Tim Hubbard shows how to use Loom, a screen-recording tool, to document property walkthroughs and software procedures for Airbnb operations. He highlights Loom's fast rendering and easy sharing, compares it to Camtasia's stronger editing features, and recommends storing recordings in Notion for team access.
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We talk about procedures, procedures, procedures all the time and why it's so important because all the procedures that we have for a short term rental business, they're the same all the time. The way a guest checks in is the same. The way they check out is the same. So in order to free up our time, we need to record these processes. I want to talk about what I use to record the processes this week and why you should consider using this tool. Stay tuned. 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. Here we are, another week and another tool that I am introducing to you guys if you haven't already heard about it or if you're not already using it. And I know every other week I've got a new tool, but this is the way we can expedite a lot of our work. This is the way that we can make our guest experiences better, better. This is the way we can automate a lot of things and this is the way we can just free up time so that we're not in the day to day with all of our tasks and operations and we continue growing, continue scaling our real estate portfolios. So this week I want to talk about a tool called Loom. Last week I talked about where we can find some virtual assistants. If you haven't heard that one yet, jump back there. And especially if you don't have a virtual assistant yet, definitely, definitely consider it. We live in a totally virtual world now, so there's no reason that all of our team has to be in the same place where we live. So go back and check that out. But in order to train our virtual team, we need some good tools and we need a way to provide information to them easily. And that's what this week is about. This tool is called Loom and it's a video screen recording device. It's a plugin that goes right into your Google Chrome browser or on your computer and it's super easy. I talked before about a program called Camtasia, which I still like and I'm going to break down the differences there. But I want to talk this week about why we're using Loom and the main features, the main things that we record with it. I want to talk about Loom versus Camtasia, which I recommended in the past and a lot of people are using Camtasia. Just a little bit about the pricing. Those things change all the time. But then also where we put all these files.
So let's just jump right into it. What do we use Loom for? Well, we use Loom to record property overviews. So if a virtual assistant's helping us with the property, or really anyone's helping us with the property, if you hire a new housekeeper, for example, videos can help inform them about your property. So how you like the storage area organized, for example. So we can use LOOM videos for all kinds of property overviews, or just a general overview about the whole property. And we can scroll through pictures on our computer pointing different things out. And then we can save this so we have it for the life of our property. And it's easy to share with anyone, whether it's a new team member or, you know, who knows, maybe you're even selling the property and you want to provide a little more detail. So there's really limitless ways to use the recordings, but we definitely use them for property overviews and property information. But then we also use them for procedures. So we use property management software and to change a guest reservation, for example, that's something that's pretty common. We can log in, we can record our screen, talking over it in a minute or two minutes, explain how to change a guest reservation, and we can have that forever. We can send it to as many people as we need to, and we only have to explain it once, right? So this is the idea. Anything that we're doing more than once, we want to record and put in a place so someone can easily find it. So we can use them for property overviews, we can use them for normal day in and day out, you name it. It's really endless. The more you think about it, the more ways you'll discover to record little videos. You're building a new website, for example. Rather than find some websites that you really like, send them to a potential web developer or someone you might have working for you and say, I like this title. Here's some text to use here, here's so on and so on. Why not just record a website that you like, talking through the different points, and then send that out so that there's just so many ways to use video.
But the thing that makes Loom super, super cool is the processing time. So literally click a button, records everything we need, and then it takes very little time to process or render. I believe it's called in the video editing world. In a couple seconds, you've got a video clip that you can save a link, you can email the link, you can store it anywhere that you provide information for your team. So the processing time, honestly, I think is one of the biggest reasons that I like Loom over Camtasia.
Camtasia I still use. So let's just break down some of the differences there. Well, for one, Loom is a monthly subscription. I think it's, it's less than 10 bucks a month, so it's, it's not very expensive. They have a free trial as well. Camtasia is a one time purchase, so you can buy it once and you know you're good to go. I think it's 60 to $100 somewhere in there. But of course you won't get the feature updates if you're not renewing it. So they both have different pricing models. Camtasia is really good for doing video edits and adding annotations and stuff like that. So I think it has more editing power. But as far as providing instruction, I think Loom's better because we can record it so quickly, it renders or processes so quickly, and we don't need to be adding all kinds of arrows and instructions and all these things into our standard operating procedures or our policies or instructions. When I first started with Camtasia, I was adding little arrows in and doing all these things. Now with Loom, I don't even think about it. Boom. I'm hitting the button. If it's anything I think that I'm going to do more than once and that would be helpful for our team or anyone involved with our real estate or short term rental business. We should be recording it.
And lastly, where are we going to store it? Well, we can store it in Google Drive, you can store it in Dropbox, but I prefer to store it in Notion, which we talked about Notion before. If you haven't heard that episode, definitely go back and check that out. It's a very visually pleasant, pleasing place to store all kinds of information files and it's the perfect place for your Loom videos.
So if you're doing anything multiple times and you're thinking to yourself when you're doing it, man, I could outsource this. I could have my VA help me with this. My housekeeper asked me this same question all the time. I could record this and give him that information, whatever it is. If you find yourself asking yourself that, check out Loom. I'm not affiliated with them anyway. I just think it's helpful for your business and for your life in general as it has been for mine. Hopefully you like it and hopefully you're doing well out there and your short term rentals are crushing it. I think in the US Anyways, I think people are getting more comfortable traveling and I think we are going to see a huge surge in travel. People have been bottled up for over a year. So until next time, I hope you have a wonderful day and a wonderful week. Take care.
