Kirk: full-time nurse with a $2,000 a month Airbnb property

0:00 in this episode we're going to be speaking with Kirk who's a full-time nurse and talk about his two thousand dollar a month profit property he's going to discuss the strategy behind how he overcame the fear of talking to landlords we're also going to be breaking down one of his Airbnb listings and the thought process behind how it's helping him become a top performer this was a super insightful conversation I'm sure you're going to get a lot out of it all right so we're live so Kirk thanks for hopping on here people taking the time to explain you know about your Airbnb Journey you know super looking forward to talking about what you've been up to I know you've been you know you've been crushing it so uh if you don't mind just kind of giving some background on you know maybe what you were doing before Airbnb what made you want to get into Airbnb in the first place and then we can take it from there okay yeah sounds great so my name is Kirk I'm actually a nurse looking down the road I've seen a lot of nurses they're like older than me they're in their 50s 60s so I kind of had that mindset where like if I don't do anything differently from what they're doing most likely I'm going to end up where they're at 50 60 still doing the same thing and I want to spend time with my family I have four kids my wife which has two kids from a previous marriage we have a one-year-old and we actually just have a two month old right now I guess my why like doing this is because I want more time with them I want the the time and freedom to actually be here for them see them grow up basically the goal is

1:18 to get financially free yeah man love the background you know me having a kid as well it's the same thing like once you start having kids you start thinking differently it's not just about you or your spouse it's about how can I give you know my kids the best life possible spend more time with them Etc so definitely resonates with you know what I was thinking of when I got into you know chasing this whole Financial Freedom stuff so that's awesome so what are some of the challenges let's just kind of hop into it when you first started the business can you if you want to talk about you know if you actually try to do airbnbs yourself other businesses if you can give a little bit more background on that well I've always had that mindset where like I got to do something basically make money while you sleep kind of thing so that I can have my Financial Freedom always had like a bunch of like thoughts about it not really doing anything about it eventually uh my wife was actually the one who kind of brought this idea hey I have a friend that talked to me last night at work and she's like this is what she's doing she's doing airbnbs slowly we were going through Instagram and whatnot we found your channel believe it or not so I talked to um it was like around two o'clock in the morning my wife was sleeping I saw your uh basically your channel and about how like getting started and I I wanted there and then to actually like sign up you know but then I had to wait for her

2:34 because you know I need to talk to her about it it's not about just me anymore but yeah so no experience at all with whatsoever in Airbnb uh I'm sorry what was the question again okay no man that's good so obviously I'm not trying to break up any marriages here but what are some of the the main challenges that you faced when you first started your Airbnb business oh yeah definitely um so not knowing anything about it at all so basically everything from scratch never started a business on my own so so there's a lot as far as information and going through it as far as doing your classroom and stuff like that I found that the the most challenging is either landlord Outreach and your research so what I found was that initially I was trying to look at every single thing online as far as like what rules I can find if the city is doing this and doing that and what I did find out after doing it so many times is that I'd rather just skip all that time send either an email or a phone call and just go straight to them because like honestly like you know as much as you don't want to call somebody and then that you can just look it up it actually saves you a lot more time than you can get to the other areas of what you need to learn and actually go out and you know talk to people initially I I don't like talking on the phone I try to prevent that as much as possible but this really got my feet wet I remember in the beginning a lot of people were saying no as far as you know

3:53 arbitraging their uh their properties but I saw that as more as of an incentive instead of actually making the phone call I would go see out the property talk to the owners I would have talked to the property manager and I would pitch them in front of me and I know I remember messaging you in regards to like hey you know this came up I didn't get the property but I'm slowly I'm developing like the skills to actually prepare me for the one that will say yes on that day I actually didn't want to go because I was so tired from work like my wife was like no this might be the one go ahead and go talk to that person so I did yeah I just made it um I molded the script to myself basically it makes you say things or um tell them like something personal that makes you connect with them that's basically what I did and eventually I got to say yeah somebody said yes and I was like happy about that yeah no there's there's a lot of really good nuggets of information that you shared there right you know number one I think that is one of the biggest challenges right is a lot of people are introverts they don't they're not comfortable cold calling talking to people what is the main thing that helped you overcome that fear to you know essentially talk to landlords and property managers to you know essentially get over that home like what are what are some things that you did to help you overcome that and then eventually get that yes definitely you

5:09 have to have a strong goal that purpose that what you're doing if it's not a strong enough goal you're going to be like oh you know never mind I'm tired this day or I don't feel like it also I have a great partner my wife like I mentioned earlier I was like I'm tired from work I only had like three four hours of sleep um uh previously and she's like no go out there this might be the one so somebody's actually pushing you supporting you in like what you guys what you want to do no that that's awesome um you know that's something that's so underrated in this business because I think a lot of the students have some sort of spouse or significant other that they're doing this with and if that person isn't on board kind of helping push you because if you didn't go that meeting with that landlord then you probably might not have a property and you're like oh this doesn't work and there's there's so many different you know dominoes that fall into effect that you know don't recognize that you don't realize if you don't have a really good a partner so you know that's great that you know you have a partner kind of pushing you some of the strategies that you use I know you touched on some but when you actually met with the landlord and I know a lot of people don't have that luxury to go face to face either because they're too scared or whatever so what are some strategies that you use to you know talk to the landlord to convince you know get their gain their trust and then eventually close the deal with them well um like I mentioned making it personal to you because every I mean there you have this we have that script but if you make it more personal

6:28 to you like adding little bits of pieces of information that pertains to you I think you'll be more comfortable instead of like oh trying to memorize um a certain part um and then you get lost in it and then now your mind's all scrambled then you're trying to like fluster and it's not being you be comfortable and also in the beginning when I was doing like phone calls I was writing down things I had like the paper in front of me and trying to like really almost verbatim kind of like read from it but it doesn't actually the character but at the same time I would record myself so that you can see like okay there's a mistake there it's this it's that so you can see like what you can improve on as well So eventually you went to the landlord so when I did the pitch I I let them know like hey you know I'm a nurse um you have a great property here um and this really um make them have trust you be yourself because like honestly if you yourself are feel nervous inside it's kind of flow out or for some reason they're gonna see it so the more that you speak about the truth about yourself and what you're kind of what you're doing then it's gonna be for me at least um it's a lot more smooth smooth sailing from there yeah no I love that because the

7:45 script is there to help guide you in the conversation right it's not there to literally hold it in front of you and read off right it's there to kind of help you overcome different objections if and a lot of times you know if you're nervous then you might have a brain fart you might not know what to say next but I love that you essentially took the script got the main point and then you know essentially made it your own and then like I said be personable uh connect with because at the end of the day we're all human right we like to do business like we with people that we like um and that's a huge way to build that Rapport you know right off the bat telling that you're a nurse and then going from there because you know you might have the best pitch you might have the best business model in the entire world but if you can't convey that to someone uh especially you know these landlords that we're talking to then it's you know it's not going to work out so you know love love that so you you know close the deal with them and then from there obviously you know what was kind of your mindset or your game plan I'm sure you did some research with the different competitors in your area so what did you do to differentiate from the other competitors you know within your specific area well just like definitely this is part of research so you gotta research your competition right so you go in the city that you would want to see the top performers there and see what they're doing um pretty much what they're doing that separates them from the rest and aside from that if you um try to I'd say

9:04 either beat them or see what they're doing that you can also either improve upon or add something more to what they're already doing so in my general area I pretty much saw that most of the colors they're just the low the you know the the neutral color Farmhouse type of area here so I try to get more by putting a little bit more color things to make it pop um definitely um so yeah they're all actually in the classroom if you actually um go ahead and like touch points on every single one of them it's actually all there their nuggets are all there so we want to thank you for that definitely the S that's the the method that I followed in regards to that and then also once you're live um being just you know like responding um to messages as far as like when people are inquiring in regards to that to your place sometimes when I would actually try to respond and I have to like don't I don't respond right away because I want to think of what I'm saying in a more hospitable way so that it sounds nicer I guess if you're gonna say yeah I think it can be tough when you're dealing with guests and you have your automated messages and it says you know how to turn on the hot tub lights like three times in your automated

10:22 messaging and they're still asking you how do you do this and so there are times where you kind of have to take take a step back because at the end of the day we're in a Hospitality business and you don't want to anger your guests even more because you know obviously reviews are a huge part and a big lifeblood of you know this type of business so I do like that that you kind of take a step back and see how you can create this message because every like from the start of you answering their messages when they inquire by your property to the moment they check out they're they're constantly judging you whether they know it or not and so creating a the best possible experience for them is huge um so I love that you kind of take a step back to make sure that you're you know responding in the right way I actually have one of your listings pulled up do you mind if we you know kind of walk through maybe some of the pictures and you know some of your thought process behind you creating it no definitely so all right let's just kind of go through the photos so what made you choose this photo out of all the other ones uh you know if you want to kind of start with that well I wanted um a sense where people can have an experience because everybody can stay at any Airbnb but what really makes yours uh a part set be set apart from everybody else so I try to put like a little gathering area there where it kind of looks nice where people want actually want to spend the time there um we also have a little bit of the

11:40 string lights there to kind of make it pop um and also a little bit of a thing where it says that the jacuzzi in the back so I feel like it has a good color contrast and also a place where people can spend their time on kind of relaxing so that's why we picked that one love it man and then you know you guys did an awesome job with the professional photos because you know this like if you took this photo with a like an iPhone even if it's the best iPhone it's it still might not have captured the essence of what you're trying to go after so love that you have the professional photos you even you know set up the wine glasses the arcade this is you know it's awesome so yeah maybe you know talk about because like obviously the first five photos are huge to you know really selling your property so you know can you talk more about your thought process behind uh you know what made you choose these photos and maybe some of your ideas behind the actual design of it yeah so we kind of had um uh created kind of like a like a mid-century kind of like boho kind of theme um so we picked that because like I mentioned earlier that most of people have like neutral colors with just Farmhouse so we wanted to really set our us apart by having some little pops of color here and there but also remain kind of like that looks nice um again I want to reiterate that we

12:58 wanted to have um to show them like what kind of experience they will have was also showing that the space itself so like having the the dining room having like a word they're gonna spend most of their time that's what we picked the first five photos yeah I mean this is like textbooks how you should create your listings right you know everything just looks super clean the design is really good minimal Simplicity you have all these different amenities that you highlight uh so I mean really great job and you're really highlighting the main parts of this I mean this is like this is awesome um you know the arcade you know you're showcasing the games especially you know when it comes to the summer months I might even you know put these or this is in California so it's good good weather all year round probably well we're just having a lot of rain recently but yeah for the most part oh really but yeah I mean once it comes you can even try to bring some of these photos up to you know really sell your property even more uh we're always testing things to you know see what works the best and you know one of the best ways to do that is changing up because these photos are all you know awesome beautiful so really really good job here on on that all right man so um let's let's kind of talk about you know what are some of your goals you know with your within your Airbnb business right um are you looking to scale if you want to talk a little bit more about you know

14:15 some of your goals here upcoming this year yeah so definitely we're looking at to scale um uh we want to either buy a house and do a Airbnb or just get a little more Arbitrage but for sure we're actually looking um already so we're hoping that we can get another one by the end of the year or at least two or three more um so far it's been doing great uh March we have about 87 occupancy um and also looking at April we're at 70 percent so it's doing a lot pretty well um and but yeah so uh we're just looking around to see uh what will be the best or uh best fit for us this cup upcoming year yeah no that's awesome man I mean we hear a lot about the Airbnb bust and you know people like scared like oh we're not getting any bookings but the way that I look at it is there's too many people that came into this business and didn't treat it like a business right they you know just put some random Furniture in they try to take a few you know photos on from their potato and listen on Airbnb and they're like oh like why aren't I getting any bookings but it's because the cream always Rises to the top right once you start getting you know more competitors in you know into you know different markets obviously the best photo like

15:33 your property I'm not surprised you're getting those kind of numbers because like you saw it from the photos itself they really sell the property you have the amenities to compete and so that's something that you've done really really well is really understanding the competition and then you know adding one or two additional things on top of it and then doing everything else that we talk about in the program to you know make your listing the best possible listing so a really really good job on that man I just wanted to add also um it's very important I feel like um to have guesty in price labs um that helps a lot there's certain uh there's certain areas where like the automated messaging when you're sleeping it actually send it to them boosts it boosts your like you know on the algorithm on Airbnb but what I did find really useful is when you do find that competitor around your area on um price Labs uh on the area where it says neighborhood data is actually really helps you scroll all the way down and you see you see uh compare competitors calendar so you pick those listings of your calendars around I mean uh to your competitors around the area I think you could put like up to 10 listings and then once you click on the get calendar you'll see all their pricing so um in the beginning it was really hard for us um just because we didn't have reviews

16:49 we had people like threatening us like our listing is fake and stuff like that and it was just a whole mess in any case eventually once you get that review then that's when things starts to pick up but yeah so definitely I would like I would look at the pricings of the competitors area initially like we uh even though that we can um compete with the best we had to price ourselves a little bit lower so that we can get that review first once we got that review then we started to kind of like pick up on the pricing and also um go with what price Labs uh the um they're helping me choose the base price uh option and what we need to go from there yeah no that's that's really good stuff that you have in there um you know this business isn't just set and forget it right with the pricing there's things that you have to tweak you know whether that's photos pricing and then understanding your Market um and also your competition landscape right because you're a new listing you could be the best listing in the world but obviously it needs time to get you know gain favor in the algorithm and so you really did that where you you know price yourself in a way to get some bookings initially and then from there once you start getting bookings then you can start you know charging higher rates with the competition that you feel that you should be able to get so that's really good stuff man so what made you want to join the Airbnb roadmap I know

18:06 you said you know you started kind of going through the content that I put out but what kind of made you finally decide okay like I I wanna I trust this guy let's let's just take a leap and what what made you kind of make that decision well honestly like it's just I've always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to do something where um like I can spend more time with my family because that's my ultimate goal and definitely with your content I saw that you know your family is very important to you you touch up on that quite a bit and that that you're having that freedom to do the things that you want um and uh you know uh real estate definitely is definitely like one of the most profitable if not you know they're saying that like 90 of millionaires have real estate so you can't really go wrong with real estate just because of most most of them you know that's what they're doing so um I just wanted I took just the leap of faith and just you know what let's do it I've been just thinking about a lot of different things on how to make this happen but I never really have I'm just like let's do it like you said earlier changed your mind once you have kids before I'm just like ah whatever I don't need to worry about that I can just do take care of that later but once you have kids you're it's a different

19:22 mindset you know you want to do as much as you can you want to be a better person for them and just ultimately like do everything that you can for them so I just did that to I just did it went out of my comfort zone so that's definitely very important just getting out of your comfort zone and just do it trust the process but I've also been seeing a lot of like people like let's say like on like magazines and stuff like that about how they have airbnbs and how they're making this much cash flow I'm like you know what let's try it if what's what are you gonna what do you have to lose yeah and that's one of the main things that I learned in just kind of Business Financial Freedom overall is if you don't take that leap of faith and at least stay consistent with it for you know x amount of time then nothing's gonna work right like I think there's all these different business models that you can try but the people that I see struggle and I've gone through this and I'm guilty of this as well is trying to do like two or three things at once but once you really dedicate like pick a vehicle and then just go in at it and just be consistent as you can see like you can be very successful and you know you're kind of a clear living proof proof of that so I mean what are some of the ways that the program helped you achieve your goals get that property up and running like if you want to kind of talk into you know some of those things

20:39 yeah definitely um so it's nice that the um the the videos the classroom is like sectioned in Little um you know videos of YouTube here and there depending on where you are you can just pick up click on it if you forget it just you know go over the videos like um repeatedly you know um so that's those are the things that I've been like looking at and also um going online kind of just like reading up on like um like I have like this Facebook group about like tips and tricks and stuff like that with what people do so you hear a lot of different stories but that shouldn't um discourage you if anything it should uh once you read it that you can be prepared if things like that was to happen to your place how you can respond and things like that but um like I said like uh yeah the the classroom definitely uh if you're stuck on something try to do it again and the best part is that we have a lot of people um that's like uh once you go in there that you can ask questions and they'll definitely they're there to help you out yeah and that's something that you know I love is the community right because I'm still you know learning and growing with everyone um and you know people will you know present you know challenges or you know

21:56 different solutions to different scenarios and I'm like oh I didn't I never even thought about that so having like-minded people actively in the business day-to-day and you know and you're super active on the in the community as well and you know putting your two cents in and I see you commenting on other people helping people other people are you know helping you and you know vice versa but I think it's awesome having that like-minded individual in that Community is something that you know I love being a part of and you know everyone in there has been super great to work with most definitely um all right so let's talk about I know like you know spending time with your family that's huge part so once you got the property set up like how much time per week are you spending like are you self-managing and then how much time per week are you spending on uh managing everything the the day-to-day stuff well you know it's like my first one I'm spending uh more time than um than I don't know maybe some other people are I just want to make things like bright I'm kind of like one of those per people who kind of like I just want to do things like I want I'm picky and all that well anyways um so the most uh I would spend on it is probably like maybe like three hours or so uh initially in the beginning I would spend a lot of time on it because I want to learn as much as I can as fast as I

23:13 can but now that it's kind of like it's starting to self-sustain now where I can just like okay now I can look at other things be more in like a management type of view where you can see everything and what you can do to improve on it because obviously in the beginning you want everything to be perfect so your boots on the ground you know you want to do all of that but now I'm seeing a lot more different things I'm going through like the Airbnb kind of seeing picking up little tips and tricks on how to kind of like promote yourself a little bit better and just kind of just using the system you know looking using like guesty kind of clicking on here trying to find out what this does so just kind of like learning from there yeah man uh it sounds like you're kind of almost a perfectionist in a good way where you're trying to absorb all the information really use the the things that you learn because I was the same way like I got obsessed like what I have a very obsessive personality so when I go all in on something then I want to learn everything about it and then apply it to see if it works I'm sure you're the same way and it definitely sounds like you are and then that way you know for the future properties that you get then you can know you know exactly what to do what works what doesn't um so love that you're you know perfectionist perfectionist and a good way to figure out you know what really works and what what doesn't in this business so I know people like to talk

24:31 about you know cash flow number so what what is this property projecting you know for the year from like a total cash flow perspective well um we went on a really conservative approach I believe when I submitted the the numbers to you guys uh we were projecting roughly about a cash flow about 2 000 a month um so far uh we've kind of um we're doing really well as far as March is concerned I believe our cash flow is about 5500. for March um and then so far um for April we're at um 44 4400 cash flow already um and we're 70 70 but um for uh for April so very very thankful very blessed um and uh we're hoping to uh continue on with that for the rest of the year and we're hoping to open up another Airbnb somewhere uh maybe one or two by the end of the year love it man I mean that's the thing because people always talk about oh like why don't you scale to 50 you know units like once you go to 75 and I'm like you know if I can get like five to eight properties that does the same numbers as a 50 unit portfolio like I'm taking the the smaller portfolio every single day

25:49 of the week right because you know in this business the more you scale like and with any business right the more you scale the more headaches that come with it and I personally really love the lifestyle that I'm able to live with the current properties that I have and so you know it just makes sense for me to be able to spend more time with my family obviously everyone has different goals if you're you know 20 something year old and you basically just want to scale this thing to the moon like you definitely can but you know that also you have some sort of trade-off um from a lifestyle perspective so you know what are some of your goals like do you want to scale this to 50 units or are you kind of more along like my path where you just want to get a handful um and just kind of get to that Financial Freedom number whatever that looks like for you yeah so definitely like you mentioned it you just touched up on it less is better but with quality um the the thing is um you don't want to be managing 50 60 you know it's going to take up a lot of your time um sometimes let's say you spend an hour maybe on a property then 50 60 of that that'll take up your whole time and that's my goal is to actually spend more time with my family as opposed to less time with my family so um definitely uh remember why you started have a strong enough why why did you do this and don't

27:08 forget that I mean it can get really you know tempting to get all the money out there all in the world but I mean you know family still I mean as far as for me my purpose and what I wanted to do is more spend more time with them yeah no for sure man but I think we align a lot and then I think a lot of people obviously there are people in the group that want to scale this to you know 50 100 units and that's great but you know a lot of the people that I've talked to personally are the ones kind of in our boats where they want to spend more time with family they want to have more control of their their time and it doesn't take 40 to you know 50 plus units to do that like you can literally get a handful of these and you know be able to you know essentially retire which is something I love about this model so I mean kind of let's talk about like your overall perspective on entrepreneurship um you know how after joining the program like how did that kind of impact your you know outlook on life and like where you're where you're looking where you see yourself in the next you know couple years yeah no definitely it helped me a lot actually because I'm seeing it's opening up my eyes I'm a person who loves comfort um and in order to get this done and my why like I mentioned I had to get out of my comfort zone I had to do something because if I don't change anything my life is going to be the same exact same

28:26 thing a year three five twenty years from now um so um yeah that's pretty much what I did I'm sorry can you repeat on that question again just want to make sure yeah man for sure so what is just kind of your overall perspective on you know entrepreneurship and where you see yourself in the next couple years yeah um so uh by taking doing this now I'm actually reading books you know trying to change my mindset and stuff like that uh I'm not one I'm not the type of person who really likes to read um but once I I started this I'm like oh it opened up my mind to a lot of different things why certain things I'm questioning things a lot more instead of just going with the flow um so like I said I've been uh reading books lately um believe it or not I finished like three books in like three days so I was like okay um it's definitely changing me a lot and uh really thankful about that by having a different Outlook in life now yeah love it man um so let's wrap this up you know what advice do you have someone you know either considering joining the program and just starting an Airbnb business for themselves what's something that you would say to them just do it take the leap um you know uh just you'll see I mean there's a lot of people that's actually

29:46 also doing this as well you've seen it in magazines this and that I'd say just like I said just do it because you need to get out of your comfort zone in order to transform yourself into something that you want to be so there's this thing that was um that I saw or read I forgot which one but it's like picture yourself like 20 years from now how does that person look like to you does that person like basically is doing the same thing that you were have been doing or is he doing something differently from what you're doing now so um you know in order to change something if you don't like where you're at or if you know like I mentioned earlier as far as being a nurse um I saw somebody like 20 years older than me doing the exact same thing I don't want to be where they're at I'm not like bagging on nurses because I am as well but I don't want the lifestyle that they're living um for myself uh because I want to spend more time with my family so in order for me to not be where they're at I need to change something now yeah no that's great stuff um because like you said you you know mentioned it if you keep doing the same things that you've been doing like Nothing's Gonna Change right you have to get out of your comfort zone you have to you know take the leap of faith somehow in you know any sort of business and I I truly believe now like I don't even

31:04 think a side hustle income is a nice to have it's I think it's a necessity right because at any point I mean obviously nurses are way more stable than other uh professions but you know we're seeing Facebook Amazon all these huge companies laying people off and you know just like something that you have to take into consideration you know whether you're trying to reach Achieve Financial Freedom or just trying to live a better life so okay man appreciate the time thanks for the insights that you shared anything else you want to talk about before we hop off here um I just wanted to just kind of like um mention about uh I guess Airbnb uh area like a little tip tip you know to kind of get a little bit more like I guess foot traffic um on the calendar once you go to Airbnb on the top right side there's this promotions like how to list your your place a new way says a new way to promote your listing and you can put like percentage off and stuff like that um for the the closer bookings I usually put like a little bit of like a 20 off but you can offset that through price Labs but the reason why I do this through Airbnb and not through price Labs is because they have some promotions where if you um basically put 20 off for the certain dates they send your placement and emails to guests so when they see that through emails they're gonna be like oh

32:22 what's this and they'll click on it you'll get more foot traffic on your um on your listing and it'll actually show like how many views that uh promotion that you did how many you got um uh so I've been doing that as well um and also us closer to the dates I try to like um do do this a little bit more so that not only does it have like a like a crossed line on your pricing um but it also uh gives them like gives them the feeling that hey I'm getting a discount I'm getting this um so that definitely helps um and if you want to also offset it I have offset it you can also you know if you want you can increase your price on price lab to offset that uh percentage off so that you're not missing on anything that's a really good tactical tip um just to increase your bookings I know Tyler and Jenna implemented that and they they got like five or six bookings almost instantly and so you know it's all good back to tweaking you know perfecting your craft and anything that you do and obviously you're a great example of that so yeah thanks for sharing that