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[00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, my name is Sarah Karakaian.
[00:01:03] Annette: I am Annette Grant, and together we are–
[00:01:05] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.
[00:01:06] Sarah: Welcome back for another great week. We’re going to kick off the episode like we do every week, sharing one of you, our amazing listeners who is using our hashtag #STRShareSunday on the gram. We will find you, and then we will share you here on the pod. Annette, who are we sharing this week?
[00:01:23] Annette: This week we are sharing @the.everwoods. Again, that’s the.everwoods. I’m going to remix it. The or the.everwoods. And I just want to let them know they’re close to Sarah and I. They live in Columbus, Ohio, but they have their property in Hocking Hills, and they have two properties.
Here’s the thing I want to point out about The Everwoods. Number one, their property is amazing. They have 10 acres, and they have multiple properties on it. But the thing I really want to highlight, and I want to encourage all of the listeners, they have just recently made the plans, the blueprints to their properties available online for sale.
And what I love about this is it’s an invitation for all of you hosts. Whatever you have created for your short-term rental that you think could add value and be shared to others, you might possibly have another product, another service, another potential revenue stream from something that you’ve already done and you’ve already gained expertise through.
And so I just love their creativity here. This is something that Sarah and I, inside our membership, we have so many hosts that have become so creative and inventive with new revenue streams off of their current property or their hosting business. So the.everwood, kudos to you.
Please go check them out so you can see the way that they have positioned this and selling these blueprints for the property. But kudos to you, and we’re going to have to come down and visit. Thank you for using the hashtag. Sarah, let’s get on to this episode.
[00:03:13] Sarah: All right. We are going to share with all of you our top seven favorite apps that we use in our own hosting business. However, we are going to share with you a disclaimer that just because we use these apps in our business does not mean that these are the apps that are right for your business. So we will share with you why we love these apps and this technology for our own hosting business, but why it may not be right for some others.
So Annette and I have made a pact that while we have, in our show notes, affiliate links, which if you’ve ever wanted to support our podcast and you weren’t quite sure how other than leaving us a fantastic review, if you were considering using these pieces of technology in your own business and you click on a link in our show notes, we will make a small commission and it wouldn’t change the price for you.
Actually, a lot of times you get an extra deal because you heard about them through us. But that being said, if it’s not right for you, and we’re going to point those reasons out when we go through all of these, just make sure that you are taking that into consideration.
[00:04:18] Annette: And to piggyback off what Sarah said, we see this very often. So I want to make an invitation. I want to offer all of you hosts that are excited about these apps, take it slow, implement one piece of tech at a time. I don’t want you to go and sign up for all of them today and try to start using them all today. You need to take them one at a time, understand it, really utilize it in your business, and then move on to the next.
And I also want to give you permission. You can try something, not like it, it’s not a fit, abandon it. That’s the other thing that I think sometimes we get so hung up and we want to make something work for our business and it doesn’t, and sometimes you’ve got to cut it. You tried it, and move on to the next. Or maybe it’s not performing the way that you would like it to or–I just want to offer that to you too, that you’re allowed to try something and decide.
[00:05:13] Sarah: That is not a right fit.
[00:05:15] Annette: But man, go through some of the hard times with it because you got to put in the reps sometimes to see the reward. Yes. So let’s get into it, Sarah.
[00:05:23] Sarah: And I will also say that from sharing these apps and pieces of tech with our members, we see how our members hack these apps for their business. There are some ways that our members are using one piece of tech and I don’t use it that way in our business, which is also– we want you to think about that too. How can you creatively use these solutions to fit you and your business and your needs? But with that, let’s kick it off Annette.
[00:05:46] Annette: The first one that we want to start with, and this is something that’s an install, it’s an easy install, it’s NoiseAware. And this is a device that is going to be able to alert you to, as you can guess, making you aware of noise in your property. And the reason that this is at the top and the first one that we want to talk about, we want you to get ahead of this before you have a noise complaint from a neighbor or someone in your community.
And this is something that you install once, and hopefully it never dings you that there is noise going on in your property. And this doesn’t just mean a party. I don’t want you to think this is just for a party. You have guests, and they’re really having a great time, and it gets louder. Maybe they did bring some sort of speaker and it’s just a little too loud.
So I don’t want you to think this is just for parties. This is even if you have any shared walls, outdoor spaces. But here’s the deal with NoiseAware. You can install it. You have peace of mind. I know Sarah and I have talked about this before, how Sarah actually stopped fictitious noise complaints from neighbors because they were just trying to come up with a reason, and she had this device so she could prove it to not only them, but to the city that there was not really a noise issue. So we want you to get ahead of it. You can install it once, use it, and hopefully have it installed before you need to use it.
[00:07:17] Sarah: Here are the reasons why I love NoiseAware in our business. It has automated guest messaging, so it takes that awkward moment of knowing there is elevated noise in your property and you personally having to reach out to your guests. It is an automated approach to letting your guests know that, hey– they may not even realize it. They’re just having a good time.
So that’s really lovely, and also it works both indoors and out. Where that was awesome for us is that, again, we host in a metro location and we had hot tubs in some of our backyards, and so it was a really nice way not only for the interior of the property to keep noise in check there, but also the exterior.
And it also helps you understand if the number of people on your property is appropriate and safe. So sometimes guests don’t always tell us how many people they are actually bringing. The NoiseAware will tell you how many people are logging on to the Wi-Fi to help you understand.
And it takes into consideration that your guests may have a phone, an iPad, and a laptop. So you can set those thresholds. Speaking of thresholds, you can also set thresholds. So you can let it be a little bit louder during the day but have the threshold lower in the evening when– so you can set it to your own property. There are also discounts for some insurance companies if you have NoiseAware in your properties, which is really lovely.
[00:08:43] Annette: Oh, I didn’t know that.
[00:08:44] Sarah: Yes. And again, if you go to your neighbor and you let them know that you’re coming into your short-term rental, if you let them know, like Annette said, before you even have, neighbor, this thought about it being disruptive, here’s why I’m an amazing host.
[00:08:59] Annette: Listen. Noise, trash, parking, those are the three things that neighbors get mad about. So let’s take that one out because the last thing I want to say about this is it takes out the, he said, she said, from your neighborhood, from your guest. It is technology. The technology doesn’t care about what the decibel level is. So let’s get ahead of this. Take out the, he said, she said. Automate, having that message to your guest about them needing to quiet down. Just make your life a whole lot easier.
[00:09:28] Sarah: All right, next up on our list is dynamic pricing software. And we did make this list in this order because in our opinion, this is the order a host should implement some of this tech. You may have reasons why you might switch up the order, but we wanted to have a thoughtful order to delivering this information to you. So next up is dynamic pricing, because you truly can leave so much money on the table if you leave your pricing strategy and your revenue management to just a manual operation. If you set it and forget it in terms of your pricing, and you’re over here trying to buy another property, or you’re taking your kids to all their sporting events and you forgot to adjust pricing for the weekend, so dynamic pricing, it will pay for itself and then some very quickly.
So we are going to champion, on this episode, Wheelhouse. We just had the founder on the podcast two weeks ago, which was really lovely. And here’s why I like Wheelhouse for you, is they have three separate options for you. So they have hosts who don’t have a lot of properties, and you may want more of a set and forget it pricing tool to help you better manage your part-time passion or single unit business.
When you get more properties, if it’s something you want to do, you can have their more advanced structure. If you’re running a more full-time operation with one or multiple properties, they offer different controls for you within their pricing strategy portfolio for you. And then of course, if you are a co-host, a property manager and you’re looking for a more professional outfit to optimize hundreds or thousands of listings, they have that for you too. So I like how Wheelhouse understands that our needs are very different as property owners and property managers of our own properties. And it’s a great option for you to think about your pricing in that regard.
[00:11:20] Annette: And we have a great deal for you. So check the show notes out on Wheelhouse. All right. Next up.
[00:11:25] Sarah: Next up, Annette, we have one of our podcast sponsors, but one of my favorite apps and pieces of tech in our business, which is Breezeway.
[00:11:35] Annette: Ooh. And if you don’t know what Breezeway is, check it out. It is property care, and it is the app on your phone. Game changer to have your whole entire maintenance and care of your property at your fingertips.
[00:11:55] Sarah: If you feel like you are juggling too many balls in your business or you’re spinning too many plates, Breezeway is what helps us with the operation side of our business.
[00:12:04] Annette: Hit, hit. It makes it a breeze.
[00:12:08] Sarah: No, but I’m serious about. This is my favorite. No, I know. We sound a little–
[00:12:12] Annette: It ain’t easy being breezy. Sorry, I’m getting loopy, everybody.
[00:12:16] Sarah: Oh my gosh. But truly, when you have one property, 2, 3, 4, 5, the quality control that you will have on your property by implementing this professional approach, I know all of our Thanks for Visiting listeners out there are going to appreciate this.
[00:12:32] Annette: But let’s break it down. We’re going to do a little segment. We want to tell you exactly how we use it.
[00:12:37] Sarah: Yeah.
[00:12:37] Annette: Let’s give them a peek inside of Breezeway and how we’re using that on a day-to-day basis, Sarah.
[00:12:43] Sarah: Day-to-day basis. So the first way you would use it, if you are a newer host, you’ve got one property, I say, right off the bat, the cleaning schedule. It will automate when checkouts and check-ins are happening, and your cleaning team, whether they are in-house or for most of us, third party, it is free for them to use the app. And it’s a great way for everyone to keep a accurate documentation of when they’re cleaning, how long it takes them to clean, and exactly what your agreement is for you to do during that cleaning. I treat them as mini contracts.
[00:13:15] Annette: And it is a checklist. So the checklist for that property is the contract that these things will be done each and every turnover. And that you can also require photos of certain things just to, again, trust, but verify that everything’s being done as meticulously as you want it to because we know that you want it to be tiptop shape when your guest checks in.
[00:13:39] Sarah: And I actually just re-upped my savings on our property insurance because we use a checklist system that includes safety elements. So if we check our fire extinguishers are charged and our smoke detectors are working, my insurance company that we work with, that property insurance is giving us a 5% discount because we have these safety checks that we can prove we’ve done between each and every stay.
[00:14:05] Annette: Okay, so that’s the day-to-day, listeners. Sarah, let’s just give them a little bit of an insight into using it more on a quarterly and yearly basis with other property care.
[00:14:15] Sarah: Yeah. Really quick, you can also, if you have a more layered approach to your property care and you have an inspector, or a detailer, or property coordinator, whatever you want to call them–
[00:14:22] Annette: And if you don’t have one of those, you need to get one.
[00:14:24] Sarah: Yes. And it could be you, it could be your cleaner, but if you treat them like two separate checklists, it’s fantastic. And so we use it that way as well. So on a quarterly or yearly basis, we set up reoccurring tasks to– let me give you some examples. To descale our Keurig machines. To change the filters in our HVAC systems. To, um, dryer vent cleanouts on a yearly basis. Battery swaps on our smoke detectors if you have smoke detectors with batteries. So these are the types of things.
[00:14:56] Annette: Cleaning up the lint filter. What is it?
[00:14:59] Both Annette & Sarah: In the dryer.
[00:15:00] Sarah: Which prevents fire, which is great.
[00:15:03] Annette: And the other thing, the last thing we want to say about Breezeway that we could go on an entire episode about it, but the next thing I want to say too is it can hold all of the information about your property too, about your appliances. You can have that as your database for all of the things inside of your home.
[00:15:21] Sarah: Let me give you an example, friends. So I was managing remotely, and we had a situation where we needed to repair the dishwasher, and I called the manufacturer or their help line, and they needed to know the make and model. I had it on our Breezeway account so that the tech had what they needed to go out there, get the job done right the first time.
Also, here’s how Breezeway can pay for itself because I like– if NoiseAware can pay for itself, if Wheelhouse can pay for itself, Breezeway, especially if you’re a smaller operator, you can have Breezeway messaging, and you can automate selling your vacant nights. So if you have one-night, two-night vacancy between stays, you can automate it, asking your guests, hey, would you like to come early? Would you like to stay another night? Which you can do this of course manually, but how nice of it to have tech know for you.
[00:16:11] Annette: Upsell. If you could do automated upselling, let’s say you get 10% a year, that is huge. That is big time money. I love that tip. Hosting hot tip. Good job, Sarah. All right.
[00:16:24] Sarah: Thank you.
[00:16:25] Annette: So go to Breezeway. We have an offer for them. Check the show notes.
[00:16:28] Sarah: Yeah, check the show out the show notes for all this.
[00:16:29] Annette: What’s up next?
[00:16:31] Sarah: Okay, up next is StayFi. StayFi is great. StayFi also is multifaceted, but–
[00:16:37] Annette: Let’s start talking about StayFi by how it can pay for itself.
[00:16:41] Sarah: Yes.
[00:16:41] Annette: StayFi, well, let’s explain what it is. I’m sorry I got ahead of myself.
[00:16:45] Sarah: No, I know. It’s a lot of things, but if a goal of yours this year is to increase your direct bookings so that you have more control over your hosting business, thereby making your business more valuable, my friends, because remember, it’s not just how much money you cash flow each month with your short-term rental, you are building a book of business with guests, with repeat guests, with how many email addresses you are permitted to market to each and every month, and StayFi will help.
What it is is pretend– imagine yourself at a coffee shop. You sit down to get online. You open up your computer. You go to your browser, and it’s called a splash page, pops up at you and it’s like ABC Coffee Shop. It has their picture. It asks you for your name and your email address. You click a button, and they allow you on their Wi-Fi. It is the same thing, but it’s for our short-term rental hosts.
So why is this powerful? Because if you have guests other than the one who books wanting to get on your Wi-Fi, everyone in your party needs to give their email address to get online, and they are clicking a button that says that they gave you permission to share with them future discounts towards future stays in exchange for collecting their email addresses, you can remarket to these guests.
[00:18:02] Annette: Pause. That is like my– every time we say this, my mind gets blown because that is doubling, tripling, quadrupling. Depending on how many guests you have in your home, that is the exposure that you can directly market to them for your direct bookings. The value here is– we can’t even put a number on that. So just think about how many potential people you could market to by doing that email collection.
[00:18:33] Sarah: Yes. StayFi is becoming more and more powerful each and every day. I won’t go into other features, but it does include text messaging. It includes email marketing. If you’re like, okay, Sarah, but I don’t know what to send my guests and how an email should look.
[00:18:44] Annette: Yeah. What do I do once I have the email?
[00:18:46] Sarah: StayFi will help you with all of that, but at its core, collecting email addresses in this creative, seamless way, and not just the booker, the person who booked the reservation, but also everyone in their party, it’s brilliant. We love StayFi. We use it. We’re here for it. It will definitely increase your direct booking strategy, catapult you, going from zero to 10% direct bookings all the way up to 30, 40, 50, 60% direct bookings, if not more.
[00:19:13] Annette: All right, next up.
[00:19:15] Sarah: Next up is– okay, here’s– if I had to tell you all what our top two DMed messages is, it’s, tell me more about co-hosting, or it’s, what property management software do you use? If you’ve been a TFV listener for some time now, you know that one of our podcast sponsors is Hostfully. Why are they one of our sponsors? Because we use Hostfully in our business. So again, we try to keep all of our recommendations authentic. And we use Hostfully in our business. Here’s why I chose Hostfully when it took me six months to decide on what platform we wanted to use.
And I liked it because I didn’t promise to be the best at all the things that a product management software offers. They have API connections with Wheelhouse, NoiseAware, Breezeway. Let these other tech companies do what they do best. Hostfully is this great center hub where you can get your direct booking. Hostfully offers a white labeled website for you.
So if you don’t want to get a website designed, they have a very simple, gets the job done, direct booking site that you can put in your colors, your logo if you have one, and be up and running, I mean, as soon as you sign up. Or if you’re like Annette and myself, you need a fancy website, you can have your website designed by someone else and then Hostfully has a widget that you would put on your site. And that is how our guests book their stays. Once they go to the booking process, it takes them through the backend, just Hostfully.
[00:20:42] Annette: And side note, they have a phenomenal female CEO, Margot. And we just love being able to support an organization being ran by a female and having her as the leader. Uh, it’s just something else that is an added bonus on why we love Hostfully.
[00:21:02] Sarah: Now, are there other amazing property management software out there?
[00:21:04] Annette: For sure.
[00:21:05] Sarah: Absolutely. We have tons of members who maybe tried Hostfully or went through Hostfully’s onboarding process. Maybe it wasn’t right for them for various reasons. There are so many options, but we–
[00:21:14] Annette: You do you.
[00:21:14] Sarah: You do you. But we can speak to Hostfully and their team. They have a great support chat, which, I mean, if any of you are like me, a lot of times I get my property management work done in the evening or early morning, and they always have– because during the day, I’m on the ground. So it’s really great too to have a chat support system that can help me when I want to hack something or figure out how to do something. That’s wonderful as well. So that’s customer services, is great. Okay. On to the next, which is Superhog. It’s a fun name.
[00:21:45] Annette: It is. But it’s like, what is that? What are we– okay. So it’s like, what is Superhog?
[00:21:52] Sarah: So if any of you are like a lot of our listeners–
[00:21:55] Annette: And they are direct booking, and one of the biggest things is how do I make sure I’m vetting my guests? We don’t even like say vetting the guests, but it’s about your property and making sure that you understand who’s booking your property. So again, let’s let technology help us.
[00:22:20] Sarah: Yes. They have a biometric screening and ID verification software that not only assesses the risk level of every reservation, but simultaneously allows you to remove booking restrictions and increase your direct booking. So it puts that– if you feel this, quite frankly, false sense of security by getting a guest from an OTA, an online travel agency like Airbnb or Vrbo, again, you can have that same level of protection with third party services like Superhog. There are other options out there. Superhog is who we use, and are supporting today here on the pod.
[00:23:01] Annette: So again, it’s just that third party. It’s extra verification. Peace of mind. Check them out.
[00:23:08] Sarah: Last but not least. Okay. Everything that we just discussed, NoiseAware, Wheelhouse, Breezeway, StayFi, Hostfully, Superhog, those are paid services, my friends. So if you want to automate a lot of your operations, if you need a service that will help protect you and help you grow your business, you will have to pay for these things. But this last one is free. And quite frankly, it changed Annette and my life when we were introduced to it just a few years ago. It is a lot older than that, but we were introduced just a few years ago. Annette, do you want to share how it’s changed our–
[00:23:41] Annette: Yeah. First of all, you’re going to get really used to hearing that. It is a walkie-talkie app. And we love it. And guess why. Because when we hear this, we know that it’s a turnover team. It’s something about business, short-term– it’s not my mom asking me how I’m doing. It’s not a spam text message. It’s not a friend. When Voxer, V-O-X-E-R– again, it’s Voxer, V-O-X-E-R, when I hear that sound, and you don’t have to have the sound on, but when I get a Voxer message, I know it means business. It needs to be answered right away.
So what I want to encourage you is anybody on your team, whether it’s your partner, your turnover team, anyone that is working directly with your guests, they need immediate attention. Maybe it’s a reservationist. There are certain times that you need to get it taken care of right away.
And that’s why we love Voxer. It’s completely free. It’s verbal, so if you just want to use it like a walkie-talkie, if you want to text, just like texting, if you want to put a video, if you want to put a picture. So imagine this, obviously, you’re using all this tech, maybe you’re using Breezeway, you’re going through your checklist, and you notice something, you can Voxer it.
And it’s so nice sometimes just to be able to verbalize something and not have to text it, to be able totalk through what the issue is, send a picture, add some context to it, but it is just something that is free, it’s easy to use, and it helps us stay siloed that all of those messages, they’re business-related, we need to pay attention to them quickly and get it taken care of.
And I’m thinking– you can download it for free on any mobile device. Another hot tip for Voxer also,you can download it onto your computer. So let’s say you’re at work. You can still text message, and read your messages, and attach links, and whatnot via your computer. It’s just not a mobile app.
[00:25:42] Sarah: Two more hot tips with Voxer. You can change the notifications if your team use the app symbol and then your name, that’s the only time you get pinged. So for co-hosts out there, let’s say you have a team who’s really driving the show every day, and you only want to be pinged when they absolutely need you, you can be– mentions only, sorry, that’s the word. Mentions only. And there was another hot tip with Voxer that I was going to share, and now I don’t remember. But it is fantastic. It is free, and it does silo other sounds from your short-term rental business.
[00:26:16] Annette: And there is a paid version. We don’t use it, but you can always upgrade.
[00:26:20] Sarah: Yes. With that, that is everything.
[00:26:23] Annette: Oh. All right. So listeners, please, this was a lot of tips. We also have a YouTube video that we will link in the show notes that also goes through some of these tech tools, and you can see those there. But everything’s in the show notes. Try something. That’s what I want to offer you today. If you aren’t using one of these, please sign up for one of these today and start utilizing it in your business.
[00:26:47] Sarah: With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.
[00:26:49] Annette: I’m Annette Grant, and together we are–
[00:26:51] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.
[00:26:52] Sarah: We’ll talk to you next time.
