Crafting a Five-Star STR Experience with Al & Elissa of Rather Be Properties

Summary and Highlights

In the ever-evolving world of short-term rental management, few stories shine as brightly as that of Al and Elissa from Rather Be Properties. On our latest podcast, we had the pleasure of witnessing their journey, which has seen their business skyrocket from managing just four properties to over 30 in under a year. And they’re not stopping there—aiming to expand to 50-75 properties by really soon, their story is both inspiring and instructional for anyone in the industry.

From 4 to 30+ Properties in Just a Year

Al and Elissa’s rapid growth is a testament to their strategic approach and relentless drive. Their success didn’t come overnight; it’s the result of meticulous planning and execution. They’ve invested significantly in building robust systems and processes, enabling them to scale efficiently without compromising quality.

Balancing Five-Star Hospitality with Profitability

One of the key insights from our conversation was their focus on delivering “five-star hospitality” while also maximizing owner profits. This dual objective often presents a challenge, as exceptional guest experiences can sometimes conflict with profitability. However, Al and Elissa have found a way to harmonize these goals, creating a model that serves both their guests and property owners effectively.

Investing in Systems and Team Expansion

Scaling a business demands more than just increased inventory; it requires solid infrastructure. Al and Elissa have recognized this need and have heavily invested in systems and processes. This includes expanding their team, which is crucial for maintaining high standards across their growing portfolio. Their proactive approach to team building and process optimization has been instrumental in their rapid expansion.

The Importance of KPIs

Data-driven decision-making is another cornerstone of their success. They closely monitor various Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as guest review scores, response times, maintenance costs, and revenue targets. This meticulous tracking allows them to make informed adjustments and ensure their operations remain efficient and effective.

The Power of Direct Bookings

While Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) like Airbnb are valuable for visibility, Al and Elissa place significant emphasis on direct bookings through their website, social media, and email marketing. They view direct bookings as a vital component for fostering long-term guest relationships and mitigating some of the challenges associated with OTA platforms. This strategy not only helps in building a loyal guest base but also in enhancing their overall brand presence.

Playing the Long Game

Al and Elissa embody the essence of playing the long game in business. They understand that success involves continuous iteration and process improvement. Their willingness to adapt and refine their approach over time underscores their commitment to long-term success rather than short-term gains.

A Family Business with a Personal Touch

What makes their story even more compelling is their ability to scale a thriving business while raising young children. They view Rather Be Properties not just as a business but as a family venture, adding a personal touch to their professional achievements.

Leveraging Complementary Skills for Growth

Al and Elissa’s journey highlights the power of leveraging complementary skills. Al’s focus on systems and efficiency pairs perfectly with Elissa’s background in hospitality, creating a dynamic duo that drives their business forward. Their synergy is a key factor in their impressive growth and continued success.

Their story is a testament to what can be achieved with dedication, strategic planning, and a shared vision. For those looking to make their mark in the short-term rental industry, Al and Elissa’s approach offers valuable lessons in scaling, balancing priorities, and building a brand that resonates with both guests and property owners.

Follow Rather Be Properties on Instagram

• Instagram

Transcription

Gil: Hey folks. Welcome back to direct booking. Simplify it. We break down the strategies and tactics to win direct bookings on today’s show. I have Al and Elissa. Welcome to the show, Al and Elissa. Thank you. Yeah. It’s great to have a power couple on the show. I’ve had a couple, but I always enjoyed, I kind of enjoy the dynamic there.

Al: We like to think so too. 

Gil: Yeah. Do you guys mind giving an introduction to yourself? 

Al: Sure. Okay. Sorry. Um, cool. So my name’s Al. Um, I’ve been in tied to a residential real estate for probably the last 15 years. I was in the mortgage industry for quite some time. I retired out of that about a year ago. We bought and flipped homes in residential real estate, Southern California.

Al: Um, we’ve done, uh, some, you know, property syndications, both multifamily, residential, short term rentals. Um, we started investing in short term rentals about four years ago, almost three and a half, four years ago. And, uh, really it was just an avenue for us to invest into a couple of properties, have some passive income.

Al: Um, Elissa’s background is in hospitality. I’ll let you share your background. 

Elissa: Um, so I was a massage therapist and an esthetician, and I was involved in some day spas and some five star resorts in Australia. And then Dubai where Al and I met. Uh, I’ve spent like 10 years in the hospitality industry, doing really fun stuff.

Elissa: Fine five star hospitality, I guess. Um, I love that side of things. Um, the hospitality anticipating guest needs. Yeah. So with us love of real estate and my hospitality, I feel like we 

Al: made a good combo. Yeah. So that’s why we just started to decide to start the company. Um, and then we started co hosting probably two years ago.

Al: Uh, basically first property owner just reached out to us cause we managed our own properties in that area. And then. Started growing, added one or two co hosts and then like May of last year, so May of 2023. I guess April of 2023, we decided to kind of take the bull by the horns and start growing the company.

Al: Um, I guess that was my scaling inspiration. Um, Elissa loves, as she mentioned, delivering that five star hospitality, that five star guest experience, not like what people call five star hospitality today, but like actual five star hospitality, um, which is really different than what we see. And it’s not easy to do, right?

Al: It’s one thing to say that we want to offer that, um, but it’s an entirely different thing to do it consistently. So we decided, you know, just over a year ago, I was going to retire out of the mortgage business, come into this business full time and work on growing and scaling the company. So we went from four total properties, three of which were owned by us.

Al: And then, uh, up to, I think, 24 properties by the end of last year, we own or have interest in five total properties. So the rest of them are co hosts. I think we’re floating right around 30 to 32 properties right now. And so we’ve gone through the process of. Adding a bunch of properties, trying to break the machine, so to speak, to figure out where all the holes in the systems are, um, that’s kind of how my brain works.

Al: I like numbers and systems and process. So I’m going to go in and make the problems come up so that we can identify what they are, fix them, and then allow us to scale and add more properties. 

Gil: So very nice. You, you mentioned you now have 30, 32 properties there. What’s your team makeup like now? 

Al: So we just went through a big growth.

Al: addition to our team about three weeks ago. Prior to that, it was myself and Elissa. Elissa does also raise our two daughters full time at home. And so, uh, her schedule was pretty strapped, which. We’re going to go through a lovely evolution in our lives in about 30 days when both our kids start school at the same time.

Al: Um, so we’re really excited about that. But, uh, we, so part of that was the two of us, um, our operating operations manager, Jake, who’s been with us for about 13 months. Um, we had, uh, prior to July, we had one full time kind of guest comm slash repairs and maintenance slash property management team member. Um, and then my virtual assistant, Jay, who’s been with me for about three and a half years working on different projects.

Al: There’s been now full time with rather be, so it was about four call five of us for a while. Um, we just added four new team members, uh, two of which, um, I’ll kind of sidebar this too. We also brought on a full time interior designer in January and started a full design leg. Um, uh, to the business as well, like a sister company to rather be properties, to bring design in house.

Al: And it’s the same interior designer that Elissa and I have used and worked with for the last four years on our own medication rentals on properties that we flipped. Um, and so, so we brought, uh, Brandon in with us as well. So I guess it was total five of us. And then we, um. As I mentioned, we brought on four new staff members at the beginning of this month, really to position for growth.

Al: So, um, we brought on two team members to run split shifts for guest comms, reporting up to our team lead, uh, Danny. Brought on one, um, really primarily like onboarding support to help with, The process of onboarding, permitting, you know, stacking inventory, doing a lot of fun stuff to get a house ready to go.

Al: And then a full time IT person that started about a month ago, because as you all know in this space, it’s a lot of tech integrations and a lot of challenges with tech integrations. So, um, we’re overstaffed. We did it intentionally because we do want to grow and scale up to between 50 to 75 properties by the end of this year.

Al: And then we’ll go through 100 next year. Um, So right now, I believe we have nine, nine or 10 total, um, we just doubled in size about three weeks ago. 

Gil: Nice. That’s nice. You mentioned you have, uh, you brought in the new in house designer. Are you also then leveraging that in house designers to do other people’s SDRs or is it mainly to really have a full time person focused on just your business?

Al: It’s a great question. So the primary, um, revenue source for our designers, obviously going to be rather be properties to our clients. But the way that we set it up was so that Brandon can run. Rather be designed independently from our management company so that it can service other design clients. It’s actually working with one right now in one of the markets that we’re in Palm Springs that was referred by an owner that we’re onboarding to manage their property.

Al: Brandon is also designing their house. That owner referred another client that owns an STR in Palm Springs, self manages, doesn’t need our management services, but it’s looking to fully refresh the house with new design. Um, so ideally we have the ability to do both. 

Gil: Nice. Nice. Is he also taking on your branding or do you have another folks like that’s taking on like the brand aesthetics of pretty much every content that gets produced like content wise on social media and whatnot?

Gil: Yeah. Like social media, your logos, your colors, like even some of your webpage stuff. 

Elissa: No, the company is called rather be design. So it’s linked in that you’d rather be, there’s no place we’d rather be. Um, Brandon’s style is very unique. We love wallpaper. We go outrageous colors and most some of our properties.

Elissa: I mean, yes, it’s still along the same lines, but. Being in Palm Springs. I think it will be colorful. 

Al: Yeah. So it’s been part of our kind of brand, so to speak as a company based off of how we design the properties, the content that we put on social media from how the properties are designed doesn’t necessarily, he’s not really the design.

Al: He’s not the social media ambassador. Elissa really runs like our social media presence, our content, our blogs, our reach out to our, um, you know, past guests. All that fun stuff. 

Gil: Nice. Nice. So, okay. So you, you still, at least you, it sounds like you’re, you’re still taking the helm on all social media, all the branding stuff.

Gil: Uh, and brand is really more focused on the physical aspects of the properties. Of course, it’s like some translations in between, but there’s a, there’s a dividing line there between the two of you. 

Elissa: Yeah. 100%. 

Gil: Nice. Nice. So how, how has that been that transition from being solo operator operators yourself and then kind of moving towards this model?

Gil: Are you still in the day to day business or are you guys trying to pull yourself out and really more focused on the systems and the processes? 

Elissa: So I have almost pulled myself out. So I was primary one in guest comms in everything all day, every day. But being with our two young kids, and we also moved to the other side of the country, different time zone changed a lot of things on me.

Elissa: So Al took over a lot, um, and then employed some team members to help out with the daily operations. Uh, I still do the marketing, the blogs, the Instagram, some Builds our Airbnb 

Al: listings as well. Yeah, I build 

Elissa: the listings. 

Al: So Elissa does a remarkable job building the Airbnb listings and getting them launched up front.

Al: Yeah. And so that’s the only thing that I thanked her to continue doing on the main operations because she does such a good job at it. Um, and you know, mine, I would say I’m probably 30%, 40 percent in day to day operations where I was 80 percent day to day operations probably 90 days ago. So my goal is to start pulling out, building the systems and team to take over operations.

Al: So that I can focus more on growth of the company. Um, lots of different little things that we’re working on vertical integrations, bringing cleaning company in house. Um, obviously the design like was an aspect of it. So kind of lets me focus on some other areas. But as you, as you know, man, there’s so many different aspects of the operations of the business that, you know, we don’t know how well it works until we try to step away a little bit.

Al & Elissa: And the 

Al: holes are, we’ve got to come back in and fix those holes and then do it again. Um, so we’re going through that cycle 

Gil: and. It’s different. 

Al: It’s fun. 

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. That whole day Grail is like when you can step away and go on vacation. I had to worry about things bursting. 

Al: We’re almost there. I mean, honestly, 60 days ago, something like that would happen and I’m stuck to my phone, you know?

Al: Um, I think we’re probably, Like, okay, so this past week I was in California bouncing between the properties out in the field 12 hours a day. Um, and so my emails piled up, text messages piled up, phone calls piled up. And there was one major issue that came up and I had to have a phone call with my operations manager about it.

Al: But other than that, the team executed what was needed. Um, we have issues and challenges like everybody else does, but. It’s a relief for me knowing that we’re making progress in that, you know, 

Gil: yeah, what’s been one of your big learnings kind of transitioning through that entire process of pulling yourself out of the, the day to day business, um, and scaling up the team, what, what did you learn most out of that process?

Al: Wow. 

Gil: Um, 

Al: Money doesn’t solve all problems and operations in the business, right? Like, um, I had a, had a long career in residential lending and for awhile we did, we did really well financially and we had a lot of cashflow coming in. And generally when you have a lot of cash flow coming in the business and you’re strapped with other resources, try to throw money to solve the problems, right?

Al: Hire bodies, um, bring on tech stack, whatever the case might be. And so I’ve had, I’ve touched the hot stove enough in business to throw money at the problem to realize that doesn’t solve all problems. And frankly, it doesn’t, that doesn’t solve most problems. Um, I think the biggest shift I’ve gone through in the last year or so is shifting from, um, you know, playing the short game in business.

Al: General to really playing that decade long game, um, in business. So the, the mindset shift was big for me. It’s like, it’s okay to scrape our knees today. It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay for me to waste some of my time trying to fix an operational process or to fix a small problem. But understanding that those, that time that we put in up front, if we utilize the lessons that we learn and train our team properly, and we spend the time to train them, world of a difference.

Al: Yeah. You know, I’ll say probably the single biggest game changer recently has been, uh, the mindset shift that I went through in treating the process of recruiting new staff as truly a sales process. And that’s something I picked up from Alex Ramosi at a recent event I went to. Um, and that’s just been a game changer.

Al: I think that’s going to help us catapult our company long term. 

Gil: Talk a little bit, dive a little bit deeper into what you mean by that. 

Al: Yeah. So, um, okay. Most entrepreneurs, uh, realize that we have to hire staff and we have to train them in order to eventually build leverage. Like you don’t just hire a rockstar, a player and pop them into that seat on the bus and they take off the pressure off your plate.

Al: Right. There’s always a transition period when we hire new staff. It might be a month, it might be two, might be three months where the work actually, the workload actually ramps up. It probably doubles the amount of output that you need to put in. Um, and so that mental game happens of, gosh, what am I, you know, are we spinning our wheels?

Al: Did we hire the wrong person? We do this, did we do that? So in recruiting and staff in general, I was taught for a long time, when you’re hiring new staff members, you know, Interview five to seven people, um, field applications, but interview five to seven narrowed down to a second round of interview and hire somebody.

Al: Right. Um, the big shift I went through was at a recent event. I went to, um, acquisition. com corporate office, his head recruiter came out and did a two hour piece on it. I got a lot from that event, but one takeaways was treat your, treat your hiring process like a sales process. So if you think about a sales process in general, if I want to hire, if I want to Bring on 10 new co hosting clients, say in the next 45 days, then really, I probably need to get somewhere around a hundred to 150 potential at bats, right?

Al: Potential leads, we’ll call it, to then transition to 10 new clients. So why is the process of recruiting any different? The percentages might be similar, right? So if I want to hire three solid team members, I really probably need to interview like 30 to 50 to get solid applicants in. So logistically we changed the process that the ad itself, the job ad, I made it more of a sales presentation.

Al: Like what are our core values? What do we stand for? Here are the things that we love. Here’s what we expect from our employees. Here’s what the position entails and here’s what the compensation is. So like super open book. And then we invite everybody to apply. You give them two disqualifying questions at the end of the job ad.

Al: And then anybody that doesn’t answer the questions at the, at the, when they apply for the position, obviously they didn’t read the ad. They, they scrapped themselves out. Narrow that initially down to, so I got 120 applicants. Right. Staff for Guest Comm C. Narrow that down to roughly 45. Individuals and we did group interviews.

Al: So I did five hours of straight group interviews, did eight to 10 per interview, narrowed them down. And then I did about 11 follow up one to one interviews and then a team interview. And then we hired the right team members. Um, and it’s proving we’re three weeks in now and it’s three and a half weeks in and it’s proving to be the best, knock on wood the best onboarding process and launch process we’ve had with team members and I’ve had ever, including past careers.

Al: So. Change the mindset to a sales process, get as many applicants in the door as possible, and then start to disqualify them through your process and have additional team members on your staff also interview them and give you their insight. Um, that took a lot of time. So I’m saying all this, it was like, And Elissa can attest, it was, we were also going on a road trip with family in the process of doing this.

Al: And so I had like 35 hours of interviews in a week, but you know, my job as the owner of the company is to also bring on quality talent so we can position the company to grow. Um, so don’t skip out and don’t excuse my French, don’t half ass or shortcut the process of hiring new staff. It’s absolutely crucial.

Gil: That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Yeah. I know like from, from corporate hiring, you, you have those, those types of numbers, but I like how you break it down as like, you’re thinking of pretty much as a funnel, right? And each, the top of the funnel that you’re trying to get as many folks into that leads us at the top of the funnel.

Gil: But then at each stage, you’re going to lose people. And in your case, you’re actually losing people unintentionally. You’re trying to weed people out into who you find is the best people to be at the bottom of the funnel. Is that right? Absolutely. Yeah. Nice. So what’s up? What’s the thing you’re focusing on now as you’re scaling up your company?

Al: Um, I, I would suppose that the theme, the last, you know, probably a couple of weeks and leading into through the end of August over the next like 45 days is streamlining our tech stack and kind of getting all these little systems to communicate together so that the user interface on our team, like my guest comm staff, I don’t want them going between seven different systems to do their job every day.

Al: So we’re in the process of developing, you know, they’re simple tools. Like we use the AP or make AI and a few other, uh, integration tools to kind of streamline the information, make it easier for the team to execute their job. And the other thing is that we’re in the process of tracking a lot of things on the properties and building, um, like consistent repairs and maintenance visits on the properties, uh, optimizing our guest feedback.

Al: You know, one of the things that we were working through recently was, Uh, as we start ramping up and we add more properties and more short staff, we start to feel it in the guest experience and not in a positive way. And so soon as we started to feel that Elissa and I went, okay, we are primary focus. So just, just so we’re clear to our mission statement, I’d rather be properties is to deliver five star hospitality to our guests while maximizing owner profits.

Al: And it’s extremely challenging to do both. I’ve seen multiple companies out there that can do really well at one or the other, but you know, these are almost competing mission statements to a certain degree. So it’s like, how do we create the systems of process and then the accountability in the team to make sure that we’re making progress towards that goal?

Al: So we want to deliver five star hospitality to our guests. Well, if that’s truly what we believe, then we need to heed the feedback from our guests and take that and do something with it. So if a guest tells us that, Hey, we have this issue that we found at the property and this other issue, are we like most other management companies and just disregard it because we’re too busy?

Al: Or do we take that and do we go improve the property? And so we’ve been building a lot of systems to make, um, the operations smoother, but also the experience smoother. Um, so it’s a lot of little things that we’re working on, but all with the same goal in mind, better hospitality to the guests and better profits for the owners.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like as you scale up, it actually becomes easier to meet some of these goals because you’re having a lot more systems in place, a lot more team on the ground, like it. Getting that consistent five star, you’re getting a lot of feedback to consistently optimize the system that it becomes a lot easier to nail that five star experience.

Al: Yeah, I mean, for sure it does. Um, and. Like you almost have to warrior up going into it. Meaning if we start asking guests to give us feedback, which we recently implemented a job form survey post day. So like right after the guest checks out, they get basically a thank you message from us, from the owners of the company with a, Hey, thanks.

Al: Thank you so much for staying with us. Your feedback is really important. Here’s a link for you to just give us your feedback. And so we asked them questions about their stay, about the amenities, what was stocked at the property? What was missing? Was there anything wrong? And then would you, how would you rate our communication or check in process, the booking process, and then, um, your stay itself.

Al: So getting that feedback, Is like gut wrenching sometimes, especially when we flip the switch the first time, because we kind of knew, like we had some guests that weren’t super happy and it was a little stuff. Like, it’s not like we bombed their experience, but it’s like, Hey, you know, um, their door code went out 15 minutes later.

Al: That’s kind of important though, for a guest experience up front. Right. We want to make sure they have a good checking process. So we, we knew going into, we’re going to get some feedback that we weren’t super happy with, but that’s the goal. That’s what allows us to go ahead and fix the process. So you just got to be prepared for that, um, feedback, 

Gil: you know?

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like guests will more likely give you a five star or pull back on a five star after they’ve given you this type of feedback? 

Al: So that’s a phenomenal question. The reason we implemented this is because we wanted guests to have an avenue to speak to us. Before they feel compelled to post something in a public review.

Al: And so we tested this, that was the whole point of it. Let’s see if this is going to help improve. Uh, and it really has. So there are a lot of guests that wanted to post bad stuff on the review or not, you know, not stuff that helps the review, but sharing that to us privately inside of the, inside of the guest survey.

Al: And they’re holding back and posting it in the review. They’re either giving us a good review or they’re not posting a review. Um, and we get the occasionals here and there that, that still do, but. 

Gil: Um, it also gives you a chance to like jump in front of it. If you end up finding out that there’s a really negative experience, you can pick up the phone, you can call them, you can message them at an advance before maybe even that, like, was it like six hours after check in or check out like Airbnb sends that review message.

Gil: Like you can get ahead of it by then. 

Al: Yeah, that was the whole intention on a lot of fronts. It was to, to, to allow us to be more proactive in the business rather than. 

Gil: Yeah. Do you do anything on the mid stay side of things? Like after they checked in like a day after, 

Al: yeah, I mean, we check, we send a, basically a check in message, like, how’s your safe so far?

Al: Um, our team will touch base, especially if there’s any challenge that they faced. It could be anything like, Hey, they had trouble signing the rental agreement. Their checking experience wasn’t the best they got. They were late checking into the property because something they dealt with. Um, our new staff does really good at just doing like, we call it a temperature check with a guest, just doing kind of a feel in with them on how their, how their stay is going.

Al: Um, but Elissa’s built automations and message templates to, to also check in with the guests and allow them to speak to us during their stay. 

Gil: Nice. Nice. That’s, that’s phenomenal. Um, I want to transition a little bit to talk about some of the stuff that you guys do on the branding, social media, and really are on the direct booking side of things.

Gil: Um, could you give our listeners a sense of what you kind of do in the direct booking space? Like, how do you drive direct bookings? What’s, what’s that big lever that you guys pull? 

Elissa: Yeah. 

Gil: Yeah. 

Elissa: Um, so we have a WordPress website. Um, we’ve just hired the it person who is going to take over the SEO, the analytics, all the things are a little bit above my head, um, for tracking purposes, 

Al & Elissa: but 

Elissa: we, um, get a lot of repeat guests.

Elissa: We have an Instagram rather be properties with dots in between. You have a good following there. Um, I have taken on board the marketing from the beginning. So I think my colors, my branding, my language, I guess, um, is throughout all my listing descriptions on Airbnb, Verbo, Booking. com and on all our posts and things.

Elissa: We did hand our marketing over to a professional marketing company. Once. And then we brought it back because it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t me writing those things and doing those things. And it, for me to us, it just sounded different. Um, so we get influences that messages daily wanting to stay in exchange for content.

Elissa: Um, we have stay five. We collect all the email addresses. When guests check in, we have journey emails, which send out monthly marketing emails. We have promo codes that we track through host away. Is there anything I’m missing? 

Al: No, I mean, you know, again, we’re, we’ve gone through a lot of growth in the last 12 months.

Al: So there’s a lot of things that we do on the direct booking side that I don’t think we’ve given the time to see the fruit bear from. 

Al & Elissa: But, 

Al: you know, Staphy for example, that’s something we decided a year ago. Hey, we’re going to start implementing Staphy at every property right up front. Even though we didn’t have our marketing plans laid out for how we were going to market to them.

Al: Yeah. I’ve just, I’ve always been told in business, um, especially in a service based business, like data’s key, right? If we hold the data, then we hold the keys. And so we just wanted to data mine, um, for every guest that stayed at our properties. And so we started marketing to them pretty consistently at the beginning of this year.

Al: Um, but that’s, that’s kind of the extent of what we do now. Um, you know, there’s a lot of other things that we want to do, of course, and all of those take resources. 

Gil: Got it. Got it. Um, let’s say you gave me a good idea of like the overall, all the, all the investment areas. I want to dive deeper into a few of those that you mentioned.

Gil: You mentioned that influencers are reaching out to you on a daily basis. I hear that correctly. Every single, basically 365 influencers reached out to you throughout the calendar year. Then like that might like, that might sway it one way or another, but like you have a pretty high volume of influencers.

Gil: Is that right? 

Elissa: Yes. I feel like. Yeah. Influences and Instagram marketing is kind of the way that our generation and generations. around us are kind of heading at the moment. Um, we even get influences on Airbnb message us. Can we stay at a discounted rate? Our properties are beautiful from the inside out.

Elissa: We have heated pools, we have hot tubs, we have mural walls and 

Al: the luxury homes, right? And in a true vacation home market, 

Elissa: Instagrammable. I think they post and they share and they, the influencers reach out to us thinking that they will be helping us grow our platform by sharing them. 

Al: Right. Yeah. And then the entrepreneur side of me comes out of it and goes, okay, so what are we objectively, how is this relationship going to work?

Al: And then what are we going to get out of it? Because this whole like, Hey, a free stay type of thing. I also think that there’s a big fad with, um, with influencers. Um, and that term is used very loosely. Like, do they have. 5, 000 followers and, you know, a few thousand engagements each month, or do they have a hundred thousand followers and 50, 000 engagements a month?

Al: So we have to do a little bit of vetting. With the influencers, of course, too. And see like, Hey, do they match kind of our vision, our brand for what we’re looking for and do their, do their social media following. So the followers on social media, are they indicative of the avatar guests that we want to house in the properties?

Al: Um, and then also like, what are they going to do at the house after the house? Oh, excuse me. After their stay, um, are they just posting twice while they’re at the property and they get a free 1, 500 vacation or. Are we requiring them to do, um, you know, 30 days of posting after and tag us and this type of stuff.

Al: So we’re just, we’re iterating that process right now. Um, we’re going to roll out a service level agreement with influencers probably in the next week to two weeks. So basically says like, Hey, here’s what you can get for, here’s what you can expect from us. Basically, we’re going to treat you like you’re a completely paid guest, get access to all the amenities.

Al: Here’s what either your discount or a free stay or here’s what we expect you to pay, such as the cleaning fee. And then here’s what we expect after. Like we want X number of posts over X number of weeks. We want to be tagged. We want to, you know, want to do different things in collaboration, but there’s got to be expectations on both sides.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like you do. There’s, there’s like three things that you look for when you’re, when you’re looking at influencers. There’s one is like really around like brand brand. Are they the brand that you want to, you want to pair up with? Are they speaking to your voice, your language to does the avatars as the audience?

Gil: Um, and then three, what are like the deliverables that they plan to invest into coming out of it? Is that right? 

Al: Yeah. And I’ll throw a little tactic out there that we’ve started to play with recently is when we launch a property, right, there’s permits, there’s design, there’s furnishing inventory, everything that’s required.

Al: So we might get a house ready to launch, have a photo shoot, but it can’t go live for four or five days because the listing, the photos have to come in. Right. Right. So the property’s sitting there idle. So we reached out to one of the, uh, one of the models that we worked with. He’s a social media influencer too.

Al: She stayed at a few of our properties in the past. Usually just pays a cleaning fee, which works great for me. Um, and at the end of the day, um, it’s, they’re not taking up precious bookable time, um, because we haven’t launched the listing yet. They stay at the property. They give us content. So we do our photo shoot, our professional photo shoot up front.

Al: Um, but then it gives us content to for elicit to start marketing this property and change the photos in three, four, five months from now. Um, so we’re kind of playing with that too, doing it right up front, but then also trickling it in, um, you know, after the property has been active for six to 12 months.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. Um, You mentioned something a few times, both in this part of the segment about direct bookings, but also on your operations around measurement. Can you speak to our listeners a little bit about some of the KPIs that are important to you and kind of like why that’s the thread that I’m starting to hear more and more through some of our conversations?

Gil: Sure. Um, let me start now. Yeah. 

Al: Yeah. So, uh, yeah. KPS, for anybody who doesn’t know, Key Performance Indicators, easiest way to put it, they’re data metrics that measure the success or failure of a certain pillar of the business, right? It could be, you know, percentage of five star reviews, um, it could be post engagement, it could be, um, all the things with website conversion with Google Analytics, which I know know about, but all these aspects of the business.

Al: Really what they do is they lift the fog and allow us to see clearly into the business, no emotion, just logic on either what’s working or what needs improvement. And so KPIs is a, is a fundamental aspect of any business. If you look at any entrepreneur that runs a successful multiple, either seven, eight, nine, 10 figure business, they are operating off of some form of KPIs.

Al: So the KPIs that are important to us, we’re in the process of building an entire process for KPIs, which is one of the reasons why we brought on a full IT person. That’s ultimately how much we believe in it. I hired a full time staff member to come in and, Kind of lift that thought for us. So guest reviews, percentage of five star reviews that we get in comparison to the total reviews.

Al: Um, our inquiry response time. So how quickly are we responding to the guest inquiries? Um, how many messages are we going? Are we replying to or how many messages are left unreplied to? What’s the percentage of, uh, repairs and maintenance on properties per month? Are we above or below the budget on repairs and maintenance on each home and supplies and inventory?

Al: Um, how are we on ADR occupancy and total revenue based off of goal that we set for the property on a month by month basis? Um, obviously our website conversion through Google analytics. So there’s quite a bit of things. 

Elissa: Um, also MailChimp conversions, 

Gil: yeah, you know, opens 

Elissa: to 

Al & Elissa: book. 

Gil: Yeah. Do you, do you see like direct booking rate eventually becoming one of those KPIs that you track or for you, it’s the bottom line revenue that you’re, that you care more about?

Al: Well, okay. So for me, I’m always focused on the top line of the profit at the high level of the company, losing owner profits, you know, at the end of the day, direct bookings are a fundamental piece of business. And I’ll let Elissa talk about that in a minute. But let’s not mistake the fact that Airbnb dominates the industry, right?

Al: So I understand the push for direct bookings and I love it and it can’t be just direct bookings. And frankly, it can’t just be OTAs, but if you don’t do a great enough job optimizing your listings on the OTAs, then you’re not going to get the opportunity to build direct bookings long term in my opinion, anyway.

Al: So you kind of have to have a multiple prime approach. So, I think we’ve kind of started to feel like what our comfort, our own swim lanes are between the two of us and Elissa really focuses more on the direct booking side. Um, I like to focus on optimizing on the listings, make sure we’re performing well on a month by month basis.

Al: Um, I’d like to say that like, you know, direct bookings is like, you know, six to 12 months plus future revenue. OTA marketing is like today to six months from now.

Elissa: Yeah. Um, I think we are performing really well on the OTAs and I do drop little hints on the listings that property always has a name and it’s always, um, hosted by our property management company. I’d rather be properties. Um, people can Google that. There’s always a link to our Instagram page where people message me on Instagram and say, I have seen your listing on Airbnb.

Elissa: Where’s the direct, uh, direct booking link for that property in specific? I have a link tree. With all the properties, um, we do manage a lot of properties now when there was just five or six properties, it was very easy to like open out Instagram and know exactly where to book. But now there’s a lot, it takes a bit of searching.

Elissa: So always there for people when they ask questions, when they find us on Instagram. Um, we also have a phone line that. People call and book from, uh, booking. com. Uh, I used to answer the phone all the time for booking. com guests looking to book a property and we would convert them to direct bookings easily because our phone numbers on the website.

Elissa: Yeah. 

Al & Elissa: Yeah. 

Gil: Nice. Nice. So it sounds like you guys are, yeah, like invested on both the OTA side and the, the direct booking side and the direct booking seems to be more of the, uh, the long term sustainability of, of the company. Um, and a lot of existing revenues, uh, are still coming from OTAs, um, and you’re transitioning through that through the years.

Al: Yeah. I mean, if we just look at high level for a second, everybody knows who the Casa is, largest management company in the U S and they predominantly push direct bookings, right? Like that’s their platform. Um, no matter how much they spend, they’re never going to outbeat Airbnb’s, you know, marketing and their search rankings.

Al: So while direct bookings are super crucial and it’s great, we don’t have to deal with OTAs. We get to build relationships with our guests and it’s a much more long term business strategy. Um, you know, I think putting all your eggs in one basket is, is a challenge, just like in any other, any other type of business or any sort of pillar of business you have putting all your eggs in one basket can propose challenges.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Talk to me a little bit. My last question around the segment is like, why is direct bookings important to you? You mentioned a few of those. Can you recap on like why that’s why you’re investing into it? 

Al: I’ll share from my side of the operation side for a second. Um, honestly, it’s really challenging sometimes with Airbnb guests because they hold the keys on that review, right?

Al: And they will and they know that these days, that’s the things a lot of guests realize that when they book on Airbnb, they can trash our listing by one review. And there’s hardly anything we can do about it. There’s certain nuances and dynamics where you can get that review removed, obviously, but They act that way and it becomes a challenge.

Al: So if a guest walks into property and goes, Hey, the, the, you know, the, the spa is having an issue and we get our tech out there immediately and we get it resolved, that doesn’t stop the guest from contacting Airbnb and getting a decent refund for their stay, even though we addressed the issue. There’s some of those operational challenges.

Al: They’re a lot less of a problem when we deal with direct bookings. It doesn’t mean we don’t take care of the guests. I want to be clear with that. You should, we still take care of them, but it’s from a different approach. We’re not, we don’t feel like we’re staring down the barrel of a shotgun, um, on these direct bookings.

Al: Yeah. Yeah. I hear you on that one. 

Elissa: I will add to that. Yes. A hundred percent. We don’t like having phone calls from Airbnb support saying that, Oh, this guest seen a bargain. Now they’re getting a full refund. 

Al & Elissa: Right. 

Elissa: Um, but I like the connection with the guest. Once we host a guest, we make a connection with them and they want to come back to that same place next year or next month, wherever it may be.

Elissa: And we can accommodate for them to get them into the same house or a different property. We’ve already made that connection. They know what to expect. A lot of people reach out and they say, Oh, we don’t want to stay here. This one might be cheaper or more affordable, but we want to stay with you because we know that we’ll look after them.

Gil: Yeah. So it’s around building a longer term relationship with the guests, um, that you can nurture over many states, not just that one. 

Al & Elissa: Yeah. 

Gil: Nice. Nice. All right. Uh, Elissa, I, I usually end the show with two questions. Um, one’s a mindset questions. One’s a takeaway question. So the first one, what’s that one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new 

Al: specifically in this industry?

Gil: It could be, uh, it doesn’t have to be actually. I think a lot of folks, like they. They’re coming and they’re thinking about this as more of a business and less so Specifically short term rentals. 

Al: Yeah fair. Um, I would challenge that it’s okay to give yourself the time To scrape your knees and test and iterate different things in your business To find what works well, like if you implement a system like if you roll out a PMS And then three months later, you realize, man, that probably wasn’t the best decision.

Al: I think I can find a few, a few different alternatives versus just jumping the gun and going down the path and switching PMS is arbitrarily like do some research, spend 30 days and test a few different systems out. Does it take more time and effort to do that? Yeah. But it’s way less painful than if you have to make a switch again to another PMS three months later.

Al: That same mentality applies in every aspect of business in general. Like give yourself the time to iterate, um, and understand that we’re playing a long game, you know, we, uh, Gary V, Tony Robbins, multiple people, influencers, or personal development gurus, or whatever you want to call them, I’ve heard this term from them a lot over the last few years.

Al: And that’s, we, excuse me, we, we, we overestimate what we can get done in a 12 month or one year period, and we grossly underestimate what we can get done in a decade. And so my mindset tip is just to play the long game. 

Gil: Nice. I love that. Let’s say, do you have anything to add or, 

Elissa: um, just trust in the process?

Elissa: Give it a go. Um, yeah. Get yourself in a group or an accountability partnership, if you will, to make sure that things are getting done. I think being an entrepreneur and not having a boss. So to speak, not having anyone to report to having that person to say, get it done. Okay. We have a child. 

Gil: That’s okay. I have a child as well.

Gil: Not, not with me here. We have a guest star. Awesome. All right. Last, last question. Uh, what’s the one big takeaway, um, that you want our listeners to walk away with today? Um,

Al: honestly, regardless of what’s going on and talks about the economy, the housing market, the rental boom or bust, all this stuff. Talk over the last year, you can build a really successful business in this industry and on almost anything else, regardless of the economic status. Like it doesn’t matter that Airbnb rentals are down 20 percent year over year.

Al: You can still grow 500 percent as a company. Um, the exterior sources and the exterior influences can make an impact, but it’s not going to be the telltale how you operate every single day, whether you show up or not is what’s going to impact the success or failure of your business. And so show up and put in the hours.

Gil: Let’s talk about you. What’s, uh, what’s the one big takeaway, any tactics that you want to share with our listeners? 

Elissa: Um, I don’t know. I was too distracted by the children.

Elissa: I take away 

Al: to 

Elissa: fun. Yeah. Have fun with the process. I mean, we do it with our children sometimes on our laps. It’s a family business at the end of the day and yeah, 

Gil: Yeah. I’m sure they’re learning a whole bunch watching you guys grow. You guys moved the entire family to somewhere you want to want them to grow up and.

Gil: I, I, I love how you guys kind of work together as, as a powerhouse couple, but also as parents as well, too. You’re juggling a whole ton while really scaling up your portfolio. It doesn’t seem like your family is slowing you down whatsoever. If anything, it might be energizing you. 

Al & Elissa: Yeah. Yeah. 

Gil: Awesome. Uh, let’s say it was really good to having you folks on the show.

Gil: Uh, if folks want to follow you, get to learn more about you or maybe even book with you, where can folks find you 

Al: Instagram at rather dot B dot properties. Awesome. All right. Well thanks for the time. Thanks for having us on. 

Gil: Yeah, yeah. Before we go, there’s a 32nd drop. There’s a, there’s a story behind rather be the name of it.

Gil: What is that, ? So 

Al: we got, uh, we got married just over 10 years ago, or excuse me. We met just over 10 years ago. Yeah. Nine months after we met. Um, and one of the first songs that we danced to, uh, when we first met just over 10 years ago was a song rather be. By clean bandits. And then we ended up getting married to that song.

Al: And then that really became the theme of our company. Um, no place I’d rather be. And so that’s, you know, if you think about vacation rentals and hospitality, we want our guests to feel like there’s no place they’d rather be. And so that’s, uh, we’ve got that theme through our guest book, through our logo, through our murals on the properties.

Al: Um, so that’s kind of the story. But 

Elissa: it was also the theme of our relationship before the company. That I was in Australia and he was in California and we met and there was no place where you would run a fee. Yeah. 

Gil: I love that. I love that. Thank you, Al. Thank you, Elissa, for, for being with me today. I really enjoyed having you on the show, really learning about how you’ve evolved, um, as investors, how your portfolio has grown, how you think about the different systems and processes and how you’re scaling that, um, and also being able to see a glimpse into your family as well, too.

Gil: Thanks. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks. Bye.