How to Get Your First Co-hosting Client for Airbnb Management

(00:00) trying to get your first client your first customer for Airbnb co-hosting Property Management can be a really scary and daunting task I know a lot of people that just get started with co-hosting and they want to make a full-time income managing other people’s properties on Airbnb they really want to do this where they can get started and earn 1,000 2,000 5,000 $110,000 a month even managing other people’s properties but the biggest thing holding them back is that they just don’t know how to get that first customer and a lot of people
(00:33) come to me and they say well James isn’t it going to be really challenging to get my first customer if I don’t have track record aren’t they going to want to see references all these different things and so in this video I’m going to break down for you the exact strategy that I’ve taught to over 700 people that have started their co-hosting businesses to show them how to get their first client way way more easily than they otherwise would have and just show you the exact system and the process that we use for
(00:58) getting consistent clients and growing the business business so that you can easily earn 51 $15,000 a month managing other people’s properties without having to go and rent properties or buy them or own them yourself now before we dive into that I just want to tell you very quickly about something that we’ve launched relatively recently called BNB tribe it’s linked in the description down below it is a community of all kinds of host co-host investors for short-term rentals along with some amazing training over $2,000
(01:31) in different deals and perks and discounts that we’ve got on Airbnb related products Services software as you name it so check it out it’s linked in the description down below it’s incredibly affordable for anyone to join so i’ highly recommend that you check it out now that out of the way let’s jump in and start with the most common question that I get asked which is is it going to be impossible because I don’t have a track record do I need to actually have some performance history in order to get that first client and
(01:58) the answer is a resounding no it’s obviously going to be easier to get your second your third your fourth your fifth client the first client in any business in anything you do that first time you’re doing it it’s always going to be the hardest and part of that difficulty when you are getting started is that you don’t have a track record but what I always tell people is that the customers that you are reaching out to or the potential customers that you’re reaching out to they’re not asking for references
(02:25) because they want references they’re asking for references because they want to trust you they want to trust that you number one are going to do what you say you’re going to do number two that you actually have the skills to back up what you’re saying and that you’re just actually a trustworthy person that you’re not just completely lying to them and so in order to accomplish that we don’t necessarily need references they are a really great easy way to do that so later on down the road once you have
(02:52) them you definitely want to leverage those but there are obviously other ways to build trust with people aside from just giving them references and so you have to be prepared to build that trust and build that foundation for the relationship with any client that you work with but especially with those first couple now character references references from past employers from other people you’ve worked with those can be really helpful for just building trust for you as a person but if that person wants to that perspective client
(03:19) wants to trust that you actually have the skill set to back it up then having specific training actually having experience being able to talk the talk and walk the walk so so to speak is really really helpful that’s why I always tell any one of my students that works with me that especially on your first client let them know that you’re working with me let them know that you’re going through all this incredible training let them know that you’re working with a team of people who have been doing this for over a decade all
(03:46) over the world with thousands of different properties because you can basically just borrow some of that credibility that we built in this space to say hey look I’m actually going and using all this training now obviously I’m not able to give a stamp of approval and a stamp of endorsement on every single person that works with me because I don’t know the degree to which they’re actually following our trainings but it can certainly help to build that trust for someone to know that you’re not just
(04:09) trying to figure this out as you go and make all the mistakes along the way you really are trying to learn this master it get the best training you can get your hands on and then go apply it for them so that can be a really really helpful way to start building some of that trust now another thing that we build into our agreements with every single client is a money back guarantee it’s a satisfaction guarantee where what I recommend to most of the people we work with is that every client you sign on give them a 90-day cancellation
(04:39) period where within those first 90 days of working with you if they’re not completely happy for any reason at all they can just cancel the agreement on you with just 7 days written notice or 14 days written notice and you just collect your management fees up until that point there’s no penalties for them cancelling they can just cancel get everything right back over to them and that way it really really drisk the situation so even if they are a little bit trepidacious still even if they don’t fully trust you yet there’s still
(05:07) so little risk in them signing up with you what do they really have to lose in signing up with you when you have that in place that makes sure that number one you’re going to be able to more easily get clients on board and number two it just guarantees that you’re only working with clients who genuinely actually want to be working with you CU at the end of the day the goal here is to create a win-win scenario where everyone is happy we don’t actually want to be working with clients that are only sticking
(05:34) around with us because our contract is binding and tough to get out of we want to be working with people that want to work with us so it’s a win-win and going to be a really great mutually beneficial long-term relationship so now that that piece is out of the way the big question I get asked is how do I generate leads how do I actually get these appointments set up how should I structure everything so we’re going to dive into that next I’m going to start with talking about how we actually get the leads how we
(05:58) find these property owners who want want these services and then we’re going to touch on the actual meeting structure and how to actually close these clients on under management so for starters getting leads is actually relatively simple but the starting point is not as fun and sexy as a lot of people would like to think it would be a lot of people think there’s some Treasure Trove of leads that you just reach out to and or you can pay for them get them coming to you and now suddenly you’ve got all
(06:23) these leads to call and just set up appointments with them in reality the starting point is getting clear on your Niche what I mean by this is you don’t want to be everything to everyone you don’t just want to be a property manager that works with absolutely anyone that has a property and a pulse you want to work with a specific group of people there’s a reason for that number one it’s going to make your business a whole lot more simple to scale if you’re doing different things for different people
(06:50) and doing slightly different adaptations of your service offering for each client you work with then the operations behind that are going to become a bit of a nightmare you want to have a really repeatable process you want to do the same exact thing for every single customer so that you can scale the business and not have it eat up a whole bunch of your time now when you go and do that if you’re giving the same exact service to everyone naturally some customers aren’t going to be as happy with it as others if you’re just going
(07:15) and being everything to everyone if you can imagine if you worked with Real Estate Investors and you worked with vacation homeowners and you provide them the exact same service they probably aren’t going to be equally happy with the service that you’re providing because Real Estate Investors are going to want different things from vacation home owners who care a lot more about the quality of the upkeep of the property getting guests in there making sure the property’s ready for them when they want to go go vacation there versus
(07:39) the real estate investor who really just cares most about the dollars and cents and the net income that they’re making from the property so what you want to do is go and pick a specific group of property owners that you’re going to be working with now typically we narrow this down by either the type of property owner be it a vacation rental homeowner or a real estate investor or you can narrow down by the relative location of the property like the setting of the property whether it’s by the beach or in
(08:04) the mountains or in the downtown core cuz those will typically come with relatively different sets of problems and challenges and pain points that the owners will have or you can delineate by the tier of property that you’re managing whether it’s super high end more average properties because again there’s going to be slightly different challenges needs and pain points associated with those different types of properties so those are some of the main ways that will’ll narrow down our Niche and you want to pick a niche that also
(08:27) plays to your strengths for example if you’re a really numbers focused person you’re super analytical then working with Real Estate Investors can really play to that strength whereas working with vacation homeowners who tend to be more relationship based and not so much based on the numbers maybe isn’t going to be the best fit for you so you want to pick that Niche and then from there you want to actually go and reach out to some people that are in that Niche now a really great place to do this is going
(08:51) to be in different Facebook groups Community groups heck even in B&B tribe where there’s this incredible Community where you can get to know all kinds of different hosts and co-hosts and investors from all different walks of life that can be a really great place to get to know people and really the goal here is that you want to learn more about what their exact challenges pain points frustrations all that stuff are now the goal here is we’re really going to be in the business of solving those problems solving those challenges so the
(09:19) first step is understanding really intimately exactly what they are so you want to reach out and have those conversations ask those questions to get those details from the property owners and then from there we’ve got a whole process that we have we teached our students of exactly how to navigate that and actually really analyze those challenges and pain points and figure out the best possible solution to those how you as the co-hosting business can solve those problems and do it in a way that is both highly profitable for you
(09:50) and highly scalable for you and also as a bonus highly repeatable you want to do it in a way that is able to be systemized so that you can repeat it time and time again for these property owners are you a brand new or experienced Airbnb host co-host or investor who wants to host as successfully as profitably and with as much fun as possible if so then I would love to invite you to check out BNB tribe Linked In the description down below this video it’s our exclusive Community for Airbnb hosts investors and
(10:24) co-hosts from all over the world where I share some of my best trainings that go into detail on every single aspect of Airbnb hosting from A to Z we’ve got Advanced Training playbooks that will help you to use more advanced strategies to take things to the next level and make more money and have more fun hosting co-hosting or investing on Airbnb you’re also going to get access to an incredible community and over $2500 worth of deals perks discounts bonuses that I’ve negotiated with other vendors in the short-term rental
(10:54) industry so if you want access to all of that and a whole bunch more check out the link in the description down below for B&B tribe and I would love to see you on the inside now once you have a full understanding of all the problems and challenges and pain points and you’ve created solutions to all those now you’ve got your offer the actual thing that you’re going to be going out and selling the thing you’re going to be presenting which again is going to be slightly different for each different
(11:18) co-hosting business a lot of people think that the co-hosting formula is basically hey I just go to a property owner say heck I’ll manage everything for you give me 20% in reality you have to demonstrate the actually know what it is that they need what it is that they want and that you can actually deliver on those things and so this is a really really important foundational piece is just doing this market research really understanding it and crafting your offer now once you have your offer crafted you want to put that into a presentation
(11:46) deck that we’ll use later on in that sales process I’m going to talk about that whole process in a minute but the most important thing you want to do now is create what we call your messaging your offer messaging and this is what what you’re going to use to reach out to prospective clients to actually get their attention and Spark their interest in learning more and actually setting up a meeting with you and there’s a variety of different ways to get that messaging out to the market whether it be through
(12:09) Community groups through Facebook we can use social media for this uh we can use just references and we can use networking there’s also ways to reach out directly through certain short-term rental platforms to do what we call short-term rental direct Outreach which can be highly effective especially when you’re first getting started there’s a variety of different ways and ultimately we want to get this messaging out there get that offer out in front of the people that are potentially going to be
(12:32) our clients with the goal of getting them onto a phone call get them onto that phone call to learn more and then we’ve got a whole structure for how to actually run and organize that phone call on the phone call you want to get to know them a bit better start building some Rapport building a relationship with that perspective client and get to understand exactly what their challenges are what their frustrations are for them as an individual so you know what parts of your offer later on in the presentation to really highlight because
(12:58) those are going to be the most relevant to them then from there we also want to get an idea of what their expectations are what are they looking for from a property manager or co-host what are they looking for in terms of income on the property we want to really understand that so that we know exactly what the bar is going to be that we’re trying to hit now from there we want to do what we call pre-closing making sure that they’re actually serious about getting started with a co-host if everything does line up and then line
(13:22) them up into a meeting now that meeting is either going to be in person face to face at the property if we’re managing properties locally or if we’re managing properties remotely we’re going to have the property owner ideally actually go to the property and we can do the meeting virtually with them at the property so they can show us around the space now this is going to be really what it all comes down to is this meeting you want to have a really really good structure for this so the structure that we typically will follow is going
(13:48) to be an initial walk around where we just take that opportunity to really understand the space get to see it all and really start to build that relationship have a conversation with the property owner to again build more Rapport build more trust and ask questions to better understand their specific situation then from there once we’ve done that we now want to go into what we call the client conversion value deck this is going to be a slide deck that we walk through with the proper own that shows them exactly what it is that
(14:13) we do what our offer is and how it solves their different problems and what their life is going to be like after they sign on board to work with us so we can address those main key points that they mentioned already about what their challenges and frustrations are our Exact Solutions to those why they’re so effective how we can deliver on this and then give them a clear picture of exactly what it’s going to be like to actually be working with us how hands off and worry free are they going to be how much money are they going to be
(14:39) making all these different things now another part of that that’s really really helpful is we always go through what we call our profitability projection tool and that’s a tool that we use to project what the total income is going to be throughout the year we can break it down to different seasonal periods as well so they can give the proper an accurate idea of exactly what their Topline revenue is going to be what their cleaning fees and expenses are going to be what their management fees and expenses are going to be and
(15:04) what they’re actually going to net and the really cool thing here is that for a lot of property owners we can actually have them netting as much as they were managing themselves when they’re managing with us even after taking into account our management fees because a lot of the time we can significantly boost up the performance of a property by doing things like pricing optimization listing optimization really doing a professional job of this and so this is then kind of the the thing that seals the deal once they’ve seen that
(15:30) they’ve seen exactly what you can do they feel confident they trust you and they’ve seen the numbers behind it that’s when they’re either going to give you a yes or a no depending on what the answer is you might have to do some objection handling to alleviate certain concerns that they have deal with certain questions they have before moving forward then when they’re ready to move forward you really want to have an agreement ready to go so we have a template agreement that we use that has
(15:52) all these cool things like that 90-day satisfaction process we also give customers an incentive for signing up with us early we give them a little bit of a discount on their onboarding fee typically when they sign up with us on the day that we actually go byy for that Meetup that’s a really nice way to make sure that clients are in a state where they’re ready to make a decision one way or the other so we can eliminate the amount of followup that we have to do or reduce it significantly so we’re not
(16:15) constantly chasing clients around and they just have an incentive to actually get all those questions and concerns out in the open and make a decision right then and there either yes I want to move forward or no I don’t and if you’re doing a really good job of this if you’re following the right system you’re following the process which again Shameless plug you’ve got BMB tribe I would highly highly recommend checking that out because we’re going to give you all of these different resources that I
(16:37) mentioned when you join B&B tribe if you have all that lined up you should realistically have about a 15% conversion rate from people that you message and reach out to to people that you actually are able to get on a phone call with and set up a meeting with so for every 10 people you reach out to about 1.
(16:55) 5 people you’re going to actually get into a meeting so it can be really really efficient then on those meetings things obviously not everyone is going to actually come on board but generally the conversion rate is quite High generally we’re looking at a 70 to 80% conversion rate again assuming you have the right systems and process in place for that initial meeting and even as importantly for that initial call to set the expectations for that meeting so that can be a really really effective way to get clients where now every time
(17:22) you reach out to 20 30 40 clients sending them different messages you can expect to get one or two clients on board on under management so it becomes a really repeatable way to grow your business which is also why from there you tend to get referrals that snowball because you deliver such high value to these people if you have the right systems again for managing the property that they’re going to refer you out to people so that’s why a lot of the students I work with that start to get some traction and build to five six
(17:48) seven properties under management they typically will stop doing direct Outreach completely because the amount of volume of new leads and new potential clients that they’re getting just off of referrals and Word of Mouth alone loan tends to be enough that they have a hard time keeping up with it and their business is growing exactly as quickly as they want it to be so again I hope this video has been really really helpful for you I would highly recommend that you check out B&B tribe and the link in the description down below it
(18:12) should be right at the top there uh that’s where you can join this community of all kinds of other hosts co-hosts investors property managers you name it we’re all in there there’s incredible training we’ve got live Community calls all kinds of deals and discounts and perks for people that are in the tribe so I highly recommend it it’s an awesome Community to be a part I’d recommend checking it out for sure and if you like this video make sure you drop a thumbs up on it it really helps me with growing
(18:35) this channel getting these videos in front of more people and growing our incredible community of B&B tribe if you really like the video and you want to see more videos like this we do Post two new videos every single week here on the channel so all you have to do is hit the Subscribe button and also you can hit that notification Bell if you want to be notified when we post those new videos every Tuesday and Thursday and last but not least uh just if you have any questions comments thoughts anything you
(18:57) want to share with me let me know in the comments comment section down below I hope you’ve enjoyed this video hope you got value from it and I will see you in the next [Music] one