Building to 50% Direct Bookings with Chris Jeub

Summary and Highlights

Chris began his journey into glamping with a modest vision that has since grown into a thriving enterprise. Monument Glamping now offers a diverse range of accommodations including tent structures, container homes, and custom RVs. What started with just 3% direct bookings has surged to an impressive 40-50%, thanks to Chris’s innovative marketing strategies.

Marketing Innovations that Work

Chris shared several tactics that have been pivotal in driving direct bookings:

• Personalized Messaging: By incorporating his brand name, “@monumentglamping,” in Airbnb messages, Chris boosted brand recognition and direct bookings.
• Direct Sales Strategy: Redirecting upsell opportunities to his own website allowed Chris to capture more revenue and customer data directly.
• Social Media Engagement: A strategically placed welcome book encourages guests to follow Monument Glamping on social media, nurturing long-term customer engagement.
• Incentivizing Direct Bookings: Offering exclusive perks for direct bookings not only increased profitability but also strengthened customer loyalty.

SEO Mastery: From Branding to Strategic Positioning

Understanding the importance of SEO, Chris made a crucial shift by optimizing his website title to “Glamping near Colorado Springs and Denver.” This targeted approach significantly improved search engine rankings, making Monument Glamping more visible to potential guests searching for unique accommodations in the area.

Navigating Media and Government Relations

Chris highlighted the power of media coverage in expanding his reach. By proactively engaging with the local newspaper and offering insightful content, he not only gained visibility but also developed a deeper understanding of local governance, which proved invaluable in navigating regulatory landscapes.

Insights and Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Reflecting on his entrepreneurial journey, Chris emphasized resilience and adaptation. He shared, “The universe will be against you when starting something new and creative, but perseverance is key.” His tactical advice included aligning website content with customer search behavior rather than purely relying on brand-centric titles.

Scaling Strategies and Future Prospects

Looking ahead, Chris stressed the importance of building scalable systems and delegating operational tasks. By gradually offloading responsibilities like cleaning, he has positioned Monument Glamping for sustainable growth in a lucrative niche that continues to expand.

Conclusion

Chris Jeub’s story is a testament to the power of innovation, perseverance, and strategic marketing in transforming a vision into a successful reality. Whether you’re in hospitality or another industry, his insights offer actionable strategies to elevate your business. Stay tuned for more inspiring stories and practical tips on our podcast!

Ready to take your marketing strategies to the next level? Contact us today to learn how we can help you achieve your business goals!

Transcript

Gil: All right, we’re recording and then it records locally too. So don’t worry if we fall off, if there’s lags and so on. Okay. And I’ll, we can always edit stuff out too. So I’ll start I’ll cut a little bit into it. So don’t worry about that. Sounds good. Awesome. Hey folks, welcome back to Direct Booking Simplified, where we break down the tactics and strategies to win in direct bookings.

Gil: On today’s show, I have Chris Jeub. Also known as the Glamping guy. Hey, Chris, welcome to the show. Hey, Gil. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, it’s really good to have you. Yeah. Before we get too deep into it, do you want to give folks a introducing introduction on who the glamping guy is? Sure. The glamping guy, 

Chris: you could check me out@glampingguy.com.

Chris: I, I actually am a teacher. I started glamping five years ago. When my wife and I remodeled the bedroom and we stuck a tent out back instead of living in the living room for a month. And we loved it. We threw it up on Airbnb after that and booked out the rest of the summer. The rest is history.

Chris: And five years later, here I am with two properties in Monument, Colorado permitted for 36 units, which is quite the. Quite the permits and and we’re, and I’m loving it. Now I actually publish video content and classes for people who want to get into glamping. So if you are a landowner who wants to break into the, what I call the sexiest asset class in real estate, and that’s glamping.

Chris: I’ve gone through the ropes through the thick and thin and really made a lot of mistakes along the way. Honestly, I’m very transparent in my videos and my YouTube channel and things like that. Just sharing sharing the journey living the life and loving outdoor hospitality.

Chris: Short term rental marketing. So I’m on Airbnb and Verbo and the whole works as well as direct bookings. And I’m on that journey of trying to get as many direct bookings as possible, trying to raise that curve. And I like, like probably a lot of your listeners. I’m trying my best to get into that direct booking world.

Gil: Yeah. So given that you’re a teacher, do they refer, do your students refer to you as a glamping guy or did they even know that you’re the glamping guy? Yeah they 

Chris: do. They do. I have videos online. So I do have a YouTube channel. So if you go to glamping guy on YouTube. Yeah, you’ll see me and I just posted some things.

Chris: I was, I had my first public hearing last week and secured four more units and things like that. I had neighborhood uprising and things. So a lot of the things that short term rental world has to deal with, especially Creative things like glamping or the ADU world. There’s a lot of controversy involved with that.

Chris: So that’s what that’s what I do. And, but then I do have a introductory course called easy entry to the, what is it, easy entry to the business of glamping. And then I have a larger eight weeks to launch. that is more expensive, but more involved. And then as well as a mastermind where I take care of students, do they call me the glamping guy?

Chris: No, they call me Chris. I’m I still have just a few students that are a handful of students. So I get to know them very well and help them along with, but it is exciting. I have students from all over the country. Just stopped in Illinois on the way back from a school trip with my kids in Tennessee at a tournament they were at.

Chris: and stopped and saw her place and walked the grounds. She has a little private fishing lake right outside of St. Louis and and she’s going to crush it as a glamper. So that’s 

Gil: the kind of students I have. Nice. Nice. You mentioned you made a bunch of mistakes going into this.

Gil: Actually, let me ask you another different question first. When you talk about glamping, what does that mean? What do, what does the structures look like? What do you provide? What do you don’t provide? 

Chris: Yeah. Good question. Yeah. What, what is glamping? I didn’t know about it when I, in 2019 when I started, I had to look it up to, to figure it out myself.

Chris: It’s been just a word in the dictionary since I think 2014. So it’s really very new. Glamping is glamorous camping. I think it’s more of a household term. I rarely have to really explain it anymore of what glamping is. If. A listener doesn’t know what glamping is. Now you do, it’s just glamorous camp.

Chris: You leave your camping gear at home. You don’t, you just show up and there’s a bed under a canvas or in a unique structure. And and you can just enjoy outdoor accommodation, much like going into a hotel, except you’re outdoors. And we have a beautiful six and a half acre piece of property.

Chris: Creek runs through it. A beautiful view. We’re really close to town, really a couple of miles out of town. So restaurants and. hanging out places, bars and things like that are very close, but we’re just a couple of miles away. We got a tent out here in my yard or it’s a rural residential area. So you can see houses and stuff but we make these little yards for them, these little spaces that they can enjoy.

Chris: Enjoy the outdoors. So we have on my property. I have two bell tents So they’re like little yurts one single pole tents and down by the creek then I have four Safari tents and then I have a container home Which my son built it was his first of 11 container homes that he built And then I have an rv which is called we call it the big red, but it’s a custom rv It’s not one you would see in a in an rv park the idea that these are adus they’re auxiliary dwelling units and They, you can stay there and, bring your adult beverages and food and grill and, watch the sunrise, watch the moon rise and just have a relaxing time, a chill axing time on my property.

Gil: Do they, do you provide a, I’m guessing. All the units have bathrooms inside the units or well, 

Chris: half of them do a half of them are off grid. So four of them are off grid. We have a privacy tent with a camping toilet and it’s like a composting toilet except it’s a Camilla’s camping toilet. So they do their business and throw it away.

Chris: But we do have, the other four units do have private bathrooms. And yeah, there’s a grill. We sell them propane for 35. We’ll keep them all private. Juiced up with propane or they can bring their own tank. So we have a grill and a fire pit. That’s all propane, a heater in the tent for cold nights.

Chris: If we’re in Colorado, so it can get chilly at night. But and then they just they just, we have these little trough tubs that they can fill up and have a hot door cold plunge. And we rent, we, we will rent them a bath towels and things like that. Those are some extra amenities that they can buy into.

Chris: We have things like a romantic surprise. We will. Put out rose petals, a lot of couples get here, come here and they have a great time and in their tent, like a date night almost. And what else do we do? We do some fruit and beverage. We have wine tastings we make our own homemade wine.

Chris: So we put a little personal flair into it. A lot of my students do that. How, like, how can you twist a little personal flair into your, into the stay? We have what we call a Colorado cookout where we’ll make, Burgers and homemade burgers and get some potatoes or chips and stuff.

Chris: And some kombucha we do kombucha too. So we’d get called bougie on people and it’s it’s fun. Then people can come in at just a one night or two night stay. And we are close to some. Some touristy areas. We’re close to Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak National Forest. Pikes Peak National Forest is only a mile and a half from our driveway.

Chris: So people like hikers and bikers like mountain bikers they like to come here and they glamp while they’re visiting the area. 

Gil: Yeah. How do you set that expectation to, to guess? Like for me, like the reason why I asked What does glamping for you? It may be different for other people.

Gil: Some expect commuter toilets versus one that’s in play, or you talked about some of the amenities that you provide and some of the other ones that are like more upsells into it. Like, how do you set that expectation to folks that may be glamping for that first time, like right away 

Chris: with the messaging, really the communication, we have automated emails that go out right away.

Chris: For one, our we book we have a website that we have our direct booking link to so it goes straight to our IGMS system. I use IGMS and and it just, the booking happens and they see all the amenities that they can. Of course, you might get, you might know this and. Every STR host knows this, that they don’t read everything.

Chris: They look at the pictures. So the pictures need to be more accurate than actually the text. I have a welcome book that when they arrive they actually see all the amenities that they could order if they missed the email, if they didn’t get the note and just, yeah, setting the expectations is probably one of the most important things that an STR host needs to do.

Chris: You need to be just frank and open. I’ve got a picture of the toilet for those off grid ones that they show up and they wanted a flushing toilet. I’m sorry that the picture was right there and, but they I guess maybe early on in my glamping journey of hosting, I wanted to hide that fact or not show the show the dark corners or something like, Oh, but you know what?

Chris: I leaned into it. I learned to lean in on the you might hear coyotes howl at night. That, that kind of thing, all that might freak someone out, but it’s also cool, and when people travel from out of state, when we’re really close to town, we get a bear every now and then rummages through the garbage.

Chris: So we tell people to lock things up. But but we keep a can of bear spray in the drawer next to the bed 

Gil: and 

Chris: it’s never been used ever. But it’s just that perceived fear, we just needed to, we just needed to handle that. And that’s, so that’s how we roll here 

Gil: in the glamping world.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. I betcha that was more of a iterative process where each time you host another series of guests, You learn some of their anxieties, some of the things that you missed, or some of the things that you had to ask questions for. And then you learn 

Chris: something new every single day. Every single day, something new.

Chris: And I didn’t think of that. And I just have to make a change. In fact, that’s, it goes back to, Um, when I started glamping guy, I’ve got a lot of followers. I’ve got people who really I consult people and everything that, other people who want to do what I’m doing. And I remember thinking when I got my act all together, then I’ll become glamping guy.

Chris: And that just, that day will never come. I think there was a whole year. I had the concept of glamping guy and I was like, I’ll just wait until I get it all together. But every day goes by and I’m learning something. So glamping guy really is a lot of it is just my journey. My mastermind is us. It’s not me teaching my students.

Chris: My mastermind is really all of us, learning together. And we, Oh, we had a, I still get crabby guests that come in or they, their expectations were blown. And I have to mitigate issues with neighbors or with a town another business, a business to business relationship.

Chris: There’s all sorts of things that come up and. having a community of people to where, Hey, this is what come up, comes up to where I can be transparent and honest and open. And I just got my, I just got this in the mail. So I just got my, my my third special use permit. I’ve applied three times, but this one was a public hearing, but I remember getting, getting a letter of violation in the mail, that’s not fun.

Chris: And then you got to talk to a compliance officer and try to figure out where you’re out of compliance. And because a neighbor called and there’s things like that happened. And so I just started glamping guy because just Just to put it out there. There, there was a time in me that I just like, okay, I don’t really care how I look anymore.

Chris: I’m just that old. And so just go ahead and just do what I do and be honest about it. I think that’s actually most of the. The social media success, the people who are really out there in social media. I’ve got a, my daughter in law is a big TikTok star and stuff, but she had to get work through that and go, I can’t wait for perfection to put myself out there.

Chris: And I was like, that’s a really good point. I can’t either. And I just, and that’s when you, that’s when people really learn from you. I guess that’s way, I guess it’s my philosophy of teaching, honestly. When I’m vulnerable to my students, even seventh grade English, one of that is what I used to teach.

Chris: Even when I’m most vulnerable with my students is when I, when they probably learn from me the most. Yeah. And then they open up to you. And so that that’s a, think back to your teachers that you like, probably the ones that were most vulnerable with you. 

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They felt more like a peer or more like someone that they can open up to and talk to and know that like you have mistakes, you have flaws and you’re learning as well too, that those are the ones that you can lean on a bit more.

Gil: You can I did this when I was in management Yeah. It goes with anything in life, right? Isn’t it? Yeah. 

Chris: Managers and yeah, you bet. 

Gil: Yeah. I like it. I always appreciated managers that was vulnerable and was humble. And because when you saw a manager, someone higher up that was able to open up and say Hey, I made a mistake.

Gil: You’re able to then own up to any mistakes that you have with them and it just fosters a much better relationship And it sounds like you do this with your students. You do this with your guests as well, too III love that. Yeah, 

Chris: and the gift of hospitality is It’s an awesome gift. It’s like the funnest gift.

Chris: It’s, I used to call it the gift of partying, you just you’re, you really enjoy people. I actually, I’m an introvert. I like being, I don’t get jazzed by by other people. I don’t get energized by it. But but I sure enjoy people and I enjoy entertaining people that’s the gift of hospitality.

Gil: That’s actually a good segue into one of the things I want to talk to you about. What is your Avatar or your kind of your regular guests. Are they folks that come back year after year? Are they more folks that? Add this on their bucket list and they wanted to check that off and now they’ve done it They’re moving on to the next thing like who do you see?

Chris: That’s a nut i’m still trying to crack that’s a very good question. I would I should listen to more podcasts to figure that one out my avatar is the young couple looking for a evening getaway That’s my, that’s a middle class not really wealthy, not really poor and and just able to afford 200 for a nice evening and overnight accommodation.

Chris: So that’s my avatar. Sometimes I get people staying for a week. Sometimes I get people wanting to stay for the, Oh that’s my avatar. And I, and then I branch out from there. But I haven’t quite figured out the repeat customer. No, that’s why I’m into. Direct booking, honestly the repeat customer, the direct booker is the repeat customer.

Chris: Yeah, not the Airbnb or the Airbnb is looking, you and all your competitors in town, because they’re driving through town, they need a place to stay. And then they, my tent shows up and they go, oh, maybe I could go glamping. I am visiting Colorado. Do you see what I mean? 

Gil: Yeah. Or it’s 

Chris: someone from Colorado Springs in Denver who finds me on Airbnb because they really are just looking for a place to go for, they have the night off.

Chris: That’s different than a direct booker direct, a direct booking. I think will are more apt to return there. They’re more of the repeat customer. They’re on vacation and they’re like a campground. You’re, you will go to their website and book that traditional place that, it’s your secret glamping space.

Chris: And that’s the. That’s that market. I’m really trying to open up what up to and get more involved with Facebook marketing, Instagram marketing, and trying to get my social media amped up a bit more. I think that’s where is more of where I need to be than 

Gil: Airbnb.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. So do you find that folks, when you say repeat customers, you’re saying like folks that book with you on Airbnb, they are likely to stay with you for a Maybe only once most cases. Yes. And the folks that book with you for the first time on direct, they actually book with you a second time, very likely on direct again.

Gil: Is that what you’re saying? Yes. 

Chris: I, the way I look at a direct booker is okay. They found me online. They were glamping experience. Yes. Close by this area. And they found me on Google not, I need a place to sleep and, Oh, look at that. I could sleep in a tent. That’s a different, that’s a different customer.

Chris: That’s a fly by night customer. They’re not going to stick around. They’re not going to come back. Let’s say knock their socks off. That’s not always true but I, that, that is generally true. 

Gil: That’s interesting. These are like, so for me and my market, most of my customers that are repeats, they first come in as folks that found me on Airbnb and I gave them a really good stay they know, and they come to learn then that.

Gil: Because I do a lot of marketing on the property itself in my messaging. And then we also collect emails. They book with us a second time via direct, but it sounds like you actually have almost that 

Chris: happens too. That is in fact, I just, I’m having somebody check in today that did exactly that. 

Gil: I 

Chris: remember that because of the message, she’s still messaging me through Airbnb and as an inquiry.

Chris: But even though she did direct book with me and she so that’s how we got a hold is she asked a question in inquiry and then. Booked with me direct. So that does happen. And that, that is the kind of person I want because she, I want her to return. I want everyone to return honestly. But yeah, that, that does happen.

Gil: Yeah. That’s awesome. Talk to me. I think that’s actually a good segue to like on the more direct bookings and tactics side of it. You told me that You have a different persona, folks that are looking for that campaign, that glamping experience, and they find you online. How did they find you? Are they looking on Google or are they, do they come across some social posts that you did?

Gil: How are they finding you? 

Chris: Both of those. So Google, I do have a website. So monument glamping. com is my website. You won’t see any glamping guy in there other than in the about us page. But but the. That is for book bookings. And I have widgets placed in the, I, the venue descriptions and you can see that right now.

Chris: So that’s a, that’s the primary way people find me and their. And on the front page, you will see I’m big in SEO where I will have, what is it like a glamping near Denver and Colorado Springs? That, that’s my SEO grab. And then if they find, if they type in glamping and they’re near Colorado Springs and Denver, I will come up.

Chris: One, two, three on the front page. Hopefully I haven’t checked it for a while but that’s my SEO health. But I also do, I do publish a quite a bit on Facebook. That’s probably my main social media channel. And and we’ve got about a thousand people who follow our page and I’ll throw an ad up every so often a 20 ad and then get more followers that way.

Chris: And I get a lot of bookings out of actually Facebook’s actually pretty good for, as far as the bang for your buck, when it comes to the ads I did some ads on Google for a while. I turned it on and off depending on how much money I feel I have, I, that’s one of the things I needed to tighten up is just having a nicer marketing strategy because it’s me just feeling like I, when I have time, I start to.

Chris: Dabble into it some more. So there’s a lack of consistency on my part. I’m not, I’m not the, I’m not the social media guy. I’m the glamping guy, because that is something I just need to tighten up. 

Gil: So how given all that, and it sounds like you have a lot of places that you want to optimize over the next few years, how much, what’s your direct booking rate today?

Gil: It’s this 

Chris: weekend is like 50%. This is a really good weekend. I’m very pleased But it’s been more when I first started out, it was like 3%. It was a really low. I, at first, when I started out, I remember thinking I cannot live without Airbnb and I just got, I looked at people who would do direct bookings.

Chris: I just, I don’t know what’s. Secret sauce you have, because I cannot think of turning it off. I never did turn it off. I still do Airbnb. But I remember there was a few years ago, just, got ticked. No, I remember what it was. It was a dog who busted through the front of one of my tents and the tenant was being an excellent, a real jerk and wouldn’t fess up to it.

Chris: And the dentist’s this is awful. So I took pictures of everything and sent it in there. Airbnb sided with the. The tenant and I was like you gotta be kidding me. The dog tear tore open the tent. So that kind of. It gave me a really bad taste with OTAs. And it’s man, it’s they’re not, I’m not really their number one customer here.

Chris: And that, I think a lot of people who’d start to play with direct bookings think that way all of a sudden it’s you know what, I’m a, I’ve got a business to run too. And I’m, I might be too married to the, to this. Business is a business to business relationship. It’s like I have one. I’m too dependent on it. And if that linchpin ever pulls out, I’ve never been, I’ve been a super host since I started. So I have a very good relationship with Airbnb and I do Airbnb, honestly, the technology and stuff I think is better than other OTAs out there. I’ve dealt with OTAs where I just.

Chris: Pulling my hair out, trying to work with them. So in that way, it is a nicely built machine. But it’s still a machine and it isn’t my machine. And I would rather, I find more comfort just having my own direct books. It’s also like I get to keep more of the revenue. I have to, I have a better relationship with the customer.

Chris: And that, so that for those reasons, that’s the advantages outweigh the disadvantages when it comes to direct bookings. Yeah, that’s an interesting story. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories and I always wonder how, like how they turn out, but like how Airbnb sides with a guest, they give you, they give the guest back a 3k refund or whatever it may be.

Gil: And that’s the trigger point of someone. Considering something else or considering diversifying their revenues. Talk to me about, you mentioned you start off at 3 percent and you didn’t know how you, how to actually get that higher. How did you get from three to three to 53 to 40, whatever it is right now.

Gil: How did you get. Yeah. 

Chris: A lot of little things. I’ll give you some examples. Like you can’t put your website in an Airbnb response. I can’t put them, go to monument publishing doc or monument glamping. com and send me money that way. I can’t do that, but I do put like the, in my automated messages, I put at monument glamping.

Chris: Yeah. And so they, they see that, so that brand, they see that it doesn’t take too much for a savvy tenant to figure out, okay, he’s probably got a website out there, or he’s probably got some social media out there. Okay. So they end up. Running down that road. My extras, I just did this this summer, my extras that I sell, I used to trade money through Airbnb.

Chris: And I don’t, I rarely do that anymore. It’s okay, go to my website and click down enhancements and order it that way. Then you got them. Yeah. They flow through other OTAs do share email. Airbnb doesn’t Verbo doesn’t either, but Hipcamp does. And so I grab their email and get them into my email system.

Chris: Oh, what else have I done? I have a welcome book. In fact, I’ve got one here on my desk. So I’ve got a welcome book that they. Oh, I don’t have it, but it’s usually has a nice page in the front, but it’s got a, it’s a leather bound book that has like signature pages in it and stuff and directions and all that, as well as an invitation to follow me online.

Chris: So that’s another way to draw them into my track and off of the OTA 

Gil: track. Pause for a second there. You mentioned that. You message in your upsells you used to take them on Airbnb. Now you don’t do it anymore. You redirect them towards your website, but that’s someone that already booked that once.

Gil: How does that generate more direct bookings or how does that translate to more direct bookings? Is it that they, when they do a repeat or are they giving referrals? Yeah. 

Chris: My direct bookings get a free bottle of wine or kombucha. That’s nice. That’s a nice a nice draw. So that’s it. That’s it. And I think that is that’s a suggestion.

Chris: I think I heard from from a direct booking guy. It was telling me how to do this give something for free with your direct bookings. It was some sort of carrot. So I’d say, Hey, if you direct book, you’re going to get this little bit. It’s not so much a. A cheaper cost. I think the cost could be relatively the same.

Gil: Yeah. 

Chris: In fact, in my system, it does sync very closely with Airbnb. And even I GMS has a feature where you can up the price to Airbnb and all the channels do you have I don’t use that, but but it is an option. I think all the PMSs have something like that where they can pay more on the OTAs, but the OTAs, the thing is that Customers, and I’ve done this when I’ve traveled too.

Chris: I honestly don’t mind going through the OTA more because I’ve got that. I’ve got that. What if I have a bad experience? You see what I mean? . Yeah. So then I’m in there. Then I’m in the customer’s moccasins and I’m walking that way. There’s insurance and there’s incentives and things like that, that I will go to.

Chris: So it’s like a little. What a funny business Airbnb is in because they’re trying to be have people who list as a customer, but also the customer or the tenant as a customer. And so it’s, their job might be a little harder than mine. Come to think of it but I try, but we’re, we are, we’re struggling over for the same customer where we’re pulling, trying to pull them over into my world, my glamping world more than I don’t really want them in their Airbnb world.

Gil: Yeah. I 

Chris: described your life, didn’t I? And that’s the whole podcast right there is trying to get, trying to pull the customer from the OTA to individual sites or the host sites. 

Gil: Yeah, I think of it in two different ways. There’s one is like you do, you use the OTAs as marketing and where they’re spending a lot of energy and marketing dollars to drive people to some booking site.

Gil: And I, I prefer guests that book direct over Airbnb, mainly around the anxiety of feeling like there’s less entitlement when it’s a book direct customer. There’s I feel like I’m able to give a very genuine experience where on Airbnb they start asking about certain things, they start complaining about certain things and you start to see the risk of the five star going, going, like raising.

Gil: And that’s the level of anxiety that I don’t love about being a. Quote unquote, like Airbnb host, but as like a short term rental host, like I try to give a very good experience right to everyone. And when I have a book direct, like I’m less worried. It’s not that I’m gonna give them a, a worse experience, but I’m less worried and about that. So I use, and a lot of. Other hosts, they’ll use Airbnb as a marketing channel. So just like how you just said of using at monument glamping, using that at in there. And so for mine, on my listing, this is hosted by explore state today. And we phrase it in a very particular way. We also remove all the spaces.

Gil: So it’s very SEO friendly. Yes. If actually anyone like looks up that term, I’m the only one in the first. Two pages of Google that shows up, you’ll see our Instagram pages, you’ll see our YouTube videos, you’ll see everything about us and we dominate the SEO there. And so we, that’s how we funnel, that’s how we leverage the OTAs to funnel traffic back into us.

Gil: I think the other side of it is, How do you build other streams of other streams of traffic? And so another stream of traffic is really repeat customers. Like, how do they, how do you get them to come back to us? So we have a whole email marketing campaign against that. And then that last piece there is like really new traffic that Airbnb, but they’re exploring.

Gil: Their next day and getting in front of them there. So that’s really around organic traffic, social media, and those sorts of stuff. That’s how I think about like driving marketing to your site. So it’s not just like one thing that I do, and it’s the culmination of them that helps us get to that higher rate.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a combination of things. Yeah. I just typed in monument glamping into Google and my business comes up. So I get my business up and let’s see what else to, so my business comes up organically to hip camp, Facebook, Colorado Springs Gazette, cause they did a story on us, booking. com.

Chris: TripAdvisor, Fox 21, because they did a story on us. And then Airbnb. Airbnb is actually down on the bottom of the page one. Interesting. 

Gil: So you’ve done a lot. It sounds like you’ve done at least three or four different publications and where someone else is actually promoting what you’re doing. You is that right?

Gil: Yeah 

Chris: that’s awesome. Honestly, I had a neighborhood uprising this last week. I had mentioned it earlier and so it was a struggle getting that third permit that I wanted. It was for four additional units on, on this property. And so that we failed the planning commission by seven to two for disapproval.

Chris: And we just barely squeaked through it, almost lost it. It was quite dramatic. But we did get The approval from the county commissioners on a three to one vote. One of the commissioners was absent and they almost went to two, which would have not would have failed. So anyway, it was squeaking through.

Chris: And so it was a big drama in the town and I had some neighbors saying they’re for me, some neighbors saying they’re against me and I had the. It was dramatic, 

Gil: right? 

Chris: So the newspaper did an article on the failure in the planning commission. And the, and it sounded bad. I loved it. It’s like all media is good media. Somebody said that, but that, that is, that was fine. It was fine. And I ended up winning at the end. And there’s a lot of people who want glamping in town. And so it’s not it’s not. I, a lot of my, a lot of my students might have that. I remember feeling really bad when a neighbor said not in my backyard and they get mad at the idea of having a clamping operation in town.

Chris: But I’ve gotten over that. I’m not I bring so much joy into people’s lives and so much business to the community here that I’m very confident that I’m doing a very good thing. And so that’s All that to say is that when, yeah, Fox 21 does a, an article on me or a news pod broadcast or the Colorado Springs Gazette does a big spread in their life section, positive or negative.

Chris: It doesn’t matter. It’s still good. It’s all take the bad news with the good news and it’s all good news when it comes to, Then you get on people’s radar 

Gil: and 

Chris: people start searching for monument glamping and someone might watch it. And it doesn’t matter what their opinion is about land use and rural residential property in El Paso County.

Chris: It’s they don’t probably don’t have an opinion, but boy, I sure would like a night out with my loved one in a tent somewhere up in the County somewhere, you see how that works. It’s. It works wonders 

Gil: new eyeballs. Like you had folks that weren’t aware of you before. They may not even thought about doing glamping and they’re like, Oh what’s this?

Gil: Yup. Yeah, 

Chris: that’s 

Gil: right. Have you had 

Chris: a lot of people in our industry and in media? A lot of your customers or a lot of your listeners are probably just, townhome renters and things like that. So it’s different to, to try it, but any, which way you can do it, get into the media.

Chris: Somehow. Some way glamping is easy. It’s sexy. It’s awesome. People want to know about it. And so you can get the you can get the nice articles done pretty easily. But I know some glamping operators that don’t reach out to the media and I’m like, yeah, reach out to them.

Chris: You don’t get to know, I, Oh I did this. Here’s a good story. Here’s one way I did it when I started out and I was, especially when I was getting in trouble with, getting letters of, Violation and things like that. And I was actually finding out the whole world of land use law is a vast and long and complicated world.

Chris: And I just, I was an English teacher. I didn’t care about land use laws. I lived on country. I lived on unincorporated El Paso County. So I was like, leave me alone County. And it’s I didn’t care, but I needed to know it. So what I did, one thing I did, cause I was a writer too. And I said, I’m going to, I’m going to volunteer for our community news newspaper.

Chris: Newspaper comes in our mail every month and it talks about, setbacks and window wells and different various permits that people apply for and all this stuff. And that’s what the, and it has a bunch of ads for local patrons. So I started writing for the Monument Town Council, started attending their meetings and learning about all the people who hate each other and stuff and did the town hall stuff.

Chris: And and then that’s what I started doing. So now I’m a regular contributor to it. 

Gil: I 

Chris: write the article for the monument town council. I’m not in the town of monuments. So I felt like there’s not a conflict of interest. I just but the monuments right here, it’s a town, literally across the Creek from me is the boundary of monument. And I’ve gotten to know the mayor. I’ve gotten to know the trustees and the town manager and things like that. These are good people who are working in government and I needed to understand that, that kind of, I needed to understand that world of development.

Chris: One thing I tell my students is that you’re now a land developer, whether you thought you were or not, you’re now developing your land, your private property. You’re just building, you’re not building skyscrapers, you’re building glamping venues and you need to know that. So that came in very handy in this last and I public hearing over the lat that lasted through June that standing in front of the commissioners was very intimidating, but I knew the commissioners because I worked for the paper and I knew their voting record and I knew who they were related to and I knew the kind of votes that they did.

Chris: I walked in and I, and the one. person who was gone there’s five commissioners and the one, one was excused. And I went, cause I knew how he voted. I was like, he’s not going to vote for me. I was aiming for a three, two. And I knew I was going to hit it, get him. So it was it’s political, honestly.

Chris: Yeah. And but I got involved and just dove in and. And understood the, and then the media was good and why I’ve got a, I don’t have the paper. It’s not in the mail yet, but the, our community news I’m on the front page, it’s going to be, Hey, mind you make glamping succeeds in special use or something like the title is.

Chris: I didn’t write it, but another but a colleague wrote it. You see that and that’s great It’s all news is good news, even though it could be sometimes bad. 

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know if you do this I’m actually curious if you do It sounds like you get a lot of Traffic from many different sources, many different folks that have published about you.

Gil: Yeah. Do you track using Google analytics or any of the analytics tools to know where your traffic is coming from? 

Chris: I do. Do I read it? No, I don’t. Gosh, bad business owner. And I don’t pay very close attention other than, other than I guess like a lot of small businesses, I just.

Chris: Count the likes, how good does one of my videos do? Wow. Look at how many people liked it or shared 

Gil: it. 

Chris: And that’s that’s not diving very deep into the analytics, but it is analytics. It is, does reflect what I do, but do I really get navel gazing on it? Gosh, I’m just too busy.

Chris: A lot of the I’m the I’m that businessman who. I don’t hate glamping yet, but I’m going to end up hating it. If I keep doing it, I got to work more on the business and not in the business. And that’s that’s something that my wife and I are really working hard to do that the Michael Gerber emith idea.

Chris: If your listeners know who that is, I don’t know if you know who that is, Gil, it’s good. I don’t think, which book is it? The E myth. I don’t think I’ve read that one. Yeah. Watch it. It’s entrepreneur myth. The idea is that it starts off with a story that did this pie maker breaks off on his own, makes his own company making pies within a year.

Chris: He hates making pies, everything about pies. And it’s because he just didn’t set up a business. That is something that I teach my students is that you really, you were not building mom, pa campgrounds here. We’re building businesses that we have an exit strategy in our business plan. For this is the valuation of this company is going to be this much in three years and that’s the business that I’m building and still I make my own homemade wine.

Chris: We love to visit with guests. That’s the fun side of the business, but I have to develop these processes in my business or I’m going to end 

Gil: up hating my business. 

Chris: Does that make sense? 

Gil: Yeah that totally does. And I think that’s actually pretty big in the STR world where folks, they get to a certain point, they get to, I think, starting to add three doors and up, they start to think about, okay how do I scale this?

Gil: Because I’m stretching. And I think it’s out of more necessity. Then it is that business mindset, or at least that’s experience. I’ve heard is that folks just want their time back. They want to continue to scale their portfolio, but they want their time back. So they’re trying to offload things.

Gil: So there’s a big rise in hiring VAs to do certain parts of your business. So that. You don’t have to be tending to Airbnb messages when you’re doing anything else in your life. Yeah. 

Chris: One of the biggest things that we did in this last year is we offload all of our cleaning. I, there’s a part of me that likes to do a clean every now and then, and I want to get in the unit and I want to clean it and I want to set it all up and feel good about it.

Chris: But but we have cleaners now and we have to, because if we fill up our day, it’s almost like a. Once things get really easy. It’s tempting to just hold on to them because you don’t want to pay someone to do it. And that’s the exact opposite should be true. When things get really easy, like you’ve got that machine greased nicely, you got that process done, get it off your plate, right?

Chris: Get it to somebody else. Now that you have your system all polished up and you know exactly what to expect, get it off to somebody else. I honestly would like to spend more time with social media. And get that polished up but then get it off to someone to pay someone to just do it So I don’t have to think about it so much right now i’m still working out the kinks and trying to get it smooth I’m doing that with my classes too with with glamping guy really i’m with glamping guy.

Chris: I’m doing everything but it’s I really should pass that off Especially the marketing side of things when really there’s a promotion going on. It should be someone else doing it because promoting does take time, but it’s easy for me to do. I just know how to do it, 

Gil: I think that there’s also like the flip side of it, like not just only when it’s easy, but also when you might not actually have the skillset to do something.

Gil: I find that actually a being a really good time or really good reflection of okay, should I dive really hard into learning this thing or do I need to leverage someone else’s help to do it? And that’s hard as a, as like a founder or a business, like business owner is you want to feel the end to end of what it would like to do it.

Gil: So you know what questions ask and how you want to operate things. But at the same time, you’re having to learn a whole new skillset and in our business, you’re learning to be an operator, someone to find deals, how to operationally make sure that everything’s clean, services, communication, like there’s a lot.

Chris: There’s a, there is a, I love Lucy routine that they, I love Lucy’s and Ricardo checking into all tell. And there’s a guy who’s doing everything. He’s the cleaner. He’s answering the phone. He’s at the work of the desk and all he’s doing is changing hats. Yeah. This guy, it’s the same guy.

Chris: It’s hilarious. It’s a famous routine, but that’s the glamper. That’s the STR guy, right? He’s he’s doing. Everything. And yeah, when do you pass a baton and get someone else? I have a friend of mine said this to me. I’ll claim it as my own. I guess he was talking, we were talking about it. When do you hire an accountant?

Chris: When do you get off, your own QuickBooks and actually hire someone to do it for you? And he said it this way. He goes, you should know enough about accounting to know your accountant’s not ripping you off. And so that’s about how much you need to know. But to you, if I hate accounting, I hate counting the beans.

Chris: I, to me, it’s like a waste of time, but it, I do need to know where my money is. 

Gil: Yeah. 

Chris: And that’s the fundamental that I must know. So I hire an accountant. I trust her greatly. She’s, she handles my bookkeeping and she handles my tax preparation and it’s wonderful. I don’t have to think about that every day.

Chris: But there were days when I was. Counting every transaction and trying to find mistakes and staying up late at night doing my books. But I don’t want to do that anymore. And I’m glad I don’t. 

Gil: Yeah I am the same way with accounting. So we haven’t, we had a bookkeeper from the very beginning and I will do spot checks here and there, but I’m at a point where.

Gil: I just dump all the receipts into a single folder and he at the end of every month will give me a list of all the receipts that I may be missing. And then also a summary view of basically our PNLs. And I basically, I check and I was like, wait a minute, is this what I expect? Or is there anomalies in this?

Gil: Because I’m spending certain amounts on such an upgrade. Does this match up to what I expected? And I paid more attention to that and less on I hate doing receipts. I hate like combing through all that stuff. Yeah. Eventually, hopefully I have someone else to pull the receipts for me. I don’t have to do it myself, but yeah, I’m totally the same way.

Gil: Like I do not want to spend my time in the weeds. I don’t have the capacity. Awesome. Chris, we went through a lot of stuff. Was there anything else you wanted to share with our listeners today? Anything around your glamping experience or even direct bookings and where you want to take things? 

Chris: Anything I, go to my two websites. Go to monument glamping. com. Now I should warn you. I do have 36 units permanent, but there’s only eight listings right now. We’re taking a step back to take a couple steps forward. But if you want to know the art of glamping and really know or get a piece of the action, that’s where I go to glamping guy.

Chris: I do have I have three levels of involvement. One’s a really easy Entry level 37 course called easy entry into the business glamping. Then there’s the more demanding eight weeks to launch. This is a, you’re going to get what you need to know in line. And then of course, there’s the mastermind that is those are my besties and we are taking care of people and really launching them.

Chris: They’re the real operators. They’re the ones that are doing it and make it a lot of money. There’s a lot of money to be made in glamping. Honestly, I don’t, 

Gil: I’m sure there’s some healthy margins in that. 

Chris: Oh, they’re really something else. And that allows us to make a lot of mistakes and still make money.

Chris: So that’s that I yeah it’s really good. 

Gil: Actually, that, that reminds me of one of the questions that we, I wanted to ask you earlier, but you mentioned that you rank really high and. SEO. Specifically, I think you, you mentioned those like Colorado Springs, you actually rank really high on that.

Gil: How did you, what are you doing there to rank so high in organic search traffic? 

Chris: I have a Yoast account and that’s what I have on my my my WordPress website. And you know what, that whole ranking of the area that, that sends it, that was a really easy thing as someone it was a web developer who mentioned it to me.

Chris: So I think my front page said monument glamping on it. That was the title. He said your title should be glamping near Colorado Springs in Denver. Cause people aren’t looking for monument glamping. They’re looking to glamping near Colorado Springs and Denver. So my title became my search term and just changing that, just that little tweak was I think very profitable to me.

Chris: I was leaving a lot of money on the table and leading people away from. for me. So that, that was just something I did. I guess that’s the, isn’t that for you too, Gil? It says, you got to turn your ear up and something works. So I’ll give it a try. And then all of a sudden, Oh man, I wish I would have thought of that three years ago because I probably lost a lot of money because I wasn’t implementing that little technique.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. And That’s the reason why I started this podcast in the first place is because there’s a lot of knowledge that has yet to be transferred to the hosts that could use it most. Yeah, that’s true. And all of us actually could use all of the advice. But there’s not a whole lot of content around direct bookings and really how to optimize your websites, the whole workflow, your branding and all the different parts of it to really build your engine.

Gil: And I’m a true believer of that. You shouldn’t really rely heavily on another platform for 100 percent of your bookings indefinitely. It’s okay for the first two years, but over time, you should diversify because you really then don’t have a sustainable business. If for whatever reason, you end up getting delisted or shadow banned, that really compromises your ability to sustain your revenues. So I think the only way that hosts really can pull themselves out of that is to really educate themselves on what can they do, what tactics can they pick up. And everybody is, everybody has a different story. Everybody has different strategies and tactics that they can use.

Gil: Because definitely there’s a lot of tactics that you use because you’re able to leverage the niche that you’re in. Being someone specific in glamping, you’re able to leverage publications that for me, I have a cabin, like no one’s going to write about my cabin. But other folks that have similar structures as you may be able to leverage some of those things.

Gil: And you actually, you shared a nugget of information here that is actually a little bit more general, like you talking about SEO and really your headline should be actually, What folks are searching for in search, and that’s how you raise in ranks. That’s a general knowledge transfer that any one of our listeners can really take advantage already.

Chris: Yeah, good point. That’s a good point. 

Gil: Take 

Chris: it. 

Gil: Yeah, I 

Chris: love that. It might make you a lot of money and that’s all good. 

Gil: Yep, yeah. Awesome. Chris we went through a lot of content. I usually end with two questions. One’s a mindset question and one’s a big takeaway question. First question there, what’s the one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that is starting something completely new?

Gil: Mindset. Yes. Mindset. Mindset advice. 

Chris: The universe will be against you 100%. And that we’re in a very creative field. St R is very even creative. They, it draws you into a creative field that you, what sets you apart is you creativity. And especially in the glamping world. The glamping venues need to be creative.

Chris: And that’s the universe is against you on that. Like government will be against you, even neighbors. Some of the, I mentioned the neighborhood uprising. These are people I’ve been friends with for decades and they were, and they did not want glamping in their neighborhood. And it was just a handful of them.

Chris: So I don’t want to make it sound really weird, but The idea is, and it’s not just the, it’s not just the universe. It’s yourself. You’ll have doubts. And there were times that I thought I was a little crazy. Family thought I was crazy. And not my wife, family but my, Extended relatives who love to share their opinion.

Chris: Thank you. You’re putting a tent up in your yard. You’re renting it out. That’s stupid, Chris, or that’s dumb, that they may not have said that to me directly, but I felt that I felt like maybe this was a little bit crazy. No, I’m. Now i’m five years into the journey and I can look back and go man That was I should have put up 10 tents.

Chris: Why did I put up only one? You know as the guy I was on to something but that’s hindsight’s 2020, you know that and just I would say Recognize that universe is going to be against you just need to keep pushing forward and do what What the universe or god calls you to do you just keep doing it because it’s You Yeah.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. All right, Chris. Last question. What’s the one big takeaway? What’s the one tip strategy? One big takeaway that you want all of our listeners to walk away with today? 

Chris: I’d say that’s what I just said, but you know what I would say, go ahead and change the name of your site right now. Do it. Think about what your customer is searching to find you. And that becomes the title of your website, not your fancy brand name. Okay. Whatever the what if it was glamorous camping? It was like I don’t know. Maybe that would be what somebody searching. But see that you see that a lot.

Chris: Don’t you in businesses? They got the fancy, they think they’re the apple of the world or the Ford of the world. And they, but they’ve got their branding dialed in. People are looking for Ford. They are looking for Apple, but but when it comes to glamping, I was looking for glamping in Denver and Colorado Springs.

Chris: or near Denver and Colorado Springs. That became the title of my website, not monument 

Gil: glamping. So that’s the takeaway. Do it. That’s, I love that. That’s very tactical. That’s something that everyone can deploy almost immediately. Yep. Very tactical. Good word. Awesome. Chris before we part ways, how can folks learn more about you?

Gil: Reach out to you, glamping guy. 

Chris: com. Send me a note too. I really enjoy. Conversing with other people who either want to get into glamping or are already in the glamping as a great, it’s a great niche very narrow niche so that everyone gets along right now. Who knows someday everyone will be doing some sort of glamping.

Chris: It’ll be more red ocean kind of market, but right now it’s blue ocean. Everyone’s getting along and we all love helping each other. Send me a note. I’d love to get to know you. 

Gil: Awesome. And I’ll be sure to, uh, add your links onto the show notes. So if folks think they can click onto that and find you Chris, it was really good to have you on the show.

Gil: Thanks for sharing your experience in glamping and opening me up to a world. I’ve always wanted to do glamping with my wife and kids and. Maybe now it’s a good chance to do it a little bit more, know a little bit more about it. But also sharing like some of the tactics that you use to get from 3 percent and really that area of anxiety that you had when you had a really bad experience of with Airbnb and feeling like you had, they had your whole entire business in their arms.

Gil: And really you’re now at a place where you’re at 40. And it sounds like you actually have a lot of potential to get to that 50, 60, 70 percent direct booking rate. And I have no doubt the next time we bring you on the show, you’re going to have a whole bunch of new tactics that you started to deploy and you started to really get that percentage up there.

Gil: So I’m really excited about your journey. 

Chris: Yeah. It’d be fun to come back. Yeah, let’s do it in a year and we’ll see where we’re at. 

Gil: Awesome. Thanks, Chris. All right. Thank you, Gil. All right. Bye.