UpClose Marketing’s Product Placement Strategy that Turns Free Products into 5-Star Stays with Rachel Vigil

“When guests walk in and discover a gourmet snack or high-end facial mask, it’s more than an amenity—it’s delight.”

That’s the unforgettable touch Rachel Vigil brings to vacation rentals through UpClose Marketing—a platform connecting hosts with premium brands for product placements that wow guests and reinforce their brand identity.

In this episode of the Booked Solid Show, Gil sits down with Rachel to unpack how these carefully curated in-property experiences—from zero-alcohol Heineken to luxury sleep gummies and open-box mattresses—do more than elevate the guest experience. They drive reviews, reinforce your property’s positioning, and—when paired with a solid direct booking strategy—help small hosts operate like full-fledged brands.

Whether you manage two properties or twenty, this conversation is packed with insights on how to create that “I need to book this again” moment the minute guests walk through the door.

Summary and Highlights

Meet Rachel Vigil

Rachel Vigil is the CEO of UpClose Marketing, a platform helping short-term and mid-term rental hosts upgrade their guest experience through strategic brand partnerships—without costing them a dime. If you manage over 10 properties, Rachel’s team will even onboard you personally.

Transcription

Rachel: So we partner with brands who want to have a unique experience with their consumer, and guests are consumers. Vacation rentals are an amazing place to place a product. So I think just like in the movies, there’s product getting placed. Well, this time we’re moving it into the vacation space, and it’s a fun experience for a guest to walk in and be surprised and delighted by some amenity they would never expect.

Rachel: It could be some cleaning supplies or a very high-end shampoo, face mask, cosmetics, snack products, all the way to mattresses. We’ve done massage guns, we’ve done workout equipment. So there’s a whole variety of different brands that just wanna have that experience and trial with potential consumers. So the product is free to the host and to the guest because it’s a marketing play.

Rachel: The brands honestly are. They’re paying for their marketing budget up close for the access to our network and to oversee the whole process.

Gil: Before we bring on our guests, I want 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 an agency to rebuild it. Here’s the thing, you’re letting all these marketing strategies, you’re driving traffic and you’re putting it.

Gil: 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.

Gil: 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 craft Estates. 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.

Gil: 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 craft 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 Books Solid Show, the podcast we bring on top operators to discuss marketing, revenue management, and guest experience to drive towards being books solid. On today’s show, I have Rachel Vigil. She is the founder and CEO of up close marketing. They do something quite unique that I haven’t found in this space.

Gil: I measure at Level Up your listing. But what they do is they allow hosts to be able to. Explore new brands and have those brands give them free products that they can put into their properties for their guest experience. When I met Rachel at Level Up and she told me about the idea, it was something quite unique.

Gil: And what I really love about it is really around the guest experience that you’re able to provide. that’s pretty unique. the second half of the show is actually pretty interesting where she had a bunch of questions. She’s trying to get into direct bookings herself, so actually turning the script around where she’s actually able to ask me questions about how to get started into direct bookings, what should she be looking out for?

Gil: so that’s a very interesting conversation, is actually very different than what we typically have, but hopefully you enjoy the show and learn about some of the. Early questions that folks have when they’re getting started in direct bookings. And she even right now, she’s already taking direct bookings, but she’s taking them manually.

Gil: So kudos to her, but she’s really looking to professionalize it and automate it. So we’re gonna walk through some of the questions that she asked for the show. So without further do, let’s bring in Rachel.

Gil: Hey Rachel, welcome to the show.

Rachel: Thank you. Nice to see you and thanks for having me.

Gil: Yeah, it’s been a couple weeks since we last chatted. Actually, it’s probably more than a couple weeks. It’s been like a couple months since we got chatted.

Rachel: Time flies.

Gil: Time is really flying and now we’re already in like peak season, so it’s, it’s gonna fly fast over the next like two months.

Rachel: Yeah,

Gil: Um, well kinda like to kick us off, Rachel, do you mind kind of giving folks an introduction on who you are?

Rachel: sure. Yeah. And how we met, I know we met at Level Up your listing, uh, over there in Phoenix a couple months ago. So super nice to meet you there and connecting. Uh, so yeah, my name’s Rachel. I’m the owner, founder of Up Close Marketing and we give free products for House. So I’ll just leave it at that for a moment because it’s

Gil: Wait, free products for hosts and, and you guys also not, I’m not sure if you sponsored it, but you’re definitely in, definitely in the schwag bag at, at at Level Up as well too. And I was like, what is all this stuff that I’m getting there? Uh, talk to me. What is, what is up close? What’s, what is this?

Rachel: So we partner with brands who want to have a unique experience with their consumer, and guests are consumers. Vacation rentals are an amazing place to place a product. So think just like in the movies, there’s product getting placed. Well, this time we’re moving it into the vacation space. And it’s a fun experience for a guest to walk in and be surprised and delighted by some amenity they would never expect.

Rachel: It could be, uh, some cleaning supplies or a very high end shampoo. Uh, face masks, cosmetics, snack products, all the way to mattresses. We’ve done massage guns, we’ve done, uh, workout equipment. So there’s a whole variety of different brands that just wanna have that experience and trial. With potential consumers, so the product is free to the host and to the guest because it’s a marketing play.

Rachel: The brands honestly are, they’re paying for their marketing budget up close for the access to our network and to oversee the whole process.

Rachel: Mm-hmm. 

Gil: Got it. So it’s almost like a, you’re a marketplace of, you have suppliers on one side and you have hosts or property managers on the other side, and you’re trying to figure out, like trying to match the two of them where the supplier is more than happy to give away free products for some marketing, some exposure out there.

Gil: But at the same time, on the other side, the host and property managers get a benefit because they’re actually upleveling their. Their amenities or stays.

Rachel: Exactly. So you’re providing items that you would not typically go out and purchase.

Rachel: It’d be too expensive. I mean, I’m a host too. We don’t do that. I mean, you don’t go and buy the most expensive type of granola bar to leave out for your guest, but if given free, heck yeah. I’ll put it out there.

Rachel: So it’s a way to save money in some areas because you might see some essentials like toilet paper, some, you know, really cool bamboo toilet paper or um, shampoo or coffee, and now you’re replacing an item that you’re already going to be buying, so you’re saving money. And then elevating that stay. And then brands love it because they can be very focused on where they’re going. It could be by geography. So think, uh, around winter they might want ski resorts, and in summer it’s beach and national parks and amusement parks to maybe hit families. Or, um, maybe we would go to Palm Desert for bachelorette parties, um, or Nashville.

Rachel: So we can be very focused with the placement, which is helpful for the brand side. And also it’s not an affiliate. There’s, you know, a lot of companies out there that do the affiliate marketing and it’s try it, buy it. That’s not our message. It’s try it, enjoy it, and then maybe down the road you’re gonna remember that and you’re gonna go buy it.

Rachel: So it’s a little bit different messaging and it’s not doing any sort of commission kickback to the host. It’s just free product. Keep it simple.

Gil: Got it. So it’s not like they’re pushing, like have some sort of QR code at your place that you have to put with it. And they want to get attribution back that this person, like, we’ve deployed X amount of supplies into this property and we expect some type of return there. It’s more as they think about it, more as an advertising, uh, venue than anything else.

Rachel: Exactly. But I will say brands do wanna see some sort of return because it is costly, because they’re giving the free product and, uh, the shipping costs, especially if it’s a heavy product. So the return is, and this is where people always say there’s gotta be a catch. Okay, so here’s, here’s the catch. It’s an easy one. Uh, yes, we would like you to set out product with the marketing. So it’s typically like a five by seven acrylic stand and you put it next to the product for every booking. And then just keep doing that every time for each booking until the samples are gone. Um, you’ll take three photos just one time when you first get it set up, take some photos, you upload it on our up close portal. Um, and that’s just so we can see the product in the property. ’cause brands love to see

Rachel: that and to confirm you got everything. Um, and then take a survey. So towards the end, we just wanna know, as a host, did you like it? What’s your feedback? Did the guests like it? And that’s it. So that’s how we give value back to the brand is through the photos and the survey.

Gil: Interesting. Where, where did this idea come about? Like how did you get down this path of starting this?

Rachel: Yeah. I wish it was fully my idea. Cannot take credit. Um, I was a host myself for property in Big Bear, California, and there was a company at the time called Free Products for Hosts. And the CEO Justin Miller, um, had started that. He did the whole concept of product placement and vacation rentals. Um, so I was a host for about eight, about eight years now, and this happened about six years ago.

Rachel: I came across it,

Rachel: they were giving away free mattresses. I. Decided, okay, I’ll give it a sh a shot. I mean, is it real? Am I really going to get a mattress? And I did, um, super cool and set it up at the property. It’s still there to this day because it’s one of the most comfortable mattresses that guests sleep in.

Rachel: They love it. Um, and then I started getting other items as well. And so I just reached out and said, well, I told him, I said, hire me, uh, because I love what you’re doing. And so we did that. And then he moved the company to another name called Showplace and focused on design and furnish. So getting host set up for the first time. Um, and then as of last year, I took that side of the business and moved it just to up close marketing. So, uh, was not my idea, but I been running it for years.

Gil: Wow. Okay, so, so you, you are an operator inside the business and then decided to take it on yourself.

Rachel: Exactly. Yeah.

Gil: Nice. Nice. So I was gonna ask you some success stories. It sounds like you are a success story into it, but maybe if you have any other examples either on the, actually I wanna hear both on the SP supply side and the host side of like some of the benefits or some of the, like the unique wins that you’ve seen on the platform.

Rachel: Yeah. So from the HO side, I mean, it’s what we mentioned, your. You’re elevating your listing the experience, which turns into five star reviews. But not only that, we see a lot of guests will go on and leave a review and call out certain things. Um, right now I’m, I’m kind of going through some data from when we did with ESW.

Rachel: It’s a face mask and a lip treatment and guests calling out the brand and the review, which I can’t believe that there was, uh, face products left for me to experience. Okay, that’s cool because that’s organic and that’s just so natural. Um, as well as a lot of social media starts happening. So the host can start bragging and saying, here you come and stay in my place over the next couple of months, and this is what you can expect to find.

Rachel: I’m a special property that’s been selected by this brand to get these kind of amenities. So, uh, definitely utilize that in a sense to market yourself. And then, uh, from the brand side, what we’ve seen are huge conversion. Because when you go and let’s say you sponsor a a music festival, they’re just handing out samples.

Rachel: You have no idea what’s happening. Do they like it? What we can see in our, um, when we do it in our platform is results because on the marketing there is an optional survey usually for the guests to take. And we just want to gauge did they like the product and would they consider purchasing it? Not the message of buy me, but would you consider it, did you like it enough that you would buy it?

Rachel: So we’ve seen conversions up to 40%, which is unheard of.

Rachel: You don’t get that in this industry of you try it and there’s a 40% conversion. Um, and then some in like lower that, that’s more about food products when we see it. And maybe cleaning supplies, it could be a 20%. So it’s anywhere from 20 to 40% conversion.

Gil: Yeah, that’s, that’s pretty amazing because I think, uh, at least on the cleaning side, you have a lot of the big, the, I, I think like the two big companies like Proctor and Gamble, forget the other one right now. Um, but you have these really big, um, consumable company and it’s really hard for smaller brands to get the exposure out there.

Gil: And right now you’re almost giving it a very different way of getting, getting the exposure and even getting feedback on how the product works.

Rachel: Yeah, and what I love is we work with the startups, so those mom and pops or just an entrepreneur that’s just getting started, but they can’t get into retail, they can’t get into Whole Foods and those big stores, so this is great for them to get exposure. And then as well, we work with the big brands too.

Rachel: So it’s a little bit of everything, which I love because we can go on a natural organic side and then we can go all the way over here. I mean, it’s, what’s nice is you as a host, you know what product works best in your property, what type of guest, and you select. We never opt you in and send you product.

Rachel: You decide if you want it, and then you go on and get it.

Gil: That’s, that’s really cool. It reminds me of one of the ventures that I was part of maybe eight years ago, uh, in Silicon Valley. There was a, a store named Beta, I don’t know if you’ve heard of them before.

Gil: Uh, if you see the logo, you might recognize it, but it’s B eight TA. Um, but it was, yeah, it was a retail store that allowed you to experience physical electronics products.

Gil: So you can go into the store and you can ride a. An e-bike or a one wheel or put on VR goggles or, um, see any of the iot products or the smart home products, um, and be able to experience it. And the reason why I was kind of a early member, I was like num, maybe like employee number five in the company. Um, and the reason why we ended up doing this, because we came from the smart home industry where in order to experience the magic of a smart home, you kind of have to see it and kind of be in a space that you can see it.

Gil: And there’s no other retail outlet that allowed us to be able to have physical working products there that you would see in like a showcase home. So the store was decked out to be able to do and have those types of experiences there. And a lot of our customers were young startups, a lot of doing a lot of hardware, and they were trying to get their products in front of customers just to just have them try it and, and, and get that exposure out there.

Gil: So like, I kind of see this as a very parallel world, that rather than having a retail store where you’re, where you’re able to showcase new products, you’re having these homes that has these products in place where you can experience it as well too.

Rachel: And rather asking the consumer to come to your storefront, we’re bringing it to them. So it’s a, a much larger spread because we can go nationwide. Um, and we see that. So it’s funny because you said showcase and that’s what we call when we have a campaign we call a showcase because it is, it’s a placement in the home. Uh, and the best products, my favorite are mattresses and sheets because when do you get the opportunity other than a vacation, uh, staying in hotel to sleep on a mattress to see? Do you really like it? I mean, it’s a, it’s expensive to buy mattresses, so it’s a huge opportunity to have a couple nights sleep on it.

Rachel: And if you’d love it, then you know, you’ll probably want it for home.

Gil: Yeah, that’s kind of cool because that match is gonna be in that property like yours for many, many years. So that’s

Gil: a long exposure time for folks to be able to try that out.

Rachel: Yeah. And for brands, we offer open box. So let’s say a mattress has been returned or slightly damaged, it’s a great way to reutilize the product in the marketplace because they might have to toss it. We don’t want them to throw it away The first time we have a guest come and stay, it’s considered used.

Rachel: So it’s okay, we’ll take open box as long as it’s in good shape and good quality. Uh, and so it is a nice way to just be a little bit more eco-friendly as

Gil: That is actually a really good point. Like when you’re buying something for your home, you probably have a different standard. Like you don’t wanna, you don’t want another mattress or you don’t want a mattress that someone else has slept on. But in a short term rental,

Rachel: Hundreds of people have slept on it.

Gil: I’m just, that’s by default. It’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s not that, that, that goes, that’s the same for hotels as well too.

Gil: Like anytime, anytime you’re traveling, you’re traveling and sleeping on someone else’s bed or a bed that has been slept on many, many times before. So open box makes a ton of sense. And same goes with sheath as well too. Like it could be washed, um, beforehand.

Rachel: yeah. And a lot of times they were never used. It’s just change of mind and they return the product. And then retailers, they can’t sell ’em. They have to put ’em into those third party stores and be creative.

Gil: Yeah. You mentioned some of the review stuff. What, what, how, what other kind of stories have you seen or heard along kind of the guest experience and kind of the, the things that people talk about?

Rachel: Yeah. I, I get comments all the time from house and a lot of thank yous for doing this because we are seeing a big difference. And it, it, it’s just through the reviews and from the hosts themselves. I get comments all the time.

Gil: Yeah.

Rachel: It, it’s just one of those, it’s, it’s like anything, if you were to go a little bit out of your way and to provide an amenity, you’re, you’re gonna hear from it from your guests.

Rachel: You’re also gonna hear, if you don’t do it how much they dislike the stay. If you don’t include those basics, like coffee, bar, shampoo, conditioner, you’re gonna hear about it. So, you know, number one, include the basics, but just step it up a little bit. It’s a competitive space right now, so you do need to go a little bit beyond to get higher occupancy and charge more per night. Um, so that’s, that’s what we’re seeing

Rachel: is really focus on, on the guest, um, well, helping the host save some money.

Gil: Yeah. And it sounds like these products are a bit more on the premium side. These aren’t your normal consumables, um, that you’re, you’re going through. It could be, but like these are not your average grade products.

Rachel: right. Would you like to see some.

Gil: Do you have some with you?

Rachel: So, yes, I do. I have some off this, off to the side here. These are what we, um, have going right now. Um, so one is Heineken, it’s a no alcohol Heineken. So

Gil: I didn’t know they made 

Rachel: very unique. Yes. And it tastes just like the regular. It’s delicious. Um, but it’s nice because there’s a lot that are trending to the nas and you open that fridge and you’ve got some Heineken in there.

Rachel: You’re gonna try it. I mean, why wouldn’t you try it? And that’s what we’re creating. Um, so that one’s going. It’s not available ’cause we’re sold out. And then we just, um, did this one. It’s a natural sleep, gummy and drink. So no melatonin, no CBD. It’s more on the healthy side, which goes really lovely next to the bedside, um, on the bedside table when you’re ready to go to bed. Um, so that one I’m just gonna tease you with what’s not available ’cause that one’s gone. But this one is available. So depending on when this launches, um, this is another one. It’s Magic Mind. It’s a oh boy. It’s a green shot. Uh, but there’s two versions. One is energy, uh, and the other is sleep. So you get both and

Gil: Hopefully you don’t drink them back to back to each other.

Rachel: I know, I know.

Rachel: Let’s see what happens. Yeah. Um, so those are a few of the recent products that we’ve had

Rachel: and currently. 

Gil: that’s actually pretty, pretty fun because like those aren’t products that I, as a host would buy and would just put out there. But it’s actually a good experiment for guests to experience as well too

Rachel: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, yeah, it’s a variety. We’ve even done ice cream. We’ve done mochi, bies, mochi, ice cream. Challenging but fun again, you’re probably not buying ice cream for your guests.

Gil: Wow. Okay. Walk, walk me through what the experience is, is like, uh, for like a host to actually be able to like sign up and receive these.

Rachel: Yeah. Yeah. So first off, just go to the website, up close. Marketing. Marketing is abbreviated, so it’s up close mktg.com. Uh, and then you click the host signup button. If you are a property manager with 10 or more properties, send an email to us. It’ll walk you through. It’s just info at up close marketing, uh, because we do need to gather information, the zip code, what is the maximum guest count, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and your listing link.

Rachel: So, 10 or more, just shoot us an email, we’ll do it for you. Um, less than 10. You got it. You can go on there and just plug them in. Um, and then you’ll be added to our newsletter. And every Wednesday we will announce if there’s a new product. We have about two to three every month. And when you get that newsletter and it says free in the subject line, you have to go act fast, go on there, go get it.

Rachel: So onboard your properties so they’re ready. And then when we announce it, go on there. So you’ll get the newsletter. We’re also on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, um, at the handle up close marketing. But this time’s spelled out, uh, and there’s two types. One is a first come, first serve.

Rachel: So if we have a, just a ton of samples, then go on there.

Rachel: And when it’s full, it’s full. The other type is you apply. So you go on there, you say, yes, I’m interested, and then the brand. We’ll hand select which properties to invite, um, and then you’ll be able to order. So Magic Mind is one of those. And the way that you get selected is to have good reviews, which, you know, keep participating, keep building your amenities and the guest experience.

Rachel: Um, another is that you have worked with us before, so you become a VIP by submitting those photos, doing the survey. If you’ve done three in a row, you’re a VIP, um, which also gives you 24 hour access to the first come, first serve, um, showcases. So huge benefit, super easy to get. Uh, so you can. Work on that too.

Rachel: Um, and then, yeah, just, and so what we do when we, when you are accepted, you can decide where to ship. It can go to your cleaner. You can say, one listing needs to go here, two needs to go to this address. You set it, uh, and then you’ll get a three month supply. So we’re not supplying you for years and years.

Rachel: It’s a three month supply. And then hopefully that brand will come back later in the year or the next year.

Gil: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. That’s, I, I think it’s just a fun experience, experience for both the host and, and the guest themselves. And it sounds like there’s a lot of benefits also for the brand that’s trying to get themselves out there. So it’s quite an ecosystem that you built.

Rachel: Thanks. Yeah, no risk.

Rachel: And we’re also growing into campgrounds, RV rentals, glamping, peer space, SW Lee, so there’s so many other, and corporate stays, midterm rentals, all of that. So when you are hosting somebody somewhere. We’re, we’re open to it. So we’re adding those as well.

Gil: Nice. What’s, uh, what’s down the horizon for you then?

Rachel: Uh, Canada,

Gil: Like, oh, geo, geo expansion.

Rachel: yes, I would love that.

Rachel: ’cause right now we’re just in the United States. I would love Canada and then I would love to go into Australia. I just, I love Australia. So, uh, we’ll see. I, I need to get well established here first and then we’ll start growing.

Gil: Yeah, Australia would be fun. Um, the quality of products are, are really high in, in Australia, so I think some of the brands that you’ll get in there are gonna be really fun ones to engage with.

Rachel: Oh, I think it’d be a blast. And there’s so many vacation rentals there as well.

Gil: Yeah. So you have two properties, right? You have one here in California in Big Bear.

Gil: You have one also in Kihei as well too, is that right?

Rachel: On Maui.

Gil: In Maui.

Rachel: been that way about three years.

Gil: Okay. Okay. Do you, I’m, I’m guessing you have, you’re a consumer yourself for your products and you, you stock your own properties.

Rachel: Yeah. So those who stay in Big Bear get hooked up. I mean, it’s, as a host myself, I want to be able to experience all angles when I work with a brand. So yeah, when you go into Big Bear, you’re like, whoa, this is cool. There’s every kind of product here. Um, Hawaii’s different because not a lot of brands will be able to afford to ship to Hawaii and Alaska.

Rachel: Sorry. Um, but somewhat do so still sign up because when it is open, like Magic Mind, they will ship, uh, to both of those

Gil: Yeah. I am guessing the smaller, the smaller items, it’s a lot easier because otherwise the bigger ones, I think when we chat in person, you even ship in pallets in some cases.

Rachel: do. So property managers, if you can receive a pallet, then you can supply all your properties.

Gil: That’s fun. 

Rachel: Yeah. 

Gil: That’s, and there’s one, there’s one of my properties that has a, has a shed and there’s nothing in the shed like

Gil: other than like spare furniture that we have. And I was like, oh, what can we use for it? And. I would love to be able to like store, store, store products in there that we can use for both our properties in the area.

Rachel: Yeah. Probably just not chocolate, but anything else? Anything that won’t melt, you’re good to go.

Gil: Won’t melt, won’t detract bears into it.

Rachel: Exactly right.

Gil: Yeah. Awesome. Well, I wanted to, Rachel, I wanted to chat a little bit about kind of our, our next segment there is really around like direct bookings and kind of your journey on, on kind of where you are in your hosting. So you’ve been hosting for a while now, and right before the call we were talking about just like kind of where you are in your journey and kind of what you’re looking forward to exploring as well too.

Gil: Talk to me a little bit about that.

Rachel: Yes, so this has been on my to-do list for probably five years. Direct booking. Everybody knows you’ve gotta have a direct booking website. I know it, I’ve been wanting to do it, but it’s taking that step and trying to decide, okay, what is the best fit and. Can I do it? I only have two properties. I’m not a property manager.

Rachel: Everything is focused to a property manager, so it’s okay who’s out there for me. And so if you don’t mind, I even have some questions to ask to you because I think my network would be very interested about this. Plus I wanna go on this journey. I mean, you’ve inspired me because I know that you help with this and I wanna do it.

Rachel: I wanna finally pull the trigger and do a direct booking. Um, and so of course I have questions, which I think everybody has questions, but I know it needs to happen. And what I’ve been doing now is I get direct bookings, but it’s old school. It’s, here’s a rental form, read it over, sign it. Send me your Venmo.

Rachel: I mean, it’s, there’s nothing organized about it. So we’re in the world where my husband works for the fire department. Our network’s pretty big. So when it comes to the fire department, um, everyone books direct. There’s even a Facebook page just for those in the fire world that have vacation rental properties. So, exposure’s great and I never want them to have to pay the fees. The platform fees are ridiculous. These are my friends. Um, I wanna give first responders a discount and save on fees. So I’ve just been doing it completely old school and I’m bad at it. I need to have a process and just send them there. Um, and as, as well, I know I’ve had, I, I have pretty high occupancy in Hawaii and it’d be great to target them because they’re gonna come back one day and when you come back, let’s, let’s go book on my site.

Rachel: Don’t, don’t book on other platforms.

Gil: Yeah. And that, that’s kind of like why I was, I was interested in having you on the show and one of the, I think like. What you’re creating on the platform side is very interesting because I haven’t seen something like this where folks can experience new things. And I think the other angle that I’m thinking about as, as hosts, it starts to uplevel really the guest experience there.

Gil: We talk about five star experiences, but more on this show we really think about like, you’re not just trying to get that five star, you’re trying to deliver a really good experience so that they wanna come back directly to you. And that’s kind of why, like I, I see your product being interesting is like you’re actually giving experience that they wouldn’t experience elsewhere or is very unique to them.

Gil: Um, so if this is a property that is consistently give delivering on that, that’s something that is very interesting that you wouldn’t find elsewhere. Um, I, I was actually surprised to hear that you don’t already have a direct booking site, even though you’ve been taking direct bookings on site. So it’s actually like kudos to you, to

Gil: Well actually, first off, like maybe like, I’m interested in hearing, like, what are some of the challenges that you felt over the last five years that stopped you from doing this in the first place?

Rachel: Yeah. It’s all about time. It, it really is. And here’s the thing. When we first started about eight years ago, it, it was doing great. Like in Big Bear, our, it was booking nonstop. COVID hit, everyone decided to buy a vacation rental, um, to stay there and then make it all this money that was happening kind of during COVID. Um, so it became oversaturated. So there was not a need because we were getting bookings, we were making money, and then competition hit,

Rachel: and then everybody started going in these. Ridiculous directions, which is awesome. I wish I could do it and afford it is, you know, add pickleball, court courts, the cold plunge, the saunas, the, you know, we, we do what we can.

Rachel: And so I think, as with my husband and I, like, where are we today? I mean, the market’s not great. We’re a little bit nervous to buy another property, so how can we maximize the two that we have? And one, the one in, um, Hawaii, it’s a condo. We’re bound by those walls. We, we only have to work with what’s inside.

Rachel: We can’t do anything outside Big bear. We have more flexibility, but what’s in our control is some of the little things, so some of the amenities. Um, and then how to get more money in our pocket. So we’re lowering prices because of the competition. Um, I think people are also a little bit scared to travel right now, so we’re not seeing this, the peaks that we have, so. What we have to look now as hosts is how do you maximize the property you already have and make more money on it? And direct bookings absolutely is a way to have more money in our pocket. Um, so now it’s, before it was not, not a huge need and time was the problem, but now it’s more of a need because we’re, we’re having to lower our prices.

Rachel: Now we have to make up for that somewhere. How do we do that?

Gil: Yeah, you mentioned a few things. That was, was it very interesting? I think maybe the, kinda the, the last part where you start talking about just like how, like you’re confined in a very limited space in your Maui property, Nikki property, big Bear. You can do a little bit more. And I had Don on the show, I don’t know if you know Don, um, from Olive Jar, but

Rachel: I sure do. 

Gil: yeah.

Gil: Well, we were talking on the show previously and what I like about, kind of like how she thinks about marketing is really around like knowing who your ideal guest avatar is and really thinking about what is the experience that you want them to come, like experience when they’re staying at your place.

Gil: And the way that she approaches it is almost crafting the entire journey of entire stay there. So if you’re staying there for three days, what do you want that person to experience once they walk through the door? What do you want them to experience when they step into the kitchen? Um, what do you want them to experience when they’re like throughout your entire property?

Gil: And what are the moments? And the way to really think about it is how do you almost like secretly place little cues around the house so that the guest acts a certain way there? So one of the examples that we were talking about was, um, if for instance. You find that your stays are usually young families with kids between five and 10, um, and, and parents, and you want to make it really special for them.

Gil: You could have a cookbook open in your kitchen to a, a cookie recipe, and you can have a lot of, you can have flour, you can have all the baking material ready except for the eggs. Or you can have even supply the eggs if you want to,

Gil: but you almost like encourage them to bake cookies while they’re there at your stay.

Rachel: Yeah. 

Gil: so being very deliberate about that and I, I think like, kind of weaving that back to your business is like, what if like these brands were able to be part of that story if you’re able to match, make your ideal guest avatar the experience that you wanted them to make, and make it so that you’re dropping cues here and there so that they’re, you’re actually guiding them through the experience that you want them to have.

Gil: So that’s like the first thing that comes to my mind of like, how do you leverage your space even when it’s a very small space that you can’t really, like condos is really hard to make you unique, but you can make the experience unique.

Rachel: You can. Yeah. And there’s so many little things and yeah, I think Don really nails it when it comes to who is the avatar to find that and then create that experience. And there’s so many things in your control. Um, so much as little as. Early check-in a late checkout. I mean, that’s another way to leverage some more money in your pocket, or you just give it.

Rachel: But I know right away, because I do it with every guest I can, they’re traveling a long ways. They don’t want to travel six hours and then to wait four hours before they can get into their property. If it’s available, I’m gonna get them in there and right away, that was so easy for me to do, as long as it doesn’t put pressure on the cleaner.

Rachel: Like, yeah, well let

Rachel: them do their thing and, and then they are so appreciative of it and that that matters. So step one, you haven’t even started the vacation, but you’ve given them something that it, it stands out because not a lot of hosts will do that,

Gil: Yeah, I agree with that. And especially like West coast travelers, it’s very easy for us to go from California to, to Maui or any of the islands there, and you’ll be there before at lunchtime basically. 

Rachel: Yeah. 

Gil: and then you have like two or three hours to kill until normal check-in time is, so it makes a t it makes a lot of sense to, to like pull that check-in time.

Gil: And even if you say check-in time is normally four hours and you can say, you can send out a message a couple days or maybe the morning prior saying we have, like, we got the place early. You welcome the check in early. It’s up to you whether or not you wanna charge for it. But giving that option to, to the guest.

Rachel: Right. And we have a lot of red eyes, so I always recommend just book an extra night and maybe I’ll give ’em a discount because yeah, you have to be out at 10:00 AM or if your flight’s at 10:00 PM

Rachel: have the whole day just relax. Don’t be stressed to figure out what to do during the day. So that, and also I think you really touched on the guest avatar when there’s children and families knowing who’s coming in.

Rachel: I think that’s one. Um, definitely. No, there’s kids, but the other part of the family member is that if you’re pet friendly. Also customize the stay for those dogs, because everyone loves their dogs. They’re part of the family. So what can you do? Do you provide extra treats for them? Maybe leash, poop bags, um, a bed.

Rachel: I mean, I’ve seen some that are even doing, uh, bath area, so you can bathe the pet and it’s

Rachel: just for basically a, a shower that’s for the dogs. So, uh, try to think about everyone who’s coming and, and, I, I, I think, yeah, just like you said, Dawn, that’s what Dawn does well, and we as hosts need to understand who that guest is.

Gil: Yeah. I, I think so. Like, kind of going back to you, I think that that’s where, like, if you’re looking to really like, amplify your direct bookings, like, I, I don’t know if you’re collecting emails already from your, your past guests, but like, I would start there and start nurturing that list.

Rachel: Yeah, which is gonna be harder because I know Airbnb is blocking us from doing that. So another huge benefit of getting everybody moved over to direct booking. So we have communication directly with the guest. And so I think that’s just another, you know, there’s so many changes that are happening right now.

Rachel: Um, that’s limiting our communication and what we can do as, as a host. I mean, it’s something like security deposit. I would love to be able to collect that so that I don’t have to, if they damaged that, I have to wait for them to accept that they’re willing to pay for it. No, it comes from your security deposit.

Rachel: So, um, that’s just another huge benefit of, of a direct booking site.

Gil: Yeah, and I think like kind of going back to your, the comment about the Airbnb off platform policy changes that they, they’re rolling out right now. The, I’ve talked to a lot of folks in the industry specifically about this because there’s a lot of confusion. There’s a lot of folks that they’ve met with their Airbnb rep or they met or they know someone at Airbnb and they’re asking them about it, and it wasn’t quite clear on like what is allowed and what is not allowed.

Gil: Can you. Can you collect emails, uh, um, using, like, using wifi for instance with CFI for instance, like is that allowed? Um, and there’s mixed answers on like what is allowed and what is not allowed. Um, but what I kind of realized afterwards, and this is probably like over the last few days, we’ve started to see Airbnb release their summer release stuff.

Gil: And I don’t know if you’ve kept up with some of the summer release stuff.

Rachel: Yeah, I have, yep.

Gil: but for those that are like on, on on the show that aren’t familiar with it, they released, uh, basically being Airbnb being a service company as well too. So not only can you Airbnb or stay, but you can Airbnb experiences and services that you might be wanting there.

Gil: And I think that that is really kind of the root behind their off platform policy there is that they don’t want someone to have upsells, um, that requires. Airbnb to be cut out of that process because now Airbnb is having upsells kind of within the platform there. Um, I think over time, yeah, they might be threatened by direct bookings and they might wanna tighten that up even, even more.

Gil: But, um, I think there’s still a lot of marketing tactics that you can still deploy even on, on OTA bookings as well too. So, and I think 

Rachel: a lot of out there still for

Gil: and I think that, yeah, the, the lot of questions is actually what gives me a lot of comfort. It feels like Airbnb put this policy in place for their summer release changes and they, they didn’t realize the repercussions or the ambiguities within the company around all the other things that they had there.

Gil: So like, they probably, in their off platform policy, they had like two or three lines specifically about collecting emails and, and collecting fees on, on those things. And. I think that the terms and conditions were tailored specifically for the new services, but you gotta remember that a large portion of Airbnb properties out there are managed by professional management companies

Rachel: Right. 

Gil: professional management companies.

Gil: They have rental agreements in place. They have certain process and procedures that they already have. So by putting this, the terms and conditions, if you read it point blank and you try to follow everything, it’s gonna start to alienate almost all the professional management companies that have a lot more rigor in how they handle things.

Gil: Like most professional management companies, just like hotel, you sign an agreement before when you check in. That’s very, very standard practice.

Rachel: yeah, yeah. And I, I think there is kind of this, this fear of what if I do something wrong on the platform? Am I going to get banned or kicked off and there goes your business? And that is just, that’s a fear for me. I mean, that is terrifying. I need to have a backup plan. So I think, yeah, you, the more we talk about it, the more I’m like, there’s an urgency I need, I need to get on this.

Rachel: So,

Rachel: um, is. 

Gil: I think, I think that that has risen over like the last few years and I think like this, probably this off platform policy, almost like strength strengthened that fear even more where Airbnb has just so much control over how we operate our business. And I think that that’s kind of why our company has seen so much success, but also like why host are now pushing towards direct bookings with so much more energy than ever before.

Rachel: Yeah. Yeah. Well, could I ask you some questions now?

Gil: Yeah, absolutely.

Rachel: I, I, I never get to be the one to ask, ask the question, so I’m kind of excited.

Rachel: Um, yeah. So can you tell me then, I mean, we keep saying that you do direct bookings. Can you explain what crafted stays is and exactly what your business is?

Gil: Yeah. So craft as days is, we think of it as like a direct booking platform, or you can think of it as more simply a, a website builder specifically for direct bookings. So if someone wants to get into direct bookings, uh, typically they’re using a PMS. And the only option to really like spin up your, your site and start collecting direct bookings is either one.

Gil: Use the website that the PMSs provide you, which is usually pretty vanilla. Um, usually you’ll have some search bar and a list of all your properties there. Um, and if you wanted anything better, then you would have to hire an agency to build out your website. You’ll spend anywhere from $6,000 upwards, um, to build out your website depending on how you want to look and what agency you want to go with.

Gil: And I had come from the e-commerce industry, and I realized that in the e-commerce industry, if you wanted to build an e-commerce store, you wouldn’t go hire an agency to build you your store. You would sign up for a Shopify account, put your products on there, and choose whatever template matches your brand, and you’ll have a really good looking and really high performing site within the same day.

Gil: And I took a step back and I realized that like in our industry, we have nothing like that. And in e-commerce, Shopify has been around for 15 years now. And so I, I just felt like there was a big gap in terms of just the technology that hosts have in order to be successful at direct bookings. So with anyone that’s looking to build a direct booking site.

Gil: They can sign up for an account, connect their PMS, we’ll pull in all the property information, all the pictures, the listing descriptions, the amenities, um, rates and availabilities so that everything matches. Um, and you’re able to choose from a variety of different templates that kind of matches your brand there.

Gil: And they can customize from there, you can add new pages, you can add remove sections, you can add scripts onto your page for tracking. Um, but all the facilities that you would get out of a more mature, uh, drop book site, you’ll have kind of that all kind of in a box there. And for our larger host, we work with a lot of folks that have 20 plus properties there, and we’ll do a more tailored design for them if they want to, where they’re not just taking one of the templates we have, but they’re able to really build out and we’ll design with them what, whatever represents kind of their brand.

Gil: So basically you can get on the easier side, or for smaller hosts, you can get a site spun up in like 15 minutes.

Rachel: Wow. Okay. So does this apply to the little guys like me who have one, maybe to five properties? Because what we hear is you need to get a PMS. Well, I only have a couple properties. And for those who are new to the space, can you explain what a P pmms is? Because when I first started, everyone’s thrown around this term, like what is that?

Rachel: What does that mean? So can you kind of go back to the basics of what is A PMS and does this apply to the self-managing one to five property host?

Gil: Yeah. I’ll start out by saying, as a host myself, I started with the PMS even before I launched. So I had set up my property in my PMS and I pushed it over to Airbnb and VRBO. Um, I did that because a lot of the more established folks that were kind of in my circle, my mastermind group, they had their entire.

Gil: Rental business, like automated. All their messages were going out. They had dynamic pricing in there and they figured out that like, in order to have it orchestrated properly, you need to have a PMS in place. So for those I know, PMS is a property management system. Basically what it does is it helps you operationalize your short-term rental.

Gil: So for folks that are not on the PMS, typically you’ll go into Airbnb, vrbo, booking.com, you’ll add your property on there, you’ll edit your pictures, your listing descriptions, and if you wanna make a change, you’ll have to go into each one of them and make a change specifically.

Gil: Um, and then if you get a booking on one platform, you gotta make sure that you’re blocking your bookings on another platform so that you don’t have double bookings on that one.

Gil: Um, so what a PMS does is allows you to basically create an account on the PMS, put your properties on there, and then it pushes out or synchronizes with all the booking channels all there for you. So you’re not having to then make a change in multiple places. You make it in the PMS and then it’ll push out to all the different platforms for you.

Rachel: And by platforms, what specifically are you talking about? Because for me, I’m just on one. I’m just on Airbnb. I don’t get a lot of bookings on VRBO, so I, I stopped that, which I’m probably missing out on other platforms. So what else is there besides VRBO and Airbnb?

Gil: Those are the two primary ones. Uh, those, those are the two primary ones. I, I use on the OTA side of things. On, on the online travel agency side of things. Uh, booking.com is another one. There’s a lot of like small, more regional ones, but those are typically the, the top three that most folks are, are on as well too.

Gil: And some PMSs will also, um, allow you to like post on the Marriott as well too. So depending on, on some of them, there’s like some special, um, channels that opens up depending on the PMS.

Rachel: And does this help with any SEO search? If I were just to go into Google and say Big bear vacation rental, would, would having a direct booking site help with that?

Gil: The Yes. Um, kind of like to back your last question, having a PMS wouldn’t help on, on, on any of that stuff. Um, sometimes like you’ll get a little bit of SEO, but usually the sites are not well optimized for SEO but, but typically because mainly the PMS is really there to help you with the operational side of things.

Gil: So making sure that you’re sending out guest messages, making sure that your pricing is synchronized all through all your prop, all your channels. So all the operational backend stuff, it, that’s what the PMS is really, really, really good at. And over the last few years, they started adding direct booking capabilities there, where if you wanted to, you can build out your site off of a PMS, but they’re usually pretty cookie cutter and, um, they have a small team kind of working on that.

Gil: Whereas on our side, our entire company is all around direct bookings. Um, so we try to make sure that all of our sites are really high performing. We’re trying to consistently iterate on them to figure out how do we increase conversion iteratively. So what can we change about the user experience? What can we change about the search experience?

Gil: Um, a lot of things that you’ll find, like Airbnb has like full design teams that think about their user experience and they’re consistent iterating and making the experience better. I. We’re trying to do the same for specifically direct bookings there. So we’ll do things like analyze the entire flow for what a user goes through when they’re on a mobile device, where are they having hiccups?

Gil: How do we increase the, the, like, how do we make it easier for folks to find properties to search for available dates and so on. Um, and on top of that, we do a lot of work with Google, specifically around SEO. So craft estate is backed by Google. They spend a lot of resources on training us. They are our cloud infrastructure as well too.

Gil: Um, so we’ve, we’ve had them go through our templates and advise us on how do we increase our SEO coverage, how do we optimize for SEO there? So they’ve gone through our templates and advise us on what things we need to change, what we should consider, um, and really how to optimize our websites for SEO there.

Gil: So ours websites perform much better than what you might get from. A PMS and a lot of times even better than what you might get from a high paying, uh, agency as well too.

Rachel: Okay, so question. I sort of know the answer to this, but I wanna ask it. Uh, do I need a PMS to have a direct booking site? I mean, do I And why,

Rachel: because you many benefits. So, okay. So explain why.

Gil: Yeah. There’s actually a few reasons why. Um, there are ways that you can do it without, so there’s companies like Future Stay that allows you to build a direct booking site without it. Um, but the challenge with not having a, and, and, and because of that, they’ve actually become more of a, less a pmms there.

Gil: But the reason why you don’t want to take direct bookings without a PMS is some of the stuff that you do already manually. You’re having to take payments manually. You’re having to block off dates. So whenever you have someone that’s booking directly with you, it’s good. It’s your friend that’s booking with you and they’re paying you directly.

Gil: Then you’re going into Airbnb and manually blocking off dates. But you imagine if you’re now open to the open web and you’re allowing someone to book with you, you’re gonna have to make sure that you instantly block off your calendar to make sure that your direct booking doesn’t collide with someone that might be looking on the OTAs.

Gil: You also wanna make sure that your rates are synchronized between what you have on Airbnb and what you might wanna have on your website without having some system record, some some system in place. It’s nearly impossible to make sure your rates and your availabilities are synchronized through both of them.

Gil: And so that’s why we have hosts all the time that say, I don’t have a PMS, I wanna get direct booking site. Can you just cobble something together? And we won’t, we won’t do it because it’s, you’re not built on a strong foundation that allows you to run direct bookings autonomously. We want you to be able to get direct bookings as if you’re getting it on the OTAs and not have to worry about direct book double bookings.

Gil: You’re not having to worry about the rates being pulled incorrectly. So by doing, by being on a PMS, you make sure that your direct booking is just one other channel that you can operate on and don’t have to do anything special there.

Rachel: So if I want to change a photo or change a rate, I go to my PMS, and that would be on my direct booking site. That would be on all the other platforms. I just do it one time and it hits everyone.

Gil: Exactly. And then like, if you’re using dynamic pricing, for instance, like if you’re using a Price Labs or something, rather than having Price Labs connect into Airbnb, your Price Labs connects into your PMS, it pushes to all the different OTA channels and pushes to your direct one as well too. So you have that like very seamless experience there.

Gil: And it’s, it’s almost like as, again, like what I said earlier, A-A-A-P-M-S allows you to take bookings across multiple channels and almost not care which one it comes in from.

Rachel: Mm-hmm. Okay, so how do I get started? What PMS should I use? Do you know what the cost is? Um, how, how, how do I begin?

Gil: Yeah, so there’s a lot of PMSs and it kind of ranges depending on what you’re looking for on like the one to six count there. Um, hospitable has done a phenomenal job at really tailoring their product specifically for that segment. Um, owneress is a bit more on the technical side, um, but they’re super reliable in terms of their capabilities.

Gil: Hostly is also another user friendly version as well too. And then as you’re growing on the more mature side, you’re a larger property manager with 20 plus properties. Um, the more popular ones like Guesty and Host Away as well too. So you have a pretty wide variety. Some of the things that you should consider is like.

Gil: Are you also a property manager for others as well too? So if you’re a property manager for others, then you may wanna consider PMSs that have guest portals built in as well too. So, sorry, owner’s portal built in so your owners can block off specific dates for themselves. Um, if you’re doing, I I think that that, yeah, that, that is like one of the big things that like people may sign up for PMS and they don’t really know like how they’re gonna be growing their portfolio over time.

Gil: Um, and when you do that, you might kind of pigeonhole yourself where you’re like, oh, I, I just signed up with this pm MS but I’m wanting to do co-hosting or property management and I don’t have trust accounting in place, or I don’t have these owner reports or, and things that, so, so just knowing kind of where you are and how big you’re growing your portfolio makes a big difference on like which solution you end up sticking with.

Rachel: And who, which company offers the owner? Uh, portal.

Gil: Most of them do. Uh, I know Owner as Hostly host away, Guesty do. Hospitable doesn’t yet, but they’re going, they’re starting to add more and more features. I I I, I would expect by the end of the year they’ll, they’ll have some version of it out.

Rachel: Okay. So I am one that I’ll do some research, but I’d rather just be told what to do by the experts. So if you had to pick one, um, of the three you mentioned, hospitable, hostfully, and owner as which one, which one would you pick? And I

Rachel: know maybe you’re gonna make somebody mad, but just, just give

Rachel: it, to me straight. 

Gil: that’s hard because I will definitely make someone mad. Um,

Rachel: Okay. I won’t force you, but

Rachel: I’m gonna ask you all. 

Gil: Yeah, yeah. You can ask me offline, but there’s actually a lot, a lot of good options out there. Um, but it also depends on like, kind of like how tech savvy you are and what you need, like. I’ll just kind of go like, what if scenarios here? If you’re on the more tech savvy side and you are like on your mind, you’re very systems thinking and you’re able to like connect different dots together.

Gil: On RES is a really good one because you have a lot of control, uh, on, on res.

Rachel: Okay. I want easy. What’s easy?

Gil: if you want something that’s super easy, all the settings are already kind of configured for you. Um, hospitable is like, probably like the most turnkey one where you can connect things real easily and not have to kind of fumble with a bunch of different settings there.

Gil: And then if you’re looking for that, but you want a few more features or you want more features, then hopefully is, is a good one. So it kind of depends, like that’s why it, it is a depends side of things. Um, it’s really around like what are your strengths, how you think about growing your portfolio, um, how do you see that scaling over time?

Gil: And I think like if you go to N DPMs. All of them are gonna say, and, and, and for my, for most cases, they actually do like, they believe in this themselves as well too. Like you can actually stay on any of those PMSs for a long duration there and you won’t necessarily have to to switch out. Um, and it’s really hard to switch PMs once you kind of get locked in there.

Gil: So you just kinda have to figure out like where you wanna be down the road and how you wanna grow into it. Um, and we can talk side by side. We can talk on the side and, and kinda like, I can consult you. I’ve worked with them all pretty closely, but they’re all really good solutions out there.

Rachel: Do you have any idea what the price range is? Like what, what are we talking per month for the PMS and then also for crafted stays?

Gil: Yeah, typically you’ll, I think on the lowest end side, you’ll end up spending $29, but it’s a pretty stripped down version of some of them. Um, you’ll spend upwards of $50 on just like one property with the PMS there. Um, trust me, it’s worth it. Um, I’ve been using a PMS since the very beginning, um, and I don’t regret it whatsoever.

Gil: Um, for us, we try to make ourselves like super affordable, where you don’t have to spend a whole lot to build a really good looking site. So we don’t, for a lot of our customers, we, there’s no upfront fees that you have to, to buy into. So it’s just $59 for the first two properties. That’s a promotion right now, uh, we are giving $30 off.

Gil: It’s normally $89. Um, and then if you have a bigger portfolio, it’s $8 for each additional property. Uh, for larger hosts, over 20 properties. We actually have volume plans, uh, to accommodate for them. Um, and also for our larger hosts, we have, uh, not even larger hosts. We have some smaller hosts that has custom builds for us as well too.

Gil: But, uh, for folks that are looking for more tailored experience or want us to help them with the onboarding, we have white label services, or white, sorry, white glove onboarding services as well too.

Rachel: Okay, so what I’m hearing is you could do this for as little as $90 a month for two properties

Rachel: have, if you’re going with kind of the minimum level, which is sweet because when you think about that, that’s probably two bookings worth of fees

Rachel: that you’re now saving the guests. So if you could just swap them over, um, you can even increase your nightly rate because now they’re not going, they’re gonna see the full price they’re paying over here, but over here it’s gonna be less expensive.

Rachel: So you’re making up those fees with just a couple bookings

Gil: yeah. And there’s, there’s some other benefits as well too. Um, like in RPMS, we have the ability to do automated messages. And when the automated messages that we send out is like an upsell, so if the pmms understands that we have a gap in orphan day of one day, it’ll automatically send out a message of.

Gil: Would you like $15, like 15% off, uh, by extending your stay on either ends, either before check or checkout. Um, and the PMS is smart enough to know whether or not there are orphans on either sides of the stay there and can offer that. Uh, and it won’t send the message if it’s like back to back bookings. So it’s smart enough to do that.

Gil: And then it, it will do it again at 30% off, um, 14 days prior to the stay. And if we really can’t book it, we’ll get up to 50% off, um, like seven days prior to the stay, or seven or six days prior to the stay there. So the PMS has, and it does this consistently. It’s, it’s always working behind the scenes on upsells that already pays for itself already too.

Rachel: Okay.

Rachel: And how, how much time do you think it would take me to get the PMS, do everything I need for my two properties and then bring it over to you To create the direct booking site.

Gil: You can get us up in a couple days.

Rachel: Okay. And

Gil: Yeah.

Rachel: is there any benefit, since I know A PMS will also have a direct booking site, is there any benefit to have two direct booking sites

Gil: not have to. I would not have to. Yeah. So either you’re using what the PMS offers out the box and it’s, and you’re fine with some of the limitations that’s, and that’s perfectly fine for a lot of folks, but if you’re really trying to move a lot more direct bookings and you’re trying to nurture that over the next two, three years

Gil: and you wanna come over to us, then just disable the one that comes with the PMS or just not enable it?

Gil: Um, so we actually, we migrate a lot of folks. They’ll try out their PMS direct booking site and then they’ll come over to us and saying that they’re looking for the brand to be represented. They want to be able to do check their analytics more. They’re trying to do a lot more with their site. Um, and so we’ll kind of help ’em through that process and they’ll disconnect their existing one with the BMS.

Rachel: Got it. Okay. Really important question. Can I customize my URL? Can I come up with my own name for the website?

Gil: Yes. And that’s actually part of the onboarding process. So when you sign up with us, we basically have a checklist of how to get your site spun up so you don’t have to like learn how to like build out a site. So the, the first thing we ask you to do is like, connect your PMS. Second is pick out which template you wanna use.

Gil: Actually the second one question is like, upload any branding materials. So we ask you what your FAQs are. We ask you to upload a bio, we ask you to upload a logo, choose your brand colors, and we’ll have defaults for some of these things. Um, but if you already kind of like, have thought about it, then you can start to build it out just, just from following that checklist.

Gil: And the last checklist item is, uh, register your custom domain. Uh, actually the one before that or the one after that is optimize your SEO. But like the one before that is, uh, build in your custom website or custom URL.

Rachel: So you just go to like GoDaddy and grab it. Okay.

Rachel: Got it. Yeah.

Rachel: so, and I’m sure AI helps a lot. If I don’t have a logo, if I don’t have branding and colors and a cool slogan, like, I’m sure AI is a great place to go get that for me.

Gil: Yes. And um, I would use AI for some of like the colors and such. I wouldn’t use AI for your logos. It’s very, very obvious if you’re using AI for your logos. Even, even, even today.

Rachel: Okay, so then I, I’ll give a piece of advice. Upwork is a great place to have somebody create a logo. That’s where, that’s where I got my up close logo is I hired somebody on Upwork.

Gil: Yeah, we use fiber on our side. Um, but Upwork is, is very much, very similar. Like you can basically hire someone for 50, $60. You’ll tell ’em, you’ll send ’em a bunch of inspiration. You’ll tell them kind of your brand aesthetics and you’ll try to give ’em as much information so that they can craft you a logo and maybe you can start it off on.

Gil: On AI and have this person polished off. But I just find that like the logo that you get from AI specifically are almost always garbage.

Rachel: Yeah. Well that’s good advice. I mean, that’s helpful. So it sounds like a little homework, not a lot, but um, yeah, I’m inspired and I would love to see an example. So maybe when we share this video, I’d like to see a direct booking set that you’ve created.

Rachel: Maybe there’s one you could share with me.

Gil: Yeah. If you go to crafted days, do co slash portfolio, you can take a look at some of the sites that we’ve created and take a look at some of the different templates that you can play around with. Um, but yeah, we try to be pretty transparent on, on those things that like, you know, what you’re, what you’re getting out of it without kind of like all that investment.

Rachel: Yeah. Great. Well, thank you. Thanks for letting me dump all these questions on you. And I think a lot of just the smaller hosts are gonna find this beneficial because we just, we need the push and I, I think this is going to give that to a lot of people.

Gil: Yeah. And that’s, that’s kind of the main driver is like, even though more recently we’ve been helping larger hosts with their direct booking sites and their marketing there, the, at the core what we wanna do is enable all hosts to be able to be successful with direct bookings. I, I, I, I don’t believe that you have to spend a ton of money to hire an agency to build out your site,

Gil: um, and then have to learn all the different marketing tactics to go along with.

Gil: And that’s kind of why we started the show in the first place, was I want to be able to educate folks on what other hosts are doing in this space to draw and drive bookings. Like hearing from you that. You’ve already gotten direct bookings without a direct booking site and you’re leveraging your network, um, and you’re, uh, you’re just able to just use the network within yourself to be able to get a sizable direct booking.

Gil: That sounds amazing. Like if you were to then make that automated where you can just send a link out to people and people can book on on their own, they can see what dates are available, like you’re basically not gonna be able to supercharge that.

Rachel: yeah, yeah. I’m excited. I’m, I’m doing it and maybe no promises, but I’ll try is I’ll post my journey. So on up close, maybe I’ll give little nuggets of how it’s going and once it’s live and just share my process.

Gil: I would love that. That’d be fun.

Rachel: Yeah. Well, thank you.

Rachel: I know we’ve covered a lot.

Rachel: We did good. 

Gil: Awesome. Rachel, I usually end the show with three questions. So the first question first. I’m doing a bunch of reading now on any spare moments I get. What’s a good book recommendation for me and the listeners?

Rachel: Okay. So I think you have kids. Do you have a daughter?

Gil: I do have a daughter.

Rachel: Okay. Okay. You’re gonna thank me in probably you. Um, so when I read, which I don’t get a lot of time, let’s be honest, I don’t, I go to bed really early now ’cause I’m getting older. Um, but. What I’m reading now is called untangled, and it’s understanding the mindset of your teenage daughter. And this has been unbelievable. Um, I should whisper in case she’s here. No. Um, she’s turning 15 and it’s reminding us, especially as women, what it was like going through our teenage years and just how to go into that mindset of what they’re going through from being a child into becoming an adult. And the adolescent years are just right in the middle. Um, I love it, but it’s also a good reminder of just how to deal with people in general and why they act the way they act, and, um, how to react to that. So untangled

Rachel: and 

Gil: And would you recommend it? So my daughter is about half the age of your daughter.

Rachel: uhhuh. 

Gil: Um, so I still have a few years until she gets into her teen years. Is it still worth reading now or would you recommend it for me to shelf it until she’s closer to her teens,

Rachel: Yeah, my daughter acted like a teenager, I swear, when she was about eight, so I

Rachel: could have had lots, lots of value in this, but I think, yeah, when they kind of get maybe 10, it’s, it’s a really valuable book.

Rachel: So, Yeah. 

Gil: Um, side question on that. Do you, are you using AI much at all in your, in your day-to-day or your life?

Rachel: uh, parenting,

Gil: No. And no, just in general. Just in general.

Rachel: um, yes. Oh my gosh. We use it all the time. My husband and I we’re always chat GPT or if we have a, a disagreement on something, we’ll, um, chat, GPT it.

Gil: Are you using it like a Google? Basically it’s like replacing Google.

Rachel: Totally. I mean it has done so much and so part of my world is also connecting on, on LinkedIn with brands. I can go in there and say, what are some top mattress companies for vacation rentals?

Rachel: And give me the contacts on LinkedIn to reach out to, and it does it all for me. And I just click the link and boom, I can

Rachel: connect. 

Gil: Are you doing anything like where you’re creating custom gpt or stitching things together or doing animations? Are you getting that deep into things yet?

Rachel: Wait, I don’t even know what half of that is that you said.

Gil: There’s a, there’s a big world deep inside. AI that I’ve like fell into the trap of. So the reason why I bring this up in relevance to the last thing you’re talking about is I’m creating a custom GPT for myself, which is basically, rather than like putting into a chat the question that you have, you can give chat GPTA bunch of context about certain things.

Gil: So when it responds back to you, it’s not giving you a generic response, it’s giving you a response specifically for it. Um, so what I’ve done is I have. Really try to figure out like, what are the parenting styles that works real well for me? What do I aspire to learn more about and put into more practice?

Gil: And I asked it also to refer me to specific books. I think actually Untangled was one of those books that referred me to, yeah, I, I, I had like, this is been our mind off, I hadn’t heard about it before this, but um, it’s given me a bunch of different books that I should consider. And so what I’m doing is I’m loading the summaries and some of the transcripts from those books into a custom GBT.

Gil: And I’ve also given it a blurb of my kids, each of their personalities, and then also my parenting, either my strengths and my weaknesses. And then I’m basically using it as a coach so that when I come towards an issue, I can ask it a question and it knows a lot about how my daughter is and how my son is, but it also is able to reference books that I want to aspire towards learning from.

Gil: Is giving me a very tailored response of like how I should think about reacting in certain situations.

Rachel: that’s, that’s really cool. Yeah. Yeah, you’re, yeah. You, um, you’re very smart and know how to leverage the tools. I mean, that’s awesome. I didn’t even, I was joking when I said I’ll use it for parenting, but Totally. If we get an argument, I’m gonna like, sneak away and start Jet GB ting that be like, how should I respond to my daughter right now?

Rachel: No.

Gil: Well, I like, I read, like in the very early days, I don’t know if you did this, but like I read about a lot about like Montessori and RF and all the different parenting styles and gentle parenting, and then didn’t really know how to put it into practice. And my kids are, they’re my kids. My son and my daughter are almost like 180 degree difference there.

Gil: So taking parenting advice. Really hard, and it’s really hard to apply something that I don’t have experience in. And I don’t have a parenting coach at all. And I actually don’t know any parents I have as a parenting coach. Um, so I just like, I’m using this as a use case for me to like learn how I can leverage the knowledge of others, but also applied towards my own.

Gil: So that’s kind of what led me down this path of creating this custom GPT.

Rachel: Wow. And so when can we expect to see that?

Gil: Uh, it’s already, it’s already answering some things for me. Yeah. So, but it’s, I, I tailored it for myself. Like I, you can probably do the same. So like, if you go into chat GPT, there’s a button to create a custom GPT, um, and then you just basically load, you just basically give it files and the files could be summaries of certain books that you like.

Gil: And then you also give it a prompt of like, my daughter is like this, my son’s like this. And you try to make it as lengthy as possible. You give it as much context. My son hates it when I do this. My daughter hates it when I do this.

Gil: Um, and then like, you just give it as much context and then that way when you ask questions, it’s able to know your habits, your behaviors, reactions already.

Gil: So it’s not giving you something super generic.

Rachel: Yeah. Sweet. I’m gonna check it out this weekend.

Gil: Yeah. Try it out. Let me, yeah. I’m always trying to be better and if I can be better dad, then I’ll, I’m super happy about that.

Rachel: Yeah, maybe it’ll help me with my husband too. I can, you know, just ask an advice for that too.

Gil: That’s probably the first time I’ve ever heard, heard that phrase. My wife will never admit to that.

Rachel: All right.

Rachel: What’s your next question?

Rachel: That was, 

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

Rachel: Um, okay, so of course I’m gonna talk about up close a little bit. Um, is, it’s gonna be hard. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It’s not easy when you’re starting something new. Expect things are gonna go wrong, there’s gonna be barriers, um, but. I know you just, you always hear this, but you gotta keep going and know that it’s going to get better.

Rachel: Better. And I think for me, I just, I learned a lot when I was working at Free Products for hosts and showplace and just seeing the entrepreneurial world and what’s priority. Not everything is priority. You have to pick and choose. It does not have to be perfect to keep it going because you’re gonna constantly make improvements and that’s what’s gonna keep you busy month after month.

Rachel: But just do those improvements. But you don’t have to do it all at one time.

Rachel: Don’t wait, don’t wait till launch it.

Gil: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s, uh, the, the whole like my daughter has the signs is progress over perfection.

Rachel: Yeah. Yeah.

Gil: Yeah. Awesome. I love that.

Rachel: it’s never gonna be perfect. Yeah.

Gil: All right. Um, I know you’re going down this journey right now, but what’s one piece of tactical advice that you would give to someone that’s starting their direct booking engine or trying to amplify it?

Rachel: Yeah, I mean, one do it. Definitely do it. And I, I would say is what do you want to get out of your journey as an investor, as an owner, as a manager, um, you know, what, what are you doing it for? And is it financial? Is it for your family? Is it generational wealth? I mean, really, really know the reason why, and that helps determine the rest of your direction and your path moving forward.

Gil: Nice. Awesome. Rachel, I enjoyed our conversation. It was interesting to get interviewed within my own shows. I actually thoroughly enjoyed that, so thank you for that. Um, if folks wanna follow you, where can they learn more about you, follow you along your journey?

Rachel: Yeah, so just up close marketing.com. Up close, MKTG, and then Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook at up close. Marketing spelled out. Or you can just shoot me an email. It’s Rachel, R-A-C-H-E l@upclosemktg.com.

Gil: Okay. I’ll be sure to include all those notes into the show notes. Rachel, again, it was great having you on the show. Thank you for sharing the, the unique product and service that you’ve created and some of the things that you are trying to create out of, out of your platform. Um, and then also being candid about really where you are in your hosting journey and now deciding to get into direct bookings and some of the things that you’re thinking about behind the scenes.

Gil: So definitely I’m excited to kind of follow your journey as you kind of embarked on this too.

Rachel: Yeah, and you’re gonna be helping me

Rachel: so. Thank you for answering all these questions that I’ve been building in the back of my mind and I can’t wait.

Gil: Yeah, a lot of the questions that you ask, we have specific blog posts on almost everyone I

Rachel: Oh, sweet. Okay, 

Gil: There’s the, the one that, the big one that you asked is like, why do I need a PMS to get into direct bookings? Like, that’s probably one of the, the most red blog posts that we have out there.

Gil: Um, so that’s a good one.

Gil: Um, so our listeners, if you need help with this process, go through all of our blogs, search for topics that you’re looking for. There’s a search bar on the very bottom of the page that allows you to type in PMS and it’ll actually find all the articles related to that. Um, so that’s a great way for you to just like, if you’re trying to figure out a certain thing or SEO or how to work with social influencers, you can go in there and find all the articles that we have for it.

Gil: Any guests that we brought onto the show that talked about it?

Rachel: Nice. Okay. Yep. Some weekend reading. Thank you.

Gil: Awesome. Rachel, again, it was really good having you on the show, and I can’t wait to follow your journey.

Rachel: Thank you.

Gil: All right, bye.

Rachel: Bye.