[00:00:02] Speaker A: This is Short Term Rental Management, the show that is all about short term rental property management with your host, yours truly, Luke Carl Shorts and rental management. Today we've got a friend of the show. He listens to the program and reached out to me and I'm very grateful to have him here to talk about cleaning.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: So.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: So Reuben is here and to my knowledge, might even be the only nationwide vacation rental cleaning company that exists. At least I'm not aware of any others. So, Reuben, tell us a little bit about yourself and, and, and how you got started in all this.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Yeah, so first and foremost, again, look, thank you so much for having me on. I mean, we're not nationwide yet, you know, but we definitely are in multiple markets.
You know, quick back version of how we started. In 2018, I actually purchased my first short term rental property as a host. Was working in corporate America at that time. I feel like that's a common theme for first time homeowners with the no vacation rental world.
Long story short, the one thing I didn't count on being, you know, the one thing that could jeopardize my investment was the cleaning. And I very quickly learned that I had a big problem on my hands that I had to figure out how to fix. So the short version is actually initially just hired somebody just to take care of my property, you know, train them myself. Right. Because cleaning is not the really hard thing. It's the mindset of understanding what it means to be in a short term rental and being in that host mindset, understanding that the customer is really the guest, not the homeowner. So long story short, that's kind of spitballed into, well, you know, people started reaching out and, you know, talking to people. I started sharing my cleaner. And then next thing you know, I said, all right, I guess it's time for me to open up a cleaning business. But, you know, full transparency. Never thought that that's where I'd end up, you know, is running a cleaning business. But here we are today.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: And what town was. What town did you start the whole thing in? Where do you live?
[00:02:03] Speaker B: So I was. I'm originally from New York City, so my first property was in Poconos, Pennsylvania. Now I live in Florida.
But yeah, that was the. Where I invested my first property. And that's where the cleaning business kind of started out.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: In Florida?
[00:02:18] Speaker B: No, no, in Poconos.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Okay, got it. So. And how long have you been doing this?
[00:02:24] Speaker B: So cleaning business was opened up in 2019. So we're coming up on about six years.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: This is Fascinating stuff. So how many markets now? Or like, how do you even. How many markets.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: So we're in, what is it, five or six markets? We're in the Poconos, we're in Clearwater, St. Petersburg, Florida, the Emerald Coast, Florida. So Panama City beach to Destin, Nashville, Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains, Tennessee. So that's where we're at currently.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: I see. And was it a situation where. Because I want to, I want to get in, like, I want to know how this thing works, you know, I don't want.
Is it a situation where people just kept saying, I need a cleaner and you would figure out a way to bring one onto your team and then say, here's, you know, I got somebody for you. That, that how it worked.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: I mean, initially, that's kind of how it worked, right? Because I, I honestly didn't like have any interest. Almost like I didn't see the bigger vision with the cleaning business. Right. I mean, I'm somebody that was, you know, corporate America, always was an entrepreneur, but, you know, cleaning was definitely not on the list of businesses that I had intended to open up.
So initially it was just like, yeah, sure, I'll help you out. Yeah, sure, I'll help you out. You know, cleaner areas that we're working, it's like, hey, you have a friend, you know, that maybe can do this property. But then, you know, like I said in 2019 is really when I took a step back and said, okay, I'm going to turn this into a real business, not just, you know, somebody that's cleaning my properties and my buddy's properties and that's where.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Have you ever actually cleaned a property yourself?
[00:03:56] Speaker B: I have. And you know, the funny part is that, you know, not to sound privileged or anything, but the first time I actually scrubbed the toilet, I think was somebody's short term rental property.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: So.
And okay, so we started bringing people on to do this for you. Did it start with your cleaner? Like you brought on your cleaner and you said, you know what, I can find more business for you.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Yeah, so it was kind of like that. So when I first, you know, you know, hired the cleaner was really to protect my own investment, right. In my properties, to just make sure that it was getting cleaned properly. Because I was cycling through cleaner after cleaner and just nobody seemed to be able to hit the mark and present my product needing my property and the way I wanted to to my customer, the guest.
But I obviously had to offset those costs, you know, because I wasn't just paying, you know, she was loyal to me. And only cleaning for me because I needed that so that she's available based on my schedule, my booking schedule.
[00:04:52] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: But I need to offset those costs. So it was more like, you know, hey, I know you guys are struggling with a cleaner. I just brought on my own, like in house cleaner, do you want, you know, your property clean? That way I can help offset those costs.
[00:05:05] Speaker C: Right.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: That was before, like the official company was founded.
[00:05:08] Speaker C: Right.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: But you know, then when I just saw the massive, massive demand and just how many people were struggling with literally the same problem that I was having as a host, that is when I decided to take the leap forward and say, hey, I'm going to open up a cleaning business that only does short term rental cleaning. Right. I have a business background. I know how to run a business. Cleaning is not rocket science. It's tough, very physically demanding. You wouldn't think it, but like I said, the biggest component is the mindset where we have to bridge the gap between those property manager and what a cleaner means to clean the short term rental property.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: But then do you feel like to a certain extent, you know, you took that problem on for all of your clients? In other words, you know, it's really hard to find a cleaner. Let me do that for you. But now it's your problem 100%.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: I mean, it's a very tough business. Don't, don't, don't misunderstand it. Right. You know, I tell hosts all the time, it's not a question of when we're going to screw up, it's a, oh, I'm sorry, if we're going to screw up, it's a question of when. Because the reality is that no, no cleaning is going to ever be a thousand percent perfect.
[00:06:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: So we're going to, you know, create those systems, create those processes and get them as bulletproof as possible. And obviously do the best we can with training our cleaners to make it as bulletproof as possible. But absolutely, I mean, at the end of the day, that's the business we're in. Right. We have to solve the problem of we need to clean this property properly. So your guest comes in and leaves a five star review so that we can all make more money by getting more bookings.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: And so, okay, how many, how many cleaners do you have? How many, you know, cleaners do you have? And give or take on number of properties.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: So we're at about 700 properties.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: Oh my goodness. 700.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank God.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: So how many missed? Oh man, I got a million questions now. That's crazy. 700.
I never expected that. I thought you were gonna say like 80.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it would be a pretty stupid business decision to be in 50 markets with 20. Well, sorry, five markets with the, you know, 40 or 50.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: That is true. It's almost not worth it.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: 100. 100.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: Okay. So are you. Oh, man.
Are you getting calls every day about missed turns and stuff like that? Like, is it?
[00:07:25] Speaker B: Every day is something that never happens.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Never?
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Never. I mean, look, at the end of the day, the cleaning business is just like every other business, right. The problem in the market today still is that if you go and look online and just do a quick Google search and you type in, I don't know, Airbnb, cleaner, vacation rental cleaner, whatever you type in to search on Google. Right. Nine out of ten websites. And I'm willing to bet this, whoever wants to take me up on the bed, pick any place in the US that you want and do this. Go to 10 websites that pop up first. Tell me how many of those 10 say only short term rental cleaning and not residential or commercial or move in or move out and all the types of other things. Right. So, you know, when we, when I started this business, I built the systems and processes specifically for short term rentals.
[00:08:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: So something like a miscleaning is never going to happen. And, you know, it goes further than that. Of course. You know, I don't want to ramble too much, but of course it goes into the training, it goes into our systems, it goes into the communication, it literally goes into everything. Right. Because everything is based on what if I'm a host and I have a cleaner, what do I need that cleaner to do for me to make sure that my property is successful?
[00:08:36] Speaker A: I would imagine a big portion of this is the icals. Right. Like pre. Prior to 2018, this would have been damn near impossible.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: 100.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: But the ical is probably, you know, everything is 70% of your business model.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Everything is automated, right? Everything is automated as far as, like bookings. When you talk about missing cleanings and scheduling, everything is 100 automated. All our account, all our clients, properties are integrated into our calendars. And then, you know, everything is scheduled in accordance with the booking schedule. So yeah, thank God we never have those issues of missing a claim because everything is systemized properly.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. And how do we find, you know, the cleaners, the. The people to clean the actual house?
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Oh, so that. I'm not gonna lie to you, that is a struggle.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Because are they sitting again? I like to get into the Nuts and bolts of how this works. Are they sitting here like, well, why would I come clean from you for you? It's not like it's, it's not difficult to find people that want a good cleaner, right? So is it hard for the cleaner to be like, well, why would I come do it for you when I could just find my own people? But of course they don't know how to run a business, so. So a big dynamic there, I would imagine.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: Well, like, you know, that it's funny that you say it like that because theoretically who's like kind of my competition, but not really my competition because they're not doing anything at the level or you know, that we're doing it at. It's, it's. Who's your typical cleaner in the market? They are, like you said, you know, the sole individual. More often than not. They, you know, if you ask their background, they were working some, you know, some job, you know, maybe more than likely not something that was super hard, paid six figures or better. And you know, I don't say this to put anybody down. It's just the reality that happens. And you know, I meet with, I'm part of this group that meets with cleaners, you know, once every two weeks and to kind of give advice and guidance. Because what happens is, is that, you know, the cleaner saw, or the cleaner today lived in an area that saw all these short term rental properties popping up. And I was like, I can make a killing like this, right? I can just, you know, clean for all my neighbors. But then the second they start to scale and have to do things like systemizing and processes and management and training, right, that's when things start to get a lot more complex.
Thankfully, there's no shortage of people that want to work in today's day and age, right? We do pay our cleaners very well.
So it's so challenging to find cleaners, but you know, they have an entire recruiting department that's just constantly looking for people because the one thing that we're looking for more than the cleaning. Cleaning is not a hard skill to teach. So we're not even specifically looking for somebody that has a cleaning background, but we're looking for somebody is more with an ownership mindset because that is harder to teach than, oh, here's how you scrub a toilet. That's not that difficult.
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[email protected] yeah. So how big is the organization as a whole? I mean, forget the cleaners, like, you know, the management and all that.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: We have over 200 employees.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: 200 with the cleaners.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: With the cleaners. You know, about somewhere between 2 and 300 with the cleaners all in. Yeah.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Oh my. Do you travel? Are you traveling to these areas often, meeting with them in real life or.
[00:12:29] Speaker B: No, Dude, I am like freaking pinata. I am literally in a different location every week. Like I'm here in Florida and home for a Memorial Day weekend because I got family coming by and everything. But typically I am jumping around like crazy.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Yeah, this is hard work. I would imagine this is very hard work.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: It's not easy, that's for sure. I mean, it's easy. Everybody can do it.
[00:12:52] Speaker C: Right?
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, but good for you because, you know, you had the guts to go out there and you know, there's a ton of people that get into real estate and they think that, they think that they're just going to buy some houses and that's going to be the answer. But I mean, I hate to say it, but cash flow is not the answer. You know, you gotta have so much freaking wealth to live off of your cash flow that, you know, you're not hanging around on podcasts if you're that kind of person, you know, or something, you know, listening or what, you already have everything you need in life. Let's be real, you know, but you, you bought a house, you got hooked and you said, how are we gonna do this? How can I make a living at this? And you found another way to make a living. Was the goal to take these funds and to buy more real estate or.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Yeah, at the time. I mean, I'm sure I don't need to tell you the short term rental space since 2018, you know, or even I would say in the last just three, four years has changed drastically. Right. So initially the game plan was, yeah, just, you know, double down, double down, double down, double down.
[00:13:50] Speaker C: Right.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: And, you know, set myself up for success that way.
[00:13:54] Speaker C: Right.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: But obviously, you know, the barrier to entry a lot different today than it was a couple years back.
[00:14:00] Speaker C: Right.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Your cash on cash return is a lot different. Not to say that you can't still be successful. And I know you talk about this a lot, right? But it's, it's, it's not what it was. I mean, in 2018, you damn near could buy literally any property, buy some used furniture, throw it in there, and you were making a killing. Like, it was a good time. It was a good time.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Wolf of Wall Street. But real estate, it wasn't just us, though. It was everybody.
It was apartments, it was strip. Strip malls, it was, you know, hotels.
Everybody was. Was riding the hog. You ride high on the hog, you know, and the real estate market now is just not. It's not good, you know, and that's just, that is what it is. You can still find a deal and it'll come back around, and next thing you know, you're going to be fighting against other buyers again and you're going to be like, wait a minute, I thought that nobody was buying houses. But right now we're still waiting for people to understand that nobody's buying houses. That hasn't even happened yet.
And then when that does come around, all of a sudden everybody will be buying again and it'll be like, oh, too late, you missed it. You know, because right now is the perfect time because there's nobody buying anything. But anyway, that's a whole nother story.
But at the same time, maybe you realize that because buying houses is hard as hell, maybe you realize that that wasn't, you know, what you wanted to do.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, full transparency right now. I actually liquidated all my properties.
I don't currently own any short term.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: Rentals at the moment, or any kind of rentals.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: I have Section 8, but that's a whole different ball game.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: How many of those?
[00:15:32] Speaker B: So I'm a partner in a complex that has, I think, 20 or 30 units. I don't know. I honestly am not involved in any way.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: Never saw it. Nothing is. Are you.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: I'm just a money investor.
I gotta check every month and I'm happy.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Are you a. A limited partner or is it, what is it, a syndication?
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: So it's basically, I'm part of an investment group that went in and bought this complex.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: But you've never seen it? Don't have anything to do with it.
Got it. Okay, I got you. Yeah.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: I was never my. I just needed the 1099 exchange. My cat, my cash for my Airbnbs into something else.
[00:16:04] Speaker C: Right.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: 1031.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's kind of where I ended up.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: I got you okay, listen, owning real estate's not for everybody. I totally understand that.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: I mean, but don't get, you know, don't get me wrong. I definitely intend to get back into the ownership in the short term rental space. Just with everything that's been evolving. Not to say that you can't make a lot of money right now. It's just for me, the decision was. I was facing the decision at the Kim point where I was like, I needed to. Need to dump a ton of money into my properties to upgrade them and, you know, do all types of things to get.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Competitive in the market or I can literally just cash out right now and then reassess, you know, in a year or two or three once we see how things kind of play out.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Got it. Yeah, I got. I got you. I got you. And I don't blame you. You know, being a landlord is hard. It is, it is. But running these companies, not easy either. This is a big to do. So basically, are you.
What's your.
I mean, to me, I would. I would think of Merry Maids or Frugality as my competition. Not. Not this short term thing. I mean, obviously they're different. They're not doing the same thing you're doing, but they are. They just don't have an ical.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: Not really. Because they're not at all. I mean, to my knowledge, Mary Maids doesn't do vacation rentals. I mean, Merrymade is essentially a franchise model.
[00:17:25] Speaker C: Right.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: So it could be that some of their locations do. I'm not. I can't say for sure.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: No, I don't mean that. I just mean the actual cleaning of the house. It's just. You're just cleaning a house, right?
[00:17:33] Speaker B: Well, not really.
[00:17:35] Speaker C: Right.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, theoretically, at the. When we get down to the bones, you know, some bolts, so to speak. What is. Yeah, we're still a mop and a bucket and. And a vacuum.
[00:17:43] Speaker C: Right.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: But there's so much more obviously that goes into cleaning a short term rental property than just, you know, hey, let me just clean it.
[00:17:50] Speaker C: Right.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: You know, the biggest thing I would say is, like I said, and I can't say it enough, that mindset, understanding that we're the eyes and ears of the homeowner. Because, you know, when you clean a residential property, you're cleaning a residential property.
[00:18:01] Speaker C: Right.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: There's no guests coming in to literally micro, you know, check every little thing to maybe find something wrong so they can get some sort of refund or complaint or whatever it may be.
[00:18:13] Speaker C: Right.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: And there's also that big component where. Where do you typical owners look? It's not typically in the same place as their rental. Right. So the cleaners literally have to be the eyes, the ears, and everything in between for that homeowner.
[00:18:30] Speaker C: Right.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: And when you're cleaning a residential property, let's, let's, you know, say it like this.
And that's again, goes to mindset. When you're cleaning a residential property, you do essentially what you're told to do.
[00:18:38] Speaker C: Right.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: You come in and they say, hey, we want you to sweep the floors and do this and clean this bedroom, so on and so forth. When you come into a short term rental property, you have to do anything and everything to make sure that guest comes in and leaves a five star review. Which means are you scrubbing down every single window and every cleaning? Obviously not.
But what happens when there's, you know, just as an example, the last guys hung some sort of, I don't know, maybe a happy birthday song with tape on the window. Now you have a whole bunch of tape residue in one of the windows. Are we gonna just not do anything because it's not part of the standard cleaning, or are we going to quickly address it? Of course, and look for these type of things more importantly so that the next guest doesn't have anything to complain about.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Is it difficult to go into a new market?
[00:19:23] Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, every market has, you know, it's nuances.
So getting to understand and learn, you know, the differences in each market, I would definitely say is different, you know, logistically as well. That could be a challenge. Like, for example, in certain markets, we do laundry off site. In the Poconos, just as an example, we'll never be able to do a laundry off site because everything, you know, from a geography standpoint is just so far from each other and you're driving 30 minutes to get from one place to the next or to go up the road, so to speak.
[00:19:56] Speaker C: Right.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: So, yeah, there's definitely a big learning curve coming into new markets, you know, understanding how that market works.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And. And things get to be very local in these little teeny tiny town. Most of them, most of these are very small towns. You know, in general, a vacation town is pretty small. Not Nashville or anything, but, you know, it's a good old boy network in a lot of ways. Right.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Yeah, you kind of have to, you know, break in, you know, who's this new big bad wolf that's coming in and now, you know, throwing a whole bunch of money on advertising and all of a sudden popping up everywhere. Right. You know, we're the big bad wolf. Usually that comes in and everybody just starts seeing us all over the place. And yeah, that pretty much puts a target on us. But hey, business is business. You got to do what we got to do.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: And how do we advertise billboards or Facebook?
[00:20:44] Speaker B: Oh, so we're, we're, you know, the digital age mostly. Right. So Google Ads, Facebook ads, those type of things, you know, networking, the whole new networking events, depending on the market, really depends on how we go about it. But yeah, typically that's how we go about it.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: And are we, do we ever consider property management? Because it doesn't. You made a couple of comments here that sound like you're sort of leaning into that realm a little bit. Like in other words, making sure your house is all in order. But that would be property management for me, you know, so, I mean, yes or no, right?
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Because you know, if you're looking, when you talk about property manager, cohost, typically they'll have somebody on the ground, you know, an inspector or something like that.
But you're a typical homeowner. Like I said, you know, typically doesn't live, you know, even within 45 minute drive from the property. Right. So we're essentially, that's, we feel that's the job of the cleaners. But yeah, no, property management is definitely not something that we'll ever get into. That's just not a direction that we want to go.
We've thought about it here and there in the past, but it's, it's a completely obviously different business model. So not for us.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: And so do you, do you have to draw that line sometimes? Like, hey, just, we're just your cleaner, you know, we're not here to fix your toilet, you know, that kind of thing?
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Well, not really. Right. Because we want to help. You know, we view our owners, whether it's an owner or property manager that we're working with, we view them as our partners. Right. Like I said, the guest is the real customer. So we do have, you know, typically when we go into markets, we partner, I'll call it, with the local maintenance guys on the ground. Right. Because my cleaners are definitely not, you know, you know, can't start fixing a toilet. So, you know, we're very transparent about that. So what we'll do is we'll actually go to like maintenance providers and say, hey, look, you know, where we have, you know, x amount of customers that constantly need handyman work done, it's usually little fixes here and there.
[00:22:43] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: And we'll be happy to throw that business your way, but you're gonna have to give a really aggressive pricing to our, to our customers.
That way they get a good price. So we kind of almost like set it up for our customers and negotiate on their behalf. And then anything that's damaged, you know, we always give the option to say, hey, you want to, you want us to oversee it, take care of it.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: So there's property management. This is property management. You realize that.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: I mean, tomato, tomato. Property management in my eyes is, is when I start dealing with guests themselves and listing optimization and dealing with the actual. You know, we only deal with anything property related.
[00:23:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: So we're here.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: Do you send the client the bill for the broken toilet?
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. That's property management. In my, in my mind. I get where you're coming from. Maybe Evolve can come in and handle the guests and all that stuff, but if you're touching a toilet, a flapper in a toilet that's not cleaning anymore, you know, it's a fine line. But I don't, I don't disagree with you. I think it's a great idea for you already say yes. If you always say yes, you'll get more business. Right.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: It's another value, you know, value added stream that we offer to our clients. You know, we also have, in some markets. Well, only two right now. We also have a. Well, I have a sister company that's a pool service company. Pool and hot tubs.
[00:23:59] Speaker C: Right.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: So we do that too. But that's also completely separate from the cleaning. I guess you would call that property management too, to an extent.
[00:24:05] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: But the reason I say no to property management is, like I said, I view the property management side as like listing optimization, dealing with the guests, you know, you know, anything to do with like Airbnb, verbo, that type of stuff, you know, we have obviously nothing to do with that. We only have anything to do with the actual physical property.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: So that's where you draw the line. I'm not going to talk to your guests.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Yeah, 100. I got 100.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: Okay, cool.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: No, that's a rule. You know, from my experience, to be very honest, in a lot of these markets, the property managers themselves are not local either.
[00:24:36] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: They're looking to somebody, a vendor like myself or possibly multiple vendors to handle all the boots on the ground stuff. Right. So that's where we come in. We're the boots on the ground. Anything that has nothing to do with the boots on the ground has nothing to do with us.
[00:24:50] Speaker A: So you're you're primarily dealing with owner.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Operators, owner operators, co host property managers.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: And so in other words, if I'm a property manager that has and, you know, 50 properties, I can call you and you'll take them all on.
Okay, that's cool. That's great.
That's.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: That's our, that's our ideal client, right? The one that comes with 40 or 50 properties or two properties. Of course.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So are we looking to scale? I mean, why not? Right? Like, let's move into Joshua Tree and Broken Bow and all that.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: Well, I'm racking up the, the miles on the flights as it is. I'm trying to, like, not go like super far out where I have to fly, you know, five, six hours.
But you know, we are eyeing a couple of markets as, you know, potential Q4 or Q1 20, 26 expansions.
But, you know, I'm very big into growing the markets that we're in, you know, to a certain size first before we even look to expand anywhere else.
[00:25:53] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Because like I said earlier, I never want to be that. It's not worth it. And you never want to be that company where it's just like, oh, yeah, we got 25 properties here, 30 there, you know, another 20 there.
[00:26:03] Speaker C: Right.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: That's not, that's just not a good business model.
[00:26:06] Speaker A: No, I agree there. I agree there. You know, let's focus on. And then, you know, you want to have a life at some point too. Right. So.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: Yeah, actually. Right.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: Because you, you could always bring somebody on to do all these flights and do all that stuff.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: 100. I have, I have an amazing team behind me. Sounds like that's the only way I'm able to get it done.
[00:26:26] Speaker C: Right.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: You know, I, I have an awesome team. I'm a very big believer in people, people in process. If you have awesome people in an awesome process, then you can pretty much accomplish anything.
So I can't, I can't, you know, give enough credit to all the people that help me along the way and continue to help me every step of the, you know, way to build this company, maintain the company and do things the right way so that we can continue to grow.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: Oh, I love it. Yeah. You're obviously very good at picking the right people. Otherwise this thing would never, you know, I mean, any business would never work. So.
Bravo. Bravo.
So what, what if I want to hire you? I mean, I would assume your, your cleaning fees are competitive.
[00:27:09] Speaker B: 100 yeah, there are.
I would say that we're very competitive with typical market rates.
[00:27:15] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: We can Never compete with somebody, you know, that's not a real like, you know, the lady or guy that lives up the block that, you know is going to charge you like below market rates. But if you look at the Paris into any legitimate company, absolutely, we're super competitive and honestly we do way more, you know, we bring way more to the table than honestly anybody. You know, I remember when we first started, you know what our biggest, you know, going on track a little, you know what our biggest selling point when we first started and again this is in 2019. I don't even know if turno and these type of things existed back then. They surely weren't as popular as they were today. You know, our like biggest selling point back then was like we have a system that sends you photos after every single click because nobody was doing that.
[00:27:56] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: But obviously, you know, that's another thing.
[00:27:59] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: As the market evolves and as we both know, the short term rental space has evolved drastically in the last couple of years, you know, we have to continue to evolve with it.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: What do you use for software? You build something proprietary?
[00:28:14] Speaker C: No.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: So we actually, no, we don't. We've looked into doing that, but it's very time consuming and expensive. Yeah. So we use, we use for our calendar integration and like scheduling, we use Breezeway.
So we have everybody's icals like we talked about earlier integrated all into that one place. And then, you know, for scheduling.
Sorry, not for scheduling, for Checklist. We actually use a system called Connecting. It is not short term rental specific, but it is. You know, I, I don't want to say this out loud, so to speak because I, I am due to go and look back at other softwares and I know there's a lot of other softwares out there now and they're constantly evolving and have been evolving over the last year or year and a half, but at the time when we made this decision, it was just the most robust system on the market when it comes to the checklist and how we can set things up and how we can add those staging photos and reference photos, checklist items and getting it emailed to the clients as soon as the cleaning is done, you know, the whole nine yards. It's so, it's a pretty cool software, but it's more geared towards a service business than it is the short term rental space.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: Connect Team.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: Connect Team, yeah. Okay, that's the name of the, of the software.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: And the photos are done on Breezeway?
[00:29:31] Speaker B: No, the photos are done within Connecting.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Oh, Connect Team. Okay, got it. Got It.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: Yeah, one of the things. That's funny. I actually had a meeting with Breezeway literally yesterday, and I'm, you know, trying to help them out, so to speak, with doing certain things to make their checklist systems better, right? They're very good at a lot of things, but like most softwares, you can't be the jack of all trades. And we literally just had a meeting yesterday, and they're working on some. Some pretty exciting stuff.
But, you know, one of the things that they're working on is a way for, you know, because you have to think about it from the perspective of who's using Breezeway right now. It's a property manager or somebody that has multiple properties that one, you know, individual property owner is not even using most of the time, a PMS system, right? So from the cleaning, if we're a cleaner, I need a system that I can create the checklist in and have it automatically sent to the owner without them having to have a login, right? We want to make it stupid simple. You don't want to say, oh, you're a new client. Here you go, here's your login. Go download this software. Go learn how to use it. Here's a tutorial, right? We want it super, super simple, right? So that's why we ended up with this system because it's literally emailing you a PDF after the claim. Like, there you go, here's the photos, you know, date and time stamp, the whole nine yards, checklist, items showing completed, you know, so on and so forth.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Yes, brilliant, brilliant. Well, what's it take? Got any good tips on, you know, going over the top? Maybe gift basket tips or anything like that?
[00:30:58] Speaker B: Honestly, in my personal opinion, I don't think the good baskets and that type of stuff are doing that much. Right. Unless you're doing, like. Unless you're gonna really spend a decent amount of money on the gift basket. I don't think it's. It's doing that much.
What I will say as a. As a tip, though, is something I've actually, you know, recommended to a lot of my clients. I think then the company name of it's welcome welcome Home or welcome Screen or something like that. Have you ever heard of it?
[00:31:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like a guide book on the wall.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's on the tv.
[00:31:28] Speaker C: Right.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: So essentially all your cleaners have to do. It's very. You can make it very personalized. It directly integrates with your pms.
And, you know, full disclosure, I'm not an affiliate of those or anything. I Was thinking about becoming one, but honestly they're so cheap that I wouldn't, they, they probably don't have much margin to give me any money. So I guess this is, you know, free advertising for them.
But yeah, they're a pretty cool software where you can literally have a QR code to your direct booking website if you have one.
They can integrate it directly into your PMS system. So you can have it like more customized where on the TV you can choose to have like some nice, you know, music playing and it will say something like, welcome, Luke, enjoy your steak. Well, you know, however you customize it, you can have the weather on there.
[00:32:08] Speaker C: Right?
[00:32:09] Speaker B: It's, it's, I think it's the more the little things because the guest first impression is everything.
[00:32:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: You know, every guest, when they're coming into the house is, I'm sure we both know what are they doing. They're running around checking out the house that they just, you know, got for the weekend or whatever it is. So doing something like that, having something like wall Sense, you know, plug in sense or something like that, making sure that the house really smells good, I think is a big deal because somebody that walks into a good smelling, nice environment is going to be in a positive move.
[00:32:40] Speaker C: Right.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: Vice versa.
And for whatever reason they walk in and it's not, you know, they're not blown away, then usually downhill from there.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: So do you guys, as a general rule, you don't, you don't do gift baskets or anything like that?
[00:32:53] Speaker B: No, we, no, we will. If the, if the host wants to provide one, we're happy to do so.
You know, I just, I, I personally, again, this is just my personal opinion.
[00:33:03] Speaker C: Right.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: Like, is it really making that big a difference?
[00:33:06] Speaker A: Oh, I agree, I agree. We don't do it very, I mean, sometimes we do, sometimes we don't.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: But I just mean like, as far as like the personal touch, are you able to facilitate and what if I need to ship something? Who do I ship that to?
[00:33:21] Speaker B: My cleaners will take care of it.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: I'll ship it right to the cleaner.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: Oh, I'm sorry. If you need to show. I thought you meant if something like a guest leaves something behind.
[00:33:29] Speaker A: Oh, we talked about that too. But no, I meant like if I need to, to send a new coffee machine.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: Yeah, so it really, you know, depends. And this will also honestly depend on the market. Like I was referring to earlier. Each market is a little bit different.
So some markets we do have that, you know, option where you can ship it directly to a cleaner in Other markets we recommend, you know, getting like, like a dock box and putting it on the porch and you can even get it locked. Call Amazon, here's the code.
And doing something like that because, well, you know, like I said, depending on the market depends on how challenging logistically it becomes for us. Like in certain markets we got to a point where it was like, if we continue having all this stuff shipped to us, we're just gonna have to go open up a 5 or 10,000 square foot warehouse because it just gets out of control, obviously. So, yeah, really just depends on the situation, I would say.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: And back to the items left behind system. What do we do there?
[00:34:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So our cleaners are happy to go run to the post office and just ship it to the guest.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: Yeah, nothing to it. Do you. Does the owner get billed for the shipping costs or anything like that?
[00:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah, so we typically charge, you know, like a small fee, like 40 or $50 just to cover the cleaners, you know, gas and time and running to the post office or, you know, UPS store or whatever it may be. And then plus the cost of shipping.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: I love it. I love it. This is wonderful. You built yourself a nice business here, brother.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: Thank you. I appreciate that.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: Yeah. So if I'm in, well, we could look up STR super cleaners and find out what markets we're in and give you a call and it's just as simple as that. You can come clean my. You know, get me on the schedule.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: Pretty much, yeah. I mean, we'd run. We'd run you through obviously our entire process. We would send you a memorandum of understanding, which is also probably something that no other cleaner. Well, even has to send you.
[00:35:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: Which is honestly something that holds us more accountable than it does you.
[00:35:15] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: It kind of literally just says, hey, this is what we're going to do for you.
[00:35:19] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Get you integrated into our system. All set up and off to the races.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: Love it, Love it. So how do we find you?
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Well, you can. We're all over the place on social media. You can, but I would say the easiest is to go to our website, strsupercleaners.com and, you know, you can request a quote and a consultation, you know, the whole nine yards through there. Get a little more information about how we do things. Anything that I may have not covered is I'm sure we could be here for three, four hours just talking about all the different nuances and how things can operate and work.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Love it. Well, I appreciate you for coming, man, and I'm very grateful that you listen to the show and everything, and, And I thank you for your time. So.
[00:36:00] Speaker B: I thank you for doing all that you do for the short term rental community. I mean, we need. We need more people like you, you know, giving that kind of straightforward, unbiased, you know, just, hey, here's how it is, you know, And I love it. I love what you're doing, man. So thank you.
[00:36:14] Speaker A: Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. As always. Don't overthink it.
