2020 wasn’t most people’s first choice to start a new venture. But realtor Vernon Corum isn’t most people. At a time when many were shutting down, he jumped on a short-term rental opportunity when he was invited to take over the management and marketing of a friend’s vacation properties.
Two years later, business is booming and about to make Vernon his first million. But he didn’t do it alone. Vernon is backed by a unique team of highly specialized vacation rental industry experts, and some killer tech.
This frees him up to leverage his years of experience in the housing sector and focus on doing what he does best—generating stable revenue for property owners.
Here’s how he does it.
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From backroom boy to front-of-house
Vernon got his start in the housing industry at an early age. As a boy, he would follow his mom around and help her out on professional cleaning jobs. By the mid-2020s, he was hands-on in the corporate housing sector, working in the warehouse, cleaning toilets, and staging homes.
From there, he worked his way up to property manager in the corporate housing sector before starting his consulting business, Short-term Rental Pro, in summer 2020. After getting his Realtor’s license, plus another as a Vacation Lodging Company and Agent in the State Of Tennessee, he started dealing with guests and advising on short term rental management for realtors and clients.
That might have been enough for most people, but Vernon is always on the lookout for a new challenge.
Realtor Vernon Corum knows where he wants to take his business, and who he can trust to help him get there
Going it alone during the pandemic
Vernon started his short-term rental management company, Staycating, at the height of the pandemic in 2020—when many businesses were scaling back.
“I was surprised so many people were slowing down,” he says, “I wasn’t in panic mode, I was in ‘time-to-build’ mode.” As well as renting out properties to vacationing guests, Staycating offers turn-key short-term rental advisory for property acquisition, management, and marketing to investors, owners, and sales teams.
Staycating rents out cozy cabins in Tennessee to vacationing guests
In the early days, Vernon was hands-on and guest-facing, juggling multiple manual tasks and relying on a few pieces of software and a suboptimal website. “I had to be very good with time management,” he says, “to stay very focused on the task at hand.”
But as business boomed, Vernon was realizing he was going to need a helping hand. Recognizing that his time (or lack of it) was a barrier to growth, Vernon started looking for help “I realized that if I was going to continue to grow, I’d have to trust someone else.”
A match made on LinkedIn
While researching solutions, Vernon connected with Jetstream CEO Emmanuel Lavoie on LinkedIn to learn about the benefits of outsourcing day-to-day property management, marketing, and revenue growth. Vernon took a while to come around to the idea, though, “I was like, ‘I’m giving up my baby here. I don’t know who these folks are.’”
He took the leap, though, and it turned out to be the best decision he ever made. “It’s been great to be able to put some of it on someone else’s plate,” he says, “because it gets real expensive. People don’t realize how much things cost. With listings channel management tools there’s a monthly fee, usually a percentage on top, credit card fees, etc. Then you need property management software, another percentage. And you start looking at these percentages and thinking, ‘For that amount, I can pay Jetstream to be my eyes and ears for guest management and revenue generation and I can focus on what’s important to me—taking care of my clients and property owners and building new business and revenue.”
So how does it work?
Partnering with Jetstream to take his business to the next level
As well as consulting, Vernon personally manages nine properties. There’s no such thing as an average day, but he’s usually up early to take his son to school before diving into client work and home inspections. Jetstream takes a chunk off his plate by handling bookings and 24/7 multilingual guest communication, one of the most time-consuming parts of his business.
Jetstream’s guest communication is on call 24/7—so you don’t have to be
It’s also proved invaluable to help him navigate some tricky situations. For example, when dealing with a water shortage at a property. Jetstream’s whitelabel service means Vernon enjoys 24/7 multilingual guest communication under the Staycating brand. So he can relax knowing a dedicated guest-facing team is on hand to answer the phones in his name.
In this instance, the team communicated with the guest throughout, freeing Vernon up to deal with maintenance and contractors. Acting as Staycating, Jetstream also handled moving the guest to another, upgraded property and processed a refund. That’s when Vernon realized “I had a team of people, a partnership, helping me to make it all happen.”
As well as guest communication, Jetstream markets Staycating properties and takes bookings from major online travel websites like Airbnb and a custom-designed white-label direct booking site—which actually works, unlike Vernon’s previous “digital paperweight.” “Everybody loves the site,” he says, “it’s very professional, well put together… That’s the difference between professionals and people who claim to be professionals… It’s been a breath of fresh air that Jetstream knows what they’re talking about.”
Jetstream set up a beautiful website so Staycating guests can book direct. That means Vernon saves on Airbnb fees and can pass the savings on to owners.
Happy guests, happy owners
As well as helping Vernon generate predictable income for his property owners, Jetstream provides detailed revenue reporting for budgeting, forecasting, and monetizing their investments. As well as saving Vernon from wading through the numbers, it means he and his clients can make data-driven decisions based on real-world accurate information, “So when I’m talking to clients, I’m a trusted advisor.”
Partnering with Jetstream to outsource day-to-day operations has been “One of the best decisions I’ve made. Knowing folks are happy, reviews are good, everything is going well, and owners are happy. They know that if anyone calls my number, someone from Jetstream will pick up within a few seconds and requests are answered within minutes. And it’s hard in this business to find people that will actually do that.”
This has freed him up to be more available to owners, grow his client portfolio, reputation, and consulting business, and go after new income streams. “It’s allowed me to look more professional, be more professional, and actually make more money in the process,” he affirms.
“Success for me is being able to travel and be a consultant and have this management business on autopilot. It’s being able to add new owners and properties and grow. To provide trusted advice and services; be someone folks can rely on. It’s not always about money, but having clients who are happy and successful. I’m building generational wealth for them and helping them find what they’re looking for.”
He came for the tech but he stayed for the service
And it’s not only Jetstream’s tech Vernon loves—the personalized support has proved a huge bonus. “When I initially came to Jetstream,” he says, “I was looking for a software solution, not a service solution.” Now, though, he gets personalized support to manage and streamline his end-of-month payments and a team of industry experts to bounce new ideas off of.
And, what’s more, he’s got his life back.
More business and more free time?
Yes, you read that right. For Vernon, who recently lost an impressive 200 pounds—“I always say, ‘If I can transform me, I could transform your property”—the biggest bonus is being able to focus on his life outside of work. “I’m a big Community Give Back guy. I work with our local sports organization, at our high school American Football club; I’m really involved in my community. So it lets me do more of the things I like; more family time… My family knows that I’m there, I’m engaged, and if I have to take a step away to do something they understand it won’t keep us from doing things as a family.”
Looking to the future with a trusted partner at his side
Vernon’s short-term rentals are in safe hands and his businesses continue to go from strength to strength. And, thanks to Jetstream’s risk-free, shared-success model with zero startup costs, Vernon can run a cash-based business with very little debt.
And that frees him up to focus on the future. “I want to retire in the next 13 years or so… My goal is to be a multibillion-dollar business within the next two-three years. I’ll be bringing in over a million dollars next year. I want to focus on building my business debt-free, without a lot of partnerships or taking away from my ownership. And I think that can be done with this system because most of the hard work is done by people I trust.”
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