Episode 019 – How You Can Carefully Pick and Choose Your Guests

In our post-covid year, 2021, we see a change in our guest avatar.  These aren’t the same friendly travelers we used to experience.  Some of them can be downright nasty.  How can we pick and choose the right guests for us?  What can we do to lower the chances of us getting a “Karen” who makes our life miserable for a month?  Michelle will tell you and introduce you to a neat new tool for helping us choose better guests through verification. 

Plus, contest details are inside this episode!  Enter to win BIG!!  Go and Grow!

Transcript of this Episode:

Hi, it's Michelle, the master of money mindset, and you are listening to B B dash.

And in today's episode, we're going to be talking about how to pick your guests correctly. So please stay tuned. Our show today is brought to you by audible. Audible is where you get your audio books online and get a 30 day trial into the audible membership for free. By going to audible trial.com forward slash S T R revenue.

That's audible trial.com. S T R revenue. You'll get your first audio book for free and 30 days into the audible membership just for trying us out. You'll love audible right [email protected]. You can find our $7 courses available for you to try. Find out how to cohost, how to do rental arbitrage or how to invest in real estate.

We're all three, by going to B and b-boss.com and clicking on our store. And you'll find our $7 courses right there. Try this out. You'll love it. You'll love those courses and they're only there for a limited time. So do it also, don't forget our contest. We've got our contest running right now in every week.

We're picking away. And everyone's names are going to be put into a drawing at the end for a final prize of an Amazon DOD with a little clock on it. And your guests will love that. There'll be able to walk right in, ask Alexa to connect to their account, and they'll be able to play their favorite music, ask for the weather or whatever else they want to ask Alexa to do pretty darn awesome.

And I would really greatly. You going to iTunes and leaving me a five star review. I appreciate it. So please do take a picture of it. Send it over to me at Michelle at BNB dash boss. Let me know that you did and we'll enter you in those drawings. So here it is. 2021. We've all survived. That crappy crappy COVID years of 2020.

We're all recovering states are opening. You know, they've got a vaccine for some people they're taking it away for others in closing it down. I mean, it's a crazy, crazy world out there. What's really good for us is even before the end of last year, our businesses all picked up. As soon as people started traveling again, they started doing more and more staycations.

So last year was a record breaking year. In the short-term rental industry, which is absolutely crazy because of COVID. Although when it did change a lot changed about it, the type of customers we were getting, the type of guests we were getting, those guys have not come back yet. They're completely gone and we've got more and more people having staycations.

We've got more and more people who are complaining more and more high maintenance guys coming in. And they're making a lot of people crazy. If you go on any of the Facebook pours in inside the groups, you're going to get a giggle every single day, because crazy stuff is going on. And it's like a Pandora's box of weird guests have opened up.

So today I want to help you figure out how to find good guests. Obviously the very first thing to do when you're looking for a good guest or having a good guest is to make sure, and this is going to help your ratings to make sure that, especially if you're an Airbnb, that you have your auto booking on, you want people to be able to book if they're verified and they have those positive reviews from other hosts.

Those guys, they can book right away with you. And you want that to be on switch that baby on because those are the guests that you are looking for. Also make sure that inside your house rules, that you have everything listed in there. If you haven't listened to that episode, go back and listen to it. If you haven't read the article on our website, please read the article.

You want this thing to be. Thorough. If it's not in writing, it doesn't exist and signs don't work, guys. It has to be in writing. You will not be protected all the time, but you have to have things in writing in order for it to be valid and real. A lot of people think that if they have too much in there, That it's going to turn people off.

That's true. It does turn some people off, but guess what? The people, it turns off are the people who are going to break those rules. So think of it this way. If somebody has a no smoking signs everywhere, no smoking in their house rules, no smoking on signs inside their house. No smoking on the back patio.

When you go out there, I mean, they've got no smoking signs everywhere. Does it bother somebody who does not smoke? Not at all. Why? Because they don't smoke. So if they don't smoke, those signs don't mean anything to them. It doesn't bother them. I'm a non-smoker I don't care if I see nodes smoking signs and that's great for me because I don't enjoy other people's cigarettes.

I'm a non-smoker right. So those things don't bother me. If I'm going to rent a house. And I'm taking my kids. And there's all kinds of stuff about not doing drugs in the house. Does that bother me? No, because I'm taking my kids and I don't do drugs and they don't do drugs and we're not planning on doing drugs.

So why would that bother me? The thing is you can have all these rules, the people, it turns off are the people who usually want it. So when you have those restrictions, just about how you want to check and make sure that, you know, who's going in and out of the place that you have cameras outside, monitoring it, you have rules about seeing the IDs of anybody over 18 before they arrive.

If you have deposit restrictions, all of these things don't make a difference to people who are going to follow the rules. They don't. I don't care if I have to put down a huge deposit on a place. Why? Because I know I'm going to get that deposit back. I'm not going to break the rules and nobody's going to break anything while I'm there and we're going to leave the place nice and clean.

So why would I care about a big deposit? Why would I care about no smoking or no drugs or no? The only time I would care is if I were going to do those things, that's really important to realize you guys keep thinking while you don't want to turn people off, or you don't want to offend anybody who cares if you offend them.

Those are the people you don't want. Anyway, you don't want the party goers. If you live in a state where no parties are allowed our properties in Arizona, there are no parties allowed in any short-term rentals in the entire state of Arizona. We put it everywhere. We have noise monitors. We do all this stuff because we do everything we can to prevent parties.

And we let people know it. We let them know that we can see who's going in and out of the building from the front and the back. We can see everything and we let them know that the police will be notified. They will be kicked out. We lay it all out on the line. And the fact is it only turns off the people who were planning on doing something wrong anyway.

So don't worry about having too much. You need to have it in writing and you need to show how strict you are. And that's why sometimes when we get a negative review, I don't even worry about the negative reviews because somebody will say something about a cleaning fee and you're like, yeah, I gave him an extra cleaning fee.

They left a huge mess and it took my girls this much longer to clean. Whatever they did, didn't come out or I'll explain why, but then people realize, Hey, she's serious about this deposit. When they see how we ask them to keep the property clean, then they will realize that they have to keep the property clean.

That way they realize we're serious about it. You want people to know that you are serious, you put rules and restrictions in there for a reason. I was in an investing group on Facebook and. Somebody said something about, that's not how you play the real estate game, putting these rules and restrictions down.

And how are you going to cover it? I think they were talking about somebody putting in a restriction for not smoking in their property and that they couldn't make that stick. Absolutely. They can, they can make it stick. Why you have something in your lease. If you didn't plan on enforcing it, if you aren't going to enforce something, then don't write it down.

But everything I have written down in a contract. In my lease agreements on my house rules everywhere in my page and everywhere in my house. If it's written there, I plan on enforcing it. It's so amazing to me that people do not take this business seriously. They think they're playing one game and they're playing another and you're like, You need to be a business owner and a business owner takes his business.

Seriously. This is an asset for you. Your BnB's are an asset for you, as long as you treat them that way. And as long as you continue to make money and you're not going to make money, if you allow guests to walk all over you, because word will get out, believe it or not. Word will definitely get out. My friend, Chris, he lives up in Napa valley and he has several properties.

And there's a lot of times where they had parties party after party in these properties. And then they would go on sale. He wouldn't know the history of it because he wasn't the host then, but he would pick up the property and then realize that these people had known that this was the party house. I mean, they had rented these, this house over and over again.

They had had consistent parties in there and he had to go in there and squash them. And how did he do. He sat down the rules, he set up the cameras and he enforced the rules and no longer are those party houses, party houses. The only way to do that is by enforcing your rules. So make sure you have every single thing in writing.

So now you're only giving the good people and you're deterring. A lot of the bad people, but that doesn't mean all of them. Right. So you're going to get these really strange, really strange and wonderful. And there's sometimes you're just like, I got to take a picture of this and share this because this is really weird, but you're going to get all these inquiries.

There will be scams. There will be all types of things that come through to you that are completely abnormal. Be leery of everyone. I know that sounds terrible because you want to always think the best of people. I do like to think the best of people, but if they don't have a history and I don't know them, then I'm going to be really, really careful.

You can also go through when you are looking at somebody, the reviews that they've left for other people. Now there's an app on Chrome called air. You go to Crow maps on your laptop computer. I don't think you can do it on your phone, but you can definitely do it on your lap. And air review will, when you have it open at the same time, you have your Airbnb open, it will take a guest and you can see the reviews that that guest has left for other hosts.

So you can see not only what is important to them, cause they're like all the kitchen was fully stocked and you're like, Ooh, check. They want a fully stocked kitchen. Mice kitchen is bullies. Or if your kitchen is not fully stocked, you're like, Ooh, that's what they're looking for. I better make sure I get some spatulas in there or a knife set or something.

Right. So you want to make sure that you can see what they want and what they appreciate, but you can also see now if they're a negative Nelly, you know, those negative Nellies are they. Everything is bad. These might be the people you don't want to accept. You're like, eh, and you've got that 24 hour window after somebody books to go in there and check them out.

I recommend going in and checking everybody out and making sure that the reviews that they've left for other people are good reviews because if they only leave crappy reviews, then they're a negative Nelly. And they're not going to get happy. Just staying at your place. Believe me, because nothing makes those people have.

Nowadays, it's incredibly difficult because there's just this huge cancel culture out there. I have talked about it before, but I have a very good friend. Her name is Amy and she lives up in Canada and she and her husband built this beautiful lake house, the Dover lake house. You can find her on Instagram, under the Dover lake house.

I think it's just Dover lake house. Amy took, when she built this house, she took so much care. I mean, she. Uh, interior decorator come in every single room. She had guests, robes and Broyard. She had little backpacks made for the kids who are going to stay there with an activity book that she had printed.

I'm not even kidding you. So everything was meticulously created for her short-term rental. She wanted it to be perfect. This wonderful stay. I mean, it's not going to be a cheap place to stay. She wanted it to be super special for everybody. And all the people that she got in in the beginning were wonderful and they appreciated everything she did until she got the negative Nelly and negative Nellie went in there and just reamed her and then started stalking her and just trying to make her social media life, a living nightmare.

And started just cutting her down and just making her look like a slumlord somewhere or something. It was quite the opposite and poor Amy she's. First of all, she's one of the nicest people you'll ever know. Her main business is a nonprofit in Africa where she builds schools and educates thousands of children who would not have an education where it not for her and her husband.

And here's this wonderful, wonderful person. And they are just raking her through the coals because that's the type of people there are nowadays. It's really, really sad. So the last thing you want to do is get one of those people. So if you can see negative reviews from somebody. I think within that 24 hour period, just cancel it.

Just say next, because honestly you don't want to be the one just running around. You can also tell a lot about people when they do message you. If you just get a nice short message that says, Hey, we're coming in from Maryland, we'll be visiting our kids for a week, blah, blah, blah. And we look forward to our stay.

I love those because those people are going to be easy. They're going to be seeing their grandkids. They're going to be happy. You know, those are the stays you really like, but when you get like super requests, it's like, oh, we're going to be sane. And there's someone in our party is having a birthday. So we're just going to have a small get together.

Uh, no, it's just, you you're like the city that we're in has these restrictions, you cannot. People in, well, it's just a few, I honestly don't care if they're not guests in the house, they can't stay. I mean, you literally like right then as soon as they start doing it, don't even start arguing with them. I don't think we're going to be a good fit.

Just nip it in the bud and say, you know what? I don't think we're going to be a good fit for you and your needs. So we're going to cancel this reservation, allow you to find something else that fits you better. Enjoy your stay and enjoy your holiday. Don't even go there. I mean, because people like that, they will just keep going on and on and on.

And if they start requesting, we have somebody who needs this or needs that. And I mean, sometimes it's legitimate stuff and you're like, okay. But a lot of times it's going to be a list. You know, we need this, this, this, this. And if you don't answer in a specific timeframe, I mean, they get really upset and you're like, okay, this person is high maintenance now, how are they going to be when they're staying at my.

I've had that happen when we had people staying for an entire month, one time, and the first email was nice and short. And then about a week before their stay, they just started emailing, emailing, emailing, like just messaging us all this crazy stuff. And I was. Oh, this is not going to be good. And I got to admit that my staff and I are Facebook stalkers, we look people up.

If we're not sure, we look people up. We had to look somebody up this week because their name on Airbnb was actually their email. So we didn't know their first name. And when they were coming in, we have a board and we have like, it says welcome. And we put their name on it. And so I was trying to find their first name.

I could see their last name. But their first name was an email address. So I just went on their page. I could see the couple of reviews that they had before. And the people mentioned their name. They said Kathy and Kelly. And I was like, okay, so Kathy and Kelly, is this Cathy or Kelly? I can't tell. So I went onto Facebook and put in Kathy and put the last name.

And sure enough, the same exact picture that was on the Airbnb profile was right there. And so I found out her name was Cathy, so it was easy. And, you know, you could tell too, because once I was on there, I was like, well, let's just check Kathy out for a second. And we can see what a nice person she was, you know, just all the different things she did.

And I was like, oh, whew, you just do that eyebrow, you know, wipe who she's. All right. And she's going to be nice in my property and it's going to be okay. With that little app air review, you can do the same thing. You know, you can check out people and see what reviews they've been leading. And that's really important because you'll see that.

I mean, sometimes there are legitimate reasons to complain if the water went out and they didn't have any water or the AC went out in the middle of summer and it was super hot or something like that, then, you know, those are legitimate excuses to be angry, but there was duck poop in the yard and the wild geese were pulling all over.

And my son got it on his shoes. Like, how is the hose going to. Do anything about that? There's absolutely no way. There's nothing you can do about that. So those things happen and you can see the types of reviews that they leave if there's legitimacy behind them. So when it comes to guests, I have a little questionnaire when they book, it gets sent back to them and it asks them what they're doing in the area.

A few questions. If they don't answer those questions, Right away when they book, because it, it asks them right away. And if they don't answer those questions, I'm going to send them another, just a repeat of those questions. So we'll, I'll send them back another email that says great. We can see that you are checking in on the fifth for four nights.

We're super excited to host you. What brings you in today? Just something like that. If they do not respond again, I'm going to send them a message that says I'm not getting any response from you. So I'm not sure if this was a booking from a human or a computer. So we're thinking of canceling this and that way you should get a response.

But if you don't get a lot of responses or you get somebody that's incredibly angry or something, you're going to know, we want to know why people are there. And if they don't answer in a good way or they give you, I mean, well, you'll be able to tell so much from the communication you get with people, something will just hit you.

And you're like, eh, that sounds really weird. And I want you to go with those gut feelings because when you have that intuition that tells you, this is a weird one, just say, no, you are almost always right. So go with your intuition and just say, no, the intuition part is pretty much dead on. It says something's up.

I should have known because that's what you don't want to be saying is like you walk in, they trashed your house, the TV's missing, and then you go, oh my God. I should have known when they said this, my stomach dropped and like those little things, boom. All you have to do is let Airbnb know this may be uncomfortable and they'll allow you to cancel.

I don't cancel very often, but when I do, it's usually for a very good reason. You're like the commercial. I don't cancel often, but when I do it's for a stock, your people, like, I know people think that's really weird, but I let my girls do that. My girls will try to find profiles of people for me. I don't look at them, but they do.

And I'm like, you know, if it's a newbie or something, I'm like, see if you can find them. And if they can find it. Great, because I want to know who they are. It's not like you're going to say no to somebody for any other reason, but you think that they're going to damage your property. If you think that this is the type of person that would damage your property, then you have every right to say, no, you get to choose who stays in your property.

Now, obviously we can't say that somebody can't stay there because of their religion or because of. You know, their political affiliations or because of their color or because of. Gender or sexual orientation, that's prohibited by law. But the fact is if these people have a bunch of pictures on there of them partying it up and doing drugs and trashing other places.

Yeah. That would be a legitimate reason to say no, you're like, no, no. And no, like young people, we don't let young people stay at our. Because they haven't learned yet, you know, they're way too young to be renting a place. And some states, they even allow people to stay at the age of 18. That is too young.

We don't allow anybody under 21 to stay. That's just, it's too young. And most of the time it's going to be 24. That's about the age where we start to feel comfortable. I have five kids and I can let you know that. Although my youngest is pretty responsible and he's about to turn 21, there are siblings that he has that I would never have put into the responsible cart until he were about 25 or older.

So that's why I can do that. You want to be fair, but at the same time, you want to be leery. You've got to really protect your assets. You really, really do. And the last thing I wanted to tell you about is this great website that we just recently found out about. And I was like, oh my gosh, where has it been all my life?

Where have you been all my life? And it is called super hot. I know it's a weird name, but bear with me. It's an amazing website, go to super hog.com. And when you get there, you're going to see this is going to be a great tool to help you weed out bad guests. Okay? Because when you use this tool, you sign on, you create your account with them and you can get this link and you will send it in a message to your guests.

Your guests can then click on the link and they go to super hog and they download their ID. And then they get a picture taken of their face. It's super cool. So that you can verify that. The person who is making the reservation with a credit card and everything is the same exact person as who is renting your property.

And it's super awesome. It's got all this stuff to help validate and build trust between you and them. And it also validates you so they know who you are and they know that they can trust you because all your guests are going to leave. You reviews on. And that means from all your properties. So there'll be able to say, oh yeah, Michelle's great.

I say to her, to property in Florida, oh, I stayed at her property in Arizona. I stayed at her property in Hawaii. I stayed at the property by the university. The whole thing is all these people will know and trust you. You're going to build that trust with them on their. And on your side, you get this awesome validation.

It's so incredibly cool. It also collects deposits from them. You can use them to collect a damaged waiver right on the bookends. It's pretty cool because they have a host guarantee too, that says they will reinstate you up to a million pounds. Obviously it must be from Britain or something because it's in pounds.

They will guarantee your reservation. So if you're using them to validate your guests, And you get a bad guest in there. They're basically saying, well, guess what, we're going to guarantee that your guests are great because you're using our service. And I mean, that's fantastic. I mean, it's super cool. This is going to help you with your trust immensely.

So I left them a message to see if they service the United States, but we'll find out. I think they do. I'm pretty sure they do because. Their name from somebody in the United States. So hopefully, hopefully they service us here in the United States, but what a great concept, right? What a great concept. And this is going to help us with the safety and security of our guests.

We're going to be able to make sure that we're screening properly and that we have. Good safe people staying in our properties. I love that about this. And I left it for the end because it was such a sweet surprise for you. Wasn't it great. Otherwise, you've got to play your own little detective. If you have any weird feelings.

I mean, we just go with it. Here's the deal. You'll always have insurance. Chris and I have discussed this when he had that big party that Halloween, a couple of years ago, we talked about this. You have insurance, you have insurance for a reason. You're going to be. So we all have extra and real insurance other than Airbnbs.

And the reason why is because you're going to have bad guests and when they damage your property, you can get it fixed. There is nothing that they can take that can't be replaced, or there shouldn't be anything in there that can't be replaced. You want to make sure you have pictures of everything, because if it does get damaged, you can fix it and use apps and cleaning crews like properly where they're taking pictures every time they clean, because that's going to let you know, two of anything's missing a lot of times something will disappear and you really don't know if they took it or the guests before them took it or the guests before them, because you'll ask your crew.

When's the last time you saw that? Gosh, I don't know. Was it there right before you cleaned? I don't think it was and was like, well, when did it disappear? You know? So you won't have these conversations, taking pictures each and every time really make a difference, especially for things like our charging stations.

Our Alexa is all those little things that are expensive, but they're really cool. Those items. We make sure we take pictures of all the time. I mean, a big TV. You're going to miss that couch. You're going to miss that, but little things you won't. So make sure you're using items like properly and that will help you out and that you have your short-term rental insurance otherwise.

Say a few prayers, take a deep breath and click accept because that's the way it's going to be. Good luck to you. Please remember to go to our website and try out some of our $7 courses before those disappear and leave us a review. If you get the opportunity and we'll enter you in our drawing for the t-shirt for listening today, have a great day.

God bless you. Go and grow!