Own Your Audience, Own Your Business: How to Take Control of Your Bookings with Madeleine Raiford-Holland

Summary and Highlights

Owning Your Audience is Non-Negotiable

One of Madeleine’s strongest beliefs is that short-term rental hosts must control their audience instead of relying on Airbnb or VRBO. She emphasized how capturing guest emails, building a strong brand, and creating direct relationships with guests are essential for long-term success.

Madeleine compared this to Instagram, explaining that your followers on social media are essentially rented audiences—you don’t control when or how they see your content. In contrast, an email list is an owned audience because you can reach them directly anytime.

She emphasized that successful direct booking hosts must actively collect and nurture guest emails to build long-term loyalty and reduce dependence on OTAs.

“If you’re relying on OTAs, you’re just renting an audience. The real power comes when you own the relationship with your guests.”

Affiliate Marketing: Turning Guests into Buyers

Direct bookings aren’t just about avoiding OTA fees—they also open up new revenue opportunities. Madeleine has integrated affiliate marketing into her rental business, generating over six figures in affiliate revenue last year alone.

Her properties now feature QR codes that link guests directly to products they’ve enjoyed during their stay, creating a passive revenue stream. By making her rentals shoppable, guests can purchase everything from linens to appliances, all while driving additional income for the host.

Direct Booking Starts with the Right Systems

A huge takeaway from our conversation was the importance of implementing a Property Management System (PMS) from day one. Madeleine is a strong advocate of Hostfully, which she credits for streamlining her operations and keeping her business scalable.

By automating guest communication, syncing calendars across platforms, and integrating dynamic pricing tools, hosts can run a professional and efficient short-term rental business while focusing on growth.

Rapid-Fire Questions with Madeleine

Towards the end of the episode, Gil asked Madeleine three insightful questions:

• What’s one book recommendation that changed your perspective?
  “Atomic Habits by James Clear. The concept of habit stacking has been a game-changer for me.”
• What’s one mindset tip for someone starting something new?
  “You don’t have to be an expert to get started. You just have to take the next best step.”
• What’s one tactical direct booking strategy hosts should apply today?
  “In your OTA listing title, add your brand name at the end—like ‘By MHM Luxury Properties.’ This helps guests find and book directly with you.”

These simple but powerful insights highlight how small adjustments can lead to long-term success in direct bookings.

Listen to the Full Episode
Madeleine shared even more strategies, from navigating local regulations to maximizing profitability. Don’t miss out this 51st episode special of Direct Booking Simplified, now rebranded to Booked Solid

🎧 Listen to the full episode here

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Transcription

Madeleine: The difference between your followers on Instagram versus if you’re running a business and have an email list, your Instagram audience is a rented audience because Mark Zuckerberg and company controls who sees your post when they see it. All of that. You’re reliant on an algorithm. You have no control over.

Madeleine: Rented audience. Your email list is an audience that you can type an email out and send to you at any time and it’s going to show up in their inbox because they have opted in. That is an audience you own, you control. Airbnb, Vrbo, your rented audience. It is their job to bring you a guest for the first time and then it is your job, once they stay with you, to keep them coming back.

Madeleine: Booking directly for the next 10 stays because you’ve captured their email. They understand how to get in touch with you and you’ve directed them to their direct booking site and created a sticky customer. That’s how you own your audience in short term rentals. And it’s so important to leverage all the tools that you have in your playbook to get people to book directly.

Gil: Hey folks, welcome back. We actually just rebranded the show. The show is now called book solid. I’m super excited about it And the reason why is actually through the life cycle of actually publishing the show. There’s actually a lot of depth in Not just direct bookings, but really how do you market yourself more effectively across all the marketing channels?

So I’m delighted to kind of rebrand the show We actually have a special guest with us this time Madeline Raiford, I’m excited to have her on the show. I just met her recently She is a big proponent of book direct. She actually has a a one week course that she’s going to be running through next week, which I’m excited for her to kind of share with us.

But she has an amazing story. She has a lot of dedication into really the book direct movement, but she also has some unique ways that she’s approaching it as well too. not just the typical marketing side of things, which I really love because I find that a lot of folks get into this industry from many different verticals and they also bring in.

Um, and so she, outside of her W2 job, she had a side hustle where she was building out her own personal brand. and when she really got into short term rentals, she brought along that experience. So I’ll have her share that in there. So I’m actually really delighted to have her on the show. So without further ado, let’s kind of bring her in.

Gil: Hey, Madeline, welcome to the show.

Madeleine: Thanks so much for having me, Gil. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Gil: Yeah. I’m glad we’re able to track you. I know you’ve been really busy. I know you have a bunch of things ramping up over the next few weeks, which we’ll definitely get into, but I’m really delighted to have you on the show.

Madeleine: Excited to be here. Let’s dive in.

Gil: Yeah. So for folks that may not know about you, can you give a kind of brief introduction on who you are?

Madeleine: Yeah, so, um, my name’s Madeline, as you’ve already said, but I am the founder of MHM Luxury Properties. We are a boutique short term rental company. We started back in 2021, but we’ve scaled to seven figures. While that is a really fun number to say, I am Way more proud of the fact that we’ve been able to do that with time freedom and a really high level of profitability and now I also run my own community and mastermind over at MRH education where we teach other families and short term rental hosts how to either start or optimize existing short term rental businesses.

Gil: Very nice. I mean, there’s a lot that I want to dive into, but prior to 2021, what was life like for you? What were you focused on then?

Madeleine: Yeah, I was a COO of a government contracting company. Believe it or not, high security identification. I am one of, you know, five people in the world who has this triple A certification in the security printing world. Meaning, you know, I’m an expert in like, credit card manufacturing, high security identification.

Madeleine: Like, so, but, you know, that part aside, what it meant on a day to day basis was I was spending hundreds of nights a year in hotels making other people a bunch of money. Um, and I was missing out on the moments that mattered the most to me and my family. My husband was also in government sales, and we had this moment of sitting at the dinner table with our 10 month old son, it was our first, our first son, and we just said, you know what?

Madeleine: Something’s got to give. We have got to start building something for ourselves, and, you know, I think a lot of people can relate to that, because not many kids. You don’t ask them and say, Hey, what do you want to be when you grow up? And they say, Oh, I want to be a short term rental host. Like, that never comes out of a kid’s mouth.

Madeleine: I think a lot of us come to being a host from other occupations. And so my story’s not very different from most. We just drew a line in the sand and said, You know what? Something’s got to give. And we had this period of exponential growth. And I had to put on my COO hat. And I really created something that I only spend a couple of hours a week in that short term rental business, and it’s just highly profitable, which I’m really proud of.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. What was, um, What was the transition like? So I’m guessing you didn’t go cold Turkey and left your w two and went straight and decided in the next morning to go in short term rentals. There’s probably a transition between that.

Madeleine: No, we started hosting first, so we opened our first property in 2021. It was so wildly successful that we opened five more in the next six months. It was a lot. I don’t recommend it. And, I tell this story, um, We bought our first, it was new construction, we bought it from a builder. And I told this builder, You know what, if you ever have any more projects, think of me first.

Madeleine: Like, I’m, you’re, what you’re doing really works for what we’re doing. So, he called me and said, hey, I’ve got, you know, a few lots, You want to get in on it while the getting’s good? John, my husband, and I had a conversation and said, Yeah, we’ll, we’ll take one of them. And then, John went out of town. The builder called me back and said, hey, deal fell through on a second one.

Madeleine: Do you guys want it? It’s the exact same floor plan. I knew the numbers would work. I’m like, yeah, give me, give me a few hours. I got to get ahold of John. Couldn’t get ahold of him. He wouldn’t pick up the phone. And so I called the builder back because he was putting some pressure. I said, yeah, we’ll take the second one.

Gil: That was a costly missed call.

Madeleine: yes. And so, we always call that property as the Oh, by the way, I bought a second house property. Um, but, don’t recommend it, but it all worked out in the end. But yes, he should have, she should have picked up that

Gil: I mean, if he, if he did not pick, if he picked up that phone, it might’ve been different and maybe you wouldn’t have gotten as much cashflow as you do now.

Madeleine: That’s what I’m saying. It all worked out in the end, but I don’t necessarily recommend buying a house on an Oh, by the way.

Gil: Yeah.

Madeleine: So.

Gil: Wow. And what market was that in?

Madeleine: That was in Athens, Georgia.

Gil: Okay. I don’t know many to

Madeleine: town.

Gil: I don’t know many, many hosts there. What’s the clientele like there? Like, who are you hosting to most of the time?

Madeleine: So, it’s a, are you familiar with the University of Georgia?

Gil: Vaguely.

Madeleine: Vaguely. Okay. So, it’s a huge college football school. We run, we won national championships a couple years ago, back to back. So, it’s parents traveling to visit their kids. It’s people who are coming back to watch football games. We cover all of our expenses for the year in six home football game

Gil: No way.

Madeleine: we stay 80 percent occupancy, like occupied the rest of the year.

Gil: Wow.

Madeleine: But don’t be listening to this thinking you’re going to come over into Athens because since then they have put a crap ton of regulations we’re grandfathered in. It’s like this whole thing. So don’t think that I’m just giving this hot tip of, Everybody come over to Athens because they have put the kibosh on it.

Gil: Which is good for you, I guess, because that also limits, uh, Encaps your, uh, competitiveness.

Madeleine: You’re abs You’re absolutely right about that. But they’ve made our lives living hell since then.

Gil: Really?

Madeleine: Yeah.

Gil: So even, even though his grandfather didn’t, you, You’re having challenges kind of keeping that license?

Madeleine: It’s not that. It’s, It’s ongoing lawsuits because what they’re doing isn’t, Um,

Gil: Oh.

Madeleine: don’t know how comfortable I feel getting into it, since the situation is ongoing. Um, but, yeah.

Gil: and more so I think in a lot of metro areas, especially folks are now pivoting towards from short term rentals, even into midterm rentals, because there’s just when you buy the asset, especially if you’re not arbitraging, you’re not closing, you’re buying the asset there, you’re holding on to it.

Gil: It’s not like you can easily flip it out. And so folks are trying to figure out, Are there other ways I can continue to get revenues from this while making sure that I stay in compliance?

Madeleine: Mid term rentals are absolutely allowed there. We have a couple that we’ve converted over to that. Um, yeah, it’s just been an interesting situation. In this particular market, I, most of the time they’re easy to navigate and other things. I think they’re just trying to get their footing and they, they’re not sure what they can and cannot enforce with other things going on,

Gil: I think that’s that’s with a lot of counties, to be honest, because like there’s not meant like you go through it once within one county or maybe multiple times, but that knowledge is not shared about like what we should be doing. What is the rules like? What’s our stance on this? So they’re all trying to figure it out on their own.

Gil: And it’s not usually the opinion of one person, but usually a community of people. So you have to just have a mixture of kind of gray area.

Madeleine: Totally. And that’s where it’s hard to operate a business in a gray area.

Gil: Yeah, I hear you.

Madeleine: Um, yes and no. We’ve, I mean, we are, our, Properties are located across three states. So Athens is one of the markets that we’re in. Um, I’m not actively acquiring in Athens anymore. Um, even Grandfathered Inn we have, like, five years.

Madeleine: Um,

Gil: Oh, it ends.

Madeleine: that is the part that is being litigated currently. Ha, ha,

Gil: like we’re in. I’m in Northern California, and one of the big places that were grandfathered in was Lake Tahoe, which is one of the one of the big vacation spots in the Bay Area. Um, but it’s really hard to get licenses if you don’t already have a license, and whoever does have one is grandfathered in.

Gil: They don’t. They do have a cap on it. I don’t know if all the counties met their cap yet, but they didn’t put a, uh, what do you call it? A Hole. A yearly limit or, uh, a cap on when it expires there, as long as you have it, you can transfer it. But as long as you have it, you can continue to use it. So that’s like as a host or as a homeowner, you feel comfortable staying in there as long as you don’t need to sell it.

Gil: As long as you can actually sell it at a later point for higher than you bought it, you’re in a comfortable position because the supply is not going to grow. Yeah,

Madeleine: Um, when we got into the market there was no, Essentially, no regulation, and now they’re coming in and putting a quote unquote sunset clause behind it, and that’s what is being litigated,

Gil: gosh.

Madeleine: currently. So, cautionary tale, folks, just don’t come to Athens. Yes, the gittin is good while the gittin’s good.

Madeleine: And those mar the properties are highly profitable. Um, but, yeah, it’s one of those where we I wouldn’t hear my numbers and say, come on over, come to Athens, the water’s fine.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. Um, so you’re in two other markets. You also have different strategies in terms of hosting. It sounds like you’re a homeowner, so you own the properties themselves, but you also do other strategies as well to talk to me about

Madeleine: Yeah, so we’re big on adding multiple streams of revenue to every property. So, I mentioned that I spent a lot of time in hotels as a COO. While I was Doing that and traveling all over the country, I started a lifestyle website called Moderately High Maintenance, which happens to be the MHM in MHM Luxury Properties.

Madeleine: But that website, I was just sharing my travel experiences, different recipes, you know, things that brought me joy. And through that, I cultivated these relationships and did brand partnership deals where I shared You know, products from household names like Delta Airlines, Target, All Modern, Purple Mattress, and when I decided to open our first short term rental, I said, what if I could take all of these products that I’d shared and put them into this property so that people could have a physical experience of what I’ve been sharing digitally.

Madeleine: So that knowledge that I had taken from That lifestyle website, I knew how to create affiliate marketing, and I was able to make everyone’s stay shoppable for every single property. And that’s been a huge revenue driver on top of our nightly booking revenue.

Gil: Wow. That’s amazing. And so how do you, how do you sustain this? Like, so what, what are the systems that you have in place? And I think. You may have mentioned this, but this is also part of their coaching program as well, too.

Madeleine: Absolutely. So, we’re big on direct booking. So, we, of course, have different pages associated with each property on our direct booking website. Um, but we also have QR codes in our welcome book and we have links that we send folks of like, hey, did you fall in love with something during your stay? Um, scan the QR code and take it home with you.

Madeleine: And that takes them to a page on our direct booking website where it has photos and all of the lists of things that we. Have in the properties and they can shop them and then we earn a percentage of that. So that’s fully passive after you set it up once the first time. Um, but I mean, we’re big on having a PMS from day one, whether you have one property or you have 100 properties, like start with the right systems and processes in place from day one.

Madeleine: We’re big. We’re big host fully folks over in my mentorship, and I know that you guys at crafted saves work with them and have some exciting things coming up with them. But, um, I think it’s key to be able to. Like, systematize and automate as much as you can in this business.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. And you didn’t expose this yet, but I’m guessing this is not pennies and dollars that you’re talking about of affiliate revenue that you’re getting back. There’s maybe even a comma in there.

Madeleine: Uh, yes, um, we did over six figures in revenue, in affiliate revenue last

Gil: That is

Madeleine: from people shopping their stays. So they’re like, people ask me, is it worth my time? It seems like a lot of work for a little bit of money, I’m like, six figures? Is it worth your time? I don’t know. You, only you can answer that question.

Gil: did you break down the, uh, average revenue per stay on, on that one?

Madeleine: I didn’t. I didn’t. It’s, there are different affiliate platforms. So there’s Like to Know It, there’s Magic Links, there’s Amazon Associates, and so it’s coming from a lot of different pools. So it’s hard for me to track like which one is coming from which stay on which property because from Like an operational standpoint.

Madeleine: Certain links, I have a lot of the same beds in every property. I use the same sheets in every property, so it’s hard for me to break it down. But I, I guess I could probably take all of the stays across the portfolio, take the total number and just get a really rough

Gil: what I’m thinking. I’m thinking like, okay, if I were to have three stays, what will my revenue be? Would it still be six figures? Would it be five figures or whatever?

Madeleine: Great question. I’ll have to get back with you on that math. You know, public math is not my, my jam, you

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. I did not expect that revenue to be so, so big. Um, and it’s interesting now that like, it feels like in the past few years, direct bookings, yes, it’s on saving on fees, but it starts to open up new experiences as well, too. And. Um, and there’s a few others, the host co, like they’re figuring out how to actually make the experience much more branded and much more immersive than before. And it sounds like you’re doing very, some very similar where you’re not just thinking about how do you actually make sure that that person has a great stay, but how do you actually make it so that they get to make the most out of it? And also you get some money out of it too.

Madeleine: For sure, and we’re big proponents of the Host Co. Um, over at my program as well. I like Mount as well, but Host Co. is just what I personally use, and I think any way that you can elevate a guest’s experience, that you can provide extra value. Guests have already said yes one time by coming and booking your property.

Madeleine: If they love it, Give them more opportunities to say yes to you, and that’s what adding those additional revenue streams does, and you just happen to add additional revenue on top of it. And what I, what I think is important to note when we’re looking at these additional revenue streams is they’re not going to fix a failing business.

Madeleine: They’re going to add on and complement a business that’s running well. And so, What I’m seeing be successful now are people who are not hobby hosts, but people who are treating this like a business. Who are, you know, prioritizing things like owning their audience with direct booking. Um, taking the time to professionalize themselves.

Madeleine: Having a property that stands out in a crowded market. That focuses on a high end guest experience. That’s taking it from first interaction all the way through the end of their stay. Those are the people who are being successful and who are going to be successful with adding things like affiliate revenue.

Madeleine: Because if you’re like sucking at life and missing check in messages and not taking the time to actually run your business professionally, you’re not going to have the consistency and the follow through to do well with affiliate marketing as well.

Gil: Yeah, I’ve noticed that difference too. And maybe it’s coming out of 2021, 22. We had a really big influx of hosts that came on to the market. A lot of people bought in that time, similar to the timeframe that we ended up buying and either one people didn’t enjoy it and went back to the W2 and still had passive income coming from the short term rentals, or you see the other side where.

Gil: People were starting to take it really seriously and think about, okay, how do I add amenities to make sure that I rise to the top? How do I take advantage of dynamic pricing? How do I start to build my brand? How do I start collecting emails? And there’s almost this divide of folks that really try to really maximize the asset that they already put in place and the folks that, okay, I’m really tired of this by, I’ve already purchased the asset.

Gil: I need to continue to, to operate it. So there’s like a huge divide between what I’m starting to see in 2025. Now

Madeleine: Absolutely. And I’ve noticed that as well. And I think that’s contributing quite a bit to, you know, all the news headlines about Airbnb bust. It’s like, oh, the industry’s failing. I’m like, no, the hobby hosts that should have never been in this business are failing. Those of us who are actually treating this like a business are having their best years ever.

Gil: I would, I would agree on that. I would say my revenues as much as like, so I’m in the Smokies, bless you. I’m in the, I’m in the Smokies and there’s been a huge increase in supply. But yet year over year, actually, our increase, our revenues have increased year over year. We have not seen a dip and knock on wood that doesn’t happen, but we’re not seeing that sharp decline that a lot of folks may be experiencing.

Gil: Yeah,

Madeleine: you don’t have to compete on price.

Gil: you mentioned something very interesting just now, um, owning your audience. What did you mean by

Madeleine: So, an example that most everybody will recognize is the difference between your followers on Instagram versus if you’re running a business and have an email list. Your Instagram audience is a rented audience because Mark Zuckerberg and company Controls who sees your post, when they see it, all of that, you’re reliant on an algorithm, you have no control over it.

Madeleine: Rented audience. Your email list is an audience that you can type an email out and send to you at any time, and it’s going to show up in their inbox, because they have opted in. That is an audience you own, you control. Airbnb, Vrbo, your rented audience. It is their job to bring you a guest for the first time.

Madeleine: And then it is your job, once they stay with you, to keep them coming back, booking directly, for the next 10 stays, because you’ve captured their email, they understand how to get in touch with you, and you’ve directed them to their direct booking site and created a sticky customer. That’s how you own your audience in short term rentals.

Madeleine: And it’s so important to leverage all the tools that you have in your playbook. To get people to book directly.

Gil: Yeah, it reminds me of like, when I think about the differences between book direct Versus being on the O. T. A. S. I always think of the O. T. A. S. As your transactions, you’re getting your next transaction from them. Um, but I think about direct bookings as something that compounds over time. You start to build that email list.

Gil: You start to build your social following. You start to build credibility. You start to really build your credibility. Nurture all the different channels and marketing and that gets better and better with each moment. Whereas On Airbnb you’re fighting specifically for the next day that next booking that comes in.

Madeleine: Absolutely. I mean, it’s, you know, you’re competing against every new property that shows up. And if you, the goal, the ultimate goal is to get somebody coming to your direct booking website before they ever go to Airbnb or Vrbo to the OTA. Because then you’ve eliminated all of the competition. It doesn’t matter how many people flood your market.

Madeleine: I have guests who call me and say, Hey, have you opened a property in X place yet? I only want to stay with you. Because we’ve crafted that experience.

Gil: yeah. Yeah, I I hear

Madeleine: that point, you’ve won.

Gil: I I love it when I get a direct booking guess

Gil: for us, we’re not in that many markets, but it’s amazing when I hear a guest that asked me whether or not I’m an X, Y, or Z market, and it makes me wonder whether or not I should be opening up shop in another, another market, but it also feels good to know that you give it, you delivered a great service to someone and they actually prefer to come back with you, not even knowing what the property might look like or what amenities you have in there.

Gil: They actually care about you as a host. And the experience that you were able to deliver the previous time. Yeah,

Madeleine: that we’ve done really well in our business is we’ve crafted a brand standard. So a guest knows if they stay at one of my properties, they’re going to get the same core luxury amenities, the same mattress, the same luxury organic cotton linens, um, the same fellow kettle, the same coffee setup.

Madeleine: You know, the things that are familiar to them, that’s all part of our brand standard. And we make a point to let them know. You get this at any one of our MHM luxury properties because just like Westin hotels have their heavenly bed, you know, people stay at certain hotels because they like the bedding setup because it’s standardized across the board.

Madeleine: We’ve created that within our own property portfolio and people like come to us because of that. And I think that’s what It’s so important when you’re thinking about crafting this business, when you’re starting with one, two, three properties, maybe even four, is like, what can I make unique about my brand to make people want to come back time and time and time again?

Gil: You didn’t explicitly say this, but I’m alluding that you’ve actually niched down quite a bit to folks that actually care about that luxury stay. It’s in your name, your brand name by itself there. So you’re explicitly Excluding folks. But you’re also including folks that really your properties are meant to be.

Gil: And I find that a lot of times the hosts that do really well, they really know who their ideal guest avatar is. They tried to understand what are they thinking about when they’re booking? What criteria they have? Where are they on on social media? Where do they absorb their content? What do they what do they care about?

Gil: Um, and they use that content. To monetize their place. They use that to generate the right content that’s on the web page, the imagery, the things that they put into their emails that go out, it ends up becoming part of that brand there. Um, it’s so important and I see us where it’s very easy right now with, with AI to create very generic content.

Gil: It’s very, very easy to make generic content, but you can still leverage a lot of those tools, but I think it really first starts off by understanding. What is the type of stay? Who do you want in your place and how do you actually develop that in a very cohesive manner so that it all kind of couples together?

Madeleine: Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you’re somebody who struggles with creating that guest avatar, I think the easiest place to start is reflecting on yourself. Like, if I were designing a property for me, so, a mom, I’ve got two kids, four and two, like, we travel because we want to do X, Y, and Z. Like, what do I look for when I’m looking for a property?

Madeleine: I want, in an ideal world, I don’t want to pack the whole house. So, do we have a crib? Do we have a sound machine? Do we have this? Do we have, like, it’s It’s niching down, and if you have a hard time figuring out what that avatar looks like, start with yourself, and then go towards something else. Because it can be a bit of a hard avatar to think through, um, but it’s definitely doable, but that’s the exercise that I use when I’m trying to figure that out.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. It’s definitely a lot easier to craft your avatar when you are intimately, you know, that avatar very well.

Madeleine: Mm hmm. 

Gil: Um, so for us, and maybe we implicitly did this when we designed our place, but When we were staying at our places, we have two young kids. We want to make sure that it has all the amenities that we would want when we’re traveling there.

Gil: So it has the high chair, it has the pack and play. And eventually we just molded our properties, the amenities, the way we talk about things, the people that we try to attract towards who we are. Um, and that might change over time as we grow and we go into the next phase of life. But like our properties are well loved by. Folks that are very similar to us, where maybe they’re traveling with young kids from the ages of two to eight, and they need some of those safety guards in place. Or they need to make sure that it has everything you need when you’re traveling with young kids. Like we used to in the very beginning, we had to bring a lot of our kid utensils when you’re when you’re very young.

Gil: But if I know that I have a guest booking with me that has an infant, I immediately tell him we have a baby gate. We have a high chair. We have a pack in place. You don’t have to bring that with you.

Madeleine: Absolutely. And I, I, we’re the exact same way. We have all of the kids utensils, the rubber plates, you know, the high chair, the whole thing. And we show that in our listing photos, and I think that’s part of why we attract, you know, people very similar to us, but people who are going to appreciate the property.

Madeleine: Um, so yeah, I think that’s a great, great tidbit there.

Gil: Talk to me a little bit about some of the foundational pieces. You, you kind of alluded to this with working with influencers, email marketing, but as you’re going through your coaching course, are there fundamentals that you want to make sure that each one of your students really take away and they’re trying, they’re, they’re putting into practice.

Madeleine: Yeah, so we offer a lot of, like, a couple of different, uh, Aspects. My big thing is I want everybody to have a quality, personalized experience. So we have like small group coaching mentorships versus one on one mentorship for people who may not have any real estate experience but really want to take it to the next level.

Madeleine: Um, but my thing is I want people to one, prioritize their time. You don’t want to get into this business to create another job for yourself. So. One of the fundamentals is making sure that you have systems, processes, automations. You’re ready to outsource this and hire a virtual professional or an assistant.

Madeleine: Um, and you have all of the SOPs in place for that. That’s a huge thing that we focus on. But the other thing is adding multiple streams of revenue to your business. So we talked about the affiliate revenue, the Knowing how to charge for an early check and late checkout without being, you know, salesy about it.

Madeleine: Like, how do you still provide value but still get compensated for your services? There are so many ways that you can increase your profitability in this business and that’s what we are all about. So whether it’s a self directed course or in one of our coaching programs, um, it’s, it’s a focus on profitability and the freedom of time.

Gil: Yeah. Um, maybe I’m, uh, how do you say, assuming this, but I’m guessing that actually having a PMS in place is one of the things that when the foundational pieces that

Madeleine: Oh yeah, from day one. Absolutely day one. Like, do not open a property without a PMS. I think it’s just crucial for making sure that you’re not chasing yourself around the same situation. Like, unified guest calendar, unified inbox, door lock automations. Making sure that you have a way to do direct booking and do direct booking well.

Madeleine: Um, A PMS is, you know, absolutely integral from the, from day one.

Gil: Yeah, I agree. And even like within practice days, we actually, um, don’t support host or property managers that don’t have a PMS in place. So you, we, that’s one of the hard requirements is that we want to make sure that you’re stepping on a strong foundation because what we’ve seen. Is that if you don’t have a PMS in place, you don’t have a lot of the structures to take on direct bookings, payments, remittances, guest messaging, making sure that the rates are saying to availability is synced across all of them.

Gil: And maybe we can create all these things. But at that point, we’re then creating a PMS within our platform, which makes no sense because a lot of folks can do it way better than we can. So, like, usually when we have folks that are maybe a bit younger in their hosting journey. We usually direct them to start searching for their P.

Gil: M. S. And start their come back to us when you’re ready. Um, in most cases, folks do come back. Um, and they actually come back pretty, pretty quickly, too. I’m surprised nowadays how quickly you can get set up on when the P. M. S. Is it takes much quicker than when, when I first started.

Madeleine: Oh, yeah. It used to be a bear. You know, I, Shuffled through a few of the different ones before I landed on the one that I, um, currently use and love, um, but it was a hard learning process to figure out exactly the things that I wanted, the integrations I wanted, how to plug and play this and that, and the third, you know, it’s, it’s changed a lot in the last couple of years.

Gil: Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about, um, the affinity towards hostfully and for the listeners that may know, heard of hostfully, but not dive deep into it. Why do you choose hostfully over some of the other options?

Madeleine: I like Hostfully because they are still, they have, They work with all of the major players out there, and they’re still small enough to where they focus on quality, not just getting people through the door. Like, I can get a hold of somebody over there, their customer service, like, very quickly. But they integrate with everybody who I want to integrate with.

Madeleine: They have an amazing customer support team. Our reps over there go above and beyond to make sure their people are successful. And, um, I’ve just found that it’s, for the robustness of the platform, it’s still very easy to use.

Gil: Yeah. Are there any particular features that like you like learn to love a lot and, or, or rely on quite a bit?

Madeleine: I love that they have an integration directly with Google Vacations. That’s one thing that is fantastic over there. Um, toggling on that switch makes life so much easier without having to go through multiple things. Uh, we use our integration with Price Labs, with Jervis, the lock automations. And what I’ve found, they let the people who specialize in things specialize in the things that they specialize in.

Madeleine: What I’ve found with some of the other PMSs is they try to be a one stop shop. And they try to do the door lock integrations. They try to do everything under their umbrella. And it, they’re a jack of all trades, but they’re a master of none. And that is frustrating to me. So, I like that Hostfully has those integrations and they don’t try to do it all.

Madeleine: Because you end up having a better experience because the companies who are set out to do what they set out to do master it, you know?

Gil: Yeah.

Madeleine: Does that make sense?

Gil: Yeah, it does. It does. And I, I especially like the PMS is that were originated from host themselves and they live and breathe and they still host themselves,

Madeleine: Yeah.

Gil: like the founding team and a lot of the members, I found that those are the, the product companies that evolve the best, especially when times change as well, too.

Gil: Like a lot of folks are now getting into AI and how to implement it. And you can take it in many different directions, but I, I find that some of the companies that are like deeply ingrained in product property management, they know how to leverage AI in the most effective way. And they’re not just using it to add that badge that they’re now

Gil: using AI. I totally agree with you on the customer support side. And I see this a lot, even in our own business at aircraft to stays, we spend a lot of time on customer support and I try, and maybe this is just. My hosting side, me being a host, like if I get a message, I’m very inclined to answer as quickly as I can, because it’s important for me to, to make sure that I get back to my guests or my customers. So I definitely hear you on the customer support and it’s been actually very overwhelmingly positive because of that, because when you really tend to the guest or tend to the customer, there’s a much stronger affinity to. Support you. If things are when you’re still developing things or you’re still like going through things.

Gil: Um, I find that I have really candid conversations about what features should we be thinking about? How should we be thinking about growing? And my customers are very open to, like, giving me suggestions in a very, like, friendly way as well, too.

Madeleine: Love that. 

Gil: you’re working on something pretty soon, so this last session, you’re working on something pretty soon.

Gil: Hopefully we can get this show aired in time. So some of our listeners can catch that. But can you, uh, tease a little bit of, of what you’re, what you’re putting together?

Madeleine: Thank you for asking. So we are doing a live workshop and training, March 3rd through the 6th, where we are covering everything you need to know to increase profitability in your short term rental businesses. So it’s specifically for hosts who have at least one property, but you can Um, have as many as you want, but day one we are covering listing audits and how to make sure that you’re moving the needle.

Madeleine: Also some things that you can do on the OTAs to nod towards your direct booking website. The next day we’re covering social media for short term rentals, so how you can create a bio that, you know, goes to bookings. How you can direct people to, um, Book directly from your social media and actually grow on social media the third day.

Madeleine: We are covering influencer marketing How to create mutually beneficial partnerships with influencers to get in front of more eyeballs and then the fourth day We were covering all of the different affiliate avenues and how to make your property shoppable so It’s a really action packed four days, and then the last day is a live question and answer for me and my team so that we can really pour into you and your business.

Madeleine: Whatever you’ve learned that week and have questions on, we take the fifth day to do that. But, um, it’s a phenomenal thing. We have so many people who are like, I made one change and I got three bookings last night. You know, just, it’s amazing to see the transformations that people have from just a week.

Madeleine: An hour a day with us and the small but mighty changes that they’re able to make in their businesses.

Gil: That’s amazing. Um, will this be recorded or only live?

Madeleine: So it is a ticketed event, so the general admission ticket has access to the replays until the Sunday after the event. If you get a VIP ticket, you get 60 days of access to the replays.

Gil: Okay. Okay. And how many hours a day is it?

Madeleine: One hour a day.

Gil: Oh, that’s Everybody can, everybody can do an hour a day. Even if you can’t watch us live, you can, um, you can watch it that night and hopefully catch us live the next day.

Gil: yeah, that’s very consumable.

Madeleine: Mm hmm.

Gil: Awesome. I can’t wait to share that. I’m hoping that we can air this one just in time so that our listeners can take advantage of that because, I mean, that’s kind of why we started this podcast in the first place is to really help more and more hosts and property managers be successful at direct booking.

Gil: So we try to bring on the brightest minds in the industry, folks have done really well and. Most folks actually have actually all the folks that we brought on the show have been very welcoming at sharing their experiences. Um, that’s one of the things I actually really like about industry. There’s like, there’s no real gatekeeping here.

Madeleine: No. I, that’s been my experience as well on my podcast. Everybody’s so willing to share, which, community over competition always.

Gil: Yeah, I love it. now, and I usually end with three questions or two or three questions. I’m shuffling them around. I’ll probably ask you all three. Uh, first off, What’s one book recommendation that you’ve found that really shaped either your life or changed your life?

Madeleine: Atomic Habits, hands down.

Gil: Is that James Clear?

Madeleine: yes. One of my all time favorites, that habit stack of incorporating new things, um, has been really transformational in my life. If I want to stick to something, I always habit stack it, but Atomic Habits is, um, all time favorite.

Gil: Yeah, the thing I got out of that book that I found interesting it’s really I Think he may have buried it But not buried if it was like deeper into the book was really around like if you really want to change your habits you had to first change your identity around it and when you change your identity and That’s when you start to think about, okay, what would this person do if you’re, for instance, as someone that goes to the gym, you definitely have a stacking, definitely helps out.

Gil: But like if you categorize or you put yourself in the box of I am a person that goes to the gym on a regular basis, then you almost force yourself to do those things.

Madeleine: yes. And that is so hard when you are balancing this 9 to 5. Job with being a short term rental host, and it’s like, Oh, I just started an Airbnb. It’s like, No, I’m a short term rental host. I’m a real estate investor. I am, you know, getting into that mindset of treating this like your full time gig. And like, putting yourself into that identity, it’s, it was a hard shift when we were transitioning out of 9 to 5.

Madeleine: It was like, I’m a COO of a government contracting company. It’s like, no, actually now I’m a real estate investor. That used to be my side hustle, but now I’m a real estate investor. You Yeah. You can always change our identity. That’s, that’s a nice thing. Um, that kind of transitions to my next question. What’s one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new? I

Madeleine: have to be an expert to get started. You just have to be willing to take the next best step.

Gil: like that. the last question, much more tactical this time. What’s the one piece of tactical advice towards direct bookings that you want our listeners to put into practice today?

Madeleine: Okay. So, in, on the OTAs. In your listing title, there is some real estate in there. And the biggest driver for us has been adding buy MHM luxury properties at the end of our titles

Gil: So you’re not talking about description, your titles.

Madeleine: title. So it’s like Lux. Three bedroom, that’s a bad example, but like Lux Designer Home by MHM Luxury Properties. They go and Google us and find our direct booking website.

Madeleine: Title,

Gil: So I say hosted by X, Y, Z interesting. All right.

Madeleine: And that actually came as a hot tip from one of our hostfully onboarding folks. And we were like, alright, we’ll beta test this. We’ll beta test this with like two or three of our properties. The results were staggering.

Gil: no, no decrease in, in conversion on, on the platforms.

Madeleine: No.

Gil: Because you’re taking real estate. You’re taking

Madeleine: You’re taking

Gil: 50 character real estate there

Madeleine: I know.

Gil: and it works. 

Madeleine: know. It

Gil: All right. All right. We got to try that on out. All

Madeleine: Try it on one. See what it does.

Gil: that’s true. We don’t have to try it all three or all.

Madeleine: your, dip your toe in the water. It’s not, it’s not that hard.

Gil: Momentum. It was really good to have you on the show.

Gil: It was really good to have you share kind of your journey from your W2, which sounds like it was a very big pivot to hosting. Um, and it opened a bunch of new doors to you. I’m excited to, on what you’re doing and what you’re actually doing for the community as well, too. And. For our listeners here, hopefully we get this released in time and you get to catch, um, catch the next week’s, uh, next week’s show.

Madeleine: Thanks for having me so much. I appreciate it and look forward to meeting you guys, hopefully soon.

Gil: Awesome. Bye.

Madeleine: Bye!

Yeah. Yeah.