Meet Sarah Glidewell

We recently connected with Sarah Glidewell and have shared our conversation below.

Sarah, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.

Being best friends and business partners – I think it’s extremely helpful to never have to feel alone as we grow our business and experience failure. We have consistently taken on more than we think we can handle and by keeping the promises we’ve made to ourselves and each other – our confidence builds. We keep proving to ourselves in the small daily actions that we can trust ourselves and each other to show up and perform.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Emily and I have been best friends for 20 years and business partners for 5. We built an online brand and found financial freedom through building a portfolio of high end bnbs in remote locations all while showing the journey online. Our secret sauce in our business is in bringing all the little luxuries of your favorite Mariott or Hilton hotel into a unique residential space that you and your group have exclusively to yourself. Airbnb hosts are all brand new to hospitality, and in our opinion theres a huge gap to bridge between bnb hosts and hoteliers when it comes to hospitality. By us focusing on how to be ‘better than’ a hotel instead of ‘better than’ other bnbs – we have exceeded all revenue projections we estimate our projects could make. Investing in bringing quality bnbs to the market has changed our lives in so many ways – which has led us to opening our doors up to teaching others what we’ve learned so it can change theirs too. The learning curve for us was steep – and if we can cut that in half for every person who learns from us, we feel we have made the world a better place.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Great question. My first suggestion is to assess your environment. Who are you surrounded by? Who is sitting in the front row of your life? Whose opinions do you value? The people around you are either pushing you forward or holding you back. Emily and I moved across the country to Texas right when I graduated college and although I didn’t understand how much that would change our lives – but it flipped everything upside down. It gave both of us the space to reinvent ourselves, think differently than we had up to that point, and choose a different path than everyone else did that grew up in our small home town.

My second piece of advice is keep a close pulse on the financial health of your business. We meet airbnb hosts ALL THE TIME that have properties that are not only costing them time and headaches to run their bnb every month – but at the end of each month their not profitable. This also gives aspiring hosts a lot of anxiety getting into the space because theyre afraid that is going to be what they experience as well. Learning how to underwrite a deal and how to handle bookkeeping properly aren’t the ‘sexy’ skills in the business – but it is the gas that makes the machine run. We have never once had a not profitable month in any one of our bnbs. We teach people how to properly underwrite a deal to verify that in a best case AND worst case scenario – they’re in the green.

The last piece of advice that I’ll give you that made a huge difference in our journey is finding quality mentors. Hiring people who have already done what you’re trying to do saves you so much time, money, and energy. It will speed up your timeline of success and cut down on your learning curve. ‘A’ players want to work alongside and help other ‘A’ players. You do not have to and should not try and build your business alone. Find someone who has already done the dang thing and hire them to teach you the path of least resistance. Why learn the hard way when they already have and you can pay to avoid it?

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?

100% go all in on your unique strengths. I used to manage the pricing, guest communications, and daily operations of our bnbs. My personal strong suit is sourcing and designing the properties – not operating them. But I was so convinced that no property manager was going to respond as fast or care as much about my guests as I did. After we hit 4 properties and were still growing – the operations were throwing a wrench in my week every week. It was the side of the business that brought me the least amount of joy and so reluctantly I handed off the management responsibilities to a property manager. I had just accepted that I would make 20% less off my properties due to now having to pay a property manager – but at least I would get my time back. A year later we’ve reviewed our numbers and each property made at least $20K more than the year previous. I was so desperately trying to do it all and was so certain no one could do the things I did better than I did them – when in reality I was making less money and doing tasks I didn’t enjoy by continuing to do the tasks I am not uniquely gifted at doing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thekarwells.space/
• Instagram: @thekarwells
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thekarwells