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

[00:00:04] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:00:05] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:00:06] Sarah: And this is the–

[00:00:07] Both Annette & Sarah: Hosting Hotline.

[00:00:08] Sarah: All right. We are going to answer a host’s question. If you’ve never been to the Hosting Hotline before, you can call in.

[00:00:14] Annette: Been there. Were there comments on ours?

[00:00:16] Sarah: hostinghotline.com.

[00:00:17] Annette: Oh, I like it. Been there, done that.

[00:00:20] Sarah: If you’ve never been to this Tuesday episode with us. Those are splitting hairs over there.

[00:00:27] Annette: Be there, been there, be square.

[00:00:29] Sarah: That’s right. If you’ve never listened to a Tuesday episode, you can call in on hostinghotline.com, record your question. We’ll answer it here on the podcast, and you help so many other hosts by asking these questions. You even help Annette and me. Sometimes we’re like, I don’t know the answer to that. Let’s go find out. So we then call all of our friends and connections and people who are experts in the industry to help us get you these answers. And today we’re going to help Elaine.

[00:00:55] Questions: Hi, Annette and Sarah. This is Elaine. Our company is Rustic Pines Retreat, and first of all, I want to thank you and Sarah for all the wisdom that you’ve given, and I’ve been listening to y’all for a couple of years, and I now have over 120 5-star reviews, and I credit that to the both of you, so thank you.

[00:01:15] My question is, we just opened up, we call it the romantic gazebo cottage, and it’s just a one bedroom. It’s super romantic, and so we get a lot of couples that come. And I had a guest that reached out to me and wanted to know if we have any packages, add-on packages for– I think they were coming in to celebrate their anniversary.

[00:01:43] Unfortunately, I did not, but I would like to offer something, but I don’t know what to include in the package. So any insight that y’all would have would be greatly appreciated. Again, thank you so much for everything that you do, and I look forward to hearing your answer.

[00:02:02] Sarah: First of all, you know that Annette immediately deep dived into her website, and it is–

[00:02:07] Annette: I want to go stay at the–

[00:02:09] Sarah: So cute.

[00:02:09] Annette: The romantic gazebo. But it’d probably be with you, Sarah. So it won’t be romantic, but it would be fun.

[00:02:14] Sarah: We would romanticize over business growth.

[00:02:17] Annette: Oh my gosh. Elaine, yes, we went to your site. Everybody, please check her out. Give her some love. It is amazing. We love this. Elaine, here’s the answer. You’re a business owner, and you get to create whatever you want. And this is the cool part about it.

[00:02:34] We always advise anybody, start small. Don’t overthink it. That guest that asks for that, that’s an opportunity to go, oh, you know what? I don’t have a package, but what were you looking for? That consumer that actually wanted that package, hearing from what they wanted would be best, and taking that feedback.

[00:02:54] And these packages can be really easy in the beginning. Maybe you offer one or two, and maybe it is flowers, maybe bubble bath, dessert, something like that. Whatever that package is, you can make them as simple as you want. Here’s the number one thing I want to encourage you though. Make sure it’s something that you can deliver on.

[00:03:13] I don’t know how close you live to the properties. I don’t know if it’s something that would become a burden. So number one, I want to make sure that it’s something that you and your team could easily weave into your operations. You don’t want this to become something that you’re over promising and under delivering on.

[00:03:30] So that’s the first part there, is making sure that, in whatever the package includes, is going to be in stock wherever you’re going to purchase those items from. But again, start really simple. And it could be, if you hear someone is coming for a romantic giveaway, in the messaging, let them know that you have those packages, and you could start simple as, these are the two packages. And if they say yes, you bill them ahead of time, and that could be simple like PayPal, Venmo.

[00:03:56] We know a lot of hosts that have started simple like that and then built it into maybe their direct booking site. But just get started on it. See if you like it, and if you like it and there is a revenue to be made there, you can continue on with it. But we’ve got some other ideas for you also.

[00:04:10] Sarah: No, I think that’s a really good point, everyone. It is 2024, and supply is exceeding demand. Demand is still strong, but there are still more short-term rentals than there is demand. First of all, I want to commend Elaine too for hearing a request from a guest and not letting it die there, exploring it.

[00:04:32] Even if Elaine doesn’t end up launching any sort of program, I think that as business owners, we sometimes have the answer to improving our business and to having it grow right in front of us, and we don’t pay attention because we’re so focused on that next turnover or occupancy rates, what have you.

[00:04:49] So listening to what your guests are asking for or how they talk to you, what they say in the reviews is essential. So good job, Elaine. I also agree, Annette. I think the first, especially I know our listeners are a lot like us, where you then go to the most complicated place ever, where you have to have– well, maybe they don’t like strawberries and chocolates, so I have to offer this sort of thing too. And then maybe they want dinner instead.

[00:05:10] Annette: And it needs to be on my website, and they need to pay ahead of time, play with a credit card, make it added on to their stay, and it’s sometimes simple. Yeah.

[00:05:17] Sarah: I say so, Elaine. The answer is, ask that guest what they were looking for. If that is something that is easily added to your operations, try that first because that is what your guest avatar who actually stayed with you was asking for.

[00:05:31] And then you can also start looking at other companies in either your marketplace or in other vacation rental areas to get some ideas. So we just did that. We just spent some time online and got some ideas. So obviously, there’s things charcuterie boards. You could stock their fridge before their arrival so they can get right to their getaway stay.

[00:05:52] You could do a s’mores kit. What I have done before in the past, Elaine, also is maybe you’re like, oh, this seems like we’re, I don’t know. I’m making this up. You’re remote. You already are tapped out in terms of getting the property turned over or whatnot. Let’s just pretend that’s your case.

[00:06:10] I used to work with a preferred vendor. So I built a relationship with one human being who this is all they did. And then if a guest wanted to have this, have some massage on site or snack on site–

[00:06:23] Annette: Private dinner.

[00:06:24] Sarah: Private dinner, they would contact her, and then we would get a cut from her profits there because we would send her that lead. So you could also do it that way where maybe there’s someone in that marketplace who’s already doing some custom services for hospitality, either small events or something like that. And you could reach out to them and see if there’s a partnership opportunity. So there’s more than one way that you can do this.

[00:06:48] Annette: And then last but not least, are you going to give a shout out to Breezeway here?

[00:06:52] Sarah: I am. So Elaine, for when you graduate to where you want to include it in any system, you know that we’re big fans of Breezeway. We use Breezeway. We love Breezeway. They just announced an upsell feature within their operations software where you can upsell. And here’s the cool thing, too, for everyone listening.

[00:07:12] It doesn’t have to just be some concierge service. It could be you could sell your early check in. You can sell late checkout. You can add a night. We talk about gap nights all the time. Extra towels or linens maybe above and beyond. Maybe someone’s going to use your sleeper sofa.

[00:07:27] You could sell that from your Breezeway platform. So if you’re already using Breezeway to help you with your turnovers because you know that we love them so much, and they work great in our business. But I can also tell you too, if you’re not a Breezeway user, a lot of guidebooks that are out there, I know Hostfully Guidebooks because we use Hostfully Guidebooks too.

[00:07:45] There are upsell capabilities there, but you could also do it, like Annette said, as simple as having them Venmo you or PayPal you for those services. But for anyone out there who wants to level up, there are a lot of really great ways to add it to your website so that you can have or add it to your messaging, add it to your guidebooks so it’s a seamless booking process.

[00:08:04] So what we did is we also wanted to get feedback from one of our coaches in our mastermind who does and has been doing upsells, concierge services, add-ons, whatever you want to call them, for a really long time. So hear what Wendy of Mostess Host, so it’s mostess.host, has to say about her add-on packages. 

[00:08:26] Wendy: Hi, guys. It’s Wendy from Mostess in Arizona, and we offer this as a form of concierge service, that’s what we call it, and you can start off very simply. So basically, you can just have somebody that can offer to set up charcuterie boards for you, snacks, drinks, even go shopping for people and stock the fridge, or you can do it as simply as just contacting vendors nearby that would come and do this for you.

[00:08:53] So maybe they offer an in-home massage or maybe private chef inside the home. So if you partner with these people, you would want to get their certificate of insurance, but then you can leave it up to the guests to do the scheduling. You just want to make sure that you know who is coming to the house.

[00:09:10] So ask the guest to let you know who they’ve approved or who they’re wanting to hire. That way you have some control of who’s coming in and whatnot, but you can do this as simply as you want. It’s been working pretty well for us. Our guests love it. They love the add-ons. It really helps elevate their experience and feel really special.

[00:09:29] Annette: But thanks for the question. 120 5-star reviews. Love it. If you haven’t left us a review, any listeners out there, including you, Elaine, we would love to have your 5-star review on our podcast. But keep up the good work, Elaine. You are crushing it. And yeah, get some of these upsells. We say it all the time. We are limited in the short-term rental world because we only get 365 days of inventory.

[00:09:53] So if you can upsell just things on top of your nightly stay, it helps bring in more revenue, which will hopefully bring in more profit to your bottom line. And then also, in turn, elevate your guest stay. And so you can be the cream of the crop, be the top in your market. Well done, Elaine.

[00:10:10] Sarah: Go to hostinghotline.com if you want to ask your question. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:10:14] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:10:16]  Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.