How: Start an Airbnb Business

How to Start an Airbnb Business: Consider This First

In this article, we want to give you three things to consider when you are thinking about starting your first Airbnb business.

Number One: Airbnb Equals Hospitality

One of the most important things to understand is that you are in the hospitality business.

Having a lot of experience in real estate is great but this is a completely different business and that's OK because that means even if you've never done real estate, you can still do this.

Here's what we mean: When someone comes to one of your locations, what they are thinking about is the experience. Not the value of the property other than the nightly run rate.

What you need to be thinking about is the experience that the traveler is going to have once they walk through the door.

The very first question that you need to ask yourself is: Whom do you wish to serve?

Once you understand who it is you wish to see, you'll be able and better equipped to go out there and create an experience specifically tailored for them. Much like in sales or marketing, you’re creating your custom avatar or desired audience.

In case you need more explanation, what we mean by that specifically is that a family with children might not want to reserve a place with any stairs or a high-rise balcony simply because their children are small.

Something like that could become a risk factor. Now that you have a proper lens to look at the market with, you’ll notice that even things like stairs can have a significant impact on who chooses to stay at your location.

Now, the other side of that equation is maybe you don't wish to serve any families with any kids whatsoever!

In that case, you probably don't mind picking places with stairs or using a high-rise piece of real estate that has a balcony because that can become and a trapdoor for that particular type of couple or individual

Number two: How Much Time Can You Spend on Airbnb?

How much time do you actually have?

Better yet, how much time do you actually have to commit to serving individuals! This is very very important because you must remember that not only is the work in obtaining the reservation, there is work in also servicing the person once they arrived.

One of the things that you need think about is:

What are your customer's expectation?

We've all heard of stores like Walmart, Target as well as Nordstrom; each one of those stores sells something similar or for example, shirts.

You could get a shirt from Walmart you can get a shirt from Target you can get a shirt from Nordstrom but when you go to Walmart parking lot at Nordstrom, you have a different expectation.

You have a different expectation in the quality of the actual product. You also have a different expectation in what happens if you have a return an item.

Let’s take this example a little further. In a Nordstrom level style service a simple concierge who's going to go the extra mile, who's going to possibly pick up your desk at the airport, who's going to make sure that they have a local phone number for them to contact you, be able to get directions or find that restaurant reservation, or make those extra Arrangements.

If that is not you then maybe Nordstrom level isn’t it what you're ready for just yet.

The point of this small section is to say: think about what your customer is expecting because delivering on your customer's expectation is the number one way to protect your five star rating and making sure that you get future business again from the same person

Number 3: Hitting Your Target Airbnb Goal’s

For those of you who want to know the absolute best thing that you can do to get started and make sure that when you are building your business, that you eliminate a ton of mistakes. For those aspiring hosts who want to start hitting their target market properly, one of the best things that you can do is stay at another short term rental!

That's right, one of the best things to do is before you start serving someone else is let someone else serve you. If you haven’t stayed at an Airbnb or even a B&B, we’re telling you, there is something completely different when you actually go and experience it for yourself.

Now understand this; when your guests are coming, their experience starts immediately on the interface from the platform that you've chosen to be a part of. This could even include your website.

However the guests/prospective visitors found you - that's where the experience begins. You might want to consider doing this on multiple platforms meaning, literally booking a reservation on each and every platform that you intend to be a part of.

This will help you understand what your guest is experiencing. This will give you a leg up over those that are not utilizing this strategy. Perhaps some of you never done this before and you’re just looking at it as a business.

Honestly, that’s what a lot of top hosts first think. It seems to be a neat way to use real estate and gives us an opportunity to possibly build something that my kids can participate in.

Something that would be closer to home, more tangible, easier to execute and just pop up.

What we suggest that you do is seriously, to go and find a place to stay in your local area even if it's just for one night and observe everything. Write things down from an observational perspective.

Take note of what the photos look like, what was the title that got your attention, what were the word for photos in the description that actually mattered to you and most importantly, what was that reservation experience like? How did the directions go? Did you pick up the keys? What experiences are nearby i.e. boating or others?

All of these approaches will help you craft your perfect audience and listing in order to truly create anything you want with this Airbnb business.