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[00:00:05] Sarah: Hello, listeners. Welcome back for another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

[00:00:09] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:00:11] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:00:12] Sarah: Let’s kick off this episode like we do every week, and that is sharing one of you, our amazing listeners who is using our hashtag, #STRShareSunday. I cannot believe that since this is the end of 2023, Annette thinking back to how long ago we’ve created this hashtag and that it’s still alive and well. Our STR share posts on our Instagram are some of the most loved by you.

[00:00:35] You love supporting fellow hosts and seeing what they’re doing. So if you want to participate, use our hashtag. We are looking for people who are using it. We’ll share you here on the podcast, in our email blasts, of course, here on the podcast. I already said that. Annette, who we sharing this week?

[00:00:50] Annette: This week we are sharing @foxtailcabin, all one word, all lowercase. Foxtailcabin. And we’re rounding out the year. We’re heading into a new year. I’m going to put a challenge, hosts, onto you because Foxtail Cabin did an amazing giveaway.

[00:01:12] And as I was going through their feed, I noticed it was one of their most commented on posts. They had 102 comments. And so I want to challenge you. If you’re like the members in our membership, they’ve been tracking their past 12 months. You might know when there’s a couple of days that you might be able to– we don’t want to call it give– it is a giveaway, but use them for your marketing purposes this year.

[00:01:41] Do a giveaway like Foxtail Cabin. Those 102 comments, just because they don’t win the giveaway, this is 102 potential guests that you can connect with. Maybe you make a special offer to them. If someone is commenting on this post, they are interested in staying with you.

[00:02:02] So I want to put that challenge up to give back, do a giveaway, and use it as part of your marketing in 2024. I think that’s the first time I’ve said that on the airwaves. But Foxtail Cabin, we love that you did that giveaway. So we’re going to use that to challenge our other hosts here.

[00:02:21] And the other thing that we want to say about this feed is just really good– Ginger is lovely at just capturing B-roll. And B-roll is just that behind the scenes capturing. And she does a really nice job of over overlaying some text over it. And those reels are going to get you more reach. It can literally be just you getting on your camera, capturing a little something, then posting it with some text on top of it.

[00:02:54] Sarah: And it’s all the region Instagram right now. So whether you’re in the short-term rental industry, or if you are in the– I don’t even care– marketing industry or health industry.

[00:03:02] Annette: Sarah loves B-roll

[00:03:04] Sarah: I do. I love B-roll because we’re all— it’s like why Reality TV is so– whether you agree with it or not–

[00:03:11] Annette: We all want to see behind the curtain.

[00:03:12] Sarah: We do. And it’s a great way to see content. Ginger was in her car here. She was in the back seat. Her family was in the front seat, and she just caught some B-roll of her going to the mountains hiking. And so that is very appropriate for her Instagram account. So it’s just a great way to–

[00:03:29] Annette: And if you need guidance on it, go to Foxtail Cabin. She has a lot of different B-roll there, and you’ll see it where it’s a reel. It has text over it, and it is a simple video behind of her giving us an idea of what it would be like to stay at her property. But Ginger, thank you for using the hashtag. We cannot wait to share someone else next week. Sarah, this is exciting.

[00:03:52] Sarah: I cannot believe it’s already been a whole year.

[00:03:54] Annette: I know.

[00:03:55] Sarah: It’s been a year, hosts, right? I feel like 2023 was this, in my opinion, a hard pivot. It felt like 2020, 2021, 2022 was us just raking in the dough, kicking up our feet.

[00:04:15] Annette: Raking in the reservations.

[00:04:17] Sarah: Raking up the reservations. 2023 was, I’m not saying it was a halt, actually, in some of our properties here in our metro market, we actually performed slightly better than in previous years, but we had to work a whole lot harder. So 2023, I think we saw a lot of people ask themselves whether or not this is the industry for them, whether or not short-term rentals is the strategy for their real estate investments. But if you are here today, that probably wasn’t you. And you are excited maybe to get into 2024 because now you’re repositioned in 2023. You know what to expect in 2024.

[00:04:55] Annette: And you’re competitive.

[00:04:56] Sarah: You are really competitive.

[00:04:58] Annette: Yeah. Listen, we’re not like trying to take other hosts down, but you know you’ve got a great property and you need guest staying in it. That’s why I’m saying we’re competitive of wanting to be the best host. We don’t want to push any other hosts down, but we want to keep continuing to raise ourselves up.

[00:05:13] And let’s face it. There are some bad hosts out there. There are some people still trying to throw heads in beds. And so this is the year I think, the traveler– that’s the other thing that’s happening too, is the traveler– obviously, hotels are back in action. And people know. Hey, they’re savvier travelers.

[00:05:31] They want to know, what’s the experience I’m going to get at your short-term rental? There’s no more they’re scrolling through and get a book on Airbnb. They’ve stated enough of them now. They know what they want, what they expect, and they know, hey, you need to bring it, or I’m going to stay somewhere else, or I’m not going to rebook with you.

[00:05:49] So let’s get to our top 10 episodes of 2023. And the first thing we want to say about all of these episodes is we cannot thank you enough for showing up and listening because we wouldn’t have the best of if you didn’t listen. And from the bottom of our hearts, we are so thankful that you tune in, and we just can’t even believe that this many people listen to the podcast, and it energizes us and helps us show up to the mic every week.

[00:06:18] So if there is something that you want to hear in 2024, please reach out to us and let us know. And then we want to thank each and every one of our guests that shared their time with us too. So Sarah, let’s get into them.

[00:06:30] Sarah: We’re going to break this down into two categories. The top seven of our Thursday episodes, which are our flagship episodes, our longer interview style episodes, and then our top three most listened to Hosting Hotline episodes. Those are our Tuesday episodes where you call in, you go to hostinghotline.com, and you ask your questions, and we answer them because what seems very specific to you is most general. You help a lot of hosts by asking these questions.

[00:06:58] So I do ask you, keep calling in, keep asking your questions. We love answering them, and you love listening to them. So let’s break down our seven most downloaded episodes of 2023. That way, while you’re traveling to your family this holiday season, or maybe you’re staying at home getting some me time, you can go back and listen to some of the really juicy episodes that your fellow hosts loved.

[00:07:25] Number one is Episode 217. And we’ll link to all of these in our show notes. But Episode 217, Making Your Short-Term Rental Accessibility Friendly Through Universal Design with Dr. Rosemarie Rosetti, who just happens to be a local to us here in Columbus, Ohio.

[00:07:42] Annette: Mm-hmm. This episode, we have actually got a ton of feedback of hosts that listened to this episode and made small but mighty changes to their listing. They were not structural. They are small. They are maybe going to Lowe’s and changing one or two things. It is maybe not even changing anything about your property, but letting future guests know that there aren’t stairs into your property. Your property might already be accessible, and you’re not even sharing that with the world.

[00:08:13] So please listen to this episode. This is also something, going back through your listing. Airbnb is always updating what you can add, and so this is the time. Listen to that episode, go in, see if you can make any of those changes. But again, if you want to stand out from the competition, I think this is definitely an episode to dig into and see how you can make your home more accessible. And she is an absolute star. Reach out to her. I know she’d like to hear from you if you have any questions about her episode at all.

[00:08:47] Sarah: And just a little insight. It’s not just how to make it accessible for people who have different mobility needs. But it’s also for people who might be on the spectrum or need certain visual or texture things throughout the home. So you can serve so many people, like Annette said, without a construction change to your property.

[00:09:05] Or you could be like me, where I was completely inspired by Dr. Rosemarie Rosetti, and I was in the beginning to do a gut renovation on a duplex and decided to make one of the units completely universal design so that whether you’re in a wheelchair or a walker, you’re in the spectrum, you have hearing, visual, we try to do as much as we could to make the unit accessible so you can go all out too.

[00:09:28] All right, the next most downloaded episode of 2023 is Investing for Financial Independence and Empowerment with Delyanne.

[00:09:38] Annette: We’ll share with everybody here. We had the pleasure of meeting Delyanne because Sarah and I get coaching. We have coaches. If you don’t have a coach, get a coach. Coaching has been one of the biggest game changers for us, so shout out Natalia. But if you haven’t joined us inside our coaching program, we’d love to see you in 2024.

[00:09:56] We’ll make sure that we link to it below. We love our Hosting Business Mastery Members, all of them in there, from our new folks all the way up to our platinum members. But Delyanne, she is an ex-employment attorney. And so I think she brings such an interesting, I want to say flex almost to how she completely transformed her life.

[00:10:18] She was an attorney, and she was just like grinding it out. She flipped the script. And I want to say she’s almost like, yes, she’s gunning for financial independence, but she was teaching almost slow FI of how to enjoy your life on the way to financial independence.

[00:10:35] And maybe that’s having two jobs at the same time because she had a job and started her business while she was trying to achieve that. And it’s about diversifying. So yes, you might have your real estate, but have some money in the stock market.

[00:10:50] Sarah: That’s all there it say. Delyanne, this episode’s great if– yes, you get a lot of short-term rental content from Annette and I here. Delyanne gives you that perspective of how to get financial independence through the stock market and investing there. She has hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, and every day she is dropping mic bombs, I don’t what you call them, where she is just giving you these quick, easy, actual tips, Also putting life on its head, like we are, exposed to the way things are supposed to be. And she begs the question, if that doesn’t make you happy, then don’t do it.

[00:11:31] Annette: Side note, Sarah and I hang out a lot, so I don’t FaceTime her that much.

[00:11:38] Sarah: Except for last night. Yeah.

[00:11:40] Annette: I literary had to FaceTime Sarah last night because of something that Delyanne posted because I was home alone, and I could not stop laughing. It was so amazing. I needed to share it with someone, and I knew that Sarah would get it. So also give her a follow on Instagram because, like I said, it had me. Yeah, I had to FaceTime someone so I could laugh along the side of them. So listen to that episode with Delyanne. And she was lovely. She actually came in and did it insider series for our membership too, which was great. Super juicy.

[00:12:12] Sarah: She did. And you guys loved it. So if you haven’t listened to it, you want to refresher about that episode, Financial Independence, 229, we’ll link too in the show notes. Next most downloaded episode of 2023, and we need to let her know this, with Addie Wales, Creating An Authentic Off-Grid Airbnb Experience. And this is in a cold, cold climate.

[00:12:32] Annette: Yeah. People say like, oh, glam being off grid. No.

[00:12:35] Sarah: No.

[00:12:36] Annette: You’re not going to have heat. It is off grid. We were like, quantify. And we’re like, Addie, what do mean off-grid? What’s happening here? There’s so many things about this episode. We love the way she acquired this property. We love the way she’s maintaining this property. We love the way that–

[00:12:56] Sarah: She communicates with her guest about– listen, Annette and I went to a glamping conference this year. I learned so much about glamping. And what I learned the most is that people’s expectation of what glamping is is very different. Person A thinks it’s different than what person B thinks than what person C thinks. So the way Addie explains to guests who book with her like, hey, this is not–

[00:13:22] Annette: This is off-grid.

[00:13:22]  Sarah: This is what it is. Whatever you think off-grid is, here’s what it is. So listen to her episode if you want ways to communicate effectively with your guests because she’s had to master that over the years.

[00:13:31] Annette: Mm-hmm. And what ends up happening, hosts, that off-grid, people are seeking that. That is the experience that she gives, and that is the experience that people are seeking out. So if you have a desire, if you have that dream, if you build it, they will come.

[00:13:51] Sarah: Or if you just want to listen to a host who did not take the easy route, Addie. Addie, crushed it. Okay, next on the list, most downloaded episode is episode 233, Jump-Starting Your Airbnb Journey with Ellen Yin. She’s the host of the Cubicle to CEO podcast. This woman, she’s gunning for Oprah. I feel like this is her goal in life.

[00:14:16] But she was intrigued by the short-term rental industry and somewhere to put her money that she’s making from her entrepreneurial efforts, and short-term rentals has been something that she’s been interested in. But she’s also very smart and like, hey, I know everyone is very excited about short-term rentals. Airbnb is very sexy, but is it right for me? So we flipped the script on this episode, and she interviewed us and asked us questions about the industry.

[00:14:44] Annette: Funny enough, we were actually in a mastermind with Ellen Yin, so going back to who you surround yourself with, we’re in a coaching program a little bit with Ellen, and then we were in a mastermind with her. So again, if it’s not us in 2024, make sure to link arms with someone in 2024 to hit those next level goals.

[00:15:07] Sarah: This is a great episode. If you’ve been listening to our podcast and you still haven’t made the plunge because you’re just not sure–

[00:15:13] Annette: Yeah, definitely, listen to this one. Yeah.

[00:15:15] Sarah: You have to listen to this one. Okay, next in the list is Episode 225, Creating The Nerd’s Guide To Financial Independence. You guys like financial independence, so we learned that about that y’all, with Sarah King. It was a great episode. If you want to hear an inspiring story of someone who had it all and then lost it all–

[00:15:36] Annette: And not scared to share her L’s. She will share her losses. She was a guest at TFVCon. Let’s talk about something awesome that happened in 2023. This episode did so well. We did ask her to speak at our event, and she was just throwing nuggets of wisdom all over the place because, listen, midterm renters, were all the rage, and Sarah King was up there letting us know, hey, you don’t know what you don’t know about midterm rentals because they are tenants. She gave us a healthy dose of why short-term rentals are not midterm rentals during that presentation. But she also does it on this episode too.

[00:16:17] Sarah: Yeah. It’s a great episode. If you want to learn about the midterm rental industry, if you want to be inspired about how to rebuild after having it all, losing it all, and then even get it back and just having your day, it’s a really good pump-me-up episode.

[00:16:30] Annette: Yes. She gets personal. She gets real personal.

[00:16:34] Sarah: Episode 221, we invited– Annette mentioned our membership. A lot of you tell us you don’t even know we have a membership, which we have this membership because it was getting out of hand being able to have coffees, have Zoom calls. Annette and I have learned–

[00:16:53] Annette: Consulting calls. Yeah.

[00:16:54] Sarah: Consulting calls a lot over the years when it comes to running and managing short-term rentals. And so we started the Hosting Business Mastery Membership. If you want to know more about it, head on over to thanksforvisiting.com/workshop.

[00:17:10] Annette: Mm-hmm. But if you want to join today, just email us at hi@thanksforvisiting.me, and we can answer any questions if you want to book a call and just get going for 2024.

[00:17:19] Sarah: But I mentioned that because we have plucked two members who have been with us in the membership for years, and they are crushing it. Amy added– I love this percentage number– 187% to her bottom line since joining HBMM. Wendy has just catapulted her business, and she’s one of the most competitive markets of Scottsdale since joining our membership.

[00:17:42] So they are now coaches because who doesn’t love to learn from someone who’s been there, done that, crushed it, and they’re on the other side? Well, we invited them to the podcast, and we interviewed them about taking their business to the next level, what it means to go from 2X to 10X, where they’re at now in their business, and where they want to go. So if you really want a lovely episode–

[00:18:05] Annette: It’s inspiring. Yeah.

[00:18:06] Sarah: With your peers, yeah, Wendy and Amy do a great job of just explaining the hardships, the struggles, and also the wins.

[00:18:13] Annette: If you’re on the fence about joining us too. They can share that they were both on the fence, and now they’ve been with us ever since.

[00:18:20] Sarah: I’ll never forget DMing Facebook– because Amy’s very active on Instagram, and we followed her for years, and she would just kept sharing these challenges that I knew I could help her. I was like, I know that I can help you, Amy. You know a lot. You have a great business, but I can help you take it the next level. I’ll never forget FaceTiming her and just saying, please, join us. I promise you, if you don’t– and we make it this guarantee to–

[00:18:43] Annette: We’ll give you your money back.

[00:18:44] Sarah: We’ll give you your money back if you don’t think that we’ve helped your business get from one level to the next. So she did. She took me up my offer, and she’s–

[00:18:51] Annette: It’s been a game changer for her. So are those the top seven of the–

[00:18:54] Sarah: Those are top six.

[00:18:56] Annette: Oh, there’s one more.

[00:18:57] Sarah: Yes.

[00:18:57] Annette: Oh, give it to me.

[00:18:59] Sarah: Episode 241. This is the–

[00:19:01] Annette: Ooh, yeah.

[00:19:02] Sarah: This is the most downloaded by far. Okay, so you guys loved this episode, How to Design A Scroll-Stopping Listing with Bridgette Whitney. Bridgette is a 24-year-old entrepreneur who is the most authentic woman I know on Instagram right now. She is herself, and people love her for it. And her designs are wacky and amazing. If you are–

[00:19:29] Annette: They are scroll- stopping.

[00:19:30] Sarah: They are scroll-stopping, and there is no one designing like her. But she’s got some great tips in this episode of how to get inside of her brain in case you can’t hire her or it’s not the right time for you. Or maybe you are considering hiring her. She lets you into her brain, what she thinks about when she puts together a space, what’s been working for her clients, what kind of property is appropriate for her design, what’s not.

[00:19:56] If you want to refresh your space, if you have a new space coming online soon, if you’re not there yet and you’re just dreaming and scheming and you’re building out your Pinterest board, this is a great episode.

[00:20:07] Annette: Hi, I didn’t realize this when we were putting this together. I am just going to say, well done, ladies. These are all ladies. I’m going to actually high five you on that because I’m here for that. I’m here for that.

[00:20:25] Sarah: Annette and I are both ladies. We have plenty of gentlemen guests.

[00:20:29] Annette: Yeah.

[00:20:30] Sarah: Plenty.

[00:20:31] Annette: And listeners, we love you. We love you guys. But man, I love that we amplified those seven voices. But let’s get to our listeners’ voices. We want to amplify our listeners’ voices too. So let’s do the three top Hosting Hotlines.

[00:20:47] Sarah: Yes. And there is a theme here. Let me know if you can tell. So the first of the top three of our hosting hotline episodes, How To Generate Direct Booking Leads Without Airbnb. That’s Episode 226. The next one, Episode 220. Set Up Direct Booking As A New Airbnb Host.

[00:21:09] Annette: Ooh.

[00:21:10] Sarah: And the most downloaded Hosting Hotline is Our Airbnb Isn’t booking. Should we sell? What’s the theme there? Y’all want more bookings?

[00:21:21] Annette: Oh. You know what? I’m going to put a challenge out. If you are on the fence about selling your property right now because of its performance in 2023, please reach out to us, hi@thanksforvisiting.me. Let us know. Let us do a diagnosis on the show.

[00:21:35] We’d love to maybe do a deep dive there and see if we could help you, if there’s some levers that we could help you pull to make this decision. Or if you’re vulnerable and you want to share with the show, I honestly do think that this is going to be the year that a lot of people are going to decide if they’re going to stay in the short-term rental game.

[00:21:53] So if you were one of those people, please, if you are willing to be vulnerable, we would love to have you on the show. I do want to give one shout out, Sarah. I know I we’ve just given a lot of love to the ladies. One of my favorite episodes with a mister this year, Ray Vargas.

[00:22:12] Sarah: That was really good.

[00:22:13] Annette: I don’t know if I know that off the top of my head, but we did an amazing podcast with a gentleman named Ray Vargas. And the reason I want to bring this up is he is a co-host crushing it, and I do believe that this is 2024, and thereafter, the co-hosts are going to be on the rise.

[00:22:39] I know we’ve been talking about our membership a lot, but we have a ton of co-host in there, and it is a full-on six to seven figure business. And so Ray really was giving a lot of insight into how he grew his co-hosting business. We love helping co-host create and grow their business. But just want to give a little love to that episode, and we’ll make sure to link to it in the show notes.

[00:23:01] Sarah: Yeah. He was Episode 291, and also, listeners, it’s a great episode because he grew up, he lived, worked in New York City and pivoted to his hospitality business in the Hudson Valley. So any of you New York City listeners out there who are– again, I said 2023 year was the year of pivoting. That market, we know. Hard shift to either midterm rentals or just closing up shop.

[00:23:25] What Annette said, I want to piggyback on, whether you want to sell or stay in, just because you sell doesn’t mean you’re out of the short-term rental industry. Maybe that property wasn’t performing, and that’s okay.

[00:23:34] Annette: 1031 into something else.

[00:23:36] Sarah: 1031, exchange it to something else, go to a different marketplace. We’ll link to one of my favorite businesses that just popped up in the past couple years, STR Insights. They can take you from just consulting you to finding you a profitable short-term rental, doing all the work for you. We’ll link to that in our show notes, but just to know that if a property is not performing, I don’t want you to like be all down and out about it. It’s okay.

[00:24:04] Annette: Right. Let’s do this.

[00:24:06] Sarah: Okay. So with that, that’s it, Annette.

[00:24:09] Annette: Well, now I’m all excited for who’s going to be the best of. And, hey, again, throw your hat in the ring. If you think you could be a best of episode in 2024, reach out to us. Let us know.

[00:24:20] Sarah: Yes, we always look for guests. Those top seven, a lot of people that either were in our membership, people we’ve mastermind with. So get out there, network, throw your hat in the ring. Tell your story. Let’s make 2024 the best year for short-term, for vacation rental industries. And again, from the bottom of Annette and my heart, thanks for changing our lives and for showing up and downloading our episodes and giving us those reviews on Spotify, on Apple. It means so much.

[00:24:47] Annette: Oh yeah. Let’s just do that. Leave us a review. If you like this episode, those 10, any episode, it means the world to us.

[00:24:55] Sarah: Yes. With that, I’m Sarah Karakaian.

[00:24:56] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:24:58] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:24:59] Sarah: Talk to you next time.