3 Steps to Increase Your Airbnb Revenue 15-30%

From the Podcast: On this edition of Get Paid for Your Pad, John walks us through his 3-step approach listeners can use to increase their Airbnb revenue. John An is the Founder & CEO of TechTape, the Founder & President of Ohana Stay, and a short-term rental industry expert who consistently brings in returns at 20% to 50% above market. He’s also written a chapter in the soon-to-be-released, The Book Direct Blueprint.

Original source: watch on YouTube

Transcript

0:03
what’s up everybody Welcome to episode number 529 of get paid for your pad
0:08
today we are going to talk about three steps to increase your Airbnb Revenue 15
0:13
to 30 percent now everybody wants to increase their revenue so uh pay attention we’re going to share some cool
0:19
uh some some cool strategies here so I invited uh the revenue management expert
0:25
in our shorter rental space Mr John N uh we’ve been friends for a while you’ve
0:30
John you’ve been part of our Mastermind like we we go we go back a couple years and uh yeah I’m excited to uh to chat to
0:37
you about this I think you uh you came up with a really good pricing strategy so I’m excited to dive into it uh John
0:43
welcome back to the show man yeah thanks Jasper uh I think we met in Cartagena
0:49
right 2019 or 2020 actually um and yeah so it’s really good to be
0:54
back on the show um and I’d love to talk to you about Revenue management and um you know how
1:01
basically a approach that people can take to really I think increase their
1:07
revenue so let’s let’s do it yeah for sure man um you know we were talking before we
1:13
started recording and I think we are very on the same page as uh as what we think is the best strategy to uh to
1:20
maximize revenue for Airbnb listing so I’m excited to dive into it last time we spoke on the podcast we were talking
1:26
about how to how to select the your property management system so if you’re
1:32
listening to this you might know uh John from uh from that episode um but yeah let’s get into it and before
1:38
we dive into it uh how did you became because you’re kind of like one of the you know Revenue management experts in
1:44
the short-term rental space now like how did you become to be to be that expert
1:50
I think basically I I fell into the short-term rental industry like a lot of other people
1:56
um and from day one um I actually was playing with a lot of
2:01
the technology a lot of the systems and essentially rolling up my sleeves and really focusing in you know detail on
2:09
each every Pro each and every property that I I brought on for my own management purposes and so I did not go
2:16
to revenue management school I did not uh you know I don’t have any specific training
2:21
um but uh what initially obviously a lot of
2:27
it was trial and error but every time I met industry experts
2:32
um you know large operators uh industry knowledge leaders uh thought leaders and
2:39
you know I would kind of explain what you know my properties the type of Revenue that I was generating
2:46
and across the board people were just saying wow like that’s you know it was like two bedroom two bath condos in
2:52
Honolulu but you know on average are grossing around 200 225 000 per year on
2:59
a condo and so um you know it kind of peaked a lot of people’s interest and that that’s when I
3:06
kind of thought like I must be doing something right that you know across the board you know people are impressed uh
3:12
and so I started essentially documenting like what am I doing what am I looking at you know what are the triggers that
3:19
I’m looking at and started doing that you know one by one and so over the years I’ve kind of collected experience
3:26
and knowledge and built out a system that now I’m able to provide this service not only for my own properties
3:33
but for other property managers foreign
3:38
yeah well let’s uh you know let’s give us a quick background you mentioned
3:43
Honolulu um you have two bedroom condos there give us a quick bathroom background of
3:49
like you know how many units you’re managing and and what you’re kind of what what’s your niche
3:54
right so in terms of the full management my management company
4:00
um it’s I’m focused in Honolulu in Hawaii uh my bread and butter properties are
4:07
two bedroom two bath condominiums in resort areas in Waikiki
4:13
and um for those properties again you know generate somewhere around 200 to
4:18
225 000 per year gross um I’m managing 10 properties now
4:25
um so a very small portfolio in terms of full management on the other hand uh with my Revenue
4:32
management and with tech tape which is my technology Service Company uh I have
4:37
I think around 110 properties that I’m providing either Revenue management or
4:43
you know or some sort of Technology service for sure awesome all right man
4:49
well let’s dive into let’s dive into the strategy here um give us a background of like what what
4:56
the you know I know there’s like three steps that we’re gonna go through but on a high level like what’s uh what’s the
5:02
what’s the thought process behind Revenue this Revenue management strategy and can you give a background of like
5:10
what you know like how how most hosts are using how most hosts are doing Revenue management and how you think
5:17
um there’s a better way essentially yeah I’ll just start off by saying you know
5:24
what I’m doing anyone can kind of follow this along so it’s not some secret sauce on you know
5:29
some you know magic you know Black Box thing that I’m doing in the background
5:35
um I think it’s just kind of a perspective on how to use the the data and the tools that are out there and
5:42
available and so I guess the background that I’ll start off with is there’s kind of a tendency
5:48
there’s a lot of data in our industry and so you know you keep hearing people saying oh my business is data driven
5:55
data driven and what that kind of implies is that
6:00
the data will tell me what the right answer is and so I just kind of trust the data to do it and so
6:08
in some industries that makes a lot of sense because um kind of the data set is kind of
6:15
validated and we can get into this a little bit um but in the short-term rental industry
6:21
one of the issues that I think with the data is the data is right I’m not saying
6:26
the data is wrong um but because every property is unique
6:32
and the vast majority of the industry is set up by Mom and Pops by individuals
6:38
who are running their own um you know properties there’s no kind of
6:43
set rule by which everyone is playing and so what the data is telling you is just the average of everyone just
6:49
guessing at what what the price should be and so trying to use the data to pinpoint exactly what
6:56
price you should be at or what occupancy you should be at is really taking a lot
7:02
of random noise that’s been aggregated and then trying to make business decisions around that and so that’s kind
7:09
of the first part of the concept that for me the data is very important to you
7:15
know to my business and to my Revenue management but I’m not looking at specific data points specific numbers
7:21
what I’m really looking at are overall trends that the data is telling me you know are things picking up I think
7:28
slowing down um and by looking at that kind of average data not the specific then you
7:36
can get signals in your market and kind of understand what to do with that data does that make sense yeah yeah it makes
7:43
sense um and you know just kind of explain this in a way that everybody I think
7:49
will understand it is you know that’s kind of like two ways well first of all like you know like
7:56
most I feel like most people most professional hosts at this point are using a pricing app
8:01
right and there’s a there’s a bunch of them out there right there’s you know the main ones that price Labs Beyond
8:06
wheelhouse and I think now there’s a there’s a lot of there’s a bunch of other rounds but most so most hosts have
8:12
stepped away from just kind of manually putting in like what you know even like having just one price like I remember
8:19
when I got started I looked at other every listing so it’s like oh everyone’s just charging one price for every single
8:25
day of the year you know and and but I think most of us have stepped away from that we’re using now a pricing app uh
8:32
which is good but the challenge is with the pricing app you still have to tell the pricing app how to price right you
8:40
have to set a strategy inside of the pricing app and that’s what I see Lola host struggle with they’ll sign up for a
8:45
pricing app and then but then they don’t know like well how to set the parameters right and I I feel like there’s two ways
8:52
of doing it there’s no number one this kind of you have well you have the base price and then you have the the
8:59
variation around the base price based on your season based on your day of the week based on if there’s something
9:05
special happening in your market so it’s like the you have the base price and you have the variation around the base price
9:10
and the big question is how do you come up with a base price and there’s kind of two ways of doing it
9:16
you could either say hey let’s look at what other units similar units in my market are doing
9:23
right or it is just orders uh you can do it you can set it based on uh pacing
9:29
which which we’ll go into because that’s what you know what uh your your strategy is all about pacing right
9:37
um but to give a very simple example from when I started back in the day in 2012 in Amsterdam I looked at all the
9:43
units that were similar to my to my apartment and I noticed the roll priced at around 150.
9:49
so then I thought well that means that mine should be priced around 152 right
9:54
but then what happened was I got booked out like three months in advance like very very quickly
10:01
and um and I recognized I was like hey if I’m getting booked so fast like that
10:06
I could probably charge a higher price right so I started raising my price and at some point I was charging like 300
10:13
like 350 a night and I was looking at all the units outside Cody wow I almost
10:19
felt bad charging that much I was like this is a lot of money for like small apartment but I was like hey people are
10:24
paying it people are happy getting five star reviews like so I started like looking more of like
10:30
hey I know you know roughly 30 days out I should be I should be around 50 booked
10:36
and then like you know 60 90 days out that should be about like maybe 30 or 20
10:41
percent I started just setting my prices based on that so that’s that’s kind of like the two models and you know I’m
10:49
curious to hear from you if that if this is accurate what I’m saying but you can either either you look at what other
10:55
units are doing or you look at and that’s kind of like data based I guess or you just look at like hey how many
11:01
bookings do I have and how many bookings am I so do I am I
11:06
supposed to have this far out in the future so what yeah what are your thoughts on that
11:12
right it’s you’re you’re exactly right and I think it’s a combination of that too right so
11:18
one if you’re just going into a market that you know nothing about at least the
11:23
data you know what what your neighbors are doing kind of gives you some clue as to you know what the range and
11:31
parameters and kind of the starting point should be um and so you know like
11:39
I I do Revenue management around the world and I have not been doing that you
11:45
know all around so that’s one data point to use what other what the market you
11:50
know similar properties are priced at um and then the other data point is you know whomever the
11:57
the manager or the owner is because they know their Market too since they’ve been in it so that’s kind of how you start
12:03
off right but then at the end of the day the second part of what you said
12:10
um it’s really finding what the market will bear and I think a lot of people
12:15
come in and say Hey you know this is a one bedroom with a beautiful view uh you
12:21
know I updated it so it’s really nice so it’s it should be and then they put a
12:26
number a low number and a high number and an average number and then they play Within that like bounds that they have set in their own
12:34
minds for whatever reason and the thing is the people who are looking to book
12:40
they find Value in different things and so some people might value it more some people might value it less and so that
12:46
second approach that you’re saying of like looking at occupancy like that’s how you start settling into
12:53
um you know your overall pricing strategy and the other thing that I want to say is
12:59
even within the same you know neighborhood if you have two you know similar houses
13:05
three bedroom two bath house every property both physical
13:12
um you know the physical characteristics as well as online characteristics are different so even if they’re the one you
13:19
know house houses right next to each other you know one might be closer to a busier Street or one night have a better
13:24
view right slightly and that could be the differentiator or you know or one house might have a
13:33
four-star review but has a hot tub right the other house does not have a hot tub
13:38
but has a 4.7 star review and that can make the difference and so you really
13:45
can’t like I know there are people who do it and you know they’re much smarter than I am and that’s how they figured it
13:51
out but I don’t think for me I cannot figure out by having this one feature it
13:56
means it’s a 10 increase in you know and and how much someone’s
14:02
willing to pay it’s at the end of the day it’s the overall you know all the components of the listing and the
14:09
property and the review that then people who are looking to book are saying hey I’m willing to pay this
14:15
much for this property and that’s really like that it’s that point that you’re trying to find if you’re too high no
14:22
one’s going to book if you’re too low people are going to book way too fast and so you’re trying to find that but
14:27
not only in like the one month out but the two months out and the three months out and the six months out and that’s
14:34
the kind of what you what we are always trying to find as we’re doing Revenue management
14:39
right and that’s uh that’s what we call the demand curve right exactly it
14:45
basically means like hey for your and and that demand core curve varies from Market to Market but even from property
14:51
to property as you um as you mentioned or or should we be looking or should is the demand curve
14:57
roughly the same you think for for maybe for each neighborhood or a type of
15:02
listing in the market I think the demand curve overall is pretty similar in the market so I don’t
15:09
think you know like similar properties in the market the demand curve should be approximately
15:17
similar so I think that’s where when I was saying you’re looking at Trends and not at specific data points
15:23
what the what that overall Market is doing is a pretty good sign of hey there’s a pickup in this market okay so
15:30
now let’s find what people are willing to uh to uh to purchase at the same time
15:36
if you see the demand curve going down you can get out ahead of it and not
15:42
respond after having an empty calendar for two weeks but get out ahead of it to
15:47
get people to to book before the Slowdown happens right so when we when we look at data
15:55
it’s not so much like the price points at what other units um
16:00
are getting booked at is more like the the pace at which units are getting boot so how far out in advance are people
16:07
booking right now in the marketplace that’s a more important data point then right that’s yeah that’s one of the key
16:13
points that I you know that I look at to get the signals aside from the signals
16:20
that you know beyond pricing or real house or Price Labs you know provides
16:27
um it is frequency of people booking or inquiring
16:32
um within your Market as a broad you know broad sense got it so let’s um so you developed this
16:41
free-step approach right that people can or listening can Implement and they can use it to
16:47
um increase their Airbnb Revenue 15 to 30 that’s based on what you’ve seen you know in with the properties that you’ve
16:53
used this strategy for uh of course there’s no guarantee but um but yeah dive into the uh the
16:59
strategy what’s the what’s the first step in that yeah um let me add one more one more factor
17:06
to consider and then I’ll get right to it sure the other thing is um
17:12
different people have different risk tolerance right and the data is not going to tell you what your risk
17:17
tolerance is and so some people lose sleep if they’re not you know two three months booked solid because they think
17:23
they’re gonna lose money other people lose sleep if it’s too booked because they think they’ve already lost money right and because of
17:31
that um you know what you’re trying to find what the market will bear
17:37
it also has to factor in what is your risk tolerance in terms of your pricing and your you know your investment thesis
17:45
and so that’s another part that you know we we need to work with other people you
17:50
know the owner the manager to understand what you know what’s your risk tolerance and then base the strategy around that
17:57
so that the reason why I added that is that is an integral part of this you know the process so
18:05
so yeah it was very good in the high level outline you know the three-step process that we have is first
18:12
understanding the pacing in the market as you just explained so
18:17
you know how how fast are different time periods in your Market how fast is that
18:24
booking up right and so the activity within that uh that market kind of shows
18:30
you if there’s a lot of bookings going on you know that there’s um you know kind of a high demand period
18:38
coming up and you can respond around that um so that understanding pacing number
18:44
one then out of that this is where kind of your risk tolerance uh kind of aligns
18:51
with this uh the step you need to kind of establish what is
18:57
the overall occupancy profile that you’re looking at over time right and
19:02
you mentioned this Jasper before you know when the within the last 30 days there’s you know kind of a occupancy
19:09
Target that you’re you’re striving for you know within 60 days out there’s another within you know
19:15
I don’t know nothing six months out there’s another and so there’s kind of an occupancy curve that you you ideally
19:23
want to hit and so that’s where kind of your risk tolerance and pricing strategies align
19:29
um I’m working with this one client who loves playing last man standing and
19:36
so his risk tolerance is so high it actually makes me nervous uh you know
19:41
because I’m like it’s still empty he’s like don’t worry like you know I want to play last man standing right in that
19:48
case you know he’s not based if he’s at 50 occupancy two weeks out because she
19:54
he feels confident that people are going to come in and book right so the occupancy profile is where you’re
20:01
aligning your risk tolerance with your your pricing strategy
20:06
right and so monitoring on that then the third step is what you’re doing
20:12
is you’re adjusting the price the nightly rate as the lever
20:17
to achieve that occupancy profile that that you’re trying to um
20:23
you know trying to achieve yeah right so very simple it’s not rocket science
20:29
but it does take constant monitoring it’s kind of like um the way I think of it is Tesla has
20:36
full self-drive right and the idea is the car knows what what it’s supposed to
20:42
do you know legally you have to keep your hands on the wheel but really you’re not you don’t need to
20:48
uh the reality is you do need to keep your hands on the wheel because you know the car doesn’t always do the right
20:53
thing it’s similar with uh Revenue management this three-step process is fairly
20:59
straightforward but the algorithm I have not found that the algorithm can execute
21:04
on it you know just based on rules and based on the data um and so that’s where you know I guess
21:11
a revenue Management Service whether myself or you know some other service provider that’s the hands on the wheel
21:18
of like making sure that you know it’s going in the direction that you wanted to go yeah
21:24
um so the the Free Step approach is number one is like you gotta earn you gotta understand what what’s the pacing
21:31
for your unit right are people booking how how what percentage of
21:37
um occupancy should you be at at any point in time right and that that pace
21:42
we’ll dive into like how we can calculate that but then it’s like the Second Step establish your target
21:48
equipment see kind of based on your risk profile right some people like you mentioned we some people don’t mind
21:53
giving up a little bit of profit or Revenue um to have less variation
22:00
right so they’re like hey you know what like if I know like I should be Prof to maximize Revenue I should be 30 book but
22:07
if I’m 40 50 booked I’m cool with that because of you know I have a bit more security that way so and then the first
22:13
step is um uh adjusting your your base if you’re using a pricing app that would be your base price right adjusting your
22:20
base price in uh in the in your pricing tool to um either increase it if you’re
22:27
behind the pacing curve or the demand curve and decreasing it so sorry
22:33
increasing if you’re um if you’re ahead and decreasing if you’re if you’re behind right um but
22:40
let’s let’s go a little bit more into these these free steps so first of all the pacing so and we talked about a
22:45
little bit about this but so how do we how do we do that research do we look at
22:51
our own historic data or do we look at the market data that we can pull from
22:56
these pricing apps I would say Market data historic data is
23:04
meaningful but as you know as we all learned you
23:10
know during covet um historic data
23:15
um if something weird happens is meaningless and
23:21
I believe in our industry right now travel Trends are shifting quite dramatically unlike how
23:27
you know they have been for decades and decades and so at this point still I
23:33
think historic data is something to look at just to see what happened um but it’s really the market data and
23:40
looking forward uh what what you’re looking at and so all the all the pricing tools that you
23:47
know that are out there real house uh price Labs I believe Beyond as well
23:53
um and buoy which is a new you know newcomer uh in the dynamic pricing uh
24:00
um ecosystem um they have their version of you know providing what’s going on in
24:07
the market in terms of uh booking Pace that’s how they get the the profile of you know when
24:13
when they increase and decrease the prices and so that’s more Market driven yes if you have a big portfolio you can
24:20
look at your own portfolio to kind of see what’s going on but I think that’s
24:26
step number one is really kind of that’s the market data component of what’s going on overall in your Market
24:34
um and what are the events that are happening or what are the factors that are influencing it so step one is really
24:39
kind of the high level Market um information that you’re Gathering right so then like what’s the actionable
24:46
step do we create a little Excel sheet or something where you know we we put down like hey 30 days out uh my market
24:54
is 40 booked on on that or I think how does that work what’s so for me it’s a
25:01
number of bookings or a number of inquiries right for pacing um It’s a combination of the actual
25:07
booked so if even if it’s not booked if there are a lot of inquiries around that date then
25:13
you kind of know you know something is something is going on right uh maybe your prices are still too high but at
25:20
least there’s a lot of uh activity um and then in real house or in price
25:26
Labs there are some form of pacing report that talk you know that can show
25:31
you um you know how many you know how many bookings have been in the market
25:37
um you know things of that nature and so that is kind of a high level
25:43
tool you know data that I rely on data providers to provide at the same time
25:49
within my portfolio I could see you know let’s say I have a portfolio of 30
25:54
properties and one you know one region if you know all of a sudden there are a
26:01
whole bunch of book you know bookings around a certain date it’s like all right there’s something going on and
26:07
that’s kind of you know where you’re pinpointing yeah um
26:13
okay so and and then the the you know the second step is like Target uh establishing a target of
26:20
occupancy um do you do specific uh time periods for that like do you say
26:26
like hey I’m looking at 30 days out 60 days out 90 days out how does that work how do you choose
26:32
those time frames I I think that’s kind of our you know we
26:39
live by months so uh either either it’s like bi-weekly or monthly kind of time
26:45
frames at least the way I look at it right so either two week time frames if it’s very very specific
26:52
or kind of monthly time frames and that kind of gives you kind of a
26:58
parameter the way I look at looking at like big you know Trends is when you’re
27:03
driving you’re not looking five feet in front of you and like responding to everything that’s right in front right you’re looking you know
27:10
a quarter of a mile out to kind of see the general direction that you want to be going right
27:15
and so doing it on like a monthly basis allows you to have that kind of
27:20
perspective um I have some clients who want weekly reports and the weekly reports are
27:27
actually really dangerous because that’s like you know literally like thriving looking two feet in front like
27:32
responding to everything that’s in front of you um yes you might have one week where
27:38
you know there’s a gap between you know a couple bookings and so it looks like your occupancy has dropped tremendously
27:44
but if you respond to that then you’re going to be you know messing up your your Revenue management strategy so
27:51
generally I think monthly is a pretty good time frame um if you have a low risk tolerance
27:57
probably quarterly uh I I have not worked with anyone who’s looking at quarterly occupancy numbers
28:03
um but you know that that’s kind of a way that you can look at it but you know at that stage you kind of want kind of
28:09
bigger time chunks uh so that you’re seeing big overall Trends so I think
28:15
monthly is a pretty good uh you know pretty good time frame to Market so then we say okay you know one month
28:21
out I want to be 50 booked two minutes out I want to be 30 booked and three
28:27
months out I’m gonna be 15 booked for example right and then what you do is you keep
28:32
you keep an eye on the on your on your data maybe once a month you review the data and said like hey has anything
28:38
changed in my market when when are the bookings coming in maybe the bookings are shifting to more more or less minute
28:45
or maybe the bookings are shifting more further out and then you can kind of adjust those um adjust those Target
28:51
occupancies um then the last sorry do you want to add to that no the one thing I’ll say is
28:58
you know you said you know check in on it about you know every month and that’s the part where I would say it’s keeping
29:04
the hands on the wheel you know I think it’s more much more frequent than every month uh so that you can make the
29:12
adjustments as you know as things are developing
29:17
um so that’s you know that’s the one thing that I I would say but yes overall what you know exactly what you what you
29:23
mentioned and then so going on to the the third step you’re gonna say
29:30
yeah yeah so adjusting the nightly right so um you know my I guess my question I
29:36
guess I have two questions is number one is how often how quickly do we adjust so
29:42
let’s say let’s say I’m like I want to be 50 booked 30 days out and um 40
29:47
booked is that enough of a gap to change my prices or should I wait till the Gap
29:53
is like 15 um and then number two the second question like how much do I adjust my
29:59
price and that’s where the
30:04
I think you’ve actually you know just hit the nail on the head right with the hammer
30:09
that’s where the kind of the soft Factor comes in that’s where you know with the algorithm and everything that
30:17
there are some you know obviously like what’s that range you know is 40 too
30:23
much to make adjustments or not um It’s a combination of those two that I think the Intuition or the human
30:30
factor or human touch comes in uh and so
30:36
yes there are ways to create rules that say you know if it’s more than 10 off then discounted by this much and
30:43
everything but it’s not it’s it hasn’t been a hard and fast way that the
30:48
algorithm can just fully do it and so I can’t give you a straight answer because that’s where
30:54
you know you make the adjustment and it still doesn’t respond then like then you take additional you know measures to you
31:01
know try to make sure that you get the response that you want right does that make sense so that’s that’s where again
31:07
that’s keeping the hands on the wheel you know what you want to see you know generally
31:13
what you want to do when things aren’t happening the way they go but then they’re also kind of manual or you know
31:20
additional adjustments that need to be made to to make sure that you’re achieving those uh those goals and those
31:26
targets yeah so that’s kind of like what that’s kind of like the X Factor right it’s like
31:32
knowing that’s how I see it yeah how quickly do I adjust and by how much that’s kind of the uh you know I always
31:39
think of um like pricing algorithms and revenue management just like uh there’s
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the computer does the algorithm and there’s the human skill set right
31:51
um and it’s like combining those two is where we can really optimize right it’s like if you compare it to
31:58
chess it’s like a human still beats the computer even though the computer can calculate a
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thousand not anymore actually Right Moves really I think now the computer
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beat would be humans all the time so hopefully Revenue management could get to that level someday uh I thought it
32:17
was still like uh I thought it was still a human who was like the world champion first computer but I might be wrong on
32:23
that I think very recently it’s it’s shifted but I think I think the reason
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why the human factor is there is also again it comes back to your risk factor risk profile right so in that you know
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fuzzy area if you’re more risk tolerant then you know you might wait longer or you might
32:44
not make any adjustments but if you’re more risk-averse then you make more you
32:49
know drastic adjustments and so you know I don’t I’m not trying to say oh this is where the human factor comes in
32:57
um you know and I have that human factor and so that’s why you know I’m that that’s not it it’s really because there
33:04
are multiple factors and influences that determine you know do you reduce it by five percent ten percent twenty percent
33:10
right and that kind of comes down to what are you comfortable with uh and so
33:16
that’s where I really again that’s why I I can’t answer your question but you can
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kind of say all right like yeah you know do I really want to fill this up and make sure I stay on target then you
33:28
you’ll say okay I’m willing to you know give up a little extra you know potential extra earnings to try to make
33:35
sure that I get that booking okay one one last question on this
33:41
um so let’s say let’s say hypothetically like I have a unit and
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you know I’m seeing that like I’m not getting booked at the pace that the Market’s getting booked up and so what I
33:54
do is I lower my price a bit and then I still I’m still not getting the pace
33:59
that I’m looking for so I’m lower a bit more but at some point I’m like hey I don’t want to uh I don’t want to go
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below this this is kind of like my minimum price yeah like what’s our what’s our play once we reached that
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point so like we like we discussed earlier on
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there are lots of factors that go into what people are willing to willing to pay and book right
34:22
so if your Market is really you know booking at a certain pace and at a certain price and you’re not getting it
34:30
I would say either you know your physical property you know are there consistent problems
34:37
that on the reviews show up that you know I highlighting some issues with your property
34:44
um you know basically I would be looking at kind of your overall listing overall
34:52
property you know new photos and I went to kind of an audit of what
34:57
is going on with the property overall um that people are not willing to book
35:02
because again this is exactly what you’re saying at the end of the day the market will tell you if they if your
35:10
property is desirable or not right and if you if you’re 50 below what everybody
35:16
else is getting and still you’re not getting bookings there’s got to be something about your pictures your
35:22
description your reviews um that all those things are coming into
35:28
play I am not a SEO uh expert I think there are other people who really look
35:34
at every aspect of your listing your amenities you know and really pull that apart and so you know you might want to
35:41
work with someone like that to really pinpoint what may be with the listing
35:47
um but yeah it’s not it’s yes I’m not always just drop your price just drop your price that’s not the answer to
35:52
everything um but you have to look at the holistic picture not just your Revenue yeah and
35:59
that’s where that’s where like it becomes useful to look at the prices
36:04
that similar listings in your markets um are getting booked at because like
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you said before which I think is very true it’s like every this thing is unique
36:15
right it could be it could be a like even changing the order of some of some photos it could be changing your title
36:23
or it could be like really like um going back and and understanding your guest Avatar and thinking about like hey what
36:29
are people looking for in my Marketplace like maybe I need a hot tub right or maybe exactly maybe some you could
36:36
change the marketing or you might have to change your offer there’s a mismatch between what your what Your what what
36:42
needs your um catering to with your listing versus what needs are desired in the
36:49
marketplace your ideal guest Avatar actually might have changed between pre-covered and now gradually
36:56
right and so that’s actually a very valid point that you’re bringing up and
37:01
then the other thing that I’ll say and you know everyone says every listing is different and it sounds like a generic
37:07
uh you know phrase so I’ll I’ll kind of jump into this just a little bit
37:13
when you’re booking at a hotel and you get one image of a room and then they say you know
37:19
it’s you know the king bed suite and then they have 20 of those right so as
37:24
far as booking is concerned it’s the exact identical product that
37:30
people are booking so they’re identical there’s no difference you know if there’s a bad review for that hotel
37:36
they’re all impacted the same way right so that’s Apples to Apples comparison
37:43
you and your neighbor are a completely different units even if you have the same layout same you know all that and
37:50
so that’s where you know we’re saying like it’s not just that physically they’re different and different ownership but
37:57
the way it’s advertised every listing is unique and so that’s why you have to
38:02
look at kind of each unit as an individual but then also take the overall Market uh condition as a as a
38:10
factor yeah makes a little sense awesome dude I appreciate you uh jumping
38:16
on this podcast uh it’s been really interesting talking to you about this and uh I really like your your strategy
38:23
that you’re using um let people know where they can find you and how you can help them
38:28
yeah so um I’m very active on LinkedIn so if you search John on or uh Tech tip on
38:36
LinkedIn you can definitely find me I you know I respond to everyone who messages me there
38:42
my um my website is gettechtip.com
38:52
and that’s where you know some of the explanation of the services that we
38:57
provide uh R and then if if I could just um so I co-authored a chapter in a book
39:06
um it’s called the book direct blueprint um and it’s going to be published in um
39:11
in December so coming up right up in about two weeks or so and I don’t talk
39:16
about Revenue management but I do talk about kind of the thesis around um the tech stack within within
39:25
short-term rentals and so um but then this book also has a lot of different authors uh like price labs and mount and
39:32
other other co-authors so anyway um you can also find a find me through
39:38
that as well awesome awesome dude well uh thanks again for for being on the show I’m sure we’ll
39:44
have you back some uh at some time hopefully I can come to Hawaii I love I love Hawaii I haven’t been there in a
39:51
long time so uh yeah thanks Jasper and uh I’ll talk to you
39:57
soon all right and thanks for everybody who’s listening hope you enjoyed this podcast episode I hope you can Implement
40:04
some of these uh this strategy that uh that John shared and if you do let me
40:09
know let me know if you see any any results if your Revenue increases and of course Friday I will be back with
40:15
another episode so have a great week and we’ll see you soon