Download the full transcript PDF.
467. Hosting Across the Pond: Global Lessons from the UK Retreat
Sarah Karakaian: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to one of [00:01:00] the great episode. My name is Sarah Karakainan.
Annette Grant: I’m Annette Grant, and together we are. Thanks for visiting.
Sarah Karakaian: Let’s start this episode like we do each and every week, and that is featuring one of you, our listeners, who are heading on over to strshare.com sharing everything you can about your short-term rental, so we can celebrate you here on the podcast and on our Instagram account every Sunday.
Annette, who are we sharing this week?
Annette Grant: This week we are sharing @knowsleyhall. That is K-N-O-W-S-L-E-Y, @knowsleyhall. And Sarah and I just had the pleasure of being able to spend some time @knowsleyhall with some other amazing short-term rental professional CEOs, our other, um, network here in the short-term rental world.
But I wanna tell you about Knowsley Hall. It is a historic house that has been in ownership of the Stanley family since 1385. I didn’t, that [00:02:00] is not, that’s not a typo. 1385. And from that time, the history of the family has been closely intertwined with a history of England. It’s currently owned by the Earl and Countess of Derby, and they this, this home.
When I say this historic home, first of all, it has 17 bedrooms all with en suites. I think all of them had en suites, but throughout the centuries, the house has been adapted to many different uses and they decided in around the late 1990s to have a major renovation on the home. So after 20 years of love and attention, they are thrilled that the hall is looking as good as ever and it’s still keeps, has so much of the history there.
And they have now, they have private or corporate parties, weddings, they also do tours. They have some like theater stays that you can do there, some conferences, film work. [00:03:00] They are just crushing it. And I wanna say. Head on over, please go to their Instagram. Give them a follow. The first, you’re gonna see just the first like few seconds of going to their account how unbelievable the property is. It is a show stopper. It really is something out of a movie. Truly.
Actually, they’ve sAId that there has been English TV shows, movies that have been filmed there because it is so rooted in history, the artwork, some of it is, a lot of it’s original. The books in there, I mean, it was just really well done.
And then just casually on various tables or or, or consoles. Are pictures of like, uh, queen Elizabeth, you know what I mean? Like, it’s like grandma, you know what I mean? Pictures of grandma are there, but, but it’s also the Queen of England, or former Queen of England, you know, it’s like
. And the, the hall itself sits [00:04:00] on like an like hundreds of acres.
Some of it’s farmed, some of it’s highly manicured, but there is also a safari park Yes. That the 18th Earl founded. And when I say, and we had a chance to go there. I mean, there are rhinos, there are giraffes, there’s monkeys, there’s lions, like it’s no joke. And so that’s just adjacent to Knowsley Hall, but please give them a follow and they are crushing it when it comes to hospitality. It’s a fully staffed, um, around the clock also. So that was something that was, um, extra special about the hospitality there. And so they’ve really just done a really nice job of weaving in the history, but keeping the property current.
So it is an amazing, amazing stay.
Sarah Karakaian: I just love the Earl and Countess of Derby are short-term rental hosts.
Annette Grant: Yes. Isn’t that amazing? It is, and they are pouring their heart and souls into [00:05:00] it. Actually, the, um, they have a, there’s a podcast too. It’s called The Countess of Derby. It’s, uh, tribute with the Countess of Derby.
So we’ll make sure to, um, link to that in the show notes.
Sarah Karakaian: Does she talk about hospitality in it? Does it say like what the podcast is about? I or just heard different, don’t adventures as the Countess of Derby.
Annette Grant: I don’t know. Be, I don’t know. Sorry,
Sarah Karakaian: there’s just, but she’s pretty incredible. I know that she’s really involved in the hall and there’s a picture of the hall on her podcast art, so check that out.
But let’s, we, Annette and I wanna share, we did this trip last year and we did a podcast episode on this last year as well. But this year, because we, last year, we didn’t know what we were getting into. First of all, we thought the invite to this professional retreat was spam. You were like, are we really being invited to this very special getaway in the UK?
And it turned out to be a real invite and we went and had the best time and then we got invited back agAIn this year, which is also very special.
Annette Grant: Could not say no.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:06:00] That means Annette was behaved last year and . Welcome back. No, I’m just kidding. So we went back agAIn this year and it is, we are surrounded by CEOs, everyone who was there is a founder of a company, but the company is in the short-term rental industry, but it was either software, software as a, a service.
Annette Grant: Property management companies, consultancies.
Sarah Karakaian: Yes. Yes. So everyone had, uh, and then not only was Thanks for Visiting there.
Annette and I were there, but also another media company, uh, host Planet was there. And so they serve a lot of content to a UK crowd. So it’s just a really. Lovely and diverse conversation that we had on all sorts of different topics surrounding hospitality.
Annette Grant: . And we had the pleasure of having, um. Small interviews with four of the guests. There were like 17 of us there, but four of them we had, um, we’ll have on the show today and we’re gonna dig in. We asked them a few, [00:07:00] we asked them all different questions, but wanted to get their unique perspective. So let’s kick it off.
Sarah Karakaian: Yes. So first we have Ella.
And Ella used to be a property manager Annette, right?
Annette Grant: Yes. And this one, I love each, each person that we’re gonna introduce. Got their start, um, as a host. So Ella was a property manager, saw, um, a need for what she does now, and she’s the co-founder of Auto Hosts. So please feel free to look them up after the show.
Sarah Karakaian: But just to get you excited too, in this podcast, we ask some questions like, you know, what separates hosts who are thriving right now from those who are struggling? Or if you had to make one bold prediction about our industry in the next year, what would you say? And is there really hope for direct booking when AIrbnb is just so powerful?
Um, what do you think hosts could be investing more time or attention to? So this episode is really diverse in terms of the conversation, but it’s coming from the place of people whose [00:08:00] livelihoods, just like all of ours, depend on paying attention to what’s going on. And so these perspectives can be really valuable for you as we move forward into this year and to next year.
But, let’s get to know Ella and dig into her perspective on what she thinks hosts, what, what separates hosts who are thriving from those who are struggling right now.
Okay, Ella, what do you think separates hosts who are thriving right now versus those who might be experiencing struggles?
Ella: Okay. Good question. Um, I’m gonna say, and this is really so, so many mistakes I made during my hosting days and running a property management company. I feel like in the stage where you’re looking at scale, you are fAIling to analyze, ROI. So ROI. Being return on investment is really easy when you buy something for $3 and sell it for five and your ROI is $2. It’s a lot harder when there’s tools out there when you’re trying to [00:09:00] really quantify hiring an extra person or taking a tech or introducing software and at some point is the cost gonna justify what I’m making or saving from it?
And I feel that with, uh. Kind of multitude of tech stack solutions and growth opportunities. At some point, people fall on two ends of that spectrum. I see situations where you’re doing way too much manually or with humans and oh my God, something could really be automated and you can focus on the things that really need human touch.
And on the other hand, I see companies going completely above and beyond and thinking the tech is a solution for everything. And then they’re forgetting to really analyze the whole, well, wAIt, I mean if I did this a little bit more manual, but with the human touch, I’m gonna, you know, save a little bit on the scale part or, so it’s really that it’s assessing and, and that’s not always easy.
So us as tech vendors, it’s, I think our job as well to clarify where investing in some solution could save you time, money, efforts, or whatever, but for an operator, I’m gonna say that the ones that [00:10:00] really cracked it and for their stage, ’cause there’s no one right answer. So for their stage and keep reassessing it, understanding that at this point I could optimize a few things, change something in my process because the return on this investment is gonna be better.
Um, really separate those that don’t bother giving it any thought or time of day and just keep going. You know, business as usual. My margins are low. That sucks, but let’s keep going and just try harder. As opposed to go back and reassess your margins.
Sarah Karakaian: And I think that’s the magic word there of reassess, especially our audience.
It’s almost like they, yeah, you’re right. Like our margins are small and that’s just the way it is. . But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are opportunities for, to either defend your profit or to, uh, reassess what you’re investing in. Are you optimizing it in a way that is worth the value that you’re putting into it monetarily, time-wise, [00:11:00] there’s just so many components of technology or your team that you might not be tapping into their sweet spot.
Yeah, and I can see how that could be.
Annette Grant: Well, I think. Host also, who are you chatting with? Who do you get to talk to, to sit down and really go behind the scenes? What are you investing in? This is what I’m investing in. Or I think people still on any level of business, whether you’re, you know, have an AIrbnb, whether you have a property management company, whether you have a full-time job.
People still are very, I feel secretive about earning and spending, or they give you the highlight reel.
Annette Grant:
And I think that’s where, just being really honest sometimes of like, if a tech, if, if something that you, um, purchased, whether it’s tech, an employee isn’t giving you the ROI that you want, having that honest conversation of you can let it go.
’cause there’s sunk cost too. You’re like, you wanna hold on? Like, let’s try harder, try harder, and it’s not working. That’s. That’s the sweet spot I think, of what, what is [00:12:00] the return on investment? Really understanding that. . Because my something or a return on my investment, what I want out of it, might be very different than, than you or Sarah.
Yeah. So how, when we talk about return on investment, if I’m looking at, um, numbers at the, at the end of the day. What if something has to, what if a piece, if you, um, if you are a property manager and a piece of tech had to go just because money, like literally like we cannot afford this. . What do you think could go,
Ella: Ooh, so completely depends on your skillset.
So I think the point is that any person that enters our space, and I, and I start as an operator, I’m a tech vendor now, but you’re gonna thrive in any business as long as you’re not an outsider that’s hiring everybody else. You’re gonna come in with your skillset and as long as you can supplement and hire either through people or tech, the other things you’re not good at.
So to answer your question of what goes the thing that is complimentary to what you can do on your own or do better. So it’s, [00:13:00] that would actually be a completely different answer for every single person. And it’s like sometimes, I don’t know, like there might be some tech where you’re really at your size like this check is the best, but great, but I really only need 20% of it at my size.
So even though it’s the best, we can tone that down for now. Do things manually learn our process, and then when we grow big enough, we can introduce that. I mean, ROI also comes in, I mean, we sAId people in tech, it can be upgrading to a fancier shampoo, right? Like when you decide whether to put in chocolates on pillows, or investing in, do you put a Dyson in every apartment or not?
Right? That’s also, how do you check ROI on that? Some of those are quantitative, but some are qualitative. Are the, is one review gonna make a specific type of guest more likely to stay there? So there’s definitely like a judgment call you make, but sometimes you just see that, hey, if I invest in quality, it pays off.
Versus, Hey, no, if I just, you know, I used to use leave six whatever beer cans in the fridge and not only leave two [00:14:00] and it’s the same satisfaction you can save on ROI there, right? . So I think it’s anything from like. StrAIght up what’s in the unit, what you invest in, people and tech. And what to cut down is, I wish I had an answer for you.
Um, but really whatever kind of compliments your skillset.
Sarah Karakaian: Ella, what do you think about AI coming into the, this, our hospitality sector these days? What are you seeing?
Ella: AI is a fun conversation. I think that there is so much legitimate hype. Around everything we can do with it. I mean, personal lives and hospitality.
Um, and so within hospitality, I love the opportunity. I love the potential being what the operators can use it for as well as what we need to understand that the guests will be using it for. But I almost like, unfortunately, like it’s not all doom and gloom, but my answer really goes towards me coming from the space of looking at fraud, looking at chargebacks, looking at the risk in hospitality.
Our light bulbs are [00:15:00] going off saying, hold on, but what about, what I kind of refer to as bad AI and hospitality? And so even though there’s so much potential on that side, I feel like there isn’t enough awareness in our conversations to how can AI be exploited to find loopholes in our process. It could be from simple things like the messages are well phrased.
Like when I was, I mean when I was an operator, we, one of the instructions to our team is like, Hey, if they kind of write really haphazardly and like, you know, some mistakes and it sounds quote unquote sketchy. Let’s you know, rAIse a flag. But right now nothing’s gonna sound sketchy. And if anything, the more serious fraud and risk are gonna be the ones that will invest in utilizing AI.
And if before you kind of sAId, well, teenagers partying for a weekend is riskier than a business traveler for four days, well now everybody’s gonna make their story sound really good and credible, and it’s the sophisticated fraud. They’re gonna be the first to jump on it. And. And utilize it kind of thing.
And that’s just message. You go into fake IDs and fake [00:16:00] profiles and making things look really believable. I’m kind of, you know, kind of going towards where can the exploit go and how ready should your team be? So my kind of just very caution. I mean, we can’t fight it. So just be ready, have the measures in place.
Figure out where you want to be using judgment calls and where you want to have something a bit more objective to make sure that you’re protecting yourself. AgAInst the wrong guest or fraudulent bookings. That’s kind of what occupies my mind when it comes to AI
Annette Grant: When, but when we talk about bad AI, do you think it’s mostly creating fake profiles?
Like fake becoming fake guests?
Ella: So, I mean, bad AI can be everywhere. Bad AI is gonna go towards companies that are being exploited for i mean social engineering through AI hacking into your system. So no bad AI can come from different directions. I’ve spoken to operators that, you know, you get cold calling from companies that are trying to sell you something, but then try to fish for information.
So even that’s not specific to [00:17:00] hospitality, but the whole concept of just your privacy and the fact that social engineering is the easiest through your employees and that you know, an urgent sounding emAIl to somebody from your team saying, Hey, Ella needs something urgent can you just send the wrong thing or go do something, which is, agAIn, not hospitality specific, but for companies that are operating, they have staff educating your entire team, be it from boots on the ground to customer support people that customer support are interesting because the guest support teams, they’re so, they’re in service mode. They’re not on the lookout. They’re not your guard dog, they’re not a gatekeeper. They’re in the hospitality business. They wanna be as friendly and as amicable and as helpful as possible.
Like it’s funny, we. We’ll look at things from the screening side, but I was always laughing at the fact that my team, even though they have this criteria on how to tell if say a guest potentially should be flagged, they could be thrown off by a quick question like, Hey, are the pillows down or synthetic because I’m allergic and [00:18:00] that’s it.
And I had a crazy case like that. Enter AI. So there’s either fake guest profile, wrong intentions, but just any way that your company and safety net can be kind of exploited to. From me at the end of the day I mean, it would be financial fraud, right? That’s, that’s a risk. But I don’t know, like AI bots booking places, and then it turns out that your inventory went for the wrong thing, or it was fraudulent stuff.
So it’s not always guests looking to party. . And they’re gonna put a better profile than, you know, they could otherwise, I think from every perspective, like you
Annette Grant: just need to be more on the lookout,
Ella: more on the lookout, more personal touch when you need to, and maybe just more awareness. So I mean, that’s step one.
There’s lots of things you can do and probably like. Like safeguards you can put in your business to make sure the human error is less likely across the board. But, um, awareness would probably be number one at that stage as the hype grows towards everything we can do with it.
Annette Grant: I think the awareness for me is you just saying the phrase bad AI.
. Because I’ve never been on [00:19:00] the defense of like, why could it be bad? And that’s just that awareness of knowing that. There will always be a subset of humans that will use the technology in their favor for fraud, for like things like that. So just even like bad AI am like, oh my gosh, I, because I know AI can hallucinate, and I’ve been like, wAIt, I’m using like, let’s say I’m using chat GPT.
I’m like, well, I kind of feel like I need to fact check whatever. . Chat GPT’s telling me because where are the, where, where is all the data being mined from? Right. So it’s like, I think I’m already like. Assuming that those things are facts, and it’s like, how did I adapt that quickly to trusting Okay, trusting the information.
Ella: So I’m gonna scare you a little bit more. Do it. I’m here for it. So a few weeks ago I actually reposted. So Andrew, Angie, um, is a, he, he’s a general kind of, he writes about AI in general, but I shared one of his information about voice-based models. So you know how you can also press a button and talk to Chad GPT and ask [00:20:00] questions.
But that model is not yet. Too sophisticated to have like a real sounding conversation right now. You sometimes even like see that it’s thinking while you’re talking and so on. But that’s progressing very, very fast. And it was talking, it was comparing, um, this sort of a question response model and voice-based to the more on the go that could mimic a real conversation.
So whereas before as an operator, if something sounds sketchy, your number one thing is just call them, you know what to remove any doubt. Pick up the phone.
Annette Grant: Yeah, that’s what we say.
Ella: Make sure they’re legit. Well, what if it’s no longer a person you’re speaking to? And more than that, not only is the voice, not their voice, but the preset text is ready to answer all your questions.
Right? Because right now you can also with, let’s even say, put aside the fact that whether it sounds like a sketchy person or not, just the fact that you can tackle them with a question. Right now, AI is pre-populated with, here’s a story. If any question is asked about something, make sure the cover is good, our intentions are innocent, yada, yada, [00:21:00] yada.
You are no longer even trusting voice, and that’s terrifying.
You’re welcome.
Sarah Karakaian: There’s nothing left.
Ella: Sorry. Ah, no. So, so there is, and I think that at the end of the day, this isn’t like, I mean, most guests are amazing guests, right? And hospitality is a beautiful place and we want to keep encouraging the travel in that world.
But I think that that’s exactly where I call it multiple data points. So, and a phone conversation is still better than nothing. Right? And yes, it could be a machine and will the most, most, most sophisticated fraud be able to, you know, slip through. Like maybe. But if you can tackle 95% of it, if you can have the more data points, so you, your team is ready to ask the questions and you have whatever fAIl safe at the door with a lock code and you have their information on file. So I think it’s just gonna be more focusing on the objective data points rather than, well, I have a gut feeling, or, you know, my strategy is I’m gonna hold my fingers crossed, which is not a great strategy.
So there, there’s things to do, but agAIn, awareness is number one. ’cause then you start [00:22:00] looking for those, right? And even back to the tech discussion, then you’re gonna ask, what is my best strategy? It’s not always technology. It could be. Hey, we are running an apart hotel and therefore I can have somebody at the front desk just like traditional hotels do, right?
That’s why it’s a little bit harder for us with a distributed model. It could be tech, it could be phone calls, whatever the right combination is for you and for your size. I think that still making sure that you’re getting yourself, your staff ready to tackle it and kind of recognize and rAIse an eyebrow if needed.
It is a good step in the right direction.
Annette Grant: Love it,
Sarah Karakaian: Ella. Thank you.
Ella: Thank you guys.
Sarah Karakaian: Ella was super fun to hang out with at this retreat we had, we, the, the host of the retreat. Humphrey Bowls, who is the CEO and founder of Truvi, uh, introduced this game to us, this pool game. I think he calls it Frida, Annette. Is that right? Freedom. I don’t know. Freedom. I don’t, I dunno what it’s called, [00:23:00] but it’s super fun.
You like play with your hands and it’s very like you got run all sides of the table. Anyway, Ella on a pool table? Yes. Ella was competitive and I loved it. I was here for it and she was like down to play this game until like wee hours of the morning, which I also. Had a lot of fun doing that. But Ella was, um, she’s just really insightful and been in this industry for a long time.
But now we sit down with the youngest attendee of the retreat.
Annette Grant: Bart. He is the founder of Auto Rank and I love that Bart got his start, his dad bought a bread and bed and breakfast in Belgium and basically purchased it, uh, because. The story there is licensing is a very, um, hard to come by. They, so they actually had the certificate, the license to be able to run a bed and breakfast.
So his dad saw huge value in that, bought it, and then, uh, Bart was just coming out of college and he’s like, figure it out. Run this. And Bart is absolutely [00:24:00] brilliant. He’s been building and starting businesses for years now. His dad gave him, you know, uh, that task to take over the bed and breakfast, and he saw an opportunity because he wanted to rank the highest.
And so his business is now built completely on that. And I just love that he took that task. Uh, that his father gave to him and built it into an amazing business. I think he just f he’s done like several rounds of fundrAIsing. He, I could not stop talking to him ’cause I wanted him to teach me everything that was in his brilliant, brilliant mind
Sarah Karakaian: because a and not that Annette and I are old by any strip imagination.
Annette Grant: Speak for yourself. I’m young.
Sarah Karakaian: That’s right.
Annette Grant: Spring chicken.
Sarah Karakaian: We are young. But I really loved having Bart there. ‘Cause Annette was he still in his twenties. We asked him how old he was. Oh yeah. He’s like 24 maybe. Yeah. But having that perspective of someone who’s so young in the industry, sometimes people can write off.
Young people when it comes to [00:25:00] conversations about business and industry. But Bart’s take on it is so valuable because that he is the future. . And the way he thinks is the future. The way he handles things is the future. And he is no dummy. I mean, he studied business at university and like Annette sAId, this is not the first business he’s started or runs.
So he’s just. I don’t know. I just loved his perspective. It was fresh. And so I wanted to know from him what his predictions were about the short-term rental industry. And also ’cause he is so obsessed with ranking on the OTAs, what were his biggest tips on ranking in the OTAs? So stay tuned for the, for those answers from Bart.
All right, Bart. What are some organic ways hosts can rank higher on the online travel agencies?
Bart: So one of them would be to update your descriptions regularly whenever something happens, whenever you have a lot of complAInts about something, like someone complAIns about your balcony not being big enough, just keep that real [00:26:00] feedback and use it.
Update your listings. Think of updating your pictures when it’s winter season, don’t show them your summer pictures. So those are like the easy tips and tricks to do, but they’re also like bit more obvious ones. Like using a revenue management software already helps you rank higher because you send updates to those OTAs.
OTAs, for example, they also, they, they, they value if you send a lot of rates and availability, so let’s say you have a, you have a gap night and you only allow two nights stays. . Meaning. You don’t send availability for those days, but if you open up that one one gap night, even at a very high rate, you know you’re increasing your ranking because you send more availability on that point.
For example, how AIrbnb works, they take an average of your price of the last 30 days, and if you’re above that average, they give you a bit of a lower ranking. Then if you’re below that, that, that, that, that average. But if you do, for example, that one day at like [00:27:00] 1000% mark, your average starts to move up.
Mm. Okay. And at the moment, your average moves up, all your other prices become more attractive because you’re far away from your average. So those are, I would say, one easy trick and then one less conventional.
Sarah Karakaian: When it comes to updating your description, you sAId regularly. Can you get specific there? Are you seeing success from people who update it weekly or is monthly okay.
Or is it less of that? And truly when you have something new to say, just remembering to update your description.
Bart: I wish there was a rule of thumb of that for that, but it all depends on your, on your market. Let’s say you’re in New York, you have a lot of demand, a lot of supply still, so you know a lot of different travel profiles.
So this is where you need to update it very frequently because at one point someone might be looking for big balconies. At one point they want to have indoor pool, so the ranking changes. But if you’re like in a, in an urban area with like not a lot of density, it’s okay to do it once a month. So. [00:28:00] It’s keeping it just updated. It’s once. Make sure your accuracy is okay, and if you want to go to the next, to the next step in optimization, you really, really have to just check what’s happening with the ranking. Check what’s happening with your property. Are you still ranked high? Are you still ranked okay? Is your conversion rate still because if one of them is dropping, that’s an early signal.
Okay. Fix it.
Annette Grant: Right. Well, you just mentioned conversion rate. What is a statistic? And I know there’s so many different markets. I mean, it’s like, I mean, tens of thousands of markets, but, but when people are looking at their conversion rate or where, where they’re falling, what page they’re falling on. How, what, what are the, what metric can they really look like?
Like what page is it like you better just like really do a overhaul? What page do or do you become irrelevant?
Bart: I would say everything between 30, 35. That also depends on. You know, how much, how much [00:29:00] demand is there for your region if the whole page one gets booked out, page 16 starts moving up because AIrbnb only shows page one to 15.
But maybe like on a broader perspective, I’m talking about AIrbnb. What you do on a booking.com more on a Vrbo also impacts your ranking on AIrbnb. So it’s choosing which OTA you want to leverage. For some markets, it’s quite easy. You know, you have a 70% AIrbnb demand, so you go with AIrbnb. So markets, it’s very tense because you have a lot of different OTAs really battling so everything on AIrbnb between 30 on Vrbo, that’s different. But for example, on on booking.com, it’s everything which is not page one to five, then you’re screwed, especially in the US in Europe, that’s a, that’s agAIn different. Okay. So agAIn, here it’s, it’s very market tAIlored, but those are like easy rule of terms.
Annette Grant: So booking.com is a lot, lot less for, for US. Like if you’re not one through five, then. You’re not probably gonna get booked at all.
Bart: Exactly. And that’s just because in a lot of markets in the [00:30:00] US, booking.com has not gAIned very big market share. So a specific demand is not there yet. I’m not saying you won’t get any bookings if you’re on page six.
Maybe you’re the cheapest and someone really wants to book a cheap apartment, but your probability decreases significantly.
Sarah Karakaian: If you had to make one bold prediction about our industry. In the next year, what would you say?
Bart: I like this one. Um, it’s a bold one. And also one, I hope we’re also, or we have been talking about AI in this industry.
You know, the adoption of AI. Everyone wants AI, but the biggest issue right now is that all the PMS is all the revenue management softwares. They all use different data formats. While it makes it very hard to build like systems on top of that data. So my bold prediction and something I really hope is for more unified data handling in this industry. So AI can become very, or can become resourceful.
Sarah Karakaian: Do you think there’s a world [00:31:00] where we can do that?
Bart: I think there are some players in in this market who can do that. I think some other players will lag a bit, but at one point everyone will need to keep up, will need to change. Some of them will have already done it in six months.
Some of them may be in six years, but at one point, you know, everything will come together.
Sarah Karakaian: How can a host trust that the data is helpful or is is valuable or will they never know?
Bart: I think regarding the data thing, a big responsibility lays at the host. I have seen very, um, silly examples hosts putting direct bookings is a zero euro and, and sending a stripe invoice that’s scrutinizing your own data quality because your ADR moves.
If you look at historical booking overview. You’re screwed because if AI [00:32:00] would come and get there, they would look at your historical data point. So there’s a big responsibility for the host to keep their own data clean. I would say that’s
Sarah Karakaian: accurate.
Bart: Accurate. That’s number one thing a host needs to do because if this mindset shift doesn’t happen, you know, then everyone can build nice things, but they build it on garbage and garbage in this garbage shop.
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
Annette Grant: So when you just gave that example of a host sending an invoice for for zero Euro dollars. Is that because they’re like gi giving that stay to like a friend or family member and then it skews the data? Is that kind of
Bart: that, that I use case. I also saw the use, but for example, they, they then put it as a block instead of just an owner stay.
But putting it as a block for an AI model that just looks at your historical data like globally. That’s your apartment is not ready to rent. So historically, you don’t have a lot of nights to rent out while you just gave it to a friend. So all those little nuances, which are very easy to see when you look at your booking [00:33:00] calendar, they jeopardize your ability to to adapt in a later stage.
Annette Grant: That, those are things where, again, if it’s your business, it’s if it’s your property, you have that narrative behind those zero night bookings or I, Hey, I stayed during that time. But AI is looking at it just across the board. It doesn’t have that narrative at all behind, behind those rates. I, I wanna go back to something that you said about, um.
Dynamic pricing software, updating the OTAs. I liked your tip there of potentially, even if you don’t wanna book a night, you have a a gap night, you are suggesting to the host. Go ahead, make it available, even if you really don’t want to rent it out for that one night stay, but increase the rate to where it’s probably not desirable, but the OTA will still.
Give you that, let’s say that help in the algorithm, because at least you’re available because do you think that’s one of the like most detrimental [00:34:00] things a host can do to their listing is block days or minimum nights stays?
Bart: Definitely one of the, the, the detrimental things are not sending enough rates and availability.
If you only send 40% of your inventory through AIrbnb, you will never be ranked high or you will never be ranked top. You will have your bookings, but it’ll never be like you’re solely on AIrbnb. So just fixing that with minor tweaks can already help you a lot. Of course, I understand. Uh, PMS or property management companies, they’re present on multiple OTAs, and you have to, but it’s just gamifying them all in your favor.
Annette Grant: . Awesome.
Sarah Karakaian: Thank you. Thank you, Barb.
Bart: Thank you.
Sarah Karakaian: And just to wrap up. My biggest lesson, I think, um, from Bart is his use. I, and I’m starting to use it more of just like WhatsApp. I know it sounds silly, but like there’s nothing that you can’t do on WhatsApp. He is fast making it happen. And [00:35:00] honestly, for all international hosts, WhatsApp, like WhatsApp is the, um, main line of communication.
And honestly, um, Sarah and I, we stayed in short-term rentals and in hotels and like that is the way that they were communicating with us was via. WhatsApp.
But it’s so interesting here in the States because that we were having a conversation.
Annette Grant: They don’t even like text message or call. It’s all, it’s all WhatsApp.
Sarah Karakaian: It’s on
Annette Grant: WhatsApp.
. So we felt very American, um, but now not any longer. So Bart was giving, like, making sure that I was all in tune with everything.
Sarah Karakaian: Annette called me the other day after our trip and she called me for WhatsApp.
Annette Grant: Yeah. I’m only call, I’m only calling next Sarah on WhatsApp now. You’re welcome.
Sarah Karakaian: I am welcome. Okay, next up. We sat down with Phil.
Annette Grant: Yes. Phil also got his start as a host. He had an apartment in New York City and Sarah and him were of course, bonding, but one of those things he, he bought a place he was helping subsidize it. He was renting it out on the weekends and it turned into his now [00:36:00] business, which is.
Future stay. He’s the founder of Future Stay and so I just love that and you’re our next guest too. All got their start as hosts. They saw that problem that needed to be solved.
Sarah Karakaian: I do love when tech solution founders have been hosts. I think almost everyone. This retreat has had some sort of hosting experience, but then they just really truly embody the, the challenges we face and they can create a solution for us and, and really understand where we’re coming from.
But Phil is really on top of direct booking and, and working in partnership with the OTA. So we sat down with Phil and dug in about the future of direct booking. Is there really hope for it? And are there any trends that he’s seeing? In the short term rental industry that he just hopes kind of die off.
Phil?
Phil: Yes.
Sarah Karakaian: Is there really hope? Is it really [00:37:00] worth trying to build up direct bookings with as powerful and as big as the OTAs are becoming, do, do we stand a chance, especially as independent hosts, owner operators?
Phil: So let me break that down into two parts. Is there hope and is it worth it?
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
Phil: Let’s start out with is it worth it?
Okay. Now, I’m a big proponent of making sure that you have your occupancy at the right level, and so that means you’re going to be needing to take bookings from a variety of sources, especially if you’re just starting out. That’s okay. Nothing wrong with that. I’m a fan of the OTAs. I’m a fan of direct bookings, but let’s just take a quick look at the the revenue profile and the profit profile of a typical booking or typical STR operator or owner. Most owner operators, even if you’re profitable, 20%, 30% margin would be a high [00:38:00] margin. A 30% margin, 20%, 15% could be a normal margin. Right. And then if you’re not focused on profit, it can and will be less. 15% is what an OTA commission is.
. That’s the distinction. One line is the distinction between profit and not. And so when you think about direct bookings, because they literally can be the entire difference between being profitable or not book profitable, being able to supplement your OTA bookings with 10 or 20% direct bookings can literally double what your take home is that year.
From your short term rental, it can double your overall profit. From your short term rental to hit 20% direct bookings. So what I would say is if profit is important to you, and I think it should be, then being able to have at least some direct bookings, can be one of the most meaningful things that you can do in order to reach profit.
Now, that’s, that’s [00:39:00] whether or not we should think about that should prioritize the
Sarah Karakaian: record.
Can we,
Phil: Can we, is it possible? Is there hope? Yes. So many ways. There’s so many signs of hope. Uh, OTAs are powerful. They are important. They’re critical to this industry, right? You know, you’ll, you will never hear me saying to somebody, I’m not a fan of Airbnb, or I’m not a fan of vrbo, or I’m not a fan of booking.com.
These are companies I’ve been partners with for a dec, you know, a decade, big fan of all those companies. As both a, a guest, a host, and a, and a partner. What I say is think about how they fit into your strategy. From the perspective of the industry, these are companies that help this industry become what it is today, right?
We have to, we stand on the shoulders of that, of that they dominate the brand presence and the mind presence of the consumer, but there are ways to leverage that, that growth that they’ve, that they’ve helped with the short term rental and apply that to your own business. Is it [00:40:00] possible? Yeah. So there are a couple things that anyone can do to start getting direct bookings.
The first is understand that. There’s a process that any company that sells to a consumer, I don’t care if you’re selling wine, if you’re selling software, if you’re selling a microphone like we’re talking into right now, it doesn’t matter what it is. There’s a process by which those companies sell. They promote, they, uh, they, they gather the leads from whatever they promoted.
They offer something of value to those leads, and then they make a sale, and then hopefully they can turn that sale into another sale by building a lifelong relationship with the consumer. You if you are a, you know what we like to call rental preneur. If you’re a rental preneur, independent host, you can learn how to apply that same process.
You know, we call that the direct booking loop. You can apply that same process by yourself just by thinking about how to capture the people that are already coming and staying at your property, capture their contact information, offering them value. [00:41:00] Bringing them back to your business and then getting them to bring friends and family next time, getting them to share.
So yeah, it’s possible. It’s possible with advancing advances in technology, new channels that are opening up, like Google Vacation rentals with, you know, uh, I think we’re gonna see a, a, a diametric shift in the next couple of years. Right? We’re all, we’re in the age here where. You know, just a couple of weeks ago, I don’t know when people are listening to this, but just a couple of weeks ago, we saw a massive transformation in AI and now everyone is sharing images that are AI generated images.
Right? Right. That’s just one. This is going to keep happening. Every couple of months you’re gonna see a new thing that comes out with ai, with agentic AI, or with search AI. When technologies shift and change consumer behavior, that creates an opening for, uh, for disruption. A year from now, two years from now, are people going to be going onto Google and searching for vacation rentals or on Airbnb searching maybe.
Or maybe they’ll be [00:42:00] having a conversation with an agent. Maybe they’ll be looking for a personalized experience and that may end up on a direct booking website. So that’s all to say that there are so many shifts that can be in the favor of a short-term rental owner and operator to start getting direct bookings.
And there’s also things that are always within your own control. To nurture the guests that you have to capture them to add value to what you, to, to their lives, and to bring them back. So yeah, we have hope,
Sarah Karakaian: But to nurture them means to continue the conversation after this stay. But we’re, and going back to the first part of this question, of that difference between being profitable and not, it’s talking to your guest after the state, nurturing them, adding value, asking them back.
Could be the very difference between you being profitable and not. And so how important that is to nurture their relationship. It’s not transactional way they come and stay with you and then wait for that next new guest to walk through the door via Airbnb. It really is having to dig in a little bit, do some work to get people to come back and build relationships.
Phil: Yeah. [00:43:00] That, that’s a hundred percent right, and, and just, you have to keep it in context because some people, it, it can feel insurmountable. If a hundred percent of your bookings are from an OTA today, you may look at that and say, there’s no way I can compete with Airbnb. Well, you don’t have to. You’re not trying to right, you’re not trying to get a hundred percent direct bookings.
Maybe that’s a goal for 10 years from now. Maybe it’s not. It doesn’t matter. You’re trying to just create such an experience and such a connection with some of your guests, not all of them, that some of them come back Again, if you can get 20% direct bookings, you’re probably gonna double your profit. So how do you get 5% this year?
Annette Grant: That. I like that it’s more bite size. It’s like how is it 5%? And then the five, maybe the five doesn’t even go to 10. It just goes to seven to 10 and then up. And I think, I think that’s when you said the word insurmountable. And I do feel that for hosts, it does feel like this, like climb this mountain, is it even worth it to start the climb?
And I do believe that if you’re [00:44:00] going to be hosting for a long time. It, it’s a, it’s a pro and a con of, we only get the 365 days of inventory, but then you only have to sell that much inventory. So the math. Then is in your favor of like let the OTAs, like let them do the heavy lifting. Like you can make it a plan that your first guest never comes direct or your first booking with that guest never comes direct.
It’s always from an OTA. I think that like makes it feel a little bit more doable of like, Hey, I’m never gonna go get a guest first. I’ll let the OTA do that hard work. But I’ll do the work after the first day to ke to keep them as my guest. I think that makes it just a little bit more doable. And hey, you get to see, did you even, like, do you want that guest back?
Because you might not want all your guests back either. You know, like depending on how the, how the stay went.
Phil: Right? So think about it like this, if we’re talking about 5% and we’re gonna make this bite size, that’s one in 20 guests booking direct. And especially if we’re talking about. [00:45:00] 20. You may honestly have, you know, your first year, you may only have 30 or 40 reservations, right?
Depending on what your occupancy is, how long your average length of stay is. That’s three guests. It’s true, right? We can do this every, it’s like we, these are not, we’re not, we’re not trying to boil the ocean here, and so. The reality is if you think about it in a bite-sized manner, and you’re providing, you don’t have to vibe with every guest.
Every guest does not have to be your ideal guest, and you don’t have to be the ideal property for every single one of your guests. Some of these things are transactional, right? But being but approaching direct bookings from perspective of it can be bite-size, but yet impactful, and you can, you know, kind of, you can get one step closer to building that relationship just one guest at a time.
Let the OTAs drive the guest to you in the first place. It, it can be. And then think about from that perspective of how do I offer value and bring them back. It, it really is something that’s achievable
Annette Grant: That, that just, and it could be when you [00:46:00] just said maybe you only have 30 reservations. It’s like, wait a second.
If you and the three come back, it’s like, well, maybe that other person comes back twice or they have a family member that’s gonna come, or let’s say even like Sarah and I’s market. Like if we get a business traveler. That comes back three times in one year. Like all of a sudden it’s like, heck yeah. This is so, so doable and achievable.
It’s just like, I think also because we wanna go into our next question for you, but it’s also just having that mindset of I can do this. Like I will do this, like it, put it on your goals of I’m gonna have 5% of my bookings come back next year direct.
Sarah Karakaian: Phil. What’s one hospitality trend that you hope dies a slow death in the next year?
Well, I do hope that this trend dies a, uh, a very rapid, abrupt death. Okay. But I think it’s gonna take, I think it’s gonna take more than a year to get rid of it, I think. And, and it touches on some of the same themes here. I, you know, I, I really, uh, you know, I, [00:47:00] we get to know a lot of hosts. All over the world, all different sizes, but specifically independent and small hosts, which to me are the most important hosts in the industry.
People with 1, 2, 3, you know, four properties that are looking at this industry as a way to change their lives, to build some wealth, et cetera. So I don’t have, this is not a, a, a rant against small hosts. That’s what I think. I think that that’s the lifeblood of short term rentals. But I think one of the trends that I see is that people either don’t believe.
Or don’t know how important it is to focus on profit and to focus on the financial side of an STR. I think STRs are inspiring and they’re fun. And they’re sexy and people, everyone wants to operate STR, everyone wants to be a rental preneur. Everyone wants to list on Airbnb or what and take direct bookings.
This stuff is all fun and it should be fun. Like we’re all having fun. I love this. Right? But it’s not just fun. It is a way to make money. And if you [00:48:00] can’t. If you’re not generating income and you’re not gener generating revenue, you probably won’t be able to do it for that long. . Right. And you’re going to, you’re gonna lose the opportunity.
Well, there was an interesting study done recently by, uh, Phocuswright, which is one of the, the large, um, kind of, you know, research and data bodies in the travel industry at large. And I don’t know if there’s specific numbers here. But generally what they found was that there was a, a massive correlation between simply wanting and focusing on generating profit from your short term rental and generating profit. So the owners and operators, specifically the small ones that were not focused on generating profit, surprise, didn’t generate, generate a profit. This wasn’t about how much technology they were using or how much they were investing or how many hours.
It was literally just being focused on generating a profit that enabled them to, to generate a profit. And so I think the concept that this is just a [00:49:00] hobby or that it’s going to somehow be passive income or that you don’t have to think about profit is one. That’s a trend that I would really love to see die.
I think rental preneurship can change lives. I think we all know that, right? . The three of us having this conversation, . All of our lives have been shaped and changed by rental entrepreneurship, and we all wanna see that opportunity for as many people as possible.
Annette Grant: Right?
Phil: And just focusing on it is one of the key, the key determining factors.
Determining factors that can drive that change in your life.
Annette Grant: Ooh, love it.
Sarah Karakaian: I see a lot of our audience maybe get turned off by that word profit. They see it not all, but some as. Well wait, but I’m here for the hospitality. I wanna create an experience for my guest, and I don’t, I don’t know when or how profit became a dirty word, or making money became a dirty word for our, for our audience.
There is a sector of short-term rental [00:50:00] operators who, that’s all they focus on. It’s like no hospitality. So I feel like then the other side is like, well, I’m gonna go so far in hospitality and people for profits is also a saying that you might hear. So how can we, I mean. I see it as its profit is like oxygen to your business so that you can continue serving the people who serve it and the people who you welcome in.
But how else can we just change our mindset on that word profit and, and focusing on it, and how is it not so scary?
Phil: Yeah, I think one of the scary things is it, it’s the, you know, we, we’ve all heard, heard the saying, you know, there’s nothing to fear besides fear itself. I think some of it is, it’s scary to acknowledge that you don’t know if you’re profitable. Yeah. It’s scary to acknowledge that you don’t know your numbers and it’s scary to look at those things for the first time and kind of look ’em outta the open it. It’s kind of like we just said about the direct bookings. You don’t have to boil the ocean.
You don’t have to be profitable right now.
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah. Ooh,
Phil: You don’t have to win today. But focusing on that and having that as one of your goals and [00:51:00] saying, look, maybe today I’m operating at a 20% loss. I’m just trying to cover my mortgage.
Annette Grant: Right.
Phil: If I just cover my mortgage, that’s a win for me. That’s okay.
Sarah Karakaian: But focusing on covering your mortgage,
Phil: Focusing on the numbers.
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
Phil: Focusing on being able to hit that goal. It doesn’t have to be the most aggressive goal in the world. Yeah. And say, now that I know where I am today, well, and, and I’ve figured out a way to achieve that, then what can I do next? How can I go a little bit further? I don’t think this is a, a scenario of saying that everything has to be run by the numbers, but I think it is saying that one of your goals should be setting goals. . And achieving them. That may not mean that you’re trying to hit a 20% profit margin. It may mean you just wanna make sure you’re covering the utilities and the more, but even that will be more achievable once you set the goal for yourself.
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah. Well, Phil, thank you so much.
Phil: It’s been a pleasure.
Annette Grant: I mean, check out futures stay. I like to highlight that Phil is very in touch with his [00:52:00] client, is someone that has one property, that’s what he’s bringing, property management software direct bookings to independent host with one to three properties, and you very rarely see someone focused on that. It’s very similar to Sarah and myself, so it was really fun to get to get to know Phil and to talk deeper with him.
Sarah Karakaian: Last up on our list of retreat participants who sat down with us to record this podcast. Is a repeat guest of the show. Mark Simpson.
Annette Grant: Again, started out, um, actually started out earlier probably than all of us in short term rentals. His parents owned a bread and breakfast, and so it was woven into the fabric of his life.
So that’s where he got his start either, um. Probably not voluntarily with his, his parents. And then that led him onto his career today again, ’cause he was trying to solve [00:53:00] a problem in the short term rental space. And that was direct bookings. And he’s the founder of Boly.
Sarah Karakaian: And one thing interesting about Mark is he is chosen to be the face of his company.
And so he is very active on social media and talking to his clients because he’s so front facing in his business. And so I wanted to know from him, he speaks to so many experienced hosts, so what is something that experienced hosts are getting wrong even though they know so much because sometimes we’re so close to our business.
I mean, this happens to me all the time where I’m like, why can’t I figure this out? And it’s because I’m so close to it and it’s so hard for me to zoom out. I need the help of fellow hosts or fellow business partners to help me see something that I just can’t see. So I wanted to know Mark’s perspective on that and maybe a little bit more he wishes hosts should be investing more of their time and they’re just not.
All right, mark, [00:54:00] what’s one thing? Experienced hosts are still getting wrong.
Marc: Okay. So in my opinion, um, as a phrase that I learned last year called Kill your Darlings and
Annette Grant: say it again.
Marc: Kill your darlings.
Annette Grant: Kill your darlings.
Marc: Yes, it’s an expression.
Annette Grant: Okay.
Marc: And what it basically means is that when you get going, you say yes to everything.
So when you start up, and let’s just say you’ve got the management model. So you’ve got one property and you’re doing a really good job and a friend of a friend will go, oh, you are doing a really good job. Take mine. And then it’ll go, okay, and then. Another person will come to you ’cause you’re doing a good job, and they’ll go, oh, can you look after my properties?
Yeah. And before you know it, you’ve gone from one to 10.
Annette Grant: You’re co-hosting.
Marc: Yeah. Okay. You literally, and then, but it’s the same for arbitrage. Like you could be doing one property really well and then that person will go, oh, I’ve got another two. You can take them off my hands. And so when you start your scrappy and you just say yes to everything, [00:55:00] and before you know it, you’ve gotta say 10 properties.
And what I notice is that say you’ve got a brand that you are growing. And whatever that brand may be. And nine of your properties say, are on brand. Let’s just say you, you’re a beach destination and nine of your properties are on the beach, a stone throw away from the sea. But there’s that one property, that ugly stepchild that is like at the other end of town that doesn’t fit your brand in any way, shape or form.
And for whatever reason, that experience host hasn’t got the the balls are the courage to kill that darling because it doesn’t fit the overall brand and the vision of where they’re going, and it all comes down to. Avatar. So a very fancy marketing term is avatar, so your ideal guest, right? And so we fixate on bringing in the right person, the right guest into our property.
But sometimes you can look a little bit deeper, [00:56:00] and as you grow, you’ve got a customer avatar a hundred percent. You’ve got a property avatar a hundred percent, but you’ve also then got a staff avatar. And you’ve got, uh, if you’re doing the management model, like a, like a homeowner avatar, and we fixate on the on, on the, on the guest avatar.
But really I feel like what you need to do is look further afield in your business and experience hosts of this because you’re so scared to have that awkward conversation. I had this, I’m an experienced business owner. I’m 10 years now into this, and I had to do it last year. I had to kill a lot of my darlings.
I had to get rid of the people who’ve been with Brucely for the longest member of time because I put my prices up and I knew by putting my prices up I was gonna piss off a lot of customers along the way, but I had to do it for the long-term vision of the business of who I wanted to be working with. My avatar was moving as as evolved and changed, and so I had to kill a lot of my darlings and it’s not nice. It was an awful conversation to had. The abuse that I got and the things I had to deal with was awful, but. On the flip side, [00:57:00] the businesses that it’s strongest it’s ever been, we’re we’re impacting the people that we want to impact and the businesses that it’s healthiest that it’s ever been for it.
And I feel like experienced hosts need to have that lesson as well. Because I, right now, I guarantee it’ll be somebody’s listening to this and they’ve been the yes people and they’ve got maybe. It doesn’t need to be properties. It could be staff members, it could be homeowners at the work. It could be that one homeowner
Annette Grant: Could be a cleaner, cleaner.
Marc: It could be just that one person that when you see their face come on the phone, it’s like, ugh. Right. And as horrible as it may sound, because we all like to be like, and we like to be nice. It depends on our personality type, but you just gotta have an awkward conversation and you need to just rip the bandaid and, and, and, and get it done.
Sarah Karakaian: I think it’s killing, it’s killing your culture. Yeah.
Annette Grant: And I think, well, I, I’ve took this, um. A takeaway from you saying Kill your darlings is. Even looking at your own portfolio or your own home and going, is that still my darling? Should I sell this? Yeah. And move this money to something more profitable because you’re [00:58:00] more experienced now and it was like your starter house and you’re like, wait, I could make more money if I took this with my experience.
Moved it to a, a different market. Yeah. To a different property count. But it’s hard to let go of something that you’ve worked. Yeah. So. Hard on. Yeah. Or, you know, just built equity, whatever that equity may be in your, in your team member in your property or.
Marc: Yeah, I mean, like as you grow and you get more experience, sometimes, well, most of the time saying no opens up a better yes.
. And, uh, I can’t remember. I’ve definitely heard that on a Tim Ferris podcast and it’s always stuck with me. Um, and I feel like that. You know, as you’re scrappy and you’re getting growing, you need to say yes to everything. But as you get experienced, it’s detrimental to your business to keep hold of those things that you should really let go.
Annette Grant: I, we’ve been talking to a host about this too. They’re excited about returning guests that have been staying with them year after year. [00:59:00] But they haven’t raised their price. Yeah. And they’re like, oh, they book with me for the next year, this year. And I’m like, well, have you had an opportunity to. Change your, and they haven’t changed the price. And that’s kind of like a kill your darlings too, of like, if you’ve had the same guest staying with you year after year after year, and you’re getting like. They’re getting the best rate on the, in the entire market. That’s,
Marc: It’s not good.
Annette Grant: It’s not good. It’s not good for the guest.
Yeah. Because when
Sarah Karakaian: I have a guest like that, I’ll admit that right now
Annette Grant: When it’s time. No, when it’s time for them to pay market rate, you’ve been coddling them and they’re not gonna be prepared for it. Yeah. And then you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage because you’re not making even bare like market rate.
And so that’s, we just had, Sarah and I just had this talk and this one host had booked. All these guests from the year prior when she just got started and didn’t use dynamic pricing. Yeah. Didn’t, and I’m like, they booked a year in advance because they knew they got a steal of a deal.
Marc: Yeah. And it’s like every other thing is in the, in your business, the price is going up ’cause you’re having to pay more ’cause of whatever. But at the same time is like [01:00:00] financial. The other thing I was thinking about when you asked that question was financial hygiene. Uh, in the business. And that is something again, that everybody does wrong. Like you, you can do so well in your business by just going through your PNL and looking at your expenses and just getting rid of subscriptions you don’t need.
But where, and I, and I think financial hygiene is something as we move into 2025, everybody’s gonna be paying a lot more attention to than maybe, than previous years. But, but yeah, the, the thing that I was thinking about when you asked that question was kill your darlings and financial hygiene.
Sarah Karakaian: So with that time we have now, or that mental space that we have now because we’ve killed our darlings. What then do you think, are you seeing hosts needing to spend more time on and investing more in?
Marc: Yeah. Um.
Yeah, it comes back to the financial hygiene. I feel like it needs to be, maybe not a daily thing ’cause I can get a little bit OCD, but like, definitely a monthly or quarterly thing to [01:01:00] really go through your, your books a lot more. Go through the PNL with a fine tooth comb, print off the statements and just go through each individual one and keep a track of it because it is so easy.
Now, in the day and age of your Netflix is your Amazons.
Sarah Karakaian: All the subscriptions.
Marc: All the subscriptions are there. Yeah.
Annette Grant: We, we did that, Sarah and I did that. At the end of last year. Yeah, and here’s, here’s my word of caution. We got so aggressive on cutting things, but there are things that you’re in contract for there in things that it takes time, time.
We literally, we started in Q3 and it wasn’t until the beginning of the year that some things had actually sat sundown, so we actually didn’t feel Yeah. Um, the,
Marc: the true benefit,
Annette Grant: the, the true benefit to months later. So I also wanna offer that to everybody of. Yes, do it now. Because unraveling those things and where sometimes you’re like, okay, I canceled that, but I still have one it, it just charged us again.
Or, oh, I forgot I’m in a contract, [01:02:00] or you forget that. Or maybe you ended the contract early, so now you have to pay a penalty. So that was like. I think a painful part of the financial hygiene is not feeling
Yeah, the immediate win.
Marc: When do see it, it’s amazing. Like we did it, I did it and I, I tell you the hack that I did is I changed my credit card numbers.
I just replaced my cards because that’s the best way for a company to go, hang on, we can’t take money.
Annette Grant: Right.
Marc: And they come outta nowhere and it’s mad. You can do print it all off, look at each, but they do come.
Annette Grant: ’cause sometimes, because if it’s once a year you’re like, oh my gosh, that was. 700 that happens um, that happened on our property, was like a subscription that we had and it was annual. Yeah. And we had money in the, and then it came through and we’re like, oh my gosh. And now we’re like, and talk about financial hygiene. Now we have to wait a whole nother year to actually have it removed from the books.
Marc: I tell you what though, I, if I had to happen and I went after him, I said, listen, I’m not gonna use it. Just cancel it. Just put the money back and they’ll say no once. They’ll say no twice, but they won’t say no three times. So just keep at em.
Annette Grant: Ooh. Or say, Hey, can we do [01:03:00] like a portion of it? Is there something
Marc: Yeah. I say, I’m not gonna use this. I’ve canceled it. You can see from my usage rates, I ain’t gonna use this. So just give us the money back please. And after three times of asking,
Annette Grant: oh, that’s a, that’s a hot tip. They don’t want the one star ask three times.
Sarah Karakaian: They don’t. Yeah. They don’t want,
Marc: they want, they don’t want the ones that Trustpilot review.
Annette Grant: No. Okay. No, I like that.
Sarah Karakaian: But I, I think it’s so, Mark, some of the other guests we’ve had, uh, we’ve asked some, not the same question, but similar, but someone else mentioned just the focusing on the numbers or focusing on, uh, the expenses. Yeah. And I think everyone tuning in is we’re all kind of in that same place where we were in such a, a high market or a high, us season for short term rentals. You know, 2021, 2022, 2023. And just like it’s, it took us three months to, to feel the benefits of practicing financial hygiene. It’s, it’s taking a lot of us hosts to really say, Ooh, it’s not the [01:04:00] same. It’s, there’s still demand there. Yeah. But we’re having to work a lot harder and pay more attention to where our money is going.
And I think it’s it’s kind of nice to feel like you’re not alone. Yeah. We’re all experiencing this. We’re having to take, take a second look at our, at our profit and loss statement and making sure that it is in tip top shape. Yeah. But there’s, I dunno, it’s just comfort there.
Marc: Yeah. Yeah. It’s definitely, and it’s not just our industry, I think every industry is, is facing it.
Like, if anything, what I am noticing more and more with hospitality is that we are becoming more professional. We’re, we’re not so much all hobbyist hosts as much. Even if you are say one property and you’re just getting going, we are being taught to be more professional at a lot quicker rate than maybe 2019, 2020, 2021.
And whether that is with legislation regulation, whether it is just because that there is a lot of people doing this and maybe the industry and the consumer is wanting [01:05:00] that. Instagrammable, OMG stay, you know what I mean? Like whatever is going on, that is meaning we are having to be a bit more professional now.
And you know, there’s a lot of people going, actually I’d rather just put this on a long term rent. I don’t wanna have the faf that comes with it. Which is fair. Which is cool. Yeah. But. What, but it’s happening everywhere. It’s the and, and the saying that I always come back to is the cream always rises to the top right?
And there are so many, like artists and copywriters right now are freaking out because of AI and, and what not. And there’s loads of the people on five are just dropping out. But at the end of the day, the cream rises to the top, and if you truly believe that you are the best of the best, or you are very, very good at what you do, you’ll be fine.
Just focus, I mean, our industry at the end of the day, and I’ve said this time and time again, there’s two things that matter. Number one is a good night’s sleep. And number two is as the guest, uh, felt hospitable like that, that’s literally what we boil down to and what we can do, you can add the fancy pickleball courts, you can do murals, you can do, you know, [01:06:00] all of the things, but at the end of the day, it’s how good is the good night’s guest, good night’s sleep, and do they feel like they’ve had a hospitable stay?
And that’s really what it all comes down to.
Sarah Karakaian: Mark, Thank you so much.
Marc: Thank you. Thank you.
Annette Grant: And if you couldn’t tell by Marc’s lovely accent, he was our one British guest that we had on the show. But Ella is from Canada, Bart is from Belgium, and then Phil is also from the USA. So, um, there were, and all of the guests, um, besides myself, Sarah, Phil, and Ella from North America. Everybody else was from Europe, which was really great.
And someone from Iceland too?
Sarah Karakaian: Yes.
Annette Grant: Oh, Israel.
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah, it was, it was
Annette Grant: star studded.
Sarah Karakaian: So yeah, it was, I am telling you hosts I, it is get out of your four walls as much as you can. I know it’s hard because we’re so involved in our businesses, but talking to people who are from other countries, other marketplaces, we learn so much about employee employment in the UK that we were not, we did not talk [01:07:00] about last year when we were at this retreat. I mean, we learn something new every time we get out of our own comfort zone, our in our own sphere.
Annette Grant: And that, and that could even be like going to a local real estate meetup. Oh yeah. So you talking to someone that has long-term rentals, you are gonna learn.
So much or talking to somebody. Let’s say you have, um, a five bedroom house with five bedroom bathrooms, but then you get to talk to somebody with two beds or two baths or someone with a campsite. Like just anywhere that you can go connect with someone in our industry, please do it ’cause it will, um, it reignites, Sarah and I, it gets excited. It, it makes us very thankful also where you’re just like, oh, okay. It’s just great to be around other people here, their highs, their lows, what they’re working on. So it is, um, always welcome to just be around like-minded folks and gets us fired up to just work harder.
Sarah Karakaian: And every year, Humphrey host this retreat ahead of a one day event. It’s called the Short Stay Summit. We’re very [01:08:00] grateful to the Short Stay Summit. They provided Annette and I with a media pass so that we could go and see who’s on their show floor, who was giving presentations this year. A big topic was upsells. And how as hosts, and I want you to all take this away too, ’cause it was a reminder to Annette and I of, yes, we have that reservation revenue, but there are other ways that we can serve our guests. And exchange money for those services, make their stays more unique, more special, and bring more revenue to our businesses.
So don’t discount upsells. A lot of the big hosts out there, the full-time hosts, the property manager companies are focusing on that here in 2025. So that was a big conversation. But the Short Stay Summit was a really great opportunity for us to see what’s going on in the UK. A lot of it is similar to the US.
But there were plenty of software solutions. Actually, one of the, uh, attendees to our retreat was a young woman who is starting a upsell company. Well, she’s into it now, but it’s called Why Hangry, [01:09:00] and it is connecting hosts with professional chefs who can come in. It’s not available yet in the us but she wants to bring it here.
So it’s just really. We felt very privileged to be a part of these conversations and these young businesses who are changing the, the landscape.
Annette Grant: And this is the, the thing I want everybody to know is that every person in our industry, whether they’re a property manager, whether they are an independent host, whether they are have a piece of tech, or they just work on a team, um, that is a PMS or is, uh, servicing short-term rentals, everyone is working hard. The, the word passive is, was never discussed there. Everyone there is full-time around the clock working really, really hard on their goals. And I think that was really refreshing too. These are all active, active business people, active in the guest stay. And [01:10:00] truly that was the, um amazing part two is thinking about the impact. How many guests cumulatively every person that we had contact with, how many people it takes to help a guest have an amazing stay.
Sarah Karakaian: And with that, I am Sarah Karakaian.
Annette Grant: I’m Annette Grant, and together we are. Thanks for visiting.
Sarah Karakaian: Talk to you next time.
