The COHOST Funnel: How to Sign New Homeowners Before Fall Renewals

**Mike Reilly** (0:00)
Last quarter, I mentioned we reached out to 1,000 new people. We opened up 68 new opportunities. We closed seven of those, and we still have about 19 of those opportunities that we think we're gonna close here in Q3. But most of the contracts are typically signed in September, October, November, that sort of timeframe. That's when people make changes. And they are annual contracts, they're year-long contracts, and they typically have a 90-day cancellation period. If you're doing it in September, October, November, when you're less busy and you got less check-ins, you might be too late, and you might be waiting until next summer. All right, guys, let me tell you this. Most of you are in the thick of busy season right now. We've got more check-ins than ever. We're doing more revenue than ever. This is June, July, August, September, October, whether you're in the mountains or you're at the beach. These are some of the busiest times of the year. We've got more maintenance tickets than ever. We've got more cleaner issues than ever. We've got more guest issues than ever. But that's all good things, right? Let me tell you this. This is the best time to start building and opening up new opportunities for your management company as well. This is not time to be in operations mode, whether if you're the salesperson or you're the founder of the company, you got to make sure your team is doing the right things. But this is the best time. Let me tell you why. And over the next 15 minutes, this is going to be short one today. I'm going to tell you exactly why and exactly what to do right here in July and also in August to open up new pipeline and new opportunities.
Why is right now some of the best times? Well, number one, there's some pain. There's more check-ins than ever and homeowners are seeing that maybe their calendars are open for August and they're worried about it. Maybe they're not making as much this year than they did the previous years, right? There's going to be some sort of pain that your homeowners are going to have and it's going to be top of mind for them because they know there's also issues at the house. Maybe they got hit up for maintenance issues. Maybe they just saw their last statement thinking that they're going to get a big check, but there was a big AC issue or there was a big refund that they had to give a guest or just overall numbers are down. Also, if you're at the beach, maybe in the mountains, homeowners are typically visiting their homes this time of year as well. Yesterday, I had a call with somebody who's in Montana. They've got a property in North Carolina and they're coming for two weeks at the end of the month. We're going to go down and meet with them. It's a current Vecasa property. Right now is the best time. You may not be signing new contracts unless it's maybe new properties. You're not taking over and onboarding new properties right now because guests are there, right? But it is the best time, in my opinion, to start developing and opening up those opportunities. Right now, we're having right around, I think it was like four and a half calls with homeowners before we're even signing a contract. So four and a half calls is on average last quarter before we signed the contract. And one of those is typically on site walking through the property, whether the homeowner is there or homeowner is not, it's taken about four and a half calls. And so most people change their property manager in Q3 and Q4. So a lot of the contracts, at least in North Carolina, I'm not sure how it is in all the other states, but most of the contracts are typically signed in September, October, November, that sort of timeframe, December even. That's when people make changes. And they are annual contracts, they're year long contracts, and they typically have a 90 day cancellation period. So if somebody signs a contract on December 1st, the auto renewal is within 90 days, it's really 60 to 90 days. So the homeowner needs to let the current property manager know within those 90 days. If it's within 89 days, or 88, or 80, 50, or 20, a lot of the times the property manager, the current property manager, may say, hey, tough luck, we gotta manage this for another year, right? Cause maybe they've made some investments in more people because they're trying to forecast out next year. So you need to know when is their contract up. And like I mentioned, like most of the people we're talking to right now, their contracts are up in October, November, December. So right now is the best time to start opening up these conversations. And if you're doing it in September, October, November, when you're less busy and you got less check-ins, you might be too late and you might be waiting until next summer, you know, next June, July, August, to reopen some of these conversations. We've been hard at it. Last quarter, I mentioned we reached out to a thousand new people. We opened up 68 new opportunities. We closed 7 of those and we still have about 19 of those opportunities that we think we're going to close here in Q3. But we've been doing this work since mid-April. We've been opening up these conversations since mid-April. So in this training today, I'm going to walk you through what I call the co-host funnel. And co-host is an acronym and it stands for creating awareness, is the C. So this is creating awareness about your company. The O stands for opening up that conversation with the homeowner. The H stands for holding a discovery call with the homeowner. The O stands for offering your solution to the homeowner. The S stands for signing the contract and negotiations with the homeowner. And then the T stands for taking over and onboarding this homeowner. And if you missed my training I did last week, where I went through my entire six stage process for onboarding, go back and listen to that podcast and that training. I really went into very deep detail and we're always, always making it better. But our onboarding process is quite in-depth and it's always, always growing. So every single deal, every single contract that you sign, every single homeowner that you onboard goes through this co-host funnel. So I'm going to start at the top, creating awareness. That's the C in the co-host funnel. This is really having a social presence. This is having a digital business card. This is having a website that people can go to and understand that you are real and that you manage properties, right? So have a website, have someone's social presence. We post twice a week on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Google My Business. We use the STR Secrets CRM, which is powered by Go High Level, to help automate that for us. But you need to create awareness for your business and for your company. And you do that just through creating a digital business card, right? Creating a website, having a social presence. And then also with creating awareness, you need to make a list of homes and homeowners that you want to target, right? So if your brand is in Eastern North Carolina and you want four-bedroom or more properties, your company is probably NC Stays. You can go to ncstays.com to see my social presence and see my website. But that's what we focus on. Eastern North Carolina beaches, four bedrooms or more. And then if you're in the mastermind, we actually give you contact information. If you give us a list of properties that you want us to find the contact information of these homeowners for, whether they have a Airbnb or not, we actually go and skip trace the owner's contact information and create a big list for you to start reaching out to. So that's creating awareness for your company, digital presence, and then also making a list of homes that you want to target. That's the creating awareness. And then O stands for, all right, now that you've created awareness about your company, you need to open up the conversation. So like, what do I say to a homeowner? What do I even say to a homeowner when I first reach out to them or when I first have a conversation with them? So I always tell people you want to lead with value, and this is exactly what we do. So anytime we reach out to a homeowner that has an Airbnb, or maybe we meet somebody that has an Airbnb, I always want to add some sort of value to them, versus me just inspecting them and asking them a bunch of questions. So what we typically do is we tell them, hey, we run a vacation rental management company, it's boutique, we only focus on properties like yours that are more luxury, but I feel like you may be missing out on some revenue, could be making more money just through better marketing, better design and just overall better operations. And if you don't mind, I can create a video for you that will show you exactly how. And sometimes even the text that we're doing right now, I even say like, hey, we already created a video for you. Do you mind if I send it over? So this is not me asking for a meeting with them, or this is not me asking them to commit to sitting down with me for an hour or walk through their home, right? It's, hey, let me take a look at your listing and let me show you maybe where there are some areas of opportunity, some things that I would do to improve your listing.