Using Showplace Boost Your Listings & Improve Your ROI

Okay, so today we are talking about short term rental design. We are talking how it can help you and of course as always on the Boostly podcast, we're going to be talking about direct bookings. So you're listening to the Boostly Podcast. This is a podcast that helps hosts with the tools, the tactics, the training and most importantly, the confidence. So you can go out there and get yourself some more direct bookings. I'm Liam Carolan, Mark Simpson's co host and this is the mini series on the Boostly podcast which shines the spotlight on services, businesses and people that you need to know about as short term rental hosts. And today I'm excited because we've got a very special guest. We've got Caitlin Aronis, she's from Showplace and if you want to go and check them out, they are showplacewholesale.com you can go and have a look at their website there. And we're going to really be diving into how you as a host today can pick up some tips on what to do design wise to try and attract more guests into your property. So welcome along. Caitlin, thank you for, for joining us.

Yes, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited, I'm excited to chat all things design and ROI and how, how to really boost your listing today. So thank you so much for having me.

Amazing. So can you give yourself and your business a little introduction, a little bit of background on your journey so far?

Yeah, absolutely. So as you mentioned, I'm Caitlin, I am the head of design here at Show Place. And to give you a little bit of background about our company, we came onto the scene about four years ago. Our CEO Justin Miller has a deep background in the short term rental industry. He founded a property management company called Pillow that was sold to Expedia Group back, you know, in the mid 19, 2000 and tens 2015. So he was early on scene and really when we started Showplace, it was a destination for products to be giving away to hosts, which we still do, which is still a fun part of our business and we have a lot of brand partnerships that we work with. However, as we really started maturing as a business and as I came on board in 2020, I really was thinking, how can we help hosts? How can we help them the most? And so we set out and we have a group of about 12,000 hosts that are in our network. So we have a bunch of people, resources. We reached out to them and we really said what is stopping you from going from one listing to three, to five, to 10. And number one, it was always capital. Right? That's always a big one. But number two was I don't have the time, I don't have the expertise. I'm an accountant, a doctor, a lawyer, you know, stay at home, mom, I have this, I have that, I'm running other businesses. There's no way that I can go and I can stay at a property for a month, two months to go set up my short term rental. And, and even if I did, I really just wouldn't have a good place to start. And so as we learned more and more, we developed Showplace Wholesale, which was launched around two years ago now. And what we've seen is just a huge influx of people really needing this expertise in the marketplace. And so that's what we do. We're a full service wholesale and furnishing company. We help you from the very beginning. Empty homes or refreshes, we take it all. And basically what we do is you work with one of our amazing interior designers. We have about 12 full time interior designers that are on our staff that specialize in short term rentals and we take you from a completely empty listing or listing, maybe you're not so crazy about the furnishing that you inherited from that last owner. And we get you to a place where we're really, really excited about the roi. We're intentionally designing the space with your ideal guest in mind as quickly and as efficiently as possible to really maximize that roi. So full service solution, both from the design as well as from the setup as well. So we have full services that can do setup for you too.

Nice, nice. That really gives us an impression of obviously what you do, but also I know there's so many hosts who will be going, yeah, I actually can relate to that. I either haven't got the time or haven't got the capital to keep growing. And the other one, of course is when you're setting up these places, certainly for me, I've got family, I don't really want to be away setting up, you know, know these, these units and things like that. So time is a major, major thing for short term rental hosts. So how does it work then? When say, you know, host has got empty property, it is a distance, say, I don't know, a few hundred kilometers away from him. What does he do? Does he, does he need to meet somebody there? Does he send photos? How does it work?

Great question. So, yeah, we do everything remotely, which is great. So we work all over right now. All over the contiguous, we're starting to work some in Alaska and Hawaii, so we're playing around with, with that as well. But right now we're nationwide in the US and how it works is when typically we're actually starting working with people before they even close is actually a lot of the times when people are coming to us, typically after that inspection period, where we're pretty confident that they're going to be closing on the home. And we have a good timeline in place. And typically how it works is we would gather the floor plans so we have services where if you're not local that we can send somebody out, we can hire somebody to go on site, take floor plans for you, or a lot of people will use local resources like their realtor or, you know, contractor or anything like that that they're currently working with to be able to give us those floor plans. From there we have what's called a design planning call. And our design planning call is really fun. I always join for those. And what we do on the front end is we really put together what's called your functional summary. And why that's so important is a functional summary is how many guests are going to be sleeping in the home, where are they going to be existing in the home, how are we laying everything out so how many beds, how many baths? And really finding that perfect best balance between the two and really educating hosts. A lot of first time hosts we work with on what's that perfect balance? Because we'll have hosts that'll come to us and they'll say, well, I have a three bedroom, you know, one bath, but I want, you know, nine guests in it. And we will talk them through it and say, okay, well, what would an experience be like with nine guests and one bathroom? Maybe is it better that we upscale the design, lower the occupancy and really boost your profitability that way? Right. So we come up with that functional summary. And that's a really key, important element that I think a lot of people that specialize in residential design really miss just because they're not used to it. I'm a host myself, so I have a, I have a co hosting business. I've done the same thing. I've flown out to Nashville and built bunk beds for days on end. I wish Showplace was around when I did that five years ago because it would have been lovely. But that's really what we pay attention to on that design planning call is that functional summary. And then we figure out what you like, what you don't like is sometimes even more important than what you do, like, as far as the design goes. But we really help to make you understand who your target market is and how we intentionally design the home to pull that target market in. Our goal is to stop the scroll, right? So when you're on Boostly, when you're doing direct bookings, wherever it is, how do we stop the scroll so that someone goes, ooh, I want to learn more about that. And so that's really what we help you do on that design planning call. And then from there, our design team gets to work and we pick out every single piece of furniture, every single piece of decor that's going to go into the home. We also put together a customized essentials list. So that's everything from can opener, wine opener, glassware, you know, if you have a pool area, making sure that we have plastic wear so that you're not having glassware in the home, everything like that. We put that together for you. That process is typically about two weeks. And then from there we do any revisions that, that, that our, our hosts need us to. Then we get to ordering and logistics and setup.

That's really cool. And especially on those items where so many hosts, especially newer hosts, tend to forget, you know, that you do need a bottle opener, you need a tin opener in these places. And I love the fact that you mentioned the avatar. This is something we talk a lot about at Boostly, is when you can nail your avatar, when you know exactly who it is, it's much easier to get those, the design elements that attract those people. And then of course, it's easier to display those in what we call the hero photos. And like you say, stop the, stop the scroll. So that is amazing.

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One of the things which I know many hosts listening to this may worry about is they go, well, yeah, but I just can't afford to do this design side of things. What mistakes do you see and how would you answer a host who is thinking like that, what would you say to somebody who is worried about the budget of whether or not they could afford these sort of services?

Yeah, absolutely. So when it comes to design, I would say there's two big mistakes that I, that I see people making in the short term rental space. One is playing it safe, right? This is a short term rental. People want to stay in a space that looks different than their everyday home. They're on vacation. They want to experience something different. So whether that's designing local, right? Designing with that type of environment in mind, where are you going to be? You know, can you really bring the local esthetic into your space and, you know, playing it, playing it a little safe. But on the budget side of things, I would say one of the biggest pieces that we do here at Showplace is helping you understand budget allocation. It is so incredibly important to understand the cost of something and then the true cost of something. And this comes from someone who has made that mistake a million times as a host of talking from personal experience here. But when you think about investing in certain pieces or investing in design, you really want to think about the longevity of that piece, the durability of that piece, and what pieces actually matter for where your budget's going to go. So as you mentioned, those five hero shots, right? What are those five shots going to be? More than likely, whatever you love about the home, whatever made you purchase that home is what your guests are also going to love about the home. So whether that's a chef's kitchen or whether that's an outdoor space, or that you love that there's a game room in the basement, whatever that space ends up being, that's where we want to allocate the budget. And so we really help you budget plan. I always tell our hosts, no one's booking your house because you spent $2,000 on a coffee table. A coffee table is a functional piece of furniture. It needs to look good. The only thing I need it to do is I need it to last. I need it to have a finish that's going to last and be cleanable. And if you have a sleeper sofa, you need it to not weigh 50 pounds, right? You need to be able to pick it up and move it so that somebody can put out the sleeper sofa. Other than that, it's a functional piece of furniture. Yes. Can you find some that are really cool? Of course you can. But when we're thinking about the budget, we're thinking about where to put it, that it's Going to have the biggest bang for your buck. So that's really one of the biggest mistakes that I see people make when it comes to budget is, you know, finding really cool pieces I think is amazing. So whether that's a piece of artwork or something that you might be able to build a room around, right? You find something and you're like, I love this. I really want the rest of the aesthetic to match this. That's something that we do often. So if hosts get really excited about something, that gives us a really good direction to go with. And then I talked a little bit about, you know, actual cost and true cost and this is personal story time a little bit. But early on, you know, we've had different hosts that have said, hey, I just, I just need to get things set up. And so I'm going to buy the $200 bed frame, the $300 bed frame. It just needs to be functional. It just needs to go in the space. I just want to get things up as quickly as possible. And I'll buy something on Wayfair and Amazon and I'll deal with it later. And what nine out of ten times ends up happening is within six months, within a year. That cost of that bed frame is not $300 because it breaks in the middle of a guest stay. So maybe it's in the middle of the night and the bed frame breaks. Now you have an unhappy guest where maybe you have to refund them for that night. Then you also have to pay a handyman to go pick up another bed frame to go replace the bed frame that broke. So now that $300 bed frame is not a $300 bed frame. It's a fifteen hundred dollar bed frame because you have and a bad review. And so thinking through those things of where do I put the budget? Sturdy bed frames, comfortable mattresses. No one has ever complained that a couch is too big and too comfy in a short term rental. So those are places where we really want to focus. Putting the budget and everywhere else we save. Everywhere else we focus on what are decor items that are going to pack a punch, but not necessarily going to break the bank. Side tables, coffee tables, things like that that we can find really, really affordable options that are going to accent your pieces that maybe you spend a little bit more money on.

That makes sense. I'm not going to ask what the guests were doing to break the bed.

Of course, I think all bed, I think all of us have been there at some point where something's broken and you're like I just, I just don't want to know how that even happens.

Absolutely, absolutely. And it certainly rings true for me as a property manager. My people, the number of times I hear, hey, I just want to get it set up. What's the, what's the most budget way? I'll just put something in for now and I'll come back and I'll do it later. And of course that never happens later. Doesn't happen for a lot of people. And just a quick share from one of my experiences where we priced up some furniture. You know, we got asked from a landlord if we could price up and quote, to put in the furniture, knowing what we know as an experienced property manager. And we gave them a, the quote and they were surprised. They said, no, it's okay, we'll do ourselves. And sure enough, they tried to do it themselves. They ordered the sofa which was at first too large, couldn't get a refund on the sofa, so they put it out in the summer house. They reordered a sofa which looked perfect and that turned up. And it's a bit like the three beers story because that was far too small. It was literally, it was a pet sofa. And then they finally ordered one which did fit. And you look at that and you go, they must have spent, you know, £1,000, probably about $1,500 or whatever on, on sofas. And that was a cost that they just wouldn't have had if they'd have had it done by professionals. And that. And this is, this is the thing about, sometimes you have to go to the people, the experts who know what they're doing with this sort of thing to, to be able to actually save money across the long term. Like you say, the saving on furniture won't break quite as often. And not only that, it's just much more utilized by the guest when it's let out, obviously. So the other side of that is sometimes you find things which look very nice but they're difficult for the guests to use or they're just not keen on them and, or not comfortable that side of things. So it's getting that balance, which is cool. What would you say your top three learnings has been as a short term rental designer?

Yeah, so I mean, we already talked a little bit about my number one and it's. My number one is always design for your avatar. That is, it's, it's such a good tip for anyone involved, you know, getting into this space and really just thinking it through, you know, who is going to be using your Space. And you know, it doesn't have to be just one person, doesn't just, just have to be families. Right. It just doesn't have to be group parties, you know. But having that in mind when you're designing is such a huge different differentiator in the space. So we, you know, we work with a lot of clients and they'll let us know, well, anybody, I want you, I want it to be for everyone. But when you really get down to it, it's okay. Is this traveling, traveling professional? Because if so, then we might do a desk instead of a dresser. Is this midterm rental? So you're, you know, designing for maybe nurses or people that are, have been displaced by insurance so their house has been flooded. And so, you know, you're really thinking about those comforting things, right? Like, hey, I'm going to be designing for comfort or nurses, they might be working the night shift. So do we have blackout curtains? Do we have, you know, white noise machines, things like that? So we're really thinking through who are those people that are going to be existing in your space and how are they going to be utilizing it? Where are they going to be gathering? And so again, number one, get really, really clear on your avatar. I know that's something that Bruce Lee talks about all the time. So very much in line with that. Get clear on your avatar and then from there design a home around it. Number two, again, allocating your budget properly. I would say one of the main things I come across when we're talking with first time hosts or even experienced hosts in this space is it's really easy to get hung up on things. I was just talking with the host the other day and they had bought this property and most of it was renovated and it looked really great, but there was one bathroom and it was like blue powder blue, 1980s quintessential bathroom. And she just could not get over this bathroom. She's like, we're ripping out the bathroom. We're going to spend $20,000 to redo this bathroom. And that is great. If we're talking equity, right? If we're talking about equity in the home, that's wonderful. However, we're talking short term rental. Guess who doesn't care that the one bathroom downstairs is powder blue? Your guests that are staying there for a weekend or a week, as long as it's in good condition. Those are things a lot of the times that you can wait until your cash flow positive to reinvest back into the home. Now there are certain things that make a Lot of sense to invest in upfront. So again, really figuring out where that budget is going to be allocated, doing your research on amenities that might make a difference in your area. If you're in a ski town and you don't have a spa or a hot tub and you're heading into the winter months, you know, that $3,000 upfront cost to put in a spa really might be worth it because you're going to make your money back in less than a month because you can charge $50 extra a night, as opposed to your competition that doesn't have a spa or a hot tub. But again, paying attention to those things, your home, your short term rental, is really a backdrop for where your guests are going to be creating memories. And my job, and anybody's job, that is a host, is really to do our best to get out of the way, to allow them to do that in the most comfortable way as possible. So really thinking about, you know, that accessibility front if they have kids, you know, is the living room maybe do we have a round coffee table? Because we don't have sharp corners and so we don't want little kids running and hitting their heads on it. Right. Again, just those things that we think through. Dining chairs, you know, kind of staying away from upholstered dining chairs. Because the moment that a kid plays with Play doh or eats spaghetti on that dining chair, you're most likely going to have to replace them. And if you replace one, you got to replace all of them. So thinking about the fabrics and the choices of materials that you're putting into the home, and then my number three is it's more of a piece of advice when it comes to design as well as amenities. And it's get somebody trusted, whether that's the Showplace team or whether that's yourself or your brutally honest sister. If you have one of those, like I do, to stay in your rental before you go live, it is such a game changer. All of our install teams that work around the country, they stay on the property while they're doing the setup so that they can report back to the owners to say, hey, did you know your water pressure in this bathroom is not great? Did you know that your heat on the water doesn't get up to standard? These outlets don't work, these little funky things that maybe you don't know or you don't notice during the inspection or the walkthrough, but when you're staying there and you're living in the space, you really, really get to know the space. Well, and you find those little quirks so not necessarily design related, but a lot of the times it is, you know, a lot of the times maybe you're staying in a, in a space and you know, for me it's plugging in your phone at night. Where do you plug your phone in at night? One of my first short term rentals that I launched, I went and I stayed there and literally had to like completely move the bed to plug my phone in. And my other phone, like my iPad was across the room and there wasn't a place and all my stuff was on the floor and I was just like, oh, this is not a good guest experience. When they laid their head down at night, this is the last thing that's going through their head is, oh, all my stuff is everywhere and I have to move the bed to plug in my phone. Again, get out of your own way. Get USB lamps that go next to the bed so that everybody can plug in their phone and their iPad and their Apple watch and all of the other things. So again, really thinking about that accessibility and staying there just gives you such a leg up. Like I said, whether it's an install team or whether it's brutally honest friends or yourself, it's something that I highly, highly recommend.

That's really cool. And I'm so glad you mentioned about the USB lamps because they have been a game changer.

They're my favorite. My CEO makes fun of me because I think every time talk that I do, I bring up USB lamps and I'm just like, it's just, it's, it's a total game changer.

Yeah. I mean this, especially in a lot of, I mean especially here in the uk, a lot of plug sockets are like beds one side, the plug sockets are way over there just because the, the age of the property. But when you've got these lamps, as long as you figured out how to get the lamps, then obviously you don't then need the extra plug sockets so you can just plug them into the lamp, which is cool. And your tip about staying in the property, just bringing everyone's attention back to that is such a, a key thing to go and do because I can remember staying in my first property on the first night and the stove alarm goes off overnight and that's one of those things which was just if I didn't stay there, I wouldn't have known about it. Like you say things like the water pressure, it's just so true.

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Is there any either apps, software or shows or podcasts, things like that where you recommend people to get inspiration from or use when they're looking at the design of their short term rental homes?

Ooh, that's a great question. I would say first and foremost, go to your competition, go look on all the sites, see what else is happening in your area. That really is my first tip. It's something our team already does. As soon as we get a property, we take a look at the area, we take a look at what other people are doing just to really get a good idea of, you know, maybe what that specific area really draws. You know, there are quite a few places that everything in that area is coastal. And as a designer, you're like, do we want to be like everyone else or do we want to do something a little different? And my instinct is always doing something a little different. But really scoping out what's happening in your area, I think is such a great place to start and, you know, looking to see how often they're booking. So whether that's looking on air DNA or whether that's looking on direct booking sites in your area, surfing on Airbnb, again, just taking a look at what's going on in your market is such valuable information when you're first starting out. And what that informs you is it informs you again of what your competition is doing, but it also informs you of maybe what you could do better or what you could do different. And so that's always my first place to start. And then there's so many great, you know, design tips out there. You know, we, we work with quite a few of our designers and we always give them, you know, a shout out like on, on our page. And they have a bunch of great Instagrams as well. But yeah, I would say my, my main place to go is the, is looking at the competition and then obviously, you know, there are A lot of people that wait a really long time to buy their first property, and you might have made a Pinterest board, or you might have saved a bunch of ideas, start a new one, Take what you've got on your old boards and things like that. I always say it's kind of like when we were wedding planning in, like, the early 2000s, and if you go back and you actually, you know, when you're, like, in your teams and you're like, oh, this is cool, and you save a bunch of stuff, but then when it actually comes to be, you're like, oh, this is a hodgepodge of so many different design styles, so many different directions, and design is very subjective. Right. I might think, I love this design, and I love this design style, and you might think it's too bold or it's not bold enough. And so knowing that design is subjective and knowing that your tastes change over time, start anew. When you have a new property, start a new. And again, look for designs that have that property in mind. You know, I was just working with someone who has this beautiful Victorian, like, farmhouse on the east coast, and it's stunning. And every inspiration picture that she sent was, like, uber modern urban design. And it just didn't fit with the property. And I was like, I love this style, but we have to make it work with what you're actually bringing to the table. Like, your property is so special because it has this charm, and we want to design with the property in mind, not just your own personal aesthetic in mind. So those would be my main places. Places to start.

That's awesome. And you're absolutely right with that analogy that you've used of, you know, you build up these kind of, like, things that you think would be perfect, but it's. Until you actually get there and you're actually doing it and looking at the canvas you've got, that is when you'll know for sure, isn't it? So, yeah, I really like that analogy. So, Caitlin, we love to. We're going to share your details on how people can get in touch with Showplace in just a moment. But before we do, just a couple of fun questions for you. So first of all, what do you like to do for fun?

Yeah, great question. So me and my husband and our golden retriever live in Long Beach, California. So SoCal. We live right by the beach, and so we do a lot of paddle boarding. We spend a lot of time in the water, on the beach, going on walks. It's funny because I'm Originally from Chicago. And so as you might be able to hear, so SoCal Living, being able to be outside 247 is a very different way of life than how I grew up. So loving every second of it. So, yeah, we do a lot, lot of water, a lot of water activities. And then we also do a lot of meetups actually with other passion of mine is, you know, really helping females short term rental, you know, doing advising, doing mentorships and things like that. And that's a huge passion of mine. And so we have a great SoCal meetup group that we have that other people have organized. And I've really enjoyed being a part of that and then traveling all over to visit our families. My family lives all over the U.S. my husband's from Northern California and so we travel quite a bit. It's great to get inspiration. It's great to stay at places that are different. I always get new ideas whenever I come back from a place. We went to Tulum, Mexico last year and they had this gorgeous entrance table with a full length mirror that went all the way up to the ceiling. And I had never thought about that before. I just never thought about putting those two things together. And now every design I'm like, you have to do this. It's so stunning. So, yeah, really gathering inspiration on our travels as well.

That's really cool. And this one always catches people out. But what would be your karaoke song of choice?

Oh, okay. So this is actually a really good question because I did sing a cappella in college, so I do have a go to karaoke song. So it's either Don't Stop believing or you and I by Lady Gaga, which is probably a lesser known song, but it slaps in. Karaoke. Okay. It's a good. It's a good one. Karaoke.

I don't know the song. I know Lady Gaga, obviously, but yeah, I don't know the song. But your passion for what you do definitely comes through. How can we get in touch with Showplace? What's the best way to do so to follow yourself or Showplace?

Yeah, absolutely. So you can find Showplace at www.showplacewholesale.com. you can go to the furnishing part of our website to be able to schedule a meeting with our intake team, which means at some point we'll be chatting because we do a meet the furnish team call as well, which is really fun. We talk directly about your property and all of that good stuff so you can find us there. And then you can Find us on Instagram and Facebook at Showplace hq. At Showplace hq.

Nice. Thank you so much for spending your time with us today, Caitlin. Was there anything we missed along the way?

No. I always like to sign off when I'm talking with hosts just by saying congratulations for starting this journey. Whether you work with Showplace, whether you do it yourself, it is one of my favorite things is being a host. I also love being a designer, but just this industry in general is so, so wonderful. Look for people that are. That are helping. That's really at the heart of what Showplace is, is we want to help as many people as possible to make this dream a reality. There's so many people that, you know, have great ideas. It's just about time, and how do they implement it? And we really want to be just an affordable version for people to be able to get their listing up and be successful. You don't have to do this alone. I know a lot of the times as a host, especially in the beginning, it feels like you're living on an island. You're like, what did I do? I just bought this property. And there's no guarantee, and of course there's not a guarantee, but there are steps that you can take to be as successful as possible. And so working with people like Boostly, working with people like Showplace, that's what we're here to do, is we're here to help. And so that's what I love about this industry. And so congratulations on being a host. Whether it's your first time, whether it's your tenth time, your hundredth time, it's a crazy, awesome journey, and we're here to help you if you need it.

What a beautiful sentiment and what a nice way to. To bring it to a close. Caitlin, thank you so much for spending your time with us today. And if you're listening to this on the Boostly podcast and you've got some value from tonight and some of these awesome tips, the USB lamps, the outer budget, what to consider, all of these cool things, then do please share this podcast with somebody else that you think might get some value from it. That's it from this episode. We thank you for listening. We know there's a lot of places you can put your attention, and we really thank you for putting it with us. So thank you very much and see you on the next one. Bye for now.