Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / Essential Guest Screening Tips for Vacation Rentals: Protecting Profit and Reputation

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Essential Guest Screening Tips for Vacation Rentals: Protecting Profit and Reputation · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to House Planet Bite Size, the podcast
• 0:03
  brought to you by House Planet and House Philly.
• 0:06
  My name's James Farley, the founder of House Planet, and our
• 0:08
  goal is to share everything you need to know about buying and
• 0:11
  managing short term rentals. Today's guest is Bevan Thompson
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  from House Philly and he's got 5 reasons to use a guest screening
• 0:19
  platform. OK, real talk now for all you
• 0:21
  hosts out there, you know that moment when your guest messages
• 0:24
  you again with, hey, what's the Wi-Fi code?
• 0:27
  Or you're staring at 5 different calendars wondering if you've
• 0:31
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  Yes, we've all been there. That's why here at Houseplanner,
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  double bookings, automates guest messages, and even creates these
• 0:51
  really slick digital guidebooks that stop all the repeat
• 0:54
  questions. Honestly, it just makes your
• 0:57
  life easier and keeps your guests happy here helping you
• 1:00
  achieve those all important five star reviews.
• 1:04
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  from Postfully. He will show you how it all
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  works. Less stress, more bookings,
• 1:35
  sorted with Postfully. Bevan, thank you for joining us
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  on host planet Bite Size. You've got 5 guest screening
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  tips to share, so take it away with tip #1.
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  Indeed. Well, yeah, I'll just do a
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  little run up for a start. Guest screening.
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  It's absolutely crucial for protecting your property,
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  ensuring the safety of your guests and minimising your
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  liability. I think it's super important to
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  mention that straight out the gate, really easy to do on host
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  flee. We've got several integrations
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  with people like True V Safely Auto Host on the integrations
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  page who all offer these kind of services.
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  But yeah, I thought all I'd do is give you sort of reasons for
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  guests screening. Probably the best rather than
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  tips is probably a better description.
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  Number one, protect your property and your neighbour's
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  property. I think people forget that one
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  actually. You're always about protecting
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  your property, but it's also about the people around your
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  property as well. It prevents things like damage
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  and theft if you're screening guests before they arrive.
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  Helps identify guests who might be prone to causing a bit of
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  damage or stealing something in worst cases, reducing things
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  like noise complaints and disruptions for your neighbors.
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  You know, the last thing you want to do is be at loggerheads
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  with your neighbors. If you're running a rental
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  property and someone's next door, by vetting those guests,
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  you can identify those that might be a bit more volatile or
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  noisy and also a really important thing that people
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  might miss it. It would ensure you comply with
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  local regulations as well. If you're vetting your guests
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  and making sure they're not the kind of people who are going to
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  be making noise and causing disturbance, you're not going to
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  be going against local regulations in the area.
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  Excellent point. Yeah, I mean, it's so important
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  to be a good neighbor, especially if you're in a
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  residential area, because if you're on bad terms with your
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  neighbor, they might report you to the council, they might
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  complain about you, they might just be a real pain in the you
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  know what? So, So yeah, get on good terms
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  with your neighbors. And that starts, like you say,
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  with making sure that your guests have been vetted and
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  they're going to be good guests and treat the property and the
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  neighbors properties with a lot of respect.
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  OK then, Bevan, so reason #2. Reason #2 would be it ensures
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  safety of your guests and a positive experience.
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  You know if you can identify potentially dangerous guests
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  from screening them. Screening can help identify
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  people with a history of criminal behaviour or behaviours
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  that could pose a risk to guests at the property.
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  If you've got a property with multiple units in one area, then
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  you're protecting your other guests that are staying with you
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  at the same time. And it also builds a trust and
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  rapport with the guests who are checking in.
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  If they know you're verifying guests, making sure they're, you
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  know, bona fide, legit kind of people who are going to behave
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  themselves, It gives the people who are also checking at the
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  same time that kind of comfort level as well.
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  So it's not just a wedding out the bad eggs if you like, but
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  it's also making the good eggs feel better, if you know what I
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  mean, if that makes sense. Yeah, it makes perfect sense.
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  And we, we've heard this a few times from the guest screening
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  platforms is that you might think it's a barrier to ask
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  people for guest screening or ask people for an ID or
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  something like that. But, but yeah, often times
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  they're, they're impressed and they take you seriously as as a
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  property manager. And of course that's, that's,
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  that's important. OK, then reason #3.
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  The big one, minimising liability and financial risk I
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  would say is the big reason. As I said before, screening can
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  help prevent situations where someone damages the property and
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  they refuse to pay for repairs. Proper guest screening gives you
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  that risk level of each guest and it gives you the warning
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  signs. You know, you're going to limit
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  people who are going to have parties who have damaged things
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  or cause costly incidents, Reduce the amount of cleaning
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  costs you might have afterwards as well.
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  You know, I had a terrible story from a customer the day was
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  telling me that, you know, he doesn't sadly doesn't have guest
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  screening and someone had a huge party at one of his properties
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  and the amount of money he had to pay to get it cleaned
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  afterwards was just a nightmare. So it's that kind of thing
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  you're you're minimising your own personal financial risk as
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  well as sort of the hassle to your neighbors we were talking
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  about before. You know, the big top line is it
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  could cost you a lot of money. Also stop things like
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  chargebacks and fraud as well. If there's some with a history
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  of fraud and that flagged up, that's the kind of thing if
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  you're, you know, merchant to record and you're collecting the
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  payments, that could flag that up as well.
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  And a lot of a lot of insurance companies also, you know, if
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  you, if you've got guest protection, you might get a
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  better deal from them based on the fact that you're screening
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  your guests before they arrive. Yeah, really good point.
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  And I think often the guest screening platforms, they get
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  their new customers after they've been through a disaster.
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  So this is a way of avoiding the disaster.
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  You know, go for the guest screening at first.
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  All right then, Bevan, So reason #4.
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  And this is kind of I did only got 5 reasons, so I bundled a
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  few together. You enhance your reputation,
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  your reviews, and you can scale your business all in one.
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  So consistent screening sort of helps maintain a positive
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  reputation, like we were saying before, of your business.
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  People see you as a professional, people see you as
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  doing the business correctly. You're going to possibly attract
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  a high quality of guest as well, which then is the kind of guest
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  who will probably leave a review again, which works for your
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  business. And instead of wasting money on
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  repairs and your cleaning fees and all the things that could
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  come with a bad guest, you could put your hard earned revenue
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  into growing your business properly.
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  I think that's, you know, it's a bit of a chicken growth, chicken
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  and egg situation if you like growing from there.
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  But gross skiing allows you to sort of maximise your profit
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  margin because you're not spending that money on mending
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  damage. You know you're spending in a
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  sensible way, and you can focus on building your business
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  instead. 100% OK, so we've got protect the property and your
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  neighbors properties, the safety of guests and also providing a
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  positive experience, minimising risk, of course, enhancing your
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  reputation as a property manager and potentially helping you to
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  scale your business too. So just tell us a little bit
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  more about host Fully and how you work potentially with some
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  of the guest screening platforms and where people can find more
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  information. We can find more information
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  about Hostfly at hostfly.com. Obviously, we're a property
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  management platform. We've got online guidebooks,
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  Hostfly devices for now for smart devices.
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  We have integrations with several guest screening
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  platforms. Maybe if you have software head
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  through the auto host safely. There's three I can name off
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  software head now. I've got a bit blank after that,
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  but there is plenty on there and we do work very closely with
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  them and the actual guest screening sort of score pops up
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  in the pipeline of Hostfly, which makes it super easy.
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  If you've got an inquiry coming in, you can see immediately
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  whether you want to accept that inquiry or not, which is gold in
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  some places. That's fantastic.
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  But yeah, hostly.com and come and find out what we're all
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  about. Fantastic.
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  Yeah. And if you, if you use a
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  platform like hostfully then and you want to have the guest
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  screening as well, do you, do you kind of take up out the
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  subscription maybe with somebody like True V and then that's just
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  integrated within within host fully and it's just kind of
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  there on your dashboard? Absolutely, yeah.
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  There's a integrations page and hostfully and you just connect
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  your trivia account from there and it feeds into hostly for
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  you. Absolutely yes.
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  I love that you've got the the score there with each guest that
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  comes through. You know, basically this is good
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  news. The the score is good.
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  It's it's green, it's it's all fine.
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  Green is always good, absolutely.
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  Yeah, fantastic. 5 great tips there.
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  Bevan, thank you very much. There are some special host
• 8:47
  fully offers in the show notes as well, so check them out.
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  And Bevan, thanks for joining us on Host Planet Bite Size.
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  Thanks for having me, it's been great.
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  Great to chat to Bevan there about guest screening.
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  Remember, going the extra mile is good for your property, your
• 9:00
  guests and your neighbors. All right, that's it for today's
• 9:04
  episode. Remember, this podcast is
• 9:06
  brought to you in collaboration with House Philly, which is
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• 9:37
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• 9:45
  That's it for today episode. Until next time, happy hosting.