What @Julie McCoy said and all the things that @Luke Carl has and will say to you! What a great mentor you have.
I am in my third full month of STR renting and we just paid our first official mortgage payment on March 1 on our log cabin in central Texas (La Grange). Since its 4 hours away from me, I did a lot of the prep myself in the beginning so I knew the quality of the work, how many supplies we had, what problems were cropping up and how to fix them, etc. Now that we've had guests come in and out and the property is doing well on the systems I've created, I'm wondering when the bottleneck is going to happen. That is to say, when am I going to have my cleaning lady text and say, "We don't have any more _______ and we've got six guests arriving tomorrow." That is one worry I have. But I try to be there at least once a month to put eyes on everything.
Getting your ranking up on whichever platform you use is going to be really important IMO. I've been super quick to respond to folks who inquire and who book. I make sure to send an email with access info to the property one week out. I send them a final email the day they arrive and try to troubleshoot problems the moment they come up (smoke alarm was beeping last night for our current guests but I told him to press the right button to stop it). If guests haven't said anything to me after 24 hours when they're at the cabin, I'll send them a quick message ensuring their comfort, which they seem to appreciate. I also go above and beyond to think of all the little things that a guest may need. Its 15 minutes to the nearest grocery store so I try to have all the toiletries, basic first aid, and basic groceries (bread, eggs, cheese, milk) for them at the cabin already. In my guests reviews, they have mentioned this time and again and I think its worth the extra $10/stay.
I have a group celebrating their mom's 70th birthday there right now. So I hired one of my cleaning ladies to make etched wine glasses for them. Each has my cabin's branding on it and the guests' name. They already texted me that they were thrilled about them. They cost me $4 each. Not bad.
Personalization, even if its paint pen on a $0.80 stemless wine glass, seems to really work for my clientele so far. It shows them that I care, I've thought of them, and I want to go that extra step to make sure they feel comfortable and happy.
Is this sustainable? Will I be doing this in 2020? Not sure. All I know is I'm busting my *** to get those 5-star reviews in my first year.
I'm on four different platforms right now. Airbnb, HomeAway, GlampingHub, and Booking.com I've gotten bookings from all these websites but the most from Airbnb. The longest stays are coming from HomeAway. I had a gentlemen book two weeks in Feb, two weeks in March, and one week in April through HomeAway. But I got my very first booking through GlampingHub. On Booking.com, its our cabin, and two other local hotels for our immediate area, so there's hardly any competition. But my rates are very high on BDC because there's no way to collect a deposit online from guests (and I'm not going to ask for cash in hand like BDC recommends). All the calendars are synced but I check them each to make sure there is no double booking after I get a reservation on one platform.
Like Julie said, create your systems. They will serve you greatly. I have systems for cleaning, staging, quarterly/annual maintenance, inventory checks through Properly. It took hours to set all those checklists up but for $10/month, its worth its weight in gold because I don't have a single doubt that my housekeeper knows what to do because its on the checklist. And if they start texting me a bunch of questions, I defer them to the Properly app.
I set up a FB ad for my cleaners. I phone interviewed 6 of them. Offered a job to 5 of them. Met 4 of them at the cabin, and now heavily rely on 2 of them to do most of the cleaning work. I know that I'll need to put up another FB ad asking for more help when the others drop off but I'm ready for that because all my systems are in place. They are paid through Paypal, FB payments, etc.
I have quarterly insect treatments at the cabin and they have my card number. The mortgage and all the bills are automatically paid. Set up as much as possible to run without you having to go in and click the button, and you'll start seeing the benefits of it.
I spent a LOT of money on bedding and furniture. New mattress and bedframe in master, new couch and loveseat, new flatscreen TV, Wifi, cable subscriptions. Now I know I'll need to spend some money on new sheets because the cheap microfiber sheets aren't going to breath well enough in the heat of the Texas summer. So I'll have to go with 100% cotton, which I should have just bought in the beginning. Plus, the lint of microfiber is just plain annoying.
I hope this info helps you. You're going to do great!
