Juggling a demanding job at a global consulting firm across multiple time zones, Stacey St. John found herself at a breaking point. She felt overworked, depleted, and disconnected from her own goals.
“I felt I was working my tail off to actually help my employer achieve their financial goals, but I was not focused on achieving my own,” Stacey said during an episode of the STR Sisterhood Podcast, which she hosts weekly. “And that really hit me like a ton of bricks when I had a breakdown moment back in 2018 where I was sobbing like a baby to my husband saying, I feel so trapped. I feel so exhausted. I know I need a change in my life, but I have no fricking clue how I’m going to do it.”
From this low point, Stacey made a bold decision to take control of her life and carve out her path to financial freedom. She embarked on a journey that would transform her life and empower other women struggling to reach their full potential. Armed with determination and a vision for her future, she spent 900 hours learning about real estate and developing a strategy to reach financial freedom, and she spent tens of thousands of dollars on self-education, mastermind groups, mentorship, and earning her real estate license.
“I have a relationship with my goals, and I actually speak my goals aloud each and every day. I think about my goals each and every day. I write my goals down. … And I am committed to achieving them,” Stacey said on her podcast.
Her goals for this year are to welcome at least 100 women into her mentorship program, STR Success Accelerator, grow her property management/co-hosting portfolio by at least 14 properties, and generate $4 million in revenue.
All of the hard work led her to purchase her first short-term rental property in September 2020 in Myrtle Beach, North Carolina. By March 2022, she had launched her property management and co-hosting business, Kozy Getaways.
Three months after founding Kozy Getaways, Stacey had achieved her goal of financial freedom and bid farewell to her W-2 job. Financial freedom meant Stacey could pursue her passions, and one of those passions was helping others.
Female Short-Term Rental Investors Facebook Group
Her role as a champion of women in the STR industry began unintentionally. A fellow real estate agent asked her to put together information on buying a short-term rental property.
“I started making a list of things that I thought would be important to cover, and I got to thinking, you know, I’ve been at this a little while; I’m gonna go ask some folks who’ve never been in the short-term rental space or bought property at the beach what they would want to know,” Stacey recounted. “And so I literally just popped into a real estate investors Facebook group for women, and said, ‘Hey, if you’re buying a property at the beach for the first time, what would you want to know?’ And the floodgates opened, there were all kinds of folks who commented, and someone within that comment said, you should start a Facebook group about [buying short-term rentals].”
Stacey took the suggestion and started the Female Short-Term Rental Investors Facebook Group.
“Once I started this Facebook group, I realized firsthand the power of community and connection,” she said. “It really just kind of lit a fire within me to go. I want to help not only these women be the very best version of business owners possible, but also give people the space to network and share successes and inspire each other.“
STR Virtual Summit for Women
From there, Stacey’s passion for supporting and uplifting women in the short-term rental industry only grew stronger. In January 2022, she launched the annual Virtual STR Summit for Women, providing an online gathering for female leaders and hosts to share their expertise and inspire other women.
The event is held annually featuring 100% women panelists and speakers, with the exception of three husband-wife teams who presented a session on Love & Business: Insights from STR Power Couples. The last summit featured 50 STR investors, managers, authors, and service providers. The sessions covered a range of topics such as Unlocking Comfort: Crafting Spectrum-Friendly Spaces for Families with Suzanne Hacker and Transformative Tales: Celebrating Growth Stories of Real Women in the Short-Term Rental Industry with Stacey and Esmeralda Alba.
Stacey also started an all-female mentorship program for STR entrepreneurs called the STR Success Accelerator.
“Not only has it been tremendously impactful for women to see other women leaders, but to have a sense of community where we’re learning together at the same time. That is incredibly powerful,” she said.
STR Sisterhood Podcast
In late 2022, Hospitality FM approached Stacey about doing a podcast for their network, the topic of which was up to Stacey to decide.
“I was all in this space for women so it just made sense to start a podcast focused on women,” Stacey said. “Honestly, I did not do any market research formally.”
It turned out Stacey had found a niche in the realm of short-term rental podcasts. Named the STR Sisterhood Podcast, no other STR podcast focuses solely on female trailblazers in the vacation rental industry.
“The podcast is incredibly rewarding for me because I get to be the the firsthand person conducting an interview and hearing other people’s journeys, and I love it,” Stacey said.
Each podcast also offers actionable takeaways for life and your business. Sometimes episodes focus on personal development like the Power of Positivity for You and Your Airbnb Business. Other times it’s survival tips for working moms like Thriving as a Short-Term Rental Mom-preneur.
“It goes back to working on yourself,” she said. “When we start there, beautiful things can happen not only in our businesses but in our lives, because we’ve got shifts in perspective.”
…
