In our latest episode of Direct Booking Simplified, we had the privilege of hosting Stacy St. John, a powerhouse in the short-term rental (STR) industry. She is a Cincinnati-based STR investor and host with properties located 10 hours away in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She is the founder of the STR Sisterhood, a vibrant community exclusively for women in the industry, with over 62,000 members. Stacy also hosts the STR Sisterhood Podcast and runs coaching programs designed to empower women in STRs.
From building thriving communities to mastering direct bookings, Stacy shared invaluable insights that both seasoned hosts and newcomers can learn from. Here are some highlights from our conversation that will inspire you to take actionable steps toward increasing your direct bookings.
Summary and Highlights
Meet Stacy St. John
Stacy St. John’s journey into property management is a story of resilience and learning. “From the start, I built a team around me,” Stacy shared. “It was an absolute necessity given the demands of my corporate job.” Fast forward to today, Stacy operates a full-fledged property management company with a team dedicated to excellence and guest satisfaction.
Key Takeaways on Direct Booking Strategies
Stacy emphasized the importance of blending strategy and personalization when driving direct bookings. Here are some of the strategies she uses to stand out:
1. Leverage Local Directories
“Being part of the Chamber of Commerce and other local directories is one of the simplest yet most effective ways to increase visibility,” Stacy explained. These listings not only help attract local guests but also improve your website’s SEO by generating high-authority backlinks.
2. Optimize for Repeat Guests
Stacy ensures every guest knows how to book directly with her in the future. From branded materials in her properties to personalized follow-ups, she creates a seamless path for repeat bookings. “If they’re great guests, we always invite them back with a discount offer,” she added.
3. Email Marketing Done Right
Email marketing is a cornerstone of Stacy’s direct booking strategy. She’s focused on creating segmented campaigns tailored to specific guest profiles. For instance, golfers receive updates about upcoming golf events in Myrtle Beach, while families get tips on family-friendly activities. “It’s all about delivering value that’s relevant to their experience with us,” she emphasized.
4. Invest in SEO-Driven Content
To drive organic traffic, Stacy’s team regularly publishes blog posts optimized for SEO. “We’re focusing on topics that resonate with our audience, like seasonal events and travel tips, and repurposing this content into our email campaigns,” she explained.
5. Guest Verification Tools
“When you’re handling direct bookings, tools like Superhog are game-changers,” Stacy said. These platforms help ensure guests are verified, protecting your business from chargebacks and disputes.
Mindset Matters
Beyond strategies, Stacy shared powerful mindset advice for hosts navigating the complexities of STRs. “The person holding you back from your next level is often yourself,” she noted. By investing in personal growth and confidence, you can unlock your full potential as a host and business owner.
Take Your Direct Bookings to the Next Level
Ready to implement these strategies? Don’t miss the full episode of Direct Booking Simplified for deeper insights and actionable advice from Stacy St. John.
Looking to grow your direct booking business? Join the STR Sisterhood community or check out Stacy’s coaching programs to learn from one of the best in the industry. Visit Stacy’s website to connect and explore her resources.
CraftedStays: Your Partner in Direct Booking Success
At CraftedStays, we’re here to empower hosts like you to build professional, SEO-optimized direct booking websites without the hassle. From intuitive templates to advanced features that make managing bookings seamless, we’re committed to helping you thrive. Learn more about our platform and how it can support your direct booking journey. Book a demo today!
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Transcription
Stacey: I think the one piece of tactical advice I would say is utilize a third party tool that can help you verify your guests. As we know, if Airbnb takes a booking and someone pays Airbnb, Airbnb pays us out. If someone disputes a charge on their credit card to Airbnb, Airbnb is not clawing back the money from us.
Stacey: They are eating that, right? When we have a direct booking situation, if someone disputes a charge on their credit card, it is coming out of our bank account. Right. So having a third party verification tool, I use super hog in my own business. That has been tremendously helpful, but I think whether you use super hog or someone else, make sure that you’ve got the right resources to be able to.
Stacey: Dispute a charge back, but then also hopefully avoid them altogether.
Gil: Hey folks, welcome back to direct booking simplified, where we break down the strategies and tactics to win in direct bookings on today’s show. I have Stacy, Stacy, welcome to the show.
Stacey: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Gil: I’m so excited to have you on here. I’ve heard your name from so many people.
Gil: So many people referred me to you to have, have you on my show. So I’m really glad to finally have you here.
Stacey: Awesome. That’s great.
Gil: And
Stacey: thanks to all the people who referred me.
Gil: Yeah. And it was good to be on your show just, uh, just a few weeks back too. That was really fun to kind of walk your, your audience through kind of what we’re doing and.
Gil: Kind of how we approach things. I appreciate you, uh, lending me your audience to, to spread our word.
Stacey: I think you’re doing amazing stuff. So it’s, it’s my pleasure.
Gil: I appreciate that. Well, I, your, your name is pretty well known in the industry. Um, but for those that haven’t come across the name, Stacy St. John, Who, who are you?
Stacey: How much time do we have here? No. So I, uh, well, I, my name is Stacey St. John. I live in Cincinnati, Ohio. Um, most of my investment properties are located about 10 hours away from me in Myrtle beach, South Carolina. And, um, In addition to being, uh, now a full time, uh, owner and host of short term rentals, I also lead some communities, so I host the Female Short Term Rental Investors Facebook group where we have 62, 000 women from all around the world who eat, sleep, breathe and talk short term rentals every day.
Stacey: Um, and then I’m also the host of the STR Sisterhood podcast. I also have some coaching and mentoring programs for women in the industry called the STR Success Accelerator, as well as the Achievers Club. And, um, I also have the STR Sisterhood community and I host that podcast as well. So. Lots of fun stuff.
Gil: Yeah. I’ll pause for a moment to talk a bit about what you just mentioned about the sisterhood. Being not a female, being on the other end of that, I have FOMO over how much community there is in kind of like the women in STR. Uh, we have the same thing in tech as well, too. There’s like women in tech, but seeing women in STR, I have huge FOMOs.
Gil: It was also like your podcast. Natalie, what Natalie Palmer is doing the, the shows that you guys put together. I’m like, Oh, I’m outside of that community. And whenever I talk to you guys about it, they’re like, no, we’re not excluding guys or excluding the men. But it kind of feels like it sometimes. Well,
Stacey: I am excluding the guys, Natalie isn’t, but I am.
Stacey: Now here’s the scoop. Um, I never, you know, and I, I say this to, to everyone I come across because I have gotten some, Harsh words and arrows thrown at me for having a female only community. Um, I am there’s no arrows,
Gil: there’s no arrows right now though. Oh, I know
Stacey: that. Oh, I’m not talking about from you. I, I’ve definitely gotten arrows from other people, but not you.
Stacey: Not, not at all. But this is the is that there is such an incredible bond between women who understand each other. Yeah. And there is nothing wrong. I have nothing against men. I have a whole house full of men. I do business with men. I know no issue at all, but there’s something really special about sisters locking arms and being able to be vulnerable with each other.
Stacey: And, and Be okay with, um, asking questions that may, you know, feel silly or, um, you know, may feel scary to ask and knowing that they’re not going to be judged or belittled. And I’m not saying men do that only, you know, I I’m all about safe communities and safe space, but there’s something that’s again, very special, that’s almost intangible.
Stacey: It’s hard to put your finger on it, but. It is truly magical and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I absolutely love being surrounded by amazing women in our space.
Gil: Yeah, I see what you mean. I see what you mean. Um, and it’s almost like every single, we’ll talk about like Facebook communities in general there.
Gil: Every Facebook community has its own type of culture to it. And I think what you’re pinpointing is not necessarily like it’s a woman’s only community. But you’re creating a safe space for your specific target market there. And I feel like everybody, like each one of them has its own cultural differences.
Gil: And some groups are a little bit more forward than others. Others are a bit more welcoming than others. So I totally get you that you’re what you’re, what you’re trying to do is not necessarily make a woman’s only, but you’re trying to make it a safe and vulnerable place. It’s kind of what I take away from it.
Stacey: Yeah. And, and I think again, some of the. And as you know, there are so many Facebook groups in our industry, which is awesome. And so it’s really cool to have a women’s only space again, where we can again, come together and be vulnerable and, um, have a different set of feedback than they’d get in another Facebook group that’s coed.
Stacey: Um, it’s a really, uh, it’s a really neat thing and something I’m very proud of. And I’m excited to have the opportunity to give women a voice in our industry. You know, I think that’s also something that has really struck me a lot of. Women that I interview or that I come across, um, they, they think, Oh, I’m nobody special.
Stacey: I just did a podcast interview yesterday with someone. And she said, I don’t, I don’t even know if I’m worthy to be here. And I was like, of course you’re worthy to be here. You have a story to tell and everyone. Everyone can learn from someone else’s journey. Everyone. So I really have found to like a fire in my belly to help women understand the power that they have within them and help unlock that because I think it’s incredibly rewarding.
Stacey: It gives me goosebumps to talk about it. Like it’s incredibly fulfilling.
Gil: You have, you have an amazing community and huge props to you for, for building that and really staying true to your values there. If you think back to when you found it, what was that founding story of the sisterhood? Like what, what made you decide to like do this or approach it the way that you did?
Stacey: It was very random. It was very random and probably not the most exciting story. I’m going to tell your listeners right now, but here’s what happened. So I have a real, my real estate license in the state of Ohio and I was buying property at the beach. Um, I was connected with another real estate agent in Texas and he had some clients that were buying property in the Galveston area.
Stacey: And he came to me and said, Stacy, you know, I am having my clients ask me questions about buying property at the beach or managing short term rentals. And he said, I don’t know how to answer them. Can you help me put together some information for them? And I said, sure. Yeah, no problem. So I started kind of jotting down a list of what I thought to do.
Stacey: Would be important for his clients to know. And then I was like, you know what, I’ve been doing this a little while now. Maybe I’ll pop into another Facebook group or Facebook group and just ask, like, if you were buying properties at the beach, what would you want to know? And so that’s what I did, but it happened to be, I popped into a real estate investors, Facebook group that was for women.
Stacey: And I asked the question and the floodgates opened. I mean, hundreds of comments and someone in one of the comments said, you should start a Facebook group about this. And I thought, well, sure I should. That sounds great. So that’s what I did. And that’s how it got started. Um, and that was in March of 2021.
Stacey: And, um, it has a, that was a
Gil: busy year.
Stacey: Yeah, exactly. Um, but it has been such an incredible journey. Uh, one that I would never ever trade or dream about, you know? Um, I just found this really amazing opportunity to learn. from the women in my community and learn alongside them and help teach as well. Um, so it’s a very symbiotic relationship.
Stacey: I get to learn new things each and every day by, by the women around me too. So yeah, it’s pretty incredible.
Gil: So you have your podcasts, you have your Facebook community. Yeah. Is it your coaching service as well too?
Stacey: Yep. Yeah. I have, uh, a couple of coaching programs, um, for women specifically in this space.
Stacey: Again, very vulnerable, very raw conversations that we have. Um, and. Uh, we do retreats every year. Um, we have calls every night of the week. Um, and I should say calls available every night of the week. Some of the women are like, you know, I’ll join on a Tuesday when I can, or some women are like, I’ll be there on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Stacey: So we’ve got resources, accountability, pods, all kinds of. Different opportunities for women to get plugged in and get the support that they need to be the best host that they can.
Gil: Wow. Where do you see things evolving from here?
Stacey: Well, that’s a great question. So I actually just got done writing a book. Um, and so I have a book coming out in 2025.
Stacey: One of the things that. Again, I have recognized is that there are so many people who have such tremendous potential inside of them and they don’t see it. And I have discovered my own passion for, I can see potential in other people very easily. And I want to kind of just knock on the glass and say, Hey, let’s shatter this glass and help you understand the amazingness that’s already there within you.
Stacey: And that’s what my book is about. It’s called live big, and it’s about helping women, um, in business, not just in short term rentals, but female entrepreneurs, um, really understand the amazing potential within them and, and unlock that.
Gil: Do you, do you see that book also applying to Males as well too?
Stacey: Yes, it absolutely could.
Stacey: If you read it, you might see the word girlfriend a couple of times in it. Don’t take offense, but yes, the concepts will apply to, to both genders.
Gil: Awesome. Awesome. I saw I saw your book cover a few weeks back, you’re trying to decide which one to choose from. I don’t know. I don’t know which one you ended up choosing.
Stacey: Well, my publisher tells me I’m not allowed to say,
Gil: Okay, that’s fine. We can keep it a secret for a little while longer. But I was interested in picking it up once it once it gets pushed out. Yeah,
Stacey: thank you.
Gil: So aside from all your community stuff, you’re also a seasoned host. Now, how many, how many years have you been hosting?
Stacey: I started, I bought my first short term rentals. I bought two at the same time in September of 2020.
Gil: Okay.
Stacey: And
Gil: what a year.
Stacey: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then I started, I was actually with a property manager when I first started. So I didn’t self manage and I was. Very quickly recognizing that my level of expectation through everything I had learned about short term rentals before purchasing my level of expectation in the quality of care to my property and the cleanliness, uh, that I was seeing in the transparency from, you know, from, uh, the billing side, I very quickly realized like, whoa, this isn’t, you know, What I’m expecting.
Stacey: And I had several, I, I call come to Jesus meetings with my property manager and, Um, we decided that it would be best for, for me to start self managing. And so I started self managing in the spring of 2021.
Gil: Okay. So only like six months into it.
Stacey: Yeah.
Gil: Yeah.
Stacey: And I was working full time in the corporate world, had a very busy job.
Stacey: Um, and so from the get go, I built a team around me. That was an absolute necessity because of the demands of my, of my W 2. So I originally hired a co host, um, to work alongside me. She originally, uh, worked, I would say the front of the house. So she was guest facing, um, managed all communications and, and focused on bringing in bookings.
Stacey: And I was responsible for the back of the house. So if there was ever an issue with a unit, my co host would call me and I would coordinate with maintenance. And then I started again, buying additional properties. People started coming to me saying, Hey, your calendar is full and mine isn’t. Will you manage my property?
Stacey: Um, and so I got my My, um, my property management license in the state of South Carolina and opened a property management company. As we continued to grow, I built out again, a very robust team. So I have a 24 seven concierge team around me. I’ve got an operations person, quality control, cleaners, maintenance, um, the whole, the whole shebang.
Stacey: So it’s been, it’s been pretty, Pretty fun. Um, and that original co host still works right by my side each and every day. Her role is a little different now, but, um, she’s still a part of our, our family.
Gil: That’s awesome. And this is not in the market that you live in. You’re in Ohio, and this is still, still miles and miles away.
Stacey: It’s about 10 hours away. Yeah.
Gil: How often do you get to visit?
Stacey: I usually go down to Myrtle beach about once a month, uh, to check on our properties, obviously walk the properties, meet with the team. Um, and what a horrible thing that I have to take tax free trips to the beach every month. I mean, it’s really rough.
Stacey: Um, but, um, During the summer season during peak, I will usually, um, you know, curtail my, my visits so that we can make sure that our guests are enjoying the properties that I own, uh, instead of me, but I’m usually there about once a month outside of that peak season.
Gil: Okay. Okay. So you, you went from being on the property management company.
Gil: Was it a big one that you were with in the very beginning or more of a local?
Stacey: They, um, have at the time, I think about 80 properties in their portfolio.
Gil: Okay. Um, and so while you’re building yours, what are some of the things that you’re doing? You kept in mind that you really wanted to, I’m guessing you learned from the, the poor experiences of being on the other end of that, as you’re building out your team and your quality, like what are some of like the big things that.
Gil: What are the big values for your property management company?
Stacey: Yeah. Well, our core values are excellence, integrity, world class customer service, innovation, and growth. So those are our five core values that we operate our company by. Um, and I hire and fire team members by those same core values. Um, some of the big, I think key call outs.
Stacey: One of the things that. I continued to express, um, dissatisfaction with was the care of my property. And so I always keep that at the forefront in my mind when I am bringing on a client, um, I’m going to treat that property like it’s my own. Right. Um, and so we have quality standards for our properties. We don’t just bring on any property into our program.
Stacey: We do make sure they meet our quality standards. I want to make sure that it’s the right owner for me. I mean, it was pretty clear after A short amount of time that I was not the right owner for that property management company, right? I’m, I’m not here to fault them, right? But I was not a good fit for them and they weren’t a good fit for me.
Stacey: So I want to make sure, um, as I am partnering with my owners, that, that were a good fit together. Um, I think that’s really important. I think another thing that has been tremendously impactful in a positive way is that in addition to my cleaning team, I also have an inspection team. So our units get inspected after every cleaning.
Stacey: Um, and that has been tremendously valuable because, um, when I asked my former property management company, who’s inspecting the cleaner? Um, they would slough it off like Stacy, you’re off your rocker. Like that is not possible. We don’t have time for that. Um, and so I thought, well, okay, if you don’t have time for that, I’m going to make time for that.
Stacey: Um, so that is, I think also been tremendously important to make sure we have a second set of eyes on the property and the cleaners are, as you know, I mean, they’re, they are working extremely hard and a lot of times if you’re using a third party cleaner, they’re balancing a very tight schedule and they may have a boss saying you’ve got.
Stacey: 90 minutes to clean that property or, you know, setting time parameters on them. And I don’t believe in doing that. Um, I want the job done, right. And if it takes four hours, it takes you four hours. Um, so anyway, we, we do approach that quite differently.
Gil: Yeah. We, we have an inspector for our properties as well, too.
Gil: We don’t do it on every, every single term, but what I realized. after hosting for a few years is that the cleaners main role there is to make sure that property looks and is clean after each stay. What they’re not looking at is all the little nooks and crannies all around the place because they’re looking at everything from the top down and they’re going deeper and deeper in there.
Gil: And no matter how hard they work, they’re going to miss things. They’re not looking at the same way that. You would, if you’re a fresh guest walking in and stepping in the property for the first time. So we found that the inspector comes with a different role. They’re there to, they’re there to really empathize with that guest.
Gil: They’re there to think about, okay, these are the things that the guests think about. And they’re rearranging things, um, where a cleaner, that’s not their, that’s not their role. Um, they, we ask them to do a lot of those things, but typically that’s not in the, No,
Stacey: absolutely. And again, I think it’s important that, uh, we not, uh, We not fault them for the fact that they are making sure that there’s no hair in the sink, you know, versus can you make sure that the throw pillows, the blue ones are in the back and the yellow one is in the front, you know, um, they, they are looking at a Looking at the property through a different lens.
Stacey: And so I think you’re spot on. Um, that’s one of the value propositions of having an inspector. And I always tell my inspectors, I, we have a weekly meeting with our inspection team and sometimes they will share, you know, Hey, with this particular cleaner, we’re, you know, we’re finding some things that, you know, keep us at the property longer.
Stacey: We use that information to bring ongoing education and training to our cleaning teams, but I always tell my inspectors, Hey, that’s great job security, right?
Gil: Yeah,
Stacey: so
Gil: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you, you were talking about like hiring and firing and like, for me, like firing and in our spaces, it’s, it’s really, really hard because you end up.
Gil: Really fostering a pretty good relationship with your teammates. And recently we had to fire one of our cleaners and it was after a really long stint, but we had set the expectation so many times with them. And anytime we had a mess up, we would bring it to them. And when we got to that conversation, that last conversation, that hard conversation, it was not a surprise.
Gil: Um, but I find that like, and not even in just short term rentals, but firing is one of the hardest. things in our role, but it’s so necessary.
Stacey: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think also there is, um, there is a, I call it strategic separation. Um, that makes me somehow feel better. Um, but I always, I’ve had to fire my fair share of people, but I always want to do it in a loving and kind way.
Stacey: And let them know that it’s nothing personal that I respect them and I value them. Um, but it’s just not a good fit. Um, and here’s why. Um, and hopefully, um, at the end of that conversation, they can walk away. Um, feeling like they’ve somehow gotten value from learning something. That is my goal. Hey, if I’m not a good fit for you any longer, um, I don’t want you to let this be a stopping point for you.
Stacey: Take this information and implement changes into your processes and your business so that you don’t have this happen again.
Gil: Exactly. And that’s where we spend a lot of our time. Like we ended up spending a 15 minute conversation, which didn’t necessarily need to be a 15 minute conversation to let someone go.
Gil: But, but bulk of it is really like, we didn’t want to do this, but we were falling short and like, we want them to continue to be successful even outside of us and who knows, we might cross paths again and they might have addressed things, but like, we want to be, we basically, it’s basically like an exit interview.
Gil: We want to talk to them. We want to coach them on like what we, what our expectations were and where they could improve because. If they don’t, it’s not us that they’re only going to lose. They’re going to lose other clientele as well, too.
Stacey: Absolutely.
Gil: Yeah,
Stacey: for sure. For sure.
Gil: Um, as, as you think about now being a like formal property manager, how have you changed the way you think about.
Gil: Now, possibly your business, it is your business. And you’re not a quote unquote hobbyist host anymore.
Stacey: I don’t do, I don’t do hobbyist most anything. You know, if I do something, I’m, I’m diving in, you know, a hundred percent. Um, I would say there are, are certain things to running, you know, uh, one property versus 10.
Stacey: That’s very different. Running 20 properties versus 10 is very different. Running 30 versus 20 is very different. So the bigger that you, that I’ve grown my portfolio, you run into new challenges, right? New, um, roadblocks to, to push through, um, But one thing that I think is, is something that I’ve tried to focus on from the get go is setting up teams of people and systems and processes to allow my business to grow wide without Huge growing pain.
Stacey: So I’m looking three, five years down the road when I’m making any decision, any decision about tech, or do I want to, um, invest in this platform for my business or this resource I’m not thinking about today only, I’m thinking about what my 10 years. Um, and I think. If you, if you start off just your investing journey, just your hosting journey and thinking about where you want to be in three, five, seven, 10 years, and you, you do that first, you can very easily steer your ship where you want it to go.
Stacey: Um, but a lot of times what I see is people are making decisions reactively in the moment. And sometimes we have to, right? If there’s a specific situation that’s. unforeseen. But I think if folks who are listening can think about, all right, where do I want my investment portfolio to be? What do I want it to look like?
Stacey: What kind of returns am I looking for? Does it make sense to buy another property in the same market or do I need to diversify? Do I have too much risk in this market? So being very intentional about where you’re investing, um, I think is, is something that’s really important. And I try to do that from an investor side, but also in my business side as well with the property management company.
Gil: What has been some of the learnings that you’ve seen or some of the big gotchas as people kind of naturally get into short term rentals because I think a lot of folks, they end up growing their portfolio and they are playing catch up a lot. Like how do you then coach them? And what are some of the biggest challenges that you need to coach folks through?
Stacey: I think one of the biggest challenges I see is that, um, if people are not in my program, they often tie. That didn’t sound right. I don’t mean it to sound like that. I see people, um, Randomly selecting markets and properties because they don’t know how to analyze a market strategically. And they also are just finding houses that they like, like that are cute.
Stacey: They’re buying with their brain. They’re not buying with their brain. They’re buying with consumer brain, investor brain, I guess I should say. So I think learning how to select a market that’s right for you, um, a market that you want to invest in might be very different than a market I want to invest in, and I see a lot of people saying.
Stacey: Well, where should I buy my next property? And they’re looking to the internet to say, Oh, well, these are the top 10 markets right now. I think that’s interesting information, but do an analysis of the markets and Also, write down what’s important to you in a market. Same way with a property. Um, what’s important to you?
Stacey: What’s important to you from, not only from, you know, a buy box perspective. Do I want, do I want a house, a condo? Do I want an acreage? You know, do I want, something in an HOA where I don’t have to take care of the landscaping or do I want, and, and there are, I have a lot of properties in HOAs. A lot of people get scared off by those.
Stacey: Um, but being very choiceful and intentional about what you want for your property and your market instead of just like, I’m just going to throw spaghetti at the wall and I’m going to go by here and go by there. And then what happens is they get overwhelmed because they don’t have the systems and the teams in place to be able to support the multiple markets.
Stacey: So that was a very long answer. No, that’s good. I probably didn’t say some of that. Well, so I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want to come across like if they’re not in my program, they don’t know how to do it. Not like that. No, I made that mistake a lot.
Gil: Yeah. And I, I, I’ve seen it are like ourselves as well, as well too.
Gil: And I think you have like many different, not schools of thought, but you’re right that a lot of folks make it into it. And, They may choose based on feeling more than even underwriting. Um, and then you have folks that are severe underwriters and they, they look at everything from a cash on cash perspective.
Gil: What I’m hearing from you is there’s actually even a step before the underwriting. Which is really trying to understand what is the property, what type of property do you want to own and manage and what is your criteria? And that leads you down the path of choosing the market, choosing the return that you want, not really that hard, 15, 20 percent cash on cash.
Gil: And which one is the market that brings the most of that? That, that, I think that’s what I, what I took away.
Stacey: Yeah, absolutely. And every purchase is different. So when I first started out, I had very specific parameters that I was looking within. Um, fast forward two years later. I purchased my retirement home at the beach and I knew that it wasn’t going to be a big moneymaker and I didn’t care because that particular purchase was a lifestyle asset purchase.
Stacey: It’s something that I will retire there and let folks pay off my mortgage in the meantime, right? And so for that particular purchase, I was fine with not having a 15%, 20 percent cash on cash. I’m fine if that just pays for itself because there’s different intent behind that. Yeah. So I think knowing what you want for each individual purchase is really important.
Stacey: So you can make strategic decisions based on what’s right for you. Not what some guru on the internet said is a good market.
Gil: Yeah. And I think that’s probably the, like the one big takeaway is, and you kind of mentioned this as like, Um, As you’re growing from a portfolio size of 10 to 20, the challenges change, but I think the hosts that do really well are the ones that one they’re surrounding themselves with folks that are a few steps ahead of them.
Gil: Um, but they’re also using that as a way to learn and figure out like, okay, Okay. What, what I, what I do, what did I do last time? What was my last deal? How do I change the way that I’m acting and not letting that wave and that momentum kind of continue to build on its own? Because it does become very challenging for hosts when you’re starting maybe in co hosting and you’re starting to get more clients.
Gil: And you’re just riding that wave as, as far as you can. And you figure out that, Oh, maybe I signed on hosts that, or property owners that aren’t necessarily a good fit. Um, I think when, when you do find someone that can coach you, that’s a few steps ahead of you that still remember those pain points that you were, that they’re going through and you consistently learn and you think about each, each action you’re taking and how you can do better and think about it as a business.
Gil: Those are the property managers that are really successful and really the long run. Right.
Stacey: Yeah, I think another thing that I see a lot of folks making, and this is, this is my own opinion. Okay. And there, everyone has opinions and Someone could have a completely different approach and that is fine. But a mistake that I see people making is they’re hosting their own property and they’re not paying themselves.
Stacey: And so what happens is they end up short changing themselves. They don’t get resources for their They don’t treat it like a business. Um, and even though they’re the ones delivering the services on an ongoing basis as a, as a host, a professional host, even of their own property, they’re looking at that new piece of technology or that new resource as coming out of their bottom line.
Stacey: They’re coming, it’s coming out of their pocket, right? Um, they’re just kind of saying, okay, well these are my bottom line profits for this month or this year. And if I get this new tool, it’s going to cut into that, right? And instead, if you set yourself on your operating budget, set yourself a line item for hosting services, whether you’re paying yourself or someone else, then a new resource, yes, it will come out of your, your P and L for that property, but it won’t be coming out of your personal pocket.
Stacey: Does that make sense?
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s almost like pay like that book. You pay yourself first. Yes.
Stacey: Yes, absolutely.
Gil: And that, that gives you kind of that, that runway to figure out, okay, this is the excess budget. This is how we can be reusing it to maybe do pricing automation or look into some AI tool to help with messaging, but you’re not then shortchanging yourself on what you’re, what you’re hard earning yourself.
Stacey: Exactly. Right. Exactly. Right. So it, it takes some of that personal, personal, uh, decision making out of it. Um, and it isn’t like, Hey, I, if I get this tool, like I can’t go out to dinner on Friday night. You know, I don’t like to see people in that, in that situation, that’s a little extreme. I don’t know that that’s really happening like that, but you get the gist.
Stacey: Yeah.
Gil: Yeah. I totally get it. Um, kind of moving to like the, the second portion of our show, we, we usually touch on direct bookings and I know that you now have a sizable portion, uh, your size sizeable portfolio now, and you’re now driving. More direct bookings. What are some of the things that you’re spending your energy towards from a direct booking standpoint?
Stacey: Yeah. Um, I, a lot of different approaches, obviously. Um, we like to be a part of our community. So, uh, some of the things that drive direct bookings are being a member of the local chamber of commerce and, and, um, Being included not only in, in the community, but in their directories. So getting your website listed in third party directories has been, um, an impactful exercise.
Stacey: Um, for me also making sure that my guests know if They’ve come to us through a third party platform when they come and stay in our properties. There is branding within there so they know how to find us online, um, in the future, um, and we always invite our guests. to stay with us again. If they’re good guests.
Stacey: Uh, we, we love to welcome them back, uh, with a discount offer. Also a big priority for me is. Email marketing. Um, and that will be, um, a really important, uh, focus for this, this Next year for me to, to be more intentional and strategic about our email marketing campaigns. Um, I, I definitely understand the value of digital marketing, uh, that.
Stacey: It was a space I worked in, in the corporate world. Um, and so that will be a very big part of our, our initiatives for 2025 is a more strategic and intentional, ongoing set of, of email campaigns to our previous guests.
Gil: So from a. From an email campaign standpoint, what are some of the tactics that you’re doing right now?
Gil: And what are some of the areas where you want to improve towards?
Stacey: Um, we, we email our guests, um, regularly and we invite them to come back and stay or, or talk with them about, um, you know, why they might want to come back to the beach in the fall. February, you know, um, but one of the things that I have discovered is that events are oftentimes what bring people back.
Stacey: And so having more, uh, content around events that are coming up and happening in the area. Um, for example, you know, Myrtle Beach is, um, oftentimes known for golf, right? Well, what are the golfing events? What are the hot golf courses that are having, you know, events coming up? So being more event driven and again, tagging our email list.
Stacey: So we know this, this property was rented to golfers. We’re going to send them a Specific golf campaign. So segmenting our email list versus just sending out an email blast, um, segmenting our list and being more strategic about, okay, this was a family with kids, let’s set, send a targeted campaign around family friendly events that are happening this summer.
Stacey: Right. So I think that, um, I would, adding more layers into our email campaigns, I think will be a, a big focus.
Gil: Yeah. And are you hiring that, that work in, in house I’m assuming?
Stacey: No, I will. Um, I, I have a, uh, source that I do some of it in house and some of it in third parties. So, um, the tech part and the email, um, execution is done in house and then I will bring in a consultant to help me build out the, the strategy.
Stacey: Um, For those additional layers, shall we say, um, and that might, might change over time. It might be a function I bring in fully in house in the future, but that’s how we’ll map it out for 2025.
Gil: Yeah. That’s, that’s a lot more sophisticated than most hosts and even property managers. I think that. Um, but there’s, uh, there’s often like a, you build your list and you email your entire list and, and that’s, that, that gets you going to a distance.
Gil: Um, but if you definitely want to be much more targeted in the way that you message your, your guests or your customers, um, and really try to resonate with them, the better that you know them, the better that you know more data about them and you use that to your advantage. You’re able to deliver high quality content that every time they open their inbox, they They know it’s for them.
Stacey: Right. Exactly. It’s tailored and personalized based on their experience with you in the past. Um, and that that’s, you know, from a, from a space of digital marketing, like having a personalized customer journey is where it’s at. It’s just not necessarily easy to do
Gil: from a, from a tech stack perspective.
Gil: What are some of the tools that you’re looking at when you’re trying to piece together, um, the system?
Stacey: Yeah. Um, well, we use Kit, it used to be ConvertKit, but we use Kit, um, as our email marketing software. Um, we also use, uh, Staphy in one of our properties, many of our properties actually in Myrtle Beach.
Stacey: Um, I can’t use Staphy and I’m so bummed about it because we’re in large resorts and there’s not an internet router. Per individual unit, it’s at the resort level. So I’ve spoken with Arthur several times about this saying, how can I make Staphy come to life at these resorts? But, um, so far I’m not able to do that there.
Stacey: So, um, Also gathering. So using, uh, tools like monday. com to tag and understand, okay, this family came for their anniversary or celebrating a birthday, right? So tagging guests, downloading, um, we obviously get the Booker’s contact information in our property management software, but again, tagging them and, and putting again, uh, uh, Database together of different guests and why they’re staying.
Stacey: Um, so we use monday. com for things like that. Um, How do you keep all
Gil: that? How do you keep that all in sync? Like, how do you make sure that everything is talking to each other appropriately?
Stacey: Well, uh, we do use Zapier. Um, I will say I, it is not perfect. It is. I don’t have a magic wand. Um, we, we try to automate as much as we can, but we do.
Stacey: For the things that can’t be automated, we have a regular cadence of, okay, on this date of the month, you know, you’re going to pull this report and you’re going to import it into here. Um, and so it isn’t necessarily always real time. Um, it could be, you know, reports that are pulled. at a regular cadence, whether it’s biweekly or monthly, something like that.
Gil: If you don’t mind me asking, what PMS are you using behind the scenes?
Stacey: We use owner res.
Gil: Okay. I wonder if owner res allows you to tag. Yes.
Stacey: Yes.
Gil: Could you, could you do it in there rather than on Monday? Yeah. Because all your reservation data is all, all there.
Stacey: I could. Yes, I could. We, yes, I could. I could tag the guests there and then just simply X, I don’t, I’d have to figure out if I can export the tags, export the, the guest data with the tags.
Gil: I’m sure there are APIs allow for it, but it’s probably not easily accessible for, for most audiences. Um, which is actually kind of like the, one of the questions I wanted to ask you is like from, from what you’ve seen, what are some of the biggest challenges and it doesn’t have to be necessarily tech related, but what are some of the biggest gaps in the industry that you’ve seen?
Stacey: With regard to direct bookings?
Gil: No, just, just generally.
Stacey: Just generally. Oh, biggest gaps.
Gil: And the reason, maybe, maybe a little bit context. I, I’m seeing this like wave of new things being introduced into the short term rental industry to really mature it. I still feel like STRs for the most part is in its very early days.
Gil: Um, similar to what e commerce was And I come from the e commerce background probably 15 years ago when people were still stitching things together. And it got to a point about 10 years ago where there were big industry players solving really big problems. And now you’re at a point where if you wanted to start an e commerce business, pretty much all those big problems are now solved for.
Gil: And I love just seeing maybe this is. me having a lot of empathy for my fellow founders out there. Um, just seeing new technology, new systems being put together to really streamline the entire process. We’ve seen that big wave with PMS is about five years ago when there’s a huge influx of PMS is that came onto the system because people were managing large quantity of properties and they want to keep a high quality standard.
Gil: And then I started to see companies like breezeway that really helps operationalize the overall turnover of all your properties. So I’m starting to see like these little things like start to like stand up.
Stacey: Yeah. And I,
Gil: I still don’t feel like it’s, it’s even close to a stable state where we have all the right players and all the right problems being solved.
Gil: And there’s still like pretty big gaps, like what you just talked about of like email marketing. I know there’s Staphy and Arthur is doing a whole bunch of stuff on there. Oh
Stacey: my gosh. Yeah. Amazing.
Gil: Yeah. Um, but like you mentioned, there are like things that you would want to streamline altogether. Uh,
Stacey: so I’m curious
Gil: from your perspective, now you’ve seen this big growth there.
Gil: What are some of the challenges that you’re trying to work through? And it doesn’t again, have to be from a direct bookings like technology standpoint. It could be from an operational standpoint.
Stacey: Yeah, I think for me, um, a big gap that I actually solved for last year with a tool called Riva, um, it’s an amazing tool, but, um, it helps you look at the data behind your reviews and helps you, when you review that data, pinpoint trends in your reviews.
Stacey: in your reviews so that you can be again strategic and proactive about solving for them. It’s very difficult when you’re operating a larger portfolio to, um, see reviews in the macro level and look at trends over, you know, weeks and months. Um, Across all your properties. And so Riva is a tool that allows me to do that.
Stacey: Not only to track reviews across the portfolio, but look at reviews by keyword and look at reviews by cleaner. And so again, be much more strategic about, um, looking at that before. My team was tracking reviews. Every review that we get, we used to put in a spreadsheet. And track that way we were tracking it manually.
Stacey: Um, and Riva has been such a game changer for us to be able to, again, look at the reviews, um, from a, from a macro level, but also be able to dive deep into the data to, again, make, make strategic choices about what we do with specific properties or, conversations we need to have with our team members, right?
Stacey: Um, so that’s been a wonderful tool. Um, and something I would absolutely recommend all of your listeners look into. Um, I think the data perspective, you know, um, is also really interesting, you know, with Um, Being able to select comps for your, for data and, and benchmark against comps. Um, the price labs obviously has a wonderful tool and that’s the tool that I use.
Stacey: I also use key data. Um, I’ve just brought them on into my tech stack. Um, but again, not only having the right tools, but the right, uh, user adoption. So those tools are. Again, when we look at professional vacation rental managers, there are so many tools out there. And 10 years ago, Airbnb didn’t even exist.
Stacey: Maybe it’s longer than 10 years, 11 years ago, it didn’t exist. So those legacy professional vacation rental managers, they’ve got the whole direct https: otter. ai Right. Cause that’s the way they operated for years. Um, but those tools are built for operators at scale. Yeah. So I believe one of the biggest gaps is how do we get those tools that are built for the property managers that have, you know, 200, 300, 500, a thousand properties in their portfolio.
Stacey: And how do we get them to a point where they can serve an individual host? Um, I think that there’s a lot of, a lot of room
Gil: to grow
Stacey: there. Yeah.
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. And we talked about this when we recorded your show. That’s a lot of like our mission, at least on the direct booking side of things, where when we started the company, it felt like there wasn’t really.
Gil: Anything for hosts that didn’t have dozens and dozens of doors. If you wanted a professional looking website, you really had to pony up thousands of dollars to, to build it out and coming and seeing what Shopify was able to do in the e commerce industry. I would just felt like. There’s this unfairness to smaller operators where I wanted to bring a lot of those tools.
Gil: And I think eventually those tools end up maturing over time where it also serves a bigger market as well too. I mean, it’s like to this day, big companies like Allbirds are still run on Shopify. There’s a bunch of really, really big brands still running on them, but I love how it kind of like really democratizes.
Gil: It’s the tools and which have accessible to you, to everybody.
Stacey: Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s going to be fun. I always say digital years are like dog years. Okay. So for every one year of a calendar year, it’s like seven years in the world of digital or e commerce or things like that. So it is going to be really fun to see, you know, the, the new, new resources that become available in the, in the next.
Stacey: months versus and years. Um, I think it’s really an exciting time for us.
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Um, I’m just going to circle back just a little bit to something that you said earlier about some of the tactics that you’re, you’re doing right now. Um, because I want to make sure that our listeners really got a hold of that.
Gil: You put your, You mentioned that you’re putting yourself on the chamber of commerce and you’re getting into those third party directories. You’re putting your brand out there inside your stay so that people know we’ll have to stay with you directly. And then you’re doing, um, right now you already do email marketing, but you’re taking it a few steps forward from an email marketing perspective.
Gil: Um, The whole chambers of commerce thing. And also you may have mentioned it, but you alluded to it about writing email content. I’m assuming you’re also going to be republishing that as blog content as well too.
Stacey: You should mention that. Um, so yeah, so, um, we are actually, I just hired a content writer to help me write.
Stacey: Blogs, um, for my websites and we will be repurposing the blogs into emails. Um, and then obviously taking it a step further. I hadn’t thought about the specific niche content that would go out in an email. I hadn’t thought about doing blogs for that, but that’s a great point. you know, there’s no reason why it couldn’t be again, a two way street.
Gil: That’s how we think about it from like the, like our business perspective. So craft this days, we actually start on the blog side first. So we try to provide useful content. A lot of it comes from like listeners and, and, and shows like this, where we talk about a deep topic and we get to then actually sometimes even co write blogs with our, with our guests.
Gil: And then we will then use that as. a way to really because not everybody looks onto our blogs and search for our blogs. We actually use that as a way to provide value in our newsletters. Um,
Stacey: so we,
Gil: we start, we, so we start on the blog side first. Um, and then, uh, and then we move it over to, to the email listings.
Stacey: That’s awesome.
Gil: Um, but what I was trying to get to earlier was you’re actually spending a lot of, It sounds like. You’re actually thinking the long run in terms of your digital marketing, because what I’m seeing is you’re actually investing quite a bit in SEO. When you’re getting on chamber of commerce, what you’re actually doing is you’re generating those backlinks onto your website.
Gil: And for our listeners here, backlinks basically means if you have some other website that is linking to you, and Google knows about that. That actually boosts your site authority. It helps Google know that you’re not just this one standalone site, but people are referring to you because you have value there.
Gil: Um, so it’s a lot easier for you to bump up in search rank.
Stacey: Yeah. But
Gil: what you’re also doing with your blog is also providing valuable content that’s tied back to the keywords, which therefore also boosts your SEO rank as well too.
Stacey: And, and as you know, you know, it also matters the authority of the website that’s linking back to you.
Stacey: So your local chamber of commerce is likely going to have. a higher, you know, authority score than your neighbor down the street, um, and their personal photography website, right? So, um, I think it’s important as much as possible to be a part of directories that have, um, some, some weight, shall we say, with those authority scores.
Stacey: That’s why I think it’s, I haven’t done this, But again, something that I think would be a tremendous opportunity is to do some press releases in my local community, um, about our company or about how we serve hosts, um, and try I have an article written on a news, a local news website, a local news website has tremendous authority and can call it SEO juice, you know, give you some good juice, um, good juice for your own website.
Stacey: And yes, we are absolutely, um, paying attention to SEO. Um, in addition, my, my content writer, she is doing onsite SEO for, I have a couple of different websites for my, my, uh, property portfolio. And so she’s doing things like optimizing page titles and meta descriptions and alt text for our images and, um, all the things, all the things that, that make a difference.
Gil: Yeah. Yeah. I think you’re probably in the forefront of some of that knowledge there. I think, I think our industry is starting to learn about some of these things and really trying to figure out like, how do you piece the pieces together and what do you have to learn about
Stacey: to
Gil: really like find that independence?
Gil: And I think over the next, I’m really, really interested in what happens over the next three years, because There’s gonna be a lot more content. There’s gonna be a lot more knowledge, just like how we’ve seen in the last three years of like how to professionalize hosting. We’re going to start to see the same thing, um, in how to market yourself as a whole business.
Stacey: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Gil: Awesome. Well, Stacy, we went through a lot of content here. We usually end with two questions. Okay. One’s a mindset question and one’s a kind of a takeaway, a tactical takeaway that you want folks in the direct booking space to walk away with. On the mindset one first, what’s that one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new?
Stacey: The one piece of mindset advice, I think the one piece of mindset I would advice I would give is that chances are. The, the person that’s holding you back from your next level is yourself. And so when you focus on improving yourself, your whole business improves, your whole life improves. And a lot of time, I spent many years.
Stacey: It’s gathering my own confidence from other people. And when I learned to build confidence from within and understand my value from within, my whole world changed. And so I would encourage anyone starting out to, Um, to spend time actually working on their mindset each and every day and understanding that the greatness that they see for their future already lives inside of them.
Gil: What’s uh, maybe extending that a little bit. What’s some of the resources that you would send folks to? And I know there, there’s one definite one that’s coming available soon.
Stacey: Stay tuned in January, 2025. No, um, I, and I talk about this in my book, the, the one book that was life changing for me is a book called inner size.
Stacey: And the author is John Aseroff. And I always say, if I saw John. Walking down the street, he wouldn’t know me, but I would run up and give him the biggest hug ever because from his book, I learned how to, number one, I learned that I could train my brain. A lot of people don’t really think about that, and before I discovered his book, I didn’t really think about that.
Stacey: But you can absolutely train your brain to have your brain work for you, instead of looping all the negative thoughts that most of us do each and every day. So number one, um, His book Innercise was a game changer for me, um, I spent months and months and months going through deep mindset work, um, from some of his additional resources from that book, um, that he would be my number one that I would point people to.
Gil: It sounds like you have a number two, number three, like right on the back of that. Do you,
Stacey: um, I would say one of my favorite podcasts is the mind, your business podcast by James Wedmore. Um, again, if I saw James walking down the street, he wouldn’t know who I am, but I am in his mastermind program, but there are like thousands of people in his mastermind program.
Stacey: Um, but. He, again, has been revolutionary in the way that I think about myself. I think about myself as a business leader. Um, but having the right mindset, um, when you’re starting off your days is so important. Um, having the right tools to pull out of your toolbox when you’re, Um, in a moment that’s stressful or you’re feeling overwhelmed, um, in your business or at home, um, having those tools from James and John have been tremendously impactful for me.
Stacey: Um, and then I think, honestly, I’m going to say this and it might not be cool to say and your editors can edit it out but. God, you know, I, um, I believe in the power of prayer and, you know, um, having a relationship with God and, and asking for his guidance has been tremendously helpful for me to understand the power within me.
Stacey: Um, so I don’t know if that helps at all.
Gil: Yeah, that definitely does. Um, I know I’m not a, I know I’m not a female, but I feel like I can use some mindset coaching from you.
Stacey: It’s um, it, I was going to say, and there’s never a time where I’m not wanting to learn about mindset. Like I love, you know, I love learning.
Stacey: I love continuous improvement as learning to me. And so, um, I’m always, I always look in. For, for additional tools and knowledge to gain
Gil: and
Stacey: to pay it forward, right. To help other people. That’s what’s rewarding.
Gil: That’s a, it reminds me of one of the sayings that my daughter says quite a bit where she says, Practice makes progress over and over again.
Gil: I love that because I grew up as like practice makes perfect.
Stacey: Um,
Gil: and she’s now saying like, no, it actually makes progress. Yep.
Stacey: And do you see my sign back here? Perfect.
Gil: Yep. Yep. Um, last question. What’s the one piece of tactical advice from a direct bookings perspective that you would leave folks with?
Stacey: Um, I think the one piece of tactical advice I would say is utilize, uh, a third party tool that can help you verify your guests.
Stacey: Um, as we know, if Airbnb takes a booking and someone pays Airbnb, Airbnb pays us out. If someone. disputes a charge on their credit card to Airbnb, Airbnb is not clawing back the money from us. They are eating that, right? When we have a direct booking situation, if someone disputes a charge on their credit card, it is coming out of our bank account, right?
Stacey: Yep. So having a third party verification tool, I use Superhog in my own business, um, that has been tremendously helpful, but I think whether you use Superhog or someone else, make sure that you’ve got the right resources to be able to dispute, um, a chargeback, but then also, um, hopefully avoid them altogether.
Stacey: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, and you’re,
Gil: you’re, you’re on owner res, so you probably have rental agreements already in place for that as well, too.
Stacey: And you know what? Honestly, the credit card companies don’t care about the rental agreements. They don’t care. They, they say, well, gosh, anybody can sign anybody’s name. I see.
Stacey: So they want to see that the credit card holder matches the driver’s license, matches the signature on the rental agreement. That’s what they want to see. So make sure you can gather that.
Gil: Yeah. Do you gather that as part of your onboarding?
Stacey: Yeah. Yeah. So we have our guests go through super hog and verify their identity, their identity through super hog.
Stacey: And then it goes back into owner res and it gives us the thumbs up. This person is good. Go ahead and process this reservation.
Gil: Yeah. For, for folks listening to this, I don’t know if it’s going to be publicly announced yet, but I think the super hog is going through a little bit of rebranding. We saw a little bit of Verma, but there are the renaming themselves.
Stacey: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. They are.
Gil: So I’m going to have to like, like fix that in the way I address Superhug as well too.
Stacey: There you go. I know. I know.
Gil: Awesome. Well, Stacy, it’s been a great show. Where can folks learn more about you, follow you, follow along your journey, join the sisterhood?
Stacey: Yeah. The best place to find me online is on my website, which is stacystjohn.
Stacey: com. Of course I’m on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, all the places. Um, but you can find me again on, on my website, stacystjohn. com.
Gil: Awesome. Stacy, thanks for being on the show. It was such a delight. And. I know the show is a little bit longer and we talked about this before,
Stacey: but,
Gil: but we went through so many good, good parts of STRs.
Gil: I love it.
Stacey: Thank you so much.
Gil: Thank you. Bye.