Creating the Perfect STR and MTR Hybrid with Design Insights with Breanna Williams

Summary and Highlights

From Retail Showroom to STR Design Specialist

Breanna’s journey began in high school, where her love for design was sparked by her parents’ homebuilding projects. After completing her degree in interior design, she worked at Lazy Boy Furniture Galleries, where she oversaw design projects for homes across diverse settings. In 2020, she founded Mumford Designs, focusing on STR and MTR properties. This transition allowed her to merge her design expertise with marketing strategies tailored to maximize occupancy and revenue.

The Power of Knowing Your Guest Avatar

One of the key takeaways from the episode is the importance of understanding your “guest avatar” before setting up your rental property. As Breanna explained:

“If you’re trying to appeal to everyone, you’re not giving anyone a true custom experience. Knowing your guest avatar fully directs every decision, from design to marketing.”

Breanna recommends starting with a property audit that combines:

• Market Research: Assess the local attractions and demographics likely to visit your area.
• Guest Avatar Profiles: Develop primary, secondary, and tertiary guest profiles, focusing on both demographics (income level, expected living standards) and psychographics (pain points and needs during booking and stay).
• Competitive Analysis: Study similar properties to identify gaps and opportunities to stand out.

Bonus Article: Unveiling the Art of Guest Communication: “WHO-WHERE-HOW”

Designing for Hybrid STR/MTR Properties

Hybrid properties that cater to both STR and MTR audiences require a unique design approach. Breanna’s framework involves creating a Venn diagram of overlapping guest needs. For example:

• Short-Term Rental (STR) Guests: Expect visually striking designs that “stop the scroll” on booking platforms.
• Mid-Term Rental (MTR) Guests: Prioritize functionality with amenities like workspaces, fully equipped kitchens, and comfortable furniture.

In a recent project in Newport Beach, Breanna designed a property targeted at families displaced due to home repairs. The home featured practical amenities such as twin beds for kids, a dedicated homework area, and a pet-friendly setup—a stark contrast to the impersonal nature of hotel stays.

The Role of Photography in Marketing

Photography can make or break a listing, and Breanna emphasized the importance of aligning your visuals with your target audience:

“Every photo should tell a story about who your property is designed for. If you’re targeting families, show the pack-and-play, board games, or a cozy firepit perfect for roasting s’mores.”

To achieve this:

• Create a detailed shot list for your photographer.
• Stage the space with items that resonate with your guest avatar (e.g., family-friendly movies playing on a screen).
• Avoid visuals that might attract unwanted audiences, like party-goers, if that’s not your target demographic.

Breanna’s Top Tactical Tip for Direct Bookings

When asked for her top piece of tactical advice, Breanna didn’t hesitate:

“Know your guest avatar fully before purchasing items or setting up your property. It saves you money and ensures every design decision attracts your ideal guest.”

A Mindset Shift for Hosts

Starting something new can feel overwhelming. Breanna shared a mantra that keeps her motivated:

“Not ‘I have to do this,’ but ‘I get to do this.’ Embrace the opportunity to learn and grow through every challenge.”

Join the CraftedStays Community

This episode was packed with actionable insights, but there’s even more to discover. Listen to the full episode to dive deeper into Breanna’s frameworks and strategies for STR success.

Looking to take your direct booking game to the next level? CraftedStays offers tools to help you build a website tailored to your brand and guest avatar. With features like customizable templates and integrated booking flows, we simplify the process so you can focus on hosting.

Join our community of like-minded hosts to exchange ideas, learn from experts like Breanna, and optimize your short-term rental business.

Ready to elevate your STR strategy? Book a demo or explore CraftedStays today!

Transcription

Gil: Hey folks, welcome back to direct booking simplified. We break down the strategies and tactics to win in direct bookings on today’s show, I have Brianna Williams, Brianna, welcome to the show. 

Breanna: Hi, thank you for having me. 

Gil: Yeah, I love doing this because we actually had our podcast recording a couple, actually about probably a week back now, and I’m actually thrilled to have you on this show.

Gil: To talk, to have you as the guest on here. Um, so welcome, welcome here. Um, before we get too deep into it, do you mind kind of giving folks an introduction on who you are? 

Breanna: Sure. So my name is Brianna Williams. I am the founder and principal designer for Mumford designs. So we specialize in short term rentals and midterm rentals.

Breanna: Um, and we handle interior design, a little bit of marketing strategy, a lot of market research. And essentially we just take all of the data in that market research phase and point it straight, straight towards the design, um, and kind of gear all of that towards how we’re going to market their property.

Gil: Nice. How did you get started in, in, in this business? 

Breanna: Oh, it’s been a long journey. I’ve been designing for almost 15 years. So in high school, it kind of clicked for me that interior design is something that I wanted to do. When I was growing up, I would go to model homes with my parents all the time. And my dad built a lot of our childhood home with his own hands.

Breanna: My mom would always do the decorating and so on and so forth. So it’s kind of just something that I knew that I wanted to do for so long. So right out of high school, I went to school for interior design, and then I got out of school and I’m like, wait. How do I get a job in interior design? So I ended up falling into retail and I worked as a designer for a retail showroom for, um, almost 10 years.

Breanna: And in 2020, I left there and I started my own business and it kind of just happened by happenstance that I fell into working specifically with investors on everything from fix and flips, you know, consulting on paint colors and tile selection, you Into short term rentals and eventually midterm rentals, which is kind of midterm rentals and hybrids are like my niche, my, that’s my favorite thing to do.

Gil: Interesting. There’s a few things I wanted to kind of press on a little bit. You mentioned a little while ago, I want coming out of design school, you got into retail showroom. I was in retail showroom many, many ages ago, um, kind of on the technology side, but what were some of the projects that you were working on in there?

Breanna: So I actually worked for Lazy Boy Furniture Galleries for almost 10 years and I worked at multiple different showrooms. Um, I started just as like a part time junior designer and then I went full time and I went up into management. Until I was overseeing my own design department with all of my own design staff.

Breanna: So we did everything from, um, we did houses all the way out in the desert. We did houses up in the mountain communities. Um, our local community mountain community is like big bear mountain. So we did that. We also did just residential properties in and across the Inland Empire. So, um, I probably at that, like in my 10 years there, I did over 3000 spaces.

Breanna: So it’s a lot of design. 

Gil: Wow. Yeah. I remember. So what I was in retail a long while back before I got into e commerce and I was at a company, I was heading product at a company called beta. I don’t know many folks popping in this industry without knowing about them. It’s BATA. It’s no longer around. It kind of crumbled.

Gil: It crumbled during the pandemic. We were basically allowing folks that had physical products to be able to show room their products in there and you can actually pick it up, play with it, and you get the funnest things in there. You got like the Oculus headsets that you can play with, you got e bikes that you can ride around the block.

Gil: And like our first store was in downtown Palo Alto and it was a lot of fun. And I, like, I remember the experience of building out these big displays and we eventually. We made big displays for the Lowe’s, um, stores. So we basically made the IOT section in the Lowe’s store, and it was just like a whole new world that I had no idea what the, like, what goes into the production of that.

Gil: It was just so fun. 

Breanna: It’s wild when you start to dig into these different types of jobs and you get in there and you’re like, wait, what? You do this and this and this, we could do it this way. We could do it that way. And I mean, working in, working in retail for as long as I did, I definitely met so many people and doing what I did, I went into people’s houses.

Breanna: So it’s like, you know, somebody for 20, 30 minutes, and then you’re setting up a time to go stand inside their house and sometimes like in their bedrooms, it’s very personal. And, um, And you get to know them. And I just realized I’m like, wait, there’s like actual lumber yards that people work at, like milling lumber here in Southern California, or just random things that I, you never think about.

Breanna: So it’s kind of cool to learn a new, learn about a new trade. I should say. 

Gil: Yeah, yeah, definitely. You mentioned that you got into you were doing a lot of You’re working with a lot of investors fix and flips and so on and you eventually got into short term rental Do you remember your first short term rental gig?

Breanna: Yeah, 

Gil: how that came about tell me about that one. 

Breanna: Yeah, so I Originally, when I was trying to build my design portfolio, my husband and I had talked about getting our own short, short term rental. And we were looking at a couple of properties in again, our local mountain community in the town of Lake Arrowhead.

Breanna: So we were looking at a few properties. And the idea was. I could design it and do whatever I wanted to do and brand my own portfolio with whatever I wanted to brand myself as and start marketing myself as. And in that, and you know, just trying to find like funding and the actual property and things of that nature.

Breanna: I ended up connecting with my local, um, Inland Empire real estate group. And there I met one of my friends, Stephanie, and she had been doing, um, short term rentals for quite a while and was Kind of leading this really big networking community of a bunch of short term rental enthusiasts. So she’s actually the one that funnels me, my first lead as a, for a short term rental project.

Breanna: And, um, it was, it was so fun. It was so interesting. They were quite close to Disneyland and it originally was supposed to be a hybrid property. 

Gil: Okay. We 

Breanna: went into many different types of. Yeah. avatar types, short term rental, midterm rental, the works, um, and eventually settled on one short term rental avatar type and one midterm rental avatar type.

Breanna: At this point in my career, I mean, I was trying to learn anything and everything I could about short term rentals and then midterm rentals. I remember asking my client at the time, I’m like a midterm rental, what’s a midterm rental? And so they kind of broke it down to me. So I started researching everything that I could.

Breanna: Um, and then just kind of learning about all of the different types of avatars and the different types of people who want these furnished rentals. So it was like super enlightening. And I learned so much just off of that one project. 

Gil: Yeah. Was that Stephanie Figaro from STR Nation? 

Breanna: Yes. Yeah. 

Gil: I love her. I love her.

Gil: I work with her quite often on, on other projects as well too. She’s, she’s an awesome person. 

Breanna: Absolutely. 

Gil: So you mentioned, um, short term rentals and midterm rentals and designing for the, for the two. And this probably kind of goes into like our second segment of the show where we’re talking a little bit about direct talk about direct bookings or focus on direct bookings.

Gil: Talk to me about, when you’re designing a space, that’s a hybrid. What are some of the challenges that you, you face when doing that? 

Breanna: So when you’re, when you’re designing a short term rental, most people know, know short term rentals as being really exciting, kind of sexy, definitely something that stops the scroll, but with midterm rentals, your amenities and your design, it’s not so sexy.

Breanna: It’s more functional. I mean, there are lists that, you know, like if it’s a corporate housing rental, there are, there are actual lists of things that are required for corporate houses. Excuse me for temporary housing that specializes in corporate housing. And so, um, you have to maintain all of these things.

Breanna: You have to be sure that you’re fully stocked with specific items. And then in that, as midterm rentals became more and more popular and more and more investors were shifting into the midterm, um, and really ultimately hybrid strategies, uh, when possible. You started to see a lot more competition. So in, in a lot more competition comes the need to stand out.

Breanna: And that’s where I think the design started to become a lot more important. This time, two years ago, there were plenty of people on YouTube that would have told you the design is not important in a midterm rental. Nobody cares about the design. They’re only there to sleep, et cetera. But the reality is we have plenty of people who visit for longer than 30 days that are using the space just as much as, you know, they do in a short term rental and because really they have the option of pretty much all the short term rentals that are out there.

Breanna: As well as the midterm rentals. I mean, you do have to stay at a certain caliber just to be competitive. So the biggest difference in designing a hybrid property is understanding who the short term rental guest avatar type is and who the midterm rental guest avatar type is. So we generally create multiple different avatar profiles, um, and almost Venn diagram it, so to speak, and who, whatever information is in that center bubble.

Breanna: Though, that’s what we want to design for. So, um, wherever the different avatar types kind of crossover, that’s what we’re designing for, and that’s what we’re keeping in mind when we’re thinking about amenities and what we want to stock the property with. 

Gil: Yeah. Do you have any anecdotes of folks that, so you gave the example of like two years back, midterm rentals was less about design.

Gil: And nowadays it’s a lot more competitive where you do need to stand out there. Can you give me any anecdotes or stories of working with a client where you’re designing a MTR midterm rental and having it really stand out and really increasing its occupancy or its ADR? What have you done there? 

Breanna: Yeah, absolutely.

Breanna: So we recently did a project earlier this year in Newport Beach, and the property owner lived in the same neighborhood. So it was a neighborhood of townhomes. Um, he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to short term rent as it was not allowed, not only in the neighborhood, but in this entire area of Newport Beach, you could not do STR.

Breanna: So he knew it was going to be an MTR. And what. he experienced with several of his neighbors were finding that they were having these slab leaks, floods, these issues that insurance was coming in and covering, um, you know, time for them to stay away. One of the families in particular was a family with four kids.

Breanna: So a family of six and they, they were put up in there in, excuse me, they were put up by their insurance. in a very nice resort, um, in Newport Beach, extremely expensive. And because they were a family of six, they needed two conjoining rooms. So you’re talking that insurance company was paying for three months.

Breanna: For this family to stay in two rooms at a very high end resort in a beach town. I mean, it’s a lot of money that they were putting out now for the, for the guests that were staying there, the homeowners, it was quite inconvenient for them. The first two weeks was fun. The kids wanted to use the pool. They were constantly eating out.

Breanna: And then after that, they’re like, gosh, we don’t have to pay for this hotel, but it’s getting really expensive to consistently eat out breakfast, lunch, and dinner, they couldn’t bring their pets, you know, all the things. So. That, that neighbor expressed to my client, the homeowner, you know, this is inconvenient.

Breanna: It would be nice if we had a house to stay in, but there were literally no furnished properties within a couple of miles of their, of their home. So the homeowner, the, my client, he took it upon himself to, uh, Find an opportunity and he took a house, renovated it, bought it in that neighborhood. And that’s exactly who he wanted to market to.

Breanna: He knew right off the bat, it was going to be, um, local families, insurance, relocations, things of that nature. He also knew of several, um, companies in the area that frequently, um, hired out of country employees. So they would relocate to the area. So he also had a couple of connections there. And again, targeting specifically families that were relocating there.

Breanna: The house was right across the street from a very prominent elementary school. Um, that definitely drew a lot of people to the neighborhood. So we knew elementary age was really what we were looking for because it literally was right across the street from that elementary school. Um, so from there we just started to figure out.

Breanna: What does a family with elementary age kids need to be comfortable? So we certainly wanted to include things like toys and maybe board games, a couple of those things. Sometimes you’ll see that more so in short term rental. We just wanted to make it welcoming for them. But ultimately, on an everyday basis when they’re living there, they’re going to need space to do homework, mom or dad might need an office space, um, we, we know it’s elementary age children, so we were able to do two twin beds in one of the bedrooms and really make it, um, feel somewhat child friendly, but all the while still feeling safe.

Breanna: mature enough that if it was going to be corporate housing, then we could also, you know, welcome in, um, an adult or a couple of adults if need be. So we created a really fun kids space underneath their stairs, uh, underneath their stairwell. And it had a homework area, an arts and crafts zone, um, some books.

Breanna: That were all elementary age, um, and a few toys and games. So it was, that was a really fun one. 

Gil: I’m, I’m guessing you’ve now done this many, many, many times now. Um, do you have a, a framework or a process that you kind of guide your customers? And I’m guessing there’s several phases to this. Like, first off is like, my guess is that the first phase is like really identifying who your ideal guest avatar is.

Gil: And then probably the next phase is then, Like, wow. As you know, as you identify who your ideal guest avatar, like how do you actually amenitize it in the right way? Talk to me about some of the frameworks that you think about or some of the processes you think about as you’re onboarding each one of your new clients.

Breanna: So all of my clients start with what I call a property audit. So it does include walking the property site. Sometimes they have some furniture in there. Sometimes we’re starting from square one. So it’s walking the property to determine what it is that we need to do to get it to a competitive nature. So do we need to add things like wallpaper or do we need to put in a custom built in, you know, homework space for the kids?

Breanna: Sometimes it’s a custom Murphy bed, you know, wall bed for space saving, et cetera. Um, and that, that’s part of the property audit, but the other part of the property, property audit, which I think is the most important part because it really directs everything during the design phase. Is the market research and guest avatar analysis.

Breanna: So first of all, we take the property. Let’s just say it’s a three bedroom, two bathroom. We’re going to do market comps for three bedroom, two bathrooms that are going to sleep. The number of people that we anticipate, um, once we’ve looked at the area in general. What is attracting people to the area? Who are the most likely guest types that we’re going to see here?

Breanna: Um, and kind of funnel down together who realistically that homeowner or that property manager wants to market to. For instance, some property managers already have a really good marketing strategy towards specific avatar types. So if we find that that avatar type works well for this property, it makes sense to, to design the property for that particular avatar type.

Breanna: So it’s, it’s definitely figuring out who’s coming to the property and who we want to rent to. And then once we narrow that down, we create Uh, primary, secondary, and tertiary guest avatar types. Uh, and so we’ll do an analysis on those, looking into demographics, looking into psychographics. I do think demographics are important.

Breanna: The most important demographic being, you know, how much money do they make, the guest that’s coming in? What’s their standard of living that they’ve, that they expect on a regular basis? You know, just when they’re in their own home. Um, in my opinion. In order to provide a really good guest experience, you have to go up like one step above their expected standard of living.

Breanna: Um, we don’t want to go too far above cause then it might push them out of the price range where they can even book the property, but we just want to be a step above what their expectations are, um, to really knock it out of the park and give them a good experience. So that’s probably the most important demographic, but psychographics, in my opinion, are the most important part.

Breanna: Because we could start to anticipate what certain pain points are going to be for that particular guest type, when they’re booking, when they’re staying with us, and then when we go into the design phase, we know what we need to put into the property to alleviate those pain points. before they even happen.

Breanna: Um, again, just ensuring that the guest has a really, really good experience. 

Gil: Yeah. Do you have any examples of, of, I think maybe first off, like for folks that are not familiar with what psychographics are, um, do you mind kind of giving a, what your definition would be? 

Breanna: Yes. So for me, when I’m looking at the, the psychographics, excuse me, I’m specifically looking for pain points during the booking process.

Breanna: We’re looking for pain points during their stay, um, and what we can do to alleviate it. So, um, just in speaking with you last week about some of your properties, we could use that as an example. So, Gail’s properties are geared, geared towards families with young children. So, a pain point during the booking process could be, you know, mom’s looking for a place that her kids are going to be safe, but they’re also going to have fun.

Breanna: So she wants to see in the photos that she’s scrolling through how or where her kids are going to have fun. She wants to envision them enjoying their vacation experience. Um, so that’s really important. Then when she’s actually staying at the property, She needs to have certain conveniences, right? Like I have a toddler, I need a pack and play, I need a high chair.

Breanna: Um, what about cups? I mean, are my kids going to break every cup in the picture? All I see is glass cups. So are they going to break everything? Oh my gosh, I see a glass table in the living room. That’s going to stress me out. So we’re thinking about those things and making sure that when they’re Staying.

Breanna: Okay. Instead of a glass coffee table, we’re gonna give them an ottoman because nine times outta 10, the kids are gonna roll all over that ottoman and we don’t want them to, you know, bang their heads or knees or anything like that. So it’s just thinking through how they’re going to use the space and making sure that when they’re using it.

Breanna: You’re not putting anything in that’s going to inconvenience them. And then if you can think it, think this far ahead, it’s nice to think through what is actually going to be an added convenience to them for you. In your case, that’s where you’ve already added in the high chair, the pack and play, and you put that in your photography.

Breanna: So right away, mom knows. I don’t have to worry about anything here. So that’s just thoughtful and intentional design in my opinion. 

Gil: Yeah, yeah. That’s a good point. Like it, it doesn’t, I’ve learned now that like, there’s actually a pretty strong correlation between when you’re setting up your, your, in my case, STR, there’s a strong correlation between the design that you have in your space and how you market them and how you talk about your amenities.

Gil: It’s not, we oftentimes, especially in the early days, you think about it as two separate processes. You design your space. And then you start to write up all your Airbnb listings and so on. But I think the folks that have done really well is actually take a step back and before they even do design before they do copywriting, they’re actually digesting and figuring out who is actually staying in my place.

Gil: Who do I want to. Attract in there because in a lot of these different markets, you can attract a whole bunch of folks. But the folks that do really well are the ones that know this is the folks that I want to attract into my place. It lends itself well, it has X amount of bedrooms, plenty of space. And so when you go into the design process, You know exactly how you’re designing it.

Gil: Do you want bunk beds? Do you want king beds instead? How do you actually want to fill those rooms up? How do you want to amenitize it? And then on the back end, when you’re actually writing your listing copy, you know who exactly you’re speaking to. So it makes copywriting just so much more effective. And over time, I find that the folks that do grasp this concept as like a core foundation, they end up doing really well in direct bookings.

Gil: They do really well in Actually, even on the OTs as well, too. It’s on both sides. 

Breanna: I agree. I mean, think about it this way. So if you don’t know who your guest avatar type is, or you haven’t really niched down into who you’re trying to attract, and you’re just trying to appeal to the masses, um, you know, if you’re a jack of all trades, you’re a master of none.

Breanna: So if you’re trying to appeal to everyone, you’re not really giving anybody a true custom experience. So if you can think ahead to the most likely, um, type of guests that you’re going to anticipate having at your property and you design it specifically for them, I mean, now your design is specifically for them.

Breanna: So it makes it a little bit easier when you photograph the space. Cause you know exactly what you’re photographing. That’s going to attract them. And then like you say, you know, exactly who you’re marketing to. So If you’re thinking through that prior to setting up the design, you already know where you’re marketing.

Breanna: Um, you already know where to find your ideal guest and how you’re going to find them. You’re going to have a better idea of the tone of voice that you need to use when you are putting together that copyright. Um, so getting that out of the way first is, is by far the best, the best thing I think that anybody can do for their property.

Gil: Yeah, um, there’s, there’s two questions I want to ask you. I’m, I’m, I’m asking you one question for that. We’ll kind of get back to it. Um, as you’re going through, I see by more of a comment, I find that when you said, when you’re really tailoring your audience to everybody, you’re really not resonating with anyone specifically.

Gil: I find that it also works in your benefit as well too, because you’re actually scaring away folks that may not be a good fit for your space. Um, specifically for us. Since we are tailored towards families. I’ve not had a single party at any of our places and knock on, knock on wood, like hopefully that doesn’t happen, but because of the way that we amenitize our space, it’s not that welcoming to folks that are looking to have spring break at our place.

Gil: That’s just not who we tailored towards. Um, and they know it too. Like when you see a bunch of bunk beds, like it’s not the best place like that they want to maybe stay. If you see kids toys at pack and play, they’re like, okay, maybe this is not where I want to be spending spring break in the Smokies. And there are a lot of other cabins that are, not to say more generic, but like they don’t really like try to convey who they’re trying to reach out to, which makes it so that it may be more welcoming to them that they may want to stay somewhere there.

Gil: But for us, it actually works in our advantage that we’re attracting the right folks, but we’re also detracting the wrong folks for us as well too. 

Breanna: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I’m, I’m working with a new client right now, um, who has a property that has been running as a short term rental since 2020. So, she’s been running this property for a while and it’s done great.

Breanna: pretty well, but she’s looking to do a redesign now. And so in that, of course, that, that first phase is property audit. We’re asking, well, we know who’s going to come to the property. We know who has come to the property so far. So far, she’s been seeing a lot of families with young children or even multi generational families.

Breanna: So the question to her was, do you want to continue with that guest avatar type, or did you want to open it up to anything else? And what she knows for sure is that she does not want large groups of 20 something year olds. She doesn’t want six or more 20 something year olds to come into the property.

Breanna: She does it. She has a really good relationship with her neighbors who are very close by and she doesn’t want to, you know, damage that relationship. So that helps us, you know, really direct the design because now we know we don’t want to put anything in there that’s really going to attract. That younger crowd.

Breanna: We want to put some stuff in there that’s going to attract multi generational. So we’re going to think through the design through that lens. So it’s going to definitely determine the route that we take. 

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. I’m trying to think about like what amenities would you introduce that would scare away, uh, the 20 something year olds.

Gil: I’m, I’m having a hard time picturing it right now. 

Breanna: I think that the goal there is going to be specifically in the photography process. So I’m sure there are a lot of designers who are like, Hey, look, I created the design for you. Sometimes it’s virtual. You create the design and it’s the, um, property manager or the, or the owner’s job really to implement the design work.

Breanna: I do full service design. So I create the design and then I install it myself. Um, and I kind of take it a step further, call me a micromanager, but I like to be at onsite the day of photography. So I like to help stage those photos because in our process, we’ve already determined how we’re marketing the, the.

Breanna: property. In most cases, I’ve already designed the first five to ten photos of their listing because I know what’s going to attract the guest type because I’ve done that research for this project. So on that photography for this project in specific, since we want to attract more of the kids, less of the, you know, young adults, what we’ll do is we’ll do things like a s’more, you know, a photo of s’mores roasting over the, over the fire pit.

Breanna: We are going to do some fun things to the backyard, like add a fire pit and add a hot tub, but I don’t want to give it a party vibe. I want to make it feel more family friendly and we’re going to portray that and communicate that through the photography. So that the listing says family, the listing does not say party.

Breanna: So hopefully that will detract a few of those younger adults. I’m sure they’re still going to get, um, booking requests because of the location. I mean, it’s just, it’s a location that young adults are going to want to go to. Um, but hopefully the photography will keep them so full with, with young families and multi generational families that there’s really not room for those 20, 20 something year olds to get in there.

Gil: That’s exactly what we do. Like, if you look at any, all of our cover photos and you’ve seen them, they’re, it screens like elementary school for us is like age 10 and under. Um, those are like the types of families that we end up loving host, like loving to host our, in our properties and all of our cover photos are things and amenities specifically for them.

Gil: Like, even though in our pool room, we have a movie theater. We put Luca on there. Uh, as, as, as, as a movie and it’s a good fun loving movie for young kids. Uh, we could have put Bluey or someone, something else, but like, we wanted to make sure that that cover photo really speak to, to that specific avatar. I totally get you on that.

Breanna: And if you’re 20 something year old and you’re looking for a place to go have, you know, your 21st birthday or 23rd birthday or whatever with your friends, and you see a picture of an indoor pool, let’s say it’s a picture of an indoor pool with a movie screen that didn’t have anything on it. Oh, that’s cool.

Breanna: We could put movie music videos up on the wall and they have, you know, led lights, like that looks really fun. Let’s go there. But if I’m looking at a picture with Luca and I’m not thinking, that’s where I want to go have my 24th birthday party with my friends. Do you know what I mean? So again, the photography is going to make a massive difference, but you don’t want to.

Breanna: design this property, then think about who are you advertising to and you already have it designed and you can, you’re only going to be able to photograph what you are able to photograph. If you can think it through ahead of time, you’re setting yourself up for success so much better. 

Gil: Yeah. And for folks listening that are doing this remote, um, and they don’t have the luxury of flying out there on photography day, most photographers will spend The first, they’ll probably spend 30 minutes with you prior to actually taking your photos, um, weeks in advance and they’ll plan out what you want, what you want to convey.

Gil: And typically what they’re going to ask you is what are the things that you want to highlight in your, in your property? And most folks will say the king bedroom, the, the, The amenities, but I think it’s worthwhile to spend a little extra time even before saying that, saying that these are the types of folks that we’re attracting to our place.

Gil: Um, and it helps the photographer put in their mindset of like who your ideal guest avatar. Hopefully they asked you, but a lot of times the photographer won’t ask you and you’ll be prompting it yourself. So make sure that you let your photographer know early on so that they’re capturing the moments.

Gil: They put that s’mores out. Um, a lot of times we’ll stage with beverages and the type of beverage that you might want to have on your hot tub. It could be a Coke can, it could be a beer, and you have the choice of what you want things to be staged at. So make sure you communicate that so that you’re attracting the right folks.

Breanna: Absolutely. It is so true. The type of beverage that you even put on the table next to whatever it is next to the fireplace or what have you, that is going to attract a very specific type of person. If you put a whiskey glass and a wine glass, you’re probably attracting a husband and wife combo. You know, you have to, you have to think those things through to be, to be super specific about how they enjoy their time and then put those things in your space and put those things in your photography to really help them visualize themselves utilizing the space.

Breanna: And I would go as far as saying if you’re doing it remote, I would say most photographers would not mind having a set list. So I create a set list even when I’m on site for photography so that we don’t lose track of time or get hung up on one particular thing. Um, and then also just so I don’t forget to capture a certain image that I knew that I wanted.

Breanna: Um, and by set list, I just mean a very specific description of every photo that I wanted to try to capture for the space. Um, of course, be realistic. Your photographer may not have time to take 135 photos, but you know, if you’re looking room by room and you say, you know, I really want to get an angle of the living room from behind the sofa, looking at the fire with the fireplace turned on.

Breanna: be very specific in that to make sure I get a photo with the high chair at th so I can, I want to get t see a little bit of the k Et cetera. So be very specific and then that actually helps to make sure that you’re not gonna be missing any of the shots that you were hoping to have. 

Gil: Yeah. And you learn this over time.

Gil: Um, and I’ve used the same photographer many, many times and I feel like I’ve gotten to a better point where I’m able to direct a lot better than I did because. I remember when I first got my set of photos, they were gorgeous photos, but there were just a few photos that were missing from it. I was like, why is it missing?

Gil: What, what am I looking for? Um, and really knowing what you’re trying to convey, what story do you want to tell with those photos and photos is probably one of the most effective ways, both on your direct booking site and on the, the OTA listings. Yeah. It’s the most effective way to communicate what, what story you want to tell.

Gil: Um, and you just learn, and again, like if you follow and you know who you’re trying to resonate with and what they’re looking for, it makes everything downstream just so much easier. 

Breanna: A hundred percent. I agree. And don’t feel bad if you’ve done it once or twice and you’re still in that phase of like, shoot, I’m missing something.

Breanna: That’s how we learn. We learn from those little moments of I’m missing something. Now you’ll, you’ll catch on to it and then you’ll know what to add for the next one. Um, I mean, we’re coming from the perspective of having done this several times over. So hopefully you’ll learn from some of the things that we’re able to share, um, and take that away and, and, you know, make sure that you’re not missing at least those shots that we’ve mentioned so far.

Gil: Yeah. Um, you mentioned earlier, um, when we were the kind of the master of none, um, and What do you, what would you suggest to folks that don’t know who their guest avatar is? What’s some of the things that you would kind of walk them through to kind of help identify that? 

Breanna: Yeah, I mean, this is step one of working with every single one of my clients.

Breanna: So the first thing that we do, we take a look at the area and we determine what are the attractive amenities, um, kind of local attractions, I should say, that are going to draw people into this space. Um, so for some people, it might be, Hey, I’m right next to a military base. And every so often they’re doing a large graduation for this and it pulls in a bunch of people or, Hey, we have a parade in town and everybody comes out for this specific parade at this time of year, um, whatever the case may be, Salem, Massachusetts, everybody wants the spooky vibes there.

Breanna: You know? So from there, you just start, you start wide and you start funneling down who you want to work with and who you want your ideal guest avatar to be. So once we know what’s attracting them to that location in general, so what does my property already provide to them that’s going to also make it attractive to them?

Breanna: Maybe your property, maybe it’s the layout, maybe it’s the number of bedrooms or maybe it’s the backyard. Maybe you have all the things for entertaining and you know, it’s going to be one of those properties that everybody wants to have, like multiple families come stay here, et cetera. Um, take all of, take first.

Breanna: Generic city or like local attractions, funnel that down into what is my property have that maybe other people don’t, or what can I put into my property that other people don’t have? And then a part of it, I think has to be just who you want to work with as well, or who you want to stay in the property.

Gil: Yeah, I think that’s a good point that you get to choose who your ideal guest avatar is. There’s a bunch of ideal guest avatars in the same market there. And you might resonate, you might, if for instance, if I didn’t have kids, I actually may want to maybe go into different markets that may be more tailored towards Couples, young couples and getting out from the city, like there’s many different avatars that you can kind of go towards and you get to pick and choose which one you wanna resonate with and hopefully you did that even prior to acquisition, um, because then you have a lot more flexibility.

Gil: I still remember when we were going and going, were going into Branson. Branson was a, a market that we wanted to get into. There’s many different parts of Branson, Missouri. Um, and we chose specifically because we’ve already had a good experience with. Hosting young families. We wanted to kind of keep to keep to that brand there for ourselves.

Gil: Um, so in Branson, you can actually buy properties on a golf course and they’re really nice properties or near golf course. Um, and they’re really nice properties or by the lake. Um, but it’s a different avatar of folks that you’ll be marketing towards one that we actually don’t know all that well. Um, but we chose specifically to be next to silver dollar city.

Gil: And silver dollar city is one of the biggest, um, amusement parks in America and we’re three minutes away. And we knew that like these, my kids would be the folks that would enjoy silver dollar city. Um, it was for us a clear choice of knowing within this market, where do I want to, where do I actually want to purchase my property and who actually I want to have staying at our place.

Breanna: Yeah. I think. The way that you did that with your Branson property is so intentional and it’s so smart. Sometimes I think people buy the property and then they start to think through, how is this property going to, you know, fit for me? Like, how do I make this property work? But what you did was you said, I’m already really good in this space.

Breanna: I know this space really well. Where can I find a property that fits within this space, but isn’t in the same market that I’m already offering my guests, but now I’m going to pull them to a new market. And if you wanted to, I mean, I am a family with young children and I can see getting these emails from you and saying like, Oh, you know, I’m looking at, you know, different places to have our family vacation this year, but you could also have almost like a sister company.

Breanna: And your rental, your sister company has rentals that are for mom and dad. So this is a mom and dad’s getaway. This is where mom and dad want to go. Mom and dad want to go to Napa. Mom and dad want to go to, you know, wherever. I mean, some mom and dads, we want to go to Disneyland too. We just don’t want to go with our kids.

Breanna: So we want to do the other things that Disneyland, um, that, you know, we don’t always get to do with our kids because our kids have to go, especially if you have really little ones, you have to stick to like the smaller rides. You can’t really write a lot of the big rides until your kids get older. So, um, nonetheless, I could totally see that being like a bridge there, um, and being able to market to essentially the same people.

Breanna: So you’re just thinking through all of that ahead of time, which I think that’s the best way to do it. 

Gil: Yeah. And I think for me, it’s by trial, like our first property, we didn’t know anything about short term rentals to begin with. Like when we first got into it, you’re having to figure out how to be a host, how to buy a property, how to underwrite a property or underwriting before buying the property, um, and really going through that entire process.

Gil: And there’s many, many different things you have to learn. And we didn’t know who our guest avatar was in the first place. Um, and that property did okay. It actually did fairly well, um, without knowing our guest avatar. Um, but once we figured out when we bought our second and third property, we’re like, Oh, actually there’s a trend here.

Gil: These are, these are folks that were really, really gearing towards. We ended up redoing our photography for that first property. We ended up adding amenities after the fact. when we are trying to figure out how do we differentiate in that market? Um, so it’s like, you don’t always have to figure it out from, from, from the very beginning.

Gil: You don’t always have to know everything, but over time, hopefully you gather more skills. You learn from your different experiences and you consistently go back to your properties and figure out like, how do I make it a better experience for our guests? 

Breanna: Yeah, I totally agree with you in that. And I think most investors will resonate with, with that specific thing.

Breanna: Like we didn’t know what we were doing when we had our first one, most people don’t. Um, so if you, if you’re just getting in and you have the opportunity to think through before you get the property, cool. But if you’re already in your property, that’s the, that’s the position that most people are in. So.

Breanna: It’s just learning from all of that trial and error. 

Gil: Yeah, and you’ll get better, you’ll, you’ll get better, and we’re still learning. We’re still, we’re still, 

Breanna: yeah, 

Gil: always be learning. Um, yeah, we’re still learning on like what works, what doesn’t, and whether or not we put something in there that we thought might be a good, a good amenity, and it just doesn’t work or it doesn’t get used.

Gil: Um, so we’re trying to consistently tweak. And I think that’s probably the last point I want to get across is like, Try to get that feedback as much as possible. Revenue is a good feedback where if your revenues, if your occupancy is high, your revenues are high, it means that you’re doing something right.

Gil: It means you’re, you’re probably amortizing it correctly, but also speaking to your guests, talking to your guests, understanding why they’re staying there, where are they coming from. Uh, who, who’s staying at the property and if you have the ability to reach out to them, um, and get that feedback, it really helps you tune whether or not the assumptions that you made early on when you’re building out your, your property, whether or not they’re true, it helps you scale more effectively down the road.

Breanna: Yeah, I love that. He’s absolutely right. Awesome. 

Gil: Um, Brianna, I usually end the show with two questions. Um, one’s a mindset question and one’s a kind of action takeaway question, kind of on the mindset question first, what’s that one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new?

Breanna: I think when we’re starting something new, it can be scary. It can be overwhelming and something that’s been stuck. This is like on my mirror right now is, um, not, I have to do this, but I get to do this. I’ve heard this several times. And when you think about it from that perspective, it’s, it’s, it kind of touches everything.

Breanna: But when you’re starting something new, it, there’s a lot of things that you have to do. And if you’re starting a new short term rental, you might be thinking, I don’t know how to market my property. I have to do this. Like, how am I going to do this? No, it’s, I get to do this. You get to learn how to market something.

Breanna: It’s, it’s a whole new adventure. So just be totally willing to let it take you wherever you, wherever it goes and, um, just be grateful that you get to do it. 

Gil: Absolutely. Awesome. The last question of the segment is what’s the one piece of tactical advice that you would give to someone, um, that’s getting started in direct bookings.

Breanna: Know your guest avatar fully, fully, fully before you start purchasing items for your property and setting up your property. So it’s going to avoid you from wasting money on amenities that weren’t going to attract your ideal guest avatar. And it’s just going to point you in the right direction. And it really should help you allocate your budget.

Breanna: So dig into, like we talked about earlier, who, what is my location or excuse me, who is my location attracting, who can my property best serve, and then who do I want to work with? Just funnel it down in that way. 

Gil: Nice. Nice. Are you working on any other projects? Um, do you have any programs that you want to engage with our listeners with today?

Breanna: Sure. I’m working on a lot of projects right now. Um, and as if I didn’t have enough, I decided to throw in a podcast on top of it, that’s all about. S. T. R. And M. T. R. Design and amenities. So, um, that’s my newest baby. So we’ve been doing that for about a month and a half. Um, and we’re just slowly watching it grow.

Breanna: Um, and hopefully it’s, it’s helping a lot of people. So that’s, that’s my newest baby. 

Gil: Awesome. I’ll, I’ll make sure to include, uh, your show in the show notes. Also, uh, I’ll include your website and your email, um, so that folks can reach out to you if they’re looking for design help as well, too. 

Breanna: Absolutely.

Breanna: Please let me know if you guys have any questions or if you’re stuck on anything design related, I’m always happy to help in any way that I can. 

Gil: Awesome. Thank you, Brianna. 

Breanna: Thanks Gail. 

Gil: Bye.