When you’re looking at your business processes and trying to find ways to streamline for better efficiency, don’t forget that one option is to get rid of tasks by giving them to someone else. Most Airbnb and STR hosts start off as solo-operators and you have to do ALL the things – some of them are fun, some not so. But as the business grows, it is a great idea to involve other people to help out and let you do what you do best.
There are three ways to streamline and entrust tasks to someone else: Delegating, outsourcing, and automating.
Not sure where to start? You could always organize a call with me for a Branding & Listing audit and I could make suggestions on what to streamline based on my extensive experiences in the industry.
Delegating Tasks
Delegating involves finding someone in your orbit who can take over the task for you. It requires taking a regular task and mapping out each step so that anyone can learn to do it. The advantage is that someone close already knows you and understands your business goals. Delegating can be the start of getting streamline processes in place.
A good example of something you can delegate is social media activity. Social media requires you to be there every day, posting, monitoring, commenting, and interacting. You can easily get someone in your family to take over this activity rather than doing it yourself. Great to have any teenage kids put their social media skills to good use.
Other tasks that are easy to delegate include accounting, administrative tasks, maintenance, IT or marketing tasks.
Outsourcing
There are several reasons you may choose to outsource tasks like cleaning, guest messaging or maintenance. Cleaning is the big one as your cleaning reviews will make or break your business. Guest messaging is another task that can be outsourced and automated easily.
You may not have enough time to do it all yourself or you may not have family around you that can handle the task you need to offload. Instead, you can outsource to a virtual assistant or another small solo operator like a cleaner or even go bigger and look for a management company that can take care of multiple parts of the business.
For my hosting business, I love being able to work with other local solo-preneurs and I have really made an effort to get to know the people in my area that I can call on when the need arises. For example, with cleaning, I make sure that I have my main cleaning operator, plus a back up and then one more who can help out in a pinch.
In addition to the tasks as above, you can also outsource things that require specific skills like decorating, professional photos and staging, copywriting, marketing, and other skills you don’t have the time to learn or resources to handle yourself. Personally I have amazing people in my address book who are there to assist with the business when needed. Plumbers, handy-folk, photographers, and copy-editors.
Another example, if you create your direct booking platform (like we did with Tokyo Family Stays on Lodgify) you may need to design your logo, create promotions, Facebook ads and schedule social media content. It would take time to learn, so a better use of resources is to pay someone to do it.
When outsourcing, take some time to research and compare service providers before you choose one. The most efficient way to outsource is to hire a virtual assistant who can become familiar with your business and handle a great deal of work in one place.
Automate with Tech Tools
Software tools and apps can take over a great deal of routine tasks that don’t involve creative thinking or problem solving. As the STR has grown in size, there are , there are more and more vendors that create apps to streamline the workflow and improve a host’s productivity.
Things that can be automated include:
- Guest Messaging
- Some social media
- Monitoring and analytics
- Check-in instructions
- Guest Data collection
- Accounting functions like bill paying
- Cleaning scheduling
- Calena
- Pricing strategy*
[* There are tools around to assist with this, but pricing is a combination of Art and Science. Please see my Monetization series ]
Explore automation options and determine which of your tasks can be automated. Take advantage of free trials and use software before you make a purchase. Don’t automate any area of your business that requires the human touch and your exceptional hospitality.
All of the above options require some time and effort on your part to set up. To delegate or outsource, you need to map out business processes so someone can learn them. Automating involves some time choosing the right tech option. But this is time you will save later once you have it set up and running smoothly.
Do you want to learn more about techniques to streamline your business processes? Get in touch or book an audit here.
disclaimer: We may receive a small introduction fee from vendors. This will not affect any prices that you are charged. But I will only recommend vendors that I know and love and ones that I have used for myself as a customer.
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