Julian Sage:                         00:00                     In this episode we’re talking about how to reduce the time it takes to clean and Airbnb short term rental unit. So stay tuned.

Julian Sage:                         00:06                     Vacation rental machine helps hosts just like you learn how to start grow and scale your short term rental business. The show’s all about creating systems that help you automate your business, give any more time and money freedom. If you’re ready to start living the vacation rental life then, subscribe to this podcast today, come and join us on our Facebook group, the host nation where we’ll be talking about starting automating and scaling a short term rental business. Now onto the show.

Julian Sage:                         00:33                     Hey, welcome back host nation to another episode of vacation rental machine. I’m Julian Sage with Jon Bell and we are talking about scaling your business, scaling your vacation rental machine, and one of the things that you can start to do when you are scaling is creating a cleaning hub. Now, this was the first time that I ever heard of a cleaning hub was when I met Jon and we were talking about his business model. Now Jon, what is a cleaning hub and why is this so essential when you are scaling your vacation rental machine business?

Jon Bell:                               00:59                     Well, let me preface this by why it’s important to me, right? So one, you could actually have a business that uses somebody else’s linens, like a linen service that they provide, the sheets, the towels, stuff like that. So if you think about that as a centralized hub, right, it’s stored somewhere else offsite and it’s bringing audit to your property.

Jon Bell:                               01:20                     In my scenario, I am using my own linens because I and just particular for nice linens and we get comments on our linens and stuff like that. I want them to keep that trend of things I, that my guests enjoy and that I enjoy. So for me that means we have to have a centralized hub that eliminates the possibility of anybody washing anything on site. This is our main distribution point for all of our turn bags, all of our dirty linens. This is where everything goes. Either picked up to go to a unit or dropped off to get washed. That means we also don’t wash typically doing the times of check-in. We can wash completely separate of that. Somebody can go wash like in a washing assistant. If there was a linen service that was doing a wash and fold service for us, we can have them pick up and drop off.

Jon Bell:                               02:13                     Everything flows in and flows out of this hub. What else is in this hub? A lot of our supplies, a lot of our things to help remediate issues like when somebody smokes, right? This is where our ozone machine is. This is where our HEPA filter is, this is where that stuff can get picked up and moved to wherever it needs to get moved to and then return to. That way you’re not buying a lot of stuff, right? If I were to have all of this equipment just sitting around at every apartment, that will be a waste of money. This also means that I could have other little services like I said in the other episode, I have a baby seat that I keep in this centralized hub. It’s something that doesn’t go out all the time. People really don’t need it all the time, but when they do request it, it’s here.

Jon Bell:                               03:02                     It’s ready to go. I got it. I just need to go and drop it off. And it comes at a cost, right? They pay that cost. It’s more than enough to cover the person that’s got to pick it up and move it. In most cases I can send it with the cleaner. So all of my operations run around this centralized hub and I make sure that it’s centralized to all of the units that I have. This is for a medium size footprint, right? This is above 10 units or so. If you’re really maybe seven units or above, then you would want to start considering this, if you’re five and below, this might not be important to you because you still could operate all your units. You don’t have a quick set of turnovers that are happening all at the same time that stresses the system.

Jon Bell:                               03:49                     So don’t worry about it when you’re having just that few of account. But when you grow bigger, keep in mind that this might be the way to go or the way to go is to hire a linen service that provides linens and completes everything for you.

Julian Sage:                         04:04                     So Jon, what does this cleaning hub actually look like? Are you purchasing like a piece of property or are you using another unit or is this just like a warehouse? Where do you even find something like this?

Jon Bell:                               04:14                     This actually is popped into one of the storage units, like an extra space storage or a CubeSmart. I just went to the building and I picked up a few storage units and I operate them as my central warehouse. One of the things I like about being at a facility like that is it’s completely scalable, right? I could influx in a number of storage units by process if I wanted to, if I wanted to store furniture, I could get another unit to store furniture.

Jon Bell:                               04:43                     If I just wanted to downsize, I can get rid of stuff and I don’t really have any obligations beyond the month that I’ve got it for versus taking a long-term lease on some other type of place, whether a garage or maybe if some retail space or whatever you want it. I don’t have those long-term obligations or space confinements that limit me on what I could use or how I have to use it. So that’s why I think that might be the best model for you guys.

Julian Sage:                         05:12                     And in these hubs, are you putting like washers and dryers and are your cleaners going back there and actually doing the linens?

Jon Bell:                               05:20                     We’re not putting washers and dryers in these units, but if I could, I would because it is already there. Our dirty stuff is there. In some of your lateral movements in this business, you might even consider purchasing a laundry mat. In my area, they’re just way too expensive or the ones that are actually for sale are way out of my market.

Julian Sage:                         05:42                     So Jon then, what are you doing with all of your linens from these units? Because you said that they’re going there and they’re cleaning or replacing them, but what are they doing with all these dirty linens?

Jon Bell:                               05:51                     So I’ve hired a laundry person that handles our laundry. They actually go to a laundry mat and wash all of our linens. We wash about 300 pounds of linens, roughly a week.

Julian Sage:                         06:04                     And then this person that is collecting all the laundry, then they bring it back to your warehouse?

Jon Bell:                               06:08                     They bring it back to the warehouse and it get sorted and then it gets put in turn bags to get picked up by our cleaners.

Julian Sage:                         06:17                     I mean Jon, this is really next level. This is where you are really scaling your business because not only do you have the systems for operating your business, but now you have to have the systems for how your cleaners are going to be handling things, how the laundry people are going to be handling things. This is why this is so different than just managing a couple of properties or managing a few properties and trying to keep everything within the specific units. When you are talking about scaling, I mean this seems like it’s pretty next level.

Jon Bell:                               06:45                     Definitely. I mean just just having the cleaners go to a place to pick up some things and then go to the unit in some cases is, just means you’re just operating on a bigger level. Most cleaners just like to go on site and they want to clean right there. In this case, my cleaners know they got to go here to pick up stuff. They got to go here to drop off stuff. It’s a part of our day to day operations, whether they like it or love it. What they do like is the amount of turnovers that they can complete within a day doing. So for them, it’s more revenue in their pocket.

Julian Sage:                         07:18                     So Jon, we’ve been going over this vacation rental machine for the past six months and we’ve been coming out with content week over week at two episodes. Every week has been a lot.

Julian Sage:                         07:27                     But we want to be able to give you so much more and get into the implementation. So Jon and I have been working really hard on creating something that would be able to take the vacation rental machine formula. Really start get diving into those systems and processes that we were talking about throughout this whole process and give you something that you’ll be able to take within a very short period of time and compress everything. So in this podcast, if you have them listening to the past six months straight, please go ahead and leave us a review on iTunes and let us know what it is that you’ve been enjoying and benefiting from the show. We’ve gotten so many awesome reviews and thank you so much to everybody that has, but this has been such a long thing and we’ve been really doing this because we want to create something that is a formula, is a step by step process, that is readily available for you guys, but we do want to create something that is even more catered and that can help you even further.

Julian Sage:                         08:14                     So what we’re going to be doing moving forward is answering your guys’ questions in the host nation Facebook group through the show. We have really just been following our process that we’ve documented as being the foundation of a vacation rental machine, but now we want to hear from you what are the things that you’re still struggling with that we could actually include into this formula. This has been such an exciting and awesome journey and I’m glad that we could actually get to step 10 but there is still things and questions that you guys all still have and we want to be able to help you get even further, so expect in the coming months a lot more invaluable content. We are going to be answering your guys’s questions. We do have the BNB empire builders mastermind group, which is for those people that are looking to scale their business and they do have multiple properties and they are looking at taking it to the next level and what we’ve been covering in this section in the past couple of sections with the optimization and scaling.

Julian Sage:                         09:04                     There is a lot of things that we just can’t cover over a podcast such as the tools that we’re using, such as the little fine details within going into different types of tools and processes to be able to scale a business. So if you are interested in joining the BNB empire builders mastermind group, then definitely fill out the application down below. This is open only during certain periods of time. So definitely fill out that application so you can find out when it becomes available. But be on the lookout because Jon and I are working really hard right now on also creating something for you guys that you can just take. And within an eight week period you will have your own vacation rental machine business that will be profitable and scalable. So you’ll have everything that you need to be able to scale your business and start growing your BNB empires.

Julian Sage:                         09:45                     So this podcast isn’t going anywhere, even though we’ve reached the end of the vacation rental machine. But we are going to be going in and answering your guys’ questions and building out this so that it can be even more beneficial to you all. So, Jon, do you have anything that you’d like to share on this journey?

Jon Bell:                               10:01                     Well, you know, it is coming to an end. And I’m a little sad about that just because, you know Julian, we’ve gotten a lot closer over these last six months, but not only that, just the community at the host nation, the Facebook group, BNB empires, the people that I’ve actually connected with and talk to and stuff like that, that stuff has really just kind of weighed on me, especially those people that have started growing. You know, those people that had nothing started listening to us and just automatically, they got their first unit. That was just a big surprise. Right? And then when they come back and they message me and they say, Jon, I got my second, I got my third. And I’m like, Oh my God. Oh, I’m just so excited about that. I mean, that really is what I wanted to do, this whole thing for.

Jon Bell:                               10:47                     And at the same time just being able to add extra content on the back of this just by a Q and A’s. One of the other things that we’re going to do is tie in some of those other vendors and just put together just interviews and just Q and A’s and just content after content just to support this business, to support everybody’s growth. We want to make sure that you’re moving in the right direction and that, you know, at least everything that I know and if there’s anything that we all can talk about or you got any questions, leave it in the group. I’m always in the host nation. I’m always looking to throw in something, add something to everybody’s just business. It’s just really important that we continue this journey that we’ve just have started and I’m really excited to keep the steps going.

Jon Bell:                               11:35                     I know that all the extra content that we’re going to be adding on later on is definitely going to just start changing people’s perspective on this business. At the same time, it’s going to help grow people, people that are going to start getting some financial freedom from the steps and stuff that we’ve even published here. But just to take it to that next step where we’re really getting into those, how tos, those click by click things and the training videos that we’re talking about later on. That stuff is weighing on me right here. I mean this is what I wanted to do.

Julian Sage:                         12:10                     So I really hope you all have been enjoying this vacation rental machine process because there is nothing like this online. This is literally six months of a lot of hours, a lot of time, a lot of hard work to create something that you can literally just listen to the start of this podcast. So there’s people that say that there’s free courses out there and you don’t need to buy courses. This is literally a free course on how to start and scale your business. But this might not be for everybody. This might not be the way that you would’ve wanted to to be able to grow. So we are creating things and creating tools and resources to provide even more value to you. So stay tuned, get plugged in, join the host nation, start asking questions, and we’ll see you in the next episode. So keep on hosting.

Julian Sage:                         12:53                     Hope you hosts found value in this episode. If you did, please go on over to iTunes and leave us a review is that would greatly support the show if you’d like to connect with Jon the community, and I, then go on over to our Facebook group, the host nation, talk to you hosts in the next step episode. Keep on hosting.