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IDEA An inside joke is humor that requires information only available to a group. It can be as small as a joke between you and your guest. And when pulled off, it forms a connection that deepens the relationship: making you more than just another place to stay, but a true insider friend. @StacyW recently shared with me this text message interchange between her team member Lacey and a Guest: Lacey: Good...

My mother is a brain scientist who has earned an incredible array of accolades over the last few decades. Becoming a scientist wasn't common for women in her generation so (with the help of great mentors) she chose to blaze her own trail. My father was a shopkeeper whose family business served as a keystone to the community of Princeton, New Jersey his entire adult life (he has since retired and the shop...

This week’s discussion all about niche marketing ideas comes directly from the golf course! @CJ sent me the following photo of a vacation rental owner who scatters golf balls with contact information around the backyard of his golf course-front vacation home in Georgia. This is a cheap, creative, and focused way of speaking directly to his target audience. QUESTIONS/COMMENTS Where are your niche guests...

Note: Thanks to @ToonTownRob for posting this mini-revelation about the power of starting your email responses with a twist. It inspired this week's Motivation (and I decided to record it in podcast form too below). Listing sites like Airbnb and Vrbo rank as the top pound-for-pound allocation of your time to generate inquiries. All the various listing sites make up Stage 1 of Listing Site Independence...

Hey @EBadia -- what do you think about the word “boutique” to describe what makes vacation rental companies great? Used in all of our marketing materials and in our day-to-day, could "boutique" successfully convey what makes vacation rental companies great in ways that other words (we've come up with) can not? Side Note: For those of you who haven't listened, Evelyn and I are on a mission to define the word...