Behind The Host with Noble Crawford

Welcome back to another very special episode of the Boostly podcast. This is a live edition at an event we're at the Short term Rental Wealth Conference. It doesn't matter how many times I say that, I still mess it up. But we're in Nashville. Thank you so much for tuning in. And we've got a very special behind the host podcast today. We're interviewing special people at this event, finding out more about the tools, the tactics and what they are doing to run their short term rental business. And today to my left, we've got the amazing Noble Crawford. So Noble, can you please do me a massive favor and introduce yourself the business, how many properties you've got, where you are in the world and then we'll get stuck in.

Absolutely. First of all, Mark, I appreciate it man. I'm super excited to be joining you here today. So my name is Noble Crawford. I'm the co founder of a hospitality brand based in Texas in the Dallas, Texas market and been in the business for about five years now. And currently we operate and manage a portfolio of primarily multifamily units using rental arbitrage and then we own some as well. And so, you know, great pleasure to be here, super excited for the conversation.

So let's start off by digging into the sort of the tools that you are using behind the scenes. So if you could just break it down like the PMS that you provide and like any, any automation, any dynamic pricing, anything that you can break down to sort of shed a bit of light, please.

Absolutely, absolutely. So I don't know that I'm doing anything too much different than a lot of us in the space. Right. Who are operating. And so some of the tools that we use, we use owner. As for our pms, we've used Logify also in the past to, to a great extent. We currently use Price Labs for pricing, you know, so we love working with them. We also utilize digital signing software. Right. So for us in our business model we like to use sign. Now another popular one is Docusign, but we actually get our guests and our clients to electronically sign short term stay agreements. So that's a super useful tool for us.

Your niche is maybe a little bit different from other hosts that maybe be at this event, but your niche is so fantastic and I love it because it hits home with me because we talk about direct bookings on this podcast. So can you just break down your sort of niche, the model that you go down the sort of 80, 20 of your guests and how did you come to stumble across this and how are you marketing it, more importantly?

Awesome. Awesome. Great questions. I love it. True podcaster. So our business really is unlike yourself. We have a really significant focus on that B2C. Our focus is really on the B2B. Right? And so we play across a couple of different verticals, right? We do government, we do federal military, we do. We do higher education, we do relocation insurance, things like that, right? So we do a lot of direct bookings in that space. How I got into it was actually my last W2 that I had that I left back in 2014. I was selling technology into, guess what? These same verticals, right? So part of my job was to put our position, put our company in a position to transact business at the federal and the government level. And so I learned a lot of tips in the trade in that job. And then I had a light bulb moment in this STR industry, and. And I said, why am I not applying those same principles with just this different product or service of lodging and accommodations? And boom, it was up. And right after that, okay, so if.

You could give one tip to a host who is watching this, and maybe this host is wanting to fill up their midweek with, like, business guests, like business to business. We're talking about B2B. What would be that one thing that they could do right now to be able to implement and try and get more awareness of companies of their portfolio.

Great question, great question. So here's a nice little gym that we use that we've leveraged a lot, right? So a lot of times, you don't have to necessarily have your institute or brand in a position to contract with the government directly. There are other Fortune 500, Fortune 1000 companies that already have those contracts, right? And so what'll happen is federal contractors and federal employees will go to those companies and travel to those companies for training. Now, inside of those companies, there's typically a travel department. And what do they do? They reach out to the local, you know, extended stay, limited stay properties to put in. Put them in a position to accommodate their, you know, their guests, their clients, right? And so what you need to do is get your entity put on that list, right? So you want to go to the person who handles the lodging and booking for those traveling, you know, employees and contractors. And you. You want to say, hey, I have a different product here, but it's much, much better than a hotel. We want to get on that list so they can choose us along with some of those other providers. Works phenomenal.

Thank you very much. Final one, we talk about podcasts. You have a podcast? Can you please let everybody know how they can find it? But more importantly, how can anybody reach out via socials, et cetera?

Awes. Awesome. Well, I tell you what, Mark, first of all, I appreciate it, man. This is awesome. So I have the Hospitality Cashflow podcast. You can find us across all the major podcast channels getting ready to launch season three here next week. So stay tuned for that. We have Mark on in season two, so that's where you can find me. That's where I hang out. Also, all the socials, Instagram, LinkedIn, all of that good stuff.