Experiential design is where the money is at on Airbnb (Ep 609)

In today's episode of Get Paid for Your Pad, I had the pleasure to talk to Heather Loduca & Erin Donnelly, the founders of Pink Wall Designs, straight out of Canada. They are not only seasoned in interior design for short-term rentals and boutique hotels but also investors themselves, owning properties that stand as testaments to their expertise. The focus of our conversation revolved around the critical importance of interior design in the increasingly competitive Airbnb and short-term rental market.
Design, as we explored, isn't just about aesthetics; it's crucial for marketing, creating memorable guest experiences, and ensuring your property stands out in a sea of options.

Erin and Heather shared insights on making properties Instagrammable, leveraging social media for direct bookings, and the significance of targeting your design to appeal to your ideal guest avatar. They emphasized the power of experiential design, suggesting features like selfie walls and thematic decor that resonate with your target audience and encourage social sharing.

The conversation also delved into the strategic use of platforms like TikTok for market research and promotion, highlighting the platform's effectiveness in reaching potential guests quickly.

Moreover, Erin and Heather offered advice on collaborating with local businesses and influencers to enhance guest experiences and market your property more effectively. They underscored the importance of continually updating and refreshing your property's design to keep up with trends and guest expectations.

For those interested in learning more about their work or seeking their services, Erin and Heather can be found on Instagram at @PinkWallDesigns and TikTok under the same handle. They also have a website, Pink Wall Designs, Inc., for further information and contact details.

This episode is a reminder that in the world of short-term rentals, creating an experience, not just a place to stay, is key to success. Designing with intention and focusing on the guest experience can set your property apart and ensure its success in the competitive market of 2024 and beyond.

Before we wrap up today's episode, remember to connect with us on Instagram @getpaidforyourpad for exclusive content and behind-the-scenes moments, and don't forget to hit that ‘Subscribe' button on our YouTube channel for even more great content. We appreciate your support, and can't wait to see you on our socials. Stay tuned, and keep being awesome!

Jasper Ribbers (00:01.177)
What's up everybody. Welcome to another episode of Get Paid for Your Ped. Coming to you from San Diego, back from my vacation. So back home feels good. It's sunny, it's warm as always in Southern California. And today we're going to talk about a very important topic, especially now that the Airbnb and shorter rental climate has gotten more competitive. We have to focus on design. And so I got two design experts on the show today. Aaron and Heather, the founders of Pink Wall Designs.

out of Canada and they focus on interior design for short-term rentals and boutique hotels and they are investors themselves as well. So they own their own properties and so I'm excited to dive into it. Aaron and Heather, welcome to the show.

Heather (00:46.027)
Thank you very much.

Jasper Ribbers (00:48.637)
Well, we were kind of talking about it a little bit before we started recording, but let's first touch on why is interior design so important in the current climate when it comes to short-term rentals, boutique hotels, or any type of property that you're trying to make money with, right? Design is very important today. What are your thoughts on that?

Heather (01:10.958)
So a short-term rental or a boutique hotel is a product. Just the same way that a Starbucks coffee is a product, a McDonald's cheeseburger, these are all products. Your short-term rental is a product. So it must be packaged and presented as such. And so people need to get out of the mindset of like, here's my personal home and I'm just gonna throw it up on Airbnb and like, hopefully I'll make some money. That no longer works anymore.

that used to work when Airbnb was new, and we have now graduated into the next phase of short-term rentals where that no longer works. So when people are getting into the Airbnb industry or the short-term rental industry, they need to put their business hat on and realize that they are in the hospitality industry. And so they need to…

be doing proper design, it needs to be marketing focused, and it needs to be experiential. And what we mean by that is when it's market focused, that means that you've done research in the area, you know where your Airbnb is located, and you know why guests would potentially book your property. And then you need to design the property tailored to those people. So you wanna make them book your place over the competitor. And then with experiential design, people want to have experiences

not only with their groups, but they also want to be able to share it on social media. So you need to provide that for them to make it easy for them to just whip out their phone and start engaging with your property and their guests. And it has to be something that flows altogether.

Jasper Ribbers (02:50.269)
Well, there's a lot to impact there. I want to start off with something that you mentioned. I think it's really important. We can't be in the mindset of renting out a space. We have to be in the mindset of creating an experience, right? I think that's really important. And Aaron and I were talking quickly before the recording. And one thing that the way that we look at our properties, we think it has to be Instagrammable.

Like you mentioned, right? It has to inspire people to take out the phone and wanna show it off to their family, their friends, especially the younger generations. I feel like this is really important, right? So there's a lot to unpack here, but let me start, and maybe Aaron, you can maybe touch on this. Like what, if I'm a small Airbnb host and this has never really been a focus of mine, like where do I start with all this?

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (03:40.406)
such a good question and a lot of investors like they know how to analyze a deal but when it comes to design that's kind of like our bread and butter where we come in and it's not as hard as you think so it's just basically little ways that you can make your air bb short-term rental vacation rental stand out compared to your competition in your market so

Things like we've done multiple things for our clients in their properties, like we use feature walls, any kind of colorful paint, wallpaper, you can get super creative with that by making an impact on one wall, so you get that wow factor. We also incorporate a lot of neon signs or some kind of signage with fun sayings, because that's a go-to where people will get the group together.

and take a photo and upload that and then you're direct marketing the property. Everybody's going to wonder, Oh, where are you? And you can tag your Airbnb as well. So those are kind of a main, um, kind of go-to that we love to do, but overall, like you need to incorporate that cohesiveness of a space and have an ongoing theme throughout. Those are the properties that are.

like excelling in the space because it's the overall vibe that you're getting throughout the house and, um, make an impact at the end of the day.

Jasper Ribbers (05:08.633)
So you're saying that we should have a dedicated area where we really think through the process of people are going to be using this as a selfie wall or as a place where they're going to stand, they're going to take that picture and share it on social media, right? We want to have a designated place for that.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (05:27.13)
For sure. And a lot of what we, what Heather and I do at Pinkwell Designs, so every property needs to be considered differently when you're thinking about how I want to design this. And it all comes down to doing your market research of who is coming to this property. Why are they coming to this property? What kind of experiences are they going to want to do in this area? Because a beach house is very different than going to say a cabin in the woods.

Right? You're going to have very different design, very different feel, and very different amenities that you're going to present for your guests. So we always do that first, figure out who your target market is and then design accordingly.

Jasper Ribbers (06:12.353)
So what do you think is the best way to find out who's that target audience? Because I think a lot of Airbnb hosts know that by now that they can't just, you know, please everybody. You got to focus on a specific type of guest avatar is what we call it. And what are some ways to find out who that person is?

Heather (06:31.502)
I think people know that they need to cater to their guest avatar, but they don't end up doing that, if I'm being completely honest. They think that they have and they haven't. So of course the bare minimum sort of like AirDNA, Google, you can do statistical research on there. But really our suggestion is get on social media and specifically TikTok.

search your area. You don't even have to hashtag it. Just like TikTok is more of a search engine, if anything. Get on your get on TikTok and search your area where you're going to buy your Airbnb and see what other people have inserted because a lot of suggestions will come up underneath and then start clicking and watching those videos. Just the general like sometimes, you know, the average person walking down the street in that specific area is going to give you better information.

than Google or AirDNA. People are very focused on that type of thing, but you wanna hear from the people who are actually traveling there now. What have they missed? What are they looking for that doesn't exist right now? What do they wish they had in that area? And if you just watch these like general users of these social media platforms, you will get a ton of information that will really help you with doing those designs.

Jasper Ribbers (07:53.986)
That's a good point. So I guess TikTok is a useful platform after all then, huh?

Heather (07:58.802)
It is possibly the most useful because people think that it's like another Instagram and it absolutely is not. It's a search engine. And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised in a couple of years of TikTok starts to heavily compete or maybe even surpass Google because I exclusively use, if I need to find out something fast, I don't want to read an article and I don't want Google to take me to like a YouTube video that I still have to scroll through 10 minutes. I want in 30 seconds my answer. And that's exactly what TikTok is.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (07:59.438)
very much so.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (08:28.831)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (08:29.3)
Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. No, that's a really good point. Attention spans have shortened quite a bit. Yeah.

Heather (08:36.586)
And people just don't have time, like investors especially, they don't have the time.

Jasper Ribbers (08:40.913)
Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. Like people want, you know, answers fast. So I didn't realize that talk to TikTok was, uh, I don't like social media. So I try to stay away from it, but my wife uses it a lot. So I know that she, when we go on a trip, like I go on Google to search for information. She goes on TikTok and she typically finds things much faster than I do. So to your point.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (08:50.146)
Thank you.

Heather (09:03.79)
For sure.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (09:04.854)
Yeah, I would say TikTok and Instagram are one of like the top ones to go for.

Jasper Ribbers (09:11.731)
Yeah. So can we also use TikTok to create a presence for our properties?

Heather (09:17.03)
1000%. We've had properties go viral on TikTok and we have seen 1 million views in the first 24 hours for properties that we've designed. So it is an absolute game changer. That's another caveat if we want to get into like the marketing side of things. But yeah, it's insane just because it's visual, right? And then people start to go off on what can you do there and what's in the area and all of that stuff. And then…

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (09:18.591)
Absolutely.

Heather (09:45.43)
people watch and they share and it's an absolute, it's kind of a necessity, like we think moving forward.

Jasper Ribbers (09:53.653)
Yeah. So let's touch a little bit on that because I know driving more direct bookings, I think is on everybody's mind in 2024. I think everybody realizes, you know, we can't just be relying on a platform that any day could close our account and we lose all of our business. Right. So, so like, yeah, let's, let's dive a little deeper in like how, how can we leverage these, these platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok, um, to eventually get people to book our places.

Heather (10:00.75)
We think the same.

Heather (10:21.538)
Yeah, it's such a good question. And people, so what people haven't really accounted for is like they need to be kind of in arrears with stuff. They need to be like ahead of the game. Actually, I don't know if arrears is the correct word, but they need to like, so, you know, people will say we want to get into direct bookings this year, like let's do it next month or whatever, right? But what they have, and then they'll start their marketing then and they'll start their this, they have to get marketing like six months in advance. And then,

you move over to direct bookings, and then it's more of a seamless switch over. And how you do that is by getting on social media and utilizing that whole world. And a lot of people are like you, Jasper, where they're like, I don't really like it. And for your personal use, you know, you do whatever you want. But if you have an Airbnb, it is our belief that you absolutely must, it's just part of your business. Like people aren't buying billboards anymore, but when they were, you-

had to buy one to compete. And now you just have to be on social media. Whether you hire that out or you do it yourself, you must have a presence. So yeah, people need to start doing that type of marketing in advance. Then let their platform build, or their accounts build up, build up, in followers and in views and just overall exposure. And then the direct bookings is not even a big jump, it's just the obvious next step because you already have that audience.

Jasper Ribbers (11:21.729)
Hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (11:26.112)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (11:46.518)
Yeah, I would say almost like implementing social media is a little bit more important than having just your generic website. Like, that's so old school and you want to have a platform where you can obviously accept direct bookings, but

spending all that time and you're paying someone to do a website, give the professionals the ability to do that with your socials and then you will reach way more people because you can't just launch a website and then the people will all come. You have to give out good content, have clean photography, good footage and be trending.

to reach more people and then they'll go to your website. So I think the implementation of both and the importance of using social media can take your property so much further.

Jasper Ribbers (12:27.459)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (12:34.917)
Yeah. And I think, you know, design and social media go hand in hand, right? Because you can leverage your properties much more if it looks great, right? If you have like a mediocre borrowing, you know, apartment somewhere, then it's probably not going to grab that much attention.

Heather (12:46.994)
100%.

Heather (12:54.882)
Well, and just to add to what you just said, the other thing that we're finding is very, it hasn't caught on too much yet in the real estate investing community is like, these people, because they've been dealing mostly historically with like long-term rentals and like one, like they have a product and then like, they have one person who rents it, right? They're thinking of guests and people, like that's great. That's still probably gonna be the majority of your bookings, but I think the industry needs to expand their minds and think, well, who else might pay me for this space?

maybe a podcast host, maybe a chef, maybe like all, everybody else is making content for their business as well. So if your property is designed that well and optimized that well, you're not only going to be relying on, you know, families and couples and stuff, taking a vacation. You're going to get other types of like business bookings, photo shoots, podcasts, recordings, like you. So if people can expand their minds into that world as well, they're going to see a major jump in their return.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (13:52.183)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (13:52.925)
Yeah, and those guests, well, not really guests, but people that book your property for business, they're a really good guest because it's their business, so they're willing to pay more. But also, they're not going to throw a party. They're typically respectful of your stuff. And it's funny that you mentioned that. Yeah, because I was just going to share. What's that?

Heather (14:03.99)
Yeah.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (14:04.738)
Yeah.

Heather (14:07.655)
Exactly, they're getting shit done.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (14:10.53)
Yeah, some aren't even staying. Like I said, some aren't even staying. Like we said this example the other day where people ask, hey, how much is your day rate? And it's no different than staying overnight, but they just wanna use your property for the day. And then they're not even, you know, even having to, yeah, you don't even have to do the changeover with your cleaners of all the linens and all of that. So.

Heather (14:26.114)
Sleeping in the beds. Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers (14:28.387)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (14:33.061)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. Are you guys familiar with peer space, by the way?

Mm-hmm. OK, yeah, because that's a platform where you, that's basically the Airbnb for that type of bookings, right?

Heather (14:39.195)
I think so.

Heather (14:45.786)
Yeah, exactly. But like, let's compete with them, right? Like, seriously, and Airbnb offers more because a lot of those peer space, well, you get some like, I guess, places with beds, but some people will just rent out like an area with chairs, but like a vacation rental will have everything probably a backyard too. So it's like, it's great competition, I think.

Jasper Ribbers (14:50.39)
Hahaha

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (15:06.721)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (15:07.801)
Well, I also wanted to mention that we have a marketing person that does our social media because me and my business partner, we're, like I mentioned, we're just not really interested in social media, but our marketing person is very good with social media. We recently launched a Kevin giveaway where we ran, we put a little bit of a small budget into ads. And I was kind of blown away by the amount of…

Uh, followers that we got on Instagram from that giveaway, right? Just the one giveaway two nights. We give them away for free. We got like 500 email addresses. Um, and we spent, you know, I think we spent around $500 on, on advertising. And we got so much traction with that. We got people reaching out to your point, reaching out, not just to stay as a guest, but like weddings, workshops, you know,

Heather (15:59.616)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (16:01.169)
All sorts of stuff, people were reaching out saying like, hey, your property looks great. I would love to do this here or do that. So to your point, like it really grabs attention from outside of just the person that's gonna book a two night stay as a vacation.

Heather (16:17.214)
Exactly. And bringing it even beyond that, that's where you can think about, like, depending on where the property is, like all of those metrics, you can even reach out even further and potentially work with brands. So, you know, who needs exposure, right? What does your property align with? If it's designed properly and optimized again for like specific brands, you can reach out to brands and do, you know, do deals with them. And it's kind of like the new way we think that

you know, the short-term rental industry will move to. And I think we're just sort of at the beginning of it.

Jasper Ribbers (16:54.197)
Mm-hmm. So when I talk to our students and I tell them about social media being a channel where you can attract more guests, oftentimes the thing that stops them from using it is because they just don't really know what content to create. And we also know that we have to be consistent, and it takes some time, right? We can't just do two videos and then expect

people to come over and stay with us, right? We need to have a consistent strategy of like, what are we posting every single day? Do you guys have any advice on, you know, how do we come up with like content to post up on those channels?

Heather (17:29.102)
Collaborate with other people. Collaborate with influencers. Offer influencers to stay at your property. They'll make content for you. They'll also bring followers. They'll tell other people. Collaborate with local businesses. You guys can do stuff together. Collaboration is the number one way for sure to do that. You should have your own content as well. Tips is a great, easy thing to think of, an advice. Everyone always likes tips and advice.

But if you're stuck on making content, collaborate with others. And they don't necessarily have to be influencers, they can just be complimenting businesses and do things with them, and that's gonna be a much easier way.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (18:07.298)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (18:07.799)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (18:12.734)
Yeah, well, that's funny that you mentioned it because we actually had an influencer stay at our property and we did use her content in the giveaway, which is one reason that I think it was so successful. You mentioned collaborating with local businesses. Can you give an example of that?

Heather (18:24.142)
highly likely.

Heather (18:30.582)
Yeah, so reach out to, like, you know, if people are gonna come stay at your place, they need to eat, they might wanna shop, they might wanna do an activity. So what's around? Like, reach out to restaurants, reach out to possibly a chef that might be interested in coming by, reach out to the whitewater rafting, like, tour guide that's in the area, whatever it is. Reach out and see what you guys can do together, and every deal is gonna look differently, every…

collaboration's gonna look different, but reach out to them and say, hey, we have an Airbnb in the area, you guys have this, everybody wants more business. It's like, literally, we've never seen anybody say, no, we're not interested. They'll mostly always say yes. Because we do that story, I'm kind of going off here, but we actually also have a marketing arm of our business. It goes hand in hand with our design. So that's why we're pretty knowledgeable in the area as well.

But yeah, they just reach out, figure out what's around and make something happen.

Jasper Ribbers (19:33.146)
Mm-hmm. And just to give you a concrete example, for example, our property, there's a really cool restaurant across the street. It's called Cafe Aroma, and we know the owners. What kind of content, I'm trying to think, what kind of content could we collaborate on? What would that look like in practice?

Heather (19:52.674)
So off the top of my head here, I would say maybe you ask them to, I don't know, create like a coffee that's called the property. Like I don't know if your property has a name, but ask them if they want to call one of their coffees, like, like get them to do a drink. That's your, that's the name of your property. Sorry, I couldn't find my words there. Or you can, you know.

Jasper Ribbers (20:05.142)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (20:13.222)
you're being mean.

Heather (20:18.822)
film yourself walking into the place and buying something, you can film, you know, them coming over to your place, like bringing, you know, doing a delivery like an Uber Eats delivery or something. Just basic stuff. Think about basic things that people are going to be interacting with this with this place. Like people are going to go from your property to their buy stuff, maybe sit down. It even also doesn't have to be like related necessarily to your property. It could just be like something that they're…

Jasper Ribbers (20:33.274)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (20:46.17)
doing or even a promotion or something. And if you just repost it, like people will still be interested in the fact that, oh, this coffee shop is doing this promotion. And then they will lead back themselves to the fact that like, you're also close by.

Jasper Ribbers (20:55.159)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (20:58.642)
Yeah. And that's another good thing for your guests because you're basically vetting out these restaurants and vendors who are you are partnering with and suggesting them for your guests. So how often do you go to a new place and you're like, Hey, I wonder what's around here. Most people likely would go right onto Google. But if you already have these kind of partners and vetted out restaurants that you've, you know, collaborated with your guests are going to be more likely to go and choose those.

rather than looking on Google.

Jasper Ribbers (21:29.173)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I like the idea of.

Heather (21:29.634)
The less work, the better.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (21:31.262)
Yeah. And it's all comes down to guest experiences. So the end of their stay, they're going to have a five star review said everything was taken care of, like we didn't have to look on Google because, you know, the host was very knowledgeable and very helpful. And that all comes turnaround into bettering your property as a business.

Jasper Ribbers (21:52.35)
I like the idea of having our own drink. Like that would be pretty cool. So our brand is called Free Wild. Like if we would have a Free Wild drink at all our favorite restaurants or maybe a Free Wild dish, that would be pretty cool. Like that.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (21:55.15)
Thank you.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (22:05.447)
Mm-hmm. It's fitting.

Heather (22:05.518)
Try it out, let us know, and then feel free to give us a shout out.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (22:10.865)
Thank you.

Jasper Ribbers (22:13.194)
Yeah, for sure. Let me think. What else should we talk about? So let's talk a little bit about how you guys work with clients. So pink wall design. So do you do the entire interior design of places, or are you focusing on the murals?

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (22:30.626)
We do it all. So we have two tiers of service. So tier one is can be like a virtual kind of service. You get everything of our design and implementation for you to go and kind of take over on your own. And tier two is we do completely A to Z start to finish the entire project. You say, Hey, I'm closing on this date. We come in, we do design assembly, photography, your launch, all of that for you.

and then you're off to the races for accepting bookings.

Jasper Ribbers (23:04.245)
So you guys would fly out to the actual location of the property.

Heather (23:08.162)
Yeah, with our second tier service, yes.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (23:08.205)
Yes.

Jasper Ribbers (23:10.497)
Gotcha. Okay. And the first one is virtual. So that it doesn't have to be somebody who's just bought a new home or could it be somebody who's just hosting and, you know, they want to upgrade their design or they want to, you know, the design, like a new wall, like a selfie wall that we've talked about.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (23:27.65)
Absolutely, yeah.

Heather (23:28.31)
Yeah, we do revamps and we also actually do single room designs. So sometimes people just want like one room because the rest of the place is like, you know, good enough, or they're not ready to do the whole place just yet. But then they want that one feature room that like really makes a splash and that they can make those photos, the hero photos on their Airbnb listing. So we will do a single room design. That's a really nice quick turnaround process too. It's like about seven days all in.

Jasper Ribbers (23:49.747)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (23:55.902)
which is nice for people because they don't have to like shut down really. It's their own implementation, but on our end, we can get it over to them in about seven days. And then yeah, revamps we do. So we'll it's kind of tough to work with existing furniture, but we can do it. And it's a little bit easier and less costly and, you know, less on all aspects of the client because they don't necessarily have to like assemble beds or anything like that. We're just doing like more finishing touches kind of thing.

Jasper Ribbers (23:58.814)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (24:24.73)
We almost urge people to be constantly revamping their property. It's a business at the end of the day, so every couple months you need to be considering and keeping up with trends. By a point of turnover, maybe during slow season is a good time to take a look back and evaluate how can we better our property so we can charge.

Jasper Ribbers (24:24.888)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (24:47.274)
a higher nightly rate, receive more bookings in on now competitive market, right? You need to be doing things that are constantly making your listings stand out. And we believe that comes down to the design, the experience, and amenities that you're offering to your guests.

Jasper Ribbers (24:57.518)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (25:05.489)
Yeah. That's another good point is, uh, things are changing very fast, right? And, you know, Airbnb, it's just Airbnb platform changes all the time. Like it's pretty crazy how many changes we've seen in the last couple of years. I mean, just today, I don't know if you guys have noticed this yet, but just today I found out that now you can actually edit your photos on the Airbnb platform. So you can change the contrast, the brightness there. You can enhance the photos.

Heather (25:33.313)
That's smart.

Jasper Ribbers (25:34.905)
Yeah. So I just literally found out today, uh, for a client that I'm working with who mentioned it to me and, uh, hadn't, hadn't seen it. Like there's a lot of things that Airbnb changes that they don't really announce it or maybe, maybe I'm just missing things.

Heather (25:47.458)
Yeah, they're just always improving. No.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (25:49.65)
Exactly. That's it. At the end of the day, they're constantly looking for ways to better themselves and improve too.

Heather (25:56.458)
and better things for their clients, which is their hosts, ultimately.

Jasper Ribbers (26:03.122)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And the fact that they roll out this new functionality to enhance photos, and it's pretty good. If you're listening to this right now, and go in your Airbnb listen, go in the back end, and click on the Edit Caption button, and then you'll see where you can edit the caption. You can click on there's another button, Edit, and then you click on that. And then you can literally click a button, and it enhances your photo. The photo looks better.

and that will probably help with conversion. So let's see, what are some topics that we haven't touched on that you guys think is important to share?

Heather (26:41.61)
I think a huge, huge thing that people are still doing, it's a mistake and they need to stop doing it, is designing their Airbnb like a personal home. That needs to stop. People, and there's been studies done and there's stats all over the internet, people are for the most part leaving their personal home to change up their day, their week, their month.

Jasper Ribbers (26:54.133)
Hmm.

Heather (27:09.942)
They want to change. So they don't want to go to another city and fly across here and there, go on a vacation to just stay in a house that looks exactly like their home. People want different, they want fun, bold, and experience, and all of the things that we had sort of recently touched on. And then that pedals back to what we were saying earlier about kind of going all in on a niche, because the reason people…

design Airbnbs like personal homes is because they want to appeal to everybody and they're scared to niche. But what exactly you end up doing when you're scared to appeal to, or sorry, when you want to appeal to everybody is you appeal to nobody. You know that saying when you please everybody, you please nobody. It's the exact same here. And it's because like there are like millions and millions of people in the world, right? And so just because you have like

Jasper Ribbers (27:50.)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (28:00.338)
Pink feature wall. It doesn't mean that you're gonna deter like every man in the world There's gonna be a husband out there that his wife is gonna drag him to this Airbnb or there's gonna be like kids who don't care Or like, you know different communities like there it's not that their fears are I like justified but I think if people can get over that and just realize that it's not gonna what's what they're worried about isn't gonna happen then it's gonna be much better because

Jasper Ribbers (28:25.967)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (28:26.322)
The worst thing that you can do and the most thing that the biggest thing that I would personally be fearful of is To have a listing that looks exactly like all of the other ones because then It's literally just price shopping at that point and then you're going to start to get like, you know Cheaper people and not as good guests and all of your fears are going to implode and you were better off Just getting it properly designed in the beginning, you know

Jasper Ribbers (28:44.865)
Thanks for watching!

Heather (28:48.926)
And that's not to say it needs to be pink or this, but like just go, don't be afraid to be bold. You will still, you'd be so surprised at who you'd attract. Like I think people just don't even realize what's out there.

Jasper Ribbers (29:03.665)
Yeah. And you know, when you, when you have like a very strong design and you're knees down a lot, like I feel like people are less price sensitive when it comes to those type of, I'm just an example is, uh, when, uh, for my wife's birthday, I booked, uh, an Airbnb that was designed by some famous, what's the lady called was in the Martini glass. Do you guys know von something?

Heather (29:13.47)
Exactly.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (29:28.126)
Oh, maybe. Yes.

Heather (29:28.158)
Marilyn Monroe?

Heather (29:31.894)
Marilyn, you said Marilyn.

Jasper Ribbers (29:32.206)
I can't remember. No, no. I think it was somebody else. It was a von, started with von. I can't remember the name. Anyway, you know.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (29:41.222)
I don't know, I just went to Marilyn Monroe, but she's iconic. I don't know who you're talking about.

Heather (29:44.209)
Same. Iconic, yeah.

Jasper Ribbers (29:48.209)
Yeah, like iconic person, like I think, what you call a cabaret type of person, right? And my wife loves that person and it was like, the unit was like, you know, completely designed, it was designed by her actually, right? She actually designed the place, right? And yeah, I was, you know, I don't care if it was like $200, $250, $300. I'm just like, I know that my wife is gonna love that place, right?

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (30:03.91)
Okay, cool.

Heather (30:15.367)
Exactly.

Jasper Ribbers (30:16.293)
And so I'm not price sensitive. If I would book something for myself or, you know, I'd be more price sensitive, but just, you know, speaking to your point of like, when you make it really, really unique, there's going to be people that are going to look at it and be like, oh, that's exactly what I need. That's exactly what I want. And I don't care if it's an it's, if it's a hundred, $200 per night extra, because it's exactly what I want and exactly what I'm looking for. Um,

versus the cookie cutter type of place that no one's really excited about, and to your point that just people just book it because nothing else is available and it's like priced competitively. So I think that's really important too. And if you think about it, how many people stay at a unit in a year? Let's say 200 days booked, 250 days booked, average booking, let's say three nights, it's a hundred people or a hundred groups.

Heather (30:51.938)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (31:09.705)
You only need 100 people per year to love your place out of the millions of people that are out there.

Heather (31:14.302)
Exactly. Millions that… Exactly. When you break it down like that, it's much more digestible. And just to make like, you know, another reference to what you were saying, like, you know, everyone wants a Ferrari and like only certain people can have it, right? But like, so if you make your property the Ferrari, then they don't… People don't care. I don't even know how much a Ferrari is because I'm… The people that are buying them, like, they don't care. They just want the Ferrari. Whereas a Toyota, you're going to get people nickel and diming you for like…

you know, $100 here and there because it's just a different market. So if you attract those people that don't ultimately care, like you said, like you just want the experience for your wife, there are tons of people out there that are like that. So, and you they're better to deal with. So yeah, it's always it's kind of a no brainer, but it takes a certain I think, you know, people are just a bit fearful to do that because there's more of a market for a Toyota, right? Like quantity wise. But yeah.

Jasper Ribbers (31:43.946)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (32:11.486)
Mm-hmm. 100%. And by the way, I just looked up the name of the burlesque dancer. Her name is Dita Fontes. That's her name. Dita Fontes, the queen of burlesque. So shout out to my friend Rebecca, who owns Hicksville Pines in Idylwell Pine Cove. She has a unit that was designed by Dita Fontes.

Heather (32:21.011)
Oh yes, yes. I've heard of her.

Jasper Ribbers (32:38.229)
And yeah, my wife happened to be a massive fan of that person. So yeah, I think it's really, really on point everything that you guys are saying. We're coming up to the end of this podcast, so I want to thank you guys for joining today. I think it's a very valuable, very important conversation. Because as you mentioned, we can't throw

Heather (32:41.911)
nice.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (32:42.536)
Okay.

Jasper Ribbers (33:01.009)
you know, mediocre places on Airbnb anymore and sit back and expect bookings to come in. Those times are over. Those times did exist. But they're not coming back either. Right? Like some people think, oh, you know, we're in a slowdown and it'll come back. It ain't coming back. You know, everyone knows about this opportunity of Airbnb now. As soon as like the rates go up again, more people are going to jump on it. And so we have to stand out because this is just like any other business. Right.

Heather (33:26.623)
Exactly.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (33:27.61)
Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers (33:29.881)
Awesome. So for people that are interested in learning more about your company, where what's the best place to find you guys?

Heather (33:37.278)
Instagram is probably the best. We're just at Pink Wall Designs, and then you can get all of our other, like our link to our website, blah, blah. All of that can come from there. Also, if you guys are on TikTok, we are at Pink Wall Designs on TikTok as well. You can follow us there. And yeah, those are the best places.

Erin Donnelly – Pink Wall Designs (33:56.31)
Mm hmm. We do.

Jasper Ribbers (33:56.393)
And for the old school people, you have a website.

Heather (33:59.222)
Pink Wall Designs, Inc., inc.com.

Jasper Ribbers (34:04.689)
Okay, awesome, sweet. All right, well, any final thoughts before we wrap it up?

Heather (34:12.178)
Um, we're excited for 2024. We hope everybody else and especially everybody listening, all of the investors that are out there. I hope you guys are excited too. And it's a new, a little bit of a new leveled up world for us, but everybody can still be successful. Um, it's just knowing the information that's changing and, uh, you know, we're here to support you guys and everybody can still make a lot of money and have great properties and, um, just wishing everybody the best for this year.

Jasper Ribbers (34:41.829)
Awesome. Thank you so much, Aaron and Heather at Pink Wall Designs. And for everybody who's listening, hope you enjoyed this episode and I will be back soon. Have a great weekend and until next time.

Heather (34:53.954)
Thanks so much for having us. Thank you.