Welcome back to the Hosting Hotline! This is an Ask Me Anything where each week we’ll answer your questions on Airbnb, STRs, real estate, and everything in between.

Today’s Question:

As someone just getting started in short-term rentals, can you tell us a bit more about how you two started hosting? Where’d you start; do you co-host; how long have you been doing it; and where do you see the industry going?

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Mentioned in this episode:

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Hello.

Welcome back for another great week.

My name is Sarah Karakaian.

I am Annette Grant, and together we are--

Thanks for Visiting.

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podcast, and get involved.

With that, we've got a great question and we hope inspires all of us to level up.

Hey, there.

I was just curious when you first started if you joined a group to learn how to

do more stuff with short term rentals.

Did you just start from scratch and figure it out on your way?

I want to eliminate as much as possible.

I've been studying a lot of Mike Sjogren's group and, uh, he's one of

the top guys obviously that I follow.

And, uh, I love your material and I just had some questions

like how you got started.

Do you co-host?

How long have you been doing it?

Where do you see things going?

Is there a market you're really paying attention to?

Things you're avoiding.

Good question, Bobby.

And we want to unpack this.

So Annette, can I interview you real quick?

Yeah.

Ask you Bobby's questions.

So how did you get started?

How did you tackle your first short-term rental, and did you learn from someone?

Two things.

I started from scratch, but I quickly realized I needed some help, and I

was super fortunate that the Airbnb Open was happening, I think right

after I opened, I can't remember, this is the last Airbnb Open that--

Can you do two things?

What year was this and what is an Airbnb Open?

I think it was 2018, and Airbnb Open was this giant convention,

if you will, that Airbnb put on.

They actually shut down every theater in a good way.

They rented out every theater in downtown LA.

You guys, Lady Gaga performed.

Yes.

What was happening here?

So they never did it again probably because they spent a ton of money.

But what I want to say for that, I started from scratch.

I knew nothing.

I made countless mistakes.

Going to that event and investing in that event.

I remember I slept on my friend Brad's couch.

Thank you, Brad and his lovely wife let me sleep on their

couch because they lived nearby.

But that event was so eye-opening for me and it really changed

everything I thought about Airbnb.

I met hosts from all over the world and let me tell you the

one takeaway from that event.

I did not have instant booking on when I went to that event and every host there

basically like, aw, aren't you cute?

Because I was scared to turn on instant booking.

And they were like, do you understand what you're doing to yourself?

It was getting around other hosts like that that was my first taste of, oh

my gosh, there's so many other people out here that are doing this and doing

it well, and I can learn from them.

But when I left that event, then I was back on my own because

back then it was really just their, um, the Airbnb host board.

And it was like you would go on there and the threads hadn't been--

Attended to.

In years and you're not really talking.

It was everybody just throwing their thoughts out there

but no real back and forth.

And then I didn't feel connected again until I met Sarah at

the city council meeting.

But I was completely from scratch.

I wasn't really a Facebook user, so I don't know if groups-- I never even

looked outside of my sphere for help because I had a ton of hospitality

experience in resorts and restaurants.

So I thought-- and I had customer service experience, so I drew a lot from that.

That was a long-winded answer, but man, I wish they would bring Airbnb Open back.

But you know what we're going to do?

We're going to bring a TFV Con and we're going to-- that's what we're doing.

We are bringing TFV Con.

That's our live event, everybody.

So get ready to mark your calendars.

And if you're like, yeah, what the heck is that?

Don't worry.

We haven't chatted much about it yet, but it's coming soon.

Well, I think what Bobby's wanting to know too is, do you think it's

a good idea and obviously, here we'll level with you listeners.

So Annette and I now have a membership.

It's called Hosting Business Mastery Membership.

It's been around for almost three years?

Mm-hmm.

Almost three years now.

And it is a paid membership.

And this is where Annette and I have both come together and gotten our professional

connections to also create content behind a paywall where we can get people who want

to level up their businesses and invest in themselves professionally to come

together and learn from each other, learn from our business the way we've set it up.

But then of course, as they go to set things up, it's always

very different for everyone.

And we've seen the amazing things that can happen when we get like-minded

business individuals to learn from a leader, but also to learn from each other.

AD MARKER

Oh my gosh.

I think Airbnb Open might have been 2016.

I'm going to go back.

I'm going have fact-check myself.

I think it was.

I think it was too, because I think I met you in 2018.

I'm going with 2016.

Fact-check with me.

It's been a while.

Yes, it has been a while.

It's been a while.

What Sarah's talking about, this opportunity to learn,

we don't care who you learn from.

Well--

Make sure they're--

We have feelings about who you're going to learn from, but anything that you

do, you are now a small business owner.

You need continuing education.

Things are changing quickly, and whether it's you follow someone online,

you follow the news even if it's just getting alerts when Airbnb changes

things, when your city changes things.

But please, you need to be constantly learning and you need a community.

Let's talk about the community aspect and how important that is, Sarah.

Let's talk about when we started our small live event.

All right.

We did.

So Annette and I met in 2018 and then very shortly after, because we are

aggressive, self-starters, but we started a meetup here in Columbus.

We used meetup.com to get people to come together.

But we started a meetup.

We had speakers come out of our own pockets.

Got pizza and sodas and whatnot, and just got everyone in our

area to come together just to be together and learn from each other.

How are you doing things?

How's your occupancy look?

What's your favorite bed?

We were just starving for people to communicate with.

Mm-hmm.

I just fact-checked myself.

It was totally in 2016.

Wow.

It's been a while.

Okay.

It was 2016, everybody.

Yeah.

So all of this to say, you are short-term rental owner

operator, or you want to be, you are absolutely a candidate to invest

in yourself and go to a conference.

There are plenty now to join a mastermind like Bobby's talking about.

We're preaching the choir because we want to say listen to podcasts.

Go to YouTube University if you must, as your first step.

Facebook groups.

Just make sure that you are surrounding yourself around people

who are solution-based and not just griping, because as we all

know, this is a tough industry.

Every industry is tough.

Any business is hard.

So just remember that while it's tough, there's always solutions.

There's always ways to overcome and to always be learning.

Yeah.

And I think we can learn so much from each other.

That's what blows my mind about our group is, there are rockstar hosts in here that

have been hosting for years, hundreds, if not thousands of reservations, and

there's new stuff every single day that they are encountering and improving upon.

And man, it's just fun to see all the wins in there.

So if you want to join our-- we have a live workshop,

it's host masterclass.com.

We educate and then we open up the doors for you to join our mastermind.

But if you just want to hop in and look to see what our mastermind's

about, there is a video.

You can watch the top of the screen there.

We'll put the link, but that is, thanksforvisiting.me/join.

Great.

J-O-I-N.

thanksforvisiting.me-- we'll put that link in the show notes, also

our workshop link in the show notes.

And again, if it's not Annette and myself, if we annoy the heck out of you--

No, we don't that.

No.

Well, I just mean if we're not the ones you learned from, just know that

there's a lot of opportunities out there.

There's a lot of conferences going on, a lot of masterminds.

Get involved.

Level up your education.

Let'sdo it.

Great question though.

With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I am Annette Grant, and together we are--

Thanks for Visiting.