Latest / Outdoor Hospitality Podcast: Glamping, STR, Resorts, Unique Stays, RV Parks, RV Resorts & Campgrounds / Are your units priced correctly? Jasper Ribbers of 'Get Paid for your Pad' Podcast & Freewyld Foundry Revenue Management Firm

Transcript

Are your units priced correctly? Jasper Ribbers of 'Get Paid for your Pad' Podcast & Freewyld Foundry Revenue Management Firm · Outdoor Hospitality Podcast: Glamping, STR, Resorts, Unique Stays, RV Parks, RV Resorts & Campgrounds

• 0:05
  Connor Schwab: Welcome back to the Outdoor Hospitality Podcast.
• 0:08
  Connor Schwab: I'm your host, Connor Schwab.
• 0:09
  Connor Schwab: Today I'm joined by Jasper Rivers, head of revenue management, one of the founders of FreeWild Foundry, as well as the Get Paid for Your Pad podcasts.
• 0:19
  Connor Schwab: And I've been using him as a client for a couple of properties that I'm overseeing and have been extremely impressed with his operation and what they do with revenue management, diving into the data and understanding it.
• 0:32
  Connor Schwab: And so I wanted to bring him on to learn to really do a deep dive into something that's so important for all operators, and that is understanding revenue management and dynamic prices.
• 0:41
  Connor Schwab: So welcome to the show, Jasper.
• 0:42
  Jasper Ribbers: Yeah, I appreciate you having me on, Connor.
• 0:45
  Connor Schwab: Yeah, thank you.
• 0:46
  Connor Schwab: Well, I want to maybe start with a get right into it, and then we'll learn a little bit more about your background.
• 0:51
  Connor Schwab: But what would you say is the number one thing most operators, you know, aren't doing that could positively impact their, you know, bottom line today?
• 1:00
  Jasper Ribbers: Yeah, I think I think high level, the the number one thing is taking revenue management serious as a part of your business, right?
• 1:09
  Jasper Ribbers: Like what we oftentimes see is that either the general manager or the co-founder or the CEO of the company is doing revenue management on the side, and it's something that you know they use their best judgment, they haven't necessarily educated themselves on that.
• 1:27
  Jasper Ribbers: Someone needs to do it, and so it it usually falls on their plate.
• 1:31
  Jasper Ribbers: And you know how it goes in hospitality, like there's there's always fires, there's always something urgent to work on, right?
• 1:38
  Jasper Ribbers: And typically, like the the revenue management side is not something that people consider to be extremely urgent, so it's kind of done when there's time, and so that I think that's the biggest mistake or biggest problem that I see is like people really need to put urgency and importance on on revenue management as a part of their business.
• 2:03
  Connor Schwab: And and maybe we should probably be good for the listeners to define what exactly revenue management is and what exactly dynamic pricing is, just so everyone's on the same page.
• 2:12
  Jasper Ribbers: Yeah, no, that's a really good point because if you ask 10 operators what is revenue management, you're probably gonna get 10 different answers.
• 2:19
  Jasper Ribbers: So some operators think it's a pricing tool, which it's not.
• 2:23
  Jasper Ribbers: Some operators think it's just you know setting manual prices.
• 2:27
  Jasper Ribbers: There's so many different definitions around, but you know, in my in my perspective, the way I look at revenue management is whatever you do in your business that directly affects the chance that somebody will book and the price that somebody will book at, right?
• 2:46
  Jasper Ribbers: So it's it's it's the most obvious part is like setting the prices, right?
• 2:50
  Jasper Ribbers: Whether you do that in your PMS or you use a pricing tool for that.
• 2:54
  Jasper Ribbers: But outside of the setting the prices, it also involves the bookability, right?
• 2:59
  Jasper Ribbers: So, like, for example, like what cancellation policy do you choose?
• 3:02
  Jasper Ribbers: Right, you can have very attractive prices, but if you put a strict cancellation policy on the Airbnb, your listings are just not going to be seen, right?
• 3:10
  Jasper Ribbers: So, like, then it doesn't really matter what your pricing strategy is.
• 3:13
  Jasper Ribbers: There's minimum night stay settings, um, right?
• 3:15
  Jasper Ribbers: There is there's other type of booking settings, like do you have your calendars open for 12 months or for nine months, right?
• 3:22
  Jasper Ribbers: It's like, do you accept same-day bookings?
• 3:26
  Jasper Ribbers: Right.
• 3:26
  Jasper Ribbers: So there's and what kind of promotions are you using on the on the OTAs, right?
• 3:32
  Jasper Ribbers: So there's there's a little bit more than than just setting the prices, and you know, I think you could there's a gray area where it's like, okay, is this distribution, is this maybe operations or is this revenue management, right?
• 3:46
  Jasper Ribbers: But you know, I like to I like to think of revenue management a little bit broader than than most operators will will think about it, because yeah, if it if it really directly impacts the price that you can get or the chance that you get booked, then you know, I still consider it oftentimes I will still consider it revenue management.
• 4:06
  Jasper Ribbers: Listing optimization is kind of like this other thing where it's like it's really impacting your revenue, but it's more like that's more marketing, right?
• 4:13
  Jasper Ribbers: But it's still it's still a part of it.
• 4:16
  Jasper Ribbers: So, like we as revenue managers, we don't optimize your listings, but but we do give you advice on like, hey, this listing could use some better photos, or this listing, you know, you forgot to put the captions or whatever that is, right?
• 4:30
  Jasper Ribbers: So so yeah, I hope that's I know that's not the clearest definition, but I hope that brings some clarity.
• 4:36
  Connor Schwab: That just made so many more questions pop up in my head of things that I want to dive into.
• 4:41
  Connor Schwab: I'm gonna pause on that because I want to I want to learn how you got into this space, like what led you into the short-term vacation rental, hospitality management.
• 4:50
  Connor Schwab: How did you get here?
• 4:51
  Jasper Ribbers: Yeah, for sure.
• 4:52
  Jasper Ribbers: Yeah, it's it's uh it's a long time ago, actually.
• 4:55
  Jasper Ribbers: I used to be in finance, so I was I was a trader.
• 4:58
  Jasper Ribbers: I worked in first in Europe and Amsterdam and then in Chicago in the US.
• 5:02
  Jasper Ribbers: And eventually I I decided to take some time off and travel the world.
• 5:07
  Jasper Ribbers: And I owned an apartment in Amsterdam, and this is back in 2011 when I started traveling, and I was not looking forward.
• 5:16
  Jasper Ribbers: I had some long-term renters in there, but I was a bit worried about that because it's it's kind of hard to well, first of all, you can't use your own house, so right.
• 5:26
  Jasper Ribbers: So, like as I was traveling, I'd come back to Amsterdam and I would stay with friends, and I was thinking it'd be nice if I could just stay in my own house when I'm back in Amsterdam, right?
• 5:34
  Jasper Ribbers: So that so then that's one thing, and then I was also worried about the long-term renters because I don't know how it is where where you live, but in Amsterdam, if you if you have a somebody that rents your house, you pretty much lose control of the asset.
• 5:48
  Jasper Ribbers: So that's a bit scary because I thought, yeah, you know what?
• 5:50
  Jasper Ribbers: Maybe I'll just want to go back and live my own house next year, or right.
• 5:54
  Jasper Ribbers: So I wanted to have that flexibility, and Airbn seemed perfect for that.
• 5:57
  Jasper Ribbers: So that was the start of my journey in uh yeah, in in the short-term rental space.
• 6:04
  Jasper Ribbers: But then also, like, why I'll answer as well, like, you know, the last couple of years I've been focused on revenue management.
• 6:10
  Jasper Ribbers: And the reason that I started focusing on revenue management is that we kind of realized a couple of years ago, yeah, we did a lot of courses and we worked with a lot of operators, and we realized that like a lot of people are just not taking it serious, right?
• 6:28
  Jasper Ribbers: Like I like I mentioned.
• 6:30
  Jasper Ribbers: And you know, since I have a background in in econometrics and and trading, like always been a numbers person.
• 6:36
  Jasper Ribbers: So I thought maybe on the numbers side I can I can bring more value than in other areas in the short-term rental business.
• 6:44
  Jasper Ribbers: So it kind of makes sense for me to dive into that.
• 6:47
  Jasper Ribbers: So that's what I've been doing for the last three years is look at price laps all day, pretty much.
• 6:54
  Connor Schwab: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:55
  Connor Schwab: And did you uh when you did you say how long ago did you start Freewild?
• 7:01
  Connor Schwab: How many years ago?
• 7:03
  Jasper Ribbers: So so Free Wild, uh, there's two parts, right?
• 7:05
  Jasper Ribbers: There's Free Wild Foundry, which is the revenue management side that we started just over two years ago, and then the hospital our hospitality side, we actually started that in 2021, so about five years ago.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, and that's down in Idawild, right?
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: That's right, yeah.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's our first our first project in Idawild.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Do you have more properties than that one that you that you own?
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: I own some personal units, but as part of Freewild, we're we're still at our first property.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: It's we want we were hoping to have a few other by now, but there was kind of two things that came into play.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Number one is this the revenue management side.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: We weren't necessarily planning, you know, scaling that when we first started it, but there was such such a need for it that it just makes sense for us to really focus on that.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: So we kind of put the hospitality side on the back burner a little bit, but also like I mean you're you're investing too, right?
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: We have a very specific niche, like we have a very specific location that we're going after, a specific asset, and so like they're you know, they're kind of tough to find, but also the projects that we found that we wanted to acquire, we just couldn't we just couldn't get the seller to come to a price that made sense for us.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: So those those are kind of the two things that were that were holding us up a little bit, but we're not in a rush, you know, like we when you acquire, you know, it takes time, and you sometimes you have to wait for for the right time, you know, to to to expand.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: So we're we're we're always looking now.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Well, I'd love to hear a little like a little bit more, a little more background on you know the get paid for your pad podcasts.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: That's obviously it's a it's a very large and well-known podcast, certainly bigger than our our little niche glamping one.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: And then for Idawild, the Idawild property, just like how many units, what kind, like typical ADR, and then you know, where is where's Free Wild today in terms of size of employees, number of clients, things like that.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Just to give people a little bit of context.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: So well, let's start with get paid for your pad.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: So when I started my Airbnb in 2000, it went live in 2012, but I learned about Airbnb in 2011.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: There was like no information at all about how to do Airbnb, right?
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: How do you there was no pricing tool, like you you put prices in your in your calendar manually, right?
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: I didn't know how to build the listing, and so I started doing research and I just couldn't find any info.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: And it was actually a friend of mine who was a publisher.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: He actually gave me the idea.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: He said, like, hey, you know what, there, why don't you write a book about about how you're making money with Airbnb?
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Because I was crushing it with my apartment, like I couldn't believe it.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was doing like three times the rent that I that we would get.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: So I felt like wow, this is an insane opportunity here.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: And I was just shocked and to find out that like very few people were talking about it.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: So that's really how the podcast came about because I I launched the book, I think it was in 2014, which was essentially a collection of all my notes from from my journey.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: And then I really started the podcast to promote the book, and never really thought I would build a business on top of it, but it was more of like a just a fun project for me.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: So let's get paid for your pad.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Now Freebilds, so Freebild, we we purchased the we purchased the property in back into the end of 2021 when the short-term rental space was a little bit different than than it is now.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: We have there was four existing cabins, and so like a studio, a one bed, a two-bed, and and a three bed, and there was a large area of of land.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Well, large, you know, relatively.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: It's it's the project is downtown Idahout, so it's a small mountain village, and there's not there's not a whole lot of available land, like walking distance from the center.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: So we we had a really good location.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Our plan was to build more cabins there, but then COVID happened and you know construction became pretty expensive.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: So we we ended up turning it into a park, actually, that our our guests could use.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: So that's where that's where we're at now.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: We're still we're still in the process of you know figuring out like how many cabins we can build, you know, talking to the to the local authorities about that and stuff like that.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that's where that's where Freewild is at.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: And then you asked about the revenue management side.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: We're around 70 clients right now.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: We manage about 150 million in in bookings.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: So yeah, we've when we're growing we're still growing pretty pretty fast.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: And now that you know, with AI, I don't know if you want to talk a lot about AI, but you know, AI is is having a big impact on on our business.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely certainly will we'll get to AI.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: And then I also see on your LinkedIn overnight success.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: What how does that end all this?
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Is that short-term rental as well?
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: That was our previous education company.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: So we were doing masterminds, we were doing courses, we were doing live masterminds, virtual last minds.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: It was all education, so that's that's kind of like what we started off with.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: But we ended up we ended up closing down that company, and and now we have FreeWild and we have FreeWild Foundry.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: So you you wrote a book on Airbnb in 2014, then you started an education business, and then you also have uh a leading podcast.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: So it's probably safe to say that you're you're very focused on knowledge, strategy, growth mindset, education.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, yes.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: All right, we got the right guest on here.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Perfect.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: So I guess what what what I think would be really curious to know, and maybe I'll give a little bit of context to the listeners as well for kind of why I invited you on the show.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: And that's because I'm overseeing four properties right now in the kind of glamping RV and landscape resort space.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And we use we use New Book as a PMS, which I've been really happy with.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: And and then we're on like six different OTAs, which have been hugely successful for us.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: We've had at our particular location outside the Grand Canyon that we're using FreeWild on is right outside the Grand Canyon, so it's a lot of international guests.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: So we get a ton of bookings from Booking.com, a ton from Airbnb, Expedia, Agoda, and Hip Camp.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I think like 80% in our first six months was OTAs.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Now we're trying to move it more to direct bookings, but it was really helpful for stabilizing the property.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: We got to 60% occupied in our second quarter in the low season.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: And I think in our our fourth quarter, as we're getting into busy season, we're probably going to be like 85% booked, which was way ahead of the projections that I did for the property when I did the feasibility study for it.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: And so, but what I what I realized in overseeing these four very different properties was just how complicated learning a new PMS as well as trying to do revenue management, especially when you bring into you bring in six different OTA softwares.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: And that's when it gets super complicated because they all have their own algorithm, they all have their own priority, they all have how they how they do pet fees and how they do upsells and how they do guest communication.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: They're all different.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: And so it got really complicated really fast.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Even for someone for me who's been in the industry for a long time, and I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of how dynamic pricing and revenue management works.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I simply didn't have the time to sit down and learn how to do the programming in New Book or how to do it in price labs.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And I just, I left so much money on the table in our first nine months, really, when I was just trying to make sure, you know, we had cleaners and make sure we, you know, had all the faucets open for income.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: And we filled up, you know, on holiday weekends and we're undercharging.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: We filled up, you know, we're 100% occupied, charging way lower than market rates and you know, definitely, definitely less, probably $10,000 to $20,000 on the table by undercharging for certain nights.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: And I just didn't have the time to do it.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: So that was I've kind of vetted a number of different revenue managers and came to FreeWild and was super impressed by their operation.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I'm now about five weeks in.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: We've been working with Adrian, he's great.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I've been super impressed so far.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: You know, we'll we'll check back in in six months to see that it's going well.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: But so far it's been great, mostly because it's just taken off my plate as an operator, just to say, hey, these are, you know, you could say it's two skill sets, or you could say it's like eight if you think of all the OTAs.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: These are like eight platforms that I don't have to learn and I don't have to manage.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: All I need to do is have a weekly or bi-weekly call with Adrian, and he just gives me the update.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I add my input with the GM, and then we can move forward.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: So maybe, so maybe we could dive a little bit more into you know the actual strategy of it.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: One, you know, this podcast, we try to give as much free tools and education to people.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: So, you know, if they're bootstrapping and scrappy and they want to do it on their own, they have the tools to do that.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: And if they're, you know, more serious and looking to outsource it to a group like FreeWild, then they have that option.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: So maybe you could walk us through just like the basic strategies and principles.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: If someone's doing it themselves, you know, what can they do to be maximizing their revenue?
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: And maybe it's probably good to maybe delineate between short-term rentals for versus a larger quantity property with like, you know, 10, 10 plus units.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if that makes a difference for your answer if it's a property with less than 10 units or more than 10 units, but yeah, what what basic strategies can operators use?
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in the end of the day, whether it's one unit or whether it's a portfolio, the the question is always it's not so much like about occupancy.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Because like occupancy is easy to get.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Like you learned that already.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: If you put the price really low, you know, you can drive really high occupancy, right?
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: It's really about like how do you get the maximum revenue, right?
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: So if you think about it in a very simple way, at the end of the day, like your revenue is ADR times occupancy, right?
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: If you put the price higher, your occupancy is typically gonna drop.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, where's that uh sweet spot, right?
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: If you're 99% occupied, like you might you might be underpriced, but it gets a bit more complicated because there's a booking window, right?
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: So like we're selling right now, like your your if your canada is open 12 months, you have 365 days, 365 prices, right?
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: And so the tricky part of revenue management is to to estimate like what should my price be for each individual of those those 365 days, right?
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: And in order to do that, uh you you need to understand when are people booking.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: And you also need to understand what are other competitors in my market, how are they pricing?
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Now, typically, what short-term rental operators do, especially the ones who only who are not managers, but they only have one unit, they want to make sure that their unit gets booked.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: And so when the when check-in approaches, they're gonna drop their prices pretty heavily, right?
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: So you always see like these these last minute prices are always very aggressive.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: And so if everybody else is dropping the prices aggressively, you know, two or three weeks out, then you're probably better off getting the bookings a little earlier than that, right?
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: So you gotta look at your booking window and and see like, hey, when do people actually start booking?
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Is that one month out?
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Is that two months out?
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Is it six months out?
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: And how do I set my prices throughout the booking window to get the optimal result?
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: The optimal result, that's a little bit you can't really calculate it.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: It's not it's not math where it's like, hey, one plus one is two, right?
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: And no one can argue about that.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, in the end of the day, you never know whether your price was optimal or not.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: When you get a booking, you may have got you may have been able to get a booking at a higher price point, right?
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: If somebody paid 300 bucks, maybe they were willing to pay 310.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Like, we'll never know.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: So, like, it's you can't really calculate what the optimal solution is.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: But what we found is that focusing on the pacing and so comparing the occupancy of your own units into the future, compare that to like the what the markets booked at, that will kind of give you a clue of of of what your what your if your prices are optimal or not, right?
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: So I know this is a little you know a little bit difficult to understand, especially if people are listening who are not really focused on revenue management, but to explain it in a in the simplest way, let's just say, let's say we look at we're in March now, let's say we look at the month of May, for example, right?
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: And let's say your portfolio has 10% occupancy as of right now, right?
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: If the market's already at like 30%, and that tells us that you're you're pacing behind, right?
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: So you have a lower occupancy than the market, that could be an indication that maybe you're overpriced a little bit.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: And and as a result, you you may have to fill up a lot of your units closer to check-in when the month of May approaches, right?
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: And so on the on the flip side, if you're like for 40% occupied and the market's at 10, that means that more people are choosing your units versus your competition, right?
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: So like that could be an indication that you're a little underpriced.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: And so typically what we see is that understanding like how am I occupied compared to the market, and then making an educated guess as to like where do I want to be, and and there you want to look at like what do you expect the the accuracy to end up as.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: So if you're going into high season and the markets, you think the market's gonna book out almost completely, then in that case, like you you're okay pacing with the market or maybe even a little bit behind, because you know that last even last minute that we can still get reasonable prices because this the inventory just sells out, right?
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: On the flip side, if you're if you're going into your low season, and you think that the market is only going to be at like 30, 40, 50 percent.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: That means if you want to get 80 percent of Groupacy, you gotta get more of your fair share of the bookings early on, right?
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of how you can think about you know setting your pacing targets, and then what you gotta do is you gotta review that on a weekly basis, at least.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Proferably on a daily basis, and every day look at like how many bookings are coming in.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: What the how does that affect my pacing compared to the market?
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: If you're getting like a lot of bookings, a lot of pickup in in a short amount of time, that's also an indication that your price might be a little low, right?
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: So we gotta basically use all the information that we have and going and try to make the best pricing decisions.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: So I I know that was a lot.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: I hope it made sense.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: No, and they it so it it sounds complicated, and in some ways it is, but there but there also is a way to simplify it and make it simple math, you know, especially if you're focused on the right numbers, which would be what's the average booking window of the customers?
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: How far out are they booking?
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: And once you start getting inside that booking window, say on average customers are booking 30 days in in advance of their arrival.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Once you get within that 30 days, that's when, well, and you might want to do it a little bit before that, but that's when people typically start to cut prices.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: And so it's either trying to get the bookings right before that 30-day window, or you know, not necessarily scrambling with two weeks left.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Is that I guess did I say that right?
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're thinking about the the right way.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: You know, what I would say is if the average booking window is 30 days, that means that people would typically the early bookers will probably come in like 60, 70, 80, maybe even 90 days out, right?
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: But yeah, you're right.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Like if you can get most of your bookings before people slash the prices, that's good.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: However, you don't want to take that too far, right?
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Because let's say, you know, let's just say that like two months out, you know, you're looking at prices and you're noticing like, hey, the competition is at $300.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Well, you you know, you you don't want to you don't want to set the price so low that you're gonna get booked up completely, right?
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: So there's there's a way there's overdoing it.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Because you know, in the end of the day, you know, you want to get the the best price possible.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: So you gotta think about like, hey, what can I book at last minute?
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: What can I book at like 30 days out, and what can I book at 60 days out and and and get a little bit of a feel for like those prices.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: And then you definitely don't want to rely too much in on last minute if especially if the market doesn't book out, so if there's a lot of inventory still left at the end, then you know the last minute should really be to fill up the gaps, it shouldn't be to fill up the majority of your inventory.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the maybe the easiest way to think about it for an operator, like step one would be just dynamic pricing.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: And to put things super simply, if you had a property that had 10 units, and let's just say, and and you should be able to do this with your property management software.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: If you can't, if you can't do dynamic pricing, you should get a new PMS.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: But basically, the the the simplest way to think about it, and you can do this quite easily in your software, is your first unit might get booked and it's $100, and your last unit that's available might book for $200.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: And everything in between will either be, you know, maybe it's for every unit that you have booked, if the price goes up another $10.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: And that's like a very easy way to do it that you could set across all your days, and you set the the base price, and you you set the max price that it could go to for the last unit.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: And then that's probably the simplest way to do it.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, trying to go higher prices on holidays, busy seasons, weekends, things like that, and having your base price be higher on those days.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: And I think there's a lot of operators that have hesitation to doing that for I don't I don't fully know why, but I know we work with the partner and they don't they use price labs and they got a booking for like $600 one day.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: And they're like, whoa, our unit isn't worth $600.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: So they stopped using Price Labs.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: And I was like, well, what was what was the situation?
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: They're like, oh, it was December 31st.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: And I was like, well, there's probably nothing left available in the area.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: So it was one of the last units booked in that whole area.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: So like it's worth it to the they're like, oh, our unit doesn't even have a bathroom.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: You know, someone shouldn't be paying $600 for a unit without a bathroom.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: And I was like, Well, yeah, I get what you're saying, but also there's nothing else available.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: So on that day, it is worth it.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: It is worth it.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Maybe on you know, Tuesday in February, you know, it's probably not worth that because there's tons of other options.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: But some people have a resistance to charging more on certain days, but it's a huge missed opportunity.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, absolutely.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: And you touched on a really a really good point.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: So sorry to interrupt.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: No, please.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Um button.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: No, but this is a crucial concept, right?
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Like, who is to judge what something is worse?
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Is it the person that owns owns the product, or is it the person that's that's paying for it?
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: You know, I would argue it's the person that that's paying for it, right?
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, think about flights.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Like, how much is a flight from New York to Los Angeles worse?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Well, it depends on when you book and for what date, right?
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: But it's the same, you're getting the same, right?
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: You're getting five hours in in the in a in a in a small seat, you know.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: You're getting the exactly the same, but to your point, Thanksgiving, you're gonna pay like a $2,000, and you know, like on a Tuesday, somewhere in February or something, you you might pay $150, right?
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: So, what is that flight worth?
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: It's in Holland we have an expression like something is worth what the craziest person will pay for it, right?
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so so that's a very important concept, you know.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: It's like don't judge, don't be the judge of like what you think your product's worth.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Like, let the market decide what it's worth.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: How do you manage reviews?
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: So, at least at our our location, which is called the outpost at the Grand Canyon, it's 12 airstreams.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Most of them are pretty nice, but airstreams in general can be tricky units because they have things break, they're they have really small bathrooms, there's they can be confusing.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: A lot of people just aren't mentally prepared for like what an experience in that unit will be like.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: And fortunately, our reviews since we've started have been phenomenal.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: And I think that's because the units all have a private hot tub, which makes a massive difference.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Our GM is super, super friendly, so the service is really good and personal.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: And our pricing was super low in in our first year, you know, it was maybe 150 bucks or even less.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Now we're trying to get into the 200, 225 ADR range in 2026.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: And what I'm most nervous about is as we raise prices, it's going to be a lot harder to meet guest expectation to maintain good reviews.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: So I'm just nervous about that.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I'm just curious if you have any insights on balancing maximizing ADR while meeting guest expectation and maintaining reviews.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an it's another really interesting point.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: And you know, most people will kind of assume what you're assuming of like, well, if people pay more, they have higher expectations, and you know, the our review score is gonna come down.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: And I I haven't really seen that that that effect like it made sense, but I I just haven't really seen it.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: I think the in the end of the day, the the guest is having an experience, and if they have a great experience, if they pay 200 or 300 or 400, in in their mind it's it was worth it because they're paying for it, you know.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Like if I book a unit for 400 bucks, like the reason I'm I'm I'm booking it is because I think that it's worth 400.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: You might think, whoa, that's so much money.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Like we we gotta up our game, we gotta provide more things and this and that.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: But in the mind of the of the purchaser, the purchaser is not gonna purchase it if they don't think it's it's it's a it's worth at least what they're paying for it, right?
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: So like it's it's a matter of perspective.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: And I mean, you know, I I I just talked to this company a couple weeks ago, they're called Cabiner.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: They're in Holland, and and they they are completely off-grid mobile mobile units that they place in national parks, and there's not even a cleaner, like people have to bring their own sheets, their own pillows, you know, like they bring all their own stuff and they have to clean after they leave, right?
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: And people people are paying like $250-300 a night rider than paying that because you're the only one.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: There's there's no accommodation in these national parks because you're there there's no permits for it, right?
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: So, like this company managed to get a permit to place like these really small, very, very super simple units in in national parks, and the experience of being by yourself in nature and no one around you, that has a lot of value to people, right?
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: So, like, people are paying a lot of money for that.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: So, I think to answer your question, like, yeah, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't worry about it.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: You know, like you know what really affects the the guest experience is the person that's on the ground.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Like, if that person is attentive to to the needs of the of the guests, all right.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: If it's all about like how do you make people feel, right?
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: If people feel welcomed and people feel looked after, they're not gonna care that the bathroom is like a little bit small.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're booking an airstream, like they'll they'll they know it's not gonna be uh you know a massive uh luxury bathroom.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.
• 31:56
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): Hello, listeners.
• 31:57
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): This is Sherry Halala, founder of Sage Outdoor Advisory.
• 32:00
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): If you're launching an outdoor hospitality project like Clamping, we can help.
• 32:04
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): We offer feasibility studies and appraisals.
• 32:06
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): What that means is we look at your specific market and proposed business offering and complete an in-depth analysis to make sure that your planned business will be profitable.
• 32:14
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): Getting a second opinion on your proposal and forecasted financials is critical to understand before you spend years of your time and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• 32:22
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): This is particularly important if you are looking to raise money for your project from a bank or private investors.
• 32:27
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): They are going to want to see this type of deep dive analysis from an independent third-party specialist in the industry.
• 32:33
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): We at Sage have completed well over 250 feasibility studies and appraisals in outdoor hospitality in North America in the last four years.
• 32:41
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): So we understand what it takes to bring a project from concept to reality.
• 32:45
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): If this sounds like it could be helpful to you, you can go to our website, SageOutdoorAdvisory.com, and schedule a call with our team.
• 32:52
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): While you're there, check out our proprietary glamping database map too.
• 32:56
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): Thanks.
• 32:56
  Shari Heilala (Sponsor): Now back to the show.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: And so on Price Labs, you can just kind of set it and forget it, right?
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: You can just say, hey, use Price Labs.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I want you to look at the market and I want you to use your AI or your algorithm to set the pricing of my property.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: And I can add certain inputs and things, but like you can just give it to Price Labs and it will go forth and do the revenue management as the AI, basically, right?
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: No, that's a big misconception.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: No, then it doesn't work like that.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: And maybe in the future it might work like that.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: But as of right now, like the price is purely defined by the parameters that you put in, right?
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: So, like, if you put in the wrong parameters, you can get a really bad price.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: And I've seen this happen over and over.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: And I think this is one of the big misconceptions in this space.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: Like, people think that a pricing tool, that's revenue management, but it's really not the case.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: It's like it's a tool that you can use, and it's a very useful tool because it can do things that you can't do, right?
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Dynamic minimum night stay settings.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: It's it's that's hard to do without a pricing tool.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: But if you put the wrong base price, you're gonna get horrible prices.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: If you if you put the wrong like last-minute discounts, or like there's so many different factors, and and you have to you have to look at it every day.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Like price labs doesn't do the do the work for you.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Like you you really have to review it daily and make changes based on the bookings that are coming in.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: So you can't just say, hey, hey, hey, price labs, you set my pricing and they do.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, I thought what about room price genie?
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Because I spoke with someone yesterday who an operator who is like, yeah, I just put it on room price genie and it it just handles all my pricing now.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: It's is that not the case?
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Or well, I I haven't used room price genie myself.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: So I mean, if they have a fully automated AI tool where you just connect your listings and it automatically runs with it, more power to them.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: But I'd be a little bit skeptical about that.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: And I think there's there's a lot of nuance to that, right?
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of nuance to say.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, in New Book, you can just set it and forget it as well, but it's not going to be adapting.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: And I think, I mean, this is probably a good time to chat about Free Wild and like the service that that you all offer and the like what is it worth to have a human, you know, checking in on this daily or weekly and adjusting.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: And well, maybe you could just chat a little bit.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Let's hear the the free wild like pitch service of why is it worth it to pay you guys to do active management of the pricing of a property?
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, in the end of the day, it all comes down to can we increase your revenue or not, right?
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: And that's why when we, you know, you've gone through our process, right?
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Of the the sales process, right?
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: We we don't work with anybody with everybody.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Like when when when a company applies for a service and we look at the pricing strategy and we look at the revenue and we see that they're doing really good, and we don't think that there's a significant upside for then, we just tell them that.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: We just say we I mean, we just tell them, like, hey, you're doing great, like you, you don't need a revenue management service, you know, keep doing what you're doing.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Like, if they want, we can do it for them, of course.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Like, we're happy to do it, but we're we're very honest in our assessment because we want to work with clients where we can bring where we can increase their revenue, and so if we can increase their revenue enough so that it covers our fee, then they're basically getting our service.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: They don't have to do the work, they don't have to worry, like you said, like they don't have to have the peace of mind of like, okay, I don't need to worry about all these different platforms and the prices and everything, I can just focus on business acquisition, operations, or what you know, whatever else you want to focus on.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: And I think that's a win-win, you know, and what that does is if it's a win-win, then our clients are gonna stay for a very long time.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Which, you know, we we still have our the first few clients that we signed up, they're still with us.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Why are they still with us?
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Because it makes sense, you know.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: We're we're we're bringing enough value, we're increasing that revenue enough so that it's not it's not a cost to them, it's it pays for itself, essentially, right?
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: So those are you know the operators that we want to work with.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: And you know, that's not always the case, which is why we don't work with everybody.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: But in the end of the day, like we're we're here to increase your revenue.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: That's that's our that's our main goal.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: And if listeners did want to hire you and your firm to do their active revenue management, what what does the pricing look like?
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: What could they expect to pay?
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it depends on the size of the portfolio.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: So we charge a percentage on rental revenue.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Some some companies will charge a fixed fee per listing.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: We don't want to do that because our our business model is purely results driven.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: So we we want to get rewarded when we increase revenue.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: We reward our revenue managers when they increase revenue for our clients.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: So, like when we increase the revenue, it's good for our client.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: If they manage for owners, it's good for their owners, it's good for us as a company, and it's good for our employees because they get bonuses based on like how much they increase revenue, right?
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: So everyone's aligned in that whole all the stakeholders are are aligned, right?
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: So that's why we charge a percentage versus a fixed fee.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Now the percentage will vary, it's anywhere from like one to three percent, depending on the size of the portfolio.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: And the I can maybe just tell the listeners how I thought about it and you know why ultimately I decided to move forward.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: And that is because, you know, if it's three percent, I basically was betting that I was pretty much sure that Free Wild was having a dedicated person and also a dedicated person who's an expert managing my revenue weekly would increase my revenue by more than three percent.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: That seemed highly, highly likely, especially based off of the you know the results that you guys can attest to from your portfolio.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: And on top of that, I get that brain space back and I get that time back so I don't have to go in and try to learn and you know, six new platforms to be able to do this half effectively.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: And you and your team has the huge benefit of being able to see how tons of other portfolios properties across the country in the same region, not in the same region, are pacing and performing.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: So if there's macro or micro trends happening, they get the visibility to see what's happening with 70 other locations.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: And that is something that I don't have the benefit of.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: So that's been one of the biggest insights of me as I've been like getting these four properties up to speed, is that I want to work with folks who are specialized in this space, third third party providers who have visibility to what's working and not working at other properties.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: So we can skip the learning curve.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: You know, we can skip that that that learning curve and it it starts working faster.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: So that's just from from my personal experience.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: So far, I've been super happy with Free Wild.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: I've had, I think, three calls with Adrian so far.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: He's been super attentive, easy to get a hold of.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: We got up to speed really fast, and the results it's still early, but the results have been good so far.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: And yeah, check in with me in six months.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: But so far, seems like a no-brainer to me.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: And yeah, we look forward to potentially rolling it out at our other properties.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: We're about to open another property, and I'll definitely be calling you about that, Jasper.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome, man.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would I would just add one thing, which is you know, I always recommend like revenue management should be something that you take serious.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Like, let to your point, an expert should be doing it right now.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: The expert could be you, right?
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: If you're interested in doing that, if that's a passion of yours, if you're good with numbers, you know, go ahead and learn it and then do it yourself.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Option number two is you hire somebody in-house, right?
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Which is can also be an option, but the challenge with that is that it's so hard to find good revenue managers, and we know that because we're you know we're always looking for good revenue managers, and we actually created an a whole training for internal training for our revenue managers so that they can learn our strategy, or you can you know you can leverage a service like ours.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: So there's three different options that you can choose from, but I would just recommend to everybody who's listening like intentionally choose one of those three options.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: There's pros and cons of each option, right?
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: One of the pros of working with a service company is that it's not just one person, right?
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: So like you work with Adrian, but I'm also looking at it.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: You know, we have a team lead who's looking looking at it, right?
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: So like if you have if you hire in house, then you have you know, you have one person, right?
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Versus working with a company, you have more like a team.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: But so there's pros and cons to each option, but yeah, everyone it it'll it'll be your benefit to choose intentionally choose one of those options.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: And and an easy way to think about it is well, the way I thought about it is if I have 10 units and if I bring the ADR in any given month from just for easy math, $100 a night to $110 a night because we were able to drive up pricing on a holiday or a weekend, or there was some event that I didn't know was happening, but they could see from their software that they're monitoring.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: If I can bring up my ADR by $10, then the software, then hiring not only have I not had to do anything, but I also just made 7%.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: You know, if I paid 3% to Free Wild, I just made seven, you know, seven extra dollars per month for doing less.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: And so to that, that to me is is a no-brainer.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: But all right, enough, enough about that part.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Maybe we could chat about AI and how is that how is that changing?
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: You know, there's there's like three big areas of which this could change things.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: One is how is it changing it with the revenue management and how could people utilize that?
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: And then the second might be how is it changing the hospitality, short term rental, unique stay space as a whole?
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: And then how are you using it in your day to day?
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's it's huge.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: The efficiency.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: That we've been able to implement in our business.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, just by using Cloud, right?
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: And Cloud Code, you can now create web apps, you can create projections, it can build Excel sheets.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Like every I recommend every everything you do in your business, you know, have Cloud open and see if Cloud can do it for you.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: And you know, like it's I mean, Cloud's my best friend right now.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: And that's just touching the the service of what's possible.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've we we've work we work with we have an AI strategist on our team uh who helps us to understand what's possible with AI because I think one of the challenges is as a somebody who if you're not in it, it's really hard to understand like what's possible, right?
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: So you kind of need somebody to who knows the power of AI because there's so many different things.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, it goes way beyond plod, right?
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: And and so yeah, I mean it's AI is a huge, it's it's our number one goal within throughout in 2026 is how do we leverage AI to be to work more effective more effectively as a business.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: And if you if you follow you know big companies, you know, there's a company called Ramp.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you've heard about them, but expense management?
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they use them.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: So the credit card inventing and expense management.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the founder did like podcast, like I can send it over to you if you're interested, but but he's talking about how there's there's like time, and time is no longer really an excuse anymore because with AI, like you can get things done so fast compared to how how much time it would take previously, and so it just accelerates everything in the business.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Of course, there's still parts of the business that you need humans, right?
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: So, for example, if you think about revenue management, like we're all I mean, I wasn't gonna say always, like at some point, who knows where that's could where AI could lead to.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: But as of right now, the way that we think about it is not that AI takes over the revenue management completely, but it it helps the revenue manager work more effectively, right?
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Because the AI can scan that and it can tell us, like, hey, pay attention to this, this, and this, versus us having to go through all the data, right?
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: It can create, you know, you can have all these different tools where if I want to create a revenue projection on a property, it used to take me an hour, right?
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: Now we've developed a tool that does exactly what I used to do, and now it's just a matter of you put the address, you put an Airbnb link, you put some any data that you have, you upload it, and boom, a minute later you have your projection, right?
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's it's it's huge for for sure, and it's it's it's a very exciting time because it makes work more fun, right?
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: It's more fun to just tell Claude what type of spreadsheet you need, and 10 minutes later it's it's done, and it would have taken you like two or three hours, right?
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: So it makes it makes work more enjoyable.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: How how does it I haven't played around with it nearly enough?
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: I've been incredibly you know grossly negligent.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: And I I use it for some things, but there's probably so much more.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: One of the things with Excel that I always have trouble with is like if you get it, if you if it creates an Excel for you, you know, does it have the inputs and the codes that you need to be able to adjust it?
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Or do you then just have to go re-put it into Claude to make an adjustment?
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: I guess that's the part where I really struggle with it with Excel.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: So what's cool about Claude is it's it's it's a person that you can talk to.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: So you just tell Claude that.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: You can tell Claude, like, hey, we want to build an Excel sheet, but my concern is like I want to be able to change the input, put different inputs, and and Cloud will listen to you and will say, Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, we'll build that in there.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Like it it will do what you tell it to do in the end of the day.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: So yeah, you just you just talk to it, you know.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: Like, I the funny part is like when I started using Cloud and I build a web app within three hours, like without coding experience, like with zero experience.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: And I remember when Eric, my business partner, told me about Claude and like how powerful it is.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: I I told him, like, hey, can I can you give me like a guide on how to use it or like a manual or something like that?
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: And he's like, no, just ask, just ask it.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: So I just went into Claude and it's like, hey, Claude, I'm I've never used never used you.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Like, what what do I do?
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Like, this is one of the and it's like, okay, well, what do you what do you need?
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: I'm like, well, I want to build this and this and that.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: And it's like, okay, cool.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: And then it starts asking you questions, and you just answer, right?
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: And and and that's how you that's how you get to your results.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: It's you're having your it's it's like a team member, you're having a conversation, and it'll tell you what's what what's possible and what's not.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: So sometimes it might tell you, like, hey, yeah, I'm sorry, I can't, that's something that I can't do.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: If you want this, then then here's what you need to do, right?
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: So it yeah, it will just it will just have a conversation with it.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: That is that is super helpful.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: Hey, quick random question.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: We I don't know, I'm curious if you noticed this on any of your Airbnbs.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: On one of our Airbnbs, we used AI edited images where we you know edited in like a sunset or starry background, and then we noticed that Airbnb hid a bunch of those photos.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Did you notice that at all across any of the properties in your portfolio?
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: And any thoughts on that?
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: They they actually hid the photos.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's interesting.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen that.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: No, I haven't seen that.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: I do see people like using AI more and more, like they put people in their images and they they put all sorts of stuff.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: I think in the end of the day, like you know, what you touched on before is like Airbnb wants accurate the listing to be an accurate representation of the experience, and so if you start to play with that and and try to game it, yeah.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, Airbnb eventually is gonna is gonna catch you, right?
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: You might get away with it for a while.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Like people, you know, people do all sorts of stuff that technically isn't allowed on on Airbnb, but Airbnb is getting smarter.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, and Airbnb now with AI, it's much easier for them to enforce their their terms, right?
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: They don't need human beings going through thousands of listings to to find this stuff, they just have their AI bot scan all the listings.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that is that is wild.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: And how about for how do you see it changing hospitality or like short-term rentals?
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I the way I look at AI is it makes it makes us more productive.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: And anytime that we have productivity gain, I think there's a better fit for the world, essentially, right?
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: It could be like lower costs, you know.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you think back of like Henry Ford when he invented what's it called, the the conveyor belt, right?
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's huge productivity gains, right?
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: And as a result, the price of a car went, you know, I mean, I don't know how much cheaper it became, but it became like affordable, especially for people, right?
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think I I see I I welcome AI and I I think it's a great thing.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: And I think it's gonna I think there's gonna be a lot of benefits, like companies working more effectively, uh being able to give people information more quicker and faster and better information.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: How's it gonna change hospitality and particularly?
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: I think I think as a whole, like it'll just it'll just help businesses do better and provide more value to their customers, and I think that's a positive thing.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: And I think in the future, like you know, probably well, I mean, right now, like when you look at when you search for an Airbnb, you probably go on Airbnb, you probably just type in dates and you know, type in location.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: I think in the future, probably you you have an AI assistant and you just tell the AI assistant like what you're looking for, and it will go on the Airbnb and find it for you.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: So it'll be easier for people to find the best place to stay.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: When you look across because what's interesting about your work is you don't have very much impact.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: You know, you don't have any impact of what's actually happening at the property, you know, the how how the staff acts, what's their you know you guys do your part and what you do.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: So when you look at your portfolio of how many, how many properties is it under your management?
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Just over three thousand at this point.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: Three thousand.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Three thousand listings.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: How what what do you see as the main characteristics that allow a property to succeed from a revenue and reviews perspective?
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: And what are characteristics that tend to most drag people down and kind of slow them down in a path to greater revenue?
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's going back to what we were talking about before, it's in the end of the day, it's all about quality.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: You know, in the last couple of years, um there hasn't been much growth, right?
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: Like during COVID, you could rent out anything and do pretty well.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Right now you have to compete.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: And and so like when you compete, it it's all about quality, quality of your product, right?
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: And when I say quality, it's not just the standards, not just the cleanliness, and you know, everything works and things like that.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: But you know, people will want unique experiences, people want to experience something, right?
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure you realize that, given your the fact that your property is pretty unique.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: So, like, you know, provide making sure that you provide a unique experience to your guests is that's you know, that's product.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: Number two is how do you sell your product, right?
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: So the quality of your your OTA listings is is very important.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: We talked about the algorithm, right?
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: And then yeah, the the review score is huge, you know, especially on Airbnb.
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: Airbnb has a bit of a crazy review system if you think about it, because it's kind of binary, it's like it's either a five-star or it are or it's bad, right?
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: So I don't I don't think that's a great review system, but you know, again, it is what it is.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: You know, booking.com, you can rate from one to ten.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: So if you stay at a booking.com property and everything was great, but it wasn't completely perfect, you give it a nine.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: That's a great score in booking.com.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: On Airbnb, if if you don't want to give it perfect, you give it a four, which is bad.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, you if you get like a 4.0 on average, your listing is gonna get removed, right?
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: So Airbnb forces guests to choose between perfect or screwing over the host, pretty much.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: It's not really a great option to give to guests, you know.
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: So, but anyway, I think it's yeah, it's all about quality.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that so I feel like the quality part helps from an operational standpoint, you know, operating well from your management, cleanliness, customer service.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: How about from more of a setup, like in the construction phase of a property?
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: You know, when you're deciding what units to go with, or you're trying to decide where to buy a property, and if there's a certain locations, water feature, remoteness in a city, not in a city.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Maybe we could start with that, I guess.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Have you seen of low from a location perspective?
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: What have you seen to be it's like, hey, if we have a property on a lake, like we know it's gonna kill it, kind of no matter what?
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: Or like, is there any patterns you see there?
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: Where yeah, you know, it's interesting because every time I go on a podcast, like I always get this question of like what are the best markets and what are the best locations, and and I find it really hard to to answer that question, you know, because I I just don't really see a lot of patterns.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: Like, there are some patterns that I see is like that people want unique experiences, right?
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: That that's a clear trend, you know what I mean?
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: Like these days, if if if if it's not Instagrammable, then people probably don't want to want to stay, right?
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: So, like that's one trend that I'm seeing.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: I'm seeing a trend in things like wellness and being in nature and you know things like that.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: As far as like what markets and what properties, like it's it's really hard to say because in the end of the day, it it depends a lot on like the price of the of the asset, right?
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you if in any market, if you can get a great deal, like you can probably run it profitably, right?
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: So that's it's so it's so case by case, but you know, if I have to guess, like I I think people in the future are going to be want wanting to spend more time in nature, so I think any any place I would much rather invest in something that's like in a national park or like where you are near the Grand Canyon.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: You know, I would rather invest there than like in a in a large city, for example.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: And how about amenities?
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Are you and I'll just give an example.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: I the way I think about a private hot tub at a unit is I usually assume that that's gonna increase RevPar or revenue by 30%.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: So if we if like easy math for folks, if you have a unit that's $100 a night and it's gonna be booked half the year, it's gonna make $50K that year.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's gonna do an extra 15.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: If you have two of the exact same unit, I think your unit that has a private hot tub is gonna do, you know, do 30% better, or an extra 15 or so K in revenue.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: And I guess what are there any any amenities or things like that that, or do you disagree with what I just said?
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: And yeah, any patterns or trends trends you see from amenities where it's like, hey, if I was an operator, I'd be making sure I'd be adding this to my property or my unit.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think some amenities that are becoming pretty popular, I think, are like anything like wellness related.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: So like cold plunge, sauna, you know, the little exercise exercise, I think exercise, picketball, like anything health wellness related.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: But I think you know, people are always talking about how much is an amenity going to raise my revenue.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: But I think you have to also look at the cost, and not just of the cost of purchasing it, but the maintenance of it, right?
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: So, like a hot tub in your case, like you have one location, every unit has a hot up, you know, you have a staff on the ground that can maintain these hot ups.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: So you're your your your expenses are not going to be too much, right?
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: For to maintain them.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: But if you're like kind of remote and you have to hire like a spa company to come over and clean these hot ups, it might just be too expensive from the ex from the on the expense side.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: You know, I was I was at this conference, uh, IMN in somewhere near Mihemi, and like one operator said something really smart.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: I thought, like, he he noticed that like people are loving the cold clenches these days, right?
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: But a cold plump machine is pretty expensive and it also needs a lot of maintenance.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: And so what he did, he basically put bought like this, you know, like a cowboy tub, like just basically like a metal a trough, a stock tank, yeah.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: Very cheap.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: And and then he put an ice machine in you know, in his uh backyard, right?
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: And basically told his guests, like, hey, you want to do a coal plunge, you know, there's water, you just put water in it, and then you just toss a couple bags of ice in there, you wait, you know, 15 minutes and you got your your your coal plunge.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: Right now there's no maintenance, right?
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: It's super cheap, right?
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: So like I say, like, you know, really look at the think about the expense side.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: If you can create an amenity that's fun and it doesn't require like any maintenance or any like replacing or electric or whatever it is, then that's has a much better chance of being a great investment than if it's gonna carry a lot of maintenance costs.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: Love that.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: That's actually super helpful because I was thinking about all those things this week, and every bit of that makes sense, and I think I've noticed in my own in my own sleep pattern.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: So thank you for that.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: What is what's next for you and for FreeWild and for the podcast?
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: And yeah, what's next for for you and all the exciting projects that you're working on?
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, right now we're you know, we're still growing as a revenue management company.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: We're like I mentioned, we're stepping heavy into AI.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: We're also we're always working on our strategy.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: I actually have a meeting with the university that I went to back in the Netherlands.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: We're talking about getting an intern and doing a thesis on on how to optimize prices for revenue management.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: So that's really exciting to me as well.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: Improving the strategy, just improving our systems with AI.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: And you know, we're always thinking like, how do how can we provide more value to to our clients?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: So we're thinking of like what can we add to our service, you know, that will help our clients.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: We're always trying to identify what are the biggest bubble necks.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: You know, we're we're in talks with a company to partner on listing optimization, make that part of our service.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: So that's that's really what we're doing.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: Like, you know, we're doubling down on what we're doing right now because it's working, you know, our our clients are seeing the value, it's super fun.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: This business for for us.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's that's what we're we're aiming for.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: Hopefully, on the on the hospitality side, hopefully, we can purchase a few more assets in the next couple of years as well, so we can continue to to build out that model.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: And I mean, right now, like it's the I don't know if you feel like this, but it's kind of hard to predict the future right now.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: Because like, since I started using AI two months ago, things have already changed quite a lot.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: So I don't know what two or three years from that will look like.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: My my hot take.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: My hot take is that with uh mass production media through AI and like automated AI, unless all these platforms put anti-AI regulations where it somehow can't be used on the systems, which may or may not happen.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, maybe Airbnb just did something like that, so maybe the other platforms will, but if people continue to be able to use AI for social media and websites and listing, there's such an inflation of sexy media and you know, really beautiful images of anything, of units, of properties, of people.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: So you have this hyperinflation of high quality media on people's phones.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: And when something inflates, it devalues.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: And I think it's gonna put, and we're already starting to see it.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Like most of the most popular videos on social media are candid videos of people talking and they're low production value and they're high human, and they build more trust than a beautiful, perfect video or image.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, this is this shoddy guy with messy hair who looks like he just rolled out of bed, who's talking about his property that he's walking through and the camera's shaking.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: And I think that that trend will continue.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: And I think that it's going to put a really high value on in-person experience and human-to-human related experiences.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: Like, you know, even the fact that AI can make music now, really good music, what does that do for, you know, you might think, oh, what a guitarist has no hope.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Like, how can they compete?
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: But where I think a guitarist all of a sudden has 10x the value is when he goes and plays for people in person and there's no AI, and it's just a guy with his guitar doing it like the good old-fashioned way.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: And like all of a sudden, that becomes a really rare and cherished experience.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: And the same with like going to a property where maybe you don't allow technology or there's no screens, or you you know you can't bring your phones or something like that.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: And I think there will be this like reversion back to genuine authentic experiences that can't be replicated online.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: I think there's a good chance that you're 100% right about that.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to find still line in all this.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: And yeah, do you tell us a little bit more about your podcast?
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: I think it's probably a worthwhile resource for our audience to check out.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've we're up to I don't know how many episodes we're on exactly, but I think it's around 700 or so.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: So we do like one or two episodes a week as of late.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: Uh, because I'm doing revenue management non-stop, I'm that's all I'm talking about as of right now.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: So if you want to learn revenue management and you don't want to invest into a course, which we, by the way, we do have a course, but you can also just listen to all the podcast episodes because those are free.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: And we're we're being pretty generous with with the content there because we're we literally just talk about exactly how we we do our strategy so it's not a it's not a secret it's for everybody to know because in the end of the day we know that it all comes down to execution so we're happy to give all the info you know and we also believe in like chip conley called it the karma capitalism where you know the the the more value you provide like the more value will come back to you so yeah we're we're not shy to to educate and and share what we're doing on the podcast but if you go back like yeah there's 14 what is it no 12 years of podcasts out there so the very few the first couple of years they're probably a little bit outdated but you know some some episodes are more evergreen than than others but yeah I would recommend people check it out I mean there's definitely good content on there.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: Do you have any asks of the audience no I would say you know if you are if you're interested in in in working with us we like I mentioned we we do a free audit that you've you've gone through that right so if people are interested in that you can go to freewildfoundry.com slash report and then yeah if people are you know interested in the podcast go ahead and subscribe on we're on we're on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and all those channels and if you know anybody who's looking for revenue management keep us in mind.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah and I'm still early in the process but I I definitely know I'm only a month in so it's hard for me to vouch for results just yet but all of my experience in working with Jasper and his team has been super positive.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: I think actually what made me want to invite you on the podcast was when I heard your quarterly your quarterly update to all your clients where you talk about the market and trends and things that was happening I got to tune in for like a half hour of that I was super impressed.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: I was like oh these guys know their shit all right and then I was like maybe I should have them on the podcast to talk about this.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: So yeah definitely recommend Jasper check them out working on a lot of exciting things and yeah Jasper thank you so much for for coming on absolutely I appreciate the invite Connor and yeah I'm excited to see where you you're gonna take your all your product projects like it's it's definitely like a very aligned with kind of what we are doing.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: So I'll definitely be be following yeah I think it's the start of an exciting journey all right cheers everybody