How to Build Your Team to Scale Your Airbnb Business
Summary
This article discusses building a team to scale your Airbnb business, emphasizing the importance of clear expectations, key performance indicators (KPIs), and a 'hire slow, fire fast' approach. It also touches on revenue management strategies, including daily and weekly pricing routines, and highlights the shift in CEO focus from being busy to being strategic. This is crucial for hosts managing multiple properties to understand team dynamics, optimize revenue, and effectively manage their time.
Key Insights
- •STR pricing is dramatically harder than hotel pricing due to product uniqueness and operational constraints.
- •STR operators can become overwhelmed, where everything feels urgent, priorities constantly shift, and growth never creates the relief operators expect.
- •CEOs waste 30 to 50 percent of their time on low-value activities.
- •Most hosts underperform not because they lack tools, but because they don’t know what to look at, when to look at it, or how to interpret booking behavior once it shows up.
- •Creating a job score card for each role and utilizing key performance indicators (KPIs) helps in holding team members accountable.
Action Items
- ✓Create a job score card for each role in your STR team, clearly defining expectations and KPIs.Effort: mediumImpact: medium
- ✓Identify your biggest bottleneck in your STR business and re-evaluate CEO priorities to focus on strategic tasks rather than being overly involved in day-to-day activities.Effort: mediumImpact: high
- ✓Implement daily and weekly pricing routines to stay ahead of the market and optimize revenue.Effort: mediumImpact: high
Tools & Resources
- →The A Method for Hiring, Scaling Up, Traction: The article mentions several books: 'The A Method for Hiring' by Geoff Smart and Randy Street, 'Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It … and Why the Rest Don’t' by Verne Harnish, and 'Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business' by Gino Wickman.
- →Get Paid For Your Pad: The article mentions Get Paid For Your Pad, Freewyld Foundry, Overnight Success, The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart and Randy Street, Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It … and Why the Rest Don’t by Verne Harnish, and Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman.
- →Freewyld Foundry: The article mentions a podcast episode regarding a free revenue review from Freewyld Foundry.
Watch Out For
- ⚠Don't confuse action with momentum. Being busy doesn't mean your STR business is progressing.
- ⚠Avoid the mistake of hiring the first available person without clear expectations and a defined role.
Related News
User Profile: Mountainside Treasures
This article shares the experiences of an STR host who has grown their business from a single condo to nearly 30 properties, highlighting the importance of guest service and the use of OwnerRez. The host emphasizes that delivering a good guest experience is a key factor for success, and struggles with the power of OTAs and challenging guests. Consider OwnerRez as a key tool for managing your properties.
Owner Statements 2.0: Faster, Clearer and Built for Growing Portfolios
Lodgify has released Owner Statements 2.0, promising faster and clearer reporting for property managers. This update aims to cut down manual work and improve the quality of reports shared with owners.
Financial firms face rising cyber risks, data challenges
This article discusses rising cyber risks and data challenges in the financial services industry, including fraud prevention using AI. While not directly about STRs, it highlights the importance of data quality, which directly impacts the effective use of AI for risk management and decision-making for STRs.

Booking.com Refunds Policy: Process and Ts & Cs Explained
This article from iGMS explains Booking.com's refund policies and cancellation options for hosts. It highlights the importance of choosing a cancellation policy that balances flexibility to attract bookings with financial considerations, and encourages hosts to experiment with different policies and rates to find the ideal balance.