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

[00:00:03] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

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

[00:00:06] Sarah: Let’s start this episode like we do each and every week and that is sharing one of you, our incredible listeners, who’s heading to strshare.com, sharing with us all the incredible details about your property so we can celebrate you here on the podcast, on Instagram on Sundays, and to our entire email list each week. Annette who are we sharing today?

[00:00:25] Annette: This week we are sharing @apex38655. And that is Apex, A-P-E-X. And I want to share Jennifer from Apex. This is a little bit of a different STR share. This is actually a short-term rental hosting company, co-host property management, however you want to label yourself. But I wanted to highlight them.

[00:00:49] She is a new member inside our hosting business mastermind. And I wanted to share because there is such an uprise in co-hosting and Airbnb is making a push from their co-hosting marketplace. And we know so many of you are amazing hosts and people are asking you to become co-hosts. So I want you to go to their Instagram handle.

[00:01:08] And what I love about it is you are going to see they’re in a college town, Ole Miss, and I love this. Instagram is a little bit different because it’s highlighting, yes, their properties, but how they can be the best manager and provide hospitality services for your investment. I even love the way that they have in their description– they tell you exactly what they do, providing top tier hospitality services for your short-term investment in Oxford, Mississippi, and Ole Miss. Listen to that right there. I feel held. I want them to have my short-term investment. It doesn’t say property. It’s like they are asset managers.

[00:01:48] Another thing I love, their website is right there. So you see off the bat, they’ve got their direct booking site. I can reach out. And you know what? I love it. She’s got her phone number. And I know a lot of people are probably like, what? Phone number? Listen, the fastest to respond is normally going to win.

[00:02:03] So if you’re looking to get new clients, they need to get ahold of you quick. You need to respond. So just in the bio alone, any co-host out there, people looking for clients, I love this bio, but then, please, go through the whole feed. She shows some of her team. She shows the property. She’s showing guest reviews.

[00:02:22] So holistically, there’s a different way to present yourself on social media when you’re trying to get, let’s say, clients and guests versus just guests only. And I think this is a really great representation of how to do both of those. So well done. Check them out. Give them some likes and some follows. And Sarah, speaking of co-hosting, property management, guests, clients, investments, we have one of the best investments we’ve ever made on the show today.

[00:02:56] Sarah: We do.

[00:02:57] Annette: I know. I got a tear in my eye. I think she got a tear in her eye.

[00:03:00] Colleen: I always have a tear in my eye.

[00:03:02] Annette: But these tears, actually, when they come down, they’re looking like dollar signs because that’s what we’re going to talk about today– money. Who do we have on the show today?

[00:03:12] Sarah: Today we have a repeat guest, Colleen Prochaska, who is not only our chief operating officer here at Thanks for Visiting, but she is also an integral part of our property management team. She both serves us in the guest services and revenue management spaces there. And we thought it would be interesting for all of you to take a look over our shoulder of what a meeting looks like between me and Colleen.

[00:03:39] We talk pretty much every workday, not only because of Thanks for Visiting, but also because she works Monday through Friday in our property management company. But every quarter we have a standing meeting where we discuss the state of the union at the property management company.

[00:03:55] Sarah: And today’s interview is going to cover two tiers. We’re going to talk about what happened in the past three months. That includes all the KPIs we track, the reviews that we received, and our team. And we’re also going to talk about the future, so the next three to six months, what that forecasting looks like, the different strategies we’re going to deploy, and of course we can’t talk about the near future, and ignore the election that is coming up and how that’s going to affect travel. So with that, Colleen Prochaska–

[00:04:29] Annette: Welcome to the show.

[00:04:31] Sarah: Welcome to the show.

[00:04:32] Colleen: Thank you. Thank you for having me back.

[00:04:35] Sarah: Well, before we hit record, Annette wanted to share that not only do you have over a decade experience at the Marriott and Hilton brands, which we always brag about having someone like you on the team with that kind of experience in our team, but then Annette very rightfully so pointed out that you have been with our property management company for how long now?

[00:04:53] Colleen: I think four years or almost four years.

[00:04:56] Sarah: That is crazy.

[00:04:57] Colleen: Which is crazy.

[00:05:01] Sarah: Annette, don’t be nervous, but I do want to get in a little bit of a soapbox because Annette and I do talk to a lot of hosts out there, and we do have a mastermind that we hold near and dear to our hearts and we help so many hosts build their hosting businesses. And we’re always wondering what it is that really changes the game for hosts out there when they hear something or they learn something and they’re like, wow, that actually moved the needle for me.

[00:05:28] That made me feel like I got value either out of that episode, that blog post, that mastermind, what have you. And a lot of the time that answer is hiring a VA. Hiring help, especially, and managing whether you’re a co-host or not, you manage your own property, is really important because you need to make sure that you are taking care of yourself and avoiding hosting burnout. And that is exactly what I did with Colleen.

[00:05:54] Yes, she helps me virtually. Colleen, you do not live in Columbus, Ohio. You live about an hour and a half away. And we have other people on our team. Cameron lives in Denver, Colorado. So they do help me virtually and they do assist me virtually. But for me and the standards that I hold for our business, the word virtual assistant doesn’t hold enough specificity.

[00:06:16] So calling you the revenue manager, saying that you’re on the guest services team and treating it like the business that it is and giving you a title like that, I think as a business owner, it helps me pull my shoulders back a bit more, treat you and speak to you in a certain way, Colleen.

[00:06:30] And I’m hoping that you show up in a different way because you have more than just this general title of VA. And I think, Annette, that’s why I get a little annoyed when the solution out there is to just “hire VAs.”

[00:06:46] Annette: No, we get frustrated. All of us are working virtually now. It’s a watering down of the importance. A VA is a team member and they are not generalists. They are specialists. And I think we just want to up level that term because it is tossed around. We want everybody to understand your team is so important.

[00:07:09] We believe even the way that you refer to your team is very, very important. And so they are specialists, not generalists, and then even when they are a VA, giving them a title like a revenue manager, guest services, that is, to me, very, very important, and it helps when you’re communicating not only with them, but anybody else in your world how important those people are to your team and to your team and to your business.

[00:07:35] Sarah: And I want to make sure that when that light bulb goes off to “hire a VA,” you understand that that hiring is just the beginning. Colleen comes to me with a degree from a prestigious university in hospitality management, 10 years at some of the most major brands in the hospitality space.

[00:07:55] And I am still meeting with her and making sure that the decisions and the leverage she’s pulling, I know what’s going on there. And I do question her and I do ask her and I do challenge her and I do push her, and she does me. That’s what makes this relationship so fruitful.

[00:08:10] And so I want you to understand that especially if you’re hiring someone that is virtually on your team, that you have those check ins in place and you have the training in place. Colleen often talks about, I never knew this makes such an impact on her, but she talks about her onboarding experience with me and how detailed that was. I want all of you to hire help. I want you to all learn how to delegate.

[00:08:34] Annette: Because it is game-changing.

[00:08:36] Sarah: It is game-changing. And I have not perfected it, and hopefully I get better for Colleen and the team every single day. But I do know enough that it is not enough to just hire the “faceless VA” and that all of a sudden you’ve unlocked the secret to hosting.

[00:08:52] Annette: I’ll interject and complement you on this, Sarah, is that the person that you hire is only as good as your leadership also. So I’m offering this to everyone because I’ve had a look in the mirror. I’ve hired hundreds and hundreds of people and every time there was an issue, it was never about that team member.

[00:09:13] I needed to go look myself in the mirror because I was not leading them in the right way. So yeah, when I kick and scream and moan about how they weren’t– I had to just stop and be like, this is about me. This is not about them. I am their leader.

[00:09:27] So I also want to offer that to everybody of like, it is a time for growth for you. And it’s a time of growth for that person, but you are the leader. So you got to look in the mirror and figure out how you can guide and lead and help yourself grow through helping that team member grow too. So let’s talk about revenue growth. Let’s have this meeting live, if you will. And let’s dig in.

[00:09:51] Sarah: This is our actual meeting, everyone. So Colleen, I actually forego, foregone–

[00:09:53] Annette: Forewent, you forewent.

[00:09:53] Sarah: Forewent. We forewent our meeting yesterday so that we could save all the goodness for this live conversation. Well, it’s recorded, but you know what I’m saying? Live conversation with you looking over our shoulder. And here’s the deal. If you think we’re missing anything from our meeting, if you wanted more enhancement of this conversation, help us make our meeting better. And then we’ll share it with all of you so that you can all make your meetings better by just sharing that collective input.

[00:10:22] Annette: And if you don’t have a team yet, or you don’t have a partner, this episode is still for you. These are the conversations, the meetings you should be having with yourself. This is the meeting you should be having with your partner on your real estate deal or your property or your co-host or your potential partner.

[00:10:42] So even if you don’t have a team right now, and this is even if you have one property or 30 properties, this is still something that you should be doing. So don’t count yourself out of these meetings and what these KPIs are. They are absolutely relevant to you.

[00:10:58] Sarah: All right, Colleen, let’s hop into the first topic we tackle, and that is our KPIs. So those include ADR, average daily rate, occupancy, rev PAR, revenue per available room, our booking window, and then our gap night strategy and how that’s working for us this past quarter that we just closed. So Colleen, take it away.

[00:11:22] Colleen: Yeah. Perfect. So like Sarah said, we meet every month, and it’s a recap of the last month because we submit quarterly reports to our owners, so the last thing we’d want to do is be surprised at a quarter report of, oh gosh, this is what we have to tell our owners. So we submit and then we make a decision on our monthly meetings.

[00:11:38] Is there anything we want to discuss with the owners, anything we want to chat about ahead of time? Is there any moves we need to make? So for example, we have a property that we have very specific revenue goals for this quarter. So we might look at one month and say, okay, we’re either short or we have a surplus.

[00:11:53] So we have this. This is what we need to make up, that type of thing. So for this particular meeting that we were going to have last night, we’re going to be reviewing all of our July results and then what we learned from Q2, what we’re implementing in Q3.

[00:12:06] And then like Sarah talked about, what we would be thinking about for Q4 and Q1. So July was a successful month for us company-wide. The properties performed very well. With that said, we have properties in different areas of Columbus, different markets, so we had to take different strategies for each property and their sectors.

[00:12:25] We have some properties where we were incredibly rate focused. And when I say that, I mean that I’m willing to sacrifice occupancy. I’m willing to have the property sit unbooked, knowing that we’re going to fill it with a higher rated piece of business. It’s the work smarter strategy.

[00:12:42] You have less turnover, less wear and tear on the property, but you are a little nervous all month long because if you don’t get that booking, that’s what you’re banking on. All the way to– don’t kill me for saying this, Sarah. I feel like I say this every time we talk, to a heads and beds strategy for one of our other properties where we do want to keep a pretty high occupancy.

[00:13:01] It’s a lower rate. And we just have found through our experience that this certain rate is a sweet spot. And the only way for that to be profitable is to have a 90% occupancy. And I say all the time, if you have a 90% occupancy, you need to raise your rate. But we’ve tried that and the strategy that we have for this one is what works. Are you going to say something, Annette?

[00:13:22] Annette: Yes, Colleen.

[00:13:23] Colleen: You’re real starting.

[00:13:24] Annette: You’re talking about your rate strategy and raising it, that you’d prefer to raise the rate versus just higher occupancy on some of the units. Two things. What is that rate increase? Is it a percentage or dollar amount? And then where are you looking for guidance always on this data?

[00:13:47] Where are you getting this lead from? Is it your dynamic pricing software and pass? So walk us through when you’re looking at this rates, what is the data? Where are you harvesting it? How are you using that to create these goals?

[00:13:59] Colleen: So when I create the goals, it starts with a conversation with Sarah. What are our goals for the property? What commitments have we made to owners? What commitments have we made to ourselves? What’s our cost for reservation? What are we trying to do here? From there, I’m going to either say, yes, I think that’s going to work, or, hey, our goal might not make sense.

[00:14:15] And that’s going to be driven through, a, looking at our historicals, what has performed here. And when we say historicals, we mean ’22 and ’23. So anything thing three, that is no longer a historical for you.

[00:14:28] Annette: Say that again. Say that for everybody on the back. They can turn the volume up.

[00:14:33] Colleen: Do not go to your 2021 P&L and look for those numbers. That is not a historical. That is the fluke.

[00:14:40] Annette: That’s ancient history.

[00:14:42] Colleen: That is beyond– yes.

[00:14:45] Annette: I think that’s really important. That’s really important. Okay, I love that.

[00:14:49] Colleen: Personally, unless there’s an extenuating circumstance, that would be a very specific citywide sellout that didn’t come back this year, that would be an extenuating circumstance, or a power outage in your city and you’re the only one that had power. That’s extenuating. But otherwise, I use last year as our baseline.

[00:15:04] So we, at a minimum, need to be making the same amount of money we were making last year. Nothing’s different about the property. Unless there’s something Some major thing that’s my baseline from there, I’m going to log into our dynamic pricing software, which we use PriceLabs, and I’m going to look at the market.

[00:15:20] I’m going to look at the market data, and I’m going to see what demand looks like. And again, demand is who’s coming into the market. What does the occupancy push? All of the hosts around us, what are they selling? How full are they right now? What are their rates? And I do that for both future and past.

[00:15:35] So when I’m reporting to Sarah after the month has closed, I’m letting her know whether my strategy was successful, whether or not I beat the market. And sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. As much transparency as you can have, whether you’re having this conversation with yourself or you’re having it with somebody else is only going to improve the business.

[00:15:54] So you are never trying to make this number work with your numbers. You are trying to look at a number and say, the market was at 53%. Our property was at 64%. We won. Or the market was at 58% and our property was at 47%, and now we have some makeup to do. So transparency across the board there. Cannot stress that enough.

[00:16:15] Sarah: Let’s do this, Colleen, so that we don’t have to just give generalizations. Let’s talk about Mithoff. This is a property that actually the owners that I report to are myself, but also Annette and her sister, because we own this property together. So Colleen, would you share with me the rate strategy, last year’s historicals, this year, all the nail-biting moments, all the drama? What happened?

[00:16:41] Colleen: Yes, I would love to. Okay, so Mithoff is a two-bedroom property, and it is a great location, beautiful, high review. So as far as bookability goes, perfect property. Shows up on the first page, etc. All of those things are there. For this property, it’s essentially a property that is always sold out on the weekend, and we get a one nighter here and there on a shoulder day, which for us would be a Thursday, Saturday type thing.

[00:17:11] It’s definitely become a pass-through property. We don’t see as much Monday through Wednesday occupancy or Monday through Thursday, where some of our other, I would say one-bedroom, more condo styles, they fill up. So we were trying to initially be low rated Monday through Thursday.

[00:17:31] Let’s just get it filled. Something’s better than nothing, that type of strategy. But we’re finding that we might have a bad guest Monday through Thursday. Maybe it wasn’t a good fit for their or that if we don’t end up with that booking–we just had to change our rate strategy.

[00:17:47] My purpose of this is I went into the market dashboard and I saw there’s definitely some rate opportunity for a two-bedroom property in that area. So we have record high rates for the weekends now at this property, and as a result, we are making– I can do a quick number here. So year over year, we’re up 18% in revenue. And occupancy is completely flat and we are up 40 bucks in rate.

[00:18:18] Annette: Ooh, say that again. I want people to understand that occupancy can absolutely be a vanity metric. Repeat same exact thing, because I want it to sink in for everybody.

[00:18:29] Colleen: So when I say occupancy is flat year over year, I’m saying that we had 71% occupancy last year and we had 71% occupancy this year. We sold 22 nights. And the difference is that we sold those nights for $40 more a night this year versus last year.

[00:18:44] Annette: Boom. That’s great.

[00:18:48] Colleen: This is the chef’s kiss perfect scenario for this property. And because of that, we’re able to use that as our jumping off point as we’re going into a very busy season for us on the weekends. So if this is now our weekend, baby, then we need to make sure that those weekends are completely optimized.

[00:19:07] So we’re going to have an aggressive rate strategy with weekends at this property, which Sarah will then follow up with as she does every time. Is the guest still okay with paying these rates? What’s the value? Are we getting dinged anywhere that way?

[00:19:22] So I know we’re going to segue Sarah into that component of the conversation. So just keep that in mind, that when you’re increasing rates, it’s not just as simple as going into PriceLabs, waving a wand, and increasing rates. You have to think about that long term. But as far as this property goes, we are on pace to hit our goals, and actually, we had some making up to do from a previous month, so we’re in good shape.

[00:19:44] Sarah: Colleen, a question that I may have asked if I wasn’t on your team for so long, but I want everyone else to hear your answer, when this is your strategy, to go aggressive on the rate, at what point within our booking window do you change that strategy, if you do at all?

[00:20:04] Colleen: I do change the strategy, and that has been the major pivot in the last three months. So what I am finding now, which this is another reason why even your booking window is not a set and forget, our booking window is much smaller now. So we used to, we’re just using our exact numbers, have a 17 to 14-day I feel pretty confident it’s going to be booked, within that period.

[00:20:28] Our booking window today, at least for this property is probably more like seven to four days out. So I’m sharing that because if somebody is looking for your property, seven to four days out, they are ready to book that property right then and there. They’re not browsing. They’re not shopping. They are logging online. They’re going to airbnb.com. They’re booking a property.

[00:20:49] So if there is a time for you to have your rate structure dialed in and to feel comfortable in your length of stay minimums and feel comfortable in what you’re selling, it is right now, at least in Columbus in this climate. You have one shot at these, people.

[00:21:01] So the kind of con to that change in booking window is that there’s very little margin for error. So if you don’t capture them, you don’t get it. We’re probably not going to get that place booked. So less than that, I might adjust the rate. My only thing with that is that with our booking window being so short, I’m comfortable at the rate that it is.

[00:21:23] And there’s not necessarily a reason to frantically lower the rate if it didn’t get booked. I guess with this property in particular, I am holding firm to the higher rate strategy is going to make the property more money and I don’t feel the need to frantically lower it because I also like, which this is going to be all unique to everyone’s properties. But I don’t think on a fly by night somebody’s just going to book this two-bedroom lovely home versus a one-bedroom smaller.

[00:21:48] That might be a same day booking type situation, even with the booking window shifting. So I would say this property is being held the most it’s probably ever been. I’m not just saying that because Annette Grant is on the call. That is how you have to do it with this booking window and the changes.

[00:22:02] Sarah: And then even more behind the scenes or over our shoulders, Annette and I have had conversations about this property, and I’ve shared with her, because we do treat Annette and her sister like owners, because they are, and we send them KPI reports every quarter and I do have conversations with Annette of like, hey, we’re going to try an aggressive rate, are you comfortable with me telling Colleen to get a little risky?

[00:22:22] And so I’ve connected with Colleen on that. I’m like, hey, this is a property where the owners, I happen to be one of them, but still are comfortable with us trying this risk out so we can understand how our avatar and how our guest is going to behave when they book at that price, when they give us their review on value, on how they experienced the place so that we have that information for future decisions.

[00:22:46] Annette: And we can share with you, listeners. And this particular property is a, I’m just going to say a testing ground for us. It’s like a laboratory. So we want to do these riskier things. And so we understand if you have things you need to do with your property to make sure you know your stuff–

[00:23:04] I just want to put that out there with an asterisk is that Sarah and I and my sister, all of us, when we purchased this property, we have long-term plans for this property and what it’s going to be and how it not only is part of our real estate portfolio, but it’s part of our Thanks for Visiting portfolio.

[00:23:20] It’s a laboratory. It’s a laboratory for all things short-term rental and all things Thanks for Visiting and hospitality. So we do want to offer that to you too, where I’m saying these things risky, but it’s because all of our partners have agreed and we understand exactly what we’re trying to do with this property. And so that’s why you need to know your why behind a property also in knowing your numbers.

[00:23:41] Sarah: If we were live right now on our private call, Colleen, I would then share with you, give you some to-dos, is that the owners are considering changing the queen bedroom to a king bedroom and adding a king bed in there and then taking the trundle bed and upgrading it to a fuller queen. And if you could let me know, could you look at some other properties where it is a two bed that offer a queen and a two twins versus a king and a queen?

[00:24:05] And is there any benefit there for us doing that? So we’re always looking at ways that we can– that’s the fun thing about short-term rentals too that I think is more interesting than long-term rentals, are all the levers that we can pull to drive the value out of it as an investor, as it’s manager. And so those are questions I’m going to talk to Colleen about. Also Colleen, I’ve talked about the back patio. It’s clean right now.

[00:24:27] Annette: I want a water feature, but I don’t think that’s going to bring any money. It’s just going to cost–

[00:24:30] Sarah: It’s like, I got to talk to my owners. I got to talk to my crazy owners over here about the water features she wants to add.

[00:24:35] Annette: I really want a water feature. It’s not going to bring a dollar. It’s literally going to leak like water and then freeze.

[00:24:41] Sarah: But I might have Colleen spend a few moments. Hey, our competition out there, do any of them have hot tubs? Do any of them have a sauna? What did their outdoor pictures look like? Do you think there’s opportunity, or are we truly the top of the two-bed one-bath market? And investing in any of that stuff is a waste of money.

[00:24:59] And Colleen will help me understand if any of those decisions will make sense because you better believe whether my owners are Annette over here or people who are completely third parties, that’s our job, is to help them make those decisions and we become better operators when we really understand our market and what moves a needle for guests. Let’s do one more, Colleen. Do you want to do Eastview or which one do you think is interesting to share?

[00:25:23] Colleen: I love talking about Eastview. So yeah, I’d love to share that one.

[00:25:27] Sarah: Let’s talk about her.

[00:25:28] Colleen: Okay. So Eastview had a very successful July. Would love to share. Would love to share all of that. So we are up in revenue at that property as well, year over year. So I had a baseline number. Let me just tell you what the percentage is for those of you that are data driven.

[00:25:45] Annette: While Colleen’s pulling this up, this is a time, everyone, to be taking notes. And these are the things that we want you to be really comfortable with and be able to find and know what your occupancy percentages, what your booking window is. And again, this isn’t just knowing it all in one month. It’s looking at it, familiarizing, looking at it, familiarizing. But you should become so comfortable with them, but they’re always changing too.

[00:26:13] That’s the other thing we want to tell you about dynamic pricing about short-term rentals. It is not set it and forget it. Colleen just let you know booking windows are changing. So you have to keep on top of it and keep reviewing it.

[00:26:22] Sarah: We’ve just welcomed three new co-hosts into our mastermind last week, and they’re all incredible human beings. I’m jumping out of my skin. I’m so excited to help them with their businesses and how we can improve metrics, actual data in their business over the next three to six months. I know we will.

[00:26:42] But one thing that I had a conversation with them about is this revenue management portion because so many of you out there co-hosts are doing this yourself and you feel like your head is just above water or another co-host said they felt alone on an island. And that is a scary place to be.

[00:27:02] I will get my little soapbox here on this is one of the most important things you can do for people whose property you’re helping manage. If helping them with pricing is something you’re allowed to do and you’re expected to do in your program, in your business, and you are not the person best suited to do it, then find yourself a Colleen.

[00:27:19] Colleen, don’t be mad at me, but it’s not rocket science. But it does take diligence and focus and sifting through dynamic pricing software that can be a challenge because I’ve heard co-hosts say, well, I can just do this manually. And I am telling you right now, there is no way you can do this manually and optimize the amount of revenue that that property can bring in. It is impossible.

[00:27:43] Annette: Mic drop.

[00:27:44] Sarah: It is. And I welcome a challenge on that, but I’m not saying that you have to be involved. Colleen, you are in there checking PriceLabs too. You are in there saying like, I actually, PriceLabs, you create a day, and this is what I’m going to make it. You know what I mean?

[00:28:00] So it is a partnership between you and the software and our owners and our goals for the property. But this conversation, if you’re like, if I’m not having this conversation, I’m not asking many questions, this could be an investment that you should make. And Colleen is better at this than I am, and she’s more focused than I am. And she loves getting in the data.

[00:28:17] When I hired Colleen, I also had her take a personality assessment. We used PI. And when it spit out that this woman loves analytics and she loves diving into data, I was like, she’s everything. I love data too, but I need the Colleen to tell me what the data is so I can get artsy within what we do with it. But she is focused and able to stay in it, and she likes finding out that process. So I was like, she is better at this than me.

[00:28:45] And I think a lot of us as entrepreneurs and business owners, we let our ego get in the way a little bit, and that is what’s going to make you a better business owner, is when your specialist, like Annette said, your VA, who should be a specialist in that chair, that seat you put them in is better at these things than you are.

[00:29:03] Especially those out there who are like me, you’re like, there’s no one there better than me at guest services, I can guarantee you there is. You might be very good at it, but anyway, Colleen, I want to get back to that. But if you’re not having these conversations with yourself, if you’re finding you are not the person to sit in the seat, get yourself a Colleen.

[00:29:22] And they are out there. They can be a company. They can be a VA that you find in Upwork, Fiverr. We’re going to start talking this fall about companies that specialize in hospitality virtual assistance. We’re going to give you more content around that.

[00:29:39] Collen, I found because I was active on Instagram. And she found me on stories and we connected there. So there are so many ways you can find these incredible humans. I’ll get off my soapbox now. Colleen, let’s talk about Eastview. What was that? How are we up in July?

[00:29:55] Colleen: We are up 26% in revenue year over year for July, which is very exciting. And I want to share this too because this is a totally different rate strategy, totally different structure, and this is a more heads and beds approach. We have a certain rate that we can get. I feel comfortable at this property.

[00:30:12] And I actually did do some experimenting because this is a four-unit building. So I did some experiment with one of the four because we were in a position where we could mess around a little bit, and that property did suffer at a higher rate. We were able to make it up overall.

[00:30:27] And it’s nerve wracking to do it, of course, but personally, spending that time adjusting those rates, sitting empty a couple of times, seeing what you can actually sell, I learned so much about what the perfect rate strategy is for this property in our new climate from doing this exercise in a busy month where we had some higher rated business and we were able to still reach where– well, we’re actually way above our goal. You and Nick will learn that here soon, but way above what our goal is.

[00:30:59] Annette: You said something. Get comfortable with letting it sit empty. I feel like I don’t care what business you’re in. Your first knee jerk reaction always is, well, I got to lower the price. And we’ve done this.

[00:31:17] Sarah: We have done it.

[00:31:17] Annette: I’ve done this in every single business that I’ve ever been a part of because we’re like, okay, something’s broke. Where’s the revenue? I get it. You need money coming into the business. That is the lifeblood. But sometimes sitting in that uncomfortable of figuring out, “empty” or going a day, whatever business you’re in, without sales will teach you so much more compounding. That is also why it is so important.

[00:31:40] We’re going to start diving into these numbers even more on the show, but having some sort of financial cushion when you get started with your short-term rental or when you have these awesome months, when you’re up 26%, you just don’t transfer it all into your bank account and blow it all.

[00:31:56] I’m telling you, this is the stuff that’s going to outlast your competition by doing this. But I love that sitting empty because that is not going to be comfortable, but you’ve always got to be experimenting and learning, and sometimes it’s going to mean “failing or sitting empty” so you can really tell. But dropping the price always is not the answer for every single sales issue you have. What are you going to do for the times that it sits empty though, Colleen?

[00:32:26] Colleen: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:27] Annette: How can we advise once someone has tried this sitting empty? What’s the next step though? What are those lessons learned? How can they be evaluating that “sitting empty”?

[00:32:43] Colleen: So you can look at the rate that you tried, and you can then compare that to your market dashboard. You can see what percent of the market was getting a rate that high? Where was everyone falling? Because you also don’t want to be 100% booked just like this particular unit was 52% booked. But I had other units at this property that were 90% booked.

[00:33:08] Well, Sarah should question me on that. Could we have made more money and had a higher rate on those 90%? So for these low occupancies, you want to see, okay, well, you still have to find your sweet spot then. I don’t have to do that work because I have the other properties. This is a four-bedroom. This is a four-property unit, but I can use my other data that I’ve gathered. I can use historicals. I can use the market to say, okay. I can tell you. I push the rate by about $20 too high. That’s what I did. So yeah, that’s what I did.

[00:33:40] Annette: Also, this is important because some people are probably hearing this. Well, that’s a fourplex. That’s easy to run the experiments and know what’s going to work, but that is where you can use the market dashboard, for example, in PriceLabs to see. It might not be properties you own, but you can look at your identical.

[00:33:56] It might not be yourself as the competition, but you can look at your competition that have the same bedroom bathroom count as you, and that can be your competition, not just your own portfolio.

[00:34:08] Colleen: The other property we talked about previously, that’s just one property. We very aggressive in May paid off too aggressive in June, and you saw it didn’t pay off. And then we righted the ship for July. So yeah, I know what I’m short in June of what I committed to the owners, and I know what I need to make up.

[00:34:30] So if you just have one property, that’s what you do. You just have to keep it wherever. Put a post it on your desk of what you’re short. It might stink to look at, but yeah.

[00:34:41] Sarah: When you’re tracking historicals, Colleen, for anyone who doesn’t have the spreadsheet yet, are you literally tracking right every single night on your own spreadsheet? So that you can go into July or August 21st of 2023 and you know what unit B got that night.

[00:35:00] Colleen: Yeah.

[00:35:01] Sarah: And that’s what we’re talking about, everyone. When and how do you enter this information into your spreadsheet, Colleen?

[00:35:06] Colleen: I take all of that data and then I make it bite size as far as to actually do something with it. So you want all that data in your spreadsheet, every reservation you had, what you got for every night, you want all that highlighted. And if you’re just starting out, you’ve never tracked your numbers, you might get that monthly number and you’re like, okay, this is what my ADR occupancy was for the month of July.

[00:35:26] If that number is not in line or that historical, that’s why you need that day-by-day data. So then now I can go back and then I can say, okay, well, this particular weekend, as compared to weekends in July of last year, I was getting, let’s just say 100 bucks a night in July of last year, and then I only got $92 a night. Well, $92 a night over the course of whatever, that makes a big difference.

[00:35:48] Sarah: Yeah. When we say tracking, I think some people are like, well, what exactly are you tracking? What you made that week? Are you getting granular in every single night? And I think if you get in the cadence of plugging those numbers into your spreadsheet, it’s not daunting. Colleen has the responsibility of that, but if you are an owner of one property, maybe every Sunday you do the job of going in the past week and just plugging in your numbers so that your future self is like, wow, past Sarah was a real star. She really set me up for success. And that’s what you want to do, is have the conversation.

[00:36:20] Annette: Just to follow all of that up really quick, a strategy that’s been very lucrative this year are selling gap nights. So I do just want to fill everybody in on that also really quickly because we are going to start doing a lot more content around that to, Colleen. So can you just share that that is automated now via Breezeway and that the fruits of those efforts are also paying off?

[00:36:44] Colleen: Yes. So we implemented an automated gap night strategy this year. As Annette said, it’s an automated message that goes out to the guest. Ours is four days ahead of their reservation. That is going to be unique to your market, but it just says, hey, this day before your reservation is available.

[00:37:01] If you’d like to book it, we can talk about what that rate would look like, something along those lines. This is going to be particularly useful when a guest is coming in on a Friday for a Thursday arrival. Just think about people’s work schedules and things like that.

[00:37:12] And essentially, you have to think of this process as a seamless process for the guest. Simple, quick text message. I can log into Airbnb or log into their direct booking, quickly added on. It should be straightforward. And as far as hours goes, I would say we get a yes.

[00:37:30] 50% of the time we’re going to get exact stats, but at least 50% of the asks, we probably get a yes from the guests. And when we’re talking about gap night strategies, shorter booking windows, guests that are logging on and buying when they’re shopping, this is somebody who’s already bought from you. They’re already booked.

[00:37:49] So it should be an easy sell because they’re not actually shopping. They’ve already bought. You’ve been chosen. And it helps cushion especially if you want to experiment with rates or you want to see what other items you can push. This is just low-hanging fruit revenue.

[00:38:04] It’s literally low-hanging fruit. The person already booked. An automated message in our case, or you can just copy and paste the message into your chat. Don’t overthink the automation. But yeah, what else?

[00:38:17] Annette: No, that’s great. I just want to make people aware that that’s part of the revenue strategy and those percentages on the rise.

[00:38:22] So it wouldn’t be TFV if we didn’t talk about the feedback, the reviews. That’s something that is obviously a part of this meeting. So let’s go through reviews.

[00:38:31] Colleen: Yeah. So we wanted to talk about this because if you are– so I stay in a lot of free Facebook groups for Airbnb just to see what is going on, what people are saying, what are people experiencing in the market. So if you’re logging into one of those, you would feel like the guest is worse they’ve ever been. It is party after party damages, towels. What do I do?

[00:38:55] Hosting right now in 2024 is bleak. I would like to report that we are not experiencing that. I’m in Columbus, Ohio at our hosting business. Our guest reviews are better than ever. And as good as guests are as happy as they’ve ever been, there’s a feeling out there that the guest is more demanding, that they are expecting so much more upon arrival at an Airbnb. We are not finding that.

[00:39:19] However, I will say that in a lot of our reviews we might be hearing that this is the best Airbnb I’ve ever stayed in or I was so surprised at how well-appointed this Airbnb was or I was so pleasantly surprised with X, Y, and Z amenity.

[00:39:34] So my hot take on that feedback from the guest is that, because there was the surge in Airbnbs and people’s financial situations and everything is shifted, that the expectation of the guest is probably, a polite way of saying this, I think that the hosts that are not hosting with as much harder being a little bit more exposed, the guests are wanting what they are paying for when they are booking an Airbnb.

[00:40:04] Sarah: And I think as hosts, listen, everyone, I would be lying to you if we didn’t get some constructive criticism. We just got some this week, personally to us, thank goodness. But I always ask myself, what could I have done better to be preventative and proactive? And I rarely say there’s nothing we literally could have done. This person is just unhinged.

[00:40:31] That is hard to do, and it’s something that I practice. And honestly, I probably say it a lot so that I make sure that the culture on my team remains rooted in, hey, how can we take responsibility for this, down to, we did get a four star review last month from a gentleman who stayed at one of our favorite properties and he was upset that there was construction on the streets and it was hard to find.

[00:40:54] Some people can say, well, I can’t control the city of Columbus and its construction schedule. Well, you can actually. And you or your inspector or your cleaning team, or maybe you’re on a search on Google for construction in your city to get alerts when there’s projects starting to alert your guest that they’re going to have maybe a more challenging time parking or that this road is closed down, is that a lot of work? Yes.

[00:41:19] Are you willing to skirt that to avoid that disgruntled guest upon arrival? I would. And I was disappointed in myself that I didn’t. I wasn’t more preventative in that measure. So I’m always looking for ways to take responsibility because I can control when I take responsibility. I cannot control it if I place blame on the guests and how they’re asking for too much these days.

[00:41:41] Annette: I was going to say, what’s another review? Because I love that being able to help host with getting ahead of construction. Yes, you can’t help it, but you can absolutely make them aware and have that exchange with them. They’re going to think twice before they complain about it. What is another review that action has been taken from so we can help listeners out there so they can get ahead of it too?

[00:42:01] Colleen: We had a guest leave us private feedback, thank goodness, that they were not able to find the sofa bed linen kit. And our property, they are labeled. They are in a box. And in our eyes, this couldn’t be more clear, but our policy and our businesses, once we have an opportunity, if a guest tells us twice a different guest, then that’s an issue on our part because now we’re just basically asking for the review, for a negative review.

[00:42:30] So yes, we can maybe internalize and think, okay, it’s obvious where the sofa kit is, but is that producing anything? No. So same day, I brought it to Sarah’s attention, and within the same day, we were going to Staples and picking up items and frames and they were going in the unit the same day, because we’re not going to have a guest feel like there’s not sofa linen. That’s not ever going to happen again. We’re selling a sofa bed. So that was immediate day of change. Sarah doesn’t mess around.

[00:42:57] Annette: I know, but this is a teachable moment too. How did you respond to the guest? Is it a refund? Is it like, thanks for letting us know? Because it’s like, did they sleep without sheets? What is that? Again, it’s that private feedback. I know you went and did that for the next guest, but how did we take care of the guest that experienced it?

[00:43:18] Colleen: So that guest left a long amount of private feedback about just the stay and she’ll be back and da da da. Anyways, I did message her basically within the same thread and offer the same piece of information that when I tell a guest, especially if they’re not charged, it’s a neutral situation.

[00:43:36] It’s more like a would have been nice to know. I’m like, just a heads up. We have a team of guest services. We’re here for you. As far as offering refunds or whatever, I don’t have a blanket. It’s all about having a connection with the guests and seeing what is it that they need. So I am not somebody who falls all over myself to do whatever. Have a conversation with the person and then go from there.

[00:43:59] Sarah: This is another teachable moment. I am very good at customer service. I worked in restaurants for years, hotel restaurants, bars, speakeasies, high-end cocktail bars. The price point of a cocktail in New York City ran the gambit for me, and I was always good at having regulars. I made the most money all the time.

[00:44:21] I was always the first one promoted, but then denied promotions often because you make more as a bartender. I loved it. I was also a server at high-end restaurants too. Colleen is better at this than me. You want to know why? Because I do fall over myself. Someone complains to me, I stop what I’m doing. I cannot focus on what I’m doing next. I break down. I’m not crying. I don’t even think I’m over here having a mental breakdown.

[00:44:45] Annette: Derails. It absolutely derails. Yeah.

[00:44:47] Sarah: It derails me. My anxiety goes through the roof. My response to that guest is probably just as put together and poised as Colleen’s, but the way Colleen internalizes it and then has a conversation with the guest I learned is actually better than me.

[00:45:03] And putting that barrier in place where I can be once removed from the constructive feedback, I am giving my team better direction holistically than if it was just me on the front lines. So I also learned that about myself when I started delegating this. And yes, it bought me more time because I was feeling burnout before I had team members.

[00:45:27] But then I was like, oh my gosh, they are better at this than me because they are not losing their mind over this complaint. Colleen is able to like, cool story, moving on to the next thing. Because, I don’t know, that’s just in your soul. So I just wanted to point that out. That’s actually one area of business that I feel like very good at and it was very hard for me to pass that torch, but now I’m like, oh my gosh, that was a gift that I didn’t even know I was going to receive.

[00:45:50] Annette: It impacts your whole entire day and then you start second guessing yourself and then–

[00:45:56] Sarah: I get mad at myself.

[00:45:57] Annette: It absolutely just derails you mentally, and that is where having a team member that can absolutely take care of that part for you is so valuable.

[00:46:08] Sarah: There is times though when I love it when Colleen is like, actually, I’m excited that my weekend is here. She had a tough week with guests in terms of just meeting them where they’re at and finding the perfect solution for them. It makes me feel like she’s human. I’m like, oh, that does– because it does.

[00:46:23] And that’s another thing too, where I do see hosts and they start delegating, they then pass that burnout to their team member. Don’t do that. I made Colleen take days off and make sure that she has a break in her schedule because I get that you may not feel like you need one, but I need one for you.

[00:46:40] Okay. Let’s move on to forecasting a bit. The episode’s getting a little bit long. We’ll have a part two where we actually talk about team because we’ve had some changes. I’ll give you a really quick snippet. We’ve had some changes in our team. We actually let go of a cleaner who had two strikes. And I’m a fire fast [Inaudible].

[00:46:55] Annette: You’re a two strikes, you’re out.

[00:46:56] Sarah: I’m a two strikes, you’re out these days, honestly, because I just–

[00:47:00] Colleen: It’s too important.

[00:47:01] Annette: Too important. Standard’s too high. Also, team culture is too important. So we let that team member go. Hiring new ones was touch and go. We had a whole bunch of candidates. We gave a few a chance, and we have one standing, and it’s going well so far. We still have to have some in-person meetings and some in-person check ins, and we’ll continue to do that. And I don’t want to glaze over the team conversation, but we don’t want this episode to get too long. Yeah, we’ll do a whole other episode because we’ve had a lot of questions recently on growing your team, who’s next at what stage. So we’ll dive deeper into that.

[00:47:31] Sarah: We also have a team member who is chasing after her dreams. And there’s nothing wrong with her place here if she’s happy, but she has other goals. And so that, especially because I know those are the kind of people that I’m hiring, they have other ambitions and their interests.

[00:47:46] I know this time is going to come. And so one of our inspectors is actually going to pursue those. And so we are also hiring an inspector right now. And I’m going to make an offer to someone on probably today, and I’ll keep you posted on how that’s going to go. Let’s go into forecasting though, Colleen.

[00:48:02] And I think this episode is going to be a little longer, but I think it’s okay because I think you’re all going to find it really interesting. But as we move into a high season, Colleen, mixed with this supercharged election–

[00:48:13] Annette: And then mixed with a steep decline. It’s like the roller coaster time. It goes up with football season and then–

[00:48:20] Sarah: Yeah, nose dives.

[00:48:21] Annette: Straight back down.

[00:48:23] Sarah: What are you anticipating, Colleen, for the health of our whole business in generalities? What are we looking forward to in terms of our strategies and occupancy and all that?

[00:48:32] Colleen: So the star Super Bowl, September, October, and a little bit of November, this is when we’re charging high rates. We got the hustle and bustle. It’s busy weekends. We are needing to get a little bit more crafty with our Monday through Thursday, but as far as Q3 goes and then a majority of Q4, we’re usually in it this time of year.

[00:48:53] So we’re wanting to make sure we’re heavily dialed into what Ohio State football is doing. We know which teams, which opponents their fan base super travels, which ones don’t, what we can expect. That’s what we’re paying close attention to. And then, as Annette said, we are on a roller coaster that nose dives, so always in the back of our mind right around this time of year is like, okay, well, December, January, February is coming.

[00:49:18] I know. It’s terrible. We’re not going to decide that or we’re not going to wait till December. So we’re actively maneuvering, getting business filled for that time of year. Then we have, as you guys have said, the looming election that is in the back of everyone’s mind.

[00:49:34] From my years with hotels, corporations travel slows this time of year during election season because no one obviously knows what’s going to happen. And so the only thing that people think to do is just grab their pocketbook and snuggle it to their chest and make sure they’re not giving up any unnecessary money. That’s going to be a standard.

[00:49:57] So you potentially could see a drop in– if you are somebody who relies on any style of corporatey business which for Columbus people traveling Monday through Thursday that’s likely what it is, you won’t see that sometimes.

[00:50:09] Annette: Even if you’re not corporate traveler, they’re working in corporate. So they’re feeling that. Those are the conversations that are happening. So it is going to even impact your lifestyle, traveler also.

[00:50:21] Colleen: Absolutely. And obviously, there’s actual election day. There’s early voting, all these other types of things, but just in general, companies try to be very respectful to that time of year and try to be as quiet as they can for their employees, that type of thing. So we will see a little of ourselves. And I’m going to recoup that with our big weekends and trying rates we’ve never tried before. Hopefully we’re having positive conversation in a couple of months about it.

[00:50:50] Sarah: End of Q2, beginning of Q3, the examples of the two properties we talked about, Mithoff and Eastview, you’ll probably continue those same strategies into this high season and maybe even be a little bit more aggressive, potentially?

[00:51:03] Colleen: Yeah, I will be more– yeah.

[00:51:05] Sarah: So then let’s really quickly cap on, okay, now while we’re really excited for September, October, beginning of November, one mistake that we learned from last year, and Colleen and I made note of this, is that we did not start our midterm rental strategy or our low season strategy early enough last year. And we suffered from that. And while I do want to stress that I believe you should spend more time focusing on your high season and making as much money as you can when it’s right for the taking and not so much focus on the low season, I mean, yes, focus on it, but try different strategies, but it is what it is.

[00:51:42] With that in mind, we do have the, I think, luxury of switching strategies in the low season here. Not all vacation rental markets can do this. You can offer different amenities, different rates, different activities, potentially, but we have this lever that we can pull of longer stays. So Colleen, what are you thinking about when it comes to your revenue manager hat?

[00:52:05] We get inquiries all the time, whether it’s direct or from Furnished Finder. We are a part of a few insurance claim companies. What are your thoughts as we’re gearing for end of November, December, January?

[00:52:17] Colleen: Yeah. So definitely going to review historicals because we had some short-term rental, some midterm rental last year, figure out what’s going to be more lucrative for which property? And then we’ll put together a revenue strategy for each property, obviously have a conversation with Sarah about what that’s going to look like.

[00:52:33] Do we agree that this makes sense? Take the property we talked about that Annette owns. That would be wiping that property out for– so if we get an inquiry for something like that, we’d want to chat with Annette, chat with her sister. Is that something we want to try, that type of strategy?

[00:52:47] And I personally think that what we would do is go aggressive on rates starting now for those dates and just knowing that we can lower once we get closer to. And then in my mind, Sarah, you and I are blocking our calendar for two days and just filling every unit with– I don’t know if anyone’s ever like, oh, that’s listing.

[00:53:07] It’s done midterm rental, but you have to be a pretty aggressive salesy when you are doing midterm rental and call and text and stay on these people to get them filled. You’re just one of many inquiries that they’re sending out. So typically the early bird gets the worm on a midterm rental strategy, so that’s what we’ll be doing.

[00:53:25] Sarah: I’m excited for it. I’m excited. It’s like when I was in school and, I don’t know, I got like a low mark on a quiz or a test before the big test and I was like– I like competing against myself. I like competing against other people. I’m not going to lie to you. But I do like competing against myself the most.

[00:53:42] And like last year, when we recapped, I was like, Colleen, we are going to crush ourselves next year in terms of like a good thing. We are going to make past Colleen and past Sarah cry in humiliation because we are going to rock it out this year.

[00:53:57] Annette: I’m normally not as aggressive as you, Sarah, but I do want to offer that to all the listeners. Put your blinders on and do not freaking care what anybody else is doing or what you see on social media. These are your numbers. You want to crush your numbers from the year before. Because if we peel back the true revenue of a lot of people, we would see that it is filled with garbage, BS, lies.

[00:54:27] So just like I said earlier, look in the mirror as leadership. Just stay in your lane and compete against yourself when it comes to your revenue and your profitability, honestly. And please, quiet the noise, put blinders on, and focus on your numbers, your ADR, your occupancy and you giving the best day for your business.

[00:54:49] I think that’s so important. And I think we’re probably saying that again for ourselves because there’s a lot of stuff out there, but this was an awesome episode. We’ll continue to bring some of these revenue, quarterly meetings in so you guys can just see, especially throughout the season, how important seasonality is.

[00:55:07] But Colleen, thanks for sharing all of this with our listeners today. I know they are going to be, hopefully– do your work now, go in, know these numbers for yourself. We are here for you. And so with that–

[00:55:21] Sarah: I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:55:22] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:55:24] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:55:25] Sarah: Talk to you next time.