Why A Team Is Important For Your STR Business

So welcome along to the Boostly podcast. This is the podcast that gives hosts the tools, the tactics, the training and most importantly, the confidence on how you can go out there and get more direct bookings for your business. Easy for me to say. Today we're going to be talking about metrics and all the things within your short term rental business because it is a business that you should or could be tracking. This is something that not everybody does and I'm certainly guilty of it in the early stages. And to help us do this, we're actually going behind the host with a successful short term rental host who's based here in the UK and we're going to dive into his business, hear about his journey and the sort of metrics that he tracks in particular. We've actually got some slides and yeah, leave. Let me introduce Ron Jansen. He's from onetuestay.uk so if you want to go and check them out. He's got 30 doors himself, but actually has over 100 on his website. And we're going to talk about how that works in just a moment. So welcome along, Ron. Thank you for joining us today.

Thank you very much, Liam.

So to get started, why don't you introduce your, yourself and your business, tell us where you are in the world and anything you'd like to share.

Right, so I'm Ron, I am Dutch and I left the country many, many, many years ago in 85 to be precise. So I'm really bit of a Flying Dutchman because I've been living all over the place and of course right now I am at home and home is in sort of greenish but cloudy Hampshire, Old Hampshire, not New Hampshire.

It's always cloudy in, in England, isn't it?

Well, yeah, but that, that's a good thing actually, because then you appreciate the fact that it's sunny.

Absolutely. Very true, very true. Talk us through what kind of model you use and why.

So I'm really in an IT guy. I like to systemize things. I really think about, let's say, very, very logical structures. And that means, of course, that I always like to see things from a sort of block perspective, as Lego blocks almost. And that means that anything that I sort of do, it has to hang together in the proper, robust fashion. I can go back in time a little, maybe not yet, but literally what I like to do is make sure that all the components that are used within the hospitality industry are glued together in a very, very coherent way. And also making sure, of course, that you keep control. If you want to Grow that you, let's say grow wisely because obviously having a one property that you lived in before, for instance, and you want to rent it out, that's a totally different model than when you have run up and scale up to 30, 40, 100 or a few hundred. And then clearly you have to think much more about, okay, how do the professionals approach it? And then clearly you're looking at a, let's say a Marriott or an IHG Group, things like that. So that's a totally different approach. But of course it means still you need to have the basic building blocks in place to make sure that everything stays robust.

That sounds fair enough. We will dive back into your background of how you got started in hospitality. But just before we do, in the intro bit we mentioned you've got 30 doors yourself and there's 100 on your website. Talk us through other 30 other ones you own or manage and the, the extra ones on your website. How does that work?

Back in 17 I tried to manage myself. Problem was that 70 miles away is not convenient. Clearly it means that if there's an issue, you have to go up and down. In those days we, we own, we had an electronic lock August and that was very fiddly. But at least, at least we were able to say to a guest, here's the code, you can enter the flat. However, if something goes wrong, it takes an hour to be there and that's not very practical. Plus of course all the cleaning and stuff like that. It's extremely difficult to do anything like this remotely if you don't have the right people in place on site. And of course if you're running your own that say short term rental and it's, let's say within five minutes drive or several within a, let's say time radius, yes, you can do things, but then still you can't really do that much unless you have extra people because if you do it yourself, all of it, welcome in the guests, cleaning, maintenance, and there are many, many bits and pieces in the background as well because you have to do your admin. That is quite intrusive if you don't give it the right intention because you may make mistakes. And if mistakes on the admin side ramp up, then you have your marketing, you have your sales and so it becomes a lot quickly. And so stepping back to the first flat in 17, that was in Woolwich and of course another interesting bit is that you think quickly, okay, all you need is a flat. Put furniture in it, put it on Airbnb booking.com anywhere and it will sell. It doesn't work that way. Clearly you have to do your marketing. Secondly, you need to have your maintenance in place, your cleaning, etc. But then of course, most people forget, if it's flat, do you have permission from the freeholder to run a business activity? Because after all, it is a business activity. And in this case it's quite funny. This, this flat is in a very, very nice block of flats in Woolwich Royal Arsenal. Very nice development, very modern Thames. However, the Leech clearly says you can't run a business like a short term rental. However, in those days, when you look on Airbnb booking.com you see about 70, 80 hosts in that area. Advertising, of course, if that's already in breach with the lease, then clearly it's an accident waiting to happen. And so that's a typical example. People just off the cuff start a business, as in, oh, I can do that. But they don't think about the consequences or let's say the viability long term, which is a typical thing that again, if you don't think about it as a business, how sustainable is it, how, how robust are the foundation blocks then yeah, is risky, to be honest, even if you're having a healthy turnover. And I'm sorry for all the people who are relying on OTAs. Again, it's like you're having a flat with a freeholder who does like this. However, it's not allowed in the lease if you're running your business and all your bookings are coming in from OTAs and other websites and you're not in control, actually you don't even get the real contact details unless you're a bit clever about it. Again, you're too depending or too dependent on others and that's a business risk, to be honest.

Thank you so much, Ron, for my pleasure with us. Really appreciate you sharing your, your business with us and your story and I hope to speak to you again. So thank you too. If you're listening to this on the Facebook Live, that's it from us from this live recording of the Boostly podcast. I know there's a lot of place you can put your attention and I really thank you for putting it with us. So that's bye for me and bye from Ron. See you on the next one.

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