Transcription
Airbnb is a virtual business. Let me [Music] explain.
So, the vast majority of Airbnb operators are running their business actively, which basically means they're running every aspect of their business. They're wearing all the hats, whether it's pricing, design, shopping, listing, team management, all of it. The alternative to doing it yourself seems to be farming it out to a property management service, very expensive, 25-30% of gross revenue. And it's not really a business if you're farming it out to any service, right? It's not yours.
So, there is a third alternative, and let me explain. So, the short-term rental model is inherently systemized. If you can deploy a team, then you can do all of this yourself. 90% of this business is done remotely. For us, that's in the Philippines. Our entire front desk that we built runs 90% of our business: housekeeping, scheduling of housekeeping, the communication with housekeeping, guest messaging, and and fielding inquiries from, you know, people looking to book with you. So that's 90% of this work.
The other 10% is when we need to be on site to be at the property. Well, that's the housekeepers. So, our housekeepers do way more than clean. So, the VAs in the Philippines communicate with our housekeepers and do the vast majority of this work. And so, it just takes a couple extra steps in the process for you to automate and implement your system teams and protocols.
So, let me explain. So, my name is Richie Matthews. My wife and I have 60 properties under management. We've had 10,000 reservations since we started, earned over $6 million gross revenue, maintained over an 80% occupancy, and we're still Super Hosts on Airbnb and Premier Hosts on Vrbo, and at the top of all the platforms that we're on. Largely because the various people on our team are better than us at the various aspects of what they're doing. Some of us are good at pricing, some of us are good at, you know, uh, design, uh, guest communication, team building, and all that stuff. So, we have various people on our team that do all of that.
But let me explain. So, it took us a year to split-test thousands of different scenarios for us to finally step away from the day-to-day operations in the summer of 2021. Since then, we have not been in the day-to-day operations. We participate about twice a month in anything that goes on in the business, and that's only because we want to.
So, let me explain the four-step framework that we created to make this a remote business that where you can operate in any market your properties, and you can have your team do all of it.
So, first is create a virtual front desk. We use a job board called onlinejobs.ph. I'll share with you our ad copy, but basically, we're making sure that our new VAs have experience on the software we use. We use Hospitable, which is a channel manager. There's many of them out there now. If they come to you with experience on Hospitable, think about it, half of the the interview questions that you would otherwise have had to ask them, you don't have to anymore. So, no longer should you be at making sure that they work at Airbnb. Airbnb is okay. We want them to work on our side of the phone. So, working for another property management service in the short-term rental space is the way to go. And we make sure our litmus test is six months' experience on Hospitable. Now, the VA will run. Once we're going to get into step uh three and four and how we train and and make sure that they're following systems and protocols, we have them help us plus train our housekeepers.
Step two is establish your housekeeping system. So, I'll also share with you our ad copy. We advertise on Craigslist, but the way we weed out all that spam and scam is we ask the housekeepers to send us a 30-second video why they want to work with us. We let them know that it's a $20 per hour expectation of working. We also set out the expectation for a one-bedroom, it's a two-hour gig. For a two-B, it's a three-hour gig. For a three-B, it's a four-hour gig. So, that's the expectation. Our costs are then fixed. We know what our costs are going to be per turnover. And so, we in our ad copy, making sure that they have their own car, that they have their own cell phone, and that they're willing to work on weekends. So, once we set up that basic framework in our ads, it weeds out anybody that doesn't want to work in in that environment. And then, once they're hired, we have them shadow other housekeepers, learn our system. And our VAs communicate with all of them. And I'll explain how they communicate, what tools we use.
So, establish your front desk and your housekeeping system. That's like 99% of the job. In the off chance that there's something that your housekeeper can't do in the unit, and believe it or not, our housekeepers even do light maintenance. A lot of them will change out batteries on things. They'll they'll do inventory control. They'll actually even deliver supplies from our storage unit. They'll swing by it. They'll get paid an extra half hour. So, that's how we're be able to implement all this without a professional manager.
Step three in the process is installing your software and hardware tools. So, let me explain ours. So, you're going to need a software like a a channel manager. We use Hospitable. We load it with thousands of different messages, and it basically becomes an FAQ, uh, answer machine for our VA. So, the learning curve about our properties is diminished greatly, especially if they're the ones uploading the various messaging to the channel manager. They're going to learn through that process what our systems are, what our house rules are, you know, all of that. And so, in the off chance that our VA doesn't have the answer to a guest question or an inquiry, or if a housekeeper has an issue, they have an FAQ bot. Then, if they if they can't get those answered, they typically throw it up in a group chat, and I'll explain what tools we use for that for management to get involved. But again, that's a fraction of the time in the overall scheme of your day-to-day operations of your business.
And so, installing your your software, starting with Hospitable channel manager, it does a lot of the auto messaging, it connects your calendars, it connects all of your listings, so you can now be on booking.com, Expedia, Vrbo, Airbnb, and other platforms. They all get channeled together through one single messaging thread. Um, I use PriceLabs, which is our dynamic pricing tool. That again, it sounds like an expense, it will make you money because you'll get bookings on days you you you would have otherwise because your prices will drop. It will increase price and and it won't allow you to leave money on the table on days of high demand. So, we implement our software and our pricing software. We also use, we're very low-tech, we use a WhatsApp to on our group text to bridge all of our our people on our team. So, we have one lead VA that's running the team, and then we have our housekeepers that are on the chat, and so they're able to communicate that way.
So, install a pricing uh software, channel manager. We use WhatsApp now to communicate with guests. We also add RingCentral. So, when we send our automatic check-in message, we also include in there, "Hey, we're available 24/7 here on the platform, or you can text us on RingCentral, or you can text us at this number." And so, that number actually is fielded by whatever whoever is on duty. So, our VA that's on duty, we have coverage 24/7. So, we have VAs on 24 hours of the day. Um, and so, so at any given time, we have one VA on their shift, 8, 10, 12 hours perhaps. They're able to answer guest inquiries within six minutes, which enhances the guest experience. So, WhatsApp, your Hospitable, and PriceLabs is the way that we're able to to to uh implement our systems and team.
The other tool I would suggest using are smart locks and um security devices like the Minut device, which your VA can can monitor from the Philippines.
So, the fourth step in this process is implementing protocols. Here's the most important part. I'd like to spend a couple minutes on this. So, once you have your your systems and your team and your software in place, who does what? So, if a guest says, "Hey, I checked in and there's dog hair on the sofa," we have an actual protocol and and a scenario that we go. The VA takes control of that, sends the guest a message, calls the guest, and if the guest needs us to come in there and swap out the, you know, whatever that that they need to clean, we can then do it on the spot. So, we have a system and a team in place. We have someone that's on duty at any given time. In the evening, for instance, one of our housekeepers that has volunteered to go on duty and will be paid sort of hazard duty, like late hour duty, if they need to go to the unit. So, no longer the days where we have to send a manager or send someone else. It's someone on our team that will get paid extra. And if it was the previous housekeeper who messed up, well, guess what? They get docked or they get reprimanded for messing messing up. So, our housekeepers leave the units and show condition every single time. We have another housekeeper checking their work. We then take photos before they leave, which our VAs in the Philippines scrutinize before the housekeeper leaves. So, it's a rare occasion that the guest actually checks in in that scenario that I just gave you. Right? So, we have systems and teams, but we have protocols for all. And that's really where most hosts get caught up. They like, "Yeah, okay, great. I hired a housekeeper and I hired a VA, but they're constantly asking me questions." So, it's still, even though I have a system and a team in place, it's very active because I'm being I'm being asked of questions around the clock.
So, we test our VAs. And here's another little tip. Our VA, even if they don't know the answer to a question, they can never ask a question in the group chat. They have to pose their best possible um recommendation. So, if they don't know it, they have to come up with it. We have an FAQ uh search tool that we use on um Hospitable. We load it with all of our questions. If they can't get the answers from that, they'll say, "Sir, I propose that we we host this guest even though they exceed capacity and they have a dog and they don't have the get the best reviews. I propose we we we host them because we're vacant and blah blah blah." And so, they, we ask them to pose a question, and that gets them quicker to uh past their learning curve. They're now going to be have to active inside of their, you know, sort of the questions that they're asking. And so, in a very short period of time, we're able to get all of our VAs up to our standards and answering their questions. And over time, you'll be asked a fraction of the time, less than 10% of the time, will there be a question that you need to answer directly in order to proceed.
So, one of the questions I'm asked, or actually my my operations manager is asked, is anytime that there's money involved, if there's a refund or something like that, then yeah, sure, we have them kick that up. Otherwise, they're able to take responsibility. If somebody says, "I have two two dogs," then we just give the discretion to the to the to the assistant on duty based on the information we give them about that property and over their time in testing our protocol.
So, that's my four-step framework. Um, systems and automation is really everything. Creating a virtual housekeeping system, uh, install software and hardware tools, and ultimately implementing protocols and team training. And that last step can be short, um, shorter if you are making sure that anybody on your team, instead of just asking a flat question, poses it in the form of a proposal so that you could either say yes to it, or if it's not a no, then it's a teachable moment where you're saying, "No, I don't think we should do it that way. We should do it this way." And then, over time, that VA becomes a supervisor. And in my case, our first assistants that we started hiring in 2020 are currently our supervisors. And they're not only training their V, the other VAs that we hire, they're now training our housekeepers that are in our local market. So, it's really amazing. They've even created their own shorthand, created their own system, and it's a system that runs on its own. And again, the Airbnb business model is inherently systemized, and it is a virtual business. I hope that helps. If you have any questions, throw them in the chat below. Thanks. [Music]