285 Sky McLean's INCREDIBLE Real Estate Success Story - Launching Boutique Mountain Hotels
Founder of Basecamp Resorts
Sky McLean
Sky McLean is a Canadian entrepreneur in the hospitality space that has built a successful empire with her company Basecamp Resorts, a business that provides modern boutique hotels in locations across Alberta and British Columbia.
After receiving her MBA in real estate from the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, Sky moved to Calgary, Alberta to work with a local developer.
While there, Sky became interested in the Airbnb business model and managed to secure a bank loan to open her first mountain hotel property. Since then, Sky and her team have managed to turn Basecamp Resorts into Western Canada’s fastest growing hospitality brand.
Currently, Basecamp Resorts runs seven modern mountain boutique hotel properties and Sky plans to open six more locations over the next three years.
In this episode, we chat about:
What do you find most exciting about the profession of real estate?
Do you have any advice for someone who is looking to follow a similar career path to you?
What were some of the first things you took action to, to begin bringing this project to life - did you ever write a formal business plan?
What was the most challenging part of bringing your vision to life?
Did you ever face doubts either in yourself, or from others?
How did you gather the money necessary to bring Basecamp to life?
Who were some of the key partners, teammates or contractors that you had to bring around to help you?
In addition to being a CEO, you’re also a mom and a wife. What does a typical workday look like for you? Any habits that keep you performing at your best? What keeps you motivated?
What’s a character trait that you possess that you feel makes you a great entrepreneur?
What was one of the most recent investments you made in yourself as the founder or in the business that was well worth the money?
What’s your vision for the future of Basecamp?
If you look into the future and Basecamp has 100x the size of the company, what’s your best guess as to why?
To connect with Sky:
To purchase Basecamp Merchandise, click here
Access the transcript for this episode:
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You're listening to the visionary life podcast. I'm your host, Kelsey Reidl.
Each week, I'll bring you conversations with the most visionary humans on this earth, in hopes that you'll be able to absorb their wisdom, avoid their failures and feel less alone on the roller coaster ride that is entrepreneurship.
This season, I'll be chatting with creative thinkers, masterful marketers, brick and mortar shop owners, brand builders and people just like you who have a story to share or a vision that inspires. If I can share one quick secret with you before we get into the episode. It's that we all have a little bit of visionary inside of us, you know, that spark that nudges us to pursue our full potential in this lifetime, but perhaps somewhere along the line, it got covered up.
I'm here to tell you that it's never too late to explore that inner voice and access the brilliance deep down inside of you. It's in you. It's in all of us. Let's dive in.
Hey, visionaries. Welcome back to the show. Today I am sitting down with the founder and CEO of Western Canada's fastest growing hospitality brand Basecamp resorts. This is so crazy, because back in November, I got together with two of my best business girlfriends, Krista and Steph. And we actually spent time at Basecamp in Canmore, Alberta for a business retreat. And we all agreed that it was the perfect hotel for us to host our little intimate retreat together.
Because we had our own room, we had a common space, we had this long, big farmstyle table where we could do our brainstorming and our podcasting. And it was so centrally located in Canmore that we could walk to grab a bagel in the morning, we could go out for dinner, go shopping, there was just nothing bad to say about Basecamp resorts. Little did I know that a friend of mine who lives right close to me where I live in Paris, Ontario, she actually knows the founder, Sky McLean. So sky is who I'm chatting with today.
And my friend Katie shout out to you, she actually connected me with Sky and said you should have sky on the podcast. And I'm like, Man, she's got to be so busy, she's busy CEO but Skye made time to sit down to come chat with all of you visionaries, and to share the insane story of how she's become such a successful Canadian entrepreneur in the hospitality space. So more on sky in a minute. But I just quickly wanted to take a pause here and say thank you for tuning in, week after week after week. As you know, visionary life has been recording for over five years, I can't even believe I'm saying that. We've produced nearly 300 episodes, and we are currently preparing to record season 12. We're looking to sit down with consumer packaged goods experts, ecommerce experts, health and wellness businesses, we're looking to chat with money mindset experts.
So if any of those categories ring a bell, and you know somebody, if you could just hit me up with a DM on Instagram, I would be so grateful. Or just finally booking all of our season 12 recordings and I would love to hear your feedback and your suggestions as to who you'd like to see an interview with on visionary life. So that's my first call to action for you. And second before we dive into this week's episode, I just wanted to say thank you for all of you who came to our visionary meet up on Friday, Friday, May 27, we hosted a gathering of a bunch of visionary life listeners, visionary methods, students. And it was just so fun. We met in Hamilton, Ontario, we had people drive in from Toronto, we had people drive in from London, we had a few people come from hours and hours away from Michigan, it was so cool to gather all of you and to connect like minded entrepreneurs and to just see what conversations were unfolding and the collaborations that were being facilitated.
You know, much as I love hosting a podcast digitally and doing all of my coaching calls via zoom. I just think it is so irreplaceable to be in the same space as others who have visionary dreams and goals and who are motivated to grow and to better their life. There's just something to be said for creating an experience where you get out of your office and it's almost like you accomplish a million times as much as you could behind your desk by yourself. So Thank you to all of you who came to the meetup. If you do want to attend a future meetup, definitely just send me a DM and let me know. And I'll get you an invite to the next one. And maybe one day, we will go beyond Ontario, Canada and do some sort of retreat in the US. I'm thinking maybe we could go to California, maybe do a little retreat in Texas, or somewhere cool, like Florida or Rhode Island. I don't know what its gonna look like, but my wheels are definitely turning.
Maybe we'll go to Park City, Utah, and do some adventuring. I don't know, there's a lot of ideas circulating in my head. In the meantime, you guys, if you are interested in hearing about any of our offerings, we have the mastermind, you can go to Kelsey rattle.com/mastermind. We've got private coaching, had to Kelsey rattle.com/private coaching. And I would love to speak with you about what the best next step for you is, especially if you're feeling stuck or stagnant.
Or if you know that you want to identify new income opportunities. Optimize, it's Monday morning, we need some more coffee, optimize your lead generation and your sales strategies. Then I would love to speak with you and just see what's going on in your business. All right, so let's get back Skype McLean, who is she she's a Canadian entrepreneur in the hospitality space. She's built a successful empire with her company. Basecamp resorts go look them up. They're like the most aesthetically pleasing hotels ever. And she provides modern boutique hotel experiences across Alberta and British Columbia. So after receiving her MBA in real estate from the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, Skye actually moved out to the West Coast to work with a local developer. And while there, she became super interested in Airbnb business model, and she managed to secure a bank loan She tells us all about that, to open her first mountain hotel property. Since then, things have evolved, they have exploded now she's running at least seven, maybe more modern boutique hotels. And she plans on opening at least six more locations over the next three years. My God talk about somebody who's on fire who's doing big work in the world, and who's here to share her story.
So if you want to get in touch with Sky, just Google her name's sky McClain, MC L, E, A N. And without further ado, let's get into today's episode with Sky. Hey, visionary, I want to quickly interrupt this episode to ask you if you've been curious what it's like to work with a private business and marketing coach. If you're a business owner, and you feel like your marketing plan is all over the place, you haven't figured out your search engine optimization or your SEO strategy, you have no idea what your social media marketing plan is, and you are not doing so well. On the self Express content front. I call these the marketing trio. It's the three S's SEO, social media self Express content. And by dialing in all three of these pillars, you too can get more visible, generate more income and increase your lead generation where you're actually turning your followers into paid clients and you're constantly bringing new people in at the top of the funnel. If you're not familiar with my work, I am a private business and marketing coach and I have spent the last 13 years working in the marketing industry, many of those years doing consulting with clients like you who want to finally get more visible and get in front of their dream clients.
So when we work together, you have me for four months, as your marketing partner, I'm going to do a full audit of your business, put you on a private project management software with me. And then based on your innate skill sets based on your strength, based on where you are curious and where your dream clients are paying attention. We're going to build out a custom marketing strategy. We're going to track it, we're going to optimize it. And by the end of the four months, you have a plan that works and you're seeing results. It's truly incredible. Christina crook just landed a $100,000 consulting contract after implementing just one of my marketing strategies. Emily Fraser signed multiple new clients in one day after just one month of working with me. And now she is having consistent five figure months. And Natasha, she started leveraging her email list in December, and 30 days later in January, she pulled in $25,000 from one single email that we created.
So these results are possible for you too. But don't sign up yet. Just head to Kelsey rydell.com. And check out how we can work together learn all about it. Make sure you feel informed and if you'd like to book a discovery call with me just fill out the application on my website. We can get on the phone and see if it's a good fit for you. So any Waze, I don't want to interrupt this episode anymore, I cannot wait to work with you to support you and getting you more visible. And let's get back into the show.Sky. Welcome to the visionary life podcast. I am so excited to chat with you today for one because I actually stayed at Basecamp in Canmore. And I was there for a business retreat in November. And it was such a perfect setting because we all had our own space. But then we could come out to the collective table. And we could podcast together we did all our strategic planning for the year.
And now I'm just so curious to hear the full backstory. And I know my listeners are as well. So before we get into your whole journey for somebody who's never stayed at Basecamp before, could you actually tell us a little bit about the resorts and what you've built?Yeah, thank you so much. First of all, for having me I really appreciate it. And it's exactly what you said. We built from the ground up stack townhomes that are anything from a one bedroom to a five and six bedroom unit where everybody has their own bedroom where there's multiple bedrooms in a unit.
And there's a communal kitchen for just that unit, not for all the units. And in the kitchen. There's you know, full size fridge, full size oven, stove, like like a total residential product, but operated as a hotel. We're in commercial zoning we pay hotel tax, we remit to the DMO. We're not like a residential building that Airbnb is their units. We are a hotel that has a unique built form for short term stays in a home away from home. That's what we built from the ground up. But we also acquire land, build condominiums and sell industrial residential, hotel condos, and also renovate hotels. So well our main focus is growing this base camp resorts brand, it is actually a hotel brand where we have multiple types of properties under that umbrella, not just the homeboy from home, but also hotels under renovation as well.I'm so curious, was this always a dream of yours? Like did you grow up as a little kid and say, I want to create a hotel empire? Or was this a seed that was planted later in life? Take us back to that moment when you decided that this is what you wanted to devote your career path to?
Yeah, you bet. So as a kid Yes, I was always interested in real estate I never knew you know how I was going to get into it or what the path would be. And I ended up starting my career as a salesperson for Cadbury. I like the chocolate company. And then it was so much fun, but I knew that wasn't what I wanted to do. And I wanted to get into real estate. And so I went back to Toronto from Calgary, which is I'm from Toronto originally did an MBA at the Schulich School of Business in real estate, which was an amazing experience and a great way to get into the industry. And then I started my career working for developers in Calgary.
While I was there, I bought a condo in Canmore, which is an hour west of Calgary, because I love the mountain lifestyle. And it was a condo with a unique zoning that allows you to either live there, or Airbnb it or some combination thereof. So I started Airbnb. And when I wasn't there, I'd stay with friends and Airbnb it and I was like, wow, this is great business, like I'm making more money on my little Airbnb side hustle than my career job. And that's kind of how it all started. Very cool.Before we move on, I would love to know, do you look back on your career as a salesperson for Cadbury and see value in that chapter of your life? Or is there just nothing that you brought forward with you?
No, I loved it. It was I met amazing people and you know what? Sales, you either sink or swim and I'm a hustler. So I think I in that regard, it taught me to easily kill, right. And that's apply if applicable to any business and to any entrepreneur. If you're not gonna hustle, like Sorry, you're gonna get left behind. And there are strategic ways to hustle. And so being in sales, I think really teaches people how to use, you know, strategies to get people to either buy or do what they want and, you know, in a creative fashion.
I love hearing that. Because I think so often when we make big career changes, sometimes we can look back on our previous career path and be like, Oh, what a waste of time. I wish I would have gotten into real estate sooner. But there's always some really important lessons learned and just concepts and principles that you carry forward into the next chapter that probably helped you to be the best leader for base camps and you learned a lot of that from Cadbury, right? Yeah, absolutely.
And it was fine. You know, when you're in your early 20s. It's, in my opinion, time to have fun, right. And I'm glad I got to have those few years before I started all of this.
And you mentioned in that career, you learned strategic ways to hustle, I have to unpack that a little bit. What do you mean by strategic ways to hustle? What does that look like?
Well, I mean, I had to sell chocolate. So it wasn't like it was necessarily what the outside world would consider a tough sell.
But it's actually really hard. consumer packaged goods is one of the hardest categories out there. There's so much competition, there is limited real estate at these stores at these convenient whether it was a convenience store, gas station, a Walmart at Safeway, you're trying to get listings, and that is the hardest thing you can do. Like if you ever watched you know, the Dragon's Den or whatever, they always say, consumer packaged goods so hard, but I'm a buyer. And I'm like, Yes, it is. It's so hard. So I think being in a really competitive industry taught me that, you know, I had to go in there and be like, Okay, you got to ditch, you know, Wrigley's or whoever Nestle's and put in an end cap. That's Cadbury. And this is why and, and it's, it's it is all about strategy. And it's not there's not like cadre came in and said, Here's guy, this is what you have to say to the manager. In sales, you have to learn that you have to treat all of your clients different based on their personalities based on their business based on their objectives and try to fit your product or your offering or your service or your whatever it may be into their goals. And I think a lot of people don't realize that because they'll just be like, This is what you need to do. And this is how you need to do it. No, that's not gonna work, in my opinion anyway. So it really taught me how to be like, to your to your question, really strategic about getting someone to do something, but it's also in their best interest as well as mine. So it's a mutually beneficial situation.And I'm sure you've brought that strategic thinking forward with you in growing Basecamp and growing a hospitality brand. So let's go back to kind of the origins of building Basecamp. Did you write a big master plan? Did you have any idea how big this vision was going to become? Or when you launched the first version, the first hotel, were you kind of thinking, Okay, it's just going to be a one property thing. And then I'm done. Like, take us back to those early days. And what was the vision?
Yeah, that's a hard no, there's no vision, there's no business plan. There's no big document. And I don't think that any of those things are bad. Like, when people do that I'm like, right, you know, why not? I am got a job at Treichel homes, a big developer and in Calgary, a home builder developer and, and thought, This is it. I made it.
I got this job that I always wanted. And I got an MBA and now I have this job. And bah, bah, bah. And literally, like, 27 days into the job, they fired me. literally walked me out the door with a box, like the movies, tears down my face. And I was like, I am never fucking working for someone again. Pardon my francais. I was broken. I went home. And at the time, my then boyfriend now husband and I had a house in Calgary. And we had a tenant in the basement and I was crying so hard that she called me and was like, are you okay? Like, is everything okay, up there? Do I need to call the police or some form of authority? Is Tim beating you? Like, no, no, no, I got fired from my job. And I now have two mortgages, the condo and camera that I mentioned earlier, as well as this house in Calgary that I had bought as like a renovation flip job is one another my side hustles in real estate. And Tim was a carpenter making I don't know, whatever carpenters were making back then not very much. Now, I had no job. And because I was on probation, no severance, no nothing, all these mortgages, and it was sink or swim and was like, Listen, I've got to get my shit together. And I actually did end up having another job offer from another real estate firm, and I just couldn't do it. I was just like, No, I'm not. I know, I can do this. I know that there's a better way to be in real estate development. And as a woman, I even more wanted to not prove that necessarily, but accomplish that.
And so I scrapped together all my savings and put a deposit down on a piece of land in Canmore. It was a lot of money. And I had to get Tim to put in some money too. And we were still I actually know we were engaged at that point, but not married. And it was like holy shit. We need $2 million of equity. We need debt. We need to build this hotel. And we have no money like literally no money and we're bleeding money because we have these mortgages and nobody has any work other than Tim's renovating his buddy's bathroom like this is terrible. So I just put together a you know a document like a pitch deck and I started hitting the pavement back to like strategic thinking. I found everyone I knew and told them what we were doing. Like it's not like we had friends with money my family wasn't putting any money in my parents aren't you know, made of money. We didn't have that like scenario where I was like, Daddy's gonna cut you a check and away you go into the glory land, right? Which would have been great. So I just hustled and hustled and hustled and hustled and hired a mortgage broker, he was able to get the debt and I was able to raise the equity I'm Which, you know, that's a very long story short, and you know, we almost went bankrupt gosh, I think three times.
But God the first hotel built and after that it was making money we were able to refinance it because we had to use a private lender because we had no guarantee power. We had no assets. We had no collateral with nothing there. Nobody really can a camping trailer half the summer Airbnb being the entire portfolio of real estate, which was the house in Calgary and the condo in Canmore. Because we're no money. And then the hotel was making money. We got a loan from a credit union in Calgary was the first time we got like a real loan, not a private lender was incredible. And then we were able to acquire two other properties in Canmore. raise more money and limited partnerships, get debt from, again, private lenders, but then refi them with banks. And then it just grew from there. And every project was its own partnerships. So we'd always just raised raise money from different limited partners. Some people would come into all the deals, some people would just do some deals. And then I was like, Well, this is a great model. The Ground Up was again this stack townhomes the home away from home model and then the acquisitions were acquiring hotels renovating them. We have lampost hotel in Canmore. We have base camp lodge in Canmore. We have north winds hotel and camera which used to be the days in so right now we have five hotels in Canmore.
One in Banff called base camp suites. We have Baker Creek in Lake Louise, we have a base camp Lodge and golden and Basecamp resorts in Revelstoke. And we have a bunch of other projects. under construction. We also have some hotel condos we've built and we have an industrial project underway. So we're really a real estate company with a substantial focus on hospitality. Yeah, so long winded answer to like, no, there was no plan. And now we're trying to make a plan. So live, you can do it, or five and a half years into it. I'm going to make a plan now.Well, it's refreshing to hear because I think there are, you know, it's a bit of a split, like half the business owners that I talked to, they sat down and they wrote a formal plan before anything was put out into the world. And the other half were like, No, I just got my feet wet. And things unfolded as they did. And then I encountered a lot of problems. And I overcame them. And then some things worked. And here we are, right. So it's just nice to know. And I know the listeners appreciate hearing that not everybody sits in a dark cave and like calculates everything till it's perfect. And then they come out in public and share their ideas. So thank you for sharing that.
No, no worries. And it's you know, at the beginning, I didn't always want to tell people I got fired because I was so embarrassed and like, oh, it was a failure. And they walked me out with a box and like what a chump. But now I'm like, Yeah, I got fired, because I did not fit in. And that's why I'm an entrepreneur, because I suck at being an employee. So you ha right, like, Thank you traigo.
And you've obviously got that grit and what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. I'm curious, what are those other character traits that you feel like either made you unemployable? Or that make you a great business owner? Like, what is it about you and so many other entrepreneurs that we just we can't work in the typical structure?
It's perseverance and problem solving put together. So it's, you know, all someone will say no. And then I'll think of another way to get them to say yes. So for example, we were talking to this investor the other day, and my colleague was like, Oh, he said, No, he doesn't want to do the deal with us, blah, blah, blah.
And I said, Well, it's a good deal for him. I know it is. Let's just pitch it, like, in a different way. And so now, I'm still waiting for his answer. But it's just trying to think of different ways of doing things. And really not just not taking no for an answer. And I mean, there are times when it obviously ends up being a no, but it's just repositioning things. And again, back to what I said at the beginning, which I say all the time is just hustling. Like, you can't get off people, people suck. And if you just say oh, here, go to this job and hope that it's gonna get done. And I'm not a micromanager. But I follow up, hey, is this happening? What's going on? I just want someone to tell me what's going on. And then I feel good. But if you don't stay on top of every detail, every facet, everything and like I said, I don't micromanage. I just want the information. And it's the ability to know all the little details, especially in real estate and construction, development. There's so many details and one thing falls off the tracks like SEO later.And kind of going back a step. You mentioned that when you were out there raising money and having all these meetings in the early days that you just showed up. And you said I told them what we were doing. Were you like, did you have this really high level of confidence? Did you have to, I don't know just like pretend that you had it all together. How did you go into these meetings and tell them what you were doing with such such certainty that they were willing To invest their own money into this project.
Well, I mean, nothing's really changed. We're still doing that, like, I'm still meeting people on a daily basis. I'm build, I bought the Holiday Inn in Canmore took the flag off, I'm turning it into Mountain House building a spa as an accessory to this hotel, and hopefully to service or other hotels in town. And we're doing it like, but I had to raise $90 million to do that. And you have to raise the money before you can do the deal.
So you just tell him we're doing this deal with or without you. Yeah. And and yeah, obviously, there's a degree of confidence. But there's also a degree of scale, like, here's a realistic pro forma, here are the construction costs. And here's why I know how much it's gonna cost. So at the very beginning, I knew the cost because I was working for before the 27 days at TRICARE, I was working for a different real estate developer, and I was well into the budgets at that job. And I knew what things would cost and I was in the construction world that I had experienced. And I've worked with architects. So I did have the background experience to know that what I was saying wasn't like total made up, whatever. But if you don't have confidence in it, no one's gonna believe in it. Right. And I knew Canmore I'd spend time here I'd had that condo here, like I said, so there was a backstory to it. But I do this day. Remember, the first large investor I got that wasn't someone like they totally didn't know the guy. It was one of my friends, brothers. He cut a check for 300 grand and I was shitting my pants I was like, Oh my god. So I'm just throwing a grand. I've never seen 300 grand what is to get a grant Dear Lord, don't lose the bank draft, like get it into the bag run before he changes his mind to like, do something don't call until you know.
And so I knew that once I started making people money, the conversation would change. It hasn't changed as much as I thought it would like it's still, it's still so hard to raise money. The conversation is obviously better. You know, we've now made raised money. We've built my hotels, we've done these other real estate projects. We've made people this type of return. But we're still raising money all the time. Like it doesn't change.You mentioned a couple of great tips in there. So number one, having a backstory number two having realistic projections for somebody who is kind of about to embark on a journey of raising money. Do you have any other tips to share or success secrets or just any insights into how to make the journey a little bit easier?
Oh, there will be so many people who say this is a stupid idea.
This is a bad plan. Like I told you about Mr. 300 grand which is great for every $300,000 story. I have three. This is dumb. This is stupid. You're out to lunch. Oh, sorry, I forgot to turn my phone off. That's on you. You know, like, it's always like, every day, there's someone telling me like you're never gonna pull this off. This is gonna happen. That's gonna happen. Oh, you're an idiot. I remember at the beginning people were like, Why don't you just get a job like you got an MBA, just go get a job like everybody else. Bla bla bla bla like it to this day, there's people Oh, you'll never get this project done by this date. Oh, this is unrealistic. Are you just just Okay, now have a nice day. Thank you smile nod. You're thinking in the back your mind? Go fuck yourself. But like you don't say it you just okay. Bye. And? And to try not to let that like to answer your question, what would be my piece of advice, don't let that bring someone down. There are so many people who are jealous, who want to take the leap of faith, who want to start a business. And when they see someone else doing it and taking that leap of faith. And even as they become successful, it just gets worse and worse. And people suck in these tells stories and they make things up. And there's so much negativity that comes along being an entrepreneur that not everybody talks about. And if you let that get in your brain, like it'll really screw up your outlook on, you know, the positive future. So my word of advice would be like, smile and nod and just move on to the next.It makes me think of this quote that the tallest tree always catches the most wind, it's like as you grow taller, as you make your business bigger, you're going to be one that faces all that, you know, just stuff is coming at you right, the wind is getting stronger. And it's just kind of the cost of continuing to get more visible and continuing to like put your dreams out there in the world, which a lot of people are not willing to go there because they don't want to catch any wind in their life. It's a very vulnerable journey. And, you know, you're gonna be met with amazing successes and wins. But on the other side of that there's a lot of hardship and a lot of dips like that are just inevitable.
Yeah, and you know, we're in a very unique, I guess, industry and scenario and because I am like an unrelenting hustler I've built this business from like I said, zero to $500 million of at combination of real estate and construction assets under Manage Been in projects that we've completed in five and a half years. So it's been a huge, massive Raizy journey, and one that has been in COVID, which was terrible. A massive success for me for my company, for my investors for the brand for everybody involved. And with that is exactly what you just said, the more the more you you put yourself out there, and the more deals we do, and the more places we go to the more adverse or adversaries there are.
So you mentioned it's been kind of a crazy five years. And in addition to being a CEO, you're also a mom and a wife. So I'm curious, do you find balance in everything that you do? Or do you find that there are just seasons where it's full blown work, and certain things demand your time? And other times we need to pull back? Be mom, like, how do you find balance in all that? You do?
Yeah, it's actually impossible. But I do my best. And yeah, I I'd say I don't have that many friends. I ended up being friends with a lot of people at work, which I think is natural for anybody. But I don't do a lot of like, Let's go for dinner and coffee and this and that. Because if I'm not at work, I'm with my kids. And so that's my priority. And I luckily don't have to travel too much for work. And the places I go, I can bring the kids because there's so little so it's been it's been pretty good. And I'm also very good at making sure we still go skiing and biking. And like by we I mean Tim and I and then we do stuff with the kids. I feel like we're as balanced as we can be. And I feel really good about it. Obviously, I have my moments where I'm like, Oh man, like why am I doing this? I should just be a stay at home mom, like, Why did I have kids, I feel so bad. I'm leaving them with the nanny, and I'm going to work. But then I come home and they're so happy to see me. And I'm a better person because I'm doing what I love. And I'm going home to them. And I obviously love them the most. And so then we have a great evening together. And I'm home every night with them, put them to bed and I take them to school in the morning and stuff. So yeah, it's, I don't feel that work has consumed me too much away from from family life. But it's obviously not the same as if I had been like a stay at home mom, or whatever.
Absolutely. And I think it's such an important conversation to have that you never feel like you're doing everything perfectly. And when you have a lot of passions. And when you have a lot of things that you're juggling, sometimes things do fall out of whack. But as long as you have those anchoring habits, like for you, you said biking or skiing, that kind of bring you back to the present, and what's important and just those activities that reconnect you to like, why am I doing this in the first place? Oh, yeah, because I love getting out and having the freedom to ski or you know, to spend extra time with the family. And it's super important to just make sure that that fits in every once in a while to kind of ground you and bring you back to just the reason why you started at all.
Oh, for sure. And I mean, in my situation, I started the business before having kids. And so you know if from that sense, like it was it was me in the business, and then it was me in the business and the kids, right? So it's like, I don't know, if I would have had what it takes to start a business with a two year old and a four year old, you know, like that would that's a different world. I'll never know that. And that's okay. But I just think that it's just whatever timing is right for the for the person. And for me, I wasn't given a choice. So he got fired. So
Yep, absolutely. Hey, I've been there too, getting fired, but it's the best blessing ever, right? It's great. Is there a skill set that you're currently trying to work on? Or that you're up leveling in order to become a better CEO, a better leader and a better visionary for Basecamp resorts?
Yeah. Well, there's a couple, but I'd say the main one is being trying to create plans for the executive team in the company. So and a lot of those people are people who've been with us since the beginning. And it's been so fast and so quick. And so decisions on the fly and running gun, and then, you know, it was startup survival than it was COVID survival. And now it's finally like, Okay, we got to run this business, we've got to make strategic plans. I've got to make career plans with the executive, it's so that they can make those plans with the people that work under them, and create, you know, goals for the organization from a people standpoint. And so I'm not very good at that. Like, oh, let's talk about your career. Let's talk about your goals. Let's talk about you know, financial planning and all that like, Oh, my God, no, that isn't I want to go do deals. I want to go look at real estate. I don't want to do that. But I'm trying to realize that people need that right and the staff needs that and people need to know that they have a future and that it's in line with their own goals and In terms of, you know, whether it be career growth or retirement or a financial goal or a combination thereof. And so that would be the skill that I am most trying to improve
work in progress.
That's my final question for you, if you are to look into the future, and you see that Basecamp has 100 times the size of the company, what is your best guess as to why this has happened? Why have you dominatedat this point, it would be because I would have been doing what I'm trying to do now, which is to build a team who can execute like, you know, Tim, and I did the first hotel and it was me in the living room on the phone, like telling people what to do. And Tim on the site, like swinging a hammer. And that was great. But in order to grow to the scale that I want to grow. That's Tim and I can't go all over the place and build a hotel like that, and nor do we want to. So yeah, so the reason so to answer your question, the reason would be definitely people and building the right team, and motivating the right team to be part of that goal. And that vision and that plan to grow into the future and beyond.
Absolutely incredible. I would highly suggest anyone who hasn't stayed at Basecamp to certainly seek out location to book your next vacation, your next hotel stay there. Where are all the places that they should connect with you find out more about Basecamp. Feel free to leave any links or last calls to action here.
Yeah, just the best place is probably just go to the website, which is Basecamp resorts.com. We're also on all the social media outlets, and that'd be the best way to come in book and check it out and see these beautiful areas and go from there.
Yeah, I will say your Canmore location is magic in the best spot, and I cannot wait to come back. So highly encourage anyone listening to go check out what you guys have created. So Skye, thank you so much for sharing your story and for inspiring our listeners. And we wish you all the best as you build out this hotel empire.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of visionary life. I love bringing you these conversations on a weekly basis. So it would mean so much to me. If you could help me out by rating and reviewing the show on either iTunes or Spotify. It just takes a second. And if you don't want to rate the show, you could also just take a screenshot of the episode and share it on your social media platform of choice tagging me at healthy rival. I'll catch you in the next episode. Hey visionaries, I wanted to interrupt this episode to actually share a pretty alarming statistic. So research actually shows that women led businesses fail more often than our male counterparts. Oftentimes, that's because we don't have the necessary support the predictable lifestyles, and sometimes that's because we try to do it all and be at all, when in reality life sometimes has other plans. Has that ever happened to you? Well, that's why Emily and I are putting together the LEAP mastermind. This is a weekly mastermind that provides ongoing support as you grow and maintain your successful business. And we are putting together a group of 16 women who are ready to grow in a group in a community. It's all about being around the right people, making new friends, finding new business partners who understand your challenges with running a business and building an epic life filled with freedom and joy and your version of balance. So what we're going to offer is guidance and expertise and accountability between Emily and I we have coached 1000s of women like you to not only drive more revenue into the business, but to adopt the right mindset to create whatever business and lifestyle you desire. We give you the space to dream we give you the strategies to implement. And most of all, we give you 15 other women who are going to support you and who are going to make you feel way less alone on this journey. Now right now, we are not selling this publicly. So the only way to get more info the only way to get more details is to either send me an email Hello at Kelsey rydel.com. Just say the word mastermind, or you can just quickly find me on Instagram at Kelsey Rydell send me a DM with the word mastermind. It is going to be a truly incredible space. We're going to meet every single Wednesday, and we really can't wait to kick off and get things started as of beginning of May. So, honestly, I mean, this is the mastermind that I've always wanted to be a part of I've invested over $100,000 in masterminds before and I've really learn what works, what doesn't, what we need in order to succeed and I can't wait to spill all the beans.
So, between Emily and I, she's a mindset coach. I'm a marketing coach. We have all the tools that they really don't teach you in school. You're so skilled at what you do. But did you ever really learn how to sell how to promote your services, how to embody the physiology of success that's going to gift you with six figure seven figure maybe eight figure salaries down the line.
So that's it. Send me a DM on Instagram at Kelsey Reidl or email me hello@Kelseyreidl.com. We are not promoting this publicly. So this is the only way to slide in
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