How George Salas Scaled His Airbnb Empire Using AI and Smart Systems

Kristen Knapp (00:00.632)
Welcome back to the real estate pros podcast. I’m Kristen Knapp and I’m here with George Salas, who is a sought after serial entrepreneur, real estate investor, inspirational speaker, fund manager, and elite short term rental investing operator. There’s a lot on your resume. This will be so exciting to get into.

George Salas (00:17.362)
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Kristen. I’m super excited to be here.

Kristen Knapp (00:21.664)
Awesome. So let’s get into just your background. You have so much going on. How did you get into the real estate industry to begin with?

George Salas (00:30.83)
Yeah, so quick, you know, just quick little

32nd, you know story here. I come from a third world country Peru. So I flew here At the age of 15, you know, and when I was in Peru, I lived in an adobe house I grew up really poor and my dream was always to you know, create my own dream I you know my own business and be able to help other people Throughout my business build a company that would make an impact in the world, right? So I moved here 15 and worked in hospitality for about you know 14 years Okay

So right between, you know, I would say 20, 2007 and, you know, 2007 and maybe 2018 is when I left. You know, I invested into a nightclub, an event, a space venue, and I was a limited partner, you passive investor into the deal. And I was also the marketing person, right? So I had created a marketing company that marketed venues, nightclubs, and so,

nightclub host promoter you know the whole story there and then just like everybody else that you know grows up in that industry I wanted to be at the top of it so I invested over $300,000 of my own cash into this deal that another operator put together lost everything two years later the entire venue had got shut down right so I had no say so on operationally how he should have been running but I should have done tons of our homework I learned my

lesson through a lot of mistakes. So that was my big college tuition for say right and from there that’s it was tough. It was probably the only time when I hit rock bottom. The only time.

Kristen Knapp (02:10.004)
Right. That must have been very good.

Kristen Knapp (02:15.863)
Yeah.

Kristen Knapp (02:20.632)
Well, because you come over here at such a young age and you build all this wealth for yourself and then you can lose it. That’s how it goes for sure. I mean, that’s terrifying.

George Salas (02:32.379)
Yeah, especially when you don’t have the skills.

and the knowledge to be able to really understand holistically because I was just getting started as a business owner right around 2014 ish right so I’m this kid with very little education about how to run a business right but a big dream big drive and the drive has never stopped by the way I’ve still got that fire in me you know which is what’s been driving me throughout you know so many so many ups and downs which is what entrepreneurship is right so I recovered from there

between 18, 19, and 20, I went all in into real estate, Kristen. Non-stop, I went to every single networking event, seminars, I took courses, I read books. I wanted to become something bigger than myself. I wanted to create something that would create an impact for others. And fast forward, seven, eight years later from there, I’m sitting here today, I’ve got a beautiful three-year-old

We just celebrated his birthday yesterday two days ago, right beautiful wife family And I’ve created a business that creates freedom for me and my family, right? We operate a portfolio today. We just launched our fund. We’re raising the first five million You know, are doing over ten million dollars in real estate projects currently that’s four projects, you know, and I’m living I’m living the dream, you know, and I look at myself and I look at our background and I’m like, okay Well, we’re just getting started

started. You know, we’re just getting started. Let’s keep going. You know, so I love to bring value to your audience and share a little bit about, you know, the struggles, the ups and downs and how do you think about overcoming everything that comes to you, comes your way when those things happen to you.

Kristen Knapp (04:23.15)
I’m really interested in how you were able to bounce back so seamlessly. I think someone who goes through what you had to go through, they might be reticent to enter a market like real estate that’s a little bit, it’s an unsure market sometimes. What was that mindset shift for you where you were like, just want to dive head first into it and learn everything about it?

George Salas (04:49.104)
Yes, so that’s the answer to that is absolutely. So first, most people have the drive, right? They’re hungry. You know, I look at younger people and they’re like, I will see myself in them. What they don’t have.

is the mindset and the skills. So I had the drive and I went all in into skills first. And then as I developed the skills, I figured out there was another part that I didn’t focus on. So a year into it, I needed more skills in the personal development space. The personal development of this infrastructure right here, your mind, your body, your soul, that is the foundation of everything one builds.

So skills and your infrastructure, right? The skills to do, to create, know, to be able to do real estate, to do your fix and flip, to buy an apartment building, to create a short term rental. Those are refined skills, right? And there’s a little bit of art into it too. But really what’s gonna keep you going and what’s gonna keep you sane is you understanding yourself up here, your body, taking care of your body. So all of that.

I did not do for the first couple of years. I learned it after struggling. Like health struggles when you’re working 18 hours a day, 16 hours a day, right? When you’re not eating right. So I had to go back and focus on that even though I was out working myself and I can outwork anybody, right? But I don’t burn out.

That’s the problem with most entrepreneurs today that they burn out because they want to do too much. They should not be doing 90 % of that 100 % that are doing today. Do you agree or not?

Kristen Knapp (06:35.274)
I agree and I think that it’s such a fine balance because I think somebody who’s looking to grow is wanting, you know, more and more opportunities and jumping on everything. And I think that it’s really important to make time for yourself and be realistic in what you can accomplish or what you can, what capacity you have for it. So how do you balance that?

George Salas (06:57.05)
Well,

The first tool and trick I would say is I would block my time. When I started blocking my time and really just creating blocks of things that I needed to do and accomplish, I started going less bananas. Right? So my day wouldn’t run out of me. Right? I started blocking my time and being very intentional about how I planned my week. What were my goals? Right? So I would start, I would start reverse engineering.

wanted to accomplish and that’s goal creation right after you create your goals most people create them they work at them for the first month you know and then after after one or two months they’re like oh my god I gave up or they get distracted because they are just not focused and intentional about how they live on every day right because there’s a goal there’s this vision there’s an excitement about that but then how do you reverse engineer the steps for each so it took me kind of took me a little bit of a little bit of time I’m talking about a couple of years

really start honing in how I achieve my goals and the catalyst to that, Kristen was blocking my time and creating intentional blocks for everything that I’m doing right and then as a part of that was my personal development. I’ve got my morning routine, my evening routine and that helps calm these entrepreneurial minds that are just going crazy all day and sometimes all night right.

Kristen Knapp (08:26.7)
And what is your morning routine?

George Salas (08:29.255)
Well, that’s a great question. So the first thing I do when I wake up is do a little meditation.

Right, so I meditate intentionally on the things that I want to do that day. Then I walk outside for about 20 minutes. Sometimes I take my son, you know, and our dog. While I’m walking, I’m doing a couple things. I’m sometimes listening to my Darren Hardy morning five-minute Darren Daily or maybe a 10-minute growth day from Brandon Bachar, personal development. Right, just getting my mind ready for the day as I get some sun and reset.

at my circadian rhythm and at the same time I’m spending time with my son. I’m getting a little sun, I come back, I have quick breakfast. Mostly I would say I try to do a little higher fat, less carbs in the morning so that my mind is working right and I’m not sluggish and I’m not hungry at 11 a.m. So from there I’m doing some planning of my day. I’ve already gone through all the personal stuff. I’ve already gone through some personal development. I’m even doing a little bit of exercise in

the bedroom before I do some stretching and you know some stuff for my back you know I’ve been hurting a little bit of my back so like little things like that that you do every day they just compile together and at the end of the month you’re feeling better my sleep has increased tremendously because of this routines that I’m doing right and then I go on with my day now I’m ready right

Kristen Knapp (09:54.189)
Yeah.

Kristen Knapp (09:57.826)
I mean, it feels good to take care of yourself. Yeah, absolutely. When you make the time for yourself, it really comes out in your work. And I think a lot of people, especially people who are building, feel guilty taking that time. And maybe they feel like they need to be hustling all the time. And I think it couldn’t be further from the truth. think you’re sustained for a longer amount of time when you take the time for yourself.

George Salas (10:01.073)
Hmm?

George Salas (10:22.725)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, like, you build sort of a resilient wall when you do these things in the morning.

Throughout your day if you’ve already had some mindset work some exercise your you know your body’s going a little bit better You’ve got you’ve got some time with your family your you do I do gratitude in the mornings I’m reading my goals while I’m walking also I forget to mention that I’m reading my goals. I’m listening I use this tool called speechify so I throw in I use chat GPT to build my goals and then I do a one It’s about four or five pages every morning. I’m listening to my vision. It’s called a one-year vision

So my one-year vision talks about my goals and now you know my vision and what am I gonna achieve? But I’m already priming my mind so that when I get to my day my desk Right. I’m already ready and resilient and ready to go so I go and I’ve already built a wall So you’ve got all these rocks coming at you all day long from different things that go wrong with your business You know, you also have your personal side. So now you’ve got this wall and nothing goes through I mean sometimes small little piece can come through it always happens to us but

It’s the resiliency that you build through routines in the evening and habits in the morning. Your habits will tell you how far you’re going to go, not the things that you do once, right?

Kristen Knapp (11:43.438)
Absolutely, and I think it’s a testament to what you’ve been able to build, you know, in a relatively, you know, quick amount of time. And I’d love for you to get into the specifics of kind of like your short-term rental business and what you’re working on right now.

George Salas (11:57.064)
Yeah, absolutely. So we’re working on quite a few things. Okay, I’ll start off from the personal basis, know, the foundational. So what we what pays the bills every single day is our personal portfolio and our own property management company. So my wife and I sort of launched the second version of this. did it before. Not as successful as we’re doing it now. Right. I did it this time. You’ve been doing this short term rental business is 2018 and I was burned out because I am not a manager. I’m a visionary and I’m

I’m a deal architect, right? And my wife runs the property management side of things. So between that and our own portfolio of real estate, right? Which mostly is short term rentals. That’s the foundation. In addition to that.

her and I decided, okay, we’re gonna scale things. think we think real estate is the way to create wealth at the end of the day, right? And when you end up preserving as well, right? So we took the real estate vehicle, the short-term rental vehicle and enhanced our vision. So we decided we’re gonna launch a fund. So we launched our fund. So we have a fund today. are racing our first, we’ve got about 1.5 million in the door, racing our first 5 million, the fund is 10 million. Huge vision.

I would have never thought three years ago that I was going to launch a fund and be a fund manager, right?

Kristen Knapp (13:16.205)
Yeah.

George Salas (13:17.371)
We’re also working on four different projects worth about 12 million, right? It’s a boutique hotel that we’re developing, our first development ever. We’re partnering with a developer and we’re launching this in an island in Washington called Orcas Island. Also we have a castle that we’re already partners on there. Also a short-term vacation rental and a wedding retreat with its own brand, its own, you know, pretty much its own destination brand, right? We’re working on a glamping,

slash dome project in Colorado Pueblo this is 7,000 square foot dome, but it’s gonna have you know, it’s gonna be sort of Plant medicine slash wellness slash yoga retreat, right? There’s huge space for that and we’re gonna create these a little dome You know, we’re gonna put them up in to 40 acre 40 acre property We’ve also got a project in Hawking Hills at the bottom of a mountain. That’s gonna be five units, you know, so

like those but but the real vision right the real vision for us is creating a 100 million dollar company the next five years

And it’s going to be very tough to do it if we decide to just scale our real estate. So what we decided to do instead is build a top notch, the only AI first and AI, a genetic hospitality brand, right? That is basically the center and the parent and the engine to everything we do. Right? So that hospitality brand is in creation right now.

Kristen Knapp (14:57.304)
That’s really exciting. And I mean, you said that you use ChatGPT in the morning and this is AI powered. How important do you think AI is to the real estate business?

George Salas (15:07.169)
AI is a game changer and it’s going to continue to be a game changer for every single person on this planet.

If you’re not using AI, you’re getting behind. You’re not building it as fast as you could. Right? No matter what type of AI, what level of AI you’re building, right? You’re using. Because there’s three levels of AI. There’s your chat AI, then there’s a work, AI workflows, right? And then there’s a genetic AI. Most people don’t know what even a genetic AI is. I did it until the last couple of months. Right? So we use, we use chat GPT as Google.

Kristen Knapp (15:41.4)
Explain it for us.

George Salas (15:45.416)
And if you’re advanced, I’m sure you are, Kristen, but you’re using Chad GBT, us as entrepreneurs, we’re using it a little more advanced. We’re creating contracts, structuring deals, creating business plans, and really the long-term vision, and using it as an advisor. So I use Chad GBT as an advisor. My Chad GBT is fully trained on everything about me, my family, my company, my wife, all my companies. So it understands

how to help you create. So that’s the big thing for most of us. If you’re using the free version, stop, pay the 20 bucks a month. $20 a month and then do a little training. AI is the future.

Kristen Knapp (16:33.814)
And what is the agenic use of it?

George Salas (16:37.575)
Stay genetic, okay, so here’s the big difference, right, Kristen? So AI is something that, know, chat GPT is sort of a…

prompting. You’ve got to prompt it, right? You’ve got to put in the words, put in what you want it, put the outcome in, and the way we use it is we give it a personality, right? And we put in the outcome and we tell it to create things a certain way, right? Then you pair that with workflows. A workflow would be something that just goes in loops, right? So you build a process and it’s working in loops. You’re using AI tools and that’s cool. The Agenic piece

Basically, these are agents that can think on their own. It’s like having employees. And when it comes to putting something like that into your business, it goes down to the processes that you have.

Kristen Knapp (17:17.742)
All

George Salas (17:26.815)
and how you’ve built this processes. So for example, over this weekend, my son and I were, I’m a wife and my whole family were at one of our vacation rentals. We had a big birthday party for him. And one of my partners also, he has an agent, a voice agent company, and him and I were talking about, so on the way back, it’s an hour and a half drive, the entire way we talked back, we broke it down to building an SOP system for each property.

So each rental has everything that you need to know about the rental, not just on paper, right? But you have everything from how to lock the doors, how, you know, you know, the, the, of the appliance model numbers and the dates. And, you know, you take screenshots of that, right? How to operate all of the technology in the house, where the things are located, the inventory, the furniture and all of this. You’re basically building a blueprint for your property.

Right? And then you take this blueprint and you feed it to the AI, the agent. So now you’ve got, right, your team can use it for now. So they can come in and ask questions about where is this thing, where is that thing, and you don’t have to go into a spreadsheet. So that’s like the first level, the first thing we’re doing to create the agents. Then we’re to take these property blueprints and build them into basically one library where

the agent, the agentic piece can access so that now the agent can make decisions about each property as the property operates. Right. But there’s a process to do that. You’ve got to go to each building, each property and create the blueprint first. And in your blueprint, your SOP is how you operate the property. What’s everything that’s in it, every single inch, even the foundation, right? Hey, there’s a neat foundation. So we’re creating sort of a blueprint for the maintenance, routine maintenance.

blueprint for the furnishes that are there, the supplies and inventory for our short term rentals. And then we’re to plug all these in and build an agent, a maintenance and inventory agent around this. That’s one agent. Then you could build agents for every single section or every single department of your business. And then ultimately you can roll all these up to a master dashboard. Right? So our goal is within the next 12 months as we build Empress Hospitality Group, which is the

George Salas (19:54.495)
parent brand is to AIFY every single part of our business, every single department with its own agent. Now you have a self-managing company.

Kristen Knapp (20:07.95)
Wow, that’s really impressive. That’s so cool. Yeah, I imagine it needs to learn all the systems. that’s so cool. So I mean, this flew by so quickly. We were already at 20 minutes. So how can people get involved with you and what’s next?

George Salas (20:09.158)
Right? And that takes time.

George Salas (20:16.456)
exactly.

George Salas (20:26.184)
Yeah, absolutely. So we look for…

you know, high leverage partners, know, we typically create value by providing, you know, trainings and we teach on our short trementals. Currently, we don’t charge to teach. We come in and do free webinars and free trainings on our master classes on different topics of short trementals. So that’s some of the value that we bring. We post a lot of stuff on YouTube, you know, and if you wanted to connect or talk about

partnership or creating a short term mental portfolio or clamping resort or whatever you know I’ve got my personal website is georgesalas360.com and there’s a schedule link in there you know so we love to chat and I appreciate you Kristen for having me here today I hope that that was valuable for everybody

Kristen Knapp (21:17.794)
That was awesome. I think you got into so many valuable pieces, you know, from mindset to just what you’re up to right now. It’s very impressive.

George Salas (21:25.16)
Thank you very much.

Kristen Knapp (21:27.446)
Awesome, well thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it. And everyone, please take advantage of reaching out to George. It sounds like he has a lot of value to give. And yeah, thank you so much for tuning in and I’ll see you next time. All right, bye.

George Salas (21:39.858)
Thanks, Kristen.