Vacation Rental Book/CD Package: Toolkit CD

We have always believed in taking full advantage of technology—whenever it made sense to do so. Our rule is this: If you can’t show me that a computer program or other application will deliver benefits worth five times the amount of effort required to learn how to use it, then forget it! We’ll do it by hand. We’ll do it the old-fashioned way. Life is too short to turn yourself over to some programmers who force you to spend hours learning to do things according to their particular vision.

Fortunately, there are programmers out there who grasp the fact that the users of their creations are not going to be computer experts. Fortunately, there are programmers who understand the needs of the average computer user and who have responded with simple, yet powerful, software creations that are designed to make your life easier.

And here’s the kicker: Most of these programs are “shareware.” That means that you are free to use and enjoy them and otherwise try them out. If you like what you see and plan to use the software on a regular basis, you are honor-bound to pay the small registration fee the program’s creator requests.

The bad news is that there are tens of thousands of shareware programs out there. And not all of them are equal. They range from the terrible to the superb. But who has the time and experience to identify the best? Well, (ah-hem), we do. We’ve been testing, rating, and identifying the best shareware software for over a decade. (Alfred used to write a monthly column on the subject for Computer Shopper.)

We have applied those same skills to assembling the CD component of this “seminar-in-a- box.” And it was a natural thing to do. That’s because, while we believe that everyone should use Microsoft Word for word processing—simply because it has become the accepted standard—we also believe that everyone would find using a PC infinitely easier if they only had the clutch of niche programs we’ve found and recommend.

But it’s not just about using your computer. It’s about using your computer to make it easier to market and book your vacation rental property. After all, that’s the main goal here. The programs and forms on the Vacation Property Owner’s Toolkit CD are there because they will help you do just that. And these programs are referenced in the text.

Here is a quick summary of what you’ll find on the disk and how you can use it in boosting your bookings. 

Avery Wizard for Microsoft Word 2000 and 97—Makes creating and printing pressure-sensitive mailing labels a breeze for mailings promoting your property to relocation agents and others. Note that you can use less expensive non-Avery labels with this Word plug-in as well.

Avery DesignPro Limited—This is “advanced labels and more.” It’s a good program, but it has more features than most people will need. But then again, it’s free.

ClipMate—We couldn’t use a computer without having ClipMate installed. This is a powerful program with lots of features, but its essence is that it lets you copy, cut, and paste to your heart’s content. If you’ve put ten items on the Windows clipboard in the past hour, you can use ClipMate to go back and load the clipboard with whatever you clipped two hours ago or even last week.
It’s on the disk because the book shows you how to create a “master listing” for your property and then copy and past, the text and images into the “Big Four” Web-based property-listing sites.

Dreamweaver Trial Edition—Adobe Dreamweaver is the Web site creation tool of choice. We like it because it closely resembles Microsoft Word, so you can pretty easily transfer your skills. This version can be used free-of-charge for 30 days. So, should you want to create a Web site of your own devoted to your vacation rental, you might consider this tool.

HyperSnap—This program has taught us that not all image-related programs are the same. (And we have a lot of them.) It’s main claim to fame, however, is that it makes it incredibly easy to capture as a graphic image an entire Web page. Why would you want to do that? Well, as they used to say in elementary school, “You’ll have to read the book to find out.”

Magellan Explorer—Forget about Microsoft’s file “Explorer.” This program puts up two windows—source location and destination location, if you like. It makes it incredibly easy to manage your files, copy or move or rename your files, and all that other stuff. We refuse to sit down at a friend’s computer without it.

Corel Paint Shop Pro—In many ways PSP is the equivalent of Adobe PhotoShop, at far less the price. It’s been around for decades and is constantly improving. You might want to use it to “tweak” or otherwise enhance the photos of your rental property before sending them to one of the Big Four.

PIMEX (Productivity and Information Management Excellence)— Here’s a program you can use to easily manage your property and your bookings. Even if MS-Office came with your PC, you may find PIMEX much easier to set up and use.

Slide Show to Go—We absolutely love this program. We used it recently to create a slide show, complete with music, of a family vacation. Got the thing compiled and ready to go and simply burned a bunch of CDs for family members. The program is included here because the book shows you how to do the same kind of thing—create a CD with an automatically running slide show that you can mail out to prospective renters.

WinOpen—A small, simple program that lets you make your CDs “auto-run,” regardless of what file you want to load.  

Vacation-Rental Forms and Checklists

These forms will help you keep things organized, and they will make the booking, rental, and check-out process much, much easier than if you had to develop those procedures on your own. We’ve supplied them in both MS-Word and plain-text format for your convenience.

• Vacation Rental Logins and Property IDs Form
• Booking Form and Checklist 
• Sample Confirmation Form
• Sample Rental Agreement
• Confirmation/Rental Agreement Checklist
• Guest-Information Binder Checklist
• Getting Property Ready Checklist
• Check-Out Procedures Checklist

Conclusion

Chapter 17 in the book provides much more detail about the programs on the CD. It even suggests that you follow a particular order when installing them. But we don’t want to leave you with an inaccurate perception. None of the programs or forms supplied on this CD is essential to getting your property “fully booked.”

Elsewhere we mentioned a dear friend in his 80s with a property in Hilton Head. He keeps all of his records on the back of an envelope. And he does just fine. (His wife owns the computer and manages to pull up the e-mail rental inquiries.)

We, on the other hand, use the tools supplied here on the CD. Our goal is to alert you to the options that are available, to make it as easy as possible for you to take advantage of those options, and to then get out of the way and let you make your own decisions.

Nevertheless, the software you will find on this CD will make your computing life incredibly easier. Even if you install just Magellan and ClipMate!