Cold open

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Live Let Thrive, a podcast about the Airbnb life, the share economy, and everything in between. Here are your hosts, Micah and Steve.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hello, hello, hello.

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And welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let Rive.

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What's up, Micah Man?

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I'm chilling, Stevie Stacks. How you doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:25

I am doing pretty good, man. Pretty good. It's been a hectic week. Uh well, hectic couple weeks. You know, Lupita had knee surgery. My wife, Lubita had knee surgery. So I've been I've been mom, dad, and caretaker at the house, and plus, you know, working full time and trying to run a business. You know, it's been, you know, you know how it is. You always got a thousand things going on, so I know you feel me.

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Living that life.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

But it's worth it, right? It's worth it in the end. We're we're we're doing something. We're advancing, and we're that's what it's all about. It's about living, letting, and thriving. And we are on episode, this should be episode 163, correct? Yes, sir. Of your favorite Airbnb VRBO, home away, real estate, share economy podcast in the world. And coming at you from Fort Worth and Arlington, Texas. What it do, what it do. What it do, what it do. And we have a special, special guest on the show. And his name is Bruno Viaseca. Or it says on the screen, Villa Seca, but you know, in Spanish, you would say Villa Seca. So Bruno Villaseca is on the show, and he's gonna blow y'all all away with his um amazing, um, amazing thing that he's doing for to help people keep track of the of the most important thing in your um short-term rental journey is the is the money, is the cash flow. So he's gonna show us how to do that. Give it up for Bruno.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

What up, Bruno? How you doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Hello, hello. What's up?

SPEAKER_04 1:59

All good here. Thank you so much for the introduction.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah, yeah. Thanks for hopping on, man. Um, where are you exactly?

SPEAKER_04 2:08

Right now, I'm in Berlin.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Berlin? Yeah. Oh, nice. What are you doing in Berlin? What are you doing over there in Berlin?

SPEAKER_04 2:19

Uh well, actually, not that much with

How an industrial engineer in Chile stumbled into short-term rentals

SPEAKER_04 2:23

this pandemic. I'm just working, but hopefully it passed on soon, so I can actually do some stuff and quite an interesting city, no?

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Yeah, it's a beautiful city. I hear I've I've never been, but uh Germany's nice. Um, so quickly, let's dive into it, man. Uh, what got you started in the short-term rental industry?

SPEAKER_04 2:43

Um well that has um that has to do with um me starting back home. I'm from Chile, South America. So I started um I started my studies there um as an industrial engineer. And well, when I'm started my my my career, it started with an American company. It was a startup back in Chile. Um, and they they were doing long-term um at that point, but they decided to to to just give it a go to shorten rentals, right? Uh, with a new division in the company, and then this this very cool dude, serial entrepreneur VJ, that was the boss in my time. He just decided that I was a good candidate. And um after after some interviewing, I was hopping on into that um big project of the new division of the company, and and I was um in charge of the whole project of the new division, and I started doing uh the the new units and stuff, uh, always with the engineering and uh analytics background uh as an engineer, right? But then I decided to go a little uh um more into it because I think just the industry has so much to give and it's not new, but also not that that that mature yet. There are still many things coming, and I just got involved into it. Um and then I just like uh keep developing like uh new experience and skills. Um I I moved from that company, but many things happened there. So like um how do you want to proceed? Do you want just like uh uh uh a whole review of uh how I got into the industry and where I'm now, or you want me to develop further into that first stage?

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Yeah, yeah. So did you get your own rentals, or you were just uh managing for other people? How how did it work?

SPEAKER_04 4:56

Well, actually, it started kind of there, you know. I got very interested about this, uh uh about this business, and I'm like, well, the these numbers are running kind of cool, and uh, I want to give it a go. So I I'm a numbers guy, so let's run it, right? So I got this partnership with this Argentina guy's uh my investor, and we we started to to give it a go, and actually things were going pretty, pretty well. And well, at that time for the company, I started doing what I'm doing right now, which is my own project. That was the the very beginning when I when I started pretty much like handling around because I was aiming toward performance and I realized that one thing is running the unit, and another thing is like optimizing everything to make that unit profitable, and that's where it all started. So I started running every single number I could as a numbers guy and started to doing all these KPIs and uh optimization for it. And that's where it happened. I had the first version of what I have right now as my own projects, and um, it actually turned out very well because numbers went super good and um things started to go up very fast at company, so we started to just like keep getting new units and new units and new units, and at the same time, I just got this investor and I jumped in with my units as well.

The one KPI that signals it's time to drop a unit

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Okay, question for you because you touched a key, you said a keyword that I love. You said KPI. What what right now do you have? What is one of your KPIs right now to let you know that you're going to keep a unit or let a unit go?

SPEAKER_04 6:46

Um, if I have to pick just one of them.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

Yeah, just one hey, this KPI right here, this unit ain't worth it, let it go. What's what's one of them?

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Can I before before you do that? Can you can you explain what a KPI is to our audience that might not know?

SPEAKER_04 7:03

Great. Yeah, it's uh well of course, uh KPI or key performance indicators are that specific number you wanna you you want to take a look at. It's the insights of a business. So if if if let's just keep it simple, if that number is running well, it's a good indicator that your business is probably gonna do well. That's why they call it key performance indicators. So depending on the industry, you will have different KPIs. Um and let's say for hotels, for example, they uh dig deep very dig on the um they dig very deep on the ref a ref bar. Um, but uh it depends on what you're doing, specifically for shorter rentals to answer your question. Uh for me, it has a lot to do with the occupancy that's super important. Uh, but there's no such thing for me as just one of them. Like they really need to be mixed. So um uh there are plenty of things to do and insects to look at, but occupancy is like one of the first things I look at.

RevPAR vs occupancy: which matters more?

SPEAKER_04 8:19

I I look at the occupancy of of that specific area and I look at the occupancy, the potential occupancy of a unit.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Now, which is more important, RevPAR or occupancy? And can you also explain what RevPAR is for the audience? Very important.

SPEAKER_04 8:37

Yeah, it well, RevPAR is for the OTO industry uh revenue um per available room, right? So it's pretty much the total revenue that can come into you for all the available rooms you have to sell in a certain time period. So, like the more repair you have, the more um money you're bringing in pretty much to that uh hotel. Uh, in in the case of shorter rentals, it acts kind of similar. Um, I run it per unit and as a whole. So uh you can subdivide per areas as well if you want to dig specific on a certain location. For example, if we have some units in Texas or some others in like North Pacific West, they are gonna behave different. So, like maybe in order to compare with the same uh um you know uh units, your competition, you can you can just like see those insights for specific locations, but more or less it's it's just like an overall, the more the better, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Gotcha. And you said you have units. What part of Texas are you in? Do you have units?

SPEAKER_04 9:52

Oh no, no, I I personally don't have units in Texas, but um, but the the guy that's my boss right now. Um I'm I'm working at elevate uh travel. It's um it's a very interesting project that's growing now. Um we're getting ready for this pandemic to be over. We started in pandemic. We are um young startup uh where we have under management more than 500 properties. Um, but the owner, uh very interesting dude, uh Derek, he he has many, many uh units all over Texas. Um he has 40 plus units right now at this point, and he's expanding very fast, and uh he wants to move to other uh places in the US as well. Uh, I just name it Texas randomly because of that. I personally don't have my units in Texas, but I do um have to handle some of them or some information related to them.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

So so what kind of units does he run? I mean, you said he has like 40 in Texas. Like, is he have uh apart? Does he get apartments? Does he get condos?

SPEAKER_04 11:04

Arbitrage, it's just arbitrage and in Dallas, uh, pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Really? That's where we're at. Um so like uh but I know it's arbitrage, but like what kind of is he doing houses or is he doing apartments? How does he get how does he get them?

SPEAKER_04 11:20

Well, um most of them are houses. Um and soon in the future them there might be some like multi-family. I I'm not sure um because like it's on development, but um um it's just like very into the business. Um, I just started to to to work closely with him after the the business just like started. So uh specifically in terms uh of the contracts, I am not um just close to that, I'm more in the performance area. So like if you ask me how is he getting them specifically? I couldn't tell you that information.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

So can you tell me one thing? Um, y'all spoke of RevPAR and it's like uh revenue per unit or whatever, or however you're explaining it. So if he has houses, I would think okay, one house is gonna generate you know a certain amount of revenue. Is does he ever split them up in like four or five different rooms to maximize that that rev par or whatever whatever it's called?

SPEAKER_04 12:26

I know many people that's doing that, uh not specifically, these are just like entire place uh you know units. But but I I know that you can max maximize things. Um it just changes a little bit operational-wise

Why subdividing a house into rooms can backfire

SPEAKER_04 12:44

when you do that. Um, but uh I don't know how recommended is that because I I do not have experience like subdividing a property. It might be very optimal in terms of like incrementing your your revenue, of course, but also it might bring some other um uh problems as well, you know, like having different people in the same place. It's just like operational-wise, probably a little bit more of a pain. Uh and also like it can it can bring more like you know, when when you're subdividing, you have to like sub-rent for less money, and um I I'm all into like the Facebook groups as well, like just always reading the news about the industry in different places in the US. And I know that when when you're going cheap sometimes, and it has this has happened to me as well with my business. You get really bad guests sometimes. So it it I don't know, it depends on how the business model you want to run. Sometimes aiming towards the most revenue is not the best. If you really want to have uh healthy business, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Seems like you have to have that middle ground when you go too high, you get the people that are just pests, and then if you go too low, you get the bottom of the barrel. So you kind of have to have that middle ground. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_04 14:02

Yeah, and also um, I found like uh some things are very interesting because um proportionally occupancy and revenue are inverse. So if you're going higher uh on your price, you're gonna have less occupancy, but you're gonna have higher quality of guests, uh and and that's really gonna like even things sometimes because at some point, if you're doing very well your calculations, you might have some vacancy at the end of the month, but maybe your revenue is gonna be intact with less headaches. So it really depends on how you really want to run your business. But that that's kind of like risky, you really gotta know uh your area uh demand's gotta be quite high in order

High rates and low occupancy vs low rates and full calendar

SPEAKER_04 14:51

to be able to do that. But if you really run the numbers, some analytics, and have some backup information, let's say you run uh some good research on air DNA and you really watch close your competition and even on just looking at your area Airbnb, you might be able to do so.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

So, and I have a two-part question to this because you you brought up something really very important that a lot of people don't look at is revenue versus your occupancy rate. Do you find it better to hey have a lower occupancy rate and more revenue, or take a little bit of the dip on the revenue and just have a high occupancy rate?

SPEAKER_04 15:30

Uh well, it depends. There's not no thing, such as like the best answer for that uh as a whole, because before pandemic was hitting, I was running into my business not 100% occupancy, but very high rates at night. So it wasn't a problem. But then after pandemic, demand is pretty low outside the US. I know that US internal uh like local demand is really high. So actually, short-term rental business is not that hit as people were really like um they were really afraid of this, right? But then it turns out that it's not that bad, actually. Like, like nicers are being sold, hotels are a problem, but not for short-term rentals, it's not that hit as people was actually thinking, and markets such as like Mexico or the US are really killing it, while others, such as let's say Europe or Chile, where I have the units, are really, really, really having a bad time. So, what I had to do is I had to lower my ADR, the average daily rate, in order to have full equipment. Now I'm getting 100% equipment at very low rates, but then I'm high, I'm selling high volume, and that's the only way to actually survive the first months of the pandemic. Now it's getting better, but you have to play with it and see what's your surrounding, what's your local demand, what's your real demand in the area, some projections here and there, but it depends on the situation you're you're at.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

See, that's what I love, man. Because I mean you actually do the the research and do all the math to it. Whereas um sometimes you'll hear people bragging on on um you know on the on the social medias and stuff saying, Man,

The 100% occupancy trap: you're probably underpriced

SPEAKER_01 17:19

I got 100% occupancy. I always cringe at that. I'm like, man, your prices are probably too damn low. If you probably raise or double the prices, even if you had you know three quarters full that month, you'd still make more money, you know. And it's just people don't look at it like that.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

That's super true. That that happened to one of the first clients I had in in the project I'm running right now, where I'm running all the KPIs and performance for them and letting them know what where there's like space for growing. So there was this guy that that that's in uh Florida. Uh and first months I'm seeing his insights, he started just this year. And he's like 100 occupancy pretty much, but also his price is getting higher. And I'm like, the first thing I look at this is I'm like, you are just letting some money go away. Like you you can't you can't be just like uh like revamping up on both like revenue and occupancy, those are uh inverse, you know, like are inverse indicators. If one is going up, the other is going down, otherwise, you're doing something wrong. And well, he he he just like higher the price, and of course, voila, right? More revenue. It was just telling them just by the numbers, it's very obvious at that point.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

Now, okay. Uh let's say we're talking about Chile uh before the pandemic, right? What would you say was a good occupancy rate to where you're getting the maximized revenue? Because I think that's a very one that a lot of people don't touch on. Because I'm 100% with Steve. If you're at 100%, you gotta be leaving some money on the table.

SPEAKER_04 18:56

Uh yeah, and I'm willing to do so because at this point right now, I'd rather have like full occupancy and leave like uh some money on the table than being worried on like missing some nights, because at this point the lows are so the rates are so low that I have no space in order to like bring some things back. Of course, I'm covering the cost and having some profit, but if I want to get to good profit levels, I got to do some sacrifices and um from the risk management point of view, like you get a ransom risk on the lower or the higher end. So that's what I am towards that direction. But yeah, even though I can be having some money on the on the table, it's not worth the risk to figure out the exact optimal number because the margin is so little at this point, given all the research I've done and the data I have gathered all these years, that it's just not worth it to me to have like 100 more

Pre-pandemic Chile: 85% occupancy at high ADR in the capital

SPEAKER_04 19:51

bucks in the pocket at the end of the month uh for risking maybe not even having them for being, you know, like having such high ego. I can make it happen, you know. Like sometimes you less is more.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Yeah. So so like before the pandemic, though, like where was your where would you say was a uh a very profitable occupancy rate before the pro pandemic?

SPEAKER_04 20:14

Oof, well, normally average percent for for just like the whole industry in Chile will vary kind of low. It will be just 60-65 percent. But uh it was a very interesting market because it was showing uh 50 to 60 percent growth in the whole industry year on a year. Um, it was it was building up super fast in uh in the country. So once again, it depends on the location you are. Well, I was in the capital city, Santiago, and uh there you might see some equipment levels on average will be varying uh between 70 and 80 percent. Um and I was I was sitting uh 85 plus with high uh ADR, but also my unit was located in one of the most uh one of the best um locations you can you can have. So I I I if I wanted, I could have gone all the way to 100% every month. I was just playing with the rates to get the most out of it and less headaches at that at that point.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

So you do this, um like you said, you have you have a client in in Florida and you are helping him, you know, figure out the optimal um uh occupancy rate to make the most profit. So you do this for other people.

SPEAKER_04 21:36

Yeah, yeah. That's all that's it's all about the new project, right? I'm I'm running analytics right now and I'm I'm I'm giving I'm giving them the profit and loss statements. So um it's now it's now getting started as a big project. Uh as I mentioned, you it started all back in Chile when I was uh I was just like uh starting with this company and um it came to my mind it would be good to run the the engineering numbers there and starting to optimize in some stuff uh and it did and then I started to to see if there was a space to my own stuff. So I started to dig deeper and it and it became a thing. And always optimizing until nowadays. But now it got like super well optimized at this point because of iteration, you know, you get more experience as well. And now I decided that it might be uh a better option instead of just like expanding all the way to back home to make this for people because uh this is high demand in the industry and I've seen people trying to run business and you have all the professions here. It's amazing the variety of people that's going into short term rentals and many of them have no idea what they're doing. So just give them a couple numbers it's just good to have you know a dashboard with your profit and loss statements uh see where your performance is missed uh your performance is uh is is going if it's going up if if it's going down you know have some insights it's good and by someone that has you know uh experience on the field is a host himself as well but not only that he's a numbers guy it's the case uh of me right so uh I'm I'm I'm selling that as a service to people on a B2B model because I think it's just quite interesting in order for

Bruna's profit-and-loss dashboards for STR operators

SPEAKER_04 23:32

for for people to actually get it right and be profitable.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

I'm actually current currently going through a business restructure where I'm actually implementing the profit first system.

SPEAKER_04 23:46

What what system or like how how does your own system work to where you're able to dissect a business and analyze and say hey this is where you need to cut some fat or hey you need to get more units what are you using I'm I'm very interested to know that well I value I value a lot the data so um normally when you're doing a new project and you really want to jump into like a new a new unit you will look into data you will go somewhere into like RDNA you will watch out like the neighborhood you're into you want to check out the occupancy you want to check out the ADR you want to check out what's gonna be the the the the cost for setting up you know and and and having all the the the the fixed cost that it actually means to do whatever you're doing if it's arbitrage or whatever and then round the numbers to see if that's profitable then start with the business. I'm starting from a very specific point I'm starting when people are already running business. So um in order to help them to enhance their performance. So what I'm doing there is I'm starting from their own data. So um well I I am I just I just love computers and geek stuff and um even though it's not part of the career I I love databases and uh I'm coding SQL in databases and I'm always uh uh looking forward the way of optimizing the way you structure data and the best ways of doing analytics on that because um I started my career as a data analyst um and now I'm going deeper and I'm I'm actually now looking forward to study uh data science as a data scientist here in Germany um because I I I just think it's just super interesting to going one step forward into that but now where I am I'm always looking at information um as it should be and for me it's all about like having well structured information in order to have good insights so I'm looking at all the bookings information of the people and the cost information they have oh also of course I'm looking at on into some insights of the market uh for of course giving them recommendations but the starting point for them is like how are you actually doing with what you have what can you do better with what you have so most most of the most of this project is looking into clients data and see what they're doing and if they're doing it right but if they're doing it wrong.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

So can is it is this fair for me to say that you're kind of like a a living breathing mix of of price labs and air DNA for somebody and dig deeper because I'm going into getting your costs what are your variable costs what are your fixed costs and then I'm mixing that with your pricing you know and um with your revenue and what what's your what's your uh time ahead of booking right like uh how how can you perform better in there are just like so many indicators in the industry you know okay but um mixing all of that and then just getting a conclusion is kind of like a uh um uh a very deep analysis um that's worth it so you're you're like yeah like a short-term rental Frankenstein for these people kind of it works and and so I I mean I just jumped to it because you okay people start getting all these tools and stuff they pay for air dna which is expensive they pay for price labs they pay for the the you know the the accounting software they pay for the you know to do their expenses they they pay for the PMS systems so if they just used you would they actually be saving money or would I mean how how would this work?

SPEAKER_04 27:57

How did how does that happen the pricing with using someone like you okay uh this is the marketing part right but yeah I just I just want to know as beautiful as it sounds I'm trying to make this tool actually um kind of like a positive cash flow for them you know like if you get the unit hopefully it uh it it gets better for you so actually you're making more money and it's paying off by itself pretty much so uh it it shouldn't damage your business on the long term actually just help so same business model as beyond pricing is doing so people started using beyond pricing and they're willing to give up that one percent because it's actually really helping them to get more revenue so people are willing to pay off that 1% because it's really helping you more than 1% so it's pretty much paying off by itself.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

It's and for because I think you touched on something really important and actually Steve alluded to it. People pay for all these subscriptions you know do you help people to analyze like hey this subscription isn't worth it maybe you should get rid of it because like this this week uh me and Federico actually we're actually getting rid of smart BNB because we realize it's an unnecessary cost.

SPEAKER_04 29:17

Is that something you do with your business of course I mean uh I have meetings with my clients you know it's not about just like uh numbers we have meetings we have a monthly report uh we're looking at insights and they have a whole data studio dashboard where they can see their performance with uh not only numbers but now it's getting into more graphical interface and well I I actually got the domain and I talked with my developer we are looking towards like uh seed capital in order to make this run on uh web software that we're gonna be connecting through APIs directly to gather your information from Airbnb so it's not a hustle for you to give it to me on a CSB file so it's gonna be a full automated process hopefully by the end of the year it's gonna be running like that.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Do you guys have any tools you guys think you'll connect with like QuickBooks or something like that?

SPEAKER_04 30:13

No, not at all and not right now. There are some things that I think that they are necessary. I don't want to go out of the niche of having your like performance indicators profit and loss statements um because um that's exactly what I want to tackle and I don't want to get out of that um pickbooks is more for accountability and like if you want to do full cash flows but not only profit and loss statements that you want to run if you had some loans in order to like run into the business and you want to see your initial setup cost and everything that will be kind of like a complete cash flow of the business by its name. What I'm doing is running your performance on a monthly on a monthly basis and if you're actually doing well and if you're actually having positive numbers there or not because that's what really matters. If you're having positive numbers there you're gonna be able to pay your loan and your initial setup so cash

The most common cash-flow mistake: cleaning fees that lose money

SPEAKER_04 31:08

flow is going to be positive anyways if your profit and loss statement is running positive right that's for all the industries and all companies that's that's great.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

So looking at this as as someone on the outside hearing all this uh you know you know well it's gets confusing a little bit and and you know we're talking about you know some technical stuff but like someone saying man I I I can run my I can run my own Airbnb I don't need all this stuff. So people like that well you know what what are some of the things that like just the regular everyday person is uh what are some of the biggest um cash flow mistakes are they're doing what you know money mistakes are they doing and um yeah what are the some of the biggest things that they don't account for that's just destroying their profits good question well yeah I've seen I've seen several things even like at the first company started working at even uh like I've seen different kinds of practices that I'm like okay let's just correct this right now.

SPEAKER_04 32:11

Uh the one that's super common and I know that this is gonna touch into many people because it's just like super common to see in the US is that well um your cleaners are getting paid by the hour but you're gathering a fixed cleaning fee. People are not doing any calculations on that and they're not they really have no idea what to charge on a cleaning fee and they're just like doing some estimations and many of those estimations are really bad because if you discovered someone threw a party on your on your unit even though you're not allowed whatever um that's gonna cost you more hours and and people have underestimated the hours so um the cleaning is not paying by itself that's that's the most common thing you see and you're like cleaning should be paying by itself so if if you're charging whatever fee of cleaning per reservation let's say you're having five reservations a month right and you're charging 100 fee a 100 fee you will you will be able to gather uh 500 US dollars but maybe you're spending more of more than that because you are underestimating the the hours of of of of your cleaning uh and i've seen that i've seen getting getting 500 is cleaning and people are not even looking at the number they're they're just like e cpc at their home they're like that's fine i'm getting 500 uh on cleaning how much are you spending you're spending 600 you're losing 100 there i know it's not that much but it adds up at the end of the year you're losing more than a thousand bucks um and that's how you have to take a look at that and and and those those small tweaks as you're saying like smart BND might not be worth for some people where it might be worth for some other so um it will just add up there are people that are just like freaking out filling their homes with like cameras or super high tech um just uh their profit is just not profit is just negative numbers because they're just like adding so much stuff that it's just not sustainable anymore. Man you you you touched on a lot right there that is so true um now now you touched on cleaning fees because I've heard people say they're paying too much in cleaning and uh Sean Rakichic

Three ways to pay cleaners and how to price the cleaning fee

SPEAKER_04 34:40

uh from Airbnb automated he actually just dropped a dope video on the three methods to pay cleaners so I want to know from you what is the best best method to pay cleaners is it by the job per hour or how would you calculate like hey this is how you should pay your cleaner and be profitable it's quite super simple actually the um the best practice that's always gonna result to you like like many people would say like oh normally in this in this place you will just like charge this or do that I figure out that cleaning fee is something that guests are really willing to pay they really want to get into a clean place uh and they are really willing to pay that cleaning fee I've seen cleaning fees of 150 bucks and people are really paying for that it depends on the unit of course you're not charging that on like studio that's super small on uh low demand city right um but that same studio is not gonna charge that much uh it's not gonna cost that much in terms of like hours to be clean so it's proportional to the size so uh people are willing to pay the cleaning fee that's the bottom line and uh that said you you can even run a personal test and gather data for one or two months because gathering your data is like very uh a key aspect of doing this well like you can run a test do the same estimate that people are doing but just like really get into it and turn your head into it run some numbers and see like okay how much is it really cost me to to start this um if you know it well you will know better estimates for me when I was setting up my units I knew how much it costed to get them clean with my partner it was my partner's wife they're just like cleaning everything as well uh that's how many people are starting there most of them uh sorry not most of them but uh there is like a not minor amount of like couples that are running this as a side business for for their you know like um income and um cleaning is running on themselves sometimes for where they're starting so they know how how many hours it will take more or less but you can have good estimates depending on the size of your unit. So you run this estimate and you charge a proper cleaning fee that you might think it will cover. And then you add of course an error like you always do that well maybe I'm just geeking to numbers but that's just common sense for everybody I will say right you run the error always let's say 10% more than that.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

And you see if that covers if that's that doesn't cover you you're just like going up until you get to the point that you're actually sustainable and you have to have that error space you cannot only be charging and have that 500 cover the 500 you have to have 700 cover the 500 actually you gotta get some profit out of the cleaning man I'm I need to up my cleaning fees and lower my cleaning rate I I like that though because that that's one thing I was kind of struggling with like when I was like okay let's cut some meat cut some fat here is do you up your cleaning fees and then well how's how do you hey how do I make this profitable which I'm profitable a little bit but how do you make it so you know you can make a profit by paying the cleaner maybe per hour and man this is some golden stuff you're dropping over here.

SPEAKER_04 38:20

So yeah and and and and that's a one time fee you know like it's not gonna like one thing is your average daily rate and when I'm calculating these things I'm not mixing them up. One thing is your full revenue so when you're having your payout on your Airbnb you're getting paid by the cleaning fee pet fee whatever extra fee you have on top of the uh the revenue for nights right discounted your host fees right so um I'm separating all of that stuff because it's super good to have them separated one thing is the full income and you have to have separated and calculated by the booking how much you're receiving for that booking specifically for cleaning fee if you have an extra guest fee which I have for my units um maybe you have you are accepting pets but you have that extra fee. So you separate all the incomes and then you are only then you're able to see if you're actually covering the cost of having that uh whatever fee if that's costing you more or not. And that's super important as well.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

That's a big that's a big one right there is the pet fee you know a lot of people are allowing pets because oh shit I'm gonna give 50 extra bucks this this um you know uh this this booking if I allow her to bring their dog now I'm sure you've analyzed all the numbers on is it worth it to allow pets just to get that 50 bucks is it not worth it you know I mean what what are your thoughts on on allowing pets and pet fees um well personally I'm a dog lover like I'm nobody without my little one you know everybody's a dog lover nowadays but set aside that I'm I'm not allowing pets on my place because this is like you know friendships and family and business you don't mix up stuff like for me business is business and you know like personal life is another different stuff even though I love dogs I don't allow them in my units because you don't know um personally I don't know who these animals are and uh they will depend on the education of their owners so if they're bringing a dog that's really like screwing my furniture and that that can cost you more than the pet fee itself like if they break some of your furniture and you don't get their the logistics there at time you might be having some vacancy and that will really cost you and uh chances are that you are not seeing the money back.

SPEAKER_04 40:53

So I'm just like I have I'm not allowing that and actually uh a few months ago no it was like one or two months ago I discovered that one uh one of my guests they just like dig in a little a little poppy there and and I charge him a high fee through Airbnb support because it's just forbidden it's not on my house rules and I got some money out of that I think it's fair because I'm not allowing it and it's public before you're doing the booking and this is a business. So uh I run it like that.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

So I I guess in other words there must be something to it the fact that for hundreds of years uh 99% of hotels didn't allow pets right of course that's that's because of something you know like it's just not worth the risk.

SPEAKER_04 41:41

I have a question for you on that with you not allowing pets um let's say something breaks like let's just say someone can get insurance and covers the pets or whatever do you feel like if you don't allow pets you remove a value add that you could you know potentially make money on yeah of course it's a trade off right always it's always a trade off you you are gonna be losing some space on your occupancy uh because there's part of this market that's gonna demand that and there's gotta be someone there to supply that and there you have the people that will be able to supply that and have the pet fee um I know some people that they are charging really high pet fees and as they have like front cameras uh on their front door that they're not like looking inside the the unit but it's just to like pretty much um put things in a safe context whether they are saying like how many guests are actually getting into the house if they're bringing pets or not if they are running parties you know for safety and I think that's fair enough because if you're not really having any that's hidden and it's outside the the place and it's for safety and actually that can really save you on a trial if things get really bad um and if you have really um really high fees I think that might be a yes but only if that's a high demand. So if you're in an area where you're having like families coming over and your unit is allowing like this family niche of the demand yes that might be worth it but only then right and you can make sure that people are just not like uh screwing you because most of the guests let's be honest you know like they they want to avoid paying that fee. So if you don't have that camera if you're not they're just gonna sneak in a little fluffy one and you won't notice and they might just like blame the child that it was something got got broken. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

Okay that's understood I was wondering because we just started allowing pets a few months back and it's been profitable. But we have them take pictures of it Send it to us before they, you know, allow them in. And we've uh actually shout out to our guy Mike Brown. He actually showed me these cool kennels that are actually like uh decorative kennels that you could buy. And so they they have a pet kennel when they get there. So yeah, I was I was just wondering if if it's worth the trade-off, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

Now, now is okay, let's let's give some let's do some practical tips to people that are listeners out there. Uh what are some of the what are some of the costs? Like let's just say, for example, they leave out you know, snacks, they leave out water, they leave out a bottle

When a bottle of wine pays for itself in five-star reviews

SPEAKER_01 44:33

of wine, they leave out you know chocolates or something like that, or whatever the fancy toilet paper. What are some of the costs that really don't bring back you know that as much revenue as they think they would? Where could they cut and save money and it really wouldn't affect nothing?

SPEAKER_04 44:50

Okay, that's super super good question. In my uh, you know, like in my experience, that's the only thing I can tell you being super humble, but um I realized that uh when I started the the when I started this this whole journey on my own short-term rentals, I was I was quite fancy receiving the guests. They were having uh, you know, like being in Chile, you cannot go there and not have a Chilean wine, right? We got one of the best wines of the world, so like uh you were coming as a foreigner and having a bottle of wine as a present will be like, oh man, welcome to the country, right? And that that gave us a lot of nice reviews, but now we're looking into local demand, and it's like now here being in Germany, like you can just get very cheap and nice beer. So people like local demand, they they won't care if I am actually bringing them uh a bottle of wine or not, they're just like digging into the ADR. So um now I took that out and I haven't seen any impact on that. That that was an added value when I was having most of my traffic being foreigners. Now it's not an added value anymore, so I took it out. So uh cost will vary and might not bring you so many good things. At that point, I was charging a uh way higher ADR, so it was worth it because five-star reviews, you know, when when someone's gifting you a uh a wine, if my cleaning lady just forgot something very small detail, they will just give me on the private review, like, oh, that was for for uh forgotten or something, you know. There's always space for errors when when you're running this business, and it happens even in best hotels. But they were just like leaving that out in the comments very privately because when you're receiving them with like wine and stuff, it was super nice, and they were trying to be nice back to you, so it was paying back at that point, but at this point now, like a local wouldn't care if I bring them a wine or anything, it is it's not adding value anymore, and it's just a cost that I'm not willing to run anymore, so I just took it out until the foreign start coming back, and now they're coming back with the wines as well, so it will vary and depend. You have to adapt to it, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

Oh, that's that man. That was a good question, Steve. And yeah, I'm happy you brought that. That's a really good answer. Like you said, noticed hey, the local locals don't care about the wine, but foreigners do. Okay, now I have another question because you said you get good reviews for bringing the wine. How much does a good review really cost?

SPEAKER_04 47:33

Well, it costed the wine at least. It was totally worth it. Like, I had the best reviews, like people were calling me back at that point and were saying, like, oh my gosh, like, is this wine for us? Thank you so much. This is one of the best Airbnbs ever, and blah blah blah. That was like super good. Um, most most of most of the traffic was from Brazil, and Brazil's were just like crazy about Chilean wines, so it was just like a super good pack, of course. Uh, and you can get the most out of your country wherever you have. Like if you're whatever in Switzerland, you can just do a small detail of a chocolate, whatever, you know. Just have to add the value wherever you have it there, but um it will just depend, I guess. But yeah, it it was worth the the wine because with those five-star reviews, I got the super host really fast, and then it got to stay with a very high uh average daily rate, so it was paying off.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Now, how uh speaking of super hosts, what's the difference in um profits between someone who's not a superhost and someone who is?

SPEAKER_04 48:43

Um I had to deal with that personally because I was taking off superhost um like uh a couple months ago, and that was because um I was left some really uh two or three bad reviews, the only ones I had. Um, you know, like some guests. Okay, let's just make it clear. Like some of them are just assholes, you know? Like Karen's, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Red, like do you guys agree? Yeah, oh yeah, of course. Before you finish that a guest, we had like this crazy you know, rainstorm going off. Uh, parts of Dallas you know lost power. He wanted a free night because he lost power at his unit. He wanted a free night because of an act of God.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

No, where where now where did this guest come from, Steve?

SPEAKER_01 49:38

Where where did he come from? Like, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 49:41

What booking platform or OTA or uh Airbnb? I shouldn't know. I'm gonna let you go ahead and go ahead and get it.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

He's staying for two weeks, but he said, uh my my wife can't work at home because the power's out and I can't walk my dog because it's raining. So I'm like, you want a free day? Because something that God did. Yeah, I'll give you God's number. How about you clear it up with him? Anyways, sorry, sorry, Bruno. I had to vent a little, man.

SPEAKER_04 50:05

Speaking of no, that that that's okay, but yeah, one of this, right?

One bad review drops you 0.1 stars and off the first page

SPEAKER_04 50:10

Yeah. Uh they they call them the same here in Germany. They're the the German word is Ashlock. You can you can you can tell from the word. Anyways, these are everywhere. Uh, it wasn't the exception back in Chile, you know, and uh typical uh South American culture, super cheap. They want to get the most out of the buck. Well, I get that that happens everywhere, but especially there, it's kind of like a culture, you know. Negotiating is saying different. Well, so whatever is not there, uh it will be uh a bad thing. So one of these girls, it was a girl, that's why I'm saying girl, it's uh being any specific, but it was you know, it's just telling the facts. So this girl uh she gave us a really bad review, it was kind of like a one-star thing, super bad, because we watched the futon on a professional uh service, and um it wasn't totally dry yet. And we told her that um time ahead, and if and we asked her, Are you okay with this? Uh or we should we should be uh available the next day. So we blocked that day, and then you're coming the next day. She's like, No, that's fine, no problem. She gets there two hours later, she's like, the food is still not dry. I'm like, I told you, it's not gonna be dry. We already addressed this. Like, what do you what do you want me to do? No, I I I just think it's like uh I thought it was gonna take like half an hour or something, but it's been two, three hours, and I want to like see it and use it, and you know, and we're like, it's a trade-off. You agreed to this, and it's gonna be fine by just like a couple hours, and then tomorrow, but then I I offered you as well to not get this night, and you agreed to that. So, what what do you want me to do now? She's like, You're getting a bad review, and they threaten you and they do it.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

That did she threaten you on the platform because I hear you can get them removed if they do something. She was on the phone, she was on the phone.

SPEAKER_04 52:19

That's really bad because if you have it written, actually, that's uh the only way to have a bad review uh removed from the platform. One of the policies is that if you have uh an open thread that's written, you can screenshot or something and send it to the support. And this is for all the hosts up there or listening, you can get that bad review removed if you have a guest threating you on having you on a bad review, whatever the fact is. If it's a threat, you can have it removed. So it was on the phone, I couldn't have it removed, and it was really bad. And I had I'm not gonna dig deeper into any story, but this was one case, and I had three or four of these cases, very specific. It was just like 0.1 uh points down when the assessment of the super host was going on, and I'm like, what is the only indicator was the overall review rate, which is insane. It's like 4.85 percent, something like that is super high. And I was like 0.1 below and foo, out of superhost. And yes, I was seeing less occupancy. Now I'm I'm getting it back, you know. It was just like this three-month period, and now I'm good to get it back right now because we're doing a good job there. But being in this like place with this like low demand and having these kind of reviews with bad guests because you're lowering your ADR is just super hard. I guess that guests have no idea of how hard for uh us hosts is to really run this business. Um, and they have to kind of like acknowledge that they get what they pay, and when they agree, don't be assholes.

Should you answer guest phone calls or keep everything on-platform?

SPEAKER_04 54:04

It's just like it's just super hard to get everything going on well, and people are just people everywhere, but yeah, it hits you when you're not super hosting or it really hits you, and people have no idea about that. Only you know, and your pocket, and you have to just like lower ADR and it hits you.

SPEAKER_02 54:22

I'm gonna have to run some financials on that one. That's a good one. I've always wondered, is it more profitable being a superhost? Um, but one thing I want to ask you something because you said the guests threatened you on the phone. And what I'm about to say, a lot of people don't agree with, but it's worked well for me. I I don't talk, I don't answer guest phone calls. I don't have people doing that, like don't answer their phone calls, only talk to the through the platform. Do you think that's a good or bad thing for reviews? And do guests feel like you know maybe they're being left out in the cold? I don't have many guest phone calls either. So how about and I'll let Steve answer that too, Bruno, and I'll let both of you answer that. How do you guys feel about that?

SPEAKER_04 55:01

You go first, Bruno. Okay, sure. Answer because I'm interested in Steve um uh answer, but well, I'm I'm I'm a geek uh of the numbers, of course, always looking uh for for for the best number. I'm always digging into reviews, and they are separated by a category, and I'm always uh taking a look at communication because reviews you can build them up with different stuff. One of them is communication. So uh sometimes I really make sure that my guests are like very comfortable. For example, when I'm having Brazilian traffic, I speak Portuguese, so I call them personally in their native language to welcome them and give them the instructions. That always gives me back a five-star communication review. So I will say that it's really worth uh the risk pretty much because uh the the the really headaches that I have had is just like very punctual. But it's worth it to really have that communication rates up to talk to them on a friendly manner because um most of the guests really, really appreciate it. Some of them, some of them, they really have no idea even to like message through the app.

SPEAKER_02 56:22

Let's go, Steve.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

Man, I I answer the calls, man. I answer the calls, and I just I'm just used to that. If if I know a guest is struggling with something, I I'll I'll answer the phone calls. And I just it would it's interesting because because you know when I had I was out of Airbnb for a while, I remember because they shut me shut my houses down because of the the bans. And then I got back into it, but when I got back to into it, it had you know local was running is running. I still have those two units with local. And so I had a management company and they answered the phone calls if they needed to, you know, talk to them and stuff. And um, but every now and then that a phone call would make it my way, and I and I would try to help them as much as I could, you know, and it was just to be helpful. And I and I I think I can talk to people okay. I don't I don't know, I've never been threatened over the phone. That's I don't know how I would handle getting threatened over the phone, you know. I might get a little gangster on them. But I I I'll answer the especially I look at the phone call that says it's from Ohio, and I'm like, oh my gosh they're from Ohio, it's probably them, you know. And it's usually just something trying to get in the unit or can I park here? So you know it's simple stuff. I've never had one call me and bitch me out and say they're gonna leave me a bad review. So that's I know different philosophies. I like how you that both work, you know. You get everything down and writing and stuff like that. Have you ever got complained on that that they don't answer the phone?

SPEAKER_02 57:50

No, our communication is pretty high.

SPEAKER_01 57:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 57:53

But like I do now, now okay. I do like uh I send in a couple automated messages. Hey, if you need to reach us, reach us through whatever booking platform you book through. And usually they'll just go through the app. But I I I kind of indicate it twice, like right at the confirmation of their reservation, and then again on

House-hacking units get the easiest five-star reviews

SPEAKER_02 58:16

the morning of check-in. So it's kind of like one of those things where you kind of kind of hint, hint at it, and keep hinting at it, and then they'll, you know. But it's interesting because I like the way you look at it too. Like, okay, if I answer the phone call, you know, and it builds that personal relationship with them as well.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

Yeah, and I heard a cool quote from Emo, Eric Moeller, uh, on an email he sent saying, Would you, yeah, emo, um would you give uh if would you give a bad review to a friend? And I know what he was going with that, and I didn't I didn't open the email. Oh shit. Hit the microphone. Um, I know I know where you he was going with that. He's like, you know, when you when you like answer a phone call, talk to him, you know, be nice to him, you know, handle whatever issue quickly and it befriend them in a way. It goes, oh, would you leave a bad review to a friend? And I know for a fact that people out there that do that, befriend them, they they still get better views sometimes. There's just some assholes that don't care, and they're still bent on leaving you a bad review. They expect uh they expect you to wait on them hand to feet and all this stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:19

And I'm gonna touch on something on that. You know the easiest five-star reviews I ever got?

SPEAKER_01 59:24

What was that?

SPEAKER_02 59:26

The ones where they the ones where I was house hacking.

SPEAKER_01 59:29

Oh, yeah, you're you're their buddy, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:31

Yeah, those are the easiest ones. So, yeah, that's sorry to get off topic, Bruno. But yeah, those are the easiest five stars I ever got.

SPEAKER_01 59:41

Yeah, yeah. One thing I really want to ask you, Bruno. All right, you mentioned that one star review that yeah killed that knocked you off uh uh um uh super host status, and I've been there before too, like some yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't we we we don't want to like to talk about that too much? We do, we've talked about it on the show, but um when I know there's you know it's the the science to it and the crunching the numbers, but can you give us like an estimate when you when you have how many reviews like good reviews do you have, plus you know, that one or those two killers that that knocks you out of superhost? And then um when is it worth it to just scrap that Airbnb altogether and start a new one, a fresh new one with no reviews,

The review-score cliff: below 4.0 you vanish from search

SPEAKER_01 1:00:25

and what's the profit differential?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:29

Well, um it it really depends. Uh it really depends on on on how you're doing stuff because there are some breaking points, you know, like um if you're going below um let's say four, like you will need to worry. Um, because you're you're running on an algorithm that's uh showing you on it's it's all about uh uh search engines pretty much because Airbnb it's a search engine as a business as well. And you are competing with other business to be on the first page. That that that's simple as that, right? And you want to be there. So so first thing when you hit the market and you're there, they give you um they they they give you a boost as a new as a new um unit, so you are a little bit more equal and you're not starting from zero. So they're showing your property a lot, and you're actually in those results. Uh, and then you have to from there starting building up your reputation. So if you're getting your first reviews, five stars and so on, as it happened with my units. I I was always in incognito, VPN, you know, like super geek, checking out where are my units. They were all in first page, and I'm like, okay, that's super cool. Um, and it started uh it started changing depending on on the numbers. Um, and it's really fast. Like you will be amazed. You can be four point uh I was five at some point, and then I dropped to like four dot nine eight, and like one of my units started being on first page, it wasn't like second and third, and it and it really hit like the views I had. You can run on there are some like really um uh bad performance units, uh sorry, performance uh numbers on Airbnb on the performance tab, but one that I really appreciate is views because you can you can see how much like uh attention you're you're getting or that unit or as an overall, and um that dropped drastically with just um a very tiny uh drop on the score. I'm talking about like decimals here at this point, and then it realized how much of a third engine is. So this is not gonna vary in like anywhere, and the more volume you have, the more competitive the market it is. So US being one of the biggest, if not the biggest, it will be crazy. So mean Chile dropping like that by just two decimal points, that would be insane in the US, right? You can be easily like 10 pages off. Uh so uh a specific number, it will depend on the market as well and the volume of the market. But going before four, that that that's not something good. You're not getting noticed. So um if you if you can take that back up, that's fine. But if it's just going down, maybe it might be a good idea to start fresh.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

All right, one of the last questions I wanted to ask for the day to settle the argument once once and for all. What is a more profitable Airbnb?

Settling the debate: one-bedroom or two-bedroom units?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:59

A one-bedroom or a two-bedroom?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:04

That's a debate. I never heard of that.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:12

That's that's quite interesting. Question. Uh, also as all these questions, like sorry, sorry to to to put it down like this, but always the answer is like it depends. You know, like it, and that's whenever you are you are asking a guy that's running on numbers, they will tell you that. Like, it's it's the hate answer. You know, everybody hates that answer. It depends because it doesn't give you like the well one one uh one ring fits them all, you know. Like it's it's just not like that. When you're coming to business, you have to really do some analytics and um and and and accommodate to what's really working. But um I saw that. I saw that when I when we started with this division of the short-term rentals in this company, we were doing one uh one bedroom, um one bedroom units, and that was calling the attention of executives, businessmen. Uh, these were specifically aimed towards that uh specific demand because they were in the financial district. One bedrooms, super nice, modern, uh, and uh uh yeah, they were killing it. But how much can you charge for a one bedroom, really? Whatever you are, not that much. The two bedrooms were killing it, and even three at some were were actually killing it in revenue, but on high demand months. So the sweet spot was two bedrooms, always. Um, you will have to study that it on the market, of course, because you're in Orlando, Florida, where when pandemic is not there and all the families are just traveling there, probably you will have plenty of demand for three bedrooms and you will. just do it better there. But if you are in like um New York or Houston, Texas, or financial center of LA, maybe like a very well located one uh one bedroom will kill it as well. But still two is gonna be sweet spot for most of the market. Are you do you guys agree?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:26

Oh two bedrooms all day. All day yeah that's the biggest price jump you'll ever notice is uh from one to two. Um and you can also sometimes if you set up a two bedroom in a heads in bed situation you can charge for what you can a three but if you charge a three you know a three for a heads in bed situation as well you know you can charge a little bit more because you're now going to be more than less targeting families. But yeah I think the the one bedroom to two bedroom model is the biggest jump in revenue you'll see two and three bedroom not so much but you can't you will be more profitable in a three bedroom. But yeah that's my opinion.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:04

Can I interrupt before you answer Steve I I want to dig into something very important here. I track my average uh amount of guests that I have per month it turns out to be somewhere between two and three and that really covers the the the two bedrooms uh need and those are the units I have are like two bedrooms because of that specifically because I tracked this down from the company I was working for before and I realized that because I got that number and actually if you get into RDNA or whatever other platform you will realize that most of the market is um the demand of this market is mostly for two bedrooms so mostly everywhere that should be the answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:54

I like it yeah um I'll answer it by by saying something that just happened to us um our just rentals you know me and me and Federico's company we we just we just onboarded a unit in Houston we're gonna manage it for a um somebody in here a client in Houston and so we just put it on there today and automatically for this month they got a five day booking it's a two bedroom two bath you know and over a thousand square foot and and they just got a booking for five days a family coming through town to Houston for $1,748 and I was like I looked at Federico what the hell are we doing with one bedrooms man two

A $1,748 five-day booking in a Houston two-bedroom

SPEAKER_01 1:08:39

bedrooms target them to families all day and you're gonna get that money man I was like God dog so that that answers my question today I I was just okay we ain't messing around with one bedrooms no more and this is my thing on one bedrooms I think the niche in one bedrooms is to target insurance clients that's where it is if you want to do one bedrooms like the the way to maximize it is to target insurance clients that's about it uh two bedrooms all day two bedrooms enough like even like the houses that I buy they're usually three bedrooms you know I I go with a three bedroom model um and I've passed up two bedroom houses because I don't think it's worth my time to fix up a two bedroom you know what I mean right so yeah yeah and it has to do with occupancy as well because um as major of the demand is going to be for two bedrooms you are uh ensuring yourself more occupancy therefore you can be more flexible with your average daily rate which is what I'm doing right now on pandemic now because I've seen many short term rentals go away because they don't run numbers and they are not uh making sure that they can actually be flexible with this or they even don't know how to do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:51

So uh it's very important to be on the high demand part in order to um be more empowered of your business.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:01

And you get on that front page because most people are one bedrooms out there, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:05

Yeah but it's more competitive as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:09

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:11

Oh man this has been a good show you know I'm glad you hopped on Bruno you you've been dropping some knowledge on us um so I just asked where where can people get a hold of you to just you know you can go over I don't I don't know

Where to find Bruna: Toto STR Software on Facebook

SPEAKER_01 1:10:23

how you how exactly how your business works but um or if you want to tell what your you know what your costs or your fees are or whatever if you want to if not or you just want people to reach out to you yeah where where can people find you yeah well um just just just to say something about it I'm I'm not a marketing man um but my marketing uh I think and I do believe that in in those business where people are like well this is actually working you should give it a try so I I'm running a trial of uh three 10 days so like you see how it works um it can extend depending on the amount of your like of your units you know um so if you're uh a very interesting client it can run a little bit more than that but um um normally you just get the free trial to see all the insights you will see uh how you will be able to like handle this information without a hassle you'll have someone doing the calculations for you uh and um a full interview to see how I'm gonna be dealing with this like profit and loss statements.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:34

You have customized KPIs if you want so and um a full breakdown of your cost and uh performance uh dashboards with uh graphics and stuff very fancy uh and modern so that's pretty much the business about I hopefully I want it to run like that as I said like if you like it for example you can just like tell people actually this is working or maybe I've been trying the business of this guy we've talked like some episodes ago and actually it's like helping me you know that that's why I wanted to go like um and uh people can find me uh I'll leave you the links I guess maybe you can put it on description below on on YouTube or maybe like uh I don't know somewhere on somewhere else on the podcast so they can reach me out yeah um but yeah I'm I'm I'm I'm not having that uh speech specific for the marketing I just wanna wanna show how how it's like and um most of the things that we have talked today are um based in numbers and that's how I want people to run the business and that's the most secure way to be actually profitable to if you're like running based on numbers like if you have data driven decisions probably you're gonna do better and and that's what I'm aiming for um towards too okay so let's just say someone listening on their headphones they're at their computer right now they'll just where to go Bruno where the hell do we go what's what what website or what where do they go well actually I got the domain but it's not app as I uh as I'm saying uh I'm I'm just receiving people on on my um Facebook page right now okay um would they be okay to reach you on your LinkedIn page yeah that's okay well it's just under Bruno Villaseca you know on LinkedIn I just connected with you that's all I was asking oh that yeah perfect and then uh the the Facebook page is called Toto it's T-O-T-O then space str as short-term rentals and then uh uh space software so it's toto str software and they can just like drop me a message there and then from then on I will just take uh care to onboard whoever that's interested in getting this trial in order to to see if they if they find it interesting or worth it their time or not. Cool Toto STR software I dig it yeah thanks for hopping on Bruno it's been a great show and we will um put the his links in the show notes and on the on the YouTube page so um any closing thoughts mica oh no man bruno definitely thank you for coming on man you've been a wealth of knowledge you definitely dropped a lot of good gems about increasing your revenue uh getting bad reviews moves removed so uh I think we'll have a lot of listeners learning a lot from this episode and thank you for coming on well thank you so much it's a pleasure myself and hopefully in the future if you're interested as I'm developing a full software on the on on the website uh uh it might be interesting maybe to dig deeper about this one once it's all uh up and running connected directly through the APIs on Airbnb and booking.com you know a more complex software that might be interesting to discuss about uh when time comes so um uh I'm just open to that if you guys are interested and yeah it was great having you uh so sorry uh being here with you guys and uh thank thanks for thanks for the invitation I really appreciate it oh yeah thank you all right Bruno we'll

Profit First: smaller plates, tax buckets, and killing Smart BnB

SPEAKER_04 1:15:10

catch you on the other side peace okay take care bye bye man that was Bruno Via Seca I think I said that right right yeah Via Seca yeah yeah so men lie women lie numbers don't lie they don't they don't it's crazy we had him on like right now I'm in the middle um going into profit first putting that in my business man and it's it's been it's been real interesting you know just actually this taking a deep dive into what you actually pay for and what you don't need so like all day today I was talking to Federico a few times today and we were just talking about like getting rid of smart BNB I'm like I don't think it's worth it anymore you know if you got your porter you know it takes care of the messaging just trust that to do it and I we tested and it works perfectly fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:57

So yeah one thing I will tell people when you're looking at your profits make sure you're not double paying for stuff that's all I will say yeah because if you have a samples like I I had your porter and I also had smart BNB your porter will do all the messaging for me and they have the direct book inside everything I need I didn't technically need smart BNB so we're trying to have smart BNB gone by Sunday and I've already got a huge chunk of it so we're getting rid of that I got rid of some subscriptions I didn't need man and by the way if you have guys have not read the book Profit First that's a game changer game changer.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:36

Got the buckets got the buckets yeah yeah get the buckets yeah smaller plates man he said Americans start eating more whenever then they start making the plates bigger ah yeah he was he said yeah if you give it a smaller plate you'll eat less it's like ah okay yeah so yeah I've I've heard him he's hopped on like bigger pockets and some other podcasts I like to listen to he's powerful man he he he has some powerful business models yeah and and it's and it sounds cool he said like people a lot of people are afraid to take profits out of their business right he goes that you gotta get these these victories these you know these these wins these rewards to you otherwise you're just you're gonna burn out from doing business because you you gotta look you take out the profit first boom and you can see that profit growing it just gets keeps you motivated too it's it's psychological too yeah man you also to realize that you got to get paid for what you do you know what I mean and it's very important it's keeping you motivated you know and then it also increases the profitability of the business so then if you already took your profit out and you gotta make what's left work and it ain't working you got to increase sales bro you got to increase them KPIs so it's a dope book. I think one important thing he he talked about is the tax bucket yeah because people get to the end of the year say oh I gotta write a check for $50,000 in taxes you know but if you have it in the tax bucket already it's no sweat. Facts man it's been a it's been like great reading that book dude like that book man like we haven't whole me and my guy we haven't whole masterminds on that book like and just like hey what's your caps what's your taps how do we increase it are you meeting your goal so yeah man that caps and taps like your current allocation pro uh projections and your target allocation projections man dude it's some deep stuff jay mace Jay Massey is a huge proponent of that book and I see why but uh but yeah what were you going through Steve man you got guests trying to cancel and get free shit I yeah alluded to that uh well that that's the problem man I mean this guy uh he came through with the with the big booking right away right is one of them at the Green Dream and uh he he booked it's a nice you know it was like it was over a $1500 booking you know pretty good for the green dream right for like I don't know 10 days whatever it was and um and so the first day he complained about he saw some ants and so okay you know I sent some you know I went to Amazon sent them freaking those little ant ant baits that said unscrew the thing stick it wherever in the window where you saw the ants and they'll be gone in a day and so okay thank you uh he complained about some other stuff he started like nitpicking like left and right and he was telling and so the the girl from you know my management team over there at local she was hey what do we do about this what do we do about that I'm like and I'm like it was a big booking you know and I'm like man I'm like I said you know this guy's gonna be wearing us out right and she kind of like laughs it off she's just a VA and you know wherever and and so so I just didn't even think about it and then the rainstorms came like the next time and you know we had those that big storm that came through right thunder lightning rain and it knocked out power and in a lot of parts of Dallas you know hundreds and hundreds of houses were out without power and apartment complexes and so he's just going crazy because he's like well we're here in the dark with no power and so she said what do I tell them I said well tell them that I talked to the encore and the power's gonna be out till two o'clock okay I told him and then they sending me text updates okay the power's gonna be out till 10 10 o'clock and he just lost it well my wife's supposed to be working here um can you give us a free day for our troubles I was like what first I was pissed he'd asked for a free day for something like this the out of our control you know I had people in in snowmageddon and ice magedon whatever that thing that was that went through Texas that weren't asking for a free day and they were without electricity power within the freezing cold and and and and of course I'm scrambling to help them but still they didn't say can you we need a free bit free day or free you know see that that's one of them things like you got a big $1500 booking right and that that's one of the things we just talked about is it like you get a big huge book and now you get the high end the too high end guest now he wants everything it's perfect or you get the guy at the bottom who's just gonna destroy the place so it's like I think that's one key performance indicator you got to find too where is the sweet spot for the perfect guest you know what I mean yeah well so I just thought that was humorous. And I and I settled down from my anger and I just I said you know what tell them I'll give him a a free day on his next day I thought that was a good that was a good you know and and most of the times they're not gonna come back right most of the times they're not right he might know that's what you're alluding to this guy this guy might come back hey I want Christmas no that ain't happening I might not even be it you know my lease is coming up so he won't even get his free day anyway so it just um that was my you know olive branch that I offered to him you can have a free day on your next visit and I guess that calmed him down or whatever but nah man I just there's some people you can't please man I'm not expecting a good review I don't care that though you know that that Airbnb page is already jacked up from um you know management decisions so anyways other than that yeah um business is going strong it's growing a lot of people want us to do some management for them and um the biggest you know the biggest thing is uh getting more units getting more units and so that's our hunt we're hunting for more units coming up with creative ways to do that and we will talk extensively on the next show about that about how to pick up more units because that's that's what everybody wants to know everybody trying to get into this right how to pick up more units how to pick up more units I gotta hear you what you gotta say now. Anyways yeah we'll we'll leave the fans on the on a cliffhanger right there.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:50

Yeah um where can people find us Mike find us on IG email us at livelet thrive at gmail.com hit the subscribe button if you're watching on YouTube and uh thank y'all for continuing to listen to us our uh edutainment as some people call it and uh yeah thank you for continuing to listen to us and uh we hope we are providing value to you for you to grow your business or start your business I feel better after doing a show like we gotta we get a lot out of this show man we vent you talk to people who understand what you're going through exactly oh man all right man well we'll see you on the flip side we are out later thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Live Let Thrive be sure to tune in next week for all the latest in the world of Airbnb and all that entails.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:41

Bye bye