Intentional Designing for your Vacation Rentals with Somerled Designs - Episode #216

I have two practitioners today in the lab and they come in with a craft, purpose and partnership. The core pillars when experimenting in vacation home rentals. We use the word practitioners intentionally because we believe in doing the actual work and then offering it as a service. It means they understand the industry deeply having gone through it themselves, starting outside their comfort zones and pushing past their fears. For both of them, it all started with design. Jordan McDonough and Bri West have been in business offering design for other people's short-term rentals for only six months and they've been crushing it. Jordan is your creative design guru, whose design vision is always aligned with that of Bri, who on the other hand is your ambitious marketer and consultant. Together they partnered to catapult Somerled Designs into what it looks like from the outside, an overnight success. However their key ingredients is their ability to both have a deep foundational expertise of what they do and a partner ship that compliments one another beautifully. We talk about all the challenges in between and more, from their friendship, design philosophy, sales and all the wallpapers they covered in order to get here. They're going to give us a masterclass on what they've mastered and are continuing to master. They have such a hybrid operation from analyzing to designing, there's a lot there and we’re going to pick their brains today. This talk has been long overdue and we’re thrilled glad that we finally got a chance to talk about their background and combining their unique geniuses. These two rock stars have truly carved out their niche, marrying together design intuition and deep market research. Their combo and having that design touch is what truly turned this experiment into a huge success. HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE: 19:59 What it’s like working with Somerled 35:53 Somerled’s Design Philosophy 48:42 The balancing act of Market Research KEEPING IT REAL: 04:25 Jordan and Brie 06:48 Interior design for STR 10:54 How it started 12:29 Jordan’s strengths 13:42 Brie’s superpowers 14:48 Complementing weaknesses 16:20 The mind of a designer 18:41 It’s all about reps 21:53 The full package service 23:58 Do not cheap out on this 27:00 Budget design range 30:02 Contractors to design 35:00 What’s your favorite piece? 40:44 Are wallpapers a must? 44:20 Biggest downfall of this industry 48:42 Market research advice 50:44 When do you go all in? 52:52 Thinking like a business owner 51:11 Biggest measure of success 58:54 Top 3 Favorite Markets CONNECT WITH THE GUEST Website: https://www.somerleddesigns.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somerled.designs/ Get Your Airbnb Millionaire Blueprint: https://experimentrealestate.com/#blueprint #vacationrentals #rentaldesigns #airbnb #str