Throwback to Our Most Listened Episode of 2024 – Building a Hospitality Legacy with Tom Goodwin, CEO of Mountain Laurel Chalets

Alex Husner  0:02  
Welcome to Alex and Annie the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex.

Annie Holcombe  0:06  
And I'm Annie.

Tom Goodwin  0:07  
And I'm Tom.

Alex Husner  0:08  
Yay. Hey, Tom Goodwin, how are you, Tom?

Tom Goodwin  0:14  
I'm doing great staying warm, trying to keep warm in this cold winter weather which is we welcome it but I'm really glad y'all

Annie Holcombe  0:21  
nothing I've been in the mountains for cold weather. It's like the fireplace go in and look at the bears run around. And yes,

Tom Goodwin  0:27  
I just felt better yesterday. So there's still this great.

Annie Holcombe  0:31  
love it love it. Well, well, Tom, you're known amongst the circles that we run in but maybe not the larger circle of all vacation rentals and, and we do breach over to the short term rental side of the business. So why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and how you came to be in the business.

Tom Goodwin  0:48  
Like most people, I stumbled into the business. I married into the business actually. So my wife's parents started mountain laurel chalets, in Gatlinburg, quite by accident in 1972. When as some of the legacy hotels would fill up, they would call dot and Ralph eglee and say, Do you have extra room at your house, we have a couple that showed up and we don't have any more rooms available. And so my wife and her sister would move out of their double queen room with an ensuite bath with a sliding door to the deck, and they would rent out that room. So it was b&b before there was b&b. Or there was Airbnb and and so I married my wife in 1992. So I got there right 3030, almost 32 years ago, and in that process discovered that her family was really involved in the Gatlinburg community and ran a hospitality business and managed other people's vacation homes as first ever heard about it. And they really involve the family in the business through owning various properties and cleaning houses on Thanksgiving. When we missed a house on Thanksgiving, we'd get up from the table and go clean. And so I had exposure, I've had exposure to the vacation rental industry since 1992. And in 2012, we kind of discovered that things weren't as we thought they would be at the business. And so we began asking some questions and kind of doing some audits. And behind the scenes exploration, we realized this is a good time for the children to get more involved in the business. And the parents welcome that family said, Tom, we think you're the one that could come in and help be the general manager and turn things around in 18 months and get us on the right track. So I signed up in June of 2012, for an 18 month personal leave of absence from my job and thought, oh, in 18 months, we'll get this maybe six months, I thought we could get it settled. You know, 11 years later, now my wife, the company, parents have since passed away. We're really glad that all this happened while they were still alive. So we could make sure that there would be a secure next generation for the business and the properties that the family owned as well.

Alex Husner  2:52  
Wow. So what were you doing prior to joining the early years? Well,

Tom Goodwin  2:58  
I was with a religious nonprofit. And I at that point was running all of the national brand, and national conferences, so 5000 people together over two years, and I ran those conferences. And then we also did a major global rebranding, and I headed up a lot of those elements. And so a lot of those hospitality things really transitioned well into this market, especially the brand. So we took a 40 year old mountain oral chalets brand and brought new life to it, it was really exciting to do that and kind of use some of my marketing background. So that brand still has a great life ahead of it. And we took the best of all the first 40 years and then we just celebrated 50 years last year and did a rebrand to refresh. Really Alex you know, branding is more than just the logo. It's it's the hardest, the voice or values, all those elements. And so we really did a deep dive and did qualitative and quantitative research with our guests, former owners past guest happy guests disappointed guests. What was it about the Mount Laurel chalet is different? Because as you all know, in the Smoky Mountains, there's a huge amount of competition. There's a lot of other great companies and there's a lot of a lot of new startups that go on there. And so we needed to see how can we distinguish ourselves? And so that branding has really served us well. And I think that's one of the main things from my former life that I've brought into this endeavor that has been really exciting. The

Alex Husner  4:25  
thing I think that is so unique about Gatlinburg and for there's many reasons but the companies that are up there, obviously Mount Laurel chalets, Auntie Belgium's Lauren Maples company, all of those companies that are, you know, above at the upper echelon, I would say of, you know, highly respected by their guests, their owners well known in the community. They have done unique things to separate themselves. And I say that in comparison to some of these beach markets that I go to that you've got companies that they all have, basically the same kind of name, they've got the same colors they they basically are saying seeing the same message and it really it becomes that sea of sameness, as we call it that there is not really a whole lot of differentiation. But when I think of your company more like Debenhams, I can see that in my mind, and I can not just visually what your logo looks like, but I can see the experience that you've shared and what the connection that you make with your owners and your guests. And it's really cool to see it, I just think, you know, like you said, there's a lot of competition where you're at, but the way that people choose to differentiate that's completely on you. And that's, that's your kind of your runway to growth to truly be unique within the market, you guys have done a great job with that.

Tom Goodwin  5:33  
I appreciate that. And hats off to John and Lauren and Mallory at alums and a slew of other really excellent companies respectable, professionally run vacation rental management companies in the area. And my heart and burden is that everyone would kind of rise to a standard of professionalism. And a lot of the newer companies, it's mostly it's just a lack of exposure. And so it's a great have podcasts like this, and I help people become professional and know how to do that. And it is important to distinguish yourself in the midst of a sea of maybe what we might call a sea of mediocrity. How do you set this a little bright star, and not really, when I said competition, there's just there's a dense, there's 25,000 properties in our county. Imagine, you know, and, and it's 10 hours from 70% of the US population to drive drive to market sets. And it's 10 months out of the year busy and Dolly Woods opening up 12 months out of the year coming forward. So increasing, which is great. So my perspective on that is really to have an abundance mentality. And even when I was on the phone with Lauren this morning, telling her some of the dates and things. I didn't see Lauren as a competitor, I want them to win. And they want us to win because it elevates the whole industry. And so if if you're looking at, you know, secrecy and not sharing best knowledge and best practices, then it's really a scarcity mentality. And it's a taken grab and keep, because you're afraid. But instead of having a sense of abundance of giving Yeah, absolutely. And I think we're really seeing that a lot, not only in our market, but in our whole industry, shared knowledge, shared experience, and people want other people to win. And then we all win.

Annie Holcombe  7:19  
I love that. And I know Alex, so there's it speaks to my heart, like a lot. You know, I had somebody tell me today that they watched my career. And the one thing that was consistent through everything that I had done was my kindness. And that was like, I focused everything on the kindness factor of like, we can all get along, we can all work together. And Tom, you and I have had some exchanges through LinkedIn through some other people that maybe just don't have that mentality. And I think the scarcity mentality is kind of where some people rest in that I've got to have it all and nobody else can have it instead of like we all are better together, working together, sharing that knowledge. And, and Alex and I have talked to a lot of people that I think that there is a shift in the mentality. And it used to be when I started in the business back in the late 90s. It was very much of like, don't look over here, don't talk to me, don't come on my property don't. You know, it was just a very much everybody built a wall around themselves. And that's just not the way it is anymore. I think we all want to work together and share our mistakes as much as our successes and make sure that other people don't have to go through the same ups and downs. I

Tom Goodwin  8:20  
agree. And I hope that there would be a sense of camaraderie and a sense of shoulder to shoulder and we can do this together even with people in the same market.

Alex Husner  8:30  
Absolutely. When the destination wins. And when the companies within the destination work together. That typically is what happens. I was just up in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge a couple of months ago for our Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce board retreat. And we met with the Gatlinburg CVB. And some of the entities in Pigeon Forge. And it was funny because they said to us, they said we've never done a trip like this, you know, we've we need to to have our retreat down in Myrtle Beach. And we said absolutely, we'd love to host you. But it's something that we've embraced here. As you know, we also want to work with other destinations because we know Myrtle Beach and the Smoky Mountains. And actually in Panama City where Annie is we all share very similar guests, or actually, I would say at least our guests definitely go to the Smoky Mountains, they probably let a little less overlap between people going to Myrtle and Panama City necessarily, but people that are going to the Smoky Mountains typically there what we're sharing them for sure. So we know that people don't always want to go someplace.

Tom Goodwin  9:28  
to Myrtle Beach for vacation or Yeah,

Alex Husner  9:31  
yeah, and vice versa.

Annie Holcombe  9:32  
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Tom Goodwin  9:34  
Yeah. I go to the golf shorts as well. So that area so yeah, I do think there's a lot that we can learn from each other. Yeah, you said that you

Annie Holcombe  9:43  
worked in like the religious meeting sphere. That's where my background started in the hotel business in terms of like meetings and and my event planning was on like the religious end to religious and sports stuff and to work with a lot of groups in the southeast. And I think maybe that's where I feel like we maybe have some and similarities in like that spirit of just selflessness and giving and helping, and we're not all going to be the same, we're not all going to be given the same opportunity. But if we can share, to help people to find their opportunities or their next best thing, I mean, I think that that's something that both of those businesses it's very needed and, and I feel like maybe we both learned that kind of like people learn the hospitality at Disney, maybe we learned that spirit of, of giving in kindness on the on the religious planning side of things. Who knows,

Tom Goodwin  10:29  
I think everyone has an opportunity to change someone else's life in obviously, in the religious market, there's, that's a huge goal, you know, for that, and I'm committed to change lives and seeing that people leave better than they came. So when we were planning a conference, people need to be refreshed, they need to be renewed, they need to be inspired, when guests are coming for vacation, we want them to leave better than they came, we want them to think I've received exactly what I was looking for. And that that is a good definition of hospitality. It also relates to our employees, you know, the last 11 years, I've seen a lot of employees come and go, and my heart and my first meeting with all them and said, I said, you know, you might not be here for 10 years, 20 years, although I have a couple employees, one that's over 30 years one that's 21 to 17. So there's a lot of loyalty with that. But those that have gone on to do other things, or have moved my heart has always been I want you to leave a better person than you came. And we want to invest in you, we want to contribute to your well being. And I think when that's the motivation, it's really more than just a business or just a job, you want to give them a sense of I'm here for a reason. And part of that can be involved in helping people's attitudes. They're creating memories and you know, essentially changing their lives, which is exciting. Yeah, attitude

Alex Husner  11:48  
is everything. And this can be a very fulfilling business. But it can also be a very draining business. And I think as long as you have leadership that is supporting that mindset, then that trickles down to your people for sure. And guests can feel it. I mean, we all know whenever we check in, whether it's a hotel, or vacation rental, or wherever it is, if you don't feel like somebody is having a good day, and they're not making you feel like you belong there, and you're welcome. I mean, it's just it's a terrible experience all around. So invest in your people is definitely something that's important. And I do know that you have an incredible amount of repeat business, right, which makes sense, that comes from creating that guest experience. Tell us a little bit about how you've built up that repeat business. And maybe some of the things that you do on the marketing side to get people to come back, I

Tom Goodwin  12:33  
will have to say this first and foremost is that I have inherited an incredible treasure in the business 40 years in, that's when I started running the business. And I had this like, gold mine and a treasure and thinking okay, what do I do this? How do I care for this? It's like a diamond and you want to present it in the best way possible and protect it and care for it. And so my in laws had created an incredible legacy of hospitality. And it was simple in the beginning there. Who else was doing vacation rental homes in 1972? Yeah. You know, we weren't there. Like, you know, that's, I think that's a unique factor. So you have 40 years of history. And people became loyal and repeat guests because they were treated with kindness and dignity and respect and with hospitality, and that we extended a gracious welcome to them. And this is how we painted a picture. Every time I would go to dot and Ralph's house, my mother and father in law, the grandparents, I have five kids, we go up there. Every time we went to the house, there were fresh flowers that are bedsides, there were gifts waiting for us. And anytime guests would come to the house, there were handwritten named cards at the dinner table. And the guests were known and they were wanted, and that permeated into the business. And so dots office would be right behind the front desk. And people would come into the office and check in because they wanted to see.or her sister, my Aunt Edna, who was also a receptionist there. So they would come every October and then they would want to see Dodd and so I started in 2012 running this business which had already created this legacy. That's a dream. The key at that point was okay, I need to steward this in a way that is going to accelerate it in a very different market in 2012 than it was in 1972. And they would tries twice and Southern Living and got all their business for the year. Yeah,

Alex Husner  14:36  
it was Yeah. All phone books and newspapers and magazines back then.

Tom Goodwin  14:41  
Everything was in a graph sheet of paper. Oh, yeah. Apo box, a fishing tackle box was the cash box. Over we were still doing cash in there. People are still sending checks in Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. Taking American Express because my mother in law didn't want people to go into credit card debt. So it was It's all old school, you know, stuff going on, which is just unbelievable. So we just really have continued that legacy and social media has definitely helped. We've really accelerated that. And quite honestly in 2016, we took a huge turn and 2016 November 27 28th was the fires in Gatlin buildings. And in one night, we went from just under 100 properties to under 50. And several of our family homes that burned down acreage all around our office to you all are coming to Gatlinburg. Next time drive up ski mountain road, you'll see all the acres that was decimated, our office was protected. And we didn't lose the office. So that was an outpost for all of the first responders. And the aid that came that use the bathroom, we provided free lunches, we had tools in Red Cross, you know, did camped out in our front office just to distribute things for the first responders. And that came just from a heart of hospitality. And we captured we started telling the story. And what is the story of how are we going to serve our community and every major news outlet interviewed me we were on every broadcast, Dolly did a whole program featured what we were doing to serve first responders. And that wasn't a marketing ploy. That was just what we do this how you respond. And you know, we were devastated. We've lost half our business, we had no idea if the city of Gatlinburg was destroyed or decimated. And you know, it has rebounded in an unbelievable way. And so many people within the community have joined arms together and rebuilt it. But the amazing thing was is our guests loyalty they shared in our tragedy. They shared in the response, and they share humanity of giving and sacrifice. And at that point, we realized we created a program called family first, and that was for our repeat guests. And we didn't know what level of start the repeat guests program at. So we only accept two people in the program that had booked with us five or more times. And now that level of family first program is over 2000 families have stayed with us over five times. And many of those are 3040 50 times. Yeah, third, fourth generation. So that's that our repeat business represents 50% of our business and we've just captured those relationships and have connected with them personally. Some small things we do we exchange Christmas cards so we ask all of our guests to mail us their Christmas cards and photos and they get entered into a free two night stay. So taste. And from Ohio I think one this year one, she's a family first member because she sent us her Christmas card and we send out 2300 Christmas cards to our repeat guests. So we treat them like family and we involve them as family they all get gifts when they come they all get special notices, you know, kind of a it's a loyalty program without having a real for multi points or a loyalty program. And that really well for us.

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Annie Holcombe  19:54  
back to the show. Tragedy brings out the best in the worst in people but I think I have found it brings up For the best, and the good and the things that you didn't know were there, and it, it creates bonds and relationships that you've not likely would never have had had that not occurred. But one of the things you had to do is rebuild your not only the community, you had to rebuild your, you know, your sense of safety, your sense of purpose in the in the market, you had to build rebuild your business. And so working with owners is really important. And I think that's one of the things that you shine a light on and you do a phenomenal job on is working with your owners, and recognizing that that relationship with those owners is so valuable, and you treat them with the same respect and dignity and love and hospitality that you do your guests. So why don't you tell us a little bit about the programs you do with your owners

Tom Goodwin  20:40  
is great. Our owners, there's three, it's the property is the guests and is the owner, you know, those are the three core things or you can you know, focus on the guests and focus on the owners and I say yes, we definitely, but our core values extend our three core values. If we believe that family matters, we believe in exceeding expectations, and we believe we are generous stewards. We want all of our guests to experience that but more importantly, we want our owners to experience that and something my in laws started and of course I just received the legacy of was an annual owners meeting where we would have a dinner the Friday night before the annual homeowners association meeting. So where we are located is in this chalet village area of Gatlinburg is the historic chalet area. It's kind of all after Swiss names and so forth and for their cabins. Everyone had chalets. So the ski chalet homeowners association meets the last Saturday of every April. So my mother in law's said, well, people are coming in Friday, why don't we have him for dinner? So over 40 years ago, we started the annual homeowners meeting. So we would have the owners for dinner, we would give them updates on what we're doing for marketing, how to best improve their homes, we'd give out different awards. And it was a family time a family meal and a family celebration. And that was just an annual event. And I thought everyone did it. Because I've been going for 30 years, I just assumed Well, that's what people do. When I got into the industry in 2012. I would tell people are like you mean, you have all your owners in one room? Are you crazy? That's just how we've done it. And so that that then forces you to lead with integrity and to have common expression contracts with everyone that you're working with. And so we took it up a little bit of a notch and this last year, we decided well, we want to invite other people into the family. So thinking about ways to expose other potential rvos People are running on their own or with other competitors in our area. Do you want to hear about the mountain or Charlize difference? Come to our owners meeting meet some of our owners. We partnered with Ober Mountain, which is a incredible the only ski resort in Tennessee. It's located two miles from our office where all of our homes are located. They gave us their ballroom area that outlooks this ski slopes in downtown Gatlinburg. And the mayor came and open the evening and we had a banjo a 15 year old banjo player from Dollywood. It was unbelievable who was on our float this last year we had David Ngati come speak about market trends we partner with exploring so Trey Barton came and told him about the Explorer program were part of the 100 collection. So Travis came and spoke about the 100 collection. And the big draw was David and Gaudi talking about market trends because this time last year, people really worried things are slowing down. It's not COVID anymore, what's the future gonna be? So he did a brilliant presentation. Yeah, because he always does on market trends. And and we had 160 people there. And there were 45 potential new owners that weren't a part of our program that came in. And we just invited them into what we experience and our owners loved it. All of our cleaners came our maintenance team came. We had local barbecue. We had a comedian at the end of the night. It was really so much fun. So we've already booked over mountain this year for the last Friday of April, if anyone wants to come and see what that looks like,

Alex Husner  24:01  
we might want to come and

Annie Holcombe  24:04  
if we're invited, that sounds like an Alex trip. Yeah, it

Alex Husner  24:08  
definitely does. And again, I love going to Gatlinburg and excuse I get to go up there. That is so cool. Tom and a couple things just just stand out to me. I mean, we talk a lot about being able to bring together the different sides of the industry and to bring together the rvos that maybe don't necessarily know the service and what they're missing by being on a professionally managed program. What a great way to do that. I don't know that I've heard of anybody quite doing it in that way. I think that's just excellent. And for your owners to hear from David and Gaudi who you know, in a lot of cases when he presents, even in front of property managers, a lot of what he says um, people have a hard time kind of keeping up with them. The owners must have just been blown away because this is not lingo and jargon that they hear on a daily basis. But that had to have been very impressive. I'm sure we do try

Tom Goodwin  24:53  
to educate our owners and walk them through the rates and projections and so forth having a third party outside person come in That was great. And it also, when I look back at it, I think inviting people that in STR community are doing it on their own is an expression of abundance, I really want them to succeed. So we've also created a white paper on best practices for STRS. And we made David's video available on our website. So we want to share that information with these people that are doing it on their own. And I only wish them the best of luck. It is a hard job 75 homes 100 or 500, it is a hard job. want everyone that's committed to it to really have a sense of professionalism and a heart for hospitality. And I would add, there's no way an event like that could happen. I'm a visionary, I love to think of new ideas, and always new things. But if I didn't have the team, I had to fulfill that. And to make it happen, there's absolutely no way that it would have happened. Jordan Watts who directs my marketing and communications really ran with the program, that meeting and all the giveaways and the awards, Cory hawks, who's my co o, was onstage with David Ngati, talking about the trends. All the house cleaners were there, our property manager, Kay who's been with us for over 30 years, greeting the guests, they have those relationships with the owners, it's not the Tom show and almost kind of wish all those ending behind me a guess they're, they're the ones that make these dreams and the visions happen. And they were doing it well, before I came on the scene, I just want to I want to harness and steward you know, their greatest resources and really do events like this, which has been exciting. And then celebratory issue is really Cory hawks by coos idea. He goes, we need to do some fun, not just a business meeting with a really fun and Jordan brought in that family friendly comedian. And you know, the banjo player who's just awesome. And so just a lot of fun elements. So now we're beginning to think, okay, what are we going to do this August? If you have any ideas? Y'all can let me know.

Alex Husner  26:51  
Did you end up getting any new homeowners from that? Yes,

Tom Goodwin  26:54  
the next day, we we acquired two new homes in the program and just had a met with another family who came to that event and you know, so long sales cycle for sure. Yeah, they're considering coming on our program as well. And they've been doing it with with another national brand, maybe get heads on beds, and really occupancy, but doesn't have to care for their home. And that's a little bit more of our distinct contribution is to care for homes. And any you had mentioned that fires, we lost homes. We took care of the excavation for all of our homeowners of the 47 homes that were destroyed. Oh, wow. Not knowing if they would ever come back on the program. Oh my god, they aren't of our Mount Laurel, chalets family, so we hired the excavators. We paid the excavators, we got the money from them. And before they could get their insurance, we walk them through the insurance claims. And then I started building houses. So now my COO is also has become a general contractor. We've built eight homes, we've done major renovations on other homes, about 45 different projects we've done. So if an owner comes to us and says we'd like to come on your program, and then their house doesn't meet the standard, but they're gonna make the improvements. We've got the whole construction crew that can go in and bring it up to the standard with all the fires, all these new beautiful homes are built so that older homes come up to the standards as well.

Annie Holcombe  28:13  
So is there anything that Tom can't do? Oh, there's I'm just marveling so when I was in property management, I the market that I'm in is very condo heavy. So we didn't have a lot of homes. But homeowners associations, we had a largest company I was at I want to say at 15 at one point, so the fall was when the homeowners meetings would happen. And we did a similar thing. But we did it by homeowners associations or the meetings were on Saturday mornings. And we would do a luau on the pool deck or something. And I was always the one that had to do it like go around like get get everybody twist arms to get people to come like present with the the CVB that come present every Saturday. And finally, after about five or six meetings are like here, you know, you can you can present this deck or whatever we did that. And I think that like showing homeowners that you value them, they'll tell somebody else. And even if they pull their unit off rental, they're going to say like I had a really great experience with this company. And they valued me as an owner, they valued my property, they took care of my investment. And that's so critical, because I think some of the companies, especially the ones that don't have a local presence, it's just numbers, it's just completely a numbers game and the units get overbooked. They get over used, they're not cleaned when they should be and the owner starts to feel sort of, you know, pushed aside and not part of the value chain of the whole industry. So I think what you're doing is important, and I think that the legacy companies and markets are the ones that can shine and that in a year are a great example of you know, you don't you're not looking to be all things to everybody, but you're looking to just be a good steward of the business for all pieces of it. And I just I love everything that you're doing. And it's just it's wonderful. Thank you.

Alex Husner  29:48  
I think it's important to and, Tom, I believe you were in this roundtable discussion that I was in a dorm that Sarah Bradford hosted one of the questions that came up basically it was about owners and how do you keep showing them your value proposition when you're not in front of them, because let's be honest, not everybody can have an event like you had. I think everybody would love to. But that might not always be possible. But how do you make sure that your value is front and center and they understand how much that goes into this business, that it's not just as easy as finding a co host? And you know, giving your property away. But and that really comes down to that's consistent communications? Do you stay in touch with your owners throughout the year, like newsletters? Or how else are you communicating with them,

Tom Goodwin  30:29  
we have at least a monthly communication, it's usually twice a month, and it's called the family room. And so I love that. And it's Jordan, and does that for me. So we come up with all the content information, we need to communicate with them, we announced new homes on the program, new challenges, we just launched a new website three days ago. And so at least every month, we started it every week. And it was it was that was ambitious all video and we did tic toc type videos, we you know, with the owners, and most of our owners didn't watch the video. So we started doing video and content and they were just reading the content, we said, Okay, we're going to respond to our demographic. Yeah, we're going to write them a really informational newsletter called The family room, and it has separate links. So it all of our owners have my cell phone, have our CEOs, cell phone, our property manager cell phone, they have access to us, we know them all by name, we were small. So we have 75 homes, you know, we had 100, before the fires, we went down to below 50. And we have had slow growth and scale it coordinative company size and what we want to deliver and who you want to be, we've never had the ambition of being 500 or more, we want to have the real high touch experience. When I took over the company, we had a separate smaller kind of budget based company next door that we acquired because we wanted to keep the land next to us and our company. So it's 160 homes total that we had. And there were about 40 of them that were causing all the headaches, the relationship with the owners and the quality of the homes. So within six months, I fired those owners, and wow gave them the opportunity to stay but they had to make improvements. But we lost went from 160 to 120 in six months, and we increase our revenues by 66%. That's such a great story to tell, or employee satisfaction by five. So it's the 8020 principle, in our case, it was maybe a little higher than 8020, the bottom 35% were really weighing us down, and it prevented our brand from having a stronger presence. So we distilled down who we were and we more presented our brand. And we want to have homes that are affordable to all different demographics and all socio economic scale. And but we want those homes to be clean. We want those homes to be welcoming, we want them to be updated. But there are some incredibly beautiful, luxurious homes that sell really well. And there are some really great budget homes that do well, that's important

Annie Holcombe  32:55  
to have a diverse, diverse portfolio, because you are in a market that is attracting from so many different regions of the US. And so you've got your urban folks, you've got people that are you know, country, and this is the one time they get away every year. And that's important. I think a lot of people don't recognize that you can make money and have the very tiers of business, you don't have to be all luxury, you don't have to be all budget, you can have that. But the important thing is to also recognize that it's not necessarily the property, it's the relationship with the owner is important as well as because if the owner is not going to be a good partner, then that overall is just not a good experience for your staff or your guests at the end of the day.

Tom Goodwin  33:36  
Absolutely.

Alex Husner  33:37  
And we're seeing that a lot this year, the companies that grew in the last few years, you know, during COVID era that they took on a bunch of properties that they it's hard to turn down, right, it's hard to turn down business, but now they're realizing okay, we actually took on properties that maybe don't really fit that great on our program, or they are more of a headache to keep them on there. And now's the time to really you know, do that soul searching and decide, is it worth keeping them? Or is it worth going to them, like you said and saying if you want to stay in the program, these are the things that you have to do, or it's just it's not a good fit anymore. And that's really where the brand comes into play, really getting honest with yourself and your company and what your objectives are of what type of properties you want to represent what experience you want to be able to deliver. And if you're not able to do that, because you've got properties that are not conducive, then you have to make that hard decision. But it's a hard one to make. Because if you know that there's still money on the other end, a lot of companies don't want to give it up but it's it's good to hear stories like yours of success and being able to prune a little bit and then actually see the fruits of it that are better than what you had before.

Tom Goodwin  34:39  
The pruning from the fire was a little more pruning than we had signed up. Yeah, that's not the plan for

Annie Holcombe  34:44  
that. But yeah, well

Alex Husner  34:46  
Tom, it was super amazing to have you on here today. Like we said we've had you on our list to reach out to you for a long time and this opportunity just kind of popped up for this week. So very glad to to get to see you today and hear more about the company. Is there any thing that you're looking forward to this year maybe that you want to share or any any news coming up at Mount Laurel chalets? Yes,

Tom Goodwin  35:06  
actually, we acquired another business on January 1. Oh, wow. So as a small family owned business, and we are in the throes of it is the fifth of January right now. So we flipped the switch on January. And we are keeping that as a separate brand for now, but it gives us a little bit of a footprint in the severe County area. Our office is located as far into Gatlinburg as you can possibly get up ski mountain road. And so when our employees are committed to working for us, they're very committed because they're driving by about 150 Other vacation rental management companies with a lot of traffic in the summer. Having this other outpost will allow Mount Laurel to have a bit of a reach. And then also this other brand will provide maybe more of the budget level homes cabins. And that would give them more entry level vacation or an opportunity. And so we're deciding what we're going to do specifically with that brand, if we're going to keep that or merge it within the Mountain Laurel. But that's an exciting opportunity for us. I feel like I'm starting all over again, taking all the best practices of what I've learned in the last 11 years, and immediately applying it in the back end, specifically cleaning and maintenance and operational systems. And I will tell you everything that I have learned through y'all and through numerous other podcasts and the conferences I've gone to has increased the value of our company and it has allowed us to move into what could be a real scary situation with this other company and bring some order and some profitability. Yeah, profit for sure we love the things are profitable, not just a hobby. But I am so grateful for all that I have learned and gained from this community and the generosity other people have given to me, mentoring me and coaching me and the friending me and sharing these their best practices and ideas. Because like you had said, shoulder shoulder when we're all together, we're much better. So we're looking to that in 2024. And I have mentioned before that I am in this planning stages for a very local podcast, not a vacation rental podcast, but more of the backstory of our local community. Oh, I love it that

Alex Husner  37:21  
will let us know when that comes out. And And honestly, I think we would love to follow your journey this year with that new company. If you want to come back maybe once a quarter and then check in with us. We've got a couple other people that were doing those types of injuries this year just to kind of hear in the trenches what's happening and, and you know, the struggles, but also the triumphs. So we'd love to hear about it as it goes.

Tom Goodwin  37:42  
We would love it. And it would help us document Yeah, exactly. It's a lot of crazy that goes on. It's like yeah,

Alex Husner  37:50  
and you forget you forget about it, right. I mean, if you don't document it, you forget

Tom Goodwin  37:53  
about worry. My co protects me day he goes, would you ever imagine this happening? And it happens every day,

Annie Holcombe  37:59  
right? Yeah, yeah. But what a great business to be in that we have all these surprises.

Tom Goodwin  38:04  
Yeah, I would love that. Thank you for that invitation.

Alex Husner  38:08  
Awesome. Well, if anybody wants to get in touch with any night, go to Alex and Annie podcast.com. Tom, what's the best way for anybody to reach out to you? You

Tom Goodwin  38:16  
can reach me at LinkedIn. That's probably the best place to reach me at Tom Goodwin at with mountain laurel chalets.

Alex Husner  38:23  
We'll include that in the show notes and thank you everybody for tuning in. And we will see you next time.