Short Stays, Big Dreams: A Travel & Vacation Rental Podcast
"Short Stays, Big Dreams: A Travel & Rental Podcast" dives into the world of short-term rental management, the stay industry, and travel, offering insights, expert interviews, and actionable tips to help you maximize your rental business and explore the latest travel trends.
Short Stays, Big Dreams: A Travel & Vacation Rental Podcast
Making Money with Upsells
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Speaker 2:Visit our website to book your dream vacation today and experience the pmi difference welcome back my beautiful people to Short Stay's Big Dreams, the podcast, where we talk about all things travel, short-term rentals, but, most importantly, how to make money while sipping on pina coladas on the beach. Just kidding, just kidding there. But today I'm super, super excited because I have a special guest. You're probably, if you're on social media and you're on, if you're a short-term rental operator, you're going to recognize her because of her beautiful golden locks. But without further ado, let me introduce you to Annie, the co-founder and CEO of the Host Company. Annie, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Fernando. Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. Let's just dive right in. Tell me what got you into the short-term rental industry.
Speaker 3:Well, so the funny thing is, I was in big tech for a long time. I was a creative director at facebook. Before that, I was a creative director at twitter. Uh, I've been embedded at google. I'm like a bay area eye roll, I'm like a tech nerd, um, and throughout all of that, I have been a short-term rental host on the side. So I would do things like oh, I want to go visit my sister who's living in Guatemala for three weeks. I'm going to rent out my arbitrage, my apartment Started with kind of the early days and because I was here, I was doing that on Craigslist, which is really sketchy.
Speaker 3:Do not recommend Like, hey, just give me a copy of your license, you know.
Speaker 3:But in the in the really nascent days of Airbnb, I was already doing it because I was here in San Francisco, people want to come here started renting out places when I was leaving and then bought a short term, my first short term rental in Southern California, in Joshua Tree, and I'm in Northern California and I would same thing we'd still do hey, we're going somewhere for a month, big travelers, right, let's run out of our house for a month while we're gone.
Speaker 3:And then, of course, over time, I've learned that nobody wants to stay in your own house, but I digress. And then what I started realizing when I had short-term rentals is man, my guests ask the same questions every day, like if you're a short-term rental host, you can not only predict what they're going to ask, you can predict when they're going to ask it. Right, and I, being a being, a data nerd, was like how do I solve this? How do I make sure that my guests at midnight on Saturday night in Landers, california, which is like 30 miles from a store at midnight or 15 miles, don't ask me for firewood and say, oh yeah, we've also had two bottles of wine? How do I fix that problem? So that is how I got from short-term rentals into further, into what I'm doing now with Upsells, and then eventually I quit my job as a creative director because I was just doing so much more in the short-term rental space.
Speaker 2:Awesome job as a creative director, because I was just doing so much more in the short-term rental space Awesome, yeah, I mean, like I said, I've been following you for a long time and I know a lot of what you're talking about and I'm super impressed with what you did with the upsells. So you know, what's interesting is what you started early on, just like I did. I started early on in this industry. In fact, I always tell people that you know, I want to shoot myself, because I was doing short term rentals before Airbnb existed and these two guys came out of nowhere and are multi-billionaires over an idea that many of us have thought about even before the industry came about. But let's talk specifically about the host company, right? Yeah, so you saw a need, and now walk me through that process. How did it initially come about? Besides the fact that you saw that need, what was your next step?
Speaker 3:I saw the need of people asking a lot of stuff, not only when they got there, but right when they booked. Right when people book again in a particular area, you're like, oh yeah, you're going to ask me where we can get massages, cause it's a girl's weekend. Oh, you're coming to this town that's famous for its fish run Guess what? You're going to ask me where I get takes to the fish run. So just started to see those patterns and my co-founder his name's Michael Hubbard. He had already built a pretty large property management company called Times 8 Real Estate. So we were talking about we'd worked together quite a bit how do we solve this problem? So I was like, oh, I'll build something. I'll build a little storefront that's basically like a digital storefront, like a website, and we're going to share it with guests right when they book. It's so funny because a lot of when we made the host co, it was because we wanted to remove some annoyance from our lives rather than revenue first. But it was like, hey, you know, if you are a host of one or a property manager of a bunch, if you don't have automations there, what happens is like you're at your you know, your cousin's birthday party and you're out in the hall texting people back and forth and people are coming up saying, hey, you know working. It's like, well, I don't want to be working, I'd rather be at the party, but all of these things keep coming up and coming up as property managers. So we were like you know, if you can share a store with the guests right when they book and answer the questions you know they're gonna have, hey, here's where you look for a late checkout, here's where you get tickets to that fish run. Here's where you look for a late checkout, here's where you get tickets to that fish run. Here's where you make a reservation for the one restaurant that everyone wants to go to, here's where, for your girl's weekend, you get a massage, et cetera, and then share that store with them right when they book it. Um, it does a couple of things. One, it decreases guests questions because you're already answering it, you know. Two, it makes you a lot of revenue because you're showing them the upsells that you offer right when they book. And they might not buy them when they book, but they you're socializing it. So they know like, oh, this, like, hey, late check, it has a cost. So like, even later, if they don't ask later, if they ask, they know there's a cost, so they're not going to be offended by a cost of that, right, and it's also showing them where to get things. So, okay, I'll keep going with that.
Speaker 3:But hotels generally let's say you walk into a hotel a full service hotel makes 30% of their revenue on upsells, right, like everything after you book, when you walk into the hotel, you go up to the front and they're like oh, you know, your room's not ready, but we do have a room on a higher floor. Are you interested in that? Hey, why don't you? You know, here's our, here's our brochure for our spa. Your room's not ready. How about you? Why don't you head to the bar and have a drink, and we'll let you know when it's ready?
Speaker 3:All of those things are upsells, right, it's like positioned like a value add, like, oh, of course, we want to go above and beyond for you. So when you offer upsells, when you're booking, you're also showing them that you're doing more for them and not like you're never selling anything to them, but it's. It's creating this environment of like oh, look what else we can provide for you, right? So that's where we started with the host co and then over time I've added a lot more things. That people come to us and say, hey, we want to be able to sell a gift certificate for a future stay. Or hey, I've got huge properties in Orlando. Can I do gratuity for my cleaner through that? Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I really love the concept Now, but explain to me. So explain how the process works. I am a short-term rental operator. This work. I'm a short-term rental operator and I call you Annie and I say hey, you know, I want to provide the services that you have to offer.
Speaker 3:How do we do that? Yeah, so you go over to the hostco and you say hostco, make a store for every single one of my listings. And the hostco is free, so it's immediate, and it connects to the Airbnb API. Or if you use HostAway or OwnerRes or Guesty lots of PMSs hey, hostco, make stores for every one of my properties. And what we do is we make a store for every one of your listings it's like what we call a digital mini market, right and that store has the key photo of your listing, the name of your listing, and then it immediately has all the services that the host co has recommended pulled into that store via your location zip code, right, it's like Pigeon Forge. You're going to see, you know, massage, chef, transportation and a bunch of other things that property managers have told us people want in that area. And then you have a link for that store. It's kind of like having an eBay account, like you can share it with anybody. Here's my eBay store, my Etsy store, whatever it is and that link to that store goes in your messaging right when your guest book. Hey, we're so excited to have you stay If you'd like to add any services or amenities like spa, chef, a parking pass. If that's something you have to offer, something like that, check out our store.
Speaker 3:The big insight there also is that people love to shop Like, especially the people that are doing the booking. They like knowing you can shop our listing if you want any upgrades, right. So if you said, hey, check out our guidebook for local recommendations, people aren't gonna read that. The only thing they want is the wifi. You know, generally in that situation. But if you say, check out our amenities and upgrades or shop our destination, people are loving it, right. They're like, ooh, what can I shop? Right, it is a good trick. Also, you can put your guidebook, your recommendations, in your HostCo store and they'll see it there if you want them to see it.
Speaker 3:But the first thing is shopping and then, when your guest actually does then go to your HostCo store, they can either purchase something if it's like firewood, they can buy it on site site or they can request items. So most items are on request. So if it's your item as the property manager, if it's extra guest, if it's pet fee, if it's late checkout or if it's a host co concierge service like airport transportation chef, you know we've got so many interesting things in those stores. It's a request. So the guest says hey, I want to request. Let's say it's a late checkout. Hey, I want to request a late checkout for this day, at this time at this location. And they put in their credit card info. And then we hold that credit card info and we ping you with a text and an email hey, guess what? Annie Sloan is looking for a late checkout on this day, at this time, at this location. Can you fulfill the service? Approve or deny? You can also hold that for 30 days and say I don't know if I can do it. I mean, obviously, a property manager. You don't know until, like the day before, right.
Speaker 3:You can also have that request go to other people. That request can go to your cleaner, if your cleaner is really the one who's going to decide if they can do a turnover later, right. Or if it's like a massage therapist our team. If it's our massage therapist, the request we say are you available at this time at this location for this service? Or a good example is like hey, you got a place in the Outer Banks.
Speaker 3:Everybody's coming for their family vacation and a lot of people want portrait photography, right, like we want our matching family photos on the beach. If your sister is, say, a portrait photographer, you can put her service in your store photography you know, three hundred dollars, right. And when your guest says, hey, we want portrait photography on this day, at this time, at this location, can you fulfill this? You can have that request, go to your sister and she can say, yes, I'm available at that time, and then you can also pay her out 100 and keep 200 of your own if you're a mean sister or not, right? So it's essentially a very low risk way to figure out what your guests want and figure out if you can fulfill it and making the money off of that okay, okay, I got two questions.
Speaker 2:Well, actually one big question there, because you kind of touched on it, right, and that is the application with, like, digital guidebooks, right, most people today have some form of digital guidebook, right? So does this replace the digital guidebook or is it integrated within the digital guidebook? Walk me through that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so a HostCo store. You can sell items. You can also add your own links so you can have a tile in your HostCo store that says a guidebook, local recommendations. So what you're doing is I would never say this to a guest, but it's sort of like enter through the gift shop. It's exactly what a hotel is doing they're walking in, they're seeing what's available for sale oh, and this is where our guidebook is or parking in. You know our local.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm making a note because that's a good. I mean, it's just like I like how you phrase it. You walk into the gift store before you go out. The same thing, because I'm a traveler, I travel all the time. When you go to the airport, you have to walk duty-free to get to the gates.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you're never like, oh, I wish this wasn't here. I mean, it's providing a service for you, right, um, your stores, because you can put external links and they all look like really nice tiles. If your guests are always asking you where you got your sheets, and you got them from Amazon, you can put your own Amazon link in your store and say buy our sheets and make you know, get some affiliate money. If your guests are coming to Yountville, california, they're going to the French, they want to go to the French laundry. That's like the restaurant, right, and you can put in your store make your open table reservation at the French laundry and you might get some money from it, some affiliate money. But you're also just taking care of your own problem of your guest probably is going to ask you that anyway. So what we often say is like, put the thing in your store that your guest is always going to ask you or absolutely needs, right. And then they're there and they're like oh, look, we can get a. You know we can get a Reiki healer for a girl's weekend. Oh, we can get, you know, a romantic. Like we can get a private sommelier for our, for our anniversary thing. The things that they might not be thinking that they need are right there, smack with something that they need.
Speaker 3:There's one other thing is like a pet fee. Like you can do that on Airbnb, you can do it on Verbo, you can do it on your property management software, but what we see is people taking these things for sale like a pet fee and enhancing it. So it's like a deluxe pet experience. So it's your pet fee, but you're also have like two dog bowls in the closet that your cleaner takes out and we'll text them and remind them to do it. Um, let's say Sedona, arizona, and a little like handkerchief, and you've just said okay, the deluxe pet experience is one 50. The pet fee, if you want it at 75, everybody's going to do it and then they're also going to take photos of it, right? So you're just, you're like dimensionalizing their experience and giving them more to remember from their state or just making it more interesting, right?
Speaker 2:Listen, I just learned something and I'm stealing your idea Because, like, we upsell and we don't call it a pet fee, yeah, an additional cleaning fee. But I like that idea of and I'm feeling the idea, cause I don't know why as long as I've been doing this, I don't know why I didn't think about it uh, is adding an experience for the dog, like you just mentioned. You know, having a bowls there, maybe some treats that you can put out, but I and I'm thinking more stuff to add on the outside, et cetera, but but I'd like that is providing, you know, keeping the dog in mind, so that the dog has its own experience when they come to the pack. I freaking love that. So I'm stealing that Now.
Speaker 2:So, because I want to go back a little bit, because, again, I'm familiar from you guys from when you first launched and I'll be honest, I didn't go with you guys initially because I didn't. I have such a large portfolio. I'm like man, it's going to take forever to implement this. So what we do, the evolution of the company, because what you're telling me now you didn't have available when I first looked at it, yeah, me now you didn't have available when I first looked at it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when we I mean when we started we had built something. I mean I built something for my seven rentals mine and my co founders seven rentals of like. We want to be able to sell firewood. We want to be able to sell like checkout. And when we expanded, first of all we put it in seven houses, 93% of guests opened the store ourselves once we knew it was working Right.
Speaker 3:And then we started to get one people people modifying host cotiles to their own uses, right, like, hey, we'll do a Saturday night Bigfoot experience at our tiny home park. What we're like? Ok, cool, you're using it for an experience. People using it for their 100 cabins around a giant lake in the Poconos, right, and using it a little differently. And then people just continuing to modify oh, we need parking passes. So, hostco, can you add tiles that expire? Can you add tiles that go out of stock? Can you notify my firewood guy when I'm running low to bring out more firewood so I don't have to think about it?
Speaker 3:So, building it up over that perspective, the other thing that happened is, almost right away, people, hosts and property managers said oh, you know, I'm always recommending this Hibachi guy in you know, in Destin. I recommend him every time. Or you know, people come to this island and they need a golf cart and like they don't read my guidebook. Of course they don't. They don't read my recommendations. But if I say, go to my store and book your golf cart, they'll go do it. Right, and I want to get a cut of what that golf cart rental company is making.
Speaker 3:So we spun up a three person team to essentially ingest all of the vendor suggestions coming in from property managers. We don't go out and find people willy-nilly. It's all people coming to us and saying everyone wants this thing here, pink Jeep tour, yada, yada, and adding those, so that when you now create a HostCo store, it just automatically offers all those things to your guests without you having to do the work, and you can turn those off. If you're like nobody here wants a tarot card reader or whatever it is, you just say don't show it to my guests. Right, but it's taken about a year to build up. I think it's 7,500 different vendors and that's the main thing. The other part of that is that many of those are nationwide. So, like Massage, we have partnerships with Soothe and Zeal and Fire Forks and Knives for Chefs. So we take what, like your Marriott does, which is guess what. They don't actually have a spa, they have a contract company that comes in. We use the same contract company.
Speaker 3:Right, so instead of figuring out, yeah, the coverage, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I I um, so we own a couple of uh, uh or have partnerships with a couple of hotels and we did the same thing. But we, we rent out the space, uh, for first massage masseuse, um, and for even our gym. We rent out the gym to a personal trainer and then they provide the service. Yeah, so we do the same. I mean, I'm loving it. Now let's talk about integration, right? For example, can you integrate with any PMS system, or is it just a select group of PMS systems?
Speaker 3:Right now it is Logify, hospitable, ownerres, hostaway, guesty, I think there's maybe one more. Those are the big heavy hitters, right, and a few more on the way. Our next one is actually with Turno, because we can then modify the calendar, the calendaring functions, and so if you're on a different PMS and you use Turno, you can integrate it with that. We have integration with StayFi as well, which is hey. When your guest signs into the Wi-Fi, it routes them to your HostCo store to show them what's available after they check in, because most people, after they get the Wi-Fi, they don't look at anything else, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny because I spend uh, when, when it's because my PMS system is hostfully yeah, and when I went specifically with hostfully because they were one of the first ones to create the digital guidebook and and I spend so much time and effort building out the digital guidebook and and we still get the same questions because then people don't go to the digital guidebook, uh, and now, now it's worked out better because now we have ai and the better the digital guidebook is is built out, our ai and customer service can answer the questions and so.
Speaker 2:So now it's actually worked out, regardless of whether or not people open the digital guidebook, because if they have a question and they ask it, ai answers it. So I'm trying to like, right now, I'm trying to envision picture how I can implement this in my systems to be able to, you know, to be able to hire you guys and be part of the company. That's why I asked about the API connection, and I know a lot of my followers are on other PMS systems. So you mentioned turnover. What other? In fact, let me look to see what other integrations that you have that are a subcategory to a PMS system.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and let me speak to Hostfully briefly, because, first of all, we love Hostfully the CEO is awesome, margo, and we have quite a few Hostfully users and because the Hostco is just a link it's just a website link. It can be added in any guidebook. It does not have to be like we have a lot of touch day users as well that say add amenities and local services. We always say describe something, because no one knows what the word amenities means, like you know, massage chef and link to checkout request here or however. You want to do it Right so that HostCo store can go in your guidebook on any platform and then your guests can shop on there. And essentially you know we're taking care of most of the fulfillment for any outside services anyway and it's messaging you. So there's that part of it. And then there's also this really interesting aspect is that every single product in your store has its own link. So, for example, if you have a really specific product that everyone's going to ask you about halfway through their stay it's like everyone gets a sunburn where and they're going to ask you like that's just a random example you can share that product directly at that time. Or another example might be again. You got a big property. Most of my properties are two bedrooms, so I'm not like I'm not talking about gratuity, but large properties. You can, in your checkout instructions, say if you'd like to leave gratuity for your cleaners, do so here, right, and you can just leave a link to that product. Or we see people sharing products. When something breaks, hey, you can replace that. Oh, you lost our beach towels. Oh, you lost our beach key. Everyone loses beach keys. You can purchase one here and on the back end the host code will generate a code that you know they can unlock a drawer for another beach key, right? Or oh, you. These are some interesting examples that, of course, hosts have brought to us.
Speaker 3:Return a postage fee, man. It's like two. I mean, my local post office in Landers, california, is open like the weirdest four hours a week and it takes me or my property manager so much time to return it. So we're like $35 return fee plus postage, right? Or so you can just send them a link to that product. Or event fee is another good one. It's like oh, you want to do. You want to take your Southern California? Everybody's an influencer, they're going to take photos. You can send them just the one link to that one product and they can Apple pay you versus going back through all of your other stuff. So, um your store, I mean you can WhatsApp it, you can, you can text it and you can any way you want to share it. You can share it through any PMS or even, you know, you can share it through Airbnb automated messaging or Vrbo automated messaging, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that I knew with Airbnb because that's how we were initially going to integrate. It was. But then. But now you know, airbnb is only 30 percent of my bookings. So so we're like, okay, we scratch it, I've got to figure out another method. But I like the fact that it's a link and we can add that link to our digital guidebook.
Speaker 3:Yeah, one trick before I forget this trick is that if you do offer things like gratuity or mid-state cleaning, that can be messaged to your cleaner and talk about employee loyalty. I've heard a lot about this. If your cleaner gets a text that says you were just given a $20 tip, man, they're never going to some other property management company, you know there's still so.
Speaker 2:I mean that's I'm stealing that as well, because I don't know why I never thought of that, cause we? I mean I'm stealing that as well Because I don't know why I never thought of that, because we can actually that. So a lot of the stuff we can add to our digital guidebook. It's up sale. But, again, I like the way you guys had set it up and the way it looks. I like the way you guys had set it up and the way it looks, and the distribution of that makes it so much easier than just a digital guidebook, because it's like you talked about, most of the time they don't even open it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, and I'm loving this conversation because a lot of the questions that I had to ask you, you're answering them without me even asking. So this is pretty cool. Talk a little bit, or I don't know if you know the answer to this, but when it comes to guest satisfaction, right, or enhancing that guest experience enhancing that guest experience Do you have any data that shows how the before and after meaning before someone, like even with your properties before you implemented this into after you implemented this? How did you see the guest's response to that?
Speaker 3:You can see that in a few ways. One reviews you see guests starting to say, oh my gosh, they had this really cool thing where I could buy something on site, or hey, they were great, they were able to connect us to on-demand wellness services or whatever it is. So we see that part of it. We also see it in rebooking. So we do case studies and we have hosts who've said, oh, we've added these extra amenities.
Speaker 3:If it's a scavenger hunt with extra products, if it's an all in kit at our glamping park, which means they get firewood, a case of water and a s'mores thing, we see people rebooking and saying, oh, we came back for that one thing, right. People rebooking and saying, oh, we came back for that one thing, right. Which that is like to me, is like bring a ding. Ding is like oh my gosh. We talked to someone recently who said we had this big family group come and they loved it so much with all these amenities that they rebooked again with like other members of their family for two weeks later because they liked the amenities we had on site.
Speaker 2:That is awesome. So, in terms of technology, the integration with Airbnb, Verbal or any other platform, you guys do that through an API, correct?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it's really simple. It's a copy and paste and then you guys are good to go Now. Now, the actual setup of the store. Uh, do you guys provide support for the actual setup, or or? How does that work?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So let's say you have 10 properties on Airbnb and you say I want to sign up for the host co. You add your email and then it says immediately, would you like to make stores from your properties? Yes, great, hit connect. It immediately says here's your 10 stores. You can say I only want six of those properties, or you can say I want all 10. It then adds them to a dashboard and says, great, check out your stores. And each of those stores has again the local amenities we've recommended. Sometimes there's four, sometimes there's 20.
Speaker 3:We always say, like, don't make it the brochure rack at the Best Western, like, don't offer your guests too many things. And it has also examples of alterations like early check-in, late checkout, pet fee, guest fee. You can do those on your partner PMS if you're like I've already got that dialed. And it also gives you a bunch of suggestions to add other stuff. If it's firewood or mid-state cleaning or, believe it or not, dog walking, if it's a mid-state, people want that, people want all manner of things linen, refresh, et cetera. You can say, great, the store has everything I want in it and it's ready to go. And I can share my store link If you have connected the HostCo through your property management software partner.
Speaker 3:We've already added your store link as a custom field in your property management software. So when you go to say, hey, I want to let my guests know about the HostCo, you probably have a custom field that says hashtag, upsell, hashtag. So it's adding your correct HostCo store to your outgoing message every time. Right, that's a little bit of the deeper integration. And then the next step for us and this is what we're starting to do with Turno is pushing that information back to your property management software. So, hey, you got 10 late checkouts, two mid-stay cleans and firewood sales this week. Right On your Host Code dashboard you can see not only every single sale which has a receipt, you can refund it yourself, et cetera. You also can see oh, here's what we got going on today, right? So we know four people are getting deluxe pet experience today. So it's adding all of the information into all the places you need it.
Speaker 2:I love it. It's adding all of the information into all the places you need it. I love it. It's pretty cool Now in terms of, like, what have you guys seen in terms of the trends for short-term rentals in general, Like, where is the industry going?
Speaker 3:You might have seen this too. Two main things. One is people are booking last minute and it's crazy because it's like playing chicken, you know. Sometimes we're like, oh, it's not booked, I'm going to actually increase the price one week before, and you're like I can't believe somebody paid this price. It's a game of chicken, right. But in that sort of last minute thing is those things like changes, like, oh, we want to stay at shoulder stay, we want a four hour late checkout and we want a six hour late checkout. Hey, can we come early? Hey, can we have an extra person? Oh, I instant booked and I forgot I had two pets.
Speaker 3:Right, having all of those things that are that go along with that sort of last minute change up thing, having it be really easy to access, is one thing. Like, oh, apple, pay my pet fee. Or hey, you brought an extra person. I mean, most people won't allow that but great, pay it here. It's the quick change and it's also just reducing friction around impulse buying. So right now it's like, oh, okay, go to, let's say, it's Airbnb, go to Airbnb, go to this page, go to this tab, pay your pet fee because you forgot it? Oh, okay, you can just PayPal me and then they don't do it and you're like, oh, where were they again? So it's removing friction around.
Speaker 3:Impulse purchase is one big thing that we're seeing and just impulse person in general. So that second thing is how to put this. Like travel based on passion points rather than on destination. So people are traveling because they're going to a Taylor Swift concert, they're traveling to go to a NASCAR thing, they're traveling to go to this amazing rock climbing destination. They're not necessarily like, oh, I want to go to Chattanooga for Chattanooga. They're going to Chattanooga because there's like a knitting fair, and I'm not kidding. We have someone who told me they turned their property into like a destination for knitting influencers, like that and not in Chattanooga, but still so people, if people are traveling on their passion points, then servicing those passion points right. If it's like oh well, we can offer, you know, t-shirts for that, this is a weird one, cause it's onsite sales which I don't do very much of at all in my properties, cause I don't want to have to deal with like, oh, is it there?
Speaker 3:Is it not? A lot of services. But, um, okay, people come into Joshua tree, there they. Um, okay, people come into Joshua tree, there, they, they want to do all the woo woo stuff. So if you're like we got a sound bath, we got a Reiki healer, do you want a vegan charcuterie board that literally sells? That is something that sells, believe it or not. It's Joshua tree, um. And then do you want, like, a midnight hike with a shaman or whatever? It is Right, people want to come there. Sure, they want to. A lot of people go there. They don't even go to the National Park anymore. They just want the woo-woo-ness. So, having things that fit nicely with what they're coming to town to do and you as a property manager know that that's our whole kind of thing at the Host Co is we don't know why people are going to. I don't know Bellevue Washington, but you do because you're the property manager. So you tell us what people want in your area and we'll add it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting that you, because everything you just talked about I mentioned, so I do. I do a Sunday morning STR News and Digest podcast and we talk about trends and we talk about what's new, yeah, but what you just talked about is dead on right, especially for travelers. This is why you're seeing an explosion in glamping and you're seeing an explosion and remote rural areas in which short-term rentals are doing phenomenal. In addition to that, what's extremely frustrating but what you have to adapt to today is those late or last minute bookings. People are not booking.
Speaker 2:You know, in the past, prior to the pandemic, I would have people book six to a year out, uh, book our properties. You know we would go into the summer completely booked or at least 70% book. You know, by by by this time, our summer with the book. Today it is like and I'll look right now with my booking window is because it changes, but it doesn't change much my booking window 11.2 days, yeah, so you know I'll go into a month only 20, 30% occupied, yeah, but close the month out 80% occupied because of how spontaneous or how late people are booking, yeah, and what you say is key.
Speaker 2:So those operators out there, don't freak out, don't panic, don't completely reduce your rates because you're afraid that you're not going to get a booking. We do the opposite. We raise the rates 11 days out because we know that's where people are booking, so we actually raise the rates. It's actually cheaper to book our properties today in advance than it is the month of. Yeah, so that that it's interesting that you're seeing the same. And then, just for the audience to know, you guys are, your properties are all on the West coast, right?
Speaker 3:Mine are, but the host co is in 17 countries.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So we have users we've got about 15,000 listings at this point primarily US because it displays US dollars. You can pay in any currency, but it displays US dollars. But we're starting to see more of it across the country and most of our vendors are in the US because we know we can do a lot of the research here. I have actually a hack for getting people to book sooner. That's a rebooking hack, okay. So also with amenities, hotels use them as marketing. So, hey, this summer we've got a pop-up chef oh, look at what's new in our store, or whatever it is. Or like, we have this artist in our lobby this summer, right. So with amenities that you don't have to pick so, like Joshua Tree, you know, you've got like Reiki Healer and Soundbath, yada, yada, you can put those in your direct booking marketing and it gives your guests something to open and think about and look at, right.
Speaker 3:So here's an example we last year had a property manager who added a mobile tattoo artist for the week of Coachella. So, yeah, I mean, we had to make sure that was legal, which it is but they sent out an email three months before Coachella that says this year, on demand, mobile tattoo artists at our villa, right? Probably some other property manager sends out an email three months ahead and says early birds, 15% off, week of Coachella. That's that one property manager is discounting their product, they're discounting their brand. The other one is, like you know, everybody opened that. I would open that email if it was like on-demand mobile tattoo. Even I didn't want it. I will tell you. Actually nobody booked it regardless. Everybody's going to open that email and start thinking about your, where you are, your stay and the differentiators if you're giving them. We've had, um, we've had hosts say oh no, on-demand wellness amenities now added to our properties. It gives you a reason to actually send an email, right, right, that isn't like the same old, same old, right.
Speaker 2:I love that, so I pride myself and now I realize I'm still lacking but I pride myself in the fact that we have we have a very high uh direct booking rate. Yeah, in comparison to, to a lot, of, a lot of other short-term rental operators. So we have over 40. Right now we're about 45 46 percent of our bookings come directly to our booking site. Right, so I pride myself on that. But that we, we, we have that high booking rate because of our, our retargeting of past guests.
Speaker 2:You know, as I mentioned, I've been around for a long time. I, I, we, we keep track of all the emails and I did this even before. Uh, we had the, the like technology to help us track emails. Yeah, so we created a big email, a big email database of past guests and we send out a monthly newsletter and et cetera. But the hack that you just gave and those of you that are listening if you didn't hear, rewind it and pay attention to that, because that is huge and she's 100% correct. Most of you guys, when you send out a advertising or you're promoting your properties in advance, you're doing it through a discount, adding an ad value, and not discounting your property. It's gold people like completely gold, uh, so I love that hat. Um. Thank you for sharing. In fact, do you have another hack that you can share with us?
Speaker 3:um, let's see, um uh, people who I'm trying to think of some good ones here um uh, people who have midterm stays, think that amenities aren't for them. But if someone's coming for three months, right. If you're doing Furnish Finder or whatever it is, or you're just saying like minimum one month stays, get those people on recurring amenities. So weekly mid-stay clean, maybe they want a dog walker, maybe they want a weekly massage, right. And you're making 4X the money because you know, with the HostCo, whatever you're selling, you're keeping the money for yourself. We get a commission if you're on a free HostCo model, but if they're just doing local services that we recommend, you're just getting 5% to 10% of the service. So you're making $20 every massage. You can say, yeah, book four of those personal trainer you know you're coming to. Also, you know why they're coming to town.
Speaker 3:If they're, you know, a traveling nurse, or if they're like they got a conference that they're prepping for whatever it is, put things in the store that they're going to ask you and put them at the top of your store because they're going to want to go to it.
Speaker 3:Also, you can use that kind of thing in your marketing Again, even if you're not going to make any money from. Let's say, there's like a cafe in your town that, like TikTok, made it super famous, right? You can reach out to all of your past customers. Also, big hack if your guests buy something through the host code, we're giving you their email. So, even if you're not getting it from other sources and they're booking on verbo, we're giving you their email. At the end of the day, but you can say, um like, check out the famous cafe and make your reservation now. Um and be, this is exactly what hotels do and book your stay while you're at it, right? So, again, using what people are coming to town to do and working on that insight that people love to shop and giving them something to buy is going to help them with rebooking.
Speaker 2:I can't agree more. That's that I mean great advice. I love that let's do. Let's do the opposite. What? What mistakes should, should should short-term rental operators avoid when trying to monetize your short-term rental?
Speaker 3:um, one, don't, uh, don't try to do it yourself, meaning don't like people will come to the host co and they'll be like, oh, I've had this great idea for like a bohemian picnic down by the river for years, right, and we should offer that. And all I need to do is contact my friend the florist and make sure they know contact, you know, make sure I have a runner that can put the blanket down and someone else needs to cater. That is so much work, like those big kind of cool dreams. I would say leave those and start with the simple stuff, because otherwise as a property manager, you're never going to get started anyway. You got fires to put out all day, like, start with the three things that you're get. You know they're going to want food, they're going to want a massage and they're going to want to lay checkup. Right, start with those or firewood or whatever it is, and then build from there.
Speaker 3:Right, and not trying to do these things yourself. Like, we have a lot of people that you know you can lock information that they can only get after they make a purchase on their receipt, like code of that drawers one, two, three, four, that's fine for, like simple stuff you want to sell, or if it's hey, we left out a welcome basket full of snacks, which is all. You should do that for free, right. But when your guests are like, oh, do you have more of those? It's midnight and we just got in and our kids are hungry, have it for sale. So you know, one never looked like you're selling anything, but offering the additional services and not starting with a bunch of stuff, also not starting with like 50 things your guests can do and having the one thing they need at the bottom of the scroll. They're never going to get to it. Right Again, it's like the frictionless. I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm hung over, I'm bored. How can I do these things quickly with the host?
Speaker 2:Ah, yeah, great advice, and I and, and, and. One of the best advice, one of the things you said that I really really like is is don't overdo it. Yeah, you can't give people too many options, because then they won't choose anything yeah.
Speaker 2:So I really like that. Now, the last question I got for you I think it's going to be the last question is what advice would you give a new short-term rental operator that's getting into the game? Give a new short-term rental operator that's getting into the game, wants to monetize this In general, what advice would you give a new short-term rental operator getting into the?
Speaker 3:game.
Speaker 3:I would say keep it simple. Don't offer anything that's low cost, right? You're not a hostel. If you're going to provide a toothbrush, if you're gonna provide, instead of a toothbrush, a local amenities, hygiene kit for $30, right, do that. I would also say just just do Nike, just do it. Um, sharing your hostco store, you you're.
Speaker 3:What happens is people do it and they're like, oh my gosh, I just made a hundred dollars in a week from one rental because two people bought my upgraded pet fee or whatever it is, um. And then we have other people who make hostco stores and they're like, oh, I got to get this right, I got to get this exactly, I got to do this thing. They spend a year a year waiting to share their store until it's just right and they've missed out on. I mean, we have property managers that are making a hundred thousand dollars a year on the host co, which is just bonkers, right, and like, don't miss out on that revenue. And again, three or four things just start.
Speaker 3:The other thing is, when you start, you start to hear from your guests about what they actually want and they, before offering things, maybe didn't tell you what they wanted, right, because it wasn't even an option. So we have a chat bot in every store that a guest can be like, hey, I'm looking for. We've had literally people be like, hey, I need a haircut. Can you have someone come to my house? Yes, we can. Right, um, is that you actually start to listen to those guests requests that before, if you couldn't fulfill them, you didn't, they didn't like penetrate your brain, right. But now it's like, oh no, we can fulfill those. So all of those things for a new host.
Speaker 2:All of those things for a new host. Okay, now talk to me about cost. What does it cost to get a store and what's the time frame, the lead time, to get everything up and running?
Speaker 3:So cost? The HostCo is free for anyone to use. You can have 5,000 stores. You can have 200 stores, whatever. And in a free HostCo model, the HostCo gets 7% of your sale. So you sell a $100 late checkout, the HostCo gets 7%. Most people will be like, oh, I'm going to make HostCo stores, it's free Once they start selling I don't know $200 from one listing. We have a $18 a month model where we don't take any commission from you, so it actually gets cheaper. The more you're selling, the cheaper it gets for you, right. And then we also have some upgrades from their co-hosting multiple payout bank accounts. But you can use it for free forever. I mean, we have people with, I think, 200 stores who are using it for free. Still, right, so that's a cost getting started.
Speaker 3:Our whole thing is is make it as frictionless as possible. You can be up and running on the host code in 30 minutes. I would say, yeah, I mean making your stores is is. It takes like maybe 20 seconds to pull up the stores, but what you want to do after you've made some stores is you want to look at the store and be like, hey, is this a description I want? Do I want to say late checkout and that is noon. Do I want to say late checkout per hour? Do I want to say it's? You know, you can make your variables however you want and add stuff to your store if you want to, but just making sure that it's the way. If it's a HostCo product, it already has a cancellation policy, return policy, hours, times. We're asking you like do you want Swedish or Shiatsu? So we're taking care of all the services by your own services. Going and looking at them.
Speaker 3:The cool thing is, let's say you make 30 stores, right? Uh, you can go into your first store and be like oh, I want to change that late checkout price and I want to add a cancellation policy that it has 48 hours, whatever it is. Um, you can say save that and save it to all my stores, so you don't have to go through all of your stores to do it. Or you can say add firewood to all my stores and add a description for each product. That is the thing that you want. To take a little bit of time. It just makes your store looks how you want it to look. Then all you got to do is make sure that it's in your outgoing messages. That's it. I would like to see a new record. I just want some hosts to be like. All I did was look at the host co for 15 minutes. I never looked at it again and here we are I love that.
Speaker 2:Um the last question how can someone get a hold of you?
Speaker 3:so we are at thehostco thehostco um, we are obviously on instagram. We've got about 25,000 hosts and property managers in our community on Instagram at the Host Company and we're just doing like. I mean, we're real hosts and property managers that run the company, so we're also being like here's what we're learning, here's what people are buying just kind of interesting stuff. But if you go to thehostco, you can say sign up, and you can sign up for a demo and watch how a real property manager does it, or you can watch a prerecorded demo. You don't have to do any of that, but it's going to be helpful to move it along really fast and then you're off to the races.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, well, annie, number one, thank you. Thank you, this has been fun. Like I said, I've been following you. I love your personality. Those that are watching highly highly recommend it, if you are a short-term rental operator, that you reach out to Annie. At the bare minimum, you owe it to your company to look at it, because in this ever competitive industry, if you are not in a very unique situation, like you have a unique property, you need a leg up and the money, the extra money that you're going to make and, more importantly, the long term revenue that you get by having a better, satisfied guest and giving a guest a better experience, is going to pay dividends. The fact that you can get a store for nothing is huge. So I highly recommend you look her up. I'm going to have all her information down below. Love you guys. If you haven't going to have all her information down below, love you guys. If you haven't subscribed to the channel, subscribe. See you on the next one.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Fernando.
Speaker 2:Thank you, hold on one second.