Boost Direct Bookings with Hotel-Level Cleanliness – Well & Good Shows You How with Jonathan Wicks

Summary and Highlights

🎧 Episode Highlights

🧹 The 3 Pillars of a “Certified Home”

Jonathan breaks down the core services of Well & Good:

• Professional cleaning by verified, fairly compensated pros
• Offsite laundered, hotel-grade linens (87% of guests prefer this!)
• Fully stocked amenities for that hotel feel

This trifecta doesn’t just standardize the guest experience — it builds trust, especially for direct bookings.

📈 From Idea to Impact: The Origin Story

Jonathan’s first client came from a direct message — before the business even existed. That host later became Well & Good’s first partner. He discusses:

• How the pandemic became an incubator for the business
• The importance of co-creating services with your first clients
• Why laser focus beats trying to do it all

🤝 The Power of Obsession

“Be obsessed or be average” isn’t just a book title — it’s a mindset Jonathan and host Gil share. Whether it’s logistics, inventory control, or consistent gifting, Jonathan is all in. His secret to scaling? Deep obsession with quality + the right who, not how.

🛠️ Inventory, Systems & Scaling Smart

With 20+ active servicing hubs, Jonathan reveals how:

• Smaller satellite hubs beat large central warehouses for efficiency
• Manual processes (like spreadsheets) still rule inventory… for now
• Customer councils and real-time feedback guide continual improvement

💌 Curation Meets Consistency

Jonathan’s take on personalization:

• Welcome cards with host photos and handwritten names = underused magic
• Mints and small gestures > elaborate, inconsistent gifts
• Guidebooks, curated signs, and thoughtful local touches go far

⚡ Rapid-Fire Wisdom

• Mindset Tip: Solve for a specific person. Obsess over the who, not just the problem.
• Tactical Tip: Create a separate Instagram account for each property. Engage locally, link your direct booking site, and let your home’s personality shine.

📚 Book Recommendation

The Three Signs of a Miserable Job by Patrick Lencioni — a must-read for anyone building or managing a team.

🔗 Connect with Jonathan Wicks

Website: wellandgoodpro.com
Instagram: @wellandgoodpro
LinkedIn: Well & Good Pro

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This episode is packed with real-world strategies for hosts ready to level up their operations and build real trust with guests. Want to attract more repeat and direct bookings? Learn from someone who’s making that possible — at scale.

🎧 Listen now and take the next step in your direct booking journey at CraftedStays.co!

Transcription

Jonathan: Think this is a great one to consider for host managers. If you have a property, I believe that property should have its own Instagram account. Make an Instagram account for your property. It does take maintaining. You gotta make sure you’re posting, you gotta make sure you’re involved in order to have it be active, but then start to engage and you engage with anything local, right?

Jonathan: Wherever your local is, follow all of those. And of course, you’re gonna have your direct booking link right there in the link tree right there. As soon as they click in. And that home now starts to have a personality and you get to curate that personality. You get to connect with vendors. We have so many of our partners who have homes that they then follow well in Good Pro on Instagram, and we’re able to tag each other.

Jonathan: We’re able to talk about all of that. They get a lot of exposure. We have customers who take 52 bookings a year on Instagram, and it all flows through Instagram because our houses have become viral and all that, and you don’t need it. Ultra curated home. To do that, you just need to have consistency, and I encourage people do that and then involve yourself locally with your vendors as well as with your local community.

Gil: Hey folks. Welcome back to the Books Solid Show, the podcast we’re bringing top operators to discuss marketing, revenue management, and the guest experience to drive towards being booked solid. On today’s show, I have Jonathan Wicks from Welling Good Professional Services. Jonathan is the founder and CEO.

Gil: he started a cleaning service company. That is a bit different than what others expect out of a cleaning service, especially in our SDR space here, he takes on more of a hospitality from a hotel experience, so really delivering that hotel cleanliness into the SDR space. And he has certain principles and certain services that he abides by.

Gil: To make sure that everything has strong expectations through and how that really drives to more repeat bookings, more direct bookings, and really a better rating and experience overall there. So I’m ecstatic to bring Jonathan onto the show. So without further ado, let’s bring him in. I.

Gil: Hey Jonathan, welcome to the show.

Jonathan: Hello, Gil. Thank you for having me.

Gil: Yeah, yeah. I’m, uh, happy to do the whole conference road show with

Gil: you, uh, seeing what the last one, and I’ll probably see you in a couple weeks as well too.

Jonathan: Yeah, it is, it is. Uh, FOMO is real in the conference world. You know, there’s so many options to go to and, uh, you know, which one to choose is important. But, uh, yeah, we’re lucky enough to cross some paths here, both at the level of your listing and then some future ones that are coming up in, uh, in conferences here this spring.

Gil: Yeah. What’s, uh, what’s been your favorite ones of the, of the entire year?

Jonathan: It is fresh, but the level up your listing was fantastic. I think that was their best one that they’ve done. Uh, Tatiana and Natalie have continued to evolve that conference, and I think that this iteration was their best one. It was their third, which I think you sometimes find those great rhythms at that point.

Jonathan: And, uh, yes, a level up your listing was a highlight. And I’ll tell you, I’ve been going to some of the advocacy groups. Uh, we had a, we had an advocacy meetup with the, the Idaho Vacation Rental Association. So it was folks from all across the state of Idaho that were gathering together. Those advocacy meetups end up being much more mission forward, and so where we’re all on that same team, we’re moving towards, hey, we’re advocating for our industry.

Jonathan: Finding those meetups, they’re more localized, but they are fantastic.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think there was something similar last year at the Poconos, um,

Jonathan: Hmm.

Gil: think Poconos was going through a few things as well too. Um. yeah, it’s, I tend to like the smaller ones, the smaller conferences because you get to meet the same people. Um, you get to have lunch with folks and

Jonathan: Yeah,

Gil: much stronger connection with people in the industry that you really click with.

Gil: Um.

Jonathan: that’s right. That’s right.

Gil: liked some of the bigger ones too. Like one of the highlights last year was like wealth con and like just seeing everybody there that you’ve seen on Instagram or you met with or you chatted with, and just be able to put a face to the name or a face. Name. Name to the face.

Jonathan: Yeah, and with all of ’em, it’s like, you know, find your tribe, find people that you, that you know and you connect with and then, and then being able to connect in person is obviously great. And then at these events. You know, get outside of your tribe. I kind of, I go into each event with that same mindset.

Jonathan: It’s like, I, I really want to find and connect with my, with my people, with the people that I know, and even oftentimes clients of well and good, but then I wanna meet somebody new. I want to connect and, and have a real, you know, a real moment. Gil was an example, example. You and I just literally got a chance to meet at the level of your listing.

Jonathan: And here we are chatting today.

Gil: Yeah, I don’t even know. I think you were mentioning that you were going into the Branson market,

Jonathan: Yes, sir.

Gil: and then well, and then, and I have a property in Branson. Um, we were just actually no, you were going into Asheville. are already, you’re already in Branson and you’re

Jonathan: In Branson.

Gil: Yeah. And you’re going into the Asheville market.

Gil: And I think that’s kind of how like, uh. We kind of crossed paths and I over overheard you saying that and I was like, oh, that’s actually pretty interesting Missy. Let me see if there’s any value I can, I can have and hopefully like I was able to connect you with folks too.

Jonathan: Yeah, yeah, no doubt. No doubt. That’s a lot of it. It’s like, you know, we are, we are such a giving industry, our whole industry is based off the idea of sharing, right? We share homes with, uh, with guests and we share, you know, and so therefore we share ideas and we share connections. Like you, you mentioned Tyler there in Asheville and, uh, yeah, a lot, a lot of that, that shared nature is at the very core of, of vacation rental industry.

Gil: maybe stepping back just a little bit, do you mind giving folks a introduction on who you are?

Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so my name’s Jonathan Wicks. I’m the founder of Well and Good Professional Services. Uh, we are a full scale servicing company designed specifically for vacation rentals. Uh. The problem, uh, that I was looking to solve was one that I was feeling myself as a, as a host. I was, I had a lake house in Northern Illinois and it was, it was a home with 10 beds and it was the, you know, the concept of, okay, I can bring the guest in, but how do I get this place ready for the next guest?

Jonathan: Uh, you gotta deal with laundry and you gotta deal with, obviously the cleaning aspects, but then the restocking and the inventory management with so much. And so, uh, my background has always been in professional services and so. I looked at an industry that I loved and I said, I do believe that there is a need for a full scale servicer.

Jonathan: And so that was the origin of what is now well and good professional services, which is, which is, uh, become the leader in, in the servicing of these homes, the specific and detailed service that needs to be done. The boots on the ground work that’s gotta happen between each guest. That’s what we do.

Gil: Yeah. Do you remember, so it’s been, it’s been a couple years now since, since you started that company, I think it’s been five years since you started. Well, and

Jonathan: Coming up on five. Yeah.

Gil: Do you remember your first iteration of what that was like? Your, do you remember your first customer and kind of how you landed them and the, the types of service that you kinda rolled out in the first place?

Jonathan: Yes. Yes. So it’s amazing. Um, we have, uh, you know, the first, the first customer that I ever had, I was, I was living in Chicago at the time when I came up with the idea, and I was coming down to take a vacation here in Arizona. So I stayed at an Airbnb property and that a, after that, the, the host that I stayed with messaged me and said, Hey, we have 30 properties actually, if you ever want to book direct, right?

Jonathan: And we’re gonna talk more about that today. But they offered me the opportunity to book direct and I replied back with, Hey, I love the place. In fact, I’m actually starting a company in this space and I’m, I just had the idea a couple of days ago. So we got on a call and that very first, uh, Airbnb host, it was a property manager, actually that first manager that I spoke to.

Jonathan: Said, well, if that ever comes to Scottsdale, Arizona, you let me know and. Fast forward, the pandemic hits and all of a sudden I am, I’m looking at, hey, I’m gonna leave, uh, Chicago and go stay here in Arizona, and I’m gonna actually start the conversation with that original person that I talked to, the first and only manager that I had spoken about with.

Jonathan: Well and good I. Ended up through the process of the pandemic, it was a great incubator for us to talk about what a partnership would look like. And so there is our first client. The first, first person that we ever talked to. I actually had lunch with Ryan Northrop yesterday from Best Arizona Vacation Rentals, our original client.

Jonathan: Fast forward. It’s been a great partnership. And so yeah, that was the origin. And they had really internal cleaning staff. They were all already had their employees and they had their processes, but like a lot of managers, they were like, this is not really where our primary focus should be. We want to take care of our guests better.

Jonathan: We want to take care of our owners better. And so having that, that service be available to them, that would oversee the process of the personnel and the products. Was a huge benefit and that really was, it’s, it’s wild. We talked about like how much we’ve drifted from our original, you know, our original side for us with well and good.

Jonathan: We really have stayed pretty laser focused on the three core elements. It was always gonna be that we were gonna clean the homes, we were gonna provide offsite laundry and linen replenishments, and then we were going to restock the home with all the consumables and amenities that were needed. We still do that exact same thing today.

Jonathan: It’s been, now how we’ve done it. We’ve had to have reiterations of what the best processes are going to be. No question about that. But uh, but what we’ve seen is the core services have remained.

Gil: Yeah, that’s, that’s amazing. It reminds me a lot, a lot of times when this is more so in like software product development or even like physical product development selling something before you had it. And this sounds like a perfect example of that where. You had an idea, you didn’t have necessarily a product to sell, but you sold the idea there and you found someone that was interested in having that problem solved, and you were actually co-creating that product with them or

Jonathan: Isn’t that it? You’re exactly right. Yeah. You kind of then go into within a bit of openness. You know, I was pretty open with our partner. They knew we did not have a real company. We had never done an actual clean, we had never done anything along that line. But there was an idea there, and they were co-creators, right?

Jonathan: In that sense, they, they were helping and a good partner wants to help their vendor, or wants to help their client on both sides. You know, people are saying like, man, if this is wildly successful, we’re all gonna benefit from that. And that’s what I had in that partner and so many others. And yeah, definitely grateful for the co-creation.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, what, um, what do you think sold him on the idea? Like there’s a lot of trust that you have to give, like you don’t have a cleaning crew. Like

Jonathan: Mm-hmm.

Gil: to do? Sell me a cleaning service. Like, like you don’t have laundry replenishment already. Like how do you sell them on something that doesn’t, just doesn’t exist yet,

Jonathan: Yeah. Well, I, I do think, uh, some of the framework from my experience and my career did help. Uh, you know, I started a cleaning company when I was 19 years old. I was in college and I, I started my own cleaning company. We were cleaning restaurants overnight. And so I’ve, I’ve put in some of the sweat equity that I.

Jonathan: That gives the, uh, the ability to, to work with blue collar professionals and say, yo, I’ve been in that seat. I understand the nature of the work and in, in doing property services for bank owned properties and another company that I started, uh, it was the same kind of thing, bringing standardization and bringing documentation to industries that needed.

Jonathan: And so some of the track record maybe helped, um, but I think the number one thing that sold, uh, best Arizona Vacation Rentals, and oftentimes what sells. Folks, uh, to well and good as a whole is that, um, and my dad would always say, find someone’s biggest need and help them with that. And, and this is oftentimes the biggest need of any host or manager, is how to care for the onsite nature, the things that must be done between each guest.

Jonathan: How to do that at a high level, because I think if most of us are being real with each other, that’s not the strong suit of, of oftentimes our industry or our businesses as a whole. And so if somebody’s going to take that big need and help you with that need, it becomes an easier sell ’cause you’re like, I really need that.

Jonathan: So that was, that was kind of, I think a lot of it was, I. No matter what systems are built up, oftentimes if, if host managers are being real with themselves, it’s not at the level that they prefer to be from a servicing perspective because they don’t have the obsession over it. What, what that client saw and what all of our clients see is that, uh, we obsess over this, and I’m gonna spend every waking moment figuring out the best possible way to deliver a guest ready home for a magical guest experience.

Gil: Maybe stepping, like double click on that. How much do you think that obsession really helped in that sale there?

Jonathan: It does. It does so much having a primary focus. I mentioned the things that we were going to do, right? We were gonna clean the home, we were gonna do the laundry, and we were gonna restock the amenities. And that’s it, right? And so many times people want will and good to be more, but I say, wait a second, if we just do that, we have literally brought the industry to a whole nother level where there’s confidence for guests and where there’s, uh, peace and assurance for the host and managers, and we have wins just right there.

Jonathan: And so, yeah, all the time I try to drive our team towards more focus, right? Staying, staying away from the broad and guiding into a very narrow and primary focus. Um, whether or not that helped in the sale, I don’t know, but I do know this. It helped the fact that we’re still clients and partners five years later, that’s for sure.

Jonathan: It definitely helped because of our primary focus.

Gil: Yeah, it reminds me. A lot about the, I don’t know if you’ve ever read the Grant Cardone book, be Obsessed or Be Average.

Jonathan: Oh, I know of him. I haven’t read that book.

Gil: That one’s a good one. That one’s actually a good audio book.

Jonathan: Be obsessed.

Gil: like a mental pick me up.

Jonathan: Does he read it himself?

Jonathan: I like that.

Gil: and, and he brings in a lot of, I, I, I take Grant Cardone with a grain of salt, but like that book is actually pretty good because it really like.

Gil: It encourages you to like lean in on something that you’re really passionate about,

Jonathan: That’s right.

Gil: necessarily, you don’t have to be obsessed. Like it’s okay to be obsessed with something that no one else really cares about. and that, that, that’s where like the niches really come in, and that’s what you do really well. Um, similarly like craft to days, like I was obsessed with building the best converting direct booking site. Like I’m obsessed with that. I look at the analytics, I look at the user engagements, I look at what the user flows are. I’m constantly training and trying to figure out like what are the best practices we have to bring in.

Gil: And that obsession really comes through in our product, in our customer engagements. It’s just like, actually gives me a lot of fire. And I, I hear something similar to you about like. You obsess over just really the quality and the standards that you have and to a lot of folks, like, I don’t care about that.

Gil: Like, I don’t wanna be obsessed with that,

Jonathan: Yeah,

Jonathan: that’s right.

Gil: that’s like your one thing that drives you. I.

Jonathan: It’s the one man’s trash is another’s treasure. Right? We all have our things that we are, that we are pressing forward in our world, in our professional world. And if we were all doing the same things, well, we’d have major problems, right? It is, it is beneficial for us to have varied levels of obsession, um, but each of us to really know what ours is and to, and to go after with everything we’ve got.

Gil: Yeah, through that process, what was one of your biggest learnings?

Jonathan: I think one of the biggest learnings that we found were, was going to be management of all of this is probably harder than we thought. I think that’s the, you know, no matter what you think your, you know, your skill sets are. And I, and I definitely have, uh, built a lot of teams over the years. Um, so the personnel side, I feel like we really had.

Jonathan: Uh, you know, I had a grasp on how I wanted to build teams and things along that line. What I didn’t, I don’t think expect was how difficult the inventory management side was. Um, you are dealing with so many products. We, we have delivered hundreds of thousands of products and you’re talking supply chain, right?

Jonathan: When you’re, when I, when we started this, this was COVID, this was like, how do you get toilet paper in mass right now? That is a difficult proposition and. Throughout the whole course of, of, of how do we not only find the right products, but how do we find the right price points? Where do we make sure we’re, we’re not having too much of something or too little of something?

Jonathan: There has been a lot of learning on inventory management that I just didn’t know going into it, and I’m not saying that we’ve mastered it, but, but it’s definitely been a lot of learning and, and I’m glad for the education, um, that’s come through through some, probably some trials with that too.

Gil: Yeah. How about from the customer expectation or from like the, the product or service level thing? Like was there assumptions that you had when you’re billing this company that. Oh, you wanted to on this and that wasn’t what the customer wanted or needed even, and you’re like, oh, okay. Maybe let’s pivot just a little bit. Any learnings there?

Jonathan: Yeah, I think one, one of the first learnings that I found was. I, I didn’t know how we were gonna find, like I, my idea of how we were going to find more clients was entirely wrong. Um, so I thought that we were going to be able to go to Airbnb and just message hosts and say, Hey, we can do, we can do your cleaning, we can do all that stuff.

Jonathan: Found out that’s wildly illegal and not allowed at all. And so then I’m sitting there like, we have one client and I’m like, well, how no one knows about us? What do we do? And, and for the most part. Traditional marketing has not been, it’s not my forte. It’s not something that I, that I feel like from a servicing company is best dollars spent too, because oftentimes your service needs to speak for itself.

Jonathan: And so there was a lot of unnerving points initially where I’m like, is this ever gonna grow? Like, are we ever gonna see. You know, people want the service and I’ve been so grateful to see like a good servicing company. Referrals has driven our, our routes, right? Connections. Building a network, doing all the things to, to build your circle in essence, starts to then grow your business.

Jonathan: And I, I don’t think I knew that initially. I think I thought I was just gonna reach out to a bunch of host on Airbnb. So yes, that’s been a learning point

Gil: Out of, out of all that, what was like the biggest impact there of like getting more exposure?

Jonathan: probably. A mixture, but I would say if I was gonna put one at the top of the list. Being involved in advocacy. Being involved in advocacy is one of the best ways to grow a network from a, from a truly organic and like I mentioned earlier, that pulling on the same rope, right? I, I don’t sell any services when we’re working with advocates.

Jonathan: We’re, we’re all sitting here trying to pull on, on the fact that we want to have the ability to rent our homes, we wanna have property rights. And being in the advocacy side, I, I serve on the board of A ZRT, which is the largest statewide group, uh, in the country. Really, that is, uh. That is birthed here out of Arizona and now has been a, a replication for other states to follow.

Jonathan: It’s been huge to build true friendships and true understanding of each other, and understanding of even our services. So that’s probably been the best way for me to meet new folks. And in doing that, you know, that commonality that we have has allowed us to become partners.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. Really, like, I think I’m hearing is like really connecting with your customers on really what’s important to them, even if it’s outside of the services that you

Jonathan: That’s right. That’s right. Sometimes you don’t even need to get into your service at all. You need to talk about something that matters, matters to all of you.

Gil: yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. And so how, how has things changed you, you mentioned. That one client that had 30 properties, and that was your first one, how did it evolve from, from there? From the beginning all the way to, I guess now?

Jonathan: Yeah, things have changed. We have, uh, you know, we have first reached outside of Arizona and so that was a big change for us was to say, okay, you know, we started to have, have demand for our service across the country and so. Figuring out how to do a very boots on the ground service in a totally different area is just a complete shift of your business.

Jonathan: And one of the ways that we did that was we brought our corporate team to a work from home model. So instead of having all of our corporate teammates. There at the corporate facility in Scottsdale, we ended up turning our Scottsdale into just one of our locations, right? This is now one of the places that we, that we serve and our corporate team works remote.

Jonathan: And so they are able to then serve and support all of the different locations across the country. And that was, that was definitely something that has changed a lot. We’ve become, um, you know, remote on the corporate side and then very boots on the ground on the location side. And so our locations, another thing we’ve learned.

Jonathan: Our locations were too big at the start. Ironically, we had, uh, we had a need to get smaller. Uh, we, we had our large Scottsdale facility, which some, some folks have seen it. It’s, it’s impressive and it’s, you’ve got a big model bed there that shows how we do our service and it’s, it’s quite a facility. Uh, what we found though was that the best thing for us to do to limit lines and limit over, you know, backflow was actually to create more satellite locations throughout a metro area.

Jonathan: And so that’s been something that we’ve totally learned as we’ve grown.

Gil: Oh, so rather like in Scottsdale, rather than having one big warehouse where you have all, all of the, your things, you’re actually sprouting that kind of throughout the city there. I’m guessing from a logistics standpoint, it makes it easier for you to make sure that can get from A to B or your properties if they need replenishment.

Gil: You’re not having to go to a main hub that

Jonathan: That’s right.

Gil: not centrally located.

Jonathan: That’s right. You’ve got, uh, you know, in the Phoenix Valley is a large valley and you drive from one side to the other, it takes a long time. So you’ve got professionals who, who are driving from one part to get their products and then if they have to drive all the way across, that’s a lot of, lot of loss efficiencies there.

Jonathan: And so I. What we’ve done is we now have hubs that are, that are more of them. Um, you know, I think about McDonald’s. When McDonald’s has a, has a line out the door and things are going crazy, they don’t build a bigger McDonald’s. They build more McDonald’s, and so they build more of them. And that’s what we’re doing with well and good.

Gil: I now understand why you mentioned that inventory management is so

Jonathan: Yes.

Gil: because you’re talking about replenishment services at different warehouses, and you’re not talking about markets. Like if I look at your market list, you have a, you have a couple dozen markets that you’re actually in, if you boil that down saying you’re not just having one hub in each one of those markets, you actually have multiple nodes there. You’re talking about, I don’t know how many warehouses or locations you have, but that’s gotta be a couple dozen, if

Jonathan: It is at, we’re at 2020 current physical locations right now. And those 20 locations all have similar structures. Right. So they all have W2 employees that are working out of them. They all have independent teams that’ll come in from the contracting side. They all have products that are shipped to them daily.

Jonathan: It is, it is quite a process to have 20 of those across the country.

Gil: I’m interested. So I come from a logistics background.

Jonathan: Mm-hmm.

Gil: I was in e-commerce for a while and, and, and the logistics too. ERP system. So a slight tangent. What ERP system are you using to manage all your inventory?

Jonathan: Well, mostly manual, way more manual than it should be. We want to have technology, uh, help us. Um, there is. A difficulty in the type of inventory that we manage, in the sense that there’s not a technology that is built out for it. So we have a combination. So we, we do use breezeway as our task manager, and so there is some, some inventory management that we keep within that.

Jonathan: Uh, we also have what’s called our in and out, uh, model that is strictly spreadsheets. And I know that sounds crazy, but that is, that is the way that we do a lot of our inventory management is through those, those classic Google sheets. Um. And we’re working to build better technology. Um, we have, we have scan in and scan out processes for our inventory that comes in and out.

Jonathan: Um, but the majority of it is, is more old school than, than maybe we wish it was. Uh, but that’s, that’s because the technology that we’ve tested, sometimes it’s not really stress tested for exactly what we’re looking to do. And so, yeah, more and more coming on that, uh, it is pretty darn manual.

Gil: That’s so interesting. I, live in a world where previously would help move of packages across different warehouses. Um, and they have the software called WMSs,

Jonathan: Hmm.

Jonathan: Mm-hmm.

Gil: And it almost feels like it’s a perfect use case into specifically what you’re doing. I think that probably the major difference is that rather than having shipments out. As being like when, when something is moving out, your warehouse is a shipment or a package or a label, you’re actually doing more transfers into, into different areas. But I, I think definitely if you were to look into like WMSs, I think that you would probably find some sort of fit that can

Jonathan: Yeah, and we are, we are exploring, we just, uh, brought on our chief of strategy. So a new executive just joined our team, and his name is John Gill. He’s one of the original partners at UPS, the logistics company. And so he understands logistics as good as anyone, and. Yeah, we’re working to implement large enterprise level solutions, right?

Jonathan: Because what we are finding is, you know, our products go out, but then one of the other things is then they have to come back. And so that, that that process of not just them going out but then coming back, and sometimes they’ll come back partially because, because of, of d of maybe the home wasn’t fully used and not all those tiles were used.

Jonathan: There’s just, there’s a lot of moving parts to, to this logistical process. Our obsession has made us better and technology will continue to, to drive that too.

Gil: So what, what’s your team look like now? Like, so you have your local teams that are kind of the more, um, boots on the ground,

Jonathan: That’s right.

Gil: does your hub look like or

Jonathan: So what, what you have is, as a structure, you would have, each physical location has W2 employees that are on the leadership side. So their primary, uh, roles are to, are to train the cleaning professionals. Are, they are to manage the inventory, prep the items that are going in, receive the items, uh, as well.

Jonathan: And then you have our independent contractors that are going to be the cleaning professionals, and oftentimes our laundry partners, both of those are usually on the independent side. Sometimes they’re internal employees, but mostly independent. And they are at our locations as well. And then you have our corporate team.

Jonathan: So our corporate team spans across the globe. We have, uh, we have about 50 or so teammates that work on the corporate side, and they are, they are handling all things from customer relations to, uh, to calendar management and all the different things to make sure that the field level is super supported.

Jonathan: And that helps us, uh, with each one, each, each group is, is categorized regionally, and so they’re able to focus on that specific area.

Gil: That’s awesome. That’s. quite, quite, quite a bit of growth in, in the, in the five years. Imagine just that first customer that you were talking

Jonathan: Yeah.

Gil: the idea and the team you had to do to, to deliver the quality that you’re looking for.

Jonathan: It’s quite a team. It’s quite a team. And you know, this is a human forward business, no question about it. And we are so blessed to have a team that pulls on the same rope. The team that is, is obsessed over excellence. And, you know, we’re, we’re bringing that level of standardization that the industry has been asking for, for so long.

Jonathan: So brick by brick is the only way to do it in the service industry. We’ve got 20, we’d like to have 20 more, but that’ll happen as, as the right opportunities come And, uh. Yeah, we’re just, we’re, we’re head down working.

Gil: Nice. If you think about kind of like the last five years, um, and the growth that you’ve, you’ve gone through. I think of also like, I don’t know if you ever read the book Who, not how, um, um, I wonder if you can reflect back on anyone that has made a major impact on trying to help you build a company that you had envisioned.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Gil: Uh, because a lot of times as entrepreneurs, we feel like we have to take on a lot of responsibility. We

Jonathan: Yeah,

Gil: to do ourselves, we have to learn ourselves. in hearing from your perspective, was there any particular roles that, or people that, specific people that you met that changed the trajectory of your, of your company?

Jonathan: without question. I love this. I love this question. So. We’re expanding outside of Arizona for the first time, and our company was always built to, to help support the cleaning professional. What we saw in an industry like the vacation rental industry, is that there was a lot of nameless and faceless people that were holding up our industry, and they were not getting the recognition, they were not getting the opportunities.

Jonathan: I felt like they were not getting the support ultimately that they needed. And so we looked to expand Houston. Texas was the first opportunity that we really felt like was the right one, and part of it was. Because we had put out an ad on Facebook and we had a response from a woman named Chelsea Osborne.

Jonathan: Chelsea was a cleaning professional. She had her own cleaning, uh, kind of operation. She was mostly doing the work herself, but she had some helpers too. And she jumped in as our, as our leader there in Houston. And then started to see the opportunity and we started to present opportunities to her. And so Chelsea then started to train other folks.

Jonathan: And so the vision that I had about, about supporting professionals and giving them all that was, was somewhat of a secondhand vision, right. Whereas for Chelsea to say it, she can say, I was the cleaning professional. I was the person that was supported. I have been in that exact seat. Well and Good came to my city and my life forever was, was better and I was able to have upward mobility for the first time.

Jonathan: And she now is the director of our teammate success division, which ensures that all teammates have the level of success that she’s been able to see and that so many others have. And Chelsea Osborne is one of those who, right? If, if there is a Chelsea Osborne, there is then a validation of what we brought in the wind of our team.

Jonathan: And yeah, she’s spectacular. Good to see you next week.

Gil: That’s awesome. That’s, that’s really awesome. Yeah.

Jonathan: Be our nation. She’ll be there.

Jonathan: yeah,

Jonathan: Yep.

Gil: hopefully I’ll, I’ll, I’ll meet her actually. Yeah. Less, less than a week

Jonathan: It might be, it might be live by the time we, by the time this is released. But yes, it’s, uh, she’s, she’s an incredible professional. Somebody who is the exact epitomizing of what we were hoping to help and support was a professional who just needed a team and needed a support system that would allow her to flourish.

Gil: That’s awesome. Um, kinda moving to like the, the second leg of the, the show. We, I, I love to, to dive a bit deeper about direct bookings and revenue management and just overall operations there really to help you. Get your calendar books solid. So like really that’s like the impetus of, of this podcast. And I, I want to hear from you, why do you think it’s important for quality standards to be at the level that, that you speak of?

Gil: And, and how does that impact, your direct bookings or your repeat bookings rate?

Jonathan: I think we have to get to the, the reason why folks are apprehensive oftentimes to book direct is because they don’t know you. They don’t know anything about you or your brand. And oftentimes coming, especially for the first time, that’s a tough thing. They know Hilton and that’s why they’ll book directly with Hilton or they know even Airbnb.

Jonathan: Let’s be honest. That’s a, that’s a trusted brand for the consumer. Direct booking is more difficult. Direct booking has a lot more of that. Uh, the, the, the apprehension level rises. So as a servicer, one of my primary goals is to bring confidence to guests prior to booking about the experience that they’re going to have about the actual in-home experience.

Jonathan: And so what we’ve helped to do is develop a lot of, a lot of tools that that hosted managers can use in their marketing. As they are getting a perspective, uh, a perspective booking to be able to state the servicing protocols, right? That is so important to give confidence. We did a survey, a large survey across the nation that was, that was over a thousand individual guests responded, and the first question we asked was, I would be more comfortable in a vacation rental if I knew the laundry was laundered offsite versus in the home.

Gil: Hmm.

Jonathan: 87% of guests said they would feel more comfortable in that home if they were to know that. So my question to the host and managers who have offsite laundry or who have a company like well and good doing that offsite laundry for them. Are you telling your guests that prior to booking? Because if we don’t tell them, how do they know?

Jonathan: And if we do tell them what a level of comfort and comfortability and confidence that they have, that changes your direct bookings. Now all of a sudden people are saying, oh wow, they take the laundry offsite. This is gonna feel like a hotel click. I am much more likely to do that with confidence rather than the uncertainty that oftentimes comes.

Gil: Yeah, I wonder if there’s like an association with. You probably alluded to this, taking your laundry off site and the feeling of professionalism. You mentioned, you

Jonathan: Absolutely.

Gil: hotel, because most, like if you’re a small host, turning, turning your beds yourself, you don’t have the facilities, you

Jonathan: Yeah.

Gil: have the processes to do, to do all of that. Um,

Jonathan: And guests.

Gil: that like if guests knew that, oh, this place isn’t just like, oh, we, we take care of laundry off site. But that taking the laundry off site is a, is a signal of professionalism.

Jonathan: Exactly. It’s a signal. It tells them everything they need to know. Right. It’s like you, you start to see that and now they know, well, the sheets are not gonna be. Not gonna be mismatched, they’re gonna be uniform. Right? That’s when you, you know, then you’ve got a standardized linen at that point. So immediately offsite laundry indicates white sheets, which was one of the questions that we asked the guest.

Jonathan: We said, what is your preference in sheets? Over 90% said they want white sheets. Duh. We knew that. Um, what the last question we asked speaks so much to what you just said. The last question on this survey said, I would be more likely to book a specific vacation rental if I knew it was serviced like a hotel.

Jonathan: And three out of four people, 76% said yes. I would be more likely if I’m comparing home one and home two, which is what the host, which is what guests are doing, they’re comparing, right? If they knew something about the servicing, if they knew it was gonna feel like a hotel, they’re going to book that home.

Jonathan: They’re that they’re going to do it. Now, are we telling them that in your marketing, because it is a marketing opportunity, the hotel feel brings confidence.

Gil: So outside of telling the guests that new laundry or offsite, that is a signal towards professionalism like a hotel, other signals can you provide your guests to make it feel like you’ve actually, you’re professionalizing your, your, your cleaning process.

Jonathan: So we, we have it as the three steps that are our core services, and we call this a certified home. A gold certified home is one that is professionally clean, and we have an image that our, our host will actually put on their listing and it says professionally clean. So one of the things about that is it says.

Jonathan: It’s done by a verified and fully compensated professional. So what we’re saying is like, we’re actually making sure we know who these folks are and we’re paying them. Right? There’s, because there’s a lot of people who get taken advantage. So we, we say that, then we say the le, the linens in the laundry, like we mentioned.

Jonathan: And then the other third aspect that we give them confidence in is in the guest essentials, the consumable nature. So many times people ask themselves, do I need to pack my shampoo and conditioner or not? I don’t know. I don’t know what’s gonna be there. Right. So if we tell them there is going to be, you know, eco-friendly, high-end, luxury consumable items, everybody now is just like, cool.

Jonathan: I can just go there and I’m set. I, I’m, I’m not gonna have to worry about these things that are tho those are the three that we advertise that, that, or that we allow our, our customers to advertise to their guests in terms of our core services.

Gil: And then do you on your side have different tiers or you just basically have one standard across all your stays that you want to use? These types of linens, these types of consumables across all of them.

Jonathan: We have the same standard for those three items, right? There is a lot of customization that comes in on top of those three items, but when it comes to the cleaning, the linens and the guest essentials all the same, all confidence every time.

Gil: That’s okay. I can see kind of like how, how that branding comes through as, as from like a, you know, that it meets this quality

Jonathan: Yes.

Gil: Yeah.

Jonathan: And then, and then, you know, at that point, once you have this level of confidence on the standardization. That’s when you get to add in customization, and that becomes the most fun part, is then we start to add the uniqueness of the particular property. And there’s so many things that we partner with our customers to be able to help them bring that level of customization with the blanket of standardization being there first.

Gil: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m gonna tap into that and just, just,

Jonathan: Totally.

Gil: there. actually, maybe let’s, let’s, let’s go into, let’s go into that now. I had

Jonathan: Sure.

Jonathan: Yeah. You, whatever you like. Your show. Your show.

Gil: but what, what do you mean by that? Like, what do you mean by customization? Um, and, and how do your property managers or hosts take advantage of that service?

Jonathan: Yeah. So customization to me from our perspective. Is largely res revolving around design as well as, uh, personalized gifting. So those two things are the main customized items that we feel like we can help support. And the design aspect is, you know, we bring in all the white sheets and the white bedding and all that, and that’s fantastic, but a bed shouldn’t be all white.

Jonathan: Uh, a bed should have those pops of colors, those throw blankets, those throw pillows, things like that. That is a customization. That we encourage with our, with our hosted managers, so great designers, we work with so many great designers who they want to have those, those elements feel a part of the room, right?

Jonathan: And so you’re able to keep, we, we are able to keep those items clean for you. We’re able to keep them presented in the right way. We’re able to keep the red room with the red room and the orange room with the orange room, and kind of keep the themes, uh, unified and together, and that’s important. And then we get into customized gifting.

Jonathan: Uh, the gifting aspect is. You know, people don’t want a standardized gift. They want a customized gift. They wanna feel like it was meant for them, just for them. And so we help with items like, uh, you know, writing names on, on the, on the cards. So a lot of, a lot of our partners will have, uh, they’ll have maybe a stack of cards that are, that are generic, but then we can write in the name of the folks that are coming in and that’s awesome.

Jonathan: They’ve got different packages for different people. And, and, you know, um, if you don’t mind, I could talk about inventory closets for a second.

Jonathan: So inventory closets. You all know if you’re in the vacation rental industry, you know what it normally looks like. It looks like Costco threw up in it, right? It looks like you got paid for products falling.

Jonathan: You got everything just disorganized like crazy. Well, well and good. We have all those items at one of our locations, right? So you don’t have to have this stocked inventory closet to the level. So what you get to repurpose that closet for is your gifting, and that becomes where you have different levels of packages.

Jonathan: And oftentimes this is done by our hosted managers. That’s not items that we often provide. We actually place them on your behalf. So if you’ve got the, the bottles of wine there for the, for the anniversaries that come in, and we then place those when there’s that anniversary and we write in the card, happy anniversary.

Jonathan: Now all of a sudden, that couple that’s coming in knows that they were, that they were being personalized and being cared for. And that can be done, you know, through us, we place those items. We can provide some of those too, but most of the time we’re placing them.

Gil: Yeah. I, I, I think like the challenge is not necessarily like getting the, the procurement of the products into the property. It’s actually the challenge from a host or a property management perspective is making sure that. You have consistency that that item is gonna be placed out

Jonathan: Exactly.

Gil: you have control over switching that out to it to be a different item there.

Gil: Like, I think a lot about, like when I got first got into hosting, I had this level of experience. I wanted to provide the guest, wanted to be able to write a card to them. I wanted them to have a guide, uh, like a, like a physical book that they can write into. I wanted to have signs all over the place, kind of like greeting

Jonathan: Mm-hmm.

Gil: Throughout the state and almost like curating the entire state

Jonathan: And you wanna speak to them? Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Gil: And, and we talked at length about this on another podcast with the Olive Jar

Jonathan: Mm.

Gil: really curating the entire experience. But for hosts, can think about that whole entire experience, but actually making that consistently viable is really, really, really hard.

Gil: Like a lot of times I love my cleaners and. I, fortunately, have hired really good cleaners. Um, but their job is mainly on the cleaning side.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Gil: is to make sure that that property meeting the cleanliness standards, uh, that we have. what they’re not so great at is really making sure that are really well kept up for.

Gil: I have separate in, um, inspectors that comes in. Uh, after the stays and really make sure that, oh, we inspect all the properties, all the windows, make sure that nothing is broken, and change out light bulbs. Like things that, like as a cleaner, you’re in there, you’re hyperfocused on making sure that you picked up everything, you sweeped everything, you put everything back. But then having another person actually come in to actually analyze the place to figure out like needs, what needs maintenance. but. I’m thinking from a curation standpoint, really executing on that, really curated stay is really hard to do at scale unless you have the right team and the right processes there.

Jonathan: That’s, that leads to our structure of our locations where we have the, the employee structure there. Because if we were just running this as a platform company, if well and Good was just a tech company that was just an Uber of cleaning and you could just get a cleaner to show up, you would have exactly what you just described.

Jonathan: The inability to have consistency when it comes to these curated items, these customized items. On the other hand. If you have onsite employees who are able to then do these customizations, um, specifically and ensure that they are done. Uh, and we also help so much with hosted managers and making sure that what they’re asking is doable.

Jonathan: Because sometimes, man, I’ll be honest, they, there’s, there’s this idea that hosted managers may have in their head about what a good gift or a good thing is, and we try to help them say, okay, now let’s try to make that sustainable and scalable and doable. And so, uh, we’ll give, we’ll give some.

Gil: perishable in there.

Jonathan: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Jonathan: Like there’s just, there’s things that are, that are great in theory that don’t always work in reality, and we’ve, we’ve got a lot of experience in that. And then we do have the team to execute it. And that’s, that’s the main part you have to have no matter what is that team to execute on the ground and.

Jonathan: That’s why, and we’ll forever be a location based human power business, uh, you know, the physical space to be able to have a hub for our team to be able to, you know, go out and do those ancillary items is so critical. And so, yeah. The, the, the team is, is key. Yeah.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah, I, I, it’s, it’s really challenging as, as a host or property manager to really be able to curate and imagine what the experience be like, but not be able to execute that because you don’t have boots on the ground that give it the care and attention that it needs there. So it’s really is challenging. Um, so I can totally under understand kinda like why that’s part of your,

Jonathan: If I, you know, was to help folks walk before they run, I think one of the first things you could do is you could have your card, your card, your welcome card created. It says Welcome and then it has a place for the name and for the guest name, and it’s got an image of you. I think it’s so key. Let them see who the owner is or who the host is, like, and then just say, welcome to this home.

Jonathan: We love it. You know, we hope you’ll love it too. All the different things. And then you could literally start with mints, with the classic mint, the chocolate mint that you see at the, at the Italian restaurant that’s got a little bit of chocolate and mint that’s not, not gonna melt or anything like that.

Jonathan: Or you could just do one that’s just a standard mint. Start there, right? Because there’s no reason that you can’t do that. Sure, you can add in flowers at some point or wine and all that, but if you start there and everybody that walks in has that just like a simple welcome with the simple thing that is there from you to them, that is an exchange.

Jonathan: That is a token, a a gift that that means something. It does not matter how big it is. It matters how consistent it is and how personalized.

Gil: it seems kind of silly that

Jonathan: Yeah.

Gil: there’s just something so simple about a welcome card, um, that’s placed maybe on the kitchen counter

Jonathan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Gil: they come in and mints that are available to them. Like, that’s just, something’s just so

Jonathan: It, it seems So e yeah. It seems like, well, but then you look the percentages of, of hosted managers that do that less than 2%.

Gil: yeah, I, I, I can’t imagine, like I, again, I love my cleaners, but like having them write a welcome card, I dread that they leave the, the wrong name on there, or they leave the welcome card from the last guest there. Like, it just, there’s just. If you don’t have the processes in place to scale that, it just like, I’d rather almost not do it.

Jonathan: And I think there’s also an aspect with, you always have to plan for the unexpected. So one of the things that you don’t always know is who’s your next guest, uh, when you’re, when you’re doing the clean, because sometimes you’re cleaning on the departure and you don’t know that next booking. You, you might get a book in between there.

Jonathan: And so when, when you are certain of your next guest, a lot of times on same day arrivals, that’s the time that we will do the, the right written part. We recommend though, for that card you want to say welcome with enough of a place to put the name, but also. Not the worst thing if there’s no name there too.

Jonathan: Right. So it, it allows for both sides to be possible.

Gil: It seems like you’ve been assessing over this.

Jonathan: Yeah, it does. It does. Yeah. Because we’ve seen a lot of bad ideas, uh, both from ours and from others that we’ve tried to see, like flush out what is the most, yeah. What is the most consistent way, knowing there’s variance in this industry, right? There’s no question about it.

Jonathan: Yeah. You wish that you always knew the name of the guest coming in, but sometimes man, things change and all that.

Gil: Yeah, and I think in some markets and some, maybe some certain times of the year, it’s pretty certain, like for, for some of our properties probably pretty well oc like occupied. So like we know

Jonathan: That’s the,

Gil: like who our, who our next guest is.

Jonathan: that’s the time to do that customized gifting. Yep. You’re exactly right. So if you’ve got a big window of, of, you know, a month beforehand, you need to do that. Wait and do that until you know when the guest is.

Gil: Yeah. And have you seen that make an impact on the overall, either one, guest experience, two the reviews, or three, the direct booking rate?

Jonathan: Yeah, I think that the, the, I’ll start with the direct booking side, so you’re immediately letting them know who you are and, and what you are about as, as the, as the person that, that they’re staying with. And I think that’s a huge part, like putting the personalization, like, come stay with me next time you come to this area.

Jonathan: And I think that that’s a big part of the personalized aspects of this. Um, I do think from the experience level, my goodness, it is just harder to be mean to a face. It’s easy to be mean to a name, it’s easy. But if you’ve got that postcard and it’s got gill’s smiling face right there, how can you, I mean, what, what are you gonna do?

Jonathan: Right? Like, they just, it neutralizes, it humanizes all of us. And so I’m huge on. Even if it’s just a generic card, that’s for everybody. Put your face there, show who you are. You’re staying at my house and I’m welcoming you here. And it just, it does help from the, even if there’s a problem or a challenge, it doesn’t remove problems and challenges.

Jonathan: I think it neutralizes them. I think it allows for a little bit more of a human, human connection.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Do you produce these cards for, for your homeowners or do

Jonathan: Not yet.

Gil: on where to go to get it?

Jonathan: Not yet. Yeah. Yeah. We’re working on that. Going back to like, we stayed in our three obsession lanes because we have to be really good at those. Um, but we help a lot of folks with customizations. That’s, that’s more their, their curation at this point.

Gil: Yeah, and you mentioned, uh, some of the resources that you provide. I can totally see that as being like a resource you provide, like go to these places to get it done. Here’s a can template to create one. Like there’s some pretty easy, easy things that you can start to do

Jonathan: That’s right. That’s right.

Gil: make it easier for your homeowners to take advantage of these things.

Jonathan: We have a, we have a, a customer council. So we have some of our, some of our clients that have volunteered to be on a council, and some of them are, are sharing their best ideas and their best tips and tricks. ’cause our, our customers are among the best operators in the country. They are, they’re really high level operators.

Jonathan: And so, uh, things like that, we’re building the tips and tricks for our, for our customers based. From our customers, like from our actual council that we’ve formed. So more on that coming. This is our first year of doing it. We’ve had two great meetings with our, with our customer council.

Gil: That’s

Jonathan: Nice.

Gil: Um, yeah, you re you mentioning that keep the, you encourage them to put their face on these welcome cards. Ironically, we actually do the exact same thing on our direct booking sites.

Jonathan: Oh, nice. Yeah.

Gil: We encourage hosts to upload a picture of themselves, their family, whatever it is, and of a short bio. And we include that at the bottom of every, almost every single template

Jonathan: Yeah.

Gil: there.

Gil: And I just feel like what we’ve seen, actually, not just field, but like the tests that we ran with sites that have that in there. It just helps so much on conversion.

Jonathan: Yeah,

Gil: a level of trust with that guest there, that potential guest.

Jonathan: exactly. Exactly.

Gil: a huge way to know that, oh, this is not just some really large property management company that really care about the service, like it human like you mentioned a humanizes who’s there on the other side.

Gil: Yeah,

Jonathan: Even if you are a larger company, try to appear small. You know, that’s, that’s a lot of it. Or take, take a picture of you and your team, right? You can literally show you and your team together, and we’re a group, a unified group to help bring you excellent service. You know, all of that can be possible.

Gil: yeah, yeah. I mean that, that’s ironic because a lot of times property managers, we want appear bigger than we are, but that’s actually the opposite for what you wanna convey from a guest perspective, like to other homeowners. other coasting clients, you probably want to appear big, but to other homeowners, sorry, and to other guests, you actually want to appear small.

Jonathan: Exactly. If you’re wanting to strut your stuff at a conference and talk about how many doors you have, or try to convert a, maybe a new owner based off of that, fine, but your guest doesn’t give a flip how big you are. Your guest wants to know who you are and what are they going to expect when they’re staying at your property.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. And we have a, a few well and good customers out there, and I’ve, I’ve, I think that’s probably where I first recognize the ampersand there. Like we actually have a couple of hosts that will include that on their homepage there.

Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, it, it would be, it would be crazy not to, right? We have the data that says that if guests know this information prior, they’re more likely to book your specific home. And so yeah, we, we’ve definitely seen a benefit there of like market, market us, right? We’re happy, happy to have, have us be a part of your marketing campaign.

Jonathan: I, I know that we back it up with service and so at that point we might as well let ’em know beforehand.

Gil: Yeah. What’s, uh, what’s on the horizon for you folks? Like what do you see? Well, and good. I say three years from now.

Jonathan: Well, I think that we have a, you know, we have a mission to, to bring standardization. We have a long way to go with that. And so, uh, definitely continuing to. Work with our, with our locations that are existing to, to grow them. But then also we need to add more locations. There are places that need our service desperately, and so we are gonna continue to grow our location count.

Jonathan: Um, we’re working to be much better at reporting, uh, maintenance issues and then providing solutions where we can, uh, we’re not a maintenance company, but we, we certainly do have ability to. To do more on that sense. You mentioned light bulbs and things like that. Uh, I have a big announcement that’s coming actually at the hospitable host, uh, summit towards that to just make sure that like, my goodness, a, a home should always have AA batteries and AAA batteries.

Jonathan: Now how, how are we going to make sure that happens? We are the company, we are the logistical company that could actually make that happen. And so more to come on that, but that’s, that’s some of the things that are on the horizon.

Gil: Yeah. And for any host listening here, like you need to have some type of drawer, this emergency drawer, um, we unfortunately have to lock it up, um,

Jonathan: I think you should lock it up. I think you should lock it up. I’m, I’m, the reason you should lock it up is to know that when something is taken, that it needs to be replaced.

Gil: exactly.

Jonathan: otherwise, how do you inventory manage it?

Gil: Exactly like it, it, it’s hard for us to maintain, especially when that drawer is not an area that we want our guests to be going into. Likewise, during turns, I don’t want someone to miss looking in that drawer and making sure that it’s been replenished. So we have drawers in every one of our property that has one of those small cabinet, like has three codes that you can put in

Jonathan: Yep.

Gil: and you just double stick it to the front of the drawer or the side of the drawer to prevent it from being opened.

Gil: And if a guest says, oh, I can’t, this remote’s not working. I have this lock available, this, this, this one available. And if I, if I get someone that asks for something I know to then go back to my cleaner, the next, next turn and say, make sure you check the drawer, make sure it’s replenished for anything. But things like any properties that have fireplaces that need to be lit. Have I? We have either match or a lighter there.

Jonathan: Mm-hmm.

Gil: We have extra Roku remotes. We actually, two, they’re not expensive. So we have two.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Gil: Roku remotes. nine vol batteries. AA There’s one more thing that we put in there. Oh, flashlights. So we put lanterns all around, but we also have flashlights there as well, just in case.

Jonathan: Stay tuned. We’ve got a cool announcement coming on that soon. Yes. Yes. Then, but that we want to bring, we wanna bring confidence to, to those, uh, to those items that we just know that man, the door ball, the, the door locking is, you know, is important, right? If that battery dies, then people can’t get in and out of the house.

Jonathan: If it’s a smart lock, you’ve got to have batteries available.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. So 

Jonathan: Love it.

Gil: make sure you, you, you give your, uh. I mean, I think it’s all really about like, how do you deliver a consistent experience even when things go bad. I think that’s really

Jonathan: Hmm,

Gil: the, the kinda the message there.

Jonathan: that’s right.

Gil: Awesome. Well, Jonathan, we usually end the show with three questions. Uh, first question, a, what’s a book recommendation that you would have for you? What’s one thing, what’s a book that’s changed your life or that you find very inspiring?

Jonathan: Yes, this is, uh, a bit out of left field and I hope it’s a book that not many people have read. Uh, but this book is called The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, and it is by Patrick Lencioni, who he is a great author that writes fables. So it’s a simple book, very easy to read. It talks about there are miserable jobs all over, um, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact of whether, how much someone’s being paid or anything like that.

Jonathan: Actually, there are three indicators that lead to what makes a job miserable. And on the other side, what makes somebody be very fulfilled, whether they’re in white collar jobs or blue collar jobs. It doesn’t matter. There are three signs of a miserable job, and I can’t recommend that book enough if you’re, if you have a team of any kind.

Jonathan: And I think one of the biggest things that this could help is if you have. Uh, virtual assistants. If you have teammates that are across the globe and they’re working with your team, you need to read this book. Uh, it will tell you how to make sure that those, those professionals who are part of your team are engaged and are motivated.

Jonathan: And the three Signs of a Miserable Job by Patrick Lencioni.

Gil: All right. I, I will have to pick that one up. That was a good sell.

Jonathan: Easy read. Easy read. You’ll like it.

Gil: Awesome. All right. Sec que second question. the one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new?

Jonathan: I think, you know, every business should seek out to solve a problem, and with that, you should be seeking out to solve a problem for people, for, for fellow humans, for people that you care about. And I. So with that, I oftentimes, when you’re envisioning and you should do this, you should envision. That individual that you are solving the problem for, who is specifically is going to feel that and think about them and obsess over them even before you know them.

Jonathan: A great example of that, if you’ve been listening to this whole show, you heard about the story of Chelsea Osborne. See, I thought about Chelsea Osborne way before I knew who she was. I knew exactly that was the type of person that our company was going to impact. I didn’t know her. But if you can start to envision that person, maybe for the direct booking, it’s the person who’s, who’s really trying to, you know, free themselves from an OTA and you’re, you’re, you’re starting to really think about now all your messaging goes to that person.

Jonathan: All of your, all of your thoughts, your communication. You need to personalize the, the solve. Right? You’re solving a problem. Yes, but who for? And once you find that who and what, you know, the the why, it’s, it’s the who, not why. And it’s like, yeah, you figure out. That who, and whether you know them or not, whether you know their name doesn’t matter.

Jonathan: You can start to identify that individual and then you start to build everything around that.

Gil: That’s awesome. I love that. All right, last question. What’s uh, one piece of tactical advice. you would give to someone that’s either trying to start their direct booking engine or amplify it.

Jonathan: Yeah, we didn’t talk about this one a lot, but I think this is a great one to, to consider for hoster managers. If you have a property, I believe that that property should have its own Instagram account. Make an Instagram account for your property. It does take maintaining. You gotta make sure you’re posting, you gotta make sure you’re involved in order to have it be active, but then start to engage and you engage with anything local, right?

Jonathan: Wherever your local is. Follow all of those. Make sure that, and of course you’re gonna have your direct booking link right there in the link tree right there. As soon as they click in. And that home now starts to have a personality and you get to curate that personality. You get to connect with vendors.

Jonathan: We have so many of our partners who have homes that they then follow well in Good Pro on Instagram, and we’re able to tag each other. We’re able to talk about all of that. They get a lot of exposure. We have. Customers who take 52 bookings a year on Instagram, and it all flows through Instagram because their houses have become viral and all that.

Jonathan: And you don’t need an ultra curated home to do that. You just need to have consistency, and I encourage people do that and then involve yourself locally with your vendors as well as with your local community.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. And we’ve had a couple guests on the show that really emphasizes like how much traction that you can have with just some old school marketing of like really making sure that you’re engaging with folks that. Can send you leads and, and, and I kinda like, I think what you’re, you’re twisting is really leveraging the local, local attractions, local

Jonathan: Yeah,

Gil: things that people go to and follow and set them digitally, sending traffic over to you.

Gil: Um, and that works both ways. Like even like if you are local, meet the people nearby, meet the restaurants nearby, let them know what services you have available. Like, that’s actually one of the tips that I’ve, I’ve heard is like

Jonathan: that’s right.

Gil: that. They refer people to you, but what you’re also saying is like making sure that like you’re, you have an online presence so that they can do so digitally.

Jonathan: They can know now. Yeah. What’s that? That, that house that always re-shares us, you know, the coffee shop down the street. It’s like, yeah, I, I, I’ve stayed at the Holly House, not Holly, or I’ve seen the Holly House on Instagram. They’re the ones to stay with. If I was booking in this area, that’s where I would go and.

Jonathan: It just does have much more of that, that localized nature. You do it ironically, not even to sell your property, you do it to engage in your community and then it will sell your property.

Gil: Hmm. that. Awesome. Jonathan, folks find out more about you? How can they get in touch with you if they’re interested in well and good, and like where, where should they go?

Jonathan: Yeah. They should go to our website, which is well and Good Pro, and that is also the name of our Instagram handle as well as LinkedIn. It is all well and good pro.

Gil: And that’s spelled out and not the ampersand.

Jonathan: Is spelled out and yes, yes. Normally you’ll see this guy on my chest, but the, uh, the actual website is a ND.

Gil: Awesome. Jonathan, it was a, a pleasure having you on the show. I love hearing just your origin story of how you got first, how you got started in the first place, and how it’s evolved since then, just how you think about really the entire guest experience and what you’re enabling host and property managers to do when you have the right team in place and the right processes in place as well, too.

Jonathan: I enjoyed it. Really appreciate the invitation.

Gil: Awesome. I look forward to seeing it a little bit.

Jonathan: Yes, sir. Thanks, Gil.

Gil: Bye.