How Franchising Offers a Scalable Path to STR Success - with Patrick Stewart of Grand Welcome

Alex Husner  2:40  
Welcome to Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation rentals. I'm Alex and I'm Annie, and we are joined today by Patrick Stewart, who is the CEO of grand welcome, Patrick. It's so good to see you today. Good

Patrick Stewart  2:59  
to see you both again. Well,

Annie Holcombe  3:01  
Patrick, we got the chance to meet you in person at the recent brma executive conference, and it was an absolute delight. And we got to learn a little bit more about your background, but I think you're relatively new to the business or to our industry, and I think our listeners would love to learn your journey, because you come from the franchise world, but not from the vacation rental world. I

Patrick Stewart  3:21  
come from a world of franchising that was fashion based, and the similarity is, in the world of fashion, I'm hunting down great real estate opportunities for someone to open their own boutique, and in finding the right real estate had to be the right price with the right type of traffic, and it had to nurture a customer base that was going to be first discovering them, and then the idea is to provide really great experience for the customer, so that there was repeat business. And that type of thing is very much what the short term vacation rental experience is. In particular, if you're going for a luxury experience. It's create awareness, get the customer to give you a try, and then keep building repeat business. And that is true whether the property manager is has one property and they want that guest to have that experience, or if what they're doing is thinking, I don't just want to have one property that I'm managing. I want several. You still have to crack into the market and then develop it over time, and then it's a question of, well, how long do I have to do this before I become very profitable at it, and can I have fun along the way? Because all of the things that are necessary for that entrepreneur that's going to join a franchise, it's not all fun, and it's what can the franchisor do for me that takes away the icky parts and leaves me all the golden opportunities. And I want to have both fun doing it, and I want to make it very lucrative. I don't want to be really successful in many different measures, but those two. Key things. I want to have fun. I want to make a lot of money. And if I can then impact a lot of other people, both the people that I'm hiring to work with me, so I'm giving them employment that's really rewarding, and also delivering a lot of really happy and satisfied guests that want to say nothing but good things. And if you can do all those things really well, you're going to have a really great life experience as the business owner, and if the franchisor is helping you do that, then then their franchise grows, because word spreads that this is a really great thing that we're doing for lots and lots of people. So that's my experience, that and I was able to grow a franchise from like mid stage startup to maturity. That was great. And then I was approached by a group of investors that had purchased grand welcome started the grand welcome started out just being property managers themselves. And then said, Boy, we're really good at this. Maybe we can make a go of it as the as a franchisor and the private equity company that had been involved with, be it my prior company, said, We want Patrick to lead this, even though he's new to the short term vacation rental business, he understands what it takes to make really happy and productive, like I said, profitable, and they're having a good time, deliver that to the franchisees, and then be all about delivering great experiences for guests. So that's what I'm doing, and it's been very fun. So far, it is. It's really good. I'll tell you all about it, but I'll wait for you to ask me a question.

Alex Husner  6:41  
No, that's great, very good background to have. And I think just just really interesting that you have that different perspective, having worked in different industries, and just understanding the franchise model as a business concept as a whole, and how that can be applied to short term rentals, which, you know, I worked for cost to go for about a year. And so I've learned a lot about the franchise model, and I definitely have seen firsthand how beneficial it can be for these companies and people starting out to have that, you know, larger economies of scale. You know, big community of people that are there to help you. Because I think the one thing that you know we hear all the time is these companies. You know, if you're in Panama City, Florida or Myrtle Beach, and you're running a business, if you've got 100 units, 200 300 units, and units, sometimes you feel like you're on an island and like that. You You're just you're so working in the business, so much so you don't have time to even work on the business. And you're so just bogged down by a guest and owners everything else, that it just becomes really, really stressful. But from from your perspective, on the grand welcome side, what are some of the things that you alleviate and, like, take off of people's plates so that they can, you know, operate more profitably and have maybe a little bit more easier of a lifestyle doing it too.

Patrick Stewart  7:49  
That's exactly right. So a saying goes in in the world of franchisors, they speak with business owners that say this again and again, I want to be in business for myself, but not by myself. And so those are the type people that should seek out a business partner of some kind. Really, the ultimate business partner is one that adds skills that you don't have, and you can divide up the business in a way that financially it makes success, it means that it'll still be successful. So if you just were in property management by yourself and gave half of your business away to a partner so that you could compliment each other, you definitely have to get twice as big so that you can profits. Maybe you have a good relationship. That way, a franchise can be far more interesting for many people, because you don't give up half of your business to give up a small percentage of your business, like maybe 5% it's a really small nugget. And then the question is, can they deliver to you lots of strengths, not just one particular area, but many. So the good relationship is where the franchise or delivers to you vastly more than you could get even if you took on five different partners. But they take very little when you did that, then you found a really good partner. That's what a franchisor should be. My observation from speaking to many property managers is there's many parts of the business that they like, but many, many that they don't and they shouldn't be doing because a franchisor can completely take them off of the plate, and then the business is more fun for them to own and operate, that the parts that they really don't enjoy have been taken on by the franchisor, and then that that person that's in the property management space can really scale. And what I mean by scaling is they can become much more profitable and doing the parts of the business. Is that they really enjoy that's when it really is unlocked. And I think that, from what I've seen, there's a big thirst for it out there. There's a lot of people that are listening to you right now that fall into that category that should be, maybe I should call these guys a grand welcome just to explore, what can you do? And that type of conversation is exactly who our best franchisees end up being

Annie Holcombe  10:26  
so and Alex alluded, you know, she worked for Costa go. I've done some work in past with I trip, so there's not a lot of groups that are doing this within vacation rentals. But again, a vast amount of opportunity, because there's so many people kind of in the space and still try to navigate it. So what do you think is the grand welcome difference that if somebody's starting out, that they maybe should understand about what you guys offer to their franchisees?

Patrick Stewart  10:50  
Well, I'll use an example. This is one example of maybe five different things that we do, but one would be, if you are a property manager, the homeowner trusts you, so congratulations. You found their trust, and they said, monetize my home, because I don't want to just take my second, or, let's say it's even a third property that they own and just put a full time tenant in there where they've locked them in for a full year and now the homeowner can't use that property anymore, but sure wishes they could, because it was in a great place that people would want to vacation. And they're thinking, here's if I lock in a full time tenant, a few bad things come from that. A good thing is I'm assured of here's what the revenue is going to be for the entire year they're locked in. It's great, but the downside is now they the owner, can't use that property if they want wanted to use it for one week out of the year. They can't if they had friends or family that they wanted to have use it for maybe two weeks out of there. They can't do that if they had, let's say that child comes home from school and their home is kind of full. They can't use that other property, so they're really can't use for all those reasons. But the other big side is, what if the revenues were greater from just doing the short term? Then it's like, wow, I gave up the extra money that I could have had, I could I wasn't properly monetizing my property. I couldn't use it myself. I couldn't have friends or family or anyone else use it. So those homeowners have chosen, let's get a property manager. That's who the audience is, is listening to this right now, and you as a property manager, if you're new to it, and even if you've got, say, 10 properties, you're supplying a critical thing, which is, I have to get the bookings. I've got to use these online travel platforms. I have to make sure that it's all excellent, and if I slip in a given area, meaning I provide not perfect guest services. One time somebody gives me a bad rating. Now my ability to show up and keep the property booked X number of days a year has been undermined, so I can never slip in providing 24 hours a day, seven days a week Guest Services, someone always has to pick up the phone when the guest calls at two o'clock in the morning because they arrived late and the key doesn't work and they get it. So 24/7 Guest Services is a need, and the more properties that you manage, the more of a nuisance that becomes. And that's the way a lot of the businesses as you scale and get larger, the things that you used to be able to do become like I used to be able to. It wasn't that big of a deal, but now it's bigger and bigger. The larger, the worse that stuff becomes. And everyone listening to this has an idea of here's the part that got worse as I grew, and now they don't want to grow anymore, which means that the profitability is going to keep escaping them until they figure out the path. That's the whole point of the franchise. Let us do that for you. You can keep growing. If you're at 20 units right now, you can get to 50, and it won't be a nightmare getting there. You'll go, it's fine. I don't have to do the Guest Services anymore. I don't have to do the pricing optimization. I don't have to get listed now that bookings.com is a new online platform for me, I don't have to manage that one in addition to the things that I'm managing on Airbnb. So the bookings become easier. The pricing management means you're you're really optimizing, and you're getting more revenue that you share in along with the the home owner, and they trust you more, and they tell their friends about you, and you then get another property. Scalability becomes easier with the right. Great partner.

Alex Husner  15:00  
Love that. Well said, and from a scalability standpoint, so homeowner acquisition and marketing to get new owners is that something that grand welcome helps their franchisees

Patrick Stewart  15:10  
with we definitely help. And the thing that we pride ourselves on is that there is a variety of skill levels when it comes to marketing from the different franchisees that we have, or potential franchisees, the property managers out there. There are some that are really great at marketing already, and do it and they get enough leads to where they have the quantity of homeowners that they're adding into their portfolio. That's that there's a different level. That's I'm not comfortable with marketing. I want to be taught how to do it, and then I'm off to the races. There's some that are like, No, I'm not good, and I want to try to become good. I just want the leads, and I'm great at closing leads. There's yet another that's like, I don't want to know how to do marketing. I know I'm not good at In fact, I'm not even good at closing leads. I just want someone to give me the new homeowner contract, and I will wow them. And we have tools that we provide to our franchisees to cover all of those we don't do that. I put our franchisees in contact with qualified marketing pros that can fill all those gaps. So depending upon what the need, need is, I have a solution, and franchisees really like that.

Annie Holcombe  16:28  
Yeah. So we were joking. We were joking before we started that it's a scary business. It's can be frightened, downright frightening at times. And so you're kind of like the fear whisperer. You're here to take away some of these fears and help them ease into it. So as someone who's starting, so just say, I come to you and I I want to get in this business. What do you think are the things that I need to know before I step in my toe into the water?

Patrick Stewart  16:53  
Oh, someone that is not in the business at all. Yeah. So the joke that we had before was sometimes people were frightened, if they're entrepreneurs, who are my favorite people, the best, because they're the bravest and, and they have fears and, and I said they should have every one of those fears. If you've got the fears, and you're listening to this, your fears are totally justified because, because failure is definitely looming around the corner for almost all missteps. So you're justified to have those fears. A good entrepreneur can embrace the fear, recognize it, and forge ahead. And the people that aren't entrepreneurs just let the fear paralyze them and then, and then, don't proceed. That said, the right business partner takes a lot of the likelihood of failure, which is what you're afraid of. They take the likelihood of failure and diminish it. Never goes away completely. But something doesn't have to be a nine out of 10 chance of failure, and you're hoping, hoping you'll be the one that succeeds. It could be like, No, let's flip that. What if it instead, with the right business partners, you now have nine out of 10 chances of success. That's a good business partner. And so I like saying the fears are justified, which is why you should seek out the strongest partner, because you want to tilt the odds in your favor. You want to become if you're a gambler, you want to be the house. So take risk, but manage that risk so that it gets minimized,

Alex Husner  18:33  
Right exactly? And I think that there's something to be said about when you're working with a company like grand welcome, that you guys are in many, many markets, and you're seeing trends across the country, right, not only from what's most effective, to marketing to homeowner to getting homeowners on the program, to revenue management. I mean, you're seeing things at a higher level than a local operator can see just from their own portfolio. So I know that's certainly a benefit to them.

Patrick Stewart  18:57  
You know, part of a growing franchise, one that's successful and bigger in the space is all of the franchisees when it's the right the other franchisees want to help you. They're no longer your competitors that try to shield what works. I hope they try that mistake, and your competitor definitely wants you to experiment with the exact same thing that they tried and failed. They want you to fail too. And it's the exact opposite. You join a franchise, you join a family that wants you. So it's not just headquarters team that wants you to succeed. Everyone else in your franchise does as well. They share. We have frequent meetings, and we share best practices and best practices. And everyone knows this is in the business. They change over time. What used to work three years ago doesn't work anymore, but this new thing came up that's much better. And so those are that's the family support system that you get with a strong franchise you get. Are, you know, hundreds of others that that have tried things, have adapted, are successful, and they'll share not just the things that work, but the things that they tried and didn't work. And you get to save all that time. So it's when I talk about a road map to success that's really what I mean. It's truly a map that you can follow of proven things that are working today, because you really don't need to get things that, hey, 10 years ago, this was great at work. You're like, well, what am I gonna do with that right file that in the nothing category, don't do anything with it. It's old.

Alex Husner  20:39  
Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Annie Holcombe  20:42  
So when did you start with grand welcome? About a year ago. About a year ago. Okay, so within that year, where are you guys at in terms of how many franchises and how many markets?

Patrick Stewart  20:52  
I think we're in, around 80 markets. About that many franchise ORS franchisees, sorry, and growing, and we're growing, you know, more than 25% this year terms of revenue. Our properties that we have are growing even greater than that, and that's me holding back on the growth. Don't want to grow too fast, where we can't be really helpful to our franchisees, and we're growing. We can be very helpful. We roll out new tools all the time. For example, in the small ish for us, it's sort of small, but to franchisees, even small, they've got a passion for sauce talk fraud for just a second, even if fraud constitutes less than 1% of their total business. To a to a franchisee, they're like, they call me, and I take calls all the time. I want to be totally the person who's the most easy to reach in the whole company, because I want to know it matters. And they say, solve this fraud issue, and it's a 1% problem. It's not that big, but to them, it matters. And the fraud just one experience with the guests who's who stayed at the property. They knew who they were. They had them on camera. They stayed, but they got betrayed by that guest, because they they refuted the charges. In the end, said, No, it wasn't me. Totally was everyone knows. It's just the bad that you have occasionally. And so I was asked, Can you try to give us even more robust tools for this? And I was and I was able to provide tools that enhanced using some AI that the our ability to vet a guest and take away even that one painful experience, and I'm able to do it for 00, cost to the to the franchisee. So finding solutions like that are the way that I'm adding value. And if I grow too fast, I risk slipping, and I grow and I benefit the from the eyes or side, I grow and I benefit, but it doesn't benefit the franchisee. I don't want to have franchisees that ever say that. I want them to say this is a great franchise to be a part of, because the customer, for us, the franchisor, our customer is a franchisee. So like I said, my background is in customer service. My customer isn't the guest or the homeowner. That's who our franchisees serve. I be 100% and solely 100% my focus is on the franchisee and making their life better, so that they're happier in the business and more financially successful.

Alex Husner  23:48  
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. As far as the other services that you provide and kind of the economies of scale. I mean, one of the benefits that I see for franchisees is when you're deciding on something like that tool, like the guest screening tool, or, you know, a myriad of other type of tech products that you could be offering your franchisees. You guys are assessing a lot of different vendors, and you make that decision, right? So, I mean, like you're you're vetting a lot of different partners and figuring out who is going to be the best, and I think, you know, that's a pretty keen advantage for these French franchisees, because that's also something that's very cumbersome and stressful to be making these decisions when you are feeling like you're on your own island, and you feel like you go to vrma, and every vendor says that they're the perfect one for you, right? And it's hard to make those decisions, but there's got to be a level of comfort. I would think, knowing that, okay, you know, and not that, I'm sure, you don't force them to use every vendor that you use, but knowing that they've been vetted by corporate, and that this is the one that we feel is going to be the best,

Patrick Stewart  24:45  
exactly, and the way it works for us, if I have a franchisee that goes to vrma, they come back with a list of Patrick, I'd love to have you vet these five different vendors for us. And so we go to work and we've got a larger team. Then they might and what we're going to do is we're going to look at every one of those and compare those vendors to a host of others, and then come back to our full group of franchisees. We have regular meetings with them, and we unravel, here's what we've learned, and we take input from all of our franchisees, and then we begin to roll things out. And the way we roll things out or not, here's what everyone takes it, because I'm a big believer in test and learn. I roll things out test, show what the results are, share the results and say, What do you guys think isn't this solid? And then we roll out to everyone because it's been good participation. But we prove concept by showing here's what the great impact is, and and then we continually measure because just because we have a good result doesn't mean that we can't improve even further. So we're constantly looking at what we call our tech stack, which includes all the different vendors, to make sure that what we are providing is the best value.

Annie Holcombe  26:07  
Well, I think that the tech stack alone is where everybody gets tripped up is because there's so many choices. And if I'm not mistaken, grand welcome has chosen track as their as the PMS. Am I incorrect in that or correct

Patrick Stewart  26:20  
you are correct if we were four years ago. Oh, okay, and you're correct. You're correct even if we're two years ago. But over, over the last year, we switched to guestie.

Annie Holcombe  26:31  
Oh, interesting. Okay,

Patrick Stewart  26:33  
so this is, this is no shade on track. Yeah. Track, good. Anyone's using it good? And my assessment is that guesty for this moment in time is

Annie Holcombe  26:46  
better, yeah, well, and I think that's what's good. And to your point about test and learn and checking features out, I think that's really important, because there's so many changes that happen within the tech space. And just alex and I've been doing this for a long time, and what we saw prior to COVID, during COVID, post COVID, and even, like, post post COVID, like, it's just, it's just evolved. There's been so many iterations of the tech stacks you have to constantly be looking and learning and willing to try and so I think that that's good that, you know sometimes. And I'll just speak to you know, I know people that have been on like, the the franchise side of, like, restaurants. So McDonald's is an example, like they are even in hotels. I mean, Marriott is a great example. Like they use a very old system. And if you talk to people at Marriott, you know, like properties, they'll say, Oh, we've had Marsha since, you know, 1975 or whatever. And it's just like they're ready. But, but when you get to a point that you're so large, making that big of a move is really, really challenging. So as long as you're constantly looking and understanding that the tech is evolving, that's just so important, because you don't want people to feel that the technology is taking away from their ability to do their business and vice versa. Yeah,

Patrick Stewart  27:56  
and you have to be willing to listen intently, listen with the intent to learn. So a good property manager is listening to what their guest experiences are. They're listening to their homeowners, and if they're finding shortcomings, have to be willing to face it, even if it was like this is the exact same thing, the same way I've been doing it for years, be willing to reevaluate and know that needs change over time, the guest experience can change because they found something better. So now it's time to step up and see if you can't improve as

Alex Husner  28:32  
well. Yeah, makes, makes a lot of sense. We'll be back in just a minute, but first a word from our premier brand sponsor, homes and villas, by Marriott bonvoy.

My name is Dylan Gibbs. I'm a director of revenue for East West hospitality. What made Marriott bonvoy An Appealing partner for East West hospitality, besides the team over there being fantastic to work with, they also have really strong brand recognition and customer loyalty. They're a top notch hospitality brand making memories for really millions of guests annually, and that really aligns well with our brand and our vision. As we are a luxury vacation rental management company, we're consistently seeking new distribution partners to get our properties in front of the right guests, at the right rate, at the right time. They provide exactly the opportunity to do that. We're seeing that Marriott provides for us ongoing support around curation, auditing and optimization of our listings, which is a huge one. Besides describing it as a dream to work with their team, super responsive. They're definitely very reactive when we need them to be. But they're very proactive as well. Partnering with Marriott bomb boy has been super, tremendously beneficial. They are a top producer as far as connected channels go, and the ability to utilize points to spend those points to book a luxury vacation home that can't be overstated as a benefit of their platform, it is a huge benefit, both for the guest and for us. We have absolutely noticed a difference in the types of guests that hbmb brings to the. Table with how well traveled, the guests tend to be. They're very organized, very thoughtful in considering their accommodations. They have a little bit higher expectations, but that's absolutely what we bring to the table as well. Our homeowners have resoundingly been pleased with the partnership. Really delivers significant value. A lot of the homeowners are also hbmb members. They travel a lot so they know what hbmb is all about. Really, they've been very happy and what the level of care that the typical hbmb guest has for the property and treating our homeowners homes like it's their own home. If a property manager is not currently using hbmb, if you're on the fence about signing onto the program, would highly recommend doing it. We've already worked through all the due diligence and talking to the team. The Marriott partnership has been a huge success for us. Distribution, listing, management and hosting through the platform are all very easy and really give you access to fantastic clientele. Ready

to take your property management business to the next level. Go live with homes and villas by Marriott bonvoy By August 4, 2025 and receive Marriott bonvoy Platinum status for one year. 36,000 bonus points and a marketing feature on a homes and villas marketing channel after you launch, click the link in the description to get started today. One area that we get asked a lot about, and I think that you guys do a great job providing for your franchisees is on the revenue management side, which is complex for a lot of operators. Most companies don't necessarily have an in house revenue manager. They might have somebody that kind of helps with the rates, and might, you know, use one of the tools, but that's not, you know, something they've been really honed their craft in. But maybe share a little bit about how you help franchisees with revenue management.

Patrick Stewart  31:41  
This is good stuff. So you unless you want to change what you do for your livelihood and just become totally devoted to studying market conditions, seeing what the Fed is doing, looking what is happening at the Dow and just becoming like a Wall Street broker that's trying to predict what the next move is, unless you really enjoy that, you probably don't want to go into just pricing and join my team, because that's passion that my team has, and so what they provide to A great deal of brain power to the franchisee in order to really monetize our property in the best way. Now, here's where it gets really interesting. On their own, they could definitely deliver the maximum revenue for any given property for a franchisee cut loose, go manage this thing and monetize it. They absolutely can and will do that, but the property manager might have a homeowner that doesn't really want to do it that way, because a homeowner could say, I'm risk averse. I don't want I've got a home and let's say it's a ski resort. They're in there in Park City, Utah, and they know that maximum season is November, December, but they don't want to wait until October to see that all those room nights had been booked. They don't want to. They want to make sure that they're locked in place six months in advance. From a pricing standpoint, that means is you wouldn't really get the maximum revenue they're locked in. You're 100% assured that that you've got all the occupancy that you can have, but you didn't maximize revenue, because if you wanted to get the best possible price, you needed to wait for the people that booked late that had no choice other than to overpay. So optimal revenue is a variable that very much depends on the how risk averse the homeowner is. Will they really let you manage this or do they not have enough faith that it's going to all work out and you develop that relationship over time? So it's the same property, the same homeowner, the same property manager, the way that they interact with each other changes over the length of that relationship, anyway. So the nice thing is, is our team is able to take those inputs from Tell me about your homeowner, how long they've been with you, as I'm managing the pricing and optimization and sharing with you, here's what the total revenue is going to be. Got a very strong we've got the strongest team there of anyone. You won't find that level of service that we provide anywhere else, and I know it's a difficult to manage process. I mentioned several things that property managers might enjoy or might not like, and only management price could be a big nuisance, even with great tools. So like we price labs, for example, but that's that it's not really giving you all the answers. It's a great tool, the same way as me saying, Hey, I'm going to give you an Excel spreadsheet. Do you know everything about Excel now?

Annie Holcombe  35:07  
Yeah, how to drive it? We can know how to drive it, but I think at the end of the day, it's always about the relationships. And so it sounds like what you're enabling the property managers to do is nurture those relationships, but bring in experts to help them navigate the relationship where it be. It's troubled water, so to speak,

Patrick Stewart  35:28  
and that can be a great comfort to the homeowner. So I had a franchise only that had a homeowner that really was curious about all the data inputs that we use and showing how property gets monetized, we just set up a call with our team, and we had pricing experts talking about really bright people talking through with the franchisee and the homeowner, and the homeowner went away happy. So that solidified the relationship with our franchisee and their homeowner, which is really good, relationship just gets to then be even stronger over time, because they're they've been assured at a level that they hadn't been before.

Annie Holcombe  36:14  
Yeah, well, I think that for the homeowner, knowing that there's this team behind that manager, because to your point, I mean, these managers have been kind of navigating things by themselves, and just trying to grab information, but they can say, like, I have these experts at my disposal to bring in that definitely calms things.

Patrick Stewart  36:29  
That's key. As you said, the relationship is key. If you have a right business partner, then the relationship can be stronger than it was without that partner. And that goes a long way.

Alex Husner  36:40  
Yeah, for sure, I think that's actually, you know, that's something that property management companies really deal with all the time, and especially this year, because this year has not shaken out to be the strongest of booking years, really, in most markets that I'm seeing. But you know, when bookings are down, you've got homeowners emailing you, you know, on a daily basis. I mean, between, if you've got hundreds of them. There's at least a few a day that are reaching out, asking, Why is this? Why is that? And, you know, it becomes, it becomes really tough, right? I mean, like, it's about managing expectations from the onset, but at the same time, it's also hard for these managers to say, Okay, now I've got to go into key data, and I've got to go into these different sources, and I've got to pull this stuff together. So I think, you know, from grand welcome standpoint, if you're able to when those managers get those requests from owners, if you're providing them with information and some some data into what's going on in the market, it just makes that franchisee look super professional. You know, in their response, homeowners are all

Patrick Stewart  37:34  
different. You've got some that fully own the property, and monetizing it is not that stressful for them. The big deal that they have is they might want to, for example, take away the single most profitable month that you had as a property manager, because they want to use it themselves. Right there. That's unavoidable. There's a but that's the they're under pressure to monetize they're just robbing you of the ability to monetize it. That's a relationship. A different relationship is someone you absolutely know is under pressure because they've got a mortgage out on this thing, so they owe the bank, and it's a relentless pressure that they have. They might be the most needy homeowner that you have, and you have to have the right answers very quickly to assure them this is as good as it gets. Could be that it's not the most productive year, but it's as good as it gets. And if you can give that type of confidence to the homeowner, you hear from them less frequently. If you don't, then they're going to be really this voice that just is always there because you haven't been able to satisfy that need. And so again, the partnership is really critical to you, and other things that are critical are like I talked about, the support system of having other franchisees that can tell you here's the answers that these homeowners really need. This is how I I've had several homeowners are like that, and you're hearing from a peer, here's the best way to handle them. Just makes it it's not that it makes it completely easy. It just makes it easier. And probably the easiest way you're going to find the path to your best relationship with that homeowner.

Annie Holcombe  39:24  
Yeah, so one of the things that people are struggling with, beyond tech stack, beyond owners, is regulatory like, we're just facing this everywhere. And so what are you guys doing to help your franchises understand their involvement is key to helping stave off regulations, but really navigating what that looks like within their markets. I guess it really you can. You can't do the work for them. But one of the things, I think, that you know, is people, sometimes people think like it's not going to happen to me. It's not happening now, so it's not going to happen to me. But obviously, you know. 80 markets, you have to be seeing it happening all over the place, whether it's happening in all of the markets or it's happening kind of, you know, kind of a wave across the country. What are you doing to ensure that the franchises are educated, but that they have the tools and the know how to approach their market and be again engaged and understand what regulations could do to their business, both good and bad. Well,

Patrick Stewart  40:27  
we keep it top of mind all the time. So by keeping people informed, I think that they can then act accordingly. Sometimes you can't avoid what is coming or it already exists. It's in my world right now, and I think it's going to be soon reversed, like we saw that happen in Tahoe recently, where there had been a ban, but it got lifted, and probably fully lifted within the next 30 days. That opens up big opportunity, but until that happens, we've had to brace ourselves and become the best version that we could in that market, and that could mean this. Let me back up, and let's say what we have as meetings that are regularly scheduled every month with all franchisees, but then we set up small huddles to solve smaller problems, and a huddle is going to be here's a group of five franchisees that are in the exact same situation as you from different areas of the country, and we're going to talk about best practices, and we're going to make sure you're highly and acutely aware of here's what you can and can't do and need to be doing, so that we're proactively taking action. But another thing we can do is recognize that we can come up with solutions that are technically outside of the short term rental world, which is short term rental just means, hey, it has to be under 30 days, and regulations in certain markets could be very restrictive until you get to 31 days, and then it's open and you can still have a relationship with the homeowner, and you can still monetize the property. It's not tech technically short term anymore, but in certain markets, you can very much manage and have a productive property, even though technically it's not short term, the customer could still even stay for, let's say, two weeks, but they paid for 31 days because the property was good enough, because the demand was there, and so it's been fully monetized for the homeowner, and you have to be willing to explore those things. We're able to support it from a tech standpoint. We're able to tell our franchisees how to market it properly, because it's not going to be the same marketing tactics to get the home, to get the end user, the guest to book, but we're able to keep the franchisee happy because the homeowners happy. The property is still been monetized. We navigated a path around the regulations.

Alex Husner  42:55  
Yeah, makes makes sense. Definitely, having that larger group that's behind you to help navigate certainly has advantages, again, to not feeling like you're on an island, not

Patrick Stewart  43:05  
lose the property that you Yeah, a relationship with a homeowner, a regulation came up. Did you have to lose? Or did you have to adapt? And we prefer to explore the let's get the best way to adapt and keep things going in the positive direction. It might not be as good as it was, but it is not a complete fall off the edge of a cliff. It might be like it impacted the total revenue, maybe 10% maybe 20% that said, once you've figured out that you still have the ability to monetize, now you've got different properties that all of a sudden become very lucrative for you because you hadn't considered them before, and one of your competitors, it was also property manager, just abandoned it completely. So being again open to problem solving can unlock even bigger potential. And people have realized,

Alex Husner  44:02  
yeah, for sure. Well, what about for future growth? Patrick, I mean, three to five years down the line, do you foresee grand welcome staying just within the United States? Are you looking to expand internationally?

Patrick Stewart  44:15  
Yeah. So that's a great question, because if it's three to five years, my answer like, we'll definitely do that. We already are going to be in in in five years, will be probably 8000 properties in the United States and and then we'll be ready to go international. But unfortunately, I don't have that much time, because I've got franchisees that are already not franchisees. I've got prospects that are asking, Can we open in Costa, and they've got all these on my list of people that are asking, Can we open in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico in Canada and Mexico? And the list goes on. And so my answer is, I'm not just going to tell them, No. I'm figuring it out right now. So we're already but like, within the next year, we will be international. I'm just not pushing for it. There's so much opportunity within the United States that that's where I really want us to have more of our focus. But I just don't like saying no, if it's a good opportunity. I like being open to it, yeah,

Alex Husner  45:21  
and there's so many. I mean, Annie, I know you talk to a lot of these people all the time with next packs, but there's a lot of companies that are in Mexico and the Caribbean that a lot of them, I mean, they've got big portfolios, and some don't even have a PMS, right? I mean, they certainly don't have a channel manager. I mean, they're literally doing things on pen and paper. But I feel like there's a huge opportunity for franchise to come in and just completely transform those businesses. But correct me, if I'm wrong, Patrick, isn't there? There's some stipulation with like, how franchise as a whole can operate in different countries. Like, don't you have to be registered differently

Patrick Stewart  45:53  
to operate country to country? It depends. And so you one want to know, well, how does the country do it? And then two, make sure you've got legal representation in that country, so that you aren't relying on your US based attorneys to to guide Sure. Yeah. And then you always have to be aware that franchise laws and regulations, they change from state to state. I mean, if you're every year, you get re registered with the state, and they all aren't speedy, doing it certain. Where are these forms? And you're approved within two days. Others, you can be waiting. I won't name the states where I'm still waiting.

Alex Husner  46:36  
I know some are more complicated than

Patrick Stewart  46:40  
others, in certain states like we're looking and that's the way they always are. They aren't having a bad year, but just

Alex Husner  46:46  
just their standard operating, right? Yeah. And I think people probably don't understand how complex it is even setting up a franchise in the first place like and I had no idea before I got into it, but it's a wildly complex business from what you have to do as the franchisor, as far as the legal side and the FTD and all of that. I mean, it's, it's not for the faint of heart, I would say. So you guys have gotten to where you are. It's pretty impressive, yeah, yeah,

Patrick Stewart  47:14  
but you're right. It is complicated. There's a lot of attorneys that love it for that reason. Yeah,

Annie Holcombe  47:21  
they're the ones getting rich on the front end, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, Patrick, I feel like there's a lot of opportunity, a lot of, like, just a lot of runway for you to grow. And we're really excited about having you guys involved with Alex and Annie show, and being able to talk to you, and we've been talking to some of your franchises, and they're everybody's just thrilled with what they're the services that they're getting. So if there's any like takeaway for somebody that's listening right now, what would you say they want, they should consider in terms of like, whether they go it alone or they talk to grand welcome. I

Patrick Stewart  47:56  
think that's that says, even if you are happy with your current growth. If you're a property manager and say you've got anywhere between 20 and 50 properties and you're happy with your growth, you should look into it, because it could be that you've it could be that what you're sitting on is the potential to double your profitability and put in no more work than what you're doing, same amount of work, double profit. It's worth it to you to say I get twice as happy and no downside. I should explore that. Yeah, one group, and then there's the other group that is like you guys kept talking about being happy. This has been a struggle for me. No, yeah, yeah. You definitely should look into because it means that you are really missing out on the best part of being an entrepreneur. It's not just to know that you're doing rewarding work you are you want to make it fun too, and it is possible, and just because you've been at it, whether you've been at it a year or 10 years. If the real happiness of your business is not evident to you every day, please look into it. You're selling yourself short by not really exploring it. You don't have to give grand welcome a call and sign with us. You do owe it to yourself to at least look into it, so that, you know, I looked into it, and I eventually decided I didn't want to, that's fine, but selling yourself short, if you don't at least look into it, it's too good to miss.

Alex Husner  49:31  
And you guys are offering the ability to do kind of like an audit of these companies, right where you look at, look at what they're doing, and to kind of give them an assessment of where you think that you could help them grow and be more profitable.

Patrick Stewart  49:43  
Exactly. That's exactly what we do. It's it's what the it's what anyone should do to make a solid decision, and we want to be completely evident that it is an obvious upside to join us. Because I only. Want franchisees with us that want to give us glowing reviews, that say it is fantastic, anybody that doesn't get that, I want them to come to me and say, can I get out of this? So, so we're pretty tough with our vetting to make sure that we've got people that are very much growth oriented. Because, as I said, I want, I want two things for my franchisees want to be happy with their business, and I want it to be financially rewarding. It gets that way if you're growing so you just joined and we're thinking, I'll just sit back after one year and not continue growing. I'm thinking that one of those two isn't quite right. It should be that we've given you the tools to continue growing, and that's really great for everyone. Makes it so that the franchisee is happy, the franchisor is happy, and it makes it easier for me to have really, really good conversations that people that want to join us is we're helping everyone grow.

Alex Husner  50:58  
Yeah, absolutely. Well, if anybody wants to get in touch with you, Patrick, and they want, and they want to hear more about the program and see if maybe this is a good fit for them, what's the best way for them to reach

Patrick Stewart  51:08  
out? Very simple. You want to go to grand welcome franchise.com if you just go to Grand welcome.com you'll be able to book a room. If you want to book a home and have a great vacation. Please do that. But I think you'll probably want to go to Grand go to grand welcome franchise.com, you'll find several ways to get a hold of us. You can phone us. You can sign up for a call. It's very easy. It take you two clicks to do it, and you'll be able to read more about us as well. But I think that conversations are the are really the best, and just know the way we want to have it is explore us, vet us. We'll put you in touch with different franchisees of ours so that you can speak with them about their experience. And so it's not a fast decision to make joining us. It's just a worthy one to if you are in business, if you're listening to this, you should consider doing and I know that you even have listeners that haven't yet gotten into the business. It's a fun business done right with the right partners. It's really good. And for those that have been in the business for a long time, it gets a whole lot better with a solid partner. And for those outliers out there that are already so hugely profitable and having such a great time, congratulations, you are an outlier and have done many, many things, right? You might want to consider joining us too? Yeah,

Alex Husner  52:29  
no, it makes a lot of sense. Love it. Well, it's so good to chat with you today. Patrick, if anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to Alex and Annie podcast.com and until next time, thanks for tuning in, everybody.