{"id":14003,"date":"2019-10-10T11:40:48","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T18:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/turo.com\/blog\/?p=14003"},"modified":"2022-06-27T17:00:20","modified_gmt":"2022-06-27T21:00:20","slug":"one-stay-at-home-moms-global-clientele","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/turo.com\/blog\/canada\/community\/one-stay-at-home-moms-global-clientele\/","title":{"rendered":"One stay-at-home mom\u2019s global clientele"},"content":{"rendered":"

After three years of hosting guests on Turo, Tamara L.<\/a> is still blown away by how people find her on the platform.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a 65 year old man from China who\u2019s coming to Toronto to book my car, and I\u2019m wondering, <\/span>\u201cHow did you find Turo?\u201d<\/span><\/i> It\u2019s pretty amazing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Tamara, Turo combines three things she knows well: cars, business, and people. Today, Tamara is a busy mom of three who helps out with the family business. But before she was a mom, she was a social worker whose natural warmth and curiosity makes her the perfect host for the world\u2019s guests.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no way that I could have found all these people or that they could have found me without using the platform.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Tamara’s 2014 Mercedes-Benz CLA 45 AMG<\/p><\/div>\n

Playing host to the world \u2014 and its celebrities<\/span><\/h3>\n

Tamara took a steady approach to scaling up on Turo. She listed cars slowly but surely, familiarizing herself with the platform and assessing how different cars performed. In fact, her initial reason for listing a car was productivity. She had a Fiat sitting in her driveway and decided to put it to better use.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had an extended Suburban that I was using to cart my kids around,\u201d Tamara recalls. \u201cAnd I had recently bought a Fiat. I wanted a small car that I could keep on my driveway just for me. When I needed something, I could pop out in that Fiat instead of my bigger vehicle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo I was thinking, \u2018Oh, maybe I should listing my Fiat on Turo because I wasn\u2019t always driving it.’ A lot of the times it was sitting in my driveway and no one was using it. I thought I would start with that, trying it out. I started out slow, and then it just kind of organically grew.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"IMG_6819\"<\/a>

Tamara’s 2013 BMW X3<\/p><\/div>\n

While swapping cars on and off the platform was fun, her business experience kept her focused on ensuring her Turo business was sustainable. Her Turo income covers her car expenses, but she still assesses how much income is required to make a car\u2019s listing worthwhile in terms of clean up and maintenance. She observes trends within her listings to see which cars are a hit and which are worth swapping out, and she builds relationships with repeat customers with consistent needs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a small filmmaker from Quebec. He comes, he needs a car, and I\u2019ve had him rent a couple of times. There\u2019s also a woman that lives at Yonge and Eg and she\u2019s making jewelry and she\u2019s borrowing it to take her jewelry around to photoshoots and shows.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Over time, she\u2019s become quite good at predicting which cars will get booked over another, but it\u2019s not a perfect science \u2014 like the time she inquired about a customer\u2019s choice and discovered a missed celebrity connection.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had just added my BMW X3<\/a> on Turo, and a guest had booked my Land Rover<\/a>. So I was curious and I was just checking in with him to say, ‘<\/span>Why did you choose my Land Rover over my X3?’ …<\/span><\/i>It was around the same price point, and I would have predicted that he would have booked that car.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The guest was a real estate agent. He explained that someone recommend he get a Land Rover to give his client some leg room. His client turned out to be former Raptors player Jeremy Lin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHis real estate agent had booked my car to take him around for the weekend, which my kid thought was pretty cool.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"IMG_6814\"

Tamara, her husband and three kids<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI am on the app constantly… checking who\u2019s booking\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n

Tamara takes enormous pride in providing her guests with well-maintained, clean cars. And she has to admit, it\u2019s just plain fun checking in on her vehicles and switching up the cars.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am on my phone \u2014 on the app \u2014 constantly. I\u2019m checking who\u2019s booking, I\u2019m checking when my cars are going in and out,\u201d Tamara explains. \u201cI keep my personal calendar and my Turo calendar completely separate, and I just make it work. I have lock boxes at my house that I can set up for people if I can\u2019t be there, but usually I can make sure that I\u2019m there to hand off.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Her family offers opinions about her car selection, too. Her 17-year old son in particular likes to suggest which cars she should rotate in next.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll say why don\u2019t you switch the Toyota Matrix<\/a> for a Mercedes, Mom? Wouldn\u2019t that be great?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When the family isn\u2019t browsing car models, Tamara says they\u2019re driving to hockey tournaments. And if she ever had the time to take a trip between managing a household of five, a part-time job, and her Turo business, she says she\u2019d cash in her Turo credits to drive along the California coast.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the meantime, she\u2019s playing host<\/a> to the entire world right here in Toronto and loving every minute of it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting to me who my guests are. They\u2019re all ages. They\u2019re all nationalities. There\u2019s lots of people with different stories.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Start your own hosting journey<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After three years of hosting guests on Turo, Tamara L. is still blown away by how people find her on the platform.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve had a 65 year old man from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":14044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[19,51,66],"language":[2],"class_list":["post-14003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-canada","tag-member-profiles","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t