[00:00:00] It's not as simple as just getting a phone number and calling them and trusting them. It's not.
[00:00:04] And to be honest with you, it's a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of follow ups. And I'm speaking about noobs on some of this stuff right now. You are going to have to follow up with this human more times than you could ever dream.
[00:00:19] Well, here we are on short term rental management and we're going to talk about vendors and how to find them.
[00:00:30] It's a question that comes up all the time almost every day. I would say probably every day people say, Luke, how do I find a plumber? Luke, I need a roof guy. You know, and first of all, good job because rock stars know rock stars and that means that you probably think I'm a rock star and I appreciate that whoever you are that's asking me.
[00:00:50] That being said, to be honest with you, I probably don't know. These guys come and go quickly and I'm going to use the word guys a lot today and it's interchangeable. We're not talking about male, female, we're talking about guys. Okay, got it.
[00:01:04] We are throwing a virtual conference. STR Outlook 2027, the short term rental virtual conference of your dreams is happening on October 21st.
[00:01:18] We're going to talk about learning how to use AI, best pricing practices, travel trends, cost tag and taxes. And we will have many industry experts on the Panel. This is sdsplus.com2027 Register for
[email protected] 2027 and I will say that it is moving towards AI. I have found most of my most recent vendors with success on chat GPT.
[00:01:55] So we will talk about that. I'm gonna do a little screen share on that as well.
[00:02:01] And of course if you buy a house with the short term shop, we do have our vendor recommendation lists that we've been keeping on keeping an eye on for years.
[00:02:10] I mean we've been working on those things for 10 plus years. So being local helps for sure. You know, a lot, a lot of times the owners of these, these things are not local because you know, it's a vacation town and you're going there on vacation so you probably don't live there.
[00:02:30] But it's not.
[00:02:33] There's really a couple things to discuss here. How do I find it and, and how do I know which one to pick? It's not as simple as just getting a phone number and calling them and trusting them. It's not.
[00:02:44] And to be honest with you, it's A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of follow ups. And now I'm speaking about noobs on some of this stuff right now. You are going to have to follow up with this human more times than you could ever dream.
[00:02:58] You have no idea how many times you're gonna have to follow up. I mean, I'm scheduling texts. I have my office doing this for me as well. I have two full timers in the office constantly following up with these guys, making sure they show up. And then if you pay em or even pay them in half, next thing you know they're off to Vegas and they don't come to back to finish the job, you know, then you got to wait around for two weeks for him to get back from Vegas or whatever. I'm exaggerating, but it does happen. Well, I'll be there Monday. That, that's reality. Okay, you want to know reality?
[00:03:31] Reality is I'll be there Monday, means Thursday and your whole life is tracking these people down. That's being a landlord, that's being a property manager.
[00:03:42] I would say one of the biggest aspects of being a property manager is tracking these people down and holding them accountable, making sure they show up.
[00:03:53] It's a lot of work. It is. It's a lot of work.
[00:03:57] And I do want you to understand that that's what you've gotten yourself into.
[00:04:01] I listen to Avery's podcast. It was brand new this morning at the time of the this recording. And the lady on there said, well, yeah, I bought a house in Alabama 10 years ago. I, I've never seen it and I'm never going to see it.
[00:04:13] Okay. I enjoyed the podcast. I found it, you know, to be enjoyable. She's not doing it the way I do it.
[00:04:21] And I'm not saying I go look at these things all the time, but I am very much involved and I do go look. I actually just got back. I just parked my truck in the parking lot and came in here to cut this. And I always, I just swapped out a, a microwave, a built in microwave at one of my places. I was over there, I went over there. I happen to notice that the, the clock wasn't working. It was like, you know, the display was pixelated or whatever and you couldn't see it anymore. So I ordered a new one and put it in and it's not that hard. It's really not.
[00:04:57] And I could have had somebody do it for me and they would have done it wrong. They will. They're going to screw it up. Nobody wants to install Your microwave. It's a BS job.
[00:05:08] It's 150 job in a town where it costs a hundred dollars for a salad and a club soda.
[00:05:16] Vacation towns are expensive.
[00:05:18] At least the one I live in, you know, so nobody wants that job. So every now and then I do. Do you know, I do these jobs and I'm happy to do it. And it's very, very, very difficult for me to find the time, but it's very satisfying. I like doing it. I like having a tape measure in my pocket or on my hip.
[00:05:36] You know, it's not very often anymore that I get to do that. So that's another conversation for another time. That's a very fine line. Do I do the work? Do I not? And most of the time the answer is you do not.
[00:05:52] Do you want to put microwaves in for $150 or do you want to be wealthy?
[00:05:57] Can't do both.
[00:06:00] Okay, so, Luke, do you have a plumber? Luke, do you have a plumber? I mean, all I'm going to do is go to chat GBT and ask it, hey, can you find me a plumber? So let's do that. Let's. I'm going to share a screen and tell you kind of some of the things that I look for on, on AI when I'm trying to find somebody new. And this, I'm just going into this cold. It may end up being a terrible disaster, but we're going to give it a try. You ready? All right, here we go.
[00:06:30] All right, here we are on my chat GPT. And yes, you could use Claude for this. I do find in general that ChatGPT works better for me a little bit when trying to find somebody to do work in a town.
[00:06:45] Okay, so let's, let's, let's start asking the questions and see where this goes. Okay. And I will usually give it. I will use the microphone button. I'm on desktop, obviously, and I will ask it detailed. I'm talking 2, 3, 400 words worth of stuff. All right, so let's give it a try here.
[00:07:08] I'm looking for a plumber in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, Which again, see, I don't like it on ChatGPT.
[00:07:25] I'm sorry, on Claude, it does it all. It types it all out for you as you're talking, which is better than the way this works. So we're going to start. I'm looking for a plumber in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. Please scrape Reddit threads and as many Facebook groups as you can get into. Please only find Me people that have been recommended up to a minimum of two times and do not send me anybody that has not been recommended within the past six, six months.
[00:07:52] Don't send me anybody that has recommended themselves.
[00:07:57] All right, that's a good start.
[00:08:02] See what it comes up with.
[00:08:06] This could be a little tedious AI after all. So bear with me. Maybe I'll tell you a joke.
[00:08:13] Plumber. It missed the word plumber.
[00:08:20] So I do, you know here, let me get, let me make a point here. I do for to a certain extent feel like now when somebody asks me for a plumber recommendation, really what they're asking me is to teach them how to use AI.
[00:08:31] And, and here's the deal. You don't want a 46 year old dude teaching you how to use AI.
[00:08:36] So get in there and get your hands dirty.
[00:08:39] Okay?
[00:08:41] That is something that I failed to do correctly. So once this stops, I will go ahead and talk to it again.
[00:08:49] Say Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. I do mean 30A and the inlet Beach, Gulf Place areas.
[00:08:58] Any area around the 30A Florida Santa Rosa beach area. It doesn't have to be Santa Rosa beach proper. And the closer to the beach the better. But the location of the actual plumber does not need to be in Santa Rosa Beach. It can be in Freeport or Fort Walton beach, etc. And it's okay for them to have to drive in. That's very common.
[00:09:20] All right, let's see what it does with that.
[00:09:26] What we're looking for here is a list of 10, five to 10 plumbers. See, that did a much better job. It broadened its searches out into different areas, not just on 30A and came back with some stuff here. Let's see what it said.
[00:09:49] Better job with the geographic area. However, what I'm really looking for is a list of names and phone numbers. So please give me a list of up to 10 plumbers in the Freeport, Fort Walton Beach, Niceville, Santa Rosa Beach, 30A area, which you're basically starting your search all over again at that point. You see what I'm saying? You got to really learn what to ask it.
[00:10:20] Now we're talking. Now I got a list.
[00:10:23] Now I got a list.
[00:10:31] We're going to be more specific.
[00:10:33] Someone who likes to work with property management companies and rentals.
[00:10:37] And I'm also looking for a company that is not huge. Anything more than say 30 reviews, put them lower on the list.
[00:10:49] And let me clarify, usually once they get up to 30, 40, 50, 70 reviews, they're usually doing bigger jobs in new construction. And things like that. And they probably, they don't want anything to do with my small potatoes rear end. Okay. So you do need to understand, you know, wheelhouse, wheelhouse is everything when finding these guys.
[00:11:09] There you go. I actually know them.
[00:11:12] I know them and use them. So look, it did a good job.
[00:11:18] That, that would be my go to 13 reviews near the top. Because property managers and out of state owners needing coordination with tenants.
[00:11:26] It's always going to say tenants don't get confused with, you know, that's actually a guest.
[00:11:32] It doesn't understand the word guest so it's often that it'll use the word tenant. Cool water plumbing. 17 reviews. Again. Where's it getting these reviews? We would assume they're Google reviews. You could ask it Miller Brothers. It keeps coming up with those. And as soon As I see 24 hours that implies that it's a little bit of a bigger organization and they have some sort of a receptionist or after hours system. And personally I'm not really looking for that. You know, I'm not, I'm not here to teach you.
[00:12:01] That's for you to decide. You know, I've been doing this a million years and I know, I know personally I'm not really looking for a big company that has a 24 hour receptionist that will send somebody out for an extra 200 bucks on, you know, 3 o' clock in the morning. Now if we're in an emergency situation, okay. But I mean if you're in a situation where you need a plumber at three in the morning, you got problems, you know, it's probably an earthquake.
[00:12:29] So that's another thing to keep in mind. You know, again, I'm not, we're not doing a podcast today or a video today on teaching you who to hire, which guys are the best and all that stuff. I'm just showing you how to go about finding these people today, you know, but we're dabbling in which one's the best by, by getting this list together. 45 reviews, that's pushing it. Also, I general don't like it when they say we've been in business for 50 years. I hate that. And I hate that. I hate that because I do like experience.
[00:12:59] But if they've been in business for 50 years, that means that it's been sold and passed down and sold. And you know, it's not the same guy that crushed it and built the name of that company again, 24 7. I'm usually going to cross that off the list. Depends on what job I need done. You know, so, long story short, I think it did a great job here, and I would say that these first two are definitely worth calling. I'm going to not call that one. And I'm just going to call. I like this. 45 reviews. I'm going to call and I'm going to say, hey, do you do rental properties? Do you work with property managers? You're a property manager, by the way, if you're watching this video, you're a property manager. Okay, you might not know that, but that's what you are.
[00:13:37] You're managing a property.
[00:13:40] And there's no reason to tell them you're small potatoes. There's. You got every reason for them to just assume you have 70 properties like everybody else.
[00:13:48] Everybody else, meaning your property manager competition.
[00:13:52] All right, let's try another one. Let's try one more here. Let's go. And again, some. You know, I've heard guys say, oh, you can't. You know, my buddies even have said, you can't find a good person on chat GPT in a small town like this. I disagree.
[00:14:05] You just need to. You need to know what to ask it.
[00:14:08] You need to know what to ask it. Here we go.
[00:14:10] Start with a new one.
[00:14:13] I need a roofer in Sevierville, Tennessee. The East Tennessee Smoky Mountains. Where's Valley? Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg area. They do not need to be located in that area. They just need to service that area.
[00:14:29] I need them to have a couple of recommendations within the past 12 months. Please scrape Reddit threads and as many Facebook groups as you can get into.
[00:14:40] And don't send me people that recommended themselves. I'm looking for people that have not that many Google reviews, say 50 and under.
[00:14:49] And I'm looking for people that have been recommended within the past 12 months. And I'm also looking for places that have not been in business for a very, very, very long time. Thank you.
[00:15:04] I think I repeated myself on the 12 month thing.
[00:15:07] And again, I say as many Facebook groups as you can get into because Book does not index to Google. Right? So it's difficult for chat GPT GPT to pull from Facebook groups. Rollins, great. I know that dude, Blaine, he's very, very busy, but he gets it done. He's super expensive, but, yeah, this is a great job. Great job. I don't know. Perkins says 24 7, so again, that tells me it's a, you know, they're trying, at least trying to be a bit of a bigger company.
[00:15:42] Very new, tiny operation. I like that. I'm going to Call and ask them questions. You're not just calling and telling them to show up and do the job. You got to ask them questions.
[00:15:50] Everything is about wheelhouse, wheelhouse, wheelhouse, wheel. Hey, do you do rentals? Can you get in there between 11 and 3?
[00:15:58] Okay, great.
[00:16:00] Do you know how to do this, that and the other? Can you eliminate a.
[00:16:08] Water line to an ice machine? I would like to get rid of it because I'm sick of this damn thing leaking. I'm going to move to a countertop ice machine. Can you just eliminate the water line? Is that something you can do? Are you too busy?
[00:16:21] Don't hesitate to ask them again. That's that new Yankee in me. I lived in New York City for 14 years. I'm direct and I talk quickly and it gets me places if I'm nice. That's the problem down here in the South. You also have to be polite, which us New Yorkers, we don't know how to do that. I just got back from the city. It was awesome.
[00:16:39] Go Mets. But anyway, are you too busy?
[00:16:45] Can you guarantee me you will be there when you say you're going to be there? Because there's nothing worse than they tell you. Oh yeah, I can do that. And then they don't show up or they push it back two days.
[00:16:58] Just get him to be honest with you. Hey, if you're going. If you're not going to be able to do it on this day and time, just tell me right now. It's not that big a deal.
[00:17:06] I'm cool with that. I just need to know now.
[00:17:09] And, and hey, if I need to give you three extra days, maybe you do it on the next turn.
[00:17:13] You know, again, I'm teaching you how to hire people here.
[00:17:19] But what I'm saying is be forth right out. Just let it all out. This is exactly what I need. Can you do it or not?
[00:17:29] And sure, I can give you until next Tuesday. Most of the time. Guys, these things are not emergencies.
[00:17:35] Did I do plumber? I thought I said roofer. Didn't I say roofer on my.
[00:17:41] Yeah, I did say it. Keeps not hearing the word that I'm looking for there.
[00:17:47] Let's see what it says about roofers.
[00:17:51] Also, you do, you do need to understand. Here's another thing. If you're in a vacation town like where the short term shop operates, there's not 5,000 plumbers and roofers. This is. These are small, small, small, small towns.
[00:18:10] Not a bad list. I actually don't know any of these by name.
[00:18:14] Off the Top of my head, anyway. But I like the 19 reviews and the 46 reviews, you know, so I'd give these guys a call and see how busy they are. They may. A lot of times roofers are tough. A lot of times they only want to do new construction and things like that, you know, so it's, you know, a lot to consider, but this is how I'm finding people.
[00:18:34] I'm having success with it. You gotta make a lot. Even whether you're doing it with AI or not. You gotta make a lot of phone calls to get the right person to show up. And it doesn't need to be that big a deal if you just need something done. Just make a phone call, get it done. No big deal. I get that. We. We hope that that's how it works out, but it's not always how it works out.
[00:18:54] Okay?
[00:18:55] And a lot of this stuff will come with experience.
[00:18:58] Like when you're brand new, you're freaking out about trying to find somebody to put a damn deadbolt on your front door. That's kid stuff. All this stuff is kid stuff, to be honest with you. You know, unless the house is burned down, everything's fixable.
[00:19:10] There's a book on this subject called Everything is figureoutable. Great book. Read that book. I really recommend it. I can't remember the lady's name, but I enjoyed it very much.
[00:19:21] All right, so I'm out of time. I could talk about this for another 20 minutes. I do have other podcasts. I have a podcast and or video on how to pick the right person.
[00:19:32] And you can find that, of course, on our short term shop YouTube channel. I am a silver play button honoree.
[00:19:43] My kids think that's the coolest thing on the planet. It's a little blurry right there. I'm moving into my new office pretty soon, by the way, too, so it'll be a little sexier, not so cluttered. But I love you. Get out there. Make some damn phone calls. These people, they don't fall out of trees. You got to go out there and call them and make it happen. All right. I love you. Don't overthink it.
[00:20:04] We'll see you later, Sam.
