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- Founder, VRMB
This week's tip is about direct relationships with your guests and removing intermediaries that dilute enthusiasm and loyalty. A combination of Listing Site Independence and the Theory of Limited Edition.
If you are a creator — say an artist, musician, author — and you can get 1000 “true fans” to support your work by buying $100 worth of what you create every year, you’d earn $100,000 per year.
This sounds...
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Latest reply by
- ConradO
Love this Matt.
What must happen for me to turn a listing site inquiry (stranger) into a true guest?
Marketing-wise an email...
- Founder, VRMB
Have you ever discovered a food or artist or product or service or website that changed your life?
Something you tried and then pretty much can't ever go back?
For me, here are some recent ones:
Breville espresso machine (I may not ever again pay $5 for an espresso)
Inflatable exercise ball instead of office chair (completely reversed my bad posture)
Weighted blanket (weighted blanket)
The funny thing about...
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Latest reply by
- Matt Landau
I'm a huge fan of creating efficiencies.
This is such a perfect way of putting it!
This week Matt and Jed Stevens of Koloa Kai detail a six-step program for building a sustainable and profitable vacation rental business and soft-launch the VRMB Accelerator Program.
[UPDATE]
Official Accelerator Program Sign-Up Page
For more information, send a direct message to @Jed
This episode is brought to you by Point Central, the leaders in smart home automation, and Breezeway, the best-in-class property...
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Latest reply by - Will Franco
[UPDATE 05/12/23]
Official Accelerator Program Sign-Up Page
- Lindsborg Vacation Rentals
I just agreed to lease one of our long-term extended-stay rentals to a local family who live about a one-minute walk away from Skönhuset (Swedish for "the nice house"). Our neighbor's son is terminally ill with four to eight weeks to live. Hospice (and a hospital bed) will be...
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Latest reply by
- Matt Landau
This week's discussion thread is perhaps more validation than motivation.
On the heels of my friend Leyla's passing this week, I found myself reflecting on how often it is vacations together with friends/family...
- Founder, VRMB
This past week I visited Matt @Durrette who is often accidentally referred to as "Matt Cozi."
This is simultaneously not weird (COZI is the name of Matt’s property management company in Texas Hill Country) but also very weird seeing as though his last name is clearly stated Durrette and yet people continue call him Matt Cozi. (People like me continue to call him Matt COZI.)
Matt runs COZiVR with his wife Jenna...
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Latest reply by - Jeff_I
My brain exploded when I read 27 pieces of tech! I think there is also some secret sauce in the Cozi equation with Matt. I've met a ton of PM / STR operators and sometimes people just stand out. Maybe this dovetails into the "no jerks"...
- Founder, VRMB
IDEA
Approximately 100% of VRMB subscribers want more repeat/referral bookings
Around 75% offer a world-class on-site experience
Maybe 50% send guests thank-you notes or parting thoughts upon departure
About 25% have a newsletter campaign to stay front of mind
But less than 1% are all up in da Club ♫
Da Club is a private and tightly-knit group of former guests who have stayed, enjoyed themselves, and...
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Latest reply by - Catherine
@Matt Landau Wonderful! I put lavender scent on them and also use them in my laundry. My clothes smell soooooo good!
You gotta get a "manly manly scent"...
- Efficiency Manager, VRMB
Master the instrument, master the music, then forget all that shit and play." —Charlie Parker
N.B. This manual was created for sales professionals, not vacation rental owners and property managers.
How do you leverage video if you don’t know the rules? For that matter how...
- Founder, VRMB
IDEA: I recently learned the word “strip mining” which destroys landscapes when trees, plants, topsoil are cleared. This leads to erosion when the rain washes away the loose soil until the foundation is gone. OK, I didn’t only just learn the word (I’d heard it before).
But only recently did I learn it as a metaphor for what can happen to our ecosystem if we don’t work together to protect and preserve our trees...
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Latest reply by - Debi
At Host2Host we were just developing a monthly Host Tea program when the pandemic descended upon us. The intention...
- Founder, VRMB
Stan Horst is one of the world’s few vacation rental veterans. He’s been hosting guests before the days of AirBnB, HomeAway, and even before the internet itself. With his unique perspective, Stan shares how his business modeled has evolved in the digital age, and how he still uses old-school marketing tactics to drive extraordinary results. We hope this episode will stir up some latent creativity, and show you...
- Founder, VRMB
In this week's unlocked interview with @Virginia (embedding it below if you haven't listened) at 40:00 we begin talking about the kinds of properties that are in vogue and Virginia reveals that she now offers a teepee!
In the listing description she BEGS people NOT to come to her teepee ("Do NOT come to this teepee! The road is rough, grumpy neighbor, you have to use outhouse") and lots of people DON'T come...
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Latest reply by - Karla
I am going to bypass the “if money is no object” part of the what I love about a place, so much makes my...
- Founder, VRMB
[Note to Self: "Tuesday Afternoon Motivation" doesn't sound nearly as good as "Monday Morning Motivation.]
Think Differently
Today Inspirato announced a new "netflix-style" travel service offering travelers unlimited access to 60,000 Luxury Villas and Resorts around the world for $2500/month. No extra taxes or fees. Just $2500/month for unlimited stays in luxe villas and five-star hotels with no nightly fees...
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Latest reply by
- JPrugh
According to the Inspirato website, their board of directors includes the founders and some venture...
The latest research from Booking .com makes for compelling reading if you are interested in sustainability in our industry. Sustainability both for the environment and the future success of YOUR business.
In summary
83% of global travelers think sustainable travel is...
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Latest reply by - BobG
Building on my post above about Google travel listings now we have an interesting development on flights.
Check out Google Flights planner. You can see the carbon emission per...
- Founder, VRMB
Welcome to the Homerunners Shorts, a curated series of family-owned, locally-based, specialized vacation rental experiences to spark your next adventure. All businesses featured are family-owned, locally-based, and specialized in a particular niche.
In this series, meet @LanceS @TimJohnson and the team from Seaside Vacations!
The waters around the island of Chincoteague Virginia offer a wealth of adventure...
- Founder, VRMB
As a follow-up to the popular discussion 8 Deep Adjustments To Your Listings, in this week's podcast featuring @Heather we talk about what is simultaneously the biggest challenge AND the biggest differentiator (when you solve it) for independent vacation rental marketers: standing out in a crowd. You can skip forward to 12:15 to hear that part of the discussion:
Heather talks about the classic graphics like...
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Latest reply by - Robin
We Zigged - Moving Mountains is not a conventional name by any means, and this has served us well...
Our niche is Luxury - in the true sense of the word, and every time we have strayed from this we have learned that LUXURY is what our guests...
- Founder, VRMB
IDEA
All owners and managers want more bookings. Most try to achieve this by generating new inquiries. But few focus on increasing their conversion rate (the percentage of existing inquiries that convert to actual bookings). In reality, the same unit of energy spent on increasing a conversion rate can yield many more bookings than that same unit spent on generating new inquiries.
ACTION
1. Calculate your...
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Latest reply by - HWeb
@HWeb brilliant as I have only come to expect from you. Now I need to think up a way to explain...
- Founder, VRMB
@Steve Schwab went from living in the back of a bar in Puerto Peñasco Mexico and helping out with HVAC systems to building Casago into a major property management company with thousands of properties and franchises all over the US and Mexico. He's featured in our second episode of Homerunners and he's become a thought partner to Matt in tackling some of the deepest questions of our industry.
This episode is...
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Latest reply by - Steve Schwab
What a great experience working with Matt and Stuart on this project. I am always available if any of you ever want to talk about the industry, how to find your own values...
- Founder, VRMB
IDEA
Just because all vacation rental properties and owners are different (this is what makes us great) does not mean we cannot unite them under one umbrella. Collections or clusters of properties with a common theme and/or location have been used by big hotel brands for decades. So long as they have a core identity, Collections can tighten, distinguish, and drive the marketing of any growing vacation rental...
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Latest reply by
- Matt Landau
I'll need to search into past posts on "BackLinks" for past discussions on the topic.
re "invent a Collection name that unites your properties together (the more unique, the better), then create a page on your respective websites announcing your...
- Founder, VRMB
When we talk about the “holy grail” of vacation rental marketing we talk about the repeat guest: the guest who knows and loves your vacation rental: the guest that you consider almost a friend. And to cultivate repeat guests, there are two spheres to consider:
Sphere 1: Activities that cost money and activities that only require time.
Sphere 2: Activities that are done a) pre-booking, b) during the stay, and...
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Latest reply by - DK
Yesss! Easy to do with a decent CRM or property management software.
Well, I'm still kinda stuck in Excel haha. We're at 8 now between owned and managed. I...
- Founder, VRMB
IDEA
What makes our vacation rental movement strong is the combined powers of many different stakeholders. We are strongest when each owner/manager is aware of his or her role in the industry: confident in their place, harnessing their unique strengths, and focused on their plan. After pouring over 9+ years of vacation rental research, we have found there are 5 primary "archetypes" or kinds of vacation rental...
Aloha Community,
This is Kim Johnston, @TerryC Craven’s daughter. I am writing on behalf of my mom because internet access in Lahaina is not back up at the moment.
Our property management company has been in business for over 40 years and we are located on Maui in the...
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Latest reply by - AMiller
Hi from Maine. We in Maine are sending positive thoughts. How about traveling nurses? We are having a statewide vr meeting sept. 12. What can we do to help?
So, I’ll preface this with the comment that it’s a long post, but hopefully one that is valuable to this community. I try to be detailed enough that someone reading understands the principles of what I am saying, and then can agree or disagree, vs just giving some bullet...
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Latest reply by - AlexC
Interestingly, I can make the argument that this writer is making the exact same mischaracterization of the "brands' consumers are buying as I am describing as a root of a lot of confusion out there. Hopefully its not a stretch, but here's my thinking on where the writer was wrong in that...
- Founder, VRMB
John Dean of Only Provence is what I like to refer to as one of the most limited edition property managers in the world. His fleet of properties are widely recognized as the best properties in the Provence region of France.
But this distinction does not happen by accident. I was in Barcelona, Spain at KigoWorld when John told me about this tactic. I asked him to step into the side room and we archived it for...
- Founder, VRMB
In this episode, Matt sits down with Jessica Sheedy Black -- a neighborhood advocate and regional leader of the Texas Neighborhood Coalition -- for a sobering look at the other side of the vacation rental advocacy debate.
As a warning Jessica is not a short term rental advocate. So you may be wondering what’s she doing on this podcast? Our big mission of Unlocked is to challenge vacation rental pros to think...
- Owner/Software Expert
Channel management might be the single biggest confusing and misunderstood topic I come across. Here are a number of the falsehoods I hear often:
“A PMS is not a channel manager”
“Channel Manager integration is superior to a PMS integration”
“You only need one Channel...
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Latest reply by - AlexN
Hi Terry: great article! I'd love some opinions on how much lift a channel manager can provide beyond direct bookings and the primary channel. In other words, if my primary channel is say, Airbnb, then how much can I boost my occupancy by adding...
- Founder, VRMB
In this special episode, Christina Thoreson takes us through the complicated reality of selling a business she'd built from the ground up to a big industry name.
Wondering if you might sell one day or what happens in the aftermath? Or just contemplating big changes in life? This episode is for you.
This is also the final episode of the Unlocked Podcast in its current form. We expect you'll hear from Matt...
- Founder, VRMB
Eric Broughton is the Chief Strategy officer of Inhabit IQ, which owns a number of vacation rental service providers and has frankly not always had the most forthcoming reputation in the vacation rental industry.
In his defense, Eric wasn’t in his position in those early days, he’s relatively new, so this conversation was originally designed to clear up some of the air.
But as you’ll hear, Eric has a very...
- Founder, VRMB
IDEA: Make people feel special. The best hospitality organizations in the world do this intentionally. One way is through process: having procedural steps to ensure that every guest (not just the VIPs) feels special. Another way is through one-off decisions: individualized choices that a team member exercises to achieve the same goal.
ACTION: Ask yourself before your next interaction with a guest, "how can I...
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Latest reply by - JamesO
Just look at all the calories you burned doing all the shoveling? I guess Vacasa may get a kickback from the local restaurants to get the guests very hungry.....
We are all in the vacation business. Our job is to not mess up our customer's vacations. This isn't rocket science...
- Founder, VRMB
Jean-Philippe Ramé of 2 Be Apart in Lyon France is something of a vacation rental icon: he’s one of those entrepreneurs that sort of transcends industry and his management fleet is about as personality-driven as anything I’ve ever seen (check out the website if you don’t believe me).
It was in Barcelona, Spain at the KigoWorld event that Jean Philippe was sharing with me his strategy for baking flavor into...
- Founder, VRMB
Homewood Suites Is Coming to Town!
IDEA: Imagine Homewood Suites by Hilton has just announced they are opening down the street from your property(s). For a long time we compared our vacation rentals to traditional hotels. But now traditional hotels are starting to look a lot like our vacation rentals.
"Homewood Suites by Hilton combines spacious suites, complimentary amenities, and friendly staff to offer the...
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Latest reply by - Sherry
Thank you so much for this. This has been on my mind lately but in a different form. We need to showcase our value AND raise our rates because we keep getting guests who are not our target market. Note to self .... We will not join in the race to the...
- Founder, VRMB
‘How To Save Your Vacation Rental Business’ is a 10-part educational podcast series hosted by vacation rental advocate Dana Lubner that will teach vacation rental managers how to solve their business’ greatest looming threat -- unfair regulation -- from the ground up.
In this teaser clip, meet Dana, say hello to Matt, and get a listen to some of the industry voices that will be helping us explore just how to...
Welcome to VRMB!
I’m Matt Landau, the founder of this forum. It was created in 2016 when a group of us wanted a safe space to discuss our growing STR businesses.
Today, you can join our community of 1,000+ creative, thoughtful, and generous members who believe in a better future.
Spotlight
Discover "Unlocked: The Intermission" - a captivating 6-part podcast series featuring the individuals who have shaped Matt Landau's horseradish in the past 6 months.