Tim Hubbard breaks down Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication for short-term rental hosts. He shows how unmet needs drive guest anger, why blame language backfires, and how to separate needs from requests. The core: you're responsible for your own feelings, not your guests' reactions.
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I've got a slightly different topic for you. This week we're going to be talking about communication. And one of my favorite books on the topic by Marshall Rosenberg, non Violent Communication. Why is this so important? Well, because communication is the name of the game when it comes to our short term rentals. So stay tuned. Let's jump in. Welcome to Short Term Rental Riches. Quick, actionable ideas to help you along your real estate investment journey, but with a specific focus on short term rentals. Super excited you guys are here. As always, it's a lot of fun doing these podcasts. And you know what? It helps reinforce a lot of things that I'm learning myself. And that's one of the topics I want to talk about this week, which is communication. Communication is a never ending study, right? We can always be better communicators. And one of the books that really helped me out with this subject is by Marshall Rosenberg and it's called Nonviolent Communication. And why is communication so important with our short term rentals? Well, because it determines the experience that our guests have. And when something goes wrong, this is when it's going to become even more important. And things will go wrong. They do. If you have thousands and thousands of reservations or maybe you only have a few, you never know. Things happen and they can be very unexpected. So what might happen? A tree branch falls on someone's car, for example. Someone can't check into a rental for whatever reason. Someone's flight gets canceled and they're delayed 10 hours and they show up exhausted and there's an issue with the unit. And so we need to communicate with them. There's a lot we can learn with communication. I want to break down my favorite principles from this book and just some things to consider because we can use these in our daily life and with our short term rentals and with our team. I promise you, these are really, really good tips. Stay tuned. Let's jump right in. So Marshall Rosenberg wrote the book Nonviolent Communication. And the whole idea of this book, or I guess the opening line is what if you could diffuse tension and create a chord in even the most volatile situations just by changing the way you spoke? And you can, and we can. And so I'm gonna break down my favorite takeaways from this book. A wise man once said the we don't read can't help us. Right? Well, even if you don't read this, I want to give you the nuggets that I took away. I just re listened to it on. Actually, the audiobook is a really good option as well, because it's Marshall Rosenberg himself speaking. You got to listen to this guy. I mean, his voice is just like incredibly soothing. Like, you just couldn't imagine being angry at this guy. So he knows what he's doing. He's been doing a long time, and that's what he studied. So we're going to run into situations with our guests where they're not happy. And if we can remember some of these tips, it's going to make the experience for all us a little better. So I want to give you my top six takeaways. Number one, all anger comes from our needs not being met. So if someone's upset, it's because a need is not being met. And this should be a wake up call to us. So it requires energy to meet needs. But when we get angry, our anger is using that energy to punish people and to create negative thinking. So we just want to remember that if someone is upset, it's because a need is not being met. This might be something with your rental. They can't get the Internet to work. They can't. Whatever it is, it's because a need is not being met. And that is the root of anger. Number two, we often misunderstand the difference between requests and needs. So requests are tied to a specific person or action, and needs are only tied to ourselves. Everyone has the same needs. These are essential things for living, like security and belonging. But requests are going to be tied more to an action. So we just want to remember the difference there between requests and needs. So when we make requests, it's always better to use positive language and ask for things that we do want and not things that we don't want. So if you're having a conversation with someone, for example, you don't want to say, I don't want this to happen, or I don't want to have to call anyone. Again, we want to say the things that we do want, right? So I would like this situation to be resolved by so and so, so and so. So some of these take a little bit of thinking to kind of. To kind of get through. But that's a real important one as well. This next one. Number four, this is like probably my biggest takeaway from the book. And it's that anytime we make a statement, if it's followed by the word you, then we're placing blame on someone. So think about that. Anytime you talk to anyone, if you include the word you, you're placing blame on that person. So you didn't leave the key in the lockbox, for example, or you didn't change the batteries on the digital lock. That's placing blame instead of going to the root of the problem. So the only time that we can really use the word you without putting blame on someone is if we're expressing our need afterwards. So just remember that anytime a statement is followed by you, it's placing blame on a person. Just think about that. It's a really, really important one. Number five, it's not what other people do that makes us angry. It's our interpretations and ideas of what they've done that makes us angry. Feelings are our decision. People don't make us feel the way we do. We feel the way we do. So it's I'm feeling, not you make me feel. If someone says something, someone does something, a guest is harsh with us on the phone. It's not what other people do that makes us angry. It's our interpretations and ideas of what they've done that makes us angry. Number six, any judgment of another person diminishes the likelihood of our needs being met. So this is pretty hard to do a lot of times in the short term rental space. Sometimes we just judge people based on what they say or what they do or the way they've communicated with us. But that doesn't help us solve the root of the problem. It doesn't help us resolve what needs need to be met. So just try to remember these things. I know it's hard to do when we're dealing with really difficult guests, but it is important. And communication is tough. Sometimes it's tough. And the good thing about it is that we can get better and better and better. And I would argue that the better our communication is, the more successful we're going to be in life and the less stress we are going to have in life. So check out Marshall Rosenberg's book, Nonviolent Communication, or check out the audiobook. I swear it's going to add a lot of value to you. You're going to learn a lot from it. I didn't nearly do it justice. Those were just my top six takeaways. And there's so many, so many more. And I've asked my team, my receptionist, to review the book as well. It's really good to know and to have it in our communication arsenal to remember these, these quick little tips. So until next time, I hope you guys are doing really well out there and have a wonderful day.
