Start your journey by checking out the competitive landscape in your area. What already exists? What’s missing? And where can your property stand out as different? This class will open your eyes to what’s already in front of you in plain sight.

Review your options for securing a property that you can turn into a business, either as the owner of that property or as a partner to the owner. If you’re a partner, you’ll also review partnership options and the pros/cons of each.

The starting point. In Class 3 you’ll learn what connects your business, your market, and your perfect customer. With that, we’ll show you four options for how to get a property to start your business.

Set yourself up for maximum success by identifying your entrepreneurial preferences and tendencies so you can lean into what you like and/or do best. You’ll find there are no right answers, but many answers that are right for you.

Dive deep into the financial realities of rentalpreneurship and come to a realistic yearly break-even number for your business. This will inform your target guest, the experiences you offer, and the minimum rates you charge.

Explore all money-making opportunities for your new business, decide whether they're worth leveraging, and how to get the most out of them. This will give you revenue and profit goals you can work towards hitting and then surpassing.

Let’s attach a timeline to your plan so you know the order of when, and why, things are happening. Sticking to a strict (and realistic) timeline ensures you have thought of everything that goes into a successful launch. A good timeline will also keep you motivated and accountable.

In this course, we’re going to make your Stay Story real by mapping out your guest experience. This means getting into the details of how your property is physically set up, how guests will access and use your property, and the information, rules and policies that ensure a successful stay for everyone. By the end, you’ll have everything you need to put your story into a listing that guests all over the world can find.

This is where you’ll bring your Stay Story to life with a physical space that delivers on the expectations you've set. You’ll learn to enhance the experience through the property’s interior and exterior features, its immediate surroundings, and the greater area.

You may already have a few ideas now for what amenities you want to offer, but you’ll have even more ideas after this class. This course will teach you to examine your property’s earning potential from different angles to find money-making opportunities and legitimate reasons to charge more.

As the boss, you can set the check-in/check-out rules to suit your lifestyle and availability. But it’s your ideal guest whose lifestyle you have to suit if you want their booking. In this course, you’ll learn how to balance the two.

Give your guests everything they need to have the kind of stay that gives them every reason to leave you and your property glowing reviews. In this course, you’ll learn what needs to be in a property guide and what you could consider adding.

Clearly define and articulate the expectations you have of your guests so you can feel at peace during their stay and confident you’ll be ready for the next guest. In this class, you’ll learn to see the line between reasonable and overbearing.

Protect your property, your business, and quite probably your personal finances with a rental agreement. In this course, you’ll learn what you should and shouldn’t include in a rental agreement.

This course is about putting your property on the rental market, which you do with a listing. When complete, you'll know how to get your property’s central listing online and ready to book.

The best way to succeed as a rentalpreneur is to list your property in many places. But you don’t want to be managing your listing on every platform, do you? Instead, each platform can pull from your central listing. Here you’ll learn how to set up your central listing.

To book your property, your ideal guest has to trust you’ll keep them safe and believe you can deliver on all the romance conveyed in your Stay Story. Without creative listing content that’s also truthful, guests will pass on your property for someone else’s.

After price, photos have the biggest impact on whether or not someone will consider your property. In this course, you’ll learn what to take pics of, how to take them, and in what order you should be presenting them to stay true to the story they tell.

A good review is more valuable than any description you’ll write for your property. In this class, you’ll learn how to make it easy for guests to leave a positive review, subtly remind them if they forget, and secure your first few 5-star reviews.

Pricing is deeply personal in that everyone will justify their rates differently. In this class, you’ll learn four general pricing strategies to consider as a baseline for your approach. You’ll also learn why and how to change your price throughout the day.

Your calendar holds your business together. Bookings, cleanings, maintenance, deliveries - All working seamlessly together but scheduled to stay out of each other’s way. In this class, you’ll learn to use a calendar specifically for the short-term rental industry.

Cancellations happen, initiated either by your guest or by you. How you handle a cancellation will greatly influence if guests rebook in the future. A well-thought-out cancellation policy is key, which is what this class will help you set up.

Your website should be your #1 booking source, because when guests book through it you keep all the money, rather than having to pay commissions to listing websites. But first you need a website, which is what you’ll learn how to build in this class.

Make it easy for your guests to pay you, and it will be a lot easier to close bookings and get your money on time. In this class, you’ll learn about the value of a payment processor and how to use it.

In this course, you’ll learn how to find your ideal guest. You’ll hear about the sources you can use, how to use them, and the pros and cons of each. Most importantly, you’ll know how and where to start getting bookings and grow your business.

Review the wide ecosystem of listing platforms, including for-profit places like Airbnb and non-profits like a company HR department’s housing lists. Or, leverage your own channels, like your website and social media feeds.

To make more money from your property, book more guests directly through your website so you can avoid paying royalties to booking platforms like Airbnb. In this class, you’ll review a few ways to drive traffic to your site.

Many don’t think of Google as the place to find a short-term rental; even though it’s the #1 place people search. In this class, you’ll learn how and when to prioritize Google as a listing platform for your property.

AirBnB is the most well-known booking platform, because it offers arguably the best customer experience. It makes sense for you to be there, but only if you have a strategy to account for its high fees. In this class, you’ll learn how to build a plan to win on Airbnb.

VRBO was the original vacation home booking platform and is definitely worth considering for certain properties. In this class, you’ll see if it makes sense to put your property on VRBO, and how to get the most from your listing.

The world is full of potential guests, and most of them outside North America will be looking for you on booking.com. In this class, you’ll be introduced to this surprisingly large platform and learn how to use it.

Learn how to make it easy for a first-time guest to become a second-, third- and fourth-time guest. And pick up a few tricks for encouraging your guests to come back and spread the word through their social networks.

With the right response, you can turn a simple question about your property into a long relationship with a repeat guest. In this class, you’ll learn how to interpret inquiries and respond back in ways that help potential guests feel well-informed and confident about choosing to book your property.

In this last course, we’ll be looking at your “stay plan” which is how to ensure guests have a successful stay at your property. We’ll review guest communications, property turnover, and fraud prevention.Then we’ll look at how to surprise and delight your guests with unexpected joy that builds trust and goes a long way to securing repeat business and referrals.

So much of closing a booking comes down to how a guest feels about their interactions with you. A strong communication plan can help you say the right thing, in the right way, all the time. That’s what this course covers.

A dirty or messy property is the fastest way to get a negative review, which is why the relationship you have with your cleaning crew will be among your most important. In this class, you’ll learn how to choose and work with high-quality, reliable cleaners.

The short-term rental industry as we know it is still in an early stage, and with this relative immaturity comes bad actors looking to take advantage of you. In this class, you’ll learn how to spot red flags.

Excessive noise, damage, a pet that's not supposed to be there - these things happen, and this class prepares you to deal with them swiftly and smartly so as not to damage relationships you want to preserve or wind up with a bad review.

Congratulations! You now know the Futurestay Method. You have a business plan in hand and both short-term and long-term goals - all tailored around an amazing Stay Story that speaks to your ideal guest. Trust your Stay Story and create your successful short-term rental business!