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

[00:00:02] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:00:04] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:00:05] Sarah: And this is the–

[00:00:06] Both Annette & Sarah: Hosting Hotline.

[00:00:09] Sarah: We got, Annette, a message today from Ashley.

[00:00:11] Questions: My question is, what can I do to make sure that a bad review doesn’t highly impact my business? So we have a cute little house that has been doing so well. Through the off season, we were maintaining 80% occupancy. And for our area, that’s really good. We normally would average 60%. And then in April, we got a review that I felt like was untruthful, but it is what it is. 

So we responded to it very professionally of, hey, we’ve never gotten feedback like that before. This is what people normally say. It was about our neighborhood being unsafe. And so after that, though, we have only been able to get about 25 to 30% occupancy. And our listing used to be listed on the first three pages of search, and now it is on the 12th to 15th. And the only difference we can find is this one review. And we’re just struggling to figure out how to bounce back from it.

[00:01:22] Sarah: That’s a great question, Ashley. Ashley, by the way, is a member of our Hosting Business Mastery membership, so we’ll be able to give her even some more personalized feedback. If you’re interested in our membership, we would love to have you. We have coaching calls, coaches’ office hours, and we bring our industry experts and friends into our membership to speak one-on-one with our members. So if you hit hostmasterclass.com, you can find out more about it there. But, Annette, initial thoughts? I have so many.

[00:01:53] Annette: Well, first of all, Ashley, it sucks. I’m not going to say that it doesn’t suck.

[00:01:58] Sarah: It does.

[00:01:58] Annette: So let’s just sit, be there with that. However, a couple of things that you said at the very beginning that I want to bring to the light is I love that you call your short-term rental your business because it is a business. So as entrepreneurs, you are going to be on the entrepreneurial rollercoaster, and there are going to be highs, and there are going to be lows. There are going to be abrupt stops. There’s going to be some–

[00:02:22] Sarah: Twists and turns.

[00:02:23] Annette: Um, some stomach-flopping, all the things. However, when we are thinking about our business, and Ashley, we can dig into this again on the membership in a hot seat, but the first thing I want to offer, not only Ashley, but everybody listening, is as a business owner, are we marketing in multiple areas? She’s just talking about the bad review on Airbnb right now. 

And so that’s the first thing that I want to offer up, is that, yes, we want to continue to get the good reviews on Airbnb, but what are some other avenues, other places that we’re working on to diversify where our bookings are coming from, and what other marketing channels? Are you doing direct booking? Are you Vrbo, booking.com? What other things are you doing potentially? Zillow or Furnished Finder? A multitude of things. 

So this is an opportunity, I think, when all of our businesses hit one of these rollercoaster moments is to really think about buckle in and go, wait, how can I go through the lows and get back to the highs? So that’s the first thing that I just want to offer up, is we were just talking about one platform in one place.

[00:03:27] Sarah: And I will just say this out loud. It can feel like Airbnb is a household name at this point. They’ve done some great marketing work, incredible marketing work. So we can feel like optimizing other channels is a waste of time because it’s like, well, am I really going to get bookings off of these smaller channels when Airbnb is the go-to? Although I’ve been there with you feeling that way, the answer is yes. 

You will get other bookings. You will diversify your business when you optimize other channels, especially now with Google offering their Google Vacation Rental search engine, which is really incredible, and we can talk more about that later. Also, really excited to dig in about direct bookings and listing optimization at TFVCon. So, is Ashley going– I feel like you said she’s going, Annette. Hopefully she is.

[00:04:20] Annette: I don’t know. That was another name that I just saw.

[00:04:22] Sarah: Yeah. So because this is so topical and so important, on top of this, Ashley, what you can do now, though, so it’s like, yes, in hindsight, diverse my business. Of course, ladies. Information I could have used yesterday. Or it just takes time to optimize those other channels in your direct booking efforts. So just make sure you stay there. But to look into your listing and to see what you can do to optimize it, we have been championing Intellihost, which is a paid service to help you see where you’re ranking, why you’re ranking there, and what you can do to improve it.

[00:04:54] Annette: Adjustments you can make.

[00:04:55] Sarah: There’s also Rankbreeze. On top of that, you can do some things that are tried and true. But now, Ashley, you’re not wrong. So Airbnb has said it, that reviews and positive five-star reviews are the indicator for where you rank on their platform. And unfortunately, perception is reality for our guests. And so if their perception was your neighborhood was unsafe, the best thing you could have done is what you’ve already done, which is respond to that review. 

And it’s not to that person who left the review. It’s that next booker who’s considering your place, they got on page 13, they’re thinking about your place, and they’re seeing how you responded to that. And then they’re going to look at all the other responses. What other things that you can do is, Ashley, when you are figuring out the amenities that you offer, you know how Airbnb has all those boxes you can check? Make sure all those boxes are checked, because while your page is on the 13th page on Airbnb, it might be page one or two with these certain boxes checked.

And they’re always adding things and tweaking things in there. Make sure you’re posting your Wi-Fi speed via the Airbnb app. Make sure every single amenity is checked, and you have all the information on what kind of stove you have. They just recently gave you more coffee maker options. Just make sure you’re showing up for every filter that could be filled out by a potential guest.

And what you can also do is– you said that you were in your slow season. Are you getting into your high season now? Make sure your photos of the high season are being highlighted in your listing. People can overlook those first five photos, and making sure those are super clear and you’re speaking to that next potential guest that lands on your listing

[00:06:34] Annette: One other thing that I want to chat about is knowing your numbers. Ashley, I know part of this conversation is you are bit like, hey, we are crushing it. We were at 80%. So we’ve also got to– when we’re crushing it and really hitting numbers that we never thought, that’s one of the things to be thankful for Airbnb and what they are bringing to us in those really high season and when you are hitting occupancy out of the park.

So that’s one thing too I want all of us to think about sometimes, is being extra thankful too when the numbers are crushing it that you weren’t even anticipating. So really knowing your numbers, Ashley. Zoom out a little bit, and then look at the whole year, what’s coming, what’s already– look at historicals, and let’s forecast. And really just dig in.

And I find, not to get woo woo, but celebrating when it is higher than normal. Right now you’re feeling that it’s lower than normal, but let’s look back and like the numbers that were crushing it. What was that additional money that you were making to help not make this dip seem as the sky is falling awful that it might feel like right now.

So sometimes I feel like when we zoom out and look at the numbers for the last 12 months, not even for the year, sometimes we get very stuck on the actual calendar year. I like to zoom out in just 12 months too because it helps you just see. It doesn’t have to be from January 1 to December 31st. Look at the last 12 months, and I think that that will hopefully give you some peace of mind because you were saying that you were very high occupancy for your slow season. So I hope that just brings you a little bit of peace if you can look at the numbers holistically.

[00:08:22] Sarah: Because this won’t be the last time, Ashley, that you hit a bump in the road. That being said, another tip for you is, can you go back to your guests who stayed with you before? I don’t know. Did Ashley mentioned where she’s listed?

[00:08:34] Annette: She didn’t.

[00:08:35] Sarah: So I don’t know if it’s a market, Ashley, where my guests might come back who’ve stayed with you before, but just make– having this downtime while you’re optimizing your listing and maybe getting into other channels is to really making sure that you are collecting your guest information so you can remarket to them.

 I just got a text message the other day from a place I stayed at two Christmases ago offering me 20% off in Hocking Hills. It’s so cute. She offered me 20% off. You better believe I thought about it. I was like, should I go and just get away for a couple days? So you could do that too, Ashley. Reach out to guests who have loved your space. You said you had a lot of guests during your low season. Maybe they’d like to come back now during your high season. Give them a few weeks to plan for it. You never know who will take you up on your offer.

[00:09:14] Annette: And Ashley, let’s bring this to our next hot seat call. Let’s go through all the things together, and we can take a look. We can dig in even deeper.

[00:09:21] Sarah: That’s right Ashley. We’ll get you back up. All right, listeners. With that, I’m Sarah Karakaian.

[00:09:25] Annette: I’m Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:09:27] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:09:28] Sarah: Talk to you next time.