoint, and we convert that into meta ads.
• 31:06
  Ben Wolff: So those become high and Google ads.
• 31:08
  Ben Wolff: So those become very high performing ads because the creative is so good and it's been tested organically.
• 31:13
  Ben Wolff: A lot of hotels and unique cities out there are very much flying blind with their creative.
• 31:18
  Ben Wolff: They don't know what works.
• 31:19
  Ben Wolff: They're, you know, agencies typically will test like two creatives over the course of months.
• 31:23
  Ben Wolff: We're create, we're testing dozens, you know, over the same period, right?
• 31:27
  Ben Wolff: At any one time, we might have a dozen different pieces pieces of creative getting optimized within Meta and Google.
• 31:34
  Ben Wolff: So, yeah, that's kind of what we do on the marketing side.
• 31:36
  Ben Wolff: And then the other area of our business where I think we have the most edge and the most value to add is revenue management.
• 31:42
  Ben Wolff: So we can effectively act as your chief revenue officer.
• 31:46
  Ben Wolff: We are more manual and less you know, plug plug it into your favorite dynamic pricing tool and it will spit out what I often see as garbage in, garbage out results.
• 31:58
  Ben Wolff: So oftentimes, like price labs, which we use price labs by the way, but we use it to push pricing.
• 32:03
  Ben Wolff: But people that just use price labs and their dynamic pricing out of the box or beyond pricing or one of these other revenue management tools, very often it is pulling marketwide data, heavily weighting that.
• 32:16
  Ben Wolff: Your product may be very different from the products that it's pulling pricing for.
• 32:21
  Ben Wolff: Even if it's similar, those competitors might have a very suboptimal strategy that you are now anchoring to, right?
• 32:27
  Ben Wolff: So we found it much more effective and it to be well worth it to have true pricing analysts and data analysts checking, checking market availability and inventory movement, checking pacing on a daily basis, building out custom models that effectively rank order every day of the year into tiers.
• 32:45
  Ben Wolff: And then that can fluctuate, you know, based on what we're seeing in the market.
• 32:49
  Ben Wolff: But it is manual, but we have some of the best and brightest on our revenue management team, you know, pushing, pushing that edge.
• 32:56
  Ben Wolff: And I mean, we've seen when we combine the revenue management and the pricing, the revenue management and the marketing side of things together, when we combine it together, we've had some clients that have been up, you know, 60, 70% year over year in in terms of their revenue.
• 33:10
  Ben Wolff: So the the results can be pretty phenomenal.
• 33:13
  Connor Schwab: Wow.
• 33:13
  Connor Schwab: Amazing.
• 33:14
  Connor Schwab: And marketing and advertising has gotten so sophisticated with algorithms and all the different channels that it's it's really impossible for any one person to do.
• 33:23
  Connor Schwab: And it takes a whole team.
• 33:25
  Connor Schwab: And even in your big team, I know you you mentioned you have some partners that you go to, right?
• 33:29
  Connor Schwab: Which is just what you have to do because everyone has to specialize at what they're best at.
• 33:33
  Connor Schwab: What's your typical client and what does, you know, what kind of packages are you offering for folks?
• 33:41
  Ben Wolff: Yeah, it's a good question.
• 33:42
  Ben Wolff: And we're actually getting more standardized with our offering.
• 33:46
  Ben Wolff: And I think we have a really strong offer at this point.
• 33:48
  Ben Wolff: We are targeting bigger clients, you know, unfortunately for some of the smaller glamping operators out there.
• 33:54
  Ben Wolff: I have a lot of them come to me asking for quotes.
• 33:57
  Ben Wolff: And it's it's very often hard for us to justify taking on a client that's, you know, sub a million a year or even sub two million a year.
• 34:05
  Ben Wolff: So our target is really two to four million annual revenue plus.
• 34:09
  Ben Wolff: And we are, you know, our ideal client is signing up with us for both marketing, so at least social media and content, if not full stack marketing, and revenue management.
• 34:20
  Ben Wolff: So, and we try to make it pretty attractive.
• 34:22
  Ben Wolff: We believe in our product to such an extent.
• 34:25
  Ben Wolff: Uh, on the revenue management side, we do a lot of money-back guarantees.
• 34:28
  Ben Wolff: Like if you know, work with us, 90-day lock-in.
• 34:30
  Ben Wolff: If you don't see a lift, don't pay us.
• 34:32
  Ben Wolff: I mean, that's how much we believe in what we do.
• 34:34
  Ben Wolff: And then on the marketing side, we've really shifted to we're pretty much operating at cost with a big incentive portion of it for us to make our money.
• 34:45
  Ben Wolff: So there's a few different tiers.
• 34:47
  Ben Wolff: Uh, the base tier starts around seven grand a month.
• 34:50
  Ben Wolff: And then, so it's seven grand a month for all of your content.
• 34:54
  Ben Wolff: So it includes all your videography, editing, posting, comments, DMs, multiple platforms, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, includes your email marketing.
• 35:02
  Ben Wolff: Okay.
• 35:02
  Ben Wolff: If you want to run ads, that'll just be 20% of ad spend.
• 35:06
  Ben Wolff: Any other fixed cost is based into that seven grand a month.
• 35:10
  Ben Wolff: And then we have a performance incentive, which is a dollar per link tap.
• 35:14
  Ben Wolff: And link tap is effectively who goes into your Instagram profile and clicks on the website link on your profile.
• 35:22
  Ben Wolff: So it's very targeted traffic.
• 35:24
  Ben Wolff: True revenue attribution is very challenging with organic social.
• 35:27
  Ben Wolff: And I could do a whole podcast or YouTube video on why that is.
• 35:31
  Ben Wolff: So we really rely on link taps as the most down funneled targeted traffic metric that we can get.
• 35:37
  Ben Wolff: So we do seven grand a month plus a dollar a link tap.
• 35:40
  Ben Wolff: And typically we're targeting anywhere from five to 10,000 link taps per month.
• 35:45
  Ben Wolff: So our fees can get you know over 10K pretty quick, but we're driving a ton of value.
• 35:50
  Ben Wolff: If you look at your Instagram page and you want to find out how many link taps you're generating today, you go into the professional dashboard, you go into the, I think it's like audience or views or something like that, and then you scroll to the bottom and it shows the number of link taps that you had in a 30 or 90 day period.
• 36:07
  Ben Wolff: Typically, with people before we take them on, they're seeing anywhere from you know 50 to a couple hundred link taps a month, and we're bringing them to five to 10,000.
• 36:17
  Ben Wolff: So it's like a 10, 20x bump.
• 36:19
  Ben Wolff: Yeah, amazing.
• 36:20
  Connor Schwab: And then so it's what you said, 7,000, and that's the that's kind of the management fee that goes to Awasi.
• 36:26
  Connor Schwab: And then how much is being spent on the actual paid ad on top of that?
• 36:31
  Ben Wolff: It totally depends on the property.
• 36:33
  Ben Wolff: So if if you're if you're doing one to two mil a year in revenue, even like a little over two, you can do a lot with organic, right?
• 36:42
  Ben Wolff: With really good organic social, you don't necessarily have to be spending a bunch on ads.
• 36:45
  Ben Wolff: If you're getting into like the $5 million a year target in revenue, you're probably doing a really good job with us with organic social.
• 36:52
  Ben Wolff: And you're probably also spending, you know, 10, 15, sometimes 20 grand a month on across all ads, right?
• 36:59
  Ben Wolff: Google, Google search, branded, unbranded, PMAX, you know, Meta on Facebook and Instagram.
• 37:05
  Ben Wolff: So it's very client dependent.
• 37:07
  Ben Wolff: And we're only going to spend more if the ROAS is there, right?
• 37:10
  Ben Wolff: If if the return on the ad spend is there and makes sense.
• 37:13
  Ben Wolff: Yeah.
• 37:13
  Connor Schwab: And I'm I'm you we're usually recommending people spend like an absolute minimum of 5% on marketing and advertising.
• 37:19
  Connor Schwab: That's probably low compared to what you guys do and what you guys say.
• 37:22
  Ben Wolff: No, I think five, yeah, it is the low end.
• 37:23
  Ben Wolff: I would say five to 10% is what we recommend.
• 37:26
  Ben Wolff: And especially if if you're trying to drive most of your bookings direct.
• 37:30
  Ben Wolff: So one thing you can think about, right?
• 37:31
  Ben Wolff: If you're doing 80 to 85% direct and way less with OTAs, take what you would be spending on commissions and be willing to at least spend some of that on your marketing, right?
• 37:41
  Ben Wolff: Because a lot of people don't include OTA commissions in their marketing and sales bucket.
• 37:45
  Ben Wolff: But that's basically what it is.
• 37:46
  Connor Schwab: That's an amazing way to look at it.
• 37:48
  Connor Schwab: It if you if if if you're getting 80% of your income from OTAs and they're taking what, I don't know, 10% or something like that.
• 37:54
  Connor Schwab: At least 15.
• 37:56
  Ben Wolff: I mean, Airbnb is 15 right now, booking.com, maybe some of the glamping ones are less, but you know, the main short-term rental and and hotel ones, booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, it's all 15 to 25%.
• 38:06
  Connor Schwab: Yeah.
• 38:06
  Connor Schwab: So if most of your bookings are coming through OTAs, you're losing.
• 38:10
  Connor Schwab: Let's just say you do a million dollars a year, you know, that's that's $200,000.
• 38:14
  Connor Schwab: So that the OTAs are taking.
• 38:17
  Connor Schwab: So, you know, what Ben is saying is if you're getting people to book direct, mostly through socials and organic content, then if you spend $200,000 and now all of a sudden it flips and you have 80% direct bookings because you built out assets that you own and brand strength.
• 38:32
  Connor Schwab: It's more of an investment.
• 38:33
  Connor Schwab: You know, when you when you pay an OTA fee, that that gets you very minimal quality.
• 38:39
  Connor Schwab: Maybe you get reviews that are built up on those channels over time, but that's it.
• 38:42
  Connor Schwab: But when you're spending that money on marketing and advertising, that's an investment.
• 38:46
  Connor Schwab: Those are brand assets that you own on your website or on your socials forever.
• 38:52
  Connor Schwab: So it's it's it's a good way to go.
• 38:53
  Connor Schwab: And that's yeah.
• 38:54
  Connor Schwab: And then also, what's the cost of not of empty bed, of empty rooms?
• 38:59
  Connor Schwab: You know, so just calculate what's the cost on your property on a monthly basis, you know, if you're able to bring your occupancy from, you know, 60 to 65%, how much more revenue, how much more profit hits the bottom line, and then think about hey, should I be, do I think that pulling these levers in marketing and advertising might bring me from 60 to 65% occupancy?
• 39:19
  Connor Schwab: And how much extra money is that?
• 39:20
  Connor Schwab: And this is especially important in your first two years when you are building credibility, when you're building SEO, when you're getting reviews to kind of surface in the market.
• 39:32
  Ben Wolff: Yeah, and I would just say to echo that point, if if you can bump incremental occupancy, oftentimes going from 60 to 65, 65 to 70, that ends up being super high margin because you have fixed costs, right?
• 39:45
  Ben Wolff: So you have fixed costs that are getting spread out now across more bookings.
• 39:48
  Ben Wolff: So it's going to improve your overall profitability.
• 39:50
  Ben Wolff: And that last five, 10% of incremental occupancy is gonna be some of the higher highest margin.
• 39:56
  Connor Schwab: That's a hugely good point.
• 39:57
  Connor Schwab: Yeah.
• 39:57
  Connor Schwab: Every month you have your fixed cost, you pay your rent.
• 39:59
  Connor Schwab: You pay a lot of your utilities, your insurance, like those stay the same.
• 40:04
  Connor Schwab: So, and you have to pay that every single month.
• 40:06
  Connor Schwab: And if you're able to get that extra 5%, just like Ben said, that's a that's a really good point as well.
• 40:11
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): Hello, listeners.
• 40:11
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): This is Sherry Halala, founder of Sage Outdoor Advisory.
• 40:14
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): If you're launching an outdoor hospitality project like Clamping, we can help.
• 40:18
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): We offer feasibility studies and appraisals.
• 40:20
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): 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.
• 40:29
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): 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.
• 40:36
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): This is particularly important if you are looking to raise money for your project from a bank or private investors.
• 40:41
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): They are going to want to see this type of deep dive analysis from an independent third-party specialist in the industry.
• 40:47
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): We at Sage have completed well over 250 feasibility studies and appraisals in outdoor hospitality in North America in the last four years.
• 40:56
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): So we understand what it takes to bring a project from concept to reality.
• 41:00
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): 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.
• 41:06
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): While you're there, check out our proprietary glamping database map too.
• 41:10
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): Thanks.
• 41:10
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): Now back to the show.
• 41:12
  Connor Schwab: So I guess kind of maybe spinning things off on Awasi.
• 41:15
  Connor Schwab: Any other updates on I mean, on that.
• 41:19
  Connor Schwab: Well, maybe we could maybe we could pivot to uh to to Baya.
• 41:23
  Connor Schwab: I'd love to hear.
• 41:23
  Connor Schwab: Did I pronounce that correctly?
• 41:25
  Connor Schwab: You did, yeah.
• 41:25
  Connor Schwab: Baya.
• 41:26
  Connor Schwab: Okay.
• 41:26
  Ben Wolff: Hopefully enough for people.
• 41:27
  Ben Wolff: I haven't heard too many people mispronounce it.
• 41:29
  Ben Wolff: So hopefully it's easy enough to to to say.
• 41:32
  Ben Wolff: But yeah, so Baya is a new brand that is effectively the combination of outdoor experiential travel, agritourism or farm hospitality, whatever you want to call it, and wellness.
• 41:43
  Ben Wolff: Okay, so it's kind of like a mashup of those three things that, of course, relate and are interconnected, right?
• 41:48
  Ben Wolff: So that's kind of the where the idea of Baya came from and what our brand pillars really are.
• 41:54
  Ben Wolff: First location, we are creating this tropical landscape resort.
• 41:59
  Ben Wolff: So think like jungle vibes mixed with exotic fruit farm, which is where the property is.
• 42:04
  Ben Wolff: It's on a 25-acre exotic fruit farm, just 45 minutes from Miami proper.
• 42:08
  Ben Wolff: So very well located.
• 42:10
  Ben Wolff: Think like Costa Rica Bali vibes, but stateside, and 45 minutes from Miami airport.
• 42:16
  Ben Wolff: So very accessible.
• 42:17
  Ben Wolff: And it's in this like booming agritourism, fruit farming.
• 42:23
  Ben Wolff: You know, they have wineries, fruit farms, monkey jungle.
• 42:26
  Ben Wolff: It's close to the Everglades, it's on the way to the Florida Keys.
• 42:29
  Ben Wolff: And it allows us to grow whatever exotic fruit, whatever tropical plants that we want to create this kind of otherworldly jungle environment.
• 42:38
  Ben Wolff: So that's what we're building with Baya.
• 42:41
  Ben Wolff: And we're, yeah, we're we're moving along.
• 42:43
  Ben Wolff: We're into permitting phase.
• 42:44
  Ben Wolff: We met with Miami-Dade County.
• 42:46
  Ben Wolff: We got the initial green light to move forward.
• 42:49
  Ben Wolff: And yeah, we have a site plan that's that's you know done.
• 42:53
  Ben Wolff: We have a modular manufacturer we're working with with unit designs done.
• 42:57
  Ben Wolff: We've stood up pretty much all the equity capital that we need, and we're we're finalizing the debt side right now.
• 43:03
  Connor Schwab: Wow.
• 43:04
  Connor Schwab: Super exciting.
• 43:05
  Connor Schwab: Can you tell me a little bit more about maybe what you have in mind for like the guest experience or the amenities and how you're how you're hitting those, you know, those new ideas.
• 43:14
  Ben Wolff: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:15
  Ben Wolff: Happy to.
• 43:15
  Ben Wolff: So we're just certainly going to be doing farm tours, farm to table, both dinners, cooking classes, you know, culinary experiences, smoothie making, you know, you name it.
• 43:25
  Ben Wolff: We will have a farm to table farm to table cafe and juicery, which is my first foray into F and B.
• 43:31
  Ben Wolff: Um I have a great.
• 43:32
  Connor Schwab: That's true.
• 43:33
  Connor Schwab: That whoa, that is one thing.
• 43:35
  Connor Schwab: You've you've gone so you've pushed such high rates without having F and B.
• 43:39
  Connor Schwab: Wow, good for you.
• 43:40
  Connor Schwab: I'm glad you're taking the plunge.
• 43:42
  Ben Wolff: Taking the plunge.
• 43:42
  Ben Wolff: So, and the only one of the only reasons I am is that I have a I'm literally working with the F and B director at Nobu Hotel in Miami, right?
• 43:49
  Ben Wolff: Like the guy that that that sort of consults all of the luxury hotels in Miami on what to what to launch for their F and B program and how to optimize it.
• 43:58
  Ben Wolff: And it's funny, right?
• 43:59
  Ben Wolff: Like he's he's been a big proponent of not having a full service fine dining, you know, fine dining restaurant.
• 44:05
  Ben Wolff: But we are, so what we're gonna do is we're having this, you know, health forward cafe concept.
• 44:09
  Ben Wolff: I don't know if you know Miami well, but this concept of pure puravita, this restaurant out there, is like blowing up.
• 44:14
  Ben Wolff: It's it's health forward cafe, counter service, but like really cool vibe.
• 44:19
  Ben Wolff: The the the rates they're able to charge are pretty unbelievable for like a salmon bowl, tuna bowl, like this, this kind of, you know, either just requires food prep or maybe a turbo chef or making a smoothie, but isn't a full-fledged commercial kitchen.
• 44:33
  Ben Wolff: So we're trying to, you know, there'll be a lot of raw food and you know, raw options.
• 44:38
  Ben Wolff: So we're we're sort of dialing in that menu, but it'll be very much seasonal.
• 44:41
  Ben Wolff: So it'll change, if not on a daily basis, at least on a weekly basis, depending on what's in season.
• 44:46
  Ben Wolff: We'll use whatever's in season all throughout the menu, which I think will be a cool experience for folks.
• 44:52
  Ben Wolff: There'll be plenty of things that we're growing on site, right?
• 44:56
  Ben Wolff: That's incorporated into the menu, which I think will be a cool experience for folks as well.
• 45:00
  Ben Wolff: So yeah, I'm really excited to kind of delve into that world.
• 45:03
  Ben Wolff: So that's kind of the farm hospitality, you know, the FB side of things.
• 45:08
  Ben Wolff: On the wellness side of things, I mean, we're gonna have, you know, hydrotherapy, contrast therapy, so cold plunge, hot tub, sauna, maybe multiple types of sauna.
• 45:17
  Ben Wolff: So infrared, dry.
• 45:18
  Ben Wolff: We will have these private grottos.
• 45:22
  Ben Wolff: So right below the surface is this white coral limestone in this area of uh Redland, Florida.
• 45:29
  Ben Wolff: So we can create these like cenote-looking pools.
• 45:32
  Ben Wolff: So we'll have some private grottos.
• 45:35
  Ben Wolff: There'll be like a big lagoon slash pool that will that will also sort of have that aesthetic and look.
• 45:41
  Ben Wolff: All of the bungalows will be tucked into this sort of like fruit forest jungle vibe.
• 45:47
  Ben Wolff: So they'll be very private.
• 45:48
  Ben Wolff: We plan to have a stream sort of meandering through this part of the property.
• 45:53
  Ben Wolff: So we'll have really great acoustics from a water, you know, water acoustics and and the sounds of nature.
• 45:59
  Ben Wolff: And I think the final piece that I'll touch on now and I could, you know, keep going on forever, but the final piece is sleep wellness, which has become very important to me.
• 46:07
  Ben Wolff: And I think like the pillar of, I mean, it's just sort of like the foundation of all wellness is sleep wellness.
• 46:14
  Ben Wolff: Because if you don't get a good night's sleep, it's like, you know, it's hard to make anything else work.
• 46:19
  Ben Wolff: So we're potentially going to be investing in bright beds or eight sleep mattresses.
• 46:24
  Ben Wolff: We haven't decided yet.
• 46:25
  Ben Wolff: Bright beds are they each side of the bed operates independently.
• 46:30
  Ben Wolff: So you can have separate firmness, you can have separate angle, you can also there's micro movements that that can actually like the mattress itself is is creating these micro movements that actually mimic the womb, which is wild, that help you fall asleep and also help get you into a lighter sleep stage if you're trying to wake up to at a certain time, right?
• 46:52
  Ben Wolff: So if you want to wake up at 7 a.m., it will do these micro movements within the 30 minutes before you get up to get you into a lighter sleep stage so that you have a higher readiness score and you're, you know, you don't wake up feeling super groggy in the middle of a deep sleep.
• 47:06
  Ben Wolff: So, you know, a lot of things that we're working on to really push the envelope on the wellness side of things, but but there's a taste of of some of the some of them that we're doing.
• 47:15
  Connor Schwab: Wow.
• 47:15
  Connor Schwab: So biohacking.
• 47:16
  Connor Schwab: What so so the chef, Steve Steve, right?
• 47:22
  Ben Wolff: Steve Turk, not not a chef, but a F and B expert, luxury, luxury hospitality expert, yeah.
• 47:28
  Ben Wolff: So he's been more like the guy.
• 47:29
  Ben Wolff: F B manager, correct.
• 47:31
  Ben Wolff: Sorry, F B manager, yeah.
• 47:32
  Ben Wolff: Oversees the chefs.
• 47:34
  Connor Schwab: Yep.
• 47:34
  Connor Schwab: Yeah, exactly.
• 47:35
  Connor Schwab: So he's saying he doesn't necessarily want to do a fine dining dinner.
• 47:38
  Connor Schwab: He wants to do more of like grab and go.
• 47:42
  Ben Wolff: So the plan right now is to have the Baya Cafe open from like mid to late morning until early evening.
• 47:49
  Ben Wolff: So you could have three meals there if you wanted to.
• 47:52
  Ben Wolff: It will be somewhat limited, right?
• 47:53
  Ben Wolff: It'll be very like health forward, nutrition conscious.
• 47:56
  Ben Wolff: Um, so if that's what you're looking for, you can have all three of your meals there.
• 48:00
  Ben Wolff: Now, in addition to that, we plan to supplement the evenings with a couple different things.
• 48:05
  Ben Wolff: So one will be, you know, private chefs that you can book, you know, for a romantic couple dinner, communal private chef dinners on certain days of the week, most likely.
• 48:14
  Ben Wolff: So some days we'll have a private chef come do a communal dinner that you can opt into as one option.
• 48:20
  Ben Wolff: And then finally doing like a food cart, not food cart, food truck.
• 48:24
  Ben Wolff: There we go.
• 48:24
  Ben Wolff: Like a food truck type situation where you where it is a commercial kitchen and we're only bringing it in certain days and nights of the week.
• 48:32
  Ben Wolff: Okay.
• 48:33
  Connor Schwab: So there won't be like a fine dining dinner experience at the resort itself.
• 48:38
  Ben Wolff: So you can have dinner at the cafe.
• 48:40
  Ben Wolff: I would not call it, you know, fine dining.
• 48:43
  Ben Wolff: We're not shooting for Michelin stars or anything like that.
• 48:45
  Ben Wolff: It'll be really good food, very cool environment, but it but it's not like a fine dining restaurant.
• 48:50
  Ben Wolff: And at 20 keys, it's just really hard to make the numbers work for that unless you you have heavy foot traffic, which this area is not heavy foot traffic.
• 48:59
  Ben Wolff: It's pretty rural.
• 49:00
  Connor Schwab: Yeah.
• 49:00
  Ben Wolff: And will you guys, is there gonna be a bar?
• 49:02
  Ben Wolff: Yeah, of course.
• 49:04
  Ben Wolff: Definitely a bar.
• 49:04
  Ben Wolff: Yep.
• 49:05
  Ben Wolff: So the the cafe will will have a bar, most likely beer and wine.
• 49:09
  Ben Wolff: It's very hard to get a liquor license in this area.
• 49:11
  Ben Wolff: So we'll do beer and wine, you know, coffee drinks, smoothies, all that kind of stuff.
• 49:15
  Ben Wolff: Awesome.
• 49:16
  Ben Wolff: That is really exciting.
• 49:17
  Ben Wolff: What do you have in mind kind of for the units, for the unit style?
• 49:20
  Ben Wolff: It's a very organic shape.
• 49:22
  Ben Wolff: So, you know, from a drone view, they almost look like flower petals or you know, leaves or something like that.
• 49:28
  Ben Wolff: So it it's effectively, it has rounded walls, okay, that kind of come to a peak and it comes to like a peak point, like a leaf wood at at the top, you know, the middle of the ceiling on both the front and the back of the unit.
• 49:42
  Ben Wolff: And then it kind of dips down in the middle.
• 49:43
  Ben Wolff: So it really has this like organic flowing shape that that feels like the you know, the the flora of the era area.
• 49:51
  Ben Wolff: Wow.
• 49:52
  Ben Wolff: And when are you hoping for this to open?
• 49:54
  Ben Wolff: So the plan is to start building in Q1 of 26 and be open by Q1 of 27.
• 50:00
  Ben Wolff: So it's a it's an accelerated construction timeline.
• 50:03
  Ben Wolff: We are doing the project modular, and so that's helping us shave off a few months and and get to that 12-month schedule.
• 50:10
  Connor Schwab: Man, very exciting stuff.
• 50:12
  Connor Schwab: So, in terms of kind of macro things going on with the industry, I was just curious how in in terms of AI, how is how is AI changing how you spend your time each day?
• 50:25
  Connor Schwab: And how you, you know, how do you how do you use it on a daily basis?
• 50:28
  Connor Schwab: And how do you see it changing travel and social media?
• 50:37
  Connor Schwab: I mean, it's it's so many things, right?
• 50:38
  Connor Schwab: I mean, there's so many areas that it could impact, right?
• 50:41
  Connor Schwab: Was one is how does it impact your day as an entrepreneur?
• 50:43
  Connor Schwab: Two is how does it impact social media?
• 50:46
  Connor Schwab: And three is like, how does it impact you know operations in hospitality?
• 50:50
  Connor Schwab: I guess is the kind of the three.
• 50:52
  Ben Wolff: Well, one other thing you asked, I think is is one of the more interesting ones that I feel like I have a viewpoint on, which is how is it going to impact travel?
• 50:58
  Ben Wolff: I mean, I do feel like I have a viewpoint on that, so I'll touch on that one.
• 51:01
  Ben Wolff: In terms of my day-to-day, look, I'm I mean, I'm in and out of ChatGPT all the time.
• 51:06
  Ben Wolff: There's some use cases that it's really good for.
• 51:08
  Ben Wolff: I use ChatGPT, you know, to spin up Instagram captions, you know, in a very specific style that I like for my videos, for my personal account.
• 51:16
  Ben Wolff: I use it, you know, before I use Google now to if I'm get hopping on the phone with somebody, I want to debrief, you know, of who they are, you know, what their portfolio looks like, everything that I need to know about them.
• 51:27
  Ben Wolff: So it really helps fast track that kind of, you know, prospect or potential investor or whatever it may be, research that needs to be done.
• 51:34
  Ben Wolff: I'm now using the Chat GPT browser.
• 51:37
  Ben Wolff: So I'm I'm definitely, you know, sort of, I'd say pretty far down that rabbit hole, and it's very built into my workflow in a number of different areas.
• 51:46
  Ben Wolff: Outside of that, we use it quite a bit for content.
• 51:49
  Ben Wolff: We use it quite a bit for my personal brand content.
• 51:52
  Ben Wolff: So we still have humans that are very involved in the idea generation, topic generation, and ultimately like the final writing product.
• 52:00
  Ben Wolff: But AI helps us a ton with research, building out the story, initial iterations of what like a script for an IG reel or you know, the bones of a LinkedIn or Twitter post.
• 52:12
  Ben Wolff: So certainly leveraging it it quite a bit on that front.
• 52:16
  Ben Wolff: Yeah, those are probably the main areas.
• 52:18
  Ben Wolff: I mean, there's like, you know, it's funny, I uh just from like a personal life standpoint, I have a GPT called Peak Performance that I've built out that's helping me to, as I've kind of gotten into more of like my health and wellness biohacking journey, things, things to to learn and try and test.
• 52:37
  Ben Wolff: So I'm, you know, how to how to achieve my goals.
• 52:40
  Ben Wolff: Um I'm using ChatGPT.
• 52:42
  Ben Wolff: Give us a peek.
• 52:43
  Ben Wolff: Give us a peek.
• 52:43
  Ben Wolff: What does that look like?
• 52:44
  Ben Wolff: Sure.
• 52:45
  Ben Wolff: So I started a supplement stack earlier this year.
• 52:48
  Ben Wolff: I had never really taken supplements besides for a standard multivitamin before that.
• 52:52
  Ben Wolff: So I used ChatGPT quite a bit to research and figure out what supplements could make sense for me and and what I was you know trying to achieve, which is typically like you know, strong energy, strong recovery.
• 53:04
  Ben Wolff: You know, I did get more into fitness and working out in the last year or so, you know, trying to optimize there and then a little bit of longevity, right?
• 53:14
  Ben Wolff: So those are kind of like the main things that I'm trying to optimize for.
• 53:17
  Ben Wolff: And so yeah, I mean, I take like, I don't know, seven or eight different supplements with my morning, late morning shake now.
• 53:25
  Ben Wolff: I've I've gotten into intermittent fasting.
• 53:27
  Ben Wolff: So I'm typically not eating before 11, 11 a.m., sometimes 12, which I've found intermittent fasting, like I get amazing deep work done early in the day.
• 53:36
  Ben Wolff: I actually have great energy.
• 53:38
  Ben Wolff: I used to feel like I needed to eat first thing when I got up in the morning, and I don't feel like that anymore.
• 53:42
  Ben Wolff: And then I actually get some of my best work done on an empty stomach first thing in the morning.
• 53:46
  Ben Wolff: And yeah, so so been kind of playing with the intermittent fasting, the supplements, I get sick way less.
• 53:53
  Ben Wolff: I have young kids, so four and and one year old, and they're both in school, so tons of germs flying around.
• 53:59
  Ben Wolff: So since I've gotten into the taking supplements, focusing on my health more, I have, you know, I've I've really, you know, minimized how often I get sick.
• 54:08
  Ben Wolff: But yeah, I could tell you my full supplement stack if you want.
• 54:11
  Connor Schwab: I do a lot of like Do you drink coffee in the morning or do you are you off the coffee?
• 54:15
  Ben Wolff: I don't do coffee, I do matcha.
• 54:16
  Ben Wolff: Yeah, which matcha is really great.
• 54:20
  Ben Wolff: So coffee for me, it's not a stable energy.
• 54:23
  Ben Wolff: So I'll I'll have like massive peaks and valleys.
• 54:27
  Ben Wolff: So like I almost get like jittery if I have too much coffee, right?
• 54:30
  Ben Wolff: And so I'm unproductive at that point.
• 54:32
  Ben Wolff: And then when I crash, I have no energy.
• 54:34
  Ben Wolff: Whereas matcha has L-theanine in it, which actually helps with focus and sort of more of a calm focus.
• 54:41
  Ben Wolff: So I find matcha to be great.
• 54:43
  Ben Wolff: I also drink a lot of Celsius, which I'm not super proud of, but it's it's the most like stable energy, you know, like four or five hours long of just great peak energy without a dip that I've found.
• 54:57
  Ben Wolff: So yeah, I'd like to drink less of those, but I'm still drinking them daily at this point.
• 55:02
  Connor Schwab: All right, now I'm super interested.
• 55:03
  Connor Schwab: What's in the supplement stack?
• 55:06
  Ben Wolff: So protein, creatine, which I always thought of creatine as more of like a meathead thing, and then come to find out it really helps with mental performance.
• 55:14
  Ben Wolff: So now I take creatine, which which I never knew, collagen, collagen peptides, ashwagonda.
• 55:21
  Ben Wolff: I take this stuff, man.
• 55:22
  Ben Wolff: It's like COQ10 or something.
• 55:24
  Ben Wolff: It's because I'm on a statin.
• 55:26
  Ben Wolff: We have like high cholesterol that runs in our family, and that helps like combat that.
• 55:29
  Ben Wolff: So I take that.
• 55:30
  Ben Wolff: Pro two different types of probiotics, microvitamin plus.
• 55:34
  Ben Wolff: I think I touched on most of them.
• 55:37
  Ben Wolff: So yeah.
• 55:38
  Ben Wolff: What about fish oil?
• 55:39
  Connor Schwab: Are you are you in the fish oil?
• 55:41
  Ben Wolff: Fish oil.
• 55:41
  Ben Wolff: There's fish oil.
• 55:42
  Ben Wolff: I think there's fish oil in my microvitam.
• 55:43
  Ben Wolff: I also eat a shitload of salmon, so I probably get a good chunk that way.
• 55:47
  Ben Wolff: Oh, vitamin D.
• 55:48
  Ben Wolff: But I do I do do vitamin T D.
• 55:50
  Ben Wolff: I didn't add that one, so that's in there too.
• 55:53
  Connor Schwab: But well, uh yeah, thanks for sharing.
• 55:56
  Connor Schwab: I I I do think it's super interesting.
• 55:58
  Connor Schwab: You know, because obviously this is this is a podcast for like entrepreneurs, so I think it's it's helpful for people to get a peek into the inside of like how how they manage the work-life balance.
• 56:07
  Connor Schwab: How how have you started managing your work-life balance from your first year to like now?
• 56:11
  Connor Schwab: What's maybe the the is there any like major change?
• 56:15
  Ben Wolff: As an entrepreneur, oh yeah.
• 56:16
  Ben Wolff: When I when I first started as an entrepreneur, like, you know, no wife, no kids, like no real conception of work-life balance.
• 56:23
  Ben Wolff: I have kind of an addictive personality.
• 56:25
  Ben Wolff: So I was definitely a workaholic at points of my career.
• 56:29
  Ben Wolff: And, you know, I would I would run myself ragged working like 14 to 16 hours at a clip, and like productivity just drops off a cliff after a period of time.
• 56:37
  Ben Wolff: Like it's just not, it's counterproductive, is what I've found.
• 56:40
  Ben Wolff: So what I do now is I get up at the crack of dawn because I found like that's what works for me.
• 56:46
  Ben Wolff: I go to bed roughly with my kids, 8:30, 9 o'clock latest most nights, get up at sometime between 4 and 5 a.m.
• 56:53
  Ben Wolff: So I have a good four out, three, four hours to knock out work before most people and my family typically is up.
• 57:01
  Ben Wolff: So that I get deep work done, I get to start my day off right, meditation, electrolytes, matcha, you know, just kind of getting feeling like I'm ahead of the day before it starts.
• 57:11
  Ben Wolff: And I'm intermittent fasting, right?
• 57:13
  Ben Wolff: So I'm not eating, then get a bunch of work done, come to around like 11 or 12.
• 57:19
  Ben Wolff: Usually around 11, I'll go work out or I'll hit golf balls or something like that, some sort of reset.
• 57:24
  Ben Wolff: If I go work out, I'll do sauna and plunge typically as well.
• 57:28
  Ben Wolff: And so that's really like this reset of my day.
• 57:30
  Ben Wolff: So I almost feel like I have two days in one.
• 57:32
  Ben Wolff: So I have my 4 to 11 a.m.
• 57:34
  Ben Wolff: and then I have my like one to six.
• 57:37
  Ben Wolff: And usually in the afternoon is when I stack calls.
• 57:41
  Ben Wolff: I can usually do calls with a little bit lower energy.
• 57:43
  Ben Wolff: And earlier in the day, I try to reserve for deep work, problem solving, creativity, et cetera.
• 57:49
  Connor Schwab: Well, thanks for getting me booked in your deep work period.
• 57:52
  Connor Schwab: Um no, I I love that.
• 57:56
  Connor Schwab: I think you you actually laid out a lot of things that I've I've recently started doing.
• 57:59
  Connor Schwab: Yeah, very similar.
• 58:01
  Connor Schwab: And I love the idea of almost like two halves to the day and getting like a proper break.
• 58:06
  Connor Schwab: Yeah.
• 58:06
  Connor Schwab: I might I might try to do that more.
• 58:08
  Connor Schwab: But it's amazing if I'm trying to get up earlier.
• 58:10
  Connor Schwab: I'm actually like a naturally morning person, but just going to bed early.
• 58:14
  Connor Schwab: It's just it's all about going to bed earlier, right?
• 58:16
  Connor Schwab: That's where it starts.
• 58:17
  Ben Wolff: 100%.
• 58:17
  Ben Wolff: Yeah, it's all about going to bed earlier.
• 58:19
  Ben Wolff: I got an aura ring recently and I found that like almost all of my deep sleep happens before 1 a.m.
• 58:25
  Connor Schwab: So that happened, yeah.
• 58:26
  Connor Schwab: That is totally what happened.
• 58:27
  Connor Schwab: Like, once I get to now, I don't know if this is just me getting older, but like once I get to 3 a.m., I just am barely sleeping.
• 58:33
  Connor Schwab: So it's it's yeah.
• 58:35
  Connor Schwab: So I'm with you.
• 58:36
  Connor Schwab: I'm with you.
• 58:37
  Connor Schwab: And all right.
• 58:40
  Connor Schwab: I want to maybe like wrap things up here.
• 58:43
  Connor Schwab: This is so what's what's the five-year plan, like five to ten year plan for you, Ben?
• 58:49
  Ben Wolff: Yeah, I I increasingly get this question.
• 58:51
  Ben Wolff: So I don't know if it's because I have too much going on or people don't really understand or what, but I I often I get this question a lot.
• 58:57
  Ben Wolff: Like, where where am I headed?
• 58:59
  Ben Wolff: What's the plan?
• 59:00
  Ben Wolff: So the the plan is to have the best in class marketing and revenue management firm for hotels and resorts with a focus on boutique, upscale, experiential properties, right?
• 59:12
  Ben Wolff: That's what I believe the future is.
• 59:13
  Ben Wolff: That's who I want our clients to be.
• 59:15
  Ben Wolff: So that's on the AWASI side of things, to continue to develop these one-of-a-kind properties, right?
• 59:22
  Ben Wolff: That that are viral, that the modern traveler loves, and really to grow the buyer brand.
• 59:29
  Ben Wolff: Now, I will say that like capital markets are still challenging.
• 59:32
  Ben Wolff: It's hard to raise money.
• 59:33
  Ben Wolff: So, my goal is to continue to knock out what I consider these singles and doubles, smaller to mid-sized projects, continue to stack successes, continue to learn.
• 59:41
  Ben Wolff: And then when the capital markets open up, which is hopefully in the near future, raise a big front, big fund around this thesis of experiential hospitality, travel, taking everything I've learned and sort of doing it at a bigger scale.
• 59:56
  Ben Wolff: So the goal is keep stacking wins and really positioning.
• 59:59
  Ben Wolff: Myself to be in a spot that we can raise quite a bit of capital when the market is primed for that.
• 1:00:05
  Ben Wolff: So that's the goal.
• 1:00:07
  Connor Schwab: Amazing.
• 1:00:07
  Connor Schwab: Amazing.
• 1:00:08
  Connor Schwab: Any last kind of thoughts or insights, comments, or anything for the audience?
• 1:00:12
  Connor Schwab: It's a good question.
• 1:00:15
  Ben Wolff: You know, I get a lot of people hitting me up that are kind of in like their earlier stage, trying to partner, trying to pick my brain, all that kind of stuff.
• 1:00:22
  Ben Wolff: And I would definitely say like hop on the hop on my newsletter.
• 1:00:25
  Ben Wolff: I give a ton of value in my newsletter every week.
• 1:00:27
  Ben Wolff: So you can find me on LinkedIn, Ben Wolf2Fs.
• 1:00:30
  Ben Wolff: There's a link to my newsletter there, ramping up my Instagram quite a bit.
• 1:00:33
  Ben Wolff: I am Ben Wolf.
• 1:00:35
  Ben Wolff: My newsletter is there also.
• 1:00:36
  Ben Wolff: So a lot of information there.
• 1:00:39
  Ben Wolff: I'm considering launching a mastermind.
• 1:00:41
  Ben Wolff: So if you're interested in that, let me know, sort of building out a list and seeing if we want to move forward with that next year.
• 1:00:47
  Ben Wolff: But my my main advice is like do stuff, try stuff, learn what you can from me, from Isaac, from all these other Travis Chambers, all these people in the space, and like have some initial traction, have something to show for before you start reaching out and trying to partner or pick somebody's brain.
• 1:01:03
  Ben Wolff: Like have actually done something or show that you've done something and tried things and maybe failed and learned before, you know, just trying to pull in partners and get people to engage with you.
• 1:01:13
  Ben Wolff: Because, you know, I've always found it's much harder to do that.
• 1:01:17
  Ben Wolff: And folks that are farther along in the journey won't take you as seriously if like you just have a kind of pie in the sky idea and come off as a dreamer.
• 1:01:24
  Ben Wolff: So actually have executed something, even if it's on a smaller scale, one unit, two units, like show me what you've actually done and not this dream that you have of what you want to build on these 30 acres that you haven't even bought yet.
• 1:01:36
  Connor Schwab: Yeah.
• 1:01:36
  Connor Schwab: That's yes.
• 1:01:38
  Ben Wolff: Yeah.
• 1:01:38
  Ben Wolff: What do you think?
• 1:01:39
  Ben Wolff: Is that good?
• 1:01:40
  Connor Schwab: No, I think that's perfect.
• 1:01:41
  Connor Schwab: I was gonna, and it sounds like you got your ask in.
• 1:01:43
  Connor Schwab: So that was your ask for the audience, I take it.
• 1:01:45
  Connor Schwab: Perfect.
• 1:01:45
  Connor Schwab: Well, I I totally agree, Ben.
• 1:01:48
  Connor Schwab: What an insight-packed show.
• 1:01:51
  Connor Schwab: And I definitely recommend for anyone listening to check out your newsletter.
• 1:01:53
  Connor Schwab: I've really enjoyed it.
• 1:01:54
  Connor Schwab: Follow you on LinkedIn.
• 1:01:55
  Connor Schwab: You do some great posts on LinkedIn as well.
• 1:01:57
  Connor Schwab: Some really terrific insights.
• 1:01:59
  Connor Schwab: I'm very excited to see Baya come to life, and I'm excited to see the expansion at Fredericksburg as well.
• 1:02:05
  Connor Schwab: So look forward to continuing to follow the follow the journey.
• 1:02:08
  Connor Schwab: Ben, thanks for coming on.
• 1:02:09
  Connor Schwab: Yeah, man.
• 1:02:09
  Connor Schwab: Let me know when you're in town.
• 1:02:10
  Connor Schwab: Happy to host you.
• 1:02:11
  Connor Schwab: Yes, we'll do