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Case Study

Powerhouse Properties [920]

"The question is, how do I continue to grow without necessarily creating more work for myself? And that's where Enso Connect really answered this question."

Challenges

Keeping up with rapid growth
Excessive workload
Maintaining consistency

Goals

Grow without creating more work
Make management more passive
Expand to new markets with consistent service

The Problem

As the vacation rental business grew rapidly, the owner and his small team faced a significant challenge – balancing the high demand with the need for consistent quality service across all properties.

With over 20 homes in their portfolio, they were struggling to maintain every property well. They found themselves constantly working around the clock, trying to ensure prompt repairs, effective marketing, and maximum rental opportunities, all while keeping up with property maintenance.

The workload became overwhelming, which was a cause for concern. The owner knew that something had to change to maintain their reputation for quality service and continue to expand the business.

The Solution

The Powerhouse Properties team found a solution to streamline the vacation rental management by adopting professional platforms. In the past year, they made the switch to Guesty for property management, Breezeway for cleaning and maintenance tasks, and Enso Connect for improved messaging, upselling, and guest arrival experience. These platforms have allowed the company to better manage properties, maintain consistent quality service, and optimize rental opportunities while reducing the workload.

Enso Connect enabled the company to automate 75% of guest communication and significantly streamlined the check-in and checkout procedures. This freed up the team’s time from mundane tasks, enabling them to focus on growth.

75

Interactions automated

100

Successful check-ins with Boarding Pass over 3 months

10

Growth in listings over 3 months

“If I would’ve adopted this software platform sooner, I would’ve been able to grow quicker.”

ABOUT THE COMPANY

An STR Business Powerhouse

Powerhouse Properties 920 specializes in short-term property management. Whether you are looking to rent your primary residence, convert a current long-term rental to short-term, or you want to maximize the return on investment with the purchase of a property for short-term rental, Powerhouse Properties 920 provides a suite of services to make the process easy, transparent, and most importantly, highly profitable.

Location
Appleton and Green Bay, WI

Listings
100

Employees
16

Property Type
Vacation Homes

Integrations
Guesty, Yale, Enso Connect

Key Features
Boarding Pass, Digital Guidebooks, Upsells, Contactless Check-in, Contactless Checkout

Maximize your rental revenue with Enso Connect

About the Founder

Mark Biesack

A full time Airbnb SUPERHOST, highly rated and committed to providing great stays for guests! After 22 years of working in the restaurant industry, holding the title of every position there is, Mark decided to make his hobby of hosting properties a new career. He created Powerhouse Properties 920 to be the area’s first 5-star property management service for short-term rentals.

Mark currently owns 2 properties, and manages over 90 additional ones. Each and every one has it’s own charm, special surprises, and is ready to provide the 5 star stay guests are looking for.

Mark and his wife have 3 girls and 2 dogs. They love to cook, eat, TRAVEL, eat, eat ice cream, travel to eat ice cream, and spend tons of time outside when the weather permits.

Interview with Powerhouse Properties [920] Founder, Mark Biesack

How did you start your business?

I had been a chef for 23 years, and hadn’t thought of changing careers.

At some point, I started renting out my own house as a side hustle. I rented it out so much that I bought a different house to live in and then I bought another one. It became apparent that if I just bought a few more houses, I wouldn’t need to continue as a chef.

Without the extra money, I came up with a business model where I would take someone else’s house and do all the work and rent it for them. This is how Powerhouse Properties 920 was born.

What sets you apart from the competition?

Having just something that’s very approachable in an area that was underserved when we first started doing this. And now that Edge continues to be identifying those markets that are underserved. And also making sure that we are always doing better than everybody else around us.

Our properties are branded as top-rated and recognizable for exceptional service.

We also make it easy for property owners to turn the work over to us.

Throughout my entire career in management positions I loved to build and fix things and put systems in place to make everything run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. And I’m doing it right now, at scale.

Three main things that set us apart right now are:

Home experience

We work with best designers to make the properties appealing for our guests and prospects. We also make sure that guests have everything they need in the house, so they only need to bring their toothbrush and a change of clothes for their stay.

Industry connections

It has been incredibly beneficial for me to have a network of individuals whom I work with, not necessarily as my employees, but who have achieved success in their own careers. I have established relationships with them to ensure their assistance in the maintenance and management of our properties.

Technology

We transitioned to using professional management platforms in the past year. This including Guesty for property management, Breezeway to handle cleaning and maintenance tasks, and Enso Connect to enhance messaging, upselling, and guest arrival experience.

How does Enso Connect help your day-to-day?

Enso Connect makes guest check-ins and arrivals much more passive for us. Instead of sending our guests to look back for the information in their emails, we create marketing campaign where they are receiving these messages in succession when they book and a couple days before check-in and the morning of arrival. We communicate with guests via email, texts and Airbnb messages.

We provide the guests with a Boarding Pass to the property, Enso Connect’s guest app that contains all necessary information about the stay. The fact that the Boarding Pass is at the top of the heap and guests never have to search for, has made my Friday nights much more enjoyable. I’m no longer getting a zillion messages with questions about the check-in process.

Enso also helped us monetize our guest experience with upsells. Things like, for example, early check-ins and late checkouts. It allows us manage and automate upsells, so we don’t have to manually check and approve every time guests request add-ons.

Did implementing technology in your business change your life?

When I started a property management career having the flexibility in schedule was appealing to me. We have three kids, and when you work in a kitchen, you have zero flexibility. So I was missing a lot of events important for my family. When I started this job,I was excited to be able to work whenever I want, from wherever I want, as long as I’ve got my phone or my laptop. And the reality is, I was just working all the time, from anywhere that I was.

This isn’t great to have to constantly be answering questions and re-explain things to people. We needed a system to make things more passive. And we found it with Enso Connect.

Integration with Enso has taken over our guest messaging and making travellers feel like they have all the information they need right at their fingertips. They don’t have to download apps and do a ton of work on their end. The Boarding Pass is very easy to use – literally tap this link and it opens the guest portal. People ultimately don’t want to read anything that you send them, but Boarding Pass makes the information very accessible to for the guests at any time. It means that they are reaching out to me less. It’s given me a lot of time back.

With Enso Connect we had a chance to set up and tweak everything in our guest journey the way we wanted.

“This isn’t great to be constantly answering questions. We needed a system to make things more passive. And we found Enso Connect.”

Why did you choose Enso Connect?

Francois gave me a true understanding of the processes in my company and what the needs really were. When he was showing me Enso’s software, it felt like a checklist of our struggles and ways to solve them with the tech. It made me aware of what I needed and I immediately made the decision to onboard with Enso.

If I would’ve adopted this software platform sooner, I would’ve been able to grow quicker

“With Enso Connect we had a chance to set up and tweak everything in our guest journey the way we wanted.”

What’s next for Powerhouse Properties [920]?

We have built and achieved what we want with the local market. Now we start looking at the next steps, new markets and ask what does it look like to manage properties that we can’t touch every day.

Would you recommend Enso Connect and why?

Absolutely. I completely recommend the software. Been very, very happy with it so far.

The adoption of Enso Connect is one of the things that are setting us apart from our competitors, and it has significantly improved our guest experience. It’s a no-brainer.

The revenue we generate with upsells is covering the software costs. But even if it wasn’t, I would still pay to use Enso Connect. It is saving me a ton of time, and it is giving my guests a better experience.

Our regular visitors exclusively choose to book directly with us and stay at our properties.

This is primarily due to their trust in our ability to consistently provide an exceptional experience. They recognize that our properties come equipped with fully functional kitchens, luxurious and comfortable beds, and consistent amenities such as linens and toiletries. Our guests are assured of a consistently excellent experience regardless of the property they stay in.

Another crucial element that contributes to our guests’ preference for our properties is our seamless check-in process. We meticulously curate the process to ensure that guests have all the information they need without having to ask questions.

Our Boarding Pass includes detailed check-in steps with pictures that guide the guest to the correct door, provide instructions on how to use the lock, and include a link to the house info sheet. This approach ensures that our guests have a positive and stress-free check-in experience, strengthening the relationship between us and our guests from the outset.

“The revenue we generate with upsells is covering the software costs. But even if it wasn’t, I would still pay to use Enso Connect.”

THE TEAM ON A JOURNEY

From Chef to Multi-Million Dollar Hospitality Business

Mark Danen

Partner, Airbnb Verified Superhost

When I started in 2019, I had just 5 properties and was the only employee. Fast forward to today, and we are now a multi-million dollar company managing over 100 listings! This growth was possible thanks to the amazing team I have around me.

Business Partner

My business partner (AKA Mark) has helped build our Green Bay and “Up North” market. His next goal is establishing our “remote management” business model. This will allow us to start applying our expertise to the management of properties across the country!

Operations Manager

My operations manager, Kevin (and also my dad) was the first employee I hired when I got to 16 properties. I realized that I couldn’t do it alone anymore. He’s the king of organization, and the hardest working guy I know.

Maintenance and IT

Once we grew to around 30 properties, I knew I needed to get someone to help Kevin. Enter Shane! Shane is like my dad, except he’s great with technology. Which means he’s the go to for all internet/camera/tech related installs and troubleshooting. Kevin and Shane are the guys behind the scene taking care of every issue and maintenance fix day in day out.

Administrative assistant

When I had the operational aspects of the business under control, I started to fall behind in the administrative tasks. Enter Katie! Katie and her husband Gary have been amazing friends of ours for years. Gary is actually the one who got me into short-term rentals many years ago with my own personal property. While getting breakfast one day, Gary mentioned that Katie was looking to make a change to her career. I said that if she wanted a job, I could use the help of someone who already knows the system. Boom! Administrative assistant joins the team and helps implement two new software platforms and take our company to the next level. Katie oversees the scheduling for all of our cleaners and manages guest communications. She also works with our QA inspector to keep our properties top notch.

Marketing Coordinator

As the company grew, we recognized the need for an additional inspector, who could take on other responsibilities as required. Enter Kate!  Kate manages our Green Bay inspections, and is taking the reins on developing our social media presence and marketing materials.

Property Inspector

That’s Samantha, and she’s amazing. Despite having excellent cleaning subcontractors (about 8-12 companies), we needed an in-house personnel to inspect properties before guests’ arrivals. This step ensures that everything is perfect upon their check-in. Checking remote batteries, rebooting the wifi, stocking the supply closets, and a million other little details are all Samanthas responsibility. She is our final set of eyes on the property before guests walk in, and our guest satisfaction has never been higher.

Bookkeeping Assistant

Last but certainly not least is our bookkeeping assistant, Beth (my mom). With over 40 different investors needing to be invoiced and paid out each month, the admin lift can be quite heavy. Beth helps keep our ledger organized, investors paid on time, and manages the room tax remittance for all the local municipalities. She also sometimes sends treats for my 3 girls like any grandma would do.

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