Hello my YouTube friends its Richard founder of STRU
and Airbnb super host and yes you read the title right I'm finally making this
video I've been asked dozens of times and I'm
so sorry that I haven't got to it before but I've been kind of busy so here's the
question that I've heard time and time again which is how do i scale my Airbnb
in short-term rental business using virtual assistants let's do it so the
first question you might be wondering is well why do I use a virtual assistant to
the first place and the answer is pretty simple I really won't love hosting and I
loved the experience part I loved bringing joy to families and
international travelers and obviously the financial gain is fantastic but that
doesn't mean that I like every single thing about hosting like for instance I
don't do my own cleaning I wouldn't do it very well I certainly wouldn't enjoy
it for like a day or a week or a year much less like ten years so the goal for
me in hosting and using this to achieve my 15 year plan is to be able to do it
for 15 years or longer so one of the things that I did as I started to scale
was figure out what I'm uniquely qualified to do and what it is that I
like to do and everything that I'm either not uniquely qualified meaning
like I could train somebody else to do it or that I don't enjoy I went on a
mission to like find somebody who could do it better than me more reliably than
me and maybe even do it like full-time and they might really enjoy it so that
seemed like a really good solution for me and I want to tell you what it is
that I rely on my virtual assistant to do and what I have my virtual assistant
do is very similar to what a co-host might do but she uses her own password
she logs into all of my different properties she does so on Airbnb and
home away she looks at the Google shared calendar and then I've put together a
series of templates and responses and a timeline and a series of operations that
she then executes for me to help me run my Airbnb business so think of things
like questions she responds to questions think of things like calendar management
she knows what dates are available what dates aren't she organizes all of my
cleaning teams and the different people that are involved in maintenance and so
on so she's like my co-host if you will but she handles all of that and the
things that I'm uniquely qualified to do strategy pricing expansion financial
analysis things like that by the fact that I've given all of the other things
that I like to do to my virtual assistant that
frees me up to do all the things that I do like to do and it also makes it much
more sustainable and repeatable and therefore much more likely to accomplish
my 15 year goal so before you start skipping ahead because the next part is
really important I want to go ahead and tell you where I found my virtual
assistant and it was pretty simple I follow an entrepreneur in social media
Chris Drucker if you don't follow him he's worthwhile he's got some really
interesting points he's a British guy who lives in the Philippines and he runs
many businesses including virtual assistant finder and so they're based in
the Philippines he uses Filipino people all over the place and it's been really
good for me now the Filipino people are friendly hospitable English is very
strong it's not native English so like just be warned about that but here's a
case in point where I started to follow somebody I liked what they were doing I
learned that he had this business and I gave it a shot it works for me and if
you want to try it there's a link below I think it's worth checking out so this
parts really important and the good news is it's almost entirely in your control
and that is how do you train them and the bottom line is the more time and
energy you think about what you want them to do and how you want them to do
it and the more time and energy you put into like a training program and
checking in with them and so on the better the results will be
now there's two components of it you have to select the right person so like
it's not worth training the wrong person and if you've never employed anybody
that's a big lesson like hiring people and learning like when to invest more
double down and when to walk away you know that old like Willie Nelson song
you have to know when to hold them and when to fold them
No
No if you've never done that expect some
challenges I've been in entrepreneur for years and across many different
businesses I can tell you hiring the right people is not only the most
important thing it's also the most challenging and a virtual assistant is
no different so the more time and energy you think about like what you need and
who the right person is and putting the time and energy into the thoughtful
description the more likely that the virtual finder program is going to work
for you and then once you have yours look what you're gonna do is Skype
interview I recommend you interview at least two or three people look for
personality look for who fit look for engagement look for hospitality like all
those things that you want your employee to have and then once you have them then
the hard work really begins because now it's one-on-one you have to express to
them your why how important hospitality is how you want things handled the
timeliness of it again think about everything and then spend a lot of time
and energy and if you do that you will be rewarded more likely than not most
people won't invest the time and energy and then they'll give up on the program
just like how this didn't work what have wasted time and money you have to commit
to it you have to work it you have to try you have to hire right then you have
to train right the last thing I'm going to talk about in this video are like
challenges and problems to overcome and there's a few actually more than a few
there's a lot and I can't even say I have a crystal ball and I know them all
I'm sure you'll have your own problems but like in anything else
the upside is so worthwhile like the ability to scale and spend the time and
energy on what it is that I wanted to do and that I'm uniquely qualified and that
motivates me and rid myself of everything else is really worthwhile so
here are some challenges that I've faced the first one is the infrastructure in
the Philippines where my virtual assistant Maria's based is not the same
as here in New York City which means that we have power outages there's
storms that go out internet speeds are slower and things like that
and so at first it might be frustrating but then it sort of becomes part of the
routine and you sort of can expect it a little bit and so what that means is
I'll have an idea of when a response was came in and whether it's been responded
to or not and I give her you know a couple of like an hour to before I will
jump in and respond again it's infrequent but my point is you have to
have like your finger the pulse and know what's going on the
second one is communication and language chances are they're not going to be
native English speakers although this English language is very strong so you
have to give them a little bit more freedom and leeway and like
understanding and then work with them that's the good news the good news is
they have less like baggage if you will so like training somebody who's been
trained and properly who has a bad attitude or you know isn't a good
employee that's really almost impossible but taking somebody who's like open and
excited and looking forward to working with you and then like helping mold them
and define that culture between the two of you you should view that as an
opportunity slash challenge another thing that I would say is that um you
know they're doing this because they have to write like they
need this job it's super important to them to pay for maybe their mortgage or
the food on the table and it's really important that you are you know humble
and nice and respectful and it can be challenging if like you know you've
never met this person and their Internet's down and they didn't respond
and I've had a situation with Maria in my particular case where somebody asked
for a very key specific date it was peak peak it was like over Christmas and New
Year's and she made a mistake and it ended up costing me 6,000 or 7,000
dollars and that period still open and so like I could get really really upset
and I could just like throw a temper tantrum and you know like ruin the
relationship or I can try and be empathetic about it and say you know six
or seven thousand dollars for this person is maybe a year's salary or you
know some huge amount of income and so maybe she was nervous about it maybe she
made a mistake and so rather than you know like throw the baby out with the
bathwater let's talk about it let's regroup let's try and understand what
went through if you ever have any questions I'm always available even
though you might feel like you're working on your own like if there's
something that's really important I'm always available so please feel free to
interrupt me ask for help and so on and it's that sort of mindset that I think
is really important if you're gonna hire somebody who lives you know twelve hours
away at a different time zone 3,000 miles that you may never meet is
appreciate like their reality what's happening with them and just be
respectful and mindful of that so that's a wrap that's basically
ins and outs of what I do and how I do it and why I do it and I would just
leave you with this thought if it's not a full-time job for you like you don't
have enough properties to employ somebody for full-time this virtual
assistant can help you with like your personal life they can call and make
doctor's appointments they can call and do your like travel and book your hotels
and your flights and so on they're really capable they're really eager
they're really excited to like help so just open your mind and say hey I have a
set of hands and a great mind and an upbeat person how how might I use them
to help me so the world is really you know up to you to define and work
together and I think it'll really work out I'd love to hear your comments and
your questions below if you haven't subscribed to the YouTube channel I
would ask that you do so