Episode Transcript
[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] Welcome to short term rental management. It's another Tuesday. It's a glorious day, and I am so grateful to be here hanging with you today. We're going to talk about tips for the housekeeper. Should we be allowing our cleaners to ask for tips? Pepinas gratuity. It's a conversation that comes up a lot on the Internet, and we're going to dive into it today on short term rental management. I am glad that you are here.
[00:00:42] This episode of the short term management show is brought to you by short term rental, long term wealth. This is the book in the STR space written by my lovely wife, Avery Carle. It has hundreds of reviews on Amazon, and it will teach you literally everything you need to know about STR, short term rental, long term wealth, the book wherever books are sold.
[00:01:08] So, before we get too deep into this, I should mention that I was in the bar business for a very long time. I own my own bar in New York City by the age of 25.
[00:01:18] And I'm a guy that came from nothing. I grew up in a cornfield in Nebraska. My dad was a mailman. He's a wonderful dude. But we didn't have a lot. You know, we were just living regular, good old blue collar, lower middle class lives and didn't know any, anything else. Didn't know that there was another life out there where you could have a couple of bucks. And I'm glad that I climbed out of that gutter and I've gotten what I was looking for out of life. And it's been a ton of work, but I'm very grateful for where I am. And so, that being said, yes, I do allow my cleaners to ask for tips. I'm okay with it. I almost encourage it because, I mean, hell, I go to the car wash and I tip. Why? Because there's a sign that said, we would appreciate your tip.
[00:02:05] I never. I didn't. I didn't tip at other car washes, but when I go to that car wash, it's like, oh, wait, I didn't even know that was a thing. And I said, I give them 510 bucks, whatever it is. When I go to a restaurant, I tip big. I tip big.
[00:02:18] I got a waffle house. I give her a $100.
[00:02:21] Not every time.
[00:02:23] And honestly, I tip more. If they seem like they're having a hard time in life, you know, if they're struggling, if they're mean, there's something going on there. They're having some trouble. Their, their family life is probably not where they would like it to be. They probably are having trouble with, maybe the kids are having trouble in school, having trouble feeding the kids, having trouble getting the kids some shoes.
[00:02:45] That's why they're grumpy. Not only that, but everybody in this restaurant is complaining and being mean to them and saying that my gattered potatoes were not done right, smothered, you know?
[00:02:58] So I will oftentimes tip more for bad service. So I am probably not the guy to ask if you should be allowing tips or, or should be tipping. My answer is always, yes. I was behind a bar for 14 years. I love to tip. It's one of my things. I go to the, I go to the pool, take the kids to the pool on Sunday or whatever, and I open a tab. I open it up for the whole place. I said, not the whole place, but anybody standing anywhere in my general vicinity, put them on my tab, don't let them pay for anything. And then I tip the guy big on the way out. I don't even drink. I mean, you know, but I liked everybody to have a good time. And, and I was in the, in the good time business. I'm still in the good time. Hey, vacation rentals are the good time business. What we're in the business of doing, creating memories and places for these folks to enjoy their vacation and have a good time.
[00:03:52] You know, I will say, okay. And also, I want to mention these, these comments happen often in our Facebook groups, is where I'm getting this from. Uh, we do have the biggest independently owned vacation rental, short term rental Facebook group in existence.
[00:04:06] Short term rental, long term wealth. We got about 70,000 in there.
[00:04:10] And people often post and they say, should I allow my cleaner to ask for tips? We had one recently that said, I showed up to my house to, you know, just to hang out, check on things, and there was a tip envelope, and I wasn't expecting that. And I do think that most people on, I'm reading the comments on these threads, they disagree. They think that they should not be allowed to leave tip envelopes. They think it's tacky. Most of the comments I'm reading are saying that my cleaner gets paid enough, my cleaner gets paid more than the other person. They don't need to be asking for tips. And I get that. But I mean, hey, when I go to a hotel, I'm leaving $40. They don't ask for it at hotels really anymore. But, you know, they, it's kind of a thing, at least maybe because I'm old, it's implied that I should be tipping the people that are preparing and cleaning the room, and I'm happy to do that. So again, I think this argument could go many different directions. As a matter of fact, one person has even commented, this would make my blood boil, not call them out by name. Here she says my cleaners are paid dollar 60 more than what I collect as the cleaning fee. I'm paying them $60 more out of pocket, basically, is what she's saying there. And I expect them to not ask for gratuity. I get that. But, uh, you know, I've also, let me, let me throw this at you. They're probably going to ask for it whether you tell them not to. Tell them to or not. You know, I've seen that. Well, don't. We don't want you asking for tips. And then you show up and there's a, an envelope. Because how often are you even going to check? That's another thing to consider. So, so it's, it's kind of a weird thing there. And I feel after reading many comments about this on Facebook groups, etcetera, I think people are, you know, pretty much 50 50 as to whether this should take place or not. Most people saying it, no, absolutely not. It's very tacky and it would make me very angry if my cleaners were doing that. So I think it's important just to have a conversation with them. You know, have a conversation with your cleaner.
[00:06:15] Maybe you wait a while until you know what you're okay with. You know, this will become a policy over time. I'm personally okay with it. As a matter of fact, I have, at certain periods in my life, even provided them with the envelope. That's one thing that I can understand. Like, it's super tacky if they're doing these little handwritten envelopes, and sometimes the envelope even says something about management, which would be you in a lot of cases. So they're kind of throwing you under the bus, they're throwing you into the mix like you were part a party to this and you might, may have not even known about it.
[00:06:52] But you can go on these hospitality websites that provide, you know, items and goods for the hospitality, the hotel world. And you can find premade tip envelopes that look a little bit classier and have your cleaner leave those out. They're very inexpensive and at least it looks, you know, like you made an effort rather than just writing their name on a, on a yellow, you know, security envelope from the dollar general, that kind of thing.
[00:07:25] But anyway, long story short, I'm okay with it. I am. I lived on tips for many years and I'm a huge tipper.
[00:07:33] But some people are not.
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[00:07:59] That's strlistingadvice.com.
[00:08:04] here's a comment. Mine do it honestly, it really bothered me because I charge and pay my cleaners $400. Now that's a lot of money. That is a lot of money for a turn. I've got turns. I've got, I've got a beach house that cost me dollar 475 every time to clean it. That's a lot of dough.
[00:08:21] Here's a comment. It's tacky. I would let her know she needs to remove it. I think it's tacky and overstepping if the cleaner has not asked permission from the owner. See, there's, that's, I agree with that.
[00:08:34] I agree with that.
[00:08:35] There needs to be a communication involved there and there's a very good chance that that's not going to happen until you show up and find the envelope. So maybe you need to bring this up. You know, maybe this podcast is your eye opener. Say, hey, are you asking my clip, my guests for, for tips? Because if you are, we need to, you gotta have a system. Everything's a system, right? If it's going to happen, it needs to be on your terms. And um, and uh, you need to be okay with it. Uh, and maybe you're okay with them just doing whatever they want to do and, and then you don't have to deal with it. Or maybe you want to use your own envelopes like I mentioned before. But uh, let's read another, uh, comment or two here. We've got, uh, our cleaner at our cabin does the same thing. We encourage her to do so. Well, there you go.
[00:09:21] She does a tremendous job and is a service oriented business. I agree with this comment. I agree. Let's read one more comment here. They never stopped doing it. Ours took the liberty to make a laminated check checklist for their guests to do upon leaving when and then a QR code for tips. Now they see. I like that. I like the QR code. Hey, leave me a little like a Venmo QR code. I would assume a Venmo code.
[00:09:46] They also put their phone number on there to text if someone was checking out early. I do not like that. I don't like that. I don't want my guests communicating with my cleaners. I'm the man in charge. I'm the boss or my office is in charge. The communication needs to go directly to the office, not with the cleaner. I don't have any control over what they're saying to my guests. I would assume they're going to be very nice and cordial, but I want to have all control over that because it's obviously imperative that the review standards remain intact and that you're doing your best to have your best foot forward to get that primo review and the fantastic customer service, she said. This is the same comment she said every time I see it in the back of our cabin from the cleaning videos. I asked them to remove it, meaning she's seeing the QR code in the videos that are cleaner is sending her.
[00:10:40] And it sounds like this has happened multiple times. So at that point, you just got to kind of maybe assume that they're not going to change their ways, they're just going to keep doing it. Because if you've already told them three or four times, you know, so long story short, again, long story long, I guess, if you will. I'm cool with it. I like it. I go ahead and let them ask for tips. I do tip heavily everywhere I go. So if you want to wait my table, you are going to get taken care of, believe me. And also point number two is that there should be a system in place. If you don't have a system in place, maybe you reach out to your cleaner and say, hey, are you asking for tips? And how does that work? I would like to kind of, you know, streamline that procedure and nail it down as to exactly how we're going to go about this moving forward. Okay, so you may think it's tacky and stupid. Either way, you still need to bring it up with your cleaner and have good communication there. We can't do this without our cleaners. We love our cleaners. There's a very good chance that one of my cleaners is listening to this right now. And if you are, I love you. Can't do it without you.
[00:11:44] We are in this together 1000% and appreciate you. Love you. So again, food for thought. Maybe you have a tip conversation with your cleaner.
[00:11:55] No, wrong answer on this one. This is what I call an NWA. No, wrong answer. You could either allow it or you could not and I think either one is going to be acceptable. Thank you. From short term rental management. I'm going to leave you with a quote from Ryan Holiday. This moment is not my life. It is a moment in my life.
[00:12:19] I feel like I may have used that quote already, so I'm going to give you another one.
[00:12:25] There is no shortage of success.
[00:12:29] I don't know where that came from. I can't credit to anybody, but I agree. There's plenty of it out there. If you want to stop being a bum, do better in life, just get out there and go get it. It's, it's out there for you to get. Just go get it, man. Anyway, long hair. Lou, cash flow, Carl, short term rental management. Don't overthink it.
