PASSIVE INCOME: How I Automate 100+ Airbnb Properties

Summary

The speaker shares their experience in automating an Airbnb business with over 100 properties. They emphasize the importance of creating a structured organization with specialized roles, such as territory managers, housekeepers, and guest experience managers. The key to automation is understanding what to automate and building systems that support people, not replacing them. The video offers advice on hiring, managing, and growing a business to achieve true valuation and scalability, highlighting the need for trust and continuous improvement.

Takeaways

• 😀 Automating an Airbnb business is achievable and the speaker has done it with over 100 properties.
• 🛠 The secret to automation is knowing what to automate rather than just how to automate it.
• 📈 The goal of any business should be automation to increase its true valuation and facilitate selling if desired.
• 🏢 The speaker's business is organized with a clear hierarchy, including territory managers, specialized roles, and a large housekeeping staff.
• 🧹 Housekeeping is a critical part of the business and should be automated by hiring and training housekeepers, paying them by the hour.
• 👥 The importance of having a housekeeping manager who can oversee operations and prevent burnout as the business grows.
• 📚 Reading books like 'The Leadership Pipeline' and 'Multipliers' is recommended for understanding business and leadership.
• 🔄 As the business grows, systems should be developed to support staff and prevent a single manager from becoming overwhelmed.
• 💡 Technology should be used to support people, not replace them, and to handle repetitive tasks efficiently.
• 🚀 Continuous growth and challenging the business is important to keep employees engaged and invested in the company.
• 🔑 Trusting people and giving them autonomy is a key part of successful automation and delegation.

Q & A

What is the primary goal of automating an Airbnb business according to the speaker?

The primary goal of automating an Airbnb business is to remove oneself from the company operations, allowing it to have a true valuation and be sellable without the owner's direct involvement.

What is the estimated worth of the speaker's Airbnb business?

The speaker estimates their business to be worth around 20 million if they were to sell it now.

How does the speaker structure the management of their Airbnb business?

The speaker structures their business with Haley at the top overseeing everything, followed by territory managers, specialized managers for tasks like listing setup, revenue, guest experience, landlord relations, and a large team of housekeepers managed by housekeeping managers.

What is the speaker's advice on hiring housekeepers for an Airbnb business?

The speaker suggests hiring housekeepers with no prior experience, training them in-house, and paying them by the hour to build loyalty and reduce costs.

Why should housekeepers be paid by the hour instead of a flat rate according to the speaker?

Paying housekeepers by the hour can lower housekeeping costs and provide more funds for other business aspects. It also helps to avoid competition from other industry players who might try to recruit experienced housekeepers.

What is the speaker's suggestion for the first step in automating a growing Airbnb business?

The first step is to hire a housekeeping manager to oversee housekeepers, communicate with guests, and handle inventory control, which can automate about 80 to 90 percent of the business operations.

What books does the speaker recommend for managers in an automated business?

The speaker recommends 'The Leadership Pipeline' by Ram Charan and 'Multipliers' for improving leadership and getting better work out of people.

What is the speaker's view on using technology to automate an Airbnb business?

The speaker believes that technology should be used to support people in the business, not to replace them. It should be used to handle repetitive tasks and increase the efficiency of a single person's capabilities.

What is the speaker's advice on maintaining quality in an automated business?

The speaker advises to 'continue to inspect what you expect' and to include seemingly useless high-touch tasks in the system to monitor employee engagement and ensure quality.

What is the speaker's strategy for keeping employees engaged and invested in the business?

The speaker emphasizes building a culture and vision with constant growth and challenges, ensuring that employees see the business as dynamic and not a dead-end.

What is the speaker's approach to trust in the context of business automation?

The speaker believes in giving full autonomy and trust to managers, like Haley, to the point where they could potentially destroy the business, as a trade-off for achieving automation.

Outlines

00:00

🛠️ Automating Airbnb Business: The Key to Valuation

The speaker discusses the possibility of fully automating an Airbnb business, sharing personal experience with over 100 properties. The secret lies in knowing what to automate rather than just how to do it. The video promises to reveal what aspects to automate and provides professional tips on how to achieve it. The goal of automation is to increase the business's valuation by removing the personal dependency from the company's operations, which is essential for a successful sale. The speaker introduces their organizational structure, emphasizing the importance of specialized roles and the delegation of tasks to managers and housekeepers.

05:01

📚 Building Systems and Supporting Staff for Business Growth

This paragraph delves into the importance of building systems and hiring support staff to prevent burnout and ensure business scalability. The speaker suggests reading 'The Leadership Pipeline' and 'Multipliers' to develop leadership and management skills. As the business grows, the need for additional managers and specialized roles arises to handle various tasks such as housekeeping, guest interactions, and revenue management. The speaker emphasizes the importance of creating systems that not only streamline operations but also serve as indicators of employee engagement and performance.

10:01

💡 The Role of Technology in Supporting People and Business Growth

The final paragraph highlights the role of technology as a support tool for people within a business rather than a replacement. It stresses the importance of continuous inspection and quality maintenance to prevent business decline. The speaker shares business adages and personal strategies, such as including seemingly useless tasks to monitor employee engagement and using technology to empower individuals to manage larger workloads efficiently. The paragraph concludes with the idea that automation is about creating a culture of growth and providing a meaningful place for employees to build their careers.

Keywords

💡Automation

Automation refers to the use of technology to create or operate a system with minimal human intervention. In the context of the video, it is the process of setting up an Airbnb business to run efficiently without the constant need for the owner's direct involvement. The script mentions that the business owner has successfully automated his business with over 100 properties, allowing him to step back intentionally.

💡Airbnb Business

An Airbnb business involves renting out properties, typically residential, to guests via the Airbnb platform. The script discusses the process of automating such a business, including managing properties, guest experiences, and revenue, to create a system that operates smoothly without the owner's constant presence.

💡Territory Managers

Territory managers are individuals responsible for overseeing operations within specific geographical areas within a business. In the video script, they are part of the organizational structure that helps in automating the Airbnb business, with their role being crucial in managing different regions under the supervision of Haley.

💡Housekeepers

Housekeepers are the staff responsible for cleaning and maintaining the rented properties. The script emphasizes the importance of housekeepers in automating an Airbnb business, suggesting hiring them by the hour to build loyalty and reduce costs, which is a strategy for efficient business operation.

💡Organizational Structure

Organizational structure defines how tasks and power are distributed within an organization. The script describes a detailed structure for the Airbnb business, with Haley at the top, followed by various specialized managers and teams like housekeeping, guest experience, and revenue management, which is essential for the business's automation and growth.

💡Revenue Management

Revenue management involves strategies to optimize the income of a business. In the context of the video, it refers to the process of setting prices on Airbnb and other platforms to ensure good profitability. The script mentions that as the business grows, revenue management can become a specialized role within the automated system.

💡General Operations Management

General operations management includes overseeing day-to-day business functions such as inventory control, maintenance, and financial resolutions. The script describes this as a crucial part of the business that needs to be automated to ensure smooth operations and to handle tasks like arbitration when guests owe money.

💡Leadership Pipeline

The 'Leadership Pipeline' is a book mentioned in the script that presumably discusses the development of leaders within an organization. The video suggests that the business owner should read this book and then pass it on to the first manager, indicating its importance in understanding and implementing effective leadership within the automated business structure.

💡Multipliers

Multipliers is another book referenced in the script, which presumably deals with enhancing productivity and motivation in the workplace. The script suggests that this book should be given to managers to improve their ability to get better work out of their team members, which is integral to the automation process.

💡Systems

Systems in the context of the video refer to the established protocols and procedures that govern how tasks are performed within the business. The script emphasizes building systems as a key part of the automation journey, allowing the business to scale and manage complexity without the owner's constant oversight.

💡Technology

Technology is used in the script to refer to tools and software that can aid in the automation process. However, it is noted that technology should be used to support people and not replace them entirely. The script warns against relying solely on technology for automation, advocating instead for a balance where technology enhances human effort.

Highlights

It's possible to fully automate an Airbnb business with over 100 properties.

The secret to automation is knowing what to automate, not just how to automate.

Automating a business increases its valuation by removing personal involvement from its operations.

The speaker's business is worth approximately 20 million, highlighting the success of automation.

Hiring specialized managers and a team of housekeepers is key to scaling the business.

Creating a clear organizational structure with roles such as territory managers and revenue managers is essential.

The importance of hiring housekeepers by the hour to reduce costs and increase loyalty.

Having a housekeeping manager is the first step towards pseudo-automation.

Building systems and hiring support staff prevents the main manager from burnout as the business grows.

Reading 'The Leadership Pipeline' and 'Multipliers' is recommended for managers to improve leadership and team productivity.

As the business grows, hiring additional managers to cover different shifts is necessary.

Revenue management, listing creation, and guest resolutions can be handled by specialized staff as the business scales.

The speaker offers coaching for high-earning Airbnb hosts, indicating a focus on advanced business growth.

Automation is about creating systems and people, not relying solely on technology.

Technology should support people in the business, not replace them.

The importance of continuous inspection and quality maintenance in automated systems.

Incorporating 'useless' high-touch tasks can serve as indicators of employee engagement and system integrity.

Building a culture and vision with momentum and growth keeps employees invested in the business.

The necessity of trust in delegation for successful automation, as demonstrated by the speaker's relationship with Haley.

Transcripts

support staff to make sure that that one

boss doesn't lose their mind along the

way

it is possible to completely 100

automate an airbnb business i've done it

with over 100 properties and i'll tell

you all about how i did it and i'll tell

you how you can too you know what the

secret is it's not just really knowing

how to automate stuff in this world you

just need to know what to automate and a

lot of it's simple there's just a few

things so in this video i'm going to

tell you what to automate and pro tips

on how to automate it so that way you

can be like me

out of work intentionally which is kind

of fun let's jump in yeah i'm back on my

bs coffee every day lots of coffee thank

you for coming back to watch this video

airbnb family now this video is

hopefully going to be a little bit more

high level i'm going to try to keep it

simple enough for you newbies out there

but

to automate a business is really the

goal of any business right because

if you want to sell a company you need

to remove yourself from the company

otherwise when you go and try to sell it

people be like well you're going to

leave after we buy it and then all of

what makes this company run is gone with

you so we're not going to buy your

company for anything but the asset value

right so to automate a company is to

give it a true valuation

and my business is worth ballpark about

like 20 something million if i wanted to

sell it right now um last time somebody

looked at it which is cool now i have a

little over 100 properties haley runs

the business now the way this works is

haley runs all territories we have

territory managers under haley we have

specialized managers that handle tasks

like setting up listings doing revenue

guest experience

selling landlords to get us new leases

we have specialized roles and then a

vast majority of our staff our biggest

staff are housekeepers we've got dozens

of housekeepers on our teams

and we have va's most of our va's are

local most of them if you took a sheet

of paper and you drew out what i just

told you you know haley at the top over

everything and then under haley we have

new lease sales we have housekeeping

management we have guest experience

management we have channels like airbnb

management we have revenue management

we're making sure we get good prices and

then we have general operations

management which would include

inventory control

replacing things maintenance

resolutions when guests owe us money

taking that and putting into arbitration

if airbnb airbnb doesn't pay us for

something you know stuff like that and

then you've got of course accounting

tracking the numbers the money stuff

like that um if you drew that all under

haley and then said okay well the

housekeeping manager needs to know some

stuff to manage housekeepers and under

the housekeeping manager are

housekeepers guest experience needs to

know some stuff there's going to be some

skills and then under them is staff that

runs guest experience you know you can

start to branch out an organizational

structure and for years i tried to find

a book on organizational structure and

how to decide what structured companies

should be there's really no magic bullet

business to business but in my seven

years of running an airbnb business i

can tell you exactly what roles need to

fill in where now i'm not going to give

you the five-day seminar version of that

because that's a really big topic and we

would have to cover i mean if i really

wanted to nerd out make this hard for

you to digest in one sitting i'd have to

teach you how to do interviews how to

assess fit for managers how to do

interviews for entry level staff how to

assess fit for like entry-level staff

how to get managers to manage

entry-level staff like all this stuff

there's a lot of little dynamics here

but

what is remarkably simple about this is

you can add one thing at a time right so

i don't want to scare you away from the

idea of automating as you grow your

business to five doors 10 doors 15 doors

things will get added as needed and you

will learn a skill set one skill set at

a time that's what i did

so

at about five doors or six doors you can

start hiring housekeepers to do more

bulk work and this allows you to pay

them by the hour this is one of the

first things that i think you should do

if you're automation-minded see

housekeeper loyalty is one of the most

important parts of automating your

business you need your own housekeepers

now if you pay housekeepers flat rate

they're going to be in a market that

talks that same lingo it's going to be

easier for people to pull them and

recruit them to clean their properties

or if you're paying people flat rate

it's usually because they have

experience in the industry and work for

other people or they have a cleaning

company

and

to automate a housekeeping team you want

your housekeeping team so removed from

the mainstream industry of housekeeping

and other people's properties that they

just stay with you so it's better to

hire people with no experience

eventually train them to do housekeeping

speak their like they have them have

them speak your language as a company

and then own that

relationship and pay them by the hour

paying them by the hour will lower your

housekeeping costs and give you more

money to afford to pay other people for

other stuff

all housekeepers should have a manager

and this is the first level of like

pseudo automation is if you have a

manager managing housekeepers and that

manager starts to communicate with

guests they start to do inventory

control buy more toilet paper when

you're running out of stuff you can like

80 percent 90 automate your business

with just the relationship of a boss and

housekeeping team right but that boss

will get burned out as you grow so now

the rest of your automation

journey is going to be to build systems

and to hire support staff to make sure

that that one boss doesn't lose their

mind along the way and hopefully as you

train and mentor that one boss they

become more capable of handling a more

complex business and so you should first

read the book the leadership pipeline

by ram sharon and then you should give

your first manager that same book

you also should read a book called

multipliers which is how to get like

better work out of people make them more

motivated make them more productive and

then you should give that book to your

first manager too now there's gonna be a

lot of other reading material that will

be great for you there's one called

critical business skills for success

it's by the great courses it's like a

30-something hour audio book it's very

wide in topic matter covers all aspects

of business but to automate a company

you really need to understand business

so one step at a time housekeepers and

then the manager as you pick up 20 25

properties that manager will need days

off that you can't give them because

obviously you're separating yourself

from the business too so you're not just

gonna cover for them two three nights a

week that person needs an assistant or

another manager to come in and work on

nights that they have off so now you'll

have two managers that work five days a

week just on different schedules and

they're managing the housekeepers doing

inventory control talking with guests

there might be a time that you have so

many properties that that manager can't

communicate with guests and housekeepers

at the same time right that could be a

level of growth that you reach now when

you hit that point then what you'll do

is you'll hire somebody to manage either

housekeeping or hire somebody to manage

customer interactions and that really

would be based on the strengths of your

current manager if your manager is

better with guest interactions or better

with housekeeping interactions let them

flow in that direction and start to hire

support to cover them where they're like

the worst at stuff

you're still probably doing your own

revenue management at this point by the

way you know you should be changing your

prices on airbnb and vrbo and i have

tons of videos on like pricing strategy

on this channel and you should watch

those

eventually as you get big enough you

might decide to give listing creation

and management

resolutions like asking guests for money

and sending arbitration claims airbnb

and revenue management you can give

those three topics to people in more

specialized ways

by the time you get to that point you

should be making a million dollars plus

per year in revenue

and your management team should be happy

they should be good at hiring people

your housekeeper retention should be

good you should have some systems

figured out either by learning them

yourself or through like some sort of

mentorship with me

i've got about a thousand students by

the way that i teach in this other

course and

you definitely don't need a course to be

successful on airbnb but they chose that

path so that is an option

if you are making a million dollars a

year on airbnb

you can fully automate that business and

still make a great amount of profit

and that's the kind of the important

part here and i think that should be

your your goal your threshold make a

million and then automate in that order

so if i can give you fortune cookie

advice to wrap that all up into one big

like and subscribe kind of bow it is

that businesses are automated by systems

and people

don't use technology to automate use

technology to support your people in

your the hopes of automating to lower

your costs on some stuff to do

repetitive tasks that one person could

do a hundred times over that's one of

the biggest myths in this industry is

that you can automate with technology

that's why you should never work with a

company like evolve evolve is trash

because they don't have local people to

manage your property they just do all

this technology based stuff and they

want like 10 of your business which is

not cool avoid companies like evolve if

you're trying to automate what you're

going to do is you're going to teach

people how to respond to customers and

think critically

how to like manage new situations humans

can manage new situations and in this

industry there's always a level of new

customers are different they're always

different

and then with them you can give them

best practices

systems to follow so most of everything

is like done in some super efficient way

and then all they have to do is work

their brain really hard every now and

then to handle a new like situation and

if that becomes frequent you can make a

system for that too right people

learning systems critical thinking

making new systems the company keeps

growing and adapting and getting better

and better and better and then

technology can make it easier for one

really good person to manage something

that's that's too big right so a

platform management software can allow

one person to like to message guests on

multiple platforms or a pricing

management software can allow one person

to like have an elegant pricing revenue

strategy where they can like play with a

thousand properties and revenue manage a

thousand properties through some form of

automated system where now they're only

making minor tweaks to the machine

technology can increase how powerful one

person in your company is at their task

but it can never replace a person

altogether no matter what employees and

technologies should always be supervised

by people one of the biggest adages i've

ever learned there's two

two quotes i've ever learned from

mentors professors in business and stuff

like that one is never run out of cash

follow that rule and you'll live forever

and then two continue to inspect what

you expect

and if you ever turn a blind eye to

something that gets repeated that should

maintain a level of level of quality

just know that it will break it will

break if you don't continue to inspect

a lot like a pro tip and i'm really

going to nerd on you on this a pro tip

is when i build systems for people to

follow i will pepper in completely

useless high-touch things that they need

to do like a certain form that they need

to complete or something like that

because what will happen is that form is

a form of communication like hey do this

every single day when you do the stats

do this one thing and it's highly

visible within the organization it's

almost like a like a bobber on the water

kind of thing and the moment that thing

disappears you know that something's

changed so the moment somebody doesn't

complete a form that they're supposed to

complete or some menial task it doesn't

damage the business you start to know

that that person is disengaging from

their work they're starting to let their

quality of work lax because they're not

doing something that's highly visible to

you don't ever let anybody know if

you're giving them something to do that

just lets you know that they're doing

something

because they will then gain you back and

just do that one thing so they don't get

caught but that's a pro tip for like

making sure that your people are engaged

and pro tip number two for that is

prevention is better than cure so not

only should you have these systems in

place to know how engaged your people

are and so that way your managers can

know that all the people are doing the

right thing but you need to find a way

to make people still love their job day

in day out month and month out so when

you build this company you're building a

culture you're building a vision it

needs to have momentum and growth if

you're not constantly adding new

properties or doing something

that changes the nature of the business

or challenges the business for all time

if the business ever becomes static and

you stop at say 50 doors and you don't

do anything with a business and you're

just like checked out the people in your

company will see it as a dead-end

business so a lot of automating is

finding a way for a company to grow and

challenge itself so the people in the

company stay invested forever because to

automate forever is to give someone

someone else a place that they can spend

their whole life building something that

they care about and that's the biggest

part of automation um i've tried my

damnedest with haley to give her a place

that she likes to work a place where she

has full autonomy and control she could

destroy the whole company if she wanted

to that's the level of trust that i've

given her she can absolutely just just

dunk the whole thing right now there's

nothing i could do about it

but that is the exchange that i've made

for the sake of automation so you're

gonna have to learn to trust people um

and it is a wild ride if you have

questions about automation um

some of them might be super high level

i'll try my best to answer them in the

comments um i will be doing

small group coaching for people who are

making more than a million dollars a

year on airbnb or vrbo as a combination

i don't do it yet but that's something

happening here in 2022

if you make more than a million per year

on airbnb and you want to have more

candid conversations about how to grow

your business um keep that in the back

of your brain because i will be

available more now for the big boys some

of my students are making three or four

million dollars a year and and the level

of like student mentorship that i do is

starting to be too low level for them

where i've got 30 or 40 people in one

zoom call and we're talking about how to

pitch landlords how to handle like your

finances in one area where to buy a

couch

these guys they're way beyond that and

so in order for me to mentor them we

have to have a completely separate

conversation like just almost in a way

one-on-one or a much smaller group only

for those big boys and so i finally hit

a spot where some of my like my closest

proteges are at that point and it will

turn into an invite for some of you

other big hitters to come in and have

that conversation too so thank you so

much for watching this video i hope it

wasn't too abstract and if any of you

want to add to this conversation in the

comments and have any anecdotes or

advice for automation would love to see

it thank you so much guys and i'll see

you on the other side