STRSS 06 – How to prevent party people in your airbnb w/ Nancy McAleer

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How to prevent party people in your airbnb w/ Nancy McAleer

Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Nancy McAleer. Nancy is currently living in Montreal, Canada but manages 3 properties on Anna Maria Island, Florida. Nancy likes to call herself a vacation rental geek as she is the founder of FLARBO (Florida rental by owner) which is a direct booking site, she’s a frequent writer for the Vacation Rental Marketing Blog, and is also a trainer at the Vacation Rental Mastered workshops.

This episode is jammed pack with Nancy’s tips and expertise on establishing brand identity, getting repeat guests, screening tenants, and standing out amongst the overly competitive markets.

Video Transcript

00:00:00

So, if they’re asking me where’s the nearest nightclub, where’s the nearest is what is there, what action is there to do around things like that. And then I’ll ask them, you know, what are you looking for? What is your ideal dream vacation look like? And they tell me what they’re looking for.

00:00:16

This is episode number six of short-term mental success stories. Welcome back to short-term rental success stories. I’m your host, Julian Sage. This is a show where I talk to hosts about their journeys and starting and growing their short-term rental business. My goal is that you’ll be able to walk away with practical information that will help you become a better host and learn how to scale your business. So we had some amazing reviews come in that I wanted to share with you all. We have a review coming from CW. OMAC 88. He says, Chad Miller is an Airbnb expert. He understands this niche market and has the hustle and drive to be successful. Highly recommended. I have another one coming in from hag 1990. It’s a, it’s a funny username she says, or he says, this is a great podcast. And Chad Miller knows exactly what he’s doing with ch rentals and Airbnb.

00:01:08

I recommend this. And then we also have one from Chad, Chad, and his wife, Katie. They said, Julian is a well-organized podcasts hosts. He directs the conversation well for those who are looking to get more serious about their short term rentals, his podcast is a great place to start. So thank you so much to everybody that left these reviews. That really means a lot. It is nice being able to hear from the community and from some of the previous guests on the show, how this podcast has been able to help you or how you, how you enjoy the show. So thank you so much. And since we are a new show, reviews would greatly help us grow. So please go on over to iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, Facebook, wherever you’re actively listening. And please leave us an honest review and we’ll give you a rental or your, your, your review, a shout out on the next episode today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Nancy McAleer.

00:02:00

Nancy’s currently living in Montreal, Canada, but manages three properties on Anna Maria island in Florida. Nancy likes to call herself a Vacation Rental geek as she’s the founder of Florida, Florida rental by owner, which is a direct booking site. She’s a frequent writer for the Vacation Rental marketing blog, and is also a trainer at the Vacation Rental mastered workshop. While Nancy does a lot about short-term rentals and she knows she knows what she’s talking about. So in this episode, it’s just jam packed with Nancy’s tips and expertise on explaining and establishing brand identity, getting repeat guests, screening tenants, and standing out amongst the overly competitive markets. There is just so much in this episode, you can definitely relisten to this episode once to twice a couple times, and you can, you can take so much out of it, or if you’d like my show notes for this episode, go on over to Short Term, Sage dot com backslash.

00:02:56

If you like, my show notes are sent directly to your inbox every week. Just go to Short Term Sage dot com backslash show notes, and I can just send those to you every week. So you don’t need to take notes during the episode because I’ll take all the notes for you, but definitely listen to the episode because there is so much in this that I can’t even take notes on. And you just have to listen to this with all that being said onto this week’s conversation that I have the special honor of speaking with Nancy McAleer. Nancy, would you mind telling the audience a little bit about who you are and what inspired you to get into short-term rentals?

00:03:32

Sure. So I was formally a director in a retail company and how I got into it was accidentally. Obviously most people do get into it accidentally in the old days, anyway, 2010. And at that time, the recession hit and the company was going through bankruptcy protection, et cetera. So at the time I received a golden parachute, if you want to call it that. And we had taken that money, my husband and I kind of put it to the side. And then we’re speaking with our friends about it, our close friends about how we wanted to maybe make a real estate purchase down in Florida, because it was great time. The market was really low. And, and then they said, well, we want to do that too. So that’s how it all kind of started where we decided that we wanted a place in Florida eventually to retire to when we’re older.

00:04:36

And then that’s how the, our own Vacation Rental sort of started. And then it just snowballed from there. So I had another owner that I was networking with on the island, our little area in Florida, where we’re from. And she said, you know, I, I wanna do this idea. I kind of want to share resources. I want to come up with this, maybe this one listing site that we can launch where people can book direct and come to us and, and not have to pay the fees on VRVO or Airbnb. So that’s how was launched. vrbo.com Florida went to by owners and, and that launched in 2017. And it’s just skyrocketed from there. We’re having such huge success, especially in the last four months or so. The traffic has just gone through the roof where people are really looking for booking direct with owners that are verified and owners are looking to connect with travelers outside of the OTAs, where a lot of the people are getting kind of bogged down because there’s a saturation in the market.

00:05:43

Now, since Vacation Rental has really skyrocketed in the last few years. And then with that, I also joined a forum, which is a Vacation Rental marketing blog, and that’s Matt Landauer’s marketing blog, which I love, and I was sharing my successes with them. And he asked me to write for him as well. So as I go along and I document my practices and procedures, I also write about marketing campaigns and things like that that are successful for other owners. And they’re published on VR and B publicly as well. And then from there, tie-in Marcy and Atlanta Schroeder had launched this Vacation Rental master workshops. So it’s a type of really bootcamp style workshop where Vacation Rental owners are coming to really get a hands on jumpstart into different things that are required to manage your Vacation Rental successfully. So that’s like anywhere from getting your website launched to social media platforms, writing strategies, content strategies, SEO strategies of Facebook ads, things like that. So I teach it that every year and this year it’s in St. Louis in October, which is great. And then occasionally I’m on the Vacation Rental success summit conference, which is a Vacation Rental conference. That’s usually held annually. The next one this year is skip the next. One’s going to be in 2020, hopefully in Florida. And then I’m usually on the owner’s panel speaking at that conference. So it’s kind of skyrocketed. And I now consider myself a Vacation Rental geek, and I love talking about Vacation until it’s pretty much 24 hours. That’s the right.

00:07:43

I know you’re, you’re the, you’re the full-time Vacation Rental like that. That’s like your whole life is Vacation Rental right now. So it’s, it’s an honor to be able to have you on the show. I, a couple of things that really kind of pointed out to me was you started in 2011 with your first property in Anna Maria. Tell me, tell me about the, you know, the process, you know, back then, like, did you know going into that market, that Vacation Rental is that it was maybe like, you know, that regulations could change because do you own your properties? Do you own?

00:08:17

And on our properties and Anna Maria is kind of like the hotbed of controversy or it used to be anyway, because it’s just a really eccentric little island, which we love. But at one point we were renting out very successfully, had gray screening process in place to make sure that the people that we’re inviting into our homes are respectful of the neighbors. I mean, it is a community that’s mostly retirees with a lot of tourists that come in and out every week. So it is transient in nature. But one day the, the local municipality just decided, okay, there was so many complaints by the locals that they were going to have no more vacation rentals period. So, you know, just this eccentric thing that happened and, you know, totally illegal. And they just decided it was going to be that way. But, you know, obviously they, they reneged on, on that eventually.

00:09:17

But, you know, we had to go through with our lawyers that we hired because they were putting in regulations of could, you could only rent to eight, eight people maximum, which is, which is fine for the majority of people. But we specialize in larger homes at four bedrooms and five bedrooms. And for us, our maximum was 10 and 12 people. So that would seriously affect our income. And we joined in with a few other owners with the same lawyers that we had and successfully won our, in our grandfathered in thank goodness to continue to rent out to our maximum amount. We didn’t want any anymore. We didn’t want like 26 people in the house. We didn’t want that for our neighbors. We did not want that for us. When we retire, we just wanted to keep the status quo, keep doing what we were doing and, and make the same money that we were before, without it affecting us. Because I mean, that could have been devastating to us. It could have been a huge loss and we could have been, you know, lost our shirts. If we wouldn’t be able to rent the way that we do based on, you know, all of our expenses

01:10:28

Now 10, 10 to 12 people per home that like that that’s, to me, that sounds like a party. You know, I tend to tell people in a single home on Anna Maria, that, you know, Anna-Marie is a party. You know, it can be, it can be a party place. So how, how do you, how do you handle like those, those, those types of eccentric people that are going there because they want to have fun. They want to have a party and, and you have such a large amount. How can you, you know, keep your home? Because I know a lot of people in the groups and in the forums, they’re all saying, you know, all, we got to keep people out. We don’t want parties. We don’t want more than this people. And, you know, obviously because parties can lead to some issues. So what, w what have you been able to be able to do to handle those types of situations?

01:11:11

Well, the first thing you have to do is you have to start way in the front end. So you have to start with your marketing and who you’re, who you need to market to who you want in your house. So, for us, we want extended families or friends. So it’s normally two families are staying in our houses. It’s something that I found was a trend in the market. I mean, when I was young, we never vacationed with our grandparents or our friends. It was always just our own family. And back then it was only hotels, but nowadays, everybody goes on vacation with their friends. They go on vacation with their parents so they can help et cetera. So it’s, that’s really who we’re marketing towards. So in everything that we put into our houses, that’s who we’re trying to attract. So whether it’s ping pong tables or basketball nets, or a kid’s crow’s nest with a working captain’s wheel, we’re really catering towards that kid friendly family friendly traveler.

01:12:20

Now it also trickles down from the photos to the listing details that are in your, on your online travel agency, property listings. So we had a blurb straight in there that says, we are, we are private owners, and we are not interested in renting to partiers or people that will not respect our homes. And that’s right in the listing description. So those people can go right out. So they know right away that we are going to be following up tightly on any part of your situation. And from there also my response in every inquiry and the quote, it also has the same paragraph, same type of blurb stating that we are not interested in renting our home. And oftentimes when I, when I people are reading it, I know they’re reading it because they come back to me and say, this is who we are.

01:13:17

They describe themselves, and they state, we will be very respectful of your home. So the message is getting through, and then there’s some other things you can do too. I mean, there’s some software and technology out there, like I think it’s party squashers and noise aware, which are great tools to have in your home, that you can monitor, obviously, cameras too are great monitoring, you know, the door, how many coming through. So, I mean, there’s a lot of tools that are out there that you can really minimize your issues. And to be honest, we host about a thousand people through our doors every year. And I think we’ve had really only one noise complaint with the sheriff coming. And it wasn’t even our guests. It was the property managers, guests that had long time ago.

01:14:09

You know, I think that that’s, that’s really interesting that you’re able to keep, you know, that amount of people in your homes and have them treat that with such respect. You know, you just hear so much on the, on the Facebook groups, like, you know, you know, they, they let some people in and, you know, they lied. They said someone, you know, w w was coming, but then a bunch of people came. What, you know, w what I’m really curious about is because, you know, you’re working with lawyers, do you, you know, because you’re not technically allowed to not allow someone to stay at your home. So how do you kind of, how do you, how, how have you been able to keep such a high quality of person in your home? Well, without saying, like, you know, you’re not allowed to

01:14:53

Stay here. Yeah, for sure. And I don’t think I’ve ever turned anybody away. I mean, obviously that’s illegal, but if I’ve, I’ve had conversations with, with potential travelers, travelers and potential guests, and that they’re asking me questions that are like triggers for me. So if they’re asking me, where’s the nearest nightclub, where’s the nearest is what is there, what action is there to do around things like that. And then I’ll ask them, you know, what are you looking for? What is your ideal dream vacation look like? And they tell me what they’re looking for. And I had a few guests that, you know, I’ve, I’ve told them, and Maria is not the place where you can find a lot of action at night. Everything closes up shop at 10:00 PM. That’s, that’s the island, that’s who we are, that’s who we’re attracting. If they want to go for more action.

01:15:44

I tell them, it’s, it’s really not the area for you or people with teenagers that they wanted to be closer to the action, you know, our areas Northern on the island, that it’s really not places for partying. And even in terms of the beach, you know, I tell them you’ll be happier down in the middle of the island, which is home speech. There’s tons of volleyball nets for public use, and it’s really where the teenagers hanging out. And so, you know, in that respect, you have those triggers. And one more thing I forgot to mention earlier was that I created a photo album book too, within the house. And I photographed everything in every room. You may think that’s a little crazy, but I use it more like an operations manual and a checklist as well as information so that each guest I tell them before they arrive, I filled them up.

01:16:38

I, you know, ease them into the process of checking in, give them any eccentricities that are on each house. And then I tell them, you know, the operations manuals in the kitchen, when you get settled and you relax, you can look into that. I also have a you’re welcome iPad tablet. That’s in the kitchen as well in each house, which has, you know, the information on how to use things in the house. What information is in the house in terms of ordering up Vacation, sorry, sports and bike rentals and things like that. They can order it directly through me on my website as well. So I pushed it in that direction, but the checklist, the photo album is the key, because that has everything photographed. And when they see that and they see that the cleaners are using that to check everything in the home, they know that the house gets checked every single turn. So less things are going missing and things are placed back where they’re supposed to be. So is I have a very low turnover in theft. There’s like, maybe it,

01:17:46

You still there. Yeah. Yeah. I think we we’re having some connection issues, but, but yeah, no, I think, I think that that’s an awesome idea. I haven’t heard that one yet from any of the guests that have been on the show about the photo album with, you know, just a photo in every of every room and the stuff that’s there. Not, you know, not,

01:18:04

I have to cut you off there. It’s not really a photo album itself. It’s one that you create online. So it looks like a book. So it has visually as really nice photos and, and, and also visually it has photos of, you know, the remote control and how to use the smart TVs and things like that. It’s all laid out visually. So I think that that’s the key and that’s the easy, that’s the reason why it’s so successful is because it, it looks good. It, it looks interesting. There’s pretty pictures of the area and the, and the island in it. So people pick it up and use it and flip through it. And, and I think that that’s the difference. It can’t be just like a crappy old photo album that you buy from Walmart, with you just sticking photos in. That’s not going to work.

01:18:54

Okay. No, no, that, that that’s really good because you’re, you’re instructing the you’re, you’re showing the people like these are the items, these are the things that you can use in our home, but there, you’re also letting them aware that it’s like, we know these things are here and if they go missing, it’s like, well, you know, the cleaners are checking and I

01:19:11

It’s like a little bullet point. So the instructions are there for the guests. And then the instructions are there for the cleaning team checklist. Please check this. Do, do, do, do one piece of artwork, one clock one. So it’s all there.

01:19:27

No, that that’s, that’s really good. And I don’t know if we mentioned this before, but you’re, you’re actually, you’re managing this, this full-scale Vacation Rental business and you’re living in Montreal, Canada. So how have you been able to manage this operation and deal with such large numbers of people, you know, all, all, all the way up, up north. So,

01:19:48

So for me, I really feel like it’s, whether I’m around the corner or whether I’m thousands of miles away, I’m on the same time zone, which is nice, but I’m only a phone call away. So if you are going to call a property manager or you were going to call me, I can probably take a decision faster because I have everybody on speed dial it’s on what I call my team in terms of, you know, the plumbers, the air conditioning company, the pool guy I’ve got, you know, the pest control. Everybody is on my speed dial cleaners to my TV geek squad guy. So I’ve got everybody on speed dial and my handyman obviously, and then I can take this decision right away and put something into action, probably a lot faster than a property manager can because property manager has to turn around and email me.

02:20:40

I have to decide what to do, get back to them. And then I’m, I’m answering phone calls this week. I answered a phone call, you know, from a guest that was troubled with the TVs 10 o’clock at night, and I was calling the internet provider. So I think I managed better than the property managers, just because I’ve got everything so well organized. I think, you know, it’s, you just kind of have to be, have your systems in place. And then that’s one in the making sure that all your references are ready and available and, and trustworthy that they get the job done.

02:21:17

Now, before we started the recording, you said that 61 of your 61% of your bookings are direct bookings. And the other percentage is VR BL HomeAway. How, how have you been able to get such a high percentage of direct bookings?

02:21:32

So I think I, well, I know I do marketing campaigns as well on my own with my incoming guests. I have a newsletter. I have my own website, like I mentioned earlier, and my website is a Wix. I love Wix websites because they’re very user-friendly for somebody who doesn’t have a lot of information on how to run a website and how to maintain a website. And they have a lot of integrations which are perfect for Vacation Rental. So they’ve got the hotel app where you can take bookings, they’ve got the calendar that’s integrated with that. They’ve got the newsletter shout outs, which are like a MailChimp or constant contact that you note. So if you’re under like the premium plan, it’s all included. You can have your blog in there too. It’s fabulous. So for me, it’s nurturing those guests all the way through. So as soon as guests books, I have them on my campaign, my marketing campaign for my incoming guests nurture.

02:22:32

And then that’s about four emails that go out and it’s not just emails, but it’s like real, nicely laid out beautiful marketing newsletters that have integrated links that you can press on for, you know, my, my insider guide. So I have insider guys to the best beaches on the island. I’ve got the insider guide to the top restaurants, the free trolley, the weather guide. I’ve got information on all the things that every guest has ever asked me pretty much more than once I’ve got answered in those, in that email nurture campaign. So information on what’s included in the house, so they don’t have to ask me what, what they can pack or what they should leave at home. So everything is in there and not just the check-in documents are separate, but that’s part of the campaign. So it goes through, but majority of it is really to get them excited about coming, to get them understanding that there’s so much to do.

02:23:37

They can’t get accomplished in one visit and make them want to come back again. And again, cause I have an outgoing guest nurture is well that explains to them how much that they were paying when they booked through BRBO and Airbnb, how much travel service fee that they gave to those online travel agencies. And for my rentals, it’s anywhere between $179 and $399 per shot for booking. That’s a lot of money. So I think that that entices them as well as I have a VIP club for my newsletter campaign. So if I have any specials or deals last minute that I send out, I normally give an extra hundred dollars off. Let’s say for them being in my VIP clubs. So I built up a good context list that way. And then I have really worked a lot on social media and my social brand called Annemarie on the beach life is there to attract the travelers as well.

02:24:43

So I’ve got about 20,000 followers on Facebook on that page. And then I’ve got about, I think, 2000 less on Instagram. I haven’t worked very much if Instagram and then Pinterest is a huge one for me to think I get about 89,000 views per month on Pinterest. So working on that, and that’s all based on my content that I created on the website and on the blog. And I’m shooting that out into all the social media platforms and my newsletter, and then driving all the traffic back to me. And then that’s how I think that it’s been really successful. So

02:25:25

Have you been able to track how much bookings you’ve been able to get through your social media marketing?

02:25:33

I’m really bad at that. I just include that in my direct, but I can tell you Facebook there’s normally I get an inquiry about it at least twice a week. If not more Facebook groups are awesome. If you can join Facebook groups, that’s a fantastic idea in your area. If there’s one for vacation rentals or travel, even start your own, it’s fantastic way to get guests and leads. And then Pinterest, I, I had a lot more work done with Pinterest before when I was working with bloggers that were staying at my rentals. So they’re, I know I’ve gotten a few, but I can’t, I don’t know if I’ve gotten any this year so far, but it’s early days yet. So

02:26:23

Now I think that that’s really interesting Nancy, that, that you’ve, you know, you’ve built up this brand, this, this following on online. How, how have you been able to get that started though? So when you first got your first property and, and you you’re getting into short term rentals for the first time vacation rentals, when, when did you realize it’s like, I’ve got to move away and do this direct bookings. And I have to build this a brand in this following.

02:26:50

I think it was a gradual process. I know that my business partner, Mike, I mean, he’s, he’s in the mortgage broker business here in Ottawa or in Ottawa close by. And he’s, he was the one that said right away. We’ve got to get our own website right off the get-go. So I think in doing that and understanding that you can’t just flip up a website and expect people to find your expect, Google, to find you, that’s not going to work, you have to have back links. What are called backlinks. And I think in that aspect, I mean, social media platforms are very high domain authority and page 30. So it was a natural progression into ensuring that I was trying to drive enough traffic to the website to get more bookings and more leads. So again, nobody was going to follow a Facebook page that said Anna-Maria and home rental.

02:27:52

I knew it, it was just not social. It was just not fun. So that’s where I came up with the idea. I, I followed another beach live it’s cottage, beach, cottage, beach, cottage life. I think it’s called. And she’s Renee is a photographer. Then she sells calendars and things like that. And I just loved what she was doing. I loved her quotes. I loved her, her seaside photos. I mean, she started really early on in Facebook in that respect. And then I kinda thought, well, people would follow a page. That’s like Anna Maria island beach life, you know, because it would be everything about the beach and it would be everything about Anne-Marie island and everything that I was going to post was all about, you know, the people there and the beaches and what you could do. So it was all encompassing. It wasn’t just about vacation rentals. And if you go on my pages now you’ll see that I’m posting maybe, maybe 20% of the time to feed into my website because I mean, I don’t really need it right now because I book out already. So, so well, 92%, but I’m, it’s just, it’s more of a social platform, right? So you have to stay social.

02:29:13

No, I think, I think that that’s brilliant that you’ve, you’ve been able to, and I think that’s, what’s really great about your approach is that you’re offering this, you know, the, this you’re offering people, something you’re offering interesting things, you’re offering activities. And I think what a lot of people think is like, oh, I’ve got to build a website, I’ve got to build a Facebook page, I’ve got to build an Instagram and then, you know, and then people are going to want to come and stay because I’m going to be talking about my Vacation Rental and stay here, stay here, stay here, stay here. And they’re not offering anything to anybody is worth sharing or worth, you know, coming back for, and even in your marketing campaigns, when you are doing your outgoing and your incoming you’re, you’re offering people this, this higher quality than they could expect from just staying in a hotel. Do you mind talking a little bit about like how, how, how much of your, your bookings are re reoccurring bookings and like how useful has been keeping that contact with your guests then?

03:30:09

So I think I haven’t done a look on it recently, but I think my repeat bookings are probably around 25%. And then in that respect, it’s more about design, I think, and amenities and in my houses, what we’ve done is we in the first house, we learned a great lesson because it was two, two families that own the property. Right. And that’s who we were targeting is people that have two families that were going to Vacation at the same time. So we outfitted the house, our first house with everything we would want in a vacation rental that was suited for that. So we had two master bedrooms with two aunts we’ve used for sure. We don’t want any masters sharing. Right. Obviously in bathrooms, we wanted to make sure that there was room for kids with bunk beds and you know, another teenager or grandma in a queen bedroom.

03:31:10

So for that, it was that we were deciding that right away from the bedding accommodations. And then we decided that we wanted it to be like a resort. We didn’t want it to be a Vacation Rental. That’s just a house. So we have it with the backyard, with a backyard beach, Tiki huts, hammocks, as well as the pool and the hot tub and the dock that you could boat to. Cause we’re big boaters and we love sporting activities on the water. So in that aspect, that’s what we outfitted the homes with. And then in our area at the time, when we first did that, nobody else was doing that. And that was really kind of, you know, a lot of people had said, well, why would you put it back here and beach? And if you have a pool, it’ll just wreck your pool, but you have to overcome those obstacles.

03:32:07

And you know, it doesn’t wreck your bully. It gets sucked up by the filter, which is not a big deal. And if you replace your filter more often, I mean, and you’re getting 20% more in rental. It’s not, it’s a no brainer. So that’s where we first started. And then now in Annamarie island, you’ll notice the quality of vacation rentals has just come up so crazy high. And that’s who our competitors are now. Well, people who’ve followed safe and doing similar things with like these T hats and this crazy stuff. And you don’t look fine at resorts. Now you can find them on a Vacation Rental, like waterfall waterslides I see now and stuff like that. So, you know, outdoor bars and TVs, we’ve got that. We have a sauna in one of our houses. So it’s just, it’s kind of like over the top. And that’s really, I think why we get a lot of people coming back again and again and again, and we outfit the houses with everything our guests want. They want the Curie coughing machine. We’re going to get it. If they want the traditional coffee machine, we’re going to offer it to, if they want whatever charcoal, barbecue grill we got, they want the gas one too. We’ll get the Weber gas, gas grill. So we’re getting everything that they could possibly want that they don’t have at home.

03:33:24

It sounds like, like you’re really outfitting your vacation rentals a lot more than, than what, like the traditional Airbnbs or the short-term rental people are offering. You know, it’s like, here’s the bed, here’s, here’s the Keurig and, you know, make, make yourself at home. But it sounds like you’re, you’re like making this like they’re, they don’t even need to leave the place. They they’ve got everything right there. They don’t, they don’t have to go out to the beach. They got, they got the whole party.

03:33:47

We hear that. We hear that, you know, they’d go to Disney for one week. They come to the beach for another weekend and the kids say they had a better time in Annamarie island. They left their house better. So, I mean, that’s, that’s really a great compliment, but I mean, any Airbnb house can do this. If they’ve got, you know, a condo or apartment, they can put something in that apartment that can outperform their competition and put them above for sure. Whether it’s an espresso machine or something that will be enticing to that traveler who’s coming into that area. You can do it.

03:34:20

No, that that’s, that’s a brilliant tip. I think, I think definitely people can look at their competition, look at the other hosts in the area and say like, what is everybody else doing? And what’s that one thing that I can do to make myself stand out? What has been the most challenging part of starting your short term rental business?

03:34:38

Challenging? Gosh, that’s a really good question. That’s going to stump me because for me I live, eat and breathe Vacation Rental. So if I can’t figure it out, but if something challenges me, I’m gonna educate myself and to figure out how to do it. Like even when I was looking at Facebook awhile ago, and I think it was looking at the Ritz Carlton page on Facebook, and then I saw that they were to take, they had like a, you could go click on their tab that said book now. And then, you know, within the Facebook page, there was a booking platform like, Hmm, I can do that for sure. So I just learned how to do it. And then, so now on my Facebook page, you don’t have to leave Facebook. If you want to book with me, you can just book right on that page, see the availability and, and, and make a reservation. So I think that that’s probably, I mean, it doesn’t really answer your question because you asked about what’s stumped me, but

03:35:41

I think it’s just

03:35:43

Tenacity. You know, he’s just, I think that that’s part of what a vacation rental owner is that, or was because it’s you running it and you got to figure it out. Otherwise it’s, you know, your success is based on your performance. So great.

03:36:00

And what has been the most challenging part of scaling your Airbnb business?

03:36:04

So scaling that has been a challenge in terms of my business partners. They’ve slowed us down cause my husband and I we’d like to buy more, but they’ve kind of slowed us down because Terry, the other way, she didn’t want to have as much responsibility because she helps me with, with the maintenance and sometimes helping with guests. And she does all the bookkeeping, which is fantastic. So that’s kind of how this back, where my husband and I are now like, okay, we, we really need to take a step and continue this journey because we love it so much. So, I mean, I know we can easily scale up in terms of there’s, there’s tons of options out there. I mean, private lending, for sure. As long as she can get your stats and figures in order, if you can’t get your own financing traditionally, because after two homes, I think it gets challenging with the banks or admin three, maybe in the states.

03:37:04

So you have to kind of go outside of the box and start to explore areas where you can get more investors or, or definitely go PRI the private lending route. But I mean, you have to run your numbers in the beginning. Like you have to do your spreadsheet. I mean, I just use an Excel spreadsheet to figure out whether a property investment is a good investment or not. And then just itemize all the expenses of your purchase price, what your mortgage is going to be, that kind of thing to see what’s, what’s the gross income, the net income at the end of the day. I mean, you have to go through your due diligence to make sure you’re gonna be able to scale up we’re at, in our next step is that my husband and I are just stuck in away money and getting ready for the next one.

03:37:59

And are you, are you planning on staying within the Anna Maria Short Term short-term rental vacation rental market, or are you looking at other options because you’ve been in the space for a long time now, Nancy, have you are some of those other things interesting, you more like the whole rental arbitrage or the cohost thing? Like, is, are you going to stick primarily with your niche or you, are you looking to branch out to other options?

03:38:21

So, well the two businesses keep me very busy, the floor bow.com, which is the listing website that keeps me extremely busy. So that’s one area that I we’re really growing like crazy. And that takes a lot of my time. But in terms of scaling up with our own private properties, Ann Marie is a great place. I’d love to invest more, but the prices have doubled since we bought in a long time ago. So for me, it has to make sense dollar wise to invest there. And I’d love to continue with that area only for the fact that everything that I’ve built, like you said, is geared towards that geographical area. So if I started in a new area, I would have to start everything from scratch would have to be a new website. It would have to be new Facebook pages and social media pages and new newsletter contact details. So it would all be the blog articles would all have to be geared towards that new geographical area. So that’s holding me back

03:39:33

Now kind of going off of that. What, what would you do differently if you had to start from scratch?

03:39:41

I definitely would skip the property manager only just for the fact that I, I know how to run the Vacation Rental business very well. I wouldn’t hesitate to go alternate routes financially. And as long as the dollars made sense, I would jump on board and use the booking software right away before I was really doing it on our own. And it was taking the PayPal payments and, you know, tracking those in QuickBooks and everything else. And then, so the, the booking system, the owner reservation booking software I use now, I adore it’s fabulous. So I ha I would jump on that right away. And I would only focus probably on maybe two to three social media platforms in the beginning. I was kind of all over the place. Even with Twitter. I still do do Twitter when I’m blogging and putting out my blog posts only for the fact that Google, Google ranks it on a higher level. So I’m wanted I do that, but I wouldn’t bother with the other ones. And I would probably hire more. I would hire somebody to do the website for me with my direction, because that takes a lot of time.

04:41:10

And I love my, my girlfriend down in Aruba. She, she does Vacation Rental websites, Linda Lou Huskies, and she’s a Wix create.com. So I’d probably use her. And then I would probably, if I was going to scale up, especially going to different area, I would hire virtual assistants to help me because at that point, if I’m I’m managing a lot more, so then I would get people to do the content building for me. And then I would oversee maybe even a developer. We’d see. Yeah. So that’s what I would do next step.

04:41:49

And are there, are there any tools that you use to manage your properties?

04:41:54

So other than the owner Rez, we use the next year system for the doors and the door entry codes, because we have our air conditioning linked to it as well, which is a huge saver in terms of utilities being in Florida. I mean, people were leaving the doors open all the time while the air conditioning was running and freezing the units. So finally, we put these sensors on the, the doors that are most often used towards the pool area. And then anytime the door is left, open for five minutes or longer, it automatically shuts off the air conditioning in the house. So I can see all that on my next year app on my phone. And what else do I use? I use Canva like crazy in terms of creating my graphics for all of my website and my blogging and social media posts, Excel. I’m a big Excel user just because I’m really familiar with creating formulas and tracking our and making goals in terms of sales goals. I’m really super focused on that because that was my old life as a director.

04:43:18

And I think that’s it. I, like I said earlier, maybe it was off the air. I would never use a rates algorithm app. I don’t trust them. I don’t think that they’re sophisticated enough yet in terms of recognizing all the amenities, real estate wise, proximity to the beach, all that kind of stuff. I don’t think it’s in there even waterfront versus not waterfront. So having a computer set my rates, it’s a no go for me. And that’s pretty much it. My Wix, I use Wix like crazy and the newsletters that go out from there, the blog. So that’s pretty much it, I think in terms of apps and software that I use

04:44:08

Now, is there any products that you couldn’t live without and your rentals that has helped save you time or money? Like, you know, a specific tile will beach style that you off,

04:44:16

I forgot about your welcome. Do your welcome tablet. I absolutely adore. That’s, that’s a tablet where you can input how things run for informational purposes with your guests. And they can look up, you know, how does the air conditioner work, that kind of thing. But it also has links to what I call increasing my units for transaction. And that is where I’ve worked with local tour operatic operators and experiences where I have an affiliate relationship with them. And my renters can book directly off of my iPad tablet for experiences like horseback riding in the water, or, you know, fly boarding or renting golf carts, any of that kind of stuff. And they can order that up straight through my, your welcome tablet. So that’s really good.

04:45:11

So this is a custom custom built iPad tablet that allows you to give information and also provide affiliate links to activities in the area.

04:45:23

Yeah. So your welcome is it’s based out of England, the owners I’ve met them, actually. One of the conferences when they first came out, it was a fantastic product. Cause I thought I was going to have to try and create this, but it’s already simple to use format where you manage it on your desktop and you input your information as if it was like a, a property listing based on your favorite restaurants has air conditioning work, things like that. And then you can put a graphic banner. That’s like a rotating banner on the screen, on the owner dashboard, excuse me, and then uploads to the screen. And then that’s where you can have them looking right away and you can charge for more services too. So let’s say you’re a host that is living in an area close by and you want to give tours. So I don’t know, tour to Eiffel tower, I’ll say, and then you can charge for that. And then if they want to order that up and they order that, and then they contact you and they paid for our freedom, the tablet, or if you want to extra clean, you can organize that with your cleaners or you can do the cleaning yourself and then you could charge in there so you can increase your units per transaction, very easily that way. And I’m always looking to maximize my, my sale.

04:46:44

Wow. Yeah, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve never heard of, of, of this tablet, but I, I, you know, just, just hearing about it is, is really unique. And I think that that’s definitely a way to be able to boost the quality of your service without having to cause a lot more headache. Do you have to reach out to these companies and ask for like an affiliate link or is that something that the app does?

04:47:03

So yeah, you do. Because when I first started this, I just had it on my own website. And so I have all the photos and then it leads to the booking platform where my guests can go ahead and book. And that’s where all of this is directed towards the traffic. And I can also sell this on my social media platforms too, which I do through different posts. And I say, you can book this on this page, on my website. So sorry. So in the area, hardly anybody in my island was even automated and they’re still not automated the rental companies and things like that. They say, get, you know, the old fashioned way by the phone for their bookings, but there are some booking platforms.

04:47:55

One of them is rezdy.com and you can ask for different, you can look up your area and you can ask for vendor prices and then the vendors will give you your prices. And then you can grab your link and then place that in your website based on whatever kind of advertising you’re doing for it. And then you get paid out through that Rezdy booking platform because you link your bank account to it and everything. There’s also fair Harbor. I don’t know if peak does it yet. It might P E K. And I think that there’s other ones too, but I can’t remember their names. It’s one that comes to mind. It was like a Hawaii one that had like surfboard shared rentals or something like that. But anyway, those are the main ones

04:48:48

And these are, these are like sites that will reach out to vendors and get affiliate affiliate links.

04:48:55

Yeah. So then you go on there and you try and find the vendor, the tour operators, and then you get the vendor, the affiliate links, and then that’s how you would get your percentage of every sale that you make that you drive to their platform for booking.

04:49:11

Yeah. I think that, I think that’s brilliant. The, the combination of the iPad that is informational and unique and you’re offering like something that, you know, hotels don’t even offer. And you’re telling people like, Hey, this is stuff that you can do. And if you use this, you know, there’s a discount and you know, it also, you can also pay for like, experiences because experiences is a new thing that Airbnb is

04:49:31

Just going to say that, you know, the trend is all gone, not just from vacation rentals, but towards experiential visits.

04:49:38

Right? No, it’s brilliant. Brilliant. Is there, is there anything that you do that has helped your guests leave positive reviews? Is there anything that you do that has helped your guests leave positive reviews?

04:49:49

So that’s on the outgoing guest nurture campaign. And then my emails that I send out again, they’re my automated emails through my, my newsletter provider. And that’s the first thing that I send out. It’s Cokie had a great stay. I put in pretty photos. And then I, you know, I asked them for review right away, but I don’t ask them for a review on the booking platform. I asked them for a review on Google or on Facebook. And those, those are my main ones. So

05:50:27

You

05:50:28

Use, you have the higher, your business listing is ranked. So you want more reviews on Google.

05:50:35

Now the question kind of going, going off of that real quick is because, you know, being in the, being in the Florida market, I know that, you know, lots of people do direct bookings being for vacation rentals over there, but how, how important is it for, like, let’s say just a regular host, a regular short term renter hosts to be able to get themselves on Google as, as compared to being just on the platform?

05:51:01

Well, I think it’s important to diversify. I mean, if you’re only on one platform, if something happened to that listing and that company decided that you were no longer following their guidelines or whatever. And, and I’ve, I know people that this has happened to where they’ve been delisted, what’s going to happen to you the next day. So you really need to be diversified if you want, if you’re relying on this money as income to live on, you need to do this. If you’re relying on this, just for fun, maybe not. But I think it’s really important to have your Google listing. If this is a business for you, or if this, this money is important to you as for your lifestyle. Absolutely. So I think that the more diversified you are the better, and not only that, but there’s some, there’s a huge trend as well for travelers looking for vacation rental owners and Airbnb hosts outside of the platforms they’re savvy.

05:52:11

Now they know that they’re being charged a lot of money to book through that website. So, I mean, they average us family income. I think it’s like $50,000. Last time I looked. And if you’re talking about $400 that you have to pay to a booking platform simply for booking with somebody, not for doing anything else, because let me tell you that these websites, they don’t do anything else for you. It’s just, it’s a lot of money. It’s a lot of money for people to pay $400 for just pressing a button. So they’re looking for people outside. So I would also suggest diversifying on a, a listing site that might be regional or through your chamber or your county, your visitors, tourism bureau, they’re normally free. So as long as you pay your taxes, they’ll ask for that. And then you can put up your listing on there and get more, more inquiries and booking straight that way as well, if you don’t have a website. So definitely I think diversifying is important and it, as we get go, and the S and the market continues to saturate. I mean, my listings, when I first listed in 2011, I think there was 42 other four bedroom houses in the area. Now there’s hundreds and hundreds that I’m competing against. So it’s important if you’re, even if you’re in a small area, it’s, you’re going to find competitors are common. So you really need to make sure that you’re getting as many inquiries from as many places as possible bookings.

05:53:59

Yeah, I think, I think that that’s brilliant. You know, we’ve had quite a few guests on the show now that have, you know, they’ve, they’ve built that brand. They’ve built that brand awareness and they’re, they’re not just relying on a single platform. They’re, they’re all moving their, their bookings to direct bookings and offering th you know, they’re offering it to people to book through Airbnb. And BRBO these, these different, these different platforms, but they are establishing.

05:54:23

Yeah, I think Joe, Goldar, he’s the, he’s also a listing site owner down in Emerald coast. And he put it brilliantly when he was explaining it on a webinar one day I was watching and he said, you know, if you own a pizza shop, would you let somebody come up and put another shop in front of your pizza shop? And then you had to sell your pizza through that business. And then they sold your pizza for an extra 10 cents. Would you do that? You know, it really puts it more in a perspective of how you need to really kind of stand alone and, and build a little bit more independence.

05:54:58

Yeah. Everybody has to establish their, their pizza shop. Exactly. If you could give one piece of advice to someone who’s trying to start their, or their short-term rental or vacation rental business, what would that be?

05:55:10

I think it would just be educate yourself as much as you can. Don’t be afraid if I can do it. Anybody could do it, honestly, if you have the passion and if you like people, you should do it. And just, you know, there’s so many great resources out there. I mean, there’s, there’s your podcast here, which is fabulous. There’s cottage blogger, there’s VRMB, which is the marketing book. There’s, there’s a lot more offerings out there where you can get support and network with people and find the answers that you need. And really, you know, jump ahead of the curve. The VR master that I’m teaching at is in St. Louis, for sure. You know, attend that if you can, it’s a couple of days and you’ll walk away with completely being set up. So it’s, you know, if you can start that way, I think that that’s fabulous if you’ll be ahead of the curve.

05:56:07

And is there one house rule that has saved you before

05:56:11

One house rule? I think it would be back to the, the old mantra of, you know, we’re not interested in renting to anybody. And we, we stick to our, we have one house that’s maximum six adults and four kids because the bunk beds are not as strong as the old fashioned bunk beds. So we’re worried about adults being in them. We’re not so concerned about, you know, I’m worried about losing out, I guess would be my, my thought I’m trying to extend here is that, you know, it’s okay to say no, if they don’t fit your profile, because in the end, you’ll be happier for it because you’ll have less expenses and less bad experiences. So follow your gut and stick to your guns and stick to your rules and everything will be great.

05:57:04

And I think, I think I’m really curious to know this from you, because you’re, you’re such a, an expert in the short-term rental space, where do you see short-term rentals going in the future?

05:57:14

I see them still continuing to rise like crazy. I do, but I do see a lot more diversification. I mean, right now, Airbnb is becoming a verb, you know, are you going to go EV or BV? So, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s just becoming so large that the RBO is becoming so large too. So I think that there’s room in the market, you’ll see a lot of smaller regional listing sites rising up with the book, direct movement that’s happening. So I, I see that happening and there’s so much saturation in the large online listing agencies too. It’s, it’s a lot easier to small listing on your county, visitor tourism board. You know, it’s a lot easier to get found there. So I just see it expanding and expanding, expanding, which is great. I mean, I’ve been part of it for a long time and it’s just skyrocketed. I don’t see it stopping.

05:58:16

Yeah. I think, I think, you know, just, just the point that you made before about, you know, when you started at Anna Maria, and it was just like, you had your home and you had the pool and you had the barbecue grill, but now you have to put the water slides. You have to put the disco ball, you have to put like the two girls. Now you have to have everything. And I think, I think that you’re right in that, you know, it’s in order to be able to come compete and for your, your unit to be able to stand out as it becomes more saturated, as you really have to establish yourself as not just like a brand identity, but what is your brand also have to offer that other people, you know, can’t

05:58:51

Exactly. Exactly.

05:58:54

And is there, is there any way that, that people can reach you?

05:58:58

So, yeah, there’s lots of different ways. So if somebody is in Florida and they have a Vacation Rental, they can find us at dot com, F L a R B o.com. And that’s an email address is info@floridarentalbyowners.com. There’s one S and if they wanted to reach me through my, my own rentals, they can contact me through my website is a M I home rental.com, AMI home rental.com and also it’s info@amihomerental.com the email address. And then if they wanted to attend the, the Vacation Rental mastery bootcamp, they can go onto tie-in and Alana’s website directly there@vrmaster.com.

05:59:43

And of course I’ll include everything in the show notes, all the links, all the way, the ways that you can reach out to, to Nancy. I just want to thank you so much for taking the time to be able to educate the audience. I think you have such a wealth of, of, of knowledge and being in this space for so long and living you’re living it, you’re doing it. And you’re, you’re just all about it. I, I really hope, you know, I hope to see more, more of you and keep on hearing the, the, the amazing content that you offer for free and, and, and, and yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. And until next time, keep on hosting. Hope you host benefited from the show like any exceptional hosts. We all strive for five star reviews. So please go on over to iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, YouTube, wherever you’re frequently listening to the show and leave us an honest review. Let us know what we’re doing, right, or how we can improve, because that’s what we want to do. We want to become better hosts. I want to become a better podcast host and a better Airbnb host. Talk to you guys in the next episode. Peace out.

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