Do you want to enhance your property management efficiency and streamline your operations? Learn how to achieve improved operational effectiveness in property management with the solution I will be sharing. Elevate your property management efficiency and optimize your operations with the tools and strategies I will discuss with my guest Christianne Crump. Join us as we reveal the key tech tools and techniques for property managers in the short-term rental industry to maximize their operational efficiency.

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Mastering Direct Booking: Unlock the secrets to increasing your vacation rental's direct bookings and boosting your revenue.
• Tech Tools Unveiled: Discover the essential tech tools that can streamline your property management tasks and supercharge your efficiency.
• Human Touch Messaging: Learn how to seamlessly incorporate the human touch into your guest messaging, creating meaningful and authentic interactions for a memorable guest experience.
• Tech Solutions Unraveled: Navigate the world of property management tech solutions and find the perfect fit for your unique operational needs.
• Demo Mastery: Uncover expert tips for acing your demos with tech companies, ensuring you make the most informed decisions for your property management business.

My special guest this week is Christianne Crump.

Christianne Crump, the founder and CEO of STR Hub, holds degrees in nursing and zoology, bringing a diverse range of expertise to the short-term rental industry. Her foray into property management was motivated by the pursuit of sustainable retirement income, leading her to effectively manage her own short-term rental properties. Drawing from this hands-on experience, she spearheaded the creation of STR Hub, a comprehensive platform that consolidates crucial information on industry solutions and resources. This initiative serves as a valuable tool for property managers seeking to efficiently identify the most suitable resources for their businesses. With a sharp focus on emerging tech trends, Christianne offers invaluable insights for property managers aiming to enhance operational efficiency and stay abreast of industry innovations.

Connect with Christianne:

FB - @the.strhub

Instagram - @TheSTRHub

Youtube - @TheSTRHUB

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianne-crump/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christianne.crump

Instagram: @christiannecrump

Sign up for your free copy to our Property Management Selection Workbook: https://strhub.com/long_form_review/airbnb-property-management-software-guide/

The key moments in this episode are:

00:00:08 - Introduction to the Short Term Rental Industry

00:02:54 - Transition to Self-Management of Short Term Rentals

00:08:12 - Creation of STR Hub

00:12:46 - Emerging Trends in Tech for Property Managers

00:16:01 - Essential Tech for Property Managers in Direct Booking Space

00:18:57 - AI in Property Management

00:21:51 - Adopting Tech for Business Enhancement

00:24:21 - Choosing the Right Property Management Software

00:28:35 - Property Management Selection Workbook

00:31:09 - What Direct Booking Success means to Christianne

Sign up to the Free Direct Booking Success Summit 2024: https://directbookingsuccesssummit.com/

Show notes are available at: https://directbookingsuccess.com/podcast/

Follow Jenn on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/directbookingsuccess

Join the Marketing Hub Free Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/marketinghubforholidayrentals

Sign up for the free masterclass – The 4-step framework for a profitable direct booking sales engine: https://directbookingsuccess.com/masterclasswaitlist

Hello and welcome to another episode of Direct Booking Direct Booking Success Podcast. I'm Jennn Boyles, your host, and today I have Christianne Crump with me. She is the founder and CEO of STR Hub. Hi, Christian.

Hi, Jenn. Thanks so much for having me on your show today.

Oh, I'm so excited to have you here. Let's start by talking about how you got started in the SDR space.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think, like lots of people, I had all kinds of different things in my path of life and my journey, and then suddenly, here I am in the short term rental industry. So I actually have a couple of degrees. I have a nursing degree. I have a zoology degree. The zoology degree in the sense that I was setting myself up to go to medical school or dental school. So a very rich science background there. And anyways, life took its interesting turns and I ended up getting married and not pursuing an additional professional degree. But my husband and I, he is a dentist. And as his practices moved along and we began to look forward to the retirement years, the conversation began to be, is it really possible to ever save up enough money in the bank or piled into a retirement account to know that you have enough to last you through your retirement years? And, I mean, we talked about that so much and bounced it off our parents and people that we knew. And we really decided that for us, what we felt most comfortable with was creating some sort of revenue stream that could go with us into the retirement years. And as we talked about what that might look like with accountants and professionals, this concept of short term rentals was introduced to us and it really felt like a good fit for us and was something that we could do and pursue. And so we kind of made a pivot with a portion of our retirement strategy and began looking at acquiring short term rental properties. And so for us, that meant taking a second home that we already had as just a vacation property for our family that we liked to go to. Frequently. It's not too far away from where we live. And so we remodeled that and listed that as a short term rental. And then also we made an acquisition clear across the country, we're in the US, we're in Idaho, and we purchased a property clear over in Alabama, in Gulf Shores, Alabama. And so, you know, one of the things with deciding to invest in short term rental real estate was asking ourselves whether we wanted to manage it ourselves or just hire a property management company. And for us, it made sense that I had bandwidth and that I could kind of take that on myself and learn all about short term rentals and how to manage your short term rental properties Direct Booking Successfully. And so that's what launched me and my journey in the short term rental industry. And we still have those properties, we're still anticipating future purchases as well. But I have loved managing our rentals and just dive in headfirst to this industry and it's been fantastic and is actually what led and precipitated the creation of SCR Hub.

Yeah, no, it's really cool. And I love that the way you started and that it was the properties that you own and then buying another one, because it freaks me out a bit when you hear about rental arbitrage and things like that, where people are piggybacking on other people's investments, and I'm just like, oh, I don't know, it makes me so nervous because I don't think that you can ever really get under the skin of what that property is and your ideal guest unless you own it. It's almost like having skin in the game, that kind of thing. Yeah, you got it.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So this is really cool.

I'm glad you're here because you've started strub, and I can see how it's such a perfect fit for the industry right now because there's so much tech out there and it's like, what are we supposed to be using? How do we use these things? All those questions that people have. So how did the idea come to you? So you're managing a couple of properties yourself. How did this sort of idea of STR hub come about?

Yeah, so obviously when I got started, I literally knew nothing. I had no experience, and I leaned very heavily on the network that I created, the relationships that, and, you know, once you have a couple of properties and once you decide you want to be listed on more than one platform. Originally it was Airbnb, but I knew I wanted to expand that. And then you're worried about getting double bookings and all those types of things. I knew I needed to leverage some of the technology that was out there, and even though I was self managing, I didn't want it to take over my life. I wanted to take advantage of the different resources that were out there. To make sure that I could manage really professionally, but also very efficiently and create a foundation where, as we did grow our portfolio, it would be something that we could sustain into retirement. I mean, theoretically, those retirement years are when you're having fun and not working per se. So I didn't want to necessarily create something that couldn't be sustainable for us in the future. And so it was a lot of conversations, like I said, with people that I knew that were in space asking them what their systems and their operations look like. And I definitely received a few recommendations and put a few pieces into place and the craziness of bringing properties online and setting up a property. Once that phase passed and I was just in the day in and day out of managing my properties, I began to look around and wonder if all of the things that I'd put in place really were the best fit for me and our goals, as opposed to what these other people that I'd spoken with, they made those choices, they were recommending things that they had researched and that they decided were a good fit for them. And I began to wonder, is this really the software or the solutions that are really, truly best for me? And the more I started looking around and doing research, the more I was blown away, frankly, with the sheer number of options that were out there. And I got super excited thinking, oh, my gosh, this looks amazing, kind of from one thing to another. But then I got a kind of analysis paralysis thinking, looking at all these different options and feeling like, how am I going to know which one that I should go with, which one I should pick? And I could see so many other people having the same questions and asking people what they should do and getting their take on what they were using. So I knew that the struggle that I was having was a similar struggle that lots of other people were having. And so I guess because I'm such a science geek and my background, I was not going to be satisfied. I decided I wasn't satisfied with just going with what my friend had suggested.

Well, and that's the problem is you start out, you're on Airbnb, it's all you need, or you figure you need it, and then it's like, okay, it's time to branch out a bit. Want to get into direct bookings? Oh, how do I do this? I need some tech support here to help me through it. And then when you go and you ask somebody, okay, so which PMS should I be looking at? What property management system should I be looking at? Everyone has an opinion. Everyone's going to say the one that they're using or the one that they want to be using or whatever, and it's like, is it the right fit for me? I totally get that. I feel the same way because I'm actually using a PMS that I don't enjoy using and it isn't the right one right now. And I do need to switch. So I do like that idea that you then took, this idea that is right for me? I'm going to create a resource for everyone else while I'm doing this for myself. So what is sort of the elevator pitch for FDR Hub? What exactly is, you know, as I.

Had all this been realized, you know, here I was in all the same places that everybody else was, these Facebook groups or whatever, and someone asked, what do you guys use and what do you love? And so I type up this really well thought out answer and I'm like, oh, I love it. I'm helping this person. I really hope this makes a difference. I'll hit the post. And I realized that 15 minutes later. All of the effort and heart I put into helping that person was like gone because it's just lost in the feed and maybe one or two people saw it. I hope the person who asked the question saw it. It just seemed crazy. And so I decided if I could gather the information that I'd collected and the research that I'd done and put it out there in a way that was organized and easy for people to find, it could really be helpful. And so a website seemed like the best way to go for that. So that's when I decided and basically Strub was born. And the point, the pitch of it basically is STR Hub is a website that aggregates information about all the different solutions and resources in the short term rental industry into one place to help people be able to quickly and efficiently find the right solutions for their business. Kind of the tagline is connecting property managers and hosts to the tools they need to succeed.

I love it. I love it because it is fast becoming that resource and I know I'm using it with clients. When we're talking about PMS, I'm like, here's the list, let's go and have a look. And you've got pros and cons and reasons to look at things and it really helps because you're never going to know exactly what is the best until you start using it, really. But you have to get those questions answered. And analysis paralysis is a great way of saying it where it's just information overload. So let's get into some of this tech. Let's get in there and see how we can help people today. Let's start talking about tech. Tech is ever evolving. It changes so fast. So I don't envy your job of keeping up with SDR Hub because things change so fast. But are there any emerging trends in the tech space that property managers should keep an eye on right now?

Yeah, I definitely think so, in the sense that there's been a ton of venture capital poured into our industry as far as tech startups. And it is crazy, because now I've been working on SCR Hub for more than a year, almost two years. We've been officially launched and publicly. The website has been published publicly since about February, March of 2023. But the research and the work began back in 2022. And so even though I've been at this for all this time, I'm still being made aware of new companies that we need to get on the site. And so this concept of all of this tech and all of these different solutions and the property management software is kind of the big behemoth, one that people think of. But really, there's so much more than that. It's just growing and expanding. It's crazy.

And I guess it doesn't have to be the newest and the brightest. That's sometimes a bit of shiny object syndrome. You don't want to get into that, but it's those stalwarts of the industry that have been around the big companies. So what are some of the exciting trends that are happening? What recent innovations have truly started to revolutionize the industry?

Yeah. Okay. Trends. Thank you. Thank you for getting me back on track there. So some of the trends that I'm seeing, like even I was at VRMA in Orlando in October of 2023, and as I was talking to vendors and going around and continuing to get educated, I'm seeing that companies are expanding their feature sets. Companies that originally stepped into the space with one particular solution that they were trying to solve, whether it was a digital guest guide or maybe property care and maintenance management. Like a solution, maybe like Breezeway is a good one to take, for example, or Perto, who are kind of in a similar space, what may have started out as just a solution to help coordinate with your cleaners or whatnot. Now there's a digital guest guide. Now there's messaging solutions. I'm seeing companies bring on smart lock management and digital guest guides, bringing in upsell features. So you see this expansion of features. That's a really popular trend right now, which is great for us as the host of property managers, because whereas for a long time, in order to really flesh out that full feature set that you need, in order to cover all your bases of addressing needs for your guests, you did need to have subscriptions to 3456 or more different companies and solutions in order to cover all your bases. But as these companies continue to grow and expand, what they're able to help us with and the solutions that they provide, it lets us start to aggregate and simplify our tech stack. And so I really believe that that's a trend that's going to continue. And it's really also born out of the function of all these new companies coming in. Because what's going to make me as an operator, as a manager or whatnot, choose one tech solution over another? They're both providing the same base core function, but when for that same subscription dollar, I can get that core function that I needed, plus two or three other things that are going to help me provide an enriched guest experience or simplify my operations, that may be the edge that makes me select that one company over another. And so these partners out there in the industry, they know that and they are working diligently to continue to expand. I think that's one of the most exciting things. And so it is going to be really interesting as time marches on and this evolutionary process continues, whether we'll see some of these standalone, kind of sole feature solutions continue to expand, or maybe there'll be acquisitions that will come in where players will just purchase that company that has one really standout feature and they'll bring it into their bundle. And so I'll be excited to watch that. But I feel like that's what I'm seeing right now as far as technology goes.

And I love the idea that instead of having all these different logins and different dashboards on everything, that things are streamlined, that it's bringing it easier, and that helps you manage your own time as a property manager and also get a bit of a life too, doesn't it? Because you're not dealing with all these separate tools. So let's talk about what is essential. So property managers that are in the direct booking space, that are wanting to build their own brand, what is the tech that you see as the essential part?

Yeah, well, if you're definitely wanting to have specifically direct booking, I think I'm just going to do a short list real quick and then we can kind of dive a little deeper. One or two if you want to go there but definitely, like we've mentioned, a property management software direct booking is huge. You need to be able to make sure that when you have your direct booking website, you're very likely not going to be 100% direct booking. So if you're still utilizing some of the other meta search engines and OTAs, you need to make sure that as your direct bookings roll in, your calendar is automatically being blocked on any other channels that you're on. So you do need to run a property management software of some variety and that usually is truly the foundation. But again, no matter whether you're focusing on direct booking or other channels as well, dynamic pricing software is absolutely crucial. There's no way for us to be able to truly have a pulse on the nuances of every market on any given day, indefinitely. New events come to town, new conferences scheduled, everything's always changing. And so you need to have something that's going to be constantly helping you update and be able to manage your prices across whatever platform you're on. So I definitely think property management or dynamic pricing software is critical and that it's always talking and helping you optimize and get the most revenue. If your property management software doesn't already have a really robust messaging solution, then that's potentially something you're going to want to be looking at a more robust solution than also the digital guest guide. I think it's in this day and age, in the 21st century here, if you're still just printing out things and putting it in a binder, you can do better. Not that you shouldn't necessarily have a paper copy available or readily accessible, that information available in some way in your property, but you should be giving your guests that information prior to their stay, letting them learn about the home, letting them learn about the area. And so I also think some sort of a digital guest guide is really important. So I would say that those are kind of the basic core, but there's really so many other amazing things you can do to just really professionalize and increase your efficiency.

Yeah, and with AI coming out, not coming out. AI has been around for a long time, but in the last year or so there have been all these products that are starting to come out with an AI component and it's a really exciting time, isn't it? Do you see that? That's really revolutionizing space?

Well, that will still be interesting to see how it unfolds because I was just having a conversation with another property manager the other day and kind of talking about the same thing. And I think that she and I agreed in the sense that I love where AI is going, but at the same time, I don't feel like I'm ready yet to, for example, turn over my guest messaging to an AI bot. And I love that the companies that are bringing that feature in are helping to make sure that it doesn't automatically send like, that the human being can review what the AI generated before it actually gets sent to the guests. I love the thought that AI can be helping us specifically in the direct booking arena with supporting content creation for our social media. Supporting. Maybe we have a blog on our direct booking website. You can use AI to crank that out much more efficiently. But I mean, kind of still, the asterisks that I'll put on that is like everybody else, I was super excited about AI and jumped in and started playing with it and messing with it. And I feel like I'm at least getting to the point where when I read stuff, I'm like, I think that chat GPT probably wrote this. There's giveaway words like game Changer. It seems like Chat GPT, everything's a game changer to chat GPT. So if I'm reading a post or blog and then even a title of something and it's blah blah blah, game Changer, I'm like, oh yeah, that was probably written by chat GPT. There's just a few of those kind of dead giveaway words that it spits out so many times that in my journey with using AI to support what I do and the content that I create, I'm finding that I am using AI just in the most general, loosest sense to just be almost like a creativity spark. And from then on, I'm really still putting in that human touch. And even when I was generating prompts that said stuff like think outside the box or give me five ideas that most people wouldn't think of, like I was really trying to push it to give me something less generic and less like what it spits out every day. It was still, I felt like I was kind of becoming, over time, increasingly underwhelmed with what I was getting because it seemed like the last time I was here asking for it to help me generate something, I feel like it's telling me the exact same thing that it was telling me last week. I need something different.

So how can property managers ensure that they're adopting tech that enhances their workflow and their business rather than just complicating it?

Yeah, for sure. I think every so often you need to kind of go to the 30,000 foot view and really look at how your business is running. It's interesting. I had a conversation with Direct Booking Success from Ventory, and he wrote a really interesting book where he interviewed a bunch of different property managers in the industry, I think it was like 50, and asked them what some of their top mistakes were. And as I was reading through that book, one of the things that was kind of a recurring theme is that these property managers waited quite a while before they really took that high level analysis of what their business or their property's needs were and stopped for a minute, thought about it, and then made a meaningful plan to overcome that problem. And so I would say that if you're considering bringing on another tech partner, another tech solution, take that pause and really get curious and inquisitive about really what's happening in your business and really be mindful of what you think the trajectory of your business is going to be over the next twelve or 24 months. If you're in a growth phase, if you're really planning on expanding and bringing in more properties, even though you're not 100% there yet, you may want to set yourself up for solutions that can scale quite a bit easier. So that, like you said, complicating your process. If you put a solution in place that's really not going to serve you for that 24 months or more, then you may be looking at having to make another change again in the quasi, not too distant future. But at the same time, you have to be realistic, because I can personally say I have on boarded and started with solutions that I was so excited about. And then a few months in realized this really is probably not what I need today. And so I had to make a change and dial back a little bit. And I know that I will go back to that solution when we get to the place where it makes sense, but that's not necessarily today. So that tip would be being very careful and really taking the time to be honest with yourself about where your business is and where it's realistically going to be in the next twelve to 24 months.

I think those are some great tips for sort of choosing the right tech and your path that you're going on with your business. And I think we also sometimes forget that we're so busy working in our business that we need to take that time to work on the business and steer that ship in the right way for that's going to work. So I can totally see that would be something that would be recurring in that book as a theme, big mistakes. So one thing that with all these tech companies and software is that especially the PMS space. And I think that that's such a big one. There's so many out there and everybody has an opinion. But what I always try to tell people is to choose a few of them and then go have a demo with the company. But can you tell us how is the best way to go about having that demo so that you know, at the end of it, instead of getting swept away with the excitement of this tool, get behind that sales pitch and really get your questions answered? Can you give us some advice on that?

Yeah, absolutely. And it kind of is a great pickup from the last thing I was telling about, getting really honest with your business, because you have needs that are unique and custom to your business and your properties. And when you get on these demo calls, maybe it's a 20 to 30 minute call, they have an agenda. When you get on those calls, these demo calls, they know exactly what they're excited to show you. Kind of their new exciting features, or kind of what they feel are the flagship features of their company or their product. But if you really have to know what your questions are going in, maybe it's something about reporting. Maybe there's a very specific way you need to have information reported, because you have to report tax information to your state or whatever, and you don't want to feel like it takes an inordinate amount of time to pull out the information about the revenue in the last 30 days to then go on and do that tax reporting. It should be quick and easy. So it's like, okay, show me what that would actually look like. I know I'm going to need to pull that out. They're not likely, probably going to cover that in a generic demo call, but if it's important to you, ask about it. For me, it was really important. When I was looking at property management software, I knew I wanted to do an automated rental agreement. That was actually part of the reason I left. The very first PMS that I was using was just manually using like, hello, sign to send my guests their rental agreement. And I knew that that felt unsustainable to me. I didn't want to have to remember to do that every time a guest booked, I wanted it to just automatically get sent to the guest. The guests can digitally sign it and I wanted it automatically archived. So when I made my first change in software, that was a key feature to me. And so it is necessary that they're going to take me to the dashboard. They're going to show me all the really high level things, but I wanted to be able to specifically ask about that. So when I talk to people, I always like to kind of expand their mind as far as questions that they could ask and then really get them to put something in writing. So it's like they're in front of them in black and white when they sit down on that call. And it's also something that if they do have two or three companies that they're exploring, make sure you ask the same question to each of those companies. It's really easy to kind of get run over as you're talking with these people because like I said, they just have a couple of things that they cover with every person who they do a demo call with. And so make sure that you're guiding the conversation as much as they're guiding the conversation.

Yeah, I love that. And you very generously are giving away a free copy to your property management selection workbook, which I'll put a link in the show notes if people want to sign up to get that copy. And that really gives you a step by step into the process, doesn't it?

Yes. And it's not just a PDF. Well, it is a PDF, but it's a workbook specifically. The point of it is to get you thinking about what are my needs? And it's been interesting because in the course of STR hub development, I've learned so much. In a way, it's been a super self serving endeavor because as I was researching all these different property management software companies, there were a few that had features that I'd never heard of. And I was like, that is amazing. And then I'm like, does this one have it? And this One has it? And so I just aggregated all of those really cool features into that guide. And so as you're looking at it, you may be like, wow, I didn't even know that that was something that companies offered. Yeah, that's now something that I'm really excited about. And then kind of going along as well. I brain-dumped, I've done so many demo calls, so I brain-dumped into that workbook a lot of the questions that I like to ask. And so it can kind of give you a few that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Take some of the things that I've already utilized and questions that I've come up with and use those when you get on your call, but also maybe it will inspire you to come up with a couple that are really unique and specific to you. And then also we wanted to bake into there a resource and a tool that you could take into those demo calls so that as you're learning and as you're in the platform, actually with those people, Jot down notes. And then when that call wraps up, capture your impression, capture your thoughts, because the odds that you're going to have on any given day, like, for example, Wednesday, a call with Company A at two, Company B at three, and Company four at five, it's not going to happen. You're probably going to have a call one day, two or three days later, another call, and then maybe the following week, your next call. And are you going to remember the standout things about the very first one? Not necessarily capture when you're in that moment just after coming off that call, so that as you have subsequent demo calls, you can then sit down and really compare honestly, and not just be super excited about the very last one that you had. It's really easy to distance. That's the most fresh. Be like, oh, yeah, no, remember, you've.

Got to balance the company, their support, the price point, the features. There's so many things, and it's so easy to get sort of swept away. Oh, I liked the way that that person did the demo. Well, that's not going to help you five months down the line when you've got a problem with such and such and you need to get in touch with them. So that is a really helpful resource, this workbook. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes. And thank you very much. Now, I would really like to know the answer to this question, and that is, what does Direct Booking Success mean to you?

Oh, man. You know what? Direct Booking Success means security to me, because thinking of the pandemic and how the OTAs had all these crazy ways in which they managed, whether the guest reservations would be canceled automatically or whatnot. And it also means security in the sense that I own my guests, I can communicate with them, I can set whatever rules I need. And I know this isn't necessarily revolutionary to me. I think a lot of people feel the same way. But Direct Booking Success really is security and it's building your own. I mean, I think that's critical and that's what we want. And so I love what you're doing, Jenn. I think it's great. And the time and effort that people put into creating their direct booking operations is time well spent.

Definitely. Well, I agree with you. And thank you so much. Now your links, I'm going to put in the show notes. Where is the best place for people to get in touch with you?

You know what, I'm on Instagram at Christianne Crump, like you said, you'll provide the links. I mean Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn as. Yeah, but also just come over to, you know, there you'll get to learn and know a little bit more about me and what we're doing. There'll be information about the podcast. We have our show as well. Definitely the whole focus of the website and what we're doing is to help property managers and hosts. So we're happy to support people in any way that we can and truly simplify that process of connecting with and finding the right tools that they need to be Direct Booking Successful in their short term rental business.

I love it. And we've got that word. Direct Booking Success is so important because it's subjective and that's why I've used it in my business. Because your vision of Direct Booking Success might not be the same as me and vice versa and other people. But I just think it's so important that whatever that Direct Booking Success means to you, that you use these resources available and Strub.com is the website that you need to go to. I'm going to put links to the workbook in the show notes. And thank you, Christian. This has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you for coming on.

You are so welcome, Jenn. It's been a pleasure.