27 Units, 7 Years - Defining Success in Vacation Rentals

You know, to be honest with you, the biggest wow moment actually became during the first three weeks of the pandemic. And so, you know, after, you know, the, the first week or so when we realized that all of my reservations for that year were going to be gone very shortly and we lost about 80% of them, I went to my cabin to refocus. You know, after, you know, doing like everybody did in this business, cry for two weeks, I went and I refocused and I came back and it was like, no one is going to save you. Like was just this feeling like what the government is offering for you to sit in your apartment for two months or, you know, however long is not going to save you. No one's going to save you. No one's going to be, you know, just kind of picking you up. And if you're going to get anywhere, you've got to do it on your own. You know, you really got to get.

Out there having a blast. Going to get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee, like Bruce Lee because it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf. Making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely. If you want my respect, you're better but direct. Here are the words in the podcast. That's what comes next.

Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Boostly podcast and I'd just like to say a big thank you to Hostfully for sponsoring this episode. This is where you can get the tools, the tactics, the training, and most importantly, the confidence so you can go out there and get more bookings. We have a miniseries on this podcast where we interview interesting hosts from all over the world. We, we. I'm a firm believer that you can learn something from every single host and every single person out there. And this is a great way to learn as a community to hear other people's stories, find out what motivates them, they serve, how they serve them, their systems, all of that cool stuff. Let's dive in. So we've got Gordon Martin. He is the CEO, the traveling CEO of People's Places and Things Incorporated. I'm going to dive straight him and let him cover all the details of his business and I'm excited to find out more about it. So welcome along Gordon. Thank you for joining me.

Great, thank you, Liam. Yeah, very happy to be here. You're based in Canada and so People, Places and Things Incorporated and we're actually based in Newfoundland, Canada. So Newfoundland is the most easterly place in North America and we're only about a five hour flight to, to England. We are a vacation rental experience company. And you know, that's a, a part of what I want to talk about today, how we're defining ourselves and how we are setting ourselves up for the future. And we've been in business now, this is our seventh year in business and we have about 27 properties and growing under management right now.

For hosts who are listening to this for the first time, what would you like them to remember most from listening to your story today?

Yeah, I think the most important thing is really defining who you are and what is it that you're trying to accomplish. A lot. I've been listening a lot about, you know, defining the ideal client. Right. The ideal guest. And, and I've always struggled with that and I still struggle that with, you know, managing a lot of properties from two people to 10 people that they host. You don't always know how to define that ideal guest, but it's also trying to define your ideal client and defining how you know who you are for the marketplace. And I think this, this winter I've really gone through a kind of a light bulb moment in that, in really making, figuring out exactly who we are and how we want to position ourselves in the marketplace. And I think that's, that's really, I think one of the key things that I wanted to focus on.

You mentioned this 27 units. So what kind of model do you use and is it 27 sort of management units? Are they owned, are they arbitrage? How does that kind of work?

Yeah, so we own one property. We started with one property which is an owned property and we still have that property. All the other properties are, we use the management model. So we are managing these properties for owners. They are all shapes and sizes of properties and we are in a lot of different communities around our province. So we, over the last 37 years, over the last seven years we've been in 30 different communities and right now I believe we're in 15 different communities and they are, I guess the furthest range away from each other by driving is about a, a five hour drive away from each other, you know, from the furthest property away. So we, yeah, so that's really what our model is at this point.

When did you start this business and what was your, what was your driver for it?

So the business got started on August 25, 2017 and I was two years post divorce. I was two years kind of out of my main career that I had had for 20 odd years. And, and I had a cabin in the woods on A pond. And I needed some extra money. And, you know, it was something I was trying to hold on to. A place that had been in my life for 30 years and, and I had been, and I'd stayed at an Airbnb. I was a pharmaceutical sales rep for 23 years. And I've been traveling all over my province number one, and all over the world and, you know, really in a lot of different kind of situations. So I've been in a lot of different kind of interesting places and I'd stayed a lot of really interesting, you know, places to stay, from the really beautiful ones to their very. To the very crappy ones. And I, you know, long had given up. I'd even drive through some towns where I live because I didn't like the hotels that were in the town. I'd look for the kind of unique places. Anyway, in 2017, I went on a flyer and, and really put my cabin on Airbnb. Two hours later, I got a booking for the next day. And, you know, this place had been a bachelor pad for a couple years. And so it, you know, was the first 12 hours was spent cleaning the place, and then it just started getting booked. It was. What was interesting to me was at that time in late August 2017, that would be like the end of the season. Like, we would not go to the cabin after that as a family with, you know, young kids. We would have, you know, the kids in school, and we, we typically won't go to the cabin after the end of August, you know, maybe until the spring. But it just started getting booked. It was getting booked on a regular basis, and I didn't, wasn't making any money. I really didn't know how to make money at that time. And then in mid September, I got a booking from Australia for the following summer for 10 days. And it just like, I just was just like that light bulb moments like, wow, oh, oh. This is possibly, you know, my, you know, something more than I think it is. And I was looking for, I, I had been two years out of a career and kind of not really had my grasp yet. And I thought, well, maybe here's an opportunity for me to, to start working with other people and to manage other people's properties. And really that's how it began. And I was for fortunate to get a, A, a contract to work with a small hotelier in downtown St. John's you know, shortly afterwards. And I was with them for a couple of years, helping him to upgrade his online experience. And that was, really helped me in.

The beginning at the moment, what would you say? I'm going to do a two part question. So yeah, obviously 2017, what has been the biggest kind of wow moment in, in a few sentences for that and then what's been the biggest challenge since 2017?

I think that, you know, to be honest with you, the biggest wow moment actually became, came during the, the first three weeks of the pandemic. And so, you know, after, you know, the, the first week or so when we realized that all of my reservations for that year were going to be gone very shortly and we lost about 80% of them. One of the. I went to my cabin to refocus. You know, after, you know, doing like everybody did in this business, cry for two weeks, I went and I refocused and I came back and it was like, no one is gonna save you. Like was just this feeling like what the government is offering for you to sit in your apartment for two months or, you know, however long is not going to save you. No one's going to save you. No one's going to be, you know, just kind of picking you up. And if you're going to get anywhere, you've got to do it on your own. You know, you really got to get out there. And, and for me, that really was this moment of recognizing the importance of my voice, the importance of my focus and my effort in not only selling, you know, my business to other people, my, the services that we provide people, but also in being, becoming like an advocate within the community and, and a lot of other things. So, you know, that was, I think my biggest wow moment. The biggest challenge for me I think really came last year. At the, at the tail end of last year, I signed a client who has a, you know, and he's still a client. So it's, you know, a bit of a challenge here talking about this. But, you know, he has very high expectations for his house and, and I didn't believe where the number he wanted we, we could get, you know, and so we started, you know, kind of where I wanted to be and we were doing okay with bookings. And then he really pressed on the number that he wanted, which was twice as much as I wanted for people to pay. And I knew like at that moment I was in trouble because we weren't going to get any bookings and, and we did. We hardly got any. And, and that. And then we lost a number of clients. And I think at the end of the. Every season, you know, you lose clients for a variety of reasons, whether they decide to do it themselves. We have a. Or they decide to take that product up property off the market for or they sell the house or whatever. People are always making a decision. So at the end of last year we lost a few people, some nice properties and, and I had invested a lot in this big. This, this new client and I just knew it wasn't going anywhere and I kind of hit a wall. You know it was a lot of frustration. I really ramped up to, to be able to have this and you know with a lot of expenses and you know the, the, the cliff came a little bit shorter, a little bit faster that, that fall and I, I went through a pretty low period for a couple of months last fall and I really thought I was gonna pack it up and just like give it up, you know. So that's really been the, the biggest challenge. Fortunately I found my way through it. But that was, you know, it's, it's like six years into the business. It's, it's a part of that. Right. It's a part of the growth and recognizing. Realizing some of your. Maybe some of the challenges that you have personally as well. So I would say that.

Okay Gordon, so how can we get in touch? How can we find out more about the company?

Great. We are on Instagram at Newfoundland Vacation Rentals. And that's. And you know Newfoundland is a word. Newfoundland Vacation Rentals, that's our main Instagram account. From there we have a direct me link which all of our links on on email. I'm at Gordon G O R D O N at pptrocks CA that's people places and things rocks R O C K S CA and really those that's. And we have NewfoundlandVacationRentals.com is our new guest facing site which is right now in a re revision kind of stage. But it's a great place just to come and, and see kind of you know what we're. What we're up to right now even in the rebuilding of it.

Well I'm sure people are going to come and have a look and of course if you listen to this on the podcast those links will be in the show notes. So thank you so much.

Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee. Cause it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf Making up those rhymes don't write it just do it loosely.