29 - ⁠ ⁠Why AI Can't Brand Your Hotel (And What Actually Can) with Kayla Morrill

In this episode, Adam and Micah sit down with brand designer Kayla Morrill to unpack the full process of building a visual identity for The Wesley — from mood boards and font debates to a final brand kit that's now physically on the walls of their hotel in Page, Arizona. In this episode, they explore why great branding is about evoking emotion, why AI falls short, and what boutique hotel owners should think about before hiring a designer.

Connect with Kayla: 

Find her on Instagram: @winnie.design.co

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Connect with Micah:
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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The whole purpose of branding is to evoke human feelings and emotion into a project, and that's something the AI just can't it just can't do.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hey everybody, I'm Adam Walls, and I'm here with my co-host Micah Thomas. We're short-term rental operators who made the jump into boutique hotels, and we're in it right now, raising capital, renovating a 50-room property. We're figuring it out as we go.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

This is the Boutique Hotel Secrets Podcast, and these are secrets.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Hey, what's up, Boutique Hotel Nation? Thanks for tuning in for another official Boutique Hotel Secrets podcast. My name is Adam Walls. I'm your host today, co-founder of Comeback Hospitality, where we're really chronicling our journey, moving from short-term rental operas into the boutique hotel hospitality space. It's not just me, luckily. So let me bring in the co-founder of Comeback Hospitality. The other half of this equation, my mister from another sister, Micah Thomas. Micah, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

What's up? What's up? Had a good Easter weekend, very restful. And I feel like we have been head first into a to-do list for the week. So excited to maybe talk about it a little bit. Definitely excited to talk more on branding today and our vision and our direction, where the Wesley is going. And we have a very special guest that we're going to bring on. So excited to get into that conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

I know, and this was a fun one, right? So talking about what's the visual identity of your hotel, right? We walked into this was the oldest, worst hotel in Page, Arizona. Again, 50 keys, bought it for a little over three million bucks. I was called the Page Boy. Then when we acquired it, it was called the Lake Powell Canyon Inn. And then we were searching for a name. And then when we found the name, the Wesley, after John Wesley Powell, we want a strong sense of place. Then the question became okay, so what? You called it the Wesley. What does that mean? What feelings do you want to invoke? What does that look like? And so again, our friend Kourtney Petrovich, who's the interior designer, lead designer with Denori Designs, actually called in reinforcements. She said, You gotta meet my friend Kayla. She helped me rebrand others as well. So we're stoked to have you on the show. Let's welcome in Kayla Morrell.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Hello. I'm so excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

I'm glad to have you, Kayla. I would love to just get started with a little bit about your story. What got you into this branding, the marketing aspect, and just bringing people's vision to life from a branding aspect?

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Yeah, for sure. So I last year graduated from BYU in advertising. So I have a strong background in all things communications, a little bit of marketing, but the big focus was communicating to audiences messaging of how this product is going to fulfill the need of our target audience. And I was specifically an art director in my program. I've always loved design and I knew that I wanted to knew that the advertising was not specifically my end route in mind. I ended up finding branding and I loved the flexibility of it, first of all, because I'm a stay-at-home mom, so it makes it so that I can continue to be at home with my little one. But also I loved being able to work one-on-one with clients or with smaller teams, with business owners to be able to really tell the story of their business and to bring it to life with all of the character and personality that I love to be able to bring into branding. And here we are now.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

So here we are. And here we are. And Micah was saying before off-air, a lot of the projects that you worked on up to this point, obviously very gifted, talented. We're super excited about the end result. So let's start there that Micah and I would have drawn like stick figures or just relied on AI. So there is a world where you can tap into professional to help you figure out what should go on your sign or what should go on the do not disturb sign or your business card or like all these things are clues and cues to your audience that you're credible, you're professional, and you're designing something intentional. But we were chatting before we turned on the mic about a lot of your branding projects up until this point have maybe digital or internet first type businesses. The Wesley is kind of a different animal, brick and mortar. It is concrete, it is a very physical thing. I don't know. Maybe we could even start there. What made the Wesley different? Maybe projects that you've worked on in the past.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Yes. Yeah, for sure. This is definitely was really different. Starting off, I did lots of kind of photographers or spall businesses that the business owner is the face of the business. So it is a little bit different where it's turning their personality to a branding and the experience of working with them specifically. But with the Wesley, it was really exciting to be able to build a completely new personality and put this persona to an actual physical experience and location that people will be able to come to. And I know that was a big thing throughout the whole project of making sure that every step along the way we wanted it to be consistent to tell the same story for the Wesley to really feel from the moment you pull it up on the internet to actually step into your doorway to be able to tell this consistent story and well this personality. So your clients know exactly or not clients, your what are guests. I was like, this is new terminology for me. Your guests know exactly what their experience is going to be before they even get on site, which was super exciting. And in this case, too, it was also super fun to be able to have a creative collaborator being able to work with Courtney, who had already been working with you guys on interior design. And I think doing branding in this kind of space where I can work with the interior designer, where we obviously go so hand in hand of wanting the branding to tell the same story, the interior design. We're all working together to be able to create the same experience. And so it was definitely a super new experience for me to be able to do branding on this bigger scale, which was super fun. I'm also someone who I love traveling. I love locations. I love locations that tell a story and have, we talked a lot about like a sense of place where we're going somewhere to really experience being there. And so it has been such a fun opportunity to be able to jump into this new market to be able to really tell stories of locations that you can actually go to and then experience bigger places. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah. I love to hear that. And then you have personal history with Page. You've been to Page several times, if I remember correctly. So this isn't a new location with the feel in the landscape and the entire experiences when you step foot in this town. So we were very happy to hear that you have been to the place where we're trying to create branding. And when you talk about story, for those who haven't heard, John Wesley Powell was a guy. He was a geologist, a scientist, navigator. He was tasked with doing something very difficult. And our goal was to work with you to bring the vision of John Wesley Powell to life. And we can talk about how many iterations we had. At first, we were thinking more literal. Let's get a picture of John Wesley Powell on a horse, and that's our logo. And then that quickly transition to okay, we don't want to shove John Wesley Powell down people's throat. We want them to learn more if they're interested, but honestly, we want them to feel grounded, feel like they're staying at a place that's elevated and modernized, and more of that boutique local feel. So maybe you can touch a little bit on how you work through the more literal sense to the more abstract feel to even the final product that we have today, which I'm so glad that we came up with the logo and the font and everything that we ended up with. But I think it would be a lie to say we started here, and as soon as we saw it, this is what we went with. So I would love to talk through that process a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Yes, of course. This project was really cool in that way too. I think because as we were working together as a team to be able to see you guys too, maybe where you thought the Wesley, who you thought the Wesley was gonna be, and who the target audience was as we were going through it shifted. And that is what was the big reason design-wise we shifted is because we were like, okay, actually we don't think this original target audience is exactly who we're going for. This experience is not the experience that we are exactly wanting to provide. And so what is it now that we are wanting our customers to feel? Who is our audience? What are they looking for? And how is the Wesley going to fulfill that? And through all that discussion and all that kind of back strategy, figuring out who our like ideal client is really what pushed us to be able to determine, okay, we want to be our new branding to be more grounded, to reflect the ideals and feeling of how John Wesley Powell was as a person, but then in a more sense of place, more modernized type way, which is what ended up leading us. Okay, how do we tell that story now visually? And then working backwards and then how we ended up having it be a little more modernized, a little more abstract, where we really get that sense of place still. We still get that oasis feeling. We have little hints of kind of homage to the different golden age of motel still a little bit, but not over the top. I think, yeah, just working together and really taking a step back and figuring out of who we want the Wesley to be and what we want the experience to be is really what determines visually then how we want to tell that message, which we got to go through a few different rounds of figuring that out. So then now it's super awesome because we uh I think you guys too, now going forward, since we've done the work of figuring out who we want to be, now everything else is a little bit easier. You know how the vision should be.

unknown 10:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

That's right. And I didn't realize that I had a point of view on cursive. Like when you're just on the outside world going through your day, you're at the shopping market, you're choosing a hotel, like you're just doing life, you're just responding to the inputs and how it makes you feel and making a lot of almost subjective decisions. But when you actually get into it and look at 15 variants and go, oh, I guess I do like this one more than I like that one. And the this cursive font saying the Wesley feels a little more Western, or this one feels a little more fun. This one feels a little bit more stoic. So it's reverse engineering back to feelings. So it's almost like what Courtney and Olivia and her team does with a room to go, I'm gonna walk in and where's the chair? Where's the sofa? How does the rug and the throw pillows? And they're designing a space with layers to create emotional response. And I think I was just quite frankly unaware that kind of happened with branding and visual identity, and that any one of these choices don't matter in isolation, but when they stack up together, that's when you get the the wow moment, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah, that's that's exactly right. And the fonts, again, for me, I like a letter is a letter until you see it and you're like, hold on, do we want this to be more of like a Disney feel? Or and again, we're just this is the first time I've ever done branding to this level. So until you're presented with multiple options and you start to see how it looks and feels, you don't actually know. And at one point, I had to admit, my abstract view is pretty much absent. It took for someone to explain it to me to understand, oh wow, that is a moon and the sun and the mountains, and you name it. But it was just a very eye-opening process, and I don't think we could have made a better decision with what we have chosen because it's already just attracting people and like making a statement not only to our brand but also the town. People are looking at our logo just as it flows throughout the building with our murals, and they are falling in love with it. So super happy about that. And I guess the question for me would be: since we've compared and contrasted so many different colors and logos and fonts and cursive, what is your motivation or what is your guidance when it comes to making these decisions to say these are the final two that I want to display to my customer or client? Or is it just a true feeling? Like I want to see how I feel and see if I can portray that over to who I'm working for.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

That's a really great question. Yeah, I would say what Adam was going into with the interior design is I take the same route a little bit of with branding, we are communicating messages and it really comes down to feelings and emotions and what is it that we want our customers to feel? What do we want, what do they value, and how do we show that in a brand? Obviously, having a little bit more of an education in that, it's easier for me to know to be able to see fonts and be able to be like, okay, I know this is a little more this feeling, this is a little more this feeling. But these colors lead people generally to feel more trusted. These are a little bit more font. Like I have the experience to be able to pull those and can present them and show how different colors and different fonts evoke different emotions. And I think that is the cool part of being able to have the job I do to be able to find these emotions and feelings in these abstract things and also how you're talking about Adam, that yeah, individually two things, and you're like, okay, yeah, that looks good. But it's really that layering effect of how you start adding these textures and these patterns together to really tell the story. And that is my favorite part of the whole process, and being able to come then to my clients and show how those things start to layer to really tell the story individually too. Brands will have maybe similar colors or similar fonts and different things, but really how you pair them together, how we use them really changes the feeling really quickly of what the brand actually, the feelings it's evoking.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah. And and if that's some of the best parts of a design project or working with clients, there are also challenges. And I gotta believe how you set this up is typically you work with an individual who oftentimes is the face and the founder of the business. You've got a two-headed monster. And like in a lot of ways, we share a lot of the same values, a lot of the same goals, but we're coming at it from completely different approaches. There are points in this project where again, Michael wanted to be done 30 days ago. Adam's still going, I don't know about this line. Can we bring that down? So it's just like speed and quality tension was one of the axes. But, anyways, what was challenging and what do you think you maybe learned working with two people on the same project that had different vantage points?

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Yeah, that's a another super great question because this is I think from this project I learned lots of things, but that is a big one because it was my first experience working with a team where there was sometimes some difference in goals and vision. I think for me, I realized that anytime we got together and then actually discussed it and learning even myself how to lead conversations to figure out okay, obviously we're all gonna have different opinions about all the like we can all have different opinions about all these tiny little things. But when it comes down to it, what is our biggest vision on both hands? With even discussing it, I remember in our last conversation before we went into that final round of design, that you guys both had the same goals, but they were just a like worded a little bit differently, or you guys were just expressing them a little bit differently. But then after being able to sit and discuss, and we were able to realize, oh, you guys actually are wanting the same kind of thing. Here's now how we can tweak to get both the same kind of visions now to work together. So I think for me, the biggest thing always just in working with projects like this is good communication and being able to be open and continue to working down of where our opinions are coming from, because then you realize most of the time they're actually rooted in the same thoughts and feelings. And so that was super valuable to me to be able to know to just keep digging a little bit deeper to see where people's opinions are coming from and then discussing it. We'll twerk through it.

unknown 17:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

If you're getting value from this, follow the show and share it with one person who's ready to move beyond short-term rentals.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

And if you want to learn more about the boutique hotel secrets community, the link is in the show notes. I totally agree. And uh again, Adam and I are aligned in a lot of ways, and in ways we're very different. And I think that can be difficult, but also our biggest strength because we're coming at it from two different points of views, and there's always somewhere in the middle we tend to meet, and it it may be difficult sometimes to get there, but I think ultimately it creates just a better outcome because of that. I wanted to transition to someone who thinks that AI or a simple logo is the way to go. Uh, and there's not anything necessarily wrong with that, but I think there is such great value in working with an individual who specializes in this and how that can project on your clientele, whether that's guests in our world, whether that's clients who come and patronize your business. But I think there's something to be said about working with a physical human being to follow out and carry out your actual vision versus just going to Sora or whatever other AI source you have to say your vision and letting something else create itself. So could you speak a little bit to the benefits or maybe the cost of not being able to work with an actual professional versus just AI or a thrown together logo?

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Yeah. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. I remember when AI was first coming out with digital art when I was in school. And at first, everyone obviously, as people do, anytime a new thing comes up, that they're like, they're gonna steal all of our jobs, they're not gonna need any of us designers anymore. And I think that what we've realized, and as designers and artists in this community that people have come to is as now a society, we've really moved towards a lot of the reason because of AI, we've moved a lot towards people really like the human touch that we bring to design. And we really quickly, no matter how great AI does at some things, we pick it out really quickly, whether something is just AI generated to be able to fit its quota that it's asking for, versus actually having that human touch, that ability that to be able to communicate back and forth, go through ideas. People pick that out really quickly. And I think especially when it comes to a hospitality environment, when things are created by humans, by people who have studied it, who have done it in real life, that it really brings a bigger sense of trust and that human feeling. It's really interesting too, especially in my generation and the younger generation. So it'll be interesting as they are upcoming. But we've learned really to like distrust AI thing. And whenever we see AI, it like immediately is, oh, then that is not maybe quite as trustworthy a source as I want it to be, versus when you see things that are created by humans. Also, back to the whole conversation of the whole purpose of branding is to evoke human feelings and emotion into a project. And that's something that AI just can't, it just can't do. And there's it creates great things a lot of times. It's a super great resource. I'm definitely not anti-AI at all. But when it comes to branding and when it comes to design, there definitely is a human touch that we know how to communicate to each other a lot better than sometimes a computer can, especially visually, and be able to evoke feelings a lot clearer and a lot deeper, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Yeah, that makes sense. And hey, if listeners are going, oh, I'm interested in buying a hotel, or I just bought a hotel, maybe I'm in the market for branding or visual identity. I thought if it's okay and we're not spilling too much tea here, we could even share the screen and bring up like our branding kit or a branding guide. So it's like our final product. It took us hours in multiple iterations to get here. But I thought it might be cool just to show people like what is this, what does this ultimately look like?

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Let me just start here. And again, we don't have to go through all this page by page, but do you want to talk about what a brand kit is and what people could attract if they worked with you? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Yes. So a lot of times when people come to me too, or when they think of branding, they think of a logo. Okay, we need a logo, we need something to like go on the sides. But building a brand identity is a lot deeper than that in a lot of ways. It comes with a lot of details that kind of like you guys said before. That you didn't realize the beast you were getting into until you're in it. But yeah, so on this first page, I always do an overview where it talks about the goals of the project. Oh yeah, you're on the right page. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Okay. I was trying to move it around or make it a little bit bigger.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Yeah, that's perfect. But our goal, the goals of the Wesley project in general, what our target market is looking at. And then because of those goals, this is visually how we are accomplishing those goals. Another big part, too, is just tone and messaging. So it's a lot bigger than obviously you see. And this was one of the mood boards at the beginning of the project, where it's a lot more than me just showing, okay, this is what your guys' logo is gonna be. But it really evokes a lot more feeling, a lot more understanding of what the state is gonna feel like thanks for.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Right. And you did a whole strategic analysis. Who's the market? What are the psychographics? Who's buying? Like, why are they here? What are they doing? So again, a lot of data, market research to inform, not just underwriting the financials, and that's what Micah and I are looking at, on air DNA and like all of those things. So no, there was like market research from a branding and marketing perspective. Who's here? What's different? And then again, ultimately, we got into some of the logos that I think most people would associate with. Ah, here's the end output, but I don't know. Micah, did you know that there were secondary logos and nine different versions of fonts?

SPEAKER_00 23:23

No, and that's what I wanted to touch on because I think what people underestimate, if you've never gotten a branding kit before, this is like a 12 folder, I can't even name probably a thousand file. Yeah, like in every logo and every color, some logos very truly look different. And you want a logo for your website versus a logo for your t-shirt versus a logo for the building sign, and they're they're just things that I knew nothing about before getting involved in this. And I think that's what you can also leverage because you've created such a detailed and well put together branding kit, and these can be used for years to come. If we want to change the color for whatever reason, maybe it looks better on a website, like I said, versus a t-shirt color, we can very quickly change it. You've even given us directions on how to use what color palette, what logo. Very expansive. The file is so big, I tried to send it as an email and it just doesn't work. It's too big of a file. So having to share like the Google Drive link so people can get access to our Google Drive. But it's just so inclusive of everything that we need and even some things we didn't realize we needed. And I think that's really the benefit of working with someone like you. But I have to ask, Kayla, and this is just a personal thought, how difficult was it to work with Adam and I? Because I feel like every time we got on the call, we just had conflicting views, and I'm always just I'm ready to get this done so we can move on with the next thing. And Adam's like, can we see that in a different gray? So that's right. Would love to get your opinion. Brutally honest, if you want to be on how easy or difficult it was to work with us.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

I feel like, I mean, there definitely was times that I'd see my inbox. I was like, okay, Adam sent some more feedback. But what the what is really awesome about you guys, which you already said this, is you guys have the same goals, but you're very different people. And luckily, that really worked really beneficially. Where I feel like maybe if it was two micas working together, then we would have finished a lot earlier. We would have finished with the first round. Probably you would have been like, yeah, looks great.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

The deeper look at into maybe this isn't actually the direction and the vision we want to go with. If we have two atoms, we still would be working on it now. So I feel like you guys balance each other in a super great way. And still there is times obviously when you're working and it took a little bit longer than we initially expected, and it was the first time of me working with a team. But I feel like you guys were the perfect team to be able to have my first experience with because though you work really differently, you balance each other out really well. And when it comes down to it, both of you are very respectful of each other's opinions and views too. That it I never worried about it like becoming some like in between the two of you, or like some. That's season two. Yeah, at least I was like, I like know that it that you guys like are friendly and will work out and you respect each other's opinions, so I knew that it was never gonna become ugly. But yeah, so it was a really good, it was a really good learning experience. And I yeah, it's been so fun to work with you guys.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

It's awesome. And to be fair and to give people background on why I was bringing all this feedback, I didn't have a super strong point of view. So almost like Micah, and I was like, I don't know if I like this secondary font or not, but I am pretty inclusive. Yeah, I like to reach out to a broad set of stakeholders and then bring back different vantage points and try and summarize those, find some something that kind of meets the criteria and the goals of the project, but maybe does it in a slightly different way. So, anyways, like to the a couple buddies, my wife, a few others, there are probably 10 people that looked over different iterations of this. And I think that's just something that every boutique hotel owner or every business owner just needs to think about. How much of this is just you? And like you just respond to what you like. Or I tried to come from the point of view of saying, I'm probably not the target customer of this hotel. I have a small son, I've got a young family. That is not necessarily our target. So, can I find some people that are closer to our ideal customer? Can I find some people that are closer, more willing to spend a thousand dollars a night at a luxury hotel? Whereas I would typically be po more the mid-scale option. Sorry, it's just soliciting and activating different vantage points, I think, does create more noise. That's it's more complex to take in 15 points of view. But that was at least the idea or the goal on on my end is going, okay, let's shop this. Not it's just Adam and Micah are in love with it, but customers hate it. But if we're literally gonna tattoo this on the walls, and that's what Dominic Adams has done beautifully with our mural, like the designs, Kayla, that you built are now physically on our hotel in Page, Arizona. So, like it's a testament to legacy. And again, I think this like creative conflict or back and forth to try and ideate, to not slow the entire boat down too quickly, but not to rush to conclusions. So, anyways, thank you for being patient with us. And I just want to give people a little bit of behind the scenes, like that.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Adam sounds like a real jerk for what I know. Sorry, maybe I painted you in a bad picture.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

But it's fair, I was the one interjecting more of vantage points, slowing down the process, but it was because I was getting new data. So I I appreciate the chance to voice it for us to process it as a team, and ultimately, I think we didn't incorporate everything, but we incorporated enough stuff that moved us from v1 to v2 to v3 to I think v4 was like our final, and I'm ecstatic with how it turned out. And now it's gonna be on merch, it's gonna be on our staff shirts, Micah. I think the polos are coming next week. So, like this idea, and that's what's fun about not being a non-digital business. Like putting up actual stuff, you're gonna have to come to Page, stay at the Wesley, and get a shirt and a coffee.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Oh, I definitely will. I'm sending my family over there this summer to be like, hey, go buy all my things.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

That's amazing. That's absolutely amazing. I think we're running to the top of the hour. I probably have one more question to ask, and then maybe Adam, you could close out if you want. But for me, I just wondering you being in the branding business, this is what you do day in and day out. Are there any trends that are you're not a fan of or that are like temporary? And the reason I asked this is because we were looking for a logo and a brand that was timeless, not something that was in today, and then five years from now, you're like, oh, that is so 1999. Um, and I think that we really hit the nail on the head with creating a logo in a brand that is timeless. I'm just wondering, is there anything in particular that may be like a trend and people are going behind, but in the next five years that may not be the best direction to go in?

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Yeah, that's a really good point to bring up. I feel like when it comes to specific design trends, I can't super think of one, which also brings up the point of though we always want to create timeless designs, as times change and messaging changes, it's okay to be able to go back and give your brand a little refresh, you know? That I feel like we see a lot of brands do that all the time, where the egos just redid their branding. And most people would kind of look at it and not really super notice the difference unless you had that designer's eye of really compared them back and forth. But that's something I do always try to tell my clients too of as your business evolves and it grows, your branding might need to do the same. Obviously, we don't want to be doing that every year, every five years. It's definitely more of a long haul type ideal situation to be able to really make the most out of your branding. But yeah, what we said too of AI branding, I could see start, unless it starts getting like real a lot better, I could see that start going out a little bit as people start to realize that that they people don't trust naturally, like instinctively. We like cut up a little bit of walls sometimes when we see uh AI created artwork or designs. So that one I will be interested to see how it shakes out in the future, how that kind of develops.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

But yeah, I love that. And and part of the pressure of this, I think, was what you're saying is thinking, oh, I've got to create the next Nike or Apple or like in the back of your head, part of you wants it to be so freaking good. People are like, Wow, look at Adam and Micah's hotel, or you want to be proud of it, you want it to be timeless, but that becomes daunting. These people had, I don't know, dozens of people, hundreds of people, millions of dollars to commission this work, and we have a shoestring budget uh to pull this off. So, anyways, I love this I idea uh Mike Riley and some others in the short-term rental space would say, Hey man, if you haven't refreshed your photos or refreshed your living room in your short-term rental for a couple years, you're probably ready to do it. Like you just poured in a bunch of money into one of your backyards for exactly this reason. If you just if you don't do anything and your competition is getting better and they're fresher and they're newer, they're just more likely to stand out and get that click. So, the same way, I think that's great advice. That as much as we want to build this like award-winning, still here a thousand years later design, if you put that pressure on yourself, it'll paralyze you. So, this idea of just hey man, what's the next three to five years look like?

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Yeah, like it's not that serious.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Like, we can change it, it's digital. Cool. We built a sign. Guess what? We have metal inserts. If we want to change our sign and logos next year, it would hurt, but we could do it. But you are not locked in forever, I think is great advice. But trying to balance that middle ground again, don't build for a thousand years, build for more than next month. Yes, but anyways, that really resonates with I think some of the self-imposed pressure I was putting on myself. Again, working with a real human being to help us lower the stakes at times, or again to care about things like cursive font that I didn't originally care about. All right. Awesome. Micah, you want any closing thoughts from your side? Obviously, we should ask Kayla, where can if people are interested, maybe want to find out more about you, your business, your work, like where can people reach out to learn more?

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Yeah, right now I'm pretty much solo on Instagram based. So you can find me, it's at Winnie Design Co. on Instagram. I have some posts on there you can take a look at to see some of my work. And then if you ever have any questions, then you can just fill out the little inquiry form in my on my Instagram. So yeah, pretty easy.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Yeah, that's great. And what I will say is she's gotta wait. I think we reached out to her in the November month, and she was like, Yeah, I'm gonna get to you guys in January. So this was I was like, wow, okay, she's good, and we're on a wait list. So I definitely encourage reaching out sooner than later if this is something you're interested in. But it's definitely worth it. Your work is amazing. You worked with us for several months, and honestly, the outcome was absolutely great. So just want to give kudos to you, and I wish you all the best in the future, and thank you so much for being able to come on our podcast.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

Of course, I was so excited to be able to be here. So amazing, amazing.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Thank you so much for joining us, and again, for all the people listening or watching online. Thank you for giving us your time and attention. Again, Mike and I are documenting our journey going from zero to one, short-term rental operators moving into this boutique hotel world. There's so much that we're learning. But again, we've worked with Bi Hotelier to build a website. We worked with a muralist, we work with a visual identity, we've got a marketing team through Diamo, we've got revenue management. This is not an individual, one person on the couch is going to figure this out with YouTube. You need a village, you need an ecosystem. So again, Kayla is an expert. There are many experts out there, but hopefully this is illustrative. And again, we're just sharing our story. But reach out again if there are particular parts of marketing, branding, any aspect of acquiring, underwriting, purchasing, operating a hotel. Mike and I are really open books. And of course, you can always hit us up at Boutique Hotel Secrets of the community. That's how we met. That's what gave us confidence to jump into this game. So again, Kayla, thanks for joining. Shine a little bit of light on branding and visual identity. I've really enjoyed the conversation. With that, we'll say thank you and see you on the next one. That's the pod. All right, that's it for today on the official Bookie Hotel Secrets Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

If this helps, be sure to follow or subscribe and send it to someone who needs that bigger push. And if you want the community or the resource and playbook to find what we're learning, the link is a quick note. Word VHS community members learn our own experiences. And if you have questions or topics you want us to cover, check out and let us know. We'll build this chill to operate just like you at the end of the stuff.