In this #STRShareSunday remix, we’ve invited Hosting Business Mastery members to share some of their top takeaways from the recent Level Up Your Listing Summit. We had such great conversations at the event that we decided to share some of the top tips we all learned in this episode!

Topics we cover include: how to increase engagement on social media, as well as plan and manage your social media posting schedule, action items for revamping your short-term listing and the benefits of making improvements, maximizing your efforts by delegating or automating tasks no matter what scale your operation is, and short-term rental insurance umbrella policy and tax deduction takeaways that, even though are not sexy topics to talk about, are so important to understand.

This event reminded us that getting to live events and connecting with the hosting community is really important. We are working on bringing our live event back this year, so please be on the lookout for that.

In the meantime, we encourage you to try to put something on your calendar where you can connect with other hosts. Meeting fellow hosts can not only uplevel your own listing, but it'll help uplevel the whole entire hosting community. Make sure to give these hosts and properties a follow on Instagram!

Resources:

• @bigbucklemountainhomes on Instagram

• @sleepylagoonla on Instagram

• @lacroixcovington on Instagram

• @thedigs.co on Instagram

• @yyhminnesota on Instagram

• Social Media Management Platform: Later.com

• Shop: Minoan

• Insurance: Proper Insurance

• Level Up Your Listing 2024: levelupyourlistingsummit.com/2024waitlist

• #STRShareSunday: @levelupyourlisting

Thanks for Visiting is produced by Crate Media.

Mentioned in this episode:

Minoan | Minoan helps short-term rentals and boutique hotels enhance their appeal with their customizable, curated retail platform.

Visit MinoanExperience.com and tell them TFV sent you!

Hosting Business Mastery Method | Join us for our live, free, host masterclass and learn how to OWN your digital real estate!

HBMM | Sign up today at hostmasterclass.com.

Breezeway | Go to breezeway.io/tfv to claim your free implementation when you start a Breezeway account.

Hello, welcome back for the great episode.

My name is Sarah Karakaian.

I am Annette Grant, and together we are--

Both Sarah and Annette:

Thanks for Visiting.

All right.

We're going to kick off this show by sharing some awesome listeners

short-term rentals, but we're going to do it a little differently today.

Right, Annette?

Yes.

Our STRShareSunday, we're having a little bit of a remix this week,

but we're really excited about it.

What we want to do is first share @levelupyourlisting.

Again, that's @levelupyourlisting.

And this whole episode is a recap of the event that we just attended

in Scottsdale with all of the guests that are on the show today.

They are remote guests.

They are calling in, but we want to share this event.

And the two lovely ladies, Natalie Palmer and Tatiana Taylor Tate,

they just crushed this live event.

The word on the street is it will be back in 2024.

So be on the lookout, but please give them a follow @levelupyourlisting.

And we are going to get onto this episode.

What it is, every guest on the show today, they are going to share

their big takeaway from this event.

And each one of our guests, they are going to share their Instagram handle.

So please give them a follow.

So we are going to do a multitude of sharing today.

Sarah, who's up first?

Yeah.

Okay.

So up first we have Amber.

Hi, this is Amber, co-owner of Big Buckle Mountain Homes, where we host

and co-host vacation homes in Colorado.

We took home many great tips and tricks on incorporating social media into our homes.

One of the best tips was to link any instructional or informational

clips in the home to our Instagram.

For example, we have a 22nd clip on how to operate the fire pit,

open and close the hot tub, or put together the ping pong table.

We're going to move these to our Instagram account so that when guests scan the code

to watch the video, they're taken to our Instagram and it encourages them to be

familiar with and tag Big Buckle Mountain Homes and their vacation postings.

As we grow our business, we're striving to become more

organized in our business week.

Currently, we feel the pressure to create social media content daily.

One of the tips we took away from the conference was later.com.

This is a platform that will allow you to create numerous social media

posts or content and schedule them to be delivered on future dates.

I believe this will help us schedule one moment during the week to sit down

and focus on social media creation.

Thirdly, we were able to connect with representatives of many of

the platforms we currently use.

This opened doors for us to connect on social media through our

Instagram and Facebook, and discuss opportunities for mutual media sharing

when we highlight their products.

Overall, the conference was a great way to connect and build relationships

with other short-term vacation hosts.

I love all the takeaways that Amber shared with us.

One tip that I want to just elaborate on is that first one, taking you back to

Instagram to have them engage with you.

One step further, if you have a direct booking website where you could also

grab their email address and maybe a special offer if they're the first

time that they're arriving to your website and having your videos live

there would also be a really good tip.

We should have done this at the intro, but listeners, the reason we chose

these specific voices to let us know their largest takeaway from the event is

they are members of our Hosting Business Mastery membership, and we got to connect

with them in person over the three days.

So there were lots of learning, obviously nightly meetups

after to discuss all the things.

But we had such a great conversation on the final evening of the event

that we were like, wait a second.

Sarah and I like to do recaps of live events that we go to, and we're like,

they had so many great takeaways.

We're like, we want to have you on the show and share your takeaways

with all of the listeners.

So I just wanted to give a little bit of background on why these lovely ladies are

the ones telling, um, their takeaways.

Because there were hundreds of women at the conference and I'm sure they,

I mean, we could have episodes for weeks, about the takeaways, but that's

why we specifically chose these women.

Okay, next up we have Tanya.

And Tanya was a huge help on our live event.

So I just want to give her an extra shout out here because she was

very, very important in the live event that Sarah and I conducted.

Tanya's Instagram is @YYHMinnesota.

Again, that's YYHMinnesota, and we will have links to all the ladies'

Instagram in the show notes.

It stands for.

Yay, you're here, which I thought is so cute.

All right, here's Tanya and her take.

Hi, I'm Tanya Rooney.

My Instagram handle is Tanya Rooney MN.

I'm in Hosting Business Mastery Method Mastermind.

And I think the biggest takeaway that I had was how much design

matters in your short term rentals and that it actually can drive up

some of the ADR that you have.

So I think the biggest thing that I took away is just that I can actually

do some work on my rentals and make them-- like there's actually one that I

really want to revamp because it was the first one I ever did and it's just kind

of average and I think I need to work on making it better than my own home.

So that was one big takeaway was that people book short-term rentals

because they want to be at a place that's better than their own home.

So my biggest action item is I'm revamping one.

I took measurements of every bedroom and a living room and a hallway, and we're

going to add in some cool wow factors.

I'm going to redo a living room and then make sure that the decor get revamped

in a couple of the bedrooms, like it's a five bedroom, three bathhouse.

Yeah, Tanya.

And then hopefully everyone knows too, obviously we are partnered with

Minoan and we use them, love them.

And I know Tanya will be shopping through Minoan to make sure that she

can get tons and tons of discounts on those revamps that she's not paying

retail for all of those wow factors she plans on putting in her home.

And the one thing that I love that Tanya pointed out was

like, hey, this was my first one.

What happens is you get going, you get started, you get those

bookings, and it's hard to close your calendar down because it's revenue.

But I love that she has the foresight like, hey, I might have to slow down to

speed up here and make an investment.

But her average daily rate, like she's going to make more

money by making these changes.

And I love that she's excited.

I mean, obviously she's taking action already.

I think we've been home for like four days, so good job, Tanya, there.

But I know you're out there listeners, the ones that are like, yeah, I really

should fix that or replace that.

This is your sign.

This is your sign to make that reinvestment.

It will pay off.

AD MARKER

All right, next up we have Chelsea.

You can follow my instagram @thedigs.co.

Also on Facebook at digs co vacation rentals.

My biggest takeaway was actually the keynote speaker at the very end of

the summit, who was April Brown from the Netflix series Motel makeover.

We actually loved watching that show, and it was great to see her in person

and talk about her experience, growing her motel business and being motelier.

She kept repeating a phrase, which is not a foreign concept to me, but as

we're growing our business and making sure that we're maximizing our efforts,

her phrase delegate or automate.

What are you delegating?

What are you automating was a big one for me.

I've delegated a lot as we've been growing, but I think it was nice to hear

no matter what scale you are, no matter how big your operation is, you still

have to have those things come into play.

And I've actually implemented this already.

I've delegated our newest employee who is taking over all of our safety inspections.

Great to see you guys.

See you soon in Nashville.

Thank you so much, Chelsea.

We love that takeaway.

We also give you permission.

There are so many moving parts and pieces in running a short-term rental.

And if you ever feel overwhelmed, take a deep breath.

Write the things down that you're doing in your business.

Take a log first for a little while and then you can look at it.

We call it a brain dump, and you can look at it and see is there anything

there that you can automate without losing those personal touches.

Is there anything that you can delegate and maybe provide someone with some extra

money in their life and free up some time for you to just have some more head space?

So I just take myself back to what you just feel like everything's

just caving in around you because there's so many spinning plates and

you're like, how do I start taking control over this a little bit?

And for me it was brain dumping and seeing it all on paper and

then taking it kind of one by one.

That phrase is very popular and there's sometimes

a third word attached to it.

So automate, delegate.

The word I like the best that people add on is eliminate.

Also sometimes, there's things you can also just eliminate them from your list.

If they've been on there forever and there's something that's really

not necessary and it's bothering you and adding more to your plate, you

can eliminate it for a little while until it's time to bring it back on.

Yeah.

All right.

Last up.

We have Ms.

Stacy Race.

Hi, I am Stacy Perretti Race.

And my properties are just outside of New Orleans, Louisiana.

I absolutely loved the conference, um, and what I learned there.

I will have to say, although it wasn't the sexiest of sessions, uh,

the two key takeaways that I had.

The first from Proper Insurance, finding out that my umbrella policy

does not cover me liability-wise if it's a business activity.

And then I learned a lot about deductions in the tax session that I need to speak

with my CPAs about because I think I'm missing out on some deductions

that are, uh, applicable to my.

Other than that, I just love the whole atmosphere of it all

that it was geared toward women.

And the cherry on top was being able to spend some great time with

three of my best friends in this business that I met through HBMM.

And I want to thank you guys for connecting all of us as you do.

We've formed a great friendship and community just from being in this business

and learning from you guys together.

If anyone would like to check out my properties, my Instagram handles are

Sleepy Lagoon LA and LaCroix Covington.

That's L-A_C-R-O-I-X Covington.

Thanks so much, guys.

She's got beautiful properties.

Yes.

Stacy's crushing it.

And obviously, stacy just brought up two really important things.

We will circle back on specifically if we can get proper on to

discuss what Stacy is mentioning.

But until that time, if you want to reach out to Proper, we will

put their link in the show notes.

If what Stacy just said about her personal umbrella policy and her property being

separate, that's a business, and then her personal liability, I am sure that Proper,

if you want to discuss some things like that, if you want to reach out to them,

get a quote from them, make sure that you are doing apples to apples comparison.

Huge red flag right now.

If you don't have short-term rental insurance, then we really want

you to reach out to Proper today.

But, Stacy, thanks for bringing that up.

And then what she mentioned about her tax person, please let your tax person

know exactly what you're doing with your property and also what you plan to

do with your portfolio in the future.

You can't just keep them siloed in what you're doing today.

Let them know the whole future of your grand plans with your

whole short-term rental portfolio.

But Sarah, let's talk about our takeaways.

Yeah.

My takeaways is, someone said this too at the conference, I think

it was Tatiana, one of the hosts.

And she reminded all of us at the conferences or anything that you do,

it's what you decide to take from it.

You can show up, and that's really half the battle.

You then have to make the most of that situation.

And I really love that because Annette encouraged me when we

go someplace, we set intentions.

What do we want to get out of this experience?

Because you could show up and never go to any of the sessions, or we go to

sessions, but not really be checked in.

And so anything you do that you decide to give at your time, show up with intention.

And for me, it was just these little reminders of how

important it is to revisit my operational systems and processes.

I did love the tax discussion because we're in this for, yes, because

we love hosting and hospitality, but what a great benefit that we

get to do it through real estate.

And uh, she had some really great reminders there.

So we'll definitely have some more tax discussions this year,

Annette, I think, on the show.

Yeah.

Speaking of taxes and live events, if you're running your hosting business

like a business to go to these summits, these are tax write-offs.

You can write off this travel.

So please, that is a huge reason you want to open up that LLC, you

want to open up that points credit card for your hosting business.

So that's something obviously the tax representative there was

chatting about as like, let's make sure that you're separating your

personal and your business, so you can write these things off.

Because some people had booked their hotel, they booked their flight on

their personal and it gets muddy.

You don't want to do that.

And I think for us, everyone there was like really taking their business

seriously, which was so exciting.

A lot of people were transitioning from maybe hosting part-time to full-time.

A lot of people wanting to get into co-hosting.

But it just reminded Sarah and I that like getting out, getting to

live events, connecting with the hosting community is really important.

It got us fired up.

We are in the works right now of bringing our live event back this year,

so please be on the lookout for that.

But try to put something on your calendar where you can connect with other hosts.

The hosting community is really important.

It's important that we get out, we meet fellow hosts and not only uplevel your

own listing, but it'll help uplevel the whole entire hosting community.

With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I am Annette Grant, and together we are--

Both Sarah and Annette:

Thanks for Visiting.