How To Build A Business As A Digital Nomad

So one of the troubles that we often see in the hospitality industry is that we love to travel ourselves, which is part of the reason we love to host people. But the trouble with hosting and traveling at the same time is it's not always possible. And I know that's one of the situations that many people out there would love to solve. So today we're going to be talking about how to build a business as a digital nomad. Somebody who can work from just about anywhere. There's a WI fi connection with a laptop and make success out of it. So if you've just joined us and you're on the Facebook, just let us know where you're watching from. If you're listening to the podcast, then today on the Boostly Podcast, we're going to be interviewing a host, going behind the host to answer that question of how do you build a successful business? And for those of you who's never heard of the Boostly podcast, if you're listening to it, this is the podcast that gives host the tools, the tactics, the trainings, and most importantly, the confidence to go out there and get direct bookings. My name is Ian Carolina and today we're going to go behind the host with Spencer and Ashley from www.travelluxpropertymanagement.com. go and check them out. They've got an awesome website and yeah, without further ado, let's say hello. So welcome along Spencer and Ashley.

Hey there. Thanks again for having us on.

Thank you for joining us. So before we dive into some of the questions around Digital Nomad, can you give yourselves an introduction for somebody who might not be familiar with yourselves and your business?

Yeah, so we're, we're Spencer and Ashley. You know, we, we started in the short term rental business probably about five years ago, started investing in properties, to be completely honest. And we saw the tremendous success we were having with that. And you know, at the time we both had corporate jobs and our goal was, well, we want to travel more than three weeks a year. We only had three weeks vacation. Well, she had four, I had three. And you know, it was immediately our goal to, okay, how, how can we get out of this rat race as fast as possible, be able to travel but still make money while we're away and kind of live the lifestyle we want. And short term rentals, you know, the first property we bought, we turned it into one. It did extremely well. And then we ended up buying a couple more within a year or two after that. And then we kind of hit the, the part where it was tough to scale with, you know, banks and being at that debt to income ratio. So like how, how can we do this much faster? We have the tools, we have the resources, how can we, how can we blow this thing up? So essentially we found the management model and you know, that was, the rest was kind of history. We, we partnered with two good friends of ours who owned a digital marketing company and they did all of our lead gen SEO and kind of kicked things off in that front. And now we've been able to scale to over 55 units across Canada. We're from Canada, forgot to mention that. And yeah, we're looking to expand even outside of Canada and kind of take it to, to the next level there.

Amazing. 55 units is obviously some big numbers. And so one of the things we mentioned is, and you mentioned is that you love to travel. So this, this hit the nail on the head of how do you travel while hosting? What are some of the tricks and tips of the trade to do that?

So that didn't happen for us overnight. When we started the business we were still very well hands on and anyone who's a host in the industry and runs short term rentals knows that it's, it's hospitality and hospitality never sleeps, there's no weekends, et cetera. Right. So after we got to about 25 properties we were like look, we're burnt out. We still have full time jobs at this point. We are not any closer to traveling more, actually doing less because we're so overworked. And at that point we actually hired out all of the day to day messaging and once we are able to step back from that day to day messaging and put a ton of systems in place where the business would run whether we were in the country or not. That is when we were able to actually go out travel and it didn't really matter if we were on eastern standard time.

Nice, nice. And is there any kind of tech or tools that you use to really help you do that?

Oh yeah. So we use like a PMS channel we use hostfully personally. We have wheelhouse for pricing and we use breezeway for cleaning accountability so that we don't need to actually go and schedule all the cleaners each time there's a clean they can self schedule.

Nice, nice. And do the. One of the pushbacks we often see is that cleaners struggle with some of this tech. Is there any tips that you'd have around getting the right people within the team? And I guess that's a great question. Who's in your team who allows you to do this while you're traveling?

Yeah, I mean, well, the good news with the cleaners that we work specifically that we have like say a manager that oversees the entire staff. So our goal was just to get all these managers in the same room and get them trained on it. And essentially there is that learning curve of getting them bought in. But once they kind of see the other side of it of like, hey, this is actually going to make their life a lot easier and now they can have some accountability, you know that that's really when the switch kind of went off for them. And obviously it's, it was just kind of learning through, through trial and just onboarding a few properties at a time and getting them used to it. We found that that was a pretty successful way to make the switch over from just, hey, here's a playbook of how we want the property to look. Here's some pictures. This is where the remote goes. Now it's okay. No, the remote needs to go here and we need a picture of it or this needs to get cleaned and we need a picture of it. And we find that from an accountability perspective, it's been a game changer. And obviously from the training side, it's a little bit more work up front, but it's definitely been beneficial and will be over the long run.

So let's give a for instance, say you get, say a boiler or some heating system goes wrong, no hot water, the classic one. What, what happens in that case? What's the, what's the steps within your business? Who gets, who gets contacted and how does it work?

So if a guest reach out, reaches out, they would actually get our property manager, our territory manager, who would see the issue and that person would notify maintenance and, and maintenance would go out and fix the problem asap. We have probably about three, just in one area. In each area, maintenance people who would be willing to go and run out to the property. So if the first two aren't available, there's usually the third one who would be able to go out. Secondly, we have a very, very detailed property playbook. I think Spencer already mentioned that that's in a Google Drive. So our territory manager can actually go in there and see, okay, the water heater is located in the basement. This is how you get down there. This is the door you go through. I need you to check to see if the pilot light is on. This is the steps that you need to go and check. So we have all like the serial numbers, locations, et cetera. So even the maintenance person has all this information handy before they get to the property so that they know what they're walking into and the fix is likely going to happen faster. What we aim to do is have the fix done by the guest because the territory manager has all of the information already in the drive before we need to send maintenance because that could take a long time. So that is what we aim to do instead of like always having to send someone.

That's really cool. And what, what advice would you have? You mentioned this playbook, which is something that I'm a huge advocate of in any business, is procedures, everything written down. Where did you start with that? So there'll be somebody listening to this who is going, I haven't got a playbook. Where do you start?

Well, it really depends on what you're looking to offload. The first thing for us was our territory managers got extremely busy with the day to day messaging and they were more, more so tied down with the clients and running, running around. So we brought in va. So our first thing was, okay, let's, let's get the messaging off their plate. So essentially what we did is just went back into, you know, one property at a time, went back into like a year and a half to two years of guest history and looked down the messages. What are the common questions being asked, what are the issues, what are the answers to those questions and what are the solutions to those issues? And you'd be surprised how big that the playbook can become just from going back previously if you haven't started one yet. If your property's brand new, we always suggest, you know, just put a list of basic top line stuff. You know, where's the, where's the circuit board for, you know, where's the electrical board if they need access to that, you know, where's the secondary lockbox? And then as the bookings start coming in, whenever there's an issue or a question that isn't in there, just be trained or have your people trained to constantly be updating that. Because that's one thing. It's never perfect as much as you'd like it to be. There's always going to be questions or issues that come up that you're like, ah, didn't think of that one. All right, well let's, let's go talk to the manager, let's figure this out. But also make sure that this gets updated to that playbook and then over time it just becomes this monster and well oiled machine where you know, your VA's or your team can simply just look up the issue for that specific property. Because every, every house and every property is different. It's got different nooks and crannies and issues that can happen. So, you know, every playbook will be slightly different in that regards.

And I think a big tip that we've done too is you may think, hey, it's pretty obvious this is how you work with thermostat. But not everything is obvious to everybody. So we actually take how to videos of like 60 or so different things and we do it typically when we're onboarding a property. And I think that's really important because it can eliminate a lot of issues or a lot of guest questions because instead of going to you and saying, hey, the house is really hot, how do I get the temperature down? Which is actually something we get quite a bit. And you and I may think, well, then they all turn the air up on the thermostat. But instead we just say, well, instead they can go to their guidebook and it's right in there how to work the thermostat. There's an exact video of us videoing that exact thermostat. Not one like it. And it can, they can troubleshoot it on their own.

Quick break from the podcast to let you know that the two boostly books that we brought out, the Book Direct Playbook and the Book Direct Blueprint, are two of the top rated and the best selling in 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 101 marketing tactics that is in the Playbook. So go and grab a copy on Amazon now. Just type in Book Direct Playbook or the Book Direct Blueprint and we'll see you on the other side.

That's cool. That reminds me of here. We get a lot of international guests in my hospitality business and one of the things we take for granted here in the UK is virtually every time you close a door, you have to lift the handle like 90 degrees to engage the kind of the lock mechanism and then you can twist the key and lock it. And for the first sort of year we'd take on properties and that would be the number one question is, hey, the lock's broken. And it wasn't until like you say, over time you build up this kind of idea of what questions have been asked and talking about over time. Obviously you've built up this playbook over time. So if you could go back to the start of your journey, which was, when did your journey start? What sort of year did your business start?

20, 2018 or the end of 2017? Around that time.

Cool. So if you could go back to sort of five years to 2018, what advice would you give yourselves to either improve or speed up your journey, which has been massively quick anyway. What advice would you have for yourself?

I would have to say the use of leverage a little bit faster. I mean, I wouldn't take back the, you know, both of us having to deal with the, you know, unfortunate call Friday night when you're sitting down at dinner and the guests can't get in. Or there's an issue because you still need to be able to have experience dealing with that, especially if you're going to train it. But I will say I think most people, I can't speak for everyone, but at least for us for sure, probably hang on to it a little bit too long before they go, okay, you know what, I think we need help now. And if we really want to scale this, we need to outsource some of these things. And I would suggest maybe bringing that type of support on a little bit early in your journey if your goal is to expand and make it a more hands off approach.

I know some of the worries will be in this question that I commonly get, which when we talk about outsourcing, they go, yeah, but I can't afford it. What would you say to those people who say, hey, I can't afford it. What would your advice be?

There are things you can do that don't necessarily cost money that you can start with like these systems that we're talking about. We didn't really start the playbooks until we were like 30 or 40 properties in. And that's a lot to take on all at one time. To get all of those videos, all of the guidebooks, all of the questions for like 40 or so properties across Canada. If we had started that in the beginning, we already would have made our lives a lot easier because that is like a great way to eliminate a lot of questions from the guests. And if your guests are asking less questions, they're bothering you less, you have more time and the guest experience is better, which means you're getting better reviews, which means you can charge more money, which means you'll make more money, and then you can work your way up to hiring like a va, which is less expensive, or someone who's like more boots on the ground.

Yeah. And even on our side, it's you Know, having that many properties, you kind of forget where things are, especially if you don't have records of it. So there would be times where if we had done that, it would have been a two second fix. But now we got to get on the phone and talk to the cleaners. If you can't get a hold of the cleaners, we have to call the owner. And they don't like being called on Friday either. And it's just kind of one of those things where it's like, okay, that could have been a two to three minute response to the guests, which they would have been happier. But now it's taking 15 to 20 minutes. They're locked outside. It's just creating a ton more stress than it had to. So I would totally suggest starting with at least that getting your, your current operations in order. If you can't afford it, then do a deep dive and take a look at. Okay. Like how much income are we bringing in? And you know, can we outsource, say a VA if it's the biggest bottleneck in your business?

That makes sense. One of the, obviously the, the theme of this podcast is how do we do it while also enjoying yourselves traveling. So just as a bit more of Lightheart, where's some of the places that you've got to travel to since starting the. The business?

Let's. Where do we even begin? I think we traveled like 13 weeks last year at least, or if not more. Yeah, we were just this past February for five weeks where we were in Southeast Asia, we started in Japan and we spent about three weeks in Vietnam. We were in Cambodia. Cambodia. Kar. We did five weeks in Europe in June last year and we kind of gallivanted all around like Croatia, Italy, Montenegro.

Anywhere where it's warm. Yeah, it's quite cold here in Canada in the wintertime and we don't like to be around for that. So yeah, like we, you know, even we ventured down to Florida. We were there for just over a month last year. We spent about two or three weeks in Arizona right after that. You know, just to be in the sunshine and, and be in better weather. I find it's helps with the mood. So.

And from doing all this traveling, is there aspects of places that you visit that you take and put into your business? And if so, can you give us some examples?

Absolutely. Honestly, I feel like Europe just does it better than North America in terms of hospitality. You really, I know like companies like Airbnb or any short term rental company started with that. You know, you're staying in Someone's house and you get that, that aspect of it. I feel like a lot of the places at least we stayed at, stayed at in Europe really embodies that versus some of the, even the higher end places we've stayed at here seems very like business oriented cut and paste. There really isn't that hospitality side where you look at a big company, like even Marriott Bon Boy, where everywhere you go is consistent. Right? Especially if you stay at the Ritz Carlton or the St. Regis, you're getting that level of service pretty much everywhere you go. And I find that varies so much at least here versus saying it seemed a lot more consistent in Europe. So we brought that back, basically being like, okay, we have a decent sized portfolio. How can we bring that level of customer service and that hospitality to all of these properties where they're not just feeling like they're staying in another investor's Airbnb that's trying to make $1,000 more a month in market rent.

That's such a good point. Because when you stay in some places you actually feel there's, I mean, some place I've stayed, they actually want to give you the home cooked recipe or they want to go, hey, you know, I'll give you a lift. I'll, I'll take you there. Hey, come and see this. And you really feel as though, you know, that that's just who they are. That's, that's the host, isn't it? And it's about, there's a saying which I always think of, which is people forget what you did and what you said, but you'll remember, they'll remember how you made them feel. And that embodies a lot of the time as you're traveling, when you think of places, you think of the people who was your host there, you know, you think of the faces that you saw there, which is, which is so true. So you're traveling, you mentioned you do some marketing and some work to get more properties, you know, some SEO work and marketing to, to do that. What happens and how do you onboard new properties when you're in a different or on a different continent?

So our, I mean, our partners are wizards in that regards, but we kind of sat down and started, okay, like who, who's our client avatar? What, who are we going after? Are we going after investors? Are we going after someone that has like a secondary vacation home? Are we going after people that haven't bought a property before? And you know, we really chalked it down to investors and more higher end properties, hence like the Travel Lux. So most of our portfolio is all detached four plus bedroom homes, higher ticket sales. But with that we're trying to bring that concierge aspect. So once we figured that out, they did all their magic with the lead gen and SEO and trying to target certain keywords to, to attract that, that specific clientele. And I mean Ashley can speak more about it, but you even just being on social, that has been an absolute game changer for us. We need to do more of it. I myself need to contribute a little bit more to the Instagram page and the social pages because the power of.

It is incredible and it's been really fun because we are able to give more personality over something like Instagram instead of if it's just a business and a website, you can't really, you don't know who Spencer and Ashley are. Right. So it's easier to convey over social in terms of actual onboarding we actually have because that's like a major part of bringing in a short term rental for management. It's very time consuming and owners have a lot of questions. You want them to feel like we're communicating and that we're setting them up for success. We have very strict guidelines on what they need in order to go live and we actually have an onboarding coordinator in each area that we operate who only does this. So she's like specific and an expert specifically. Right. For onboarding. Our territory managers, our VAs aren't part of that so they get them up to snuff. So by the time they're ready to hit the live button, we know that they're ready to start taking on good bookings.

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 Boostly and our team right now. We can walk you through exactly what we're offering, how, how we can help you and give you a portfolio of websites that we have worked with that are matching not only your niche but could be in your location as well. Boostly has helped over 2000 hospitality businesses all over the world increase their direct bookings. And if you are interested then all you need to do is go to Boostly. B O o s t l y.co.uk call and book in an appointment with one of our sales team.

I really like that that's so important to have and one thing you mentioned there was that you take on specific avatars of certain types of properties. It's something we talk about a lot of Boostly is having an avatar for your guest, your type of guest. And it just makes sense that if you're taking on properties, you need the properties which will suit that kind of guest. So how did you discover the kind of, I guess the avatar that you wanted for your, for your clients, for your hosts that you, that work with you?

I guess it almost started with our, our own investment portfolio. There's a small area where we're from, it's a wine region and it's definitely a higher purchase price to, to be in that area, but it gets a ton of tourism, a lot of people coming in. There's, it's got to be over a hundred wineries in like a very small area. So we ended up purchasing a really nice property with some acreages right on the vineyards that was like It's a, a 3,000 square foot property, five bedrooms. And wanted to try the high end side because looking at the data, not just on air DNA, just going in and doing a deep dive, we knew that there was a huge lack for higher end rentals because we knew the net worth that goes to that area was there. But even the hotels and the small boutique places, they really didn't capture that luxury space. So when we took that one live, it was kind of a step above most of the properties in that area. But within the first year it became the top three income producers in that area. So that's kind of where we said okay, like there's definitely demand for it. And kind of looked at that around a lot of places in Canada and said the same thing because most people only go so far with their short term rental, especially now with increasing prices. You know, we saw the huge opportunity to go a little bit further, invest a little bit more, put in better higher end amenities. And the return we've seen on that is incredible because fortunately there hasn't been a ton of competition there.

It's a good lesson for people listening in who are perhaps thinking about purchasing or investing in a short term rental. A lot of clients that I talk to get places ready to a certain degree and they go, hey, we're ready. And you just go, hey, you are ready. But if you just push that extra 5 or 10%, then that will make a difference long term. And whether or not that's interior design or like you say, some of these special amenities is just so important. So, so thank you for that. So as we reach towards the, towards the end of these, these podcasts, we'd love to just do a couple of fun questions and one of the questions we, we tend to do is sort of what would you class as your superpower? But I'm going to mix it up because there's two of you. So what I'd like to ask is Ashley, what is Spencer's superpower? And Spencer, what is Ashley's superpower?

Okay, so Spencer has quite a few superpowers. I would say the main one is his ability to drive forward at all costs. Like when an idea comes to his head, there is really no stopping him and he just kind of pushes forward until he hits that goal. And it's that kind of determination and blind faith that I really admire.

Then I, I, I would say with Ashley, this is why we work so well together is I get a lot of ideas but sometimes they're like way over the top and I get all over the place. Ashley is very like laser focused on. Okay, well going to do that, you know, you have to factor in X, Y and Z. And did you think about this? Did you think about that? And then those two things combined usually creates a really good plan of attack. So I'd say like she's very, very.

Or a big argument kind of.

Yeah, yeah, sometimes a little bit. Column A, column B.

But definitely, yeah, it's part of the fun with working with your at the end of the day. And yeah, it sounds as though you sort of balance each other out greatly there. So sticking with the fun questions, what is your spirit animal and why?

I want to say a horse. I think a horse for me was like the first thing that came to mind. I love, I've always really done away with conventional societal norms. I, even though I went the corporate route just because it was what you do. Right. I never liked it. I always wanted something different. I don't like being told what to do. So to be told I have to do something between nine and five was just like outrageous to me. So I think just like that freedom of like wild horses is like very alluring to me.

I guess that's such a tough question. I've never been asked this. I mean I come differently. Yeah, no, that's great. I mean I come from a small town called Lion's Head, so I've always considered myself a bit of a lion. And you're a Leo and animal. Leo. So the second you said that I had to say lion. I mean they're independent, they're strong, they, they go after what they want. And yeah, I guess if I had to pick off some of my head, it would definitely be that nice.

Nice. I really like that. So what, what does the future hold for the business?

I feel like once you hit a few of your dreams, like it was our dream to, to leave our corporate jobs and kind of be time independent and being able to work and drive a business from anywhere in the world. We had a goal of doing that in five years, we achieved it in two. And I think that was really eye openening for us because we were like, man, we were dreaming too small. So now I think every idea that we have, we're like, let's just like 10x that because like, why not, right? Like, why can't we do that? I think we'll definitely see Travelex going more international. Not just the US but love to go more international. We love to travel and we would love to host travelers all over the world. And then personally, we have a bunch of, of goals too.

Yeah, like we've, we've seen a huge demand but no supply for like str event in Canada that we were just in the one with Nashville with Mark and we said there's nothing like this in Canada. So that is going to be. We're very bullish on that idea. We've already been since then been like putting hours in every single week thinking, okay, like how can we, how can we scale to something of that size? Because there's, there's so many hosts and so many people in this space. In Canada, you know, Facebook groups can only go so far. We got to get people in the same room. And I find that's how you really grow is when you get to network with those types of people and people doing bigger and better things than you. That's when it really, like Ash said, opens your eyes to, hey, we're thinking too small. Like we can, we can do all of these things if we just apply ourselves. So that's, that's a big one for us.

That sounds really exciting. And hey, you heard it on the Boostly podcast first. They're going to be having a huge event. So if you're listening to this in a few years, go and check it out. It's already, it's probably already started, which is cool. So before we share with the listeners how they can get in touch with your foliar and we open up the mic, one of the questions we love to ask is, is there a saying or a mantra which really resonates with you, Something which you look back on and you think, well, yeah, that, that kind of rings true even now you have one.

These are really tough questions, man.

I think one that I like that I like to live by. I actually have a tattoo of it that I will show nobody is this too shall pass. I think it really embodies like if you're going through a hard time building a business is. Is really, really hard. And it doesn't like, I think people see other people build a business and they see the success, but they didn't see when they first started. And it's that crossover between the 9 to 5 and self employment where you're like, hey, this, this might be something or I might go bankrupt. Like that little line and realizing that you just, if you believe in it and you believe in why you're doing it, it will come and that the feeling that you have in the present of uncertainty will pass.

Yeah, yeah. And in mine, it's very Canadian hockey reference, but I actually embody it as. It's a Wayne Gretzky quote. You miss 100% of the shots you do not take. Firm believer that like we could read as many books as, as you want, go to as many webinars, as many live streams as possible. Until you start actually taking action and shooting the puck per se, you're really not going to see the results that you aspire to. And you know, we, we've seen that firsthand with all the things we've learned lessons from not taking action and seeing the downside to that as well. So yeah, I really like that one.

I like both of those. That's fantastic. You've reminded me of the picture of the iceberg where people just see the top of it, you know, the success and you know, the fact you guys can travel and that sort of thing, but they didn't see the hours and all the, all of that stuff that you guys have put into to get to where you are, which is cool. And hopefully just from that answer alone, you're inspired people who are listening to this to actually just go out and whatever idea they've got in their heads to just go out and at least give it a go. You know, like you say, you do miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So I'm going to throw the mic open to you both. Spencer and Ashley. How can we find out more from your. Where should we follow? Where should we go?

We're the most active on our personal Instagram, so it's just Spencer and. And Ashley. Really simple. Um, we like to post there often. You'll probably find a big mash of like our real estate travel points and miles. Cause we like to, we like to travel in luxury using points so you'll find a It's very lifestyle so if you want to know who we are, that's a good place to go.

Cool. And again for anybody listening in on the on there or watching on YouTube, we will add those links to the show notes. And if you do want to check out their Website it is www.travelux with an e property management.com as well which is cool. And thank you to if you're listening on the Boostly podcast, we know there's lots of places you can put your attention. I hope this has inspired you to go out and take some action and I know there's a lot of places you can put your attention. I really thank you for putting it with Boostly. So that brings us to the end of this episode of the Boostly podcast. Was there any last shares before we close it out? Ashley or. Or Spencer?

No. Thanks everyone for listening. And Liam, it's a pleasure to have us on. We really appreciate it.

Really enjoyed having you guests on and just great fun. So I look forward to seeing this event in the future. And yeah, we'll speak again soon. Bye for now.