Powerful Life Lessons That Will Transform Your Perspective

Brett McCollum (00:00.234)
Alright guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host Brett McCollum and I’m here today with Dan Rivers today We’re gonna be talking about lessons. He’s learned in life pretty pretty cool stuff We’re getting ready to talk about but before we do add investor fuel We help real estate investors service providers and real estate entrepreneurs to 5x their businesses to allow them to build the businesses They’ve always wanted and lived the lives. They’ve always dreamed of without further ado Dan, how are you?

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (00:25.873)
Great man, how you doing Brett? Thanks for having me on.

Brett McCollum (00:27.438)
Great, super good. Man, I say this a lot. I’m like, oh, I’m looking forward to the show. am genuinely, we got to know each other little bit before the show. Do you know, and I’m not trying to blow smoke up your script, but when I logged in, when I let you in from the lobby there, and guys, you didn’t see this, but Dan has the biggest smile on his face. And I was like, this guy’s gonna be great. Because sometimes you jump on here and you just don’t know what to expect with people.

This is our first time getting to meet each other. And so when I saw, like, man, instantly, man, I’m just like, this is, all right, cool. This is gonna be good. So man, I appreciate you, but thanks for being here, man. Can you do me a favor? Can you rewind a bit for us? Back up, tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, who’s Dan Rivers.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (01:11.271)
Yeah, who is Dan Rivers? And by the way, that’s class clown 1998. That’s how old I am. But I mean, it’s always smiling and joking around. But yeah, I am first and foremost, as we had mentioned earlier, like I’m a father and a husband. And that’s how I define myself right now. not, I am a real estate investor, but I’m a dad and a husband. I have a little baby boy due next month. So I’m excited. I’ll be a, usually I say girl dad, but now I’m a dad dad. So I have them both.

Brett McCollum (01:16.139)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (01:35.085)
Yeah, buddy.

Brett McCollum (01:39.086)
There it is.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (01:39.963)
So I’m super excited, 44 years old and having a second kid. So it’s going to be a journey, but I feel like I’m in a lot better headspace than I would have been if I was younger. But yeah, just to start off kind of my journey. I am from Little City, about 20 miles south of Boston, called Brockton, Massachusetts. My dad, hardworking. He worked in a mill, made like cards for like CBS and Walgreens. And my mom did some taxes and she raised three kids. I have two sisters, older and younger.

Brett McCollum (01:48.718)
Sure.

Brett McCollum (02:03.937)
Okay.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (02:08.85)
and just, you know, blue collar family grew up in kind of a city and uh, be quite honest with you and I’m happy to open up on this a little bit more too, but like I grew up a little bit, I grew up in a city and I was kind of a punk. I’ve been in probably 30 fights in my life. I was kind of a, I had a lot of anger growing up. I was, I don’t know, it was just, I was a lost kid for a while and we kind of touched upon that and they’re really

tell you why is when I was 16 years old I had a sprained my ankle playing football went in and they did a they listened to my heart and they realized they were like oh you need to replace your heart you need to have heart surgery right away so I went in fairly quickly early part of my life and had to have open heart surgery at 16 years old so

Brett McCollum (02:49.464)
Wow.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (02:58.512)
Yeah, that definitely threw me for a loop and I didn’t realize it until probably my late thirties of how that really shaped the way I acted when I was younger. That’s why, you know, that’s why I got so much. I like hated the world. I had so much anger built up in front of me. I wasn’t, I wasn’t a bad person. I did a lot of good things. My dad always taught me, the door and be a good person, but I also wasn’t the best version of myself. I wasn’t a great human being. wasn’t adding value to a lot of people’s lives. I might have been sucking value out of some people’s lives just by the way I acted because I was so angry and you know, lot of

Brett McCollum (03:18.498)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (03:28.436)
hate towards the world. I don’t know if it was a why me because I know I’m not a victim mentality type of person but maybe I was when I was 16 a little bit more than I remember. But to kind of fast forward a little bit my second heart surgery at 29 years old that’s when they replaced the valve. You can actually hear me tick. It’s kind of cool. But I think I started to realize from 16 to 29 when I had my second heart surgery that I stopped using it as something that made me angry.

And somewhere in the middle of those timeframes, started using it something that actually shaped me to be the person I am today. To not be afraid to go for it, not be afraid to, you know, swing for the fences, not be afraid to take chances. Um, just it really brought to the light. Oh, and then also when I was 23 years old, I got in a bad motorcycle accident and I. No helmet somehow survived. So like all those instances was like, all right.

For some reason I’m meant to be here. I don’t know who it is, what it is, but I’m meant to be here so I gotta start doing better for myself, better for the world, become a better person and it’s helped shape the person I am today where I genuinely just try to make someone smile or be a better person, better version of myself every day that I can hopefully pass that along to people. that’s…

Brett McCollum (04:24.035)
Yep.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (04:42.898)
It took me about 30 something years to become that person, but I’m happy for the second part of my life, this journey of being a better person and sharing that with the world and making it hopefully little better, however I can.

Brett McCollum (04:54.115)
Yeah.

Yeah, let’s rewind back, because there’s a lot to kind of unpack there, huh? All right, so let’s start here. First thing we’re talking about, how old is your daughter now? Yeah, dude. Yeah, dude, there you go. Wife and I, we’ve got four. Yeah, 11, eight, six, and two.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (05:07.984)
She’s three and a half, yep, she’s three and a half, and then the baby boy next month.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (05:18.598)
Okay, so you got the broad range too.

Brett McCollum (05:22.294)
Um, and uh, yeah, we got two boys, girls, you know, and, um, let me tell you, man, your daughter is that to me, that’s my favorite. w I told my wife, this is so terrible to say mom’s out there listening. I’m sorry. Uh, from what I’m about to say, but I just wish they could birth a three year old because that age now is my favorite. Like they’re just, yeah, I don’t know about your daughter, but like just

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (05:39.186)
Just skipped the first couple years,

Brett McCollum (05:47.426)
They become sweeter and they’re lovey and they’re cully and you’re like, this is it. You know, this is, this is it. And then now my oldest of the two daughters is eight. And, I didn’t know it started this early. Like some of the pre-teen tendencies, like she’s just crying for it. And I’m like, why are you crying? And she’s like, I don’t know. And I’m like, not yet.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (06:11.474)
Go to mommy.

Brett McCollum (06:15.17)
You’re not supposed to do that yet. And I only grew up with brothers. this is all uncharted territory. And I’m like, what is happening? My son is the oldest. I’m like, he and I, syncopado, man. We know what we’re doing. We got this. And then I was like, oh, gosh. But no, at that age, man, that’s why I loved that season. It’s so good. Yeah, yeah.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (06:37.744)
I gotta tell you real quick on that and I’m sorry I’ve been wanting to express this so this is perfect platform to do it on. Last night…

My daughter, she was going to bed and I’m going to Denver for a short term rental conference for the next couple days and I’m going out of town so I’m telling her and I’m laying with her to put her to sleep and we just laid there like face to face. Her birthday’s in November by the way. She’s sitting there going on, for my birthday we’re gonna have carrot cake just in case, just in case her new term. We’re gonna have strawberry shortcake, we’re gonna have put balloons up. She’s explaining her entire birthday party to me. That’s seven months from now, six months.

Brett McCollum (07:08.782)
Yep. Yep.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (07:11.174)
But it was like, I literally kept on replaying that moment in my head all morning as like the most special moment. I don’t know, just for some reason the connection was just so amazing last night. And it was, it was just such a good feeling.

Brett McCollum (07:24.6)
We have those moments, and I think it’s so untalked, especially as dads, right? We wanna talk about, you know, quote unquote, manly stuff, you know, sports and this and that and da da, and me too, I like them too. Like I’m sports, like me too. But the moments that we look back on aren’t gonna be that, it’s gonna be these times, and every mentor,

older person that I talk to, they say this, in that I think I find myself still feeling guilty sometimes of not even taking as full advantage as I should be. Even though it is a priority, I still find myself going, man, I just wish I would have done that a little bit more. Or I’m tired from the end of the day and my son just wants to go out and, know, dad, do wanna go play? And I’m like, dude, I know, I don’t want to go play.

You know, but then I go immediately. I’m like, I’m feeling like, I need to go do it. You know, even if I don’t want to. And then every time I do make the decision, sometimes I don’t and I’m guilty of that. But when I do it every single time I do, I’m like, I mean, this is this was the right decision, you know, but anyway.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (08:36.594)
Yeah, you don’t want to feel guilty. You don’t want to feel guilty about going off. I’ll say one more thing on it and I knew you were going to pivot, I like this, no matter what room I’m in, I truly feel like, wholeheartedly feel one of the wealthiest people in the room and I have nowhere near the amount of money of some of the rooms I’m in. Nowhere near. However, I…

have all the time in the world because I built a good team and my entire focus is just having time to be able to spend with my family. My daughter, take her to school, take her pick her up, whatever the case is. No, I’m not saying all the time. There’s sometimes work comes in the way, but like I am truly wealthy when it comes to time and I’ve worked really hard to build that. And I probably put aside making more money because of it. Yeah. yeah.

Brett McCollum (09:14.094)
There’s more than one currency, Yeah, there’s more than one currency. a lot of times in life, we always look at financial currency. But time is absolutely a currency. And in fact, I argue the most valuable currency because it’s not something you can get more of. It is the rarest.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (09:23.922)
huge.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (09:29.238)
Warren Buffett’s worth what, $1.34 billion, something like that. And I was listening to someone the other day, if you’re 50 years old, around 50 years old, you have 1 billion seconds left to live on average, what kind of billionaire would you rather be? Would you rather be the billionaire in time or the billionaire in money at 94 years old? So it’s pretty powerful.

Brett McCollum (09:47.106)
Yeah, well, I mean, it’s the rarest thing in the world.

You know, it is. So to me, like it’s worth more. So like it’s we in real estate, I think you’ll relate to this a little bit. When I’m sure we’ll pivot to something else, but say in here for two seconds is you have ROI return on investment. Right. We’re all familiar with that. But what about ROT return on time? If the things that we’re doing in our REI careers aren’t producing ROT, you know, I’m not by the way.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (09:53.756)
Truth.

Brett McCollum (10:17.582)
Dan, I don’t think you are either. I’m not here to sit there and judge people for what they do with their time or not. Priority, so I say this a lot on this show. I have a coach that taught me there’s no such thing as time management. Like we just said, you can’t control it, but you do have priority management. And I’ve, I’ve, I mean, this must have been seven or eight years ago. He said this to me, and it’s just never been lost.

And I want to, my priorities are where my priorities are, right? It just depends on.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (10:51.376)
And it.

And they change and that’s fine. And like you said, people are different stages in life. No, I, I judge no one is the only thing I ask is like, are you truly happy? Are you doing things just to show someone else of what you look like? Are you doing things because it truly makes you happy and it’s bringing you joy? That’s, that’s the one thing I usually, you know, ask people if I’m going to be straight with them. But other than that, it’s like whatever your happiness is, and there’s different phases of your life. Right now you have young kids, I have young kids. I’m in the phase of time is super valuable to me to make sure I have as many moments as I can. Cause like you said, it goes by quick.

Brett McCollum (11:22.734)
I mean from a parenting standpoint right now I’m not raising my this is this is a weird I don’t know why we’re going here, but I guess we’re doing it I’m not raising my kids to be as their friend. I’m their father Okay But I want to raise them in a way such that when they when they are grown they want to be my friend

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (11:44.188)
powerful.

Brett McCollum (11:45.37)
And I say that because I see I don’t have that quote unquote friend relationship with my dad. He’s my dad and I love him, but he’s not my friend. He’s my dad. And I like, you know what? I want to do everything I can.

Right now I’m their dad and it’s our job as fathers to father our children, to teach them to do the things, to raise them the right way, to instill the qualities that we, whatever the conviction is for you and your wife to raise your children with, it’s our job to do that. So right now I’m not your friend. But the aim is so that when you’re grown, they will be my friend.

You know, we’ve raised good men and good women, you know, and now we’re, that’s the gold man. Like that’s the, people are like, what’s your why? Blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s so overstated. What’s your why? And we should have purpose in for our business and for what we do and no doubt we should have that. But for me, it’s a, know, outside of business, outside of all that, like money’s gonna come and it’s gonna go. You can have it all, you can lose it all. That, like that’s what you get. This is

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (12:30.738)
of it.

Love it.

Brett McCollum (13:00.618)
Money has nothing to do with that. You know, and so that’s where I put my energy,

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (13:02.258)
Yep, it’s setting yourself up for that actually kind of a little bit story will spin off on that too, it brings the business into the everything, but last year, know, real estate investing business.

It’s you have 100 grand in your bank account. You have two cents in your bank. You know how it goes up and down everything that you’re doing. And last year I just hit a rut of just, know, like a lot of people did. You have cashflow issues for quite a few months and hitting payroll. And I’m just, I’m about as stressed out as I’ve ever been in my life. You know, to the point of just my head was not in the right space and I’m all about, you know, head space is the most important real estate. And

If I didn’t have my wife, the most supportive person in my life, I would have probably gone down another bad path or whatever the case is. I just wouldn’t be in the same spot. Like she, she would help get me through it. She would talk me through it. She would just, just her belief in me as a person just helped me get through some of the toughest times of my life, business wise. And it was, it’s a game changer and she owns her own business too. She’s an entrepreneur as well, not in real estate and PR, but, like, try to just reciprocate and do the same with her because having.

Brett McCollum (13:59.319)
and

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (14:10.66)
partner that is by your side, truly by your side. It doesn’t just talk, it doesn’t just say that like with actions, shows that they’re by your side. It is the most powerful like secret sauce in the business.

Brett McCollum (14:22.69)
Yeah, and I think this is all good, because we’re talking about lessons learned is what we’re talking about. And these are all lessons learned, by the way, right? The things we’re saying, things we’ve gone through. And by the way, guys, I know if you’re listening to this and you’re like, where’s all the real estate coming into? We’ll get there in a second, okay? But, for me as a business owner, as a entrepreneur, and for you, people tell you you can’t mix your business and personal, that you can’t mix. Yes, it’s all connected.

you cannot be the best business owner that you can be without, know, to went into, you know, like, I put all of my time on my business, you know, and I have no time for my family. I read a book recently, super convicted of, mean, like, you you see, you see on TV, like affairs and things like that that happen. It’s like, how does that happen? It’s not the other. And a lot of us like working, man, we’re not going to cheat on our spouse, but the book I read was you didn’t cheat on your spouse with another person, but you did with your business.

And when I read that I was like, ooh, geez, bro. That right there hit me, because there are times when I choose my business over my wife. And when I’ve done, and looking back at that, like, I want nothing to be more important to me than her. And I definitely have been guilty of that over the years. And.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (15:41.619)
Yeah. And that’s where, I mean, that’s where communication is so key of like, if you need to choose your business in a moment, you’re just really being clear with your spouse. Hey, this is where I’m at. I don’t mean to push this. I need to focus, give me X amount of days and then I’m back. My head space will be better. 100%. Yep.

Brett McCollum (15:50.766)
communicate.

Brett McCollum (15:57.122)
but it’s communication, you hit the nail on the head. I have not always been good about that. I’ve always just made the choice and then you’ll deal with it later, because you have to because you’re my wife. Well, that’s not respectful. That’s the worst thing we can do and lessons, I’m like, golly, that’s not what I’m gonna be. Anyway, I digress, but so let’s go back to you, you’re, like you said, you kind of had some…

let’s call it just a rocky road, you know, going through, let’s kind of fast forward a little bit, because we’re for sake of time here and catching this up. When you said you kind of started putting things back together, was it after the second surgery or was it before? When did you start, like, when did like, like, that grow up moment, so to speak, happen?

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (16:42.962)
I think it’s still happening but I guess back then, I don’t know I’m fully grown up, but definitely I would say probably mid-20s before the second surgery and we always talk about the other thing we talk about UI but we always talk about how do you define success. Well back then I defined success as I want to be VP of a company making a hundred grand a year salary and like I had all these you know that’s how I defined success.

Brett McCollum (16:45.206)
Or never, but yeah, yeah. mean, yes. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (16:54.487)
Okay.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (17:08.05)
So by the time I was 29, I was VP of a company. was making over a hundred grand a year and I was supposedly successful, but I’m in, had my second heart surgery. I’m getting married to my first wife and it just success. It still wasn’t there. And so like, I started to change and pivot and thought what I wanted, but it really started to change. When I got divorced at 33.

Brett McCollum (17:23.182)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (17:32.59)
Okay.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (17:32.669)
from that wife, was not a good husband, was not, like, just, we just, we weren’t meant to be married. We were meant to be friends back then. It wasn’t, but anyway, she’s a great person and like just whatever, we parted ways and

It’s probably around then that it really started to change. So I’m 33 years old, divorced, second heart surgery a few years past, and I’m just trying to figure out my life. then I just start, then that’s when I met my now wife in 2014, 15, that area. And that’s when my life was just starting to change. And then I met someone that literally I’ve told her this, so I won’t get in trouble. But like after my first divorce, I had like a whole checklist of what I need in a woman. And one of them is like drive and the values and all the stuff that I didn’t have before.

And once she passed all that checklist and I realized who she was, and then I realized I’m starting to be with someone that like believes in me and is like my true partner. That’s when it really changed. was like starting to bet on myself left. left a career, 10, 12 year career in property management, you know, got into real estate investing and like, just started to really shift gears of betting on myself at that point, but it was kind of gradual. was like early twenties.

I had a different attitude, I’m gonna do, I’m gonna make it no matter what that means and I’m not giving up until I make it. And then I made it and then that wasn’t it and then I had to pivot, adjust to figure out what it really was and that’s kind of what drove me where I’m at today.

Brett McCollum (18:55.074)
Yeah, that’s really good. I’ll put a pin on this with what you said to move it in so we can transition into your actual what you’re doing right now. It’s a really, really awesome thing when a woman, your wife, whoever believes in you as her husband and says, I believe in you.

When that, for me, like I’ve been through some, last year was hard for us too. This whole, mean, it’s been, it’s so many people and like going through, like what you said, was like, I, yes. And when I will be doing something like this, we’re talking and I get a text from my wife and I look over at it just says, you got this, I love you. What? You know, and it’s like, what, you wanna talk about what drive looks like at that point? This woman believes in me. I better daggum step up and do it. Do you know, like it’s something that.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (19:44.774)
Yep.

Brett McCollum (19:47.458)
Like, as left to my own weak mind sometimes, because we all go through stuff where we have those, you know, I may not have days, I may have days where I don’t, but then you get a text like that that says, you got it. Well, shoot, I got to show up, don’t I? Like, I got to be, like, I have to continue to get better, because this person over here believes in me.

You know, and that’s, anyway, I wanted to digress from there, but that was, that’s a huge, I’m glad you said that, man, that really resonates in here for sure. Today, you’ve gone through all the changes, you’ve been through all this stuff, like man, what a ride. I’m like, it’s like, what is it that you’re doing today? What does business look like? That sort of thing.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (20:27.474)
Yeah. So I took a real big step back the end of last year, especially like I said, rocky beginning of the year. Thank God I had a really, once in a lifetime flip at the end of last year. So I had made about 80 % of my revenue almost in December. did a new build and made a lot of money on that one, which saved. always tell people like it just helped saved where I was at, put some money away.

Regroup and got us to kind of all right. What’s important sit back down crunch the numbers? What do we need to focus on? Literally my right hand man, and I sat down wrote on a whiteboard all right. What’s fun? What’s lucrative? Just like started going through things like what do we got to do because I I was spread too thin I had shiny object syndrome through the roof I was I had a roofing company a coaching of this of that and I was just like I Did everything half-assed like nothing was being done well?

Brett McCollum (21:06.702)
All right.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (21:14.064)
And then I look back and I think like I’m doing all these things and producing very little money. This makes no sense. What am I doing? Let’s get back to the basics. Hone in, focus on what I’m great at, get rid of all the noise. So that’s kind of what we did last year. We shaved a bunch of things off the plate and now we hyper focus on, I have a real estate team, some rock star agents that work with me. We do, we’re on pace to probably do somewhere in the 70, 80 deals this year.

So I have a great team. have, um, we do still fix and flip right now. We have about five in the process of going on right now. I don’t want to necessarily have a huge business at that, but it brings in the chunks, the chunks, those, you know, you got your fast money, your medium money and your long money. That’s my medium money that helps with the fast money. Um, but what we are completely focused on right now and all in on because it’s scalable. It’s a need that people have. And it’s just something that really excites me is Synergy Stays.

And basically, long story short, we did short-term rental management for a couple years. And we had a short-term rental management company. And then we realized all of our portfolio, it’s about 30-something units, whereas every single property is outperforming the market, just crushing the market. So we took a step back and we said, well, short-term rental management is really two different things. It’s hospitality and it’s revenue side of things.

Hospitality is its own business. The revenue side is the other side. So we just went all in. We’re like, you know what? We’re really good at the revenue side of things. Let’s just do this because we can do this anywhere in the country. And we honestly have two units in Mexico now. So we’re international. So like we can do this anywhere. Go in and help someone maximize their revenue potential for their property. So it just gets me excited because

Brett McCollum (22:46.574)
Wow. OK.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (22:54.436)
Our slogan is build wealth with RCG, that’s the name of my parent company. And then every arm that we have off of that, we can help people build wealth. And this is just one way of building wealth through short-term rentals.

Brett McCollum (22:57.934)
Hmm.

Brett McCollum (23:05.506)
Yeah, incredible.

I’m gonna ask you a, I’m gonna ask you like a tough question, yeah, like tough question, tough question. Dan, heads up, here it comes. You’re outperforming the market. We said this pre-show, I’ve said it on the show many times over. Jesus loves you, you’re not special, okay? Why, what makes you outperform, your business outperform the other ones? Cause there’s, mean, like.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (23:15.474)
Yes.

Brett McCollum (23:36.192)
It’s not a new concept at this point. There’s a lot of companies out there that may look a little bit similar. But how are you outperforming? What are you doing? What makes it special, so to speak?

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (23:45.235)
It’s funny, you’re absolutely right. And I say that even to potential clients that are coming on, we’re not necessarily special. We just put all of our heart and effort and focus on one thing. We focus on driving revenue. We’re not getting sidetracked by hospitality side. We’re not getting sidetracked by contractors, by the maintenance, by any of that stuff. We literally put our heart and soul into figuring out new tips, tricks, trends, software, automations, continually growing and adapting in an industry.

I did before when I’m eight different things I’m not doing any of them well so the reason why I feel like we are one of the best and we are awesome at what we do is because we hyper focus on one thing and that’s what we do and we have our revenue managers behind the scenes one’s more of an artist and one’s more of a scientist one just strictly looks at a ton of data and that’s how they’re informed the other ones just has so much experience in the industry he’s like the know Picasso of the the short-term rental world so

I feel like the reason why we’re so great is the reason why I always tell everybody whenever they ask me in a new investor company, what should I do? Should I do this? Should I do that? Whatever the question is, it’s like go after, find out what you enjoy, what you’re good at, and then just go 100 % all in at that. And you can’t not be great if you truly give it all your effort.

Brett McCollum (25:01.518)
Yeah, I love that. Yeah, and then there’s a book, right? And it’s kind of the one thing by Gary Keller, you know? And I hear a lot of that coming out from what you’re saying. I’m gonna put you on the spot too. You’re putting you on the spot, Dan. Here we go. If you could have one, let’s just do one.

one gold nugget that you’re like, hey, are Airbnb operators out there that you guys have found that is, you know, hey, this is something that most people are missing. You know, what would you, what would that look like? What do you, do think you would tell somebody?

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (25:36.275)
Alright, let’s just start with the listing optimization side. I think a lot of the properties that we take on, it’s almost like it’s a real estate investor that’s fix and flip. They have long-term rentals, they have all this stuff.

Brett McCollum (25:43.854)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (25:49.521)
and then they buy an Airbnb and they kind of treat it the same way. So one of the biggest tips is don’t look at your short-term rental when it’s come to optimizing your listing as a real estate listing. I don’t care what your kitchen looks like most likely unless it’s like a chef’s paradise and we want to go there just to solely cook a meal for people. I want to know what is that revenue generating photo that people are going to book your short-term rental for? Is it a picture of the mountains? Is it the hot tub? Is it the game room? Is it it might even be maybe downtown or something like that?

close to downtown and all the fun things that’s going on. So that is one thing is that’s the biggest tip. Number two, I’ll just continue on the listening optimization side, is make sure the title of your listing makes sense. Don’t do we’re down here in Charleston, South Carolina. The Magnolia House sounds awesome and beautiful. It tells me nothing about what that Airbnb is. List it as you know mountain house with beautiful view and hot tub. I know that sounds lame but guess what if I’m looking for a mountain house with a view and a hot tub I’m clicking your link right away.

And then other than that is get as many amenities as you can and that means the smallest things in the world. If you’re kid-friendly, make sure you have a pack-and-play and a high chair and like kids toys and…

And lastly, label all of your pictures. So those are all little tips and tricks that are going to help your search of your property. Maybe go from page, we’ve had a lot of people on page 8, 9, 10, 13, go all the way back up to 1 or 2 and just that alone usually pays for like a year of our service of revenue because now more eyes are on it. The more eyes on your listing, the better chance you have to book that listing. And then lastly, I’ll kind of go one more tip.

You have 365 days in a year. If your short-term rental average length of stay is, let’s just say it’s three days and you want 90 % occupancy.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (27:34.725)
you need roughly a hundred people to book your Airbnb. You do not need 10,000 people to book your Airbnb or your short-term rental. So if you’re trying to book your short-term rental, it’s better to cater to a more niche audience that you’re going after rather than just general, hey, come book my short-term rental because you only need those hundred people to book. So why don’t you just try to attract those hundred people?

Brett McCollum (27:57.772)
Yeah. Yeah, that’s so good. And I like that what you’d said a few, a couple of minutes ago, you have the scientist and you have the artist. The science of what you just said reads really clear. Like there is an, there’s an abs, and I would imagine you guys have the science of what pictures perform better, what, you know, like, you know, depending, is it.

Is there something you could kind of regionally or is it that you have metrics on or is it something that you is you’re more local like What does that look like for you guys can like so I’m in Florida, right? You know, and you’re in Charleston. I love Charleston by the way We can really nerd out over that too But like hey Dan I hired, know, you know, Cindy stays to da da da da You guys is that does that science that you have?

spread throughout or is it more like, no, it really works better for us in the local areas. What does that look like?

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (28:54.874)
So there is some beta testing as again, know, you said the comment no one’s perfect, you know, we’re all no one’s unique or whatever the exact comment phrase that you were saying but

It’s kind of the same thing with properties. Even if you’re, we have some in Orlando and maybe one of them in Orlando, there might be a certain shot that’s going to perform better than, know, cause it’s just sleeps 20 versus one that sleeps two. So there’s no exact science. In all honesty, there’s a lot of beta testing. So we go based off, you know, the artist in our company knows which ones usually perform better. We’ll do some scientific data, but it usually just takes some play a little bit. might be like, Hey, this one. Yeah. So this one may work a little better, but you know what?

Brett McCollum (29:29.006)
Little bit of tweaks here and there, sure.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (29:33.594)
It’s performing but not at the metrics we want it to. Let’s pivot, adjust, and go to this.

Brett McCollum (29:37.4)
That’s perfect. that’s dude. That’s marketing 101, isn’t it? Like you give it the it’s ready aim fire is how I like to say, you know, we want to but you want to aim a ready fire aim. that back. Ready. You know, you don’t want to just fire in the dark, but you’ve got to get it pointed and then you can adjust for aim. Right. I love that. Yeah, that’s so good,

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (29:41.296)
Yep.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (29:49.842)
Yeah, I know you meant.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (30:01.062)
That’s why we can do it in any market. That’s why we can go, we have California, we got Arizona, we got, like I said, down in Florida, we got Alabama. So we’re in a lot of different markets. So no one’s exactly the same. A cabin house to a two bedroom in downtown city, like they’re all different. So it’s beta testing. It’s understanding the market. We take all of the statistical data from our tech stacks and then we analyze it. And then we also bring in the art and then you just play. And we tell people like,

It takes a couple months for you to really start seeing traction and then that two to four month you’re like, wow, now I’m really seeing results. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (30:33.016)
Yeah, you’ve got to set that expectation up front. love that. Well, man, I’m looking at the clock. We are running on that. If people want to reach out and connect with you, Dan, and get to know you better, your business, that sort of thing, what’s the best way for that to happen?

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (30:46.576)
Yeah, think you can follow me Facebook, Instagram at Dan Rivers underscore RCG. You’ll see the little check mark so you’ll know it’s me. Dan Rivers underscore RCG. And if you want to just reach out, shoot me an email. It’s Dan at danrivers.com.

Brett McCollum (31:00.962)
Dude, incredible. And guys, we’ll make sure that gets in the show notes and check out Synergy Stays if you guys are into that space. Dude, this is good, man. I appreciate you spending your time with us and going. We went pretty deep on some stuff, man. So thanks for doing that.

Dan Rivers @DanRivers_RCG (31:13.33)
I love talking real life and the human side of things because I think it’s too important too many times people don’t focus on that and that’s whole reason why we work hard right?

Brett McCollum (31:23.534)
That’s right, I love that. Well guys, same to you as well. Thanks so much for spending your time with us and we will see each of you on the next episode. Take care everybody.