Speaker 1: 0:11

All right guys, welcome to episode 11 of its personal and entrepreneurs podcast. We have a very special guest with us today. It's Arlen. Arlen is the COO of Destin Dreamers and we're very thankful to have you here with us today. We actually were introduced to Arlen through Chris Cumby, our business coach, not that long ago, and have since kind of been at a couple different events together and spent some time together and he graciously offered to kind of come on after we had a great conversation about your business and just your life ending up here and whatnot. So we appreciate you coming on. Thank you, great to be here.

Speaker 1: 0:49

I guess I like to always start with this because it is it's personal the name of our podcast. I like to get a little bit of like a personal background for our listeners of both, kind of like growing up, you know some memories you can look back on even and say, like you know, this was kind of my segue into being like a business person or an entrepreneur of sorts what you've done professionally, you know, and then how you ended up where you are now and what you're doing now Great questions.

Speaker 2: 1:20

You know, I see that if you look at your life as a wheel, the hub, the center, is my philosophy, which is build relationships and deliver value. Yep, and I do that through so many different ways. So right now, coo for Destin Dreamers we manage luxury vacation properties in Destin, miramar Beach and the 38. And then I do business development for a couple other companies that Chris Harper the owner has. We launched Causeway Coffee over in Miramar Beach, first class coffee shop, launched Elevated Laundry Services to do our laundry and also laundry for the vacation rentals. That's super smart. And our philosophy and Chris's philosophy is look, if there's a problem, solve it, yeah. Provide the fix, yeah. Solve it, yeah. Provide and provide the fix, yeah. Business is actually just solving problems and you get to make some money off of it so that you can provide for your families and go solve more problems. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:11

But the background is I grew up in kansas on a farm and this was a legit farm, meaning like a working farm, working for us, my dad's sole source of income. I get up, you have breakfast at seven, go outside farm was it hogs, cattle, crops? So a little bit of all of it. Uh, from eight to ten, my chore was to go out and milk the family cow every morning, rain or shine, cold or hot. Had to be done, had to be done. And and that's kind of helped me in business, where you got this idea in farming you feed, feed the animals. You feed the animals every day and then in six months that hog has grown yeah, good way to put it. You know that hog's grown from 10 pounds to 250 pounds and you sell it. So in business, what are those? Feed the animal activities you do every week.

Speaker 2: 2:58

Interesting analogy. Yeah, every day, and you do it, and consistently the come true.

Speaker 1: 3:05

Yeah, yeah, it kind of like teaches you patience a little bit, I guess too yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:10

And if you're doing those daily activities, time is your friend. If you're not doing those daily activities or you're doing bad habits, yes, your enemy. Yeah. And the second thing from farming I learned too is life is full of seasons. My, my uncle, was a very successful farmer and I'll never forget the moment we're sitting in the living room and he says farming is very simple. You do the right things at the right times. You know, first week in April you plant the corn, you harvest later in the fall, and just realizing in business what are those vitally few things you do, yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:47

And that probably translates a lot to vacation rentals too. I mean knowing the seasons of the vacation rentals and doing the things that are needed in the business at the times where they're needed downtime, busy time, it's all the same thing.

Speaker 2: 4:02

Yeah, and you see this in your business is you're planting and you're harvesting. So in farming you're planting and then you're cultivating, you're spraying, you're fertilizing and then you're harvesting. And in business we have to be harvesting what we planted. You know, with real estate from leads, well, back, that's sales.

Speaker 1: 4:20

And planting for the next? Yeah, absolutely, it's that, keeping that consistent wheel of planting and harvesting so it doesn't have cessation too. Mm-hmm, yeah, facts. That's an interesting analogy. I like that. You know it's the work.

Speaker 2: 4:35

I got work ethic from my parents, instilled faith too. You know, we were very active in church, active in our community and what. I growing up, where there wasn't a lot of money since we're a smaller farm learned that you just had to be creative to make things happen, yeah, and you just had to work it. Now what I've had to transition to is working extra is not always a good method in business. Maybe it's best to pick up the phone. You pay someone else 150 bucks to do it, but then you take your time to go spend producing activities that will make you 300.

Speaker 1: 5:14

Yeah that's true. Yeah, learning that self-performing it's a balance of knowing what to self-perform and what not to, and that's it's a hard thing to learn, but yeah, and having the balance between those things is super important. It's like we were just talking about on our last episode, David. Even, it's like, you know, stepping over, stepping over pennies, um, you know, to save some time. Yeah, save pennies when, when really all you were losing is time.

Speaker 3: 5:41

Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah you thought that, oh, if I provide this part, you can do it a little cheaper for me, and then it's better for everyone. But in reality just let that person do the thing, yeah. And then you go focus on what the next thing is, what you're good at.

Speaker 2: 5:51

Yeah, yeah, and that's hard to. It's hard to do because especially in entrepreneurship.

Speaker 3: 5:57

you want to think that those are the important steps want to control things. I need to save this money because of X, y, z, but in reality just spend that little bit of money and go find something else that's going to drive revenue back into the business, yeah, or bring another client back to the door, or whatever it is that gets you to the next level, to where you don't think that that $200 was that big of a deal.

Speaker 2: 6:17

Yeah, 100%. And part of that is you know a little phrase is you identify and do the vital few? Yeah, and you can look at that with, like, if you go to whole foods and there's these you know containers of nuts or candy, and you put your container under there, you pull lever, yeah, releases all that. You know what are the levers, those few vital activities to do, because we're all going to drop stuff, yeah, but are we dropping the vital few? Yeah, yeah, make sure that gets that happens. That's back to the planting, the sowing and all that.

Speaker 1: 6:52

Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 6:54

And then at age 18, the next step in life was college. Problem is, you know, college takes money, yeah, so think about how can I earn money for college? And I heard about this guy out of Michigan that made money selling rocks. How did you hear about that? Do you remember? I had a friend from Michigan I was talking to. He just mentioned that, yeah, selling rocks, selling rocks. So I grabbed my leather gloves and my dad's 1976 Yellow Jeep pickup, drove out to my dad's farm fields and I started filling that pickup full of rocks anywhere from like five pounds to 10 pounds to 20 pounds landscape rocks sure, and they were just out there in the field.

Speaker 2: 7:32

Oh yeah, a lot of rocks out in kansas, yeah and um, because we'd have to clear them from the fields in order to plant exactly, and so they're just laying beside the road, pile up a pile somewhere, and yeah they're sitting there.

Speaker 2: 7:46

So I showed up at the farmer's market and farmer's market you know they're. They're selling venison, they're selling tomato cinnamon rolls and here I am with rocks. Yeah. So this is what I learned with business is you don't always know if an idea is good or not. You just have to try it. Yeah, see what the market says. So I loaded rocks and I had no idea what the price and I put like three bucks on, four bucks on five bucks, on ten bucks on, and I waited. I sat back and waited for people to stop and buy and people did stop and laugh you're selling rocks. Who sells rocks? Yeah, and I learned very quick if you try and do something in life, you're gonna have people that, yeah, really laugh at what you do. Yeah, haters, yeah. But I did end up making 40 bucks that first day.

Speaker 1: 8:34

So I went home with a small on my face, 40 bucks yeah, rocks.

Speaker 2: 8:39

So I came back for what year was that in? This was 1999, okay, and speaking of that, I humor is good. So I had little signs there that said y2k compliant rocks, okay that's funny that's pretty funny that's

Speaker 2: 8:53

good, that's funny. Yeah, that's pretty funny. So after four weeks up here, it's time to count my profits. You know, because I kept track of expenses and such. I'm'm counting 100, 200, 300 pennies. Three bucks for four weeks of hard work, of profit. Profit, yeah, would you have wanted to quit? Yeah, probably Probably. I thought about it, but instead I decided to listen to my customers and my customers were saying we want big rocks 100 pound, 200, 300, 400 pound rocks. So I bought a dolly off Harbor Freight, I bought a trailer to pull behind the pickup and I brought in the next week some of these big rocks. And people got excited. Now they wanted me to deliver them, so I offered free delivery. So after, tack that into your sales price. That's right.

Speaker 3: 9:45

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:45

Learned that too. So after Farmer's Market was over in the afternoon, I'd drive around with my map. This was before I didn't have GPS MapQuest, d-man MapQuest.

Speaker 3: 9:53

Just the whole printed map.

Speaker 2: 9:55

And deliver it to them. And I had this little old piece of carpet. I yanked the rock out. It would fall on the carpet.

Speaker 3: 10:01

So one crack it or chip it.

Speaker 2: 10:05

And then put on my dolly and just wheel these 200 pound rocks around, and I did that for two years. What were they using the rocks for? So anything from rock gardens, okay.

Speaker 1: 10:16

To lawn protectors, and they just look nice and decorative.

Speaker 2: 10:18

And they were holy rocks, yeah, had holes in them. Unit character yeah, antiques too, they fit that. Yeah. And it's like one morning a guy walked up at 1130 and he was mad. I mean I could tell he was ticked off. Yeah, walked up at 11 30 and he was mad. I mean I could tell he was ticked off, yeah, and I he'd been a customer of mine and he said how much for the rest of the rocks that were my pickup? And I shot him a price and he said come over to my house. And what had happened the night before is someone had cut across his lawn, left these big ruts, so we lined the edge of his driveway and that corner with these rocks.

Speaker 1: 10:57

The next time someone tried it they'd lose an oil pan, you were just in the right place at the right time, solving a problem.

Speaker 2: 11:02

Exactly yeah. And then I updated my marketing to say lawn protectors.

Speaker 3: 11:07

Which is smart, because there's literally a house that I turn every single time I leave the house. I know exactly where you're talking about. He's got that. He's got six rocks that run, that turn perimeter Because it's where cars run by, because people cut it short. People cut it short. They make that turn early and cut the turn short. Yeah, and his edge of his grass.

Speaker 1: 11:25

So there you go, you found that problem, so you literally started out by slanging rock.

Speaker 2: 11:29

Yeah, I did that for two years and made enough money to pay for my first car. Two years of college and 13 visits to the chiropractor Wow. But more importantly, Legal rocks too, yeah.

Speaker 3: 11:47

Yeah, that's impressive yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:50

Very true. But more importantly, I learned you know it comes down to you build relationships and deliver value. Yeah and right, when I was thinking about quitting, it was part of that whole thing was not just listening to the customers, but I would check out dozens of books from the library on sales, people skills, conversation skills, and I learned you just have conversations, show interest, listen, provide up and listen sometimes. Yeah and uh, that was all part of that deal. And as I look back in business, it's as you're like I'm involved in real estate, involved in, you know, vacation rentals. It's build a relationship, deliver value.

Speaker 1: 12:26

All sales, no matter like what level they're at, come back to that like same, the base layer, that same principle be interested, not interesting. And the more interested you are in people, the longer the conversation will go on. The more they'll leave the conversation being hey.

Speaker 3: 12:42

I like that guy. Allow them to answer whether you're interesting or not, and just be interested in what they're doing. Yeah, and then they can make the judgment.

Speaker 2: 12:50

True, and what I heard a great variation of that too is ask questions, find connections and go in those directions. Absolutely, if we can see something we're both interested in, we can have a great conversation Because, yeah, you and I, we can talk to anyone and just show interest, but if they're interested in turtles and I'm not interested in turtles, it's hard to talk to. Yeah, granted, that is our logo.

Speaker 1: 13:14

I was literally just looking at the material.

Speaker 2: 13:19

Chris, if you're listening, I do like turtles.

Speaker 3: 13:24

I love the emblem.

Speaker 2: 13:25

Yeah, that's great. So yeah, from there then went to, went off to college, came back to work on a farm and I actually pastored a church for 15 years back in Kansas. Really it was a mega church, okay, because there was 200 people in the town and 60 people went to church.

Speaker 3: 13:45

So, that was a mega church To that population. That was a mega church, just being facetious.

Speaker 1: 13:51

Over 50% of the population, you got market share.

Speaker 2: 13:55

So it was a great experience. I was also on the volunteer ems volunteer fire department and then I um since I was supporting my wife and four kids, also taught in the community college, taught public speaking, death and dying ethics and a couple other classes and did that and you know, beyond the fire department ems, you just saw another side to people.

Speaker 3: 14:15

Those all sound very value-based. You just named three careers.

Speaker 1: 14:19

We were just talking about this yesterday.

Speaker 3: 14:20

We just had this conversation. You just named three career paths that I personally believe are highly disrespected in society in terms of financial support, and you have to do it because of your own internal values. A young version of yourself, a younger version of yourself, learning where you want to go. Those were the three things that you were. And in a church? You were in a church being EMT, firefighter, teaching.

Speaker 1: 14:44

You have to know how to provide value.

Speaker 3: 14:46

if you're doing that, that says a lot about what you want to do for the person in front of you versus what you're trying to do with the person in front of you for yourself.

Speaker 2: 14:56

Good insight.

Speaker 3: 14:57

I take a lot from that. Actually you just saying that because I think all four of those are my brother's in ministry up in West Tennessee and he has a true passion for it. But I've watched him have some truth struggles in his personal life because of what that supplies for him and his family and and what it does. It supply for him and his family, but he still wakes up every morning, passionate about it.

Speaker 2: 15:26

So that's really cool and being in those environments and this is true with any job is you have to make sure you're feeding yourself. Yeah, and because it takes a lot, yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:38

Yeah, A hundred percent.

Speaker 3: 15:40

You have to take care of yourself before you can give away to to think about an EMT and pay $20 an hour being the person that comes in potentially scrapes brains off of the street side. It's is is crazy. What does that person truly feel while they do that job? Because it's obviously not the financial benefit yeah, and going home and having. You can't leave stuff like that you can't leave that behind at five o'clock when you clock out yeah, and I think ever.

Speaker 2: 16:07

And I was also chaplain for a department too at the time, and so it was kind of interesting. I'd like this out, since it was a volunteer situation where I was on call 24 hours a day if I was in the area. So like one night I opened gifts with my family. About 30 minutes later the call came in that someone had stopped breathing. So I show up with a couple other guys too and so I'm doing cpr on this individual who's 60s and ends up not making it. I now switch into my chaplain role and hang out with the now widow while the detective comes out and then the hearse comes out to pick it up. And it was just an interesting.

Speaker 2: 16:47

You just have to switch being able to flex yeah in a very intense situation, and that's why, when the team asked me why I'm so chill in the vacation rental world, is I'm not doing CPR on a kid. Nothing's an emergency. I'm not dealing with a heart attack. If you put it all in perspective, I mean I get that your AC is out and that's swelling it and someone shows sympathy, but from a personal level it's all about perspective.

Speaker 1: 17:12

I agree with that. Yeah, absolutely. You can always tell like there's a big difference, even a lot of people in the military if they've been around chaos and disorder. You can be calm and more basic civilian life situations.

Speaker 2: 17:23

Yeah, and then process it later? Yeah, because you do need to process. You go into that mode of get the job done, then you process it.

Speaker 3: 17:32

Find the solution, Make the change, Do what needs to be done. Then let me reflect on when this happens again in the future. What to do, how to feel.

Speaker 2: 17:40

Yeah, people who say they have no regrets. I mean, look, you always can look back on any deal and go, okay, I could have done something different. Sure, 100%. We shouldn't be going through like kicking ourselves in the past. In the past, I mean you look at in the Bible where Paul the guy that probably had more regrets than anyone because he threw Christians in jail and had them killed before he became one of the greatest missionaries he said you know, forgetting what lies behind and pressing on you know what's in the past, you just accept it, learn from it, change it.

Speaker 3: 18:12

Gain wisdom from it. Don't dwell on it. Yeah, don't ignore it, but don't let it hold you from continuing forward.

Speaker 2: 18:19

Exactly, yeah, I mean, you can't run a race looking back. No, no, you'll never win.

Speaker 1: 18:24

True, the windshield's bigger than the rearview mirror.

Speaker 2: 18:27

There's another corny one for you, but once in a while check that rear view mirror.

Speaker 3: 18:33

Yeah, probably valuable. That is there, yeah, right that's true.

Speaker 2: 18:38

So, yeah, I've been out here since 2019, came out here with the family and what, uh, what was the catalyst to moving to florida?

Speaker 2: 18:45

so when a person's in a job and a career, you're kind of always sensing, all right, when should this season come to an end? Because life is full of seasons. Back to farming it's. When is that season over? And things were going well at the church and just realized, you know this season, you know this is coming to an end.

Speaker 2: 19:03

We gave the church a four-month notice and left on a good note, since the house was provided for us, we'd always wanted to come to Florida and spend some time in the winter.

Speaker 2: 19:13

So, uh, we booked up a six-week airbnb starting january 1 of 2019 okay, here in panama city or over there in panama city beach, and I was teaching online. We had our dave ramsey emergency fund. Um, I put some feelers out, a couple different jobs and I'm a networker, yeah, and so we threw everything in storage and we just came out here a week into this, met a defense contractor, got a job working basically remote, writing proposals for the government. So we got to do different projects and I guess my biggest name to fame over those eight months was I wrote a contract for a NASA project. Feign over those eight months was I wrote a contract for a nasa project and then I was the underwater photographer while nasa sent something up and it came back and our team recovered it and I was scared of water at that time still not a real big fan of water if I can't touch the side or the sure but I overcame that, become an advanced diver, so I could become an underwater photographer on that that went in.

Speaker 1: 20:18

Uh, I could not have guessed that that's pretty cool, that is yeah, yeah it's.

Speaker 2: 20:25

I mean it's on youtube, it's cool. It's just just being on the front rows. This thing goes up and comes back down. Huh, that's really cool.

Speaker 2: 20:33

And then. So that was from 2019. We went back to Kansas working remote and then doing some traveling for the defense contractor. And August of 2019, after eight months, after leaving the church, yeah, got a offer to come out and work and as office manager, out here for the company, so moved the entire family across didn't know anyone except my boss to Dustin.

Speaker 2: 20:58

And you know, as we're thinking, praying through, should we come out, a couple of things came to mind. One is, if I didn't take this opportunity to come out to Florida, I would always go through life going man, what if? And then, second, you know, there's that verse God works all things together for good. Yeah, to them who love Him are called according to His purpose. What we forget is that next verse which says that we may be conformed or become like Christ. So, no matter what happens, the promise is if you love God, he will make you become more like Christ, more mature and realizing, if we came out here and it, quote, failed, it's still good, we'll be more mature. Yeah, I can always go back to kansas my dad has six rental houses we got both grandparents there.

Speaker 2: 21:42

They'll let us live in the basement if you need to pivot, if you need to. Yeah. So it came out here august 2019. Uh, three months in, got laid off and through a random conversation in a coffee shop who is a friend of chris I joined Destin Dreamers as the first employee and we took that company from where it's at to where it's today.

Speaker 3: 22:03

Excuse me if I'm wrong the end of 2019, or we're not in COVID. Covid's the beginning of 2020.

Speaker 2: 22:09

I went full time just right before COVID hit.

Speaker 3: 22:11

COVID's the beginning of 2020, correct? Yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2: 22:13

That's what.

Speaker 3: 22:13

I thought 2020 correct.

Speaker 2: 22:14

Yeah, yeah, okay, that's what I thought oh yeah, so that was just going through canceling all the reservations I was involved in that it's really, but then it took off right, I mean after.

Speaker 3: 22:23

I mean when the world shut down and the panhandle stayed open. I mean did destin dreamers ramp up from that? I mean it did.

Speaker 2: 22:30

We were just man. When those beaches opened up. People started flying down. Here.

Speaker 1: 22:33

It almost was kind of like a circumstantial opportunity to a degree, I guess, once it kind of came around that corner and people were trying to get away from everything else, to come down here and we were there.

Speaker 3: 22:43

You couldn't go on cruises, you couldn't get on airplanes, you couldn't go anywhere. So if you were within driving distance of the panhandle of Florida, that was where you were going. Yeah, where you were going. Yeah, there was condos open, there was hotels this was it restaurant restaurants were letting you eat inside.

Speaker 3: 22:56

I mean, you know when you're coming from some of these other places. It was a completely different lifestyle down here. Absolutely, we don't even really know what covid was, to be honest. No, I mean, we lived in panhandle, florida, throughout the entire code. Our experience was vastly different. You have no idea what the lifestyle of I agree with that these other places was it felt as the world was burning down.

Speaker 2: 23:14

We're over here enjoying our freedom.

Speaker 3: 23:15

We were having record years. Yeah, I was still in the restaurant industry, bartending, and we were crushing it. The restaurant was doing records. We were making money Even when we shut down and went to only 25% occupancy and carry out. Only we were crushing it on carry out. I was making a killing amount of money to bag people's food and take it out to them to their car.

Speaker 1: 23:37

People were in a mode back then where and we're so far from that now, but things had gotten so isolated and so inconvenient and also money was being given out too, but people were willing to pay and do anything for convenience and a and a little like slice of regularity and it made places that were open, like here, like really really, really busy.

Speaker 3: 23:58

It's kind of interesting I mean, would you say I mean rental business? What are rates from 2022 to now? What's the down percentage of that?

Speaker 2: 24:07

yeah, so you know which figures you look at. And the cool thing about statistics is you can make them say anything, whatever you want, right yeah yeah, though we try not to. But yeah, I mean there I've seen anything from like 15 to 30 percent down, but it really depends on I mean we have hump somehow exceeded the market somewhere, reach uh, maintain the market, etc.

Speaker 2: 24:26

Yeah, yeah it's definitely down. But what was interesting post-covid the first year or two, is people were coming with a lot of stress, yeah, and so this is what the dynamic would happen is, in our houses we have five plus bedroom, so you'd have three or four families might come together for a seven bedroom house, yeah, and you may have someone coming in who's a little bit stressed financially and there might be some stress happening family dynamics. They'll take it out in the house really and they'll probably it's like we'll get it. We would get a complaint at like 8, 30, at 9, 30 at night. It's like, hey, there's no closet on the first floor. We're kind of unhappy about this and I told my team look, there is something stressful going on in that house because, yeah, why would someone mention complain about no closet on the first floor when there's no bedroom on the first floor?

Speaker 2: 25:17

Or there'd be times I would get the first day of check-in a list of like 12 items wrong and one of those is the garage is too small and, again, 99% of the guests have a great time. It's that 1%. It's like the people were more high strung. There's that. And then there's some people I think they just get their joy in life. Finding things wrong. Yeah, I mean, I believe that too, we're not perfect. Things happen. But sometimes it's like I'm wondering, and when I talk to him it's like, hey, figure out what else is going on and that's kind of like employees too.

Speaker 1: 25:47

Like a lot of times when we were running the restaurant, even I, you know, we would say all the time like this person's not doing this, this or this, or acting like this, this or this at work, but most of the time it came down to asking like hey, are you all right?

Speaker 1: 25:59

you know, a lot of times it wasn't something about work, it was translating into that like the lady with the blind at your house last week oh, yeah, yeah, 100, yeah, yeah I mean just as simple as the front door didn't have a blind on it yeah, I have a short-term rental and uh, uh, our front door is like glass, which is pretty typical, but it doesn't have like a uh pull down but it doesn't really look in any part of the house. But I got a four-star review because of it. Everything was great in the review, like, but just because I don't have something that I've never I've been running it for three years, no one's ever said anything about it, but it was just that glass door was apparently huge deal if they told you the first day yeah, you could have got something in, maybe yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:38

Yeah, it was interesting. I was like the most random stuff sometimes, but, to your point, I didn't think about it like that, but it probably was something else than that.

Speaker 2: 26:46

Probably was something else going on there creating that situation and it's training the team and all of us to realize, just to figure out, is this a guest who's having a rough time or is this a bully slash narcissist? Yeah, and it's kind of a range right, because there's some. I mean, it's a legit issue that we want to take care of others. They just want to find something wrong so they can set it up to ask for a refund later on.

Speaker 3: 27:12

I was gonna say some people book an airbnb with the or a hotel or whatever. They book these things knowing that they're going to go in and find some reason to push back on the back side. 100%. That's just that person, that's just how they operate and that's where strategy is.

Speaker 2: 27:27

The deal with a bully is, in a sense, there's the punch in the face type thing and then you back off and do customer service. But In a sense there's the punch in the face type thing and then you back off and do customer service. Yeah, but you wouldn't do that with just a regular guest who's having some issues. You just have to have some discernment Because, like I've been reading a great book called Slay the Bully about narcissists and bullies and like in a general relationship like real estate deal, if I do something kind or kind of give up front, it builds some credibility and then later on in the it can help smooth things through Someone who's a bully or narcissist. They see it as a sign of weakness, correct, and it actually sets you up For later, for later in a bad way.

Speaker 1: 28:08

We just recently experienced that on a house that we flipped and we're selling, house that we flipped and we're selling and I think Andrew accurately pinpointed, on the other end of the transaction, that that's what was taking place, but sometimes that's hard for me to identify. It's interesting you say that because we do try to be so reasonable, equitable and upfront when sometimes, and especially in real estate deals, especially when we're reselling some of our investments and things like that people either take that as hey, I like working with these guys and they reciprocate and they manage their clients as such, or it's very quick that they turn around and try to take big advantage. Now we don't let them do that, right, but you learn something very quickly from that initial interaction.

Speaker 1: 28:55

It's interesting, yeah you learn something very quickly from that initial interaction and it's interesting.

Speaker 2: 28:57

Yeah, it's very true. It takes some street smarts too, and I think a good strategy with all that is it's when you know, let's say, you have a client who's like starting to threaten lawsuit or they say, look, I need a bunch of money back, or you know're gonna get leave bad reviews, which is extortion. You can't yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it's this.

Speaker 1: 29:19

You can't say hey, I'm gonna leave a bad review if you don't give me x amount of money.

Speaker 2: 29:21

Yeah, and I think a good strategy. Which strategies you have to adapt all the time. But it's like if you want to go down the you know the lawsuit route, if you want to start talking that way, then I just have to shut down the conversation, turn over to the attorney or, if you want, I want to make this a good stay. We can do some customer service here. We'll figure things out. Which way do you want to go, and that helps a lot.

Speaker 1: 29:42

And if you do it calmly, that shuts people down too. Yeah, you just listen and all that.

Speaker 2: 29:48

I agree with that. But yeah, it's just. Unfortunately there's people out there in the world who want to take advantage, but then you have people just having bad days too.

Speaker 1: 29:58

So what would you say you like the most about working in vacation rentals and what is maybe the thing you were most surprised about that industry when you first got into it?

Speaker 2: 30:14

So I enjoy creating strategy. I enjoy creating SOP systems, standard operating procedures. I enjoy setting up the people to help get the things done and then thinking the high level strategy on. Thankfully I have a cool team that takes care of the day to day. You know, talking to the guests, the inspections, that kind of stuff. I still poke my nose in there, kind of, so I see what's going on. That's more the higher level. I enjoy that.

Speaker 2: 30:42

I love meeting new people, networking, which is why I'll often work at coffee shops, which now our company has, causeway Coffee. But just because I'll start random conversations, you never know what's going to lead to. Just because I'll start random conversations, you never know what's going to lead to. So I enjoy using my superpowers of connecting strategy, building relationships, delivering value. I think maybe one of the I shouldn't say surprises, but coming from a background of finances are tight, you have to do it yourself to realizing yeah, hey, this is broken. Just better to make the phone call and get someone else out there to do that. Like acs, whatever you know, I could spend personally two hours troubleshooting ac. Now it's, you got a five minute checklist, you run through and then you make the phone call yeah, is it?

Speaker 3: 31:30

this? Is this? Is it this? Is it this? Is it this? Is it this? Is it this? No, hey guys, exactly.

Speaker 2: 31:44

And I think, just as you deal with everyone from hey, a family from Iowa who's just barely pulling money together to come enjoy a luxury vacation home to someone where they don't care about price. Just see the different dynamics.

Speaker 1: 31:51

That's interesting. Do you really see that vast of a customer base?

Speaker 2: 31:56

Oh yeah, really, I mean we have you saw the house a CWOT sanctuary.

Speaker 2: 32:00

That's for sale for $19 million. That one I mean someone who's going to be paying $4,000 a night $5,000 a night is that thing grows rental value For someone who's coming in and paying $800 a night for a smaller house. You're going to have some differences, yeah, sure, and across the board you'll have. I'll see cool people at the high price points, I'll see some people who are not so cool. Yeah, and that's all across the board. Yeah, it was funny One time we brought on it was a new house and we're getting this thing ready. We can't afford to wait a week and a half for the landscaper to come. So I am out there and chris, the owner of destined dreamers. We're doing landscaping. So chris goes, cleans himself up, meets a high dollar client and the high dollar client he actually brings them by to show them the house to see if they want to buy. You know a house like that and chris just introduces me, doesn't say who I am and you can see they're just not giving me the time of day. You know just like oh, here's this guy, here's the landscaper, landscaper, and I'm just thinking you guys do not know that if you, if we, manage one of your homes, I'm the one that's going to be the reason for it being successful and taking care of completely they're like totally blowing

Speaker 1: 33:13

me off. Yeah, I just thought, no, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's true, and I you think about how many times, even like uh, on job sites and things like that, sometimes, sometimes the person who's in charge you don't even know is the last one you choose yeah, that's.

Speaker 3: 33:27

that's, I think, the tendency in today's society to just make a judgment, though. Yeah, I mean, I think that in today's world I I don't really care who you are, what you can tell me you make a judgment before. Yeah, you get into whatever situation, yeah, you make a preconceived judgment of what you expect things to do or how it's going to unfold, whether you want to admit it or not, and that's just how our brain clicks nowadays. I feel like and good and bad, analyze the situation for what it is and be ready for what could happen, but also just go for it and if it does happen, then figure it out. So, I don't know, it's like a good-bad situation in my opinion.

Speaker 2: 34:09

Well, yeah, and I used to teach public speaking at community college and now I do coaching on that. But, like I tell the students, I want you to dress up for your speeches and, like it or hate it, people treat you differently based on how you dress 100, I mean just go to walmart. Dress in a suit 100, yeah, I mean, and you know, there's a whole old adage dress for how you want people to the job you want, not the job you have.

Speaker 3: 34:33

Yeah, and dress for how you want people to treat you.

Speaker 2: 34:34

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

Speaker 3: 34:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:36

And dress for how you want to feel too. If you want to feel confident, like even on my days off, which my wife would say are extremely rare, I'm fully dressed, ready to meet the public If I need to, or whatever, just because that's what makes me feel. Because you're more productive too.

Speaker 3: 34:50

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:51

No, yeah, it's it, and people are visual more than they are context clues or substance. That's the truth.

Speaker 2: 34:58

Yeah, so that's how you carry yourself too. Yeah, I mean it's you can have again back to the job site. You can just observe and the the person who's in charge is going to carry themselves in a different way.

Speaker 3: 35:08

Yeah, absolutely. I would point that, probably just by stepping back and looking for a couple minutes. Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1: 35:15

So what would you say, like In the successes that you've had running Dustin Dreamers, you and Chris, what would you think the ingredient or the thing that you do there differently is?

Speaker 2: 35:47

Not even with the business, maybe it's with staff or whatever, but what's the people that work for you? And then making sure they have the time to do that? And Chris is excellent at sales, he's a good visionary, he understands. I'm great at networking, I'm great at strategy and then we have people also work for us, dave and others who are great at executing, and Chris realized he put the key people in place and let them flourish that way.

Speaker 2: 36:16

And then Jamie, chris's wife, you know, does a lot of stuff behind the scenes too. And I think to kind of answer your question is you know, we seek to be a kingdom-based company where we treat people right and we deliver a great product and man, like any business, when sometimes you don't always deliver like you should, so you adapt and you correct. And you know Chris's superpower. He relates well with the wealthy and he also is able to see real estate deals. As our accountant has said, when, chris, when the world finds out your superpower, they will be backing up the door with cash to because they want your counsel on how to invest, and we see that happening a lot. Yeah, yeah, I've been more so.

Speaker 1: 37:01

Well, and I think, uh, there's a lack of I don't want to say a lack of it's rare to find I just, I'll just say it in the in the real estate industry, really genuine, deeply rooted knowledge in, like, the building, the financing of it, the, uh, the performance necessary, what the long-term looks like, um, mixed with like a genuine person and a time to like combine those two things and be really truly professional about it, is not common and I don't even mean that in a bad way. It's just a lot of us and a lot of people in real estate are okay, making a certain amount, or transactional in nature. So I think if you have someone like that and people will recognize that that's, that's a snowball effect that'll probably take place to some degree, because there's not a lot of that out there yeah, like we said that, you know where you have the synergy.

Speaker 2: 37:59

Since chris, you know, used to build homes too, it's like, all right, is this a quality build? Yeah is this, and then we always talk about geez, all that exactly.

Speaker 1: 38:08

It's like the whole, the whole thing, the finance portion of it, the construction portion of it, like what we always talk about here too and what we try to provide to all of our clients. Like my dad, uh, was a cfo for the company that him and my grandfather owned and then they do private equity and he does a lot of um, you know financial modeling and things like that and um, he knows everything there is about you know 1031 exchanges and and tax codes and all these things. So we have are able to pull that in and help our if I don't know it from him, I have someone on speed dial that we can call and give really sound advice to clients of all different price points of money, which is a really valuable tool to us. And, and it's valuable that I have access to the information. Andrew and his dad know a ton about construction that I don't know about.

Speaker 1: 38:50

I know more now, but it goes from everything like understanding the product you actually sell, which I think is rare in real estate we were just talking about this last two days with various different people like actually understanding from ground up the product that you sell and all the different little pieces of it, which is not.

Speaker 1: 39:07

It's a sales job typically, so not a lot of time goes into that, but we are selling a product. You should understand it. Then, on the background of it, all that nitty gritty about what is, if you're going to, real estate is an investment, whether you're buying it with your family or not. That's the way I look at it. It's a home too. But your family or not, that's the way I look at it. It's a home too. But knowing those tax advantages and those financial advantages kind of borderlining between financial advisor and understanding the product you sell, and then the sales is like almost like the gravy in between. Like you know, you have to be able to sell it, obviously, but you really need those other pieces of information to really be a professional real estate advisor.

Speaker 2: 39:45

And I think that's the best way to put it to real estate advisor, because obviously we can't give tax advice or legal advice, but just realizing here's we know the strategies will put you in contact with the right person. That's it, and giving people ideas. It's like you know that 41 Seawalk just there's some amazing tax strategies with a $19 million house.

Speaker 1: 40:07

So, knowing that, so we can educate other agents about those, yeah, Knowing the nitty gritty of each uh, each individual property and what it could be used for. Sometimes is the difference between being able to sell it or not and we learned that through wholesaling, I think too is like really identifying, like what this product could be and what it would take to get there, and being able to put that on paper and give it to someone and have that come true. Then people start buying wholesale properties for me because they're like these guys can not only can they find deals, but they know what you can do with it. Um, and that has a lot more value than just a transaction.

Speaker 2: 40:47

Absolutely, and that's we the only one. Be relational, yeah. Specs that build relationships deliver value yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah if you.

Speaker 1: 40:51

If one thing I've learned in real estate, especially with people who buy investment properties if you can help people make money, they will come back and make you money. That is 100 valid um 100 if you can, and that's when it comes to helping people solve problems. If you can help other people make money through real estate, you'll you'll have a a good client base, especially when it comes to investment stuff yeah, I mean whether it's that person or the next person they talk to about it.

Speaker 3: 41:17

I mean if they're confident in your ability to explain things like tax strategies and how to cash flow at the best it's a referral business short-term rental processes are the actual important ones that you should follow and don't do differently. I mean, that's value. How much are the common agents?

Speaker 1: 41:33

I mean what's it?

Speaker 3: 41:34

3,000 agents in e-car and 2,500 agents in CPAR, but the 5,000 agents in the panhandle how many can actually have that conversation?

Speaker 1: 41:43

It's the keep it simple stuff that creates referral business, not the cool pamphlet or the super fancy business card or the sizzle reel video or the truth. None of that stuff is why people refer. It's fun to do and I like it and I'm going to keep doing it, but the truth of the matter is it's the like I was easy to talk to and was really easy to communicate with. I was proactive with communication.

Speaker 2: 42:11

That's the stuff that gets you referrals 100. And yeah, I was. Someone told me years ago when I got into real estate and they said, arlen, if you know the contract and you return phone calls, you'll be in the top 10 percent. Now that's true, that's true.

Speaker 1: 42:18

That was a joke when he said it too. Yeah and then no. Yeah, it's true, and uh, yeah, no. Just knowing like the actual basics of the of the contract is is, yes, a rarity.

Speaker 2: 42:29

Yes, yeah, and I think I would add in another piece to that is, in the real estate there's a lot of egos, absolutely yeah, and and it's, and sometimes that really shows up when dealing with another agent. Yeah, and knowing how to work that where, unfortunately, you know they have an ego and we're going to work around that and they're going to feel good about it, but I'm going to get what my client wants, yeah.

Speaker 3: 43:02

Sometimes you got to learn how to work with the ego yeah, yep. And I dare say sometimes you, my client, wants yeah, yep.

Speaker 2: 43:05

Sometimes you got to learn how to work with the ego. Yeah, yep, and I dare say sometimes you feed the ego.

Speaker 3: 43:09

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:10

Because we're here to represent our client you have.

Speaker 1: 43:13

We have since.

Speaker 1: 43:15

We actively had a conversation about a year and a half ago about how one of our areas of improvement was taking the, because we have to flex between doing our own deals, yeah, and doing was taking the, because we have to flex between doing our own deals and doing deals for clients.

Speaker 1: 43:27

And when we do our own deals, you kind of can allow yourself to be principled if you want to. That's a personal choice. Now maybe you have to wager what is that good for the business or not, right? But you have the right to do it and you don't necessarily have the right to do that if that's not what your client wants, right? So you really have to take the emotion out of when egos are at play in those situations and just say, well, if that's what the client wants, we can give our advice. But that's okay, yeah, just be okay with it. And we've learned it now. Now we've learned to do that, we're very pragmatic about it and we do a lot more real estate that way and people get what they want a lot faster that way. But you have to learn that too.

Speaker 2: 44:05

And I think with that is I mean sometimes the other agents flat out wrong.

Speaker 3: 44:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 44:11

Knowing how to bring that up in a way that they save face, because we're here to get the deal done. Yeah, it's not pointing fingers. Yeah, okay, you did 75 million last year. I've done way less than that. Clearly I'm right. Right, you're wrong, but I'm gonna just finesse that through. Let him save face. Yeah, it can be as simple as like hey, you may have, you may have missed this with all the emails you get, but could you look into this? There's, there's ways to do that.

Speaker 1: 44:36

Yeah, 100, absolutely yeah, okay, so let's wrap up. I got one question for you that we ask everybody, and that question is whether it's like personal or professional, we kind of call it our legacy question. What is that? One thing that you would just want to leave with people at this stage in your life? That's the best piece of advice you can offer that you would want to leave behind.

Speaker 2: 45:01

Comes down to build relationships and deliver value. So to build relationships, you need to treat people right, you have to put time into it, you have to care for people. Delivering value is understanding what people's needs are and actually delivering that. To that, yeah, and in the process of that, you know, I believe there's a God and we should be honoring him through how we do all that. Yeah, I agree. And you know that old song we probably sang growing up trust and obey and build relationships, deliver value, and that's the long game, yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1: 45:37

A lot of other things stem from doing that correctly, if you can hone in on that, and that's the base of it, I think, and just being human to a degree too.

Speaker 2: 45:46

Yeah, and I think and to go a little bit further than that is build long-term relationships, because I was told this quote hack years ago and it works well. Like if you go to Publix and the person who is paying, you know, checking out through with the groceries, if your mentality is I'm going to have a 20 year relationship with this person, you will treat them different. If your mentality is, oh, I'll probably never see them again, but just as still, it's a longterm relationship. So look, I'm looking at a 20 year relationship with you guys here. Yeah, and when you have that mentality, suddenly it changes Every yeah, and when you have that mentality, suddenly it changes.

Speaker 1: 46:26

Every interaction, everything. Yeah, that's interesting.

Speaker 2: 46:27

It's not just this one real estate dealer, there's going to be many more. Yeah, and that also helps just in business and anything is. There's a long-term game or long-term war per se. I may quote lose the argument today intentionally because I may still address this issue, but maybe three days down the road I'm okay. Losing the battle today because I'm out to win the war and winning the war in the sense is long-term relationship long-term value Makes sense.

Speaker 1: 47:00

I 100% agree. Well, arlen, I really really appreciate you braving that traffic on Back Beach Road today to be here because it's season and I know how many people are out there. Thanks so much for taking the time and joining us. It was awesome having you on Been a pleasure. Appreciate it. Thanks, arlen. Thanks guys.