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Transcripts from Steve Schwab's newsletters
Alex: Stop blaming your revenue manager.
Your properties areâ¦â¦â¦.
strugglingâ¦â¦â¦â¦â¦.
So it must be the revenue managerâ¦
right?
Or maybeâ¦â¦â¦..
just hear me out on thisâ¦â¦â¦â¦â¦
maybe â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦you're
the problem.
It was a Thursday afternoon.
You got the lead.
You pulled a quick pro forma together,
reviewed the latest market data, and
off you went to sign that new property.
You told the homeowner it would
be a great short-term rental.
But that pit in your stomach?
The property just wasn't right.
It was boring, dated, and drowning
in a color palette from 2008.
You thought to yourself: we have
other listings with this same
Tuscan furniture, and they doâ¦
fine.
So you talked yourself out
of giving the real feedback.
You were too afraid to lose the deal.
Three days later you sat
down to create the listing.
Same wide-angle living room.
Same perfectly made bed.
Same balcony shot.
Same droning language about how
many people the property sleeps.
You checked all the boxes.
Uploaded the professional
photos with a splash of HDR
staging to make the colors pop.
Congratulations â you let the owner
deliver a mediocre property, and then you
aligned it with an unremarkable listing.
Halfway through the season, you're at
home checking emails while watching
Netflix with the kids, and you see it.
The homeowner is staring
at their owner calendar.
The property isn't performing
like their neighbor's home.
So we blame the revenue manager.
The rates are wrong.
The algorithm isn't reacting fast enough.
The channels are weak.
The market is soft.
Sometimes those things are true.
But revenue management cannot
create high demand for a property
that feels like a commodity.
Pricing cannot fix a forgettable home.
An algorithm cannot manufacture character.
Lowering the nightly rate
does not suddenly give a
generic property more value.
Meanwhile, another owner with one, two,
or three properties is beating the market
on both occupancy and average daily rate.
How?
They are featuring the
homes in ways that matter.
Where the morning light
enters the kitchen.
Why the patio feels special at sunset.
Where families gather.
The small details guests
remember long after they leave.
That owner was coached to put real thought
into the furniture, the photography,
the description, and the experience.
The listing feels personal â because
the property is personal to them.
The danger is not that
guests now expect too much.
The danger is that we have started
expecting too little from ourselves.
We have become very good at
documenting properties without
truly understanding them.
The job now is to make every property
stand apart so clearly that, for
the right guest, the alternatives no
longer feel like true substitutes.
A guest can filter for three bedrooms,
a hot tub, mountain views, and a
pet-friendly policy in seconds.
Those features might get a
property into the search results.
But they don't make it worth choosing.
A listing needs a point of view.
A property needs an identity.
The home needs to communicate who
it is for, how it feels, and why the
experience will be different there.
Without that, it is just another
thumbnail competing on price.
The days of accepting an average
property, creating an average listing, and
expecting above-average results are over.
This is where we need to rethink
what service actually means.
Service is not just making
sure the property is clean,
safe, and accurately described.
Those are minimum standards.
They are the price of admission.
Real service means telling
homeowners the truth.
It means having the courage to
say the furniture is worn out,
the design is generic, and the
photographs are forgettable.
That conversation may be uncomfortable
â but we need to have it anyway.
Taking on a mediocre property
and allowing the homeowner to
believe revenue management will
solve everything is not service.
It is avoidance.
Creating authenticity does not
always require a major renovation.
It may mean building a story around
the best view, replacing generic decor
with connections to local art, or
simply telling guests what it feels
like to stay there instead of listing
dimensions and furniture counts.
Authenticity is specific.
It comes from knowing what makes
the home different and having the
discipline to bring that difference
into the design, photography,
description, and guest experience.
That requires more than software.
It requires judgment, honesty,
creativity, and a real
relationship with the homeowner.
The best property managers of the future
will still have strong systems, clean
homes, and smart revenue management
â but those things will be expected.
They will not be the differentiator.
The managers who win are the
ones willing to go deeper.
They will refuse to accept mediocrity.
They will tell homeowners the truth.
They will make every property
distinctive before asking the revenue
manager to make it profitable.
Before blaming the algorithm, the
market, or the revenue manager â ask a
harder question: Have we given anyone
a real reason to book this property?
The future does not belong to the
property manager with the most listings.
It belongs to the property manager
with the most listings worth choosing.