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440. Hosting Hotline: How Do I Stay Organized as a New Airbnb Host?

Welcome to the Hosting Hotline

Sarah Karakaian: [00:00:00] [00:00:30] [00:01:00] Hello, welcome back to another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

Annette Grant: I’m Annette Grant and together we are Thanks for Visiting

Sarah Karakaian: and this is the Hosting Hotline. If you want to get your hosting questions answered here on the Hosting Hotline, go to hostinghotline. com, ask your question and we’ll answer it here on the podcast.

Angie’s Question on Getting Organized

Sarah Karakaian: Today we have a great question from a new Hosting Business Mastery member, Angie.

Hosting Hotline Caller: Hi, my name is Angie. I am new to short term renting and I just joined [00:01:30] your new hosting class. I’m started listening to the modules and I just have a question for you. What do you recommend for resources to kind of get organized?

Hosting Hotline Caller: In other words, do you guys have planners that you love? How do you keep track of like, you know, the stuff that you guys are talking about in the class in an organized way?

Sarah Karakaian: First of all, we are gonna tell Angie that she has direct access to us via our private group. Yes.

Annette Grant: But we love that you ask the question here, Angie.

Sarah Karakaian: Yeah. [00:02:00]

Annette Grant: And for those of you that don’t know, Angie is speaking. She is a new member of our hosting business mastery, and we dig in. We go deep with podcast listeners, with YouTube subscribers, with any of you out there. Um, so, uh, we have our wait list open for that right now, but, um, love to help host, uh, dig in, go behind the scenes and just increase their revenue, uh, their efficiency and overall hospitality.

Annette Grant: with their guests.

Annette’s Approach to Organization

Annette Grant: So [00:02:30] Angie, we want to, um, Sarah loves to talk about this, but I just like to share my side because I am, um, I was just like you, I still am actually, I still physically write things down just because for my brain, it helps me to get everything out, but I take everything from handwritten into a digital form.

Annette Grant: digital planner now, and that is my Google calendar. And then task management is Asana. [00:03:00] So I do old school way. I have to just get it out, pen to paper, because I feel like I actually feel like I can write faster than I can type, which that sounds very counterintuitive, I think, but I or I just don’t like to have a device in front of me all the time.

Annette Grant: So let’s say it’s in the morning. I’m drinking my coffee. I like to just write things down. Then I go to My calendar. If things are not in my calendar, they do not get done. So Angie, for example, organizing, let’s say, um, coming to [00:03:30] the calls that we have inside hosting business mastery, I would make sure to absolutely just get all of those calendared because showing up live will be awesome to be there and be on our calls.

Annette Grant: And we send those out at the beginning of the month. So anything like that, get it in the calendar. If it’s not on my calendar, it doesn’t happen. And then secondarily, as far as like going through Even let’s say the hosting business mastery, um, modules or anything like I then as the topics come up, we, we put those in our Asana board and Sarah will dig [00:04:00] in cause she’s the aficionado there, but making sure that if there is something that I need to get done, whether it’s for work, whether I actually use Asana for my personal life now, but I have two things that happen in there.

Annette Grant: I have tasks that are one offs and then I have recurring tasks. So I think for you, Angie, the one off task for just digging into the curriculum, taking notes, things that you want to do, I would do that. And then recurring tasks for your property. I would also set those up and I’m going to let Sarah get into the [00:04:30] details of how to actually do that because I’m still a work in progress and progress over perfection here.

Sarah Karakaian: And so that this episode, Angie, we want this to obviously help all the listeners as well.

Sarah’s Digital Organization Tips

Sarah Karakaian: I, I, the only thing that’s different between Annette and me is I skip the handwritten part. I just, I just have Asana on my phone or you could have a notepad on your phone if you want to like jot down your ideas. Um, I am maybe.

Sarah Karakaian: Too far obsessed with efficiency and productivity. So I, I’ll go right into Asana [00:05:00] and make it, you know, a task. But what you can do, and this goes for everyone.

Using Asana for Task Management

Sarah Karakaian: We have some, so in Asana or any project management, um, software, or you could even use a Google document if you want to. I would make headers that are, Um, topics for different areas of your business.

Sarah Karakaian: So Angie, these headers could be the topics of our course modules and then underneath it you could have all the little, um, whether it’s a task or thing you want to [00:05:30] learn or thing you want to implement or dig in further underneath it for your hosting business. An example of the different topics of each section of an, like an Asana board, for example, could be revenue management, monthly bookkeeper reconciliation.

Sarah Karakaian: Listing updates, responding to reviews, new client or home acquisition, email marketing. So see how these are social media. These are big ideas. And of course, a lot of little tasks have to be done to get those big [00:06:00] ideas done. And a lot of these are monthly recurring tasks that we all need to do to have our hosting business run efficiently.

Sarah Karakaian: And so those might be topics and underneath them, I would have a combination of both recurring tasks, whether it’s weekly or monthly. Or daily or one off tasks like Annette was talking about.

Annette Grant: Let’s, um, really quick because I want Sarah to dig into some particular one offs versus recurring again. But for those of you out there, Asana is A S A N A.

Annette Grant: I know [00:06:30] sometimes I’m just odd or odd. Audio, it’s hard to decipher that. So A S A N A. And Asana has a free version. So I do want to let you know that this is something that you could download to your phone and computer. And it, and you can, you know, work simultaneously from your mobile phone to your computer.

Annette Grant: That’s what we also love about it because it’s great. with us all the time. Because I know like if things are written down, sometimes that’s at my house and not my purse or in my car, not with me. But Sarah, let’s go through.

Balancing Property and Business Tasks

Annette Grant: Let’s get some very [00:07:00] specific short term rental. Like, let’s talk about maybe maintenance that needs to be done at the property.

Annette Grant: You know, how would those things go into a sauna as these checklists? Let’s say you’re in the home noticing things that you need to get done?

Sarah Karakaian: Well, and this is this is a good question. I don’t want to get too Lost in the sauce. Correct. But I’m gonna say it anyway. Things that happen in the property, I, and I’m not just saying this, but I really do recommend you guys all get breezeway.

Sarah Karakaian: Breezeway is free for your first property. I will tell you everything that goes to my [00:07:30] property world, like in the property, like physically, a thing about my property all goes into breezeway. And that way my asana and breezeway are truly separate because I think what happens in the property and what happens in my business are two different things, and I really do like to.

Sarah Karakaian: Uh, silo different areas of the business. I think it helps me keep things straight personally. Now coach Wendy inside of our, inside of the mastery, she really puts everything in breezeway. She created a fake property. And so her [00:08:00] team, whenever they have tasks they have to do, it goes under the fake property and breezeway.

Annette Grant: Okay.

Sarah Karakaian: That, and that works for her. And I looked at it, I was like, this is, this is great. And that is why the last tip is everyone take these basic constructs and make them your own. Yeah, it works for you.

Annette Grant: And I, I, I don’t know. I think we just want to share this because this is Sarah and I on a daily daily basis because I know you hear us on the podcast and we’re like Asana and Breezeway and this, that and the other.

Time Management and Productivity Tips

Annette Grant: Y’all, we still [00:08:30] underestimate how long things are going to take us. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so why would if you put something on your calendar? If you actually look at our calendar right now, you will see we have these times. It just says buffer, buffer, buffer, buffer, because it’s like that’s us. Just knowing that we’re going to need a buffer of time to get things done.

Annette Grant: So please give yourself grace. Everyone, if it’s a new property, it’s a new undertaking, a new, something new that you’re doing always a lot, way more time than you think you need. [00:09:00] Um, I guess not a lot that time, like, cause I do, you know, things, what’s that parade is all like, if you, if you stretch out time, you’ll take all that time to get things done.

Annette Grant: Give yourself, you know, an allotted time, but also just give yourself a little buffer, um, whether that be drive time, whether that be, oh, snap, that took a lot longer, but give yourself. So give yourself grace, um, when you’re working inside, um, in the calendar when you’re working inside Asana, just, um, it’s, it’s all progress over perfection here.

Sarah Karakaian: I want to go back [00:09:30] to the, the different sections. So property tasks aside, Angie and everyone else, let’s talk about things that are just in our hosting business. For example, let’s say listing updates. I told you it was a category. So, depending on how many listings you have, sitting down and doing one listing and updating it might take you 30 minutes to an hour.

Sarah Karakaian: And so if that’s too long for you to do one listing, maybe you break up your listing audits to photo audits and then content audits. Because I do [00:10:00] believe, and we talked about this all in January, that your listings need to be living and breathing. beings, uh, organism, I don’t know, um, that you continuously make sure are up to date, accurate, talking to the booker in the booking window that currently exists in your business.

Sarah Karakaian: So therefore, once a property is created, you might have a photo audit every 60 days and a listing content audit every [00:10:30] Forty five days, you know, just to make sure everything is, is up to date. And so those can be recurring.

Annette Grant: Same with, um, updating your calendar. That is something that I feel like a lot of people, I just talked to some hosts last week that accidentally over the holidays didn’t have their minimums in place.

Annette Grant: So they were checking people in on Christmas Eve, checking them out on the day, you know, on New Year’s Eve. Our, our calendars are constantly changing personally and in [00:11:00] our cities. So even having that as a reoccurring task in a sauna, like up to, you know, taking a look at what your, what your work and travel schedule is compared to, um, your city calendar compared to your team member, your cleaners, your, your, um, team that assists you with it.

Sarah Karakaian: I would put that task under revenue management. Because it all is affect, like that affects your revenue and another thing under revenue management that I would put at the idea. Now it escaped me. Oh, checking your local events. [00:11:30] So even though even if you know the website and you set up like Google alerts for all events in Columbus, Ohio, we like to go in there every 30 days and just make sure there’s not some sneaky event that was just scheduled that might bring people to town and making sure that is Price Labs seeing that that Uh, influx of people coming to town, or do we need to do our own sort of art and science to price lab?

Sarah Karakaian: So that’s another task I might put under revenue management that is recurring. One off might be, it [00:12:00] happens, you know, like, Oh my gosh, somehow a guest booked six months out at this property. I need to go in there and see what’s going on. Right? And so like, when something happens in your business that you’re like, how did that happen?

Sarah Karakaian: Or like, Oh my gosh, I thought I had done that and I didn’t, that’s something I’ll throw into a sauna. Here’s the thing too with, with project management, Angie, or time management, you have to give everything a due date. And you have to honor that due date, like you would honor a due date for a guest checking in, for meeting a cleaner to talk [00:12:30] about, uh, you know, whatever.

Sarah Karakaian: You have to really honor your own time. Like, I just feel like we don’t do that. We continually push off our own dates with ourselves. This is

Annette Grant: what I do.

Sarah Karakaian: And that’s not okay, because if we’re not taking care of ourselves, then how can we have the time to take care of everyone else in our lives, family included?

Sarah Karakaian: And here’s the thing, you can’t let things get overdue. When things get overdue, then they weren’t important to begin with, and they really shouldn’t be on your to do list in your project management software. [00:13:00] Or maybe, I do allow myself a junk drawer in Asana. So instead of those topics I told you, like revenue management, listing updates, I have one called Junk Drawer.

Sarah Karakaian: And just like random thoughts, like, I don’t know, this is a Yeah,

Annette Grant: mine’s called Brainstorm. Yeah, Brainstorm. And I go through it every now and then, and I’m like, okay, I never went back to that. Get rid of it. Get rid

Sarah Karakaian: of it. Yeah. Just delete it. It’s okay

Annette Grant: to delete it.

Sarah Karakaian: And what you can do is You could, every 30 days, give yourself a task to go look at your junk drawer and clean it out.

Sarah Karakaian: Or your brainstorm list and clean it up. So, there’s that. Uh, And I [00:13:30] talked about allowing enough time, about balancing your calendar as well with buffers. Things take way longer than we think they will. Just assume that. Uh, you want to also mix up, uh, brain work and busy work. So don’t schedule high intensity tasks.

Sarah Karakaian: On the same day, back to back to back because we’re human and we get tired mentally.

Annette Grant: Yup, and especially Angie, like you specifically digging in and going through all of the content in our Hosting Business Mastery. That [00:14:00] could be watching one module and not going back and watching another one for two weeks because you want to dig in to what you want to focus on during that module.

Annette Grant: And so that’s what Sarah and I do when we do any sort of learning is we break it down. into the modules that they are. And then we give ourselves to time to watch it, to digest it, to take action. And I have to admit it, we rewatch a lot of things. And for all of you out there, this is a hot tip for any sort of content you’re consuming, even our [00:14:30] podcast.

Annette Grant: You can speed it up. You can go 1. 25. You can go 1. 5. If you’re really, really can digest things, you can go 2x. So if there’s some stuff that you just want to like, this Re, you know, reconfirm. I like to speed it up, or if you just want to get to the point, the first, you know, whether that’s YouTube, podcast, any sort of course learning, you can do that.

Sarah Karakaian: One last, one last, I just put last and task together.

Annette Grant: There you go.

Sarah Karakaian: I like it. One last thought, Angie, is things that may not become natural [00:15:00] to you, I also calendar. For example, if, You get so much out of the mastery and everyone just take the mastery and apply it to something else in your life. But you get so much out of the mastery by participating in the Facebook group.

Sarah Karakaian: It is active. It is full of really awesome hosts doing really incredible things. But let’s say Facebook isn’t your jam or participating in groups like that isn’t your thing. So schedule yourself time. Even if it’s 15 minutes to go through comments, to support your fellow [00:15:30] members, to ask your own questions.

Sarah Karakaian: And that’s also how I’ll develop habits, too, that I want to develop, is scheduling time. If it’s on my calendar, it does get done. Because if I miss it that day and it’s something that someone wasn’t waiting for me, I’ll then move it to the next day. But, like, I don’t let things just sit on my calendar that weren’t attended to.

Sarah Karakaian: Anything else, Annette? Yeah. That was for Angie.

Annette Grant: It might not sound fun, but this is my motto for this year is boring is cool. Boring is fun.

Consistency and Long-Term Success

Annette Grant: And it is like getting, digging into this stuff and the [00:16:00] consistency is the game changer.

Sarah Karakaian: Because it’s hard for people to be consistent and to stay in the boring, so they jump from thing to thing and thought to thought and idea, idea and trying new things instead of just sticking with it.

Sarah Karakaian: Sticking with it. And when you stick with it, it’s like we had one of our members, Angie, uh, Lindsay, I believe. Who said that she made 50 percent more revenue, uh, last year after she joined the mastery than she did the year prior. And she goes mid year. I was not having it. She was like, I, I lost, uh, steam a little bit, but I [00:16:30] got back into it.

Sarah Karakaian: Okay.

Annette Grant: Yep. Yep. Yep.

Sarah Karakaian: She got back in and she was tracking your numbers. So to know that. Doing, if I were to tell you, Angie, on the other side of the mastery is you making 50 percent more revenue than you did last year, wouldn’t you do it?

Annette Grant: Absolutely.

Sarah Karakaian: But we have to be consistent without knowing what the prize is because we don’t know what it is until we get there.

Sarah Karakaian: And that’s the hard part. Mm hmm. All right.

Closing Remarks

Sarah Karakaian: With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

Annette Grant: I’m Annette Grant. And together we are Thanks for visiting.

Sarah Karakaian: Talk to you next time. [00:17:00]