Alex and Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals

For this October 1st of the Month Bonus Episode, we have our next edition in the “Spotlight on Exceptional Property Managers'' series, presented by Casago, welcoming Ginger & Hunter Harrelson - Owners of Beachball Properties - a family-owned vacation rental and property management company servicing the Alabama Gulf Coast that offers a premier selection of condos, duplexes, and private homes in Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, and Fort Morgan.

Prior to founding Beachball Properties, Hunter was in finance and Ginger was working for a big law firm - which isn’t a common mix of backgrounds for founders of vacation rental businesses. The way Beachball Properties began was with Hunter & Ginger cashing out their corporate 401k’s, selling their house and boat to purchase a small, local vacation rental business that kickstarted their industry journey.

Beachball Properties have grown to over 270 properties under management, and managed to do so within 7 years - which is no common feat!. Ginger & Hunter attribute their growth to their community involvement, building both their personal brands and the company brand on social media, and the fact that they had a scrappy and aggressive marketing strategy from day one in a market where their competitors were not utilizing these channels.

When asked about the biggest challenges that Beachball Properties currently face, Hunter unveiled that In May of 2022, Beachball started building their very own laundry facility which has been an intense and demanding project, but one that is going to be ready soon and will be a gamechanger for them. Ginger speaks on the fact that with over 270 properties under management, they can no longer market themselves as the little guy which means they need to change their messaging - and that will be a difficult task especially since the current messaging is working so well and they have no intentions of losing their existing stream.

Check out the full episode to hear the full story of Beachball Properties!

02:02 How Ginger & Hunter Met
06:52 How Beachball Properties Came To Be
10:43 Being Involved With The Local Community
14:22 Scaling Through Scrappy Marketing
26:03 Beachball Properties Biggest Mistake
33:48 Ginger & Hunter’s Approach to Industry Events
38:43 Biggest Challenges In 2023

This episode is brought to you by Casago and Rev & Research!

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Hey listeners, it’s throwback time! Today we’re looking back at a very special episode from 2022 with Jennifer Hsieh, VP of Homes & Villas by Marriott. Here’s a fun fact: Annie had just completed her final interview for the position of Director of Business Development with Jenny just moments before we recorded this episode. 

A lot has changed since we first started this podcast, and it’s fun to reflect on past episodes to see how far we’ve come; individually, collectively, personally and professionally. 

We are SO grateful for everyone who tunes in to the show each week – thank you for your support and friendship!

Show Notes from original air date October 5, 2022:

It was beyond a pleasure to sit down with Jennifer Hsieh, VP of Marriott Homes & Villas, to learn about both the challenges and opportunities Marriott has uncovered by bringing one of the world's largest hospitality brands into the world of vacation rentals. While Marriott International represents 30 hotel brands and 8,000 properties as part of their portfolio, Homes & Villas has presented perhaps the most unique - yet sought after - option for their loyal Bonvoy members.

Alex, Annie & Jenny dive into the details of the complexities of growing a start-up in a grown-up enterprise, along with HVMI's position on working exclusively with professional property managers.

Jenny shares career insights on her first major role with Target, and then how she worked in various departments in Marriott before moving into her current role to launch HVMI. She is an inspirational leader and one certainly worth following.

Find out more about Homes & Villas by Marriott here: https://homes-and-villas.marriott.com/

This episode is brought to you by our Premiere Brand Sponsor, Casago, and Co-Sponsor Rev & Research

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On this episode of Alex & Annie : The Real Women of Vacation Rentals, Alex is joined by D. Brooke Pfautz, Founder of Vintory - a company that is laser-focused on helping vacation rental managers grow their inventory. Brooke stumbled into the vacation rental space right before the global economic crisis of 2008 when he founded Vantage Resort Realty which quickly grew to 500+ properties under management and became one of the country’s largest vacation rental managers. After exiting from Vantage in 2013, Brooke held a couple of positions in the space until launching Vintroy 4 and a half years ago, and he’s now helped over 600 companies to grow their inventory.

Guests are the lifeline of your vacation rental business, however, too many companies don’t have a proactive strategy for acquiring new homeowners and often only tend to this matter once they experience significant churn. Brooke quotes a study they did which showed that an inventory acquisition strategy is 4-6x more impactful than marketing or revenue management, yet vacation rental companies disregard this motion, ultimately leaving a ton of business on the table.

Brooke recently published his 2nd book - “Vacation Rental Secrets: The Short-Term Rental Industry’s Top Experts Disclose their Biggest Mistakes and Share their Hard-Earned Wisdom”, which features our very own Alex Husner and quite a few recurring guests we’ve had on Alex & Annie. The inception of the book happened when Brooke was presented with the question of what are 10 biggest mistakes you’ve made in your journey so far, which then went viral on LinkedIn and had people from all across the industry reaching out to share their mistakes, which Brooke turned into a daily post cadence, which then laid the foundation for the book!

Brooke brings up chapter nr. 8 from the book, which highlights a fact about inventory that’s been mentioned on the show before and should be reminded to managers more often - disqualification is key to scale. Not all inventory is good inventory, and the negative impact of working with bad owners far outweighs the immediate revenue gain.

Tune into this episode to learn how to make inventory your superpower!

HIGHLIGHTS:
01:15 Brooke’s Journey until Vintory
04:26 New Property Acquisition Strategies
09:26 Choosing The Right Market
11:41 The Book is Here!
15:42 Brooke’s Favorite Mistakes
17:15 Culture Index and Predictive Index Integration
21:43 Disqualification is Key to Scale
26:21 Marketing Your Book Launch
29:25 What's on The Vintory Roadmap

This episode is brought to you by Casago and Rev & Research!

Connect with Brooke:

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Today joining Alex & Annie is Calvin Tilokee, CEO & Creative Director of Revpar Media - a social media management company that works with hotels and takes a strategic approach to growing your audience and turning them into customers. Calvin has always shined with his sense of humor and ability to create funny, interesting and relatable content. He started with a company Facebook group that was used for sharing memes, and there he was able to put his creativity on display. He moved on to Instagram and started building a holistic social media presence, and from that the business idea began.

Calvin has grown his Instagram to over 25,000 followers - which is no small feat for a business account. He attributes his success to a frequent, consistent content publishing schedule which was strategically built to hit people’s notifications and feeds during times when social media usage is highest. This strategy grew his account from 4000 to almost 10000, effectively doubling his follower count. Then the pandemic hit, and he grew another 50% when people really needed some comic relief.

A common reason why so many business pages fall flat is because they underestimate the investment that needs to be made to make it work. It’s pretty standard that social media management and content creation is delegated to an early 20’s employee that has a full-time role already and has no real industry knowledge, making it impossible for them to create a piece of content that will attract new customers.

When the Airbnb boom happened, Calvin had already spent more than 10 years in the hotel industry so he had a live view of the impact and how it escalated over the years. He lays some wisdom about adapting to new market conditions - with Airbnb, just like with TripAdvisor and any new platform that shows up, legacy industries are often in denial and neglect new advancements until they feel the market shift that is brought on by these new innovations, which is the opposite way of how things should be viewed in order to stay ahead of the curve.

When discussing how the hotel industry are looking at vacation rentals and short term rentals from a competition standpoint, Calvin sees that in large metropolitan cities like San Francisco and New York the markets are pretty even and hotels aren’t really stressing about the competition, however, in places like Orlando or Palm Springs in which the infrastructure supports rental properties more than hotels - revenue managers need to look into what vacation rentals offer, otherwise they won’t stand a chance.

Tune into the full episode to learn more on how the hotel industry is making waves on social media!

HIGHLIGHTS:
02:43 How Calvin Began Making Content
06:57 Growing Your Instagram to 5-Digit Follower Counts
09:14 Connect With Your Audience by Finding the Common Thread
11:25 How to Increase Your Engagement Rate and Why It Matters
16:20 Choose The Right Person To Manage Social Media
19:25 The Meaning Behind the Dog Logo
22:39 Calvin’s View of the STR Market
31:30 Are Hotels Considering Vacation Rentals When Pricing
38:42 The Importance of Sales

This episode is brought to you by Casago and Rev & Research!

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Today joining Alex & Annie is Tony Stancato, Owner-Operator of Book ‘n Gather - a vacation rental management company that helps you get the most out of your vacation rental by helping with optimization and maintenance. He’s also the co-host of Michigan Short Term Rentals Podcast, their show is about to hit their 50th episode milestone - so if you’re in Michigan, queue their show on your podcast list!

Tony’s background is in manufacturing - he was in that industry for 14 years prior to pursuing short term rentals as his career. The original idea was to grow their roots in short term rental hotspots like Florida or Tennessee, but as they dug deeper they noticed that it made a lot more sense for them to stick to their current location - Michigan - and they’ve scaled their business to a dozen properties since.

The biggest decision anyone has to make when starting out their journey as an owner/operator of a short term rental property is - where do I begin? Do you start by purchasing the smallest possible property to see if it’ll work out, or do you go for a large multi-family expecting higher ROI?

Tony mentions that the one thing that helped him the most was having a group of people that would join him in evaluating potential investments and encourage him to make the leap when the right opportunity presented itself. Working up the courage to start this journey, especially if you’re a conservative buyer, is never easy - so a strong support system is worth its weight in gold. So your main takeaway should be to stop falling for analysis paralysis, and take the opportunity once it presents itself. Whatever choice you make, things won’t be perfect from the get go and you’ll have to learn along the way, so the sooner you start the quicker you’ll get to where you want to be.

When you’re a bit further in your STR business road, selecting the right software vendors will be your next big move - and it’s one that can drastically improve your life as an owner-operator if done right. Tony suggests that you visit STR conferences as a good source for potential software vendors, as well as be proactive researching new tools through peer-reviewed channels such as social media and social media communities.

Tony operates strictly out of Michigan, and has his finger on the pulse when it comes to local regulations. Michigan isn’t a conventional STR hotspot, so in many ways they’re still learning and developing their legislative approach. In some locations there’s a huge disconnect in how decisions are made - at times regulations go from 0-60 overnight, meaning a lot of stress for operators who can go from choosing their own rules to being effectively handcuffed overnight. 

Tune in for the full episode to learn how to start your own Short-Term Rental Owner-Operator Journey!

HIGHLIGHTS:
04:25 Where Should You Begin Your STR Journey?
06:17 Access to Education in the STR Space
09:42 Tony’s Tech Stack
12:03 Choosing the Right Software Vendors
16:30 What STR Conferences Are Missing
21:35 Regulations in Michigan
25:14 The Importance of Safety Regulation

This episode is brought to you by Casago and Rev & Research!

Connect with Tony:

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On the September 1st of the Month Bonus Episode, Alex & Annie are joined by Sarah Franzen - the ex-Director of Revenue Management & Analytics at Natural Retreats - a luxury vacation rental management company operating in some of America’s most iconic destinations. Sarah is here to announce a huge career change - as of today, September 1st, 2023, she’s going out on her own and is now the founder of REVZEN.

Prior to working in the vacation rental space, Sarah was in education - which perfectly aligns with her decision to become a consultant. Her plan is to utilize her education background and skill set to stand out in the crowd of consultants by truly encompassing the purpose of a consultant - to mentor, guide, and give actionable advice on how to make revenue management your ultimate business advantage.

Sarah’s A-HA Moment that led her to begin her entrepreneurial journey stemmed from her 8 year tenure in vacation rental revenue management. When she began her journey in her speciality, there really weren’t any clear guidelines on what the role entailed, and the tools and technology we have today were non-existent. She had a significant role in creating the building blocks of vacation rental revenue management, which ultimately made her a pioneer of her craft. Building processes and figuring things out as she goes was her everyday life, and during these trials she acquired the expertise, competence and confidence to now make a life changing decision.

Then the actual moment happened during a retreat to Kansas City with 3 of Sarah’s peers. They made a commitment to form an association for revenue managers that would give them a forum to learn from each other. Sarah is an educator, there’s a gap in education - so a perfect fit is born!

The information gap in revenue management has tightened over the last few years, yet there’s still an astounding amount of property managers and homeowners that have yet to start their revenue management journey. Part of the reason why is because implementing all the new tools and technology available to us today is no easy task. Setting your seasonal rates is a key ingredient in revenue management, but that’s really only the beginning. 

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to what your next steps should be. Distribution, team management, vendor selection - these are just a few of the aspects you could prioritize when looking to achieve revenue management excellence. It comes down to taking a deeper look into your current situation and pragmatically deciding your next move towards an optimized revenue model. An unbiased view is a must have to achieve this, which is why a consultant is the perfect option, as following the advice of a third party is your best chance at making unclouded decisions.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to make revenue management into your ultimate business advantage!

HIGHLIGHTS:
02:04 What Is Revzen about?
05:01 Sarah’s A-HA Moment
09:35 Revenue Management - Where to Start?
14:19 Sarah’s Business Plan
16:11 Choosing the Right Tech Stack and Vendors
21:23 Always Be Helping > Always Be Closing
25:05 Taking the Leap

This episode is brought to you by Casago and Rev & Research!

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Today, joining Alex & Annie is Justin Ford, the Director of Short-Term Rental Safety & Certification Programs at Breezeway, the leading property operations and services platform for short-term rentals. In October of last year, Breezeway received their Series B Investment of $15 million USD and since then they’ve successfully scaled to over 150 team members, serving clients such as Lake Tahoe Accommodations, Huswell, Seaside Vacations, and more.

Justin’s journey to Breezeway began in the United States Coast Guard where he worked with fishery & boating safety. This eventually led him to a career as a yacht captain, managing a yachting fleet for a major credit card company for 11 years until Bank of America acquired their company. In 1997 he had purchased a lake cottage in Maine, which he was actively renting out. As word spread that he’s managing the cottage as a source of income for himself, others wanted him to do the same for them and so his business in the short term rental space was born.

His first venture that he co-founded, "On the Water in Maine Inc.," grew into the largest vacation rental company in the northeast and is still thriving until this day. During his time growing On The Water in Maine, Justin saw the challenge of educating and enforcing safety guidelines for vacation rentals. His next  venture started as a safety checklist, and then evolved into a company called Dwell Safe, and was acquired by Breezeway 4 years ago, where he was retained as a director.

Safety regulations are no longer an afterthought. Most incidents once deemed "accidents" are now seen as entirely preventable, placing great emphasis on accountability. While an accountability-based approach is unquestionably an overall improvement over the previous status quo, it does come with some growing pains that Justin and Breezeway actively aim to address.

A major issue is that many safety regulations are presented in a convoluted manner, discouraging self-education. The official government safety code is exceedingly complex, requiring a PhD in Safety Sciences to even read. Moreover, there are numerous aspects not covered in the official code, rendering proper implementation overly complicated.

Justin’s prediction regarding the restructuring of safety codes & regulations for short-term rentals closely follows the trajectory of the hotel industry’s regulations over the last 50 years. He anticipates that within less than 5 years, a government-approved definition of short-term rentals will be established, accompanied by a standardized code that will be approved and implemented overnight. This will cause a huge earthquake for short term rental operators, as they’ll have to immediately get their properties up to code or face the consequences.

Check out the full episode to learn how to stay ahead of the upcoming safety regulations!

HIGHLIGHTS:
01:31 Justin’s Road to Breezeway
05:32 How Safety is Viewed in 2023
07:25 Avoiding Confusion With The Safety Code
14:54 Vacation Rental Safety Revolution
19:00 The Future of State Legislatures & Building Codes
25:14 Justin’s Prediction for Safety Enforcement Changes
28:01 The Growing Pain of Insurance for Vacation Rentals
34:05 Most Common Occurring Tragedies on Rental Properties
37:42 How to Get in Touch with Justin

This episode is brought to you by Casago and Rev & Research!

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In this episode, Alex & Annie are joined by two recurring guests: Steve Schwab, CEO of Casago, and Matt Landau, Founder of VRMB. Together, they have started a new joint venture called Keystone Retreats.

These recurring cohorts aim to help those in the vacation rental industry break through to the next level through creative and educational workshops and events.

Last year, Matt was feeling that burnout was creeping up on him.

Not being his first rodeo, he knew exactly what the signs are, and decided to start pivoting towards Keystone Retreats - a new venture that would ultimately reignite his passion for the Vacation Rental Industry.

Matt decided to join forces with Steve, who has over 22 years of vacation rental industry experience running Casago.

Steve describes his time with Keystone Retreats as a real eye opening experience that has taught him how to better serve the vacation rental industry and become an even greater force in our space.

Keystone Retreats is all about transformation.

Instead of just focusing on just the business side of the vacation rental industry, the real purpose of these events is to help people unlock their north star by collaborating on new, creative projects and stimulating parts of their mind that might have been left unmoved since they were a kid.

Steve shared their plan for future Keystone events - they are looking to step up their next iteration by having a clearer vision of what Keystone Retreats is, and constantly improving the value that’s brought to the participants.

Their next step is to cultivate more amazing thought leaders that will come in to share their journeys, workshops, and transformative paths that will help you break through to the next level.

If all of this sounds a little bit fluffy to you, you’re not the only one - even our host Alex was a bit skeptical about the creative workshop part of the events, but it ended up being the most memorable and transformative part of her Keystone Retreats experience, and one she fondly recalls to this day.

Check out the full episode to learn more on what Keystone Retreats has in store for you!

HIGHLIGHTS:
01:15 - Matt’s Journey with Burnout
03:19 - How Steve Joined Keystone Retreats
05:58 - The Meaning of Keystone Retreats
10:25 - What to Expect in Future Keystone Events
14:32 - Should You Indulge in Creative Activities?
17:21 - Will Keystone Retreats Attract the STR Industry?
23:45 - The World-Class Experience of Keystone Retreats

This episode is brought to you by Casago and Rev & Research!

Connect with Steve:

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Connect with Matt:
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Today joining Alex & Annie is Kimberly Miles, Executive Director of the Vacation Rental Management Association (VRMA) - an international, professional trade association of the vacation and holiday rental property management and hospitality industries. Kimberly has been with the VRMA for 2 years, and previously had an impressive 19 year tenure at American Hotel & Lodging Association, where she advanced up to becoming their SVP of Operations.

Our very own Alex Husner is also a board member of the VRMA, so on this episode Alex and Kimberly dive into highlighting the role of the Executive Board at VRMA. The 13 leaders that represent the board develop and drive the strategic course for the association and set out their goals and priorities to make sure the organization is always a valuable asset to the vacation rental industry and a true representative of the hospitality space.

When Kimberly started with VRMA, they had just held their first in-person meeting since the pandemic. Associations were struggling in a remote world, so Kimberly had her hands full with reigniting the spark of in-person events. Within her first 6 months, she got up to speed with the task at hand and successfully held a staggering 1700 person event in San Antonio.

After weathering the storm of returning in-person conferences, in 2022 Kimberly was able to shift her attention to the long-term planning and goals of VRMA and take a more strategic seat in her duties as Executive Director.

The approach that the VRMA is taking to their growth strategy is centered around embracing change. The board is focused on adaptability, and their goal is to make sure that everyone in the industry has a place under the VRMA roof. The organization heavily emphasizes education as the best way to grow, and it’s one of the reasons why they’ve become an industry leader.

In order to maximize the reach of their educational efforts, the VRMA is always promoting their conferences and events, but they’re also cognizant of the fact that not every vacation rental owner is doing this full time, meaning that lower-commitment educational sources like webinars and ebooks get the same amount of attention.

There’s a huge event on the horizon - The VRMA are hosting their International Conference in Orlando, October 22-25, 2023. The event is hosted at the Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, and Kimberly expects this to be a record breaker - so get your tickets now before they’re sold out!!

Tune into this episode to learn more about the exciting things that the VRMA have prepared for you, and we hope to see you all in-person in October at the 2023 VRMA International Conference!

HIGHLIGHTS:
01:58 What Does the Executive Board at VRMA Do?
06:01 Kimberly’s VRMA Post-Pandemic Onboarding
10:03 VRMA’s Growth Strategy
14:35 Building Your Educational Engine
17:15 Partnerships With Other Organizations
21:40 What To Expect from the VRMA International Conference in October of 2023

This episode is brought to you by Casago and Rev & Research!

Connect with Kimberly:

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Connect with Alex and Annie:

Alex Husner | Annie Holcombe

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Today joining Alex & Annie is Andy Newman, Founder & CEO of Newman Hospitality - a company that connects Real Estate Investors with high income short-term rental opportunities. Newman Hospitality operates in South Florida, Northern Virginia and Indiana, which at first glance might seem like an inefficient mix of locations, but as it turns out this very approach has given Newman Hospitality the chance to avoid the huge risk factor and seasonal woes of having all of your eggs in one geographical basket.

Andy mentions that this strategy blossomed from his banking background, where risk management is everything. Newman Hospitality has been able to retain their workforce year-round, and harvest the fruits of diversification. One interesting statistic that Andy brings up is that by spreading out your properties by at least 50-75 miles, you reduce your climate risk by half - which is a huge advantage in a market like Florida where natural disasters are becoming a common occurrence.

How Newman Hospitality came to be was when Andy started his first venture after leaving corporate banking in 2010. He had gotten used to traveling and spending a lot of time in Airbnb’s, and he enjoyed the experience so much that he started hosting his friends & family for free. That drove him to the VRMA and hospitality sector in general, on a mission to become a better host.

Currently, Newman Hospitality manages 130 properties. As many businesses do, their initial approach was to scale their portfolio as fast as they could, but after a while they started disqualifying and getting rid of properties that weren’t up to their standards. Their evaluation process focuses on three key elements - Property, Location and Owner. This has served them better than purely focusing on short term revenue, as disqualification avoids major headaches in the long run and guarantees that the customer experience is consistent in every location.

One of their biggest recent strides was becoming part of the Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy network. While anyone can join Airbnb without much effort, Marriott Homes & Villas is a truly exclusive network that requires a good bit of qualification to join, and has been a huge selling point for both renters AND property managers to put their trust in Newman Hospitality.

Check out the full episode to learn more on how to turn diversification into your ultimate business advantage!

HIGHLIGHTS:
07:25 Newman Hospitality’s Business Strategy
11:02 Airbnb’s impact on Newman Hospitality
13:40 The Impact of Joining Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy
16:32 Pick The Right Channel Partners
17:32 Andy’s Coaching Career
22:40 How Newman Hospitality Scaled
25:20 Issues With Regulations
30:25 Managing Long-Term Rentals
35:50 Running a Family Business
39:18 Treat Your Employees Right

This episode is brought to you by Casago, Guest Ranger, and Good Neighbor Tech.

Visit AlexAndAnniesList.com to view our top picks for the best suppliers in vacation rental technology and services.

Special thanks to Rev & Research for being the presenting sponsor of Alex & Annie’s List.

Connect with Andy:
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Connect with Alex and Annie:
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