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

[00:00:04] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:00:06] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:00:07] Sarah: Let’s kick off this episode like we do each and every week, and that is sharing one of you, incredible hosts, who have gone to our site, strshare.com, shared all the details about your rental so that we can share it with with the hosting world here on our podcast, to our email list, and of course on our Instagram every Sunday. Annette, who are we sharing this week?

[00:00:28] Annette: This week we are sharing @idahoflowerpot. Again, that’s @idahoflowerpot, who just so happens to be our guest today, spoiler alert. I want to share, if you are someone that is a current– the one thing I love about Whitney and this Flower Pot, if you are someone that already owns existing land and maybe a business, a current business owner, do you have an opportunity to merge your business with your real estate?

[00:00:59] So Whitney, they actually have a flower farm, and now they have a unique stay on it. And we have been seeing this, especially here in Columbus, one of our magazines just did an article on this about how local brands from breweries who have a brewery, and then they bought a home next door.

[00:01:16] So they’re doing stays for enthusiasts coming in town to taste their brews. A friend of mine who actually was at our event last year, he owns a sneaker shop that people travel in from all over the country to visit. He bought a home right down the street so people could come in, stay with him, and then experience his sneaker shop.

[00:01:36] So really, today’s episode and her Instagram, we want you to expand your mind. Anything is possible. But if you have a current business, is there a way to do hook up with a unique stay with real estate or maybe just real estate nearby. How could you merge both of your businesses together?

[00:01:55] Please check out the Idaho Flower Pot Instagram though because you will see over and over again just what her unique say is. She does a ton of reels. So I want you to just pay attention of the before and the after. She does such a good job of showing us the build out as she was creating the Flower Pot. So please check her out. Pay attention to the reels. Use some of her ideas. I’m sure, Whitney will not care because she is a sharing, giving host.

[00:02:22] Sarah: She really is actually. She was quite lovely and transparent. I think you’ll love the honesty of this episode.

[00:02:30] Annette: And my last thing about her Instagram though that I think you really need to participate in, she has her pinned post. And her very first pinned post though, it says, “Read this before booking.” So she gives bullet points about the stay, things to know before the stay. So this is a great place for you to communicate with your guests too. So look at her pinned post at the top.

[00:02:50] Sarah: We actually talk about her communication. She’s found some really great ways to set expectations for her stays. You’ll learn about that in the episode. Whitney is a financial coach, so she is self-employed. She’s the host of the Money Nerds Podcast, in case you want to add another podcast to your rotation, and now a unique property builder.

[00:03:08] She currently operates Cascade Dome, a geodome in the mountains, and then the Flower Pot, a giant flower pot you can actually sleep in. And the cool thing about the Flower Pot is it was one of 100 global winners of the Airbnb OMG Fund. If you don’t remember this, we do because we applied and we lost.

[00:03:27] But we love that we got to connect with Whitney because we saw her project. Airbnb shared it. We’re like, “That is so cool.” Annette, though, I want to give the listeners here a little teaser. What’s that one really good nugget she shared about essentially quality over quantity?

[00:03:44] Annette: This was about social media. It’s not about the most reach. It’s about the right reach.

[00:03:48] Sarah: Love that.

[00:03:50] Annette: Whitney, welcome to the show. There are so many things we want to talk to you about, and we’ll get to all of them, but let’s start with the OMG Fund and how you won it. Explain to anyone who wasn’t around for this competition, what it was, why you applied, and how you won.

[00:04:08] Whitney: This fund was such a cool opportunity. So Airbnb was trying to launch really interesting, unique projects and ideas that the world has never seen before. And so they did a global call and said, “Hey, anybody that’s a DIYer, an architect, a builder, a stay-at-home mom, it does not matter what you do, submit an idea. And it has to go through different phases. It has to hit certain benchmarks. And if we like the idea enough, it will go on to a final round of judging where we will award 100 people, $100,000 to help you fund the build.”

[00:04:42] And so I came across this, and I was like, “Oh my gosh. $100,000 is a lot of money, but not a lot of money when you’re building something unique.” But I thought immediately it would be such a cool opportunity. So I was trying to figure out what type of idea to submit. There’s so many different random ideas you could submit. But at the same time, we were winding down with our geodome build, and we were driving back to Boise. We were thinking like, okay, what’s next? What’s the next project? We’ve had such a good time.

[00:05:12] We spent about a year and a half building this out. What are we going to do next? And my mom was talking about starting a flower farm on a little piece of property that she has in Burley, very small farming town in Idaho. And I remember thinking, “Hey, that would be so cool to just do a giant flower pot next to her flower farm to compliment it, give her a little income stream, give myself a little income stream. That would be just really interesting and unique.”

[00:05:36] So we jokingly submitted this idea, and it kept progressing to the next phase. And we’re like, “Oh my God, we might actually have to build a flower pot. This is crazy.” And so by the time we got to the end of it, we were completely just ready to go, excited about the project, and had $100,000 to help fund it, which was super, super helpful.

[00:05:57] Sarah: Okay, was it truly like they just put $100,000 cash in your bank account, or how did that work?

[00:06:02] Whitney: Kind of. It truly was $100,000. And it was divvied up into three different phases based on your progress in the project. So the first phase was helping people get architects, engineering, that kind of stuff underway. Once you met certain requirements, they would release another 33,000. So that’s how they did it. So it wasn’t all in one lump sum, but yeah, it truly was 100,000.

[00:06:26] Annette: Axe is on that.

[00:06:28] Sarah: Yeah. Did you have to pay taxes on that?

[00:06:30] Annette: Right. You have to pay taxes on that,right?

[00:06:31] Whitney: Yes, you do. No. No, the way it was taxed is it was more equivalent to a lottery winning, which is a bummer because it’s a higher tax rate, instead of a 1099. It was 1099-issued, but it was considered more like winnings.

[00:06:47] Sarah: So let’s back up even further, Whitney. So what got you into short-term rentals in the first place? You’re a financial coach, correct? Were you a financial coach at the time? Talk to us about how you got into the short-term rental world.

[00:06:58] Whitney: So I think it was really from podcasting. I was chatting with people on my podcast about, how do you make money? What are you doing to find financial success? And I kept hearing over and over and over again, real estate. And at first I’m like, “Okay, I’ve had a long-term rental in the past, and it was fine.” It wasn’t overly profitable for me.

[00:07:17] So I wasn’t really that interested in it. But then I started hearing more about short-term rental. And I have a few friends that do short-term rentals and are incredibly successful at it. And so at that time, I was just piecing things together, running numbers, just practicing, getting into the weeds on properties.

[00:07:33] And it started to really click for me because I love the creative side of it. I love how you get to design things and just make it really fun and personalized. And then it also makes a good amount of money. So between the two, that was really where that interest came from.

[00:07:48] Annette: And we shared with you, we were losers of the Airbnb OMG Fund, and you just tipped us off that maybe you had some other ideas. You actually put in more than one entry. Can you share your loser ideas? Are you keeping those–

[00:08:03] Sarah: For future [Inaudible].

[00:08:03] Annette: For future.

[00:08:04] Whitney: No, they are open game to anybody who wants to do this. One of the ideas was a phase two of our geodome project. That just logically made sense. That one was not a winner. I think it just wasn’t overly unique. I get it. But that was one we submitted. And then my partner, Tony, came up with this idea of an RBnB that was a giant treasure chest with the lid that opens. And I’m like, that would be so cool, but I am not the right person for that idea. That sounds so hard. So that was another one of the weird ideas that we came up with.

[00:08:36] Annette: All right. Why do you think it was about the flower pot?

[00:08:40] Whitney: I think it was a combination of the feasibility. We were actually able to do the project. County permissions were already in place. They were okay with the idea. So I think that was a big piece of it. And then we also already owned the land. So I think that also helped in the competition too, to show that we could actually move this forward, and it wasn’t just like a cool pie in the sky idea. So my hunch is that’s probably why if I had to guess.

[00:09:05] Annette: I’m going to confirm that. I’m going to confirm that. Airbnb wants these things to be open and open quick because they want to have this on their OMG.

[00:09:17] Sarah: I would have assumed that you saw this opportunity, took advantage, got the $100,000. That’s your whistle with the Airbnb world. But that’s not true. You actually had your geodome first. How did you know– was it luck, or are you just savvier than most of the world– that unique stays is the ticket to oversaturation, and standing out, and making the most money as possible?

[00:09:43] Whitney: Mm-hmm. I think I’m pretty lucky in the sense that I am that type of traveler. I enjoy the unique stays myself. And so whenever I’m booking a vacation, I’m looking around to see like, what are those really quirky, cool places? There’s a giant dog in Idaho that I’m constantly trying to book, but it’s always booked up. It’s crazy.

[00:10:02] And every time I drive past it, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing.” This has been around since probably the ’80s, and it’s always booked up. And I just thought it was so interesting because that little project alone opened my eyes to the possibilities that people actually do care about this style of travel.

[00:10:20] It’s not just me being a weirdo. There’s a lot of us out there. And so I think that we’re seeing that start to change instead of just a really nice, comfortable condo downtown, which is amazing and there’s still very much a market for that, this whole unique stay piece is really taking off. And I think we’re even seeing that on social media. So I think it was just observing my own style of travel and then looking at the market opportunities. And that really solidified that it was a good idea.

[00:10:49] Annette: Since you are the host of the Money Nerds podcast, the dollars and cents have to make dollars and cents to you. I want to dig in. We all kind of know, “Hey, you got the 100k for the Flower Pot.” Can we go behind the scenes of what it did cost to build the pot and then how that’s working out on your nightly rate? And did you forecast your forecasting ahead of time?

[00:11:14] Whitney: Yeah. So as far as the forecasting goes, I always start here to see how much money should you actually put into a project. I’m a spreadsheet queen. I look at three different scenarios. I look at my best-case scenario, my worst-case scenario, and my mid case. And so what I usually do is I get really worst-case scenario on myself because I’m just very fiscally conservative.

[00:11:37] So I will plug in 30% occupancy, which basically means you’re only rented on weekends, and that’s pretty much it. So if you can make money in my worst-case scenario, for me personally, I’m like, that’s a good investment. I can swing that. I can sleep with that. I’m good with it. I know I’m not going to lose a ton of money. I’m okay.

[00:11:55] Then the average or the mid-case scenario, what I do is I look at AirDNA or tools like that, and I’ll plug in that occupancy rate, that’s the average for the entire area. So I’m assuming I’m not overperforming. I’m just meeting the demand. That’s it. And if you make money there, you’re doing pretty good.

[00:12:13] And then of course, the best-case scenario, I usually will go about 75%. That’s tends to be a really good case scenario for your first year. So I start there with my numbers. And then from there, I can say, okay, here’s how much money it makes sense that this project could afford in my worst and my mid-case scenario.

[00:12:32] So then I can start to see exactly how much a payment might cost me. And then from there, just back into the financials. And so that’s how I start to understand how much money to spend on a specific project. And then for the Flower Pot itself, we already owned the land, so that wasn’t a huge issue.

[00:12:49] That would have been about $70,000 if we would have purchased it. And so with the land already in place, we had to develop it septic, well, bringing over electric, all of that kind of stuff. So all in the build was about $160,000. For just the build.

[00:13:04] Annette: All in though. Okay. So no land, but still 160. So more than half of the build then was part of your winnings. Woo.

[00:13:13] Whitney: I don’t think we would have been able to swing it at that time without the fund. I think it really needed to work out that way. Otherwise, I think we’d just be in a mountain of debt, honestly. It would not be very fun.

[00:13:25] Annette: No, I like that you’re sharing that. So if you had not won the fund, you would have waited to do the build or it may not be built.

[00:13:32] Whitney: Yeah, I think so. I don’t know if that’s the right choice, but for me, I think it was just with my own personal finances. I think that would have made me feel a lot more comfortable to have a lot more money down into the project.

[00:13:45] Sarah: Did you finance any portion of over and beyond the 100k?

[00:13:50] Whitney: Yeah. And this is a really good point, because I don’t think a lot of people think about this when it comes to financing. If you already own the land and specifically don’t have a payment on the land, we did what’s called a lot loan or a land equity loan. And so we were able to tap into some of that equity. It’s a little weird because the way we had to structure it, the bank didn’t like that it was a flower pot and thought this is going to devalue the land. Weird, right?.

[00:14:16] Annette: Devalue. This is amazing.

[00:14:19] Whitney: They thought it would devalue. I’m like, “Well, you might be right. I don’t know.” But they were concerned about that. So we actually had to do a lot loan on the lot that my mom’s flower farm sits on. So weird. So that’s how we were able to structure it, because they wouldn’t actually lend on the specific flower pot land itself.

[00:14:36] Sarah: Interest rate on a lot loan, is it so much like a HELOC or like a line of credit on your property?

[00:14:43] Whitney: Little less. Yeah, it was a little less. This was a commercial lot loan, so it was, I think 7.17%. And it’s a normal 20-year amortized loan, but we’re paying it off in three. So it just depends on how you structure it.

[00:14:57] Sarah: No balloon payment, and the rate is fixed. Once it was set, that was it. That’s awesome.

[00:15:02] Annette: When the county came out to do property taxes, is it the same assessment? And what is the square footage? It’s something that’s circular, and it’s two storeys. Or do we not want to talk about that because maybe they don’t even know?

[00:15:21] Whitney: No, they definitely know. They actually are really very supportive of it, which is cool. It’s 423 square feet, and it’s just assessed based on the normal square footage. So I don’t think it’s assessed as very, very much. I don’t know. I’d have to look at my taxes for this year. TBD. I’ll let you know.

[00:15:40] Annette: That’s okay. Going back to AirDNA, comp sets, you with this unique stay, how do you come up with your nightly pricing strategy? Because to me, you don’t have competition. So how was that in the beginning, and how have you worked out your pricing for the Flower Pot? What’s your art and science?

[00:16:01] Whitney: Glad you said that because it is art and science. It’s really tricky. I think what I usually do is I’ll start with other unique short-term rentals, not necessarily directly in the area, but in general. What are they going for? You can start to understand the willingness to pay when you start to see other geo domes. What are other unique properties? What does the Big Idaho Potato charge?

[00:16:23] So you can start to see all of the different properties and get a good range of what’s normal for your type of property. And then from there, you have to make that decision of what are you personally comfortable with.

[00:16:36] We had some experience with our geodome of renting it out. And what we personally found is anything under 120 bucks a night, your guests are not the best. They’re harder to deal with. They’re a little bit more difficult, and they expect a lot, honestly, at that price point. And so we knew our bare minimum would be at least 175 a night.

[00:16:56] And then from there, we start to adjust the rate based on the occupancy. So if we’re solid booked, which we haven’t been yet, but we’ve been pretty close, then we know it’s time to raise the rates. So that’s how we, I guess, view it. It takes a little bit of time.

[00:17:10] Sarah: Are you willing to share? When did you put the pot into operation?

[00:17:15] Whitney: Mid-December of last year.

[00:17:16] Sarah: Of 2023?

[00:17:18] Whitney: 2023, yes.

[00:17:19] Sarah: So you’ve been in operation almost for a full year now.

[00:17:22] Whitney: Almost. Yeah.

[00:17:23] Sarah: Are you willing to share how much it brings in a year? Do you know?

[00:17:25] Whitney: Yeah, yeah. Happy to. I think this year we’ll probably hit about 55,000. I think we’re currently at 45.

[00:17:34] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:17:34] Annette: That’s awesome.

[00:17:35] Sarah: And I think after this year of you playing with rate in the different seasons, next year you can get even more aggressive because you can take what you learned. Because some of you are afraid of making mistakes when it comes to pricing, especially when it’s unique like that, but I think the first year of learning is so valuable so that the next year– obviously, you’re still going to remain conservative and allocate your funds accordingly, but I think you’re going to be able to hit that out of the park and do better next year. What do you think?

[00:18:01] Whitney: I think so too. We noticed over the summer, part of the flower pot is that flower farm piece, and so we would include a flower picking experience where guests could have a couple vases, go pick their own flowers, and just have a really good time. And I think we were priced at 200 a night during the week, 225 on weekends. And now that I’ve gone through a full summer, I know we could easily increase that price to about 250. And so we’re going to test that next summer and just see how it goes.

[00:18:28] Annette: We saw that in your reviews over and over, the flower picking experience alongside.

[00:18:33] Whitney: People love it. Yeah.

[00:18:34] Annette: And we can share we were looking at your listing and your reviews, and your pricing is probably spot on because you’re at 4.9 when it comes to value. So you’re crushing it in the value department there. You also have the geodesic dome, and I know you are a huge advocate for unique stays. Can you just share with us why you’re passionate about making sure that you have unique stays for your guests?

[00:18:58] Whitney: I just think they’re just so much fun. As a host, it’s just so enjoyable to create these memories for people and be part of it. When you hear people are getting engaged at your property and they are booking this for their 7th anniversary, it’s just these really special memories that I think as a host, make it so much fun.

[00:19:18] And then it also is just so much fun for the marketing side of it. When you have to talk about your property and you have to get on social media and podcasts, whatever it is, when you can talk about it, it is such a fun experience if you actually love your property. And so I think it makes it a lot easier when they are unique.

[00:19:36] So I don’t know. I just think they’re the best. I really do. And I think they tend to perform really well. So to give you an example of this, our geodome is a tent, truly. It’s a glorified tent. It’s nice. We have a port-a-potty. We have a sauna. There’s obviously some element of luxury.

[00:19:55] Annette: Why do you need a port-a-potty? Because I did see zero baths. Is it a permanent port-a-potty?

[00:20:00] Whitney: No, it’s a temporary port-a-potty that we have serviced every single week, so it’s super, super clean, but it still is a port-a-potty.

[00:20:09] Annette: No, that’s the sauna.

[00:20:11] Whitney: Yeah, the sauna is really fun.

[00:20:12] Annette: The port-a-potty is not pictured.

[00:20:15] Whitney: No.

[00:20:15] Sarah: It is like a black structure though? Does it look–

[00:20:18] Whitney: It’s like a tan structure.

[00:20:20] Annette: It’s legit a plastic port-a-potty, right?

[00:20:22] Whitney: Quite seriously, yeah.

[00:20:23] Annette: Yeah, it’s a port-a-potty, like she’s saying.

[00:20:26] Whitney: It is.

[00:20:26] Annette: Yeah.

[00:20:27] Whitney: Yeah. So that’s at the top of the hill. But it’s so interesting when I look at the numbers. There’s some gorgeous cabins in the area that are 150 bucks a night, and our lowest rate is 155. And when I look at the data, we tend to be more booked than they are. And so I feel like if nobody’s really sold on the unique stays case, go look at yurts, go look at bell tents, geodomes, tree houses. All of those weird structures, they’re rented. They really are.

[00:20:58] Annette: Okay, we’re doing our own market. Sarah and I just bought some land last year. So wait, is there a shower at this geodome? So literally, port-a-potties, let’s go. Whitney, you’re my inspiration for my glamping. Port-a potties.

[00:21:13] Sarah: I am not our guest avatar, Whitney. I’m like, “No.” I need a nice hotel room with an Italian stone shower.

[00:21:21] Annette: It’s part of the experience though.

[00:21:23] Sarah: I don’t want to be part of that experience. But I love that people want that experience. So is the geodome still doing well this year, Whitney?

[00:21:30] Whitney: We take a little bit of a hit. In Idaho, we had some major fires that were all surrounding the areas, terrible fire year. So that has for sure affected our occupancy. We had a lot of people moving dates and canceling, that kind of stuff, but as a whole, it still is doing better than the previous year.

[00:21:48] What we’re noticing with this property specifically, and I don’t have any idea exactly why, but it’s a lot more maybe in that two to three-week out bookings. And so before it used to be maybe a month or two. So that time period for booking is starting to get a little bit smaller, which is interesting. So a little bit more last-minute travelers.

[00:22:07] Annette: Just to share with all of our listeners, we are hearing that same sentiment, Whitney, from every host that we know. Their booking window is shrinking.

[00:22:17] Sarah: It’s backed by data. So we were at the Vacation Rental Management Association, Whitney, and that is US data wide. The booking window is much shorter. It might have to do with it being an election year and people holding a little tighter to their purses and their wallets because they’re just not sure financially where they’re sitting. You know what I mean?

[00:22:37] And so they might make a last-minute decision because your prices are, I don’t know, maybe if they found out this affordable, or they got a day off from work, or what have you. And so what we’ve learned, though, Whitney, I don’t know about you, but we do know that even though that booking window has shortened, when people do go on to book, they’re ready to buy. They’re ready to convert. I don’t know, there just seems to be like, okay, yes, it’s shorter, but at least we know we’re going to get booked if we got a solid property. Have you found that to be true?

[00:23:07] Whitney: I have actually, and we’re starting to see that a lot more too. And we’re starting to see a lot more of our social media people being more of those last-minute bookings. Like when we have an opening for a random Friday, we’ll post about it, and then within a couple of days, it usually gets booked up.

[00:23:24] And so we’re starting to lean more on social media too to fill those vacancies within even our Airbnb calendar. We don’t do direct bookings yet. We will soon, but we don’t yet. And so that’s the next piece of that puzzle too, is just making sure you’re promoting your days that aren’t filled yet.

[00:23:41] Annette: I have a question, selfishly for Sarah and I and our project, but I know this is going to help others. With your glamping site, with the glorified tent– I love that you called it that– what are some guest complaints that you have to combat with it being more of a– and just unique stays in general. Because it isn’t a normal house. And so what are some of those complaints that you get or that you can share with us, maybe part of the challenges in having a unique stay?

[00:24:10] Whitney: I will say for the dome, it might be a little bit different because it tends to be based more on seasonality. You guys are familiar with domes too, so you probably know this. They get super hot in the summer, super cold in the winter. And so it’s extreme temperatures. It really is.

[00:24:27] And so what we initially had complaints on was it being really hot in the summer and it being really cold in the winter. And so what we had to do is we took that– if you have one or two people that say that, it’s probably time to just think about it. How do you incorporate that into your communication?

[00:24:44] So then we started to change our marketing messages and our emails that remind people of their stay and key codes and all that kind of stuff to be a lot more aligned with that. So even before they book, you can do a little box that I think it’s like last minute things they should know or something like that.

[00:25:01] So we have in there that by booking this, she recognized this as a camping experience, not a cabin experience. And that has really helped just a lot of that stuff. Flower Pot, not too many issues. I’d say the bigger things that we’re starting to see that I would say as a guest complaint so far would be maybe lack of privacy because it is incorporated into the farm. So then instead of changing the entire property, I have to just communicate that more effectively. So that’s how we view that.

[00:25:31] Annette: No, that’s good. And is the dome open the whole year? It’s a full year experience. Wow.

[00:25:36] Whitney: People love it in the winter because it feels like a snow globe. It’s so beautiful and so magical, and you’re just sitting there, and the snow’s coming down. You’ve got your wood stove to keep you warm. It really is a cool experience.

[00:25:48] Annette: Wow. If you don’t mind, we want to get into the numbers of the dome. Can you go through the land, the build out, the purchase, those financials?

[00:25:59] Whitney: Yeah. So we ended up purchasing the property in, I think it was 2020. So it was right before the market did its crazy stuff. So we purchased one acre on a very sloped lot for $35,000. No utilities at all. And we’re like, “It’s cool. We like the land.” It’s pretty neat. There’s these large granite boulders that would make it fun, but it wasn’t a good lot for building a traditional home on.

[00:26:23] So we purchased that one for 35. And I think we put about 70-ish into the whole project. We did all the work ourselves. Structurally engineered the foundation. We went through Pacific domes for our dome. We did have to do some upgraded struts to meet more of the snow load requirements there. And then the insulation layer is a little bit pricey too, but that’s how much we were looking at. So about $100,000 for the entire build.

[00:26:49] Annette: Your math is mathing on all your projects. It’s penciling out very well. Wow, that is amazing. But it does look like you’ve added– you have a sauna with the dome, right? Is there any sort of kitchen? Is there any water at all in the property?

[00:27:06] Whitney: No, there isn’t any water at all. So we tell guests to bring at least a few gallons of water. So that way they have enough for cooking, for boiling water, for coffee, tea, whatever. So that generally helps. But again, we remind people, this is a camping experience. It’s a really, really beautiful property, but it is not a house.

[00:27:26] And so I think if you go into it with that expectation, it helps them be more prepared for what they’re getting into. So we do have a little small cooktop that’s a butane canister that we provide. We’ve got French press, that kind of stuff. And we just cycle through the mugs and the French press. Our caretaker will take it at home, get it all cleaned up, and bring it back. That’s how we do the kitchen side.

[00:27:49] Annette: With unique stays, can you share what is the length of stay? What’s your average length of stay? Because the dome, there’s not a bathroom. Are these one-night wonders? What’s happening with both of them with the experiences since they are unique?

[00:28:03] Whitney: I would the ones that do book, I would say it’s probably one to two nights. We don’t really do too much more than that at the dome. I think we even have a three-night max because anything after that, you’re not going to really enjoy your stay that much.

[00:28:17] Annette: Yeah. You want them to get some water because they need to use the bathroom.

[00:28:19] Whitney: They need to go shower, get out of here. So that does tend to be the thing, but it’s really interesting. So something that we’re playing with this year is for both properties, we’ve had so many people that book one night, and in their reviews, they’ll tell us, “Oh man, we wish we would have booked another.”

[00:28:35] So we’re playing with what’s called orphan nights. I don’t know if that’s the technical term. So we’re playing with that of like, okay, can we give them a half off rate? Can it be a 50-dollar a night rate, whatever? Just to get them to stay one more night. And I think that’s going to help quite a bit too.

[00:28:52] Annette: Yeah. And our membership, our members are crushing it. We call them gap nights inside our membership. And this is a message for everybody listening right now, even Whitney, if people are enjoying, they’re saying like, “Oh my gosh, this place is awesome,” and you know it’s still not booked for the next day, you could offer it to them, like, “Do you want to extend your stay?”

[00:29:11] So that’s what we’ve had a lot of our members– especially if people are like giving that feedback. Oh, well, stay longer. Especially when you’re right in that moment, and they’ve already chosen you. So it’s easy for them. It’s an easy yes. Make that offer. Get that next night booked. Especially if you know the guest is in, they’re hopefully taking care of the property, you’re good to go there.

[00:29:34] Sarah: I want to go back to your social media comment. How many followers do you have?

[00:29:39] Whitney: Not a ton. So on the dome, we have shy of 6,000. On the Flower Pot, I think we’re a little bit over 6,000. And so that it’s enough for you to get bookings. I start to recognize the names. And so it’s really interesting, which is another note for hosts. Be really careful. I see sometimes hosts get on social media and we’ll trash talk their guests or they have someone that was a pain in the butt. There’s been times where, I’m going to be honest, I have wanted to, but I go on there and I’m like, “Oh my God, they were following me.” That would have been mortifying. So just be professional. That’s my only social media tip there.

[00:30:17] Annette: Let’s go into that because Sarah and I do rant about this too. And when hosts are online, let’s say, roasting their guests, what about the next person that wants to stay with you? Imagine going on to like, let’s say, the Ritz-Carlton social media and they’re like, can you believe the way this guest just left– you would never stay with them, right?

[00:30:38] You are a brand, a trusted brand. And so I want hosts to consider themselves as a trusted brand. There’s some fun things to share, obviously, but there are boundaries that we need to set as far as hosting, for sure.

[00:30:51] Whitney: I think so too. And not to mention that, we tell this to our cleaners and our caretakers as well. We love our guests. Our guests are incredible. They truly are really, really amazing people. They are fun. They’re unique. They experience all the quirkiness. They love the details. They are really incredible people.

[00:31:11] We might occasionally get one person that sucks. That’s very, very normal. But as a whole, we want our guests to know that we do care about them too. So even if you have someone that’s a little messier or they took something or broke something, it’s nature of business. Just move on. But I agree with you. If someone’s trash talking their guests all the time, I don’t think I want to stay there.

[00:31:32] Sarah: It also just creates for your own mindset, I think. It’s like trash out, trash in, trash in, trash out. It’s just not a good place to put yourself mentally. One more social media question before we pivot to maybe operations. I don’t know where your brain was going. But first of all, I just want to call out that I feel like there’s so many hosts out there that feel like if they don’t have this giant following, it’s not worth it to lean into their social media.

[00:31:56] And if you think about it, if you are in a room full of 6,000 people, obviously Instagram doesn’t serve it up to all 6,000 followers. That’s frustrating, but that’s a lot of people to potentially see your content. And so just real quick, how often do you post? Is it only if you have a special offer? Do you do it consistently? What works for you guys?

[00:32:19] Whitney: How often should I post? No. How often I shouldn’t do or different. What I currently do probably about twice a week is my cadence. I would prefer to be at least four times a week. So that’s the goal that I aspire to. But I try to do just different random videos here and there.

[00:32:38] So the way I will get content myself, because I know getting content is sometimes so hard when you’re so busy and you’re in and out between 11:00 and 3:00, and you’ve got places– it’s really challenging. So what I try to do is I try to capture at least some elements of content every single time I go down to a property.

[00:32:55] So if I’m dropping off new flowers for the rooftop patio, I’m going down there. I’m recording some clips. I’m starting to just get some content. And then I just save it to my phone and have a little folder that’s named for that specific property. So then I can start to piece things together. But it is important.

[00:33:14] I think anytime you add a new feature, you always want to highlight that. If you have any cool guest reviews, those ones don’t tend to do very well from a reach perspective, but it’s not about getting the most people to see that. It’s about getting the right people to see that. So I think it’s just a different strategy for that one too.

[00:33:33] Annette: I love that quote. It’s not about getting the most, but it’s getting the right people. Because if it’s someone getting ready to book and they see that positive review, it’s that social proof that confirms that they should stay with you. Since you do have an OMG property, I can only imagine that you are getting so many messages about influencers wanting free stays. So I know there’s so many hosts out there that are combating this, and they don’t even have a unique stay. How do you handle influencer outreach? And if you could share how many people are reaching out to you.

[00:34:07] Whitney: It’s a lot. We probably get 5 to 10 per week. It truly is a lot of people. And so the Flower Pot is more than the dome, but it’s the dome probably maybe three to four a week. So it is still a good amount of people. And I’ve noticed the more you work with influencers, the more requests you get, which is a good problem to have. So the way that we approach it is if I’m looking at, say, my November calendar and it’s sucking right now, I’m like, “Oh man, I don’t have enough bookings,” I will, if it’s a good fit, take on influencers for an exchange.

[00:34:43] I don’t pay influencers to stay. If I don’t really have a ton of availability, or I’m not sure if it’s going to be a great fit, sometimes what I’ll do is I’ll have them cover the cleaning fee, and I will just take the nightly loss, and that’s fine. So I don’t have to pay for the cleaning fee still. So that’s how I will usually approach it, but it tends to be, if I have the availability, I will accept an influencer. I’ve noticed that it makes a big difference.

[00:35:08] Annette: Do you set parameters, though? Are there deliverables? Do you have that set in stone, like for a nightly stay, I need a reel? I need some video. I need some stills. What is that exchange? How do you do that?

[00:35:20] Whitney: Yeah. Somewhat. I didn’t at first, and it bit me a few times. And so I’ve learned that there’s no contract in place or anything like that. But what I’ll do is I will say, “Hey, typically what we expect is at least one reel and then a few stories highlighting your experience.” And what I find is most people will go above and beyond that.

[00:35:41] Especially if they’re new influencers that are up and coming and are really, really creative and great, they tend to over deliver and give you the best content. And so those are the ones that I love working with. If it’s somebody that has 200,000 followers versus 10,000 or 5,000, I’m going to choose the lesser followers if it’s a better fit. Because I have found that those micro local influencers, they drive bookings. They really do. The ones that have these massive followings, it’s fun content, but it doesn’t really generate bookings.

[00:36:13] Annette: It goes back to that quote that you said; it’s not about the most, it’s about the right follower. When you say that they are showing results for you, how are you tracking those results? Is it that you see the bookings come in right after they post? How do you know that particular influencer brought in that reservation?

[00:36:31] Whitney: You don’t know exactly, but you have a pretty good idea. So what I’ve noticed is if we did, say, it was a giveaway collab with a local page, and it was leave a comment, like, share this post, and then from there, you’ll be entered into a free one-night giveaway. So if that’s the case, what I can do is I can start to see my bookings. And if I started to get a ton of bookings all within a few days of that post going live, it’s not perfect, but it’s probably that, especially if I can compare it to the previous weeks.

[00:37:03] And so I do track it. I have a spreadsheet, and I say, “Okay, this influencer stayed. This is roughly the results we got. We got roughly this many bookings.” So then if they come back through our area, they’re like, “Hey, do you want to collab again?” “Absolutely, we do.” Last time we got nine bookings from that person. So we can start to see if it makes sense from a financial standpoint.

[00:37:25] Annette: I heard, maybe you’re getting between both properties fifteen outreaches a week in the DMs. Do you have just a response that you respond to all of them? Do you even respond to all of these? Because I know a lot of hosts, they feel this pressure to get back to the influencer. How am I going to tell them no? Do you have something that you give back to everyone, or do you cherry pick who you even reach back out to?

[00:37:49] Whitney: I usually cherry pick. I really do. So sometimes it depends. If it’s somebody that I would like to collab with, but they have very specific dates that don’t work, that’s an easy one to just reach out, “Hey, next time you’re in the area, let us know.”

[00:38:02] If it’s somebody that I want to collaborate with but I’m still watching to see if their content’s a good fit, maybe they’re a new influencer. Are they going to burn out in a month? Are they still sticking around? I’ll observe that for a little bit and just tell them, “Hey, May is when we start to have flowers blooming. We’d love to get some new content around that time if you’re interested.”

[00:38:23] So sometimes we’ll key into seasons. If I notice I’m like lacking on my winter content, I’ll try to push influencers to winter and vice versa. So you can stagger it too if you’re not sure by pushing that out a little bit. And sometimes the good ones will follow up and stay in contact. That’s who you want. And then the other ones that are like, “Ahh, that’s too far out for me. I was just looking for this weekend for my date night.” Those ones tend to go away a little bit more.

[00:38:48] Annette: And can you share your Instagram handles with our listeners right now? We’ll have it in the show notes, but if you could just verbally give them too.

[00:38:54] Whitney: Yeah. The flower pot is @idahoflowerpot, and the dome is @cascadedome.

[00:38:59] Annette: So over the course of a year, if you could dissect, how many influencer stays have you hosted?

[00:39:06] Whitney: Oh man. I would say for the Flower Pot, we probably have at least one to two per month.

[00:39:16] Annette: Okay. That’s good. Just to give our listeners a baseline.

[00:39:19] Whitney: And that’s a newer property. So we really lean into that of that one to two. It does cost money. You do miss out on bookings, but it does increase your occupancy. It helps your social media grow. You get more exposure. I think it’s super worth it. The dome we don’t do as much with anymore because it’s a more established property. So we don’t do quite as many with that property now.

[00:39:41] Sarah: You mentioned early in the episode that you are considering doing direct bookings. I know it’s a big topic, but we wonder sometimes why it’s a big topic. Why are you considering starting direct bookings, and what’s your toe in the water for that? What’s going to make you start accepting them, and what was the catalyst for even thinking about doing that?

[00:40:05] Whitney: I think the direct bookings, as we started to notice from our Airbnb, is how many people were brand new to the platform that, I don’t know this for sure, but I suspect only signed up because they want to stay at one of the properties. And if that’s the only way that they can get involved in staying at the property, is to sign up for an Airbnb account, maybe they don’t like it– there’s lots of reasons why somebody may not– then I’m turning away a lot of customers.

[00:40:31] So I think the benefits are, from a direct booking standpoint, you control your marketing fully. If you want to collect a deposit, which I do not, but if you did, you could do that. There’s so many different ways that you can market it. You can do Google ads behind it and control all of that traffic. So I think it’s that ultra control of website clicks, cookies, and that kind of stuff that is more interesting to me.

[00:40:54] And then you can also save your guests a little bit of money so they don’t have to pay all the extra Airbnb fees, where you still make the same amount or more, but they’re paying a little bit less. So that, I think, is a really enticing argument.

[00:41:07] Sarah: Do you know what your current Airbnb host fees are set at?

[00:41:11] Whitney: I don’t, actually.

[00:41:12] Sarah: Yeah. They range anywhere from 3 to 15%, so I was just wondering what it was like in your market. How do you think you’ll do it? Are you thinking you’ll get on a property management software? Are you going to do something more in the box like Wix or Squarespace? Have you even thought that far?

[00:41:33] Whitney: With the dome, that’s going to be our guinea pig into this world. So we already have a website created for that, and it’s already set up to where you could just click a button and it would go to a booking site. So that’s the one we’re going to start with just to see the ease and some of the difficulties that come up. The Flower Pot, we have to legally wait a full year before we can do any bookings off of Airbnb. That’s per their contract. So we have to wait on that one. Yeah.

[00:41:59] Annette: That makes sense. Smart.

[00:42:02] Whitney: I know, right? It was smart.

[00:42:04] Annette: Right. Because you could have taken the winnings, did a direct booking site, and probably got filled, and, oh, yeah.

[00:42:13] Whitney: Yeah, yeah. So they did cover their butt in that way too. But that’s how we’ll probably do it. We might do Lodgify or something like that. I’m not totally married to anything yet, but we’re still exploring what’s the easiest way for us to create it and manage it because it’s all me. So it’s something that I need it to be plug and play.

[00:42:33] Annette: Do you have another unique stay in the works?

[00:42:37] Whitney: I have the idea for one. So there’s a property that I have been dreaming up called the observatory. And what I would love that to look like is a really tiny house. I’m into the tiny houses for cost reasons. So tiny house that has a little round observatory outlook area that’s attached to it. And so you could go up there and just read a book and hang out. And so that’s one of the properties that’s on my mind right now.

[00:43:04] Sarah: For you, are you still messaging and speaking with guests? Are you doing literally everything other than, you mentioned cleaners and caretakers. So other than cleaning it and keeping it stocked, that sort of thing, everything else is you?

[00:43:15] Whitney: Mm-hmm. 100%.

[00:43:17] Sarah: And you have a full-time job, correct? You’re self-employed?

[00:43:20] Whitney: Yeah, self-employed. So it makes it easy. If you get a message, you can easily jump on and reply. So it’s not too difficult. And then if I’m traveling to one of the properties and I’m out of service, my mom is my partner on the flower pot. I’ll tell her to keep an eye out on messages. My fiance is partner on the dome. I’ll say, “Hey, watch the messages.” So we have it covered pretty well. It’s not the best, but I think we don’t really get that many messages from guests because our pre-communication is so good.

[00:43:47] Sarah: I love that. Have you gone on vacation yet where you just don’t want to be on? And what about if you go on vacation with a partner? Does mom then do the dome, or do you maybe just close it down for a couple of days while you’re gone? What do you do?

[00:43:59] Whitney: No, we still monitor. So it’s not too big of an issue. We haven’t been fully off-grid. No backpacking trips or anything where you don’t have any service. That would scare the crap out of me actually. But that’s not my fiance style either though. So I think I’m good. It would be always one of us. But I think it’s not too bad. You always just have it plugged in. You always have to check your messages, but I think you just get used to that side of the business.

[00:44:22] Annette: And before we wrap up the episode, if you could share, because you are not only in business with your mom– you’re in business with your fiance– are those properties separate? She’s your partner on it. Can you give us some insight on how that’s been working so closely with your two probably main people, two of the main people in your life, being in this real estate and unique stays with them?

[00:44:46] Whitney: It’s a beautiful challenge. I’ll say that. So with Tony, my fiance, it’s very easy, very clean cut. We’ve been together over 20 years, so we can be direct with each other. We can call each other out. It’s super, super easy. But I will say sometimes the challenge is if I’m picking up more of the pieces, which I often am because I am self-employed, so I’m more flexible.

[00:45:11] So that tends to be some of the challenges, but we are really good about dividing and conquering. So he knows that I primarily run the dome, and he will occasionally step in. That’s how we’ve established that. If I were to take more of a salary, I would get paid more than he would. He’s in agreement. We’re fine with that.

[00:45:30] With the Flower Pot, it’s a little trickier. My mom doesn’t have a ton of experience with hospitality, and real estate, and running a business. So that one we do tend to butt heads a little bit more so in a kind way, but it is more challenging.

[00:45:45] Annette: No, we like that honesty that that’s more of a challenge there. But seems extremely, extremely successful for all parties.

[00:45:55] Sarah: I’ve got some rapid-fire questions for you, Whitney. You’ve been hosting now for a few years. So whether it’s the dome or the pot, what’s your favorite in-house product, whether it’s your sheets, your mattress, your dishes, your coffee pot? What’s your like, “God, this is awesome. I love it. I would put it in all my properties?”

[00:46:14] Whitney: Okay, I have two. One is a Casper mattress. I love it. We get the most compliments on that all the time. Just the OG, nothing special. And then the second one is another bedroom item. Kirkland sheets, man. I’ve tested this with Target sheets and expensive ones. I swear by the Kirkland ones. I think they’re the best.

[00:46:34] Annette: Are they cotton?

[00:46:35] Whitney: They are, and what I’ve noticed that they don’t wrinkle as much, and they don’t attract hair as much. So I have been such a huge fan of them.

[00:46:43] Sarah: What’s your favorite amenity? It could be like a mint to your hot tub to the shampoo you use.

[00:46:49] Annette: Or your record player. Oh, no, that’s not– you’re thinking more of reusable.

[00:46:53] Sarah: Doesn’t matter. Yeah, whatever thing that you offer your guests that you don’t necessarily have to. What’s your favorite thing?

[00:46:58] Whitney: I think either a hot tub or a sauna, depending on the property type. Those two are just little luxuries that people don’t expect.

[00:47:05] Sarah: Whitney? Anything else you want to share with our hosting world that you would love for people to know about or any tidbit of lesson learned or a piece of advice that you think would be helpful?

[00:47:14] Whitney: I just hope that people consider the unique stays. I know they’re challenging. They’re hard to finance. They can be a huge pain in the butt, but I think that challenge there is also the advantage. It makes it so much more interesting. You have to be resourceful with your money. So they tend to be a little bit less expensive when you get done with them because you had to watch your costs so closely. And I think they outperform. I really do. So I think in 5, 10 years, you would regret not doing one.

[00:47:42] Annette: When we stop pressing record, Sarah and I are going to have some serious conversation because you’re the first and very sought-after host. You don’t even have a bathroom. Sometimes we’re our own roadblock. We’ve owned this land for a year. We could have put a tent and a port-a-potty out there.

[00:48:02] Sometimes we make things so much harder than they need to be. And the thing that we don’t offer might be the thing that people are actually seeking. That’s part of that camping experience, is mind blowing to me. So I hope there are other people–

[00:48:16] Sarah: You have an outhouse.

[00:48:16] Whitney: What’s that?

[00:48:17] Sarah: You have an outhouse. I don’t think you don’t have a bathroom.

[00:48:21] Whitney: It’s not the tree, but it’s still there.

[00:48:23] Annette: Yeah.

[00:48:24] Sarah: No, that’s incredible. Yeah, you’ve really stretched your dollar and in turn have these amazing experiences. So Whitney, thank you so much for your time today. We’ll make sure we’ll put all the links, Instagram handles, and all the things in the show notes. And with that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:48:41] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:48:43] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:48:44] Sarah: Talk to you next time.