[00:00:02] This is Short Term Rental Management, the show that is all about short term rental property management with your host, yours truly, Luke Carl.
[00:00:16] Short Term Rental Management. How the hell are you? I love you. I'm glad you're here. I appreciate you.
[00:00:23] Life is good.
[00:00:25] Life is good. It's falling.
[00:00:27] Kids are in school.
[00:00:29] Time is flying by. And I'm happy to be alive long here Lou Carl in the cash cave.
[00:00:38] And we're going to talk today about managing overnight rentals. Today's topic is repeat guests are for suckers.
[00:00:52] Okay, so I'm. I'm partially joking about the name, right?
[00:00:56] But not really. Like, you know, a lot of folks when they first get into this, and I'm going to play devil's advocate, as I always do, they're always like, oh, my. Or sometimes when you buy a house, the seller's like, oh, my place is. So our guests just can't wait to come back. They're all dying to come back. We have a wait list of our guests that are just trying to come back to our home because it is so spectacular. Nobody can live without our home.
[00:01:22] It is the greatest vacation house of all time. And we have so many people that come back and bring their families year after year and blah, blah, blah, Bull crap.
[00:01:36] Okay? It's just not my vibe. It's not my vibe. And it seems to me like it's a lot of work.
[00:01:42] This is the same type of person that is usually verbo heavy.
[00:01:48] They're usually a little bit on the older side and this is what they're doing for a living.
[00:01:57] Perhaps it's a house husband that doesn't have a, you know, day job. And that's a wonderful thing.
[00:02:04] And in some capacity, I do believe that they've talked themselves into thinking that their house is better than everybody else's and people care about it.
[00:02:16] We have the greatest house on the cul de sac.
[00:02:18] Of course, everybody wants to stay in our beautiful home. We are the greatest. Our home is the greatest. We have the finest linens from Amazon.
[00:02:29] And I think that this person is a bit delusional. Nobody cares. It's a house.
[00:02:35] I. This is just my vibe, personally. Okay, I understand if you're doing the whole repeat guest thing and there's nothing wrong with it, we're going to devil it. We're going to devil's advocate it. But if I'm going on vacation or going traveling to a town and I'm staying in a house, a single family, most of the time, I'm going to want to stay in a different Single family next time. I want to see what this house has to offer. I want to see what's cool about this house, what's on the walls. Is this house old and unique?
[00:03:08] Is it brand new and crisp and clean?
[00:03:13] That's just how I travel. I like to do different things and different experiences. I've run. I'm a big runner again. Again. I know it's very boring to talk about this running. It's nonsense.
[00:03:24] I don't do marathons in the same state I have in the past. Matter of fact, Tennessee, God bless. Tennessee is a state that I've done more marathons than any other state.
[00:03:35] I've done two in New York.
[00:03:38] I think I've done four or five, maybe six in Tennessee. I've done 29 total. I'm getting ready to do my 30th in October, which it may be October right now. But I don't like to do the same thing twice, you know, I like to see new stuff.
[00:03:54] There's exceptions to that rule of course, like Disney. I love going to Disney with these young children. It's just the greatest thing ever. And it's so expensive and we budget it and we have a great time.
[00:04:09] But when I go to Disney, I do visit different resorts and you could visit different vacation rentals in Disney as well. I personally, I love Disney. I would love to own something in Disney. I can't get out of the on property resorts.
[00:04:26] I need my early entry.
[00:04:30] I like the VIP transportation, etc.
[00:04:34] But Disney is a fantastic market. By the way, if you're looking to overnight rentals. Disney is a very large, oversaturated hidden gem.
[00:04:47] How's that possible, you might ask? Well, it's a conversation for another day. But there is so much room to rock it in the Disney market with like a three bedroom townhouse or a three bedroom home if done correctly.
[00:05:03] And everybody talks about this theming, theming, theming. And that is important, but it's not as important as the hospitality. Disney's all about hospitality.
[00:05:12] You need to know your way around Disney like the back of your hand. I'm way off in the weeds now. Let me bring it back to the topic that we are talking about today, which is nobody cares about coming back to your house. I do. I, I really believe that it is somewhat a waste of time and I have to be careful with this because I'm not really interested in sitting here and preaching about this for 25 minutes trying to convince somebody that they're wasting their time. I'm not doing that today because that person is not convincible.
[00:05:51] That person's gonna, if they listen to this, they're gonna say, he's an idiot. He doesn't know what he's talking about. I have nothing but repeat guests and I work hard for my repeat guest. I'm talking to the person who's new and thinks that repeat guests are going to be part of their repertoire, and maybe they will.
[00:06:13] But you're going to need to be the repeat guest person. You're going to need to do the whole stay thing. You're going to need to collect their addresses and you're going to need to market to these people. You had such a great time in our house. Don't you want to come back?
[00:06:26] There's a 10 discount.
[00:06:32] This is usually the same kind of person that's trying to do off platform direct bookings, which again, is not me. I just don't. If, if a booking came from Airbnb, that booking belongs to Airbnb and I want them to book on Airbnb again the next time.
[00:06:48] It's just not my vibe.
[00:06:51] It can work for you, but I do think it's a sucker bet. And I do have people that come back occasionally. I don't pay any attention to it, but every now and then, I recently had a Guy Leave a 5 star review. 5 stars. We've stayed at this house 4 times and every time it's fantastic.
[00:07:07] And I said to myself, oh, man, I even sent him a little message, which normally I don't do. We have, you know, I have folks in the office that handle the messages for the most part, but I do love to be involved. And I said, hey, man, you should have let us know. I would have totally given you, you know, a couple of bucks. And, you know, I think I did send him a few bucks after the fact.
[00:07:28] And it's a great feeling.
[00:07:30] It is. It's a great feeling to have that person come back. They enjoyed it. Maybe they got engaged there. That's not uncommon, especially in the Smokies.
[00:07:42] But to. Let's, let's go back to the purchasing of the home. I think that if, if the seller is marketing this thing to you as some sort of gold mine that the guests can't wait to come back to. You're a sucker.
[00:07:58] It's, it's bull. It's bull crap.
[00:08:00] That's probably a really good host that's super into this gig.
[00:08:06] I'm super into it as well. I am. But I'm not going to sit there and, and, and make a spreadsheet of everybody's name that ever came through the door and, and wait for them to come back and give them a freaking Subway club card to punch. You know what I mean?
[00:08:26] I know hotels will do that, airlines will do that, etc, give your rewards points and that kind of thing. The old Sub Club, they were, they were the first ones to do that, to my knowledge and in the, in the. What little memory I have left at my age with all this gray hair, which don't let that fool you, I'm just getting started, baby.
[00:08:48] But to my recollection, it was the Sub Club where they give you a stamp. That was the very first time I ever saw this kind of, you know, repeat guest appreciation deal, repeat customer appreciation. And then of course, the Kroger card. The Kroger card came out. And with the Kroger card you could get cheap gas. And it was this huge deal and I was like into it back in the day. And then I realized later on in life when I stopped being broke, that worrying about how much gasoline costs is for poor people. I hate to say it. Can I say the word? Can I say the P word?
[00:09:24] I've been the P word, therefore I feel I am entitled to use the P word. Worrying about the price of gasoline and miles per gallon. It's for broke people.
[00:09:35] It is. Stop being broke. Pump the damn gas and move on to whatever's next. If you're so worried about saving 3 cents on a gallon of gas, wherever that gallon of gas is taking you is a waste of your time.
[00:09:50] You need to pay more attention to where you're going. And that destination needs to be making you money so that you don't need to worry about 3 cents on freaking gas.
[00:10:02] Okay? I know a lot of us were raised, especially in my age group, if you're in your 40s, you were raised to count gallons per mile.
[00:10:14] I got to get the most gallons per mile I can get. I got to milk this thing for my, all my hard earned money for everything it's worth. It's bull crap. It's a waste of your time.
[00:10:29] It is. I'm gonna credit my wife for that. She got me out of that. And I don't think it was a money thing for her. I think it was a.
[00:10:36] I'm, I don't have time for this thing for her, you know, and if you go. Still to this day, if you go to the wifey's car and look at the, the tripometer, it's the exact same as the odometer because she never resets you don't even know how to reset it. And it used to drive me nuts when we first met years ago. And I was raised with that, you know, my, you know, my generation and, and the Midwestern guilt of gas per, you know, miles per gallon.
[00:11:06] And here was this blonde girl from Mississippi that didn't even know how to reset her thing, and she didn't give a crap.
[00:11:15] And I was like, oh man, this is just some, it's a girl thing or something like that. But at the end of the day, she was right.
[00:11:22] I don't know why I always end up. I've been talking about cars a lot lately for some reason, but a couple years ago, it's probably too. So I'm a suburban guy. Two Suburbans ago, I traded one and I was exactly. It was actually a Ford at the time. I traded in an Expedition Max for a Suburban, which I hated the Ford, by the way.
[00:11:42] And I had it delivered to the house. I don't have time to go to a dealership. And we don't, you know, we live in a very small town, so the dealership is far away. So I had him deliver it. I didn't even look at the car. I just bought it. And then they came and they traded me this, the Ford for the Chevy. And the guy drives off and he calls me and he says, your tripometer has 50,000 miles on it.
[00:12:09] And I'm like, it does? He said, yeah. And I said, well, I don't know, I don't even care. He's like, wow, I want to get to that level sometime, someday.
[00:12:18] And I'm thinking to myself as I'm way off in the weeds. Now you're, you're doing it backwards.
[00:12:24] When you stop worrying about the damn Tripometer, then you're thinking like a wealthy person. Now again, there's plenty. I guarantee you Warren Buffett is counting every damn gas mileage thing he can get his hands on.
[00:12:39] I bet you Warren Buffett is obsessed with his gas, his miles per gallon.
[00:12:44] I'm making that up. But again, I did go to college right down the street from where he lived. And he drove an old Toyota. And it was a known thing that he was fairly, you know, frugal Nebraska boy. Go, Big Red.
[00:12:59] If you're looking to buy a beach house, a lake house, a mountain house, a vacation house, a short term rental, a vacation rental, a second home, please contact your friends at the short term shop. We are a family owned business and we operate in all of the best vacation rental markets in America, including the Great Smoky Mountains, the Emerald coast with Destin, Panama City Beach, Orlando, Florida, the Disney Market, Gulf Shores, Blue Ridge, Outer Banks, Carolina Beach, Western North Carolina, Scottsdale, Arizona, Broken Bow, Oklahoma. The list goes on. We are the best in the biz and we want to earn your trust. Please contact
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[00:13:55] so, anyway, let me bring it back.
[00:14:00] To sit there and think that you've discovered some sort of gold mine because everybody wants to come back to this thing. It's bull crap now. Because they want to come back. That's great. They're having great hospitality, they're having a good time, and it's a great thing.
[00:14:13] But it can be done on any house. I hate to tell you that not any house. You know, you do need to have a nice house with clean cabinets and nice countertops and all that sort of stuff, but I just, again, I think it's a sucker bet. That's just me. I think that if you're wasting or playing around trying to do all this repeat guest stuff, good for you.
[00:14:37] But in general, kind of a waste of time. Okay? Now if you do want to do it, of course you got the stay fi. You can collect their email addresses. You can put a QR code on your refrigerator. There's many ways to do it.
[00:14:51] You can market to past guests via email, etc. Again, I'm not going to do that unless I'm doing it right on the platform. If the guest came from Airbnb and vrbo, I'm giving the credit where the credit is due. Airbnb and VRBO spend a billion dollars a year on marketing, and if they bring me a guest, they deserve to get a cut.
[00:15:11] They do. That's just the way I feel about it.
[00:15:16] So if that guest is going to come back, or let's say you get a now let me talk to my noobs. Okay? If you get a message that says, hey, I've stayed at this house before, I'd love to come back again. Is there a way for me to book with you direct? First of all, that's a terrible idea. That's a great way to get booted from the platform forever.
[00:15:31] And it's not right.
[00:15:33] You don't say, oh, yeah, shoot me an email. No, man, let's say you don't get caught. It's still not right. VRBO spent a billion dollars getting that people in your inbox, a person in your inbox, give them their damn cut for real. Simple as that, you know. So is there anything wrong with having some giant email list of anybody who's ever been interested in your property and marketing to them. No, there's not.
[00:16:04] But you do need to understand that it's counting your miles per gallon. It's small potatoes. Crap.
[00:16:12] There are millions and millions and millions of people out there that didn't even know your house exists.
[00:16:17] They don't know it exists. Worry about them.
[00:16:20] Go out there and find them.
[00:16:23] I think that's a good. A good piece of advice for business in general. We get so caught up in our. You're caught in a tiny little bubble. Get out of your bubble and understand that your house is not that big a deal.
[00:16:36] Because I'm going to tell you, if you start to think that your house is a big deal, you're going to have problems.
[00:16:44] Anytime anybody thinks starts to think they're a big deal, it goes downhill.
[00:16:50] It's one of my favorite quotes of all time. I may have even used it on the show before. So I do apologize if I'm repeating myself. I just don't remember things very much. But if you think you're a big deal, it's a. It's a bad. It's a problem. If you have. If you think. Here's the quote. If you think you have arrived, it's time to be shown the door.
[00:17:14] If you think you have arrived, it's time to show you the door. Your house isn't that big a deal. Nobody cares.
[00:17:25] And there may be some psychology there. Why do you care if they think that your house is the greatest place of all time? Well, what, is there some narcissism going on there? Like, I have to have these people have to love my house so much that they're coming back next year.
[00:17:41] Just be grateful that you got it booked and move on. Not a big deal. So repeat guests.
[00:17:47] Sucker bet. Don't spend too much time on it. Now again, if you want to. It's like just. It's a very, very similar conversation to having the website and the all platform bookings. If that's the way you want to run your business, okay, it's not how I run my business, but guess what? There's a hundred different ways to landlord, okay? Just make sure that you do understand that you're landlording. That's what you're doing. It's a house and you're renting it out. You're a landlord.
[00:18:15] All right?
[00:18:16] Repeat guests are for suckers.
[00:18:20] Luke, Carl already gave you a quote, so until next Tuesday, don't overthink it.
