Guest Favorite Over Superhost: What’s Actually Moving the Airbnb Algorithm with Dan Rivers

Summary and Highlights

👤 About Dan Rivers

Dan Rivers is the co-founder and Business Development Manager at SynergyStays, a short-term rental revenue management company helping investors and property managers maximize profitability. With nearly 20 years in real estate, Dan has facilitated over $100 million in transactions spanning traditional sales, fix-and-flips, long-term rentals, commercial properties, and short-term rental management. His background spans large-scale property management on the beach to high-rise condo portfolios, and he’s since channeled that experience into building a revenue-focused company alongside partners Mike and Jake.

Beyond real estate, Dan is a devoted family man, an avid world traveler, and someone who deeply believes in building a business that works with his life — not the other way around. He’s operated in markets across the U.S. and Mexico, and SynergyStays currently serves operators from Charleston, South Carolina to Pittsburgh and beyond.

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🔑 What You’ll Learn From This Episode

• Why revenue management is a whole system — not just a nightly rate
• How Dan went from collecting doors to building a lifestyle-first business
• Why cancellation policies are quietly costing operators real revenue
• The real difference between Superhost and Guest Favorite on Airbnb
• How orphan night strategies and direct booking email campaigns work together
• What “be the golden shovel” means for your STR business

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🏗️ From Shiny Object Syndrome to Strategic Focus

Dan’s journey through real estate mirrors a path a lot of operators recognize. He’s done flips that netted a million dollars and flips that cost him $80,000. He’s chased strategies he found on BiggerPockets and learned — sometimes painfully — that chasing everything often means mastering nothing.

His word of the year is “focus.” And that wasn’t an arbitrary choice. It came after years of spreading across multiple strategies, being good at many things but never great at any single one. What changed was recognizing that true scale comes from identifying where you add the most value and going all in there.

For Dan, that place is revenue management. His partner brings over a decade of experience in the craft, and Dan brings the business development engine. Together, SynergyStays positions itself as the golden shovel — not the one digging for gold, but the one everyone who’s digging needs.

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📊 Revenue Management Is More Than Pricing

This is the part of the conversation most operators need to hear. When Gil and Dan talk about revenue management, they’re not talking about setting a minimum nightly rate and letting dynamic pricing do the rest. SynergyStays takes a comprehensive approach that includes:

Cancellation policies — Dan points out that overly strict policies are quietly hurting operators. If you’re heavily reliant on OTAs, a stringent cancellation policy affects your search algorithm placement, which directly impacts your occupancy. Loosening your policy can feel like a risk, but it often opens up more booking opportunities than it closes.

AB testing listing elements — Photos, titles, descriptions, and length-of-stay minimums are all tested and iterated on a regular basis. Every Monday, the SynergyStays team reviews what booked over the weekend, what could have been priced better, and what they want to test next.

Weekday occupancy strategies — Dan shares how his team identified open weekdays across their client portfolio in January and built a specific strategy around them. The result? An 18% year-over-year increase in weekday occupancy for March — booked 30 to 45 days in advance, not last minute with heavy discounts.

Guest ratings as a revenue lever — Every 0.1% drop below a 5-star rating can cost an operator up to 10% in revenue potential. That’s not a number to ignore, especially as Airbnb’s algorithm continues to evolve.

If you want to go deeper on how listing optimization and OTA positioning affect your overall performance, this piece on vacation rental marketing strategies is worth reading alongside this episode.

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🌟 Superhost Is Out. Guest Favorite Is In.

Here’s something a lot of operators haven’t caught on to yet: Superhost is no longer the primary signal Airbnb’s algorithm is rewarding. Dan and his team are seeing a clear shift toward Guest Favorite as the badge that actually moves the needle on search placement and bookability.

What goes into Guest Favorite? It’s not as simple as a high star rating. Dan and Gil walk through what they’re observing:

• Response time and communication quality
• How maintenance issues are handled during a stay
• Whether guests are escalating complaints directly to Airbnb — because that appears to negatively affect your Guest Favorite status even if your ratings stay high
• The volume and consistency of bookings through the platform

This is exactly why relying on any single signal is risky. The algorithm is always moving. You need someone — whether that’s a revenue manager or yourself — actively watching it. And as Dan points out, if your direct booking volume starts pulling guests away from Airbnb for stretches of time, that could affect your visibility there too. It’s a balance worth managing intentionally, not accidentally.

For more context on how Airbnb’s policy changes are reshaping the landscape for operators, check out this breakdown of Airbnb’s 2025 changes.

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📧 Orphan Nights, Email Lists, and the Direct Booking Advantage

This is where the conversation gets really tactical. Dan and Gil both operate in a world where OTA dependency is a risk, not a strategy. One of the clearest examples they discuss is orphan nights — those one or two open days sandwiched between existing bookings.

On an OTA, filling orphan nights usually means racing to the bottom on price because you’re competing against every other property in your market doing the same thing. With a guest email list and a direct booking channel, the dynamic is completely different. You’re messaging someone who already loved staying with you. They’re not comparing your price against twenty competitors. They’re thinking about the experience they had — and a modest discount is often all it takes.

Dan’s team actively encourages their clients to reach out to existing guests on both sides of an orphan night. Even at 50% off, the cleaning fee is already accounted for, and anything above your variable costs is heading straight to the bottom line. Want to see exactly how this works operationally? The orphan nights playbook on CraftedStays walks through tiered discount strategies and the exact messaging templates to use.

The broader email strategy Dan describes is one built on value, not urgency. His team sends a mix of local content — restaurant recommendations, market news, new developments — before ever asking a past guest to rebook. By the time a discount code shows up in their inbox, there’s already a relationship. That relationship is what makes the conversion happen without the race to the bottom.

If you’re building this kind of email system from scratch, the vacation rental email marketing guide and this primer on collecting guest emails strategically are good places to start. And if you’re looking for examples of operators who’ve turned this into a real revenue engine, the guest retargeting episode with Sam Mistretta is worth your time.

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📡 OTAs, VRBO, and the Channel Diversification Conversation

Dan doesn’t tell his clients to abandon the OTAs. What he does is encourage channel diversification — especially for higher-end properties and those with strong amenity packages. The logic is simple: if Airbnb is your only channel, you’re exposed to every policy change, algorithm shift, and review dispute they throw your way.

VRBO is a topic both Gil and Dan discuss with some nuance. Getting traction there can be harder to establish, but once you do, the platform tends to reward consistent performers over time. The issue is that most operators either never fully commit to VRBO or give up before the algorithm kicks in their favor.

Direct bookings, in Dan’s view, don’t have to replace OTA revenue — they need to complement it. If 85% of your bookings come through a direct booking site, you still need to price intelligently and manage your revenue strategy with the same rigor. Direct doesn’t mean autopilot. And if you’re just starting to think about building your own direct booking presence, this episode is a good companion read on the foundations of OTA independence.

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🏆 Stop Being Good. Start Being Great.

One of the most memorable moments in this episode is Dan’s answer to Gil’s final question about what one tactical piece of advice he’d give operators today. His answer wasn’t a tool or a template. It was a mindset shift: stop trying to do everything yourself, and instead get great at one thing while surrounding yourself with people who are great at the others.

Revenue management. Guest experience. Direct bookings. Marketing. These are not small undertakings. Operators who try to master all of them alone end up average at each. The ones who build the right team — or hire the right partners — are the ones who actually see their properties reach their full potential.

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⚡ Rapid Fire with Dan Rivers

📚 Book That Changed His Life: Worthy by Jamie Kern Lima. Dan describes it as the book that helped him understand the difference between self-confidence and self-worth — and finally gave him permission to let go of the version of himself he’d spent years judging. He recommends the hard copy so you can underline the parts that hit hardest. He also mentioned Green Lights by Matthew McConaughey as a strong audible pick for anyone who wants to feel energized.

🧠 Mindset Advice for Starting Something New: “Take the cheat code. Find someone who’s done it, done it well, and learn from them. Don’t listen to the people who haven’t done it — no matter how confidently they speak.” Gil adds a sharp layer to this: the most valuable people to learn from are usually the ones just two or three steps ahead of you, not the ones running hundred-million-dollar companies. They’re close enough to your current problems to give you advice you can actually use.

🎯 One Tactical Advice on Direct Bookings: Hire the right people for the right areas, and get serious about each one. Revenue management, direct booking strategy, and guest experience are all separate disciplines. Being “pretty good” at all three is not the same as being great at any of them. Work with operators and platforms that specialize — and let their expertise compound your results.

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🔗 Connect with Dan & SynergyStays

Dan and his team at SynergyStays run monthly webinars with industry partners — including collaborations with STRIQ and Savvy Realty. If you want to stay connected and catch their upcoming events, follow them on social and join their newsletter.

• Instagram: @danrivers_rcg | @synergystayslocal
• Facebook: SynergyStays
• Website: synergystayslocal.com

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🚀 Ready to Build the Direct Booking Side of Your Business?

Revenue management and direct bookings aren’t competing strategies — they’re partners. And the operators who treat them that way are the ones who stop leaving money on the table. If you’re ready to build a direct booking website that actually converts — one that gives your guests a reason to come back and book with you directly — CraftedStays is built specifically for that. Start your free trial and see how fast you can go from zero to live.

🎧 Listen to the full episode with Dan Rivers now and hear the complete conversation on revenue management, direct bookings, and building a business around the life you actually want.

Transcription

Dan: Take the cheat code, go find someone who’s done it, who’s done it well, and learn from them. And more than anything, don’t listen to anybody else who hasn’t done it. You’re gonna have a thousand people tell you how to do something that they’ve never done because they’ve read a book or saw it online.

Follow the people who have done it. Get around them, be around them. Work for them for free if you have to, and just take their blueprint because they’re a proven success in whatever you’re going after.

Gil: Before we bring on my guest, I wanted to talk just a little bit about something that I’ve been hearing a lot from Host. I keep on hearing the same thing. I know my website isn’t converting, but I can’t afford $8,000 on a agency to rebuild it. Here’s the thing, you’re letting all these marketing strategies, you’re driving traffic and you’re putting it.

All to work, but if your site isn’t really built to convert, you’re basically lighting your energy and money on fire. And even if you could afford an agency build, every time you want to test something or make a change, you’re having to pay them again. You can’t iterate, you can’t test, and you really can’t improve on things.

You don’t need a custom $10,000 website to get the conversion rates that really matter. You just need the right platform. That’s why I build CraftedStays. It’s purpose built for short-term rentals and designed from the ground up to help you drive more direct bookings. You can finally turn that traffic into bookings and you can keep on testing and improving.

As you learn, you can make changes all on the platform. You don’t need to learn something new. So if you need some help or you wanna get started, go ahead and go to crafted stays.co and start your free trial. Now let’s bring on our guests and dive deep into hospitality and marketing.

Gil : Hey folks. Welcome back to the Booked Solid Show, the show where we bring in top operators to discuss hospitality, operations, and direct bookings. On today’s show, I have Dan Rivers. He’s a long-time investor. He’s done short-term rentals, long-term rentals, fixed and flips, and even sold properties. He’s since then gone from acquiring more and more doors to focus on growing a business that matches his lifestyle and his skillset.

He’s now focusing on building his revenue management company, synergy Stays and his co-founder there. Today, we dive deep into revenue management and how that’s not an isolated activity and why he’s pushing his clients to really look into direct bookings more this year. So without further ado, let’s bring him in.

 Gil: Hey Dan, welcome to the show.

 Dan: Yay. I’m happy to be here. Thanks for having me on, Gil.

 Gil: Yeah. Uh, we had a little bit of time to catch up right before the show, and I’m super excited to talk about. What we’re about to kind of embark on, but maybe to kind of kick us off, Dan, do you mind giving an introduction on who you are and what you do?

 Dan: Yes, yes. I always like to introduce myself first. I used to say girl, dad, but now I have a nine month old son, so father, first, husband, um, and world traveler. That’s who I am personally. That’s what I love to do. Um, but yeah, I’ve been in real estate since 2005. Um, I’ve been doing anything from large scale property management on the beach to like, you know, these high rise condos, um, to, in 2018, moved down to Charleston, South Carolina.

I’ve been a real estate agent, done over 400 deals on the real estate side, flipped homes. I’ve a rental portfolio, short, long commercial. And, uh, about two, a little over two years ago, got into, uh, short term rentals, um, management, now revenue management with my partner. Um, a couple of my partners, Mike and Jake, and I just like truly love it for a lot of reasons.

I can nerd out on that all day long, but that’s quick overview of who I am and yeah. What I do.

 Gil: Yeah, I So you have one daughter, one son now, is that, is that, is that what it is?

 Dan: Correct. Yeah. And they’re about three, what are they, three and a half years apart, so it’s like perfect. It’s adorable. It’s such a great big sister. Yeah.

 Gil: I, I’m in a similar zone. I have an older daughter and a younger son, and I remember the days of being a girl, dad and I, I, I actually still, I would consider you still a girl dad. Like, just because you have a son doesn’t remove you from being a girl dad. Um,

 Dan: I still have tea

 Gil: but I. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but there is something I think very special about having a daughter.

Not like I love my son. I love my son. Um, but just the personalities are just so different. The way that each one of your kids look at you is different. Your son’s still a little young, but in, in a, in a few years, you’ll start to see how different they are and how you, how much, if anything. I, I actually appreciate both genders now quite a bit because I’m a girl, Dan and.

A, I don’t, there’s actually probably no term for this on Sunday.

 Dan: Yeah, but, uh, no, I’m, I’m with you on that. It’s so funny too because I dunno about you, but like. As a guy, I’m like, I want a son. I want a son. And then when I found out I was having a daughter, I was a little off at first. And then I started getting more excited and more excited and more excited. And by the time she was born, I’m like, I’m a girl dad all the way.

Got the hat, got everything going. I’m like, I am so excited for this. You know, whatever she wants to do, she wants to paint my nails. I’m in whatever.

 Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Did you secretly, did you secretly want another daughter the second time around?

 Dan: Not gonna lie. It was like, I’m cool with two daughters. And then when the son came, I was still, I was like, all right, cool. I got one of each.

 Gil: I, I admittedly, and, sorry, sorry, sorry Theo if you’re listening to this, but I, I, I didn’t want to, I didn’t want a, a second daughter, but I think after, I think actually now it’s like my son is now almost six. Um, and. I don’t know what it is, but I’m in a very special time with him where I, I’m now appreciating the differences in how his brain works.

And like, it just, I’m enjoying it now and I would feel like for a little while I was like, oh, I kind of wish I wanted, I, I wish I had another daughter. Um, but I am very happy to have both genders and like, at least in our culture, um, having one of each is actually very, very, it’s, it’s very, I don’t, I dunno what the right.

Way to say this, but like you’re lucky to have one of each,

 Dan: I was gonna say, yeah, it’s thought after everybody wants a boy and a girl because you know the differences and the different like connections and. So I’m sure I’m gonna feel that later on, but I’m with you on that. Like, if I had two girls, I would’ve been cool with that too. It would’ve just been, you know, having, uh, you know, daddy daughters dates all the time, so.

 Gil: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I, I empathize with a lot of what you kind of said, and it reminds me a lot of. Um, you mentioned like how you got into long-term rentals, short-term rentals, fix and flips. It reminds me back when, I think it was like 20 18, 20 19, I was on this huge binge of BiggerPockets and I listened to, gosh.

Probably a hundred episodes and every time they talked about someone doing a different tactic and different strategy, I would be like, oh my God, that’s amazing. Like, I didn’t even think about that. Um, and having you kind of lived through that, it’s, it’s been amazing. Like, I would kinda like you to describe like what it was like and kind why you transitioned from one T to a tactic to another and what kind of led you down that path.

 Dan: No, it’s honestly a great question and it’s a great learning lesson for anybody listening to this. I, uh. Like, you listen to BiggerPockets gonna a bunch of meetups and everybody’s doing something different and something cool. So it’s so easy to be like, oh, I wanna do this, I wanna do that. Like that shiny ze syndrome.

So, you know, sometimes it worked out. Um, you know, I’ve made, I don’t say this often and all that stuff, but I’ve had a flip that we’ve made a million dollars on. Like, that’s just unheard of. And I had a partner on it that did very well with that. So it wasn’t all me. And then I’ve also had flips where I’ve lost $80,000 on, so it’s, you know, they, they, they come and they go.

So it’s like. I was just shooting at the hip doing everything you can do. And in 2020 to 2023, just the beginning, everybody looked like a genius in real estate. You could do anything, you know, throw anything against the wall, and it was sticking. So a lot of that was hidden and massed. A lot of what I was doing, thinking I was winning the whole time.

I wasn’t necessarily winning the whole time. The market was saving me. Uh, but the good thing is I built myself around a good team and I realized quickly, Hey, let’s, let’s stabilize. I, I started seeing some adjustments in the market in 2023. I started to take some precautions because I could see things kind of adjusting.

Um, but I will tell you, it did help me. I, I came from, I don’t wanna say nothing. I came from a middle class family in a suburb of Boston. Um, loving parents, great parents, but we didn’t have a lot. I’ve worked since 14 years old. I’ve earned everything and being able to build a multimillion dollar portfolio, um, over the course of five years, is it, it makes me, I’m proud of myself.

Like that’s, that was. I had to take a lot of risk. I made some, a lot of failures, but I was able to build something and, you know, um, you know, again, this, there’s losses, there’s wins. But overall, I’m glad I got into kind of all those areas, but it helped me kind of realize, okay, the word of my year this year is focus.

I’m all over the place. I started mixing, flipping, mixing all these things. I have my real estate team and now we do short-term rental revenue management. That’s it, hyper-focus. And uh, but it took me that learning curve to realize that like, stop doing everything. Just do what you’re really good at.

 Gil: Yeah, and I wanna push back a little bit on, on, on, on what you said of feeling like the market saved you. I think the, kind of the other lens, and we’ll we’ll talk about mindset quite a bit on this show is I almost feel like it was the right time for you to learn at the pace that you could have learned.

Because otherwise, like if you had done. That whole journey in a different period, yes, you would fail and you probably not be able to pick yourself back up if the failure is too hard. But because you came in at the time that you came in, you probably learned extremely fast. You are able to tack on a lot of different projects that probably wouldn’t pencil out otherwise in other markets there.

So from a skillset standpoint. Like people say, your first property does not need to be a home run. It does not need to be. Your first property is there for you to learn, and you are in a very serendipitous time period where you had the market on your side for you to learn as fast as you can to get you to where you are.

 Dan: Yeah. I,

 Gil: Like that, that, that’s how, that’s how I, I see it on, on, on my side of it. Like it’s, it’s, it’s less so saving you, but more so giving you the, the. The freedom to learn.

 Dan: yeah, I, I love that mindset. You know, all about the mindset. So I love that mindset of like, and, and you’re right, it gave me. Maybe I needed that market to be able to gimme that confidence to get me going, and then when I lose, I’m okay with losing because I have the confidence knowing I know how to win as well.

Um, no, you’re absolutely right. And honestly, ’cause people always ask you that right now, when’s a good time to invest in real estate? Well, it’s anytime. Just know your market and be willing to take that first step and go for it, you know?

 Gil: Yeah. Yeah. And like for me, I did long terms before and I went to short terms, and I think I, I remember my first property, it was an out-of-state property we bought. Property in Indianapolis. Uh, I still have it today. I still have never seen it. Um, but it was a property spot, site unseen. I did all the homework and honestly, it was there just to help us get started.

Had I not bought that first property site unseen, I probably wouldn’t have learned how to hire a team, how to do underwriting, how to do investment loans, all of those different things that. When we got into short-term rentals, our first short-term rental deal was seven times that size. And it, it gave us a lot of courage to know that we did our homework.

We tried it out once. It worked out really well. We also now have met a network of short-term rental folks that have done really well. And again, luck was on my side because I came in during the gold rush. Um, but we bought our property and. It, it performed really, really well, and it just like had I not done the baby steps, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get into larger properties.

 Dan: I mean, that’s, that is a great point. You’re right, that first step’s all about learning exactly what you said, the underwriting, how the insurance works, how like, you know, the financing works, um, how property management works, how you know, just how you’re. Things are going to happen when you buy it that you’re not planning on, and how do you pivot and how do you adjust accordingly?

So there’s so much learning there. ’cause my, uh, my, one of my coaches and, um, well, a coach of mine and a mentor, that’s all the time. It’s like now when you do buy the bigger stuff, you’re just adding another zero. That’s all it is. You’re doing the same things. You just add another zero.

 Gil: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, was, uh, David Green and Brandon Turner, he, they would talk all, all the time about stacking, about like. You go from one property to two properties, four properties to age properties, and every time you buy a property, it’s, it needs to be multi, multiple times bigger than your last deal so that you can stack within a couple years.

And that’s, that’s how they got to where they are. B.

 Dan: Yeah, no, it’s amazing. Um, those guys, well, they’re not on bigger Fox anymore, but Brandon, I think they’re doing a conference actually next month. Um, Brandon and, uh, David. David Green. Yeah. They’re actually doing a conference. I saw it pop up. Unfortunately, I can’t make it, but I’m like, oh, that’s pretty cool that they’re back working together again, outside of BiggerPockets doing conferences.

’cause they, they were powerful. They shoot, they shoot things straight. Especially in a time right now where you see a lot of these big players, there’s red flags going up. Let’s keep it that way. And, uh, you got them that are still holding strong, still good reputation. You know, they care about their word and who they are.

And I, I just respect that. Yeah.

 Gil: They, they are, well, the best podcast couple that I have ever seen in the industry or any industry. Um, uh, they just, they work so, so, so well together. It’s funny. David is actually a customer of ours, so he has a short-term rental portfolio and craft estates powers his short-term rental portfolio. Um, and it, I remember the first time I met him, it felt really weird because I met him on a Zoom and I’ve heard his voice a hundred times prior, but this was the first time that voice was talking back to me.

Um, it just felt really, really hot. Yeah. But he’s, he, David’s a really good guy. He’s really, really smart.

 Dan: It’s funny. Yeah. You were starstruck and people, most people don’t even know who he is unless you’re in the investor world. Um, but he’s, he is, yeah. He seems like a really good dude. And, um, you’re gonna have to introduce me now again. I wanna do some business with David. He’s, he’s someone that would be fun to work with, I’m sure.

 Gil: He is, he is a lot of fun to work with. He has a very strong vision. He has a extremely strong vision. Um, you, you mentioned, um, that this year is the year of focus, like the word. The word of the year is focus. Why? And, and, and that focus is now on short-term re short-term rental revenue management. Why, why the pivot?

Why the focus? Um, and kind of the thing thinking in the back of my mind is you’re going from a lot of like wealth building, building wealth through property, like property acquisition, um, into what seems like a business

 Dan: Mm-hmm.

 Gil: And, uh, that, that’s quite a transition there. Talk to me about like. Why is that now the direction that you want to go?

Are you continuing to hold onto your properties and, and what that looks like?

 Dan: Yep. Uh, when it comes to my portfolio, I’ll start there quickly. My portfolio, I’m playing a little monopoly, so trading out the C class rentals, the long term rentals for higher, uh, type properties like we’ve now bought. Seven units up in Pittsburgh. It’s a good cash flow market. We were able to 10 31 some money up there.

Uh, same thing like you were saying, one to three to, you know, keep on building that portfolio up. So that’s, that’s what I’m doing right now. Bought a couple of short-term rentals about a couple years ago that were, um, just stabilizing and really trying to push the revenue of those, um, couple of short-term rentals up in the lake region here.

So, no, I’m still, I’m gonna still be buying, I’m gonna still be building the wealth side of things, but what I realized was about a year and a half ago, I realized. I was just doing too much and I was doing things, I was good. I wasn’t great, and that was bothering me and I’m like, that’s great that I have the skillset that I can, you know, talk to a flipper, wholesalers, flip a house.

I understand the ins and outs of flip a house and then I can go sell or buy or help a client seller or buy a house or I can go do all these different things. But I’m like, if I go all in, like I did originally on real estate sales and I become really good at that and became great at real estate sales.

What do I want to, what part of this business is, um, something I could scale? Um, really I call it the golden shovel, where like, I’m not like a flip, the flip goes up or down the market goes up or down, like you’re into that flip. But if you’re the lender for the flip, if you are the contractor, you’re, you’re the golden shovel.

You’re helping them dig that gold rush for the flip. So that’s what Synergy stays can do is we come in and we help people realize that true potential of their property. So I could do that. We can do it anywhere in the world that someone has a short term rental, um, in the world too. Not just the United States.

We’re in Mexico as well right now, and I can do it from anywhere in the world. ’cause what I mentioned earlier on, my big passions, my whys that we were kind of talk, you know, whys is like a big thing when you talk about mindset and everything is I like to travel the world and I wanna travel with my family as much as I can.

So I need, I want to build something that I could be in Spain or I was just in Portugal the month of December. Nothing. There’s no hiccups. I’m still running my business. I’m still working with my team, especially with, you know, um, technology these days. I could do it all from abroad. So I sat back and I said, what can I scale and build, help others and do it from anywhere in the world?

And that’s where I was like, we’re going all, and not to mention we, one last step is I truly believe my partner, my partner is the revenue management genius. He’s been doing it since 2015. Um, and. He just continues to grow and learn every day to be better at his craft. And I’m like, I will partner with someone like that, someone who’s always realized that they’re realizing they’re not perfect and they always need to be better.

I wanna be a part of that and help grow this amazing business. So, um, that’s why I decided to go all in.

 Gil: That the last part that you said is, is, is very important. And I’m thinking about that as we grow at our team at Craft this days, and who do we want to bring in there? Um, and for us, we have like two hard criteria, especially right now we’re hiring on the customer service side of things, thinking about people that have really high.

Work ethics that are really good at, like, they’re reliable, you can depend on them. They’re responsive. Um, they’re just, they just care about their work. Um, and two, they care about our customers because our customers mean so, so, so, so much to us. Extreme. I still onboard every single one of our customers that walk through to Crept days.

I cannot do that indefinitely. Uh, we are getting to a point where that’s unsustainable because my calendar now, like, it’s hard to get time on my calendar because it’s so full. But I love meeting with our customers. I love understanding what they care about, and I, I want to make sure that as we scale out our team, that they care about our customers as well too.

We can teach ’em technology, we can teach ‘EM systems, we can teach ’em. If they don’t come from the short term rental industry, we can teach ’em those types of things. We can teach ’em work ethics and we can’t teach ’em to care. Those are things that we cannot teach ’em. So like it’s almost like when you, when you said like when you’re looking for a partner and you found someone that is so good at their craft, they’re constantly growing, constantly learning.

Like it almost makes me want to adjust my criteria of like. Strong work ethics, like even like one step above that is someone that really cares about their craft, their work there.

 Dan: Yeah. And it, it’s tough. Like, it’s like, yeah. So what questions do you ask when you’re hiring for that? But I, I love that. It’s exactly, I wanna, I wanna work with people, I call it the cultural fit, like you’re saying. The, the customer care about the customer. Like that is what we are about. At the end of the day, there are gonna be companies, there’s competition out there, especially with technology.

How do we separate ourselves? It’s, it’s through giving such an amazing experience and truly caring about. The customers, like they’re not a number to us. If, if we fail and someone leaves us, we don’t say, oh, you know, good riddance. They were pain, they were this like, we literally internally take them in.

We’re like, I don’t care who that person was. Where could we have done better? What did we do? And maybe the answer is nothing. At the end of the day, the answer very well could be nothing. But I always wanna see what could we do better so that we, and it’s helped it. It helps you add, like we had levels in our business, like we have more drip campaigns now.

We do a loom video two weeks after someone hires us with the strategy that we’re doing for them. So they’re not left in the dark. They can understand, hey, we are working behind the scenes and here’s what we’re doing. Reporting platform we created for people so that they could 24 hour access to see their property and how it’s performing.

Like we did all that because we. Every time we lost someone, we realize we need to be better in all these different areas, and the whole team comes together to do that. And that’s exciting when you have the culture that cares.

 Gil: Yeah. And I, I think that does come from the, the top down at my, at my last gig where I was still in like the W2 corporate world there, our CEO still had customers that would email her. Um, and whenever she got an email, she would not rage, but she would really push down on the CS team, like why did they get up to me?

 Dan: Mm-hmm.

 Gil: We need to take care of customers. We need to make sure we dress things, she’ll push for fixes. And at the back of my mind, like being an ic, um, IC director, I was like, dang, this is very disruptive, like to the company. But at the same time, now being a founder, I really empathize because you care so much about your customer and their, and then how you, how you show up there that like, if it comes to you and someone’s like, I didn’t get what I expected to get out of this company, that hurts you as a founder.

 Dan: It does, it does it like truly hurts. It’s like, ’cause then like you’re going back and you’re looking and you be like, Hey, alright, maybe we could have done better here. Or like, what could we have done? And then like, yeah, it’s, it’s, we take it, not personally, but kind of like we take it like, Hey, we let someone down.

How do we fix it? And. I have two partners in this business and all of us feel the same way. And I just love it. I love it that like, it’s, it’s not just a business with numbers. At the end of the day, business is about making money, but it’s about growing a brand that people brag about. Like, that’s what I care about.

I want people being like this, revenue manager’s out there, but Synergy stays. They actually care. They go three steps beyond just pricing to make sure that we’re taking care of, like, that is what I want people to say about us. Um, yeah, I mean that’s, I, I don’t know. That’s what makes me feel good and sleep well at night.

I don’t need. You know, to be the richest person in the world, I wanna build an awesome brand that people love, that, you know, pays me enough to live the lifestyle I want. That’s it.

 Gil: Yeah. Yeah. So as you think about the, the growth of your company and kind of how you’ve now, like you’re focusing on this, what does the future look like for you as you’re thinking about being that golden shovel that people can rely on? Like, what do you guys plan to expand to different services? Or are you gonna be the best in the industry at just this, and this is gonna be the lane that you, you’ll be known for?

 Dan: Yeah, and that’s a great question. And we’ve talked about that. And I’m not saying that won’t be an ancillary thing that we may do. But no, it’s revenue management focused. Like there are other companies and you know that, and that we see, we look at like around the industry, like you know, you’re doing teaching revenue management or you doing, like, we’ve had clients come to us and be like, will you teach me revenue management?

I’m like, that is not who we are. We do it, we do revenue management. Like that’s just not who we are. And that’s awesome. There, there are companies out there that teach you go work with them. We are not going to lose focus. That’s why focus is the word of the year. Like, uh, when it comes to business, when it comes to my life, everything.

Like I have habits and I focus on hitting my habits. And that’s one thing, like we want to. Be the best revenue management team out there because revenue management’s a lot more than pricing. A lot of people think just revenue management is pricing, and a lot of companies may just do pricing. We go, like I said, we do a comprehensive strategic plan for people, which includes looking at their cancellation policies, deep dive in the list.

Ultimately, it’s doing a lot of d different technical things to give them full service, to make sure their property is optimized, not just their pricing.

 Gil: Yeah, that’s actually very interesting. I used to do my own revenue management and because craft estates got so busy, I had to, I no longer had the capacity. I, I was a darn good revenue manager. What was extremely good, um, but. Now that it, I, I’ve moved that on to have someone handle that for me, I realize that there were things that I was doing on the revenue management side that made an impact on how I presented myself on the OTAs and elsewhere as well too, like when I didn’t appear on page one. Your price was one lever that you can pull, but also your listing descriptions, your photos, how you show up, like those things matter. Your length of state matters. Like it’s, I agree with you that it’s way beyond just the how do you price per night type of type of thing. I.

 Dan: Oh yeah, especially yeah, when you’re doing that too. And you also don’t wanna make too many drastic changes, like we’re all about AB testing and iterations. Um, at the end, every Monday we look back, Hey, what are all the bookings we got over the weekend? What could we have done better? What could we adjust?

But even when it comes to like listing optimization, you know that lingos tossed around a lot and it’s like you can optimize your listing but you don’t wanna be changing the picture more than like, give it a couple weeks. You need enough time for it to figure out is it working, is it not working? ’cause if you’re constantly just changing things that could work negatively and impact you negatively and you know, it’s things like that of also like.

Did that new picture get you a lot more views and clicks, but are those clicks leading the bookings and really tracking those KPIs to see where it stands and then you might need to make another adjustment ’cause it, it got you more views, but it’s not getting you the clicks. So why is it not getting the clicks?

Is it a pricing issue? Is it something else that has to do with the listing that you gotta dive deeper into? So that’s where it gets fun. My team nerds out and loves that stuff and like figuring things out in AB testing and being like, oh. Um, in January we realized there were a lot of open weekdays in the future months.

So in January my team implemented a, a different strategy for weekdays and the month of March, all of our clients, uh, year over year was up 18% just in weekday occupancy, and this was booked out 30, 45 days in advance. So they’re not last minute bookings where you’re given discounts. We were able to create a strategy in January to book out the weekdays, a lot of the weekdays in March, and it was just exciting to hear the team like, try something.

It popped, it worked, and a lot of our clients paid for almost a year of our service in one month, so it, it ended up working out really well.

 Gil: Yeah. I think the nice thing about like any type of revenue manager is that you get yes. On price labs, you get aggregate data. But when you’re working with a portfolio of tight knit properties that where you know all the properties, you know what markets they’re in, you know what their amenities are, you can compare apples to apples more equitably than if you were to just rely on dynamic pricing and, and some of the data that they have there.

 Dan: Oh yeah. Yeah. And it’s, it’s, it’s just a different game these days. Um, you know, where it used to be five years ago, you have price labs or beyond price in a wheelhouse. You’re, you’re leading the game now. Everybody’s using that. So how do you stand apart and how do you become great? Well, working with someone who’s focused on revenue is one way to do it.

Guest experience, making sure you’re crushing, that’s one. And then, um, you know, working with someone like marketing. Uh, like crafted stays and make sure your property’s marketed properly and have proper, uh, website and SEO, et cetera. So.

 Gil: Yeah, talk, talk to me a little about kind of the, the marketing side of things. Um, Do you focus more on kind of the OTAs or do you encourage kind of your customers, your clients, property managers to also really have a strong presence off the OTAs as well too?

 Dan: Yeah, I, I don’t know if I’d say we, you know, push them necessarily, but we absolutely think we absolutely talk to them. Um, that step beyond. So, I mean, you’re a combination type listings, things of that nature, maybe not so much, but especially as you get into these, you know, bigger properties, these great experience properties, especially super properties, things of that nature.

Absolutely. We talk to them and we say, Hey, listen, you like. Revenue management’s great. That is one piece, and we can get you so far, but to really see this property’s true potential. It’s getting, you know, not only a direct booking website, but you know, working on your branding of your property and, um, in that website and making sure that you, you know, have that other source or avenue to be able to grab a different clientele from those OTAs.

So not only are you avoiding having to be dependent on the OTs, but you’re also. Getting that next level up by marketing a property and becoming, like, having that property become its own brand is very important on those higher end and super properties. And, uh, um, you know, the properties with the, the good experiences, the smaller accommodation ones, I don’t know what your take is on that one, but those ones are a little bit harder when it comes to direct bookings and the, and the, uh, the market, the branding side of it that we’ve seen.

But you’re the expert there. Maybe I’m, you know, missing something and there is opportunity.

 Gil: Yeah, I think like if your property doesn’t stand on its own, where it’s quite super unique and that people, um, love the property itself if like, if, especially if it’s on the condo side of things, um, we find that the property managers that have strong direct booking rates. Almost a hundred percent of the time correlate with strong hospitality.

And that’s what the guest is coming back to. Yes, they may have a condo that looks like everybody else’s condos and but what they, what the difference is like the guest experience, what they have on the side, how you, the amenities. A lot of the condos, especially in the beach markets there like you’re gonna need beach equipment, you’re gonna need di different things to be able to enjoy your stay there.

And we found that some of our customers that. Really think through the entire guest journey there. That’s what they lean their hat on and they get a ton, a ton of repeat bookings just on the hospitality alone there. And sometimes it’s, yes, you want to have a nice property, but even if you don’t, your hospitality side is, is an asset in itself.

 Dan: Yep. And that makes sense. Like I knew a, a guy that’s a beach portfolio is a manager on the beach here, and I think they were like 80% is direct bookings. Um, and for that reason, the hospitality side, been in business, you know, legacy market, been in business forever. So it makes sense that that’s, uh, for.

That could really drive, um, those people to that company because I ac they appreciate the experience and they’re gonna come back again and again with their family. Yeah.

 Gil: Yeah, and I think if you are in one of those situations, it’s really around. If you’re targeting repeat bookers, I think the one of the biggest leverage points is one is like email nurture. There you wanna make sure that the past guests that have stayed with you, that you’re staying in contact with them on a regular basis there.

So you might have some sequence that kicks off every month for the first 12 months and then, then after you may have them on quarterly newsletters. Basically blast out. We call them broadcast, but you, you send it out to everybody and it talks about all the great things to do in each one of the seasons.

If you have more capacity, do it monthly. But at the very least, if you can do it quarterly, it gives them a sense of like, oh, what to look forward to. So the next time they’re thinking about a stay, they’re not hopping on the OTAs first. So thinking about, oh, I’ve been getting this email for the longest time, and there’s a coupon code in there possibly to get 5% off or 10% off, or whatever it is.

You may give a little bit out, but it’s. You’re still saving a ton on a commission, so it’s still worthwhile for you to do that. And those are the people that have core people that come back over year after year. If you can

 Dan: use it on your orphan and those gap nights and those times where you know you’re not getting those bookings, that’s where you could be able to utilize that email list and give those little like, um, um, discounts or, or rebates or whatever you want to call it. And that could be a great strategy to help with your revenue management.

Fill up a lot of those nights that you otherwise are having a little bit harder time on the OTAs.

 Gil: Yeah, that’s actually one of the use cases I wanted to kinda to bring up with, with you as a revenue management standpoint there. Like when you have these last minute openings, when you’re on the OTAs or you’re completely on the OTAs and you don’t have a list, it’s hard for you to be able to fill that last minute gap there.

You’re probably going to have a discount pretty heavily to even get shown, because almost everybody is probably gonna be discounting in order to get that last minute, like especially if you’re in. Less than seven days and you’re, and you still have a gap there that you wanna fulfill, you’re probably gonna be lowering the prices to your bottom, uh, at that point.

 Dan: Yeah, and you better, better. Her off one. One of the tips we give our clients, because we don’t do direct guest communication, although we may start off in the service we’ll see just to help our clients, is um, if you have that orphan night, it’s a Wednesday and you have the booking till Tuesday and the other one Thursday through the weekend, reach out to both of those bookings and try to get them to fill that, that orphan night, those gap nights.

Because even if you got a discount at 50%, you’re already paying your cleaning fee. You already have your other cost. You might as well fill that last night with one of the people already staying there, and that’s almost. Pretty much straight cash to the bottom line at that point.

 Gil: It is, it is. Yeah. We have auto, we have automations in place with the, the, the AI messaging tool that we use. And I think even before that, our PMS had orphan nights and ability to send messages out. Like everybody should be sending out orphan night messages. Um, we did do both a 14 day orphan night. Seven day where we got more aggressive in the types of the, the discounts that we would apply on.

So I think in the very beginning we would give you like 15% off, but if it got to seven days, we’ll give you 30% off that gap. And for us, it’s worth it. Like yes, we we’re probably not getting the x hundred dollars x hundreds of dollars that we’re getting, but we’re still getting 70% of that. Would otherwise stay vacant.

And we have an awesome cleaning crew where they don’t need to have multiple days. We have a good maintenance crew that comes in during that time there. So like from an operations perspective, we like having gap days is not good for us and we don’t utilize those gap days all that well because our team is pretty efficient at that.

So I definitely think like if you can fill those orphan days by just giving discounts, that’s good. And then if you also can. Leverage your past guests and can message them in about wider gaps, like three, two to three day gaps that you have. Those are great ones to give discounts for, and it doesn’t take a whole lot, like you’re not gonna have to heavily discount as much as you do on the OTAs because when the OTAs, you’re competing at bottom line pricing across the entire market there.

Whereas if you’re blasting someone that’s in your email list. If they’re not comparing it against Airbnb prices across the entire market there, they’re thinking about, oh, this is actually a great stay for a pretty good rate there.

 Dan: Yeah. In their mind they’re like, I had a really great experience there. This is a good rate. Let’s go have this experience again. And that’s what you’re painting that picture when you’re reaching out to those guests versus you’re right competing that, that race to the bottom in the, uh, the OTA market. But, um, I mean that’s why you, obviously you want as many of your bookings and that optimal booking windows.

You can and have strategies accordingly and fill these ahead of time, but. There’s no perfect strategy. You’re always gonna have these, you know, orphan gap nights that you wanna fill. Um, and these are some strategies to kind of maximize that revenue. I agree.

 Gil: Yeah, and I’m glad, I’m glad that you’re encouraging, especially some of your, you mentioned like super properties there, like the really well amenitized ones, those. Do really, really well on direct booking. So I am glad that you’re, you’re advising your, your clients to. And I also like, it’s not just direct, but like, I think ultimately you want to diversify even if it’s on across all the different OTAs.

Um, and. Some of them are easier or harder to get traction on. Like VRBO is one of those, like our, it’s a bit harder to get traction on, but if you do get traction on it, you get love from VRBO for an extended period of time. But if you don’t, it’s really hard to get any attention from them. I don’t know if that that’s what you’ve seen, but from my, my experience, like VRBO from a seasonal standpoint is a hit or miss.

It.

 Dan: Yeah. Yeah. The one thing we see about VRBL, they are adding some levers, which is good to compete with Airbnb as far as like, you know, let the state discounts and promotions that you could pull. Still nothing compared. Um, but yeah, Airbnb has, unfortunately, for the pros and cons of Airbnb, it still has the most levers that you can go in and pull and make adjustments.

Um, to try to get those, you know, those, those optimal bookings, fill up those booking windows, get those last minute discounts. Um, so, but yeah, I do recommend, I, I mean, direct booking, however you’re booking it doesn’t matter. Like our job is ultimately the, you know, we’re pricing it, we’re doing all these revenue management strategies.

It goes hand in hand with marketing. If you get 85% to direct bookings, you still want to price it, right? You still wanna make sure that you’re properly, um, handling your revenue management side of things. It doesn’t matter to us if you get 85% through. Direct booking site, or 85% through Airbnb. Our job is still to make sure that you’re priced properly and maximizing that opportunity.

So, um, to us it’s like, I wanna do what’s best for that client.

 Gil: Yep. Yep. Um, there’s been a big shift in how Airbnb specifically, they, they now badge their properties and their hosts there. I wanna talk, I want you to kind of, and I, I’m interested in hearing what, what, what you’ve seen on your side. Uh, on whether or not, like, for instance, Superhost is still as relevant as it was four or five years back.

Um, I, I have the sense that it’s Superhost badge is like almost, it’s almost a status quo now. Like you need to have, have that, um, and it’s no longer a differentiator. I’m interested in hearing what you, what you think.

 Dan: Yeah. What we are seeing and what affects the algorithm. Um, people talk all the time that they know the algorithm, they’ve cracked it and they could fix it. This, it’s always adjusting all these algorithms, all these, um, methods of where you’re gonna have the, you know, the highest, um, search rankings, et cetera, is always changing and adjusting.

And this is a, the prime example. Superhost used to be one of those. Um, algorithm, um, items that if you were a Superhost you would probably be up in the search rankings most often, et cetera, et cetera. Now we’re seeing guest favorite is actually kind of the outlier, and that’s what’s tracking better on, uh, at least Airbnb.

Uh, the guest favorite. Um, people who are guest favorites seem to have, um, a better chance in the Airbnb algorithm for the search rankings and, and, and moving up on search rankings and being more bookable and, and really maximizing that revenue. So it’s become the new, uh, Superhost is the guest favorite and exactly how to get it.

We haven’t figured that out yet, but it obviously, it does have to do with ratings response time. Are you dealing with maintenance issues? Like there’s a lot of factors that go into. Um, that we’re seeing, like, it’s not just straight ratings that gets you, that. It’s like you’re, you know, again, response time.

How are you handling, um, guest communications and concerns? Have anybody? Uh, one thing that we’re pretty certain is affecting it are people putting complaints or any, uh, insurance claims or any issues through Airbnb against your brother. Like that’s gonna affect you becoming a guest favorite. Even if you have the high star rating, if they’re going to Airbnb and have, um, issues and they go directly to them, that seems to be affecting as well.

But guest favorite seems to be the new Superhost.

 Gil: Yeah, and I, I, I hear you on, on that one. I originally thought that, oh, anyone that has 4.9 and above on that specific property would automatically get it, um, or 4, 9 3 or whatever the threshold was. And I’ve noticed that across the board as the program was rolling out. Some properties, some of our properties Got it.

Some of our properties didn’t, and some of the properties that had even like lower scores Got it. Versus the other ones. And so it’s, I don’t know if it’s market dependent, um, but I, I have this feeling like you mentioned that it’s actually based off of multiple signals. They’re probably also reading. The sentiment of your messages and whether or not someone reports it an issue or not, if they’re claiming it or they’re talking about it, and when they’re checking in, that has influence on whether or not this is a guest favor.

At least if I was a product manager at Airbnb, like I would take that as a signal of whether or not, I guess it’s having a good time there.

 Dan: Yep. And I, I, I also think, and I, I could be wrong here, but we see this too, like the amount of bookings you have, like we were talking about direct bookings versus Airbnb and VRBO, uh, the one. Uh, there’s so many positives about the direct bookings, but the one thing that could, uh, is the algorithm. If like Airbnb’s not getting a ton of bookings for like two month span, ’cause you’re getting more direct bookings, that kind of mess with the algorithm.

Does that mess with the guest favorite? We’re not sure. It doesn’t mean that it’s gonna. Necessarily hurt you. It’s still gonna be better for your overall revenue management plan, but that just could affect it a little bit. And you just gotta switch things up and, and keep the algorithm moving. So they’re always changing.

You don’t really know the answer, and that’s why you need someone or do it yourself. Someone that’s looking at the stuff daily and just adjusting with the times. Yep.

 Gil: Yeah. And I bet you, like, I think one things, and I don’t know if you do this already, but like as a revenue manager, um, giving feedback to the homeowner or the property manager that like, yes, we can control the, the pricing, but. The ensuring that you continue to get extremely good ratings is highly important in order for you to meet your revenue and occupancy targets that you have.

 Dan: Oh, 100%. That’s where, that’s where I think we do a really good job as far as going to them. Not only that, just given like recommendations like on. Obviously the guest rating’s huge. They say something like every 1.1%, um, below, so from like five to 4.9% could lose like 10% in revenue potential for that property, which is crazy of the opportunity on some of these.

Yeah, so it’s, you need to have those 4.8, 4.9 ratings and above to really drive that revenue. Um, super important, but we also go above and beyond as far as like. I think what else is important is like cancellation policy. We’re seeing that that directly impacts your revenue potential. So if you have a really stringent cancellation policy, ’cause you’re nervous about, you know, losing that revenue, it’s actually costing you revenue ’cause it’s gonna mess with your algorithm.

Now if you’re 85% booked on your direct booking site, doesn’t matter as much, but if you’re really heavily relying on the OTAs, it’s gonna have more of an impact. Um, so just understanding that.

 Gil: That’s interesting. That’s interesting. Awesome. Dan, we usually end the show with three different questions. Um, uh, think this is a great time for, for me to ask those to you. What’s been one book that has inspired you or changed your life in, in some sort of way? Okay.

 Dan: Yeah, I’m gonna go with, and I have it handy here, the book Worthy by Jamie Kern Lima. Uh, this is more of a life book and it really, long story short, I have a past of, you know, I was a little bit of a punk in the past. I have a history where I, like, it took me. Almost 40 years to forgive myself of who I was, my past version of myself.

It wasn’t all bad, but like it took me a while to forgive myself and build self-confidence and self-worth. And that book really helped me just understand the difference between self-confidence, self-worth, and helped me ultimately build that, um, worthiness that I have today.

 Gil: Nice. Is that a, I always ask this question, is this a good audio book, like a Kindle, a good hard copy version of it? What would you recommend on this one?

 Dan: I actually have the hard copy and I like it so that I could underline stuff. ’cause I’m more of an audible person, but I’m, I’m kind of, I kinda go back and forth. This one, I’d say probably, yeah, I’d say probably the hard copy. I like it.

 Gil: Nice, nice. I have a cheat. I have a cheat sheet where any mindset book by default, I’ll get the auto audible version because I have basically 12 months of, I have 12 credits a year that I have to use up. Um, so I’m gonna have to use it anyways. Um, so I always get, I always get mindset books because. I find, especially like I’m taking a walk or whatever, it helps me be able to, I get them as like energy boosters more than anything else.

Yes, I’ll learn something from ’em, but they’re, they’re mindset books are huge energy boosters. Um, if I really love a a, a book, then I’ll also buy the hard copy version of it. Um,

 Dan: I’m, I’m with you on that. Yeah. Especially if it’s a good book that, let’s do like Green Lights, Matthew McConaughey, who doesn’t wanna hear his voice. Like I’m per,

 Gil: Oh yeah.

 Dan: Yeah.

 Gil: Have you?

 Dan: Oh yeah. I love that. I love that book.

 Gil: Yeah, I, I’ve listened to, I’ve probably listened to a few hours if I didn’t get through the entire entire audio book, but it was actually kind of nice to have. He has a very, like, mellow tone.

 Dan: Yeah,

 Gil: Yeah.

 Dan: he’s gotta do all audibles.

 Gil: Yeah. Uh, Dan, second question. What’s one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new?

 Dan: Um, take the cheat code, go find someone who’s done it, who’s done it well, and learn from them. And more than anything, don’t listen to anybody else who hasn’t done it. You’re gonna have a thousand people tell you how to do something that they’ve never done because they’ve read a book or saw it online.

Follow the people who have done it. Get around them, be around them. Work for them for free if you have to, and just take their blueprint because they’re a proven, um, success in whatever you’re going after.

 Gil: Yeah, I wanna, I wanna like riff on that a little bit. I found that if you find someone that is just two steps ahead of you.

 Dan: Mm-hmm.

 Gil: Where you want to go. Those are the most valuable people to surround, surround yourself with because they’re close enough to where you are today to give you very tactical advice. I find that if I’m starting a company right now, if I talk to Jeff Bezos, like he’s not gonna give me relevant information that I can actually move on because he has like, he’s just way out there.

But if I talk to any of the startup founders that I’ve had a chance to work with, they’re probably in their, they’ve raised. A couple million dollars. They have done what I’ve done already and they’re close enough to it. They can tell you, working with investors, this is what you should expect. This is what the cap table looks like.

This is how you build out your leadership team. Like they have very tactical things that I can put into practice where if you lean on someone that is, has done it and has done it so many more times, it’s gonna be a hard time for one them to give you the time of day, but two for them to remember the pains that you’re going through right now.

 Dan: Yeah. No, that’s, that’s a great point. And you’re right. I mean, you’re not gonna go. Find someone running a hundred million dollar company and you’re, you’re at a hundred thousand dollars in revenue and that’s the person to follow. So I absolutely agree it’s someone who’s done what you’ve done, um, but not at that extreme level.

But it is hard for the average person to go talk to a Jeff Bezo, Elon Musk. So for the most part, you’re gonna go to that other small business that’s succeeding. Yeah, that’s a good point though. Yeah.

 Gil: is, but it’s more so, like I, a lot of times, like I, I do, I do a ton of reading, I do a ton of research there, and it’s good to like idolize and think about like, what would, what would Steve Jobs do, what would Bezos do? What would all those people do? But they’ve done so many different other things that they can do.

Things that I just don’t have the skillset to yet to put into practice there. So even if you have a virtual mentor, and I know a lot of folks have been like. Creating AI agents that are personas of whoever they’re trying to learn from, and they’re giving them playbooks on it. I just kind of like caution folks, like, really, if you want really good advice, find someone that’s so intimate to your problem and can understand you, and can empathize you.

Those are the most valuable people to, to, to link up with.

 Dan: Oh, 100%. Great advice right there. Yeah.

 Gil: Yeah. Uh, last question. We talked about a lot of different tactics, a lot of different strategies, uh, both on the direct bookings and on the, on the revenue management side. What’s one tactical advice that our listeners could put into practice today to either get started in direct bookings or to amplify the direct bookings?

 Dan: Uh, tactical advice to get certain direct bookings. Um. Hire you. There we go. The the craft day for the direct bookings. But no, seriously, I always say, um, in any aspect of your short term rental, whether it’s the guest experience. The revenue management or the marketing, what are you great at? Why did you get into it?

Most people, it’s a guest experience, so go find a great revenue manager and go find a great company who has a proven track record like yourself and the marketing side, just, but get someone who’s great, like we talked about earlier, like no more being good, good doesn’t make you money anymore in short term rentals.

It doesn’t do it in business. You need to be great. So be great in every area and go find the people you know, like Gil, like myself in the other areas. That are great at what they do, and that’s when you’re gonna see your true revenue, your true potential of your property. It doesn’t matter the whole potential of your property.

It’s gonna be exciting ’cause you’re gonna build this business out and be great instead of good.

 Gil: Yeah. And even as, as you’re building your business, don’t feel like you have to build your business and do everything and offer services for everything. We only focus on websites. We focus on high converting websites. We are focused on SEO. Now a e, o and GEO where we’re making sure that our, our customer’s properties are showing up in search.

But we don’t do any ads. We don’t do any social media like email marketing campaigns or there are a ton of other people in the industry that can do it way better than us. And we have customers asking us all the time, can you help me with these things? And I’m like, I can help you find the right person that fits who where you are.

But I’m not that person to help you with that, with that goal right now. Um, and that has, that has freed us to really get good at what we’re, what we’re doing and continue to serve our customers in that way. So like that applies to you building out your portfolio. It applies to your business. Um, just what was, what’s the book be so good that they can’t ignore it?

I forgot what the, the exact title of it is. Um, but that’s something

 Dan: Is it good? The great, it was good. The great, right? That book. I think it was good. The great scaling up also talks about getting rid of all the, the, the noise and just being hyper-focused on one thing. Um, I

 Gil: there’s the one thing. There’s the one thing.

 Dan: be, be so unique and outstanding that there’s no competition. I have the quote and I don’t remember that book.

I don’t remember what book it was.

 Gil: The, the one that I’m thinking about, and I read this a long while back, it was so good. They can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport.

 Dan: Okay. I don’t know that

 Gil: New Cal. Yeah. Cal Newport’s a good one. Uh, he’s written three or four different, like big books. He’s probably written more, but he’s big on like being really good at your craft.

He was about digital minimalism a long while ago because like there was this big. This is back in like 2014 when there’s a lot of No, and it’s more so now there’s a lot of noise that gets surrounded by us, so like really decluttering so that you can get into your zone of genius type of things. But like, yeah, Cal Newport is a really, really good author.

 Dan: Geez, it was ahead of his time. That’s it. De detoxing from, uh, tech right now. It’s not a bad thing.

 Gil: it’s, it’s probably a ton harder than, than before.

 Dan: yeah. Yeah, because you, you do need it in business, but you also need at least a couple hours a day that you just turn everything off. Just go enjoy life. Yeah. Yeah.

 Gil: Yeah, you just wait until, uh, philanthropic or che BT goes down for a couple hours and there goes your, your, your, your mind, your mindset time.

 Dan: Oh.

 Gil: awesome. Dan. It was a huge pleasure having you on the show and getting to know you in front of our audience, um, and really understanding kind of like your journey.

And kind of the reasons why you pivoted from, uh, just acquiring more and more properties to really honing down into where you add value, how you wanna serve the community, and, and things that kind of just you’re excited about. So I’m, I’m super thrilled to hear like it’s not always about more doors, more and more doors.

Like there are other things that you can do once you get a sizable amount of assets and how you wanna spend your life.

 Dan: Oh, 100%. I think that’s so important. Um, there’s so many people out there that emulate. All these, you know, the Brandon Turners or the Grant Cardones, and they’re amazing. You know, they’re amazing. They built this empire, but that doesn’t have to be for you. Find your happiness, your joy, build that, and, you know, live the life that you wanna live, not someone else’s life.

It’s just, I, I’ve just noticed it took me years, but once I figured that out, that is like a true key to happiness. Like I tell people all the time, I’m not the wealthiest person in the world, but when it comes to happiness and like my life, I’m the wealthiest person. I could pick up my daughter anytime I want at her school.

I can do whatever I want, and I live a perfect life. So I hope, I hope most of your listeners can hit that goal as well and be truly happy.

 Gil: Yeah. Yeah. I I love that. I love that. Awesome. Dan. Till next time, it’s, I appreciate it.

 Dan: Cheers.