Vacation Rental Automation: Running a Five-Star STR Business on Autopilot with Sean McGregor

Summary and Highlights

🎯 About Sean McGregor

Sean McGregor is the founder of NoCodeSTR.com, where he teaches vacation rental hosts how to automate the tedious parts of their business using no-code tools like Zapier, Airtable, and AI. Since 2018, he’s maintained a remarkable 4.98★ rating on Airbnb while hosting more than 5,000 groups—proving that automation and exceptional guest experience aren’t mutually exclusive.

What sets Sean apart is his 5★ Guarantee: he doesn’t take commission if a guest leaves anything less than a five-star review. This bold promise reflects his confidence in the systems he’s built, which handle everything from pre-arrival communications to post-checkout follow-ups.

Sean’s approach isn’t theoretical. He’s built his business while working remotely from over 40 countries with his family, demonstrating that proper automation creates true location independence. His free 5-day course at NoCodeSTR.com has helped hundreds of hosts discover what’s possible when they stop doing everything manually.

🔑 Key Highlights: Building a Five-Star Business on Autopilot

The “Automate the Annoying” Philosophy

Sean’s entire approach centers on one principle: identify the repetitive, time-consuming tasks that drain your energy and automate them. For most hosts, this means the same guest questions, check-in instructions, and review requests that repeat with every booking.

“The goal is to automate the annoying so you can focus on the amazing,” Sean explains. This isn’t about cutting corners—it’s about redirecting your limited time toward high-impact activities like improving your property, building relationships with direct booking guests, or actually enjoying the lifestyle that drew you to hosting in the first place.

The mindset shift happens when hosts realize that guests don’t care how they get information—they just want it quickly and accurately. Whether an answer comes from you personally or a well-designed automation makes no difference to guest satisfaction.

No-Code Tools That Cost Nothing Per Listing

One of the biggest misconceptions Sean addresses is that powerful automation requires expensive software or technical expertise. The tools he relies on—Zapier, Airtable, and Make—can be implemented at zero cost per listing for most hosts.

These platforms connect your existing systems (PMS, email, calendar) and create workflows that run automatically. For example, when a new booking comes in, an automation can instantly send personalized welcome messages, add the guest to your communication sequence, and update your team’s task list—all without you lifting a finger.

Sean emphasizes that the learning curve isn’t as steep as most hosts imagine. “If you can set up an Airbnb listing, you can build these automations,” he notes. The key is starting with one annoying task and building from there, rather than trying to automate everything at once.

For hosts focused on growing their direct booking channel, these same no-code tools integrate beautifully with website forms and inquiry systems, creating a seamless guest experience from first contact through checkout.

AI as Your 24/7 Guest Experience Manager

The real game-changer in Sean’s systems is how he’s integrated AI—not as a replacement for genuine hospitality, but as an enhancement. His AI-powered tools handle routine questions, provide instant responses outside business hours, and even anticipate guest needs based on patterns in previous conversations.

During his recent Balkans road trip, Sean’s automations and AI systems maintained a 100% five-star rating without any human intervention. Guests received immediate answers to questions about WiFi passwords, local recommendations, or check-in procedures—all delivered in a natural, helpful tone that reflected his brand.

“The technology has reached a point where guests genuinely can’t tell they’re interacting with automation,” Sean shares. But he’s quick to clarify that AI works best when it’s trained on your voice, your property’s unique features, and your approach to hospitality.

This is particularly powerful for hosts managing multiple properties or building a portfolio. Instead of multiplying your workload as you scale, properly implemented AI and automation mean your systems scale without requiring proportional increases in your time.

The Five-Star Guarantee: Confidence Through Systems

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Sean’s business model is his willingness to offer a 5★ Guarantee—he only collects commission when guests leave five-star reviews. This isn’t just a marketing gimmick; it’s a direct result of the confidence he has in his automated systems.

“When you’ve systematized every touchpoint in the guest journey, you know exactly what experience they’re getting,” Sean explains. His automations ensure consistent communication timing, complete pre-arrival information, and timely follow-up after checkout—all the factors that influence whether a guest leaves a glowing review.

This approach also creates a virtuous cycle: because Sean’s systems are designed to generate five-star experiences, he attracts clients who are serious about quality and willing to invest in proper automation. The guarantee becomes a filter that aligns everyone’s incentives toward excellence.

For hosts considering professional website implementations or upgrading their booking systems, this principle applies equally: when your infrastructure is solid, you can make bold promises about the experience you deliver.

Location Independence Without Compromise

Sean’s lifestyle proves that automation isn’t just about saving time—it’s about creating genuine freedom. He’s worked from 40+ countries with his family while maintaining his 4.98★ rating, demonstrating that the right systems let you run a professional operation from anywhere with internet access.

This geographic flexibility compounds over time. Better systems mean you can evaluate properties in new markets, explore co-hosting opportunities, or simply travel without the constant anxiety of being tethered to guest communications.

“The goal isn’t to work less—it’s to work on what matters from wherever matters to you,” Sean notes. For some hosts, that means reinvesting time into property improvements. For others, it means spending more time with family. The automation simply makes both possible.

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💡 Rapid Fire Questions

Favorite automation tool?
Zapier and Airtable—they’re the foundation of everything.

Biggest automation mistake hosts make?
Trying to automate everything at once instead of starting with one annoying task.

Best time to start automating?
Before you think you need it. The earlier you build systems, the easier scaling becomes.

One book recommendation?
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber—it completely changed how I think about systems.

What would you tell your younger self?
Start building systems from day one. Every manual process you create today is technical debt tomorrow.

Underrated tool in your stack?
Airtable—most people only scratch the surface of what it can do.

Biggest guest experience improvement from automation?
Response time. Guests get answers instantly, even at 2 AM, which removes friction from their stay.

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🔗 Connect with Sean McGregor

Ready to automate the annoying parts of your vacation rental business? Sean offers a free 5-day course at NoCodeSTR.com that walks you through building your first automations step by step.

Follow Sean’s journey and learn more:

• Website: NoCodeSTR.com
• YouTube: @NoCodeSTR
• LinkedIn: Sean McGregor

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🏡 Ready to Take Control of Your Direct Bookings?

While automation handles the repetitive tasks, your direct booking website becomes the foundation for true independence. CraftedStays helps serious hosts create fast, mobile-optimized, SEO-driven websites that convert visitors into guests—without the technical headaches or WordPress maintenance.

Just like Sean’s no-code automation philosophy, CraftedStays is built for hosts who want professional results without becoming web developers. Set up your branded booking site in minutes, integrate with your PMS, and start building the independent business you’ve always wanted.

Visit CraftedStays.co to start your free trial today.

Transcription

Sean : Make sure your information is going somewhere. When you get a booking based on how big you are, you could set up a zap from your PMS to Google Sheets. Anytime a booking happens, put the information there, then you set it up one time. Take you 15 minutes if you’ve never done it before, two minutes if you’ve done it before, but then you’ll always have a record of everybody to stay with you.

Sean : And you know, I obviously get much deeper into this, but five star guarantee. Like treat your guests like it is their only stay of the entire year. Make sure they have a great time. That’s the best calling card for you, for them to tell friends. But if you store all that information, you can follow up with them later and that’s how you get direct bookings.

Sean : ’cause. You know, if they go back on Airbnb trying to find your property again, there’s a million other options out there, but if you’re the person that showed ’em the great time and you’re a sure thing for them to come back, you have that information to text them or email them. And you don’t have that unless you store that information.

Gil: Before we bring on our guest, I wanted to talk just a little bit about something that I’ve been hearing a lot from Host. I keep on hearing the same thing. I know my website isn’t converting, but I can’t afford $8,000 on 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 all to work.

Gil: 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 iterate, you can’t test, and you really can 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 booking.

Gil: And you can keep on testing and improving. As you learn, you can make changes all on the platform. You don’t need to learn something new. So if you need some help or you wanna get started, go ahead and go to 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 book Solid show where we bring on top operators to discuss marketing, revenue management, and direct bookings. Today we have a special show where we interview Sean McGregor from no code STR. He’s really a unique mind, um, where he’s tackling problems very differently than.

Gil: I’m used to. I’m used to really solving and building platforms that enable many, many people to really achieve and accomplish the problems that they wanna do. But he’s actually taken it on a very different angle where he’s teaching people. Specifically how to automate certain parts of your life, specifically around short term rentals.

Gil: Um, and really, he has a course and he teaches all about this, and he’s really well versed in many, many tools like Zapier and Airtable. But today we interview him just to kind of understand like, why did he go down this path in the first place? What were was he, what was he solving for some of the use cases that he’s been able to automate and some of the complexities.

Gil: Actually, I was really surprised to hear. How deep he’s able to get into these tools to bring the guest experience to where he wants it to be. And really that’s what it’s all about. This conversation. We talk and we geek out a lot about some of the tools that he’s using and how he’s connecting it. But at the very end of the day, you’ll understand like underneath it all, he really cares about the guest experience.

Gil: And really what he’s trying to do is how to deliver a very consistent guest experience where he’s not at the mercy of really. Running it all. Yes, he has SLPs and all those different things. Um, but he wants to build a system that kind of run runs on its own. He is now able to do that. So I’m really excited to have him really share with us how he’s built this.

Gil: So without further ado, let’s bring him in.

Gil: Sean, welcome to the show.

Sean: Gil, so honored to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Gil: Yeah, it’s a huge pleasure to to have you on here. I’ve seen you pop up a few times now. I’ve been wanting to kind of pick that brain of yours ’cause I feel like there’s a lot going on in that brain and I think after the show, our audience will really understand why I said that. Um, but maybe to kinda kick us off, Sean, do you mind giving folks a introduction on who you are?

Sean: Yeah, absolutely. My name is Sean McGregor, founder of No-Code str.com, and I’ve been in the short-term rental industry since 2016, actually, 2015 because my better half Lindsay started up a hostel in Austin, Texas. When we first met, I quickly became involved. All of a sudden we had three locations running.

Sean: I had 35 guests that I was messaging by myself. All while we were traveling in Eastern Europe with our, at that 0.2 year olds. Um, and you know, if I didn’t have automation helping me out, there’s no way I’d be able to do that. Um, but 2020 rolls around COVID, VID really bad time to have shared rooms with solo travelers.

Sean: So we had to shut that business down. Um, started co-hosting around the country in five different states. And the way I could get people to, you know, trust me and let me show that how good I was at what I do was to guarantee a five star review where I wouldn’t take a commission. And so the only reason I could do that is ’cause I had such tight systems and, you know, I’ve been on podcasts, spoken at conferences, yada, yada.

Sean: But, um, you know, the thing that I loved and like got deeper and deeper in love with, as you know, I got into this business, was actually building the expert system in my business using the E-Myth kind of principles of. You know, making it to where it’s impossible for something to slip through the cracks and to make everything just, you know, systematized in your business to where it works every single time repeatedly.

Sean: That way you can guarantee those five stars. And you know, with me, I started beating all these different groups. I’d hear people’s problems and questions and I know how to solve it. But not if they were using the current tech stack. They needed to kind of like, Hey, I use Airtable, I use Zapier, I use now AI to, you know, do a lot of things that create your own custom software stack that cost $0 per listing.

Sean: And I couldn’t get ’em there without them using my stuff. So that’s why I started no-code sdr.com to where I now teach people all the softwares I use, give them all of my Zaps, all of my Airtable bases, et cetera, to able to, you know, take empower themselves to, you know, run their business exactly how it works for them.

Sean: And yeah, it’s been a great journey so far. And yeah, I’m, I’m excited to, uh, dive in, talk to you about it more.

Gil: Yeah, talk to me a little bit about kind of how you got started in this. Um, what was your background in, prior to meeting your wife, Lindsay, and, and really running those, those hostels there that kind of led you to become an expert at Zapier and a lot of other tools? What was the background be behind all that?

Sean: Yeah. I mean, so for me, I’ve always kind of been an entrepreneur at heart. Um, I sold golf balls as a kid because we lived by a golf course. I used to sell NBA jam codes to different people at school. I ran a football pool where we, I was basically a bookie at the high school, and then I, you know, I went to NBA at Texas Tech and undergrad and started my own discount card business for college students, and did that by myself for, I guess, until 2016 or 2015.

Sean: I also did a golf VIP card where I would, you know, partner with all these different courses where you get a buy one, get one free round, um, the first time you went, and then a reusable discount after that. But anyway, my whole thing was, I’d always done everything by myself. And I had always done the kind of entrepreneurial thing where always on the clock, always the one that’s responsible for an answering every single message.

Sean: Never turn it off. Had to learn how to, you know, do my own graphic design, how to do all my marketing, how, you know, I had to be the Swiss Army knife and do everything. And then in 2016, you know, while running those 35, uh, you know, the three locations with 35 guests, we were going on a trip with Lindsay’s family to, uh, Spain and Portugal, and we were gonna have to leave.

Sean: And I happened to find smart b and b, which is now hospitable, saw the automations. But there was a little part in there that said like, um, you know, webhooks and I didn’t know what that was. Clicked it and is like used with services like Zapier. And that’s when I first found out about Zapier and just kind of the, if this happens, I want this to happen.

Sean: And all of a sudden it opened it up to where on that trip in 2016, you know, we’d have 35 guests staying, but after a certain time of the day, you know, I’m in a different time zone. I would not be around anymore, but I could set it up to where if a booking comes in after five o’clock Texas, this guest that’s staying there with the information of the person that’s staying so then they can get ’em checked in and everything like that.

Sean: And it just has continually layered on top of that where I’m just able to solve my own problems. And obviously you can tell I’m very excited about like, you know, where the journey’s gone. But um, yeah, it’s been just so empowering to be able to, without any coding experience, thus the name no-code str.com, um, to be able to solve my own problems to kind of make the magic happen and have a business work.

Sean: Like where I can be confident to work less in my business. ’cause now I have a 7-year-old Jackson and I love to just be able to shut off my phone and not have to worry about it. ’cause it wasn’t always that case. Um, plenty of times where I’d be playing with him as a little kid and all of a sudden I’m dealing with an AC unit in North Carolina and be, you know, literally my mind thousands of miles away when I have like, you know, this perfect little human right in front of me.

Sean: So yeah, that was the whole reason. And you know, my mantra is automate the annoying. I automate the annoying and on my shirt there’s a blank. ’cause it really is anything that’s annoying, learn how to automate it and you can Now with the amazing technology there is, including ai, which is the ultimate no-code tool.

Gil: Yeah. So, so you, you, you, you discovered hospitable or smart Airbnb back, back then, you discovered what Web hook was. Did you had, had you already used Zapier before or did you learn it for the first time and like, what was that experience like learning Zapier for the first time?

Sean: Uh, I mean, it was pure magic. Honestly. It felt like a wizard. I mean, it was just so cool. Um, because for me, you know, it’s something everyone struggles with. Like, oh, I should really start a spreadsheet, or I should really, you know, keep track of my guests that have been staying with me. But you’d have to manually enter it all in and let’s be honest, it’s not gonna happen.

Sean: Um, so one of the first steps I figured out was just, okay when a booking comes in, put it into a spreadsheet row and just that one thing, all of a sudden I had my own collection of data about my guests. And I mean, that was the first one. And then it just literally, it’s addicting once you realize like. Oh man, as soon as that happened, without me doing anything that happens, okay, what else can we do?

Sean: And you just keep stacking these wins and every time you’re saving five minutes in a day from a task and you do it again, and you do it again, and you do it again, like eventually you’re like in a whole different place. You have a business that works without you. I’m a big, uh, E-Myth guy, Michael Gerber.

Sean: It’s kind of similar to like traction and those books. Um, but he was the guy that really spoke to me and just like, if you have a business that relies on you, you don’t have a business, you have a job. Um, and so his whole thing is just to make it so simple. You can bring in anybody to run your business.

Sean: And that’s what now I’m able to do with timely notifications, you know, that happen with like, oh, um, you know, the door code hasn’t been set for this guest. Here’s a link. Set it. And like, you know, you can never have anything fall through the cracks anymore.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. For folks that don’t know what Zapier is, how would you describe it?

Sean: Uh, so Zapier connects 8,000 different apps, and so there’s a trigger and an action. And so if something happens in one of those 8,000, a lot of times you can connect it to one of those other ones to have, okay, so a new email matching a search comes into Gmail. So for me, like I live in Austin and I never wanna miss something from the city of Austin, so I just put in that email address.

Sean: So anytime an email comes from the city of Austin, send a text message through open phone to me. So I definitely see it. And so I never have to look through there and like, oh, do I have an email from them? Like, I immediately get a text message from an email that came in that I didn’t send. And I set that up one time and now it’s kind of foolproof.

Sean: And that’s just one very simple example, but it’s just so powerful to like be able to be someone that’s never coded before. All of a sudden have that superpower of like, man, I did that and they made my business so much easier and so much smoother. Uh, another example that is more relevant is as soon as a booking happens now, their contact information from that guest goes into what I, what I, my phone system called open phone.

Sean: It’s actually quo now. They announced a name change yesterday. But if a guest books calls me 30 seconds later on my screen, I see their name, where they’re staying, how much they paid, how many days, how many people are staying with them, all of it gets programmed automatically. So I can be like, Hey, Gale, how’s it going?

Sean: Decided to host you on Tuesday. And they booked 30 seconds before. Just mind blowing customer service. And it makes it to where again, you’re answering that call ’cause you know it’s a guest and you’re answering it by name and you’re just able to, you know, deliver that incredible five star experience, which again, is something I guarantee.

Sean: So, you know, there’s so many, it is like unlimited possibilities. And then again, we’re gonna do it probably later, but AI just takes it one, you know, a thousand levels higher.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like there’s a evolution to your automation where Zapier was that first unlock back in, if I remember correctly, 2016. And then now fast forward to 20 24, 20 25, you have this rise in ai and that just opens the floodgates in terms of new automations and probably even smarter automations at this point.

Gil: Um, you’re not just coding things that have very explicit rules, but can take on a much more open-ended, uh, response to it. Is that right?

Sean: for sure. And you know, one huge piece of the puzzle that I was missing, and it’s like. My favorite software ever now is called Airtable. And to put it simply for me, it’s 10,000 times better than Google Sheets ’cause it’s an actual database instead of a spreadsheet. And what that means is I can have one table that’s all about properties, one that’s all about guests.

Sean: But if I put in a wifi code in the properties table, I know that any message I send to that guest will have that correct wifi code automatically. Um, the main thing is it took all my zaps. Instead of having to make one for every single property, I could have 500 properties. Now one Zap and Airtable would let me pull in all the detailed information from that guest, stay automatically into that one zap to where you’re just so much more efficient.

Sean: Plus every website you’ve ever been on is run off a database. Every app you’ve ever been on is run off a database, not a spreadsheet. So you can actually build your own cleaning apps, build your own owner, uh, portals, build your own digital guidebooks, all with Airtable as the backend. And then again, all the automation that I have to notify cleaners via text message, have a form go there where they can enter in how the, you know, if the guest left it clean, if there’s any maintenance items, they hit submit, it goes back into Airtable tags that guest to someone we want to have back or not have back then if there’s a maintenance issue, can automatically look at that property, find out who the maintenance people are, even send them a text message through a and i AI now to where just you layer it on top of itself and like all of a sudden you have a pretty much self running business.

Gil: Wow. Wow. And you’re absolutely right. Like, uh, Airtable is much more sophisticated than your Google Sheets. And it’s, it’s like you mentioned, it’s, it’s, it’s a database, but it’s actually probably multiple data databases that you can kind of connect together, or multiple tables that you can connect together.

Gil: That’s a lot more structured than, than, than an Excel sheet or a goal sheets, because Google Sheets, you can put anything, you can overwrite rows and, and, and such. You’re not creating fields that have any logic in them. So I, I can totally see why. When you connected Zapier to Airtable and unlocks a whole new way of kind of running automations versus running off sheets or some other method.

Sean: For sure. And like one thing that’s really, really powerful with Airtable, it’s, for me, it’s the ultimate automation trigger for a no coder. Because I could never figure out, how do I text message a guest on the second day of their stay at 10 0 5, right? ’cause for me, I wanna follow up with that guest while they’re still at the property.

Sean: Say, Hey Gail, I wanna make sure you’re having a great time so far. Please lemme know if you need anything. Um, so if they have an issue, I can solve it right? Then. Provide that great five star experience, or find out, Hey, everything’s great. Thanks for checking in on us. Have that proactive communication. But I could never figure out how to automatically do that.

Sean: I was like, okay, it’s 10 0 5, I’m gonna text message these 14 guests, or whatever it was. And it was a huge pain. But Airtable, you can just set up what’s called a view one time that says, I want the guest to be, have checked in yesterday. I want the current hour to be 10, and I want them to be an accepted booking.

Sean: And then every time now for any guest, it’ll send that text message at the exact right time. And again, there’s more that happens into that. But now with ai, it’ll read that reply, update their status is having a great time. Yes, not sure or no. And then escalate it to me if it needs, if it’s a no and, or, you know, ask, you know, mark him as a yes if it, they’re having a great time.

Sean: And then I don’t even have to know about it unless an important thing happens where they’re not having a great time. And then I’m brought in immediately.

Gil: Yeah, I, I think as you’re talking about this, it has me think through like what’s going in your mind and how you design these. And the first thing that I think about is like in order for you to design the automation the way that you want it and to solve the problems that you weigh the way you wanted, actually had to reverse engineer and figure out what are the systems that you wanna have in place.

Gil: Like what do you want that workflow to be? And really get really clear at defining that because otherwise you’ll end up creating a whole bunch of zaps and whole bunch of automations that don’t really solve the problem, or there’s probably better ways of solving the problem. So I feel like you almost have to like take a step back whenever you’re thinking about problem and figuring out like, okay.

Gil: I don’t wanna just solve this, but like how does it fit into this overall system of the guest experience and how do I want to like design that? And maybe you’ll still piece together this over time, but you kind of have to like take your step back. And I’m curious to hear like, is that it really your case is like, do you think about that way or do you think of it more as like use case specific for every single automation that you might wanna run?

Sean: So for me it’s all through the guest experience. Um, because we’ve stayed in 150 plus Airbnbs alone, plus other, you know, accommodations in 50 plus countries like Lindsay and I, Jackson’s been to 48. But through that we’ve been in very uncomfortable situations where we don’t speak the language, we have no idea where we’re at, we can’t read the street signs, et cetera.

Sean: And I’ll be able to see how hosts in other countries, you know, make it really simple for them. And I’ve borrowed little pieces from each one. And so now, like, you know, obviously we talked about it, but I used text message on the day of this day. ’cause not everyone necessarily has VRBO or Airbnb app on their phone.

Sean: It could be their first time. Everybody knows how to use text message. Uh, there’s a picture of the front of the house or whatever relevant information they need to get in the house or if necessary, even a video link just to make it super simple. That’s one thing that’s always a bummer when you’re traveling is like pulling up, looking where which house is which, but just make it easy for people.

Sean: Make it convenient for your guests to like, okay, there’s, there’s a house. Okay, how do I work the spa? Oh, here’s a link in this text message. I push this button. Just, you know, make it as simple as possible. ’cause these people might only have one trip with their family all year long. It’s our responsibility as host to make sure it’s a great one.

Sean: And, you know, it’s obviously good business to make sure they have a great time. ’cause you can re retarget to ’em for direct bookings later. But the most important thing is like they’re the person that booked it. They probably fought for your place over other places. They’re gonna see that same family on Thanksgiving.

Sean: If you let ’em down and it’s you didn’t maintain things properly, or if they had a tough time getting in and the door code wasn’t set, then they’re the ones that are gonna get heckled at Thanksgiving. So yeah, the whole thing is just make sure they have that incredible time they paid for, and then they will tell other people as well, but just make it as simple as possible.

Sean: And so for me it is all from a guest perspective. And you know, again, I just mentioned the checkup message on the second day of their stay. Of all those days, I’ve maybe had that happen to me three times out of like hundreds of stays, someone proactively reaching out to me. But every guest I do it and everybody appreciates it.

Sean: They’re like, oh, thanks for reaching out. It’s amazing. Oh, you know, the, the toilet’s, you know, running in the downstairs. Oh. Do you want me to get with someone out there now? No. Okay. Um, well, we’ll take care of it after your stay, but thanks for letting me know. And they so appreciate it. And I always get five stars on like.

Sean: And like detailed, oh my God, great communication, had such an amazing time, yada, yada.

Gil: Yeah, it reminds me of kind of like how folks think about SOPs, and you might think about this as well too, is like when you’re writing these automations, you have an SOP in place. And the thing that I hear is that when you’re writing SOPs, there’s two reasons why you might wanna write an so P or if it falls into any of these two buckets.

Gil: You wanna write SLP things that you do regularly or that you need to train people regularly, that you need to like staff up because it happens very, very often. And two. Things that will ruin your day if something were to happen that would ruin your day or ruin the guest’s day and you have to firefight or your guest is having an awful stay, and that may lead to a a less than five star review.

Gil: Those are the two SOPs that you wanna write. And it sounds like in your world, you don’t write the SOP, you figure out ways to automate that through kind of your system there. Is that right?

Sean: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I definitely. Very heavy into documentation. I mean, again, the e myth is all about that. Like, you know, for them, if they’re an operations manual, for me, all my SOPs live in Airtable. And so when a guest message comes through it, the, you know, Airtable AI knows, okay, where that guest is saying can read all the documentation for it.

Sean: And so that firefighter kind of example you had, let’s say the door code doesn’t work, it can read through the documentation and be like, oh, I’m so sorry about that. Try backup door code, yada, yada. Oh, the battery’s dead. Okay, well, if you go around the house to the right, above the hose, there’s a lockbox.

Sean: The code is dah, dah, dah. And it’s only reason it knows that is because you’re giving it all that information and the power to read it, know about it. But yeah, without documentation, AI isn’t, it’s very helpful, but it’s still only as smart as the information you give it. And in this context, you can give it all the relevant information about the entire message, history of a guest, the property documentation, and the ways you like to reply to certain things.

Sean: So it can take that and then just add the nuance of the current situation to still speak in your voice, still have you know your brand at the front of it, but deliver that incredible experience

Gil: Yeah.

Sean: and save them in that bad situation faster than a human could.

Gil: Um, you mentioned just a little bit on the show, but outside of doing the coasting, you also have a course where you teach others how to run this and, um, you have a free version, but you also have a paid version where it’s a little bit more hands on and there’s, uh, a bit more value added on top on there.

Gil: Um, kind of given that context, what are some of the, I would say like five top use cases that you want to help your students set up to really start to automate their business? What are the, like the top five things that you would tend to teach them?

Sean: Yeah, for sure. So the free course, five day course, just one day. Um, each is a software that I use that I recommend where I just kinda show some of the functionality of it. Um, show the power of it again. AI has like changed things a little bit, but I’ve just recorded new videos for each one. Um, but that’s the free version, the paid version.

Sean: If people enjoy it, you have to do the free version no matter what. ’cause that’s just kind of like how you understand the tools, see if it’s right for you. ’cause you know, I want someone that because know is trying to scale or at least has enough properties where they’ve hit the pain point of like, uh, I can’t spend time with my kids ’cause I’m doing all these things and things are falling through the holes.

Sean: Um, but the five things for me, first thing, get your information into Airtable or a spreadsheet. At minimum. I would always recommend Airtable over it, but as soon as the booking happens, put that information in there. When a review gets created, pull that information in, tag it to that guest. Um, the entire message, history, whatever, put it in there, the property documentation like we talked about.

Sean: So make that one place, one single source of truth for your business. Like all of your information, that part. Crucial. The mindset of automating the annoying, because all the tools I use, they’re not short term rental specific. I’ve built things for various companies. I, you know, Lindsay runs a dance com, uh, dance camp company.

Sean: I’ve built a bunch of things for her. I’ve done things for events, conferences, um, you know, I’ve done invoice handlers where people dropping an invoice and it pulls out all the information, sends up the information with line items two, QuickBooks, yada, yada. But, so get back on track. First thing is putting all the stuff in Airtable, that’s step one, triggering automations from there.

Sean: Where for me, again, the text message is a much easier communication platform, but setting it up where you actually can text your guests with a click of a button or automatically instead of having to, um, do everything through one of the PMSs, which are now. Watching your messages ever closer with ai, it’s a more personal experience.

Sean: Plus our goal here is to get more direct bookings. If you have a personal connection with someone via text message, get their email as well. You can get that guest to come back again, you know, without bringing in the PMS, having them take a cut, plus you’re having a better experience for them. So, I mean, that’s a huge part, is just getting that contact with the guest off the platform in a convenient, helpful way to them.

Sean: Uh, the next thing is, you know, again, I’d mentioned reviews, but taking reviews to the next level where we’re watching the guest sentiment as the messages are rolling through, if they’re, if they’ve left a great review, what’s gonna happen? Four minutes after the review window opens, they’re gonna get a text message from the same phone number saying, Hey Gale, thanks for being a great guest.

Sean: Um, I just left you a five star review. Here’s a screenshot of the review. I left. And they click that link and there’s a dynamically generated image saying Gil and his group are great guests. You know, may would recommend them to anybody. Thanks for staying at swap, co-hosting, yada yada. But that automatically happens four minutes later.

Sean: So if you’re a guest and you’re staying with me, you know, I left UA five star, you know, it was at least three or four sentences long. You’re probably gonna reciprocate with a four or five star you, or you know, a five star, but a four or five sentence version. So that’s more marketable to future guests.

Sean: And then what I do is as soon as they do leave a review, if it’s a five star, then I reach out to ’em either via email or text message with a text saying, Hey, thanks for leaving a five star. By the way, could you please lay this on our Google reviews? And it actually lists their review they wrote in the link so they can just copy and paste what they’ve already written.

Sean: Put it on Google. Makes it super simple for them to, you know, go ahead and do it. ’cause hey, I’ve already done the hard work. All I need to do is copy and paste and you get so many Google, Google reviews from that which makes your off OTA brand that much stronger. And again, these are all just little building blocks that you set up this, that then this, that, then this app, this and this app, and then eventually, like you have this whole flow that works without you doing anything and just kind of puts it on autopilot.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. So if I were to kinda like circle back to kind of your process there, it’s one pulling all your information so you have a single source of truth, uh, which is Airtable in, in, in your case, you wanna get all. All the booking data all in there, all the messages, everything, all the reviews, all channeling into our table.

Gil: So you now have one, a visual way they can see all your data all in one place, but two, it becomes the data that powers the next set, which is really being able to trigger automations. And you might set up one or two different automations to send text messages to folks after a booking may occur, but at that point.

Gil: The property manager, the host, now knows, oh, I have all this data. I can connect it to a text message and I can now trigger whatever messages I want. I’m not confined to it. Um, and then kinda like the third step is really figuring out, okay, how do you work through the whole review process to funnel folks from not just leaving you a five star review on the OTAs, but how you translate that into a Google review that is, um, lot more versatile in terms of direct bookings.

Gil: Is that right? Like it sounds like you have more of a framework of how to automate your business and is less so. These are the specific Zaps I want you to learn, and let me teach you the frameworks on how this all works together. And then we’ll layer on the use cases.

Sean: Yeah, exactly. I mean, the main thing is the central source of truth and I, I mentioned all the guest information, but it also, whenever a cleaner like submits their form, it’ll let me know if there’s a maintenance issue. Again, can know who the handyman are for that property. If there’s supplies needed, they can enter in the different supplies, hit submit.

Sean: All of a sudden, boop, flag goes off for us, Hey, we need to order supplies at this property. Um, so it’s just a universal system to streamline the entire business.

Gil: Yeah. That’s awesome.

Sean: Yeah. And then also, you know, I, I didn’t mention it, but on the night of their checkout, I sent ’em a, like a go uh, form that the guests can fill out.

Sean: Yes, I had a great time. Any notes, anything broken, anything missing? That information goes into Airtable also. So we have a conversation, history, we have a form of what they thought of the place before they leave a review. And then again, obviously they leave a review, they leave a Google review. And then you can even do things like if they leave a good review, dynamically, create an image, automatically post it to your Instagram, you know, saying, Hey, we’ve got another great five star at such and such property.

Sean: And each one can go to a different Instagram channel or whatever you wanna set up. But the whole thing is just about having the control to run your business. Like you wanna run your business, um, with the full course we mentioned a second ago, but they actually get my Airtable base, they get all my Zaps, they get the walkthrough of how to set up every single thing.

Sean: But then you’re also part of a community where you share ideas. Like the Google Review idea of posting on Instagram actually came in the Facebook group last week and I just went through and I solved it. And then we, everyone that signs up for the full course signs an abundance contract where anything, any problem you have, you share it with the group.

Sean: We’ll all work together to solve it, but then we’re gonna share it with everybody in the group so we all, you know, raise our level.

Gil: Yeah, so it becomes more of a platform, more than everybody’s like just doing their own little thing.

Sean: Yeah, exactly. Because I mean, another one that just came through is, you know, for me, because I operate remotely, I have one cleaner per property. So it’s a, it’s an easy, like text this cleaner when a new booking happens, right? But someone else was just like, Hey, I actually have, you know, different tiers for different properties where like, this is my preferred, but if they can’t do it, I want the secondary person to be contacted.

Sean: They, but I don’t, like, people can only have three cleans a day. And so I’ve been setting that up for her where like, now it’ll reach out to the primary person. They can hit, yes I wanna accept it, or no, if they hit no, it goes to the secondary person, they can accept it or no. Then if they say no, it goes to the operations manager to like hand select and figure out.

Sean: But it keeps track of only three people or three cleans a day. And it’ll go in order of whatever they set. And it’s as simple for them on their end as going to the air table and saying, primary cleaner is Jenny, secondary cleaner is Maria. And that’s all they have to do. And that one Zap will just run through and contact people in the correct order.

Sean: They fill out a form, it goes back into Airtable and then, you know, confirms the booking, puts the calendar live for ’em, yada yada. So the whole thing is flexibility and control. And again, just making it so simple to, um, that you’re never having to like juggle 10,000 balls at the same time. ’cause it’s always gonna happen at the right time.

Sean: Um, I’ll also go back, one other thing that you mentioned, like during the five things I teach, it’s internal communication with your teammates. If you have ’em, like, if something happens, you can send a text message or a notification on Slack, but if something doesn’t happen, you can also send a notification.

Sean: So, you know, before they book, if they requested early check-in, AI will automatically check a box. And then the day before. You can send a notification saying, Hey, reminder Gil re uh, requested an early check in, and then they can look to see if we need, we can accommodate or not. So again, you can be proactive without them asking again, saying, Hey, sorry, you know, we have a same day checkout, so we’re not gonna be able to do it.

Sean: Or Yeah, we can get you in at 11:00 AM but it’s all systematized where that doesn’t fall through the cracks. Like you just click one box and again, AI is doing it now that we know, okay, they have an early check-in according to their message history. Um, so can we accommodate or no? And then we bring the human in the loop to say yes or no.

Gil: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. That, that’s, that’s pretty important I think. I feel like a lot of times that’s where the AI automation kind of falls apart when there’s a task or confirmation that it has to be done by a human. That, or if you don’t actually have that human in the loop, you’re, you have a very unreliable system.

Sean: Right? Yeah, I mean, again, for me the guest experience is the most important thing. So anywhere it makes sense to bring a human a loop, do it. But more and more like the AI can just make those subtle decisions. Um, but yeah, like it’s a very weird, hopefully amazing future we’re heading towards.

Gil: Yeah. Do you operate your entire property management company without any VAs in because you now have it all automated.

Sean: yeah, so I had three VAs at one point. Then I like really got into, you know, the idea of this course and I read a book called 10 X is Easier than two X and big part of it is, you know, focus on the 10% that makes you special, your kind of superpower and let go of the other 90%. And for me, my main passion and like what I nerd out on and what I will like watch YouTube videos while cooking is like.

Sean: New automations, new tools, like how to get this to do that. And I would just like eat that stuff up for free all day long. You know, like, you don’t have to pay me to study that stuff. I just like, absolutely love it. Um, and so I did scale back on my properties because had a couple hurricanes hit and, you know, decided, you know what, I’m gonna, you know, just focus on the no-code STR part more than the other thing.

Sean: Also, Lindsay, my better half, like she was never like gung-ho on yeah. Property management. That’s what we want to do. ’cause like she started the business originally to connect digital nomads and solo travelers from around the world and create community. Um, and you know, it just morphed into that during COVID because like we, hey, we gotta pay our rent and we gotta, you know, figure this out.

Sean: Um, so for me this is a much more authentic path and vision. Like, you know, helping people solve their own problems, automate the annoying. And so, yeah, unfortunately for now, I did release my teammates so they could work on more stuff. ’cause as I kept automating it, um, and I lowered my properties, it just didn’t really make sense to have them around.

Sean: Um, but you know, they’re three amazing people. I met ’em in the Philippines, we hung out. Um, you know, I’ve check in on ’em at least monthly and yeah, like they’re all in great new jobs right now, thriving. And I hope at some point I’ll be able to bring one, at least a couple of ’em back on. But yeah, for now, it’s also been that kind of challenge of like, okay, you know, how could somebody do this business without having to have that VA or without having to have 24 7 VAs?

Sean: And now, because the ai, it’s kind of like opened up that path of like, all right, well, let me see if I can pull this off. And we just actually went on a three and a half week trip, road trip to the Balkans, which is the area between, uh, Greece and Croatia. We did a three and a half week road trip without VAs.

Sean: Obviously I’m going to bed at five o’clock local time, and we got a hundred percent five stars, no issues at all. I built a digital guidebook that has an AI assistant built into it that had all the property documentation, you know, could read everything, could answer questions. And again, I had it set up where if certain things were flagged, it would reach out to a human locally, you know, so there was never gonna be an issue with the property that like wouldn’t be solved.

Sean: But it luckily did not happen. And it was again, kind of a similar like test to myself, like, all right, can I pull this off? Can I do this? And sure enough, a hundred percent, five stars, all great experiences for three and a half weeks with, you know, fully being, you know, out of the country, one, but then two like asleep for parts of this day.

Gil: Yeah.

Sean: yeah, it worked out great.

Gil: That’s awesome. What are, um, some of the new tools that you’re playing with now or some of the things you’re experimenting to see whether or not you can put in your arsenal or that’s maybe too complicated or doesn’t work? Like what are you playing with?

Sean: Uh, so I mean the, honestly, the most powerful thing right now is Airtable ai. ’cause they have something called field agents. And essentially you can create a new ai, like in each different, like let’s say column of a spreadsheet. And you can say, Hey, you are an expert customer service person working for this company.

Sean: I need you to read all these messages and look at the property documentation. And you just select, look at this field, look at this message, look at this, whatever. And then you’re building a completely has all the context AI inside of a field. You can select if you want, GPT 5.0 if you want. Claude if you want, whatever.

Sean: And each one of those can be a different AI agent that you build one time that will anytime so so and such and such happens, it’ll automatically run. And then what’s cool is you can chain it together with another AI field based on what is necessary. Um, and I mean, I use Zapier a ton. I use Zapier agent a little bit, but honestly, Airtable AI has been the ex, like the best possible use of AI I’ve come across.

Sean: And I’ve tried everything I’ve done, like, you know, the developer stuff with, uh, open AI just in general. Um, but yeah, like Airtable, because you have all your information there already and how you can make each different field have different instructions for what you want it to do, and give it all the information it needs in the moment to then create a data, new data, then create an automat.

Sean: You know, have an automation that runs based on whatever happens has just been like kind of transformational.

Gil: Yeah. So does, does that mean that your Zapier, so say for instance you have an incoming message or an incoming trigger, or a booking or whatever it might be, Zapier picks that up. Is it able to interact with that AI agent on Airtable and how, if so, how does it work?

Sean: Yeah. ’cause I mean, Zapier will get the information into Airtable, and then I could have an Airtable AI agent read whatever came in. And so let’s say, you know, you want to take your PNS messaging to the next level. Instead of just saying, thanks for booking, yada yada, like you normally do. You can connect it to where the new booking happens in Airtable.

Sean: Then let’s say hospitable has this connection where you can send a message using Zapier. So now I have that basic structure in one of those field agents saying, thanks for booking your stay, da da da da da dah. But I have it. Read the message about their booking. And reference in anything they mention to where now it sends it back through Zapier, that response from Airtable to the guest to where instead of saying, thanks for booking, Gil, excited to show you a great time.

Sean: Thanks for booking, Gil. Excited to host you for your daughter’s wedding. It’ll be such an amazing time. And like it just adds that next layer of like, oh wow, this isn’t just a generic response. This is like, they actually know what we’re coming in town for. They actually, you know, are taking the time to actually write a personal message.

Sean: Again, it’s automated and it’s ai, but you know, it shows the care of like, oh, it’s not just I book a place and then I’m getting three messages in a row that are all like generic and not for me. It just adds that extra layer. Um, so Zapier always gonna be a part of it because again, it brings together 8,000 apps together.

Sean: Airtable is just gonna be the main source of truth and then the trigger for any of those automations that happen.

Gil: Yeah. Ha. Have you played around with N eight N or Make or any of the other, like Zapier new rivals more recently?

Sean: Yeah, so I’ve used Make a little bit, um, for me I was just kind of too deep into Zapier. Um, plus I’m, I’ve like, you know, I’ve spoken at Zapier events before, um, and I am in like some, you know, of the groups that are like, no-Code Ops is one of ’em. Um, where I get to inter interact with some of the higher ups of Zapier and like, they have a conference tomorrow actually, and they have some pretty amazing stuff coming out.

Sean: Um, and they’re, they’re Zapier agents are pretty phenomenal. And they also have, um, in Zapier there’s AI steps now where like new booking happens, it can read the phone number, parse out the last four of that. Um. You know, phone number to use as a door code that automatically gets, you know, created. But on top of that, um, you know, it can, like if there’s different structured data that is kind of set up incorrectly, it can add the three different tax amounts into one total tax field and then put it all into Airtable.

Sean: Um, so I do love Zapier. I think it’s the best one I have used N eight NA little bit, and it’s phenomenal. Also, they’re doing a really good job make, um, I know plenty of friends that I like nerd out with about this stuff, and they swear by make, but for me, I think, yeah, I, and I’m, I’m not even a against people using the other ones.

Sean: Like, my main thing is like, if you’re using automation, you’re doing the right thing. I feel like you’re leveling up your business. So Zapier’s, my, I’m team Zapier, but I’ve seen incredible things built with N eight N I’ve seen incredible things built with make, and a lot of it is similar. Just Zapier for me is like.

Sean: The big 800 pound gorilla, and they are really going all in and on on AI stuff. Um, so yeah, you, you can do everything I’ve talked about with Zapier and I, but N eight N is definitely like the new, like the new guard kind of catching up fast. They do some really cool stuff with AI agents.

Gil: And I find that NAN is is a a lot more complicated to set up than, than Zapier. Um, I’ve used NAN for some of our business stuff, and I usually mainly use it when I need to do like, large tasks that has like many repeated processes over and over again. Like, but I’m using a big batch. So for instance, like running the reviews and, and lining all of them and putting into one, one area, um, that’s, that’s gonna where I use NAN but like each time I set one of those up, it’s a pain in the rear.

Gil: It takes me way, much, way longer than I want it to.

Sean: right. Yeah. For me, I mean I do all the complicated stuff in Airtable. Set up a view one time like I have. You know, 12 filters on a single view, but then in Zapier it’s just when a record enters the new view, do this action. And it’s a two step zap. So I, I take the complexity out of like the zap building process to where it’s the two step zap almost every single time.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. That, that makes sense. I’m, I’m guessing that’s based on your learning through, through, through time. Like in the very beginning, you probably had a lot more complexity than how you chain those ads together.

Sean: oh man. Like, uh, I have a video somewhere, maybe on YouTube, but like, I used to have like 20 steps zaps with filters and paths and, you know, nerdy way of just saying very complicated. And it was based on each property had to have a different one. So anytime we’d onboard a property, we’d have to update 25 different zaps to have everything working.

Sean: Now one single zap will operate a thousand businesses or a thousand properties if I had ’em. All I would do is add the new information to Airtable and then when a new guest books that place, it’ll pull in all the information from Airtable to populate that, zap that text message, that cleaner notification, that owner notification, whatever.

Sean: And you know, I, I love it ’cause you bring all the information to Airtable, you can transform it there and then send the information. So like when a owner gets a notification about booking, they’re not getting the generic amount that’s sent from Hospitable. They’re getting, you know, their 75% owner share is this to the penny in the text message.

Sean: 30 seconds after a booking, because that math is done. It knows that they’re a 75%, 25% split, whereas someone else is an 80 20 or whatever it is. But it does, that math sends out the right commission amount to them or the right owner share amount to them with a link to their owner dashboard that’s automatically updated live, yada yada.

Sean: But yeah, definitely been a, a progression over the. Last, you know, nine years of using it, but it’s only getting more incredible with the AI part now.

Gil: Yeah. Have you, um, have you heard of the new change that Airbnb is making on the obfuscating the phone number more recently? I don’t know if you, if you have any opinions and how it impacts your business on that.

Sean: Yeah, so before they did that, they had talked about like not asking for emails. And so what I did there was I would instantly send a text message to the guest and say, PS if you’d be interested in using our digital guidebook, just reply with an email. And then, you know, again, the AI agent would take that email and then send them an email with digital guidebook immediately to again, create that OTA, uh, the off of OTA communication line.

Sean: I think that strategy would still work with a new phone number, but what I’ve decided, I’m gonna probably do with that if it does come to pass. Is I’ve been able to set up, uh, dynamic images like I’ve talked about with the reviews and everything. I’m gonna do the same thing, but it’ll be like on your TV screen where it’ll say, welcome, Gil.

Sean: Excited to show you a great time. And it’ll slide through five different, um, screens. But because of the dynamic image for every single guest, I’m gonna put a QR code in there that’s for them, will automatically, when they, you know, they scan that QR code, we will know that it’s that person staying at this guest or this property pre-filled their information.

Sean: They’ll enter their phone number, their email, and I can have on there like, are you the booking guest or not? And so you can kind of grab all that information. Um, but then I’ll hopefully get their real phone number, get their real email, and then be able to remarket to ’em. Um, you can do the same thing with wifi, like with those QR codes.

Sean: Um. But yeah, it’d be a, a way to do it dynamically for free, essentially, and just like have a dynamic QR code that automatically knows who they are when they scan it so it’s all pre-filled accurately instead of, you know, likeFrank@gmail.com is my guy. Anytime I travel and I go to Starbucks somewhere else, I’m likeFrank@gmail.com access.

Sean: And you never know if you’re getting the real info or not, but um, in this case, you’ll be able to know who the guest is that scanned it, or at least who the booking guest is. Get that information and then ask ’em, are you the booking guest or are you a friend? Grab that information. They get access to the digital guidebook or even the wifi, but by doing it through the TVs, you have that constantly brand new QR code that has that information embedded into it.

Sean: Again, I hope it doesn’t come to pass because I think that personal connection to the phone is a really good service for the guests. I will try to still send that text message, even if it’s not their real phone number. To, um, get them to reply with the email because then they’re opting into it. Because I’m saying if you want the digital guidebook provide your email, and then once you have their email, you at least have one marketing channel that’s off a platform.

Gil: yeah. I’m, I’m,

Sean: me, but for, go ahead.

Gil: I’m curious whether or not phone numbers will, if those phone numbers will allow for text messages as well too. I, I don’t know if it does or not.

Sean: Yeah, I mean, that’s a big question with it, so we’ll see. But I mean, that, that’s kind of my, if, if it goes away, that’s how I would handle it. And again, automatically, Airtable, I could just set up a filter, like, you know, send text message, unless it’s booked on Airbnb, so VRBO guest, direct guest, everything else would still be a text message.

Sean: But then it could automatically have a different view for Airbnb guests where the messages all go through the PMS. So it’d be a really quick setup to, you know. Keep it phone for the guests. It could be phone, keep it PMS if it needs to be. But then, you know, try as hard as possible to get that information from ’em in a compelling way.

Gil: yeah.

Sean: you know, digital guidebook, you can do the wifi thing also, but I think using the TV screens to add value, but then give them that QR code that has their information embedded in it would be one way to do it. But, you know, we’ll see, we’ll see how it goes. We’ll see if they pull the trigger on that officially or not.

Gil: Yeah, I think they’re only like trialing with a few users. So we don’t know. We don’t know because not everybody got the email saying that that’s gonna happen.

Sean: right. Yeah. I didn’t get an email, but you know, I’m part of all the groups and, you know, saw people talking about it. So that’s, you know, kind of where I came up with the QR code in the TV screen thing. ’cause that’s something they’ll see. And then if you just make it compelling enough, like get our top 20 recommendations of things to do, scan here, enter your phone number, yada, yada.

Sean: And then. If they do it, you can text them automatically with whatever information with digital guidebook, and then if it seems like a, you know, a good place to communicate with ’em, you can just start the flow again immediately from that point on the phone.

Gil: Yeah. Um, Sean, you mentioned that. Uh, right before we were recording, there’s actually some use cases that you’re using some of these automations for even outside of business. Um, kind of the last kind of question for this segment that I want to ask you is like, and is kind of part of your paid tier. What, what, what are some of the use cases or specifically one use case that uh, you try to distill into some of the users outside of just managing automations for your SDR business?

Sean: yeah, so I mean, like you mentioned, like none of the softwares I use are short-term rental specific. They can be used for any part of your business or your life. So people sign up for my full course. They’re excited to get the Airtable base and the Zaps and all this stuff. But instead of starting ’em off with that, the first thing we do to get them signed up with Airtable and Zapier is build a daily gratitude journal where they’re going to come up with the questions they want to ask, put ’em into Airtable, create a form, and then go to Zapier and set up an automated text message every morning at 7:00 AM if that works for ’em, they can adjust it obviously.

Sean: And then at night also. And so they create an AM and a PM Daily Gratitude journal to where, you know, within 30 minutes of signing up for the course, they’re getting a text message that they set up, that they wrote the important information for every single morning, every single night. Just reminding them again that like, Hey, I just automated that annoying thing.

Sean: And for me, I’m a big like start your day off, right? Like I always just type in motivation on YouTube and I’ll like do a quick workout when I wake up in the morning, do my daily gratitude journal. And it just like sets me off on a great day. ’cause I’m a big like Tony Robbins guy also, and like, just kind of controlling your state because you know, obviously things are gonna knock you off course throughout the day, but if you start off with a strong mindset, then you’re like, oh man, well, you know, fine, like that deal didn’t come through or whatever, but you know, I’ve got a great life and I have this, this, this.

Sean: And you already have like, you know, strengthened your mind for the day to where those little things you kind of look at like, okay, well what opportunity does this provide now? Versus like, oh no, the world’s ending. Um, so yeah, like really quick off the bat, whenever it’s not for the new course they set up that, you know, the questions, the text message.

Sean: I also show them how an AI by Zapier to have it automatically pull in a quote, like a, about gratitude to where like, oh, they just started using AI in Zapier as well, and it’s in a text message. So boom, that text goes out and they’re seeing it every single morning. That helps to keep them engaged in the course also.

Sean: ’cause they’re getting a two times per day reminder about like, Hey, this is the automation I set up. What else can I automate that’s annoying in my life and just kind of helps bring them back. Plus I, hopefully it’s, you know, giving them that actual practice of entering their gratitude and like keeping track on, you know, if they played with their kid that day for 30 minutes.

Sean: That’s one of my questions. Did I work out today? Um, you know, upload a photo of something great that happened today. And then again, it’s, it’s built to where a year later they get a text message with their answers from that day one year ago. And like slowly it just like, oh man, that’s so cool. Look, I was thinking that way then, and look how far I’ve come.

Sean: And it just like, you know, hopefully it just reinforces over and over again that they did this, they created it, it works perfectly every single day, every single time. And what else can they do? You know, gives them that kind of like real quick win. And mindset and like, all right, let’s keep going with the course and see what else we can do.

Gil: I love that. I love that. So I think that’s a good kind of good transition to kind of our last segment of the show where I asked you three questions. Uh, first question, what’s a good book recommendation? Uh, as many of our listeners know, I’m constantly looking out for the best book that I should be picking up.

Gil: Really a lot of self-improvement for me on my side. But yeah, I would love to kind of your recommendation.

Sean: Yeah, man. Um, so I mentioned the E Myth earlier, which is all about systems and everything, and I love that book, but the book I recommend most is Anything You Want by Derek Sivers.

Gil: Okay.

Sean: Um, and like, honestly, he has like five books. They’re all incredible. I’ve listened to anything you want like 45 times probably.

Gil: wow.

Sean: an, it’s like an hour and a half long and each one of his little chapters is like 90 seconds. So it’s all just very digestible wisdom. And the, the book’s premise is. He started a company called CD Baby, which was like for independent musicians to sell their music online, which did not exist before he did this.

Sean: Um, and so it’s everything he learned about building a $20 million company in 90 minutes. And it’s just all these little things about how you can make your business and your life exactly how you want. Like, you know, look at my logo. I have a cartoon robot that I drew for my kid as my logo. And then I have the, you know, the daily gratitude thing.

Sean: The first chapter, or like the first video of my free course is about how I couldn’t ride a bike when I was 38 years old. ’cause I had this limiting belief that like, oh, I didn’t learn when I was seven, so I can’t do it now. And then how 23 minutes after trying, I was able to do it. And that’s how I kind of set people into like the mindset of like, what limiting belief is holding you back?

Sean: What can you overcome again? It took me tw like. Decades of shame and then a 23, 23 minute period to overcome it. Um, so a lot of, like, my work was influenced by that book just ’cause he would do things his way in his business. And I thought they were so creative and just made so much sense. Like, one, one chapter that I like really love is, um, he talks about his like, thank you for booking, or thank you for purchasing a CD message.

Sean: And he is like, oh, I didn’t want to have the generic, thanks for buying your cd. So he wrote this like 20 minute little thing. It took 20 minutes to write this email where it’s like, you know, thank you for shopping at CD Baby. Your, your pictures on our wall customer of the year. You’re, you know, we had a huge parade in your honor last night and we put your CD in our personal, in our private jet to fly to you this day, dah, dah, dah, dah.

Sean: And he wrote this like quirky little email that went out with every single one. And then 20,000 people put that on their blogs ’cause they loved it so much and got him tens of thousands of like new customers all ’cause that quirky little thing he did that was authentic to himself, that like really elevated his business with that small little touch.

Sean: Um, but there’s just like tho that book is fully loaded with it. He’s got another one called Your Music and Your People and just all of ’em listen to ’em like by analogy. ’cause some are related to like the music industry, but the, your music and your People is like the best marketing book I’ve ever read.

Sean: And again, they’re all, they’re, they’re all like 90 minutes long, super funny, super quirky, three minute, four minute chapters. And each one is just packed with wisdom. So

Gil: Awesome. And, and you would recommend the audio version.

Sean: Yeah, audio version’s great.

Gil: Okay? Okay.

Sean: Yeah.

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

Sean: Okay. So obviously said the automate the annoying a bunch, but with this one I’m gonna go with, um, something that’s actually painted on a wall near a restaurant, like a, a hamburger place called Sonic here in Austin. And the first time I saw it, we were driving, we just got back from the long trip. We were taking my kiddo to like an acting class.

Sean: It was gonna be his first one. And on this wall there’s this parrot and it says, be afraid and do it anyway. And like, that’s all it says. And every single day I’m like, Hey buddy, what does the parrot say? He is like, be afraid and do it anyway. And like we just went to a waterpark and like he was nervous on some of the rides, but like.

Sean: You know, I’m like, well, what does the parent say? He is like, be afraid to do it anyway. And then he’d have a blast. And I mean, like, just that silly little thing that was on the wall has been become like kind of a family mantra. Like, hey, you know, it’s kind of the courage, like the, uh, hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero, you know, takes the steps and is afraid, but still does it.

Sean: And that’s what makes them the hero versus the coward that doesn’t try. So if you have a dream and you have a business you wanna start, or if you have, you know, some time where you’re gonna go outta your comfort zone, you know, be afraid and do it anyway. You’ll always be happy making that choice. You’ll learn something even if it doesn’t work out immediately, but you’ll, it’ll continue to propel you forward and you won’t have that sense of regret.

Sean: So be afraid and do it anyway. Like the Austin, Texas mural by the Sonic.

Gil: All right. All right. I love that. I love that a lot. Um, last question. What’s one tactical takeaway that you would recommend, uh, for any of our listeners that either want to get started in direct bookings or amplify it?

Sean: Uh, honestly, the easiest one would just be make sure your information is going somewhere when you get a booking. So, you know, obviously I’m gonna be a big Airtable guy, but for free, probably based on how big you are, you could set up a Z from your PMS to Google Sheets. Anytime a booking happens, put the information there, then you set it up one time, take you, you know, 15 minutes if you’ve never done it before, two minutes if you’ve done it before, but then you’ll always have a record of everybody that stayed with you.

Sean: And, you know, I obviously get much deeper into this, but. Five star guarantee. Like treat your guests like it is their only stay of the entire year. Make sure they have a great time. That’s the best calling card for you, for them to tell friends. But if you store all that information, you can follow up with them later and that’s how you get direct bookings.

Sean: ’cause you know, if they go back on Airbnb trying to find your property again, there’s a million other options out there. But if you’re the person that showed ’em the great time and you’re a sure thing for them to come back, you have that information to text them or, uh, email them. And you don’t have that unless you store that information.

Sean: So that’d be the easiest thing. Just show your guests a great time and store the information so you have it to look at later. And then again, if you’re afraid about texting or emailing somebody and asking for, you know, a referral or to book again, be afraid and do it anyway.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. Especially if, uh, you already know they left you a five star on, on Airbnb, they’re likely to leave you a five star on Google to help you build that up too.

Sean: Exactly, exactly.

Gil: Awesome, Sean. It was a huge pleasure having you walk through. Your entire journey of how you became to be, I would say, a guru, um, in, in automation, specifically in the short term rental space, but also other places as well too.

Gil: And really share kind of like how you progress in that journey, some of the use cases and the frameworks that you try to instill into all the students that are part of your course. And yeah, just all the knowledge that you shared with us today. So I appreciate all that.

Sean: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Um, if anyone’s interested, go to no-code sdr.com. There’s a free five day course. Again, you’ll get to see me try to ride a bike. So that’s, you know, you’re gonna get some humor out of it if nothing else. But hopefully you’ll learn, you know about the softwares I use, why I think they can really elevate your stay or you know, your hosting journey.

Sean: But again, my whole thing is these are not short-term rental tools. They can be used for any part of your business. I just really wanna instill the, you know, automate the annoying mindset. And if you just have a little small win and you automate one thing that saves you five minutes and you do another and another, and another, and another, you can get really far, have a more repeatable, consistent experience that you provide to guests, which will, you know, have them telling their friends.

Gil: Awesome. Great wisdom. Thanks, Sean.

Sean: All right. Thanks so much, Gil. Appreciate it y’all.

Gil: See ya. Bye.