Which Kind of Host Are You? Address Your Problem Areas to Get Five Stars in Every Category

You may have read a few blogs on hosting by now, and you may have noticed that a lot of hosting advice is geared toward the “general” host.

However, there are really three major categories that hosts fall into—and depending on which kind of host you are, you may need different resources, tools and advice to make the most of your hosting experience.

This article will help you:

– figure out what kind of host you are
– uncover your biggest challenges as that category of host
– highlight your potential problem areas on Airbnb (read: where you’re likely to lose stars!)
– arm yourself with strategies and solutions for rising above these challenges and problems

Ready? Let’s get into it!

Helping Hosts Together: The Abundant Host Interviews LearnAirbnb

Of the many things that Jim Breese (co-founder of LearnAirbnb) and I agree on wholeheartedly, probably the most significant is this:

As hosts, we are in the hospitality industry, not the rental industry.

Just like in many other areas of the new economy—coworking spaces are a prime example—it’s not just about the space.

As hosts, our #1 job is not to provide a bed to sleep in, but to provide an experience. An experience filled with comfort, kindness, luxury—with humanness. We provide an expansive palette for the creation of our guest’s definition of leisure, vacation, business or play—on their terms.

Based in east Los Angeles, Jim has worked with hundreds of hosts over the past 18 months, running LearnAirbnb as a passion project and creating profitable strategies for optimizing Airbnb rental businesses.

In this fireside chat between LearnAirbnb and The Abundant Host, we talk about how to attract your ideal guests, how sites like ours can play a vital role in this new economy, and why it’s important to not overthink hosting (and what you should be thinking about instead).

Get 5 Stars in Communication & Arrival—Even When You Never Meet Your Guests

If you travel a lot, use a lockbox for your guest’s entry/exit, or otherwise are not able to meet your guests in person—how do you create a connection with them?

How do you make sure they feel confident, safe and satisfied—satisfied enough to write you a raving review filled with 5-stars across the board (particularly in Communication and Arrival)?

In this post, I’ll show you some easy ways to do just that.

The 15 Crucial Things Not to Forget When You Live in the Home You Airbnb

If you live in your home and you’re leaving it up to you to do the cleaning and turnover before your guest arrives and before you head out of town (which you may decide to do whether or not you have a turnover assistant to help you when you’re not around, to save money or for other reasons), here are some things to remember.

How to Find Your Ideal Houseturnover Assistant (Sneak Peek Into My New Book!)

Hi everyone! I’ve been super happy writing this book for you on finding, hiring, training, managing and keeping your super awesome houseturnover assistant.

Your success, freedom and profitability through Airbnb is directly affected by the quality of work your houseturnover assistant does.

Since I’m doing a promotion right now where the first 25 people who buy my book will get it for $8.99, I wanted to bullet-point just one of five hefty sections in the book so you know what you’re getting!

The Six Core Qualities Your Airbnb Turnover Assistant Must Have (Plus, An Announcement!)

Your success, freedom and profitability through Airbnb is directly affected by the quality of work your houseturnover person does.

If you’re ready to uplevel your hosting by hiring an awesome houseturnover assistant, you’re in luck! Because…

I’m writing an eBook that will show you the full-spectrum ins and outs of finding, training, hiring, managing and keeping your houseturnover assistant—with bonus tips on how to transition home, how to do a space clearing, and how to find additional assistance beyond your first assistant!

Quick Time-Saving Airbnb Tip: The “Saved Messages” Feature

Often, Airbnb hosts have to type the same messages over and over again. As an Abundant Host, of course, you personalize each one… but there are some sentences we just can’t help but repeat.

Airbnb has a solution for this (in the phone app, at least), that not many people know about! Here, I’ll tell you how to use it and save yourself tons of time re-typing the same things (and you can even stop opening a different app like Notes or Evernote where you might already be copying and pasting your oft-sent messages).

The 5 Most Valuable Websites and Resources for Airbnb Hosts

Airbnb now operates in 34,000 cities in 190 countries. And yet, the information market for helping Airbnb hosts is relatively slim.

There are only a handful of forums (often thinly populated) and websites (often thin on quality content) dedicated to showing people best practices for hosting that are heart-driven and focus on providing high-quality, intentional experiences.

Here, I’ve compiled a list of sites that meet five requirements:

1) they showcase original writing and advice that can’t be found elsewhere
2) they are inspirational, authentic or connection-based
3) they offer incredible value in their free resources/posts (whether or not they also sell a product)
4) they are sites dedicated exclusively to helping hosts, not one-off pieces on big websites
5) they aren’t the blog of a paid tool or app intended merely to drive traffic toward the product

If you’re looking for quality advice, these five resources merit your coffee-shop browsing time and meticulous note-taking.