Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You really need to understand what goes through the mind of these folks. And I've said it a thousand times before. Go stay in one. Go stay in a house.
[00:00:08] Number one thing that's going to show you is that you're doing better than you thought you were.
[00:00:13] I love you. It's a glorious, wonderful, beautiful day here at Short term Rental Management. I've got a couple of guests that are hammering us hard right now, but, you know, that's how it is sometimes. You just got to give them what they want, even if it's painful.
[00:00:29] And that's what we're talking about today, giving them what they want. And I'm gonna be real with you today. It's gonna get weird.
[00:00:37] This is probably not an episode that you want to listen to with your kids in the back of the car. This is. I'm gonna go ahead and apologize to any ladies that happen to be listening to this one in advance here because it's gonna get wacky.
[00:00:51] But I'm gonna tell you something you need to hear. I'm going to lay it all on the line.
[00:00:59] What your guests are actually renting on today's episode of Short Term Rental Management.
[00:01:11] So what your guests are actually renting, because you may ask yourself, like, let's say you're renting a one bedroom in the Smokies, a very common asset, little one bedroom or studio cabin in the Smokies. And there are hotel rooms everywhere, and there's actually more hotel rooms there than there's ever been. So you're sitting there saying, you really got to ask yourself, what am I doing?
[00:01:35] That is. Is going to be appealing and advantageous over one of these hotels that has a big pool and maybe they're making breakfast and things like that.
[00:01:50] And when you really look at it, step back and look at it, there's really only.
[00:01:57] There's two things.
[00:01:59] There's two things.
[00:02:05] It's the kitchen.
[00:02:08] At the root of all of this, as to why somebody would rent a short term rental versus a hotel room, is to fit extra people in one property, multiple families, and a kitchen.
[00:02:22] But when we're talking about these little ones, which I'm going to go all over the place with the. With the sizes today, but I'm starting with the little ones. You are no better than a hotel room as far as the number of people you can fit in there. So you are very much competing against a hotel room. This goes for my condo folks, too, my beach condo people.
[00:02:41] But at the root of all of it, why are they renting yours versus the hotel room is the kitchen.
[00:02:51] And privacy. It's privacy.
[00:02:58] You can't have sex in the hot tub at a hotel.
[00:03:04] And that's the bottom line.
[00:03:08] That's the bottom line. So you need to understand exactly what you're doing here.
[00:03:15] And you also need to understand who you are renting it to.
[00:03:20] The perfect example is the gentleman who shows up to the little cabin in the woods with his lady friend.
[00:03:28] He's got a Corona in each hand. He walks right over to that hot tub and he pushes every button on that hot tub in order to get it hotter, get it as hot as it'll possibly go because he's trying to impress the lady. It's like a mating ritual in the wild between the birds and the bees.
[00:03:47] He's dripping Coronas into the tub, he's pushing buttons. He thinks he's a hot shot and he thinks he's gonna get lucky.
[00:03:56] Unfortunately, he's not that smart. He pushes too many buttons. He's now put that hot tub in sleep mode. They are now in the hot tub, having drinks, conversing, etc.
[00:04:11] All of a sudden they notice it's not as hot anymore, it's dropping in temperature, starts to drop a little bit on the rapid side.
[00:04:21] Now you've got a very mad bird and or bee.
[00:04:29] The bird and or the bee sends you, the beekeeper a message that says, your hive is a piece of junk.
[00:04:42] I was living the life, I was living the dream. I was understanding why I go to work and kill myself all day.
[00:04:49] And then all of a sudden the chances of me getting lucky went straight down the crapper.
[00:04:58] Now, of course you have to have systems in place to be able to send them a message that says you push too many buttons and put it in sleep mode. And now here's how you get it back into standard mode. Or you have a hot tub that has the dip switches switched to the proper position so that it cannot go into economy mode or sleep mode. All of these things you learn with experience.
[00:05:27] But that's not my point. My point today is that you are selling sex.
[00:05:34] Sex in the hot tub.
[00:05:38] You're not selling the kitchen, you're not selling the king size bed. You're selling I'm on vacation. I'm gonna do what I want to do. And what does the male of the species always want to do?
[00:05:54] Well, I told you it wouldn't be a kid friendly show today.
[00:06:00] So yet another reason we got to have king size beds.
[00:06:04] Hotels in most cases are going to have two queens or one king.
[00:06:09] You need to have one king or two kings to be able to compete. Because again, there's nobody at this. Here's another. You have another disadvantage. There's nobody on staff at your house.
[00:06:21] When the H Vac breaks, you gotta call somebody and it might take two or three days. Hotels, they can keep somebody on staff if they have enough units.
[00:06:31] When the guest says that the bathtub is not clean enough, you don't have anybody on staff.
[00:06:37] You are at a disadvantage.
[00:06:40] I really just wanted to take a little time today and make sure that you understand what you're selling.
[00:06:45] People on vacation are looking for a good time.
[00:06:51] One other thing you can do is do the bed rebuild.
[00:06:55] It is inevitable that they will break the bed at some point.
[00:07:00] These regular old beds that you buy at a regular old bed store are not sturdy enough for vacation sex.
[00:07:08] We take the mattress off, we put two by fours going lengthways, etc. Under the frame, inside the frame. And then we put three quarter inch plywood on top of the two by fours.
[00:07:24] There's nothing worse than being on vacation and having a good time and falling to the floor. They are not going to like that. They are going to blame you.
[00:07:36] We do the bed rebuild to brand new bed frames and there are. And by the way, we get rid of the box spring.
[00:07:46] Sometimes you would maybe have a box spring if there's a height problem, if the bed is too low to the ground. But usually I would rather have it low, too low to the ground than deal with a box spring. It's just added weight. It's weight. It's worthless. They're worthless.
[00:07:58] Another thing you can do is the bunky board. They make something called a bunky board.
[00:08:03] These things come in very handy. They are technically for bunk beds, but you can get them in all different sizes. You can get them on Amazon for 150 bucks, 200 bucks. You have to put it together.
[00:08:15] You would generally want to have a metal bunky board and this will go on top of the slats in your frame and make things a little more sturdy. I would generally want the plywood and the bunky board.
[00:08:31] You're just learning to make your life easier with stuff like this. Do the bed rebuild. Do it right out of the gate.
[00:08:38] If you can find somebody that knows what they're doing or give them decent enough instructions with chat, GPT and zoom or whatever. You can use loom videos and pay them 350 bucks plus materials or whatever. Whatever they charge is worth it because they will put that bed right to the ground.
[00:08:58] Then they're going to blame it on you and then you're going to have to go get another bed because most, you know, consumer grade beds are just not all that sturdy.
[00:09:09] And then I want to talk about you folks, you design type folks, which I love you but you gotta be careful. Are you putting it? I mean I see it all the time when people think they need a seven thousand dollar couch in order to compete or whatever. And I'm sitting there like do you understand that this is a rental and what they're gonna do to that $7,000 couch? They're gonna do gross stuff to it. Or maybe they sneak in a dog and the dog does something gross to the couch.
[00:09:36] I understand wanting to have a beautiful place, but I can't understand spending more than a thousand bucks on a couch and just replace it every year or two. Because, I mean, maybe it's because I have long term rentals and I see what these people do to them. They're, they're, you know, they trash them, they fill these houses with filth and they do nasty stuff in there and, and you know, it's, it's difficult, you know, and that's one thing I will give you. If you're short term rental only and never see that long term rental side of things.
[00:10:05] Some of this stuff probably doesn't even make sense to you, you know, but I'm just not going to put a $7,000 couch in there so that these folks can do gross stuff. And they deserve it. They deserve it. They deserve it. They deserve it. They work hard and by God, when they're on vacation they are going to get what they want whether you like it or not.
[00:10:27] And if they show up and what you're offering is not what they thought it was going to be, they're going to turn it into what they thought it was going to be by being annoying, you know, so. And we love them. God bless you, you know, love you. Guess number 1, 2, 27 and 38.
[00:10:43] And the next time somebody says to you why wouldn't they just book a hotel room?
[00:10:51] You say because you can't have sex in the hot tub in a hotel.
[00:10:57] Simple as that. Simple as that. And I'm trying to be funny today a little bit, but it is, it's something to consider. You really need to understand what goes through the mind of these folks. And I've said it a thousand times before, go stay in one. Go stay in a house.
[00:11:10] Number one thing that's going to show you is that you're doing better than you thought. You were. Because the competition in a lot of cases is not all that great. But it's got a kitchen, it's got privacy, and you can do it in the hot tub. That's what's going on here, my friends. And you don't have to have a hot tub. Obviously, I'm making jokes here, but that's what you're selling. You're selling privacy in a kitchen.
[00:11:35] Okay? So I told you it's going to get a little gross and that's okay. But I love you and I need a review out of you. By the way, please hit me with a five star review on Spotify. I've actually personally shifted over to Spotify in the last year and I love it.
[00:11:55] I don't do the Apple much anymore, the Apple music, but I have a lot of great reviews on there. Thank you for that. But Spotify, I could use a little help.
[00:12:09] Matter of fact, at the recording of this podcast, I'm only 4.8 stars on, on, on Spotify for 108 reviews. That's not good. I'm not happy with that. That's not good enough for me. So nobody's gonna, nobody's gonna want to have sex in my podcast hot tub at 4.8 reviews star 4.8 star reviews. So please, if you could hit me with a five star on Spotify, I would greatly appreciate that. Sorry for this one not being so kid friendly today, but maybe you get a little bit of perspective with rebuilding the bed before it's too late and understanding exactly what's going on in your house. You know, I just can't understand the $20,000 coffee machine.
[00:12:53] Human nature, they're going to break it, you know, So I love you. Don't overthink it.
