Intro
[00:00:00] Liam: Hey, hey, everybody. Welcome to the Boostly podcast. This is the podcast that gives you as the listener, the tools, the tactics, the training, and most importantly, the confidence. So you can go out there and get more direct bookings. Today, we are shining the Boostly spotlight on somebody who's a good friend of Boostly, who's been on the show, uh, on the behind-the-host.
[00:00:19] Show before, and we're shining the spotlight on Amanda, the travelling realtor. She's Amanda Williams. She's awesome. She travels. She's got short-term rentals. She helps people. She coaches, and I'm pleased to have her with us here today on Boostly. So welcome along Amanda.
[00:00:36] Amanda: Thank you. Thanks so much for having me back on the show.
[00:00:40] Liam: Oh, it's awesome to have you back. So there'll be some people who are tuning in for the first time. So can you introduce yourself, uh, give us the elevator pitch and whereabouts in the world your short-term rentals are based?
A bit about Amanda
[00:00:52] Amanda: Sure. Yeah. So I'm Amanda. Um, AKA the travelling realtor. I just hit 11 countries in the last six weeks.
[00:01:00] So that's pretty exciting. Uh, I own a short-term midterm rental business. We focus on midterm rentals back in Raleigh, North Carolina. And so we have close to 30 properties back there. I've been living in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for the last three years. Um, however, now I'm officially a nomad and I am in Cabo right now, but I have decided to go the nomad route.
[00:01:27] And um, I help other real estate agents. I'm a real estate agent, of course, with being the realtor. I help other real estate agents start and scale their short-term midterm rental businesses as well because I believe every agent needs to have multiple streams of income.
11 countries and 6 weeks
[00:01:42] Liam: You said 11 countries in how many weeks, 11 weeks?
[00:01:46] Six weeks. Six weeks. Wow. Okay. So let's hear him. Whereabouts have you been and, and why? Yeah.
[00:01:53] Amanda: So in March I joined the Tony Robbins Platinum Partner Program. So there's only 400 people in the world, um, that are part of his like high-level program. So I'm doing 22 events with Tony Robbins this year and we're doing events around the world.
[00:02:09] So the first event was in June. Well, the first live event was in June. And so we did a trip to Africa. We had our adventure trip there and we were doing all kinds of crazy stuff, jumping off cliffs and whitewater rafting and helicopters, and just all kinds of amazing, of course, safaris. And, um, so we did that.
[00:02:28] I did five countries in Africa. I did four with the group. And then there was a few of us that went up to Kenya and we did some stuff up in Kenya as well. And then from there, I hopped over to Gibraltar. Because I bought a condo, on a ship that's going to sell around the world. And I went and met the designer for that.
[00:02:48] And some other, the people who bought into that, um, that project as well. And then from there, I went over to Portugal and I filmed some awesome racetrack properties over there that I think I'm going to end up buying for vacation rentals. And then from there I went to Tuscany, uh, filmed another villa there that's for sale and that's a great opportunity for someone who may want to move to Tuscany and just live in one of the units and rent the other ones.
[00:03:16] And then from Tuscany, where did I go? Um, I went to Rimini Beach, uh, Italy, and then I went to the UK and I did, um, another Tony Robbins event in the UK. And, uh, London and all that, and then up to Canada, and now I'm in Mexico again.
How do you manage the business?
[00:03:32] Liam: How do you manage the business while, while doing all this awesome stuff?
[00:03:35] How does that work?
[00:03:36] Amanda: Yeah, so I'm blessed to have a partner. Uh, we have a partner, we have a team, and so he manages the business. He's the one that deals with the check-ins, check-outs, all of that. Um, I do the marketing for it. And just so you know, we are 95 per cent direct booking. We have our website.
[00:03:54] And so, um, we don't do a lot of short-term. We are doing mostly, you know, midterm 30, 60, 90 days. Our average client stays about three months because we're focused on relocation clients. So it's not a ton of work. Because you're not having to deal with those constant, you know, cleanings and check-ins and all the stuff that comes along with short-term rentals.
[00:04:18] You don't have to deal with that.
[00:04:20] Liam: Nice. And there'll be a lot of people listening to this because as we record this, we're sort of August time, but you know, winter or the fall is, is, is looming. And we're, we always like to have more certainty in that time when there are not so many bookings depending on your market, obviously is where you are in the world when you're listening to this, where do you get the midterm?
[00:04:40] Bookings from where, without obviously selling the secret source, where are some of the best places to be thinking about if you're a host? And you mentioned the marketing, which is what Boostly loves, how you can market to not only get bookings, but direct bookings. So, uh, yeah, share, share any information you can about that.
[00:04:58] Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. I do a lot on social, um, in different social media groups, all of that, uh, Facebook built something called workplace. It's just like Facebook, except it is for my real estate firm. And so we have close to 90, 000 agents in our firm. And so I run the midterm rental group and the Airbnb group.
[00:05:20] within that company. And so, uh, I wouldn't say all of the agents know what I do, but a very large percentage of them, uh, know what I do. They know where my business is located. We've been very, um, active with reaching out to local real estate firms, attorneys, mortgage brokers, all of that to get their referrals for people moving into the area as well.
[00:05:42] So our target audience is someone who's moving from say, California into Raleigh, North Carolina, and they don't want to sign a 12-month lease and move twice. Right. They also don't want to come into the area for a weekend or a week and buy a house when they don't know the area yet. And so being able to come in and stay in a furnished rental Keep your stuff in storage.
[00:06:07] Put it in a pod. Do whatever you need to do. If it has a garage, we're like, cool with them moving their stuff into the garage. And that gives them time to get to know the area. And then they can start house shopping once they understand which area of Raleigh they want to live in.
[00:06:21] Liam: I see Facebook posts about it all the time and on social media where they're like, should I?
[00:06:26] You know, should I take these, these people, you know, should I be taking deposits? Is there any way I can protect, protect against, you know, damage and that side of things, or if they won't leave at the end of the state? Is there anything that you have like system procedures to, present that, prevent that sort of thing?
[00:06:41] Amanda: Yeah. So even if someone comes into the area and they tell me they want to stay for, let's just say three months, we do a 30-day contract because, um, that is the regulation in my state is anything 30 days or less. falls into short-term rental law. Anything 31 days or more is a long-term tenant, meaning I would have to go through the eviction process to get them out of my house.
[00:07:05] So, uh, we do 30 day contracts. So every 30 days, they're going to get a new contract assigned. Um, we do say, Hey, we're going to do a walkthrough. If you're keeping the property in good shape and you, your kid's not colouring on my walls, um, then we'll renew with you. But if not, we're going to ask you
[00:07:22] to leave.
Advice for finding good team members
[00:07:23] Liam: One of the things you mentioned, Amanda, was that You've got a partner who looks after the business side of things. And I know there's a lot of people on here who go, well, how do I grow a team? How do I find people who will work with me? Can you share any of your experience around that and what advice you'd have for those people who want to either partner up with people or find good team members?
[00:07:46] Oh man,
[00:07:47] Amanda: we've been through the wringer. We've been through a lot of people. Um, I think the, the most amount of people we've been through are cleaners. We, I mean, we finally are, we weren't the same cleaning lady now for, we spent about a year, which has been amazing because we were just rotating cleaners like crazy.
[00:08:05] They would come in, they would do three or four, maybe five good cleans. And then it just went to crap. So I think, you know, just. I wish I had a better answer for you, honestly, but I think it just keeps going through them until you find someone and you treat them well and they like you and you like them and you keep that relationship very good with them and you have the checklist and all of that with them, um, at least for cleaning for everything else.
[00:08:33] I would say run personality profiles if you can, just to make sure that you guys are good to work together, especially if they're going to be partnering with you or like working on your projects, then you need to know, you know, how to speak to that person, how to get them motivated, how to, how to make them want to treat your business.
[00:08:53] the way that you treat your business.
[00:08:54] Liam: Well, sometimes, you know, I look at the businesses around short-term rental and I think, are they making more money than the short-term rental? Sometimes you look at the cleaning, the linen hire, the maintenance, you know, all of these subsidiary businesses. And Hey, you know, if, if I had enough energy to do, to look after all of that, I would love to have the control.
[00:09:13] Cause that just gives you such a, um, you know, such a foot up compared to. everyone else, wouldn't it? So having a blast gonna get it on the Boostly
[00:09:22] podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee's It's So Hard on the T is loosely making up those rhymes. Don't write it. Just do it loosely.
