So one of the troubles that we often see in the hospitality industry is that we love to travel
ourselves, which is part of the reason we love to host people, but the trouble with hosting
and traveling at the same time is it's not always possible. And I know that's one of the situations
that many people out there would love to solve. So today we're going to be talking about how to
build a business as a digital nomad, somebody who can work from just about anywhere, there's a
Wi-Fi connection with a laptop and make success out of it. So if you've just joined us and you're
on the Facebook, just let's know where you're watching from. If you listen to the podcast then
today on the Boosty podcast, we're going to be interviewing a host going behind a host to answer
that question of how do you build a successful business. And for those of you who's never heard
of the Boosty podcast, if you're listening to it, this is the podcast that gives hosts the tools,
the tactics, the trainings, and most importantly, the confidence to go out there and get direct
bookends. My name is Ian Karanan, and today we're going to go behind a host with Spencer and Ashley
from www.travelluxpropertymanagement.com. Go and check them out. They've got an awesome website.
And yeah, without further ado, let's say hello. So welcome along Spencer and Ashley.
Ailer, thanks again for having us on. Thank you for joining us. So before we dive into some of the
questions around digital nomad, can you give yourselves an introduction for somebody who might not
be familiar with yourselves and your business? Yeah, so we're Spencer and Ashley. We started
in the shorter rental business probably about five years ago. So I did investing in properties.
To be completely honest, we saw the tremendous success we were having with that. And at the time,
we both had corporate jobs. And our goal was, well, we want to travel more than three weeks a year.
We only had three weeks vacation. Well, she had four I had three. And you know, it was immediately
our goal to, okay, how, how can we get out of this rat race as fast as possible, be able to travel,
but still make money while we're away and kind of live the lifestyle we want. And short
to our rentals, the first property we bought, we turned it into one, it did extremely well.
And then we ended up buying a couple more within a year or two after that. And then we kind of hit
the part where it was tough to scale with, you know, banks and being at that debt income ratio.
So like, how can we do this much faster? We have the tools. We have the resources. How can we,
how can we blow this thing up? So essentially, we found the management model. And, you know,
that was the rest was kind of history. We partnered with two good friends of ours who own a
digital marketing company. And they did all of our lead gen SEO and kind of kicked things off
in that front. And now you've been able to scale to over 55 units across Canada. We're from
Canada for mentioning that. And yeah, we're, we're looking to expand even outside of Canada and
kind of take it to to the next level there. Amazing. 55 units is obviously some big numbers. And,
so one of the things we mentioned is and you mentioned is that you love to travel. So this,
this hit the nail on the head of how do you travel while hosting? What are some of the,
the tricks and tips of the trades do that? So that didn't happen for us overnight. When we started
the business, we were still very well hands on and anyone who's a host in the industry and run
short-term rentals knows that it's hospitality and hospitality never sleeps. There's no weekends,
et cetera, right? So after we got to about 25 properties, we were like, look, we're burnt out.
We still have full-time jobs at this point. We are not any closer to traveling more,
actually doing less because we're so overworked. And at that point, we actually hired out all of the
day-to-day messaging. And once we're able to step back from that day-to-day messaging and put a
ton of systems in place where the business would run, whether we were in the country or not,
that is when we were able to actually go out travel. And it didn't really matter if we were on
eastern standard time. Nice. Nice. And is there any kind of tech or tools that you use to really
help you do that? Oh, yeah. So we use a GAPMS channel. We use hosting personally. We have
Wheelhouse for pricing and we use Breezeway for cleaning accountability so that we don't need to
actually go and schedule all the cleaners. Each time there's a clean, they can self-schedule.
Nice. Nice. And one of the pushbacks we often see is that cleaners struggle with some of this tech.
Is there any tips that you'd have around getting the right people within the team? And I guess
that's a great question. Who's in your team? Who allows you to do this? Will you Treflin?
Yeah. Well, the good news with the cleaners that we work specifically, we have like say a manager
that oversees the entire staff. So our goal was just to get all these managers in the same room and
get them trained on it. And essentially, there is that learning curve of getting them bought in.
But once they kind of see the other side of it, it's like, hey, this is actually going to make
their life a lot easier. And now they can have some accountability. That's really when the switch
kind of went off for them. And obviously, it was just kind of learning through trial and just
onboarding a few properties at a time and getting them used to it. We found that that was a pretty
successful way to make the switch over from just, hey, here's a playbook of how we want the
property to look. Here's a picture. This is where the remote goes. Now it's okay. No, the remote
needs to go here and we need a picture of it or this needs to get cleaned and we need a picture
of it. And you know, we find that from an accountability perspective, it's been a game changer.
And obviously from the training side, it's a little bit more work up front, but it's definitely been
beneficial and will be over the long run. So let's give a, for instance, say you get, say a
boiler or some heating system goes wrong, no hot water, the classic one. What what happens in that
case was the, what's the steps we've in your business? Who gets, who gets contacted and how does
it work? So if a guest reaches out, reaches out, they would actually get our property manager,
our territory manager, who would see the issue and that person would notify maintenance and maintenance
would go out and fix the problem ASAP. We have probably about three, just in one area and each area,
maintenance people who would be willing to go and run out to the property. So if the first two
aren't available, there's usually the third one who would be able to go out. Secondly, we have a
very, very detailed property playbook. I think Spencer already mentioned that. That's in a Google
drive. So our territory manager can actually go in there and see, okay, the water heater is located
in the basement. This is how you get down there. This is the door you go through. I need you to
check to see if the pilot light is on. This is the steps that you need to go and check. So we have
all like a serial numbers, locations, etc. So even the maintenance person has all this information
handy before they get to the property so that they know what they're walking into and the fix is
likely going to happen faster. What we aim to do is have the fix done by the guest because the
territory manager has all of the information already in the drive before we need to send maintenance
because that could take a long time. So that is what we aim to do instead of like always having to
send someone. That's really cool. And what advice would you have? You mentioned this playbook
which is something that I'm a huge advocate of in any business is procedures, everything written
down. Where did you start with that? So there'll be somebody listening to this who is going,
I haven't got a playbook. Where do you start? Well, it really depends on what you're looking to
offload. The first thing for us was our territory manager's got extremely busy with the day-to-day
messaging and they were more so tied down with the clients and running around. So we brought in
VA. So our first thing was, okay, let's get the messaging off their plate. So essentially what we
did is just went back into one property at a time went back into like a year and a half the two
years of guest history and looked down the messages. What are the common questions being asked?
What are the issues? What are the answers to those questions? And what are the solutions to those
issues? And you'd be surprised how big that the playbook can become just from going back
previously if you haven't started one yet. If your property's brand new, we always suggest,
you know, just put a list of basic top line stuff. You know, where's the where's the circuit board for,
you know, where's the electrical board if they need access to that? You know, where's the secondary
lock box? And then as the booking start coming in, whenever there's an issue or a question that
isn't in there, just be trained or have your people trained to constantly be updating that because
that's one thing. It's never perfect. As much as you'd like it to be, there's always going to be
questions or issues that come up that you're like, uh, think of that one. All right, well, let's
let's go talk to the manager. Let's figure this out. But it's also make sure that this gets updated
to that playbook. And then over time, it just becomes this monster and well oil machine where,
you know, your VA's or your team can simply just look up the issue for that specific
property because every, every house and every property is different. It's got different nooks
and crannies and issues that can happen. So, you know, every playbook will be slightly different
in that regards. And I think a big tip that we've done too is you may think, hey, it's pretty obvious.
This is how you work with thermostat, but not everything is obvious to everybody. So we actually
take how to videos of like 60 or so different things. And we do it typically when we're onboarding
a property. And I think that's really important because it can eliminate a lot of issues or a lot
of guest questions because instead of going to you and saying, hey, um, the house is really hot. How
do I get the temperature down, which is actually something we get quite a bit. And you and I may think,
well, then they all turn their air up on the thermostat. But instead, we just say, um,
one said they can go to their guidebook and it's right in there how to work the thermostat. There's
an exact video of us videoing that exact thermostat, not one like it. And they can they can
troubleshoot it on their own. Quick break from the podcast to let you know that the two
boostly books that we brought out the book, direct playbook and the book, direct blueprint are
two of the top rated and the best selling in the hospitality category on Amazon. For just two
pounds, you can grab both of those books right now. The foundations and the structures that you
need to put in place is in the blueprint. And then for a 101 mark in tactics, that is in the playbook.
So go and grab a copy on Amazon. Now just type in book, direct playbook or the book, direct blueprint.
And we'll see you on your side. That's cool. That reminds me of, um, here we get a lot of
international guests in my hospitality business. And one of the things we take for granted here in
the UK is virtually every time you close a door, you have to lift the handle like 90 degrees to
engage the kind of the lock mechanism. And then you can twist the key and lock it. And for the first
sort of year, we'd we'd take on properties. And that would be the number one question is, hey,
the locks broken. And it wasn't until, like you say, over time, you build up this kind of idea of
what question to be asked. And talking about over time, obviously, you've you've built up this
this playbook over time. So if you could go back to the start of your journey, which was,
when did your journey start? What sort of year did your business start?
2018 or the end of 2017 around that time. Cool. So if you could go back to sort of five years
to 2018, what advice would you give to yourselves to either improve or speed up your journey,
which has been massively quick anyway? What advice would you have for yourselves?
I would have to say the use of leverage a little bit faster. I mean, I wouldn't take back that,
both of us having to deal with the unfortunate call Friday night when you're sitting down at dinner
and the guests can't get in or there's an issue because you still need to be able to have
experience dealing with that, especially if you're going to train it. But I will say I think most
people, I can't speak for everyone, but at least for us for sure, probably hang on to it a little
bit too long before they go, okay, you know what, I think we need help now. If we really want to
scale this, we need to outsource some of these things. And I would suggest maybe bringing
that type of support on a little bit early in your journey, if your goal is to expand and make it
a more hands-off approach. I know some of the worries will be in this question that I come
to get, which when we talk about sourcing, they go, yeah, but I can't afford it. What would you say
to those people who say, hey, I can't afford it? What would your advice be?
There are things you can do that don't necessarily cost money that you can start with,
like these systems that we're talking about. We didn't really start the playbooks until we were
like 30 or 40 properties in. And that's a lot to take on all at one time to get all of those
videos, all of the guidebooks, all of the questions for like 40 or so properties across Canada.
If we had started that in the beginning, we already would have made our lives a lot easier
because that is like a great way to eliminate a lot of questions from the guests. And if your guests
are asking less questions, they're bothering you less, you have more time, and the guest experience
is better, which means you're getting better reviews, which means you can charge more money,
which means you'll make more money, and then you can work your way up to hiring like a VA,
which is less expensive, or someone who's like more boots on the ground.
And even on our side, it's, you know, having that many properties, you kind of forget where things
are, especially if you don't have records of it. So there would be times where if we had done that,
it would have been a two second fix. But now we got to get on the phone and talk to the
cleaners and can't get hold of the cleaners. We got to call the owner and they don't like being called
on Friday either. And it's just kind of one of those things where it's like, okay, that could have
been a two to three minute response to the guests, which they would have been happier. But now it's
taking 15 to 20 minutes. They're locked outside. It's just creating a ton more stress than it had to.
So I would totally suggest starting with at least that, getting your current operations in order,
if you can't afford it, then do a deep dive and take a look at, okay, like how much income are we
bringing in? And, you know, can we outsource a VA if it's the biggest bottleneck in your business?
That makes sense. One of the, obviously, that the theme of this podcast is, how do we do it?
Will also enjoy yourselves traveling. So just as a bit more of LightHud, where's some of the places
that you've got to travel to since starting the business? Let's where do we even begin? I think
we traveled like 13 weeks last year at least, or if not more. So I think, yeah, we were just this past
February for five weeks where we were in Southeast Asia. We started in Japan and we spent about three
weeks in Vietnam. We were in Cambodia, Kulu and Par. We should have five weeks in Europe in June
last year. And we kind of galvanized it all around like Croatia, Italy, Montenegro.
And you were where it's warm. It's quite cold here in Canada in a winter time. And we don't like to
be around for that. So yeah, like we, you know, even we've mentioned down to Florida. We were there
for just over a month last year. We spent about two or three weeks in Arizona right after that.
You know, just to be in the sunshine and then being better weather, fine. It's
helps with the mood. And from doing all this traveling,
is there aspects of places that you visit that you take and put into your business? And if so,
can you give us some examples? Absolutely. Honestly, I feel like Europe just does it better
than North America in terms of hospitality. You really, I know like companies like Airbnb or any
shorter rental company started with that, you know, you're staying in someone's house and
you get that aspect of it. I feel like a lot of the places at least we've stayed at state at
and Europe really embodies that versus some of the even the higher end places we've stayed at here
seems very like business-oriented cut and paste. It really isn't that hospitality side where you
look at a big company like even Marriott-Bahnboy where everywhere you go is consistent, right?
Especially if you stay at the Ritz Carlton at the St. Regis, you're getting that level of service
pretty much everywhere you go. And I find that dairy so much at least here versus saying it seemed
a lot more consistent in Europe. So we brought that back basically being like, okay, we have a decent
size portfolio. How can we bring that level of customer service and the hospitality to all of
these properties where they're not just feeling they're staying in another investor's Airbnb that's
trying to make a thousand dollars more a month than market rent? That's such a good point because
when you stay in some places, you actually feel there's, I mean, some places I've stayed, they actually
want to give you the home-cooked recipe or they want to go, hey, you know, I'll give you a lift,
I'll take you there, hey, come and see this and you really feel as though, you know,
that's just who they are. That's the host, isn't it? And there's a saying which I always think of,
which is people forget what you did and what you said, but you'll remember or they'll remember
how you made them feel. And that embodies a lot of the time as you're traveling. When you think of
places, you think of the people who was your host there, you know, you think of the faces that you
saw there, which is, which is so true. So you're traveling, you mentioned you do some marketing and
some work to get more properties, you know, some SEO work and marketing to do that. What happens
and how do you onboard new properties when you're in a different continent or on a different continent?
So our, our, our, our partners are wizards in that regards, but we kind of sat down and said,
okay, like who, who's our client avatar? What, who are we going after? Are we going after investors?
Are we going after someone that has like a secondary vacation home? Are we going after people
that haven't bought a property before? And, you know, we, we really chopped it down to investors
and more higher end properties. And it's like the travel luck. So most of our portfolios all
detached, four plus bedroom homes, higher ticket sales, but with that, we're trying to bring
that concierge aspect. So once we figured that out, they did all their magic with the lead gen and
SEO and trying to target certain keywords to, to attract that, that specific clientele. And I
mean, Ashley can speak more about it, but even just being on social, that has been an absolute
game changer for us. We need to do more of it. I, I myself need to contribute a little bit more to
the Instagram page and the social pages because the power of it is, is incredible.
It's, yeah, and it's been really fun because we are able to give more personality over something
like Instagram and set up if it's just a business in a website. You can't really, you don't know
who Spencer and Ashley are, right? So it's easier to convey over social. In terms of actual onboarding,
we actually have, because that's like a major part of bringing in a short term rental for
management. It's very time consuming and owners have a lot of questions. You want them to feel
like we're communicating and that we're setting them up for success. We have very strict guidelines
on what they need in order to go live. And we actually have an onboarding coordinator in each
area that we operate who only does this. So she's like specific and an expert specifically
right for onboarding. Our territory managers, our VA's aren't part of that. So they get them up
to snap. So by the time they're ready to hit the live button, we know that they're ready to
start taking on good bookings. If you're struggling on how to get direct bookings and overwhelmed on
where to start, then I recommend you go and book in a call with Boosley and our team right now.
We can walk you through exactly what we're offering, how we can help you and give you a portfolio
of websites that we have worked with that are matching not only on niche, but could be in your
location as well. Boosley has helped over 2,000 hospitality businesses all over the world
increase their direct bookings. And if you are interested, then all you need to do is go to
boosley. O-O-S-T-L-I dot co dot UK, fly slash call and booking an appointment with one of our sales
team. I really like that. That's so important to have. And one thing you mentioned there was that
you take on specific avatars of certain types of properties is something we talk about a lot of
Boosley is having an avatar for your guest, your type of guest. And it just makes sense that if you're
taking on properties, you need the properties which will suit that kind of guest. So how did you
discover the kind of, I guess, the avatar that you wanted for your client, for your hosts that
work with you? I guess it almost started with our our own investment portfolio. There's a small
area where we're from. It's a winery gym and it's definitely a higher purchase price to be in
that area, but it gets a ton of tourism. A lot of people coming in, there's got to be over 100
wineries in like a very small area. So we ended up purchasing a really nice property with some
date, which is right on the vineyards. That was like, it's a 3000 square foot property by bed
drooms and wanted to try the high inside because looking at the data, not just on air DNA,
just going in and doing a deep dive, we knew that there was a huge lack for higher end rentals
because we knew the net worth that goes to that area was there, but even the hotels and the small
boutique places, they really didn't capture that luxury space. So when we took that one live,
it was kind of a step above most of the properties in that area, but within the first year it became
the top three income producers in that area. So that's kind of where we said, okay, like there's
definitely demand for it. And kind of looked at that around a lot of places in Canada and said
the same thing because most people only go so far with their shorter rental, especially now with
increasing prices. You know, we saw that the huge opportunity to go a little bit further, invest
a little bit more, put in better higher end amenities. And the return we've seen on that is
incredible because fortunately there hasn't been a ton of competition there. It's a good lesson
for people listening in who are perhaps thinking about purchasing or investing in a short-term rental.
A lot of clients that I talk to get a place is ready to a certain degree and they go, hey, we're
ready. And you just go, hey, you are ready. But if you just push that extra five or 10 percent,
then that will make a difference long-term. And whether or not that's interior design or,
like you say, some of these special amenities is just so important. So thank you for that.
So as we reach towards the end of these podcasts, we'd love to just do a couple of fun questions.
And one of the questions we tend to do is sort of what would your class as your superpower?
But I'm going to mix it up because there's two of you yet. So what I'd like to ask is Ashley,
what is Spencer's superpower and Spencer? What is Ashley's superpower?
Okay. So Spencer is quite a few superpowers. I would say the main one is his ability to drive
forward at all costs. Like when an idea comes to his head, there is really no stopping him. And he
just kind of pushes forward until he hits that goal. And it's that kind of determination and
blind faith that I really admire. And then I would say with Ashley, this is why it works so well
together is I get a lot of ideas, but sometimes they're like way over the top and I get all over the
place. Ashley is very like laser focused on, okay, well, if we're going to do that, you know,
you have to factor in X, Y, and Z. And did you think about this? Did you think about that? And then
those two things combined usually creates a really good plan of attack. So I'd say like she's
very, very or a big argument. Yeah, sometimes a little bit calm and calm, but it's definitely
is part of the fun we've working with you know, but in the day. And yeah, it sounds as a year
you sort of balance each other out greatly there. So stick with the fun questions. What is your
spirit animal and why? I want to say a horse. I think a horse for me was like the first thing that
came to mind. I love I've always really done away with conventional societal norms. I even though
I went to the corporate route just because it was what you do, right? I never liked it. I always
want something different. I don't like being told what to do. So to be told, I have to do something
between nine and five was just like outrageous to me. So I think just like that freedom of like
wild horses is like very alluring to me, I guess. That's such a tough question. I've never been
asked this. I mean, yeah, that's great. I mean, I come from a small town called Lion's Head. So I've
always considered myself a bit of a lion. And you're Leo and Annamalio. So the second you said
that I had to say Lion. I mean, they're dependent. They're strong. They go after what they want.
And yeah, I guess I had to pick off my head. It would definitely be that.
Nice. Nice. I really like that. So what does the future hold for the business?
I feel like once you hit a few of your dreams, like it was our dream to leave our corporate
jobs and kind of be time independent and being able to work and drive a business from anywhere
in the world. We had a goal of doing that in five years. We achieved it in two. And I think that
was really eye opening for us because we were like, man, we were dreaming too small. So now I think
every idea that we have, we're like, let's just like 10X that because like, why not? Right? Like,
why can't we do that? I think we'll definitely see Travelux going more international, not just
the US, but love to go more international. We love to travel and we would love to host travelers
all over the world. And then personally, we have a bunch of goals too. Yeah, like we've
we've seen a huge demand, but no supply for like a STR event in Canada that we were just in the
one with Nashville with Mark and us. So there's there's nothing like this in Canada. So that is
going to be we're very bullish on that idea. It was already been since then been like putting hours
in every single week thinking, okay, like how can we how can we scale to something of that size?
Because there's so many hosts and so many people in the space in Canada, you know, Facebook groups
can only go so far. We got to get people in the same room. And I find that's how you really grow
is when you get to network with those types of people and people doing bigger and better things than
you. That's when it really like I said opens your eyes. So hey, we're thinking do small like we can
we can do all of these things if we just apply ourselves. So that's that's a big one for us.
That sounds really exciting. And hey, you heard it on the Bootsley podcast first.
So eventually they're going to be having a huge event. So if you listen to this in a few years,
go and check it out. It's already it's probably already started, which is cool. So before we share
with the listeners, how they can get in touch with your folly and we open up the mic. One of the
questions we love to ask is is there a saying or a mantra which really resonates with your
something which you look back on and you think, well, yeah, that that kind of rings true even now?
You have one. Oh, these are really tough questions, man. I think one that I like that I like to live
by I actually have a tattoo of it that I will show nobody is this too shall pass. I think it
really embodies like if you're going through a hard time building a business is is really really
hard. And it it doesn't like I think people see other people build a business and they see the
success, but they didn't see when they first started and it's like crossover between the nine to
five and self employment where you're like, Hey, this this might be something or I might go bankrupt
like that little line and realizing that you just if you believe in it and you believe in why
you're doing it, it will come and that the feeling that you have in the presence of uncertainty
will pass. Yeah. Yeah. And in my mind, it's a very Canadian Hockey reference, but I actually
embody it as it's a Wayne Gretzky quote, you miss 100% of the shots you do not take firm believer
that like we could read as many books as you want go to as many webinars as many live streams as
possible until you start actually taking action and shooting the puck per se you're really not
going to see the results that you aspire to and you know, we've seen that firsthand with
all the things we've learned lessons from not taking action and seeing the downside to that as well.
So yeah, I really like that one. I like both of those. That's fantastic. You've reminded me of the
the picture of the iceberg where people just see the top of it, you know, the success and you know
that the fact you guys can travel and that sort of thing, but they didn't see the hours and all
the all of that stuff that you guys have put into to get to where you are, which is cool. And
hopefully just from that answer alone, you're inspired people who are listening to this to
actually just go out and whatever idea they've got in their heads to just go out and at least give
it a go, you know, like you say you do miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So I'm going to throw
the mic open to both Spencer and Ashley. How can we find out more from you? Where should we follow
where should we go? We're the most active on our personal Instagrams that's just at Spencer and
A&D Ashley, really simple. We like to post their often. You'll probably find a big mash of like
our real estate travel points and miles because we like to we like to travel in luxury using
points. So you'll find it's very lifestyle. And so if you want to know who we are, that's a good
place to go. Cool. And again, for anybody listening in on the on their or watching on YouTube,
we will add those links to the show notes. And if you do want to check out their website, it is
www.travellux with any property management.com as well, which is cool. And thank you to if you're
listening on the Boosty podcast, we know there's lots of places you can put your attention. I hope
this is inspired you to go out and take some action. And I know there's a lot of places you
can put your attention. I really thank you for putting it with Boosty. So that brings us to the
end of this episode of the Boosty podcast. Was there any last years before we close it out,
Ashley or Spencer? No, thanks everyone for listening and it's a pleasure to have a song. We really
appreciate it. Really enjoyed having you guests on and just just great fun. So I look forward to
seeing this event in the future. And yeah, we'll speak again soon. Bye for now.