Guest Experience, Revenue Hacks & Mindset Shifts for STR Success (Ep 632)

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In this podcast episode, Jasper Ribbers welcomes back Derek Gisriel, a successful short-term rental entrepreneur who first appeared on the show in May 2023. Since then, Derek has made significant progress in his business, growing from one property to managing 26. He shares his journey, from starting in real estate with a W2 job and owning a solar company, to launching a property management business, Level Up, which now manages multiple properties.

Derek talks about the importance of guest experience, having a personal touch in hospitality, and how this has been key to his success. He emphasizes the importance of consistency, especially in content creation, and how he uses tools like a calendar to plan his week and content. Despite occasional setbacks, Derek's approach to content creation and business growth focuses on showing up, staying consistent, and sharing valuable knowledge.

The conversation also covers revenue management, with Derek explaining how using tools like PriceLabs to optimize pricing and implementing length-of-stay discounts has helped increase their revenue. He discusses the importance of guest reviews and how personalized touches can elevate the guest experience and secure five-star ratings.

Finally, Derek shares some insights on the value of joining a community, like the Legends X program, to get support from others in the industry. He stresses that the success they've achieved didn’t happen overnight but was built with consistent effort and learning from others.

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Jasper Ribbers (00:00.905)
What's up everybody. Welcome back to get paid for your pad. Today we have a special guest. He's been on the podcast before about a year and a half ago in May, 2023. He's one of one of our favorite students because he always takes action and we love people that take action. So welcome back to the show, Derek Gizriel.

Derek Gisriel (00:20.886)
Thank you. It is great to be back and a lot has happened since May of 2023. So excited to go down the rabbit hole.

Jasper Ribbers (00:30.311)
Yeah, absolutely. I'm super excited to get some updates from you. I know you're crushing it in many different ways. But why don't we kick it off? Why don't you give us a quick recap of your journey since you started your company a couple of years ago.

Derek Gisriel (00:45.358)
Sure. So when I started all of this, had a full-time W2 position. I was a part owner in a residential solar company. And we always knew we wanted to be in real estate, but as you know, I mean, there are so many different ways that you can go, right? You can do mobile home parks, self storage, commercial real estate, long-term rentals. The options are endless.

We liked the improvement aspect of short-term rentals and we liked the hospitality aspect, guest experience, which maybe we could dive into a little bit today. But we bought our first house. That was in October of 2022. It's a five-bedroom house in a very small, remote, old school, very old school, and in lot of different ways, vacation rental market outside of San Antonio, Texas.

And that house in its best year did 64,000 a year. We got about 10 years of history when we closed on that from the previous owner. And what we did is we just did a small like 49 day remodel, not knocking down walls, just a redesign, know, highlighting the amenities, did some paint, new furniture, and really just show the property in its best light.

And then what we did is we got that live at the end of 2022. So that first year we did, it was, you know, last few weeks of the year, we did about $1,388 in overall revenue. The first actual year, so 2023, we did about $160,000 out of that house. So almost tripled.

the revenue. And then from that point, last year we closed the books at 190. And we learned a lot on the way, right along the way. And since then, we have purchased two more properties in that neighborhood, in that community. And one's a five and a six bedroom house, both new construction.

Derek Gisriel (03:10.158)
that are doing very well. And then we launched Level Up property management because we had owners coming to us to say, you hey, you took the income from 64 to 160 the first year, like, can you help us? We don't care to do it on our own or, you know, we have a property manager that maybe we're not happy with. So we started Level Up there in the

summer of 2023. So it's just been about a year and a half ish. And we're currently at 26 properties that are live with the goal to hit 50 by the end of this year. So year one, you know, we did about 1400 on Airbnb year two, we did about 160. And last year, we crested the million dollar mark.

with our properties. So great first, you know initial growth.

Jasper Ribbers (04:11.973)
Awesome. Amazing, man. Yeah. Last time you were in the podcast, we talked a lot about the experience, right? I feel like that's something that you really nailed from the get-go of how do we create the best possible guest experience, right? From when they open the door, what do they smell? What did I see? What are they hearing? And you really nailed it there. I remember that very well. And for everybody who's listening now, if you want some inspiration, like…

Derek Gisriel (04:20.142)
experience.

Jasper Ribbers (04:41.389)
you know, look at, look up that podcast. it was in, in, in May, 2020 free. So I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll look up the name as we get through the interview. so it's easy for people to look up, but what I wanted to talk about today is something that I've noticed with you is you were in our legends X program and, and, you know, we had this thing called property abundance plan where we were helping people to create like a schedule.

Derek Gisriel (04:53.039)
Sure.

Jasper Ribbers (05:10.943)
content creation schedule for marketing, right? And we see with most of our students, in the beginning they're excited and they start doing it. But then eventually it takes a lot of efforts to do it consistently, right? And so a lot of them eventually kind of fall off the bandwagon or they start doing something else. But you've been so consistent. I see your Instagram reels and posts, every week there's a few new ones.

Derek Gisriel (05:11.369)
Yes.

Derek Gisriel (05:39.937)
Okay.

Jasper Ribbers (05:40.947)
you know, I, just Googled your name. I was looking for the podcast. did a May and it's like, man, there's like 10 pages of like Derek Israel all over YouTube and Instagram and all over, all over the, all over the place. So, you know, what, what I want to talk about with you is like, how, how do you, how do you like take such consistent action? Like what, what's different with your mindset than most other people? Can you, can you touch on that?

Derek Gisriel (05:49.506)
Yeah.

Derek Gisriel (05:56.622)
Thank

Derek Gisriel (06:09.095)
Yeah, so I think, with the the property abundance plan kind of outlining, you know, what to post that gave me like a rough draft, so to speak. And then obviously, it's up to you to fill it in. But more importantly, it's up to you to like remain consistent to your audience. Right. And I have a coach that that I've worked with for for quite a while and

You know, he put a post out on Instagram the other day, but it's so true. It's like, you know, right now we're recording this. It's, um, what the 20, 21st of January. And, uh, he said, you know, it's quitting season. like everyone has like all of these high expectations and, you know, lofty goals for the year. And then.

you know, most people like lucky to make it to like week three and then they, you know, kind of fall out the bandwagon and, and just give it up and, and what I'll share with you, it's, certainly will never be perfect. And, you'll forget to work out or forget to record or you've got, you know, something that came up. what's worked really well for me and, and for us at Level Up is, is just the consistency to the planning aspect of it.

so I'm very old school, like, you know, kind of handwritten calendar type of thing, but just planning out the week every week on a Sunday. And like, what is it? What does the week look like? Like, you know, for us, who's dropping off the kids, who's picking them up. And then you've got a huge gap in between, you know, to fill and you can fill it with everything or, or nothing.

And so for us, taking a look at the content creation, we've made that a pretty big aspect of it. I think that there's so much information out there. Information is free. It's like the implementation is really what you end up paying for, So to schedule it out for the week ahead of what are the big rocks.

Derek Gisriel (08:15.426)
Like what are the big priorities that will help move the business forward? Like what are top three things that are like my business non-negotiables? What are my top three like personal non-negotiables that have to get done? Like no matter what comes Sunday at, you know, 12 p.m. or whatever that looks like, right? And so for me, like the content creation looks like about every three weeks, I'll block off

you know, half a day and just record. And what I've now shifted, I used to do a lot of like short reels and like 30 seconds and one minute. But now what we've shifted to is more long form content. So like YouTube, because what we believe is, I think that our owner avatar that we're chasing,

lives in there because they want to be the forefront of what's happening in the short-term rental space or they have properties that maybe they haven't considered moving to short-term rent or whatnot. They're just real estate investors. So if we can put what we know out there, all of our tips and all of our strategies and everything that we do on a daily basis,

I hope that it helps someone, right? And maybe they're doing it themselves and they'll never hire us and like, that's fine, I hope it helps. But ultimately, I think that our strategy is now shifting to more knowledge-based and like sharing what we know, like what we've learned in Legends X, what we've learned along the way and really just sharing that knowledge and being generous with it ultimately.

Jasper Ribbers (10:12.425)
And you know what, I, that whole, the scheduling, um, and the, you know, blocking out time and everything. think, think there's a lot of people that will do that, but then there comes a moment where you just don't feel like it, you know, you have to record yourself and you're like, Oh, I got to record like six reels. it's like, Oh man, I didn't sleep well. And I'm feeling, I'm not feeling confident today. Like, I don't want you to want to be on camera.

Derek Gisriel (10:30.392)
Yeah.

Derek Gisriel (10:39.042)
Sure.

Jasper Ribbers (10:40.795)
Have you had those moments or are you just like a superhuman?

Derek Gisriel (10:44.044)
All the time, all the time, right? And look, like sometimes when you plan out the week and you say, Hey, it's going to happen on Tuesday at 9am to 12pm. you know, it gets pushed to Wednesday or whatever. The kids are sick. this happens, that happens, that, you know, stuff happens. but I would say like that, that doesn't mean that it's necessarily like a failure. And it's just like, you know, it's kind of like if you're on a diet, like

Okay, well, you you fell off the bandwagon for a day. Like that doesn't mean you're gaining 20 pounds of fat tomorrow. Right. So you get turned it around. And I think just recognizing that aspect of it has been, has been helpful and just like, Hey, you know, like not a problem. It's, it's done that. And the second thing that's really helped a lot is just doing a long form content because I can get up here and then just speak on a topic like

guest experience for 10 or 15 minutes. And then my social media team can then chunk it down to like, okay, what are the, can make 20 reels out of like this one video. So it's not like the stop start, like what's the script, you know, like it's not, it doesn't wear you down. Like you're just speaking to what you know and to like, you know, an agenda, right? Ultimately.

Jasper Ribbers (12:12.469)
Yeah, and these days it's getting a little easier to kind of create and repurpose content with all the AI tools. I mean, even this software that we're using to record this podcast right now, it's called Riverside FM. And there's so much AI integration in this tool already to the point where you can press a button and it'll bust out like 20 reels for you. And then you still have to kind of listen to them and make some edits and make sure that it's cohesive and…

Derek Gisriel (12:25.794)
Mm-hmm.

Derek Gisriel (12:34.657)
Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers (12:41.033)
You know, doesn't break off at the, at the, at the wrong time, but you know, there's a lot of tools out there now that kind of make that process a little, a little easier, but, know, I think. I think the, so, so you do have those moments where you're like, I don't feel like it and you might postpone it, but then, then you get back into it. Like maybe you fall off the bed wagon, but then you get back on it. Right. So is, is that really the trick of like.

Not giving up and just, even if you miss a couple of times, like you just don't get discouraged and you just go jump back on on the, on the bag.

Derek Gisriel (13:18.839)
Like I think that, you know, I still believe this from a mentor once told me this a long time ago. like,

The hardest part is showing up, right? Like you show up, you know, give yourself the grace, like just put in the 10 minutes, five minutes, whatever, just get started, like whatever that next step looks like. And inevitably you'll probably find yourself just finishing it. It's like working out, like you just, all right, let me hop on the bike. Let me hop on the Peloton for five minutes. And like next thing you know, it's 30, 45 minutes, right? And it's done and it's out of the way, right?

Jasper Ribbers (13:43.733)
Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers (13:53.887)
Right.

Derek Gisriel (13:56.099)
so, you know, I think like it's just, it's just getting started. and it's, putting, you know, one foot in front of the other and, just, you know, keep it going. Like that's it.

Jasper Ribbers (14:06.739)
Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. you know, I used to, I used to, what I used to do to get myself to do things, especially like with going to the gym. I was living in Panama for a couple of years and we had a gym in our building. but you know, you wake up and you're like, I don't really feel like going to the gym. So one thing I learned from, I can't remember who it was, but that person told me, you know what, let's just put the bar very low. Just tell yourself like the only thing I have to do is actually go there.

Derek Gisriel (14:19.704)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (14:36.117)
Right. I don't have to do anything at the gym, but I need to put up my shorts, jump in the elevator and just make it to the gym. And that's all my, that's, that's all expectations that I'll put on myself. But then once you're there, you're not going to just turn around and go back. Cause she kind of feel very city if you do that. Right. So then once you're at the gym, you're like, okay, well let me do one exercise at least, you know, and then it's like, well, I could do one more. then, you know, but if I tell myself, okay, I have to bust that bust my.

Derek Gisriel (14:36.824)
Done.

Derek Gisriel (14:59.064)
there.

Jasper Ribbers (15:06.389)
my beep, you know, like for an hour, then I'm not going to go. Cause I'm like, I don't want to, I want to do that for an hour. But if I just have to show up, okay, yeah, I can show up and we'll see anything, anything on top of that is, is, bonus, you know? And it's a good strategy because it creates consistency, right?

Derek Gisriel (15:09.304)
Hahaha.

Yeah.

Derek Gisriel (15:25.614)
And I would say like, ultimately you have to choose your hard, right? Like it's hard to work out. It's hard to wake up early. It's hard to make content, but it's like, it's also hard to like be overweight, like, or, you know, be unhealthy or have like health issues or, um, you know, not be as successful if you did X, Y, and Z. like,

Ultimately, by not choosing it, you're choosing something else by default. So you're out of fork in the road. It's ultimately up to you. What's your hard and how do you want to define it? And then that goes into your ultimate goals, which you set out for the year. Right before January 1st, the last weekend of December, we went out to an amazing

like Airbnb short-term rental like kind of community that they developed. They're like small little it's called Onera in the Texas Hill Country and there may be I don't know 600 square foot kind of houses that overlook the Wimberley Valley and they've got hot tubs which are sunk into the balcony. You don't really see anyone else and

we use that like to plan out our entire year, you know, 2025. And it was really nice just to have peace and quiet where you can think clearly. And it was, you know, very calming, but you know, planning out your goals, like whether that's for the year or the week or the month, like then backing that out and saying, all right, like what, what do I need to do in order to hit that?

goal for the month, right? And chunk it down like that makes it a little bit more digestible than just like, okay, great. Like we got to get to 50 this year, but like, what does that look like on a daily basis?

Jasper Ribbers (17:27.253)
Right. And by the way, the Onira property is a property that we've been following for a while and it's going to inspire us as well for free while then. yeah, I'm jealous, man. I would love to stay there. Anybody who wants to check it out, it's stayonira.com. Incredible, incredible place. Where is it? In Fredericksburg, in Wimberley, Texas?

Derek Gisriel (17:34.914)
Amazing.

Derek Gisriel (17:51.182)
So they have Fredericksburg and then they've got Wimberley. Wimberley is a small little town in the Texas Hill Country. Property values have been shooting up like crazy. Got a small little downtown area. River runs through it. They got, it's a great location they chose because of the views. The views are amazing. Sunset's amazing. But it's just maybe four minutes from like downtown Wimberley. So like,

You could be like alone and peace and quiet, or you could be in the shops and coffee shops and restaurants and kind of in the mix of things pretty quickly. really amazing development, very well thought out and served a great purpose for us. I think like moving forward, we'll do these like retreats every year and find like somewhere in the world that's like quiet.

Jasper Ribbers (18:31.977)
Mm-hmm.

Derek Gisriel (18:48.838)
and allows for that thought process to go, but then also inspiring. Like you want to wake up and like see the view and it's like, wow, like, you know, this is really inspiring.

Jasper Ribbers (18:55.765)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (19:02.389)
Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, we're, doing those offsides like three or four times a year. And to your point, it's really good to go to like a spot where you're not reminded of like a daily grind, right? So not your office or not your house, like get out and go somewhere else where you can kind of forget about all the, the daily, the daily hustle and bustle and, and, and really think big and think high level and creative, let the creative juices flow. So, uh, I love that. Um,

One thing I wanted to ask you is, you started late 2022, right? So you've really only been in business for two years, just over two years, right? You've grown from your very first property to now, was it 26 properties? 26. So that's impressive growth, right? mean, to bust out an entire business, managing 26 units in two years is pretty incredible.

Derek Gisriel (19:49.07)
26, yeah.

Jasper Ribbers (20:01.983)
What are some of the biggest learning lessons and what are some things that you would have done differently looking back?

Derek Gisriel (20:07.736)
Yeah, I'd say like, look, I think that we all as a business owners, you know, if you just have one house, like you're still a business owner, right? Like you ultimately live and die by reviews. so, you know, we have it's on our team, it's Lauren, is my wife and me, and we have an executive assistant. She works remote in El Salvador.

And you know, our culture is like five star or nothing. And like this past year we hosted 6,600 guests and then landed a 99.6 % five star review rating like on the OTAs. And you know, there was some tough like situations, like inevitably stuff goes wrong as you know.

You got HVAC issues, you have pool issues, pool heater issues, and things just happen, right? Things just happen. And I would say that the sword that you fall on, you've got to own that mistake, number one. But I think that if you are personalizing the stay for the guest, that goes a long way.

just a long way. if they open the door and it smells amazing, it smells like a Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, Hilton. Their name is on the TV, you know, the personalized name with a custom guidebook QR code with the wifi information and the weather. Digital guidebook is delivered at the time of check-in and previous to that through automation. And then there's a handwritten note, you know, on the entry table.

At that point, things go wrong, yes, but then they, what I think is they've realized like, okay, like Derek and Lauren are actually real people and they care. Like it's not just like some, you know, corporate entity that owns thousands of these and like, we're just a number. So, you know, I think that that's helped us a lot. And I, and I, I think,

Derek Gisriel (22:31.918)
We go back and forth on this and I've researched a lot of different strategies, but I think, you know, I'm a firm believer that if something goes wrong, whether it's in your control or not, you've probably got to eat it somewhere on the money side of things from my experience. And whether that's refunding the cleaning fee,

whether that is, you know, refunding a day or two days or like whatever the situation is, let's say the pool heat fee, whatever that is, right. you've got to like show them also that like, look, something went wrong. We acknowledge it and like, we're going to fix it. But also like, you know, here's, here's, you know, some, some money back. And I've, I've, you know, I'm on many like forums and short-term rental masterminds and

I think that's a point where it goes two ways. where, well, you know, we fixed it. So like they shouldn't get anything back. And it's like, even if you fix it, does it, is the five star review, is it worth it? Right. And so although it doesn't guarantee a five star review by any means, you know, it just depends on the situation, but you know, that's something that.

when we were in legends X, like it was something like, look, if you mess up or something goes wrong, like it should be something to the point where you feel that sting a little bit. And whether that's the cleaning fee or, or some, something else, like you feel that sting because like you're doing what's right for the guest. And, and I think ultimately like, you know, they're coming back, right? They're going to come back.

and they're going to book it again and spend more money, spend more time and make it right for the guests.

Jasper Ribbers (24:28.105)
Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think you're spot on. mean, what we see, especially on Airbnb is there's a huge divide happening or the gaps widening between the top performing listings, right? The listings with, with hundreds of five-star reviews and the guest favorite badge versus the listings that have like a 4.5, 4.6, 4.7. Now Airbnb even has a little batch that shows like, if you're on the top, the lower 10 % of listings, they'll actually

Derek Gisriel (24:45.752)
Sir.

Jasper Ribbers (24:56.885)
put a little batch, it's a little hidden. It's a bit further down the page. They don't stick it right at the top. But you know, like if you're in like the lower 20, 30 % of performing listings, like the, it's really hard to get traction. You know, it's very hard to get traction. So guests are expecting more. The novelty of just staying in an Airbnb is going to worn off. Like everyone's stayed in an Airbnb by now. So now it's really like expectations are going up.

Derek Gisriel (25:12.725)
Yeah, yes.

Derek Gisriel (25:25.102)
Scare.

Jasper Ribbers (25:26.957)
And, and yeah, we have to, you know, we have to take that really serious and we have to really like put the guest interest first. and I, I hear you on the, on the discussions, you know, cause yeah, it's sometimes it's also, it feels a little unfair to the hosts, you know, sometimes guests will, you feel like guests are kind of making up some, some, some issues that might not really be there in order to, you know, trying to get a refund and there's a lot of talk around that.

But, know, like I think in the end of the day, if, if, if we, if we just focus on that guest experience and if we make a mistake, we got to own up to it and we got to fix it. Right. And yeah, to your point, like it has to hurt a little bit because we need to be motivated to improve as well. Right. So I think that's a really good mindset to have and you're absolutely right. It pays off like long-term. Like, you know, I would say like there's an expression like you can win the battle. You lose the war.

And that I think applies very much to like how we deal with our guests, right? Like, yes, maybe we are right sometimes and we can win that battle with the guests. But then like, you know, are we going to win the war? And I think by just putting the guest interest first, I think over time, it's a win-win because I mean, to your point, like 6,600 reviews and having a 99.6 % five-star reviews, that's incredible. I mean…

Derek Gisriel (26:23.285)
Yeah.

Derek Gisriel (26:28.236)
Sure.

Jasper Ribbers (26:51.145)
There are very, very few companies that can say that, right? And that's a huge credibility and trust builder, especially now that guests are seeking higher quality listings, seeking higher quality experience, Airbnb is pushing ready for quality, right? So I think that's a winning formula.

Derek Gisriel (27:08.342)
Yeah, and in our first 90 days, once we get it, we'll build the listing, professional photos, optimize it.

Get it live like out to the marketplace like our first 90 days. We call it the stabilization period because You're testing the market you're finding the market really and you're at a double-edged sword because you need five-star reviews But the problem is you don't have five star reviews, right? And so people don't necessarily trust You know that this is a you know, not a scam or whatever right even though you may be a super host

or whatnot. in order to do that, you know, what we tell our owners is like, look, the first 90 days is not necessarily about breaking records that will come. We will break average daily rate records and occupancy records and RevPAR records. But the first 90 days is really laying the groundwork to impaving the way of success. And at the end of 90 days, like

We want that property to have a guest favorite badge on Airbnb. And in order to do that, we have to get people to stay there and we have to get them to leave five star reviews. Right. And so we have a very quick ramp up period in the first 90 days. And how do you fill the calendar and how do you show that it's a good value? You sometimes need to compress rates.

And that puts you in the 15th to 20th percentile of the market. But ultimately that initial like little hit on the revenue and the income like is going to pay way more dividends. Once you get that guest favor badge, you've you can now have the social proof to even charge, you know, what what's competitive in the marketplace. And then that's when we start breaking.

Derek Gisriel (29:11.607)
the records and building upon that success there.

Jasper Ribbers (29:18.195)
Yeah, 100%. It's the bigger, focus on the bigger picture, right? Not on just trying to make as much money as possible in the first month. I think that's a great strategy. That's what we use as well. Very similar strategy. I want to touch on, so last week we were on a call, right? In a mastermind, right? And we were sharing some tips on revenue management because that's all we are focused on right now is revenue management.

And we were sharing that we were getting some good results with length of stay discounts on Airbnb, right? And you took action on the call. that's why, that's what I was saying earlier, is like, always see you like just taking action right away, right? And maybe you can share like the, you know, what happened on that call.

Derek Gisriel (29:55.007)
Yes.

Derek Gisriel (30:10.638)
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So I think I messaged you after that that meeting was worth about $10,000 to that one hour meeting. I think ultimately there's so much information out there. If you don't implement any of it, then nothing happens. You just stay status quo, right? But essentially what we took a look at is

I took a look into price labs. use length of stay discounts heavily. think actually in our meeting with our Airbnb market manager, something like over 70 % of all of our bookings have some kind of length of stay incentive to secure that booking. And it works great to help fill the calendar, fill the gaps.

but it also incentivizes them to like increase that length of stay. whereas normally they would go like, let's say in the winter, where it's off season, they would book like a Friday and Saturday checkout Sunday. But like, if you can incentivize them, let's just call it, you know, 20 % to add that extra today, like that incremental more day, in occupancy, RevPAR overall revenue.

Like that's what separates the winners from the losers is like that extra few days here and there and here and there. And you're adding that up over the course of a year. And like, that's how you have an incredible year. Like that's how you beat the market. Right. And so in that meeting, you know, one of the things we took a look at is in price labs. I mean, as you know, there's tons of different little tweaks you can change in there.

but one of them was the profile, right? And it looks at aggressive, super aggressive, normal. And on the call, like as I was listening to everyone and you, I changed some of our properties that we own. The big house is five, six bedrooms. And I changed them to…

Derek Gisriel (32:34.306)
aggressive or super aggressive. And so what that does is like in the low times, it will lower the rates, right? So because we want to scrape anything that we can. And then in the in the summertime, which is our peak season, it will raise, you know, the cap, right, raise the bar. And we had the highest average daily rate booked.

which was over $1,900. And to give you a perspective, know, Revpar, like in that month was, you know, about half of what we secured, you know, that booking at. So it was like a $7,000 booking and then I got off the call and then another, you know, $2,000 booking came in, same property. So, you know, ultimately it's like,

learn, but more importantly, like pivot, take action, like, is it going to help or not? And like that feedback loop, like, well, you know, keeps you on the in the top, right?

Jasper Ribbers (33:43.561)
Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. No, I it's a hundred percent right. Like that, that, that extra little effort of just learning, implementing, testing, and seeing what happens versus like the, we call the set it and forget it hosts who kind of turn on their price lab sort of wheelhouse or whatever tool they're using. And, this is kind of letting it run. it's a huge difference, right. And right now, like that, that's, we have to be like very hands-on with our revenue management because the market's not really growing.

You know, like the market's pretty flat and it's been pretty flat for a couple of years. So where do we find that extra revenue? It's like, it's like, more attention to your revenue management. You know, you can't just let it run anymore. and you know, investing in amenities, it's something that last week I was at a conference and there was a lot of talk about how do we, how do we invest in amenities, but not like super expensive amenities, but

Derek Gisriel (34:13.592)
Yeah.

Derek Gisriel (34:25.582)
Sir.

Jasper Ribbers (34:36.647)
you know, at like a couple of games that you can play in the backyard or something, you know, to just elevate an experience without breaking the bank. So these are some ways that you can still increase your revenue year over year without the market actually like, you know, growing, right? So amazing, man. Amazing.

Derek Gisriel (34:55.116)
Yeah, you know, ultimately, it's like we spoke with an owner in one of our target markets and it's a big house. It's like an eight bedroom house. And, you know, in year one, he did like seventy five thousand and year two, sixty thousand. Last year, fifty five thousand in the same market. We have a five bedroom house, much, much smaller. Right. And

that property did over 80,000 last year. And so I said, look, you know, house looks great. Photos, they were decent, but they were just, they were slammed with, essentially it was just mismanaged, right? It's mismanaged. And, know, when you're sitting at a 4.6 or a 4.74 or, you know, kind of that land of mediocracy, you know, I said, look,

Like you personally, with your family, when is the last time that you went and booked a stay that was rated a 4.2 or a 4.7? Like you probably didn't, right? You sort by the highest normally, right? On the rating side. And if you did, you probably weren't thrilled about it, right? It probably wasn't like, oh yes, I can't wait to show up to this home that has a 4.5 rating. Like the land of mediocracy is where people die, right?

And so we computed out that just because the revenue management wasn't dialed in, they had summer pricing, winter pricing, know, holiday pricing, and the reviews aspect, their previous PM was not a super host and their ratings weren't that good on the listing. You know, he missed out over the course of three years, probably a hundred to $150,000.

just in missed revenue. And like when you talk about like partnering with the right property management company or you know, co-host or you're doing it yourself, it's like, what's the dip? What's the gap, right? Like, like the cost of you not knowing 150 grand, right? Which is the difference for him between losing money and like breaking even or making money where he doesn't have to

Derek Gisriel (37:20.14)
you know, work overtime to help pay the mortgage on a rental house, right? So, you know, focusing on the guest experience and on the revenue side of things, like everything is flowing with the market. Like the market's not going to come to you, right? You've got to go find the market and deliver a great value.

Jasper Ribbers (37:24.103)
Mm.

Jasper Ribbers (37:41.653)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah. And that goes back to what we were talking about earlier is the gap is widening, right? The gap is widening between the non-professionally managed Airbnbs and the professionally managed Airbnbs. So before we…

Derek Gisriel (37:56.888)
And we love that. We really love that because it's fun for us. 90 % of our listings, our guest favorite and the rest are just because they're being stabilized. First 90 days, they're new listings. it's fun. Once you are in that position where you've got all the five-star reviews, your listing is rocking. Occupancy is high, revenue's flowing in. That's where it becomes fun.

Jasper Ribbers (38:00.885)
It is.

Derek Gisriel (38:26.828)
right? Because like you're picking up those bookings and you know, your neighbor or the person that's not doing it right, like is not, you know, ultimately.

Jasper Ribbers (38:37.545)
Yeah, 100%. Before I let you go, can you share where people can find you? I'd love for people to kind of take a look at your YouTube and your Instagram and your website because there's just so much inspiration from there. You've just executed so well on those aspects. So yeah, why don't you let people know where they can find you.

Derek Gisriel (38:51.694)
Thank you.

Derek Gisriel (38:58.286)
So Instagram is Derek D-E-R-E-K, last name Gizriel, G-I-S-S-M-R-I-E-L. And then YouTube channel is LevelUpStays. And our website is staystaylevelup.com. And it's got all my contact information in there. our channel on YouTube is…

you know, know like we're not trying to sell anything. It's literally like everything that we know and we do day to day across all of our portfolio. And, you know, the intent is to like help people get better. Like ultimately we grow as an industry if we provide a better experience for a guest, because what we know is if a guest shows up to an Airbnb,

It's terrible, it wasn't clean, it's not a great guest experience. That will burn in their mind. And they're going to tell everyone, right? And it becomes like a vanilla envelope of like, know, Airbnb, like inconsistency, right? And what I'll share is like, look, that's one of the things that hotels love them or hate them. They do fairly decent. They're fairly consistent. And, you know, our goal is to help other owners have that consistency.

And if they don't want to do it themselves, they don't care, then we've got the property management side.

Jasper Ribbers (40:30.645)
One last question. I'm looking at your YouTube channel and your thumbnails are really good. And you may, you have like different emotions in your face, like on the thumbnails and stuff like, tell me about that. Like you having fun with that? Like you're standing in the mirror and like doing different faces or how does that work?

Derek Gisriel (40:49.358)
Yeah, so, you know, my social media manager, he was like, look, you know, we need thumbnails, we need different poses, these type of things. And so, you we got, I got a new camera, which is what I'm shooting on. It's a Canon. And so I told Lauren, said, here's this, let me, I'm just going to do different like poses, different facial expressions and things like that. So then can you just take my photo as I do that? So.

You know, we did a little like impromptu, like 15 minute photo shoot and sent them to him and he edits it and does the thumbnails and everything. you know, they're off in the wild now.

Jasper Ribbers (41:32.243)
Amazing. Amazing. I'm sure you're having fun with that. Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much for jumping in on the podcast. It's been awesome to catch up and congrats on your achievements. You deserve it because you're putting in the effort, You're putting in the effort and that's incredible.

Derek Gisriel (41:39.458)
Thank you.

Derek Gisriel (41:50.766)
Thank you. And I would say like also it's for anyone out there that's just kind of like doing this alone or they're not really sure, like get become a part of a community that has people like that that are inspiring to you and that can help you. Like, because what I do and like what we do, like this is not something that we just like invented. We've, we've in a lot of ways perfected the process and we've documented it and

We're consistent, yes. But there's people in part of Legends X and other communities that they've been there. And so if you lean on them instead of trying to figure it out yourself, that's huge. And then the second thing is you see people, we're at 26 properties, but you see people with hundreds of properties. And wow, that's inspiring. So whatever that is.

for that person, like I would definitely urge to jump in some kind of community where you can lean on other people, but you're not just alone and trying to figure it out by yourself.

Jasper Ribbers (42:59.957)
Yeah, I mean, it's hard enough. Building a business is hard enough and a short-term rental business is arguably a pretty complicated business to build because there's a lot of aspects to it. There's moving parts, it's 20 for seven. So it's not easy. it's definitely, it's hard enough with the support of a community, let alone like trying to figure everything out yourself, right? And one way that you can, if you're listening to this and you want some support,

One thing that you can do is you can go to freewellfoundry.com. So that's ACP and you can get a free training on how to leverage Airbnb custom promotions. Okay. So this is completely free. You'll, you'll get on, you'll leave your email, you get on our email list as well. We'll send out like weekly emails or a couple of times a week, we'll send you an email with some tips and tricks as well. So freewellfoundry.com ACP is where you can get that training. And that way you can kind of.

connect with our community. with that said, Derek, thanks again, man. I'm sure we'll have you back at some point. And to the listeners, thank you for listening. Again, we will be publishing every Monday and Friday going forward after we took a couple of months off from the podcasting. But we are full of energy and excitement to be back into this. So with that said, thanks everybody. And we'll see you next time.

Derek Gisriel (44:03.182)
So good.

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