Steve: I'm always inspired.
When I hear somebody who has put a lot of thought into their
interpretation of the orange credo.
It gives insight into how they see the world.
And it gives us an opportunity to have a common language.
To have great conversations about how we take care of our
responsibilities to homeowners, guests, teammates, and even each other.
This past Friday, Andres from Fort Lauderdale did just that.
Steve: He went deep into nurturing homeowners . Jeremy.
And I sat outside a barbecue joint in Nashville and put my phone on
the window seal and listened to the entirety of his presentation.
I made it into a podcast so we can share it with new
teammates and new partners.
I'm Steve Schwab.
And this has cost cast.
It's the KasaCast, created by KasaGo.
It's time for the show, let's go!
I will nurture the relationships I have with the owners and renters that I meet.
And don't meet as well.
There's a lot of renters that I don't meet, but I speak to myself
and my partner, Gabby speak to over the phone or via text.
I will never lose their confidence.
I understand that trust is the basis for our relationship.
And I will follow up.
I will be transparent and communicate warmly and personably.
And again, I'm going to be focusing on the homeowner side of nurture.
Obviously, I nurture our guests, our renters on a continuous
basis, but for time management.
I'm going to focus on the homeowners what do we do in
terms of nurturing our homeowners?
Well, first and foremost, we keep it simple and we do this by
following what I call the big three.
We focus on the big three.
And what are the big three?
Number one.
Rates and occupancy.
Number two, the homes upkeep, which includes housekeeping and maintenance.
And number three, we are always finessing constant improvement
through communication.
What is this constant improvement?
It's all about the overall look.
And feel of the property, the furnishings and any renovation work
that we are overseeing on behalf of the homeowner and communication
with homeowners is always strategic.
It is always kind and professional, and it is never apologetic when it
comes to the need to operate their homes efficiently and productively.
We're taking a big load off the homeowner's hands by managing their
properties, but there must be, homeowner participation to some degree for a
long lasting relationship in which the portfolio of homes Especially in terms
of quality assurance is consistently evolving and never growing stale.
And so here we are, monthly homeowner meetings.
And this is how we best nurture our homeowners.
Keep in mind, we are formally meeting with homeowners.
On a monthly basis, once per month Gabby and I, we are meeting with homeowners
and not just face to face meeting.
Sometimes they're face to face meeting.
Some homeowners don't live in the area.
They live in other states many times.
It takes place in the form of a telephone call and sometimes just because of,
you know, day to day life happens.
If we can't get to if we can't get to communicate with the homeowners
via, face to face conversation or a telephone, then we are sending them
an email overview of how things are going throughout the last 30 days.
What are we including?
Well, basically, the conversations always involve the following.
We are constantly, constantly, constantly reminding homeowners, especially.
Newer homeowners that they're running a business.
Oftentimes, I hear a lot of homeowners say, well, yes it's my property.
It's my home.
I spend time there with my family on vacations.
And that's all very, very important.
Absolutely.
Positively, but the home is, in fact, a business and there will be.
A constant need for things like maintenance.
There will be a need to update the property from time to time.
And of course, general improvements here and there.
We're always highlighting the difference to homeowners in many different ways.
We're highlighting the difference between being good enough at your home versus
operating a hospitality based business.
So, guests want things that are not just functional, but they
want things that are also nice.
Functional and nice.
It's not just good enough for something to work.
It needs to look good.
It needs to really blend in and really It needs to be part of the home.
Uh, the overall look and feel of the property needs to make sense.
And so it's fantastic.
Okay.
You have a big room and a big bed, but that big room that has a big
bed also needs to be comfortable.
Many markets are saturated with vacation rentals here in South Florida.
There's a vacation rental in every direction you go to and
homeowners, regardless, they always want to earn money.
Obviously that's the be all end all of this business.
We need to make money.
They need to make money.
And so 1 of the things that we like to discuss with our homeowners
is we want to educate them.
We want them to also not just pay attention to their bottom line.
And we understand that many homeowners, different personalities, different
motivations oftentimes will focus.
Primarily on their bottom line, but, but we also want them to
again, to some degree, understand the inner workings of the business.
For example, how a listing their listing can function best the review, the impact
that guests reviews have on their home page landings, occupancy rates, booking.
com.
I know booking.
com.
Is an area of controversy for a lot of our property managers here today.
A lot of people hate booking dot com in south florida.
We use booking dot com.
A lot of homeowners have communicated to us their displeasure with booking dot com.
Maybe through other friends that they have that also have vacation rental dot com.
Homes that they manage that they self manage maybe or through other vacation
rental companies and they've had bad.
Yes.
You know, just bad overall experiences.
Booking.
com can work in different markets.
And so, for example, in South Florida, we have a lot of international clientele that
are coming from central and South America.
We use booking.
com, and it's been pretty good for us, and so we talk about booking.
com.
We talk about the importance of having amenities.
The difference between having a jacuzzi and not having a jacuzzi, for example.
We talk about comparable properties.
Why?
Often times we hear a homeowner that says, Well, Johnny down the street
who is renting his own property.
He's he just rented his home for 600 a night.
Why is my property only renting for 300 a night?
There's a lot involved in a question like that.
And so nurturing the owner, educating the owner and helping him or her.
Understand the various intricacies of the market and of their home versus other
comparable homes is extremely important.
And obviously another big one, at least in our Fort Lauderdale market
is homes need time to gain traction.
Like I said, there is a just an incredible amount of vacation rentals.
It is a heavily saturated market.
We have great occupancy and we succeed.
Why?
Because right from the get go when we are establishing relationship
with the homeowners, we're being very transparent with the good, the bad,
the ugly, and everything in between.
And we are discussing how a home needs to gain traction through time.
Five star reviews are critical, obviously, and in order for a home to
get those five star reviews the home needs to, again, have a certain look.
It needs to be presentable.
It needs to have updated furnishings.
It needs to be in great condition, not just functional,
but it needs to look nice.
This kind of thing can vary from market to market.
But in south florida, um, new and modern is what rules the roost.
Um, we are constantly discussing changes and improvements with the homeowners from
both a guest and homeowner perspective.
Both sides matter.
I know this is a homeowner's second home.
Some homeowners, they use their properties quite a bit.
Maybe, um, for the holidays, they'll, they'll block their property out
for a week and invite their friends and their family to stay over.
And so, you know, they have, it's their home.
They want things to be a certain way, but we're constantly reminding the
homeowners that again, this is a property that for the most part is a home that
is going to be, uh, used by our guests.
And, um, we need to educate the homeowners, remind the homeowners what
guests are looking for, especially in the South Florida market.
And in addition to that, there are sometimes easy wins for those
homeowners that are perhaps hesitant or stubborn to change a certain thing.
If you're pointing out things like the obvious hazards, tripping hazards,
loose steps, broken railing, this constant communication can definitely
help with improving, updating.
Making things better for our guests.
We also review our average daily rates.
Some homeowners, I would think that most of our homeowners in
our portfolio, they always wanna know how much more they can earn.
They, during high season, during special events and so on and so forth.
There are a lot of special events here in South Florida.
They wanna know what their average daily rates are gonna be.
They wanna know how much more they're going to make, et cetera, et cetera.
So we discuss.
Um, the average daily rates, if we are increasing or decreasing
rates, we are explaining to them.
Why during these formal monthly meetings?
Sometimes we have to explain and repeat this information outside of our
monthly formal meetings, which is fine.
It's great.
Um, but in any case, we are definitely always available to discuss it.
We're putting this information again, uh, during our monthly
homeowner meetings, regardless.
Um, we're talking about our previous reservations over the last few
weeks since we last discussed.
We're talking about guest reviews and any comments.
Again, this is another opportunity to make any improvements to the property.
We're talking about occupancy and we're talking about the origin
of reservations, uh, Airbnb.
Verbo, booking.
com, et cetera, et cetera.
Um, we are reviewing the listing information.
Do they need a refresher?
Do we have new lights outside or new chairs?
Do we need new photos?
And then some homeowners, as you can imagine, they want all this information.
Some homeowners, they think they want it, but they don't and they forget about it.
And then it's all water under the bridge.
But in any case, we always provide the information.
It's always important to provide the information.
The best homeowners are usually the most informed.
We're always ready to kindly, as I mentioned before, repeat the
information if necessary, whatever they're asking, whatever topic we
need to discuss again and again.
Gabby and I are always ready to do so.
And over time we learn to shape and mold our communication and how
we share information accordingly to each specific homeowner, never
a one size fits all mentality.
We understand the multiple intelligences.
We understand that different people learn in different ways.
Some homeowners are more visual.
And so on and so forth.
So we always try to adjust this to the best of our ability so that the homeowners
can retain the information properly.
And in the end, we do this, we do these monthly homeowner meetings,
because we want to obviously nurture.
We want to establish consistency.
We want open and active communication.
We want to eliminate and this is key.
We want to eliminate as many surprises.
As possible, so in a nutshell, that is what we do to, , that's
what we do in Fort Lauderdale.
That's how we nurture our homeowners.
It's the CosaCast, we're so luxurious.
The CosaCast, they all want to be us.
The CosaCast, just don't call in an Airbnb.
Okay?
It's the CosaCast, we've got Orange Credo.
The CosaCast, our company's NATO.