How Lodgify's back-office features helped this multi-property owner to scale her business

Background

The host:

Lyn Johnson

The property:

Paradise Meadows

The story:

Lyn Johnson has always been passionate about hospitality. Before even deciding to join the vacation rental industry, she was welcoming family, friends, and acquaintances into the self-made glamping site in her backyard. She found that she loved setting up and decorating the space in preparation for receiving her guests, as well as the whole experience of seeing people stay with her.

Hosting comes naturally for some people, as is the case with Lyn Johnson. Once Johnson realized her love for the job, she decided to materialize her passion by opening up her glamping site to the public and rebranding it as Paradise Meadows.

As time passed and she built confidence within the industry from using Lodgify, she decided to take on the task of opening a vacation rental near Chattanooga, Tennessee, called the Danish Cottage, as a sort of “COVID-project” to keep her busy during the pandemic.

Challenge

Johnson was already familiar with the “making the table pretty” aspect of running a vacation rental business. Right off the bat, she was comfortable with the preparation and welcoming of guests. She even set up social media accounts to track the construction of her rental properties to gain an audience before opening her doors.

The part that gave her the most trouble getting started was the back office aspect, that’s managing bookings, payments, and calendars. She wasn’t sure if she should have people PayPal her for payments or if she should use her personal family calendar, which added more stress to the mix of opening her business.

Solution

Lyn Johnson found her solution to managing her back office with Lodgify.

I was thrilled when I found Lodgify and found out that they would help me get all the back office items synchronized. I could synchronize the Lodgify calendar to my calendar, and that was very helpful.

The onboarding and support that she received, along with the website builder, were the icing on the cake of her Lodgify package. Because she purchased a yearly subscription plan, she was also able to get the domain names “Paradise-Glamping” and “Danish-Cottage.” While she has since expanded and broadened the name to “Paradise Meadows,” the initial domain names helped lead people straight to her websites and social media pages due to the easy-to-recognize branded name.

What she enjoyed most about Lodgify’s website builder

Lyn Johnson found the website builder function easy to use and navigate. According to her, what really set Lodgify apart from other website builders was the guided questions catered to a vacation rental owner.

As I was building the website, I was given questions that reminded me to include all the aspects needed in creating a rental: What are you amenities? How will you offer discounts? etc. Plus, it was all very personalized to the vacation rental industry.”

This way, it was impossible to forget anything when setting up her business, she added.

Results

Seeing the success that Lodgify brought to her glamping site and how easy the software was to use, Lyn felt confident in expanding her business to include her first rental home, the Danish Cottage. Due to location, the Danish Cottage has to be rented out for no fewer than 30 days at a time, which she felt comfortable doing after seeing how successful her first property was with Lodgify.

But, her venture hasn’t stopped there!

How did Lodgify help Lyn grow her business?

Lodgify has helped Lyn to broaden her horizons, and in fact, she is currently in the process of renovating two other old cottages to rent out as well. All of these will be added to her Lodgify account and managed on the same system.

I knew the system worked well and that I could integrate the two new properties into one place and even into my personal calendar.

Since renovating other old cottages to rent out, Lyn has also added a tiny house and a charming farmhouse to her rental property expansion plan.

Advice for other hosts

As a multi-property owner, Lyn Johnson wants other rental owners and managers to know that you need to have a balance between being a good host and having solid backing to manage your business.

You need to have the combination of being someone who wants to host guests and creating a welcoming environment, but it has to go smoothly.

“It’s not going to work if you don’t have a booking system that works smoothly or if you aren’t able to offer refunds,” Lyn noted.

You can be the best host out there, but every host needs a backbone vacation rental management software you trust to take your business to the next level.