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[00:00:01] Sarah: Hello. Welcome back to another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

[00:00:05] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:00:07] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:00:08] Sarah: And this is the–

[00:00:09] Both Annette & Sarah: Hosting Hotline.

[00:00:10] Sarah: If you want to get your questions all about hosting answered here on the hotline, you just have to go to hostinghotline.com. Ask your question. You will help so many other people because, honestly, we think these questions are unique to us.

[00:00:24] And I don’t know a question yet that has been super, super unique, even if a portion of the question could help in other scenarios too. So these are just really great episodes. We can all help each other really think through challenges and how we would overcome them. And today we’re helping Delilah.

[00:00:42] Question: Hey, Sarah and Annette. So I have a question that’s putting me in an awkward position. I’m a property manager and I have a really great ownership that I work with, and I really love them and I love working together, but we have something that we’re kind of not seeing eye to eye on.

[00:00:58] The owners check outdoor security cameras that they have constantly, and they will text me or let me know, updates on the ins and outs of the house, like what the guests are doing, and it just feels a little, I don’t know. It feels a little icky to me, and I don’t know how to address this with the ownership because I don’t want to offend them, and I would love to continue working with them, but it’s becoming something that I’m not sure how to manage anymore.

[00:01:29] Annette: That was a long pause from us because we feel the swine.

[00:01:34] Sarah: People are like, did the go dead? I can share with you, Delilah, that I had an owner who I also loved, and I continue to love them actually, and they kept checking the ring doorbell, like you said, too much. And then messaging me about it. But we’re going to compartmentalize your question here because there are different aspects that I want to address in your question.

[00:02:01] But first and foremost, I do believe in open communication and being direct with our owners, obviously staying professional and sensitive. This is the biggest asset they most likely have invested in. They care very much about it. They hired you because they’re nervous, but that’s what I would remind them.

[00:02:19] They hired you to care for the home. And I shared this with my owner. I was like, you’ve hired me to care for this home. I need to make sure that I am keeping our lines of communication open for emergencies, any of concerns you have about our performance, and we can do that at the cap of every month, but you’ve trusted me with this property and with your home, and I need to be able to manage it in a way that gives the guests privacy and reserves these checking in of the property for emergencies only.

[00:02:58] And I’m going to ask you if you want to check the cameras, give yourself one or two times a week where you just check in on property, hey, is it still there type things, but these guests deserve privacy, and we do a really great job on making sure the guests that we bring to your home are a great fit. We do not take that process lightly. And so this is something that I need you to trust me on and to connect with us less about.

[00:03:29] Annette: I want to highlight something, a word I pulled out from there, that hurt. The owners are texting.

[00:03:37] Sarah: That’s another compartmental thing I wanted to address.

[00:03:41] Annette: Let’s address it. For everyone that does any co-hosting or property management, we know that in the beginning you probably are giving out your cell phone number, but as you grow that cannot be a normal back and forth of communication. So let’s talk about that texting component, Sarah, because that’s probably also for this particular property manager eating away because that’s the way that the homeowner is– it’s allowing them to be really– what’s the word I’m looking for? Reactive and just like text super easy.

[00:04:23] If you have a couple– if you have a process in place for the way that they need to communicate with you, it most likely will cut down on that because texting is such a reactive thing that we do with our friends and family. And you just on the fly, do it and don’t think much about the repercussion of it or where it’s going. But if you put some other systems in place, I think it’ll slow that down.

[00:04:43] Sarah: I am aggressive about not giving out my personal cell phone. And if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking about starting a co-hosting business, I would do this right away. It will because you are constantly being pinged if you’re a co-host by your team, your cleaners, your inspectors, your maintenance team.

[00:05:01] And this is not a negative thing, but you are being tapped in the shoulder by them. You’re being potentially tapped in the shoulder by your guest if you’re still handling guest communication. And then you add on these owners and we’re open 24/7/365. You’re constantly being tapped on the shoulder and you deserve to have some time where you’re focused on your family, on your friends, on your business growth, on empty space, and knowing that you have this time where you’re not going to get messages.

[00:05:30] So creating those channels is a lot easier than maybe you might think. There’s Google Voice, which is really inexpensive. There’s RingCentral. There’s Grasshopper. This is just naming a few. And there’s really fun things you can do with these channels. RingCentral, Grasshopper, you can make it so that depending on what day of the week it is and what time it is, it goes to this person first.

[00:05:55] And if that person doesn’t answer, then it can go to that person. Maybe you’re at the end of that chain. You can have different lines. So if you want to give your owner, maybe extension one is for property owners. Extension two is for guests. Well, guests probably should be number one, so they can just press number one.

[00:06:10] But you know what I’m saying? You can get really creative with this, and this is a really low investment and I believe is maybe one of the most important investments you can make to your co-hosting business, is to create boundaries so that you have some space to really think and make good decisions and be there for everyone within reason.

[00:06:28] Annette: The last thing I want to mention about having this conversation is just asking the homeowner to put themselves in the shoes of the guest when they’re on vacation. If you are on your family vacation, the old school do on to others. The home that you’re staying in, would you want them on top of the ring watching all of your comings and goings? And just think, the guests that’s booking your house is probably more like you than you think. They’re awesome.

[00:07:03] So you probably don’t need to babysit them on the ring camera. And that’s something that I would just put them like in their shoes of like, oh, would I want the host doing that to me? Then thinks like, oh, yeah, they don’t need to be watching me. So I think that that part of it is something, just tossing it back in their court of there’s no need to do that.

[00:07:25] Sarah: And last but not least, it sounds like when you do come to renew their contract with you, Delilah, and this will go across to all of your owners, adding a clause about security cameras and how you expect your owners to behave. If you have security cameras to protect your home, please remember– talk to your attorney about what that verbiage is, but if you have it in your contract as something that, if you do have a concern, here is the channel in which you can connect with us about, and it’s certainly not texting you.

[00:07:55] It’s probably some Google form that you set up, so it comes to your email, so you can address it maybe on your monthly recap meetings that you have with your owners about how occupancy, how ADR went, and then we can talk about camera activity. And you can have a discussion with them about that guest who maybe they had some concerns, and explain to them, this guest had this history, and they actually stay with us this many times a year.

[00:08:20] So there’s a time and a place for you to be there for your owners, but definitely create a channel so that you can address it in a way that’s focused and not just random and chaotic and all over the place and you feeling random and chaotic and all over the place. I hope that helps.

[00:08:35] Annette: Great question. Yeah.

[00:08:36] Sarah: With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:08:37] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:08:39] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:08:40] Sarah: Talk to you next time.