How to Automate Your Airbnb Business

Hiring a virtual assistant is life changing. My personal assistant saves me hours of time every month. However, I understand that people are not always enthusiastic about the idea of hiring help. Short term rental owners can be the same. When I first met Justina and Kieran, they were attempting to manage everything themselves.

I was very hands on. I am still hands on and I find it quite hard to not be so hands on.

I was definitely spending like a lot more time than what I should have been spending. I got workouts, you know, pull out.

My phone, check it out.

Like check on the guests, taking booking requests, managing guests pre and during stay, blocking out dates in the booking engine, manual, pricing, organizing cleaners and handing on and much more. Justina was juggling her role as a mum and a business owner, while Kearney had a demanding job with shift work. By their own admission, they were both feeling a bit stuck and heading towards burnout. However, I completely understand the hesitation. Many owners bear the scars of past failed attempts at hiring when whether it's because they've hired the wrong person and had to deal with the awkwardness of letting someone go, or they didn't have the right processes in place which frustrated the new hire and led them to quit. In both cases, the owner ends up back at square one, handling everything alone. The good news is that it doesn't have to be this way. I've helped hundreds of business owners in hiring help and there's a straightforward blueprint that you can follow. It's the same blueprint I've used with Justina and Kearney, and I'll share the key steps so you can see exactly what we did and the positive impact it had on their businesses and lives. My first recommendation for both Justina and Kearney was to read Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz and who not how by Dan Sullivan. If you haven't read these books yet, I highly recommend getting yourself a copy. Both books discuss essential principles for improving your business. Clockwork focuses on creating a business that runs like clockwork, allowing you to work less while achieving more. Who not how explains the importance of finding the right people to help you achieve goals rather than trying to do everything yourself and with their minds now primed for change. After reading these books, it was time to introduce them to someone special, a bit of a hidden gem in the industry. I introduced them because there was a clear bottleneck in Justina's business where everything depended on her to take action. This is a common issue among business owners. Letting go and outsourcing can be challenging. However, it's important to note that it's often more of a perception than a reality. As you'll see from the results, it's not nearly as difficult as it may seem, especially when you work with Exper. Time to introduce you to Teger, founder of Gravitas Media.

In my experience, it's far better to believe that you will find people that are trustworthy and create the environment that if somebody trustworthy comes in, that fear of trust just evaporates. It doesn't even matter anymore.

Taeger's company specializes in helping small business owners find the right people. What sets his approach apart, and it's quite unique in my experience of recruitment, is that he helps employers prepare for for the onboarding process. This means that everything is in order before the new hire even joins. Here's the man himself explaining why his process works so well.

Part of the stuff that we're going to be talking about today, I've learned that from everywhere. I've had to try it, see what works, see what didn't work, see what I like, see what I didn't like. And then from the things I did like, build a system around that as a way of doing things that can produce almost guaranteed repeatable results. So I have this little tool that I built in Google Sheet called the Delegation Clarity Codex. It's a different kind of task tracker because it allows you to get an accurate representation of exactly what it is that you are doing day to day. Forces you to sit down and judge those things based on how important they are, one, to your business and two, to you. And once you've judged how important it is, it also lets you think about what system or process you need to have in place.

After just a couple of zoom sessions with Taega, Justina felt really confident about putting her first job advert out. You might be thinking, come on Mark, it's not that hard to hire a va. And you'd be right. Anyone can hire any old va. But if you want a rockstar, one that will actually make your life easier and allow you to focus on the things that matter, you need to get your job advert right. Here's the actual job ad Justina used. It was crystal clear describing who she was, the type of person she was looking for and and who should apply guest communication cold outreach to businesses to attract more corporate bookings, cleaner and handyman communications. And this resulted in Justina's first hire. Justina, for the first time was able to work on her business and not in her business. But before hiring, we tracked Justina's hours And what she did on a day to day basis. After hiring her first virtual assistant, we were able to save her hours in.

Her day getting somebody on the team have freedom a lot of my time to focus on the things that mattered a little bit more or actually getting the things done that I kept putting off and I didn't just. I didn't like it and I procrastinate around them but they were quite important in a grand scheme of things.

This made a significant difference in her life. She now had help with various tasks which should allow her to focus on more critical aspects of her business and enjoy more free time. Justina no longer has to worry about doing the tasks she didn't like to do. Things like cold outreach, guest communications. Now she can focus on starting up a new revenue stream for her business. You might be wondering why we prioritized hiring and systems ahead of say, marketing or building a new website. That's because in my experience, if you're struggling to manage your short term rental portfolio and we focus on growth, you're just piling more and more pressure on yourself. Instead, it's crucial to get your foundations in order first. This way, when the inevitable growth comes from the sales and marketing strategies which I will share shortly, you'll be fully prepared. You're a short term rental host who hasn't yet got your foundations in order. I recommend you grab a copy of my Blueprint. It's a book I wrote specifically to help people prepare their business for growth. As always, you can find the link under this video in the notes. As for Kearney, with only one property in his portfolio, there wasn't the need to hire at this time. He needed to tap into automation and setting his business up for success whilst he juggled his job. Before he takes that leap to go all in on his business journey, I guarantee there's at least one short term rental host watching this who is in the same position as Justina. And that's precisely why this video is so important to me. I'm not on commission or receiving anything from Tega. I just know that his services can actually benefit your business and Justina is a real world example of that. If this video motivates you to do one thing, go and have a chat with Tega and get some much needed support. And you can find links to his website under the video. Before we move on, it's important to reiterate that we're not just talking about hiring cleaners or handyman. Justina already had both of those hires in place. We're talking about help with systems and behind the scenes tasks that take you to that next level. Read the books I recommended earlier, check out my own blueprint and go and speak to Tega. I promise you it will be a game changer for you and your business.