Unreasonable hospitality is the future of short-term rentals (Ep 600)

In today's celebratory episode of “Get Paid for Your Pad,” I had the privilege of speaking with my business partner, Eric Moeller, as we marked the momentous occasion of our 600th episode. Our conversation delved into the evolution of the hospitality industry and how it relates to the short-term rental space, inspired by the concept of ‘unreasonable hospitality.

Eric shared insights from the book “Unreasonable Hospitality” by Will Gierda, which emphasizes going above and beyond in guest experiences.

This approach is not just about the service or the property, but about creating a profound human connection with guests. We discussed how this philosophy is now a core value of Free Wild, our venture, aiming to provide an exceptional hospitality experience that leaves guests in awe.

We reflected on the journey of Airbnb and the short-term rental industry. Initially, the novelty of staying in unique properties was enough to captivate guests. However, as the industry has matured, there's been a shift towards creating memorable experiences, not just providing a place to stay. This evolution mirrors society's broader trends, where experiences are increasingly valued over mere transactions.

Eric noted that in today's digital age, people are more aware of the possibility of exceptional stays, as seen on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. This awareness drives a demand for more than just standard accommodations. To meet this demand, we must focus on creating experiences that resonate with guests, offering them stories to share and memories to cherish.

We also touched on how this philosophy could be implemented in short-term rentals, balancing the efficiency of automated systems with the personal touch of exceptional hospitality. Eric shared examples of how small, thoughtful gestures, like providing fresh water or adjusting the temperature to a guest's preference, can significantly enhance the guest experience.

Finally, we discussed the future of short-term rentals and how leading with hospitality is crucial for success. The industry is shifting, with more unique, branded properties emerging, indicating a move towards prioritizing exceptional guest experiences. This shift is essential for creating sustainably successful rental businesses.

In conclusion, this episode highlighted the importance of ‘unreasonable hospitality' in transforming the short-term rental industry. By focusing on creating unique, memorable experiences, we can elevate the standard of hospitality and ensure guests have stories worth sharing. As we celebrate this milestone episode, we look forward to continuing these valuable discussions and exploring new ideas in future episodes.

Before we wrap up today's episode, remember to connect with us on Instagram @getpaidforyourpad for exclusive content and behind-the-scenes moments, and don't forget to hit that ‘Subscribe' button on our YouTube channel for even more great content. We appreciate your support, and can't wait to see you on our socials. Stay tuned, and keep being awesome!

Jasper Ribbers (00:01.452)
What is up everybody episode number 600 of get paid for your pad. Special, very special occasion, of course, and who better to invite them. My partner in crime, Mr. Eric Mueller, Eric, welcome to episode 600, dude.

Eric Moeller (00:19.01)
600 episodes man, that's a lot. That's a lot of talking, that's a lot of guests. It's pretty awesome, man.

Jasper Ribbers (00:21.804)
It is a lot, isn't it?

Jasper Ribbers (00:27.992)
Yeah, yeah, I know. It's super exciting. It's almost been 10 years. So it's not our big milestone that's coming up on the podcast here.

Eric Moeller (00:38.786)
That's awesome, man. You're almost catching up to, uh, to Rogan.

Jasper Ribbers (00:43.12)
Joe Rogan, yeah, I don't know. He's got probably like over, he must be at 2000 by now. Oh, really? Does he do one every day?

Eric Moeller (00:47.53)
I think it's like 3000. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We gotta step it up, man.

Eric Moeller (00:53.99)
Yeah, sometimes he does multiple a day.

Jasper Ribbers (00:56.756)
Oh, wow. I was dreaming a couple of days ago. I was dreaming that I was doing a daily. Good place for your path. Uh, podcast.

Eric Moeller (01:05.002)
Hey man, it might be a sign, you know, the universe is trying to nudge you that way.

Jasper Ribbers (01:06.982)
Heh.

Jasper Ribbers (01:10.232)
Maybe one day I'll do that. I'll just, that's the only thing I'll do. I'll just get up in the morning, record a podcast and then I just chill for the rest of the day. Sounds pretty good actually.

Eric Moeller (01:16.502)
There you go, man. When you're, yeah, when you're fat and retired sitting on the beach, do a daily podcast.

Jasper Ribbers (01:24.209)
Exactly, exactly. Awesome, man. Well, you kind of inspired me. I think it was last week you posted something on LinkedIn. And by the way, you've been very active on LinkedIn. Like what's going on LinkedIn? I see you writing stuff. I see you posting.

Eric Moeller (01:36.29)
You're not a young man, are you? Um…

Eric Moeller (01:42.902)
Dude, I feel like a whole new surgeons again in like, creative flow. And, you know, now that Free Wild is live and, you know, we're getting the feedback and, you know, this, again, like this vision of Free Wild came to me originally, like hiking on a mountain and then fast forward years later.

this thing is real and like we're hosting guests and you know, making money, doing our thing. It's freaking awesome. Uh, the feedback that we're getting is awesome. So yeah, it's just been inspiring me to, uh, to write more and create more content and doing a lot more podcasts, stuff like that. Um, specifically around hospitality and just kind of my vision of what's happening in, in the short term rental industry. But yeah, I found, I found LinkedIn is really the best.

for me, that's the best channel to create. Outside of FreeWild on Instagram, Instagram's not my thing. Posting pictures of myself doing things, it's just not my thing. Facebook, I haven't been on there forever. Sure as hell not downloading TikTok. So I just found my little niche in LinkedIn. And yeah, the writing has just been a lot of fun as well, so.

Trying to post a few posts a week right now, and then the goal is to eventually get up to like a daily post, which I think would be a lot of fun.

Jasper Ribbers (03:10.848)
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Well, one of your posts caught my eye. Um, it was a post about a concept that I'd never heard about called unreasonable hospitality. That really piqued my interest. So I'd love for you to explain what that means.

Eric Moeller (03:28.222)
Well, unreasonable hospitality for everyone who's looking. It's this book right here. I actually finished it today. It's by Will Gierda. I probably butchered his last name, but he is I've been really into studying hospitality and trying to understand like with FreeWild, how do we how did how do we create a not just the product as far as like design and experience?

design and service wise for the property, but how do we develop a world class hospitality experience for guests that go through this property that it like, they have to come back and experience another free while they have to share free wild with a friend, right? Like after going to an incredible restaurant or go into an awesome movie, people are sharing it with their friends. Right? So,

I've been studying quite a bit of hospitality from restauranteers and just the restaurant industry itself. There's two really amazing books, and I highly recommend everyone who's listening to this to buy or download both of these books and read them in this process. The first book is called Setting the Table by Danny Meyer.

Eric Moeller (04:53.314)
famous restaurant, restaurant owner, owns multiple different restaurants. But his first restaurant was 11 Medicine Park in New York City. Was world-class restaurant. Eventually he sold it to Will, which was one of his employees at the restaurant. And Will wrote this book, Unreasonable Hospitality. And over the course of 20 years, they were able to get this restaurant to become the number one restaurant in the world.

along with being rated four stars in New York Times and also being a three star Michelin star restaurant. So he wrote this book called Unreasonable Hospitality. We're actually gonna be down, he's headlining the Dharma event down in Nashville in December, so hopefully we'll get to meet him while he's down there as well.

But he created this concept called unreasonable hospitality. And the whole idea behind it is how do you go above and beyond for your guests to where it's just like it's just completely unreasonable what you're doing to make this person's experience world class. And he has so many different stories about that in the book that we can break down. But he even created a position in his restaurant to over deliver.

for guests and just focus on the guest experience, right? So I started writing about Unreasonable Hospitality because this book really resonated with me. If you go through my book here, it's just like covered with notes and highlights and all kinds of stuff. So much so that Unreasonable Hospitality is now a core value of Free Wild, right? Of like, okay, this is part of our culture and community to…

create something to where our guests are just completely blown away with the hospitality. I'm not talking about the service and the property. I'm talking about the human connection behind this day. So yeah, I started writing about it because I feel that the industry, the short term industry is leading towards hospitality being the factor of success.

Eric Moeller (07:21.518)
for short-term rental stays and hopes. So we can unpack all that, but yeah, that's where the inspiration came from, is this book, Unreasonable Hospitality.

Jasper Ribbers (07:32.86)
And reasonable hospitality. Awesome. Yeah, that's really cool. I'm definitely going to order the book. Next week is Thanksgiving, so I'm going to disconnect for a couple of days. And that will be my goal to finish that book during the holiday.

Eric Moeller (07:47.122)
Yeah, yeah, I highly recommend diving into it, man. Also by setting the table, cause then it'll kind of give you a story of how 11 Medicine Park was created and a little bit more about the history of that, cause he references Danny Meyer quite a bit. But what Will has done here with Unreasonable Hospitality, and this is a fairly new book. I forget when it came out a couple of years ago, but I truly believe that he's going to be

creating a whole movement here around unreasonable hospitality. And my hopes are, yeah, this was written back in 2022, so not that long ago. My hopes here is that we are the ones that really put these lessons to work inside of FreeWild and really set the standard of what's possible in short term rentals.

Jasper Ribbers (08:25.99)
Hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (08:40.396)
Yeah. Yeah, I was checking out the website for this book. There's a whole website, unreasonablenesspathetic.com. And it's funny because the first sentence that I read here is, if you're here, it means that you believe as we do that how we serve is as valuable as what we serve.

And that line like resonated with me because I remember when I was very, very young, my teacher taught me a really important lesson. Basically, I think I was like eight years old or maybe nine years old or something. And I got into a bit of a fight with my teacher and I yelled something at him. And he was, you know, I said something that I shouldn't have said. I was being rude to him, right? And then so I had to stay after class.

And then I was trying to get away with it by saying that it was a joke, right? That I didn't mean it. And he then told me in an expression, actually in French. So for anybody who speaks French, who's listening to this, you might understand it. I'll translate it, but it goes, c'est la ton qui fait la musique, which basically means it's the tongue that creates the music. And what it means is that it's, it's not the words that are coming out of our mouth.

that has the meaning, it's that the meaning comes more from like the context and the way that we say it. And that's what I was thinking about when I was reading this. I was like, ah, that makes a little sense to me. It's like, it's not about, it's not necessarily about what we say or what we serve. It's about how we serve it or how we say it.

Eric Moeller (10:24.726)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. He, um, he, this is what I find really interesting with unreasonable hospitality and where I think the biggest challenge is going to be from implementing this in short term rentals. Like one thing that Will did, he talks about this in the book that they created is something between the back of the house and the front of the house, right? Like the, the chef essentially, and then the servers.

where he put a lot of power and a lot of effort into the servers being the ones that really create the experience for the guests that are eating. Right. And previous to this, essentially, uh, restaurants were only focused about the amazing chef in the back and what he or she really wanted the experience to be. This is the first time that a restaurant had two experiences, the food and then the service.

And what Will gave his servers the power to do is to authentically connect with the guests. So he gave them the power to authentically connect and help shape an experience with every single guest that comes into the restaurant.

which I think is really amazing because it's like he was able to attract in people that truly wanted to create hospitable experiences and authentically connect with the humans that they're serving versus just taking an order and just being a running, you know, being somebody that runs food back and forth. Right. So for us, you know, in the short term rental space, like this is something that I see it's like, how do we, how do we create these experiences and have these authentic, um,

Jasper Ribbers (12:06.268)
Hmm.

Eric Moeller (12:17.386)
these authentic connections with our guests that are coming into our properties, which still holding what we love short shorts and rentals to be, which is like this automated, um, experience to, to a certain level. Does that make sense? Like how are we going to be able to, um, over deliver these experiences and create these experiences for guests that are unique that is not fully on.

Jasper Ribbers (12:47.857)
Mm-hmm. And I feel like sometimes the two can actually go hand in hand. Because when I book an Airbnb, there's nothing that I love more than an instant message with the information that I need in that moment. And so I don't mind if that message is automated. I know it's not the host typing out that message. But I'm getting what I need in that moment, what I want in that moment.

Eric Moeller (13:14.599)
Right. Yeah. I think, you know, I think the, again, we have a service side, we have the hospitality side. And I think the service side, automated messages, all of that is important, for sure. Like I think, and that's what I love. I don't necessarily want to meet my host when I go to check in. Right. But what, with unreasonable hospitality,

One thing that I'm challenging us on as a company to look at and like when I'm challenging the industry to look at is like, how do we create those experiences? Right? Like how do we create experiences that are that human connection with our guests in our properties? Right. Um, so yeah, so I don't necessarily have the answers for that. Now we're, we're playing with this now in free wilds. Um, but what I'm excited about is like.

the ability to attract in people into the company that will help cultivate those experiences that truly wanna have those human connections with the guests that are coming through.

Jasper Ribbers (14:19.384)
I have a question. Actually, I was going to ask you, what are your thoughts on how do we implement that? But you already answered that question. My next question is, do you think this is something, do you think this is a new concept, that people are looking more for experiences versus the product itself? Like we're not looking for a space, we're not looking for food.

we're looking for that experience, whether it's the restaurant or whether it's like going to the cinema, like it's not just about the movie, it's about, you know, everything else. Like, is that something new or do you think that has existed always in the history of humankind?

Eric Moeller (15:01.338)
I mean, I don't, I mean, that's, I don't know. I think humans are always looking for experiences that they can connect with. Experiences equal stories, right? And humans, as we know, evolve through storytelling, right? And we connect through storytelling, right? So just a place to stay. I don't tell, like, for example, I went to New Jersey about a month ago.

to visit some family and I just rented, I was only there for two nights. So I rented a standard hotel room that I found on booking.com and everything about that property, the location, the company, the people I dealt with, it was forgettable. Like it was, I don't even know the name of the hotel, but what I do remember was my experience of the hotel.

being a, it was just a very bad experience. I had to move to three different rooms. It was smelly, it was dirty. It was bad. It was a bad experience. But I tell the story of that experience to my family that's in that area, right? Obviously that's a bad example of what not to do or a good example of what not to do, right?

But I think what humans are experiencing, what they're seeking now, at least for myself, what we're seeking now, are experiences that we can create memories and tell stories about. So it's like, we still want the standards, when it comes to short term rentals, we still want the standards of a clean property, comfortable beds, safe location, beautiful designs, easy access, easy stay, all of that.

But I think we're also seeking this hospitality experience that we can continue to share and share our memories about that, right? It's not, we're not just, you know, of course there's always gonna be people looking for the cheapest place to stay, but even there, like that could be a, you can bring unreasonable hospitality to any level of.

Eric Moeller (17:20.018)
experience, any stay from the budget to the most luxurious. It's not five-star stays that need unreasonable hospitality. It's every single short-term rental. So I don't know. I think people are just seeking more lively experiences that they, you know, that create memories that they can share.

Jasper Ribbers (17:44.48)
Yeah, you know, I think I remember when my grandmother once told me that she was 36 when she went on her first vacation. And it made me think, I was like, oh, that's interesting. Because imagine you're one of the first people to travel to space, right? To the moon or something. You have that. I think that's a service now, right? Where you can jump in a spaceship. Not the moon, but like you can go in space, right?

Eric Moeller (18:09.206)
Yeah, pizza.

space.

Jasper Ribbers (18:14.508)
Yeah. So I'm thinking like, imagine that you go on a space flight, right? You're probably not going to worry about like how comfortable the chair is and you know, cause the experience is like so new and so cool. Right. And I'm thinking when my grandmother told me that I was like, ah, you know, like back in the day when, when going on vacation on the first place was.

and a very unique and luxurious kind of experience that not many people were able to do. So I'm thinking as society evolves and we're able to do, going on vacation is almost like standard, like everyone goes on vacation a couple of times a year. So once it becomes like you take it for granted that you do it, then you start, I feel like then we start focusing more on the experience versus just

the thing itself. Same with like going out for dinner, you know? It's like that's, that used to be also like a luxury thing.

Eric Moeller (19:16.73)
Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, our industry has matured, our industry has seasoned. Right. So I shared this on another post on LinkedIn that I did prior to unreasonable hospitality post is that our industry has seasoned to a point where people have gone through in the beginning when Airbnb launched it, we went through the we went through a few years of just like being in awe.

that we can stay in any property we want in any town, in any city around the world, right? It's like, we didn't have that option before. It was very touristy where we were going. Excuse me. Now with Airbnb, we're able to stay in like apartment buildings and random homes and stuff like this. Like just that experience alone is incredible, right? So to your point, just that alone was an incredible experience.

But we've done it. We've stayed there. We've gone through all the, you know, especially for the people that truly travel a lot and stay at multiple Airbnb is we've experienced terrible Airbnb's right. It's like, and we've experienced subpar short term rentals where it's just like the, it's like going to a restaurant that where the food is just like super disappointing, right? It's like, okay, well I'm fed, right. But

I'm never coming back here again, right? We've had more of those experiences for the most part as a travel community than the place of walking in just being completely in awe of the experience, right? So I think people are truly seeking that now because we know it's possible. Also, I think it's, you know, I think people are with…

TikTok and Instagram and YouTube, we see that these places are out there and that it's possible to stay at these awesome homes, right? And I think people want more of that, right? So yeah, I think everything, this is just a maturity, but they're still at the end of the day, like it comes down to creating experiences, whatever that experience is, creating a world-class service, but then creating unreasonable hospitality, world-class hospitality.

Jasper Ribbers (21:35.252)
Yeah, I remember when I stayed at my very first Airbnb back in 2011, my expectation was so low. I was like, if this is a scam and I just lost my money, then I probably wouldn't be very upset because I'm kind of touching like a 40% chance to that happening. So the fact that the host opened the door, that was already a win. That's how low my expectations were.

Eric Moeller (21:38.712)
Thank you.

Eric Moeller (22:02.771)
Right, right. For sure. Yeah, dude, I remember staying even before Airbnb, I was staying on Couchsurfing.net, right? And just like sleeping on people's, you know, couches and blow up mattresses for free. Right? So like the industry has definitely evolved. Now, I think going in 2024, in the next few years, what I think is like, if you want to be successful in shorts or rentals,

If you want to build a real short-term rental company, like we got to lead with hospitality first. I really believe that. We got to lead with a boutique brand. We got to focus on a great product, great service, but then we also have to lead with real hospitality. And I think those elements is going to make something that will be sustainably wealthy throughout the years.

Jasper Ribbers (22:49.056)
So we were at VRMA a couple of weeks ago. What are your thoughts on the general vibe there? Is this, do you feel like a lot of people that were at the conference are on the same page with this stuff, or do you think most people are still kind of in that mindset of renting out a space?

Eric Moeller (23:09.166)
I mean, I think there's always going to be people that are always, you know, looking to rent out a space and people are always looking to just rent a space, right? Just like how I rented that crappy hotel room. I just needed a place to lay my bags, take a shower and go to sleep, right? It's like, I just needed that. So that, that's always going to be there. But as I share, as I share the brand, like my vision around like how hospitality brands, short-term rental,

brands are the future of short-term rental industries and how hospitality needs to be the number one thing that we focus on. I mean, I get more and more people that are agreeing with me than disagreeing. I haven't had anybody recently disagree saying, nah, you can still just get away with cookie cutter properties or whatever you want to call them. So I do see a shift. I see a lot more property, like really unique branded properties pop up, which is really cool.

So yeah, I definitely see the maturity of the industry. So I don't see, I don't think we're an outlier. I think more and more people are gonna be leading this way with their shorts or rental brands.

Jasper Ribbers (24:21.388)
Yeah. It's funny you mentioned that, uh, the place that you stay in New Jersey, I had a similar experience in Orlando. Uh, the, the night we, we arrived the day early, my, my wife's family lives in Orlando and we booked a, we just booked a hotel that was closest to their home just so we could meet with the family and have dinner and everything. Right. And, uh, I can't remember the name of the hotel was definitely a well-known brand. Um, but it's one of those like more low budget type of brands.

Anyway, like we walked into our room and the bathtub, like the water was flowing. You know, he couldn't shut it off. It was just like, there was a constant stream of water coming out. And so, but we had to go, we had dinner, you know, like, so, so we had to go immediately. So I, I rolled up to the reception and I told the people like, Hey, listen, like we, we got a role for dinner, but I just want to let you guys know, like the water is leaking.

in the bathtub in our room. So if you guys can maybe go over and fix it or put us in a different room, whatever it is, we'll be back in two hours. And then to my great surprise, the person behind the counter said, well, is it bothering you? Like, do you hear it when you're in the bedroom? Like, and I was like, well, no, I don't think so.

doesn't make like a little noise or anything. But I mean, like, you, I mean, it's your hotel. Like I'm sure you don't really want the water to be running all night, right? Isn't that, it's a bit of a waste. Like, and she was like, well, if it doesn't bother you, then, you know, don't worry about it. Like, well, you know, cause you know, we don't have, we don't have the maintenance person here. And like, you know, we'll, we'll fix it another time. And I was just like, man, like, that's kind of crazy, isn't it?

Eric Moeller (26:01.802)
Hmm

Eric Moeller (26:14.858)
Yeah. I mean, dude, like this is the one thing like once you enter into hospitality, especially unreasonable hospitality, for example, we're going right after this, we're going to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants called Camp Fire in Carlsbad, California. And they're part of a restaurant group where right next door, they have another restaurant called Jean Joulet, which is a Michelin star restaurant.

Actually, the director of operations gave me this book. We were chatting about FreeWild and he came down and he said, hey, read this book. I make everyone who I hire read it. And it's a big inspiration behind this company, behind these restaurants. The reason why I bring this up to your story is like, once you start entering into world-class hospitality, like those restaurants that we're going to is just by far the best.

the best service and the best hospitality I've ever experienced, right? And I've been to some, I've been to a lot of restaurants. Same thing with hotels, like I was just down in Austin and I stayed at this hotel called The Lauren on Lady Lake down in Austin, Texas. And same thing, the hospitality, as soon as you walk in, the hospitality is incredible, the design's beautiful, all of that, but the people truly wanna connect with you and serve you there, right?

So when you walk in and you have those types of experiences where it's like, oh, well, can't help you, you know, or whatever it is, like, you know, the hotel I was at, there was a bad smell in one of the rooms that they put me in. So I came back down and he's like, Oh yeah, I could just put an air freshener in there for you. I'm like, that's not the response on unreasonable hospitality company would bring. The unreasonable hospitality is, I'm so sorry. I will have this fixed for you. We're moving you into our best room.

right? And then over the night and the time I'm, um, I'm staying there, the company with unreasonable hospitality is trying to make that experience better than it could ever been and investing into me as the guest that's staying there, right? They're not asking, Oh, is the water bothering you? Cause if it's not, we're just going to leave it and we'll fix it tomorrow. Like that's on, that's not acceptable. Right? So for me, like, dude, it's so funny. Like Samantha,

Eric Moeller (28:38.838)
Samantha laughs at me all the time. Like when we go to restaurants, when we go to hotels, when we stay at short term rentals, I am, for me, the experience of how are the people showing up right now? What was the intent? At the end of the day, what is the intention behind it all? To make my experience a better experience, right? And it's like, he talks about it in the book. It's like, he wants his guests, his people that are coming into his restaurant.

feel like they're eating at his home. Like they're entering into his home. It's not a transaction. So like he removed, he talks about it in the book, he removes like the kiosk when you walk into a restaurant and you meet like the person out the door who takes your name and puts it in a thing. They don't even make eye contact with you. He removed all that because he wanted you to feel like you're walking into their home. And he trained his, I forget the name of the position, but he trained the front door person to

Google the night before Google every single, uh, reservation and find pictures of the people who made reservation the night before study their pictures and their names and greet every single person who walked into the restaurant by their name. Right? So they removed this whole thing and that's completely unreasonable, right? But like as soon as we walk in for the first time into this restaurant,

they're greeting us by name because they did research ahead of time to understand who's coming and they know me by face and then they just place me at the table that's ready for me. Right? It's like stuff like that is set. That's an art. That's an art and it's just so freaking beautiful. That's the stuff that's lighting me up right now. Obviously not easy to do, but it's like, you know, you,

you figure that out, you bring the team on, you start over delivering on these experiences, then these are the scalability of your company, the success of your company, and just the fun that you can have through that, so much better than just running a place where it's just a heads and beds, we'll fix it later type of thing. That's a terrible experience. No one's having fun there, nobody, right? And it's like…

Jasper Ribbers (30:52.988)
Thank you.

Eric Moeller (30:54.91)
What are we doing? Why are we here? You're not making money. You're not having fun. You're not enjoying the space. Nobody wants to be in your property. Why are you doing this? So yeah, once you get into unreasonable hospitality, you start nitpicking everything. Like everything. I'm like, dude, I was in a, I was in a restaurant and the lady saying things. She wouldn't look, look me in the eyes as she was checking me out and checking, checking me in. And I'm looking around and Sam's like, Oh, look at that.

Jasper Ribbers (31:18.948)
Thank you.

Eric Moeller (31:22.162)
look at that lamp. That lamp is so cool. It was on the desk right next to me and I'm looking at it and I'm just like, I just run my finger around and there's a whole bunch of dust on top. I'm like, not good. Not good hospitality. You know, like, you got to think of those details. So I'm getting obsessed with this stuff.

Jasper Ribbers (31:39.186)
So everybody who's listening, if you want some, if you want the best critique of your Airbnb, just invite Eric as a guest.

Eric Moeller (31:47.89)
Yeah, man. I mean, dude, the road trip that we went on, I wrote, I just gave him notes, right? Like all the places I stayed at, just gave him notes. This is what you guys are doing great. This is where you can improve, you know, all this stuff. Cause it's, you know, it's the feedback that you need. We take it from our guests and we're implementing it into our properties, right? So yeah, maybe we'll start a YouTube channel critiquing these.

Jasper Ribbers (32:14.097)
But, it'll be a fun job. If you can just like travel around the world, stay at Airbnb for free and give them feedback as a form of payment. Someone's gonna pick up on this idea. The critiquing Airbnb guest or something like that, YouTube channel, boom.

Eric Moeller (32:23.414)
That's right. Let's do it.

Eric Moeller (32:28.099)
I love it.

Jasper Ribbers (32:33.324)
Um, but I think that's a really good example of unreasonable hospitality. Wait, what you mentioned the example of studying the pictures of the guests that are coming tomorrow. Cause the moment you said that I was like, well, that's, that's really unreasonable. No one's going to expect that.

Eric Moeller (32:33.368)
Boom.

Eric Moeller (32:49.794)
Super unreasonable.

Dude, that was one of my favorite parts of this book is when he explained, they got to this point where he's like, I want my guests to feel like they're eating at my home. I want to remove anything that feels like a transaction between me and my guests. Right. And he's like, one of the first, the first thing that he hates is like when you show up to a restaurant and you have someone standing there behind a podium, they're, they're being protected. Their eyes are down. They're not even looking at you. They're

touching a screen and then they just send you off, right? It's like, that's not unreasonable hospitality. That's not beautiful hospitality. That's a transaction, right? Of like, okay, you're coming in, putting you here type of thing, right? Excuse me again. So his idea was to like, let's remove that completely and let's have a human interaction. Like when you show up to my home to have dinner, it's like,

I'm greeting you with a hug. I'm greeting you by name. I know who you are. Right. So how do you do that in a restaurant? Right. And he trained his team and this was, you know, I forget how many years ago, but he trained his team to where the night before they would have a book of all the names and he would research every single person online, find a picture of them and study those names. And then anyone knew that comes in, they have to study their per.

find that person and study them. So when they walk in, we know you by face, we know you by name, and we're greeting you as if you're in our home. And then on top of that, anything else in the restaurant that felt like a transactional experience, they removed, right? So it's like, at the end of the, so before I move on, that whole thing of like training somebody to meet you by name and face, it's like, that's not.

Eric Moeller (34:47.414)
That's not scalable. That's not reasonable, right? That's not something where you get an ROI from, right? You can't measure that, right? But the experience of that guest, especially for the first time walking in, man, that just makes you feel like you're, it makes you feel welcome. That makes you feel like you're, you want, they want you there. Right. And that's that you can't measure that in my opinion. Right. So, and I'll leave it at that. Like he, everyone read the book. There's so much in here.

I'm probably going to reread this because it was that powerful. But I asked myself, it's like, how do we do this in FreeWild? How do we do this in the shorts and rentals space? How do we remove the transactional part of this? And the beauty about shorts and rentals versus traditional hotels is the freedom of guests to have access to the properties.

but also the freedom of the operators to have minimum, minimal team members on the property, right? So less humans having to manage it, right? So how do we create these unreasonable hospitality experiences in a, in this, in this industry where 90%, if, if not a hundred percent of the, the interactions are through digital connections, right?

So there has to be ways that we can do this. And I'm experimenting with that now, right? Like, you know, one of our guests was asking about the water, you know, is it safe to drink tap water? And like, yes, safe, you're fine. It's mountain water, you know, it's very known up there. But then before she checked in, we had a whole bunch of fresh water shipped to the house and put into the refrigerator, right? Turned on the heater.

because she wanted it a little bit warm. She didn't ask for this stuff, but we went out of our way to do that for her. Stuff like that to me is now how we implement unreasonable hospitality into the short term rental space.

Jasper Ribbers (36:52.192)
Yeah. Awesome. Well, I think this is a conversation that will be continued on another podcast in the next few weeks. Um, but we have a dinner reservation at Campfire, which is, uh, it's very cool that we talking about this and we're actually going to the restaurant that's kind of inspired part of this. Right. Yeah.

Eric Moeller (37:09.915)
Definitely inspired it. Yeah inspired the design for free wild and inspired the hospitality

Jasper Ribbers (37:15.884)
Yeah. Before we wrap up, can you remind us the first book that you recommend? So before we read Unreasonable Hospitality, we should read that other book. What was it called again?

Eric Moeller (37:27.662)
called Setting the Table by Danny Meyer. And it's just a good, yeah, it's a good introduction to unreasonable hospitality and all the stories that are behind all the restaurants that are involved in this.

Jasper Ribbers (37:31.884)
Awesome. Okay. So.

Jasper Ribbers (37:43.596)
Yeah. And then one last thing. I've noticed I really enjoyed reading your posts on LinkedIn and I see there's a lot of engagement on it. People are commenting and you're responding and everything. So why don't you let everybody know where they can find those posts? And I'm sure we be fun for people to interact with you on these ideas.

Eric Moeller (38:05.034)
Yeah, for sure. So I'm going to, I'm going to do my best to, to post up. I'm sorry. Let me restate that. I hate, I said that to my trainer the other day that I'm going to do my best to, you know, like show up at on time. And he's like, you're going to do, it's either you're doing it or you're not doing it. So, so to correct myself there, I'm going to post a couple of times a week on LinkedIn about this stuff that I'm learning and that what we're implementing in FreeWild. So,

LinkedIn is now my thing. That's my outlet as of right now. So it's just my full name, Eric D. Muller on LinkedIn. And you guys will find the comments there or the posts there.

Jasper Ribbers (38:47.837)
Yep. And then, murderers, M-O-E-L-L-E-R. Yep, I'm just reading it from your, I have your name on the screen, so otherwise I wouldn't know. All right, man, well, I appreciate you jumping on. I know you were a little into the wetter, so I appreciate you showing up and delivering the value here. And yeah, let's go up to episode 700. Next milestone.

Eric Moeller (38:52.035)
That's right.

Eric Moeller (39:13.974)
Boom, I love it, man. Congrats on the 600 episodes, freaking awesome. And for anyone who is also interested in more of the unreasonable hospitality stuff, check out the event Dharma, is it Dharma or Darm?

Jasper Ribbers (39:28.512)
No, Darm. It's D-A-R-M.

Eric Moeller (39:31.73)
Yeah, D-A-R-M, it's down in Nashville, December 4th, I think it is, or 5th. Will, yeah, five through seven, Will is going to be headlining that event, so you'll be able to see him. We'll be down there as well.

Jasper Ribbers (39:38.032)
5 to 7.

Jasper Ribbers (39:44.773)
Yeah. Yeah, we'll be down there. This is a conference. It's the Data and Revenue Management Conference. So it's definitely going to be my favorite conference. Just nerding out on numbers all day. It's a beautiful thing. I think, by the way, Dharma, I think that's from Lost. You haven't seen Lost, right? For the people who have seen Lost, I think you'll know what this reference is. All right, man.

Eric Moeller (39:54.87)
Hmm.

Eric Moeller (40:05.837)
Never seen loss, no.

Jasper Ribbers (40:13.1)
Appreciate you jumping on here and to the listeners. Hope you enjoyed episode 600. You know what to do, buy these two books, jump on LinkedIn, start talking to Eric about these concepts because, you know, this is the future, right? So you better hop on the train already.

Jasper Ribbers (40:31.15)
and we'll see you next time.

Eric Moeller (40:32.778)
Adios.

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