Introduction to Boostly Podcast and Episode Theme
[00:00:00] Liam: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Boostly podcast. This is the podcast that gives hosts the tools, the tactics and trainings, so you can go out there and get yourself direct bookings. What we do on this podcast is we look at services, we look at great people out there who can help you with not only increasing your direct bookings, but increase your bookings in general.
[00:00:19] Liam: And part of increasing your bookings is making sure that you have really eye catching photos, which is the subject of today's podcast. We've got some special guests on here who are absolute experts at what they do, and they have been, they're making a returning appearance on this podcast, but it's been a few years since they've been on, so we thought it'd be great to get them back on.
Meet Brian and Kati from Overlooked 2 Overbooked
[00:00:40] Liam: Get your attention refocused on this particular subject. So you can go out there and you can increase your bookings. So let me introduce, we've got Brian and Kati. They're from a company called Overlooked 2 Overbooked. And as I say, absolute experts with photography and ideas around what you can do as a host, um, to improve your, your pitches.
[00:01:03] Liam: So welcome along, Brian, and welcome along, Kati.
[00:01:06] Brian: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
[00:01:08] Kati: Thank you.
[00:01:09] Liam: Thanks for being here. So first question, can you just give an intro to your company? I know you're the co founders of, um, Overlooked 2 Overbooked. Can you give us some, uh, some kind of background and, um, information on how you got started in this, in this sort of area
[00:01:24] Brian: is very organically.
[00:01:26] Brian: Derived, uh, we were what we call super guests for, uh, you know, pretty close to three years between like 17, uh, we were traveling and staying almost exclusively at Airbnb for relatively long periods, like month, two months, three months. And the relevance of that is that it put extra pressure on the search process, because you didn't want to pick a place that you're going to lock lock down for three months and then.
[00:01:53] Brian: it was a bad choice. Um,
[00:02:00] Brian: were not very good in 2015 to now. Uh, we'll talk ab could go. But um, I was h I was banging my head against the wall and pounding on desks and Kati can talk about how frustrated I would get because such simple things were not being accomplished like, it's like why, why are there only 10 photos How come only half the bedrooms have pictures, you know why are they blurry and dark and you know what part of town is this it right you just have question after question after question because they weren't being handled.
How Overlooked 2 Overbooked Began and Evolved
[00:02:31] Brian: In the listing, and, you know, the easy answer for that is the industry hadn't really matured that much. Probably most of those were being done by the host themselves. And not that that's a bad thing, but that host. Probably had other careers or at least one where they were a dentist or a lawyer or something.
[00:02:49] Brian: And this was like a sidelight. And, um, so anyway, we, uh, you know, Kati has a background that I'll have her tell you a little bit about it, but it was a perfect fit that I started kind of coercing her into saying that, you know, you could help these hosts so much with the things that you've learned from your career.
[00:03:08] Brian: And the other thing that was really exciting about it is I thought that ROI should be massive like this should be the most no brainer opportunity for hosts to upgrade their listing upgrade their sales and revenue and nightly rates and occupancy. And it should be a win win, all the way around. And so that that was the impetus to start what we've originally built was a video course that was mostly.
[00:03:32] Brian: DIY for somebody to be able to take their own pictures and edit their own pictures. And, um, and then we've since evolved and we'll talk about this later, where we now have a done with you and a done for you aspect where we can work with you live over the internet on your phone. Uh, or we can send a couple of our people to your house and do do the whole thing for you.
[00:03:52] Brian: So that's my version of I'm sure Kati has elements to add to it that I'm forgetting.
[00:03:57] Liam: A hundred percent. Uh, Kati, let us know, uh, your side of how you got into things.
[00:04:01] Kati: Yeah, that's essentially it. I mean, our backgrounds were kind of a perfect fit for this. Brian kind of coming from sales and marketing and I was an editor in, um, Hollywood and I worked in a small post-production company, but we worked for the big studios.
[00:04:14] Kati: Um, and right now I spend a lot of time editing photos and I kind of did the same thing even back then. Um, but I would color correct moving images. But it's sort of the same thing, and you have to apply the same logic to it, like how do you make this end product look as good as it can for the user, you know, I got to see what all of the viewers were going to see, like the final thing, and I really liked that aspect of it.
[00:04:39] Kati: And then, of course, traveling. Um, when we actually started traveling and looking at places, you can really feel the pressure as a guest. As a host, I know you have a thousand things going on, but, um, as a guest, when you really are sometimes in a different country, and you have to book a place, and all you have is the listing, you don't get extra info.
[00:04:57] Kati: Of course, you can message the host and ask a question, and then you hope that they respond in time, and you might have a bunch of browsers open, like Brian said, and trying to message you. Choose between a place. Um, you really don't want to have to go back on that. I mean, you just want to get a good place.
[00:05:14] Kati: It's not something you can quickly like, Oh, let me just cancel and change it like an outfit. Like you're putting your money on this. And people, we were working and traveling, but when people book these It might be their one vacation a year to your place, but that's that's a lot of pressure. So you're really feeling it like just a lot of questions emerged that you might not even think as a host and sometimes you don't see the force for the trees.
[00:05:39] Kati: You might be burying your lead, you know, you have a really good amenity and you're not showing it enough or, you know, there's a bit of a disconnect there. Um, it's kind of, you know, bosses and employees, teachers and students, you're all kind of coming at it from an opposite perspective. But really, you're in the same space and sometimes it's kind of just good to swap roles.
The Importance of Sequencing and Visual Flow in Listings
[00:05:56] Kati: And I feel like that gave us a really strong start to kind of see these from the guest perspective and say, look, we as a, as a guest, I can see, I would want to see this. I would want to know this. If you just show me this, you don't have to give me a long explanation. Just give me one photo of it. So we were kind of able to put together this guide from the guest perspective.
[00:06:15] Liam: There's a lot of people out there at the moment who have, um, they've got photos, which they don't emote feelings from, which I think was what I picked up from you guys, especially from, I listened as a, as a fan of Boostly podcast last time you guys were on this, and I picked up. Um, that it's about getting the emotiveness from the pictures, but also how many people out there do you think I'm missing out on?
[00:06:42] Liam: I think you mentioned the journey before taking people on the journey through the places. Do you think there's a huge amount of people out there who could, um, could benefit from Uh, really looking at the order of their pitches, and I know this is something which Airbnb is just they've pressed a button and they've reordered everything for you, which is terrible for me for a lot of them.
[00:07:02] Liam: But, um, yeah, what's your thoughts on this?
[00:07:04] Kati: For sure. There are a lot of people who could, um, kind of take a moment to think about it again from the guest perspective, who could benefit from really thinking about the. Journey, which then it sounds very foofy, like, oh, the journey and the emotional, like, what does that mean in a photo, but it really means like, does this make sense to a guest?
[00:07:23] Kati: And really, we think about it from a couple of ways, like, do I understand where I am in space? And then does it make me want to go there? And those are the kind of two things that we always try to marry. Like, does it still make sense? Like where you are in this little Location in the house and does it make me want to go there and not every space is equally sexy, you know You gotta take a photo of a bathroom too, and they're not all that amazing Or sometimes you just want to show that I have a bunch of kids stuff You have a high chair and a pack of play and all that stuff.
[00:07:51] Kati: You just take a photo of them all and and Put it, but in terms of the journey, um, but one of the things that people have now done, and of course, yes, you're right. Airbnb keeps throwing a monkey wrench at a beautifully crafted thing, um, without asking anyone. I wonder who their consultants are. Again, we will just bleep that out or blur it.
Creating an Emotional Connection Through Photos
[00:08:12] Kati: Just some OTA. But, um, and I understand where they're coming from with the way they're now trying to organize those things, they're trying to help host with the thing that I keep harping on when we do our, you know, calls and podcasts and all this is thinking about the sequencing and they try to make it easy for you to understand where you are in space so that there's you.
[00:08:28] Kati: Place makes sense. Because sometimes what people then do is thinking, well, my house is kind of boring. You know, you don't have a lot of stage things or scenes or, or, or cute stuff. You'd be like the way to mix it up is scramble the sequence. So we'll look at my kitchen, look at my pool. Look at the town, and then we're gonna come back to a bedroom and then we'll like go through the kitchen again.
[00:08:49] Kati: And then we come back to a different bedroom. I'm seeing this for the first time as a guest. I will be completely lost. Like you've lost me once. You've changed spaces that many times. So it really is and mean. And then about crafting, like how do you take you, you still kind of wanna take wide establishing shot, but not with a wide angle lens, but you wanna give us a sense of space the way you would in like an old timey movie.
[00:09:11] Kati: They would always. Shoot it wide angle, medium shot, close up. Like that was kind of the structure. Because it makes sense for the brain. You want to tell people, where am I first? Did we just change rooms? This is the front yard or the backyard? Where am I? And then you want to show me, oh, look at all this cute stuff.
[00:09:27] Kati: Like you would never in a million years take your friend to your house and just drag him by the hand over to like a little close up, like a little, you know, tchotchke or, or some clock or something, look at this thing, and then kind of go back. Oh, and by the way, we're in the living room. Like you enter a room, like, oh, take a look at our living room.
[00:09:43] Kati: We just, we did all the paint or whatever. And then you start kind of looking at the details. So that makes sense to us. Um, Yeah. And then that kind of becomes the journey when you think about like, well, my experience stuff, like, what do I add in there? We'll just think about any space where a person's going to sit down, hang out, spend time.
[00:10:02] Kati: And you're kind of creating a fantasy, right? Because in the fantasy, in the real estate world, the fantasy is that this is the house where I can build my life, right? Like, I'm going to put my stuff in there. It's going to look like my home. Vacation rentals are not that. You are providing a ready made thing.
[00:10:17] Kati: So you can go a little crazy. You can have your neon signs and you can have your movie room and you can have your, you know, whatever favorite sports team house, that's what it is. You'll find your tribe. Um, but then you kind of, you go through, you want it to make sense for people where you are. But then you kind of think like, wouldn't it be nice if you could just sit here, put your feet up and watch the game, or wouldn't it be nice if you could just lay down in a hammock and read a book and like, listen to the waves that's then kind of becomes the experience.
[00:10:46] Kati: But you can think about it and it like, because it seems like such a mess when you're starting like, where do I even begin? I just do whatever happened to just having a glass of orange juice. Um, you enter a space and you think like, what would you do here? What would you want to do here? One of my favorite examples for hosts is that you can draw a bubble bath.
[00:11:04] Kati: With that little tray on the bathtub and a book and a glass of wine, like I'm in, I am never in a million years going to get to do that on vacation, as long as my kids are in school, that's not going to happen. But I enjoy the fantasy of it. I do it. We craft this and it still works on me. Whenever I see it, I think like, Oh my gosh, I've maybe had one bubble bath in my life.
[00:11:26] Kati: But it still works. We're just creating that like you're all going to play a game together. We'll pretend screen time doesn't exist. Let's just play Monopoly. But it's the dream that you're kind of like, remember the fun times that you can have, um, and then kind of showing how they can have a good time at your place.
[00:11:43] Kati: What are, how are you going to make this happen?
[00:11:45] Liam: I think, uh, We understand obviously that the reasons really why we need to be all considering our photos and the kind of journey and the emotiveness without giving away the secret sauce. What are some of the things that the audience can do, which are either I say quick wins.
[00:12:03] Liam: I mean, there's anything that's worth doing is worth putting some effort in. But what are the things that that people can do to really Move the needle forward for them. And, um, of course, I know there is a course which you guys do, which we'll talk about in a moment without giving away the secret sauce.
[00:12:19] Liam: What is what is a couple of tips?
Practical Tips for Hosts to Improve Property Photos
[00:12:21] Brian: Well, first, I'm going to say we give away the secret sauce. We tried to decide whether there was stuff that we should be holding back. And we've kind of got all in on. Telling everything for a couple reasons. One, because there's a certain kind of person that is going to just suck that up and use it.
[00:12:37] Brian: And that's great. And that doesn't cost us anything. We've got plenty of business, but it also ends up being a way of generating business because certain people are going to hear it and say, that makes a lot of sense, but I don't have the time or the inclination to do that. So how much would it be for you guys to do it?
[00:12:52] Brian: So it kind of, you know, I'll expose our ulterior motive as well, but. Yeah. But we really do want everybody to be able to benefit one one way or another. I mean, I'll rattle off a couple of them and we've got probably 10 or more so Kati will fill in some gaps. Color is a big one, because if you, and this comes back to you, even if you don't Stay at short term rentals yourself.
[00:13:15] Brian: Currently, you should pretend like you're going to, like, go and pick a town and pretend you're going to go to Denver for a weekend or something like that and say, how many guests are we going to have? How many bedrooms do we need? What part of town do we want to be on? And look at what your options are and look at how good is the competition?
[00:13:31] Brian: You know, do they all blend together? Fortunately for us, to this day still, there's There's a lot of listings that are kind of average, you know, they're not bad, but they're average, right? So they're not standing out from each other. There's a lot of neutrals. And I don't know if that's because of Williams and Sonoma and Krafton.
[00:13:49] Brian: What are those? Pottery bar and all they're all grays and tans and browns and doesn't mean that those are bad things to have in your house, but you're back to square one when you're next to 50 other people who went to those same shops. Right. So, we like to strategically use color to grab kind of the lizard brain part of people when they're seeing something just to get them in the door right.
[00:14:11] Brian: So that's one for sure. We talked a little bit about research. The kind of research you can do is your own listings. If you don't have a lot of listings, you can look up the reviews of your competition. What kind of people are coming to stay with them? And what are they saying? They enjoyed. Maybe you can take on some of that stuff.
[00:14:29] Brian: Maybe you have some stuff that your competition doesn't.
[00:14:33] Liam: Thank you so much to you both for spending your time with us on this. I've certainly learned a lot and it's been fun to, I say catch up as if I was here last time. That was Mark interviewing you last time, but it's just great to have you both on the podcast.
[00:14:45] Liam: And I advise everybody listening to this. If there's any, um, any sort of it. Listings and you want some advice, go and check it out. Go to the website. The website's in the show notes. But if you just want that again, it is Overlooked 2 Overbooked. And if you just put that into, um, Google,
[00:15:03] Brian: the number 2, not to in the middle.
[00:15:05] Liam: Yes. Good point for this numerical 2. And, uh, yeah, you'll come up high on Google.
[00:15:11] Brian: If you do end up signing up for an assessment and you don't see a time that's convenient for you, I'm Brian, B R I A N, at overlooktooverbook. com, Kati is K A T I, at overlooked2overbooked.com, and we often have Relatively sparse options on the calendar because we only book so far in advance because we'd never know where I'm going to be and you know which weeks I can take a lot and which ones I can't, but we, but usually I can, I can fit in more than will actually show up on the calendar so if you say hey.
[00:15:44] Brian: You know, these are all inconvenient for where I live in the world or something like that. I will find a time that works for you. No problem.
[00:15:50] Liam: That's cool. And you know, the great thing is about that is because you're actually walking the walk as opposed to just, you know, you're out there doing this, which is, which is cool, which is, uh, you know, why there's limited availability.
[00:16:00] Liam: It's like you say, you're out and seeing these real places. So Um, if you're listening to this on the podcast or watching this on YouTube and there's somebody else who can get value, please do share it with a friend or with a fellow host or in on your social media. Um, this it for this episode. Thank you Brian.
[00:16:17] Liam: Thank you Kati, and we'll see you again on the Boostly podcast.
