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Episode 074 – STRR – 5 Ways to Stay Ahead When the Competition Gets Tough

competition tips & tricks Oct 22, 2021
 

Michelle gives you 5 Things That You Can Do to keep you Ahead of the Game when the Competition gets Tough.  These 5 Things, plus a Bonus Tip that will save you money in the long run and add more income to your Bottom-line, will keep you going and make you stand out in the growing market of Short Term Rentals

 

Transcript of this Episode:

Hi, it's Michelle, the master of money mindset, and you are listening to BNB dash boss podcast.

And in today's podcast, it is Friday. We are doing our Friday reruns and we are doing the episode on the five ways to stay ahead of the competition. But first guys, I just wanted to ask if you could do me a solid and keep my dear friend Maria, Giordano in your prayer. It's very hard day, because last night we lost her son, Alex.

And I'll tell you if you've been listening to my show for any length of time or any of my shows, actually the short-term rental revenue or the prosperity project. You've been on my websites or, you know, me, Maria and Gary are two of the best friends I have in the world. I would do anything for them. And this is such a terrible hard time.

I'll tell you, you should never outlive your kids. You know, you should never have that burden. It's probably the hardest thing that anyone could go through is the loss of a child. Duh, Alex was over here just last week. And just a great kid, just a great kid. So if you could keep the gr dominoes, Maria and Gary and their kids and your prayers, and if you could pray for Alex as well, now he goes and Godspeed and into the arms of Jesus.

I would really appreciate it. I'm going to be listening to this episode and piping in, but. I thought about not doing this today, but then I thought, you know, we have to do this so that we can ask for prayers. And I think, great. Now we all need all the prayers that we can possibly get. Right. So there's strength in numbers.

There's strength in prayers. And I'm asking that you send. Uh, so go ahead and listen to this episode, like I said, I'll be piping in by me too, and definitely at the end, but I would really appreciate it if you'd just stop and take a minute to just say a prayer quickly, or my dear friend, Maria had her family and her son, Alex.

Thank you. And in today's podcast, we're going to talk about five ways that you can stay ahead of the competition when it gets tough out there. Cause you know, it's getting tough out there. I kind of wanted to touch on this subject because we've got a course that's going on within our membership site.

And we've got a lot of people who are just beginning to get their feet wet and get their. BnBs up and running their first short-term rentals. And the crazy part is some of you guys are in these really saturated areas like Florida. Some people are in areas where they're not even legal or allowed like Fort worth Texas.

And it's been a challenge for some of you. And I can see how. And I just first wanted to remind you and give you a little bit of encouragement and let you know that when you're first starting out in any kind of a, I bet you as any business, I bet you it's investments. If you were doing stocks now it's doing real estate because you're a starting to be a real estate investor.

Probably anything that you start doing is really difficult. When you get going, it's like pushing a rock up a hill, right. All by yourself. And if you let go of that rock and it slips, it will start to just slide backwards. You have to keep your momentum going. You have to keep moving forward. But once you get to the top, you guys, and I don't mean the top of your business.

I mean, to the top of the. Everything seems to get easier. There are always these ebbs and flows, these tides that rise and fall, but it's really kind of just getting your business going, like cranking a diesel engine or something. Once it gets going, it'll run for a long, long time. So here's the deal. Even when I was doing real estate investing full time, we were sending marketing out.

Right. We were putting yellow signs up on corners. We were sending out postcards. We were sending out letters. Robin Thompson calls him horsey. I mean, we work constantly marketing. We were going to re as REIA meetings, Rhea medians. When we were in Florida, we were going to all kinds of networking events. I mean, guys, you're just out there hustling, right?

You're a hustler. You're just buzzing your butt. Just to get your list built. Just to get your name out there, just to get people to know who you were just to find out who all the whales were in the room. So you knew who you were selling your properties. You had to do a lot of work, but as you did that, you were going up the hill and it seemed like forever.

That's where the rubber meets throat. And a lot of people give up and quit because they don't even get started. They quit before they make it big. Or sometimes they make a big once and then they have a loss and they give up about that. And you're just like, oh, come on one loss. You're going to have a lot more nos than yeses, but the.

If you really want to make a business work, you're going to have to tough in your shell. You can't just be a leatherback turtle, right? You have to have a hard shell. There's going to be a lot of tough times. You just have to get through it because once you do, once you begin having one property, two properties turns into three properties.

All at that beginning, part of your business may seem like a struggle you guys. And it is, and I am not, you know, saying that it's not. But once you get through it, it gets a lot easier because people start to know who you are. They start to know you in a certain area. They start to refer people to you. The landlords that you're renting from will come back to you and tell you they have more properties, or they have friends with properties.

Your name gets out there and you do a lot less marketing, a lot less promoting yourself a lot less networking. It gets a lot easier. To find all that stuff, but you have to go through it. It's just like you're being branded by fire. That is the truth. There is not a business out there where the entrepreneur or the person who began it didn't have to work their Fanny off to get it.

If it was easy, everyone would do it. And that is the honest to God truth. Right now we see a plethora of people starting businesses and they will not be there tomorrow. So that's why I'm telling you. They won't be there tomorrow. 90% of them are going to quit because the going is going to get tough.

They'll get one or two, maybe three, and then they'll quit because it's pretty dang tough. And I want you to be the person who perseveres through all of it. Keep busting your ass because it is totally worth it. You will get to a place where it is so much easier and you will know when you get there. It's the only way, you know, So I really want you to keep trying, keep at it and don't give up, keep at it and do it once.

Do it twice. Do it three times. If you have to do it 10 times or 20 times, would it be worth it? Yes. Yes, it would. You have to have that. Why behind you? And once you have that, why everything you go. Is completely worth it. It is completely worth it. So get your mindset, right. Just know you're going to bust your ass.

You're going to beat all these other people out because they're going to give up real estate has been saturated for a long time in a lot of different areas. So you see it, it moves in ebbs and tides. People think that it always goes up and maybe for some time it feels like it does, but that's not true.

The players are always switching. There are a bunch of guys who have been there and I don't mean guys, guys, but there are a bunch of people who have been in there for a long time because they've earned their stripes. They've busted their hump and they know that all those other people are going to quit and move away.

So the players, the little players change, but the big ones don't be a big player, be in it for the long run and just know that if you hold out and you keep playing, you can't live. You really can't lose. Just keep doing it. Just keep adjusting and moving forward. Okay. So let's get into the five ways to stay ahead.

When the competition gets stuff out there, the number one way is to get back to basic. What I mean, when I say get back to basics is look at the competition out there on your website. And what are the two things back to basics? What are the two things that make or break your listing? It's your headline and your photos.

Check those out and make sure you're tweaking them. Make sure you're fixing them. You want to highlight your best features inside your head. And you want to make sure your photos are done professionally. I know this is basic, but guys, that's why I'm saying get back to basics. Because a lot of times we're changing things and moving things, maneuvering things.

And we forget what we set up a long time ago. We forget what we should know what we used to know, but somebody needs to tap us on our shoulder and remind us back to basics. Fix your headline, fix your pictures, best case scenarios. Right? So your headline. If your location is the best feature of your property, let's say you're close to an airport or close to a, an amusement park or close to some kind of venue.

You want that in your title. You want that in your description title. So say that if it's something like a pool, you want that in your description. So you can say something like private pool, Oasis, or close to the university. Or right next to the airport, whatever you want, highlight, whatever your best feature is, grab their attention with that because that's what they need.

It's really difficult. They still haven't gotten this, but it's really difficult on sites like Airbnb to find a location. There are people, you know, and ways to go and look at a map and find a location, but it's hard for people to find that I've had a ton of people. I can't see where you are and you, you tell them to look at the map.

They can't find the dang map. No can find it. We know it because we navigate that site every single day. Other people have a really hard time navigating the site. They can put the location and, or a city and a state in, or a city and a country in, but they still have a problem navigating the. And so just by having those description in there in your title, it makes a big difference.

And then once they get. And they start looking through the titles of the places they want to see your pictures, grab them next. So go back to the basics. You need professional pictures. Now in our membership site, we have posted some professional pictures next to some other pictures that were taken. And guys, they're almost exactly the same pictures.

The people who are taking the pictures were standing in the same location. The difference is incredible. Having a professional, take your pictures. You need to do that. You need to spend that little extra bit of money. It brings in the revenue. You will get better bookings. Okay. So do it. Don't skip that step.

Okay. Way number two is going to be knowing your competition and there's no better way to check out your competition than by going on air. Err, DNA is one of my favorite favorite websites. And when you have your membership there, you can put in your area, you can put it in by zip code and you can grab that whole entire area, all the information you want.

You can go down to specific neighborhoods and you can see just how many properties in that neighborhood. What their listings are, how much they're charging per night. It's incredible. The information you can get. It's basically like having a spy in the camp, right. And you are on one team and you're playing, I don't capture the flag or something, and you've got a spy in the other camp.

That's telling you all the moves of the other team. It's amazing. Right? You can't lose because you know exactly what they're doing. You know, what their occupancy rate is, you know what they're charging per night. Hello. Once you have all that information, use that information. It's amazing. And you can compare pictures, pricing, numbers, everything, know your competition, know what they're doing?

Go into the site where you choose the platform that you are using. And look at the competition. Pretend now you got to do it sometimes on another browser. I'm going to warn you because it knows you. If you're using the same browser, the same computer, you want to sign out of everything, clear all your cookies.

Okay. So you're going in there as a guest, look around, check out the competition, see what's going on because you have to know what you're competing against. And it's funny because there are. Cool podcasts. I listened to. And in most businesses they tell them, don't worry about the competition. Don't worry what they're doing.

Don't compare yourself. And I'm like, no, compare yourself. You have to compare yourself because in our business, people are comparing you. They are comparing you to your neighbor or you to the guy down the road. Once they get their location and they know where they want to be. They're going to compare all those options.

What does this place look like compared to this one? How much it will cost me to stay here as opposed to this place? What price point am I at? Or what am I getting for that little bit of price that I'm paying more for? So if some places $75 a night or a hundred dollars. It might be $25 a night difference, but they're getting X, Y, Z amenities.

And that that's totally cool for them. They're like, oh, for 25 bucks a night, I would like to have a pool and a workout room and a pool table and foosball or whatever it is. Right. So they might think that $25 is worth it, but there's somebody else who their budget won't allow it. And they're like, look, I gotta stay cheap, man.

I just gotta, I'm visiting my aunt. I just got to get there and get back or whatever. I'm I'm on a. So let them decide, but make sure that if your neighbor has a pool and you have a pool that your prices are comparable. Okay. Now this is going to lead into my next number three. Okay. Number three is pricing never compete for last place.

And I want to talk about the importance of pricing, dynamic pricing, like using wheelhouse or something like that. Don't use Airbnb is pricing. Theirs is a little bit lower, but something like wheelhouse, I love. But before you, we talk about the dynamic pricing aspect of it. I'm going to just let you know, you never want to compete for last place.

It's a no win situation. You can not keep undercutting yourself and make money in any business in any business. So Robert Kiyosaki, as an example, he has a board game called cash. And it's just a board game, just the board game, just like monopoly or just like, sorry, or one of those board games that Milton Bradley had, but his board game, he didn't charge $10 for a $20 for it, or even $40.

Back in the day he charged $250 for this board game. No kidding. It was 249 bucks to buy this board game. It was a lot of money. Now, the price has gone down now and you can get cashflow for a lot less, but back in the day, he charged more. Now why he used to say, look, I can charge exactly what it costs me to make it and make a little bit of profit.

But when people know something is more, it adds more value. And I am not Walmart. I am not competing for last place. You want to be the Lexus, not the Toyota part of that company. Okay. Same company, but they had to change their name and their branding. So people would disassociate it. So if you didn't know that most people know that, but if you didn't know, there was a car company before Lexus and Toyota before that whole scenario that did.

There was a car company that was loved by all, not just in the country where it's from Germany, but in the country where it came to America, America embraced this car company. They loved this car company and then the car company. We're going to go with a luxury car. We're going to create a luxury car.

We're known for this, but we're going to go luxury. And they created a luxury car. Now they had all these car people test it. It was an amazing car. It was absolutely fantastic. People loved it. It was great. All the people who tested it and then they put it out on the market using their same company name and it tanked.

Why did it tank, can you guess the company. The company was Volkswagen. Now Volkswagen was a well-known brand and they were loved. I mean, they had a great product. People love the bugs and they love the little Volkswagen vans. Right. But when they made a luxury car, it went away from who they were. It went away from their branding and it went away from their customers because their customers and their.

Believed that when they drove a Volkswagen, this was who they were. They were like, oh, we're this type of people. But it was so far separated from who they were that they just couldn't sell the cars. The cars were amazing, but the people who bought that type of car didn't think they were Volkswagen kind of people and Volkswagen kind of people didn't think they would buy that kind of car.

And so the sales tanked now, Toyota. Instead, they did something different. They said, okay, we create this type of car. We want a luxury car now. And I think we can do it. And I think we can do it better than anyone else. But when people buy a Toyota, that's not really what they think they're getting. They think they're giving a car for somebody like them.

And they see themselves as probably a really good consumer. Someone who doesn't overspend, but get something of value. They get a great car at a great price, right. That gives them awesome gas, mileage, great maintenance records, right. They think that they're being this wonderful consumer, but they don't see themselves as luxury buyers.

That's not who they see themselves as. Right. So what they decided to do, what Toyota decided to do was create an entirely different brand and said, okay, we're going to create this company called Lexus. And it's going to be for this type of consumer. Now, obviously there's going to be some people who decided to go and move with them and said, okay, well, while I was young and my kids were young and I didn't have a lot of discretionary income, I was practical and I bought a practical car or a Toyota, blah, blah, blah.

Had a Camry. Or I had. Whatever, you know, they said, I'm going to have, now I'm ready. I've got a little bit of money behind me. I'm going to move up to Alexis. And they moved with them, but not everybody did. A lot of the people stayed where they were, but they got a whole new audience and brought a new audience in.

Now take that scenario and take it to a Walmart. Let's use Walmart as an example. What happened to all the mom and pop places that were all over America. When Walmart's moved to town, you had sunny supermarkets and you had sun drugs and tiny drug stores on the corners. And you had. Every little town had their own mom and pop grocery stores, their own mom and pop merchandise places like, you know, dime stores.

You had the drug stores that were there. You maybe even had a pet shop. What happened to those places? When Walmart moved to town, they all died because you can't compete with cheap. Walmart buys millions of products. And when they buy them, they can cut the price down and get this. They don't even pay for those products until they're sold.

So most of Walmart's products that are sitting on their shelves are not owned by Walmart. They're sold on consignment. And a lot of times those consignments are weeks after the product has sold. And if there's any loss, Walmart doesn't take the loss. The people who own the products take the loss. Can you, are I compete with that business?

No, we cannot. And that's why all those businesses went out of business. That's why they left. They could not keep up. You can't keep up with that type of competition. And therefore they created a monopoly basically because there was no competition. So instead the government should have stepped in and said there needs to be fair pricing.

Fair competitive laws need to be made so that they didn't have an unfair advantage over the mom and pop places, but they never implemented that. Instead, what they did was the governments came in and they subsidize Walmarts for building them, their towns. They said, oh my gosh, if you come here, we'll give you thousands of dollars just to build your store here.

Did they give the mom and pop shops that same opportunity knew they. So you had some unfair advantages going on guys, when we're talking about competition, we're talking about capitalism and true capitalism is all about competition. Without competition. You do not have capitalism and you have unfair advantages and you have monopolies.

And a lot of times the laws don't protect the little guys. We have to be true capitalists and protect ourselves as business owners. So. When we're talking about that, I know nobody wants to be a capitalist anymore. They're like, yes, you are a capitalism. You're a business owner. You are a capitalist, just so you know, but here's the deal.

You cannot make money competing for last place. So we can't compete with Walmart, not by cutting our prices because we can't make our prices lower than Walmart, but what can we do? Who is right next to Walmart, almost always with a little bit higher prices, but a lot of people would much rather shop there.

Then Walmart, Hulu, Tarjay right now you've got target right next door in our city, the target and the Walmart are basically almost across the street from each other. And it's like that almost everywhere you go all around the valley where I live in Feeney. That's like a target here and a Walmart here.

Now, everybody knows Walmart has the cheapest prices, but there's a lot of people who will not step foot in a Walmart. They're like, I'm not a Walmart people. I'm a target people. And so why is even target still alive? They might be struggling, but they're still alive. And why are they out there? Because they know.

That people like cheaper prices, but they want to shop in some place that looks a little nicer. That's taken care of a little bit better. That has a little bit better feel than a Walmart. They don't want to be cheap. So there's going to always be somebody out there who doesn't want to have the very lowest prices.

They want to stay in a little bit nicer place. And if you can appeal to those people, you will always make more. You can't beat the Walmarts of the world. So there's always going to be somebody out there who's willing to cut their prices so low that they barely make anything. And who knows. It might be somebody who's owned that property for a long, long time.

They have way lower expenses. So since their overhead is lower, they can cut their prices lower than. But guys, are you out there to just survive? No, you're out there to thrive. Do not compete for last place. Your place has got to be above par. Your place has got to be above that line and I cannot stress this enough to you do not compete for last place.

So you've got two properties. Both of them have pools. You've got a pool on your gut. Your neighbor's got a pool whose property looks nice. It damn well, better be yours. That's all I'm saying yours better be cleaner. You better have nicer pictures, more professional pictures. Your decor should be uncluttered.

Shoot. If you could have an HGTV person come and do a makeover on your house, do that. You want your place to stand out and stand above. And if your price is just a few dollars higher, sometimes even a little bit higher, or even a lot higher. It will pay for itself because if somebody sees let's, let's give them grades.

If somebody sees a C minus picture of a place and they've got the same amenities as a B plus place, then they want to stay at the B plus place. And if there's an A-plus place, they will want to stay there. If it's a, just a little bit more, right. You don't want to compete for last place. So do the absolute best you can.

And that's why I say use a company like wheelhouse too, because your dynamic pricing is going to make a huge difference. Dynamic pricing can tell what properties are being looked at more often. What areas are being looked at more often? What dates? I mean, they've got a bunch of people working in a room somewhere, checking everything out and making sure that you are priced for competent.

And they are working for you. It's like a little room of geeks. And I love geeks because I was a math major. I love numbers, man. These guys play with numbers all day long and it's awesome. And that's what you want. You want them working for you and telling you how to price your properties. So connect everything to some kind of dynamic pricing and you don't have to use wheelhouse.

I love wheelhouse and their website is used wheelhouse. I also, I mean, there's beyond pricing. There's a bunch of different places and you can try them all air DNA has their own pricing, but this is stuff that would take you a long time to do if you were to do it by yourself. So pay someone else to do it.

It's literally a few dollars a month for use wheelhouse. I mean, it's just so cheap and they only charge you for the bookings that you got using them. And they're. So definitely check them out and use them. Okay. I'm going to add a little bit in here. This is all well and good, but I want you to know that if everything is going the same, let's say your place looks about the same and you have the same amenities inside of.

You will not offer your property for the same price or just a little above, offer it for more, at least five, 10, $20 a night, more, but offer more value. What can you do to offer more value than someone else? You can have things in your. Like breakfast, you can offer things like private cooking lessons or wine tasting or holding luggage for somebody when they're traveling or transfers to in, from an airport, anything like that.

You want to be able to add more value. And be able to charge more than lower your price. Okay. You never want to lower your price. You want to add more things. What can you add that will make it special? You can even add different excursions, you know, maybe. We give you a private trip around the city and show you all the haunted features because it's super close to Halloween right now.

So we're going to show you all the haunted hotels in the area are haunted buildings or hunted cemeteries. We'll give you a haunted city tour. You know, there's going to be something that you can offer. That's going to give your guests more value or. Okay. So never, never, never compete for last place. Never keep lowering your price and lowering your price and lowering your price.

Instead, add more things, add more things, add more value and make sure you're charging more. Just like you do when you're looking at a car, right. You're looking for a rental car and somebody says, here's the economy. But for two or $3 more a day, you can get this awesome car for just $3 more a day. That's not much.

And that's what you want. You want to make sure that for just that five or $10 more a night, they can get this awesome feature, all these awesome amenities that make your such a better value and they will be willing to pay that much more. So offer more. And add more value and keep your pricing just above everybody else.

Okay. Just above it. At least just, I like a big chunk of money, a chunk of money, you know where people can't say no to it. If you're in a competition where the prices are a little bit lower, $5 makes a big difference. But if you're in a medium price place where you know, the Knights are about 150 to $200 a night, and the average is 180, you might want to charge 2 0 5, that little bit of money for the value that you add, won't make a difference.

Okay. That brings us to number four, make your place shine. You've got to stand out. You've got to be the person that when they see your property, they go, Ooh, what about this one? Right. And sometimes people do that with themes. If you listen to the theme podcast, that was a cool. Because we talked about just doing something different to make your place stand out.

One of our founding members, Terry, she had an excellent, excellent idea. She's in Orlando, which is a really saturated place. And she was like, oh, I want to go with a theme. So she started looking at all the things around her place and she realized here's a princess room. Here's a princess room. Here's a princess room.

Here's a princess room. She's like, holy cow. Every single place in my neighborhood has like a princess themed room or maybe a Mickey mouse theme room. I'm going to aim for the adults. That's who my clientele is going to be. And so she did this really beautiful decor that really appealed to having adults in that room.

What if somebody wasn't coming in with real little kids? What if it was a family with older teens? Or, you know, young adults, they don't want to stay in a princess room anymore. Or maybe even it's like, come on, really? You're going to make me stay in the Mickey mouse room. Mom. It's like eating at the little kids' table at Thanksgiving.

You're like, I'm 19, I'm six foot three. I'm not going to sit here. You know? So that's pretty much what they're appealing to. And guess what, as soon as she got it, she got some great feedback that said, Hey, what. We picked your place because you didn't have a princess room because we have young adults because we need to feel like adults when we go someplace.

So look at your competition, know what they're doing and appeal to them by standing out somehow, stand out. Now it doesn't have to be with a theme because honestly that wasn't even really a theme. If you think about it, the theme was just being an adult. But the thing is you're standing out because your place is shining above an outside of everyone else.

You're not just another princess room, so that's what you want. You really want to stand out and you can shine with themes. You can shine with amenities, you can shine with location. You can shine with your pictures. Let's go back to the pictures really quick for a second, because I was looking for a place I'm going back up to Toronto for a trip.

And I was like looking for a place up there and I hit on this one place and I swear that none of the pictures showed me what the GD place looked like. I had pictures of books up close and wine glasses and wine and all, you know, all these really awesome artsy pictures. Awesome. What the hell does a place look like?

I could not tell you what the bedroom layout was. I couldn't even tell you what the full kitchen looked like. I mean, they had like a closeup of the stove so that I could see it was a gas stove. Great. I can't tell you if it was a closet inside of a condominium or what the hell? It was artsy. Awesome pictures, but they told me Jack shit.

So guys. Yes. Professional pictures are nice, but people want to know what they're getting. So make sure that you've got a picture that gives people an idea, but you don't want 18 pictures of the living room. Give them one great picture of the living room. Then maybe a nice picture of the throw over the couch and a close up of your wine and stuff, but let people see what the hell it is.

They're getting. I can't tell you. I literally had to call my husband in and say, you got to see this, tell me what this place looks like. And then he's flipping through the picture and he goes, what is this? I said, this is actually a BNB listing. He goes, no way. I can't even believe that anybody would stay here.

He goes, you don't know what you're getting. And I said, exactly, you don't know what you're getting. People want to know what they're getting. So make sure you stand out, but make sure people know what the heck they're getting. And you want it to look amazing. You really, really do so. Let your place shine, make your place shine.

Let people know that you use professional cleaners and make sure that you highlight all the wonderful things that you can do now. Here's number five because it goes right along with that. And it's basically the cherry on top is go above and beyond in your service offer. Awesome things. So I know there's a lot of people out there who do wine and we do wine in some of our places, but some people offer candy or gift baskets, or they have some kind of welcoming gift for people.

Gift bags, do something that makes you stand out. Something that really wows your. But don't make it too expensive. Don't go too extravagant. Okay. What do they say about 10% of your nightly rate? So if your nightly rate is $150 a night, don't spend more than $15. That's 10% of your nightly rate. Don't spend more than $15, but you can do a lot with $15 guys.

You totally can. And if you're in a place like Arizona, I always tell people, water, water, water, water, water, have a lot of water, have water bottles that they can take with them. And even if you ask them to keep the water bottles there, what you can, but they might not, they will accidentally take them with you.

That would be like a great thing. They would remember you if it had your little BNB logo on it and you had a water bottle, Arizona people dehydrate so incredibly fast, so take whatever it is. Like maybe you live in a really sunny place and you want to have some kind of a sun lotion or something there for them, something.

That is going to help them have a better experience in your place and maybe something that they can take with them that will remind them of you later. Okay. So these are awesome, awesome gifts, but go a little bit above and beyond, do a little bit more for them and they will love you for it. You may even want to offer experiences.

We had a whole entire episode about that. Experiences are great way to add value and increase your revenue. And they're absolutely amazing. You can do anything you want. And if you check those out on Airbnb to the Airbnb experiences, you can do those no matter where you are, no matter who you're booking with it, doesn't matter if you're doing booking.com and you book your room there, you can still go on to Airbnb experiences and pull up the city, and there's all kinds of activities for you to do there.

So it's amazing. There's a ton of. That you can add on to do that extra thing, go that extra mile for your guests and you really want to do that. So let me real quick, go through all five of these. Number one, go back to basics, right? With your headline in your photo, make sure you're going over that number two, know your competition, use things like rDNA number three, pricing don't compete for last place.

Use things like dynamic pricing, like wheelhouse, right? Number four, make your place shine. Pick a theme, but look amazing. Stand out above the crowd and number five. Go above and beyond in your service. Okay. And bonus bonus. I'm going. Okay. Bonus, bonus bonus is guys build your list, build your list. I cannot tell you how important this is.

Uh, list for most people when you're in real estate, a list is all the people who are going to buy or sell you properties. That's your list. If you're in almost any type of business, your list is your customers, the consumers, the people who are eating your product. If you're a restaurant wearing your clothes, if you're a clothing store, outlet does matter what they are.

They're your customers, the people who are buying or the people you are servicing to. You have customers, they are your guests build that list. Every time someone books with you, you need to get their name, their address, and their phone number and their email address it's imperative. And you want to update them.

And keep sending them stuff. And as you get more and more properties, you can share those properties with them. So let's say somebody stays at your property. They're in Texas, you're having a blast. They loved it. They're on your list. Now, every time you update something, let's say, oh, we just redid the kitchen in the place.

How does it look? And they'll go, oh my gosh, it looks amazing. The love, all those updates. Or you can say, Hey, I just bought this fantastic place, right on the beach, right in North Carolina or someplace right on the beach. And you send them that they're like, holy cow, I've always wanted to go there. I've never been, it's been on my wishlist.

I'd love to go. So send them back. These people, they know you, they love you. They're already a client of yours and they love hearing those updates and feeling like they're a part of your business, a part of your world and your experience. People love to be a part of things. They love to be a part of the group.

So build your list. Okay. Make sure you're building. Keep people updated, let them know what's going on and you can even make them offers every now and again, especially around the same time of year. Make sure you're building your list. I know you think that, oh, I've only got one property. So what I imagine.

If you have the same people coming to your place year after year after year, if you've got a place by the university, you got four years, those parents are going to probably come and visit their kids for four years, man, four years of customers, you don't have to get again and again and again, and you can give them a discount and book them without going through your platform and paying for.

So when you have that, when you create a business where your clients, your guests are coming back to you year after year after year, you don't have to keep paying all that money out to places like Airbnb. You've already created that sale. So just a few of your listings will have to go through a platform and pay some kind of service fee.

The rest is coming from you. And that's all money in your pocket. You don't have to share it with any one else, which will be really, really nice and really build up your bottom line and that's what you want. So that was the bonus. Yay bonus. And let me end this podcast breaking in and telling you how to build that list.

You can build that list very easily by using a product called Steph. Steve is a wonderful company. If you want to learn more about stay fi just listened to the BNB boss episode number 44. It's fantastic. And you'll get to learn how. You know, when you go to a hotel and you go to sign in to the wifi, says, you know, something welcome to the hotel.

It has a little hotel picture of where you're staying, you put in your email and they just have you put in your room number and your last name and the last. Get the internet. Well, you're going to do that for everyone who is staying at your house. That means if there are five people staying at your house, you get all five of those people's email, because most likely all five of them are going to be using the internet.

It's a great way to build your list. It builds your list with not just the person who is in charge of the reservation, but every adult who is staying there. That list is now yours. You own it. And no matter what anybody does, you can have it. And not only that, the Cray Cray part is let's say you have a property that's next to a lot of properties.

Maybe there's a community pool or something. If you put your wifi outside, somebody wants to sign in, let them do it. Why? Because you can build your list from people who are not staying in your property. Let's say your wifi is going all the way out to the pool. And somebody wants to use the internet. The.

And they're staying at another property. You can build your list, even Bayer with people who aren't staying there and you'll be able to market to them. So build your list with stay fi episode number 44 of the BMB boss podcast. And I'm telling you it's a great way to build your list and earn extra money.

Marketing is fun.

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