[Heather Bayer]

Well, I'm super happy to have Neely Khan with me today. Neely and I, I mean, we've been talking for a long time on the socials, and then we met for the first time, I think, in Miami at the Direct Book Summit. Right? Is that right, Neely? Is that where we first met?

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[Neely Khan]

Yeah, we met at the Book Direct Show, right?

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[Heather Bayer]

You're absolutely right.

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[Neely Khan]

We met years ago, I think.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Did we meet in Barcelona first, before that?

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[Neely Khan]

We met in Miami first, and then in Barcelona we met again, and you very kindly gave me a Yorkshire tea bag, which I still tell people about, because I really wanted a cup of tea and I couldn't find any good tea anywhere, so...

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[Heather Bayer]

Well, that seems to be a theme of these podcasts, because I had Alexis Miller on the show a while back from Cottage Connections of Maine, and I went to the VRNation Conference in Austin back in April, and she arrived with a bag of Yorkshire tea bags for me. It's all getting paid forward.

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[Neely Khan]

Definitely my kind of people, absolutely. Love that so much, yeah. Can't believe that was a good few years ago.

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[Heather Bayer]

I know, I know, God, yeah, I don't like to look at how time is moving on here. 

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Okay, so we have Neely Khan with us from Artwork Creative, or AWC, and it's an absolute pleasure to have you here. You're a writer, you're creative, I love what you write on LinkedIn, because that's probably most of what I see of your writing, but you definitely do share your talents and your skills on there.

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But let's start with your journey. How did this all kick off? Because there aren't many people about now who just concentrate on being great writers, unless you're in journalism or in that sort of publishing world.

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[Neely Khan]

Yeah, that's a very true point, actually. I was actually thinking that this morning. First of all, thank you so much, and likewise, I am so, so happy to be joining you on your podcast again. I have so much respect for all of the work that you do and just all of the insights you share for our industry, so thank you so much for the kind words. 

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In terms of my story and how I started doing, what I'm doing now, so I was definitely one of those annoying kids in school where I always knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I've always wanted to write full time. I think before the fascination of writing was the fascination of stories and storytelling. I have always, ever since I was little, been really enthralled by how stories help us remember things, how stories help us put meaning and almost logic even to random facts and things that happen to us. They help us understand things.

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When I started writing full time as a profession after I graduated and things like that, this was around 10 years ago and it was very much a decision that I made out of passion, that I made out of purpose. I'd just become a single mum and I didn't want to be a victim of my circumstances. I found very early on, even going back 10-11 years ago, that stories was the universal language that everybody connected to and yet, 10-11 years ago, this is something that brands weren't tapping into as much as they should have been, or in the way that I thought that they should have been.

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When I then niched into the hospitality and more specifically the short-term rental, the vacation rental industry, I very much came in with this idea of, Okay, storytelling isn't just about talking about who you are and sticking it on your About Page, that's a tiny part of storytelling. Storytelling is very much your way of being, the way you show up as a brand, the way you communicate with your guests, the way you come across all of your touch points. Those can be fiction stories, they can be non-fiction stories, there are so many endless opportunities.

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I've been very lucky in the sense that in my early stages when I joined this industry, I was presented with really great opportunities that I tried my best to leverage and it kind of just grew from there.

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[Heather Bayer]

Here you are today, so what are you doing today?

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[Neely Khan]

Right now, after freelancing as a writer for good years within this industry, I have now stepped in to run an agency called AWC and we have repositioned it as a story branding agency specifically for hospitality brands and what we do is we wrap emotionally charged soulful stories around brands and not only that but we teach brands and their marketing teams how to use story branding, how to use storytelling to increase conversion, engagement, booking, sales and obviously copywriting and writing is a large part of that.

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[Heather Bayer]

I think you made a great point where you said it's not just about the About Us Page because everybody thinks well that's where I tell my story, I tell my story about me and there are people out there who have done this amazingly well, but there are others that are using stories and while you were talking I was thinking about a few of these because you said that stories help you remember things and I think back to some of the storytellers in this industry that I've listened to over the years and in fact I did a post this morning on LinkedIn and mentioned John DiJulius who wrote a book called the Customer Service Revolution.

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And he did a presentation, he did a keynote and I could not believe it was a 2014 VRMA Conference. I would have said it was five years ago, not eleven years ago, but that's how quickly time is passing. But he told stories in that presentation that I have never forgotten and I mentioned one in my post this morning and then there's others, David Angotti from Guesty is out there and he talks a lot about his journey and the fact that he does long distance running - I mean long distance - 100 miles at a time, which is crazy. But I always remember David doing keynotes at some of our summits in 2016 and 2017. I remember the stories, the analogies. And then Casago, that we worked with just recently, have a very powerful story at the heart of their business called the Steward's Tale and he talks about the Stiweard's Tale, which is the medieval way of pronouncing it, and it's that steward of the medieval home that looked after it while the owner was away and fixed it when there was a storm and welcomed guests. And it's those stories…

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Forgive me, I'm rambling on when I'm meant to be interviewing you, but you just...., this is the thing Neely, when you start talking you fire people up I think with ideas and creativity and you make people think about the stories that they've heard and perhaps they can tell. So I was going to ask you, what role do you think good writing plays in helping a property manager stand out, but I think we've said it all, but you come in on that one because most vacation rental websites are bland, they're boring they don't have any form of story in there, so what becomes the core, what should become the core in a good website where a property manager or owner is telling that story?

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[Neely Khan]

Yeah, I think the question about writing is actually still very apt because as you've said, the story is the spine and often the words we use are the tools to bring those stories to life and I think the reason why I think that question is so irrelevant is because what I'm finding at the moment is that the majority of people in this AI driven age, while they are embracing new tools they're also thinking, Oh but you know writing is quite old-fashioned you know it's for Luddites etc etc. And one thing that we must remember is that everything starts with writing. And I think this is one of the reasons why, when I see the decline of copywriters in our industry, I think the biggest reason for that is because there has been this lack of being able to pivot and evolve. 

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So for example when I talk about writing and copywriting now, I do so from a perspective of we'll write your script, we'll write your podcast script, you know, the outline of your videos, the kind of story that you want to tell on your website it might not be full of words but everything starts with something needs to be written in order for it to then come to life. 

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So going back to your question about how do you then actually do that on a website for example, I think and I've always said this, I think I've said this on one of our previous podcasts too, I think the way you show up whether it's in words whether it's in images whether it's in videos that is all a consequence of all of the stuff that happens beforehand it's a consequence of how you feel about your brand the end message that you want to convey your values how you actually want your guests and your customers to feel that should really be the first question that you're asking yourself before you even think about putting any kind of content together and I think if you do that first that will then naturally translate onto your website.

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And the other thing is that a lot of people, when they think about storytelling on websites for example, they think, Oh the headline needs to be written in a certain way. The about page again needs to be written in a certain way. But actually it's about everything, it's about the colors you use, it's about the CTA buttons where they're placed, it's about the message that people receive after they've popped in their details into an inquiry form on your website. Are you asking people for their preferred pronouns? Are you asking people by which name they prefer to be addressed as, because that's a story of you caring, of you paying attention to detail, so ‘story’ is very much alive in everything that we do. It goes quite far beyond I think what a lot of people maybe think or assume

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[Heather Bayer]

well you've taken it to a level I hadn't thought about which is the inquiry form you know the contact form and imbuing that with the same story brand as you have everywhere else so I guess it's every single step within however and you said the way you show up which is I think something that is getting forgotten with this flood of AI generated content people aren't looking at that and saying is this the way I want to show up and that is spawning all the comments about em-dashes, emojis, and you know this is AI. It seems to have slowed down a little bit now, I think people are a little less excited about it all, but with so much of this AI generated content flooding the internet and I do see it and I recognize it in so many different places, because it's lacking story, it's lacking humanity. I think this is pretty self-explanatory but what do you see as the biggest risks of relying too much on it.

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[Neely Khan]

Oh the biggest risks, I think we would definitely agree on this, is just the sameness and the homogeneity that comes out of it. Everybody sounds the same and I think that for me is the most frustrating part. So I have absolutely no issues with people using AI tools to assist them with copy, and I say this as a writer. I perfectly understand that not everybody feels that they have the experience with a knack to write everything from scratch, including myself. So I don't think that's the issue, I think the issue is that when there's no editing involved there's no real detailed prompting involved where people are using AI tools like taskmasters rather than storytellers and linguists and it's kind of scary, because I'm reading people's posts at the moment and their content and I'm looking for their personality in between their sentences.

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Somebody sent me a message from a very well-known organisation a couple of weeks ago and the message was very obviously AI generated, which again isn't the end of the world, but that message was an invitation to ask me to join the network. And I could see that very little research had been done about me, my agency, or anything that I do and it felt so impersonal and you know how I felt at the end of that I felt like just not very cared for and not very important and I think that message could have come from anyone. That's how it felt to me and to me it feels like, well I don't know anything about this person because everything has gone through this AI filter and I really miss seeing the personality in people's posts. I feel like we're really missing that at the moment. I miss the typos, I miss the clumsy sentences, I miss people over apologising for the things they write in overly nuanced ways, because they say they're not professional writers, because that gives me an idea of the person behind the copy and that I think is a great shame that we're starting to lose that a little bit...

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[Heather Bayer]

That segues me on to something I wanted to ask, because you know I did the introduction to this episode and just talked about coming from a family of writers going back to my great grandfather who was editor of a northern newspaper and uncles and aunts that were all journalists and my mother was a really talented writer. So I've grown up in this family of writers. But what about those people who just will say I'm not a writer, I don't know how to do this stuff, I can't write a listing to save my life. What advice do you have for somebody who's feeling like that, but they still want to have this deep connection with their audience?

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[Neely Khan]

That's a great question and fantastic that you come from a family of writers, I don't think I knew that about you. It's a conversation we can have later on for sure. I get this a lot actually. I think for the majority of our clients, the conversation always begins with well you know we're not as good as you and we're not natural writers. And I think there's this enormous misconception that writers are people who have this secret treasure trove of long words and we know all the words that exist in the dictionary. Actually I think in order to become a better writer when you think about writing, it sounds quite cliche, but writing really is thinking. 

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A person's writing is a sign of their intellect, emotional, academic, mental intellect, their experiences and their mindset. I could read something from someone and because of my experience I could probably get an idea of where they are in their headspace right now. And I think in order to improve your skills as a writer a lot of people fall into this sort of practice of let me go and read a how-to guide, let me go and listen to another free YouTube course, or let me stop writing and writing and writing. 

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But actually, in order to write well you need to teach yourself how to read and consume the correct kind of content first. I know this is very common advice but ever since I was a little girl it's the best advice I've ever had. Even when I was in Cambridge and I was studying there, the advice was always just consume, read more than you write. 

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Now the problem we have in our industry and just the business world in general at the moment is that people are consuming content mostly from just one genre, or one type of content, so they're all either reading business books, or whatever they find on their LinkedIn feeds, which let's face it is not the most wholesome stuff right now. Open your mind to different kinds of literature, fiction is great, novels are great, if you feel you have the attention span for it. Newspapers, broad sheet newspapers are fantastic, the scripts of films, these are all the things that are going to make you better writers, better storytellers and I think get really clear on the message that you actually want to get across in your writing. 

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I think clumsy writing is often the result of clumsy thinking. I don't really believe in writer's block, but I do believe in lack of inspiration and a lack of clarity. I think that's where often the problem comes from. But the first advice I would give to anyone is to go out and read more books, read at least 52 books in one year and then come back to me and then we'll have another conversation about it

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[Heather Bayer]

You said something that just triggered me there for a moment, triggered me into a different direction about writing versus storytelling; are they different?

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[Neely Khan]

I think so, I think in practice yes I think writing is like I said a tool so it's one of the ways you could tell a story storytelling can happen through body language alone right you could not use any words and you could tell a story just simply by gesturing the two of us could look at each other right now and not speak at all and you know with the right kind of gestures in body language we could be telling each other a story. 

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And storytelling is beautiful, because storytelling is always open to interpretation, as is writing, but storytelling always leaves more room for imagination. I would say storytelling always has some kind of a purpose, whereas as does writing, but I think when I think of storytelling I think of transporting people somewhere, making them sort of believe something that you want them to... getting them on the same page as you. So I would say writing is important to storytelling but they're not necessarily the same things.

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[Heather Bayer]

Tell us about the book that you wrote

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[Neely Khan]

Yeah, "In Delhi, it Pours." Oh that was an amazing project. I wrote that I think four years ago now and I believe it published around three years ago. And the marketing that I did for it was, quite honestly, quite atrocious. I wrote that for the personal marketing I did. I didn't push it to become a best seller or anything like that, but it was written for a client of mine. They own an independent South Indian themed restaurant brand in the UK, and since launching the book they've had great success. They've opened a few new sites and when they initially came to me, they said that we would like a recipe book. I was like, Okay, that's quite straightforward, I can write some recipes for you. 

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But then what we did after that is that we decided... Hang on, how can we make this even more wholesome and a real meaningful representation of your brand? So what we did was rather than launching just another recipe book, we used stories and we launched the first fiction story-led recipe book. And it really is the only one. I haven't found anything else like it within that sector. And what we did was, with every food item, with every meal that had a recipe, we first introduced it with a fiction story. So these stories, they were entirely made up, they were inspired by the everyday locals of North India, of Delhi, and the stories were incredible, they were just really real. 

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There's a story about a single mum who makes those clothes for a living and it's told from the point of view of her five-year-old daughter. There's a story about an illiterate Dabbawalla, who are the [food] delivery people in Delhi and how even though he can't read or write English is actually one of the most intelligent people, because he helps the economy so much in Delhi and the stories were actually about the characters rather than the food items. 

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But we weaned the meals into those stories and the response of the book was so beautiful, we found a lot of people were talking about the stories, the characters and as a result of that they were of course talking about the brand and this is such a beautiful way of using storytelling. It's what we do with all of our clients in different ways, but we always lead the story and the product mention or the brand mention comes as a result of that.

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[Heather Bayer]

So tell us the name of the book again

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[Neely Khan]

In Delhi, it Pours

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[Heather Bayer]

As in rain?

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[Neely Khan]

Yes, In Delhi, it Pours, and the entire semantic field of the book is rain and how rain is a metaphor for blessings in India and actually it's a great writing tip too, I think, when you're writing any piece of content always have a semantic field in mind, and by that I mean a theme, and then write to that theme.

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[Heather Bayer]

Okay, so let's take that into some of the clients you're working with. You just said, this is how I start with a client. Can you lay that out a bit more? What are the first things you do when you start working with a new client?

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[Neely Khan]

So the beginning is always my favourite part. We do very deep story work with our clients. Often they will come to us with a bunch of different value services. All these things they want us to mention in their story and we always start with a... I suppose in essence it's a discovery session, I think. We listen probably far more than what we actually write. I think our services as a whole is more as listening, understanding, and then the writing is just a small part of that. 

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So the very first thing we will have a very deep and meaningful conversation about what the brand, what the founders of that brand actually want to convey to their guests. What is the message? And we go beyond that. Why are you doing what you're doing? Who are the kind of people that you want to attract? What is actually important to you? Okay you say it's sustainability, is it environmental sustainability, is it human sustainability, is it about the kind of coffee cups you use, how you dispose of them? 

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We get into the specifics, so that first session, sometimes it's broken up into two sessions, because clients often have so much to say and that is like gold for us. That is usually the first part. And often... and always should I say the most important part and then what I do is we always record these sessions. I'll go back and listen to them after a few days and then that will be the skeleton of what we want to create. 

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I think one thing that we're really good at is when I listen back to these discovery sessions, because there's so much rich detail in there. I'm very good at picking out the common themes, because those themes then become the story, the main story that we want to lead with.

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[Heather Bayer]

So I'm thinking that this is perhaps, stepping back to AI, somebody who's perhaps having to do this themselves, this may be a role for AI. Is to be able to say, okay, here is my story. And if it's comprehensive enough to ask AI, so what are the common themes? Because I'm living it, so it's very difficult when you're actually involved in your own story to pull out the themes that might impact you as a brand in a business.

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[Neely Khan]

Yeah, I think that's actually a very useful way to use AI tools. And it's like we said earlier, you know, we're not anti-AI, I very much use AI tools and in the way we work as well. So for example, if I've collected all of this information off the back of the meeting, we have the transcript. I will run it through an AI tool, I will listen to it first, and I will make my notes, but I will also run it through an AI tool.

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And I think AI tools like ChatGPT, for example, are very good at picking out the patterns, the language patterns off the back of that transcript, and then remembering it, which I think is one of the main reasons why I love to use AI tools, because it remembers things that I, as a human being, can so often forget. But the other thing that I would say is this is where the balance is really important too, because in order to extract that story from someone, you do often need to start with a human being. Yes, the likes of ChatGPT can give you guided questions, and that is a great starting point.

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But I think it really helps to have a human angle on that too. So the reason why, for example, you know, we recently started working with About Luxury Rentals. And when I went into the first meeting, the first discovery session with Rachel and Rob, the founders, who are beautiful people, I very much went in with just myself as Neely, very much a human angle.

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And there were very specific nuance questions that I asked in order to extract that story from them. Not only that, but as they responded, as we're finding in this podcast, for example, my questions, I then had to obviously edit and tweak based on their responses. And based on their energy.

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So I think that for the beginning part, having that human touch is really, really important. But absolutely, when it comes to transcripts and analyzing that content and finding common themes, then AI tools are a fantastic way of saving time. Yeah.

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[Heather Bayer]

Yeah, it's interesting that you sort of bring it back to the podcast, because I send all my guests a list of questions. And I go to AI and say, give me 10 questions that I should ask, and I'll edit them a little bit and send them off. And I always say I've sent you the list of questions; these are guidelines. I will rarely keep to them, because it is the responses that I get from the people I'm interviewing that then direct me into the next question. And I think this is probably why this podcast has always been so successful, because it's not just a list of, Okay, here's the next question. But I love what you're saying there, is that the AI can't do this for you. Although I guess it can, to a certain extent.

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I went out on a walk about two months ago. And I was starting to really use ChatGPT's advanced mode, advanced voice mode.

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[Neely Khan]

Yeah, yeah.

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[Heather Bayer]

So I could go out for a walk, and I'd heard this from somebody who said, you know, tell your life history to ChatGPT.

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[Neely Khan]

Yes.

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[Heather Bayer]

And it will ask you a whole bunch of questions. And then you can use that to develop your brand voice out of that, because you're just chatting as if you were chatting to a friend. And I did find that it wasn't asking me a set of questions. I would say something and it would come back, sycophantic as ever. Oh, Heather, that's the most amazing thing. I now ask it not to be sycophantic. Please don't. You don't have to please me. 

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Well, that was a really interesting thing that happened in your life. 

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I ran away from boarding school when I was 13 years old. And it was a huge thing for me. I ran away in the middle of the night. I made my way to a railway station five miles from my boarding school by jumping into ditches to avoid cars. And I finally ended up sleeping in the railway station, jumping on the train in the morning and getting home. And I told this story. And I have to say, it came back and reflected a lot of how I was at that time and how that experience then impacted my future. So that was a really good exercise. 

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And I did use that. I came back, had the entire transcript and then said, you know, draw out some of my personality traits from all this that I've talked about. And it was remarkably accurate when I compared it to some of the psychometric testing I've done over the years. It's quite interesting. So that's an interesting exercise. 

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If you haven't got a Neely, who's going to be much more nuanced and deep in the questioning. So, you know, I don't want you giving away what you're doing with your clients, but you're generally what happens after that discovery. Do you go to blog posts and web content and promotional material or communications? Is there an order to it or does it naturally flow?

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[Neely Khan]

I would. Yeah, I would say it naturally flows. It's very much a fluid process.

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And, by the way, I'm just going to go back to how you've mentioned how you speak to your GPT, because I do exactly the same thing. And I just want to say, yes, people should absolutely go and try to do that, because your output from AI is only ever going to be as good as your input. So that's really fantastic advice, actually.

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So in terms of how I work with clients, what we do after the discovery session, so it very much depends on specifically what the client is looking for. The majority of the time it is we need a story. So when I say that, I mean, they need one narrative arc, which will act as the North Star for all of their marketing, for all of their branding, for their tone of voice. That one story is going to guide them. 

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So after the discovery session, we will then go back and offer the clients a few different narrative arcs. Depending on which angles they prefer, which kind of themes are speaking to them more, then they will come back to us and say, I'm feeling this one. Let's go with this one. Or they'll say, I'm feeling the first and the second one. Is there a way we can maybe mush them both together? 

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We recently worked with a fantastic brand that's launching just outside of Atlanta. It's a micro resort and it's inspired by the concept of Ukyio, the Japanese floating world. And the founder, Brian Hatcher, said, look, this is what I wanted to be about. But I need some kind of a story that is going to act as our sort of skeleton for everything that we do moving forward. So after I listened to his story and the reason why he was launching Ukyio, I sent him a few different story drafts. Mostly short form, very much draft story form. And he said he told me which parts he liked, which parts resonated with him the most. Then off the back of his feedback, we created one main narrative story arc. So this would sit on his website. It would sit on his decks anywhere where he has to introduce the brand. 

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We often write different versions. So we'll write a version, a long version for maybe the websites, for bios, for decks. We'll write a short version for Instagram and social media and things like that. We'll write an even more micro version that they can then continue to repurpose in different ways. After we've done that, we will create an activation guide. So this is something that we create. It's a document they can save, they can keep.

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But then I also personally deliver an activation workshop to the team. And that is really where the magic happens, where I say, OK, you've got this fantastic story. We've created the tone of voice guidelines for you, because we do that as well as part of this service. This is how you now use it. And we will give them very tangible examples and show them this is how you use the story across all of your marketing, any future campaigns that you have. Obviously, they can come back to us when they want to launch something new.

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This is how you make sure that that story doesn't break. And that is, I find, the most helpful part for our clients because it's one thing giving them that story. It's another thing. And it's very much worked as a framework. It's our most popular service. The framework itself is called Kahani, which is the Hindi word for story. And it works for every brand we work with. And it's fantastic because when people come into the first meeting with us, they are often a little nervous, or they don't know what to expect, or they feel like they need to give very sort of clinical corporate answers. And by the end of the first meeting, you can just see the shoulders have dropped. They feel relaxed. They feel inspired. They're like, oh, we can do this. And I think that's the most fulfilling part of what we do.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

I'm hoping you can share some websites that perhaps we can show on the Show Notes so that people can see what.... because as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking, I want to see this. I want to see how it works in action. So I'll have you share a couple of examples for me to put in the Show Notes if that's OK.

‍

[Neely Khan]

I definitely will. I think one of the most recent examples that I'm most proud of on a personal level is Tara Home Consulting, Christiana and her team. So they have a fantastic consultancy business. They consult with other short-term rental brands and they help and coach brands through any sort of phase of the business that they're in. 

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So right through from startup to exit and anything in between. And when I heard about all of the wonderful things that they're doing, we came up with one line, with one story. "You can do anything." And the story that comes off the back of that, now we have their team members now sharing these micro-videos about their own "You can do anything" moments and their own

"You can do anything" stories. They invite their target clients and their target audience to do the same. So there's that beautiful raffle and it's just opening, you know, a door to so many more meaningful partnerships.

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And Christiana sent me a message a couple of weeks ago to say, you know, because of this, You can do anything story that we've now launched. I'm learning so much more about my own team. And, you know, that's just beautiful, isn't it? That will translate. It's very much a long game. It is a long game.

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I'm not saying that when you work with us with the Kahani framework, for example, you're going to see results straight away. You might not. You might, I don't know. But it really works in the long run and it gives you that consistency, and that builds trust; it's great.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

So let's go a little bit more practical. I've really got a good appreciation of what you do and how it works with companies, but practically, not everybody's going to be able to work with somebody who can come in and do this for them. Could you give some tips and some recommendations on how property managers should say, go look at their brand, at their websites, perhaps at the communication styles they're using. How do they pull out their own stories and begin to imbue that into everything they do?

‍

[Neely Khan]

Yes. This is another great question because there is so many different ways that you can use stories. But I do appreciate that often, because there are so many different ways, it's difficult to know where to start.

‍

So let's start with something really simple, like your email sequences; right? Really simple, something that most people can start. Most people probably already have their emails set up. They have an email database. Rather than sending something like newsletters to your guests, to your target audience, why not just think of a theme or an idea that will actually inspire your guests. Why not write letters in the tone of voice of an innkeeper, or whatever else is suitable for your brand. And a lot of people might turn around and say, well that's a bit soft, this and that.

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But actually, if that's appropriate for your target audience, obviously, you need to have a think about who your audience is, what works for your brand. That is such a fantastic way to, one, get people to actually read the email, to tell other people about it, because I can't remember, I'm subscribed to a lot of emails. And I can't remember the last time a vacation rental company wrote to me in a way that felt personal, that felt like a letter, that felt like a story, that had some nice artwork, that had a really nice, meaningful message. Most of the emails I receive are, Oh, we've just refurbished X property, or this is our Christmas offer. 

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Offers are great, don't get me wrong, but dress them up in something that people will actually get excited about, and speak to the child in them. I believe everybody likes that. Speak to the nostalgia in them. So that's one very basic way that I think most people, even with little writing and storytelling experience, even without a marketing team, that's something you can quite quickly incorporate into your marketing strategy.

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And I do believe that when you start doing that, and if you do it for long enough, if you're consistent with it, this consistency - without consistency, there's no point in doing anything - you will start to see... people will reply to your emails. I've seen this with every single client I've worked with. People have replied and said, you know what, that's a great email, and by the way, what are you doing for XYZ? 100% of the time that's worked. 

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Another way that you could, and this is a super magical way, which will not only, I believe I've seen increased conversions, but it allows brands to increase their prices, because stories, they increase the value of things tenfold, you know, the perceived value of things once you attach a story to it. It's the reason why Andrex toilet paper is among the most expensive in the UK and the other toilet paper brands are a lot cheaper, but Andrex still dominates the market. It's because of the puppy on the pack. It's because of the story about the puppy. Yeah, the toilet paper is more or less the same. 

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So what I would suggest is, say you have, I guess this would work better for a company with a smaller number of properties. If you've got that boutique vibe about you, it's a really lovely idea. Each of your properties, right? And we've done this recently for a company called Just For You Holiday Homes in the Isle of Wight. Take each of the properties and write a fictional founding myth about them. 

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So I did this first for a company, a restaurant company called Dishoom. And then I thought, wait, this is great. It can be applied to literally any business, but especially short-term rental operators. Write a fictional founding story. So as an example, for Just For You Holiday Homes, one of their properties is based in the village of Ryde, which is known as a small fishing village in the Isle of Wight. And it's a fictional founding story. It's fictional, but it's still very much inspired by its geographical location in the history of Ryde. 

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We wrote a fictional story about a fisherman who lived there many, many years ago. He fell in love with a rich merchant's daughter. But her father, who was very wealthy, didn't approve of their relationship. So he then resorted to writing handwritten love letters to her and hiding them underneath the floorboards of that property. So we wrote that as a founding story. And now what we're doing is we're working with the brand on helping them bring those stories to life. So recreating those love letters and leaving them in the property itself as little 'Easter eggs' of the story. Because now you've gone from offering a short-term rental stay to a themed experience. And you can 100% increase your prices, your rates, as a result of that. And I bet you, because I haven't really seen very many short-term rental brands doing this at all, you will probably become one of the only doing that leading with story in your area. Excellent PR opportunity, excellent way to differentiate yourself.

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Story gives you a point of difference. And it's so much fun too, right? I mean, if I had the choice between staying at a cottage but staying at this other cottage where there's this beautiful love story attached to it, even though I know it's fictional, I'll want to stay at the latter because I would appreciate the theming and the experience. It's all about world building. You know, think about the world you're creating in your brand.

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[Heather Bayer]

Well, this is it. It's about looking at the people who are going to be your guests and understanding where they're coming from and the fact that they want to be treated like people and not as numbers or 'heads in beds'.

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[Neely Khan]

Exactly, exactly. And I know you've written about this, you write about this a lot, actually, on LinkedIn, that the biggest thing missing from hospitality is often hospitality itself. And I think in this age of scale and ROI and yada yada yada, sometimes we do miss that personal touch. And the people who are checking into your properties, they are actually people.

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[Heather Bayer]

So as we come to the end here, Neely, I just want one big tip for anybody who's feeling overwhelmed by this conversation, perhaps, because you've packed so much into it, but they're feeling overwhelmed by the burden of content creation, particularly if they're looking at one of these bland websites that just says, here's my place, come rent it. 

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[Neely Khan]

Oh, that's a hard question. One small thing. Okay, so I would start off with, there is a word in narratology called diegesis, and it's a Greek word for narrative, and it refers to the tone that your story is setting.

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I think hospitality business owners, short-term rental business owners, they would fare very well from just taking a step back from all of their branding and their marketing and really having a think about the theme of what they're trying to create. The world. What is the world you're trying to create? Forget about, you know, take your STR marketing hats off, put your world building hats on. What is the world? What are the emotions you want to create? Then write a list of all of the things that are related to that theme.

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So for example, what kind of language do you imagine? You know, think of your brand as a person. If your brand walked into a coffee shop, what kind of words would that person use? How would they dress? What would be important to them? Write all of that down. And that will give you a really nice... it's a small thing to do, but it's a nice starting point.

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A lot of this is really just about your mindset and how you approach things and how you approach your branding and your marketing. But definitely start with feeling and just go out and expose yourself to different kinds of content. Watch a film, watch a play, read a different book.

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I get my best ideas about marketing and branding from brands that have nothing to do with our industry. And that is really where the best inspiration lives. So just look beyond what you're being taught at conferences and events and just go out there, because there is inspiration outside of our industry as well, believe it or not.

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[Heather Bayer]

Well, that brings me back to Matt Landau, who talks about a conference, I think that he and Antonio Bortolotti went together to Morocco. And it was a business conference, but he said it was a conference like nothing he'd ever been to. And he came back with so many ideas. And he said, and he's always said, you've got to think outside this box that we put ourselves in. Yeah, go to something different. Go to a retreat, or go to something where people who are not in short-term rentals hang out and get talking to them. You'll get that inspiration. 

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I get it. I get it from going to my pickleball. There's a lady there who I'm connecting with, because I'm going to hopefully do some AI work with her and her company. And she runs a.... she's indigenous Canadian, and she runs a nonprofit in our local town that I've never heard of. But she celebrates indigenous art. And so every time there's an event in the area, all the creatives are out there. And it's just amazing. And I've taken a lot from that just meeting somebody outside. 

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Yeah, small world. But bringing what I'm learning from them back into it.

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[Neely Khan]

Yeah, we should get them to speak at these conferences and events. I think it would be a breath of fresh air. Honestly, it could be.

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[Heather Bayer]

Yeah, absolutely. 

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Neely. It's been absolutely fantastic. And I know I have this long list of questions. I think I started with number one and that was it. We went on to do all sorts of other things.

You talk like you write, you have this wonderful flow in your narrative and it's a blessing for me in what I do. So thank you so much for doing that and joining me and sharing with everybody.

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[Neely Khan]

I really appreciate it. Always a pleasure, Heather. Always a pleasure.

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Thank you so much.

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