Tips For Growing Your Co-Hosting Portfolio Including SEO

Hello and welcome to the Boostly Podcast. This is the podcast gives hosts the tools, the tactics, the trainings, and most importantly, the confidence on how you can go out there and get more direct bookings. Today we are going behind another successful host and we're going to be talking about how to do co hosting tips for success and also how to use search engine optimization to grow your co hosting business. My name is Liam Carolan, I'm Mark Simpson's co host and today we are joined by Tristan Petrica from Sojourn Properties. In moment, I'm gonna open up the mic and he's gonna give an introduction to his business. So let's get started. Welcome along Tristan.

Thank you, Liam. Pleasure to be here.

So, want to introduce your business and anything that people may not know about your business. So where you are in the world and anything you want to include.

Sure, yeah. So I live in Arizona. I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona. I've lived here for a handful of years now. I live my wife and my couple kids. So, yeah, Sojourn Properties is a co hosting company that I started right at the beginning, about 2020, which is a fantastic time to start in the heart of COVID But it was, it brought a lot of challenges, but it was a really good time to kind of get going. And the market here was growing, so it was actually prime time because 2021 was the best year in market history. So, yeah, so we do primarily co hosting and we operate throughout most of Arizona. We're expanding up into the north. So Flagstaff, Sedona, that's. Those are key areas that we're looking to get into. But we operate pretty much within an hour to two hours, kind of around the central hub here in Phoenix.

Nice, nice. And how many units do you look after at the moment? How many doors?

So we got up. So let's see, last year, at the beginning of last year, we had three in February and by August we had 34. And then, yeah, then I realized that not every property is the same and not all owners are the same. And so we, we trimmed back the, the properties that we were working with. So now we have a, I believe 15. So we cut it pretty big numbers. But ironically, our revenue didn't change very much because we were working with properties that didn't really fit the bill for what our company stood for.

So first of all, what is co hosting? Because there will be people out there who are just, you know, looking after their own units. So if you could give a brief introduction to what exactly co hosting Is. And what is the attraction for you as a company to do co hosting?

Absolutely, yeah. So co hosting for me was really the only option to get started in this business. I didn't have, I had a 9 to 5 job and I just didn't have the capital to drop, especially in Scottsdale where a shanty is $350,000. So, you know, anything you want to get into as far as a property that's going to be decent and competitive, 7, 800, $900,000. So it just owning was not the immediate option for me at the time and that's what I learned about co hosting. So co hosting is where property owners or investors purchase a second home or any real property and they want to run it as a short term rental, but they don't want anything to do with it, they just want to hand it off, they want to collect money, they want the tax benefits and so they want someone else to run it. So that's where we step in, say, look, we will handle everything. We'll handle the, handle the cleaners, the guests, any maintenance issues, we'll make sure it's in great repair at all times. And most importantly, we are professionals in this space and we are the skilled operators. We will make you more money. And so the idea Is we take 25% of the revenue and people say, well why would they give up 25%? Well, because an amateur operator versus a professional operator, the professional operator is going to make at least 25% more money because they have the systems and the pricing and the tools in place to optimize revenue, especially direct bookings. And so that's where the benefit comes in as they are going to make just as much money but not have to do any of the work.

Are you still in a full time job at all or is now your full time sort of vocation, the property business?

Well, actually it's kind of, it's, it's a, that's a tough question because so the W2 that I was working, I back in 2016, I actually started a digital marketing agency with a few of my buddies from that original agency that I got hired at. And so we've been. So that again is that's a turnkey website development company and digital marketing agency that does websites generally for dentists and optometrists. That's really kind of the two verticals that we serve. And so I was COO of that company, still am. So I do a lot of day to day in that because it requires a little more effort. When I first Got the short term rental business going. In the co host business, it was a lot of work because I didn't know anything. So I was doing everything at this time because of my mentor, Michael Sjogren, and everything he's taught me and the people that I've put myself in the room with. I now probably, I mean, I answer questions throughout the day of my virtual assistants, but I probably spend two to four hours a week on it. So it's like running now. If I want to go get new business, I'm going to have to put in a few more hours to get properties up and whatnot. But I've got my systems, my technology, which I'm sure we'll talk about and stuff like that, but I've got those things dialed in to where the properties run, the cleaners run, the guests are happy and my team's good to go. So I say I spend a little more, a lot more time now back in my agency than in the co host.

One of the things I want to come on to is some of the challenges that you've had. You mentioned while doing co hosting, which is a great model that you've expanded really fast. There was that period of time where you went from like 5 to like 33 units really quick, and then you've gradually sort of went back down to 15. Can you talk us through the challenges, the, the reasons why that had to happen? And then we'll move on how you done the scaling in the first place because people are going to be really interested in knowing how you quickly scaled up.

Yeah. So, I mean, honestly, the biggest challenge was balancing the challenge of startup costs versus my time. So do I pay someone to do it or do I do it because I'm broke and I can't afford to hire someone to do it? I mean, and that's the challenge that I see in, you know, because I'm in Mike Sjogren's mastermind and all the new people that come in, that's like the biggest question. Well, how do I. I can't throw money at it because I don't have any money to throw at it, so what else can I do? So that was definitely the biggest challenge. What I did was what you have to do. You have to suck it up. You got to work long hours to get going and then find people and services to help you out. Just recently I found a young man named Oscar who's been fantastic. He was by trade a landscaper. But he approached me and said, hey, Tristan, I can do pools, I can Clean. I can do handiwork. Whatever you need, you know, I'm here. Young, ambitious. He's been a rock star for us because he's cheap. Now, I don't underpay him, but my regular handyman is 75 an hour. And Oscar will go run and fill a propane tank for, you know, 15, $20. And I'll pay him for gas and all that stuff. But much more affordable than paying 75. Every time you have something come up, I mean, that adds up very quickly. So I didn't find Oscar until recently. So before I had to think of other ways, my cleaners, I utilized them, you know, they were, okay, we'll do that. That'll be 10, $10 extra. I'm like, cool, do it. You know, so finding ways like that. But then there's other things. So I was dealing with furnishing, you know, I was building out these rentals for owners. They'd hand over a completely empty house and say, fill it. And I worked with interior designers and we would do the designs and then we would accept the shipments in the very first house. I'll never do it again. It was, I just had everything shipped to the house and it would arrive in the driveway and I'd move it into the garage. And then I was going to hire handyman to help me assemble it. Well, it was 20 minutes away. So I'd get a notification, boxes were delivered. I'd go down there, I'd get the boxes, I'd move them into the garage, I'd close everything up. I'd get back in my car, I'd drive home, I'd crack a beer, I'd sit on the couch, my phone would go off. Another delivery, get back in the car, go back down there. And that happened to me some days. It happened three or four times. And I was like, I'm never doing this again. So I learned of Consolidated Shipping. One of the biggest things I learned of, learned of is shipping warehouses. And you can Google these, and they are warehouses that will receive your goods. They will unpackage it, build it, inspect it for damage, and then store it. And then when you're all your stuff has arrived, they have movers who will load it onto a truck and bring it to your house and install it for you. It's a little bit more, you would think it's a little more expensive. On that first build, I spent about six grand on all the shipping stuff, plus the handyman I had to hire, plus my time. And when we did it consolidated at the next house it was about three grand and I didn't have to do anything. So by putting yourself in the mix doesn't always make things go better.

I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much for sharing first of all your story with us, but also all the tips, all the knowledge, all the gems that we've got from today's podcast. Thank you to you. If you're listening to this on the Boostie podcast, we know there's a lot of places you can put your attention and we thank you for spending it with us here at Boostly. So that is it from us today. Thank you very much again, Tristan. And yeah, bye for now.

Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee cuz it's so hard and the te is loosely making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely.