Understanding How The Enneagram and Personality Assessments Can Help Transform Company Culture, with Linny & Kyle Jones

Alex Husner  0:05  
Welcome to Alex & Annie the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex. 

Annie Holcombe  0:09  
And I'm Annie. 

Alex Husner  0:10  
And we are joined today with Linny and Kyle Jones of dwell, luxury rentals and tandemly. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. 

Linny  0:19  
Thank you.

Kyle  0:20  
Thank you.

Annie Holcombe  0:21  
Well, I was really fortunate, Rachel all day from abode, luxury rental. She connected Lenny and I a couple of weeks ago, and we had a lovely chat and just got I was just enjoyed so much getting to talk to you, Kyle, you were not around. I'm not sure I think you were probably out foraging or doing whatever it guys do during the day. But we had a great conversation and really enjoyed it. So we wanted to have you guys on the show to talk about your business. But why don't you tell us a little bit about, you know, what you guys have going on at dwell and then we'll branch into like a deeper conversation on your whole business strategy.

Kyle  0:54  
Yeah, great. Yeah. Rachel and Rob are actually a huge part of our story. They would Lenny has worked with them in various different outlets. And we were sitting at dinner in Park City one night and they're like, Hey, this is a this this seems to be a pretty good avenue for you, Kyle to to explore, I started in five star resorts. In South Carolina, when I was a kid, my parents both worked at five star resorts so and then move that over to the West Coast when we moved. So I had a five star luxury resort background. And then I saw what they were doing in Park City with Rob and Rachel were doing. It was like, okay, we can make this work. And then Flagstaff where we lived at the time was kind of, I don't know, starved of it. Like didn't have that awkward adoption.

Linny  1:38  
Yeah, we had a couple of people who were not as I wouldn't say like, they're not as organizational. So a couple of mom and pops, they'd have five or six Airbnbs that they would manage. But we didn't have that up level professional service offering. And so for Kyle and I moving from pretty big cities, because we had met and like we met in LA and Kyle was an actor for about 10 years. We just were like, wow, we could really take something that, you know, a major city has to offer and retrofit it kind of meeting our town where it's at. And, you know, we put you all together as about, it's been about three years, I think, right?

Kyle  2:12  
Which unfortunately, you know, like in today's climate, I feel like bringing that big city mentality to a small town is the opposite of what people want, right. But for us, this is a town that's kind of it's right, in many ways has opened its arms up to us. And I think that that, that's, that's a huge testament to Lynnie specifically, as well as, like, we have gotten to know everybody in this community. And it's a lot of local boots on the ground. Like, she goes to bar class. I'm in like, some local real estate meetings, like stuff like that. And just like pickup games, and this and just like it's a community that is just kind of opened its arms up to us. Oh, that's great.

Alex Husner  2:54  
And how many properties do you manage? Now?

Kyle  2:56  
We're at 16. But I feel I got like, 616 going on 30? Yeah, we offer it. Yeah, it's we we've grown very sustainably and organically and we've been very specific. So we've said no to it's every house, we take on the price at No, no, about five. And this market is like a very, it's a very old school mountain market. So there's not a lot of luxury style homes that kind of fit our portfolios. It's, um, it's been a really slow but but sustainable growth and deliberate. Yeah.

Annie Holcombe  3:35  
So I think, let me when we talked, I feel like you mentioned that one of the important things with the properties that you work with was making sure that the owners understood kind of like what you're the aesthetic that that you wanted for the customers. And so you would go in and kind of help them not necessarily stage a property, but make sure that they had them upgraded. So you guys are not only going in and managing you're actually helping them make bring their units to a new level that they haven't maybe been that before.

Linny  4:01  
Absolutely. So for us, one of the our value propositions is whether you stay at a two bedroom, two bath, or, you know, we have a property that we just got online that has seven beds, seven baths, indoor pool, very beautiful. We want that to be a consistent experience. So for us part of that conversation with homeowners is like do you want to do you want to basically get 20 to 30%, higher nightly rate than your competitors and flag and like, this is what you know, this is how you can do it. So we actually sit down with them. And we have great partners and how their local husband, wife team, like us very good friends, kind of like that relationship. In vacation rental is super important. They help us up level or if the homeowners have their own interior designers. It's great. But we want that that property to feel consistent across the board. So anyone staying at a dwell property gets that same luxury

Kyle  4:51  
experience. And it's also a great way to kind of suss out the homeowner because we have our little things that we'd like to have a conversation and so when we have those conversations, it's then we can get this organic tell from the homeowner, if we're if our relationship is going to work well together, you know, or or, or if their values are different than ours. And then we actually, sometimes our deals will, we will go separate ways at that point, because we'll realize like, oh, this person is looking for something else, I don't think it's going to quite get fit.

Alex Husner  5:22  
Give us an example of x. I think that's a really good topic. And one that I hear more people talking about these days, I guess you could say that, you know, really just trying to understand upfront if this homeowner is going to be a good fit for you, if their objectives match what you have in mind for that property. But what are some of the things that you see as red flags that you're like, Hmm, maybe we should try the other company down the street? Yeah.

Linny  5:46  
So I think for us, a lot of it is values alignment. So a lot of the work that we do at tandemly is kind of getting in uncovering values within an organization. And Kyle and I talk even though we're a small organization with five people here, well, we're still focused on our mission, vision and values. So a couple things that would trigger up ooh, I don't know, I would do this, but I don't have time. Right. So like, you know, oh, I know what pricing. You mean.

Kyle  6:12  
I would manage this property. But

Linny  6:15  
I don't have time. Yeah. Another thing that we hear I think the

Kyle  6:19  
one that sticks out to me the most is we're looking to uplevel just not yet. Can you manage this property for the next year until we make income and blah, blah, blah, in our experience that just not yet has never actually come about? So we know, usually a trigger word of like, okay, we're not ready to take the journey with us, therefore, you know, if you're not going to be in we, you know, I don't I don't think it makes sense for us to be in as well. Yeah,

Alex Husner  6:44  
yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that's kind of setting everybody up for failure, because how are you going to perform higher than what they currently are doing? If they're not going to make the investment and fix things? Or do upgrades that are going to be necessary to get them to that point? Yeah,

Kyle  6:59  
and yes, yes, sir. Harsh to like, we have people that stay with us, like Lenny was saying that we want that kind of continuous products, no matter if you say, a one bedroom or a seven bedroom. We have guests that stay with us, that I you know, I will not market a particular property as luxury if I see it as you know, not necessarily Yeah, family friendly. It's an elevated property, definitely for the market. That's not luxury. And we have guests that's that, that call us out even in our name dwell luxury rentals, and they'll say this property is not luxury. Well, the only reason that they wouldn't think it's luxury is because it's in our name. It's not that I marketed it that way. And so we have these conversations with homeowners. It's, it's in that way, it's like, we don't want to mislead any of the guests and say, this was like, I can't say to him, like, Don't worry, the homeowner is going to update this property in the year. So that's one of those where it's like, okay, if you're not ready for the journey, you know, we'll wait make money with another property manager, if that's if that's where you want to hit, you're just about getting cash, and come back to us. You know, when the property's updated. We've had this

Linny  8:10  
life, this one particular family that comes to mind, they've come to us three times in the course of three years, when we said, this is what you need to do. This is the amount of money you need to spend. They've never pulled the trigger. This property is beautiful. It says it sits empty to this day, and it's like Dude, if you would have listened to it three years ago. Oh, yeah, people are starving. Because I'm an LPC because I am a therapist, I sniff for neuroses, anxiety, OCD, I'm sniffing.

Kyle  8:43  
which, unsurprisingly, is everywhere. Oh, that's a very this is a very great point. If a homeowner ever tells us that they are OCD like oh, it's, you know, I understand it clean because I'm OCD, you know, you don't know if that's consistent, but it's happened to us quite a bit. Right. What's What's odd is is that like, we find that their OCD in ways that don't even equate to a great guest clean slate. Yeah,

Alex Husner  9:11  
yeah. It's almost like they're saying that more to impress you up front. I feel like it'd be like, you know, just make sure that your bar is high, but sometimes you find that they don't even know what the bar needs to be. So, yeah. Yeah. That's interesting, too, because I think you're doing it just, I mean, your experience, obviously, Lenny, like lends itself to it that you know, how to look for those certain things. But not everybody does and was just in a conversation the other day about, you know, when you build a team with your employees, a lot of companies they now do, you know, predictive index or culture index or Enneagram, like you do, but what if you gave a home potential homeowner, one of those tests up front? I mean, how many bad situations could you avert by truly being able to understand, you know, who they are and how We're going to be to work with when you've got that skill set that not everybody has. But

I've been told another, any companies aren't using that. Well, I mean, you could use it.

No, I love it, it's like, they also have to pass a test to you know, and sometimes I think the owners is, in a lot of markets, they've got a lot of competition. So they kind of hold the upper hand in this situation, but it could also show that you're really a discerning company to go ahead and do that.

Kyle  10:28  
Contracts, like must take it for granted. It's like,

Alex Husner  10:32  
there's no wrong answers, but we're gonna

Linny  10:36  
work together. Well, here's the thing with any drum, which I love is all behavior serves a function. So I say this to my clients, I say this to all, you know, all the people, all behavior serves a function. And so if I know somebody's thinking, feeling and acting style, I actually can meet them where they are. So that's coming to me and sending a long email with lots of details. I know they probably have a one action style. And for them somewhere along their childhood, it was really important that they understood the facts and figures and details, so I don't take it personally. So I think that's the thing, which is cool about the Enneagram is not only is it intra personal, so like how do I like who am I? And why do I matter? But it's interpersonal, and then it's systemic. So then Kyle can say like, Hey, I got this message from a guest. And I'm going, Oh, no, it's somebody with a five, five thinking style, who's trying to understand so we were able to kind of run it through that that lane, that lane,

Kyle  11:30  
and we actually talked about it. And it's in all its I mean, it's homeowners it's guess its employees. And everything. Do you want to explain the anagram for people? Yeah,

Alex Husner  11:42  
that sounds good to say yeah, for our listeners that aren't aware of what it is.

Linny  11:47  
Yeah, so we. So the Enneagram is an ancient tool, which is really cool. So came out of roots of Judeo Christianity. And it actually came kind of out of the church. And then in the 1970s, a group of psychologists went to the coastal California and started workshopping this. And so since the 70s, it's really taken a new life of its own. And so there's a version we use called the IQ nine, which is out of South Africa. And so when you look at the Enneagram, there's a lot of different styles, there's like the narrative type, there's the integrative type, and we like the integrative type. And so in it any meaning nine Greek, there's nine different types of personalities that you can have. So when you're a small child, and the world is unsafe to you, you adopt the personality and the lens, you know, that actually helps you survive. So a lot of these things that we've had the same triad type, since we were six years old. So you know, all nine types, we've got action styles, which are the 891. So the world's kind of coming at you, you know, it's a kind of a gut reaction. And so you know, the eight is the act of controller. So they're taking command, they're, the world comes at them, it's kind of like a chess pass, and basketball, they're going to delegate out. The one is the strict perfectionist. So that's very much like the world coming at them. And so as a result, they're going to kind of go down and you know, work on being perfect to kind of closing that gap between what is and what could be. And then the nine which is the adaptive peacemaker, which sits on the top for a reason because it's absorbing all the energy of the other styles trying to make things peaceful for people in you know, in their, their round. And so 234 feeling, you know, considerate, helper, competitive achiever, intense creative, so those are all about feeling styles connected to our heart. And then I mentioned a little bit earlier the thinking styles 567 Quiet specialists and thinking very slowly, very deeply. Six, the loyal skeptic, so understanding the risks involved in order to serve group and then the seventh, the enthusiastic visionary, which is, how do I, you know, have fun? How do I, you know, move forward? What are my options, and so each Each type has a wonderful, necessary aspects for diversity of thinking. And so really, it's important for teams and individuals to have different, like different thinking styles or like you to being a duo, there are going to be things that you think of first or feel first, but where are the other? Like, where else on the Enneagram? Can you tap into to see, you know, like, what, what might be missing? So quick, quick, quick example. And then I'll be done. Kyle and I are both the same time type. So we're both sevens. We're both looking for fun. We're both trying to experience and develop new things, hence all of our businesses, right. And then two eights, so when we took I took our side by side profiles actually have years printed here that no one in our family or family of two had any six thinking style, so no one was thinking, how do we get sued? What's going to happen in the future? What are the risks of the macro economics, there was no one in our family thinking about what could go wrong. So on SPA was large, the blind, nasty. So we I adopted that role. And so we started, you know, really practicing of what could go wrong, you know, getting all the insurance getting all the lawyers getting all the things, just that that perspective wasn't represented naturally with us.

Alex Husner  15:23  
So interesting. I studied the Enneagram quite a bit a few years ago, and it's been a while, but it started with, there's a book called The road back to you, that goes through it. And I was just, you know, I'm really interested in learning more. And actually, my book club did a couple books on it, I just kind of dove in and got to have some good conversations with people. And, and it is, it's fascinating to me, because I think it really can see how closely aligned people are to their, to their personality type, you know, whether it's the Enneagram, or some of the other personalities, or type tests that are out there. But it really does help you understand how to work with somebody and understand you know, what, like you said, meet them where they're at. And I think you said Annie's two, or three, which makes sense for both of our personalities. So it's spot on, I think gave it if you like, try and mess up the questions like you literally can't, that's the funny part.

Linny  16:20  
Yeah. Doctor says actually, I've Annie as an SX nine. So the other thing with this version, which is cool is we look at the instincts. So when we were cave people, we all have ways in which we kept ourselves safe. So we have our SP self preservation. So like you would be the person in the cave with your little food and your your water and your your coverlet. keeping yourself safe, then you have your one on one, which is the SX, which is you know, if this cave collapses, who's my buddy, that's gonna look for me. So those people kind of have intense like one on one relationships, and then we have social, which doesn't mean you're necessarily social. But it does mean that you're understanding the dynamics of the group. So who's the Alpha? Beta? Who's the trader who's watching the children, because those actually being a social three is different than being a one on one, three, which is different than being a self preservation three.

Alex Husner  17:13  
And you can have a wing of another one, right? Yeah,

Linny  17:16  
so that's actually a different model. But your wings are the ones that are on either side. So for three year wings, or two and four. And so when we run through scenarios, like as the three you're gonna want to look at, you know, what's the two perspective? What's the four perspective? Because if we have one wing that's really short, and then one ring that's really long, we're lopsided?

Annie Holcombe  17:37  
And do you find like just going relating it back to owners? Do you find that the ones that have been in it a long time or a certain style, versus the ones that are new, or Jersey just run the gamut? Like, I mean, I'm not saying that you've done the test. But if you had to, like generalize based on their personalities and their traits in what you're seeing, I think, what you do, you probably get a fairly good sense of what somebody is, right? Absolutely.

Linny  18:01  
We're always testing it out. I will say what their personality is fairly stable. But what I like about the Enneagram and you probably remember this you know, Alex from your all your studying of it, we have lines so under stress, we go to a certain dark side of kind of a one of the numbers or when we're feeling really healthy, we go to the like the healthy, elevated, integrated side of one of the numbers. So I would say any great question and I see homeowners under stress go to go to their you know, insert whatever line

Kyle  18:35  
you want to see to like within probably five sentences the way that somebody's carrying themselves talking about whatever the process is probably close to what they are. So she usually calls it out like after we'll leave the meeting and I want to offer the opposite perspective. For those listening. I didn't know anything about this until getting married.

Annie Holcombe  18:58  
Did you test him before you got married? Or was it

Speaker 3  19:03  
Yeah, you didn't know you're walking into this wealth of knowledge.

Linny  19:08  
I was thinking about my business partner studying this so parts my heart Logan is my business partner for tandemly she gave him the assessment originally and she's like, Oh, two matching tri types um, that's going to be interesting. So yeah, we he made the made the cut

Kyle  19:24  
well, and so I didn't I didn't know anything about this world. I had never taken tested this but it did kind of spot on nail the person that I am. So I, I really enjoy kind of learning more about myself through this lens. And specifically, I think, like I remember taking it my action style was low. So I've learned like linear and I've learned like, Oh, I'm going to start jumping into action more rather than sit back and see kind of see how things play out or strategize instead I just kind of jump in and and so now I think I take it a little too far because now I'm just like all about Let's just solve this right now. It has helped me in kind of finding that and then we've worked on it with our employees as well and kind of figuring out like, how do people like feedback? Why are they making this decisions they're making when maybe in some instances, I was hoping for this. Okay, now I'm understanding them more. And then when it comes to Houma, honey, you know, we don't have in our contract, but we're certainly I think we should start it now. See within, you know, within talking to somebody for 10 minutes, like, Oh, this is this is, this is probably what they are. And this is probably how they're going to how they're going to carry themselves. And you know, is that is that a journey we want to take or not, we'll usually have that conversation after, oh, even

Alex Husner  20:41  
just using that to match them up with like, if you have more than one property manager on your team, knowing the profile of your property managers who is going to be good to work together? And then I mean, how they want to be communicated with like, if they don't need a ton of details, then there's no sense and you will feel like you have to be sending them stuff all the time, like that might not be important to them, or vice versa. But yeah, it's it's super interesting. And I think in my experience, when a company or there's been an initiative to bring on something like this, whether it's this or PII or CI, you know, a lot of internal people at the company, you know, they just kind of get nervous about that, like they don't they, they don't want to answer anything wrong. And I think it's really about how it's framed to employees. But I'm curious for your advice on that. I mean, if a company wanted to implement any of this, any of these types of tests, like, how do you position it to those employees so that they understand it's a good thing, and that there's nothing? This doesn't mean, you're getting fired? Because you're one type versus another? Yeah,

Linny  21:44  
I think it's all on the ground roll. So it's all like you said, I think great point on context is how do you set this up. So we don't want to weaponize this, there is absolutely no way a world in which we'd be like, well, that's a real insert number thing to do. The thing that I would recommend to you know, organizations as well is like, figuring out what your desired outcome is. So is it to engage your employees, pi, Myers, Briggs, Harrison, Hart and I are certified and about six of these. And so what we like about the Enneagram, the most over some of the others is, you can understand pretty quickly, like someone says, you know, Alex is of your three and you said you're, you know, a nine, you know, with like a lot of two, that means something and you can kind of right out of the gate, understand someone a little bit more, I would say for for really anyone though, the thing I like to have them take away is, you know, this is an art and a science. And you don't have to be an expert in this. If you bring curiosity to all of your relationships and go, I wonder why somebody is doing the thing that they're doing. You actually don't need to be an Enneagram expert, you can do kind of like really anything you want. And that curiosity is what's going to get you to the next level in your relationships with your team with your you know, with your one on ones, things like that.

Alex Husner  23:07  
Yeah, no, I love that. That's great. So when you work with companies, and this is obviously one service that that you offer, but do they typically come to you? Because this is something they've heard about? Or are you going in and doing like an HR assessment and you propose that this could be something to help their team? Yeah, so

Linny  23:25  
usually companies come to us with, Hey, we have a young executive that really we're excited for them to move from VP to C suite. Hey, we have this, like with Rachel and Ron, for instance, they're like, We have this really incredible culture. And they're such visionaries, the two of them. We've just really incredible culture. And we don't know how we got here, but we want to keep it going and even elevate Yes, oh, sort of that preventative. We get pulled in for diagnostics. So a lot of companies don't even know what's going on. And they're kind of afraid to look outside, look outside and guess what's happening. So we'll do a diagnostic. And then a lot of teams are just like, hey, I have a leadership retreat in the summer I've got this learning and development budget, I want to connect with my people with what can we do so people come to us and then kind of like the therapy diagnostic model, we're going to kind of go in we're gonna interview we're gonna run surveys and then we're going to diagnose and companies are like people there's developmental levels and things that you hit. So we're going to kind of say like, Hey, you're this far under development and then you know the challenges that we foresee for a company in your space like yours are going to be x y&z So we can kind of be a bit predictive and we're almost I would say hardened are pretty good at knowing what what's next and helping you map that out.

Kyle  24:41  
I think the thing that's cool too is vacation rental historically is not a world in which people worry about culture, right like it, you know, software or you know, a lot of the other companies you work with. There is this like corporate idea of we should think about our culture and then vacation rental. It doesn't seem like that. is a forward thinking you know, it's changing now which I think is really cool but and resorts I think my background five star resorts didn't really seem like that's the key guys are in. It's interesting because that sort of like happiness within that emulates out is so absolutely important in this business because every almost everybody in this business is guest facing homeowner facing like you our front office in just about everything you do when the cleaners like we had people show up early and like the cleaners interaction with them as part of our interaction with them. Right, you know, if I need you to get out of here right now. Well, even though the guest showed up early, and that's not great. Like, we can't really treat people that way, because that's their first memory of their vacation. So it's kind of top down bottom up. And in our industry, I think it's extremely important, because almost every single person is involved with a homeowner, you know? Yeah,

Alex Husner  25:51  
yeah. I mean, that's, that's hospitality right there. So it's it? Yeah, it's hard to, it's hard to imagine that you're 100%, right, that this just has not been something really, that our industry or even, you know, the greater hotel accommodations industry has focused on, I think it has gotten more of a spotlight in the last few years. And there's a couple other companies in our space that have done a good job, you know, putting this as something to focus on. But it's just, I think, because of the legacy element of this business that so many of them started 30 years ago, this is just something that a lot of those leaders never knew anything about. Now, this is a big change, I think the companies that do invest in it and actually want to help their employees both grow personally and professionally. If you can tell the difference. I mean, it shows off in the in the revenue and in the growth of the company, not just and you're doing something nice for your employees.

Linny  26:48  
I also think it's the empowerment, right? I think something that Rachel Robins done an amazing job. And we're working on some hospitality IP with them right now, which is really exciting. But you can see it in the connection of their employees to the guests, because their employees are empowered to make decisions on behalf of the organization. They're not afraid. They have that psychological safety. So they can go ahead and do something above and beyond for a guest without fear of retribution, which a lot of people you know, when you have to stay in your box, of course, you're going to play it safe. You're not going to be as creative as you could be.

Annie Holcombe  27:20  
Yeah. So you you mentioned that you guys are doing a lot with Rachel and Rob. So why don't you tell us about like what that process started out? And kind of where you're taking it or where you envision it going? Yeah,

Linny  27:33  
so a couple See, we looked it up because we were together. We're actually working on some IP right now on hospitality, because kind of like, to their point from earlier. How did we get the great culture that we have? You know, they're, I think in the front and center for hospitality. And so we're trying to figure out as a group, and Kyle's actually involved in this project, which is really exciting as kind of the entrepreneur in residence for hospitality, because he's got like a great background. But basically, we're figuring out, you know, what is that formula, if you will, and so whether it's a book or some trainings, or, you know, podcasts, I'm not sure, but we are, you know, pushing forward with them in some of these things. We've had a couple of workshops. We were in LA a couple weeks ago working on it. So we're, we're pretty excited about how it's going. And the way

Kyle  28:21  
it started was didn't Rachel reach out to you? Because she had read tribal leaders?

Linny  28:25  
That's right. That's right. That's right. Thank you. So my business partner, Carla, and her husband wrote tribal leadership, which is great. It's always on the Tony Shea kind of, or the Tony Shea, the top 10 lists of business books. You know, he's has a great background as USC professor, and so they reached out to us in November of 2020, to basically just come and do a training. And so from that initial, like one day training, you know, we just kept finding things, you know, to work on, so we went so hard, it's like, okay, so 2020, we did engagement surveys, we've done their retreat every year in May. I think, over the course of the years, we've helped with org design, we've built out management layers, so you know, they didn't really have managers, they were pretty flat organization for most of their since their inception. But that actually slows you down when you don't have a hierarchical nature. So we actually just implemented this director layer. So for directors of their companies now and I was on with them this morning, we were doing OKRs, which are great. They're basically like KPIs. So we are setting goals, we're, you know, employee relations. It's pretty cool. Like our name tandemly. We're, we're part of essentially part of your team. So I'm on Slack, with emails, we're, you know, it feels like we're part of the team as they're, you know, pushing in their growth and development estimates

Kyle  29:49  
Rachel and Rob to because they're curious along the way. So I think the growth from day one of, hey, you're involved with one training district is like well, what else can we do and So it's a mix between them staying really curious. And also that, that that connection of wanting everybody in the culture in their company to be happy, healthy, have a great time. And if that out,

Linny  30:15  
yeah, I have like, I literally have a spreadsheet of all the engagements we've had over the past four years. And it's like, I can't even I can't even tell you how much like, it's, it's been so much fun.

Kyle  30:25  
Because you can smell people you want to do this, because it's part of the Zeitgeist they don't really care about. They're just like, well,

Speaker 4  30:30  
it's checking a box. Yeah, yeah. by far

Kyle  30:35  
not the case. with them. It's very much. This is super important. And it was cool to watch them, you know, egg on that growth with tandemly. involved? Yeah,

Alex Husner  30:46  
no, that's great. That's great. I'm excited to hear what you end up deciding on whether that is a book or a online forum, or a conference or whatever that output is. Andy and I were just talking about this the other day, that that's something that we just feel is really lacking at the conferences, I mean, that professional growth, leadership development executive coaching element, it's just not there. I think the Women's Conference is probably the closest that ties in some of those topics. But that shouldn't just be a women's conference. I mean, that should be a whole track at vrma, or any of the conferences that reach the masses here. Because it's, I mean, your people are vital to the business and some of these small things to implement can make a world of difference that software can't necessarily solve for.

Linny  31:32  
And that's I think the issue is people are, you know, vacation rentals are kind of old school, you've got the STR people, there's this interesting cultural divide. And so I think they're, I think the question is, how do you take the lessons from the vacation rental and then become tech enabled to scale the day? You know, you have to take care of your people. They're your most important asset. And, you know, we did we actually submitted for vrma. So if anyone from vrma is listening, we would love to do our session. We have a proposed session for the RMA, Rachel Hart and I. So hopefully they hopefully they let us do it. Yeah, I

Alex Husner  32:07  
hope so. I will definitely be there. Be there for it.

Annie Holcombe  32:11  
Yeah. So where do you where do you see this is something that you guys can have operate? Is it completely standalone? Where you would go in and, and consult with lots of vacation rentals? I mean, is this something that you're looking to build and scale over time?

Linny  32:24  
Yeah, so what I like about vacation rentals is one because Kyle and I own a business. And two, we've been working with the boat forever. Like, I feel like Hart and I are pretty, we actually understand this industry in a deeper level than many of the other industries that we've worked on. The other thing I really liked about it, too, is historically we've worked with a lot of tech companies and with interest rates, I love the organic growth that's possible and sustainable in this industry. So yeah, I definitely think we've met with a few couple, couple people on the coast, couple different types of companies, we'd love to build this out. We usually take about four or five retainers at once. And then we'll do like one off gigs, that sort of our business model, because what we do is so labor intensive, right, like so we've got our spots, and then then we got our one offs. Yeah,

Alex Husner  33:14  
yeah. I mean, you're essentially becoming a part of their team. So you can't just kind of drop in and drop in and out. You're really part of it. But yeah, that's awesome.

That's great. With

Linny  33:24  
consulting, that sex is like you hire a consultant, you pay them all this money, and then they tell you what to do. But there's nobody to project manager or make sure that happens. I think that's what's different about us versus sort of, you know, other consulting firms out there. I

Annie Holcombe  33:37  
love I, I've been in the hospitality business, probably since your husband was starting out as a child. I feel like I've been at it for a really long time. But one of the things I you know, I think that as I worked for some large hotel companies, and I worked for some independence, and I think it really truly is only in the last, I feel like COVID changed a lot in the way we looked at people as whole people instead of like, parts of like a business. Like they just weren't like a piece of the mechanism. They were they were actually humans. And so I love to see that people are going more to the taking care of that, you know, I worked for Marriott for years, then it was really interesting. I didn't worked independent for a long time. And so last 18 months or so I was at homes and villas, which is part of the larger Marriott Corporation, and went back to their mentality of like, you know, you have to take care of that internal customer in order to serve as the external customer. And I had forgotten that. But it was something that always followed me along because I've learned that early on. And I think that it's nice to see people going to that because I think you know, what you said in the beginning was that you know, if you can make the people in inside your company feel good about what they're doing that is going to be exhibited to the guests when they come in, and then the guests are going to feel good about it. And so like this, it's just this great, holistic look at the business that I think that if that was another byproduct of COVID. I'll take it all day. Long because there have been a lot of really positives that I think have come out of that. And just being able to look at people as not just a piece of the business, but part of the business is just so important. So I absolutely love what you're doing. And I appreciate you sharing it with us. Because Alex and I are big students of all of these different tests, we love to take them and we've done it with different people. And sometimes I feel like, it's I did a DISC assessment years ago, and I remember reading it, and I cried, because I was like, Oh, my gosh, I'm a hot mess. You know, like, I need so much help. But it was just identifying things that I knew about myself, my character, but I didn't know what to do with them. And so being able to have that feedback is so important.

Kyle  35:39  
And I think another part of this conversation, too, that's really important is, the more that we talk about it. And the more that we kind of make this, you know, just normalized, almost like therapy in a way, maybe that will emulate itself out to the guests and homeowners as well, because I think that there is some unacceptable behavior on the guest and homeowner side. And so the more that we're working on making this holistic and an experience where everyone's healthy and happy, hopefully that that can open up a conversation to the guests and homeowner because, you know, it's it's so funny to me when I when we talk to people at conferences, and we learn about software's and everyone's like, God, this is such a sexy space. And it's so easy to get rich quick, it's couldn't be farther from the truth, like the love doing this. It's kind of acting in that way. Like you have to love this or don't do this because it's terrible, right? And so that way, it's like, we we really be in the resort. Going guests are their guests can do no wrong. You're always a yes, like figure out what the guests needs. That's a five star resort mentality right? Now I feel like well, maybe actually, let's and I don't know how to do this yet and sort of speaking out loud. But as we figure out, alright, how do we have a healthy company culture? How can we actually emulate this so that we have healthy guests and homeowner interactions as well, and so that they're speaking to us in a healthy manner, too, because a lot of times I work with people and see guests messaging and talk with guests on the phone, where it's like, actually, that's unacceptable, the things they're doing the way they're talking to us, you know? And so how do we find that sort of balance? Yeah,

Annie Holcombe  37:13  
yeah. I think not not letting them take the upper hand or a heavy hand at the staff that that's really important to find that balance. And I think some people go a little too far in pushing back on it. And some people go just the opposite way. They take it on too much and allow their staff to see that. So that is a tricky, tricky balance. I think what you're going to be able to do with people's help them strike the right balance, again, because everybody's going is their culture is going to be different. But I know just from reputation, and what I've heard, and just having met Rachel, like what they're doing the culture that they build, like you said that it sounded like it just sort of happened, because that's just innately who they are as people and leaders, and it just built around it. But it's great for them to recognize like, Okay, how did we do this? And how do we make sure it stays?

Alex Husner  38:00  
Yes, it is. It is an art and a science for sure. So

Linny  38:03  
let me give it to ya. We had a homeowner the other day who's like, yelled at our director of operations. So Kyle and I are having a internal dialogue, like, do we address this? How do we address this? Do I have you know, like, so we're because we want to protect our people. And I think it's important that she feels protected, you know, by us. And

Kyle  38:21  
then in the hospitality world, too. It's really hard, right? Like, how do you have that balance? And I know, for this individual, particularly when we have this discussion with him, he's going to feel like we are not giving our all to Him. And so it is very difficult. And I know that this is probably a universal conversation, but it is such a hard balance.

Linny  38:41  
Do we let him do a second time? Do we address it in the second time? Like what you know, behavioral modeling? Do we need to do so? Yeah, it's it's tricky, because, you know, obviously, everyone has a bad day. And we have to give some evidence for that. If this is professional behavior over a long period of time, you know, yeah,

Annie Holcombe  38:59  
some people just can't change what does that that statement of like a leopard never changes it spots? You can put it you can put him in a new situation, but he's gonna be the same leopard. So sometimes you just got to work with it. Yeah. Yeah.

Linny  39:13  
I've taken over mostly because I think him and Kyle didn't have like a great strengths based relationship. So I actually took over for this one particular homeowner because he and I get along usually great. Like we have a you know, pretty healthy working relationship. There's mostly respect so I think finding that person who works best as a great is a great

Kyle  39:33  
pair that like you know, when you can when you compare those different personalities and go, Okay, you would be a better fit for this person. Please may not have that luxury, I don't know, you know, but when you can you have that, that we found that that works really well for us. Because then it's not there's just it just lessens the amount of people kind of work cohesively and you know, much more there's more quality. Yeah, yeah. Hmm,

Alex Husner  40:00  
awesome. Well, are you looking to take on more clients at this time? And I just said you typically work with four or five, but are you open for if anybody was interested to? To hear more?

Linny  40:10  
Absolutely, we'd love to Yeah, we, we unfortunately had a couple of our Silicon Valley people ran out of money in the last couple of months. So I'm literally like ran out so we leave a couple of spots open so we'd love to love to chat with people and even just talk about you know, we do one on one executive coaching, we do team stuff like really, we really start with a relationship so kind of like with Rachel and Rob getting drinks that one time we'd love to hop on a zoom and talk to anybody for an hour about what they've got going on and see see if there's anything we like and we know so many people in the space out of the space you know, fractional folks so you know, we're happy to help in any way we can.

Annie Holcombe  40:51  
You mentioned that you you know or live close to a real good friend of ours, John Hildebrand. Yeah. With Hilde homes, and we have just been so proud and like, loved watching him. I personally just love watching his journey because he started out so sort of timid about the business and he is just all in and he's like, on social and he's super active in his community and really active and I think, I don't know if you guys had anything to do with helping him come out of his shell, or you weren't even part of any part of that at all. But it's been wonderful to see him so if that's like, part of what you guys are do definitely tell people because watching him, watching him blossom has just been really exciting. He's

Kyle  41:29  
infectious. It's all him, but we see him also we think we're biking together next week. But yeah, he's he's, he's absolutely crushed it. And it's and we ended that sort of energy. And I'm gonna talk between him and the Rachel and Rob's the world where it's like this, there is a community here where we're not fighting for houses, we're actually working together to make this world work is really cool. And I think that that's exactly where like that's the next step for a lot of the people in this industry where you know, if you've been in it for a long time, and you're kind of shining away the new school or if you're new school and you think old school is not the way it's actually like this John Hildebrand abode luxury rentals, like, like this, this positivity and and sort of working together, that attitude is exactly where we need to head and it's so fun to spend time with people like that. Yeah,it is.

Alex Husner  42:27  
I think that's why our industry is just it really, it sucks you in, and it's hard to get out of it. Because you find so many like minded people in these situations. It's a small world. And I think, you know, this industry has really brought a lot of great people together now that we're all very active on LinkedIn, and podcasts and everything. It's like, you just continue to connect the dots and just in fine, all these things. Crazy side story. My one of my best friends in college, John, and I figured out dated his brother in high school. On the other side side of the country from him, I mean, just like, you know, small things like that, and like, How in the world is that even possible? But I love John. He's great.

Linny  43:12  
That's the best. That's so funny. Yeah. And I think that is too because I think there's a lot of creativity, you know, a lot, like you mentioned, like, there's gaps in this industry because it is on the newer side. So you know, find your people find your tribe, find the people you want to work with and launch that consulting firm or do you know, create that software that the industry needs because they think this is a very warm, fuzzy, like, everyone has been so nice and so welcoming. And you know, we're just so grateful that we got to meet the two of you. It's been so lovely.

Annie Holcombe  43:43  
Yeah, we love this business. I've joked I've left it twice, and it just sucks you right back in, it's like, you think I'm done with this, I can't do it anymore. It's like, no, but they're my people. You know, and kind of, to your point about the competition, I said to somebody the other day, I was like, if people will just understand that it's competition, it's not a cage match. Like we don't have to go at each other. And like fight it's you know, because again, you're not going to take on every every client that's going to come to you. So you need somebody who is you know, either left of center or right of center to like give them to like based on what their needs are. And it's like if everybody's working together, there's enough of the pie out there for all of us to eat 

Alex Husner  44:19  
coopetition

Kyle  44:22  
This is a hard hard industry and I know I'm saying this to people who are like yeah, no, but it's only us that can relate to each other because it's like you know, nobody wants to know how the sausage is made right but this is like you get a beautiful product or whatever it is it could be anything when the vacation rental short term rental industry but like we only have each other because going to understand the stories of right. Ask the guests for water and the guests is like get get out of here and then we have to you know, we're home. Like okay, but everyone else in this industry would go like actually I could see that totally happening and me I just

Linny  45:05  
got lost in Flagstaff and just showed up at one of the short term rentals for things. Oh my gosh.

Alex Husner  45:12  
Yeah, there's always a store. And there's never any shortage of entertainment, I guess.

All that we do, but Well, it was great to have you guys on today. Thank you so much. And I'm glad that we got to connect. I know you had met Annie ahead of this, but it's wonderful to meet both of you. And if anybody wants to reach out what's the best way for them to contact you?

Linny  45:32  
Yeah, I would say tandemly like a tandem bike l ey.com. Or if you're, you know, in Arizona and are interested in listing a property or staying with us dwell luxury rentals.com. And that's two L's not three. Awesome,

Alex Husner  45:48  
we will include that in the show notes. And if anybody wants to get in touch with me, and I can go to Alex and any podcast.com And in the meantime, thanks for tuning in, everybody. We'll see you next week. Thank you