High-Altitude Culture: Nurturing Teams in Luxury Vacation Rentals with Rachel Alday

Alex Husner  0:00  
Welcome to Alex & Annie: the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex 

Annie Holcombe  0:03  
and I'm Annie, 

Alex Husner  0:04  
and we're joined today by Rachel Alday, who is the co owner and co founder of Abode luxury rentals. Rachel, so good to see you today.

Rachel Alday  0:11  
Good to see you ladies, too. 

Annie Holcombe  0:12  
So Rachel, we've had the pleasure of meeting you a couple of times at some conferences, and we're super fans of everything that you're doing with your business, but not everybody knows you, which is sad. We need to get you out there more and so everybody can know you, because you're really a dynamo and a phenomenal asset to the industry. But why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into vacation rentals.

Rachel Alday  0:31  
So my husband and I started our company over 15 years ago. I think we're approaching 16 now, but I'm still saying 15. So we started because we lived in Park City, and at the time when we started the company, we were dating, but soon to be married, and my husband had been working in real estate, the real estate market was tanking. It's like, oh, eight ish. So he was looking for something else to do, and I told him he should be a pharmaceutical salesperson, because he's really cute. And that was, like, a big thing at that point. It was a while ago, right? Anyway, he did not want to go be a pharmaceutical salesperson, and instead, he decided he wanted to start a property management, vacation rental company, because he'd been in real estate, so we had some clients that were having him watch their house, and they wanted some rentals. And so I thought that was a horrible idea. I was like, that sounds like no money for a bunch of dirty work. Like, why would you do that? And I was working in, like, corporate marketing, so I had a good job, and I had good salary and stuff and benefits. So I was like, Yeah, okay, whatever. Like, start this company, and then if it doesn't work out, you know, I'll be able to float us for a while and whatever we were about to get married. Anyway, I was wrong, and he was right, and that just started a long pattern of that throughout our whole marriage, and, yeah, and so that was how the company started. We started, like, super organically. We didn't have any investment, or really, like, any crazy, serious plan. He wanted to get started. And I was like, I'll do the marketing, because that was my background. That was, like, around 16 years ago, and now we manage about 154 properties in Park City. I think it's like right around 50 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and then I think we're at like seven in Sun Valley. So we've been in Park City for between 15 and 16 years. We've been in Jackson Hole for about 11 years, and we just started in Sun Valley less than a year ago, and we have about, like under 60 employees. I think we're at like 57 right now. Most of them are in Park City, but we have five employees in Jackson Hole, and one, probably soon to be two, in Sun Valley. It's been like a long, organic, messy road to get to from where we started to where we are now. It's been awesome. And I think, you know, we were super lucky because we had really good timing. Unknowingly, it wasn't like we thought, like, this is the perfect time to get in vacation rentals, but as it happened, it was a good time to get into it. And then when covid hit, of course, we had a total freak out. I think my husband and I both had, like, separate nervous breakdowns, but whatever, we got through it. And then, you know, it was only a few months of a couple months, really, of scary times, and then that was a huge boom. You know, following covid, obviously, was a huge boom for our business, like everyone else, and now we're kind of regulating back out, but it's been awesome. So we we only manage higher end properties. So the homes that we manage tend to be, on average, $1,000 a night, up to $20,000 a night in terms of price point. And so that's made the whole journey really interesting, because having homes that we manage that are between like, 2 million and $50 million value on those properties, that's just a crazy endeavor in and of itself. Dealing with the homeowners who own homes like that as their second, third, fourth, fifth home, that's a whole thing. Dealing with the guests who spend, you know, 10,000 to $200,000 for a week for the rental. That's a whole thing. You know, we do, like, $2 million per year in concierge. That's been a whole journey, and very interesting. And so it's definitely something where we did not know what we were getting into, like, a lot of property management vacation rental company owners. We did have, like, everybody. We had a property, a condo at Deer Valley in Park City, that my husband had when we first met. And so he had that with some other companies. And then obviously, you know, that's sort of part of what instigated us to start the business. And I think our journey has been a lot like a lot of other companies, but, you know, unique in the way that we're high end luxury side of the market, not totally unique. There's obviously some other companies that do something similar, like, you know, near with the maman group, or Robin Craig with moving mountains. And so it's been really, really cool throughout this whole process, and especially within, like, the last four years, just because of so much growth in our industry, and because of more conferences and more podcasts, honestly, have fed into now, there's such, like a zeitgeist, like, there's all these people, and we're all getting to know each other finally, and it's been, it's been amazing for us to to, number one, be able to, like, level up our business and have better tools and tech, but also to have peers that we never even knew were out there. And now we do know they're out there because of podcasts and all the conferences. And it's been a crazy ride, but an awesome one, and I would say especially lately, it's been so amazing to. To get to meet other people that do what we do, but also, like specifically do really similar stuff, and we've been able to learn from everyone. It's been

Alex Husner  5:07  
awesome. Yeah, no. I mean, that's a great history, and I didn't realize that you had been around as long as you have. There's no such thing as an overnight success story. It might look like it, but there's obviously a lot of hard work and trials and tribulations behind that growth. But I'm just curious. I mean, you expanded into other destinations. That's one thing that is always very difficult for companies to do. How did you do that? And just tell us maybe some of the difficulties that you ran into in being multi market. So

Rachel Alday  5:33  
we did not plan in advance to move into other markets. To be honest, it was like, like, everything that's happened with us, it's always every single step that happens with our business is, like, because we made some mistakes, learned a lesson and then took the right turn, or, like, some weird, organic chain of events that leads to the next step. So for Jackson Hole, my brother in law, my husband's brother, had a friend who lived in Jackson Hole, and they wanted to start a vacation rental company, and so they reached out through my brother in law, to my husband and I, and at this point, I think I was pregnant with my first kid, and they were like, I think we want to do what you guys do. Could you tell us about how you built your company? And so we were like, cool, let's take a trip to Jackson Hole. Like, that'll be fun. So as an excuse to go to Jackson Hole, like, two or three times, first I was pregnant, and then I would have, like, the baby with me, and we would go out. Would go out there and talk to these guys who were thinking about starting a vacation rental company in Jackson Hole. And this was, like, either right when outpost started or right before. So there really wasn't, like, a strong company out there at the time, and so that's why they were thinking to get going. And so we met with these two guys. Wes and Brooke are their names. They're both, like, Southern dudes. You know, in Park City, Jackson Hole and Sun Valley, there's a ton of southern people in these mountain markets. Very interesting, but that's another story. And so, so it's always fun, because I always have, like, sort of southern boys who moved to the mountains as our staff, and that's, that's always fun. So we went out and met with these guys and kind of just told them how we started our company. And then after a few months, after we had the meetings and all these chats, they were basically like, yeah, no, that's too much. That's they kept, like, calling us and being like, so how many times you get calls, like, in the middle of the night and like, so have you ever been sued, and, like, all these questions? And we were like, a lot, and yes, and, you know? And they were like, Oh, God, that's, that's a lot, you know? And so then they decided they weren't gonna do the company. But by this point, we had talked with them about it and like, how it could work for them in Jackson for so long that we were kind of like, well, maybe we should do it. Like, maybe we should open an office in Jackson. We never thought about going anywhere outside of Park City. But after having all those conversations, we thought about doing it. And then my husband, actually, so there's this Goldman Sachs, 10,000 small businesses. Course. Have you heard of this? I've not. No, it's still going on. So Goldman Sachs, I believe this came out of, like, the downturn, and some like restitution they were doing or something. But what it is is they bring in, like, Ivy League instructors, and they do this sort of, like mini MBA, and it's free. You have to apply. A lot of people apply. It's like a hard process to get in. But anyway, they have it in markets where Goldman Sachs has big offices. So weirdly, this is weird. Who would think this is true, but Salt Lake City has one of the biggest Goldman Sachs offices in the world. And so they do one of these, like annual cohorts of the Goldman Sachs, 10,000 small business course. Thing is in Salt Lake. And so we had heard about it, and my husband was like, I'm going to apply to do this, because it's like a entrepreneur's mini MBA, and it's for free. And so he applied to do it. But you had to have, like, a growth idea for your business, right? So you have to, like, turn over all of your financials and all this stuff, and you have to be, like, telling them that you want to grow in some specific way in order to get into the course. So because we had been talking to the Jackson Hole guys, we're like, Well, why don't we just say we're going to grow and expand into Jackson Hole like we really had not been planning to do that. That's how this happened. So we talked with the guys, and they didn't want to do it. And then my husband did this Goldman Sachs course, and we just used the idea of expanding into Jackson Hole as the theme for his course that he did. And so then he did all this study through that course, and, like, fleshed out the whole plan, which we would have never done that way. He didn't have that course. And then yeah, and then, like, six months later, we expanded officially into Jackson Hole, and that's how that started, over 10 years ago. So it was definitely not like, Okay, first we'll be in Park City, and then we'll go to Jackson. And then it wasn't, it was like, a weird chain of events that, you know, landed us then opening an office. And so those two guys that we had talked to that were my brother in law's friends. They're two guys that still work for us in Jackson Hole, so that's been awesome. They're both amazing. They're both, like, amazing. All of our guests and homeowners love them, and we love them, and my whole team loves them. So that's how we started in Jackson Hole. Jackson Hole doesn't have a ton of inventory. You wouldn't know that if you looked at Megan moylan's inventory, because outpost they have, like, I think over 300 properties they manage, which is amazing. That's an amazing feat in Jackson Hole, because there's not as much inventory there. But anyway, we manage, you know, right around 50 in Jackson Hole, but it's an awesome market, and it was a really good second market for us, because Park City is very heavy in this in the winter in terms of, like, occupancy and the rates, and Jackson's really, really heavy in the summer, which people don't always know. It's crazy. Doing that. Jackson Hole is a ski market, so you would think the winter would be the highest rates and the highest occupancy, but actually it's summer there. The winter is good too, but the summer is even stronger because of the national parks and all that stuff. So that's how we started in Jackson Hole. And then the Sun Valley story is just as wonky and funny. My husband and I went to Sun Valley when we were, like, early married, and even before we were married, because I was working for this developer at that point, and they were going to develop this like big resort in Sun Valley. And so we him and my husband would come with me, and we would go to Sun Valley with the people I was working for. We loved it, but then we hadn't been back for years and years. And now we have three kids, an 11 year old, a nine year old and a seven year old, and my 11 and nine year olds, those are two boys, and they both do freestyle moguls. Do you know what that is? So they both compete like, in the skiing where you go like, mogul Mogo mogul flip, mogul Mogo mogul flip. Oh, I love that. It's crazy. It's so crazy to watch your kid, like, jump and do flips on the top of a mountain. It's like, and they're like, nine. You're like, what? But I don't even ski moguls ever. I would never see a mobile I hate, I like. But anyway, so we had gone to Sun Valley. Then it had been a while since we'd been there. And then we were going back because our kids are competing in these freestyle competitions, and some of them are in Sun Valley, Idaho. And so we were going back to these, to Idaho for these competitions. And we were like, Oh, I forgot Sun Valley. Like, I love Sun Valley. So we started looking at some of the companies that do vacation rentals in Sun Valley, and there's some really good companies there that are, like, well established, great companies, but there's nobody who is focusing on the luxury side of things, like not as a specific focus. And so we thought, oh, like, that's interesting. Maybe one day we could expand into Sun Valley, because there's nobody doing, you know exactly what we do there, but we honestly forgot. We had that discussion a couple times, and we kind of forgot. And then a few months later, this homeowner contacted us. They have this amazing property in Sun Valley, a seven bedroom, really cool property. They have a separate property that they use, but they bought this just to do for vacation rentals. And they reached out and said, our friends, you guys, they said, abode manages our friend's house in Park City, and their friends have this really cool ranch property that we manage. And they were like, they said, you're awesome. So would you think about coming to Sun Valley and managing this house that we have? And we were like, weirdly, that's how we expanded into Sun Valley. It was another, like, Kismet weird situation where we had, like, been manifesting it, or whatever, by, like, discussing it, and then the universe aligned and sent us our first client. And it was a good, like, anchor property that could start the whole thing off. And so that's when we decided to start in Sun Valley. We got an office space and found this amazing employee who's been, like, a long time local there. The rest is history. It's been going pretty well. The way we grow is, like, the way we do everything so very organically. We do marketing, we do all of that, but we're not, like, overly strategic, like, I think some companies, they're like, really set a plan for themselves, you know, like, I want to have 50 properties in the first year, and then we're going to add this many staff. And that's not really how we do it, for better or worse, but in Sun Valley, we thought maybe we would have, say, two or three properties within the first year, just because we knew it would take a while for us to be trusted by the locals. Like these ski towns that we operate in, they're very insular, and people are you're like, either in or you're out, and so if you as a business, if you move into a ski town like it takes a while for people to trust you. So we thought, okay, in the first year, we'll just probably get a couple of get a couple properties, and, you know, we'll slowly let people see how we do what we do, and let our reputation sort of build and speak for itself. And then we'll grow like we've done in the other markets, but in Sun Valley, it's been faster than we thought. So I think we'll probably have more like eight or 10 by the time we've, you know, been through a full year, which is crazy to me. That's the kind of houses that we manage. They're such big houses, and they tend to bring, you know, a lot of revenue per year that we don't have a strategy to grow super fast. It's always more about like, getting the right properties. So it's just been interesting because, like I said, our plan was a much slower growth prediction. And while a lot of people might hear me say, oh, we'll probably have eight to 10 houses in the first year. And they would be like, what I had, like 50 in the first year. But for us, that's really, really good. Yeah,

Alex Husner  14:07  
it's different type of inventory, for sure. Yeah, yeah. It's

Rachel Alday  14:10  
like, some of their properties do like 500 grand in a year or more. And so it's like, you know, it's just a different thing. But that's why I love talking about all this stuff too. Because people like, say, Riley, Goldman, Goldman or Goldberg, Riley and JJ, you know, they

Annie Holcombe  14:23  
have that, oh, yeah, in Florida, yeah, yeah, 100 properties in one

Rachel Alday  14:27  
year, or whatever, like that is such a cool story to me. It's so different than what I do. But I love just all the differences in how everyone's doing this and getting to see that. Because, you know, there were so many years where we were doing this and we didn't have any podcasts, and people weren't going to the conferences as much, and so we were like, all just not understanding how other people did it, and we weren't being able to learn from each other. And now I'm always just so grateful to see how everyone else is doing things I wanted

Annie Holcombe  14:51  
to ask, like, logistics. So it's actually funny that you said that there's a lot of Southerners that go up there, because I worked for a company that was based in Park City, and I spent a lot of time. Park City, not a skier, so, like, just never got to do all that. But one of the things that always marveled me was just like that, you know, traveling from you fly into Salt Lake, and you go up and go through the pass, and, you know, just wherever you go, because you go to, like, deer valley, or you go to Brighton, or all the different ski places in the area, logistically managing properties in a ski destination is so much different than Florida. And I have a lot of friends that go to Park City, and actually several that go to Jackson Hole, both in the winter and the summer. They're from Florida. And so, like, definitely the southern people love to be in the mountains whenever they get the opportunity, but everything's so spread out. And I think about it, like, from Alex and I, where our markets are, like, we might think, like, Oh, we've got to go 10 miles from, you know, north, north side of the town of the, you know, south side of the town, in traffic, and that's hard, but you're talking like there could be 10 miles between a property, like one house, and so, like, you had, obviously, the good logistics within Park City, but to replicate that in other markets, when you weren't there and you didn't really know the lay of the land that Well, I mean, you had to depend on and, you know, to your point of, you go into these ski markets, and you're kind of, you're either inside or outside, or when you first get there, you got to make your way your way in. So I would imagine just setting all of the operations was a pretty arduous task.

Rachel Alday  16:07  
It's a lot. I mean, the truth is, like when we started in Jackson Hole, we went to Jackson Hole a lot, like twice a month. Jackson Hole and Park City are like a four and a half hour drive apart, and like a less than an hour flight. And Sun Valley and Park City are like four hours, 415 four hours and 15 minutes. And then Jackson Hole and Sun Valley, they're like four hours drive apart. So we have, like, a triangle of four hour drives between our markets, which helps everything, because they're somewhat close together. We definitely, especially in the beginning of signing on a new market, we're there a ton because, yeah, we want to be able to learn all the logistics. We always tend to target specific neighborhoods. So like in Jackson Hole, we focus on the Wilson area, which is like a neighborhood, and then in the village, which is like at the ski resort, basically, or right around there, and that's where we focus. And we don't really manage like in town, and that's because Jackson is so spread out that we kind of pick two areas where we feel like that's the biggest concentration of the type of properties that we manage, and then we stick to those areas to make it easier. And our office sort of sits between those two areas. Then in Park City, we focus on Deer Valley and Old Town. Those are just like two specific areas. Or, you know, we don't really manage in the canyons area. And if you don't know if that's anyway, but so, like we do, try to focus on specific areas in the markets where we work and we're we're targeting essentially the areas where the homes that the type of homes that we manage, are concentrated. But also we do that because of what you're talking about. It's there's so much drive time and in Sun Valley, we're still kind of fine tuning. What are our target markets going to be? But that's definitely part of you know how we do this is we do have to sort of nitpick or select especially like, what the area that we're going to focus on will be, so that we can not make the drive times too crazy. Because it definitely gets to be a problem when if we were trying to target the whole area around Jackson Hole, and Jackson Hole specifically is, like, really, really spread out. Park City is a little easier. Sun Valley is a little easier. But yeah, when, when it comes to starting in a new market, and how do we operationally? You know, work on that from afar. One thing is, we go there a lot, so we are technically living in Park City. But like when we started in Jackson, we were there constantly, and it was crazy, because we had little kids, and we had our whole Park City operation, and it was chaotic and insane, but I think my husband and I thrive in that a little bit for better or worse. And so when we start a market, we definitely make our presence known, and we like physically, my husband and I physically go there a lot to get a good lay of the land. And then the other thing that we do that, I think, has been really helpful, and it's something that any company could think about. We tend to make our first hires long time locals. So that would be like a strategic thing that we do. Because, you know, this whole concept of, like, authenticity and hospitality is super important to me, and to me, when people come to a ski town, they're coming to go skiing or biking or whatever. But they're coming because part of it is like they want to feel like part

Alex Husner  19:01  
of something, right? I mean, they want to be part of the community. They want to feel that local, local vibe. They're not going to stay in a hotel. Yeah,

Rachel Alday  19:07  
yeah. People talk to our team and they're always like, Oh, I wish I had your life. Like they might be talking to one of the inspector guys, and they're like, and this client could be, you know, like a hedge fund manager, like a gazillionaire, but he's talking to the our operations guy who's at the house, helping him with something, and they're just like, Oh, I wish I had your life. Because, you know, people come to these towns, and they kind of wish that they could have that mountain life and so style, yeah, and so we do try to have our first team members, and really most of our team members, but for sure, those first few be people that are longtime locals, because we want them to be able to tell, talk to the guests, and also to teach our whole team about, like, what are the best mountain bike trails? What are the best ski trail? Like, we want someone who really knows it can't be someone who's like, from Michigan and they just moved six months ago to Park City. They're not going to have the same like, understanding of. All the different stuff, and so we have found it really important that the longtime local piece in the beginning, and that has helped when we go into a new market, because we find our longtime local that we're going to hire, or longtime locals, and then they can really help us with, like, fine tuning. What are the areas we're going to focus on? Or, like, what are the businesses in town that we really need to build relationships with who are the best real estate agents, you know, all that kind of stuff, and that wouldn't be as easy if we didn't have someone who was, like, super ingrained in the community to be on your side and working with us. I mean,

Alex Husner  20:30  
I would say that's been a huge secret to your success, and it makes perfect sense, right? But I think that's really where a lot of companies drop the ball when they go into another market, either if they're buying a company, you know, in some cases, they're taking out the key leadership, and they're just trying to centralize that from wherever the other location is. And they might have some people in the company, but it's like, that's, they don't have that, that leader person there, that's, you know, kind of in charge of setting the tone for what the business is going to be and making those connections. Because at the end of the day, that really is what sets you apart. And I think, you know, it can't be overstated how important it is to be known locally, for the reason of also getting visitors to come and stay with you, like, if you're going to Sun Valley, and I know that you live there, I'm going to if you didn't have a rental company, I would ask you, where should I stay? Right? So it's like people, they reach out to people that they know live in these destinations, and that's just a really great, organic way to make sure people know where to go. So I love that you guys did that. Yeah,

Rachel Alday  21:25  
no, totally. It's like, it shouldn't be a secret, but it kind of feels like, you know when you go stay somewhere and you're dealing with someone who's like, oh yeah, I just moved here, and I love it. You know, it's like, that's not what you want. Yeah, authentic. You're trying to go somewhere and be like, All right, so tell me the best place, yeah,

Annie Holcombe  21:43  
yeah. Where's the place that you know the bartender's name? Like, what? Right?

Alex Husner  21:47  
Yeah, exactly. I'm interested too. I know you've done a lot of culture building within the organization, and I can imagine at some point that stood out to you as priority. And obviously, if you've got 100 and would you say 50 people?

Rachel Alday  22:01  
Now we so, I can't remember the exact number, and that's horribly embarrassing, but I think we're like, at 57 something

Alex Husner  22:06  
like that. Sorry, the properties 157 and somewhere around 57 employees. But that's still a pretty big size team, right? So I

Rachel Alday  22:13  
know to me, it feels huge. Are you kidding? We never thought about hiring anyone. And now I'm like, how many people working? That's a lot.

Alex Husner  22:19  
At what point did culture become a focus, and why did you decide to, you know, kind of take a step back to make sure you were building that the right way.

Rachel Alday  22:27  
So right before covid, we definitely were, my husband and I were sharing an office at that point, and we were, like, talking a lot about how, like, wow, we have this really good team. And we had hired some new people, but we had some people that were had been with us for years, and we were kind of like, oh, this is cool. Like, we never thought about hiring one person. In fact, when we did hire, like, our first employees, I remember being like, we shouldn't hire anyone. We don't want any staff. Like, we can't afford to hire anyone at all. And it was like this whole drama. And then, you know, I think we had around 20, maybe it was like 18 or something at that point that we had that many people working for us, and we were like, Oh, this is so cool. Like, there's all these people working here. They're all really cool. They were, like, really personally invested in their jobs. And so we did start to realize that we had a really cool team, but because we never planned for it, and because my husband and I are not HR geniuses by any means, I did a lot of the interviewing myself, like my husband and I would do it together, but I'm my husband's more quiet, and I'm like, obviously the chatty one. And so we do these interviews, and it would be like, just me talking at people and, like, just, I don't even know, yammering on about, like, our business and how much we loved it, and then we would end up having these cool employees, and it made no sense, right? Because we, like, we weren't following good processes to hire them. And so we kind of just realized we have a great team, and we have no idea why. We don't know how we got here. We don't know how to keep them and we don't know how to keep hiring good people, because it felt like an accident that we had a great team. And so that was when we started trying to figure out, how did this happen, and how can we keep it going. So at that point, my husband and I had both read Delivering Happiness, which is a book that Tony Shea, the guy. So he wrote that book. We read it. It's all about the Zappos company culture, which was like this amazing company culture. And so we read that, and we were into it. And in that book, I think it was a list of 10 books that Tony Shea had recommended that his team read, and he talked about how he did this library for the office. And so then I, my husband and I started reading all those books. And so one of those books is tribal leadership. Tribal leadership is, like an amazing book, and I feel like everyone, I'm always trying to talk everyone into reading that book. So if you have not read tribal leadership, like add it to your list. It's super good. It was a huge game changer for me, because at that point in our business, I was definitely focused on our competitors. I was negatively focused on our competitors, right? I was kind of, like, obsessed with, like, what are they doing? And like, they're not as good as us, and I don't know. And anyway, I read tribal leadership, and it made me realize how unhelpful that was, and how that was sort of a sign of, like, my lack of emotional. Dirty in that area. And so anyway, that book was a huge eye opener for me. And so after I read that book, and my husband read it, we talked about it constantly, and I started to feel like, okay, if I could talk to the author of that book, maybe they could help us as a consultant with our company culture stuff. And this is, like, kind of a good illustration of, like, my personality type. Because so I read a book from Tony Shea. Then it leads me to the book called tribal leadership. Then I Like, who do I think I am, I start trying to contact the author of tribal leadership, because I'm going to, like, talk them into being my consultant. This is, like,

Annie Holcombe  25:35  
that was my thought process, you know, I know, right.

Rachel Alday  25:39  
So I ended up getting a hold of Lenny from tandemly. So there's these consultants that we've been working with to help us with our company culture, and the way I found them was from calling the author of attempting to call the author of tribal leadership. So wait,

Alex Husner  25:52  
that's how you and Lenny met. Yes. So

Rachel Alday  25:57  
this is like my life in a nutshell. This is how everything happens. And so, yeah. So I was frantically trying to get a hold of this author. That author is Dave Logan. Dave Logan's wife is Hart Logan. So I had found Lenny and Hart, who are our consultants. They are their companies called tandemly, and they're the ones that help. Have helped us over the past, like five years, with our company culture, like defining it, understanding it, and then our whole like dealing with our team and having a better structure for just everything that has to do with like working with our team, doing one on one, setting up OKRs or KPIs, like people usually call them, all that kind of stuff. So that happened because I called that author. Lenny was working for that author. They had, like a consultant thing going from Dave Logan's and tribal leadership had this consultant thing going, and that's how I met Lenny, and then Lenny and Hart ended up starting their own company, and so that's tandemly. So yes, so the whole thing with our company culture started with us just realizing we had a good team, but having no idea how we got there, and having like feeling, we felt really scared about how could we keep everyone working with us and keep them happy? We didn't know how to do that. Then we read tribal leadership that we found Linnie and Hart and tandemly, and then those, those consultants have really, really helped us kind of fine tune, what is it that people like about working with abode luxury rentals, and how can we keep everyone happy? And so now we do all these, like, really cool things, but then we do workshops, like quarterly, and we do an annual retreat with our team, and we do all this cool stuff, and that all came out of working with tandemly, and yeah, and so really, what's happened with that is that, like we've done so much work over these years on our company culture and figuring out our values and our mission and all of that, which is all stuff that I was so averse to, because I've worked in marketing with McDonald's, with Coca Cola and all this kind of corporate Marketing. And so I hated it. I always felt like when I worked in a corporate environment, I just felt like I worked really hard, and there was a bunch of people that didn't work hard, and like, they got praised, and like, moved up, like people that knew how to work the system, you know, they were the ones that did well. And anyway, I didn't like corporate stuff, and I didn't like all the assessments that you do, like in a big company, and all the I don't know, I hated all that, so I was really averse to, like, I hated job title. We didn't have job titles in our company until, like, very I always hated job titles. I hated org charts. I hated one on ones. I hate, like, any of that. I've always hated it, but so working with Lenny and Hart, they've helped us. We now have an org chart. We have job descriptions, job titles, we have OKRs and but we also have, like, a lot of company culture stuff that we do. And, yeah, so that all happened kind of again, organically from, like, reading a book and then going down a long and winding road getting to where we are now. So now that we sort of figured out company culture, we're kind of now we're working on this topic of hospitality with Lenny and heart. That's been really exciting too. There's

Annie Holcombe  28:38  
been a lot of talk within the industry about, like, what is vacation rental, short term rental? Short term rentals at the core, and it's like, a lot of conversations Alex, about alex and I've had with people, is that we are a hospitality entity, like we are in hospitality, and sometimes people forget that. And I think that there were so many new people that entered the space after covid, or, like, kind of, when covid was at its peak, in terms of, like, the growth after covid That just entered it, and they didn't enter it with a sense of, like, hospitality and wonderment about serving and servicing and having that desire to service. So there's, like, a subset of people in the business that are just solely in it to make money, and I think it's really good that you're focused on the hospitality part of it, because at the core, that's that's what we do. And I had a conversation with somebody yesterday about people will focus on the gene that they have, their hospitality gene, and that'll just come out in their business, and it'll grow. And it's interesting that you talk about how you were negatively focused on your competitors, because when I came up in the in the vacation journal business, like that was how it was. It was very, almost cutthroat. It was like you just wanted to undercut that business down the road to get there, get whatever business you could get from them, at whatever cost, and you didn't really worry about your reputation in the bigger picture. And I think that there's just been a great shift. But sadly, we're losing some of those people that have that drive and determination and that hospitality gene, that one. To service people. So what you're doing is great. And I and this one thing that like, whenever conversations come up, like on LinkedIn, about people who have good culture, your name comes up constantly. It just comes up very regularly, about people that have built good culture. And I having been in a business where there was not good culture, and my husband and I were partners in it, and we ultimately left, and it was so awful that we don't ever want to get back in that business. But I love the business. Had it been flipped, where we had a good culture and the trust factor that was there, I think we probably would still be in it. So we need more of what you're doing. So keep that up. But what does that look like in terms of when you brought Laney in part in to do this? Because I think we talked to her, and she was mentioning that they go in and they kind of help you put the story. Help you put the structure behind what you want, that you've already got a culture sort of in place, but it's sort of like organizing it in a better fashion. But what did that look like for your staff? Like so did? Was it a was it a culture shock to them to change things? Did they find it comforting that they already had, like, the good bones? It just needed some organization to it

Rachel Alday  31:01  
to talk in my favorite language therapy language it was both and, but yeah, I would say so when we brought them in, the cool thing about Lenny and Hart and the way that they've worked with us, and I think that the way that they work with everyone, but just from what they've done with us, it's cool because, like, Lenny is a therapist, like a licensed therapist, and heart is a coach, and so they can kind of come at it, not only from that sort of standard HR mentality of like, looking at your metrics and looking at, you know, how you can assess how happy people are and how satisfied they are, and how you can work with that, and setting up your whole company structure and your okayers and all that stuff, but also, like, from the sort of psychological therapeutic side, and that was super, super helpful. So they were able to, like they do a lot with Enneagram, which I loved, you guys, know, yeah,

Alex Husner  31:49  
yeah. We talked a lot about it in our episode with them that Aaron, oh, just Okay, yeah.

Rachel Alday  31:56  
Do you know? Did you take

Annie Holcombe  32:01  
nine? Oh, okay.

Rachel Alday  32:02  
Oh, I love this. Okay. In the company, my husband is a nine, my sister is a nine. I'm an eight. Shocker for our company, most, most of the people that work here are sevens, which is really, really interesting. Wow. So I love the Enneagram stuff, and so that was super helpful, because, you know, if you, if anyone's done the test, like, it's this kind of long, involved test, and then when you get, like, assigned your number after the test, it's so weird, because the eight is the active controller. I remember when they sent me my results and it was like, active controller, like,

Annie Holcombe  32:38  
you're done, yes, obviously totally tracked

Rachel Alday  32:43  
and, like, weird that I'm married to a nine because, you know, a nine is, like, the one that, like, doesn't really have an easy time. Like, you know, a nine is, like, a more conflict avoidant and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And here I am, like, I'm like, a magnet for conflict, you know, I'm using a negative way, but I like to, like, get into it. There's a lot of stuff that leaning heart did with us that wasn't your normal, like HR consultant type stuff, and I think that was the magic of it. So it was like combining, say, the Enneagram piece, where everyone on the team gets to kind of understand who they really are, and how does that type of personality interact with the other ones. So like, for instance, threes. So we have a bunch of threes and, like, threes really focus on they want, they want forward movement. They want a good title, you know, they really want recognition. And so these are not things for me, that I think about. I always think people want money, that's what they want, right? Everybody wants money. That's what I want. But no, like, some people really want a better title, and they want, you know, more people that they manage, and they some of that kind of stuff. And so using the Enneagram with linen heart has been really helpful for us to help ourselves and our team kind of understand each other so we can work together better, like, like a two. So like on the Enneagram a two is someone who is never going to say no if you ask them to help you with something like they are always giving up themselves, right? And so then we have some twos in our team. And so then I realized, like, oh, just because chance the two always says yes when I ask him to help me with something, doesn't mean I should always ask him, because he's gonna say yes too many times, and then he's gonna get burned out. So I gotta be careful, you choose, or whatever. And so, um, so you know, the the way that they have approached, the way that they consult for us when it comes to the HR stuff, it's cool. And then using the example of the Enneagram, I think, is the best way to understand it. It's like, yes, we talk about our goals and our metrics, like OKRs and our job titles and our career pathing and our salary bands and like, all that stuff. But we also talk about, like, Enneagram and what number people are, and how does a eight react to people around her when she's in a good place, and how does an eight react when she's in a bad place? And how can I read other eights and tell if they're okay or they're not okay or whatever? So it's been so, so helpful when it comes to all of that sort of parts and pieces of it. And I think there's a ton of, you know, interesting consultants out there, and I do think that as a company, when because they can. Shouldn't rent all companies like, at least in the past, you know, we were all sort of mom and pop shops, and now there's companies that are a lot more strategic when they start, and they have, like, funding and they but either way, it's like, you know, you can't forget the value of having a happy team, because it's like, your homeowners and your guests, like they're impossible.

Alex Husner  35:19  
Happy, you know, fills into every part of the business. Yeah,

Rachel Alday  35:21  
but then it's even harder to keep your customers happy if your team is not happy. Like, how can you ask someone who's in a really bad place mentally, or, like, just dealing with their coworkers at work or whatever, to then go and deal with some unhappy guests? Like, they're not going to even have the energy to do that because they're not even in a good so we have realized that, like, you know, we do ask a lot of our team members, we're in a very high stress business because our clients are all high net worth individuals. There's just it the nature of that creates, yeah, like, a high pressure environment, and so we have to make sure that our team is well taken care of, and like, they feel good, because they are not going to be able to show up in a positive way to deal with the clients unless they're okay. And so Lenny and Hart have been, like, really, really instrumental in getting us there. And another thing that we do, that I always like to talk about, and I think people just think it's funny, but we pay for therapy for our team, so we have two therapists in Park City, one, sorry, two in Park City, two in Jackson, but one of the ones in Jackson does remote sessions as well. So they work with Sun Valley, so they're like, they have credit cards on file, right? Those therapists do. And so anyone on my team can go and contact any of those therapists whenever they want and get paid for sessions whenever they want. They can even do like, couple sessions with their partner or their spouse, or whatever, and you pay for it, and I'll never know who goes right because of HIPAA, the way the contracts that we signed with the providers, I'll never know who went to therapy when I just know that I'm paying for therapy sessions. I just don't, I don't know who they are, who's you know who it's for. And it's been really cool because my husband and I ourselves, we have done like, a ton of therapy ourselves. I'm 46 my husband's 44 so we're like, at that age where we're having either, like, a midlife crisis or a midlife awakening or whatever. And we've definitely like, you know, we've worked together. We own our business together. We're married, we have tiny little kids, like, so we've had our stuff to go through, and we've done a ton of therapy. And, you know, through doing that, we realize, like, Oh, this is so unfair that we get to have this relief and this support. And it makes me think all the time, when I go to therapy and I leave and I'm like, feel better, it's like, I wish my whole team could have that right? Because here's all these people, most of our team, they're a little younger. Most of them are like, say, 25 to 35 ish, but it's like, oh my God, I wish I could have learned all these

Annie Holcombe  37:37  
tools and skill copy mechanisms. Yeah, yeah. And so

Rachel Alday  37:41  
then all I think of is my team. I'm like, Oh my gosh, please read these books. Like, go to therapy. Like, I want you to solve your shit now. Don't wait till you're 45 Yeah, it's been awesome. And I think it has been like another little secret to our success. And it's like, no secret everyone knows. Well, everyone should know therapy works. It's good, yeah, go like the

Alex Husner  38:02  
importance of mental health. And I don't know that I've heard of any other vacation rental companies offering that to their employees. So I think that's really incredible and and great the way that you have it structured, that you pay for it, but you don't know who goes. So it's not like people are nervous about you knowing that they're going. I think that's that's a really great way to do it. That's really cool. Very cool. Are

Annie Holcombe  38:22  
you hiring? I mean, all the stuff you're doing, just like speaks, I love this.

Rachel Alday  38:33  
Yeah, I think providing in some way or another for your team's mental health should be more common in the hospitality industry in general, but specifically in lodging, because when you think about it, like, like, restaurants should definitely be doing this too. But when you think right, when you're dealing with expensive experiences that you're selling, it's like, there's a there's a lot of trauma or drama that your customer is going to feel, especially when you're taught, like, because all of our markets are fly too. So it's like the clients we deal with, the customers, or the homeowners, everyone is flying in. And we all know flying sucks these days, even if you're flying private, like, that's not great, but if you're flying commercial, it really sucks. And so it's like people when they show up in our markets, whether it's homeowners or guests, but let's just stick with guests right now. Like, they just experienced some garbage trying to get to where they're going to right and they're probably with their family, so there's probably, like, drama with the children, and then they're in a new place, and they're, like, at high altitude that they're probably not used to. So like, right off the bat, you've got people that are going to be having some issue, like, some trauma to themselves and their family just to get to that vacation. And so our team is dealing with people in that mindset quite often. And you know, we're trying to go above and beyond and make people have this amazing experience. Not only do these, you know, six, 810, 15,000, square foot houses have to be cared for immaculately. And. Perfect working order, with not a hair on the pillow and not like a crumb under the coffee table, or everything has to be perfect. But then the people are going to arrive, and they're going to have a lot of baggage and baggage, but you know, like to deal with we're asking so much of our team, you know, like, I want perfection in the property management. I want, like, amazing empathy and kindness for the homeowners and guests. Like, there's just a lot that we're asking of them, and I think we have realized over time that, like, if we're going to ask that of people, we really, really have to do a good job in making sure that we're setting them up for success. And there's, like, a million ways we can do that, but one of them is like, helping them be in the right mindset. It's like, investing in your people, right? And it's like, you know, if you're having issues with your relationship at home, and then you come to work and you have to deal with someone who's trying to fight with you about, I don't know about the door code not working or something, it's going to be harder. And so I always feel like, yeah, like, if someone on my team has got a girlfriend and they're going to move in together and they're struggling a little. I'm like, Go, you and your girlfriend, go to therapy. Yeah, because I want them to be able to, you know, feel that great feeling that you get when you go to therapy and you leave and you're like, you feel like an anvil has been, like, lifted off your shoulders, you know. And if they can have that feeling and then come to work, that's like, a whole different result that we get. Because, you know, really, we have to recognize how much we're asking of these people, and it's a lot, yeah,

Annie Holcombe  41:24  
I think people take it for granted how much people in hospitality take on we had an experience at Spring Verma this year. We were at a hotel, a lobby bar, and there was a gentleman that had a seizure, and, like, we thought he was dying, like, in front of us. It was just like a horrible experience for everybody that watched it, but the bartender, like, he jumped into action completely got involved, like he he handled it like a champ, and we were just all like marveling at him. And he made a comment about, like, you know, we're in hospitality, you know, we have our meltdown at home, like, we don't do it in front of the guests. And I think that that's that's something that that guests take for granted, that people that are helping them in their hour of need. Have needs to and they're wearing the needs of every single person that they're dealing with all day long on their shoulders. And it's a tough it's a tough place to be. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot. And I think one of

Rachel Alday  42:13  
the things that helped with us is that my husband and I were doing everything ourselves for a few years, right? Because before we hired anyone, it was just us. And so I think, having been in the shoes of the person who's getting screamed at, maybe unnecessarily, or whatever, by a guest or by a homeowner, and like having to maintain my composure and my kindness and my empathy, you know that I've learned like, how hard that is. And so then what I've realized as we've hired people and started to, you know, pass some of these duties onto other people. My husband and I know what it takes, like, we know what that could do to you, and so we've realized, and really, with the help of Lenny and heart too, like how to set ourselves up to deal with that in terms of like structure and planning and organization, but also just like mentally and mental health wise,

Alex Husner  42:57  
all great secrets to success behind the door. I absolutely love kind of a therapist. And yeah, well, Rachel, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you on today and learn a little bit more about all the things that you guys do at abode, and just excited to continue to watch your journey. But in the meantime, if anybody wants to reach out to chat with you, what's the best way for them to connect? So

Rachel Alday  43:19  
my email address is Rachel. It's the boring way. R, A, C, H, E, L, at abode, luxury rentals. So that's a, e, like boy O, D, like dog, E, luxury rentals with an s.com, or on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. Rachel all day. Awesome.

Alex Husner  43:35  
If anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I you can go to alexandanypodcast.com and until next time, thanks everybody. Bye.

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