ROAST YOUR LISTING LIVE

All right, everybody, I think we are live. If you can see us, please do say hi in the chat. Let us know A, if you're live or if you're on the replay, and B, let us know where you're tuning in from around the world. My camera is now working. For those of you that are watching in the book Direct Virtual Summit Week, you'll know that 10 minutes ago my camera decided to freeze. But we are, we are here, we're good, and I've got some guests. This looks a little Brady Bunch in the little square that we have, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. So basically we are to my right, to my left, sorry, we've got Maddie. Down below we have Jen. And into my bottom left, we have Jeff. So we've come together to do a very special first time. Could be last time, who knows? Depends how this goes down. Roast your listing live and we've got two volunteers who have kindly put forward their listings so we can give it a good old roast feedback and all that good stuff. So let's get started with introductions first. Everybody by now should know who I am. So we're going to start with Maddy. Then go Jen, and then go Jeff, over to you.

Awesome. Hi, everyone. My name's Maddie. I'm the CEO and founder of Mount what we do in the short term rental space is we find all of the best hidden gems, things to do, all the stuff your guests are probably asking you for recommendations for. We aggregate all that information and essentially give you a concierge type tool to offer those recommendations to your guest.

Amazing. Jen, over to you.

Hi, I'm Jen Sexton. I am the design partnerships manager here at Host gpo. Host GPO is a buying group for host. So we basically take this collective buying power and we negotiate the very best prices with vendors that sell things like mattresses, furniture, linens and amenities.

All right, Jeff, over to you, sir.

Awesome. I'm Jeff. I'm the CEO and founder of hostgpo. I work with Jen. You guys heard about what we do. I will mention, I know, as you like to mention whenever we do anything with Mark, that we are just in the US and Canada right now, but we love to roast listings from all over the world. So happy to pop into this and have at it.

Fantastic. So what we like to do every month is we've got this thing called the STR collab. And you will have seen the videos on YouTube, you'll have seen it. We've got a Facebook group and we've done Lots of different types of videos where we've brought guest experts in, we've done interviews, we've. We've done all the cool things. And this is like something that I wanted to test. And, you know, we had Jen, Jeff and Mary said, let's go for it. But if you do like this and you want to want us to do more of these, then, you know, do let us know. Email addresses are always open, our DMs are always open. So please do let us know. So here's the general idea, here's the general gist. I put a post out in the group and hello to everybody, Gert and Helen, who are, who are with us in the group to say who would like their listing to be roasted. And if you don't know what roasting means, it's basically where we're going to pop up the listing and we're going to give it constructive feedback, but with obviously an info, an infotainment type of style. Everything that we say is to help our two volunteers, and I'll give them a little introduction in a second. But the cool thing about this is, because we're doing this live and we're going through this and saying this for the first time, is that you can be watching this, going, oh, that's fantastic. Great feedback for these two people. But also, as well, you can be thinking about your own listings. You can be thinking about your own Airbnb listings, your VRBO listing, booking.com listings, even, like how you present yourself online and see if you can go and make your listing even better. Now, the two people that put their name down and the ones that I picked out of a hat, we have Catherine Lane, who's over in Brighton, and we have Helen Pritchard, who is in Devon in the the uk Very well. One of the first people to put their name down. I sent him a quick message and just said, just let them know what we're going to be doing. And we're going to start with Catherine in, in Brighton. Now, just to give Jen and Maddie and Jeff a little bit of context, I asked for both Catherine and Helen to send me a little blurb of where they're struggling with. And I'm going to quickly read it out now because I think it'd be good for everybody who's watching live and on the replay. Then I'm going to share my screen and then we're going to get started with the roasting. Now, first and foremost, I would love for everybody who is watching in the chat, in the groups. I know There's a lot of you now have just jumped in just to say first and foremost, a big well done to Katherine. It's not easy to put yourself forward. It can be very vulnerable. And Katherine, the first message you said to me saying is just please don't make me cry. But she has put herself forward because she wants to improve. So here's a little blurb that Katherine sent me. Thank you so much for including me. Even though I've been in the business for 20 years, I still feel like a beginner when I listen to some of your training. The property I shared with you was my very first one. I now own a portfolio. Well done. But each one has its own unique challenges. This particular property does well with repeat and direct bookings, which is awesome. Um, about three years ago, I bought another property just three doors down from the one I gave you to roast. It's a third of the size. When I review my books, I was shocked to see that this smaller property was actually bringing in more income than the one that I want you to roast. The reason? It's cheap to run and I wanted to maintain good relations with neighbors. So I focus on attracting the right type of guests, even if it meant being empty at times. I avoid shooting short term stays and families with kids and babies and there's no sofa bed. I aim for longer stay guests and try to minimize short term weekend travelers. I do hold firm on a minimum of five night bookings unless there's an odd gap and seven night bookings for further in advance even with a lower nightly rate. Bookings comes in sometimes the last minute, but they do come. It's become popular with business travelers and those staying in Brighton for several weeks, often staying for two to four weeks or more, reducing often gaps and turnover costs. I want this property to perform even better. So I've extended the minimum stay requirement and kept the nightly rate low to capitalize on the market. Okay, so nice little bit of context. Let's go ahead and I'll bring up the listing and please hope this works. There we go. So can you all work listing? Fantastic. I'm glad. I'm glad I get instant feedback when I've got guests on with me because otherwise I'm just asking. I'm asking myself. So this is good. All right, Jeff, I'll let you go first and then we'll go to Jen and Maddie and then we'll just have like a bit of free for all. But what is the first impressions? How can we roast and give feedback to the fantastic Catherine? Yeah, Absolutely.

So I'm happy to jump in first. And I should also mention I did start host GPO and we focus on furniture and design and all these things. But I am also a vacation rental operator. I've been in the industry for about 10 years and have managed and set up hundreds of properties. So definitely have a ton of experience on, on, on your side as well, Catherine. And you know, all of the feedback taken with the giant grain of salt, obviously when Mark said, hey, we're going to roast some listings, I wasn't expecting for the first one to just be a 4.88 guest favorite. So I think we can start there with this is a great listing overall. And you know, things that stood out to me right away from this first photo is it's very well designed and you know, it definitely has an esthetic. The, you know, photography looks like it's, you know, fairly, fairly well done. You know, the first photo maybe could use a little bit of a, of a punch up in terms of brightness. When you look at the other photos, I think you, you really get a lot more, you know, light and so there's not really a consistency throughout. Some people really tend to focus on when they're looking at their photography, you know, making sure that if the lights are on, that all the lights are on or if the lights are off, that all the lights are off. So you have either a natural or, or kind of bright aesthetic. For me personally, I prefer brighter colors, but that's a, that's a personal thing. The other thing that I noticed right away when looking at this listing is you've chosen to make one of your top five photos, one of your main five photos. Your my holiday, let's, you know, brighten, you know, image. And that's a pretty bold choice. Not a lot of folks would do that. I mean, I think that you're using prime real estate there. Where I get it, you're trying to drive direct bookings. But is the best way to, you know, do that to necessarily use one of your main five photos? There are other ways to do that. You know what putting as a watermark in the corner on the bottom of each photo and allowing you to use that space to highlight another photo might be one way to do it. You know, just not, not sure that, that, you know, I've seen other people do things like superimpose it onto the tv, right. Or, or find other creative ways to incorporate. You know, have it on a welcome gift or on a welcome card that's featured on one of the main, you know, entryway photos. So I'm just wondering if that's one of the kind of best use of space there. You know, I think one of the other things that stood out to me before we get, you know, just from a photograph and, and listing perspective is when you scroll down a little bit, your listing description is very, very short. And so you, you know, that kind of show more area. There's not a lot there. I think most people, you know, will either go between one of two choices there. You're either going to leave a very detailed description where you might be popping things into chat GPT to have them punched up and you know, know, read really well and have a kind of a more literary, descriptive version of what you want your property to be described as or you're going to do something like have it be short, but you're going to have bullet points that really get the, get the key facts across. And so, you know, I think a lot of what you are, you know, focused on is, you know, there is just being concise and I think you're missing out on an opportunity to explain what you were saying at the beginning about what types of travelers you're trying to attract and what type of stay you're looking for and really describing the property a little bit more. I also think that the listing description itself leaves a little bit to be desired. I think that there's probably better way to. If you scroll up all the way to the top mark, I mean there's probably a better way than seaview space, spacious central or one bed flat, sleeps four. I get that you're getting a lot across there, but it doesn't really, doesn't really sell the property at all. And not saying it has to be a, you know, 20 exclamation point, you know, stars and capital letters attraction, but it seems very kind of, you know, just generic, generic and maybe, maybe a little bit, a little bit flat where, where it should be a little bit punchier. And so, you know, also will say, I say this a lot to our kind of US membership base, but not everybody, not everybody is familiar with terms like flat and let and you know, things like that all over the world. And so I think that that might be again, you're attracting local business travelers. But just being aware of colloquialisms and steering clear of words that might be ambiguous to folks could be one thing to think about as well. Those are my kind of takeaways from the listing. I'll pause and kind of kick it over to Jen. But what I will Say is there's a lot of work and a lot of conversation we should be having around your pricing and five night minimums and things like that too, if we really want to get into how to optimize your stay. So I'll pause there. But overall, a beautiful place. I'd probably stay there.

Amazing. Thank you very much, Jeff. Go above and beyond. Let's do a little applause. Jen, over to you.

All right, well, thank you. Yes, really, really great advice, Jeff. Again, just a little bit of background about myself. I am a host as well. I'm also a designer. I probably designed over 75 short term rentals and very beautifully designed. It's very welcoming. It draws my eye in immediately. One of the things that I noticed right away is I always take a look at, okay, how many guests can this home occupy and then also how many beds are there? And so it does state on the very top that it's a one bed flat. But if you look right below the main photo, it also states that there's two beds. My guess is that this is just an error because I was not able to find another bed in the listing at all. In addition to that, if we want to click on any of the pictures, I can just kind of share a little bit too. Again, I agree with Jeff. You want to have consistency with the photos. You know, you know, it looks like most of your photos are all natural light, but some of them are a little darker than others. And I think that again, you know, having that consistency really is going to allow your listing to stand out from its competition as well. I also really loved that she added a floor plan. This is, I think really important for a lot of potential guests to see kind of what the space looks like as well. So I do love the fact that she added that as well. And I will share a lot more once we pop into the photos. But I think Jeff covered a good portion of it. So I am going to throw it down to Maddie.

Thank you, Maddie.

Awesome. Happy to jump in. So for context, I like to tell people that we bring the voice of the guest because that's why we're all focused on experiences. And when I do like more formal talks, I talk about how when travelers are looking for a place to stay, typically they're looking with the thing to do in mind first and then they find the place to stay. And so when I'm looking at your listing specifically, I'm wondering why someone would come stay here. And if you do know, it is longer term people and they're coming for Business travel. There was nothing really mentioned about that in the listing whatsoever in the description or further down. And so if that really is your guest avatar, like, giving them some recommendations on maybe some local restaurants they could go check out while they're there, or maybe there's like a bike rental shop down the road, specifically, if the weather is nice, that they can get a bike while they're there. And just some things that these business travelers might just want and are searching for just in general, before they even find your listing, It'll help your listing come up more in search terms and stuff like that. So that's kind of the perspective I take, is what is your guest wanting more than just a place to stay and how can you offer that in your listing? Some of the best listings I've ever looked at were ones that had more of, like, a concierge itinerary photo. So it's like, hey, I can also help offer and connect you to, like, a private chef or stock the fridge for you, whatever it may be. And it just is like, wow, I'm getting a lot more than just a place to stay if I book with this specific host. Gives you that competitive edge. So, yeah, I would say definitely beef up the description to who your guest avatar is and put in some of those more local tips that really, you would be able to offer that others might not be able to.

Love it. Facebook has decided that it just hates my face and my camera's frozen. So I'm gonna go audio. Audio for the time being. But it's fair because I have been on for, like, the last seven hours, so. But yeah, I feel like there's some fantastic feedback. I think the first thing that obviously we alluded to it, you. You got. You got to speak to. Speak to who you want in here, and you've got. Well, you're very lucky on airbnb than the other platforms that you do get so much creativity where you can put the text. And I think Jeff is right. Having an image there is, you know, it's very bold where you talk about, you know, your real estate and your brand and your business, but if you do a good enough job in the text, and everybody does read the text as much as they read the picture, look at the pictures, you can also do the same there as well as in your. In your profile id. But obviously, you're very clear on who you want. You, you know, not even visible to anybody who is looking for a, you know, a cheeky free night getaway to. To Brighton. And it's obviously Clear why. But yeah, I think if you're really going after these business guests, speak to it a little bit more and utilize these, these tools. You know, there's some fast, fantastic AI tools now that can help you put that listing together. So let all in the chat, shall we? Before we move on to Helen, is there any final, final like just quick tips that Catherine could do on this? Jen, you spotted a really good one. I think there's something if you, if you go in the extranet, go in the behind the scenes, go into the dashboard, I'm sure you can fix that issue there. But is there any other little quick tips that you would pass to Catherine before we move over to Helen's listing?

Yeah, I mean, I think to Jen's point, I think people would probably like to see the sofa bed or at least understand where it is if there is one. You know, that is just a little bit confusing with the listing. And then, you know, the last thing I'll point out is, you know, I get what you're trying to do in terms of having certain types of guests and travelers stay there and really being very cautious about the property. But you know, this is a non insta book request only five night minimum stay. And I would encourage you to really think about like are there other ways that you could vet or feel comfortable with who is staying there that would allow you to optimize this more? And what I mean by that is, you know, if somebody checked in on October 15, right, they're going to be paying 121 pounds a night right? Now let's say that's for five nights day. Are you telling me that if somebody checked in on Thursday the 17th and checked out on the 20th, so two days less, you wouldn't be comfortable spreading out that 240 extra pounds over, you know, the, the other three days because then all of a sudden you're, you're a higher nightly rate, but you're going to be making the same amount. But again the person who's probably willing to pay for that or pay a little bit more, especially with things like, you know, you can control for other things like lead times. If you have InstaBook off in general and you're reviewing the requests and talking back and forth with folks, you can get a lot from communication the way people type the things that they say, right. You can control for what type of guest you're having a lot of without putting a hard restriction on nightly minimums in a way that I think really could unlock a huge amount of potential revenue for you here. So I really encourage you to reconsider. Either leave things like a five night minimum on and your booking window for as far out as it is and so forth. You can leave those things on but allow people to instabook. Or if you're going to be controlling and messaging guests each way and you want to be that controlled with who you're letting in, which is okay, I would encourage you to take a lot of those restrictions off because you'll get a lot more inquiries, but you'll also get a lot more bookings.

Love it. Anything else for anybody else? Brilliant. And I would just say as well there's a lot of people tuning in and, you know, putting their opinions in the chat. Please keep going because this is great feedback for obviously Katherine, but to everybody else that's watching as well on the, on the repeat, because there will be people that are doing these same things in their listings and they can look to implement this now. Don't forget tomorrow. So if you're watching this live tomorrow in the group, we are doing a get it done day. I was going to call it get it shit done day, but Facebook don't like that. But we're going to get it done. And what we're going to do is we're going to take one thing that we've learned this week, even if it's through this or through the other sessions, and we're going to have a little get done session. So make sure you take this. Don't worry about doing it tonight. We'll have a full day tomorrow to do this. So let's, let's move on to the next.

Wait, Mark. You know, I feel like we didn't really roast that last one enough. I'm gonna throw in one little, one little roast comment just because I feel like this is really a roast. I will say if you're gonna, if you're gonna move things around from one room to another to like stage it and make it look, you know, a certain way, maybe don't move around like the bright pink coffee table art book. Like maybe have it be a more neutral book. Because that coffee table art book is in four different bookshelves in this house. And so I doubt you got four copies of it, but it's in the bedroom, it's on the office desk, it's on the coffee table. So just be a little aware of if you're moving stuff around to not have it be the exact same one.

Once you've noticed it, you'll never unnotice it.

You can't unsee it now.

Hey, Jeff.

This is.

This is why we get you in. This is. Loved it. And anybody else. Maddie, Jen, you feeling a little roasty?

I actually do have a few things that I'd love to add. If you can click on the kitchen photo. This photo here, it's a great photo. It obviously shows exactly what they're offering here. I do think that the overall, the listing itself is so beautifully designed. It's like, feels like it's intentional. And then you get to this kitchen and it's like so vanilla. It's so white. I would love to see a little bit of like color here, maybe some greenery. You know, in one of the photos later on in the listing, there's a close up of a smeg coffee maker, but it's not in the main photo. This is what I would love to see, like stage it. So it's really, really beautiful. I would love to know too, do you include coffee? Because I do see like the coffee and the tea and the sugar behind there, but it doesn't say anything in the listing if they include. Include that. I'm also not a coffee drinker, but I would love to know what type of coffee maker that is. And that's something that they could also add to the caption. As well. So that's one thing that I did notice because I love the smeg. And I also think that from a design standpoint, it's so beautiful. Another thing that I'd like to add too is there are two photos of the bedroom here. There's like a. That there's. That. That photo right there, which is a beautiful, beautiful photo. It's stunning. That room is absolutely gorgeous. They did a phenomenal job. I love that they have the pendant lights, which actually allows for the guests to utilize the entire nightstand. Because this appears that this is a pretty long and narrow room. So I think that they've utilized the space really, really well. But then there's another photo, I think further up in the listing of the bedroom as well. And it's basically the same photo, but it's a closer photo. Just take that out. You don't need that. Like you don't need two photos that are practically the same. So that's another thing that I noticed as well. Another thing too is this is really great because it does have a work area. So if their target guest is the digital nomad. I love the fact that there's a desk here, but I don't know where the desk is located. I think it's in the living area, but I'm not sure. But depending on who you're traveling with, you may need to have a private space. And I don't believe that it was in the floor plan as well. So that's something that I would love to see in the caption or maybe even just step back a few feet and take the photo so we can kind of see where that desk is located.

Mm. Great feedback. And you totally. You are totally right. And I'm amazed the. The pink art book hasn't made it into the kitchen. So.

It'S there somewhere. You just can't see it. It's like going to be. It's like in the microwave or something.

You know, it's like a Marvel Easter egg. You know what I mean? It's like they've hidden it somewhere, somewhere.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Fantastic feedback. You. You. You're totally right, though. Obviously, the workspace is a big thing for them because they've obviously marked it down. They obviously business guests, they want a workspace. But you're right. You don't know where it is.

You don't know where it is. Yeah.

So love it.

Do you want one more roast, Mark?

Yeah. This is what it's all about. I would keep it coming. I think we just.

I'm not good at being mean, and a roast is supposed to be mean and funny, so I hope that this. You know, I don't want to offend anyone, but I think it's hilarious that the third slash, second photo is the quote unquote view, but half of the view is your parking lot. Like, I. I really would only highlight a view and it says it in the description. Like, this is your view of the. Like, it's supposed to be beautiful either. Zoom in. So the cars are not in that photo and you truly are highlighting the view. Or don't call it a view, because a view is something like, I'm going to look at a sunset on the beach or something like spectacular. And this just makes me laugh because half of the third of the photo is a building that's just not even your view. And then it's cars.

Yeah.

And that makes me think, that's not that beautiful.

Love it. See?

Nice work, Matti.

We're just getting warmed up. All right, so let's move on to this one. Now, before we dig in, can we just please, in the chat, just say a massive thank you to Catherine. It's not easy to do it at all, but you put yourself out there, and I believe she's watching. Back on the Replay. But the next person who we're gonna roast is definitely with us live. Helen Pritchard. Can we all please show some love and let me just add a little bit of context with what Helen sent me before we get in and and lightly roast. So my husband Ian and I run the Paramount Apartments. He handles all the building and the renovation work. Why, while I do everything else. We launched the Bolt hole in summer 2019 and then completed the hideout in 2022. Both are one bedded apartments with design with creatives in mind. Located on the coast in North Devon, we live on site, take hands on approach, which our guests really value. Our journey started on Airbnb and then I found Boostly, which is nice. The site went live about a year ago. We've since expanded to booking.com, google vacation rentals. Our apartment stands out with a focus on design, color, art, vintage vibes, offering something different from your typical beach theme stays in the area. This year we've seen an increase in short stays and the feedback has been incredibly, incredibly positive. Some reviews have genuinely brought me to tears and I assume they're happy tears. So this is Devon, lovely part of the world. This is Helen's listing. Can we all please show Helen a little bit of love in the chat? And then who would like to go first on roasting the listing?

I went first last time, so I'll defer. All right, go for it, Jen.

Oh, Jen, before you do get started, there's been a request in the chat for you to say coffee one more time.

Coffee.

There you go. See, you've just made somebody's night. Okay, Right. So let's go ahead and roast this listing.

Excellent. So again, back to Jeff's point. You know, these first five photos really are crucial photos. These are going to be the first impressions to your potential guests. And so you really want to focus on what really makes your property unique. Where are your guests going to be spending most of their time? Why would they rent your space? The first photo, which is the most important photo, is truly a photo that is doing absolutely nothing for your listing. This is wasted real estate right here. I call these lifestyle lifestyle photos. They're a cloth close up of something and they're not selling anything about your listing. I would take this photo out completely. It doesn't sell anything. It's not a close up of a coffee maker. So get that photo out of there. In addition to that, I had no idea what the photo was on the bottom middle until I went through the listing and realized that that is a beach area that is near their property. But it's not within, from what I understand, it's not within sight of the property. And so again, I think, you know, take this out of the first five photos because it really isn't showcasing like the interior or the overall feeling that you want your guests to feel when they're in the. Or when they're in the property as well. In addition to that, I, I'll say a few more things once we pop into the photos, but overall that was the first thing that I noticed immediately when taking a look at the listing. I don't know if we want to pop over to Maddie or Jeff and they can share anything about the first five photos or the first page.

Yeah, I can jump in. I mean honestly, I had the same comment about the photos. I would say the only useful photo in your first five is the bed. And it's a great photo. I mean it's super funky, super cool, really well designed and it looks like a cool place to go sleep. So I definitely highlight that. But yeah, the third photo absolutely confused me because I was trying to figure out like did half of the cliff fall off? Like where are these houses? Is the house on a cliff? Like it just was bringing more confusion than anything. So I'd say definitely remove that. Yeah. And then also I don't know if you know this, but the first photo is actually the one that shows up on Google too. So someone happens to happens to Google something in your title of your listing. Your listing can show up but it only shows the plant. And so then people are probably very confused as to like what this is. So yeah, definitely the most important photo. So I would agree. Jen.

Love it. Jeff, first impression.

Yeah, I first impressions that weren't. I agree with what was said. I personally find that listing description hard to read. I. I know like the, the stars instead of the spaces but I think just like it's all kind of one word and I think that I'm not an SEO guy but I know that that can't help. And the, the other kind of ones that, that stood out to me that weren't mentioned. Just clicking around on the pricing and clicking around through the dates, it looks like this listing isn't really price optimized. So I don't know if you're using any sort of pricing tools. I would imagine you're not because most of the things are within like a dollar. Like weekdays, weekends, there's no discounts for week long stays. You know, that kind of stuff is like, you know, that's just free. That's just free money to, to not be, to not be included. So I would definitely encourage you to think more through, you know, pricing strategy and things like that. I mean, you know, the fact that somebody can book New Year's Eve weekend for the same price that they can get this weekend at within like five bucks is, is not, not, not, not, not. Right. So I would incur, I mean, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know if Devin's a New Year's retreat or somewhere people go. You people usually just travel over, you know, the holidays and stuff. So would just encourage you to maybe consider looking at a pricing tool. Won't talk about the specific photos here, these five. But when we get into the photos, I will say when you start clicking on them and you realize that for a one bedroom place there are 54 photos, that's a lot of photos. There isn't, there isn't a rule of thumb. But five photos is too many and 55 photos is, sorry, five photos is too little and 55 photos is too many for a one bedroom. I know that, I know that for sure. So you know, I would just say, you know, Jen already, Jen already edited one out for you. I think we can probably do a decent job editing some of the other ones out for you. But you know, just keep in mind with your photos, you want, the goal with your photograph should be to showcase your property and its features and then really walk somebody through and guide them through kind of what an experience of staying at your place would be. And so you can do that, you know, physically by walking them through the rooms. You can do it by showcasing, you know, all the main features up front. There's different ways that you can do it. But what I will say is the ordering of the photographs and the number of photographs kind of gave me a little bit of whiplash clicking through because I was like, I'm here, I'm in the apartment, I'm looking at a plant. Now I'm in a bedroom. Now I'm like at a destination somewhere that's like a hike away. Now I'm back, now I'm over there. So like it's just a lot of jumping around. They're organized here. But when you click, when you click on one, right? When you start clicking on like one photo and zoom in on one and keep clicking next, right, you're going to be jumping all over the place. And so really thinking through, you know, what are you detailing, what are you, you know, what is the journey you're taking people on, you know, I think it's important to kind of keep that stuff in mind also. Last one I'll share before I know we're in the photos. Now, I'm sure Jen has a ton she wants to dive into. I will say it. It seems to me that a lot of people, from looking at the reviews here, a lot of people are thrilled because they really, really like Helen, which is awesome, because Helen, you seem super cool. I think that that is a little bit what I find interesting is that everybody mentions it or most people talk about how great you are, which is awesome. But that's not necessarily scalable and that doesn't necessarily mean that your place is like, optimized. So just want to make sure that you're aware that you're probably getting a ton of great reviews. 4.93 is no joke. But because you're meeting people and have that personal touch. So keep doing that. But let's keep that in mind that there are probably certain things about the place that could be improved that you might not be hearing because of that personal touch. And you might be checking everybody in and being very hands on right now, but you might not be able to do that for everyone. And so you kind of want to just get ahead of it to make sure the place is fine. And I'll, I'll pause there.

Amazing. And Helen is in the, in the chat and she said, this is priceless. So thank you. This is, this is great. This is solid. And again, everybody, I guarantee right now is thinking about as much as they're listening to you and watching and taking on board this feedback. They're thinking about their own listings right now. And they're probably going in and deleting 55 pictures as they, as they speak. So we. Where, where, where and who would we like to go next? Should we dig into the pictures? Should we look at somewhere else? Navigate me and I'll take you there.

Let's get into the pictures.

All right.

All hundred. I know Jen, I know Jen is. Jen has a lot, a lot of thoughts on this. I would, I would imagine.

Yeah. So, well, let's start off on the first photo. We have the living area here. You can see from the first photo and then over to the second photo that this is a very tight space. Space. I think they've done a really good job at utilizing the space. I think from a designer standpoint, I would love to see maybe like a rug to kind of in the living area, you have the, the carpeting there. But I would love a rug there just to kind of anchor that space as well. It would make it feel a little bit more comfortable, inviting and homey. There's a lot of great color usage though. She's done an amazing job at utilizing color and really great artwork. But one thing that I did notice as well is that the kitchen, while it's very small, it's very clean, but it was also very bare. And so if you continue moving forward with the photos, there is a photo of the kitchen area and there's like this beautiful plant on the end and it truly adds so much to the photo. So I would highly suggest taking out. Yes, that photo right there. That's such a beautiful photo. And look at that. Just how much of a difference that is with the plant and like the little jar next to it. It's such a huge difference. And so think about those when you are photographing your space or having your, your spaces professionally photographed because those are the things that really are going to make your space so much more inviting. In addition to that, I would definitely recommend that Helen probably get some hire a professional photographer. I don't think these photos are professional. I think that that's going to make a huge, huge difference in her listing overall, especially Jen.

I will say I think there's, I think there's a mix of professional and non professional photos in here. That was my take. I think it's, I think it's like half and half.

Okay, but again that consistency. Right. We want to make sure that those photos are consistent. Especially because you have a really dark, beautiful bedroom. And so I think that having a professional photographer in there to photograph all of the bedroom photos would be really ideal. Mark, if we can scroll down, the third photo is a photo. I think this might be the entrance of like lobby. Maybe it's the. Keep. Scroll up.

Sorry, scrolling up.

Yep. And okay, so it's the third photo down. So it's this, it's right below. Yeah, that one right there. But there isn't a caption. I don't know what this is. This is really important. Utilize those captions. You guys, this is a really great opportunity for you to share what the photo is not showing. And so again, I would love to know where this is. Like I said, I think it's probably the entrance, but I'm not really sure if we want to continue on. One thing I want to mention, in the bedroom area, beautiful room. Love the use of color, love the use of texture. You have gorgeous artwork in this space, but you only have one Nightstand. And as a designer and somebody who travels and stays at short term rentals often, this is a big thing that you want to focus on, is ensuring that you are accommodating all of your guests. So this home sleeps two people. You have the space. Put a nightstand on both sides of the bed.

There are, I think there, I think there is one. I think there is one. It's just so dark, Jen, you can't see it. So you can only see it in the fifth photo. The fifth photo.

See, there you go.

There's like some floating books. But yes, I, you know, it's unclear because this, because of the lighting in this, in this room that there is actually a sound.

Yeah, no, thank you for pointing that out. But again, overall, I think that you've done a really great job with use of color, color and texture and it's super inviting. These are the small little things that I would tweak and then have a professional come in and photograph all of your photos. And I think you're going to be absolutely blown away by, you know, just the, the photos themselves and how they're going to portray this space. Also, any photos that are like crooked, remove those photos. You don't need 100. That one right there. That, that and any photos that you have too. I know that, you know, you have 55 photos here. That's a lot of photos. Especially for a one bedroom property. You have a lot of photos that are showcasing a lot of the antiques, the decor pieces. And while those are really, really beautiful, that's not what is selling your property. So I would completely remove those as well.

Jen, I'll jump, I'll jump in right there and say very beautiful. Not necessarily helpful. Arguably the opposite. I mean, Helen, I'd personally be, I'd be afraid to stay in this listing because when I'm clicking through the pictures and I start seeing all these like hand painted plates and things that look very important, you know, potentially I get maybe worried that they're so important that I might break them. And so, you know, again, not the, not, not say you shouldn't put nice things in your place. But you know, I think it's just important to be clear about like, you know, you know, I've stayed in places where everything is an antique and there's actual art on the walls and things like that. And you know, I think you, you got to just be clear with like whether, whether it is or whether it isn't. But there's, there are so many detailed shots of it that it makes me feel like, it's really important. I mean, maybe if there weren't that many detailed shots, I would think, like, oh, you're just into design. But there's, like, all these, like, featured shots of the plates, and it makes me feel like you. Like, the plates are super important. Other things I'll throw off for the pictures, and then I'll kick it to you, Maddie. Kind of some silly ones, but, you know, all the way at the top. Going back to the living room, if you're going to have an image on the tv, just make sure it's an image that you want to have on the tv. I don't know if this is one that you thought about. Maybe this was just a quick snap on the phone. Maybe this is something. I'm not totally sure, but, you know, definitely sending vibes if you're. If you're trying to or not trying to. So just maybe keep that in mind. Other photos that I found interesting, I get nervous when I see a. I'm an ex lawyer, so when I go through and see photos like number 16, the bathroom, I just immediately am like, yeah, that second one of the bathroom there. Yeah. Or even this one more. The next one. Yeah, this one. I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm going to die. Like, 100%. I'm going to die. Like, I'm going to step out of that shower, and there's just going to be nothing on the floor, and I'm not going to have anything to stand on. I'm going to slip and fall and die. So just want to make sure that there is. It looks like there's some towels lined up there on the left. But just something you might want to keep in mind. If there isn't, I just have to say something. Slippery floor, invisible chair. All of these things look like they could hurt people. So, yeah, I kind of think that way by default. You know, I think that there, again, the cricket photo, this one kind of. Kind of got my head spinning a little bit. Also looks like there's, like, some stuff on the table, like, maybe you're having a coffee and, like, in the middle of setting up your listing. So, like, just be aware of, like, what else is in the photo if it's not staged or if it is staged or intended to be staged. And I tell you what, that mug.

Is that mug, and I can't zoom in. That mug is a book direct mug.

Great. I mean, if that's what you're trying to do, then that's awesome.

That's what we should all be doing. Jeff, come on.

Yeah, great, great. And so really what I meant to say is surely have more detailed shots of the book, direct mugs if you're going to detail any of your plate wear and flour. And I think I'll pause there and kick it over to you, Mattie, before.

Maddie jumps in, we have Helen said in the comments, you're making me chuckle. So I don't know if chuckle is like an American word, but it's basically she's having a good laugh here. So well done. Roasting while making him laugh. So, Maddie, it is over to you.

Awesome. I mean, I think we've done like a lot on the photos and what I always say is it's interesting because you mentioned this in your description and I'm just looking at a different screen, but that North Devon became the UNESCO for world surfing. It looks like something like that. That's cool. And that might be some reasons why guests are booking is one to check that out, especially if it's being heavily marketed by whoever markets that stuff. But, you know, you have those, like vague photos of the beach that could be a way to spice it up and show what people actually do on the beach. Because, you know, I am curious, like, are people actually on that beach to surf? Are they. Is it warm enough they can sit and do beach things? Or is it not really a beach at all? It's hard to tell from the photos. So stuff to include there. And then one thing Mark mentioned that he, or sorry, someone mentioned that wasn't as scalable is you greeting people in person and being this amazing host. One thing you can do that's scalable to take that to the next level is really provide a place for your local recommendations in the description. So it's like, hey, here are my top five things to do or my five places to go. It provides the context in the actual listing itself before they book and gets them really excited for when they go there so that they're just in the, like happy mindset when they show up. So little stuff you can do.

Love it. I mean, the first thing that Helen's going to be doing tomorrow is removing most of these images. You got to, you got to be ruthless with it. You know, you can't have too much in there. And I think you should be booking in, like everyone has said, booking a professional and just be ruthless with it and sort the title, sort the, the, the description and. But you are obviously an amazing host. Obviously you are a hospitable host. You obviously care about what you do. And the reviews Absolutely shine through. But I think it's a super quick win here. Sort your images, trim them down, sort of the title description out and. And you'll do pricing, tour price and pricing as well. Oh, my days. And obviously the experts and I weren't privy to some of the other talks, but we had Jacob from Destination Asset, Jacob Murphy came on and he absolutely dropped an absolute gold mine presentation on pricing. Combine that with this and you'll be absolutely fine and you'll get fully booked. No problem at. At all. Right, everybody, please, in that, in those comment sections, just go show some love to Helen. It is not easy at all doing this. It is not easy having your, your business, your pride and joy, the thing that you, I guarantee Helen looks at this many times a week. Get lightly roasted. But she did it. She put her hand up and I think the feedback was phenomenal. You've got three very, very good experts at what they do, looking at this and giving their feedback, which this is why I wanted to do it. So this is where we can, we can draw a little line and a sign on this one. Jeff, Jen, Maddie, this is where you all get a little minute here. Pitch, promote, talk about all the things that are going on in your worlds. We'll go. Maddie, first make sure you talk about this giveaway that you're running as well.

Okay? Yeah, Narc knows I like to do crazy things. My latest crazy idea is I'm giving away two Taylor Swift tickets to the ERAS tour in New Orleans. So if any of you want to enter, the giveaway closes on Friday. We also partnered with BNB Finder on this giveaway. So they are putting up the winner in a property that's amazing. Three bedroom listing looked pretty good. They don't need to be roasted, but if you. Yeah, that's just what we're up to at the moment, is a fun giveaway. We've had like 10,000 people enter so far, so definitely went a little viral, but pretty cool.

Yeah, amazing. And if you want to see like TikTok and shorts done well, make sure you go check out what mount are doing. They phenomenal at it. It's amazing to see, so well done. And Jeff, Jen, I know you've got something happening next month. Pretty big thing going on over in Phoenix. We've managed to talk about that and talk about all things host GPO as well, please.

Yeah, I'll, I'll start. If you're not, if you're in the US or Canada and you're not a host GPO member, you should Sign up. It's a free three month trial. You can try it out and get all your furniture and linens and mattresses etc at a discount. We also do things like locks and services and things like that. So make sure that you sign up and check us out. And the thing next month. If you are in Phoenix for the VRMA Vacation Rental Management Association Conference on Monday, we are doing a advocacy fundraiser with along with with Maddie at Mount and and the STR Collab. So we will be doing a pickleball tournament. So come play pickleball or just come and hang out if you're going to be in Phoenix. And all of the money that we raised during the event will be donated to the local advocacy group in Arizona and to the VRMA Advocacy Fund overall to help advocate for our rights as vacation rental industry operators and managers. So that is the big exciting one for next month.

Nice. Thank you. Thank you very much everybody. Thank you for tuning in. If you have enjoyed this and if you would like your listing roasted, then do make sure you come and join the STR Collab Facebook group. Go into Facebook, type in SDRcolab, the group will come up, you'll see the link, hit request, you'll get you in. And then when we do another one of these, when we do anything live online, we will let you know in good time. But thank you very much everybody. Jen, have you got anything to leave us with? Anything that you're working on, Anything that you can sort of leave us with before we end this live broadcast?

Yeah, I mean, I'll mention design is a huge part of what I do at host GPO and it's also a really big passion of mine. So truly, if anybody has any questions, if they want to hear more about design, feel free to reach out to us and I would be more than happy to connect with you.

Amazing. All right, everybody, I need to go to bed. It's late over here. We've been doing this for a long time. Thank you so much for joining us and we'll be back tomorrow in the group three for get It Done day. But let's say bye bye and let's sign you all out. Thank you very much.

Respect. You're better.

But direct.