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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Micah Johnson interviews Dawn Cornett, a successful entrepreneur in the short-term rental and boutique hotel space. Dawn shares her journey from IT to hospitality, discussing the importance of guest experience, the challenges faced in the hotel industry, and the mindset shifts that have helped her succeed. The conversation also touches on the significance of community and mentorship in real estate, as well as the exciting future projects and coaching opportunities available in the hospitality sector.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Dawn Cornett (00:00)
You know, my mentor, his hotel caught on fire two weeks ago and he had, you know, it was 9 a.m. and everyone had just left at eight to go to a conference. And the great news is no one was hurt, but none of their stuff was there when they got back. And so watching him walk through that and just be like, cool, everything’s big, you’re edible, helps me realize no matter what the challenge is, it’s nothing worth losing sleep over.Micah Johnson (01:54)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by Dawn who’s been making some serious moves in short-term rental space for the last decade. Dawn, welcome in, glad to have you.Dawn Cornett (02:05)
Hello, hello. Good to meet you, Micah.Micah Johnson (02:08)
Absolutely. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation pre-call. really, I think our listeners are going to take a lot of value away from today. Not just your overall journey in real estate, but what you’re focusing on for the folks that are interested in short-term rentals, boutique hotels, they’re in for a treat today. So let’s dive in. First off for folks who aren’t really that familiar with you yet, you know, tell us a little more about yourself and what your main focus is right now.Dawn Cornett (02:32)
Absolutely. So my name is Dawn Cornett and I’m in a little town called Granbury, Texas that is literally like living in a Norman Rockwell movie. If you’ve never seen Granbury Square, you need to. It couldn’t be more charming. And here we have built a thriving short-term rental business. About 35 of our short-term rentals are in this little town of Granbury.The other 15 are in other states across the nation, but we have built quite a brand with Skyview Vacations. It’s been super fun and have really focused the last two years on diving into boutique hotels and marketing boutique hotels, which is one of my favorite subjects.
Micah Johnson (03:10)
that we’re going to get to it. Real quick question. What led you to hospitality? How’d you get to where you are today doing what y’all do now?Dawn Cornett (03:17)
You know, it was before I even knew about Airbnb quite a few years ago, about 15, 17 years ago, I rented a house off Texas Lake House Vacations.com or something like that for my son’s birthday. And when we pulled up and rented this house big enough for our extended family to all go stay and spend a weekend, got to know the owner a little bit and called her back and said, wait a minute, does your guest revenue pay all the bills on this?And then I called her back a few hours and like, what about the lawn care? What about your taxes? And I kept calling back with questions. She’s like, yeah. I was like, baby, we’re buying a family lake house that other people are gonna pay for. So that’s what started our hospitality journey.
Micah Johnson (03:58)
I love that. It’s, one of the fun things about real estate. You can leverage it to get the stuff you want to and still make money. Now, let me ask you this, the hospitality side, what do you think is that it factor in there? You don’t, you don’t stay in this for 10 years, not being good at it. What would you say sets apart just the best at the STR space? What are they? Cause to me, it’s not really the same business. It’s, it’s a hospitality business when you’re doing that. What are the mindsets you need to take into it?Dawn Cornett (04:21)
It’s different.It really is. I’ll tell you, we all have our little quirks and the way our brain thinks, but I have an obsession about thinking of everything that a guest might want during their stay before they think of it. So like, you’re not going to walk into one of my houses and have to move furniture to get to wall outlet to plug in your phone. Like that’s one of my biggest pet peeves. And like every little detail, thinking of it and seeing a space from a guest perspective.
Absolutely obsessed, love doing that and crafting spaces that way.
Micah Johnson (04:54)
And it’s a gift too. I’m not really good at the being in an empty space and seeing it for what it can be part. I know that about myself and I’m kind of jealous of other people that are, cause I’ll walk with them through a house and they’re like, well, what about this? What about this? I’m just like, man, that is a gift to be able to see that. I think in different ways. So it is, that’s where I learned one real estate’s huge and finding yourself in your particular niche is really what leads you to that long-term success. It’s not necessarily ever what you got started in, in real estate either.We grow over time and get to adjust. Now, were y’all doing anything before STRs in real estate?
Dawn Cornett (05:29)
Yeah, we actually both have long standing IT careers. So mine was in cybersecurity, just got to leave my W2 a year ago actually. This was my full time side hustle, you know, and then I had my full time W2. So it was a long journey, but yeah, both IT backgrounds. So a lot of corporate, lot of professional, but it was always B2B in the past.Micah Johnson (06:40)
It’s one, congratulations. You’ve done it. You pulled off that goal. Now, how long did it take you? If you don’t mind me asking, how long did you know like, okay, I want to phase this out and real estate be full time. And then how long was that journey to making it reality?Dawn Cornett (06:43)
Thank you.feel like what we all went through with COVID was profound in different ways for each one of us, right? But for me, getting to not be gone at work 12 to 16 hours a day and working from home shifted something in me where like I got to listen to the sound of the birds while I worked. I had a need for something more peaceful that I had never craved before. So it was 2021 where I was like.
I can’t go back to that life. Like when they call us back in the office, my soul can’t do it. I can’t do this again. You know what I mean? And I need to be able to have time to take breaks during the work day and meditate and do different things and have a different kind of life. I also hit my 50th birthday last year. And I think with our milestone birthdays comes different goals and awarenesses and priorities, you know? So it took about four years from when I made the decision. I was a very high six figure earner. And so it has not been.
The easiest path to replace that income, but the peace and freedom has become higher priority than anything.
Micah Johnson (07:58)
I that. And I agree. just turned 40 recently and there’s something about milestone birthdays. There’s really something about it. They’re not just a joke or cliches that your mind really shifts to like, what’s really important to you. What, what kind of life do you really want to have? I agree with you in COVID. now I, I was, I came from the medical field and I knew then back in, it was about 2013. I was like, I don’t want to be.Dawn Cornett (08:04)
Mm-hmm.you
Micah Johnson (08:24)
like this anymore. I don’t want to be locked up in a house or in an office or a hospital all day and started creating that life where I could work from home. But that same kind of experience where my soul said, no, we’re not trading that truth for membership anymore there at all. Like your life, it’s not worth it. It had gotten to the point I was sleeping in like gloves full of lotion because my so stressed, the skin was falling off my fingers. And I was just like, I can’t keep doing this. I have to have this adjustment.Dawn Cornett (08:39)
Mm hmm.Micah Johnson (08:52)
And that was at 29 to 30. And now I’m going into 40 and feeling that same kind of, okay, how do you stabilize? That’s my big word right now is how do you stabilize? How do you create sustainable, scalable, stable? That is what I’m always after. And especially in my time, that’s not just a money thing to me. That’s a mentality thing to me. I likeDawn Cornett (09:06)
Mm-hmm.Micah Johnson (09:14)
finishing work on a break and going in and just seeing my dog, going on a walk around my neighborhood, doing some yoga, like you said, meditate. really, I’m glad COVID happened in some ways for that reason. It changed everything. It really changed so much about how we view and process, even where video calls feel like we’re hanging out, right? Like that didn’tDawn Cornett (09:21)
Yeah. Yeah.Micah Johnson (09:35)
used to be a thing and now it’s way more accepted. And shoot, I love FaceTime with my kids when I don’t have them. I get to see them. It’s like, okay, cool.⁓ yeah, anyway.
Dawn Cornett (09:45)
Yep, I couldn’t agree more. And it’s so interesting because our body will tell us, know, yours was skin issues, mine was gut issues, and it just was compounding and getting worse and worse until we listen to our bodies.Micah Johnson (09:56)
Right? Right. And you do. It will tell you because we don’t humans don’t change quickly when we don’t feel like we need to. That’s kind of the hard part. Things got to get hard for us to change. It’s it’s it’s the opposite side of it all, but it always does that. So if you’re listening or viewing or watching this and you notice some stuff in your gut and your soul and you’re like, OK, what is actually happening? Dawn’t just shove that down.Dawn Cornett (10:04)
Mm-hmm.Micah Johnson (10:21)
Take a deep breath there. Take a moment to understand, especially if you’re around one of those milestone birthdays, you are actually changing. That’s biology. That’s being human. So don’t just throw that away. Your moment could be there just like Dawn’s was to be free. So listen to it. Okay. Soapbox over. That’s my, we’ll hop off now. Cause I really want to dig into what you’re working on now. So you did.Short term rentals and now you’re jumping into the boutique hotel space. One, what was that desire for that transition and what have you found so exciting about it so far?
Dawn Cornett (11:32)
Yeah, you know, like everything, we are a product of our environment and whoever we’re around, you know, the top five people we spend the most time with, we will become just like them, our spending habits, our eating habits, our mindset habits, everything, right? So.I found myself in a mastermind community of people who were all investing in boutique hotels. And so before I knew it, I was like, okay, this seems like a good idea. Why am I trusting Fidelity with my 401k when I can do a self-directed IRA and go do investments here and there? And so was finding experts that I trusted to go use my retirement money differently and invest in cool projects that I could kind of watch from afar and…
my obsession for hospitality and guest experience was like, okay, so I want to be more hands-on. I want to run a hotel, you know? And there was just a, and we attract what we desire. And so there was a local multi-generation family here that ended up calling me out of the blue and saying, hey, we just bought this hotel and we’re going to do this huge historic renovation. had burned down on the inside. And we’d like to know if y’all want to come run it for us. I was like, of course you do. So that was our first time.
Micah Johnson (12:38)
Yes.Dawn Cornett (12:39)
to manage a hotel and it was one that we did not own. So it’s like co-hosting a boutique hotel, small little eight room, but very strong historic roots. And I mean, we have guests all the time that were like, I stayed here 40 years ago for my anniversary. And it’s really cute and charming.Micah Johnson (12:44)
Okay.Dawn Cornett (12:56)
⁓ And then from there, it’s just kept rolling into, okay, then I meet somebody else who is like looking for someone to manage their hotel. And instead of just managing, why don’t we become equity partners? And so that way we have more skin in the game. So it’s really fun meeting people who want to get into fun, exciting investments, but they don’t want to go do it themselves. So why not partner with somebody who has the experience in doing it?Micah Johnson (13:20)
Real estate is a team sport. Very rarely is one person really good at all the things that need to happen to make a strong deal take place. Very rarely, very rarely. I you can’t even close on a building by yourself. You need a team of people just to do that. finding those, because you’re right, some folks do have the property. They just need the person to run it. And that’s where your skills can come in. And then now you’re leveraging that. And again, I love this with real estate.Dawn Cornett (13:30)
Awesome.Yeah.
Thank
Micah Johnson (13:47)
educate you. One, you were in a mastermind educating yourself. Then you got an opportunity to educate yourself in real time and earn income. And now it’s equity plays and continuingto co-host because that’s, that’s how real estate runs y’all. That is the benefit of putting yourself around people like the rooms that she’s talking about. It’s where the success happens. It’s what it’s where the dreams come true.
Dawn Cornett (14:08)
And the power of being a mastermindis I don’t have to be scared of stepping into something I’ve never done before because I’m surrounded by someone in my community now has done it, right?
Micah Johnson (14:17)
Right? Right. And it’s, it’s how you shortcut. It’s the only shortcut to the process. In my opinion, there are no shortcuts in real estate. It’s all a process, but there are shortcuts to that process. If you put yourself in the right room, like you’re talking about folks that’ll show you one thing, my mentor says, if the, if the problem you have is in your phone and only a phone call away, you don’t have a problem. You have a phone call to make call, make the call, talk to the person. That’s the whole point of putting them in your network.Dawn Cornett (14:38)
Mm.Micah Johnson (14:45)
is when life happens or a business happens, boom, I can go solve that. And that, for me, it limits a massive amount of stress in my own life. Would you say that same thing in yours?Dawn Cornett (14:55)
100%. It gives me courage to do things I wouldn’t do otherwise and gives me the shortcuts to overcome the hurdles because, you know, challenges happen all the time.Micah Johnson (15:04)
They do. Well, take us through a challenge you’ve experienced in the hotel space so far. What’s something that leaps out for you where you’ve had to overcome it recently?Dawn Cornett (15:55)
Well, I don’t know if this is a typical one. had guests upset Friday night because they heard noise outside and they thought it was domestic violence. so they decided to leave. And it turns out upon looking at the cameras, it was someone that she had just drank too much and decided to take off her clothes and pee in front of the room because she couldn’t figure out how to use the lock.the first thing that comes to mind, there’s all sorts of little guess nuances and like nothing gets you upset anymore. If a house septic overflows, if you know with the freezes we get in Texas, no matter what happens, everything’s figure outable. It’s one of my favorite phrases, everything’s figure outable no matter what happens and all these hospitality or real estate challenges, like there’s no reason to let any of us get to us anymore. You know, like you said, we make the phone call, who’s been through this before?
Micah Johnson (16:21)
Right?Dawn Cornett (16:44)
You know, my mentor, his ⁓ hotel caught on fire two weeks ago and he had, you know, it was 9 a.m. and everyone had just left at eight to go to a conference. And the great news is no one was hurt, but none of their stuff was there when they got back. And so watching him walk through that and just be like, cool, everything’s big, you’re edible, helps me realize no matter what the challenge is, it’s nothing worth losing sleep over.Micah Johnson (17:09)
That is a very powerful way to say it. I love that quote as well. My wife and I have that in a little picture frame in our room up on a shelf. Everything is figure outable because we were talking about personal development, you and I, little bit before we started recording, but that is one of the, in my opinion, one of the most powerful personal development statements because it puts you back in the present. It’s not about what does the end look like? It’s about what do I do now?Dawn Cornett (17:21)
Mm-hmm.Thank you.
Micah Johnson (17:35)
What’s the next step? And that’s how you figure out anything. And when you realize that, like you just said, it’s, you don’t have to freak out. We don’t have to freak out when things come. I remember thinking to my younger life where I felt like that was what I was supposed to do. Well, this is terrible. I should freak out. And now I’ve learned that’s the opposite of anything you should ever do. It’s first deep breath. Second, it’s okay. Are you alive? Okay. Then it’s okay. You got a chance to at least do something.Dawn Cornett (17:37)
I think this is a wonderful opportunity to be share with you the stories of the people who have this pandemic. And it’s a great of the people who been this pandemic. And the people have been And think share with theMicah Johnson (18:03)
and then that slowDawn Cornett (18:04)
the whoMicah Johnson (18:05)
progress forward. Okay, what is the next step? Does it feel good? No. Do we want to figure it out as fast as we can? Yes, but we’ll try to rush that process help. Never, ever. It’s just…Dawn Cornett (18:05)
And thelanguage we use with others and ourselves is so incredibly powerful. One of the biggest gifts I got a few years ago at a personal development event I went to is learning that if I say something’s hard or it’s tough, my body releases stress hormones. But if I say something’s challenging,
my body looks for ways to overcome the challenge. And so those have left my vocabulary. I have challenges all the time, but nothing’s ever hard anymore. And so these little tweaks we can make can change the way my body responds to the world around me.
Micah Johnson (18:50)
100%. Our brains don’t know we’re joking. They don’t process that language. It’s when you discover how important your self-talk is and how it’s literally creating your life. What you are experiencing right now is what you tell yourself you are experiencing. It is…Dawn Cornett (18:52)
Okay.Mm hmm.
Micah Johnson (19:06)
It’s fascinating to me language itself. When I was learning that I started to understand what they meant by magic spells. Like there’s nothing magic about it. You are literally you’re spelling, you’re saying these things out loud that your brain will come true. I remember when it kind of first hit me, I was getting sick one day and I said, I think I’m getting sick.And then I thought about it for second, like, wait, whoa, hold on. Why would you tell yourself that? Even as simple as that, like if you get sick, okay, that’s okay. But
don’t invite it in by adopting the mentality first. Cause the first thing you do, your shoulders slump, you start coughing. Like it’s literally that simple and powerful where it really matters what you do say to yourself. You change your story. You can change your life.
Dawn Cornett (19:50)
Couldn’t agree more.Micah Johnson (19:53)
All right, so before we finish up for the day, I’m excited for what is ahead for you in 2026, which got you super pumped for this year.Dawn Cornett (20:00)
Oh, we have such big goals. We’re doing a big historic renovation on a hotel that we’re partnered in in a little town called Glen Rose, Texas. And so far, the small boutique hotels we’ve done have been a part of have been eight to 15 rooms. And so this is going to be a 32 room hotel. So it’s more hotel like, it’s bigger. So that’s very exciting for us. And we’re actively working with investors who are looking for deals. And instead ofyou know, them having to hire a manager, we’re willing to come in with a percentage of equity and just partner and help people figure this stuff out with true partners. So just helping people who love real estate and are looking for ways to invest in real estate to bring in that hospitality aspect. Because it just helps you leverage it and increase your revenue. And because you’re not just getting the equity gain and the monthly rate when you have a bunch of long term rentals, but you’re
bringing much more revenue and you can do forced appreciation much faster.
Micah Johnson (20:58)
And y’all do some coaching too, right? Dawn’t you have a program available that teaches this? Okay.Dawn Cornett (21:01)
Yes, the hospitalityhustle coaching program is really how to stand out in short-term rentals in today’s market, which is wildly different than two years ago’s market. The amenities and the level of service people check into a short-term rental and they expect a hotel. They expect what they’re getting from Marriott and how to meet these expectations and still maintain profitability and how to transition without fear into the boutique hotel space and
You know, is there a really cool abandoned office building over that coffee shop you go to? Could that be a 10 room hotel? Like looking at the world around me differently where everything could be a hotel. I know people who are buying old jails and making them into boutique hotels. There’s a super cool church in Nashville. It used to be a church, it’s now a boutique hotel. Like looking at everything differently is opportunity to do something creative for guests and branding.
Micah Johnson (21:53)
All right, if you’re listening in I say this a lot on the show and this is an area that interests you Follow along with people like Dawn who know what they’re doing. She just said something very important STRs aren’t the same today as they were two years ago when you are learning real estate from folks learn it from people who are doing it now You someone telling you what worked two years ago won’t work nowYou’re going to have no vacancies. going to have a bunch of vacancies. It’s not going to run. Real estate is a lifelong learning game where what’s happening now is what you need to be learning. So Dawn, for those that are out there listening or watching in that are interested in coaching, that are interested in following along with what you have going on, what’s the best way for them to find you?
Dawn Cornett (22:39)
I post a lot on Instagram. I use my personal Instagram page, which my hashtag is, or handle is, of a Great Day, because it’s always gonna be a great day. And then our website, my husband’s a real sport with doing the funny videos with me. He’s a champ. He tolerates a lot, but we have a lot of fun sharing education through humor. And then our website is thehospitalityhustle.com.Micah Johnson (22:53)
Good.Like I said before, when you meet a true professional, follow along with them, see what they’re doing. Their success is not by accident. So we’ll have all of Dawn’s links in our show notes below, so make sure you check it out. Dawn, thank you so much for being with us today. I appreciate your time, your story, your perspective. I think we need more people out there doing it like you’re doing it, actually building the business, creating the life you want. So thanks so much for being with us today.
Dawn Cornett (23:28)
Thanks, Micah.Micah Johnson (23:29)
Absolutely, for those listening and watching in, if you got value out of today’s episode, please like this episode, share it with someone else you think could get value out of it if they’re interested in this same space. As always, please don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast. We appreciate every single one of you that follows along with us out there. We have more conversations coming up with operators just like Dawn, out there building a real business in the industry. Thanks for being with us. We’ll see you all in the next episode.
