Welcome to another Ask Me Anything (Ask Us Anything?) episode! Each week we’ll answer your questions on STR, real estate, OTAs, and everything in between.

Christina asks:

My team and I are just starting the concept of our STR business from scratch. There are 3 of us, and we all have other full-time jobs. How should we split up the division of labor for each of us?

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Hello, everyone.

Welcome back for another episode of the Hosting Hotline.

My name is Sarah Karakaian.

I am Annette Grant, and together we are--

Both Sarah and Annette:

Thanks for Visiting.

Hosting Hotline.

This is where you get to call in.

Well, actually, you'll go to our website thanksforvisiting.me.

In the upper right hand corner, you'll see a red button that says Ask TFV.

You'll press it and you can record your voice, ask your question, and

we'll answer it here right on the show.

And today we've got a question from Christina.

Hey, Sarah, Annette.

It's Christina again.

I just have one more question that I would love for you to talk about, and I

can also come ask inside the group now that we're in your program, which by the

way, we're super, super excited about.

And thank you so much for creating such an amazing program and community.

As you know, Lyndon, Brianna, and myself are just starting the concept of our

short-term rental from the very beginning.

And so there's three of us.

We all have other full-time jobs, so this is going to be something that we're doing

on, in addition, but with each other.

So we have that opportunity to divide the work up really between the three of us.

And I'm curious how you see three major buckets of work that might

help us to start seein g the role each of us would play.

We already know some things about ourselves, like I really like the

operations of setting up structure.

Lyndon's really good at partnerships and design and all that kind of stuff.

Lyndon's really good at the pulse and knowing people and what they need and

where they're at and good at marketing.

So I'm curious how you see division of labor could be in the very beginning

when we're just, just starting even the research between three people.

So love your thoughts and thank you so much.

Talk to you soon.

All right, Christina, this is a good question.

Annette, you had a really easy way, easy idea for Christina to break this

down to at least get her thoughts going.

I'm someone that writes everything down.

I have to see the vision of what I'm thinking here.

So this is what I want to offer to you, Christina, and all of your partners.

To me, you are all-- the equal partnerships, you are all the CEOs.

And I think it's okay to have co CEOs.

So all of you will be at that top of the org chart as CEOs.

And then I would assign a COO, Chief Operating Officer, a CMO, a

Chief Marketing Officer, and then a C FO, a Chief Financial Officer.

So Annette, what do you think then the COO, the Chief Operational Officer,

what would they do in your opinion?

The COO would be in charge of the behind the scenes

of the operations of the property.

So hiring out the team, customer service, making sure any of the

consumables are there and dialed in.

And the thing about that too is I don't think we're suggesting

that, let's say, partner A is the COO.

They don't have to be on the app 24/7/365, but it would be their job to find someone

to manage guest communication on the various apps and emails and so they would

be in charge of finding that person.

And the COO could assign the CMO and the CFO to also be

part of the customer service team.

So especially when you have a small team, people wear many, many, many, many hats.

So don't be afraid to distribute those hats to everyone.

Okay, so what are some CMO responsibilities that you can think of?

All right, for CMO I heard in the question that someone probably

focuses more on the design aspect, and that to me is going to be the very

first focus of marketing your property.

You want to make sure that it's designed properly.

And then the CMO would also take care of things like putting your property on

listing sites, on OTAs, in the future being in charge of that direct booking

site, also Email collection, any sort of marketing to maybe influence local

shops, bars, and restaurants in your town.

That's what the CMO, to me, would be in charge of.

AD MARKER

Okay.

We're two thirds of the way there.

We might as well lay out this one.

What would the CFO, the chief financial officer, be in charge of?

And I also heard in the question, someone really likes to

dive into the numbers, so this is going to be the numbers person.

This is going to be just someone that's helping you set up the bank accounts

if you're going to do any credit cards, do forecasting for you, keep

track of the day-to-day financials.

They would be the one helping you.

If you have a bookkeeper, they're going to be corresponding with the bookkeeper.

They're going to be the one trying to map out what your nightly rate is going to be.

They are going to do all the functions of the finances.

They're going to work really closely with the CMO when they're designing

the property and helping them establish a budget with the COO on how they

hire the team, how they pay the team.

That's what the CFO would be doing.

So we hope that helps your question, Christina.

Saying the words question and Christine in the same sentence it's not easy.

We hope that answers your question.

And this is not the only way you could structure your partnership,

but we wanted to get those thought, those ideas going for you to see what

works best for you and your team.

Annette and I are in a partnership with Annette's sister and we have it

structured differently because people brought different things to the table,

like money and a W2 and so there's not one way to do it, but we thought

this will at least get you going.

And with that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I am Annette grant, and together we are--

Both Sarah and Annette:

Thanks for Visiting.