Julian Sage:                         00:00                     In this episode, we’re talking all about designing your vacation rental. So stay tuned.

Julian Sage:                         00:06                     Vacation rental machine helps. So suggests like you learn how to start, grow and scale your short term rental business. The show is 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 than subscribed 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:                         00:32                     Hey, welcome back, host nation to another episode of vacation runs machine. In this episode, we’re talking all about designing your unit for optimal workflow. So when you’re going to be designing your units, how are you going to be designing them in a way that allows for you to be able to scale this and for cleaners to be able to go in there and do their job and come back. So John, from your experience you know, we see a lot of people sharing in the host nation Facebook group, their, their units and their pictures and they’re saying, Hey, you know, what am I doing wrong? What am I doing right? W w design is a big aspect of people that stay at your units. So what, what have you found to be the optimal amount of stuff or the optimal amount of things that you should be putting in your units?

Jon Bell:                                01:15                     It’s very easy for to answer that one. But if you’re not really a designer or you’re not really worried about too much of the functionality of the space, you’re gonna overlook it all the time. And I’ve already said it. It’s function, right? You want to make sure that the place is 100% functional for the guest, that you come in with the vision, that you are walking into it as if you are them and you are not cluttering the space. At the same time, you have all of the essential stuff that they need. One of the ways that I do this now is because I have an in house designer where she puts a space map of everything and how it’s gonna fit and the inches and stuff that are going to be around each item. So for instance, when I’m faced with a tight space, for instance, I’m working on a unit now, I thought I could only fit maybe a twin bed.

Jon Bell:                                02:07                     Well she says, you know what John, I think you could squeeze a double. And I’m like, eh, from the I. But she puts together all the layouts, she shows me the dimensions of everything. She says you got this much walking room around. And she also makes the decision that Hey, we might not be able to do two nightstands but we can squeeze one and maybe some wall sconces. So that’s how we’re going to be able to maximize our space. At the same time have double occupancy in the room instead of just saying, Hey, one person that’s going to be good on revenue side. So that’s great. So she is a very big piece of what I’m trying to do. I do recommend that if you don’t have a design eye that you do work with the designer. We talked about a few of those options prior to all of this. So check out that episode. And yes, you definitely need that can help if you’re not you, you don’t have that, that I,

Julian Sage:                         03:02                     So it might be overwhelming for a lot of people that are getting into the space because they think now I have to fill all this space and maybe you know, these people, I don’t, you know, maybe they just have filled their own homes personally with a lot of stuff and they’re expecting now they go and do another home. So they need every single type of kitchen where they need every single type of game. They need every single tape of this and that, and they have to fill all these spaces and crowd the whole the whole place up. Because they would expect if, if maybe they were going to go into a unit that that’s what maybe they would like to see.

Jon Bell:                                03:34                     We have to be mindful that us listening to this episode, this whole entire series, we’re professionals right? So this is not our current home. This is not where we’re actually, I’m going to just crowd and have all of our family photos and stuff like that. Like this space is not meant for any of that. So we want to make sure that the space looks a thought out. What still very clean, very tidy, you know, so we’re not gonna throw in a bookshelf with, you know, a a hundred books on it just because we want to fill the bookshelf up. If we’re going to have a bookshelf, we’re probably going to have a few selection of books that are key to either people that like to travel or that tend to whatever your brand identity is. So we want to make sure that we’re still keeping in mind our brand, our guest, and not overcrowding the space. Your cleaners have to come clean this space. So are they dusting things that really don’t need to be there or are they just kind of swishing stuff around or is it open and clean enough for them to get in and do what they got to do and the space is still going to be immaculate for your guests?

Julian Sage:                         04:39                     So John, with taking on co-hosting clients, like I know personally I have a client that when I went into the space there, there was a lot of extra stuff that maybe I wouldn’t have personally included in that. Some things that I felt were a little bit unnecessary. And when you are taking on co-hosting clients and they have these units that are available, you’re going to be walking into these spaces where maybe there’s some, a lot of personal stuff. Maybe there’s a lot of like knickknacks and little things that maybe it’s just a superfluous. So what are you doing when you are going to a client and they have all this extra stuff? Do you just tell them to get rid of it or how do you manage something like that?

Jon Bell:                                05:16                     I’m working with the client right now in one of those things was that, Hey, we have to make this really just match our brand. And some of it is you can’t have all this stuff. We want to make sure, again, I can’t say it enough, it’s functional, right? It’s functional, it’s functional. I don’t know how my guests actually interact with the space that they’re in because I don’t have cameras to put in there. But what I do know is nobody’s complaining about just being, feeling comforted when they walk in and being able to sit at wherever they want to sit and use the space efficiently. Nobody ever says anything about adding to it or anything like that or there’s not enough of blank. One thing that’s really, really key is you really don’t need the personal stuff there, like the personal family photos, stuff like that.

Jon Bell:                                06:05                     Sometimes that just weirds people out because it’s just like when you go sell a house in real estate, when the house is perfectly staged, you’ll notice that it’s, it’s pretty empty, but it’s got just enough that kind of draws your eye to this space. So the best thing for us is to think about a staged home plus. So we want to add to just what a stage home is kinda set like it’s gotta be functional. So we need all the kitchen stuff, but we don’t need, we don’t need 27 different type of pots. We don’t need stainless cookware and nonstick cookware at the same time. We’re either going to pick one and stick with it. We’re going to provide all this stuff that makes it work. And if we need to provide oil just to help with the nonstick side, we’ll do that.

Jon Bell:                                06:52                     But it’s not packing the home just with everything that you can possibly throw at it just because it’s at the store and you’re doing it. Again, it’s not your personal home, so you don’t have to go so over the top, but you’ve got to make it functional. And there’s a checklist that’s going to end up in the store soon. You can use that checklist to end up a furnishing everything that you need with the home, but be conscious of the space. I’m actually gonna switch over to my screen in a second just to show you some of the stuff that my designer gets me when I’m dealing with the tight situation. And you’ll understand exactly what I mean by tight. When you look at this on this green, this, this apartment, I don’t even know what size it is. This first section probably has to be a good 400 square feet and as you can see, the bed we’re looking at the bed over in that back room.

Jon Bell:                                07:48                     That thing in the middle is actually a bathroom with the shower. So it’s very tight. It’s got a barn door on it. It almost just looks like a closet and a regular home. And technically that’s probably what it was. But this allows me to see, Hey, like I said, I have enough room on each side of the bed to kind of do this thing. It’s still very tight, but like I said, it’s better for double occupancy than one. Right? If I, I just increased my revenue on this basement apartment probably doubled just because I can accommodate two people. Now, even in this living room that’s over here, you see how the layout is of the chair and the couch and the table. I have a couple of different variations of where to put the table, but I would’ve never bought a chair to go with it because for me, I don’t think I have the space.

Jon Bell:                                08:40                     But as we look at it, this provides the function and stuff that I can see. You can still see there’s enough walkable space around everything and that is the key that we’re talking about, not overcrowding the space. At the same time, when we do our designs, we’re not including in stuff that is going to attract her whole hair or like, let’s just say we’re doing a pet friendly apartment. If we were doing that, we want to make sure that the furniture and everything that we have isn’t going to grab the hair of the pet and hold it right. That’s just means it’s going to be held somewhere. The next person who’s going to come in, maybe they don’t like pets, maybe they have some type of allergen towards pets and you just have the danders sitting right there and it’s, it’s affecting them and their stay.

Jon Bell:                                09:30                     Maybe they don’t know exactly what’s going on. They just say, man, I just feel bad. Something’s going on. You yourself will probably feel bad because you know so we don’t want to run into those, those instances. So proper space planning is very important. Proper design, you want to match the look of your brand, even if it’s a co hosted property. For me it’s very important that my customer doesn’t know that it’s co-hosted. They just know John has another property that he’s put out. I can expect the same thing that I expected at another place. That to me is more important than just getting a new listing and just posting it up. Again, I’m not your regular Airbnb person that’s just throwing up, you know, just your grandma’s furniture and saying $75 a night, that doesn’t wow me. I wouldn’t want to stay there. So I don’t want to put that out. So be conscious of your brand and your image

Julian Sage:                         10:30                     And I guess it kind of relates to decorating, but when you are taking on these units and we do have to be mindful of our cleaners and of the space when it comes to like let’s say hardwood floors versus carpets, what do you do about that?

Jon Bell:                                10:45                     You know, you can’t really change the space, but so much. If I were walking in apartment and just trying to pick one up, if it was all 100% carpet, I would kind of score it a little lower than I would something that’s hardwood floors because hardwood is easy. I’m out myself out and I’m out. It looks great when somebody else comes in. What happens if you get a stain on the carpet? Your cleaners, they might not have the exact equipment with them at the time to remove the stain. Does that mean that the next guest is going to walk in and see a stained floor? How is that gonna affect your reviews? So think of stuff like that. You kinda always have to think about the customer experience, your reviews and how it’s going to be read by somebody else. Granted, you might know it’s small.

Jon Bell:                                11:32                     I had some gum fall on the carpet before and I didn’t know how to remove gum up until a certain time after the next person checked in. Now did it make it in the review? No, but I had to excuse it for the next guest that was checking in, letting them know, Hey, this is there. I know you didn’t do it. We’re addressing it. But we had to get special equipment to get it up. That way I could have tried to hit it off from hitting the review. Now I didn’t get dinged in any way, but if that person would have gave me a four star on cleanliness, I would have understood. So you got to think about that.

Julian Sage:                         12:08                     So like John was saying, it is so important when you are either taking on a unit or you’re looking for a unit or you’re designing your unit, that you are mindful of how the space is going to be decorated for the guests experience.

Jon Bell:                                12:20                     All right, everyone. Question of the day, did I make the right choice in picking a double bed for this unit or should I have just put in a twin bed? Leave your comments below where? Reply back

Julian Sage:                         12:31                     And until next time, host nation, keep on hosting. Hope you host 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 John the community, and I then go going over to our Facebook group, the host nation, talk to your host and the next step sewed. Keep on hosting.