July 07, 2026

#192 ​​​​Scaling an Airbnb into a Boutique Hotel with Katie Wanzer

Katie Wanzer sat in her husband’s truck outside a Door County property and cried for forty minutes. She hadn’t even seen the 15-room boutique hotel before closing on it. Transitioning from a Fortune 500 PR job to running her short-term rental company was one thing, but completely buying and rehabbing a boutique hotel hit her like a freight train.

It wasn’t just a simple facelift. She had to rip a building off its foundation and drill two new wells, only to find out those wells were completely dry.

It’s easy to look at a scaled Airbnb or boutique hotel portfolio and assume the operators have everything figured out from day one. The surface problem Katie faced was dealing with massive construction and plumbing nightmares.

But the underlying pattern is the sudden, jarring absence of a corporate safety net. When you’re in the corporate world, you just call the finance department or the IT team when things go wrong. But who do you lean on when there’s no corporate directory to save you? You build resilience, and you lean on your strategic partnerships. As Katie puts it, “you grow through what you go through”.

Structuring a Four-Way Boutique Hotel Partnership

Katie didn’t tackle this massive renovation alone. She and her husband Mitch partnered with another couple, Luke and Katie Nelson, to scale into the boutique hotel space. Managing an Airbnb and hospitality company with four owners requires rigid boundaries.

They treat their operation like a true boardroom:

• They hold a five-hour meeting once a month to review the budget and operations.
• They order Uber Eats and run through a structured agenda at one of their houses.
• They rely on a general manager and host a monthly town hall for all employees.

To prevent overlap, they divided roles strictly by individual strengths. Mitch handles the property management tech and insurance. Luke manages construction, maintenance, and contractors. Katie Nelson owns the bookkeeping and pays the vendors. Katie Wanzer drives PR, marketing, and guest messaging.

Driving Revenue with Short-Term Rental PR Strategy

Katie’s background in global communication gave her a massive advantage when marketing the Fresh Coast property and their second location, Spruce and Shore. She didn’t rely solely on expensive paid ads. Instead, she leveraged the nostalgia of Door County, an area famous for family-owned businesses and generations of returning vacationers.

She pitched journalists on the contrast between the historic 1940s property and their new, modern traveler experience. They completely automated operations, offering self-check-ins and digital room tours so guests wouldn’t have to worry about losing physical keys.

The PR strategy worked. By the end of their first week with open books, they had nearly fifty-one thousand dollars in booked revenue.

You don’t need a massive renovation to get press coverage for your Airbnb. Katie advises operators to look for ways to benefit the local community. She helped a friend launch a short-term rental food drive, asking guests to bring canned goods. They collected over a thousand pounds of food for the local pantry and landed on the front page of the town newspaper.

Using Tech to Combat Operator Burnout

When you’re running short-term rentals and a boutique hotel, the business can easily become your entire personality. Katie realized quickly she couldn’t work her life away.

“You’re already everything to everyone,” she says. “But you can’t forget that you’re also yourself and you have to do things for yourself, and you still have to go and do the things that make you happy”.

Katie uses an app called Brick to literally lock her phone out of emails and social media from four forty-five in the morning until seven. That time is strictly for walking her dog and working out. During the peak summer season, she signs off at two o’clock every Friday to paddleboard on the lake for two hours.

You’ve got to fiercely protect your time if you’re going to survive in hospitality. “Nobody can advocate for you more than yourself,” Katie warns. If you aren’t prioritizing your own recovery, there won’t be anyone left to take care of your business or your guests.

Take a hard look at your calendar right now. Where’s the boundary line between your business and your life? Put it in ink today.

Click here now to listen to the full podcast.

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY POINTS:

Golden Nuggets:

• “Even with failures, we fail forward, right? Everything that we go through, whether positive or negative, I believe is a learning opportunity.”
• “Sometimes giving up a little bit of that revenue for a gain elsewhere can, can really help you long term.”
• “You’re already everything to everyone: you’re finance, you’re accounting, you’re marketing, you’re everything. But you can’t forget that you’re also yourself and you have to do things for yourself, and you still have to go and do the things that make you happy.”
• “Nobody can advocate for you more than yourself.”

Connect With Our Guest:

 

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/katetheinnkeeper/

Website : https://freshcoastmotel.com/

https://spruceandshoremotel.com/

Full Episode Transcript:

Stacey: Okay. So today we are joined by Katie Wanzer. And Katie, I’m so excited to have this conversation with you. Thanks so much for being here .

Katie: Well, thanks for having me. This is exciting.

Stacey: It is exciting. So what I would love to do is just have you start off and share with our listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Katie: Yeah, so I’ve got a pretty dynamic background. So I started in the corporate space doing a lot of global communication, public relations, all of that, and worked for a lot of big Fortune 500 companies, you know, doing the corporate grind. And in 2021, my husband convinced me that we should really look at our retirement a little bit differently and how we look at our financial success as a couple. So we bought our first short term rental in Door County, Wisconsin. So for those who don’t know Wisconsin really well, we are the OG, the original MIT, as I like to say. So we are in the peninsula. It’s known as the Cape Cod of the Midwest.

So in 2021, we bought our first short term rental and completely flipped the house and made it into Northwoods Farmstead, which is our first rental. And from there, we started co-hosting a year later. It kind of really fell into our lap . And so now we are co-hosting six different rentals on top of owning one, which is Wisco Host, which is our original company. And then two years after that, we were actually at Bill’s conference in Nashville with two of our really good friends, Luke and Katie Nelson. And we were like, we really want to size up. We really want a new challenge . And so we talked about then going into the boutique motel space.

Fast forward a year later, a property came up in Door County. So the same area that we are in, it was. It needed a big hug, as I like to say . It was old. It was old school in a lot of ways. And we actually went for it . So we bought it in September of 2023 and then spent a whole eight months completely renovating it from head to toe. We had to rip a building off the foundation, rebuild the foundation, put the building back down, drill two new wells. I mean, it was really quite the process . And Fresh Coast Motel, we rebranded and opened that in May of 2024.

And then a second one came an opportunity actually right down the road from somebody who reached out to us. And so we bought Spruce and Shore Motel in June of 2025 and opened that last May . So this is now our first full season of, well, we ran two of them last full season, but from start to finish now, we have Spruce and Shore Motel and Fresh Coast Motel also in the same area. So really kind of did a 180 with my corporate job, but at the same time, couldn’t be happier for the challenges that came with it, but then also the opportunity and the learning that came with it as well. So .

Stacey: Absolutely. And that’s what I’m so excited to talk with you about because you do have quite a diverse background and quite honestly, a very rapid evolution in this space. And so I’m excited to dive deeper into that. I am curious from your vantage point, what have you found to be the truth when it comes to realizing, okay, whether it’s short-term rentals or a boutique motel, I am doing so much more than just providing a place for somebody to stay. You know, at what point did you realize, oh, hey, wait a minute, I’m actually a hospitality company. I’m a real estate investing company, but I’m also a hospitality company . When did that occur for you? And was it something that just kind of hit you in the face one day or did it happen over time?

Katie: No, I mean, for me, I think, you know, definitely like with Wisco Hosts, you know, in the short-term rental space, like we had been doing that for so many years. We had our own. So we kind of were able, I want to say, to be able to flex and be able to grow and expand that like in a way that wasn’t so overwhelming. For me, it was definitely the motel. So when we bought the first motel in September, I was working for a Fortune 500 company and we had a really big crisis on our hands. So I was MIA for like three to four months prior to us closing.

So I actually did not see Fresh Coast before we bought it. So I saw it after we had closed . Because the property came up, property up there goes by really fast. So my husband, Mitch, and our business partners, Luke and Katie, went and saw it. And the location was perfect. Like I said, it was older, so it needed a lot of help interior-wise and then also exterior-wise. And so we closed on it on a Thursday and I had not seen it. I’d seen photos, but not in real life. I kind of knew where it was up there . And then we went and after we bought it, we went to go take like our, ‘hey, we bought a motel,’ like huge pictures.

And I remember I walked into two of the rooms and it’s a 15-room motel. I mean, so and there’s a house adjacent to it that we also turned into a short-term rental as well as where the owners at the time were living . And I just remember being so overwhelmed about like the amount of work it needed, but then also thinking, oh my God, there’s going to be hundreds upon hundreds of people staying here in a season. Like if not, you know, now with between the two of them thousands. And I was so overwhelmed that I literally asked my husband for his truck keys and I went and sat in his truck for 40 minutes and just cried all to myself.

Because I was just so overwhelmed where I was like, oh my God, like this is now, it’s just, it’s bigger than a short-term rental. Like this is an actual business. Like we’re going to have to employ people. Like we’re going to have to build a brand. We’re going to have to do marketing. We’re going to have to do all of that . And I think also too, just like the state it was in and knowing that Monday, one of the buildings was going to be coming off the ground because we had to completely rebuild the foundation, the footings, everything. Um, it was super overwhelming. So for me, it hit me like a freight train in my husband’s F-150 sitting in the parking lot of this motel.

And it was just so many tears. Um, but I think at the same time, though, like it really kind of was in a lot of ways like a really exciting, like after I got over the tears, I’m like, okay, we can do this . Um, it became really exciting because I think it really just motivated me personally on a whole new level of, you know, my big philosophy is you grow through what you go through and I love challenges. And so for me, this was an opportunity for me to be like, okay, like I can grow, I can change, I can make a difference. And like, this was kind of it . So it kind of came out of the starting gate. It just, it wasn’t the traditional way of excitement. It was more of, oh my God, what did we just do ?

Stacey: Yeah. And I love you grow through what you go through . You know, even with failures, we fail forward, right? Everything that we go through, whether positive or negative, I believe is a learning opportunity, right? Yeah. And so I think it’s so important to have that frame of reference when the going gets tough so that we can easily say to ourselves, hey, I don’t have any idea why I’m going through this right now, but I know I’m going to be better because of it.

Katie: Yeah. And like with Fresh Coast, that was kind of, you know, just because it was kind of like an onion where every time we kind of went through a layer of something, it was kind of like, almost like the onion was sitting with like a mini Pandora’s box. So it’s like, we had to drill two new wells. And when we drilled the wells, the wells ended up being dry . So then it was like, how can we, yeah. And you’re less than 300 yards, 150 yards from Lake Michigan, which is like one of the largest freshwater body sources like in the world. And it’s like, what do you mean it’s dry? So it’s like it was kind of like those challenges kept coming, especially when you’re renovating something to the extent that we did.

And it was one of those where it’s like, OK, I was able to pick myself up after the wells were dry. And then we were having a bunch of plumbing problems. And it was one thing after another . And I think it really just taught me personal resilience of when you’re in corporate, you have somebody for everything. Finance knows finance. IT knows IT. You can really lean on those partners . And I think when you’re an entrepreneur and especially when you work in hospitality and you’re trying to make something that’s a unique guest experience, like you don’t have anybody but you. So you’re the one that’s kind of figuring it out as you go .

So, yeah, it’s like fail forward, slam, hit your face, figure out a way to get back up and keep going. And I think in a lot of ways, like that’s kind of really shaped a lot of how we, at least I personally think about being an entrepreneur now moving forward is because you take a look back and it’s like, wow, I did that. So it’s like any problem that can come forward now, it’s like you can kind of figure it out. You really kind of find that self-confidence in you .

Stacey: Absolutely. I want to ask you, had you, your hubby or the other couple that you invested with, had any of you had construction experience ?

Katie: Um, so Luke and Katie, Luke specifically is just really handy in general. And I really appreciate that. I come from a construction background. My dad actually owned a glass and glazing company. My mom’s family has a construction company. So we kind of knew what we were getting into . I do have to say it was really nice being able to like have Luke have that experience, like just being handy and knowing how to work through things or how patterns work. But also too, like, I really appreciated my dad when it was like, things were not going sour, but you just wanted to do a gut check of like, am I overthinking this? Like, should we be doing this and him being, you know, being able to steer or tell you what questions to ask, which is also the great part.

So we had some experience, but we were no way at all experts. So like I said, I learned more about plumbing through Fresh Coast than I think I ever thought I would in my lifetime. But, you know, you just, you learn as you go. And then it made, I think, the second project easier because we kind of knew what to expect. Um, with Spruce and Shore Motel, there was definitely not the renovation, like construction renovation that was needed. A lot of it was, um, more of like the aesthetics of everything, um, which made it easier because it was like, we kind of went through the bloodbath the first time. And then the second time it was, it was a lot more of smooth sailing, which was wonderful in a lot of ways. Yeah.

Stacey: I want to go back to, you know, you mentioned, obviously, when you closed on the first project, you went out in the F-150 and shed some tears. And then you had hiccup after hiccup come up. You mentioned that you did have to pull your big girl pants up and just move on. How did you do that? What did you do personally to get over the overwhelm?

Katie: Yeah. I think it’s always bringing, for me, it’s always been, what are we trying to achieve? And bringing myself back to what does the end goal look like? What are you trying to achieve? How do you want people to feel? I want to say when they walk into that property, but when you look at yourself and what you have done throughout, you know, your career, through your life? Like, what are things that you want to look back and be like, wow, I’m like really proud of myself for that. And like, I look at Fresh Coast and kind of really anything with this business. And it’s like, I’m proud of how much I grew because I was so used to being like, you know, call Debbie in finance, call Alex in legal, you know, call these people and really kind of, I want to say growing as a person.

But for me, I mean, it really was just like looking at the end game of like, you know, when this is all done, like what have you achieved and how is that going to make you feel? And I think when you have to go through so much, like, I played sports my whole life. Like you learn, you get a bruise, you get a concussion, you get up, you just go, you try to go better, faster, bigger. Like, you know, you try to just push yourself through it. And I think for me, a lot of that was just, it’s only one, it’s only one blip. It’s one pothole in the road. Like you’re going to be able to climb out of it and keep going. Um, but there was a lot of tears. Like I give my husband a, my husband is Mr. Calm, cool and collected. He’s a cucumber. Like he’s just, he’s really even-keeled and level headed.

And he was a really great help to me because I definitely got like in my emotions and myself of like, why are we doing this? I don’t know what I’m doing . And him just being like, you got this, like you can figure it out. Same thing with like my parents and my sister. Shout out to my family for really being those anchors when I really needed it, when I felt like I was going to get swept out to sea. Yeah.

Stacey: And talk to me about what it has been like to invest in real estate, do a construction project, not only with your spouse, but with another couple. What has that been like?

Katie: Yeah. I mean, it’s, I always joke, it’s a big group project. Like it’s, it’s kind of like going back to high school, going back to college, you’re doing a group project. Um, you know, I think with specifically with my husband, like I love working with my husband, like getting up and getting to work with him day to day on this, like and being, you know, somebody that is somebody that I can just tell and just, I say like, blabber on to or at any point where something comes in my head, being able to float by it, like it really is wonderful.

I think for us, the biggest thing has been learning to set boundaries like date night. We don’t talk work like we don’t talk about those things. We have designated times. I always joke that we have business hours unless something obviously pops up . So it’s been a little bit of a challenge in some ways with that to just always not sit there and talk about work and talk about, you know, the next thing. You know, with Luke and Katie, you know, it’s been really great because they bring different backgrounds, like from their, not only their schooling, but their professional lives.

And so having different perspectives, I always really appreciate that because you always think it’s like, your way, you know, it’s how you see through the lens. So seeing it through different lenses or approaching situations differently and problem solving, I think has been really great because you learn and you grow through that. But, you know, it’s just it’s like anything like there’s challenges in any relationship, any friendship, any marriage. And it’s just once again, you’re always just working. All four of us are working towards the same goal . Um, and so it’s always keeping that in mind when sometimes it, it can just, it can get hard and you’re kind of sitting in it. So, um, they’re great partners though. And my husband’s amazing. So I wouldn’t change. I wouldn’t trade them. That’s all I can say .

Stacey: That’s awesome. I’m curious, do you have set times where the four of you get together and have check-ins, annual meetings, things like that? How do the rules and responsibilities, how have they been defined among the four of you? And then how do you govern that ?

Katie: Yeah. So, I mean, Luke and Katie have three adorable little girls. My husband and I don’t have kids. So it’s, it’s challenging with everybody’s schedules because I mean, they’ve got the girls and they also have their own businesses, their short-term rental businesses. We have ours. So we try for once a month. It’s like a five-hour meeting between the four of us. We make an agenda . We order Uber Eats. It’s usually at one of our houses and we really kind of get it. We go through budget. We kind of do everything that you would do at like a board of directors meeting between the four of us. And so that has, I think, really helped us stay on cadence with how to run the business.

You know, we have an amazing general manager and assistant general manager and cleaning teams. And so once a month we have a town hall with all of our employees, front desk, you name it, talking about things coming up, any changes we would have in policies, you know, procedures, protocols, shout outs, we always do, especially with Google reviews. So, you know, we meet with them and then we meet with our GM once a week. We have a two-hour meeting with him to kind of also go through things to anticipate, things that we need to know about, etc.. So that I think has really helped us be able to be part of the business, but not have to be in the day-to-day tactics and have them be able to own it.

I always say when you’re an employee, especially in leadership, you got to think like an owner. And so being able to give them that ability to be able to think like owners is and help us, you know, make these decisions around the business, I think is really critical. When it comes to roles and responsibilities like that’s been shaking out since September of, you know, 2023. Each of us bring a really unique skill set or background into this foursome as four owners. And so for us, it’s been really interesting to see where people either naturally gravitate to because they’re interested in it or like where their background sits.

So, you know, my husband has been part of a tech company since I met him. And so he’s really big into tech. So like our property management system, we use Accio for like guest texting with guests and all of that, like he is the tech guy. He knows insurance really well. So like he really, you know, owns that. Luke knowing and having a lot of experience in construction. Like he owns a lot of the contractors and like keeping up with the maintenance . I’m really good at helping with like things like pricing, et cetera. Katie’s really great at book work, which I really appreciate. I am not a numbers girl. And so it’s like, there’s a slight glaze that happens over my eyes when we talk numbers and I’m trying to get better.

I mean, I’ve had to get better, but like, it’s just, she owns all of our bookkeeping and paying contractors, vendors, et cetera . And I do a lot of, you know, our PR, our marketing, a lot of, you know, the guest messaging, that type of area. So for us, it’s like bringing all of our unique skill sets, but then also where we want to spend our time. And from there, then anything that I want to say is like a gray area, you know, we talk about it as owners and then we kind of figure out, all right, who would it make sense for them to own this area versus others just based on what they’re already working on. So we kind of have our set groups, but things happen. And so we kind of, you know, figure it out and own it as we go. So, yeah .

Stacey: I love that. And I’m curious too, on the short-term rental side of your business, do you have teams in place? Are you still managing the day-to-day of those? What does that look like ?

Katie: Yeah, so for Wisco Hosts, our short-term rental, I’m definitely still running day-to-day. Um, so we have two wonderful part-time help that help during the summer so our market is very seasonal. So from probably like the first of May until end of year like New Year’s like it’s pretty busy with peak times being May to October. So we have them to like help on weekends, especially when, you know, we’re going to have six, seven check-ins in one days or turns to just help support the cleaning team, guest questions, etc. . But other than that, like we’re still very much I’m still very much in the day-to-day with that.

So it’s always a unique balance of like, OK, like today I’ve only got two check-ins, which means I can focus a little bit more time on the motels versus other days when, you know, we have a ton of turns and a ton of guests coming and going where I just know I’ll have to spend a little bit more time if we don’t have somebody covering phones. So sure. Sure. Yeah.

Stacey: No, that makes complete sense. Okay, I want to shift gears a little bit because I want to talk about PR. And I know that this has been obviously, you know, a part of your experience for so many years, but I am so intrigued about how you have used PR strategically to generate positive media attention, not just local media attention, but national media attention for, you know, for your business. Talk to me a little bit about your overall approach to PR and why you think it might be important for other hosts to get on that bandwagon.

Katie: Yeah. I mean, so I always say PR is kind of all, it’s, it’s always kind of the, I don’t want to say the lesser like of the marketing arms, but it’s the one that I think everybody is a little bit more timid or, um, timid to use. I want to say, but also to the only time that we’ve ever seen like PR, I’m going to say where in a mainstream sense is like, Olivia Pope in Scandal and Samantha Jones in Sex and the City. Like there’s not a lot of, um, I’m going to say mainstream knowledge about it, like with marketing and, you know, especially with social media, et cetera. So, um, PR for us, for the motels, has been, I would say, one of our biggest strengths because not only is it something where you’re not paying for it, if it’s earned media … there’s obviously paid media, but like earned media, you’re really going out there and you’re pitching newspapers, magazines, TV stations about like, what makes you and your business or in our case, Motel, like a story to cover?

And so for us, it was really kind of the way that I looked at it was just the more people that knew about us, the better. Because PR is a great engine to get people interested, even if at the time we weren’t even open yet for bookings. So I approached our public relations strategy from a standpoint of Door County is very nostalgic. People have been coming up there for decades, generations. It’s really a Midwest-like vacation spot. But it’s nostalgic. There are no chain restaurants up there. Everything is locally and family owned. The closest fast food restaurant from like where our motels are is about a 40-minute drive and it’s a Culver’s and it’s in a gas station. And that’s like pretty much where where it stops from a chain perspective.

Stacey: You got to love a good butter burger, right?

Katie: Yep. I’m a Wisconsin girl. So I am a Culver’s girl. True and true . With a Kwik Trip, which is our gas stations, but everything is family owned and operated. And the great thing with Door County is that it’ll be third, fourth generation running the same motel, same restaurants, same shops. So there’s a lot of nostalgia there. And so for us, we were taking this motel. This was like one of the first roadside motels in Door County . Fresh Coast originally, which was called By the Bay, was built in the 1940s. The house on the property was built in, according to the Historical Society, like late 1920s, early 1930s . And so it’s been there for a really long time.

And for us, it was an opportunity because we looked at it as like, how can we do something differently? And how can we bring a guest experience that is set for the modern traveler ? And so for us, you know, that was the whole like self check in. So everything is automated. So you get a text of like, hey, Stacy, your check in time is four o’clock. Here’s your door code. Here’s a link to a video of how to get to your room. And then this is a room tour . And then this is what your view is of the lake, because some of our rooms do have water views. So for us, it was really kind of taking, I want to say that more technological foot forward, but also too, from a design perspective, an element perspective, it was how can we bring in the best of Door County?

So with Fresh Coast, the public beach is right across the street. So like, how can we bring in the best of the sailboats that are sitting on all the moorings in the front ? Like when you look out a window, how can we bring in that element of space of what makes Door County special so beloved by many ? Um, and so because of that, that was a story within itself because we were completely renovating a place that had been there since the forties. Um, and so that, that was, it’s, that was the story, the four of us young owners coming in, um, literally doing a rebrand and a redesign head to toe. We’re doing things differently. We don’t have a front desk. Everything is automated. We’re making it for the modern traveler.

We don’t have kids, but it seems like trying to get places with kids before an office would close to get a key that you might lose if you give it to one of your children. It’s kind of things that we just wanted to make it easier and simpler for people . And to be honest with you, that was a story within itself. So we got a ton of regional coverage from it, everything from newspapers to the business journal up there, the Milwaukee Business Journal even, which was three hours south of there. We had camera crews there that wanted to see before and after. So it was really kind of painting the story and telling the story of what we were trying to achieve, but then also to like bringing the background into it of like, this is a big deal because it had been here for so long, but we’re kind of bringing it into its new era.

And this is what, you know, we anticipate for it. And it really, I mean, the day that we opened our books, I mean, we had, oh my God, we had over $30,000, like within the first three days of revenue. And within that first week, we had over 50,000, close to $51,000 of booked revenue. We had, you know, 368 people on our email list because everywhere we went and how we talked about it, it was go to Fresh Coast Motel dot com. Sign up for our email list. You’ll be the first to see, you know, behind everyone loves a good renovation project. Thanks to HGTV .

But right with that, it was like, hey, fall, become an email subscriber, get a first look at the renovations and how we’re coming on timeline. Be the first to be able to book a room, etc.. Um, and that, that first weekend, I mean, we were completely full and it was either from people who had like, saw the news story and wanted to book right away and like signed up for emails and booked right through there. People who saw us on social media . Um, so like I said, it was kind of one of those where it put a lot of gas in our tank and it really costs nothing besides me just reaching out to reporters and being like, Hey, this is what we’re doing. It’s kind of a cool story. And then they’re obviously picking it up. Yeah.

Stacey: No, that’s awesome. And I would love to peel back the layers a little bit because I would venture to say, since you have a background in PR, it might have been easier for you to find that story. For someone who is listening or watching and thinking, I want to do that too. What would be your tips for how to go about finding the story if there’s nothing that surfaces or bubbles up like, OK, I’m renovating a historic place and we’re modernizing it ? For the run-of-the-mill person who may want to utilize PR, how do they go about finding a story that might be interesting to someone?

Katie: Yeah, when I worked in news it was really… is it going to be something that one somebody can relate with or two like how is it going to be benefiting the community? So a lot of the things that I tell some of other people who are like in the industry when it comes to public relations is like, with short-term rentals specifically, like short-term rentals, there’s not really a story there of like, look, I bought a house and I’m turning it into a rental . It’s how are you becoming or benefiting the community? So a prime example would be one of our friends for the month before, she’s also in the same market, the month before she was talking about like, how can I do something to help benefit the community?

I said, what if you asked every guest to bring at least like three to five canned goods during their stay, you collected it, and then you donated it to the food pantry before school, like before school started? She did that. And she had like, almost like a thousand pounds worth of food that people would bring. And so she reached out to the newspapers and was like, Hey, we did this big collection drive, like through our rentals with, you know, vacationers coming, I’m donating a thousand pounds worth of food. Well, it made the town’s front page .

I mean, so thinking about how you can think a little bit creatively with, you know, how’s it going to benefit the community? How can it benefit me as a business owner or short-term rental owner, but also to like, we need more feel good stories . Like the news sometimes can just be, it can emotionally be so much. And, and it’s like one thing after another . And I think sometimes, you know, that’s why we get lost in the endless scroll is because it’s things that make us happy. So I always tell people, how can you be part of the happy and bright that like make somebody’s day or be part or is part of the news. Um, so it’s just thinking differently about that.

But I think the other thing too is like, your ChatGPT is your friend. You know, you can really go. There’s a lot of really great resources on YouTube online about how to write a press release, like how to find a story, how to even prompt a journalist, you know, about a story itself of like, hey, I’m doing this food drive through my short term rental and I’m donating a thousand pounds worth of food before school to the local community food bank . So it’s really kind of the internet is a great place. You can get lost in it very quickly, but using those resources there, because with a press release, you write a press release yourself and you put it into ChatGPT or AI or Claude or whatever you’re using and being like, hey, can you make this sound a little bit more professional ?

Can you make it so that it’s alluring to journalists? And that can really help you because it can write an email, it can do PR, it can do the release itself. It can kind of do everything. Um, and I would say the other thing too, is you really gotta be persistent. Um, PR is one of it’s a long game. It’s not a short game. That’s what, um, I had one of my mentors tell me that in, uh, when I worked in corporate where it’s kind of like, it’s a long-term strategy for a long-term gain. So just making sure that you’re staying persistent with it.

So for us, from like a motel perspective, I can tell you that, you know, during the summer, I will reach out to journalists or I will work with like our local tourism bureau to reach out to journalists that are coming to the area to cover everything from like we have cherry blossoms up there to, you know, um, the big Scandinavian summer festival to, um, leaf peeping. So then the Midwest, like in Vermont, all, everybody comes to Door County because there’s so many trees and like, it just looks like the sky’s on fire, um, during fall, like it’s a huge place for fall .

But for us, it’s like, hey, you know, journalist from so-and-so magazine, we’d love to have you come stay with us. We’re willing to offer you two free nights, like in the middle of August for you to bring your partner, your family, whoever . Um, you know, in exchange that hopefully like you include us in a travel article or you write about us in general. Um, and you know, that those few hundred or even thousand dollars of income has really generated a lot of earned media for us where we would have spent thousands of dollars on Google ads, SEO ads, you name it. Um, and it’s really kind of organically just, just helped us out in the long run. So sometimes giving up a couple hundred dollars of income can really help you long term.

Stacey: Yeah, super interesting. And then also, you know, you mentioned that you have to be persistent. What is a best practice if someone is reaching out to a journalist and saying, hey, I have an idea for a story or here’s something that I think the local community might be interested in ? You and I both know those journalists can look at it and maybe even think, oh, that’s interesting. And then they get distracted by something else and it falls by the wayside . Is there a best practice with follow-ups after you reached out to a journalist? I’m curious from a sales perspective, the follow-up is where you really, really thrive in sales. Is that the same case in PR? And if so, what should the follow-up be ?

Katie: Yeah. So the one thing I always tell people is don’t email journalists on weekends and don’t email them on Monday mornings, because I can tell you when I was a weekend anchor, like even the amount of emails we will get all the time. And then Mondays, it was kind of always the reset button in a lot of ways . So like that’s one thing. The other thing, too, is I would say, you know, make it personable . Like the first time you reach out, you can make it professional of like, hi, my name is so-and-so. This is what we’re doing. I have attached a press release or, you know, something to that extent, but like make it personable .

Like I always go through then and really look to see, um, who I want to target as a journalist based on what they’ve written on in the past . So if I know that there’s a specific journalist who does a lot about um like Midwest I’m gonna go with like Midwest hiking or like does a lot about like family businesses or kind of writes, I want to say a little bit more of the fluffier pieces where this would be it. Like, don’t hesitate being like, hey, so-and-so, I saw your article or your news story on this. Like, I really loved X, Y, and Z about it . I think that this would be a great story for you because of blank. Um, and so, you know, personalize it, like really do your homework kind of sink in, um, find out who you kind of want to, I don’t want to say target, but like who you want to reach out to, because it’s kind of their, their area of expertise. Um, so that that’s also very helpful.

I would say the other thing too, is like, don’t be afraid to hit them up on social media. Like, I have, um, I have before where I know that it would be a great story for a specific journalist. I’ve done the emails. A lot of times you can’t find phone numbers these days, which is fine. Um, but hit them up on social media . Like I’ve, I’ve sent emails of like, Hey, so-and-so I’ve emailed you three times and like, I’m reaching out to you now on Instagram or Facebook. Um, because I think this would be really good for you or like, this would be a great story that would fit this niche .

So don’t be afraid to do multiple channels. Sometimes for somebody who once again worked in broadcast before going into the corporate world, like you just get inundated. And so sometimes the people who you can tell are putting some more thought into it or really have looked at you as a journalist or, you know, are really kind of going to all ends of the earth to get you to respond. It’s usually the people who, you know, are at least worth a chat in your time. So.

Stacey: So interesting. I could talk about this for days.

Katie: It is. It’s really fun. So I mean, and I think, you know, especially too, it’s kind of like I said, it’s the area that not a lot of people know about. And, you know, Olivia Pope was out there working for the government and taking down spies. And Samantha Jones is, you know, helping Carrie Bradshaw sell books . And it’s like, man, I want to work in either of those because that’s not the PR experience I had. That’s all I can say.

Stacey: Right, right. So good. Okay. I want to move to the lightning round. Okay. So I’m going to ask you a few questions and just ask you to answer with the very first thing that comes to mind. Okay . First question is, where is your favorite place to vacation?

Katie: Scotland. So I studied abroad in college and I did not go back for 10 years. And now we’ve been back and it’s like my favorite place. It’s the people. It’s the people are amazing. They are probably the nicest people in the universe . I’m a big golfer. So like it’s the home of golf . So there’s always endless things to do. Um, but the, the weather is great when you, when you catch it good . Um, but yeah, it’s probably one of my favorite, it’s my favorite place to go. Um, so Scotland for sure . The Scottish people have my heart and it’s just, it’s amazing. If nobody’s been, I highly recommend.

Stacey: So amazing. And I had no idea that it was the home of golf .

Katie: St. Andrews golf course. So it’s hoping it’s, it’s hosting the open this year, which is a big deal whenever it’s at the home of golf. But, um, yeah, it’s, it’s truly an amazing country. I mean, in the, you can go from everything from the mountains in the North to, you know, the prairies in the South, the, and the ocean, it’s just, it’s, it’s amazing . The locks it’s, it’s picturesque. So .

Stacey: So good. All right. I’m going to have to put that on my bucket list. All right. Next question. What’s one place you’ve never been that you want to visit ?

Katie: South Africa. I have, that is the only continent I have yet to be to . I am a big wine person, so I would love to go drink all the wine.

Stacey: I know I loved you for a reason. Yes, all the wine.

Katie: Yes, all the wine. But yeah, no, South Africa for sure. It’s also just, I had a friend from Swaziland from college and I’ve always just wanted to go and see it. So South Africa is on the list .

Stacey: So good, so good. All right, next question. What’s one thing you know now that you wished you knew when you were starting out, either in the world of short-term rentals or boutique hotels ?

Katie: You can’t work your life away. I think when you work for yourself and start your own business, it truly becomes your whole personality. It becomes how you schedule your day. It becomes how you plan like everything . I mean, I, the first, the first year that I had left my job and started to, and was working on the motels and the short-term rental business, like I just, I based my life around everything, like around those two things . And I think that you have to give yourself a break when you work for yourself. You’re already everything to everyone, your finance, your accounting, your marketing, your your your everything .

But you can’t forget that you’re also yourself and you have to do things for yourself and you still have to go and do the things that make you happy . And the things that fill your soul and it can, it’s really hard because you will lose sight of that . I mean, I’ve never met an entrepreneur who didn’t say the first few years were tough. But you really got to make it a priority because at the end of the day, if you can’t, if you don’t take care of yourself, there’s going to be nobody else to take care of everyone else .

Stacey: Yeah, absolutely. We were just talking about that yesterday in one of my mastermind communities because the self-care, the recharging of our own internal batteries is something that it’s the first thing to go when we get busy, right ? And having dedicated time on our calendars for that self-care is so important to proactively schedule that and protect that time. Like it’s an appointment with a client or it’s an appointment with your banker, whatever the case might be, protect that time and don’t leave it by the wayside .

Katie: Yeah. And that it did get to that point where it was like I was scheduling time to work out. I was scheduling a walk at noon so that I could like maybe at least hit 10,000 steps if it was a computer day, like anything like that . But I think the other thing, too, is I’m a big person. There’s people who like my husband who are really good at like just blocking everything out where it’s like for me, I need to like legitimately put myself in a room and be like, put do not disturb like a 13-year-old girl on the door and be like, just don’t talk to me. Like, give me some time .

And I think the other thing, too, is from a productivity perspective, I bought a Brick . I don’t know if people know about this. It’s an app on your phone. It’s a square that you put and you can literally brick your phone and choose what you want to have bricked . So if that means social media, if that means email, you can set it up for schedules every day . And for me, it’s like, okay, I look at emails when I wake up in the morning to kind of make sure nothing happened overnight but then usually from like 4:45 in the morning till 7 you won’t find me . Like I am bricked I am working out I’m walking my dog I am doing the things that fill my soul.

But the other thing is too is especially in the summer because of our peak season being also the only time in Wisconsin when the weather is like enjoyable when you can go out and I’m not freezing or getting three feet of snow . It’s also too, like where I know every Friday afternoon, I’m usually done at two o’clock and I will take my paddleboard and I will go to the lake, 20 minutes down the road and I will paddleboard for two hours and I will listen to my audio book . I’ll play some jams and, you know, I’ll do something for myself . And I think making sure that you make time and you schedule that, but also you give yourself the tools to fully be able to just like turn everything off. It’s really, it’s, it’s really saved at least my sanity. So yeah .

Stacey: I love that. I love that. And I think so many people will learn from that . You know, I love that you are paddle boarding for two hours. Like that’s a bit of itself. It’s like it’s a it’s a workout . I can be outside like on the water, like all the all the really great things. And it’s sometimes it’s like I said, you just need to even if I’m not actually moving and I’m just sitting there enjoying the water and like just taking a minute . And sometimes that’s all I need. And so if it’s two hours or if I extend it to three, it is what it is. But at the same time, I got to be able to take care of me .

I got to tell you, when I was in the corporate world, one of my bosses lived in Michigan and he was a sailor . And so one time he invited me when I was up on business to go out on a sailboat with he and his wife and they took me out sailing . And there were people doing yoga on paddle boards. And first of all, my butt would be in that water within two minutes. I have no doubt of it . But I was blown away at how these people were balancing all these yoga positions on paddle boards .

Katie: Yeah, I did it. I’ve done it a few times. Update. I swam more than I yoga. That’s all I can say . Like I was a frequent tipper and faller. But once again, it was a challenge and it was kind of combining . I’m not very good at yoga. Like I’m not very flexible . And also too, like I grew up playing high intensity sports. I’m a runner, soccer, all of that . That’s when it seems like when I am like physically draining myself is when my mind shuts off . And like with yoga, it was sitting there thinking like, oh, God, I didn’t finish like the book work for last month or I got to remember to call so and so after . So I appreciated the water portion because I fell so much that I couldn’t I couldn’t get lost in that . But yeah, it’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s so much fun. So for those who are a little hesitant, try it. It’s fun. Right .

Stacey: There you go. There you go. All right. Next question. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given ?

Katie: Uh, nobody can advocate for you more than yourself . Um, I had a really, I had an amazing mentor at one of my jobs and I was gunning to go up the ladder and I was running into, I don’t want to say, I was just running into a lot of roadblocks that I was not anticipating . And I was working on a massive project and, um, I got very frustrated because one of the executives I was supporting who was like, yeah, like I’m always, you know, supporting you when you’re not in the room and advocating for you . And long story short, that was not the case . And so I was really frustrated and she sat me down. She’s like, why were you frustrated ? And I was like, because he said he was advocating for me and he wasn’t . And she goes, the only person who’s going to advocate for you and your career is yourself. So she’s like, never put that on anybody else .

And ever since then, like, I really take that to heart. Um, when it comes to like your personal brand, how, you know, you’re viewed with people you work with, being an owner, like you have to advocate for yourself . Um, because at the end of the day, like you’re the one who owns it and you’re you. Um, so that was probably the biggest sage advice I got the hardest at the time . Cause I was, you know, in my mid-twenties and, just wanting to really make a difference and make my imprint in the world . But yeah, it was the best piece of advice she ever could have given me .

Stacey: So good. So good. And I could go on and on about that in the medical world too . Self-advocate with your doctors and your nurses . I’m so not a health and wellness person, but I feel like it’s so easy to listen to what a doctor has to say and we just go, okay, without pushing back or asking questions or saying, well, why do I need to be on that medicine ? You know, anyway, I’m totally going down a rabbit trail, but I just want to mention that . All right. Last question. What’s one thing and or person that you’re grateful for today ?

Katie: Oh my God, there’s so many people. I don’t know if I could go down to one . I’m going to be honest, like I’m really grateful for my husband . He, that’s going to sound so cliche, but it’s really the truth . You know, we’ve been together forever. Thirteen years we’ll be together thirteen years this year but like we look at situations and approach situations so differently we think so differently and he just he really grounds me and he really brings me a lot of perspective because I think when you’re in the day-to-day and in the thick of it and you’re doing the tactics like it’s really hard to see out of the forest when you’re so far in . And he’s just, he’s always been this like really supportive, like strong light, um, where he’s able to calm me down, which I appreciate, but he’s also able to give me and bring me perspective that I definitely would have never seen . So I’m really, I’m really, really grateful for him . Um, and he’s been amazing too. I’m fortunate that he’s my business partner. You know, he’s my life partner. He’s just, he’s an amazing man. So . For sure. My husband, he wins the gold star today.

Stacey: I love that. And I’m going to encourage you to tell him how grateful you are for him .

Katie: I told him that I did actually tell him I was grateful for him this morning because he went and ran an errand that I was trying to figure out how to fit in my schedule . He’s like, I got it. And I’m like, thank you so much . Um, which I appreciate, but I do, I try to, I try to tell him once again, when you’re in the thick of it and everything it’s, and you’re, you can’t see out it’s, I love to tell them when I appreciate them, when I have that moment of like, I’m so grateful for you. So, yeah .

Stacey: I love that. I love that . Katie, if folks want to learn more about you or maybe come and stay with you, where is the best place for them to find you online ?

Katie: Yeah, so they can follow me at Kate the Innkeeper on Instagram . I don’t have the Facebook as my grandma would say or the book of faces. That’s what she actually used to call it. The book of faces. I don’t have the book of faces, but you can follow me on Instagram on Kate the Innkeeper . I am one of the co-owners of the Refresh Collection . So if you want to stay at one of our awesome properties, Fresh Coast Motel in Door County. So that is freshcoastmotel.com, Spruce and Shore Motel, spruceandshoremotel.com, Cape Cod of the Midwest, lots of sun, beaches, hiking, fresh water . So it’s the place to be when it’s actually warm in the Midwest, especially in Wisconsin .

Stacey: Sounds like I need to travel to come to Wisconsin then .

Katie: Yeah, it’s a great place . So and it’s not. And if you’re a football fan, Packer State or Lambeau Field is only an hour and fifteen minutes away . So we get a lot of people who come up to Door County for the weekend and then head to the games come fall . So come stay with us. We’d love to have you.

Stacey: So good . Katie, thanks so much for being here.

Katie: Thanks for having me. It’s just been fun

 

 

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