Mike Bayer
You're listening to the Vacation Rental Success podcast. With over 1.5 million downloads, this is the place to be for all your short-term rental knowledge as part of the Vacation Rental Formula Business School.

Mike Bayer
This episode is brought to you by the kind sponsorship of PriceLabs who will help increase your revenue and occupancy with their dynamic pricing and revenue management tools. PriceLabs have just launched their 2023 breakthrough release of the next generation of revenue management. This brand new cutting edge solution leverages hyperlocal data to optimize rates and increase your revenue like never before. Visit the link in the description of this episode for more information.

Mike Bayer
Without further delay. Here's your host Heather Bayer.

Heather Bayer
Today we head over to the Scottish Isles to talk to Jane Mack, a former property manager, who now runs a holiday let consultancy in the UK. We're talking about how to structure, manage and grow a business in the most effective and impactful way. And if you like systems, you'll love this conversation.

Heather Bayer
This is the Vacation Rental Success Podcast, keeping you up-to-date with news, views, information and resources in this rapidly changing short-term rental business. I'm your host Heather Bayer, and with 25 years of experience in this industry, I'm making sure you know what's hot, what's not, what's new, and what will help make your business a success.

Heather Bayer
Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast. This is your host Heather Bayer, and as ever, I am super delighted to be back with you once again. I hope the sound's going to be okay on this recording. As you know, if you listen to this, I am sitting in an RV in Gulf State Park in Alabama, where I am for the winter. And as I record this, there is quite the storm going on outside. It's torrential rain and very high winds.

Heather Bayer
Actually, as I'm recording this, I just talked to somebody back in Ontario who's telling me what a gorgeous day it is. Blue sky, sunshine, warm. And I'm just beginning to second guess my intentions of being down south for the winter. It certainly isn't what we signed up for today, but hey, it's going to get better. I know that. But that was just a heads up. If you hear something in the background, then that's the wind outside. So here we go.

Heather Bayer
In the early days of working this business, I used to think I worked in a vacuum. And we're going back to the period between 2004 and 2012 I guess, maybe even more than that because there was no one out there to give any advice or suggestions or just listen to my thoughts and ideas. I mean, well, actually there were people who listened to my thoughts and ideas, but they tended to just nod and smile and wave because they had no idea whether these ideas and suggestions would work at all. They just gave me that arena to share them. But it wasn't until we launched the Ontario Cottage Rental Managers Association, and that wasn't until sort of back in 2017/18 that we got the opportunity to network with other managers and finally realized that we were not alone in this business.

Heather Bayer
So I wish I'd known today's guest around that time, as I'm sure we would have shared a lot, even being in different countries. Jane Mack and her husband bought a holiday home property management company back in 2010 and it was mainly property management. And by the time they got to 2012, they decided to expand it to offer marketing and bookings and they'd created a full-blown holiday letting agency and the business continued to grow until they sold it to the UK's largest holiday letting company in 2017.  And Jane now provides consultancy and coaching services to the holiday let industry.

Heather Bayer
We have so many things in common and I really wanted to pick Jane's brain on the things that she really excels in, which is the structure and the systems of a business. Whereas I tend to get a little bit overborne in the strategy, the overarching strategy. Jane is very down to earth and she wants to ensure when she's talking to her clients that they have the best foundation possible for their business to succeed. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. All these things that you need to have in place, the foundation of your business.  And it doesn't matter whether you've been in the business six months or a year or even ten years, it's always good to reassess how your business is structured and if necessary, go back and make some changes. So, without further ado, let's move right on over to my discussion with Jane Mack.

Heather Bayer
So I'm super delighted to have with me today Jane Mack, who is, as I am, a recovering property manager and I'm super delighted to have Jane with me. I came across her a while ago, but didn't actually get to see you talk or share your knowledge until we both did Jenn Boyles' Direct Book Success Summit recently. And I was just so taken with your knowledge and understanding of the business, and how well you shared it, that I wanted to have you on. So welcome, Jane, thanks so much for joining.

Jane Mack
Oh, thank you, Heather. It's such a pleasure to be here, because as you say, I've also followed you for a while, and then it really wasn't until Jenn's summit that we really got to kind of meet each other. So it's been lovely to actually now get to properly talk to you. We've so much we can talk about so much in common. I think we could share stories for hours if we kept talking. So it's lovely to be here. Thank you.

Heather Bayer
I know that pre-conversation we had a couple of weeks ago, I think went on for about 45 minutes, nearly an hour. I think we could have just carried on. And certainly those stories.... In the introduction I just did, I was talking about when I started in the business way back in 2003, which is when we started. I mean, I'd been managing my own properties since the 1990s, but in 2003 we started our company and there was just nobody around to ask anything of. And I'm sure the same went for you when you started. So why not tell us your story about how you got into the business and your journey as a property manager?

Jane Mack
Absolutely. So I started a bit later than you, Heather. It was 2010 and my husband and I, it was a bit of a 'just sort of happened' moment that we ended up buying a property management company over on the Isle of Arran, which is a little Scottish island not too far from Glasgow. And it was one of those things, change of career. We're going to look after properties. How lovely and wonderful. And it was just looking after the properties. There was no money, no bookings, no advertising at that stage. And off we went and just started to enter the world of property management. Got to know what worked, what didn't, what needed doing. And it was very early on in the process that our owners kept asking all the time for the bookings and they just assumed we would do it. So the natural thing was basically to expand it. So we expanded it, brought the advertising, the bookings, and we just started to grow this business. It was one of those ones where, because there were other people out there locally and more nationally, and I just thought, if we get ten to 15 properties to let, that would be lovely.

Jane Mack
We'll keep managing all the others. But before we know it, we were sitting at 50 properties. We'd done a lot of work in the business. We'd really mastered the whole property management side. We had done a lot of streamlining in the business, because we realized that for efficiencies and more cost effectiveness and to really focus our time in the right places, we had to look at our services. We did a lot of work on that and really getting a more simplified business model. And it just kept growing and we learned a lot along the way and things were going lovely. It was like, this is great. This is our lovely business, our new life here. We've got everything sorted. And then we were approached to buy, basically, somebody wanted to buy us and we thought, we're not going to sell. That's not in the plan. We're not for sale. And yeah, it was one of those things.

Jane Mack
Through a number of conversations over quite a long period of time, we ended up selling it. And I'd asked them at the time and I said, Why do you want to buy us? Because it was a big national company wanted to buy us. I thought, well, we're just a small little local business. Why do you want us? Because you've basically got the market share and we can't get into your area because you're here. And I thought, Oh, well, I never thought of it that way because you don't do. We don't look back over our past experiences, really. We tend to just get focused on the doing and carry on moving forward. And I thought, Oh, my gosh, we've actually created something really good here that a big company wants it. So that's what prompted us to sell. But at the same time, we continued working for the business because, as they said, we knew our owners and our guests and our market. They didn't know that that's what we'd built. And we had trust and loyalty and everything there. So we continued to run our local office. And after a few years, things started to change and I knew that the time was right for me to leave. So after that, I realized that the consultancy world was kind of where I wanted to go down. And really just after kind of finding my feet and taking a bit of that recovery from property management, as you said there, taking that recovery period to kind of gather my thoughts on it all.

Jane Mack
I then went back into the world of consultancy and within the holiday let, or vacation rental market, depending where you are in the world, you call it, and helping other people to now grow their businesses the same way that I did.

Heather Bayer
That's so interesting, because this sort of mirrors what I've done, except when I got into it, we started with just doing marketing and bookings, and our owners, in fact, managed all their own properties, which once we got up to around 180 properties, it was like herding 180 cats.

Jane Mack
I can believe it.

Heather Bayer
Yes, because we knew every property inside and out and we knew our owners so well, but not all of them were great at their choice of cleaners and maintenance people, or really on top of it. Some of them did their own cleaning, which we always said, never, never, never do that.

Jane Mack
No, you don't want an owner clean. Nobody wants an owner clean.

Heather Bayer
Because I used to clean my own properties and then realize that I'd walk in and go, Oh my gosh, this is my pride and joy. And there's a speck of dust. You've disrespected it. And I realized once I got my first professional cleaner in and told her, only tell me if you can't turn it over in the 4 hours. That's all I want to know. If you can't turn it over in the 4 hours, then let me know; otherwise, it's fine. But by the time we sold in, well, that was just last year. Last year, maybe two years, 18 months ago, we sold, and by that time, we were moving into having full-time property management within the company. But it took us 20 years, and you started with it; very different. But then I did the same, moved into consultancy, because myself, like you realized that there are a lot of startup managers out there who are sort of floundering a little bit, just trying to pull all the pieces together and figure out what to do. So who is your typical client?

Jane Mack
I'd say mostly it tends to be people who are managing multiple properties, they're managing other people's properties. Some of them have maybe been in the business a few years, but they've kind of got to that point where it's like, Oh, I've grown. I've not really got my systems and things in place. It's all a bit scattergun. I need some help to get everything nicely back in place so they can grow it forward, or people who might be kind of starting that journey, and they're like, what do I do? What should I put in place? Just how do I do it? I don't know where to start. So I give them those sort of pieces of the jigsaw to push everything together and get it set up so that they actually have a flowing business that they can take forward and grow as they go on.

Heather Bayer
So how do you feel that the role of property manager has changed since you left the business? What's more challenging now and what's easier?

Jane Mack
Yeah. Oh, gosh, what's easier? That seems to be the smaller part, I think. So, challenging, definitely I would say for challenging, guest expectations have risen hugely. I saw them rise when I was in the business, but they've risen even more. And I think a lot more attention has to be paid now to the properties in terms of what they provide, their upkeep, keeping on top with owners about if a property looks tired. You've really got to put the effort in to bring these properties up to standard, because you just get left behind if you don't do that, because there's so many out there that unless you're up there with the right standard, people are going to go elsewhere.  And also just see what you can offer to guests to improve their experience. The guest experience seems to be huge now. I'm seeing that everywhere. Everything is all talking about the actual experience that they have, and you want to be able to improve that by offering additional services, collaborations, local business support, such an array of ways that you can bring in that better experience so that they want to book through you and they want to book through your properties.

Jane Mack
And it says... well, alongside with that goes that the marketing has all changed. I mean, that's become a huge, huge thing as well. Compared with back in our day, Heather, back in our day, there's just so many OTAs out there now and they're like the big business behind them. And with all this, many areas are really saturated as well. And when you get that saturation, there's a difficulty in bringing on new properties if you want to offer your service to others. But also people are really wanting to go down this direct booking rate, save on commissions and costs that way. So once again, with that big saturation we have out there now, that's more and more difficult to be able to do that. So I think as well, property managers, they need to be continually learning, they need to be continually improving and just keeping up-to-date and moving with the times. And I think as well, there is a lot more learning out there in different areas. So there's lots of resources now which they can do that.

Jane Mack
But even like the saturation itself brings to the point that things like housekeeping, that's really, really difficult now.  And it always was, it was always the hard part of it. But I think when there's so much demand out there with new properties and there's a lot less availability of really reliable, good housekeepers, and people are really struggling with that as well. And I think when you manage multiple properties as well, you're not only managing your housekeeping and your guests, you're managing your owners. And with all the changes that go on and changes in the market, you have to adapt to it and they have to adapt too. So educating your owners is another challenge, because quite often they're a bit averse to change are our owners.  Sometimes they don't like to have to buy new things or implement new things and put new things in. So these can be quite.... roll that in, it's quite a more challenging time than certainly when I think back when we did it.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, exactly. There's so many things you were saying there that I really, really relate to.  The cleaning, just finding the reliable people. And I think this is worldwide. It's not the Isle of Arran, it's not Ontario, Canada, just, it's everywhere. And we hear that refrain all the time. And I remember those heady days of paying $15 an hour for a cleaner to come in, and now we're hearing $100 an hour is pretty much okay. And that wasn't that long ago, because it's supply/demand, and there is so much demand.

Jane Mack
Yeah, but I think you said earlier about the things that are easier, certainly from when I did it, we now have these amazing systems out there that you can implement and put everything into, and they automate so much stuff, they cut your time and processes, they can save you money. And it really, really helps your business to run much more smoothly. So that, to me, is where the easiness side has come in, that there's all this availability to help you from a resource side that we didn't used to have. And I know that last year, earlier on this year, I went to the Short Stay Summit in London and saw all these exhibitors of all these amazing systems, and I was quite blown away by it, because these didn't exist back when I used to do all the property management. And I thought, Oh, if I'd had you all ten years ago, oh my God, my life could have been so much easier. And now I've been more like, Oh my God, what a choice. What do I choose? Which one? But there's so much there to actually give you that flexibility of what do I need in my business, what's going to help me and what's going to make my life easier?  You've got it all there. And that to me, is a huge win for property managers these days now.

Heather Bayer
Well, I think this is a great segue, in fact, to start talking about the foundations of a business, because getting that tech in place at the outset is at the foundation. And I understand where you're coming from.

Heather Bayer
Talking about the array of tech, in Orlando, at the VRMA Conference, it was completely overwhelming. Every time I go to another conference like that, the exhibition hall is now hanger size. You could get a [Boeing] 747 in there. The different types of tech that's now available, it's mind blowing. And I hear from people who, and I was like this, I was always an early adopter, because way back when, there wasn't a huge amount. So if something came out, you could jump on it and actually expect that it was going to work for you. You made it work for you. But now I think you have to be so much more discerning in terms of what you start with. So if you were coaching somebody, starting a small holiday let or a property management company, what would you advise them to put in there as a foundation of their business?

Jane Mack
Certainly the systems is one big thing. So if you can get as much stuff and as many of your processes into one area and many parts of it which can be automated, is a huge time saver. But for me as well, it's a huge part of avoiding human error. So stop holding it in your head, stop trying to just make notes and write it down, because that's where things get missed. And we try to log something in one place and then we have to put it in another spreadsheet and there's duplication, waste of time, and things get lost. So get those systems in there, so you have this really nice way that your business will sort of flow in one place. And also when you start to bring people on to work with you, you can all access it from the same place. So everything's in one place. And to me, that's a really good foundation to start on. I think looking at how you're going to run the business, what structure are you going to have in place, how is it going to operate? Because you need to look at the support you have and how everything's going to link together, who's going to do what, what roles and responsibilities.

Jane Mack
And it all has to flow nicely, otherwise that's where you get in a bit of a muddle, that's where everything becomes a bit scattergun if you don't have a good structure there to follow, where everyone has their place and knows what they're doing. And finally, I would say, is just keeping a really good look at your services and what you're offering and keeping everything as streamlined as you can and as simple as you can. It really helps you operate much more efficiently and certainly much more cost effective as well, if we have a quite simple and streamlined cell in there.

Heather Bayer
So you're talking about structuring, streamlining and getting your systems right

Jane Mack
Systems. Yeah.

Heather Bayer
So let's take each one of those in step, then. So let's start with structure. I think you've sort of given some of the benefits of getting that structure right from the start. But let's say somebody's coming into this for the first time. They've owned a few of their own properties. This is where a lot of us started. You owned your own properties and then the guy next door said, Could you do mine? And then you got a relative, and then before you know it, you're managing five properties. That's how I started and had no clue, absolutely zero, zilch idea on how this all worked. So if you had been, I wish you had been, around in 2003, what would you have said to me in terms of the structure and how do I think about it?

Jane Mack
Yeah, well, if you think about it, firstly, in one way, as a property manager, we wear many, many hats. Right? So you're the housekeeper, you're the property checker, you're customer service and you're owner services, and you're even maintenance, because I think anybody who's in property management will know how to top up boiler pressure and do all those really fun things that you need to do. So you kind of do everything. But the big thing with your having a good structure in place is because if you don't have a structure, then while you're out doing all those things and you're trying to do everything, then you're not focusing on actually growing the business, you're not looking at your guest experiences, you're not implementing all these new ideas that you might have. So when you put a structure there, it means you're getting some support in place. Who's going to help with different jobs there that are required, or are you really clear on roles and responsibilities? Who's doing what? What is the process for maintenance? Who's going to deal with it? Who's going to contact your trades? Who deals with the owners then, and how do they get paid?  What is the structure in order for these things to happen?

Jane Mack
And when you have individual people working on these areas, it just means that there's a real focus on it as well. They find the gaps, they see what works, they see what doesn't work, and that's where you can keep improving in the business and it allows you, as I said, you can go out and focus on growing the business and just making collaborations out there and relationships with other people and just taking on the business side. And when you've got that structure in place with other people doing their own jobs and responsibilities, you're also going to give your owners and your guests a much better experience as well because it's much smoother and it will change. Your structure will change as you grow, because it's going to, because you're going to have more properties, so you need more resource. But it just means it's much easier to change as it grows, because you already know how it works and you see where the gaps are, how it works, what didn't work, and you can change it as you go. So it really is a case of being quite clear of how you want it to run and operate, start getting a bit of support and being able to have different people doing those different things so you can focus on the business and not be every hat wearing person every day.

Heather Bayer
So at what point? I mean, you talked about the typical client is one that's got to that. And we call it the tipping point, because we had tipping points in our business. And I remember getting to the first 13 properties. 35 properties was our big tipping point, because we had to look at a different property management system. But at 13 properties it was do we need to hire somebody? And that's a big one, because now a significant part of your income is going to be shifted, because that's going to pay that person. So choosing that person to fit into your structure has got to be so carefully done. I remember we lucked out, actually. We found the right person, but it wasn't through a great deal of thought. It was because we found somebody that we really liked rather than somebody that, because we didn't really think about what job she was going to do.

Jane Mack
Yeah, well, that's it. And sometimes if you get somebody, you think, I'm going to work really well with them. You think, brilliant, but then at the same time you think, but actually they're going to do the job well. But I really like them when we work well together, so, yeah, you got to find that fit. You've got to find what's going to work for you. And I think as well, every business is different because there's also the owner deciding, well, what direction do I want to go? And do I want to just get to 13-14 properties or do I really want to grow it? The thing is you can start with a part-time person and then start to see what the role is and see how it changes then. And you can maybe start with the two part-time people and they can kind of cross over. And that's quite a good one, is letting people cross over so they have a good idea of the whole business and they can share the job roles before you start bringing on full-time and another person and separating out. So that's how we started.

Jane Mack
We started with a part-time person and another part-time. One person went to full-time and we kind of grew it gradually in line with the business growing. But we made some mistakes as well. We had mistakes where we structured in a way that everyone had a role which was location specific, but it was too misaligned. It wasn't all joined up. Right? So we went back to it being job role specific. So I think it'll fit your business, how you run your business, but it's just been able to start somewhere and if that means part-time and building it up and then you see where it works in your business.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. And I think when you really sit down and think about structuring the business, then that gives you a better idea of where the person is going to fit in. I mean, I just like hiring people that are like me. Oh, gosh, you're so like me. Then you're going to come aboard.

Jane Mack
Come aboard!

Heather Bayer
Yes. And then we've got half a dozen ideas people, and nobody's paying attention to the details.

Jane Mack
Nobody's doing anything.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. Fortunately I had a business partner who was entirely the opposite of me. So he was down there, deep in the deep. He's actually still working with the company, because he knows the ins and outs and details so well. But I think that's important. Of course, that really is another, the whole hiring is another topic. And I just want to move on to what you call streamlining, which is your second 'S', which is focusing on the services that you're going to offer and the pricing and how you're going to be competitive in the market. So can you elaborate on that one?

Jane Mack
Yeah. So looking at, obviously your services, your most important thing here, what are you actually going to offer people? And sometimes it's not necessarily offer more services and we'll get more money, but it's about looking at the value of the service. How much is it costing to run? Is it bringing you in more money than it is costing you to run it? Is it more hassle to run than it is actually worth it? And sometimes we think we've got to offer all these services because that's what my competitors are doing, so I better offer these so I'm as competitive as them. But that's not the case. And this is where when you tie all this in with streamlining, it's keeping it that really simple way. And sometimes it might be that one service is just what you can offer really well, but that's okay. So it's about being very aware of your time, your costs, your resource. So you're actually offering something of really good value. And I guess that's probably where the pricing comes into it, because very often, and I've seen it quite a few times lately and I know it for myself as a property manager, you end up working for free at times because we're too keen, if you like, to make sure we do everything for the owner and everything for the guest.

Jane Mack
And I'll just go to the house and do this, I'll just pop that in. And you do all these things. We've not actually charged for it, it's not part of your remit. And you realize that actually you need to sit down sometimes and look at what exactly do you do as your service, how much is it costing you? And even take into account the distances you're having to drive. If you have properties that are spread all around the place, that's going to be a big time resource, but also a cost in terms of fuel. So these things are sometimes forgotten about. And this is where your pricing is so important that what you're charging people is because it's what you're actually offering them. And I think we forget sometimes when we start charging stuff, we never really look back on it. It's just that's what I charge and that has to be constantly re-looked at, because things change and it's something you just always have to review. When you do look at the actual services you do, this is where the 'standout pit' is, which I always talk to clients about, because  the services that you offer, is based on your business, not somebody else's.

Jane Mack
And it's very hard to sort of stay a bit blinkered to that, because we do like to look at everyone else, don't we? We do like to see what everyone's doing. It's human nature, but it's about trying to stay in your lane and focus on, what do I actually offer? And it's how you do it as well. Just because you offer the same service as somebody else, you might do it slightly differently, you might operate in a different way, and it could be down to a personal service you give, or maybe it's more online to them. It's entirely up to you and how you do it. And to give you a bit of an example, this, I once had about five offshoot services from my main property management service. And once I looked at it all and I thought, you know, half these are more hassle than they're worth, this is just a nightmare. And yes, it was an extra bit of income, but really I got rid of those so I could focus on all the letting side, and advertising, and bringing in all the bookings. And because we did that, we'd time to do it.

Jane Mack
But it also meant that we could really focus on being good at those services. And I realized that what our customers wanted was they liked the fact that we had a local office, they had a personal service for guests and owners. What we could offer as our service, because we were here on the island in person, was what made us stand out from our competitors. But we put our focus into that so we could offer the personal service. We got rid of all these services that were bit faffy and a bit of a hassle, because we didn't really need them. The money was all in the bookings anyway, so that's where we went and was much more profitable. But we also could produce our own unique selling point of what we could offer, because we could put our time into it. So that's just where it's really important. When you look at all these three together, your services, how you're pricing it, and what, from that, can make you stand out is a really, really good foundation, your business.

Heather Bayer
You made such great points there. I talked to somebody else in the podcast about a year ago, I think, and he'd built his business and then realized that people wanted loads more things. So he started opening other little businesses to service his business, and then found you just spread yourself too widely. And in fact, once he started to ask his guests what they wanted, what was most special to them, it wasn't all these, him doing all these peripheral things, it was simply him suggesting where they could go and get these peripheral things. So he then went on and went into partnerships with companies that delivered it, rather than trying to do it all himself. So yeah, you make such a great point about just talk to your guests, find out what do you like the most about working with us? What do you like the most about the way our company operates? And I think you really hit the nail on the head.

Jane Mack
That's a really simple thing. Just open your mouth and speak. We can all do it. Sometimes I think we overthink things and think we have to have this amazing big state-of-the-art service that nobody's heard of. Well, no, just speak to people and ask them and do it. It's not rocket science, but sometimes we just overlook things that are right there in front of us as well.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, overlook things and we overthink them as well.

Jane Mack
Yeah, totally. Yeah, totally.

Heather Bayer
I'm going to take a short break just now to hear about our sponsor, PriceLabs, directly from one of their clients. We're going to be right back with more from this great interview in just a few moments.

JP Purestay UK
I've been in property all my life. We do a lease on some properties, we own some of the other properties, and now we manage and we're open in the UK to any other owners coming to us for management of their property. Before PriceLabs, how I was setting the rates, I wasn't so sure if I'm honest. I had a feel for the price that worked and I had a feel for the price that didn't work. And then some days would book up really quickly and I'd think, Oh, wow, that's cool. And then I'd realize that there was an event on locally and I'd missed it, so no wonder it was booking up quite well. I'm still learning about PriceLabs. The grouping of properties is a big feature that we use. We've often got multiple properties in either one block or in one street or something like that. They're all identical, so therefore we just price them together.

JP Purestay UK
Another one is the orphan stays is really cool. So if we've obviously got a gap and a one night stay, let's say, for example, it's in a very touristy area like Bath or Edinburgh, and I've missed the opportunity to offer a weekend one night gap as a one night stay, because I've got a two night minimum.  I'd really kind of kick myself that I've not done that, so that's really beneficial.

JP Purestay UK
So we're an affordable premium brand and we can put a blanket price increase on all of our properties, or any selected properties versus the market. When you own the business, which all business owners will know, you've got a pipeline of things you want to implement and generally save you time or make you money. And the big thing for me is how do we save time?  Overall, it is really helping us be efficient and I think that was the key thing.

Heather Bayer
Thank you so much for that testimonial. It was great to hear how price Labs is working so practically with their clients to help them achieve success. So let's go on right back now to our interview.

Heather Bayer
So we've talked about competitiveness and services and pricing. Oh, yes, one other thing I wanted to touch on, just back you up on, is this doing things and not charging for them. And while you were talking about that, it just reminded me of one owner we had and we brought him on and he needed a lot of hand-holding. And then we got his property online. We got the first guests in, the first rental, the microwave broke and I was just in the car with...., we always carried spare pieces of equipment and appliances and things. So I took down a microwave to his property and the guests were super happy. I took out his microwave. And just getting him to actually acknowledge that we'd done this thing was one thing, getting him to pay for the service was another. And it really got us thinking about, you got to be upfront with owners. When you take on board a new owner, you be absolutely upfront with them about what your services are and what you're offering.  Because we tend to talk a lot about services to guests and forget about the services to owners.

Jane Mack
Absolutely. And I was just speaking to my client this morning and we were talking about pricing and services and we talked all through pretty much what I've just said there about knowing what you do and what you charge. And she realized where she wasn't charging and we did a very quick calculation and I said, you know, over a year, that's 16,000 pounds. And she's like, Oh, my God. She says, oh my God, I can't believe you've just found me 16,000 pounds. But this is why you need to look at this, your services and your pricing. So, yeah, that was quite a bit of an eye opener, but it was just simple things. But it was just being lost along the way.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. Getting lost along the way. I think it happens to all of us. We get into this flow of business and the day-to-day working of it, and things just fall by the wayside. So you're making some really great points here.

Jane Mack
Lived and learned, Heather. Lived and learned it all myself.

Heather Bayer
So the next one is systems. And you say that good systems are absolutely essential. Can you give me some examples of systems and why they're so important?

Jane Mack
Yeah. Well, to look at systems, I always think, look at the actual booking journey. So if you think from the moment that a guest goes online and books your property, that booking is going to hit a number of points in its journey. So it's going to hit the guest who's going to need their directions and property information and all that good stuff. It's going to hit the housekeeping because there's a change over needs done, it's going to hit the owners because they need paid from it, you need paid from it. And it's going to hit a maintenance, because there's possibly a maintenance issue needs done or even right down to a kettle being bought for the property or something. So it's going to hit all these points. And at this stage, all these areas need to be in some form of a system to keep log of it and keep track of everything.

Jane Mack
So when I mentioned earlier on about these amazing systems that are out there now, a good property management system, which is going to keep as much stuff together as you can, there are so many out there and it really is a case of researching of what's your business, like, what size, what do you want, what do you need it for?  It's really important to do, but things like you want it to link your bookings in with your property management side. So it's kind of tied-in in terms of the housekeeping and the changeover. You want your housekeepers to log-in, your owners to log-in if they can. That means they're getting their own information. You're not having to resend this all the time. If you do look after multiple properties and you have to do owner statements at the end of the month, then making sure that's in a system that can calculate all that for you and links to your bookings is absolutely worth its weight and gold. Because if you have to try and calculate and add things in spreadsheets and pull stuff together, having it there, automated is such a fantastic thing.

Jane Mack
And if you think about even just you getting paid. I know, imagine us getting paid, for goodness sake. Is it actually pulling off a report that tells you how much commission you're due or what you do, or are you having to calculate it, you have to find it somewhere else? So it's getting it all linking, as best as you can, in one place.  You might need two systems, depending on what you do and what way your business operates. Because there's separate housekeeping systems you can have, where you take an app out and it logs maintenance and housekeeping, so there's different things out there. It's quite a personal choice of what you want, but getting everything, thinking that booking journey is everything tying in. But what would I definitely, definitely say is document your processes, because that way everyone and anyone who comes into your business can pick that document up and go right step by step. This is how I do things.

Jane Mack
I was obsessed with this. I had every single process documented everywhere. And it also meant if you did change something slightly, it was just a change here and there, done it, and it was updated, but also meant my team, anyone could pick it up. They knew exactly where to go for the documents. In you go find the process and read it. And yeah, I was quite obsessed with that. But it pays off. Sometimes it takes a bit of time to make, to think, Oh God, sit down, I've got to document this. See, once you've done it once, that's it, it's done, and it's there for everybody. And sometimes we just got to take that time to do it. And if you're thinking ahead into the future, if you're wanting to grow and you're wanting to bring on more properties and more team, having your systems there and having all your processes documented, it all just works with you. And it goes with you.

Heather Bayer
I did a tipping point episode... we do a separate episode of the podcast each week on a Monday, which is just a very short, educational piece on just a single topic. And I did one, in fact the very first one I did when we started this series, was on standard operating procedures. SOPs.

Jane Mack
Yes.

Heather Bayer
And I explained that when I started my company, I kept everything in my head. And so when new people came on board, I explained it to them, and then somebody else might come on and they'd explain it to them. And then it was just this whisper process where what I'd said in the first place wasn't exactly what transpired from the third or fourth person along the line. And I really learned the hard way about SOPs. So I did this Tipping Point episode, and somebody made a comment and just said, but I'm only an independent operator. I'm just a single person, I just do all my own stuff. I don't need to have these. And I just went back and I said, so what happens if you've got three properties? What happens if you get sick and you're taken out for some reason? You've got people in your properties, who deals with it? And she came back and said, Oh, I never thought of that. And I think, Well, okay, yeah, this is why it doesn't matter whether you've got one property or a thousand. You put everything into an SOP. And I was very, very late, again because I come from a top down approach, so documenting stuff isn't my thing.

Jane Mack
I love it. I love a good step-by-step guide.

Heather Bayer
I'll spend hours looking for ways of making it simple and then never actually do it. So, yeah, that's why I think we could work well together.

Jane Mack
Well, you find the ways, Heather, and I'll document it for us.

Heather Bayer
So, you know, coming back to that, I just wholly agree that having systems in place and then documenting everything you do is just an absolute necessity. So thank you for bringing that one up.

Heather Bayer
Where do you find most managers? What obstacles are most managers finding to being more successful? What just gets in the way?

Jane Mack
Definitely from the people I speak to recently, the biggest thing I'm seeing is they are getting pulled in every direction and caught up in the day-to-day tasks, and they can't actually step away from the business to actually focus on growing it. And they struggle to let go of tasks because they don't really trust their staff, but they really want to keep control. And these are the two areas I'm finding people are really struggling with. And it means that they're stuck in that everyday hamster wheel circle and not actually focusing on the business side.

Heather Bayer
And that's all about working in the business instead of working on the business. What is that book called? You know, the one I'm thinking about.

Jane Mack
It's been out for years, hasn't it?

Heather Bayer
It's been out for years and I've....

Jane Mack
I just read it last month. Oh, my goodness....

Heather Bayer
He's got about ten iterations of it and it's gone right out of my head. And I'm glad it gone out of your's too..... I've got it. It's The E-Myth.

Jane Mack
The E-Myth. Yes.

Heather Bayer
The E-Myth Revisited. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes because, yeah, as you say, that book's been out for years.

Jane Mack
Yeah, really good. It's brilliant.

Heather Bayer
And it's just as relevant today as it was then. I know that a lot of people are reading Traction by Gino Wickman and using EOS, The Entrepreneurial Operating System, but it's all the same thing. It's about getting out of the weeds and getting somebody else to do the weedy stuff while you concentrate more on actually making the business work.

Heather Bayer
Just finally, what tips would you have to give people who are feeling a little bit stuck and who are maybe at that tipping point? Anything they could do right now?

Jane Mack
I would say certainly if you are in that tipping point stage and you need to sort of get out of that hamster wheel effect, I think you need to get very clear on where are the areas that you need help with and actually sit down and get these out, where is the areas and actually what do you want to be doing more? Get really clear on what you want to do in the business, because we don't often think about that. And this is where I think sometimes you've just got to invest a bit of time and a bit of money in bringing on some support to help you do these tasks. And if you work closely with a new team member, then make it clear to them their roles, their responsibility. As I said, things are documented. Let go of one task at a time. You can still see what's going on. You can have daily catch ups with them, you can access systems, but do actually give them a chance to come into their own and use the role and the responsibilities that you're paying them for.

Jane Mack
And I think as well, what we don't do is we don't set time aside for things.  We just think, I have no time, I'm so busy I have no time. And we automatically just assume that I can't do it because I don't have time. You do actually have time. I think you tell yourself that many times you don't have time, but I think you do need to set the time aside. And when you actually do that and start working in your head, working it out and getting stuff out of your head, and you realize, actually, here's the areas I need to focus on, this is the help I need. Then you will start taking the actions, but you've got to stop doing everything you're doing and actually put a wee bit of a plan in place.

Jane Mack
There's support and supports out there now, which is fantastic. And there's people who will come in to help you. Don't do it alone. We're not supposed to do this alone in this industry. You cannot do it alone in this industry. But you do need to really be clear what they need support on. Who can I get in to help me so I can start to step back a bit and actually get back into loving your business again? Because we do fall out of it. You can fall out of love with it when things just get too much all the time. And I think it's just so important that we do start loving our businesses back again, but get a bit of support in there to help you do it.

Heather Bayer
That's great, Jane, thank you so much. So many nuggets here and I think they're going to be super helpful for people. Before we finish, can you share a little bit about what you do as a consultant, how you can help people who perhaps are feeling stuck?

Jane Mack
Absolutely. So really, as I said at the beginning, I work mostly with people who are managing multiple properties or people who are looking to move into that area and grow more, of bringing in the advertising, bookings and the property management. So I help them to set up the business in a way that it can run smoothly. We look at their systems and their structures, we look at their processes and we can do this in anything from a very quick 90-minute call that they can just take some information and go and do it themselves, because some people are great, they're doers and they're just ready to go. They need that little bit of support. But I've also do one-to-one coaching consulting on a number of weeks. And it's very tailored to the individual, because everyone's businesses are different and you're all at a different stage. So it's very tailored to what you need and to help your business go where you want it to go.

Heather Bayer
Well, I will make sure that your information is on the Show Notes and people can find you there. It's been absolute pleasure talking with you. I'm sure we will connect again. I'm hoping to be at The Shortyz Awards in London next year. I don't know if.... and The Short Stay Summit...., so maybe if you're there, we might get to meet.

Jane Mack
We definitely will, Heather. One day we will meet in person and talk for hours.

Heather Bayer
We will. I mean, once you get into this business, you don't want to fall out of love with this business because it's just full of so many great people, and I would never want to lose all those connections.

Jane Mack
No, absolutely.

Heather Bayer
So, yeah, once again, thank you and all the best, and we will connect at some point.

Jane Mack
Thank you, Heather.

Heather Bayer
Thank you so much, Jane. It's always such an absolute pleasure to talk with a property manager who I feel that when we really connect, that we've gone through all the same things almost on a very similar timeline. So that was great. So, as I said in the end there, if you want to connect with Jane at all, then you can find her information on the Show Notes. And don't forget that if you're looking for consultancy, I also do the same, and I come at it from a little bit of a different direction.  As you probably found out from that conversation, my core skills are in the strategy overview type of area, and then into marketing and branding and the guest experience. Although I can talk, of course, about systems and standard operating procedures and structure.

Heather Bayer
But always interesting when I talk to somebody who's looking for consulting and ask them what type of person is going to work with them. And some will say, well, I want somebody to help me with all that detail about how do I get all these pieces in order, all the pieces of the puzzle? And others will say, I've got all these ideas and I need to be able to translate them into something that is going to work. And really I want a sounding board. So when you're out there looking for a coach or looking for a consultant, it's really important to have in mind what this person is going to be like. Where do you want them to be coming from? Do you want them to be detail oriented? Do you want them to be more focused on strategy and then start looking.

Heather Bayer
Now in the New Year, we will be launching our Consultants' Corner on the Vacation Rental Formula website, and that is going to feature some of the best consultants and coaches in this industry. And we're not allowing just anybody to just come on board. We are interviewing the consultants and the coaches. We're talking to some of their clients, and we're only going to bring you those that have proven results. There are so many people out there calling themselves a consultant, or a coach, or an expert, or a guru, and we're trying to sift through all of that and just bring you the best. So if you're interested in finding out more, if you are a consultant and you would like to be included in this Consultants' Corner on the Vacation Rental Formula website, then please let me know. Get in touch with us.

Heather Bayer
You can email me at heather@vacationrentalformula.com and we can have a discussion on what it all entails. If you're looking for somebody, then as I say, this is going to be launched early in the New Year, so just watch out for it. We will, of course, be promoting it when it comes to fruition, because we want to kick off with at least 10 people who are really skilled in different areas, whether it's marketing or foundational work or operations or revenue management, all sorts of different things. So look out for that and hopefully if you're looking for somebody in the future, we will be able to source that for you.

Heather Bayer
So that's it for this week. Always a pleasure being with you.... usually at the end of this I say I'm going to head outside and go for a walk on the beach. Well, I'm definitely not doing that today, but I will be, I'm sure, in a couple of days. So have a lovely day. I'll be with you again next week. Oh, and don't forget to watch The Tipping Point episode on a Monday. Always an interesting session that brings you a very specific topic, so watch out for that as well. Thanks for listening.

Mike Bayer
We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast. Don't forget to check out our sponsor, PriceLabs, and their dynamic pricing and revenue management tools. Click the link in the description of this episode for more information.

Heather Bayer
It's been a pleasure as ever being with you. If there's anything you'd like to comment on, then join the conversation on the Show Notes for the episode at vacationrentalformula.com. We'd love to hear from you and I look forward to being with you again next week.