He Generated $4M From LinkedIn for His STR Business

All right, this session I want to focus on two topics that I feel are top of mind. Number one, social media branding, obviously that's what we're focused on, but number two, talking about your property and what you can do to it to get more ADR. Joining me on my left, on my right, however you're watching this, is Mr. Mark Lumpkin, part of STR Cribs. Somebody, if you are on social media, you will have definitely have come across his work. 100% will have seen the properties that he's done. But the thing that grabbed my attention is how he has utilised social media to grow his branding and obviously the business that comes with it. So Mark, just do us a quick favour, quick introduction, who you are, where you are in the world, and how you became to doing STR Cribs.

Yeah, thanks for having me on, Mark. I'm super excited to chat with everybody. Like Mark said, I'm Mark Lumpkin. I run our sales marketing all of our client-facing stuff for STR Cribs. We're a licensed general contractor in the state of Florida. We actually have licenses in 8 different states, and we focus on design, renovations, and setting up profitable short-term rentals. Um, I kind of fell into the short-term rental world. I, I traveled a lot in my early 20s, me and my wife did, internationally, and we were just a little bit older than we, than we would have wanted to be to stay at hostels and, and We were not broke, but we weren't loaded, so we weren't staying at 5-star resorts. And we kind of found this sweet spot of traveling with short-term rentals and Airbnb and VRBOs. Um, and then when I came back, I was in construction. It just was a perfect fit for me. We exclusively travel at short-term rentals, so we are customers of the industry. And then it made sense for me to work in that space. So, so that's how I ended up here. That's what I'm up to. And yeah, I'm excited to chat with you and dive into what we do and how I've used social media to help us grow.

So just in case there's anybody watching this who is in one of your 8 states, which are those 8 states that you operate in?

Um, so yeah, we're operating in Florida, Texas, Arizona. We do both of the Carolinas. We operate in, uh, the Smoky Mountains, which would encompass kind of that North Georgia, um, Tennessee area. We do Pennsylvania— the Poconos is a very popular tourist destination. And then we just branched off into Denver, Colorado, and so we started off in Colorado. So we've also done some projects in different states like Michigan and California. So I wouldn't necessarily say no, we couldn't help you in other states, but that's really primarily where we work.

So you've done over 200 projects now, and, you know, there's loads of patterns. I always say there's patterns in this business and you can connect the dots. This is why we do things like the summit and the podcast and whatnot. But what would you say the top 10% performing properties that you design and what's those patterns that you spot with them compared to the, those that you've stayed at and you go, oh, this is, this is nice. Like, what, what are those patterns between the winners? Like, what are you noticing over the time that you've been doing all of this now, especially from like the, the overlooking view that you can provide?

Yeah, definitely. The patterns are kind of as follows. The, the most straightforward and simple one is definitely heads in beds. And so having bigger properties that have a higher guest count for the most part, will generate more revenue than smaller properties. And so from, from like a contractor's perspective, if I'm looking at a 3-bedroom house that has an office or is a 3-bedroom house with 3,000 square feet, I'm thinking to myself, hey, there's extra square footage inside this home that could probably be converted into a 4th, maybe even a 5th bedroom. And so to me, that's the initial lift. What's the, what's the max occupancy we can get out of a property and how can we strategically do that by adding bedrooms? We see a lot of wasted space in properties that are not STR built, right? Most homes are not built specifically for a short-term rental. They were built as a single-family residence and we're transforming them into a short-term rental. And so what are those extra spaces? We've seen houses with huge primary closets that are 200 or 300, 400 square feet. Could that be a kid's bedroom? Do we have garage space that's not going to be utilized by guests that could be converted? Do we have offices? So that's a big one. How do we add extra bedrooms into a house? The next one would be really focusing on the guest avatar from an amenity perspective. And so who's gonna come stay at the property? Is this families? And we need playgrounds and bunk beds and slides and things like that that kids will really enjoy and will gravitate towards. Is this, you know, a cabin in the Smoky Mountains where people are gonna be spending a lot of time hiking and adventuring, are those hot tubs, barrel saunas, cold plunges, massage chairs, those might be really great amenities to have. And so there's definitely not a blanket statement for what amenities work the best all across the country and all across the world in different markets. But figuring out what market you're in, what type of travelers you're going to be accommodating, who's your guest avatar, and then going all out on the amenities that will work for them. I think that's step number 2. And then I'll wrap up on the 3rd piece that we're really looking at, which is quality over quantity. And so if you have the option to do 5 extra amenities or add 2 or 3 bedrooms, but it's not going to be good quality, I would recommend you actually do less and do it at a higher tick. And so if you can only have the budget for 2 or 3 amenities, maybe you should only do 1 or 2, but do them very, very well. Get the good quality, maybe get the larger hot tub, stage it, photograph it. It's not necessarily just about how much you can jam into a property. It's about how well those things are perceived by your guests, the quality and how they improve the stay. So those are my 3 things that I'd start with. I could talk forever on this, but yeah.

Well, it's good because obviously the thing that I get from you and looking at the website, doing a bit of research is you are very data-driven in your approach as a company. So I guess the, the sort of the answer— the question that I have when looking at this is like, what is exactly the type of data that you're looking to pull in before you even like, you know, touch a lick of paint, a coat, you know? Like, what— where are you going after? And if you've got an example where the data told you to do the opposite of what the owner was asking you to do, is there anything you can sort of share there that would be kind of interesting for the audience?

Yeah, all the time. There's two, there's two questions. I'm going to start with the first one. How do we pull data and how do we make decisions? Um, we look at all the readily available data sources, right? You've got AirDNA, Rabu, you've got a lot of different data sources. We're pulling those. We are also using first-party data. And so we have the benefit of— you said we did 200, we did about 180 last year. We've done about 500 projects. And many of our clients are repeat clients, and so we're able to pull their data and ask them, hey, what worked on that first one and what didn't? What kind of revenue are you seeing year over year? So we have a lot of first-party data as well that really helps. And then we own a lot of our own properties too, so that helps. Um, so we're looking at all the readily available data. We are filtering out the non-full-time properties. If this is a part-time thing, if this is not available for more than 8, 10 months out of the year. We're getting rid of that. Yeah, we are also sorting based upon the top performers. So we look at the top 10% of properties and, and use that as our benchmark. Okay, how well do those properties do? What kind of amenities do they have? How many guests do they sleep? Are they dog friendly? Are they not? Are they fully fenced? Do they have a hot tub? Do they have a 2-night minimum? We're really diving deep into this, and then we're setting a benchmark and saying, okay, These are the top 3 performing homes in this market. These are what they're doing and these are the type of revenues that they're pulling. And in order to hit those revenue, we at least need to be as good as these 3 or 4 properties. If not, we need to be better in our design and in our amenity selection. So that's kind of the baseline for how we start to formulate a plan for a property. Anybody can do that. Anybody can take our formula, go out and look at the top performing homes in their market, figure out what they have, what they're doing. And make that your baseline. If I want to hit $100 grand revenue and these 4 houses are doing it, what do they all have? And I at least need to do what they're doing. I probably need to do a little bit better from a design and amenity standpoint. And then number 2, the second part to that question was really around owner preference and, um, yeah, personal preferences, what, what we like. And so it is difficult to just as a human being to put aside my bias, right? My personal bias. And we ask our owners to do the exact same thing, okay? Just because you don't like pink cowgirl-themed houses doesn't mean that that's not the best idea for your Nashville, Tennessee property that's 3 blocks away from Broadway. Probably is the best idea for that property. And so getting people to put their personal bias aside is not easy to do, but it is very important to the success of a property. I've seen hundreds of investors totally sabotage their property and underperform because they didn't want to do something that they should have done because they're not interested. Oh, I don't like dogs. I don't want dogs in my property. Okay, guys.

Well, the truth is always there. Like they always say, the truth is in the data. The data never lies, you know? And I think your own personal assumptions can kill any good business idea, right? So Definitely can. So that's good.

So we ask our owners to do that. We look at the data and then we come to them and say, hey guys, this is what the data tells us. Put your personal bias aside. This is what we need to do in order to make this property successful.

Yeah. And I think you're now at the stage of your business journey where you have got the power to say no, you know, where maybe we're at the start of your journey, you were maybe having to like sort of bend a little bit, but now you can go, hey, listen, the truth is in the data. We know what we're doing. Trust us. So, and that obviously does work. Um, so looking at 2026 from like a design point of view, and obviously the data that you're seeing, is there any amenity, is there anything, or is it— what, what is coming up on the horizon from a design point of view? What are people asking for, looking for? What are these amenities that everyone should be like on their radar?

Yeah, when we were talking just before we jumped on and jumped online, you, you were asking about pickleball courts, right? And Was it a fad? Was it not a fad? Is that what— people pushed pickleball courts really hard the last 2 years. And so I, I don't think it was a fad. I do think it's a great amenity to have in a certain environment and in the right market. That's not a blanket statement that says pickleball courts are going to boost revenue and going to be worth it in every market and every property across the country. And so I think the big trend of 2026 and what people and investors should really focus on is very property and market-specific amenities. And so don't just look and say, oh, everybody's throwing a pickleball court in our property, in their properties, and being successful, we need to do that. You need to really dive into who's staying, what's the length of stay, and what is that traveler looking for. It could be something as simple as a great coffee bar, a really high-end coffee bar with an espresso maker and all the equipment and all the gear and it's set up and staged really, really well. That might be one of the best amenities that you could put in a property that may only cost you $1,000 versus going and spending $20,000 or $30,000 on a pickleball court. And so really, really being strategic and niching into those amenities for who your ideal guest is. I would also say that I think niched properties are going to become more and more prevalent and are going to have more and more success. The blanket properties that market to everyone are going to continue to struggle. And I think we see it. It's like I talk to people and they're like, yeah, in 2021 we did this much revenue and then we were down 10% and then we were down 4% and then we were down 6%. And they're just on this slow decline and every year gets a little worse and worse. Where the opposite, those really maximized properties that are super unique and different, I see them on the same— on the opposite. They're just doing a little better and better, better every year. And so to me, that's the theme. You've got to have a very unique property that creates a unique stay if you want to be successful in this space.

I love it because again, I'm not right a lot of the times, but some of the times I'm very right. I've been saying this for a long time. The riches are in the niches. And I feel like this year, talking to you, I think that phrase I'm going to be using it a lot. But again, there's a common theme over this summer. There's a common theme over all the sessions, knowing your avatar. And again, there are some amazing free tools that are out there with AI that can help you get your brand, your avatar, your brand voice. So do tap into it because it is, it is key. Okay, so let's do a little game. Um, I'm going to give you a $10,000 budget and we're going to look at a couple of different niches, right? We're going to look at a couple of different areas because obviously, like you say, if you're, uh, two streets away from, uh, Broadway in Nashville, it's going to be different to if you're, you know, 20 minutes away from Disney down in, uh, in Kissimmee, or if you're you know, you're in the Poconos, right? There's different niches, there's different people. So I'm going to give you $10,000. So I'm a host, right? I'm coming to you. I'm going, Mark Simpson, $10,000, right? I'm in the Poconos. I said the first thing, I'm in the Poconos. My ideal audience is families, right? Let's just say family of 6. I'm a family of 6. What's that? What could I be doing to add to my property with $10,000 that will make it bang in 2026? Let's start with this fun little game first.

All right, in the Poconos, I think, I think I'd try to add two things. I try to do some built-in custom bunk beds. We do some really cool bunk beds that have built-in slides. They photograph really, really well. They are an all-season amenity where people can use them when it's cold and rainy and snowy. And I've been to the Poconos, it's not great weather all year round, right? You got a lot of different seasons. So I think that could be a really, really fun amenity to have. It also helps your property stand out. No one wants to sleep in those crappy IKEA bunk beds. You know that. If you're, if you're 7 years old, it's all right, but if you're an adult or a normal-sized human being, it's a terrible experience. They're janky, they're falling apart. So skip the cheap bunk beds and do some fun built-in bunk beds. That can be a really cool thing. And then I would— I think a fire pit would be number 2 for me, and that could be a propane fire pit on a back stove that's staged and set up really, really well, or it can be a wood-burning fire pit out in the backyard or on the lot. It can be a really fun thing for people to do in the summertime, and then even in the winter it can be fun to hang out at night around the fire pit, drink a bottle of wine, roast some marshmallows. And you get a lot of people in that market that are traveling from major cities, and so they don't necessarily get to have those type of experiences at home. And this is really like their chance to get out to the woods, and having a fire pit can be a really great I like that.

Um, okay, so let's move south a little bit. So we're gonna go, uh, we're gonna go Kissimmee, obviously. Uh, you've got— obviously you've got Disney, and a little bit further up a field you've got— you've got Universal. $10,000. Everybody obviously has got the games room, it's got the, uh, the game— the arcade games in. But what are you seeing for 2026 that could help them stand out? $10,000. Again, people going to that area is larger families, maybe a couple of families coming together. It could be like a sports team, whatever. Like, what, what are you What are you saying for them? $10,000 max?

Yeah, that's a tough one. That's a really competitive market. Most of those properties are in HOAs that don't have backyards and have shared amenities. So you usually have a pool but no yard and everything else is shared by the HOA in Kissimmee. I would focus on garage spaces. They're oftentimes completely unused in those neighborhoods. It might be difficult on that budget, but you could swing it on a DIY type deal. I would try to utilize that garage space for something— an indoor glow-in-the-dark mini golf course, a Nerf gun shooting range, something like that. Try to utilize that unused space because many of those properties are cookie cutter. They're in the same neighborhood. Yeah, they all, they all have the same floor plan. They have no space for backyard amenities. They have a pool, but they all share the neighborhood's amenities. So try to utilize garage spaces. They're, they're not utilized in most properties, and do something fun in that space. And then number 2, I would look at the new attractions. So, you know, you've got Disneyland, Universal Studios, you've got all these different parks that are oftentimes launching new attractions. I think LEGO World just launched, or yeah, it was LEGO World, and they spent billion dollars to put this together. I haven't really seen any Lego World themed properties out there. I've seen a lot of Disney, a lot of Harry Potter, a lot of princesses. But if you can keep up with the new trends and see the new attractions that are coming in and set your property up to be kind of staged and designed with that theme, I think that could be a way to win in that market.

So just— I don't know if you realize or heard on the news, but in the UK they have just signed off for Universal Studios UK to be announced down in Bedford. So it's going to be a project that will take many years to get done. But let's say end of this decade, there's going to be Universal Studios. So I'm looking forward to seeing the people of Bedford doing out their garages going all Universal, which is going to be, going to be exciting. And obviously Disneyland is coming to Abu Dhabi as well over in the Middle East, but 2031. So it's going to be interesting to see all these properties who take on board this sort of idea. All right, let's do one more and I want to go on to the final question, but the final area would be, okay, let's go Cleveland, Ohio. So not, you know, massive on the touristy area, but we've got obviously business guests can come there. People do like to come and check it out, obviously. But you've got a— let's just say it's a property that is catered more for, for business guests, right? So you've got people coming in for conferences, for events. I know there's a few events that happen in Cleveland, Ohio. Um, you've got $10,000, you've got a property that is within a 10-minute walk from the city centre. Let's just say you've got 2, 3 bedrooms. So again, you can look after like a corporate company coming in. You've got $10,000. What are you doing to make that property stand out with amenities or what you can do there?

Yeah, I'm doing a few things. One, I'm probably setting up as many very nice primary bedrooms as I can. And so instead of having a home that maximizes for occupancy and having like bunk beds and rooms and things like that, if that's my ideal guest, I'm thinking more along the lines of 5, 3-bedroom house. I'm going to have 3 king beds in that property versus a bunk bedroom. I'm also going to try to set up every bedroom as if it was a primary bedroom with a very nice full-length mirror and just kind of all the extra little touches that you would expect on something like that. I'm also investing heavily in the beds and making sure that I have really good quality, comfortable beds. I am setting up a very nice coffee bar in the kitchen. I am— what else am I doing on something like that? I'm basically trying to create a house that is going to keep 3 or 4 people very comfortable with no one feeling like they were shoved in the Harry Potter bedroom. Everyone feels like they have a great stay. I'm going to have very nice towels, very nice linens, and kind of create a, a Four Seasons style property that just has 4 bedrooms that are all nice Four Seasons Hotel bedrooms, if that makes sense.

That makes a ton of sense. Yeah, because people—

and then I might be doing some, uh, state— some office stations as well, where if I have a nook, a corner, a space, an area, I'd like to have a standing desk and at least have 1 or 2 office spaces in Yeah, that's perfect.

Because again, I think with these cities, with these urban properties, obviously the reason why they go and stay at your Hiltons, your Marriotts, your insert chains is because they have that sort of more of a premium bed, you know, decent night's sleep and you get all the things that like the amenities, workspaces and whatnot. So if you can provide that and again under $10K, you can do it. So good. We've got some good ones in there, right? I want to leave you on one thing, and this is the reason why I came across you, is that your content is very good. LinkedIn in particular. I remember chatting to you, I want to say 4 or 5 months ago, and you just said that you, you made a play for LinkedIn. You set a plan out and you stuck to it and you achieved it. You are everywhere. When I open up my LinkedIn, I see you. How have you achieved it? What did you do on LinkedIn?

Like, how—

what was your sort of blueprint? What was your plan? How have you achieved it? Because there's a lot of people here who want to do social media, they want to do the LinkedIn. How have you been able to, to sort of crack your goals, and, and, and what has been the benefit from it from like a business point of view, from, from cracking LinkedIn?

The benefit— yeah, it's a great question, man. The benefit has been massive. I'll start with that. Um, we closed around 20% of our total business last year, uh, came from my social medias. And so that has been really powerful a little over $4 million in sales. Obviously, our projects are much larger, but that, that's massive for any business to bring that kind of revenue in from social media. So it's been a huge benefit. The other large benefit is my ability to connect with pretty much anybody in the industry where I can shoot a DM and it's not going to go unanswered. And you probably have the same type of reach with your social media. The connections you're able to make are really, really powerful. And then the credibility, right? When I go to someone and close a deal, it's much easier because they've already seen me, they already know I'm real, and they've been following me. So there's some really, really powerful things behind it, not just closing more deals. There's a lot of other benefit to that, but that is obviously a huge one. And then how I made it happen was pretty simple. It evolved a lot over, over the course of the last couple of years, but it was pretty much just a commitment to post and engage every single day. And be genuine and real. I think that's the biggest thing, especially in how quickly AI is transforming and changing. Yeah, we're seeing so much fake content. We're even seeing businesses create fake human profiles that pretend to be a customer of that business and talk about their journey. It's cringeworthy. It's not good enough to fool anybody yet. It might be in the very near future, but at least today when we're talking, I think being real and being genuine on social media is one of the most powerful things you can do. And so I was just my real self, and I just said, hey guys, this is what I've experienced as a host. This is what I'm going through. The bears got into my trash can last night. This is disgusting. I'm out here picking up piles of trash. And that stuff resonated really, really well. So to me, that was one. It was a lot of activity, posting, and being genuine. And then two was giving back to that community. And so I try to engage and not just like and give some BS comment on someone's post. I actually wanna read their post and say, "Hey man, this is awesome. Congratulations. Did you consider doing this versus this?" So real genuine engagement, I think, has been really powerful. It's helped me grow. And I'm not viral. I mean, I don't have millions and millions of followers, but I do have maybe tens of thousands of real genuine connections. And a perfect example, I was at the VRMA just a couple of months ago, and someone came up and sat next to me at the bar and said, "Hey, Mark, how you doing? First night." And I didn't know who they were. I was like, "Who?" And they're like, "Oh, I'm so-and-so, I follow you on social media." I was like, "Okay, cool." That was the theme of the 3-day event. Over and over and over again, people had came up to me that had said, "Oh, I follow you, I know you really, really well." I didn't know them. I started looking back at my posts. Those people never engaged with me, they never liked or commented, So I think we underestimate the power of a post and how much reach it gets because we oftentimes simply look at the comments and the likes, and we don't realize that 90% of social media viewers are lurkers. They're just watching and they don't do anything. So if you think you've only reached 10 people from a post, you probably reached 100 people. Just 90 of them never engaged or commented on your post.

And there's also a little, uh, vibe here for lurkers is to reach out and say hi, jump in the DMs, you know, say just like— you don't have to be slimy and sleazy and think you're going to sell something, but just say hi. Because then that person who came up and said hi to you in the bar, instead of being, who are you, it's like a, hey, you know, I love you, thank you so much for commenting, yada yada yada, really happy that you were chatting, and let me buy you a beer. You know, it's like one of those sort of conversations. So the lurkers jump out, but you're right, you know, it's amazing You can post something and it will get 2 likes, 0 comments, and you're thinking, oh, that's a bit of a dud, didn't see it by anybody. But you know, it could have been seen by thousands and you just don't realize. And then it just, you know, people can consistently do that. But the vibe that I got from you is just be consistent, which you have been very consistent. And you're right, LinkedIn is rife with bot activity. So again, I feel like the overriding message here is don't treat your audience and your viewers like idiots. If you can spot an AI post, and if you can spot an AI comment, don't think you can get away with it, because I don't think that your readers won't— you know, your viewership, your potential customers can't spot it as well. So be real, be interesting, be interactive, and that's how you do it. Uh, Mark, phenomenal. Um, thank you so much. So go into LinkedIn, uh, Lumpkin is L-U-M-P-K-I-N. Mark Lumpkin, go and check him out, go say hi, go interact, and we'll be seeing you on the conference circuit this year, no doubt. I'm sure there's going to be a few on your, on your Congratulations for all your success and here's to more of it. Any final words you want to leave us with?

No, I appreciate you having me on, Mark. I love everything you do. I've been a big follower of you guys, and so I hope that you just have nothing but continued success as well. And if you're, if you're going to check my social media out, check Mark Simpson's social media out as well, because he does a really, really good job of that as well. And you can learn a little bit from each person and start to implement it on your own.

Amazing, right? So we're gonna call it into this session. I'm gonna go get my next speaker, so everybody, so I'm going to put this on to a little break as I normally do. So go grab a coffee, go grab a tea. We'll be back in 2 minutes with our next speaker. Mark, appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Mark. Thanks for having me on.