Episode 087 – STRR – Creating Family-Friendly Stays: How to do It and Why it Means More Money for You

Michelle talks about her family travels and how creating a Family-Friendly property can mean more money for you.  She gives you tips and tricks to creating the perfect family environment: one where the parents can relax and enjoy their vacation just as much as the kids.  Plus, if you do it right, you can have families join you year after year making your property a “family tradition!”  

 

Transcript of this Episode:

Hi, this is Michelle, the master of money mindset, and you are listening to BNB dash boss podcast.

And in today's podcast, here we are in the second week of December and we're talking about family friendly stays. I thought we would do something family friendly just because I've got the Christmas spirit and I hope you do too. So let's take listen to this episode. I may pop in here.

Or at the end, let's start this one right away. So we can get into the Christmas family holiday spirit. Enjoy. We're going to be talking about creating family friendly, stays how to do it and why it means more money for you. Okay. We're talking about family friendly vacations. This is actually an extension of the last podcast we did.

It was just so long that we split it into two, but I wanted to remind people. Family-friendly vacations are actually really good moneymakers. I'm not sure if you know this, but a lot of families, a big percentage of families that travel will travel to the same destination every single year. And they'll bring their kids.

And as their kids get older, they go where they feel comfortable. And if they feel comfortable in your home, that's amazing. They will book with you over and over and over again. It's just such a great source of revenue. And if you can make those families happy, you can keep them coming back to your place year after year after year.

So I wanted to talk to you more about creating a family friendly place, how you can do it and why it means more money. Well, obviously the more money part is because they keep coming back to you. And if they do, especially if you have your own website or even if you had little. Something that is going to tell them that you are available for them next year as well, that you are ready to book them in that you will give them the discount.

Now, most of you will yell. Well, I can't afford to give them a discount every year. Yes you can. You know why? Because if they're not booking on Airbnb or BRBO or wherever they book, normally they're booking directly with you. You can take that money that you would have paid and discount it from the price that they already.

And it's a huge discount. You can ask them. I'm not sure if you realize this, but the money that you see as somebody is charged is not always the money that they are charged. So let's say for instance, you're charging a hundred dollars a night and Airbnb takes out two 50 or $5 for that. So that means you got $95, but what they charged the guest may not have been a hundred dollars a night, even it may have been a little bit more.

So sometimes Airbnb or other platforms will make a little bit off of you and a little bit off of your guest. So when you give them a definite price, say in this case, $95 a night, That's a huge discount for them. They may have paid 105 a night or they may have paid more. So you just don't know offering that discount.

It means a lot to them. And if you can offer a discount every year, they will love you for. People tend to stay in the same places. My parents rented the same cabins down in the Ozarks every single year and as a cabins because my aunts and uncles went and they were all around this lake every single year.

I mean, it was the same thing. A lot of people do that. We stayed in the same place several years in a row until one lady sold it. And then we found another place. There's a lot of people who travel to the same destinations with their kids year after year after year, and the potential for creating a residual income, the ones that keep coming in, you don't have to work too hard for that type of income.

Those are really great. When you are family friendly, when you cater to the needs of the people who are visiting your property. And in this case, we're talking about families. Now you can do the same thing with other people who are visiting. Catered to those same type of people and they will come back to you over and over and over again.

That's the type of business that you want. Something that's almost automatic. So one of the first things that families look for is a safe location, a safe environment, and a safe home. They want a place where their kids can play, where they feel safe. So if you have a pool of fence around the pool, Uh, gate around the backyard, something that keeps them safe.

So listing the fenced in backyard, that means a lot to a lot of people. And if you have a playground in there, like we talked about the outdoor spaces at the beginning of this episode, if you have a playground and it's fenced in the parents feels so much more at ease, just letting their kids play outside because they're in a place they don't know, they won't get lost or wander away.

And the. Unpack or take out the groceries or whatever they purchased and get everything set and ready and they don't have to worry so much about the kids when the backyard is all fenced in. A lot more ease in what they're doing. Nothing is worse than walking into a place with your kids and everything is a no touch zone.

Don't touch this. Don't touch that. Stay away from this. Stay away from that. I mean, it's terrible because you just feel like, oh my gosh, I will never be able to sit and just relax because you know that the next sound you're going to hear is a crash of something very expensive. So some parents, when they get into a place, the first thing they do.

Is go through and take anything that's breakable and put it up high. So their kids can't get it. I used to do that constantly, and it was a pain in the butt until we found one place that we absolutely love. And guess what that place was. So kid friendly that we came back year after year after year, because when you find something you think.

Boom, you stay there, you stay with what feels familiar, what feels comfortable to you? What makes you feel at home when you're far away? People love that. Parents also want to make sure that they're in a safe neighborhood, that they feel safe. So make sure if your neighborhood is safe, don't lie. But if your neighborhood is safe, go ahead and say, this is a very safe neighborhood.

We feel very secure. Let them know this is a safe place. Make sure you have things for them to things like baby gates, pool fences outlet covers on all the outlets, cabinet locks, whatever you can do to help keep the property safe and secure for the kids. The parents are going to appreciate it. Just having breakable things up high that helps out a lot.

Another thing that you can do. Is cover any sharp corners and make sure you don't have really sharp corner furniture. So we have a lot of cushy furniture in our family-friendly locations. We don't have anything with a real definite. Everything is pretty much rounded. So little ones when they're learning how to walk or when they're playing rough housing, nobody bumps their head really hard against the corner of a furniture.

Nothing is worse. And we make sure that if there's any level changes, so a lot of houses that are older might have a sunken room or a raised dining room. Where it goes down. Just one step, we make sure that it's, it's very defined that they can see the difference in the levels because nothing is worse than a toddler, like zooming around, not seeing that a step is coming in, the parents going no, no, no, no, no.

Chasing after them trying to catch them before they slam on their face because they didn't see the step. So we make sure that we define areas of different levels. Very, very well, making it safe and secure for the little. And any place where we really think that they could bump their little heads or hurt themselves.

We want to make sure those are covered, or they have some kind of cushiony edges that you can put on there. Some little foam edges. Another really cool thing to do for parents is to secure the furniture. A lot of people don't talk about this, but little kids have a tendency to climb. And if your furniture is not secured to the.

It can be a big danger for little ones. They like to open up drawers in bedrooms and start to climb to reach up to the top of a dresser. And in fact, dresser is not secured to the wall. The weight of the child can bring that entire dresser or bookcase or whatever they're climbing right down on top of them.

And nothing is worse than that. It is literally caused death. So I'm a big one on securing furniture. If there's anything tall where someone could grab it and tip it over, then I make sure it's secured. Bookcases are secured, tall, dressers are secured. Anything that could tip over on the little one, if they tried to climb it, they're always, always secured.

Make sure you do that. Doesn't cost much. It's literally like there's these straps that you can get. They screw into the back of the furniture and then screw into the wall. And it keeps that. Falling all the way over onto a child because kids will climb. You can tell them all day long, they can't climb, but you know, while the mom's going to the bathroom, you cannot tell what's going on with the kids.

They're like little Houdinis. They get into things. They disappear. I can open the most difficult locks that we can't open. The, our little Houdinis our son, who is our oldest son. He's now almost 30, but when he was younger, we literally called him Houdini. We couldn't find a car seat that this kid could not get out of from the time he was a young toddler.

He could figure it out and pop his little butt out of there. Snap it open. Maneuver his shoulders in a way that he could get out of car seats. So we always had to double check our little Houdini all the time because we would turn around and he would be out of that car seat. And it was incredibly frustrating when you were a parent, but your eyes, you can't be everywhere when you have more than one kid.

You can't have your eyes on all of them. I mean, it's just impossible. So you have to make it easier for the parent. And it's not that the parents are not taking care. It's just that sometimes you're outnumbered. And I was definitely outnumbered more than once when I, when my kids are again. I mean, so it's pretty obvious to then you don't want glass tables, glass end tables and glass, coffee tables, anything with glass, not a good choice.

When you've got little kids, not to say that you can't have furniture. I find that heavier furniture is actually better. My kids got less hurt when I had heavier furniture than when I had cheaper, lighter furniture. So just watch the type of furniture that you have, the edges, the corners, make sure they're fixed to the walls and just keep everything safe and secure.

It's a great idea to have gates on the stairs too. Now, if you're not a fan of having the gates that are secured to the walls, which are actually the ones that are. But if you're not a fan of that, because you don't want to dent the walls or you don't want to have to fix that later on, then by all means, get the ones that self secure.

They have a latch that goes down and keeps them nice and tight for the parents. But if you have. Stair gates are imperative. When you have little ones, it's going to keep them in a safe place with the parents. And you're going to make sure that they don't climb or fall downstairs. So one at the top and one at the bottom is a really great thing to have.

Parents will absolutely love you. If you have some of those now, obviously there's toys and games that you can provide for. Whatever you can provide is absolutely fantastic, but let's make sure it's age appropriate. Now I've been on some Facebook forums with some short-term rental owners, and they're complaining about parents allowing their kids to play with games that weren't age appropriate.

So when they got back, they had board games out and some little kids had gotten into them and they were all over the place and all mixed. And I'm thinking, well, you left that out there. And if there were no toys for that kid, if they forgot a bag of toys or whatever, that child is going to find some kind of toy.

So you need to be the one to provide age appropriate toys and games. If you're going to have them, what we do is we have tubs those big Rubbermaid tubs that. You can put them up in the closet and you can label them according to age. So you can put age appropriate toys for infants age, appropriate toys for toddlers age, appropriate toys, poor kids for.

Age appropriate toys for kids eight to 12 age appropriate toys for kids 12 and up. So you can be the one who designates what toys are going to be left. If you don't feel like leaving them in your property and they can go through all of them, then ask them before they come, what are the age of the kids that are coming?

And that way you can be the one who leaves them out or the kids. And you don't have to leave all the rest of them out. But if the parents allow the kids who are younger to play with the older kids toys, that's pretty much on the parents. There's nothing you can do about that. Don't judge them, they're on vacation and they just want to relax, just have fun and be lighthearted about things, but also try to provide some really fun stuff for.

And, you know, just ask other parents or go on other forums and you'll see, there's a bunch of really cool stuff. If you can't remember, or you've never had kids then ask someone else about what would a little girl about this age? Like what little boys about this age, like, and then just go down to Goodwill and find some really cool stuff.

That's in pretty good shape. Don't get junky stuff or dirty. Or if you get something like a Playhouse, make sure that you power wash it and hose it off. So it's really, really. Whatever you get, kids are going to love because it's not what they have most likely. So it's new to them. Kids are great about just appreciating pretty much any kind of toy that you have.

Just make sure that they're clean and age appropriate. And mark. Before you let them play with everything. And that way you have nothing to complain about, but kids love board games and things like that. Now my kids, as they got older and we were going to the same place, we switched to a new property and that property had a big game room.

It's very popular in Florida to take a girl. Do the floor up really nice. And then they put air hockey tables, ping pong tables, pool tables, foosball, whatever they want. They make a big game room out of it. And teenagers love that stuff. My teens were in there all the time. They made it look like, oh, a little rock and roll place.

They had like a fifties theme going with a little bar with little stools that were those bright, you know, red with specs on them. That leathery. It totally looked 1950s era. And it was just so adorable, but the kids felt like it was their room, their place to go. And I could trust them in there. They were fine.

They were doing okay. This place also had a pool. So they were constantly in the pool back and forth. And it was nice because it had its own entryway and the little shower on the outside of it. And the kids absolutely loved it. I mean, they felt like this was their home. And especially, I think by the second or third year, they were just.

Are we going to our house as if it was ours, is if we owned it. And that, that time we did not own that house. We hadn't purchased our first property there yet. So it was kind of funny. It was something that made us do it later on, and we really enjoyed it after. So make sure if you have a pool as well, that you have some pool noodles, some floaties, maybe even some goggles and things that you picked up from Costco, something there for the kids to play with, because most likely they will have forgotten their own.

And if you want to keep them, then you can put up signs that say, please return these so that others may enjoy them as well. Or people tend to think that if you left something out it's for them, especially goggles. I don't know why, but goggles seemed to be like something they pick up. So if you can go to a dollar store and pick up a bunch of dollar call goals for a little.

Because if you leave him out and the people take them with you, won't feel bad about losing them $8 $9 goggles. You kind of feel a little worse about losing, but $1 goggles. You're totally cool with it. You want to have the essentials for families with infants as well. So when someone's traveling with a baby, it's incredibly difficult, especially if they have more than one child, it's like they've got diaper bags on this shoulder and the strollers they're pushing here and car seats and blah, blah, blah.

So the more you can have an offer them the better off you'll. And you want to feature these things in your listing so that people see that they don't have to bring all of that stuff with them. So some of those things are things like high chairs, portable cribs, inexpensive strollers, baby baths, baby monitors, sippy cups.

Things like that things that they can take with them, especially if you're like in Walt Disney world, you want things that they can take with them in the. One time, we got a bunch of free water mug things, you know, those just, you know, they carry water. I don't know what you call them, but they, they were free.

We got 'em from this event that we went to and they had a whole bunch of leftover. And so they said, do you want these? And we said, yes. And we took them in and we just put them out there. People loved them. They were like, oh. And we said, just go ahead and keep them. And they were thrilled. So we looked into at one time, even putting our logo and having those in offering those up as part of their free gift when they got there.

But people love that stuff. They love anything that they can take with them to, and from the beach or to the parks or on picnics and stuff, things that they didn't have to spend the time packing. So if you offer things like that, like I said, you don't necessarily have to have. In the listing, but you can have a picture of it and that will let people know too.

So let's really quick cover something that a lot of people think of people with kids tend to lose a lot of things that are left in their house. If a kid wants it, they take it. They have no, no, no filter on those things. So if there's something that you don't want somebody to do, I don't have it in your guest house.

If it's something that you want to have in your guest house, but you don't want them to take, put something there that says, please don't take this not on the inside. Like if it's a book, don't put it on the inside of the book, put it on the shelf, a little sign on the shelf that says these are for you to use while you're here, but please leave them for other guests.

So that way they know that it's meant to be there now in recent times, we'll see that people take so much stuff. It's so crazy. There's even a video on YouTube about what you can and cannot take from hotels and B and BS. And some of this stuff. I'm like, I don't like people taking all that stuff. I mean, this stuff costs.

And we know that, but there's a really great way to kind of let them know what they can and cannot take. That's a gift bag or gift baskets. Those items that are left in there. You can say these are for you, the toilet trees, little snacks, maybe the goggles, whatever you want to put in there, put in there for them, let them know they're there for.

But that the rest of the stuff, if it's not in there, then they'll really get an idea, like, well that wasn't in our gift basket. I don't think that we should take that. And the reason why is it wasn't in the gift basket. It makes it very, very clear things for you. Things not brew. So let your people know what you want to stay in.

And let them know what they can't take. So obviously pool toys, that's obvious to us. We just keep a little sign inside the storage room door that says for your kids to play with while they're here. And that way they know they're supposed to be there for all the other guests or for our guests to enjoy something that lets them know that they are meant to stay there.

Not to go home with your kid. That's all you have to do so obvious things. Hopefully they won't. But if you're one of those people, go ahead and take an inventory, just cut the parents, some slack, because they're on vacation. You don't know which kid took what you have no idea what they have in their pocket.

Sometimes you get home and you're cleaning out the car and you're like, where the heck did this come from? And you're as shocked as anything else, especially when you have a lot of kids or you're digging a bunch of kids, like. Most of the time when we traveled, we traveled in a big van with a ton of. They weren't always all mine.

There were a lot of kids, best friends going with us. So sometimes we'd have up to nine kids traveling with us. So cut those parents, some slack, because they've got a lot on their mind and they're also going broke because they're paying for a lot of kids. So it's like, oh my gosh. Just think, imagine Disney tickets for nine children.

Yes. Not a fun. But cut the parents, some slack, you guys make sure you make it as easy for them as you can possibly make it, make it crystal clear for people so that they know what they can take and what they should leave. Now, like I said, in the beginning of this, I think it's really important that you offer these parents some kind of discount on future.

And you can do that with, like I said, pamphlets, or some kind of signage, you can email them, you can call them whatever you want to do, but just let them know that that property is available for them next year. If they feel like returning. And maybe if you have your own website, leave a link to that so that they can sign up on your email list and they can see your website, but offer a discount.

Offer the absolute lowest price on your website, just like hotels. Do hotels do that. Why? Why do they do that? Because they know if you booked directly with them, you get the best price. Everyone else. They have to pay a commission to then your people who are going there, your guests who are returning over and over again, no, to go to your website to get the absolute best.

And they're happy to do it. They're happy to do it. You don't necessarily need a website, but honestly there are free. I mean, there's a lot that are free, almost free, practically free. So come on. It's so easy to set up a website. Now, just post a few pictures on there. Put some dates, link it to your PayPal account and it couldn't be easier.

Hello. So try that, try those things. To get them to repeat their business before they have a chance to. While they're still in that mood, because right there, they're in that high peak emotional state and they're ready. They're ready for it again, you know what? I want to do this again next year. And then if you give them too much time, then they go home.

And the reality is of life kick in and the mundane goes on. And the day after. And they forget about it. They really, really do, but if they can do it while their emotional state is really high, I mean, why do you think when you're walking around amusement parks, Disney, universal, all those guys, they have their property guys booths all over the place, trying to push the Disney vacation membership or.

Universal vacation memberships or the Marriott vacation memberships. Why do you think those are all over there? Because they want to hit people in those peak emotional states. They're ready to buy. They're having a great time. They're with their kids. They're relaxing. They're having. Hit them during those peak times.

And that's when they will book with you and give them a discount and they will book again and again and again, and let them know, you know, that you love referrals. Thank you so much for any referrals you give. If you give out this many referrals, make some kind of program for them. Five referrals gives them, you know, this much of a discount or a free dinner or something because families can be your biggest forms of advertising.

When they love a place, they will tell every they know about this place. They will be little broadcasters for you going around and pitching and marketing, and you won't have to pay anybody. So use them use them when their energy is high and their emotions are at a peak. Let them know that you'll give them discounts that you were appreciate referrals, that you give free dinners for referrals or whatever you, whatever you do to get them coming back again.

And that goes back to something that I teach my members. I gave away one of my websites and let them see how I built it. But if they looked on their clothes, they would see after 10 nights they get one night free. What does that mean? They can't get it on the same stay. So they have to be a repeat client when they are repeat guests coming again.

And again, they can earn free stays. And why do we do that? We do that because it brings repeat guests. They come again and again and again, and they booked directly with us and we save so much money. And if they're staying 10 nights, heck yes, we can give them a night free. You can do it any way you want. I mean, you don't have to do 10 nights equal one night free.

Like I said, you could do use dinners. You could use discount tickets, whatever the heck you want to use, just come up with something that keeps people coming back again and again and again, because you want that repeat business. And they will be your biggest form of advertisement. Now I've got a really great couple in our membership area of Fred and Laura, and they were talking about their properties in Florida and how everyone had a themed room for the kids and how just changing it to a more adult theme, got them several bookings.

But I was thinking about. The fact that sometimes you can theme something for a child. So you can say, Hey, if you've got kids, let us know. We'll be happy to throw some Mickey mouse things on there, or star wars or Harry Potter. Tell us what your little fan loves and we'll make the. Exactly what they like, because we've got a bunch of fame stuff.

So it, to us, it's not going to cost us any extra money. We've got a bunch of themed comforters, so it's not going to cost us a bunch of money, but you can ask people what they want. Now, this got me thinking about a bunch of things that we used to do. I know this is so weird, but when I was a girl scout leader, I was a girl scout.

For more than 10 years in a boy scout leader for another more than 10 years because of my kids, we did something for the local shelter. They were these birthday boxes and birthday boxes were just boxes that we put together with everything for a birthday party inside for girls, women, and moms who were at shelters with their kids.

They would pick them up and take them and they couldn't afford even the cake mix and the frosting and the candles and some presents and balloons and the streamers. We put a bunch of stuff in there. So they had an instant birthday party and it didn't cost them anything, but people loved it. Now I started thinking, why can't we do that for our guests?

We can say, Hey, are you going to be celebrating anything special? Like birthday? Or anniversaries or graduations or anything. Right. And you can put like a little party stuff over in the corner for them, or even bring, buy a cake on the day of whatever you want to do. However deep you want to go with this, you can go with it.

But the thing is, let them feel more at home. When they see that you do little things for them or for their kids, they'll be so happy. And the kids will be so happy. They'll remember the birthday that they had there. Our daughter, Brittany, and our son, Tyler, every year when we go to Florida, we go about the same time a year.

So we're there during September and October. And they've celebrated so many birthdays in Florida and we had a second home there for a long time. So we were there half the year more, but it was crazy because our kids just knew mother's day. We're always in Florida and we're always in Florida, birthday.

And we're already in Florida on this person's birthday. So if your families are traveling to your place, always in the summertime, maybe they've got some summertime babies and it's there. And you can help be a part of that celebration. See how deep you want to go with it, but just play with those ideas.

Try to think out of the box and make it really special. You can even add a little charge for it. Well, we do have a birthday celebration if you're having. Any birthdays, we charged $25, but it includes cake streamers, balloons, candles. Just tell us how old they are, blah, blah, blah. And we'll have it all there.

Ready? You tell us the day and it'll be delivered by blank o'clock or whatever, sitting in the fridge for you, whatever you want, but you guys make up your mind and you can charge a little extra for things like that. People do not mind. And if you have a website like mine, I'll have a link to Kajabi, but Kajabi has where you.

Hook your PayPal up to it. And they can click on, you can create little add on packages and they can click on them and add them right to their vacation. So their bookings or their vacation packages, whatever you want to offer, you can even have excursions on there, all your own. It's absolutely amazing.

Now Kajabi is a little more expensive, but it's super, super easy to use. And it basically pays for itself. Once you have packages like that. It's awesome. I love having Kajabi, but there are other websites that you can have where you can add those things on WordPress. You get to weird plugins that are hard to deal with.

I just don't want all that techie stuff, but our websites are all done through Kajabi, the prosperity process and short term rental revenue, all through Kajabi. Love Kajabi face. Every single person that pops on with me, I just, you know, I have a special place in my heart for them and their businesses. And I can't wait to see everybody just exceed their biggest, greatest dream because I know they will, every night I'm looking at my wall and praying for my people and, and anyone on the wall.

So if you guys F you want to be on our wall just to have prayers, even if you're not in the membership or something, send us your picture and the picture of your listing. Are you in front of your listing? Send us that, and we'll put you on our wall too, because we say a lot of prayers for everyone there that they get to experience God's love and prosperity, just a ton of blessings and that the blessings flow through them to other people.

So just know that when you are a business owner, when you own things and you're running. That. Yeah, you're making money, but you're making a lot of other people happy too. So you're paying your cleaning companies and your maintenance guys, and you're paying Airbnb and they're paying a bunch of people who work for them.

So everybody is happy. That is what prosperity is all about is just allowing that love and prosperity to flow through, to. So that's it for our family friendly stays, but I think that is an excellent episode. That's how we made the majority of our money in short-term rentals were our properties in Florida.

They sustained us three lot of difficult times. I love being in areas that families love to go. So if you're close to the Ozarks or you're close to a lake, or you're close to someplace where families love to go, I love serving families. I think families. And retired couples are my favorite people to serve.

I love everybody, you know, but those are my favorite people. My nurses, my traveling nurses, they are getting near and dear to my heart, but they're kind of sloppy some of them that we've had. So. That's my, my cleaning crew is always like, ah, these nurses. And I'm like, yeah, because they work so many hours, they work like these long, 10 hour days, sometimes four days of 10 hours, but they're so exhausted.

It takes them days to catch up. So not exactly, you know, the ideal nine to five job and it's a difficult job and it's, you know, a mentally difficult job as well. So I do love. Traveling nurses that we get as well, remember a, Hey, if you're going to mail us those pictures, I left that part in there because we still have our wall.

And now if you could send me a little square. We're putting everything in these little tiles, mixed tiles is like this really fun place that we get our pictures done and everything is a square. So if you could take your favorite picture of you and your family, it could be in front of your property if you want.

It doesn't matter. But you and your family or you and your property or whatever you want us to pray for. We'll put you on our wall and we will pray for you and pray for your business, especially now through COVID, we've been praying for all the people that we know and love, especially the kids. We're really, really praying hard for children, especially now.

So you want to email us that you can email that directly to me at Michelle, [email protected]. Just send me over the pixel and your name and everything. And we will put you on our prayer list. We will be praying for you each and every day, each and every night. There you go.

Merry, Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones. I hope you have the most awesome holidays.