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[00:00:05] Sarah: Hello, listeners. Welcome back to another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

[00:00:10] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:00:12] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:00:13] Sarah:  Let’s start this episode like we do each and every week, and that is sharing one of you who’s gone to our website, strshare.com   to enter in all the information about your short-term rental so that we can share you here on the podcast, on our Instagram account, to our entire email list. Annette, who are we sharing this week?

[00:00:31] Annette: This week, we are sharing  @goldie’sbeachhouse. Again, that’s @goldie’sbeachhouse. And it is so cute. It’s so good.  The one thing that really stands out, and I don’t want this to hold anybody back, but their branding is so good.  I’m going to say it might be some of the best I’ve ever seen for a short-term rental.

[00:01:01] She’s got her logo. She has icons.   The color palette is  golden. I believe these are even her own custom beach towels that she provides because they are on the beach in Michigan, and they have a beach bag for your beverages. It’s just really, really well done.

[00:01:24] So if you’re looking for inspiration  for actually a logo and branding of your property, please look to this  Instagram for inspiration. It is really, really well done. And then I also like her link in bio, is great too. This is her slogan, a cheeky stay somewhere between home and hotel. It’s just really, really great. She’s made her proper property shoppable with Minoan. 

[00:02:01] Sarah: Oh, she’s got a showroom with Minoan.

[00:02:03] Annette: Yes, it’s really well done.

[00:02:04] Sarah: I haven’t seen one of those fully fledged out yet. We’re still working on ours. That looks so good.

[00:02:08] Annette: Check that out if you are looking for some inspiration there also.

[00:02:13] Sarah: Share some things that are in her showroom, Annette.

[00:02:15] Annette: She goes room by room, living room, kitchen, bedroom. She has artwork. She has her furnishings, her planters, her outdoor. She even has local items. And this is one thing that Minoan was championing. And it’s interesting to see the way that she has done it. So she has local items, outdoor items, dining, entry, bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchen, and living room. And there are items in each of these. And the slogan too, bring home a piece of your stay.

[00:02:50] So she’s got her artwork. So if someone particularly liked a piece of art, they could bring that home. In the bathroom, if someone really liked the shampoo or conditioner, even her faucets, those are an option there. Her entryway, all of the things. So check her out. And what I love too is I believe she even has– oh, you know what? I thought these were custom. They’re not. But those beautiful towels that I thought were custom, they are on her Minoan showroom, and I could buy one right now.

[00:03:19] Sarah: Just a real quick crash course for anyone who doesn’t know. So obviously Minoan is a platform where hosts and designers of short-term rentals can go on and get discounted items because you are a host. And then now Minoan has this showroom where whether you bought it on Minoan or not, you can set it up in your showroom. And this host is so savvy because if someone buys one of these things, she gets commission off of it. So smart.

[00:03:44] Annette: Goldie’s Beach House is giving a master class in branding and then also how to use the Minoan showroom to make more money, which we didn’t mean to do this, Sarah, but this is an awesome segue into today’s episode because we want to help you make more money. So number one, build out your Minoan showroom. Start there. And number two, we’re going to roll into today’s episode. And there is no reason that not every single listener can be making more money stat with this tip and the strategy. 

[00:04:21] Sarah: Yes. We wanted to share with you what a gap night strategy is. And maybe you have one, but stay tuned because we want to make sure that you’re optimizing it to its fullest potential. Because maybe you’re in my boat where I knew I needed to improve it and get it more systematized and automated, and I just kept putting it off. 

[00:04:44] But once I focused on it for, I don’t know– I was so mad at myself– an hour and got it automated, we have added easily an extra 1,200 to $1,500 a month to our revenue by doing nothing extra. So it’s really great, no brainer. And we wanted to, take today’s episode to share with you exactly what it is, how to optimize it, and then share any frequently asked questions that might surround it.

[00:05:08] Annette: And this is something that inside our membership, we are seeing host after host, no matter the size of their home, the size of their portfolio, whether their owner operators or their co-hosting, all of our members are bringing on this strategy, and it is so fun to, on every call and our Facebook groups, see the wins of nights that we’re going to be sitting empty.

[00:05:31] They are now selling and making money. I want to give a specific shout out to one of our members, Ola. This is one of those things, like Sarah, she had actually been sometimes giving them away for free and someone asked if they could check in early, but it was actually the whole entire night early.

[00:05:50] She said yes, gave them the option. Normally she’d be super nice about it. And she has, again, like Sarah said, bringing in five figures a month additional income on just making sure this is automated and offering open nights up to her guests.

[00:06:08] Sarah: So before we get too ahead of ourselves, what is a gap night? It is a night that is sitting vacant between two stays. Now, it doesn’t necessarily have to be one night between two stays. It could be maybe you’ve got three gap nights in a row. Maybe you’ve got two gap nights in a row. Maybe you have that one gap night, but it’s those harder to sell usually during the middle of the week.

[00:06:27] If you’re like us and guests arrive on Friday, check out Sunday, maybe you have a Saturday-to-Saturday stay, whatever that might be for you, and you have those stubborn gap nights, why not fill them with a stay from someone you’ve already approved to stay. They’ve already booked with you. Invite them to stay, whether it’s at a discount or not, and we’ll get into that, to add more money without doing anything extra. 

[00:06:55] And how do you automate it? You simply use technology to determine whether or not a gap night exists. And that technology will automatically deploy a message to that guest and ask them the question, give them the information they need. You don’t have to talk about pricing at all at this automated message.

[00:07:13] If they say yes, then you continue the conversation. If they say no, at least you asked them and you got that potential revenue question out there. And sometimes they say no. And then as their stay draws near or the day of, they say, “Hey, is it still available for us too–” and you can still make that sale.

[00:07:30] Annette: Yes, this is absolutely about making the offer and finding the guests that want to take you up on that offer. But guess what? If you’re not offering it, they don’t know it exists. So this is all about taking action and making that offer. And I don’t know why. It seems like such a no brainer, but it is one of those things you just have to have a mindset shift about making that offer to each– if you have those gap nights, just making it part of your SOPs that you offer that gap night, whether it be before or after their original check in, check out.

[00:08:04] Sarah: There are four pillars for gap nights here at Thanks for Visiting. Pillar number one is knowing your numbers. Pillar number two is understanding your booking window. Pillow three.

[00:08:14] Annette: We like pillows.

[00:08:15] Sarah: We do like pillows. Pillar three is pricing your gap night. And then pillar four is that mindset shift. And it’s a different mindset shift that we just talked about. So let’s unpack, Annette, pillar number one, which is the importance of knowing your numbers before you deploy your gap night strategy.

[00:08:34] Annette: Yeah. And it’s really understanding that cost per reservation. What is it costing you per reservation to host an overnight stay in your home? And so we’ve gone over this extensively in our workshops. Again, our members inside all know their cost per reservation.

[00:08:50] So this is imperative for you to know because gap nights are about recouping revenue. They’re not about maximizing it. We’ll go into the mindset shift there, but it’s not just what can I make? It’s, what is the lowest I can charge and still be profitable? Because you don’t want to have someone in there if you are paying for the guest to stay. So you really do need to know that cost per reservation. And again, this is, yes, talking about gap nights, but you should know that number no matter what.

[00:09:24] Sarah: Because it’s going to be your guiding star for all pricing. But I want to make sure everyone understands that. Because you’re like, wait, ladies, don’t I want to maximize revenue? Here’s the deal. It was going to sit empty no matter what at this point.

[00:09:39] And we’ll get into pillar two, which is knowing your booking window and why you know that, but it was going to sit empty no matter what. So if you can recoup the revenue of whatever that cost per reservation is, let’s say no matter what your cost per reservation, if it’s empty is $100. I’m just making it easy.

[00:09:57] If you want to get this person to have an easy yes for you, you at least want to recoup losing that $100 that you’re not going to make anyway because it’s going to sit vacant. So whatever that number is. And sometimes you don’t even have to discount that offer to that potential– not a potential guest. they already booked with you.

[00:10:18] You don’t have to discount what it would be anyway if someone were to book on the OTA or on your direct booking website. Let’s say you have it listed as $150 and no one’s picking it up. You offer it to your guest at the opportune time. They say yes to it. What’s the rate? And you can just give them what the rate is.

[00:10:37] So you have to take stock in how often people say yes, how often people say no, and at what rate. Is it your posted rate, or do you discount it a little bit to get that yes? Maybe it depends what season you’re in. If in your high season you have a gap night, you probably don’t even need to discount it to that guest.

[00:10:57] You can just tell them. Maybe they didn’t even think about it. Sometimes, too, the way you message it to them and sell it to them, sometimes we don’t consider ourselves salespeople, but you absolutely are. You have a product, and you are selling it. And so that’s why knowing that number is really important, so that you can understand when someone does say yes to that automated message, you know what they’ll probably pay to have the convenience of being able to either come in a night early or come in really early the next day.

[00:11:24] Annette: And an example as a consumer of why you would be interested in potentially coming in a day early or staying later, for instance, I know a lot of times when I’m planning travel, I know the dates. Let’s say, Sarah and I are going away next week. I know it’s the 14th through the 18th.And I booked our accommodations first for the 14th through the 18th. But then when I started to look at flights and when the flights get in and just really understanding more of what our trip is about, I actually want to check in earlier.

[00:12:03] It’d be better for us if we could get in a day early to get in. And so your traveler might be changing. Maybe they aren’t flying. Maybe they’re driving. And these are things like, oh, I could leave right after work and check in that night. Or, hey, when people book the accommodations originally, sometimes their travel and their lives change of like, oh yes, this could be awesome. We actually want to stay longer.

[00:12:26] So I just want you to think about times that your own travel has changed because of, a, the itinerary of your flight, or your driving, or the reason you’re going on that trip, or the people that you’re traveling with. Sometimes I’m like, “Oh my gosh, that’d be awesome.”

[00:12:44] I just want to stay another day because I don’t have to be at work the next day. As the trip gets closer, you hone in more on all of the details, and it could be advantageous to come in earlier or stay later.

[00:12:58] Sarah: I love that. And we’ll unpack some messaging ideas for you towards the end of the episode. Let’s move on to pillar two, which is understanding your booking window. So know your markets booking window, and also know your booking window as it sits in your market.

[00:13:17] Annette: Okay, but Sarah, what is a booking window.

[00:13:19] Sarah: So a booking window is the amount of time between when someone books your property and then when they arrive on average. Like right now, in our market– I know our market best. We’ll just talk about it. And it changed for us. And it was like, whoa. Okay, change strategy. For us, our booking window has shortened. It’s very short right now. It’s anywhere from five to seven days. Here’s what we learned from that. 

[00:13:45] We learned that when someone is going to book in our market right now, they’re not going to hem and haw. They’re on there to buy. They’re on there to convert. They’re on there to book their stay. So that’s interesting for us to know.

[00:13:57] Annette: It’s also interesting to know, for all of you out there that freak out and drop your prices because you feel like you’re not feel, keyword feel, you’re not getting bookings, this is where knowing your booking window will really help you with your revenue management strategy and knowing, like Sarah said, most people probably fell off their chair five to seven days.

[00:14:16] That seems like a really small booking window, but again, you have to be aware of it and know it’s going to fluctuate. It can change throughout the year, and being on top of that. Because this is when you know when you can offer up that gap night.

[00:14:33] Sarah: Right. Therefore, our automated, hey, do you want to book an extra night, doesn’t go out until we reach at least the end of that booking window. So once five days hits, maybe it’s day four before that date and it’s still vacant, there’s still no one booked, okay, now we can deploy our gap night strategy.

[00:14:57] Annette: And the reason being is that if you don’t want to offer it up before that, because you could get a full price stay during all of the gap nights or if it’s just one, because that’s one of the most common questions we get inside of our membership is like, when do I deploy that first message? And we have to just look back at the host and say, this is why it’s imperative that you know your booking window because this will fluctuate per host, per market, per time of year of when you would offer that up. Because you don’t want to offer it up too soon or immediately and then you might have filled all the gap nights.

[00:15:31] Sarah: And you might want to take this into consideration. We managed a property that had a much longer booking window because it’s more expensive. It also slept more people, so there’s more coordination. And so the booking window there was usually six months out. So six months out, especially during the week or the weekend, what have you, if it wasn’t booked, then we got a little bit nervous. Like, do we have to drop our price, or what can we do?

[00:15:57] So before we adjusted the revenue for each night that we would collect from someone looking to book “not last minute, but within our booking window, a shorter time period, we might go out to anyone who’s already booked first and see if they want to extend.

[00:16:10] And again, you can figure out your messaging and say something like, “Hey, this night is available to you before we deploy it to our email list, which will usually get booked up. We wanted to offer it to you first.” So a little bit of urgency and also making them feel special, like you’re thinking about them. And you might want to share a little bit more insight about why that might be advantageous for them.

[00:16:33] But again, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Know your booking window, and that is when you can confidently deploy your gap night strategy. So if you are doing gap night strategy right now or you are asking your guests, maybe you want to go back and make sure that you understand your cost per reservation and you understand your booking window so that you can be really confident you’re being strategic. Pillar number three, pricing your gap night.

[00:17:00] Annette: And again, this is going to depend on you as the individual host and your market and your average daily rate and your cost per reservation. But fear not. You are in control here. This is where we encourage you. to do testing. This was a night that was going to sit empty.

[00:17:22] We answer a lot of questions about, do I discount? Do I not discount? And so really, it depends on your market. It depends on what you’re testing. But again, a lot of times, knowing that cost per reservation, give them the price of what you feel comfortable with, and We encourage you to push your nightly rate there.

[00:17:48] 45 to 75% of your guests– especially if 75 percent of your guests are saying yes, 50 to 75%, that’s a sweet spot. More than half of the people you’re making that offer to are saying yes. And do some stats on this too. You do want to keep track of the rate that you’re giving and how many people are taking you up on your gap night, for sure.

[00:18:15] Sarah: Here’s a great thing. For anyone who’s listening to Thanks for Visiting, hopefully you have a little spreadsheet of exactly, let’s say 2023 or 2024. So a year ago, what did your October look like? What was your occupancy? And every single night, what did you sell that night at?

[00:18:34] And if you didn’t sell it, what did it sit empty at? What rate was that at? So then for this October, and I’m just using this as an example. Alright, you’re actually at, you’re forecasted to hit about the same occupancy, and you always want to beat yourself. So what did those empty nights sit at?

[00:18:51] And depending on where you’re selling it now, maybe you do need to “discount it” from your advertised rate. Maybe not. Maybe you ease up on your rates because you were looking to fill with occupancy instead, whatever your strategy is, then maybe you stand strong in the rate knowing that your guest would love to book that night and get in early.

[00:19:14] So look at your history too, and then track your gap night offers. So what we do every month is we go through all of our automation message that went out to the guest. How many guests did we ask? And of those guests, how many said yes? That way, when you track it, let me say 35 % of the guests said yes. So that means a larger chunk said no. 

[00:19:37] Maybe you need to figure out if it’s your messaging. It’s not always just your pricing. Sometimes it’s how you position the offer to your guest. Case in point, one of our coaches actually doesn’t call them gap nights. She calls them half-day stays because she felt that the– she didn’t call them gas nights to our guests. I don’t know what she called them. She may not even call them anything. But when she started calling them half- day stays, that is when the guests got excited about– or maybe it was early check in.

[00:20:08] Annette: Yeah, they wanted to use early check in and late check out, and they felt like the price was off for early check in and late check out. She was like, “We don’t offer that. We offer half-day stays.” Because sometimes guests assume like, well, they’ll just let me check in earlier, check out late. And it’s like, no, but we’re offering you a half-day stay.

[00:20:24] Sarah: Right. And honestly, just that tweak, even if in your brain right now, you’re like, well, that wouldn’t sell me, it doesn’t matter. Because in her market and her avatar guest, that tweaked their mindset, and this has been a huge win for her.

[00:20:36] So before you necessarily like drop your rate, maybe it’s your copy. It’s your messaging. It’s how you’re sharing it to your potential guest. Again, not your potential guest. This guest is already booked with you. I need to get my messaging straight here. It’s how you position it to them that helps them say yes or no.

[00:20:53] Annette: And let’s actually go into that, the way that she positioned it again, because we’ll talk some specifics here. In her market, I’ll just say it, Phoenix Scottsdale area, a lot of people are flying into the area very, very early and getting in at let’s say 8:00 AM, 9:00 AM, because they’re coming from the East Coast or the Midwest, getting the early flights. And they were always asking Can we check in early? Can we check in early?

[00:21:24]  And if the night before was available, yes. But they just wanted the early check in or they didn’t want to make a full night reservation, so she’s selling the gap night as that half night stay. So if you are in a market where travelers are a lot of times flying in and you know they’re a lot of those early flights and they’re going to be sitting around waiting to get into the property, instead of you’re never going to offer it, tell them it’s a gap night. But instead of early check in, late check out, it could be a half-day stay. But it’s still covering your cost per reservation for that whole night before because that’s what you are essentially offering them.

[00:22:03] Sarah: Yes, brilliant.

[00:22:04] Annette: So good. Love it.

[00:22:07] Sarah: Pillar four, mindset shift. Okay, here’s where that mind shift gets. We already went over it a little bit, but we want you to remember that an empty unit earns $0. So even a low-priced gap night means you’re winning if it covers your cost per reservation. That’s where Annette and I are always about, push your rate, and beat yourself from last year. 

[00:22:30] But if you could get someone to come in, they’ve already paid the cleaning fee. You’ve already decided they are a great guest and a great match for your property. Why not have that rate they booked, that half-day stay, or that extra night, be something that is win-win for both of you? So stay flexible and embrace trial and error to find the right pricing strategy for your gap nights.

[00:22:52] Annette: That trial and error, it’s in a couple of different things. The trial and error is in your pricing. The trial and error is in the way that you message your offer to your guest. Also, it’s communicating with your team and figuring out how this works in to your SOPs, making sure you’re collecting on said offer. 

[00:23:21] Again, this is what the fun part is. Again, we had members inside our group that were maybe doing some of these things either, let’s say, for free or just trying to be nice. It’s like once they like just ripped the band aid of like, let’s put out what that price would be, it’s been a total game changer.

[00:23:40] Because let’s say there’s 50 gap nights and you’re making $100 per night. What we love about gap nights, this is something that once you start it, it will compound over time. Like I said, I was  talking to you about Ola, and she’s making over $1,000 more per month. So I was like, that’s $12,000 more a year on guests that already were going to stay and already had reservations. So very, very low lift.

[00:24:09]  And we say this all the time. Your inventory with a short-term rental is 365 nights. That’s the inventory you get. So we really need to maximize all that we can in the year with the nights that we have in the properties that we have.

[00:24:22] Sarah: Let’s talk about messaging. We use Breezeway messaging to automate this. Why it’s cool for us is because Breezeway is connected to our booking calendar so it knows when we have gap nights. There are other technology out there as well that understand gap nights. I think StayFi messaging offers it, and your PMS messaging might also offer it.

[00:24:47] I just want to share with you how we do it. We offer it through Breezeway. Again, we do have to tweak when it deploys, whether it’s three nights out from their arrival or whether it’s four nights or five minutes, depending on our booking window. So we’re always checking in on our booking window and making sure that hasn’t changed.

[00:25:03] And then this automated message goes out to them, and you want to personalize it for your market. You do want to have a little bit of urgency in there. And think about, as I read to you this very basic example, what you might put into your automated message that might grab the attention of your guest.

[00:25:21] So, “Hi, guest name, definitely call them by their guest name, we’re so excited for your upcoming stay.” Maybe here you put where their stay is, whether it’s the city and town or the name of your property if that’s popular.  “How about arriving a day early at a discounted rate? Message me back to grab this offer.”

[00:25:37] So then message me back to grab this offer, That’s your call to action. Tell them exactly what you wanted to do. You’re telling them it’s a discounted rate, but again, it might be the same rate that was advertised originally. Maybe you’ve since then dropped it, but maybe you’re going in at the original rate. Who knows?

[00:25:52] Again, you’ve got to decide that for yourself. Maybe the message is, “Definitely messaged me back to grab this offer. Be sure to reach out to the rest of your group to make sure this wouldn’t benefit anyone else in your party.” If you maybe you host larger people. Because that might be something that they need to consider, as like, ooh, maybe someone does want to drive in after work and get in and go grocery shopping or do all those things.

[00:26:12] So this message should be short and concise, but also be pointed to your guests and what would matter to them. Again, coming in a night early, if you don’t think that would resonate with them, maybe it is like, “Do you want to purchase a half-day stay so that you can arrive as early as you’d like.” Knowing they could get there the night before. But if that’s not going to resonate with them, then fine. Change it. So that’s our example messaging, but definitely make it your own.

[00:26:42] Annette: And last but not least, again, letting your team know that you’re going to start– let’s say you’re not ready for automated messages. Start to feel this out on your own in doing them, and then make sure if anybody helps you on your team with the messaging, they know that they should be sending these out and how to respond to them.

[00:27:04] And then also just being really mindful. Because sometimes you’ve done a lot of calendar strategy, we don’t want you to get so excited about gap nights that you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I just offered something up on a holiday,” or “My cleaner told me they needed that day off.” So we do have to caution you.

[00:27:21] We just don’t want you to go full steam ahead. Please still be very aware of the way that you have set your calendar up. We know that we’ve always instructed be very mindful around holidays, if there’s maintenance happening. Just having that thought to always go back to the calendar and make sure that you can offer it up.

[00:27:40] Sarah: And this is why nothing truly in business, but in short-term rentals, is set it and forget it. Despite what you might have been sold by someone else or by technology, yes, this is automated, but you better believe we have to keep our pulse on it. Because if we have a whole strategy of not having a guest check in on Christmas Eve, we want them already in on the 23rd so that our team and our guests can just enjoy that holiday, we need to be very on top of it that these automated messages and go out and they take us up on it, and now that screws up all of our operational plans. So yes, it’s automated, but you still have to have a pulse on it.

[00:28:16] Annette: And last but not least is we’ve talked a lot about the gap night before their reservation starts. Remember, you can also ask them if they’d like to extend their stay. So that extending their stay, what’s different with extending the stay is you can offer it before they check in, and then you can also offer it again during their stay. 

[00:28:43] I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been staying somewhere where I’m like, I wish I could stay another day. And no one’s ever offered that up to me where I’d say there’s so many times I would have maybe changed my flight. Or if I was driving, I could have just changed my schedule and worked from that property another night.

[00:29:00] So we do want to let you know that extending the stay is absolutely an option. And what’s great about those is you can actually offer them up multiple times because it’s not just before they check in. You can offer it up during their stay. And take those tips. If people are like messaging you like, “Oh my gosh, this place is incredible,” hey, make the offer right then. “Oh, you like it so much? You want to stay an extra day?” That’s a great time for you to– and you’ve already mentioned it to them before also, so it’s in their head, and then you can offer it again. So also think about extending the stays.

[00:29:37] Sarah: Give us a try. Let us know how it goes. You can always send us a DM. You can always email us. We would love to learn how this is working for you, maybe how you’ve tweaked it to make it your own. What software are you using to automate this? How much extra money are you bringing in once you deploy this? We are always interested in how–

[00:29:57] Annette: Yeah, we’re excited for you. This really, truly is a way for you to make more money. You’ve already done the hard work. They’ve already chosen you out of a sea of listings. So now you’re just essentially upselling them. And it’s so much easier to get that second yes once they’ve made that original yes with you.

[00:30:17] Sarah: With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:30:19] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:30:21] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:30:22] Sarah: Talk to you next time.