I Tried THIS PMS for 3 Years... Here’s What Happened!

Welcome back to the Boostly podcast. This is the podcast that gives hosts the tools, the tactics, the training, and most importantly, the confidence to go out there and get yourselves direct bookings. We're doing something slightly different today and we've done this on a few previous episodes which were very popular. We even had some of the software providers reach out to us and say, hey, can you do this? And can you talk to somebody who's using our software? So what we're going to do today is we're going to talk about a particular property management system or channel manager, some people call them. The reason we're doing this is so you can really get to understand from, not us at Boost, but from a host that actually uses this tool what they like about it, what other features they'd like to see in the future and the reasons they switch to it. And that gives you more information if you're considering switching now. Really important to say that we're partnered here at Boostly with many, many PMSs. There's not a single one that we recommend. What we always say is go and test them out. Or like this podcast does, listen to other people who's using it, see what you think and then if it sounds good, you can click the link and then you can go and and test it out. Many of these softwares give tests these days. So to help me with this, we've got an awesome host from the Boostly community. He's account him as a friend. He's been on the podcast before. We've got Toby Dior and he is from Cajun Stays. So welcome along. Toby, thank you for joining me to do this today.

Thanks Glee. I'm glad to be here.

So can you give an elevator pitch into yourself, Toby? What, where are you based? What kind of things do you do in hospitality and into your hospitality brand as well?

Yeah. So in Lafayette, Louisiana. And so the unique thing about hosting here is this is the center of everything that is what's called the Cajun culture. And most people go to New Orleans seeking that out and that's one of the biggest tourist cities in the world. Short term Reno is huge here and I've been on the scene for 13 years as an Airbnb host, but I started a property management company within the first six months doing arbitrage and managing the neighbor's house next door within the first six months of of joining Airbnb as a host and then using it to travel. I also have a travel blog called the Cajun Traveler and I'm also a full Time professor at the University of Louisiana. Sports psychology professor. Go Cajuns.

When it comes down to your experience as a host, like you say, you've got 13 years experience and I know you've used a few different software, so let's dive in. So how long have you been using UP listing and what was the key factors that influenced your decision to choose this particular pms?

Yeah, so one of the things about Cajun Stays is that. Well, first of all, back 13 years ago the name of the company was Cajun Hostel. And so I was with at the one and the only Airbnb conference in Los Angeles several years ago. I've been with UP Listing for three years. But way back 10, 11 years ago, I remember talking to the top software engineers about blocking a bunk bed. Whenever you somebody books the whole books of the bunk bed, it blocks the entire house or somebody. We have also ensuite private rooms and shared bathrooms just like a hostel. We evolved into managing three houses like that. But at that time these engineers looked around and like what are you talking about? And so this is what became a channel manager. And then fast forward to uplisting. We were using a different software for five years, a different pms. They got bought out by a larger company. When that happened, we started to have a lot of glitches. The customer service wasn't as good when we would have problems. I was attending VRME pretty regularly and met this guy named John and he owns a company called Tech Tape, I believe you know him. And I remember like talking to a lot of people. But I did a. I called him up and he really narrowed it down for me and I explained to him I had a boostly website that I used Price Labs even though we were at the time, you know, still looking at other pricing software. But I was pretty much get, you know, stuck with price, not stuck with price Labs. I was pretty, I was pretty happy with Price Labs actually. I was, I had the hostel thing where I still had the bunk beds and the private rooms that needed to be blocked out. I was traveling around the world and so your tech package is huge for someone who has a full time job but is also traveling and blogging and then running a short term rental management company. And so your PMS has to be working right and you can't afford to have double bookings and glitches and things like that. Those boxes needed to be checked. The Boostly website, Price Labs then we had not used housekeeping software. We were about to join with one software and then we got the notification that Turno is free, which was formerly turnover. BNB is free if you're an uplifting member. And so that next nail in the coffin was. Was tapped and then finally for everyone else and then the pricing came out and we started talking about pricing at the end. And so with John, he and I narrowed it down to two. And then once I had that call, that final call with the owner of Turno, they were still pretty new three years ago. And he was like, you know, this is the price for the amount of listings you have. I don't remember what it was at the time. And you get turnover for free. And it was a done deal. And so we never look back after that.

So you've moved from one PMS due to like, when these, when these get bought out, pmss get bought out, it can be quite difficult. So you chose to move because of glitches, tech difficulties, and you've moved across to uplifting because it works with, for exactly what you need with the hostel side of things. The. It's a great tech stack while you're traveling. And also it had some free. It had some bells and whistles with the free software, which allows you to look after your cleans and that side of things. So that's really cool. I know we've mentioned one, which is the, the feature that integrates really well with turnover, but what other features of uplisting do you find most beneficial for managing your properties? And can you talk us through some of the feature, like either some of the menu layouts or the views, the analytics, what, whatever it is that really goes. Do you know what? I'm just happy with my pms.

Yeah. So as far as the calendar manager, when we first onboarded with Uplifting, I was like, ah. And most of, you know, 90% of the time I've. I've always had two or three virtual assistants that do guest communications and they're looking at that screen nonstop. And I was like, I'm so used to my old PMS and what the calendar looks like. And I was like, I don't know if I'm going to get used to it. And then it grew on me and then now I can't imagine I do demos every now and then because I'm, I'm just kind of, kind of a tech nerd. Like, not as much as, as, as John, he's an expert. But, you know, I like to do demos with other people and meet a lot of people, new people in the industry. And I'm like, I look at these other calendars and so it took me about six months to get used to the to that calendar system. The locks was another issue. That was another box that I had to tick. I had four leg locks. So I have two apartments that I own. I'm sitting in the main house. It's got two locks on those doors. And at the time, the Schlage encode locks are $350. And we also had convinced the new properties and the older properties to switch from the old regular Schlage lock to this new encode. That was another box that had to be ticked. Uplisting uses a different app, but that app connects Uplisting to Schlage home. And if you have Schlage Encode app locks, sorry, then you don't have to worry about anything. If you do the original setup and the onboarding with uplifting, it automatically changes the codes. Our checkout time is at 11 o', clock, check in is at 3. You set your automatic messages, it changes the code for you. It tells Schlage through this other app. I can't remember the name of the app now because I've only seen it once. Once you click it up, you're done. You do that inside on the back end of uplifting and then you let it do its thing. It automatically changes the code. Obviously, there's a security benefit there, knowing that the codes are being changed every time somebody checks out. I call them dumb locks. These are smart locks. The encode that connect to the WI fi, I have dumb loc. The interior codes, doors, they're a different brand. I honestly don't know what brand they are. But Schlage does make some dumb locks as well. But so it, you know, we have to send a code that changes and then we have to send another code that doesn't change unless we manually change it, which we do every couple of months for security. But what's interesting about that is Uplifting knows that I have a Dunlop and a smart lock, and it knows that this one changes every time somebody checks out and this one stays the same. That's all programmed in the back end. Not only is it a security thing for the guest and for myself, it's also a time saver for having to go in and manually change codes and things like that.

What would you say having a good PMS in general has allowed you to do? Has it allowed you to travel more or has it allowed you to kind of relax and not sort of worry about some of the stuff as much as, you know, what is just having a PMS overall allowed? You to. To do within your business.

Yeah, Most of the questions I get a lot are about when, you know, at these conferences and things like that and on podcast is, you know, because I've been using virtual assistants for more than 13 years and for three different hats that I wear. And so, you know, that being able to for a virtual assistant combined that marriage between having them and a pms, and particularly a PMS that is easy to use and that they don't have to keep coming back to me and asking me questions. And a lot of times I don't know the answer anyway because the previous virtual assistant probably knows it better than me or uplifting does. And so that customer service combined with having a virtual assistant, you know, I remember, I don't know if it was in the Mastermind just the other day or one of. One of the calls and somebody said, you know, I'm waiting to do this. I have two properties. I've done this and this and this. The last thing I'm waiting to do is hire a va. And my thing is, no, the first thing you should have done is get a pms. And. And the second thing is hire a VA and then you learn it together if you've got your second property. And so I, you know, obviously I have. I'm wearing these different hats and I'm traveling a lot. And I was saying how, you know, I like the way my old calendar looked and it was a little bit weird at first with uplifting. And I do log in. It's. It sometimes it saves me time. So my apartment right upstairs, right above where I am right now, I have a backpack. And so there's a lot of blocking calendar dates for me. And we put, you know, four Toby and there's, you know, two weeks. And then I decide, you know, this weekend I'm going to fly to Mexico, you know, and so we unblock it. It usually gets booked in a couple of hours and. And then I'll either message my va, Hey, I decided to come back tomorrow. I'm flying in. So we'll block one of the apartments and sometimes I'll go in and do that because it. Sometimes it's just as easy for me to go in and block one of the places for me. Sometimes I'll WhatsApp one of the VAs and be like, hey, can you block the cabin for me for the next two weeks I'm coming back home. And it's really easy to do. And so I think that for me is the number one advantage. Also, we use a boostly website, of course. And I think we were with Bruce Lee about a year before we switched to uplifting. So I've been with Bruce Lee a While and Verbo booking.com and Airbnb. So that's another important thing to mention that Channel Manager is pretty powerful. We use the big four, you know, direct booking website. And then uplifting does build their own websites. You. So it does have that feature in there. It's just that I was with Bruce Lee before publishing. So, you know, my relationship with Bruce Lee is, you know, it's like I'm Bruce Lee for life and that I'm not gonna go and do an uplifting website. And. But, but, but the thing about it is, you know, like, if, if someone's listening to this and they're not already with Bruce Lee, that is another feature that uplifting has. I can't speak to how, how good it is, how good the websites are, but I can see the advantage of, you know, if you're just starting out, you know, and you're, you're looking for a direct booking website, it is a.

Feature that's there if people wanted to get in touch with you directly. Toby, how is best to come and find out more?

So, as I mentioned in the beginning, you know, I have the travel blog. And so if you reach out to Cajun Stays, you'll probably end up talking to one of the customer service people. If you want to speak to me directly or email me directly. So Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, it's the Cajun Traveler. So the Cajun Traveler is the name of my travel blog. And so those social media channels go directly to me. And so that's the best way to reach out to me is to reach out to one of the socials or email@tobyjointraveler.net Toby, thanks again.

I'm sure we'll have you back on the Boostly podcast to talk about the, the VA's, the hospitality stuff. I know we could really deep dive into that. But thanks again for coming on here. We'll see you all on the next one. Bye for now.

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