Here is the transcript of the video:
Hello, my name is Audrey . I'm 30 years old. I created Kasa Conciergerie more than 2 and a half years ago now. In fact, I have evolved a lot in the world of tourism. I started as a children's activity leader, responsible for team activities in the camping and holiday club sector. Then I moved up to management and ran campsites for several years. With the arrival of Covid and having a 3-year-old little boy, my partner and I, both in management positions, decided to leave our jobs to launch our own project. We managed to obtain a conventional termination. I really wanted to try the entrepreneurial adventure, to do things by myself, perhaps the freedom of being able to make your own choices.
First of all, I personally bought my main residence and also apartments that I chose with my partner to use as short-term rentals on Airbnb. They are located between two large cities, Lyon and Saint-Étienne, rather in the countryside. Today, we welcome a lot of people who work, particularly in Lyon, and who come to look for accommodation that is sometimes a little further away to pay less than in Lyon. These are accommodations that we have been operating for 2 years now. Each of our accommodations is highlighted, which will also help us on the commercial side. The enhancement involves professional photos, with the small details which will really be highlighted to be able to take pretty photos of each apartment.
Kasa Conciergerie helps owners to be serene, excellent and profitable short-term real estate rental activity . We can support them in different ways. We can only support them in the optimization part of their listings for their accommodation. We can also support them in a more complete way, also intervene in certain geographical areas, on the field part, households, entrances, exits. We also do subletting, that is to say we rent apartments directly to owners at a fixed rate, which we, Casa, operate as short-term rentals.
Today, we have 67 apartments at Kasa Conciergerie which are in different geographical areas, more at the local level since we are between Lyon and Saint-Étienne, so we have quite a few in the Saint-Étienne sector. We also have them in the north of France, in Saint-Quentin, Cholet. We are going to be more in cities that are going to be more secondary cities. We also support different owners, which allows us to be in different cities in France. We could call them City managers, who will be in different cities. We really targeted cities where we expanded a little more. We really have people we trust, particularly in Saint-Étienne, Saint-Quentin, Valenciennois, and a little extended in Cambray as well. Afterwards, we will also intervene on optimization with certain owners, in particular for example, we are in Cholet in the Jura, sometimes we can be on properties which are also by the sea. So we are really going to intervene differently but indeed we are going to have teams who will be present on site and who we will supervise to ensure that everything runs smoothly.
What can help me from my life before camping to today is that short-term rental means managing housing portfolios. So, there is the whole back-office part which we will talk about later. But there is also the whole field part. And it's true that, for example, in camping, we had a lot of processes that were established, charters to respect, etc., in terms of quality. These are things that I readapted and implemented at Kasa Conciergerie, which also allows me to be in several cities and to also be able to supervise people remotely. It's not a long, quiet river, eh, especially when you get started, when you also discover all that. Because I discovered, I was a director and quite autonomous in my positions but I was still an employee of a company with charters, things to respect. Today, I finally had to create my own charter so indeed I had ups, downs, finally going through doubts, etc.
What I would advise is not to be alone and to be well surrounded . For example, I chose to go through an incubator which allowed me to sometimes see things a little differently, to discuss, etc., with people. I didn't do it straight away, I did it after 18 months of activity. Many issues come together between entrepreneurs, so it really allows us to have support, to be able to exchange ideas, to unblock situations and difficulties. I think it's one of the keys to success, to really gain perspective on what you do and I would say discipline in what you do. I also started entrepreneurship to find a good balance between professional and personal life. I attach a lot of importance to spending time with my son, with my partner, so it's really also a goal for me to combine this professional and personal side, even if it's part of the same whole overall. case of finding a good balance in my life.
Something that took me a lot of time, it was the whole revenue management , I discovered tools, etc., but it's true that it's something that I really had to follow, to be recurring there- above and it is something which is obviously eagerly awaited by the owners since we are also there so that their accommodation is profitable, that nights are sold and that they are necessarily satisfied with that too. So it's true that I had some little frustrations with that, frustrations also with the field part which can be quite demanding. You also need to have the right staff on the ground when you start to have a lot of assets. Obviously, we often have several teams so it will be more HR issues, with either recruitment or subcontracting, but in any case these people, we will say, trustworthy, who will really do qualitative work and also invest in what they do and in our company. We will also have to go find them, give them the desire to perform in what they do and give them meaning.
The strong points of Kasa Conciergerie are really our availability, responsiveness and transparency . Here I'm really talking about the owner, who will be the person who will entrust us with his keys, beyond of course having the basics of a concierge service, which is to bring them back to profitability, to make their home work and to take care of everything else. Of course, I also like real estate in general, I also like to support, to be useful too. It’s true that short-term rental is an environment that is growing enormously. Many cities are seeing an increase in the number of short-term rentals, which will ultimately lead to more competition. You will really have to stand out from the crowd to also succeed in selling the home. And sometimes prices will also be pushed downward by the market.
When I started to learn about this whole area, Élise and J'annonce Complet immediately came to the fore, particularly via social networks. It was more through the YouTube channel where I met Élise . I started following the J’poster Complet . For what ? Because in fact, I saw all the work that had to be done behind it in revenue management . Because I myself started with little accommodation but I have already seen in fact the importance of little accommodation to really be at the right price, to be really reactive on this, to be constantly in touch. monitoring all of this to perform. I spent a lot of time at the beginning probably due to lack of skills and also lack of analysis of the market. And because it takes time, the choice was first of all to train myself. Because I said to myself, well I'm going to internalize it and do it myself. And finally one thing led to another, while training, I quickly realized that it took a lot of time. I made the choice, I decided by telling myself I'm going to call on J'poster Complet to support me , especially on a daily basis. And for me, ultimately freeing up more time to develop my business , quite simply, prospecting, looking for new clients, improving quality , in the field with service providers, etc.
But I also find that the advantage of working with J'poster Complet is the commercial aspect. Because today, we are also going to sell the fact of doing this analysis on revenue management and being able to perform indirectly in any case. As a result, via I display Complete , we actually have the right up-to-date data to give to our customers. It's true that for example, for me, sometimes when I check in with my owners, it happens that I first check in with my income manager from I'm showing Complete . It's super qualitative , it gives me confidence , I really bring the right information to my owners today in transparency, as I've said from the start, it's super important for us. I display Complete really supports me on this because there are things that I delegate entirely, on the whole part for example configuration, setting prices, etc. But I'm still going to keep a little eye on it and I still like to understand the things and the actions that are being carried out. So we still have fairly regular exchanges .
So indeed, I would 100% recommend I display Complete to all concierge services, to all owners. You don't need to have a lot of assets to use a service that optimizes revenue management . I think that what we need to see is really the impact that this will have on our turnover . In any case, I would say don't hesitate to go for it .