Buying an STR Management Company at 24 with Patryk Swietek

Quick Summary

Jeremy interviews Patryk Swietek, who bought a short-term rental (STR) management company at 24. Patryk shares insights on blending tech with real estate, branding, dynamic pricing, and scaling operations. He highlights focusing on Joshua Tree, mentorship, and building an STR community through networking, meetups, and conferences.

Key Points

• Patryk transitioned from tech to real estate, merging his expertise to optimize STR management systems.
• Strategic pricing adjustments and system improvements led to increased revenue.

1. Initial difficulty in acquiring clients led Patryk to purchase a management company with existing contracts, utilizing a creative deal structure to mitigate risks (e.g., retention-based payouts).
2. Building a professional brand and establishing credibility were critical for scaling his business.
3. Networking through events, meetups, and social media significantly boosted client acquisition.
4. Utilizing dynamic pricing strategies, including seasonal adjustments and last-minute discounts, allowed him to maximize revenues.
5. Concentrating operations in one geographic area like Patryk (Joshua Tree) provided economies of scale and a competitive edge.

Full Transcript

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Jeremy: We are live with the Short-Term Rental Pros Podcast. I'm here today with my boy Patryk Swietek. He is one of our pros out of the West Coast, doing some big things in Cali land. Patryk, tell us about yourself. Tell them how we met a few weeks ago and tell them that I'm actually taller in real life than I appear on this podcast.

Patryk: So, funny story—the first time I met Jeremy, it was at the Nashville event Short-Term Wealth. And, um, funny thing is, I saw him, and the first comment I made was, "Wow, you're a lot taller than your Facebook profile," because I started to recognize like, "Oh, you're that guy! I've seen your face around, but I just didn't know how tall you were."

And so Jeremy pulls out and says, "Well, this is something, believe it or not, that a lot of people think. They see me on video, and they think I'm a lot shorter than I am. So, there's that."

And so we want to make sure that we support people like Jeremy that have small people online appearances. So, please, please give your support. Please let him know—DM him and just say, "Hey, you know, we're here for you. We're always supporting you. You're tall.

Jeremy: You look 6'3" online; you don't look 5'3"." Well, thank you, Patryk. You always build me up. But yeah, tell us about yourself—what's your background? How'd you become a short-term rental pro?

Patryk: Yeah, so my background is very heavy on tech. I built my first tech company when I was 14, and from there, I was building tech products. I raised venture capital. I did the whole thing. Eventually, I got away from tech. I realized I wanted to get into real estate. And what better way to do it than pair up the skills of tech and get into a real estate company?

So, I started working for a short-term rental company in California. I moved out to California. I was actually originally from Chicago. So, I moved out to the Los Angeles area and started working for a company called The Bond State.

I was a product manager there, so I helped them scale from 200 units to 1,000-plus. They laid me off during COVID, and then I was on this hunt for co-host clients. I had a horrible time getting co-host clients, even though I had all of this experience.

"Hey, I used to work at The Bond State! I know all the management principles. I know I could double your revenue. I know I could do all these different cool things for you. Like, please, hire me to be your co-host!"

And it was tremendously hard. No matter how much I had behind me, it was so hard to get clients. I tried everything, and I decided, "You know what? I can't find a client, I'm just going to do it myself and buy my own short-term rental."

And that's what I did. I bought my own short-term rental. So, I bought this small little cabin in the Smoky Mountains—you gotta start somewhere. Bought the cabin; it was making $33,000 a year. I almost doubled it, I made $60,000 that first year.

So, I doubled what they were making and realized I have a good management style and principles. I did nothing to the property. I didn’t rehab it. I didn’t do anything crazy spectacular in terms of different amenities to put in or whatever. It was as-is. All I did was just better marketing, better management, and better pricing.

Once I built the systems around it, I realized I had something. From there, I met my business partner, and we've done six deals since. I just went under contract for two more deals in the last two days at the time of this recording. So, there you go. And then…

Jeremy: So, you've got two more in the portfolio

Patryk: A lot more than I own, but I manage 24 for other people on top of that.

Jeremy: 24? Wow, okay, so 24. And when you said you were having trouble getting these co-host clients, you took an alternative route. That's one that I haven’t really heard of as much—you bought a property management company. Tell us, what was that like? What did that look like?

How did you—give us the 30-second TLDR on how you acquire a property management company and what that looks like.

Patryk: Hey, I'm looking for co-host clients. Somebody comes up to me with 16 co-host clients—AKA a property management company. They say, "Do you want in on this property management company?" I said, "Yeah." And here we are.

Jeremy: And they gave their price? If you don’t mind sharing, how does a property management deal get structured? Is it like you pay them all upfront? Do you value it based off their revenue or their EBITDA, or what? What does buying a property management company, or how that does get priced?

Patryk: So, normally, property management companies—and just business in general—get priced on EBITDA, right? Which is Earnings Before Income Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. I don’t know what the full acronym stands for, but it's pretty much your net, in essence—kind of.

Anyway, so you have that amount, and it’s like a multiple, usually it’s like three or five or something like that. But this business was interesting because they got a lot of clients in the last six months. So, that needed to be prorated across the full year.

We had to prorate each individual property as if it had a full year and how much it could potentially make. That’s why we couldn’t go off of EBITDA; we had to go off of gross.

We also knew that certain employees within the company were not going to be with the company anymore. That was a little challenging. They were a lot more hands-off, that’s why they hired these people. But for us, we’re going to be a little bit more hands-on, and we have been, and we’ve built out the infrastructure to make it more hands-off now.

But that’s kind of the deal there. And we did one to one and a half acts of the gross revenue. They also had other money generators. They had money generation in the handyman arena. So, they were deploying, you know, a handyman that was on salary. They paid him a flat fee, and then they were charging clients 60 bucks an hour, or 35, or whatever, to do different tasks. That was revenue there.

And then you also have revenue from cleans. The cleaners, you know, you make a margin. They had an internal cleaning department, which adds value to that as well.

And then the management contracts, obviously. Now, the management contracts, what’s interesting about them is their big value add is, "Hey, we allow people to leave the management contract at any given point, and it's month to month." All it takes is a two-month notice, meaning that the company is actually valued at less because of that. Everyone could leave in an instant if they really wanted to, right?

So, how do you hedge against that? What we did was we put 50% of the money upfront, right, and then 50% on the back end in tiered systems. So, if we make, let's say, we assume that there's going to be an 80% churn on average. So, let's say that it's a 70% or 60% churn...

Jeremy: When you say 80% Churn that means 80% stay or 80% leave in a year?

Patryk: Oh, yeah—retention! Sorry. Eighty percent, yes.

Jeremy: Okay, 20% churn.

Patryk: Yes, sorry about that. Yeah, good clarification, Jeremy. This is why I need you.

So, yeah, we have the 20% churn and 80% retention—or attrition, or whatever you want to call it. And so, we had a tiered system. Like, if we get less, then that second half is cut a little bit less, right? So, you only make as much as the retention of the clients that you gave us, pretty much. Does that make sense?

Jeremy: Yeah, so essentially, if the clients leave, if they're not sticky, then they get, you know, the payout on their end. So, they're incentivized to help you retain clients for at least a year.

Patryk: Yes. Okay, we did it off of gross revenue, so that's kind of interesting because we've actually increased revenues by 30%. So, even though we lost some clients, we also kind of stepped in and made more money to cover those clients, if that makes sense.

Jeremy: Did you gain new clients, or you just had the existing clients make more money?

Patryk: Existing clients. Just like, through our pricing strategy, we increased gross revenues adjusted for seasonality, next month after we took over by 30%.

Jeremy: So, were they just—the previous property manager—obviously, you're doing things the right way and whatnot, but were they doing things the wrong way?

Patryk: No, like, not necessarily. They were good at what they were doing. They were doing all the systems, all the PriceLabs, all that. They were managing it correctly. They had full infrastructure in place.

The only thing is, like Jeremy, you and I, people that are listening to this podcast, we stay on top of things. We see what the best are doing.

Jeremy: We're pros!

Patryk: We're pros, and that's why this is the name of the podcast, right? And the pros do what pros do. Pros have to keep learning. Because if you don't keep learning, you can go amateur. So, if you want to stay pro, you gotta keep up with the pros.

And that means being in the top, you know, five percent of people that are in the space and really going out of your way to learn the best principles to beat out your competition. You're in a business world, it's a hospitality business, and you have to run your business better than the person next door. The only way to do that is by learning and growing and doing what other people are doing to keep on track.

Jeremy: Yeah, and that's why you guys are listening here. So, I like to kind of bring a good bit of tangibility, and that's why I asked—what specifically did you do to out-earn that person? Because I try, you know, we try to give tangible advice.

So, like, did you have a different pricing strategy than they did, or just one example? Yeah, like, what did you do pricing differently? I'm assuming you did.

Patryk: Yeah, we did. So, we came in there, and we just applied our principles for pricing. And really, it's not rocket science, but it is an art form in some ways, right? I've realized that pricing is one of those things where you have to understand the property, and you have to feel it out.

I don't know how to explain it. There are standard operating procedures that we built in place. Like, for instance, we do—for us—on our stack, we do, like, depending on the lead time, we'll do a 33% cut gradually until the lead time.

So, let's say the lead time is 21 days. It takes, on average, people 21 days out to book. That means we want to set that. From 21 days out, it gradually goes down 33%.

Jeremy: Yeah, you set the, uh—you set the 30% last-minute discount out of, to be a gradual decline starting at 0% at 21 days, going to 30% at day, you know, today.

Patryk: Yeah, exactly.

Jeremy: So, you did more aggressive last-minute discounts.

Patryk: There are also other principles, like, you know, driving those three-night bookings versus the two-night bookings if they book further out. And some properties are in high demand, so I'd rather get those four or five-day bookings if I can in peak season versus not.

Jeremy: Sort of like dynamic minimum stays?

Patryk. Yeah minimum stays, implementing that. Also, implementing, you know, just adjusting the base price accordingly to the market. Like, seeing what the market's doing and really being attentive to that.

You know, orphan gaps—making sure those are covered. Small things like that. But those things add up, and they truly make a difference.

So, it's something that somebody can apply right away. I sit down with my students personally, and I'm sure you do this too, Jeremy, and we just go over pricing.

And I'll have somebody pull up their, um, their pricing module, like everything they're doing, and I can just, like, go into it and see the property and tell them exactly why or what they should be doing, right?

So, people learn by example, and that is just a lot easier. It's a lot more visual to, like, understand PriceLabs. But yeah.

Jeremy: Yeah, so guys, PriceLabs 101 is: use PriceLabs. Like, that's, you know, you. People might think they're a pro if they just start and they plug in the base rate and minimum rate on PriceLabs. A lot of people do that, and then that's all they ever do. You know, they set it and leave; they never do anything else.

Pros, what they do is they go a step beyond that. They do dynamic minimum stays, like what Patryk said. You know, a certain number of days out, you should want only longer-term bookings.

You don’t want someone booking one day on your calendar six months from now, because that’s going to disable someone from booking a week. You know, you’d rather have four weeks booked than 28 one-night stays. So, that’s what we call dynamic minimum stays.

Last-minute pricing, for example—lately, bookings have been... The lead time across Airbnb and short-term rentals is a lot lower. Meaning, lead time is the amount of days before someone checks in that they book.

So, if I book a house—today’s Wednesday that we’re filming this, Wednesday, April 26th—if I book a place for this weekend starting Friday, that’s two days' lead time. Lead time has been getting a lot lower.

And because of that, you have to do more aggressive last-minute discounts, which is something Patryk did in his portfolio.

Alright, so you bought a property manager. So, you kind of have two parts of your portfolio: it’s the property management side, and then it’s the buying side.

I think it’s interesting that you’re in one market. Am I—I think you might have one other beyond that one market you’re in. Not diversifying across 10 markets. Like, what are your thoughts on kind of your specialization in Joshua Tree?

Patryk: Yeah, so it’s definitely something I think about, right? It’s a two-fold thing. I’m in a growth stage right now. So, for me, I need economies of scale. And this is just a hypothesis, right? Like, I don’t know if I’m doing it the right way. I think that I’m taking a much heavier risk by having everything in one area.

You do want to diversify, and I recommend people diversify asset classes, diversify where they’re buying, the whole nine yards.

However, for us, we have our full team in Joshua Tree. We have all the cleaners, all the handymen. Like, when we get a property under contract, we know very damn well that we can sell that property, no problem.

And then we could also potentially even sell it to our potential client and then use them to get the management fee. So, you know what I mean?

Like, there are so many ways where we could double, triple, or quadruple our revenues because we’re focused on one area. And now everyone knows me as the Joshua Tree guy. So, I get everyone flooding me with Joshua Tree deals all the time, and I’m getting crazy deal flow. It’s just so much easier. It’s kind of like what Bill Faith was in Gulf Shores, right?

I mean, that was his area of specialty, and it allowed him to grow this empire that he’s built. And yeah, I do see there’s a lot of value to that. A big reason why I went from owning to having a co-hosting business was because the co-hosting business is cash flow. Regardless of what the market’s doing, I’m making money.

Jeremy: So, again, what, 20—what? 20% of gross revenue, or what? Are you charging 25%?

Patryk: So, on average, we do 25%. So, let’s say that we get 25% of gross revenue on $100,000…

Jeremy: What do your—how, yeah—what is the... If you don’t mind sharing, like, you know, how many listings? What is the annual gross revenue at your 25%? What’s the take-home from that?

Patryk: Okay, so... We haven’t had it for a full year, so we can’t really say that. But last month we did $180,000.

Jeremy: Coachella—well I guess Coachella’s April.

Patryk: Coachella was March, so…

Jeremy: How was Coachella? Did any crazy sht happen? For those of you guys who don’t know, Coachella is a huge music festival in California. Patryk, did you go?

Patryk: No, I didn’t. Um, I—I’m running... Yeah, I probably will one day, but I was just grinding away on my business. I’m boring.

Jeremy: Patryk was too busy hosting people who were going to the festival to go to it himself. but was it crazy? Crazy bookings for Coachella?

Patryk: Oh, yeah. So, April is the best month, and these weekends... Like, we make so much money, it’s ridiculous. There are some properties that were like—especially on the weekend—we’re nearing $2,500 a night, $3,000 a night. Like, crazy. Um, yeah, it’s a good time.

Jeremy: So, I do some co-hosting, and like, the thing I don’t like about it is... I mean, just for example, I got a booking request the other day for a Luxe property that I co-host.

It was a $28,000 booking request for seven nights—so $4,000 a night booking request. You know, my—you know, you can calculate my fee. If I’m charging 20%, that’s right—almost $5,000 for a single booking. The owner didn’t let me accept it. And then he called.

Patryk: What did he say?

Jeremy: Well, the thing I don’t... I mean, he just has a lot of money. I’ll just say that. Like, really cool dude, like, has built an amazing property, and for him, like, 28 G’s might be like, you know, what’s $20 for somebody else, you know? So, he just wanted more time to make up his mind.

And he also, you know, has to think about renewing insurance because the insurance premium is super expensive on the property. I don’t know, it’s a lot going on.

And to me, I’m like, dude, I’m doing a million things, you know? I’ve got 25 properties. I’m putting offers to buy another one. Like, just, if you want to rent it, rent it. If you don’t, don’t. You know?

Like, we’re gonna accept people if they’re giving us $30,000 for a week, for like seven people. Otherwise, let’s not rent out the property.

Patryk: Yeah, no, 100%. That’s kind of like, you pulled... I can just imagine your face with, like, the $5,000 in your hand, like, “Oh, I got it,” and then it’s just taken away from you right then and there. That’s funny.

Jeremy: Yeah, he’s also gotten an $80,000 booking request for, like, 20 days before. And we didn’t accept that one either.

Patryk: Why doesn’t he accept that though? I don’t understand that.

Jeremy: I mean, it’s just like, you know, I don’t know. Maybe he wants to go to the house himself. Like, “You know what, if I want to go?” I don’t know. “Why would I want someone staying for a month? Like, what if I want to go?” That’s the price you pay before letting something go. The guy has just done very well in his life, very successful.

Patryk: For sure. So, what I like to do in these situations is, I set the expectation with my owners. When I onboard an owner, I tell them, like, there are a few guidelines I have. One of which is: don’t respond to guests or get super involved like that, because we need to make sure that we respond.

There might be two messages going at once, and guests might be confused. Like, especially in these kinds of situations, we’re on it—don’t worry about it. Just empower us to do that.

And then the second thing is the empowerment of us being like an agent, in the sense that we will act in the best interest of the owner. And so, you know, if you’re going to constantly use the property, like, that’s not...

You know, there’s twofold, right? It’s the best interest of the owner, but also, we work in the best interest of the property as a foundational element to support the bottom line, right? Like, you save money.

Jeremy: Do you have a partner in the property management business?

Patryk: Yes. So, I have a business partner, but I also have 30 people under me—like, cleaners.

Jeremy: A lot of cleaners.

Patryk: A lot of cleaners, virtual assistants. Yeah, because, like, think about it. There’s one turn day—like, Sunday is a huge turn day. So, if you’re getting everyone turning their houses on Sunday, you’re gonna have a lot of cleaners go out to the houses, right?

Jeremy: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I can only imagine. I mean, because we’re across multiple locations, different markets, I think eight—yeah, eight is the most we have in one market. We also have seven boats there, so that’s an additional logistical complexity. But yes, I know that even seven houses on a weekend could be insanely...

Patryk: Oh, yeah, crazy.

Jeremy: So, I can only imagine 20—what? 20? 20, including the ones you own, like, you know?

Patryk: Yeah, well, not all of them are launched. I think there’s, like, five of them—four or so, four or five—that we’ve signed that haven’t launched yet because they’re still in heavy rehab or there’s something going on, or they’re doing new builds.

So, active right now is more like, I think, 23, 24.

Jeremy: Got it. Okay, so, what I want to get into—and I like that you do the co-host strategy—so, what is it? You know, you get an owner onboarded. How does it work logistically?

Do they make the Airbnb listing and add you as a co-host? And then, like you said, you just want them to turn off the Airbnb app and let you do your thing? Like, what’s it look like logistically, co-hosting for someone else?

Patryk: So, the way that we do it, our big value add that we pitch is we allow people to see into the business fully. But we just don't want them responding, if that makes sense. So, we are always allowing people—like, when we first onboard somebody, we have them fill out an onboarding form, and it'll kind of go over all the details about the property—anything that we need to know.

Having an Airbnb link filled out with the tax form, the permit number, and, you know, verifying their ID—as long as they do that, then we can take it from there. We have a trust account that allows all of the financing to flow through that trust account, and then we pay out owners.

So that's the way we do it. But the way that other co-hosts do it is, you know, they have the invoice.

Jeremy: They invoice the owners.

Patry: Yeah, yeah, which, either way, we just don't chase owners for invoices. We pay them out—that's it. And so, um, it's really nice there. But the thing is, they own the listing. Now, let's say they get a bunch of reviews. If they decide to sell, then those reviews have value.

You can actually transfer that listing to the next owner that buys your property. And if you have 200 reviews, you're going to get a lot higher revenue, and you're going to be ranked higher. It's just—everything's going to be easier for you.

So, having that, there's value to that. On top of that, they can leave at any given point and not have to start over.

All the work we do upfront—the only thing is—we have a six-month upfront commitment because we do so much work upfront to make the listing, to integrate it, to get it up to standards, like that kind of thing. But after the six months, like, you're free to go. You can, you can just do whatever you want.

They can walk if they really want to. And honestly, I want to walk from it as well. Like, I don't want to be stuck in a contract with some shitty owner. Like, we've dropped owners that are annoying or…

Jeremy: like they text you too much?

Patryk: No, seriously, like, we used to have this one owner that texted us every day. And it was just so consistent, and we knew we were using so many resources for that one client. We just said, you know what, maybe it's just not a good fit.

And it was a lot. It was good money, I think we made, like, 15 grand a year off of her. And it's like, we gotta say, "Sorry, Felicia," and just bye.

Jeremy: So, you've had to drop owners, and that's something. So, I've never... Well, a house that we bought, I have not sold yet. A house that I've rented and re-rented, I've never, I’ve only re-signed leases. I haven’t furnished a place and had that end so far.

I'm sure, obviously, it will happen—like, don’t get me wrong. But I have lost co-hosting clients. I’ve got co-hosting clients, lost co-hosting clients. You said, you know, whether it’s the owners, I mean, we had one house that I managed where the guy had a pool. Super nice house, and just wasn’t willing to bite the bullet and fix the pool.

So instead, our handyman had to literally come over every day and, like, circulate water, like, literally would come and have to act like it was the pool pump. And you know, this guy, whatever, it just didn’t work out.

I’ve had multiple instances. So, what’s—I guess, do you feel like co-hosting just... you know, give your opinion. You know, short-term rentals, and a big part of the theme of short-term rentals—is that, like, time freedom and location freedom component. So, hey, do you feel that?

And do you—like, do you feel with co-hosting in particular, things are relative? Obviously, like, if you’re going to compare it to your old job, maybe it’s different. But like, do you kind of feel like, in a way, you kind of have bosses still being the owners? Or, kind of, like, what’s your thoughts on everything?

Patryk: Yeah, I think in general, in life, you’re always going to have bosses to some degree, right? You’re going to have clients if you’re in a business. You’re going to have customers if you’re selling B2C. There’s always going to be some power over you.

Now, the only—the real difference there is: are you going to build this as a business, or are you going to build this as another job? In the beginning, I will be honest. When we took over in the beginning, it was another job. We were in the weeds; we were building; we were growing.

But here’s my philosophy, and the way I tell my team: I come from a big background of building businesses. And so, what I know is that you actually have to execute 50% of the time, and then 50% of the time, you gotta document.

And the documentation is building systems. It’s building all that. And execution is, like, actually doing the job. So, when you’re building all these systems, all the documentation, you can actually get people under you and take those roles.

So, that’s kind of what we did. We hired all these different people.

I think I've hired, I've hired four VAs. I've actually gone through 300 of them to get the best four. And I hired, um, an area manager. I hired a field ops manager, and yeah, things are starting to be a lot less hectic. But even when it was hectic, like the freedom of being able to go and get an acai bowl in the middle of the day because I freaking want an acai bowl. I could do it. That's the California thing.

If I wanted midday brunch, I could do midday brunch on a Tuesday, Thursday, Friday—whatever. You know, it's like I had the power to do that because I didn't have a job.

Now, the time gets freed up more and more the more you build it into a business. And that goes with everything that you do, when you do house flipping, when you do, um, podcasting, whatever you do in your life, it’s gonna be about building that into a business before you really get the benefits of seeing the time freedom that you really want.

See what I mean?

Jeremy: Yeah, so you build the infrastructure where you don't have to be... You know, you're leveraging your time more effectively, right? By building team systems, processes.

You're part of, like, a short-term rental mastermind. Did you buy a property management business before you joined the mastermind, or did you... What was that? What was your order of operation?

Patryk: That was before. So, I was in a mastermind before I bought the property management company.

Jeremy: So, you joined, and then... I mean, it's, you know... I mean, I don't—you're in it, not me, but I'm assuming it's talking about buying as well as co-host businesses, right? Or kind of the two topics?

Patryk: I've never bought—I never learned how to buy a co-host business.

Jeremy: It's only about co-hosting?

Patryk: Yeah, well, it's about everything. It's co-hosting, buying, everything.

Jeremy: Okay.

Patryk: Uh, and yeah, so I didn’t necessarily learn that from there. I just got the opportunity from, like I mentioned before, from a friend that said she didn’t have one co-host client, she had 16. "Do I wanna take it on and buy her business?" Or, sorry, buy the business that she knew about? And I was like, "Yeah, sure."

And then, you know, the rest is history. But yeah, I mean, this opportunity came across my desk.

Jeremy: But what was the process? So, what did you learn?

I'm curious. Honestly, people ask me... I mean, I have co-host clients. Like, I’ve got them. But it was pretty organic. It was literally... I had a boat rental business. People rented our boat. They happened to have houses or be buying houses.

And then, just word of mouth. Like, I never did... I reached out to one guy on Vrbo because he just had a sick pad—the one with the pool I talked about earlier. The one that actually didn’t end up working out, but I was like, "This house is sick. I gotta—I gotta reach out and see what's up."

But how does one get co-host clients? You bought a business, but I guess, right, conceptually, how would one get a co-host client?

Patryk: I have a whole ebook that I made that I named "101 Ways to Get Co-Hosting Clients" because so many people asked me this question. And I know—I’m sure, Jeremy, people ask you this question too.

But what I've realized after buying this business: it was a lot harder for me to get co-host clients when I didn't have... So, it's like—the hardest is the first one. And quite honestly, I could probably have gotten the co-host client like that.

But what I realized the moment I got the company under my belt is that it's all branding. It's all branding and how you're perceived to the public, right? Are you an expert? You know, the moment I became an expert and I got this property management company or co-hosting business, I had the brand. I made that deck. I made—I made the website presence.

I made all these other factors I didn’t do the first time around that build credibility for myself, for my business, and for everything that I had going. Which made it so easy to sign on clients—to the point where, in the first month and a half that I had this business, I had 40 leads that came through.

And I had to—I could only accept 10. Ten of the best ones. And that just shows that I had choice. And the only reason I had choice is because I was able to create this brand that allowed people to trust me right away.

Jeremy: This brand that allowed you to close the clients. So, you have this new business. It was also like the Patryk Swietek brand. Oh, like, I know you started posting on social—yeah, probably at some point during this.

But what do you—what, like, tangibly, what do you mean by brand?

Patryk: Yeah, so, “Stays You Like”. So, like, the company that I have.

So, like, if I had to give somebody advice, this is what I would tell them to do. I would tell them, even if you have no clients, I would automatically get a deck built.

100% do a deck. Make sure it has all the information about you, about the company, about your values, about what you do and how you do it, your team (which is you in that case), whatever, and just kind of build that deck.

The second thing: you give that deck to anybody—either realtor relationships, build those relationships, give them the deck, show them, show them that you’re real. Make sure you have a website. Now, that website supplements the deck in case somebody wants to learn more, you know, down the line. Obviously, it’s your digital footprint.

The third thing is going to be to get a Google My Business account. Make sure you have something that’s tangible so that when people search "property management" in the area, you pop up.

Now, you want to, over time, build those reviews on there as you go, but that’s a placeholder for now. Then you start selling people on your framework that you built. And every time that you get a new lead through any of the ways that you get a lead, which is either through realtors, through making local Facebook groups, making videos about the local market, there are so many ways you can do it.

I have, like I said, I have that PDF. If anybody wants to message me, I’ll give it to you.

Jeremy: Um, I got you, man. We’re gonna drop the link to the PDF below.

Patryk: Yeah, so we’ll do that—completely free, with five installments of $20. No, just kidding, it’s free. It’s free.

So, basically, this PDF will help you with that. But then, when you get these leads, what you’re going to do is you’re going to actually create a launch plan for each of those leads when you’re trying to work with them. And keep following up with them.

So, you’re going to follow up with the people that you have in your lead list. Make a list on a spreadsheet, whatever. Follow up every couple of days, or every month, or whenever they talk to you. Offer as much value as you can.

So, just, “Hey, I can help you, I can help you, I can help you.” Build that launch plan saying, “This is what I would do if I was in your position. I would do this. This is the 30-day plan, 60-day plan, 90-day plan.”

People love that. People see it, and they’re like, “Wow, look at this initiative that you’ve brought.” Customize that deck. So, you have the normal deck, and then you have the additional items that go over the house specifically.

But the person sees, “Oh my God, they just created this personalized deck for my house. They want it.” And they know that they can do X amount of dollars a year on this property, and it shows in the deck.

What I used to do as well for the bigger houses—I used to print it out and get it bound. So, I just had the deck bound and gave it to them, like a physical copy, when I showed up at the house to see it.

Jeremy: And that’s what, guys, Patryk, just for some context, he’ll go up to anybody. And I think that’s something about, you know, sales—whether it be a co-hosting business, whether it be just networking at a high level, like being confident, physically meeting people.

For me, when I started with co-hosting and arbitrage, I would meet the homeowners and the landlords, and I would buy them a beer, or maybe they’d buy me one, but I would offer to buy them one.

So, Patryk is fearless. He’ll walk up to, I mean, going to two conferences with him, I noticed, he’ll walk up to anybody, and he’ll just start chatting.

Patryk: So, Jeremy, I think, let’s say, it depends on what you can do, right? Jeremy’s a tech whiz. So, for him, I’d be like, “Alright, well, you want to go up to people, and how can you give value?”

So, for you, it’s like, you know what? I know that you built that application, right? What’s the application? The calculator, the BNBCalc. Plug that in—it’s going to be in the bio below, but somewhere you can find—

Jeremy: Yeah, you can find it.

Patryk: Yeah, you can find it somewhere. So, BNBCalc, let’s say that your skill set is building tech, right? So, you built that product. You can actually offer it free for three months, or whatever, while they’re getting set up.

You can say, “Hey, this is normally X amount of money, but here it is for free.” Eat the cost and say, “Hey, I just want to make sure you’re well-equipped when you’re buying your properties, or when you’re rehabbing, or what you can do on this property, so I want to give that to you.”

Or, if you are a really good photographer, you can say, “You know what, I’m happy to help you for free to help get this place up and going.”

I offer free advice all the time. I just give everything up front and tell them exactly what I would do. And most times, they go with me anyways because they’re like, “Well, this guy knows his sht, and he’s not holding back.”

A lot of property, I’ve actually heard some of our clients that we get mention, “We went with you because you were transparent with us, and you told us what to do, and you were clearly the expert, and you didn’t hold back.”

And we said the same thing. We said, “Yeah, we don’t hold back.”

Jeremy: So, never hold back. Never hold back. Put it all on the line. Give away all your secrets.

Patryk: Yep, and that’s what we’re doing on this podcast right here. We're giving all the top secrets.

Jeremy: I would say, you know, we're giving away the pro tips. You know, we're giving away the pro tips on this pod.

But yeah, what is your biggest, like, pro tip? You know, just something you’ve learned—tangible—that can help folks who are either getting started or scaling their short-term rental business?

Patryk: I would say to take action. It’s such a cliché thing, but a lot of people are not doing anything about it. Like, I want every day to be something—something gets done, right?

You have a specific goal. Okay, let’s say you call a realtor today. Just a conversation with a realtor, once a day.

Jeremy: Realtors are great referral sources for co-hosting, arbitrage, deal flow. If you want to buy, like, only good things can come from talking to realtors.

Patryk: It’s a multi-faceted thing you can make. Yeah, those relationships are amazing. So do that—talk to realtors or do something, right?

Like 15 minutes writing in forums, like BiggerPockets, just to post stuff, you know, and get out there. I get a bunch of leads. I actually made a YouTube video that took me 30 minutes to talk about the market, and I just freestyled it.

I actually made a couple of mistakes during that video, and I still get people reaching out to this day. Because I post on BiggerPockets—everywhere.

Jeremy: Freestyle? You freestyle with your rap or something?

Patryk: No, I just freestyle, I just—like—

Jeremy: I didn’t know you had that in you.

Patryk: This is what it is. Um, take it. Hit the beat.

Jeremy: No, but, uh, we’re getting—we’re getting down today.

Patryk: We’re getting down today? No, hit the beat, Jeremy. Let’s go.

No, uh, I’m not good at that. But, um, yeah, I grew up in a suburban neighborhood. I’m not a rapper.

Jeremy: But Chicago—you and Kanye West? Don’t limit yourself.

Patryk: Yeah, that’s what I would recommend—take action. And don’t hold back.

Jeremy: Yeah, go for it. Alright, so—so, don’t hold back. And what should they also not hold back? You know, by the time this airs, your... When is your conference, by the way?

Patryk: September 24th to the 26th.

Jeremy: And can those listening to it go to it? And if so, how do they find information?

Patryk: Absolutely not. No.

Jeremy: Tell us—what is the conference…

Patryk: Look, nobody can go to this conference, Jeremy. Nobody. I don’t want any of you listening. No, I’m just kidding. Of course, yeah.

Jeremy: You sound like, Eric Cartman.

Patryk: Yeah, of course people can come. I’d love for you guys to come. Jeremy’s going to be there—hold him to it.

But yeah, so it’s gonna be a good time. We’re bi-coastal here, so it’s going to be in San Diego, and it’s going to be September 24th to the 26th. It’s going to be amazing, and it’s gonna be a really good time.

It’s gonna be 250 people there, maybe 300 with speakers and everybody else. So, you guys are gonna have a grand time, and it’s going to be really fun. So definitely don’t miss out.

Jeremy: Alright, and so it’s September 25th to the 26th?

Patryk: 24th to the 26th.

Jeremy: Okay, right. And where would they find information on it?

Patryk: STR-nation.com.

Jeremy: STR-nation.com. You guys heard it here. TBD. Me and Patryk got a little... We gotta see who these speakers are. Who are these speakers at this conference? These 300, including speakers? We’ve got 50 speakers coming?

Patryk: 50 speakers man.

Jeremy: So it could be on—on this—it depends on these speakers for your boy. But either way, I’ll probably be there, and you guys listening—you should be there.

And what we’re gonna do—Patryk and I are going to collab. We’re gonna do more in-person events. We gotta do one in New York too.

Gonna start trying to do meetups in New York City. Kind of, you know. And Patryk, also, for those in LA listening—you do LA meetups, right?

Patryk: Yeah, yeah, we do LA meetups every month. We’re bi-coastal.

Jeremy: And what’s that? Happy hour? Like, where do you do…

Patryk: Yeah, we go to a brewery, man. We go to a brewery, we kick back some brewskis, and yeah, we just have a good chat. So, it’s a good time.

Jeremy: And a lot of folks from the meetups go to San Diego or go to the conference?

Patryk: Yeah, we—we have a lot of people from our community go. We have a Facebook group. Everybody who wants to join—I’ll just shameless plug—STR Nation. You can actually look us up on Facebook, and feel free, you can join our Facebook group. And that’s usually where we post stuff like that.

Jeremy: Gotcha. See, you guys, LA folks—Patryk has a meetup, also does conferences, and him and I are going to collaborate on some things.

Patryk: Young guys, right? We’re the young guys in the crew, so we’re ready to take on the world and do some cool stuff together. Yeah, I’m excited for that.

Jeremy: Exactly. Same here, buddy. Awesome. Any last words or advice to leave to folks here today?

Patryk: Hey, don’t hold back, guys. Don’t hold back. Go for it. Just go for it. Make it happen. Eat sht.

Jeremy: Make it happen.

Patryk: That—actually, don’t eat sht if you can. But, like, you can fall—but don’t, don’t eat sht.

Get a mentor like Jeremy and—and you won’t eat sht.

Jeremy: So—and I would say, we talked about the mentor point where you said earlier, like, it’s hard when you don’t have any track record, like any Airbnb listings, to get co-host clients?

Patryk: Yeah.

Jeremy: I would say it does help to have a mentor who has them.

Because, you know, you can artistically and creatively lend their credibility to yourself. You know, you say, “Hey, homeowner. Yes, you’re right, I don’t have any listings, but I’ve helped my mentor who has 30 listings, and they all look incredible and have great reviews.”

You know, there’s advantages to having mentors who have done it before, obviously, from, you know, learning how to set things up the right way, how to hire VAs, virtual assistants, how to build that infrastructure.

From that credibility standpoint—you know, if you’re in the room with somebody, you’re in the room with somebody, and others see that.

So, talking about mentorships real quick, whoever your mentor is, you know, if you want to do something, I highly recommend, you know, having someone help you who’s done it before and can lend their credibility to you. So, tangible takeaway there.

Uh, yeah. Any other? Just do it?

Patryk: Just do it. That’s it.

Jeremy: Beautiful. Well, thanks so much. Oh, yeah, Patryk—so STR Nation, is that the best place to find you? Or where else can they find you?

Patryk: I’m on everywhere else honestly. On Facebook? On Instagram? It’s, uh, Patryk—P-A-T-R-Y-K underscore S-W-I. As long as you type that in, you’ll be fine. There’s not that many people that spell it that way. But yeah, I’d be happy to chat with you on Instagram. Let’s kick it, let’s do it. Any questions you may have, I’m happy to answer them.

Jeremy: Alrighty, so y’all heard it here, Patryk Swietek, STR Nation, and a short-term rental pro. Thanks for coming, Patryk.

Patryk: Alright, thank you for having me.