BROADCASTS.com

Questions and Answers

• How do I improve my rankings so that I can be viewed more frequently and more often? Also do you have any tips on attracting last minute guests? 

The first step is to run a Market report using SmartBnB on the caller’s location. Start making incremental changes to the pricing specifically for the available dates coming up in the future. The market report will reveal the low, high, median, and average prices for any comparable listings, you should be pricing your listing relative to the market for your available weekends.

You should also adjust for seasonality. The change from August to September can be quite drastic. Since the optimal booking window for the caller is 25 days, it may make sense to start experimenting with the discount curve beyond 14 days.

Being on page 11 of the rankings is basically the same as not being present at all. Look at your title and thumbnail as possible places to improve alongside pricing.

• My closing was put off because of the hurricane, can I go ahead and list the property but not go live?

There is a window of time when your listing is considered new and it gets a boost in exposure and rankings. You should maximize the SEO bonus when it’s available. We also have a number of students that have optimized their locations as possible shelters from bad weather or natural disasters.

If you have a property in an area that is exposed to bad weather, a good tip is to have a generator so that your property doesn’t lose electricity when everything else does.

• Any updates regarding automation getting agreements signed?

J had to put this project on the backburner due to some issues scaling out the customer service team. The goal is to have two way communication through as many channels as possible. Once we’ve worked through that we’ll be making more steps towards automation.

• What do I do about bed bugs?

Ideally when you are building a business you want to build in systems so that your amount of time working in the business instead of on the business is as minimal as possible. Hopefully you never experience bed bugs but having systems in place will definitely help.

We have only seen one instance of bed bugs in all the history of tenants that have been our guests. It occurred in a two bedroom unit where the guest reported the bed bugs to us. We learned that you should hire the best pest control company you can right away, even if it’s delayed by a day or two. It’s better to resolve this properly, even if it costs you some revenue.

Before a unit is sprayed, cleaners should strip the beds, vacuum and clean the unit, and while doing it they should be wearing gloves and masks. We originally thought we would have to throw out all the linens in the unit, but that wasn’t necessary. Just bag the linens up and mark them as contaminated, the cleaners will wash them in extreme heat in order to eliminate the infestation.

Sadly there is no guaranteed fix for bed bugs. In order to get a heat treatment on the unit we had to hire a company that can drain the fire sprinkler system. The outlets should also be dusted in the adjacent units because bed bugs move quickly and get into the walls as well.

Another major lesson is to notify your insurance company immediately, and if possible y