Keeping brand fluidity. Now this is one of the things that places like
Marriott hotels do really well. If you go and stay in one Marriott hotel,
it will be very similar when you go and stay at others. And it's something which is so,
so important for hospitality in general, but it's really hard to replicate as short-term rental owners.
So what we're going to be doing is discussing today how to keep that brand fluidity.
And here to help us with that question is an awesome short-term rental host,
somebody who has got over 80 short-term rental units based across in the USA and is going to
help us really understand how you can keep that consistency throughout your short-term rentals.
So today, my name is Liam Carolan and this is the Boosley podcast. If you've not listened to this
before, that gives you the tools, the tactics, the trainings, most importantly, the confidence to go
out there and get more direct bookends. And every few episodes we dive into a host's journey
and that's exactly what we're doing today. We've got AJ Rayba and he's from B&B Breeze.co.
So if you go and check their website out, it's absolutely awesome. As I say, he's got over 80 units
so he's well placed to give us some help today on our journey. So let me introduce AJ, welcome along.
Well, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. So many people listening to this might not be
familiar with your brand and your business. So what I'd love to ask is can you give yourself an
introduction where your business is in the world and anything you'd like to share?
Yeah. So our business started with a guy named Layden's Tlaibaud at North Carolina who was
well connected with a lot of different investors. And that's actually been interesting. Our companies
grown through investor relations, not post-mailing, going after owners. It's been through just
nurturing relations. And once you prove it, once to a homeowner, they want to invest again.
So we have homes anywhere from Pennsylvania up in the mountains,
Polkanoes, everywhere outside at Pittsburgh, Amish Country, Lancaster, down to East Coast,
down to Sarasota, Florida. So kind of just grew due to our where our investors were going in
and where they wanted their vacation homes. And it's actually grown since 2019 when Layden
would have brought, got the first company, first property started then. I actually would have joined
in 2021 and kind of just went from there, have a little bit of a background in corporate sales
and marketing. And so knew that it's not what I wanted and transitioned into this space and it's
been really awesome ever since. That's cool. That's cool. And so what is your role today within
the company? How does your day to day look? As a lot of people who have short
tremendous could know, it's not, it's very non-corporate style. So like the days that have like,
you're in charge of this task forever is there's very, we everybody wears a lot of hats.
I think there's a titles for everybody, but we just do a little bit of everything. So
that's one of the things I like about this company is all the systems that run the back end.
So I'd be over a lot of the systems, a lot of the software is just making things better,
making things smoother so that certain people can focus in their roles better.
That's cool. That's cool. And you mentioned you've got sort of a corporate background. What did you
do before this? What was your previous life? Yeah. So I worked in sales and marketing for a
custom manufacturer in South Carolina. So dealt with reaching OEMs, reaching companies who are
building products and I would travel for trade shows, meeting them in person. Kind of does anything
to get out and as a kid, I mean, I was a kid, I'm still a kid. It was really nice just to get
out, explore the country, meet with a lot of these people who are a lot older than me and get
experience into it, which is poured over into talking to investors, talking to people,
just breaking out of comfort zones. And so just medical sales and marketing is my background.
That's cool. That's cool. And you mentioned just before you went live, you actually stay in a short
terminal at the moment. So you get to experience it from a guest point of view as well as an owner
point of view. I know. My wife's a travel nurse, which has proved awesome. I definitely married
the right one for a lot of different reasons. It doesn't hurt that she's a travel nurse.
So actually, when I broke free from my corporate job, we were going to be taking this leak to travel
around, stay three months here, three months there. So we've almost been a year on the road right
now, been in Nashville as well. Now we're out in Iowa. So getting to stay in Airbnb is deal with,
actually, we've been dealing with a lot of like medium-term hosts as well,
furnish finder type stuff. And just it's nice to get out and see other cities and what's going on.
Just every time you stay in Airbnb, you take some little notes back to bring your own.
So I know we're going to be talking about brand fluidity and how to really produce consistent
results across the units. But before we do, obviously you get to stay in a lot of units. You've
got experience with midterm rental hosts. What advice would you have for anybody out there who's
looking to get in the midterm space? What are some of the things which you've either had frustrations
about that certain properties don't have or the things that you've loved, which they do have,
which would make you use these properties again? So when it comes to short-term, I'm a huge
trend of going all out. Flashy appealing, it's marketing. For medium-term, it's completely
opposite for me. So practicality, logic, what works. And so like comfortable places to work.
If you can have a nice spend a little, maybe the money that you would have spent on a hot tub
and some of these others, nice office chair, nice desk, big refrigerators, big couches,
comfortable beds, king beds, TVs and bedrooms, because they'll be spending more time there.
So like take all the things that you'd want in your personal house and put in this home.
It doesn't have to be the one that has the $5,000 article couch and all this everywhere.
But functionality is the root of all midterm rentals.
Nice, nice. Thank you for that share on that. So obviously we're here to talk about the brand
fluidity, the AT-ish units that you've got at the moment. First of all, how do you keep them consistent,
considering there's ones in different locations, and also perhaps different, you might be serving
slightly different guest avatars, different size groups. What is the key to keep in fluidity and
consistency? And first you're right. That's been one of our biggest struggles is when you have a
home that sleeps 30 in the mountains of Pennsylvania, in an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina,
very different people. And so you're not marketing the same avatar. However, one of the ways that we
found that works to keep everything fluid is to have really good backend systems. So like really good
information for our communications teams, really good automated messages that are taking care of
everything and spending time, not just, hey, hope you checked in, hope everything's great. Like,
spending time customizing things, taking care of guests, checking in on them at the homes,
going above and beyond with their experience. So like there's never a guest that would check into a
home in Virginia, in Florida, that would be getting a different experience from us. The same type of
communication, it'd be the same thing. Like when you go to Chick-fil-A, you talk to somebody,
you're going to see that same kind of verbiage coming from them as you would anywhere across the
country. And that's what we're trying to do. Nice, nice. And you mentioned some of the systems. So
let's dive into the tech, the systems and some of the cool, I guess, apps and things that you use.
What are they? And why do you use them? So the first that this is not a flash you want, we store
all of our data just in Google Drive and have everybody source to whoever needs to see it.
Some of our other data, like our tech stack that we really like, is Stay5 for collecting emails,
thanks, Bruce Lee slash Mark Simpson. That's been a big one. Key data. So data analytics, that's been
a really nice one, just to plug into our company, pull out older reports. You can see ADRs, your
revpans, all convincing rates are super easy for any given amount of time. Guest view guide is
another one that we just merged with. So I forget, they're probably like two by three foot
life screens that you put in your walls. That's another way that we keep brain fluidity. Every time
somebody clicks on this, there's a video of us three, me, Heather and Landon, some in our company,
saying welcome to our home and giving them kind of a little bit of a 30 second run down at who
we are. Every single home that has one of these gets the same video. And then when they're done
watching that video on the screen, it says shows our website, a discount code to rebook.
And that's a way that you can retarget Airbnb guests once they get to your home.
Another tech stack would be we use breezeway for our cleanings. The fact that I don't know how to
use breezeway shows that it works. If I don't know how to use it, doesn't need fixing. One thing
that's been really nice lately, even it's not a tech stack, just built a new custom website.
That's just been performing really, really well. And it's very our old one was just pre-built with a
PMS. And to get to a home was not the easiest thing. And now we just every filter, every icon,
every how everything set up. We would have brainstormed on why we want to do this and with guest
experience. So like we spent the last year, we actually, we haven't gained that many homes this
last year. But it's because going this year, we realized we wanted to pause, we were growing fast
and get all these systems in place, automations so that we can give us smoother experience for
the guests going forward. I love that. I mean, there's a lot to break down which you've shared
down. Thank you for all those awesome piece of tech. The first thing I want people to really focus
on out of that is you've personalized that guest state. So using those guest guide, was it called?
A guest view guide. Yes, you guys. So using that, you've got actually some of which they can click
inside the unit and actually they get to see their hosts, you know, a short video. And that's
consistent across the brand. That's so important. And what I'd love people listening into this to
be thinking about is how can you add that personalization? Because by having that personalization
of showing exactly who the host is and introducing yourself, you can then get a higher people are
more likely to give you a better review for a start because people buy from people. But then also,
like you say, whichever one they check in, they can go, Oh, I remember these guys. I remember the
video from from the last one. So yeah, that's that's really cool. I like that. 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, increased their direct bookings. And if you are
interested, then all you need to do is go to Boosley B-O-O-S-T-L-I dot co dot UK or slash call and book
in an appointment with one of our sales team. To play on what you just said, actually, at the
conference in Nashville a couple of weeks ago, Bill Faith was sharing about those personal
touches also make it easier to bounce back when something goes wrong. So like instead of when
something goes wrong, instead of just responding to a corporate company, wanting the money back,
they're dealing with AJ or they're dealing with Landon and they have already established a
personal rapport with them. So just it makes going through the hard times already on a better foot
rather than trying to play catch up. Nice, nice. And you mentioned that there was the
consistency across the guest side of things. Do you have that consistency when you're on
boarding as well? Because across the AT homes, I guess that's taken quite a lot of effort and a lot of
work. How does it work onboarding with you guys? And what has been the success to getting so many
so fast to this growth that you've been able to do? All right. Just speaking on onboarding first,
the way that we've been able to not go crazy with onboarding is we have one person in charge
of that experience from a lot of the A to B and having the same documents. So like we've put SOPs
in place with that we get onboard somebody tomorrow and somebody random could do it and walk
themselves through it. Now it's not that easy all the time as you know, but like in theory,
all of our documents would show from A to B and Heather who's in charge of this has been so good
at even like literally button click here, button click there, go here, go there, add this. And so
just making where everything's not living in our heads and so that we know from the homeowners,
we tell them this is what we need in the homes. We actually we furnish homes as well. And so just
we do the same thing every time over and over. Nice, nice. And again, that's that brand consistency
and it makes it easier for your team and for you to do. So the term I wanted to just check back
on there is SOPs which not everybody in the UK may be familiar is but standing operator procedures
is that correct? Is that what it is? Yes, yes. And let you say just getting most businesses,
especially short term rental businesses and they are businesses. Most of the procedures live in
the owner or the you know, the CEOs head don't they wear that is where they are and getting those
out on paper or onto you know a system onto a Google drive such as yourself is just so important.
So it's a great tip for anyone listening, especially if you are in those early days of
under 10 properties, just get that stuff down into some sort of drive where other people can
follow it. It's just so important. And what's important with that is like this industry is scalable
if you have those in place. So like there's money to be made when compounding the same effects.
And like those those SOPs can help the owners step out and start reaping benefits and by putting
people in place. That's cool. That's cool. And in terms of the team that you've got on the ground
doing this sort of thing, you mentioned you use Breezeway. Do you have who uses Breezeway?
Is it the you know, do you have maintenance people in different locations and if so how do you
find them? Yeah, so because we have remote locations, either homeowners we like for homeowners to
find their maintenance person on the ground. Now if they don't we do so like in populated areas
that we have more than five homes, we already have the same plumbers handyman maintenance pool guys,
cleaners, and we just plug them into the system. However, if there is a homeowner that if they bought
a house in Utah right now, we don't have anybody there. A lot of that we like for them to find
relationships on the ground because it is their home. And they'll be having that for a long time.
But who's in charge of that? And we internally we would have a full time person that's over
maintenance and cleaner relations. And we're actually expanding this possibly bringing on another
person to do this. That's one thing we found for for certain people in the business to be able to
focus on increasing revenue, bringing on owners and all the like stuff in the business that's
increasing in value, you can't be worrying about a lot of the day to day problems that are going up.
So like outsourcing that bringing on good people that can think for themselves and tackle this
problem is an amazing key. And then she would deal directly with us. But yeah, we have,
were you asking about company structure like how we have people doing what or is that what you're
asking as well? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. All right. So then we'd have our CEO who would deal with a lot of
the just overseeing who still stays very involved in the process of branching out. We'd have a
header who's over in charge of onboarding and design. It's good onboarding and design,
go hand in hand because you're buying furniture, you're starting at properties,
we have a photographer, we have one of a, this is one of the favorite things that we have a
listing optimizer. So we used to always go in like whenever you play with a listing on Airbnb
and you boot, I don't know exactly how the algorithm works. However, we notice when you make changes,
bookings come in. Like it just, it's if we go edit a listing that hasn't been touched,
almost guarantee the next week two bookings will come in just by changing title. So like we
usually like to go back and forth, like have two revolving titles. And so our listing optimizer
just plays with listings, goes into them, changes them, updates them, plays around. And usually
those homes that they follow with do see an increase. And that's actually, that's been probably,
we've had pretty good ROI on that position because of that. One of the biggest things that we did
then was having a VA's VA team. So we have a team of five that's handling our communications.
And that has made all of our hair not fall out. So that's been a really good growth in last year.
I really like the idea of the optimizer there, just going in swap and titles. And you're absolutely
right that when you make these changes to the listings, the algorithm seems to pick up and you
get a book in. So actionable stuff, which people can go and do from the back of this. So if you
listen to this, just make a quick note, just change the title in your Airbnb listing and let us know,
just send us message if you get a book and just from making a few changes because this is the thing
that we take it for granted that people know this stuff, whereas it's just so important to keep
the basic stuff keep going. And that's that consistency that you've mentioned at the start,
which is not just for the guest stay, but it sounds as though you're consistent for actually how
you manage the listings, which is, which is cool. So what does the future hold for the business?
The future right now, we went into this year wanting to make our systems perfect. And so our future
is now finishing wrapping that up. We're actually right now made the mistake of waiting too long to
integrate to a new PMS, which as you know, is a lot of work starting all over. So once our PMS,
once our system, like we focused on making our guest experience right, the booking process right,
having a marketable website that we can point people to and be confident in, which has been
amazing just to be able to send somebody a link and say, book now and trust that they're going to
have the same experience there as they did on Airbnb. And so that's what we spent a lot of time on.
So once our systems are all incorrect, then the time is to bring in more. So like the same
systems that can hold 80 homes for us should be able to hold 150 homes once they're built correctly.
So that's like getting everything set and then you can scale.
Yeah, that's somebody described it to me as in have a little checkpoint. So grow,
have a little check in and change that make sure everything's work and that should then grow
and have a little checkpoint again. So and that sounds as though that's what you're doing.
Quick break from the podcast to let you know that the two Bootsley books that we brought out,
the book, Derek Playbook and the book, Derek Blueprint are two of the top rated and the best
selling and 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, Derek Playbook or the book, Derek Blueprint and we'll see you on
your side. Can I ask, you mentioned your moving software. So can we dive into the weeds there and
find out who were you with and who you moved to and why? So not going to throw anybody under the bus
because people might be having a great opportunity with them. I mean, I don't want to
that. How are we are moving to streamline? And so they've been consistently showing us that they're
one of the top people in the game. They are constantly innovating and they have a lot of it works.
It doesn't look like it's crazy or flashed here than everything we've ever seen before,
but it works. And we keep hearing that, we keep seeing that. And so our system runs on that PMS.
And so we're very excited to transition. It's a long process because you're starting all over,
but it's one that's well worth it. Nice, nice. And what would your top tip be for the people
looking to start now? So say they're now getting into this business. What would be your top tip
for somebody? If a friend was to turn to you, go, hey, I'm thinking about starting up an STR
business. What would you say to them? Go invest. If you're wanting to have five homes,
create your back end that would have 15 or 20 homes. Don't build your business for the amount of
homes that you're going to have the next six months or you're going to redo everything. So like,
think about where you might be in a couple of years and build for that. So like, have the right PMS
that will be able to hold those homes. Have the right pricing software. I didn't even mention
this earlier. We used beyond pricing and I'm unbelievable fan. And so like, take the time,
spend the money to build and they will come. Don't try to cheap skate, especially if I know,
I know a lot of people, this wouldn't be normally a host, but people that just have their homes
on Airbnb because easier like they handle your taxes. They're the merchant record. It's easier
just to have homes on Airbnb. But like, take the step at PMS, have a website, good and verbal,
and some of these other channels. You never want all your eggs in one basket. And actually,
the biggest piece of advice besides that would be go to the conferences and shows, even if you
think you know what you're doing. So like, some of the best money we've ever spent was just
getting to talk to people. This past the past couple weeks ago when Mark was talking at short
from rental wealth conference, we probably got 10X or ROI on what we spent to go there. And so
it's just it's really good to be in front of people and collaborating with people who've been there
before. Nice. And the network isn't that you really build up your network. So you never know who
you're going to, who you're going to meet, who you're going to talk to, which is, which is cool.
Yeah. So as we reach towards the, towards the end of these podcasts, we love to just do a couple
of quick fire fun questions. So these aren't necessarily short term rental related, but can be
if you want them to be. What would you say is been the best gadget or app that you've used within
the last 12 months? What is something which you just really like app? Yeah, it's something that
you use in day to day life, which you go, do you know what, that's awesome. Well here, I'm going to
give you one that's kind of lame. I just recently upgraded to the Apple computer mini and going
from a laptop to like having monitors with a keyboard out of the way just increases product.
Instead of, I've always had laptop running two monitors, but now having a full desk with no laptop
in the way isn't super nice. Nice. Nice. I'm a big fan of Apple. So yeah, the mini is on the list
to definitely get. What would you say is your skill or your kind of talent that's unique to you?
Where do you, what do you excel at? Thinking from the customer shoes. So like being unbiased,
thinking about what the majority of customers would want to do and what they would think when
they see given circumstances. So kind of getting unbiased and getting in their shoes.
I like that. I like that. So important, isn't it to be able to think like you're consumer? And as
you mentioned at the start, you are a consumer at the moment you're staying in the short-term rent
also. You've got the experience we've doing it. What would you say is in the best advice that you've
ever had? Actually, here, this is one that I've heard in the story before that I really liked.
Don't know if it's the best I ever got, but if something that stands out to me, the wisest man
when on the wrong, when going on the wrong road is the one who turns around the fastest.
So everybody thinks like keep pushing through, keep pushing through. But if you're on the wrong
road, just get off the road. And so like even I don't know how exactly that's pertainable to this
business. But if you're going down the wrong, if you're seeing the wrong homeowners, you keep
getting the homes that you don't want, but they're easy. Turn around and start over. Don't waste
the next five years forcing something to happen. That wasn't the right thing to happen.
Nice. Nice. Yeah. And there's definitely people who need to hear that at the moment. So yeah,
thank you for that. What resources or books, podcasts, movies, do you recommend that everybody
listening go and check out? It can be short-term rent related, or it can just be something that you
really enjoy. Yeah. Short-term, I was just starting short-term, would be, I'm not a lot of
plug-in on here, I feel like. But Mark Simpson's been a really big impact just following on social
media, as well as Bill Faith, another speaker at the show last week. Another guy that's been
new, he's newer on the scene, he's all over YouTube is Dustin Baker, makes really high quality
YouTube videos that really goes into depth for Airbnb's that I really enjoy the videos that
really well done. Getting out of the short-term rentals by far my two favorite people I learn from
would be Alex Hermizo. So he's, are you familiar with him? Yes, very much a big sound. So
best life sales black and white person I've ever followed, the other one would be Cody Sanchez.
So she's a lady involved in buying boring businesses. Like there's a lot of money to be made in
things like for example right now Airbnb's flashy, everybody's in it. But there's a whole lot of
businesses making money that nobody's thinking about. And just kind of getting in broadening
your expectations of what you want to make money on. And there's a whole world out there besides
what we know. Nice, nice. So thank you so much AJ, this has been really fun. And I really enjoyed
first of all your energy for it, but also that consistency, that brand fluidity that definitely
flows through what you do. And also the advice shared on this, I just want people listening to go
and take action, whether that is going to change the title or book in a network and event to go
and learn more or following some of these awesome people you've just mentioned at the end there,
then you know that somebody takes some action, not just listen to this podcast and you know sort of
moves on to the next one that is in the doing where the success comes, isn't it? So I'm going to
throw the mic open. How can we find out more either about you or your business? Where do you want
people who are listening to to go and check out? So our website to really good place to start
bnbbrees.co. One thing that we really like here and even just we've researched a lot of other
businesses when we made this. So feel free to take tips and make it even shoot us something that
you see that you want to make better, but we spent time in the like who we are about us pages,
how we operate, just to build out a website where owners can go and owners can see what kind of
that what they're going to get with us. Guess can see experiences and just see who our team is.
So just it's a one-stop landing page for our teams and that same domain would be our URL for
all social medias. We're actually right now starting to push social media more. We've hired
somebody to take over that and just be in charge of reels, bringing in content creators,
collaborators, just to grow the brand to help push direct bookings.
Nice nice and we're a big fan of direct book and so I've really enjoyed this AJ and if you
listen to this on the Boosley podcast, we thank you. We know there's a lot of places you can
put your attention. I really thank you for putting it here. If you've got some value out of this
and if you can, do us favor either share it with a friend or like it, subscribe if you can,
as we really appreciate that and it helps Boosley to help more people like yourself listening to
this podcast. So I think that's it from us. AJ, was it any last moment shares before we bring it
to a close? Nope. Last thing is just if you care about this industry, there's a lot of fun
stuff that can go on. So like take the extra strap, go all out, don't try to compare apples to
oranges and be the apple and just be bolder than your competition. Nice one, nice way to close.
So thank you very much. That's it from me and that's it from AJ. We'll see you on the next one.
Bye for now.