VRM Intel Magazine Fall 2017 by Amy Hinote

FALL 2017

The State Of

Vacation Rental Software 2018

Who Owns Your Data? SkyRun's Barry Cox Maintaining a Competitive Edge

800 lb. Gorillas in the marketplace

10 Tried & True

What to Do

Ways to Attract New Owners

Fighting

When the Rules Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Make Sense

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

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VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Contents On the Cover

25 What to Do When the Rules Don’t Make Sense 35 10 Tried & True Ways to Attract New Owners 52 SkyRun's Barry Cox: Maintaining a Competitive Edge 68 Fighting 800 lb. Gorillas In The Marketplace 80 The State Of Vacation Rental Software 2018 84 Who Owns Your Data?

Business 27 Setting Your Managers Up For Success 42 Top-Down Leadership Insights For Vacation Rental Managers 45 When It's Time To Sell Your Business, Who Is Looking Out For You? 52 Getting A Competitive Edge With SkyRun's Barry Cox

68 Fighting 800 lb. Gorillas In The Marketplace 80 The State Of Vacation Rental Software In 2018 84 Who Owns Your Data? 88 Software Leaders At Barefoot And Streamline Give Advice On Switching Software 95 Smart Home Automation Supplier Checklist

Regulations

78 Red Awning's CEO Discusses $40M Funding

25 What To Do When The Rules Don't Make Sense

94 What’s Happening To Your Profit?

39 Wherever The Economy Is Heading, Tourism Will Take It There

Technology

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

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VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Contents Marketing

Customer Service

50 Public Relations And The Sales Funnel

29 Branding Your Company With A Customer Focus

57 OTAs Are Not The Problem —Dependency Is

31 7 Trainer Tips: Using Technology For Authentic, Guest Engagement

58 Using Social Media To Build Your Brand 60 U5 Keys To Successful Content Marketing 63 Making The Most Of Your PPC Ad Spend 64 It’s All About Experiences 67 The Future Is Now: 4 Things Websites Should Have In 2018 71 3 Big Myths About Direct Bookings

Education 97 My First VRHP Conference By Durk Johnson 98 AVROA 2.0: The Association Of Vacation Rental Owners And Affiliates Gains Steam 100 Calendar Of Events

37 Guesty: How To Make Your Vacation Rental Business A Success

Owner Relations 32 One Size Doesn’t Fit All In Owner Acquisition 35 10 Tried & True Ways To Attract And Retain Home Owners 72 Time To Overshare Your Property Care

Revenue Management 75 HomeAway: Asking More From Revenue Management Tools 76 Is Your Company Setup For Dynamic Pricing?

102 VRHP + VRM Intel Combined! Gatlinburg, Nov 6-8

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

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VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

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VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

VACATION RENTAL SOFTWARE

directly connected

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Dear Readers, We entered our third year of publishing VRM Intel magazine with this issue. The vacation rental industry continues to transform before our eyes, and each year brings a new set of challenges and fresh opportunities to establish a competitive advantage. In 2015, the industry was discussing the impact of Airbnb’s growth and the subsequent negative and farreaching effect of their policies on regulations. In late 2015, Expedia purchased HomeAway and made significant changes with the objective of transforming HomeAway’s listing sites into e-commerce platforms, and in 2016, we saw the addition of HomeAway’s “service fees,” which caused friction around the industry for both guests and managers. Now, in 2017, we are watching OTAs take ownership of the guest relationship and are witnessing a redistribution of vacation rental profit margins from property managers to OTAs. We are also seeing increased consolidation among vacation rental management companies and the emergence of OTA-owned pricing tools that will affect the industry in ways that have yet to be determined. However, the vacation rental management industry continues to grow. In spite of natural disasters, OTA dominance, and increased regulation, the demand for vacation rentals is still rising. As the industry evolves, the resilience and adaptability of property managers are apparent, and new ways to leap ahead of the competition continue to present themselves as evidenced in the following pages. This issue contains the full spectrum of online marketing for vacation rentals, including public relations, OTA independence, social media, content marketing, PPC, website conversion optimization, and strategies to increase direct bookings. These articles collectively provide a how-to guide for marketing performance in 2018. In addition, technology continues to drive much of the industry’s conversation. In the article, “The State of Software 2018” on page 81, we discuss our talks with software CEOs and examine recent feature additions and the challenges innovators face in meeting the needs of vacation rental managers. Our industry has seen a renewed discussion about data privacy and usage. In the article “Who Owns Your Data?” on page 85, technology leaders reveal their policies and paradigms surrounding the use and protection of your data. On another note, we hope you will join us in Gatlinburg from November 6 through 8 as VRM Intel Live joins the VRHP Annual Conference to create a combined vacation rental community event that is laser focused on the needs of vacation rental managers—without the overwhelming influence of OTAs. Best-selling author Byrd Baggett will talk about authenticity and integrity, and we have thirty-three sessions about management, housekeeping, marketing, and operations. This November marks one year since the fires in Gatlinburg, and the Convention and Visitors Bureau CEO Mark Adams will be there to discuss the recovery efforts. In addition to offering top-notch education, we are hosting a bluegrass hoedown at Ober Gatlinburg on November 7, and the conference will wrap up on November 8 with downtown Gatlinburg’s Winter Magic kickoff and the lighting of over three million lights in the downtown area. This event is going to be special, and we would love to have you there. I hope you enjoy this issue and look forward to your feedback. Thank you so much for your support and readership.

VRM intel magazine Editor-in-Chief Amy Hinote

Director of Design and Production

Donato Berbelja Contributors David Angotti

Durk Johnson

Matt Bare

Sue Jones

Heather Bayer

Doug Kennedy

Danny Bradford

Danielle Moses

Ali Cammelletti

Alex Nigg

Carlos Corzo

Josh Parry

Barry Cox

Jodi Refosco

Matt Curtis

Joe Testa

John Dalton

David Thompson

Ben Edwards

Clark Twiddy

Rod Fitts

Tina Upson

Jeremiah Gall

Ed Ulmer

Andy Gaylord

Cliff Vars

Jessica Gillingham

Heather Weiermann

Josh Guerra

Pete Wenk

Paul Hanak

Claiborne Yarbrough

Advertising Amy Hinote, amy.hinote@vrmintel.com Address VRM Intel Magazine LLC

1222 Chicago Avenue, Suite 604, Evanston, IL 60202 To subscribe to VRM Intel Magazine to request additional copies, contact info@vrmintel.com or go to www.vrmintel.com

Sincerely,

Amy Hinote Editor-in-Chief

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

© Copyright 2017 VRM Intel Magazine LLC. All rights reserved. We cannot accept responsibility for any mistakes or misprints. Reproduction in part or whole is strictly prohibited without written permission from the publisher. We cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs damaged in the post. Material sent on speculation, unless enclosed with a stamped addressed envelope, will not be returned to sender. VRM Intel Magazine LLC reserve rights of ownership.

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VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

WE ARE Growing!

VRM Intel Adds Rob Johnson and Dan Kline to Team F ounded in 2012, VRM Intel was created as a tool for the rapidly-evolving vacation rental industry. Our mission is to provide relevant industry-specific news, information, and resources to help professionals build their businesses, to address the challenges and opportunities facing the industry, and to positively contribute to the vacation rental ecosystem.

VRM Intel Magazine

In October of 2015, we launched VRM Intel Magazine, which is mailed to thousands of vacation rental professionals and is estimated to now reach approximately 90 percent of vacation rental management companies in the United States. The magazine contains articles written by industry experts addressing property care, marketing, technology, human resources, revenue management, owner relations, guest services, and regulations.

VRM Intel Live In late 2016, VRM Intel went on the road with regional events that bring together industry thought leaders and local vacation rental providers. In the last year, VRM Intel Live visited Wilmington, Destin, Outer Banks, Portland, and Denver, and we are joining together with the VRHP Annual Conference in Gatlinburg in November. In 2018, we will be holding our inaugural Vacation Rental Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Summit in New Orleans, February 21-23.

VRM Intel Dashboards We recently added to our suite VRM Intel Dashboards, an independent benchmark reporting tool which allows vacation rental managers to compare their key business metrics with their local, regional, state, and national markets. With OTAs and revenue management companies providing scraped and biased reporting, the vacation rental industry needs and deserves independent reporting. And we are still growing!

With the goal of making VRM Intel a more comprehensive and relevant resource for PMs, we have added two industry veterans to the team: Rob Johnson and Dan Kline. Collectively, Johnson and Kline bring almost five decades of vacation rental experience and passion to VRM Intel, and they are dedicated to the growth and success of the professionally managed vacation rental industry.

Rob Johnson,

Senior Vice President, Sales

Rob Johnson has more than two and a half decades of experience in the vacation rental/resort lodging industry. Rob was a family member of Buehner-Fry/NAVIS for 24 years. Following NAVIS, Rob joined a start-up mobile app company, Glad To Have You. After a successful launch, the company was purchased two years later by HomeAway. Shortly after the sale of Glad To Have You, Rob partnered with Amy Hinote at VRM Intel in 2017 as Sr. VP of Sales to launch the successful VRM Intel Dashboard. Rob has been a dedicated member of the VRMA (Vacation Rental Managers Association) for 23 years and served on numerous committees. He is also a valued, long-standing member of the Florida VRMA and has been a speaker at several of their annual conferences. When not helping new clients at VRM Intel see their data in a new unbiased light, Rob enjoys spending time with his family, watching Nebraska football, hunting, crabbing, fishing, and watching his son pitch for the University of Salisbury; and you can often find him on his 24-foot pontoon boat, The Big Johnson.

Dan Kline,

Senior Vice President, Product Development Dan Kline is a seasoned vacation rental and hospitality professional with over 20 years of experience in operations, marketing, product development, and industry relations.

Dan has a strong ability to foresee industry trends and has served on many advisory boards including; the Vacation Rental Managers Association Board of Directors, HomeAway Software Client Advisory Board, Discover Vacation Homes, and the Central Florida Hotel and Lodging Association Board of Directors. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

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VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

What to Do When the Rules Don’t Make Any Sense By Matt Curtis

Building a coalition to help governments find logical solutions

“F

ish Hooks” McCarthy was an aide to New York Governor Al Smith who was known for bending the rules in his favor. He was famous for saying the same prayer every morning at St. Patrick’s Cathedral: “O, Lord, give me health and strength. We'll steal the rest.”

When I was a kid, I had a best friend named Jerome. He once said to my mom after she told us we couldn’t swim in our backyard pool during the summer, “Mrs. Curtis, what good are the rules if we’re not going to follow them?” When it comes to regulating the New Economy, local governments are finding it challenging to create rules that compel compliance. And the New Economy—whether you call it the Sharing Economy, the On-Demand Economy, the Gig Economy, or the Peer-to-Peer Economy—has scooped up vacation rentals and vacation rental managers by including them in their rules.

But if rules are created that can’t accomplish compliance, how can we expect people to follow them? That’s why I strongly urge vacation rental managers to help their local governments in crafting regulations. After all, you’re a professional manager in this long-established industry. Likewise, I strongly urge local policy makers to work closely with professional managers. The policy makers will learn the industry from you, and will create effective regulations that comport with existing local regulations.

Often, I hear people ask, “Why would a city create a rule where the issue is different for the neighboring house?” For instance, the vacation rental noise regulations may begin at 9:00 p.m., but a neighboring resident may not have to worry about the noise rules until 10:00 p.m.

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

What is my response to people who pose such questions?

My answer to all of these is,

Get involved.

YES!

If the rules don’t make sense, it may be because local governments do not fully understand how rules can be easily broken. Policy makers have a lot on their plate, and they depend on stakeholders to help them understand what does—and doesn’t—make sense.

Let’s be fair, who would have known how all these conversations were going to go? It’s easy and cheap to play Monday morning quarterback like a couple of guys at the office debating in front of a vending machine. But we also need to learn from our experiences, and I believe that our experiences have taught us that vacation rental managers need to be involved, to get organized, and—in the right circumstances—to hire professional help.

Sometimes I hear vacation rental managers say, “My town wants vacation rentals to only rent a handful of days per year.”

What do I say when I hear that?

Get organized. An organized group of vacation rental managers who build a coalition or alliance can achieve so much more than someone acting alone. You can put together a story based on all your combined experiences and help the local government find the solutions they seek. Sometimes I hear vacation rental managers say, “Our town is so buried in this issue they can’t see straight.”

What do I say to that?

Get a professional. A professional will serve as an ombudsman for the local government and the alliance of vacation rental managers. Typically, this might be a local lawyer who works closely with the town on land use issues, or a registered lobbyist, or some other type of consultant. This professional can do something the vacation rental manager may not be able to do: dedicate real time to the issue, walking the halls of government and working with policy makers to find a solution to address their concerns—or to identify a solution that may already exist in current regulations.

The community of vacation rental managers has a lot of friends in the Monterrey County area. When towns in Monterrey County, California, began to create regulations governing the vacation rental industry, some managers were quick to act. They got an organized alliance together, called the big industry stakeholders for help, and rallied supporters to various city council meetings. Now, it’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback and look back at things that happened five and six years ago, but I wonder: What would have happened if our initial decision for the Monterey County Vacation Rental Alliance had been to suggest they hire a professional?

How do you hire a professional? One shocking way to get started: consider asking your local council member. Oftentimes professional lobbyists, land use lawyers and consultants work regularly with city councils. Sometimes a council member may offer a short list of suggestions for the issues you face. More often they won’t offer suggestions, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. You can also suggest to the local policy maker that the town bring in an experienced consultant to help find a solution.

Or, just ask other vacation rental managers who have faced these debates.

A professional who understands the changing tides of the New Economy, the demands of traveling families, and the statistical impact of vacation rental activity on a town’s economy can help a local policy maker understand the benefits to the community. Professionals can help a community comprehend the variety of innovations and technologies that can help them address their concerns. This allows officials more time to focus on growing a successful regulation rather than discussing one.

The right professional will understand what rules do and don’t work, so a community can create regulations that achieve compliance.

At the end of the day, that’s what we’re all hoping for: the creation of local regulations that achieve compliance rather than driving the activity underground. As we all know, it is the underground activity that is more likely to create noise, parking, and trash issues. It’s the underground activity that is less likely to pay their local taxes, and it is the underground activity that is more likely to create bad experiences for travelers. Let’s create good rules that work rather than bad ones that don’t.

Oh, yeah, and that summer my mom told us to not swim in the pool … we swam all the time when she was gone.

Would that professional have fully understood the political dynamics going into the discussion? Would a professional have understood best practices when discussing with a Monterey County policy maker the merits of local rules? Lastly, would a professional have known the technical aspects of creating regulations so they could use that know-how to help redirect conversations when they got bogged down in the mire of public discourse.

About Matt Curtis

Matt Curtis is the founder of GPS Policy Group, a government consulting firm focused on assisting local governments to create effective regulations for the “New Economy.” Matt served for years as the deputy to two mayors of Austin, Texas, spent years as a leading voice in the “Sharing Economy” regulatory discussions, and sits on the board of the Vacation Rental Managers Association. 28

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Setting Managers up

for Success A

t a time when unemployment rates are at their lowest in decades and talent is harder to find, it is now more important than ever to focus on growing and developing management talent within your company. Both new and experienced managers require ongoing coaching, development, and support to strengthen their knowledge and management skills. Your managers have the greatest impact on retaining and engaging your workforce. Let’s make sure they are successful.

When it comes time to promote someone from your team to a management position, ask yourself the following questions, “How have I set my employees up for success? And are they prepared to step into a management role?” Based on my experience, the answer to these questions usually falls somewhere in between “kind of ” and “sort of.” We naturally assume that when employees are good at what they do they will be great managers. We all know that managers are key to employee engagement and retention, yet we often find that they are not equipped with the knowledge and tools they need to successfully lead people. A recent study by Gallup1 found that up to 70 percent of the variance in employee performance can be attributed to the quality of their managers. Managing others successfully requires more than just technical experience. Developing your manager’s confidence to select, hire, and

5 Critical Skills to Ensure Management Success By Sue Jones

retain the right team; evaluate and manage the teams’ performance; and the manager’s ability to provide ongoing feedback is key to ensuring his or her success. Listed below are five critical skills managers need to develop and become adept to ensure their success as leaders in your business.

B The ability to identify skills and to make good hiring decisions. I think a lot of us naturally assume that managers are skilled at selecting, interviewing, and making good hiring decisions just because they are “managers.” Given that most businesses spend a significant amount of their operating budgets on workforce expenses, it is interesting to note that very few measure the success of hiring managers in their ability to select the right candidates. Managers need coaching and training on interviewing—what to ask, and more important, what not to ask. They also need tools and resources to assist them with the process. Creating an interview evaluation guide or score card, and training your managers on how to use these resources, can help level the playing field and create an objective basis for comparison of the candidates, which can lead to better hiring decisions over time.

Having the right people in the right place at the right time starts with your manager’s ability to assess his or her team’s knowledge, skills, and abilities. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

C Delegating to Others Have you ever heard of the seagull management style? Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager says, “The most common management style is seagull management. A manager gives you a task, disappears, and then only returns when you make a mistake—they fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on you, then fly out.” Providing work assignments and delegating to employees is integral to getting things done efficiently and effectively. Managers do too much themselves stating:  It is quicker to just do it myself than to take the time to train someone else right now.  My team is too busy; I can do the work myself.  I want it done right, so I will do it myself. These are all common reactions when it comes to delegating. One thing I often share with managers is to focus on doing the work that only you can do.” Effective delegation skills provide managers with more time to focus on high-payoff activities, things that are important to work on, and result in revenue for the business and impact the bottom line. Time is a precious commodity. Developing your manager’s ability to delegate is key to his or her success.

D Managing Performance, Coaching, and Providing Feedback Managing performance is more than just a once-a-year performance review. It is an everyday activity that managers need to embrace. Employees want clarity about what is expected of them. They want goals and feedback about their performance, and they want recognition when they achieve those goals.

In a recent study by Mercer2 the authors reported that only 12 percent of employees rank their managers as excellent at helping staff improve performance, and just 11 percent reported that their managers excel at coaching, supporting, and developing staff. How well do you think your employees would rate your managers on this skill set?

In a recent article in the Spring 2017 issue of VRM Intel Magazine, which focuses on managing employee performance, I provide several tools and resources to assist managers with managing performance. Introducing practices such as coaching journals, one-to-one meetings, competency anchoring, and “Keep, Start, Stop” techniques into your managers’ tool kit is a great start toward developing their self-confidence with coaching and providing feedback.

E Decision-Making Skills New managers rarely come to the table with “honed” decision-making skills. We are asking more of our managers. We want our managers to be good at motivating, engaging, and retaining employees, and we want them to make informed decisions. A manager’s indecisiveness and inability to make a timely decision can create chaos and confusion, greatly impeding the productivity and efficiency of the staff. Most people acquire good decision-making skills through trial and error. This is often accomplished by providing your managers with decision-making opportunities. Whether it is selecting new software, making a hiring decision, or something as simple as approving schedule changes, they are all opportunities for managers to practice and improve their decision-making capabilities.

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Clearly defining the level of decision-making for your managers is key. Managers must be capable, and they also need to feel confident in their ability to make decisions quickly within the guidelines of your company policies and structure. Letting your managers know what kinds of decisions they can make and the types of decisions they need to run up the flagpole is a great place to start to ensure your managers’ decision-making success.

F Emotional Intelligence The ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions and the emotions of others is something your managers need to develop. The importance of emotional intelligence (EQ) is now being recognized as an important leadership skill for managers, even more so than their IQ. Unfortunately, far too many people lack basic emotional intelligence. They simply don’t have enough self-awareness or the social skills necessary to work in fast-paced, constantly changing environments. Your managers need to become adept at recognizing their emotions, understanding what their emotions are telling them, and noticing how their emotions affect employees around them. On the flip side, managers also need to understand their perceptions of others and how others may feel to be able to manage work relationships more effectively. Without an ability to see other points of view, managers will struggle to pull a team together to produce the results you desire.

The good news is EQ, unlike IQ, can be improved upon. Developing your employees’ competence with self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills is a worthy investment to ensure their success as managers. Training, developing, and growing your internal management team is a competitive business advantage and well worth the investment of your time and resources. http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/182792/managers-account-variance-employee-engagement.aspx 1

“Future-proofing HR: Bridging the Gap Between Employers and Employees.” Mercer, 2016. 2

Sue Jones, owner of HR4VR, is passionate about creating human resource programs and services that are strategic in scope and consistent with the goals and objectives of vacation rental clients. Sue’s innovative approach to HR and extensive experience encompasses businesses of all sizes in multiple industries. When addressing the needs of her clients, Sue is especially skilled at transferring her knowledge, skills and abilities across business channels in a personable manner. Sue is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Northeastern University and is both SHRM-SCP and SPHR certified.

Branding Your Company with a Customer Focus By Ali Cammelletti

s we know, online bookings in the vacation rental industry have been on the rise for a while. I am hearing from clients that anywhere from 50 to 85 percent of their bookings have been online this year. What that tells me is that when people call in to book over the phone, they require and expect more from their service providers. Long gone are the days of easy bookings where the caller calls and says, “I want to book this home.” Instead I hear that people are calling about pricing and availability. Their minds have not been made up already that they are going to book at all. Recently during a secret shopping project that I conducted, I found that in three out of five calls, the agents never asked what brought

me to the area or what I was looking to do. They gave me “canned” information on the amenities of the resort or gave me a price and then asked me if I wanted to make a reservation and what credit card I wanted to use. I have to admit, I felt a little violated. They didn’t take an interest in what was important to me or even earn the right to ask for a reservation. Regarding the other two calls, the phone routing disconnected one, and the other delivered to dead air where I waited for two minutes saying, “Hello . . . hello,” before eventually hanging up. If your company is going to thrive and grow with the times, I encourage you to implement the following helpful tips for exceeding increasing customer expectations. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

The Platinum Rule We all know the golden rule of treating others how you would want to be treated. Let’s take it to the next level with the platinum rule and treat others how they want to be treated. We do this by asking questions and listening to hear.

Listen to Hear, Not to Respond It is our natural human instinct to think about how we are going to respond when we are listening to callers or guests. It takes concentrated effort to overcome our natural instincts and really listen. This could require pausing after hearing an objection or concern and sharing that you are taking notes and want to understand the issue fully before coming up with a solution. The customer will respect this because who wants a quick answer that feels “canned” and not thought through? It is OK to say that you want to research what happened and follow up with the customer later that day. You could also make a comment on partnering with the client on the issue at hand and being his or her advocate in coming up with a fair resolution.

Even if the caller can’t do the minimum night stay or the price is too much, the caller will remember how you made him or her feel and will want to tell other people or come stay with you at another time. Every interaction we have is an opportunity to brand our company.

Make It Easy on the Customer This might be an offer of an e-mail with links to send to the group that is traveling with the caller and taking an active role in deciding the home the group will stay in. Offer to call back instead of saying, “Call me when you have decided.” I heard an employee share that the employee’s company lets multiple people pay for a stay so that one person doesn’t have to pay the total and then collects funds from everyone in the group. I love that! I hear customers feel so relieved and grateful because of this offer. As Maya Angelou put it, “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did; they will remember how you made them feel.”

Empathize before Educating Customers want to feel heard, understood, and related to. Often our natural instinct is to fix the problem before hearing the person. If we go straight into educating the customer about the “why” or the solution, we miss the opportunity to connect with the caller and build a long-lasting relationship. I have even heard customers, after being given a solution that is fair, say something like, “You didn’t even say you were sorry.”

Acknowledge Their Vulnerability Often customers will share something vulnerable—maybe they are going through a divorce or have just lost a family member. Take the time to acknowledge the situation. You don’t have to relate to them by sharing a story of yours that is more devastating. Please don’t do this as it discounts their pain and does not create a connection. Instead say something like, “I am so sorry you are going through that.” Then gear your tone and focus on their needs for relaxation and rejuvenation.

Put the Caller in the Moment Often customers are completing a responsibility by reserving a home. Get them emotionally connected to the experience they will have when staying with your company. You can do this by using the word “you” or “you and your family.” An example would be, “You and your family are going to love this home. It has a nice patio that overlooks the ocean. In the morning, you can enjoy coffee and breakfast as you watch the waves, or you can enjoy wine in the evenings while watching the sunset.” I have heard customers actually say that they are ready to be there now when employees have been successful at emotionally connecting them to the experience.

Build Relationships Often employees, during a busy season, are what I call “burning through calls.” When answering the phone, they make a quick assessment of whether the caller is a potential guest or not and then move on to the next call. Take the extra two minutes to ask what is bringing the caller to the area and what experience he or she is looking to have while visiting. Make the caller feel like you care. 32

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Ali Cammelletti of Cammelletti Consulting brings over 28 years of experience in the hospitality industry. Having served in many capacities within the industry, from a frontline restaurant and lodging employee to building and owning a successful event planning business, Cammelletti now runs a consulting company. She currently coaches and trains frontline staff as well as managers growing their leadership skills. Visit www.cammelletticonsulting.com for more details.

Trainer Tips on Using Technology for Authentic Guest Engagement

hen vacation rental (VR) managers walk down the aisles of industry trade shows, such as VRM Intel Live! or VRMA’s annual and regional conferences, they are sure to encounter vendor partners offering the very latest in innovative, technology-based tools that promise to improve and enhance guest experiences and, in most cases, reduce labor costs.

Certainly, smart VR managers will take the time to fully investigate all offerings—due diligence that is recommended by the providers themselves as well as by me. Long-established processes and procedures for the VR industry, as for virtually all others in today’s world, are being constantly disrupted. Therefore, embracing change is absolutely necessary for your company’s long-term viability. However, simply using the latest technology-based tools in the same way your competitors are using them will not help you gain market share of either renters or owners. In fact, if not used correctly, many of these “solutions” may inadvertently degrade the relationship between the guest and the rental company by eliminating key touch points in the guest and owner experience. As a result, many of today’s VR guests don’t even know which company they actually rented from last time, and owners feel little if any connection to them. Yes, to stay abreast of the competition one needs to embrace the latest technologies, but it’s more important to use these tools in different ways to stand out from competitors. When considering innovations, think about how each one can be used to personalize the sales and service experience, not just how the tool can reduce labor costs and increase staff efficiencies.

Here are some training tips for using high-tech solutions for old-school relationship building: B Use an auto-attendant to answer phone calls after hours and during peak times, but have sales calls answered by a live person whenever possible. Cross-train all office staff to field incoming calls, answer basic questions, and properly transfer calls (using “call announce,” not “call screening”) when it’s necessary to send the caller to a rental agent.

C Have an easy-to-use online booking tool on your website, but encourage phone calls by posting your number prominently on the home page and adding copy that says “Call our in-house reservations specialists right now.” Let callers know they are not going to reach an untrained agent at some giant call center. Make sure the phone number is easy to find when searching on a mobile device. Update on-hold messaging to reinforce the point that callers are holding for a knowledgeable, in-house staffer. Update after-hours messaging to commit to a quick callback the next day. D Offer virtual and 3-D floor plans, but train agents to “narrate the pictures.” Often, guests who are already looking at images online while on the phone will ask your agents for their opinions. Without training, most agents will simply restate facts about the accommodation, such as square footage, number of bedrooms, and

a list of amenities. Instead, train them to endorse the options callers are inquiring about (assuming it matches their stated preferences) and/or to use needs-based recommendations and suggestions. When speaking with callers who have not yet viewed images of recommended options, agents often coach callers on how to find a home and view images at the website. Instead, train agents to use screen-sharing tools such as join.me (which is free to use), and then they can easily show callers the images they want to present.

E Offer online chat, but when the chat is a booking inquiry, train agents to redirect guests to the voice channel if possible. When conducting on-site training, I often observe agents who field sales inquiries solely via chat, which wastes time and is not personalized. Instead, train them to say, “That’s a great question. Are you by chance by a phone so I can give you a quick call?” Even better, be among the first to embrace video chat! (Skype and FaceTime already offer this option.) F For e-mail inquiries, use an auto-responder, but train your agents to follow up proactively with personalized responses. If a phone number is provided, train them to call the prospective guest and say, “I just had a few questions to help you find the best options.” Otherwise, they should at minimum send a personalized e-mail response. Rather than just using a template, they should start with a few sentences to paraphrase and restate details regarding the sender’s plans if they are described in the inquiry. Even better, if you really want to stand out from all your competitors who may receive a similar inquiry from the same prospect, train your agents to respond with personalized video emails. (Email me to request a sample and link to the only vendor who provides this.)

G Use a call- and lead-tracking tool, but train your agents to use an investigative sales process to uncover “the story” behind the caller’s vacation plans and to document these details in the comments field of the lead (if not booked) or in the PMS system if booked. Then train agents to paraphrase and restate such details in their sales follow-up messages and when welcoming guests. H Use keyless entry and remote check-in if they fit your operational model, but welcome guests personally. Make sure your staff members take the time before they call to read the guest history in the reservation and to note any details regarding the guest’s vacation. Then they can use what they know in a personalized greeting or at least leave a personalized voice mail. (Example: “Greetings, Mr. Rodriguez! Just wanted to call to make sure your kids’ first trip to the beach is off to a great start this summer!”) It’s always a good idea to send a locally themed, locally sourced welcome amenity, especially if you are using the remote check-in model to help guests connect with your brand.

By Douglas Kennedy, President Kennedy Training Network KennedyTrainingNetwork.com VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

One Size Doesn’t Fit All in Owner Acquisition By Heather Bayer

reat homeowners are the foundation of every vacation rental management business, and each year, attracting them becomes more of a challenge. As OTAs increasingly offer many benefits of a property manager, the task of owner acquisition grows harder every year.

The common question “What can you do that I can’t do myself on Airbnb, HomeAway, or VRBO?” is becoming tougher to answer because there are so many options for homeowners to manage their own rentals—even from a distance. So, unless an owner is firmly committed to this path, managers need to become creative in convincing owners that choosing a property manager is the best decision for their rental business.

The first step is to appreciate that this is not a one-size-fits-all process. Owners have different goals, needs, motivations, and levels of interest/involvement. A simple web page with a list of features, an information sheet, and a single follow-up call might have been enough to capture a new owner in the past, but now we need a comprehensive strategy that considers a multitude of personas and how to reach them. Owners come to a rental agency via a couple of paths. Some are completely new to rentals and need guidance and education on the process. They aren’t confident enough to carve their own way as an RBO, although that may be a goal for them. 34

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Others may have been managing their own rentals for a while and are ready for a third party to cut the stress and time-eating aspects of the business. They have experience with the operational side of the business and want to hand it over to someone else to manage.

A third group includes the investors/owners who have thoroughly researched the market to look for the best location to purchase. They know what they want to achieve in terms of income and are looking to a property manager to bring that in. Identifying different types of owners and uncovering their pain points and creating persona-based strategies for acquiring them will help property managers define the types of information they need to develop and how to approach each one individually. These examples are some of the types of owner personas a management company might deal with, the relationships that work with them, and some ideas of the free information that would appeal to them. Different locations and regions tend to attract more of one type than another, so for those entering the business, it’s worthwhile to spend a good amount of time on research.

Absent Investor/Owner Jeff is a millennial investor who has been attracted to short-term property rentals through seminars he’s attended. He knows there is significant growth potential in the market through what he has

heard about Airbnb, and he has researched locations thoroughly. He wants to be completely hands off with the operational side of property management, but he’s interested in traffic to the listing, conversion rates, channels that are in use, and cash-flow forecasting. His goals are to buy additional properties and to build up a portfolio of units that rent consistently well, so he is interested in regular performance reports.

The relationship with Jeff is businesslike. He understands terms such as cash flow and dynamic pricing, and he wants frequent reports that show how his place is doing, where it is being advertised, and how seasonal rate changes impact his cash flow. What Jeff Wants from a PM Company Jeff wants efficiency, regular communication with an account executive, and updates on the performance of his properties. Although he’s hands off with the operational side of the business and doesn’t deal directly with his guests, he pays close attention to reviews and feedback. The most effective lead magnets in attracting this persona would be  Financial Forecasting Tools  A Guide to Preparing a Home for the Millennial Market.

Owner/User Family Home Bill and Sheila inherited their vacation home and want it to remain in the family for future generations to enjoy. They see rental as a way to keep the home while allowing them to use it for family vacations once or twice a year. Because they’ve known the home for decades and their kids were brought up vacationing there, they value some of the traditional aspects that may not be desirable to their guest demographic. They know little about the rental market beyond what they’ve heard from neighbors, and although they know some updating is necessary, they are reluctant to make too many changes. Their primary concern is that guests will look after the property and not use it for parties and teen get-togethers. The relationship with Bill and Sheila is nurturing. They want to feel confident that their home is being cared for and that guests respect it. It’s also important that they appreciate the changing nature of the guest demographic to help them understand the hospitality perspective of today’s rental industry. What Bill and Sheila Want from a PM Company Bill and Sheila need help building confidence that this is a good step for them, and they need to learn about their role as owners in the travel industry. They value a personal connection with an owner liaison/account manager who can explain in detail what they will need to do. The most effective lead magnets in attracting this persona would be  A Guide to the Top 10 Features Families Look for in a Vacation Home  What to Expect When Renting Your Home (video series)

Involved, On-Target Owners Joe and Mike have experienced many vacation homes around the world, and they want to buy their own. They may want to retire there eventually, but they see the home as an income generator in the meantime. They are busy with their own business, so they want an agent to manage marketing and reservations. But they want to be involved in the management of the property, including changeovers and maintenance. If the property is vacant at any time, they might want to use it, but their primary goal is for the property to pay for itself. They want to learn everything about the business and are open to all ideas for maximizing income. What Joe and Mike Want from a PM Company The relationship with Joe and Mike is more of a partnership given their desire to be involved in the operation of the rental. They want to share their ideas and get feedback on any improvements they make. The most effective lead magnets in attracting this persona would be  How to Create a WOW Response and Get 5-Star Reviews  Checklist for Creating a Gourmet Kitchen for Your Guests. While creating these positive personas can help in a quest for great owners, it’s also a sound idea to look for the negative aspects that act as red flags. The potential of a successful property can be held back by an owner who is not fully invested in hospitality, has little concept of the cost of doing business, focuses on minor damage, or has listed with different agencies in the past. Here’s an example.

The RAM Owner Gary has registered with several local agencies in the past and can list all the reasons he was unhappy with each one. He’s had some incidents of overcrowding, so he installed a security camera on the front door so he can check on arrivals and is very detailed in how often and how diligently he examines the footage. He’s looking for a property manager who takes a significant security deposit because, in his recent experience, his claims have not been fully met. He employs his own cleaning team, who report to him every week with their opinions on each rental group and whether they were suitable for the property. The best recommendation for this type of owner is to run a mile. Joking aside, this business is not for everyone, and some homeowners are looking for income without bearing the responsibility that comes with it. Understanding the different personas allows us to select the ones who are motivated to succeed and will work with their property manager in a relationship-based way. Heather Bayer is co-founder of The Vacation Rental Formula and host of the Vacation Rental Success podcast. She is also CEO of CottageLINK Rental Management, a property management company based in Ontario, Canada. She will be speaking at the VRMA National Conference in Orlando and at VRSS18 in San Antonio in May. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

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Tried and True Ways By Jodi Refosco, Taylor-Made Deep Creek Vacations

to Attract and Retain Home Owners

rowing your portfolio of homes while retaining your existing owners can be a bit of a juggling act for busy vacation rental (VR) managers. Reaching either goal requires you to be a savvy marketer and a strategic planner with strong brand recognition and a robust online presence. That is the basis for positioning yourself as an expert in order to build the required trust for successful partnerships. Having built a company from the ground up, I have a lot of experience with the peaks and pitfalls of growth. We started with just one home in 2008. By July of last year, we had 239 properties—all of which were acquired organically. The following month, we finalized the purchase of a competitor that increased our inventory by 100, and we currently manage more than 380 vacation rentals.

G Connect in Person A big step toward retaining an owner includes personal connections. Host a coffee hour or luncheon to provide an opportunity to connect with your team and to share company updates, milestones, or highlights.

H Stay in Touch When you are not connecting with owners in person, keep them engaged with a newsletter or dedicated owner blog.

I Educate to Inform and Set Expectations

I put together a list of ten tools that are essentials for your “owner acquisition toolbox.” They can help you stand out from your competition as you nurture new and existing relationships.

This one applies to both acquisition and retention. Take the guesswork out of owning a vacation rental home by answering FAQs, providing valuable tips, or sharing data on how to make the owner’s home more marketable.

B Email Marketing

J Social Media Is Essential

Whether you have access to public email lists in your area or build a database of prospective owners from scratch, email marketing is an inexpensive and efficient way to keep your brand in front of your target audience.

An owner who is researching your company will more than likely check out your social media profiles. Posting with consistent frequency, having a large following, and promoting both your area and your homes tells owners that you are on top of your marketing efforts.

C Messaging with a “Wow!” Factor Think outside the box to attract owners. Everyone likes getting a surprise package in the mail—think promotional items that really pop! Send owners an item that is both fun and useful, and not only will they think you are clever, but items that are used daily will keep your company top-of-mind.

D Postcards—The Old Standby While much of our marketing efforts have moved online, don’t discount traditional methods such as postcards. In some areas, getting mailing addresses through tax lists may be faster and easier than building an email database.

E Triggered Emails After that first conversation, a hot lead can quickly turn cold if you do not continue the interaction. Triggered emails allow you to send follow-up messages that are both personal and informational with a frequency that you define. It is a “set it and forget it” way to keep the discussion going.

F Turn Existing Owners into Brand Advocates Word of mouth carries a lot of weight when choosing a management company. Showcase short videos or written testimonials on your website, and let existing owners share their experiences.

K Make Your Website a Valuable Resource Craft content for your website that offers value, and make it easy to find. Whether it is suggestions for popular amenities or conveying the importance of a deep clean, equipping your owners for success creates a win-win situation. There is no simple way to secure and retain owners, but you can significantly improve your odds by including these methods in your overall strategy.

With over 20 years in the vacation rental industry, Jodi Taylor Refosco has experience in almost every facet of the business. Along with her husband, Joe, and her brother, Chad Taylor, she owns Taylor-Made Deep Creek Vacations & Sales. In nine short years, they have grown their portfolio of homes to become the largest vacation rental company in Deep Creek Lake, MD. She oversees the reservations, owner relations and marketing teams and also on-boards all new home owners. Jodi has been actively involved with VRMA for more than ten years as a presenter as well as holding the office of Secretary of the Board of Directors for four terms. When she is not in the office, you can find her enjoying the outdoors with family and friends or volunteering with local charities that are close to her heart. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Switch to a Smarter Technology Providing property managers with an end-to-end platform connecting all aspects of their vacation rental business

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VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

HOW TO MAKE YOUR

VACATION RENTAL BUSINESS A SUCCESS Welcome to a New World of Travel

he travel industry has hit a new level in the past few years. Travelers are not just visiting your average urban cities around the world, they are exploring everything from the countryside to the jungle. Always connected and constantly looking for an adventure, today’s travelers want it all—from the most exotic to the most centrally located. Travel is no longer a seasonal industry, it is a year-round business. When the opportunity arises, seize it. Being a modern-day traveler is about more than seeing new places around the world; it’s also about gaining new experiences. Most young travelers seek unique travel opportunities and want to connect to the places they visit and be more like locals than tourists.

Travelers no longer need or want to pay for overpriced hotels and unnecessary amenities. For these reasons, they flock to the world of short-term and vacation rentals. According to the Smarthosts Vacation Rental Forum, in 2016, the vacation rental market was valued at $100 billion dollars and is predicted to reach $167.9 billion by 2019. This industry just keeps growing and is taking over the travel industry. This takeover is forcing businesses to market in an entirely new fashion.

What You Need to Make It Big Short-term and vacation rentals fulfill travelers’ desires to experience local life. With a booming industry, the business opportunities are endless. As the industry continues to grow and become more competitive, it is important for property managers to have the smartest technology available to organize their companies’ activities and help them reach their maximum potential.

Guesty makes all of this possible. With an end-to-end solution for short-term property managers, the platform works to centralize businesses’ activities in one place.

Guesty’s robust yet simple platform allows property managers to control their listings as they wish. With features such as channel management, you can sync all listings with each other and list them with the correct availability while maximizing your revenue and increasing bookings on empty nights. Guesty also offers property managers the opportunity to control the data and information shared through an owner’s portal. This provides homeowners with transparency, so they can view the revenue and bookings in a report while letting the property manager handle everything else. Guesty is here to ensure that operations stay manageable and organized. Seamless automation tools allow property managers to automate emails to guests regarding events and customize content. These automation tools assure that guests receive responses to

their questions in a timely fashion as well as any information they need before, upon, or after check-in and check-out. In addition to the operation tools that Guesty offers is another favorite: the Staff Management App. This feature gives your staff members easy access to all their assigned tasks along with any listing information needed to get the job done. Managers can track statuses and completion of assignments, monitor work duration, and see the tasks remaining on the Guesty dashboard.

Keeping a business organized is the key to helping it grow. With the reporting and analytics features offered on Guesty’s platform, every property manager has the tools he or she needs to see where the business is growing and where it can improve. Companies can use this data to more than double their business revenue and increase bookings and guests. This information can even lead to an increase in listings. The Guesty Integration Marketplace allows managers to use their preferred apps and operate as they choose with all its integration options. Guesty supports property management companies of any size— from those with a few listings to those with hundreds of properties—while improving their management performance and demonstrating automation and consolidation. Guesty’s seamless cloud-based property management solution will increase conversions and profits by reducing time spent on tedious tasks and investing it in creating additional streams to maximize revenue.

The Takeaway Guesty is recognized as the one unifying solution for property managers and has implemented tremendous ability for short-term property managers to scale their businesses. “Guesty’s features will generate more direct revenue together with the ability to increase awareness and distribution of listings,” said Amiad Soto, CEO and cofounder of Guesty. “Our company has been growing tremendously in order to continue producing outstanding new features and open up endless opportunities within the industry.” As the travel industry changes, Guesty continues to provide property managers with state-of-the-art smart technology in one seamless end-to-end platform.

Danielle Moses is the content manager at Guesty, the all-in-one cloud-based platform for property-management companies worldwide. Danielle is a vacation-market expert with a business marketing degree and vast experience in the short-term rental industry. You can contact her at Danielle@guesty.com. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Wherever the Economy Is Headed,

Tourism Will Lead It There By John Dalton

ow’s that for an opener? Here we are working in an industry that always seems to be leading the economy, and hardly anyone knows it. I wonder how many politicians understand that tourism is the number one industry in the world, and that they should be supporting it every day. Here are a few worldwide facts that tell the story of how our industry is leading the way to a better economy.

Destination Taxes

 According to the World Travel Council, more travel dollars are spent in the United States than in any other country.

 Almost every purchase travelers make is subject to a state sales tax.

 China ranks second.

 Travel spending in the United States is almost twice as much as China.  One out of every nine jobs in the world is created by tourism.

A few more facts  Foreign visitor spending in the United States is 20.6 percent whereas domestic spending is 79.4 percent.

 In July, 209,000 new jobs were created in America, and leisure and hospitality contributed 62,000, or 30 percent of the total.  Leisure travelers spend approximately 2.4 times more than business travelers.

 13 percent of Americans plan to take three or more vacations this year.

Transportation Taxes  The tax rate on the average airline ticket is 21.1percent. This year the airlines are forecasting more than 730 million people will board aircraft in the United States.

 The driving market has the privilege of being “double-taxed.” First, the federal government taxes gasoline at the rate of 19.4 cents per gallon. Second, the states add their gasoline tax, ranging from 12.2 cents per gallon in Alaska to 58.2 cents in Pennsylvania.

 The occupancy tax fluctuates from state to state.

For vacationing folks, destination taxes far exceed transportation taxes. It’s almost impossible to calculate what the total per-person tax dollar amount is for tourists. With all that revenue, it boggles the mind why government employees are not adequately staffed to serve travelers.

The next time you arrive at the airport, you might ask yourself why the lines are so long and the wait times are often unacceptable to clear security. Do you think politicians are allocating some of that 21.1 percent tax from your ticket to other industries? Are the elected officials in your state appropriating travel tax dollars to support their agendas? Millions of dollars of local and county vacation rental (VR) taxes are not being collected due to lack of personnel and technical capabilities. Many vacation destinations do not have the manpower to even identify those renting without a license. It’s unfair to the local communities for federal and state representatives not to increase the budgets. The collection of taxes is vital to enhance the infrastructure of vacation destinations. In addition, it is unfair to taxpayers for rogues to be earning rental dollars yet avoiding paying taxes. It goes beyond the occupancy tax. One also wonders if VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

these individuals are claiming the income on their federal income tax filings.

field. They went to be entertained by the great array of baseball talent who had passed away.

Does it sound like I am about to take the politicians to task for not supporting the visitors who support our destinations and the businesses that serve them? Oh yeah!

It’s Time to Vote Them out of Office

In January 2014, the Onsite Property Management Association (OPMA) Board of Directors voted to go on record challenging the proliferation of businesses and individuals that harm legal shortterm rentals. They urged professional short-term rental partners to join them and lend their voices in support of eliminating these unprofessional and illegal activities within the hospitality industry. To date, few have joined the fight. Today, many politicians still do not understand the negative impact this has on our sector.

Decades ago, while working at AAA headquarters, I learned that the federal gasoline tax was voted into law to maintain the highways and bridges throughout the country. At that time, I was astonished to learn that only 75 percent was appropriated for that purpose, and 25 percent was earmarked for other programs. It seems today Washington is selling us a new infrastructure program to finally update the highways and bridges. The only problem is that now only 60 percent of the gasoline tax dollars are being applied for this long awaited endeavor and 40 percent is quietly being moved elsewhere by our elected officials.

The Florida Fiasco We all know the story of the Florida legislation attempting to eliminate Visit Florida, the major marketing arm attracting people to the state. When it was announced, the people who have devoted their lives to our industry descended upon Tallahassee. The governor supported their cause to maintain Visit Florida and not reduce its funding. The politicians felt the pressure and introduced a revised bill leaving Visit Florida in place but cutting the budget to $25 million. The governor sent his message that he agreed that the marketing arm needed reorganization but that he would veto the bill if the funding was not reduced from the previous year.

Despite the opposition, the House and Senate proceeded to vote. The House vote was 98–14, and the Senate voted 34–4 to reduce the funding. Collectively, the vote was 132–18. 88 percent of the elected state officials voted against tourism. They individually knew the consequences of their vote would be devastating to the state. The tax revenues would plunge, untold residents would lose jobs, and homeowners would soon be paying higher property taxes. When all was said and done, the governor passed it off as “politicians just being politicians.” If that’s the case, then I have yet another reason to be sure we rid ourselves of politicians who are against tourism, wherever they are. All 132 of those voting against our industry, regardless of their reasoning, deserve to be sent back to public life on Election Day. They have no place in government.

Do they have the ability to understand that marketing Florida without tourism is like marketing a picnic without food? Did they believe the private sector would increase its marketing dollars to replace the void left by Visit Florida? Or did they buy into the Field of Dreams movie? You know, the “Build it and they will come” theory. Did they believe that Florida (the field) was built and visitors would come without the state funding the marketing? Well, Kevin Costner built the field, and they came. But what everyone seems to miss is that the visitors who went to Iowa did not go to see the 42

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

It’s not the soil of Florida that attracts a record number of visitors each year. It’s the talent of the people who have invested their lives to help visitors create lifelong vacation memories for those willing to spend their hard-earned dollars in these communities. It is the commitment of dedicated individuals to produce innovative products and services to bring visitors back again and again. It is a combination of all the stakeholders in VR communities working together.

This is true of every VR market in the United States. In recent years politicians have done little to support the success of the tourism industry. The gang of 132 anti-tourism representatives is not alone. There are thousands of them across the country, and it’s our duty to rid ourselves of the people who believe they can regulate our industry. All they can do is get in the way of our progress to continue to lead the economy to prosperity by voting against what is good for tourism.

Nationwide, we need to identify these “political barriers to tourism’s progress” and vote them out of office. It’s time to take names. It’s time to tell your community who they are and why they should be voted out of office. A campaign against these individuals should be a high priority. They should be replaced with people who understand the value of our great industry. We require political leadership who will leave the local legislation in the hands of the communities and not at the state level. We need astute politicians committed to providing local communities with additional funding and manpower to create their own vacation-friendly ordinances, to enable them to identify the rogue organizations and individuals giving the VR sector a bad name and extinguish their parasitic behavior, and, of course, collect 100 percent of the taxes so they can allocate those taxes directly back into the local vacation rental infrastructure. Let’s end this diversion of funding by the states and federal government that serves their personal political agendas. Imagine if we had the majority of politicians at all levels of government, understanding the importance of our industry? Imagine how they could deliver their campaign messages:

“I am running to support tourism; this industry creates more jobs than any other and is second in consumer spending only to food. Business travelers meet with customers to sell and service them face-to-face to successfully grow their businesses. Vacationers return home with memories that will last for generations. People travel to other countries to understand one another, forge friendships, and live in a more peaceful world. I need your vote to join the new breed of political leaders who understand: Wherever the economy is headed, tourism will lead it there.” Come Election Day, let’s vote for them and send the incumbents opposed to our way of life out of the political world. Perhaps they might even travel and begin selecting VR companies for their vacations. They might even wind up at yours, looking for a deal. Just be sure to charge them the rack rate. About John Dalton John Dalton is currently the chief marketing strategist at OPMA. He was with TWA for ten years and worked at AAA headquarters before starting his own company. He is an industry consultant and conference speaker and has worked with most of the major hotels, cruise lines, tour operators, car rental firms, and numerous travel agencies.

Your Statewide Vacation Rental Managers Association The Florida VRMA represents the professional management of vacation homes, condos and resort units throughout the state of Florida. We are your statewide vacation rental management industry association dedicated to supporting and protecting the $31,000,000,000 per year economic impact realized through the Florida vacation rental industry. The new Florida VRMA continues to deliver the educational programs, legislative advocacy and member benefits to help you to grow your segment of the industry throughout the state of Florida and beyond. Explore what our new regional chapters can mean for your business as a professional in the Florida vacation rental industry. The Florida VRMA is the largest statewide association in the US market today supporting property managers with tens of thousands of vacation rental units. From major Florida attractions to local supporting tradesman, the Florida VRMA has various participation levels for all businesses and industry partners.

Find out what the new Florida VRMA can do for you at

www.fvrma.org or call us at 407-218-6600 THE OPMA DIFFERENCE Constant focus on the future and the shaping of the lodging industry Controlling our own destiny through leadership initiatives and not simply relying on advocacy and secondary support roles Targeted growth and strategy: Aggregating the most condo hotel rental inventory in the most popular vacation destinations. REPRESENTING

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Assisting our members in measuring and delivering their collective economic impact in the local markets they serve Develop and introduce training programs that provide uniform messaging and that enhance the sales and service levels and the proďŹ tability of the membership Minimize the number of suppliers in any product/ service category translating into more signiďŹ cant long-term relationships with OPMA onsite managers VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Top-Down

Leadership Insights

for Vacation Rental Managers By Clark Twiddy

Senior Leadership: The Difference between Well Managed and Well Led

t makes sense that part of the reason we’re seeing so much interest in our industry on the part of venture capital and private equity is the fact that so many of our traditional businesses have been well managed and well led for long periods of time. That stability—as an alternative investment—is attractive on its own.

One challenge among many others for hospitality business executives is not only to manage well but to lead well. Are you a senior staff manager or a leader—and what’s the difference between the two? It makes sense that how the senior group defines themselves reflects the priorities of the senior executive. Here’s a simple clue to what I think will lead us to larger areas of focus: if a person is a manager, he or she is focused on day-to-day and operational challenges. This is a great thing. A relentless focus on fundamentals is a business foundation. If someone is a senior leader, he or she will be focused on future problems, growth opportunities, risk, and people. The difference between the two is important both in terms of time horizon focus and business challenge. The simple analogy here is of an airplane cockpit: The view from the cockpit doesn’t show what is below the aircraft because you’re there already. The view from the cockpit looks out on both what’s around you and where you’re going. I’d argue that leadership—good, solid, predictable leadership—is a long-term advantage for companies both in the face of well-funded venture capital and private equity (VC/PE) firms and for attaining the best possible long-term results. It’s fair to say that like most investors, the VC/PE teams will be looking for short-term returns on investment. The best way to achieve those kinds of things in the short term are through new access channels on the revenue side with operational efficiencies, functional symmetries, and workforce optimization on the efficiency side. Those are properly management functions. However, a well-led company may choose to 44

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

focus on long-term growth over short-term investor return. As a differentiator, that means investment in staff with training or quality-of-life improvements. It may mean a deliberate focus on customer relations that will prove costly up front but return handsome dividends on a longer timeline. It may mean infrastructure that in a digital age becomes more and more controversial. As we search for antidotes to the perceived digital restructuring of our industry, I believe a focus on good leadership is a great place to start if you’re thinking long term. By leadership I mean an ability to deeply think about future opportunities, the importance of surrounding your business with bright, well-trained, and potential-reaching staff members, the energy it takes to believe in your company’s vision, and ultimately the selflessness to sacrifice shortterm gains for long-term results. As an example of questions you should be asking yourself is: is it in your power to make sure that your company is the best employer in your area? Leadership, since the days of Alexander the Great, means taking care of your team. Great leadership—pick whomever you choose as an example here—usually means sharing opportunities and challenges with and alongside your team. It means setting an example—are you out front greeting your guests? Walking through your properties with your cleaners? Talking on the phone with your homeowners? Interestingly these kinds of behaviors are what become irreplaceable in a digital age. There is simply no app for that. Good leadership will translate well—something digital can manage, to a degree, but digital will never lead. There’s the advantage right there. It might be worth thinking about great leadership in addition to great management as we collectively seek to differentiate ourselves in the digital landscape.

Developing Mid-Level Managers as a Competitive Advantage

hat’s your value as a company? When we think of value, we usually think in specific and measurable dollar amounts, but price and value are distinctly different things. While pricing reflects a temporary present condition, value, I believe, includes some of those things that are tough to measure on a day-to-day basis: management strength, brand promise, industry credibility, level of risk, long-term viability, and so on. In North Carolina, we’ve seen a large number of mergers and acquisitions in the banking industry lately that in many ways parallels the unprecedented level of outside investment activity in the vacation rental sector. When we consider value, here’s a great facet to include in that conversation: management-in-place. As for the banking comparison, I think it’s useful on occasion to look at other industries to compare acquisition valuation with our own industry, and it’s clear in banking that strong management-in-place is a top challenge when change becomes rapid. To start with a definition, management is the function of deciding priorities, driving implementation, measuring results, and regularly assessing feedback. If you’ve been successful in growing your business, you know that this function can be a critical growth driver or growth dragger, depending on circumstances and the approach taken. From an acquisition perspective, management-in-place is a question of several factors: management development within an organization, talent retention, unique operations experience, in-depth local relationships, and future leadership potential, to list a few. Those areas operationally reside in mid-level management; members of that key group translate vision into execution and form the front lines of your guest and owner experiences. Mid-level managers are also the ones who can truly drive (or stall) innovation. These indi-

viduals carry with them not only a commitment to the company but also a good deal of future capability for the company. In other words, they’re a key to the future.

Members of that group are also the key to a major growth challenge: the dread of a bureaucracy. Few business owners would describe their own organizations as bureaucracies unless reminded of the old Lyndon Johnson definition: “If the person who answers the phone can’t answer the question, it’s a bureaucracy.” To a great many people, bureaucracy has become a synonym for something slow or devoid of humanity, and that’s the last thing that a company wants if it aims to achieve success.

We all interact with bureaucracies on a daily basis, yet few of their employees come to work each day excited to make other people’s lives miserable. Again, it’s those mid-level managers who can make or break an organization, and they’re the first group to address when changing a culture that has become stifled or slow. To wrap up, as our industry wrestles with valuing monetarily what we do as independent organizations, it’s important to remember that although price might reflect a moment in time, value carries with it the likelihood of long-term success—and with that comes financial strength, stability, less risk, and a solid future foundation. It’s these kinds of things that attract outside investors. People place money only where it feels safe to do so, and a strong team of mid-level decision makers goes a long way toward investor confidence. Clark Twiddy is a director of Twiddy & Company on the Outer Banks of North Carolina celebrating 40 years in 2018 (www.twiddy.com). In addition to his role in the family business, he is active in the community and is currently a candidate for Lieutenant Governor in North Carolina. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

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VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

When It’s Time to Sell Your Business,

Who’s Looking Out for You? A s the industry continues to change, vacation rental company owners are increasingly considering an exit or preparing their businesses for sale. While many owners are struggling with the numerous technology changes facing the industry or the disintermediation of the sales process, other owners are being solicited and are interested in selling or simply want to learn what their businesses are worth. Being solicited should not be a driver in pursuing the sale of your business because every company in the industry has been solicited for sale. I wish I could tell you that each business is special or that a prospective buyer has been eyeing your company because of its progressive operation. More likely, though, your business is on a list and is being solicited along with hundreds or even thousands of other vacation rental companies. So you’re considering a sale of the business, or you’ve been approached to sell the business. In either case, the following points should be useful in preparing for a sale or be helpful as a more formal process regardless of the motivation for selling. As a fundamental principle, keep your best interests in mind and ask this question: “Who’s looking out for me?”

B NDA Do not pass go, and do not collect $200 without executing a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) first. Anyone who calls and wants to discuss whether you’re open to selling your business will expect to sign an NDA. Anytime I receive one of those calls, I let the caller know that everything I have is for sale, including my children, and that if he or she wants to talk more seriously, we need to execute an NDA. Anyone who continues to poke and prod after you’ve requested an NDA may not be the right partner.

C Letter of Intent Once you have a fully executed NDA, feel free to disseminate high-level information about the business. Your goal at this stage is to convey enough information to entice an offer. Be careful not to communicate detailed data or proprietary information at this stage; that information can be shared after an executed letter of intent (LOI).

D Due Diligence Once a fully executed LOI has been completed, you’re ready to begin the due diligence phase of the process. Due diligence is the buyer’s opportunity to “pop the hood on the vehicle” and review every facet of the business, but they should be efficient and organized in the process. The idea is to prevent fishing expeditions.

E Purchase Agreement As diligence continues, a legal purchase agreement should be created, using the key points of the LOI and market-rate terms. It is

important at this point to engage legal counsel. Legal counsel can make or break a vacation rental transaction. Often, local real estate attorneys may not fully understand the interworking of a vacation rental operation. It is advisable to find a law firm that understands the idiosyncratic nature of the business and can represent your interests in an experienced manner. It is important to note that there are acceptable levels of risk in a transaction; however, when risk hits an unreasonable level, it is time to pull back. Engaging in a transaction in which the purchase price is contingent on future unit count presents entirely too much risk and does not produce an optimal outcome. It is advisable to avoid these contingencies because the risk often outweighs the reward.

F Transitioning the Business As diligence is being finalized and the purchase agreement has been approved and executed, transitioning the business is paramount. A well-organized, thoughtful, and efficient plan will create a smooth transition and ensure that it stays on track.

As you contemplate the sale of your business, know that there are more buyers than sellers. There is no reason to move forward with unreasonable deal terms or to incur too much risk. It is simply not worth it. Following a formal process and using a transaction adviser will help ensure that your business is sold for maximum value and the sale is successful. An engaged transaction adviser is the entity looking out for you by providing the following services: B Position and present the business for maximum value C Identify qualified buyers and initiate NDAs D Ensure qualified buyers receive the appropriate reports and amount of information E Keep the process organized and moving forward efficiently by soliciting offers with sound market-rate terms that do not present an adverse amount of risk F Leverage industry and market experience for offer-acceptance guidance G Close successfully H Provide transition assistance and guidance An experienced transaction adviser is intent on maximizing the value of your business and ensuring that deal terms are fair and reasonable and the transaction closes efficiently and successfully. One wrong turn could adversely affect the entire transaction. Leveraging industry knowledge and experience in markets throughout the industry can mean the difference between a well-executed and profitable exit strategy or regret. By Ben Edwards President, Weatherby Consulting VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

It’s your data, we don’t share data with other software providers without your consent. Your historical data defines your trends and potential future success. Don’t settle with your imports. Streamline will import historical and future reservations (info, payments, fees). We also help import owner and unit info, users, owner statements, closed work orders. Our imports team will make the transition as seamless as possible “Conversion is synonymous with transformation, and I can guarantee you don’t go through either in life without at least a little unease. The key to successfully getting through both is surrounding yourself with people you trust. December 1st marks our 1-year anniversary of converting to Streamline from PropertyPlus, and we are excited about our future together. In an ever changing industry, the ability to pivot quickly is vital to success and Streamline not only provides that flexibility, but also shares our spirit of innovation and challenging the status quo. Fear naturally follows change, especially leaving a Homeaway Software Solution as Homeaway Distribution Sites expand, but the fact is those two are independent of each other. Streamline has proven to be a partner who embraces our creative drive and mirrors our sense of urgency to ensure our business stays ahead of the pack.” MICHELLE HODGES - PRESIDENT, MEYER VACATION RENTALS

CALL: 888.590.1946 info@streamlinevrs.com www.streamlinevrs.com VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

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Public Relations By Jessica Gillingham

and the Sales Funnel How PR Can Support the Journey from Awareness to Guest Loyalty

irst, public relations is not just about press releases. It’s also not even about securing coverage. Public relations is a management function that is concerned with strategic communications to build mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and its audiences, or “publics.” It’s also about increasing visibility, developing a reputation, building trust, and engaging in helpful conversation. But where exactly does PR sit within the marketing and sales funnel for a vacation rental management business? What impact can PR have on the guest journey from pre-prospect to lead, to guest, to happy and loyal brand advocate? Good PR shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. A PR campaign that is successful helps create new leads, but it also moves prospects down the sales funnel to vacation rental purchase, then develops them into vocal brand advocates ready to support the feeding into the top of the funnel again. A strategic PR campaign can (and often does) support the entire guest journey to purchase and beyond by influencing, to a greater or lesser degree, each of the key stages a potential guest will move through.

Creating Awareness PR is typically best known for generating positive awareness about an organization. PR is often seen as a “top-of-the-funnel” exercise that creates interest in a consumer (guest) by helping to identify either a challenge or a need. A well-placed editorial, a targeted blog post, or a social media campaign can all help generate a “need” for what your vacation rental management business offers. PR also plays an important role in the discovery phase of future guests starting to think about where they want to go on vacation or on their next business trip.

Consideration and Preference According to Expedia, travel consumers visit up to thirty-eight websites before making a booking. Other evidence shows that a 52

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

customer will typically experience twenty-three touch points before they act. In today’s digital age, consumers are savvy, and they do their research. In the consideration and preference phase of the sales funnel, your next potential guests are weighing the pros and cons of the different travel options they have for their stays. They are investing their time on the various booking sites, reviewing accommodations and travel blogs, and visiting the sites of other vacation rental businesses and accommodation suppliers. PR is essentially about getting earned, not paid for, exposure of your content. One of the key reasons generating “earned” content is so powerful is because what other people or organizations say about you has far more influence on opinion and behavior change than what you say about you. Just ask Google. That’s why online coverage has such a positive impact on search rankings. Search marketing, search engine optimization, and pay-per-click ads are all essential to ensuring your offering is visible in the research phase of purchase; however, online coverage in the shape of an accommodation review, inclusion in a “Listicle,” a well-placed thought leadership article, a third-party review site, or a friend’s social media page may be just the nudge needed to move a prospect down the funnel toward purchase.

The Purchase Decision What makes a prospect take the leap, part with their hard-earned cash, and choose one vacation rental business, property, or listing over another? The fact that the product or experience is expected to meet their needs and expectations is obvious. However, customers will do business only with a business they trust, and often one with which they have built some kind of emotional connection. This is where the PR skills of storytelling and building communities can be most powerful. Consumers are often distracted, difficult to reach, and fickle. A good PR strategy helps to build social communities around a product or experience that fosters emotional connection and feeling

“part of.” Developing messages and stories that resonate with your audiences and distributing this through content that educates, delights, and influences can be powerful.

Also, it is in this purchase phase (where timing is everything) that “earned” media can blend with paid media to edge a prospect into becoming a guest. When an editorial review is linked with a promotional offer, the proposition may be hard to resist.

Developing Loyalty As we all know, the customer journey doesn’t end with purchase. Purchase is just the beginning of the next phase. There is typically a waiting period between purchase and experience, especially when purchasing a travel experience. Your future guests will be continuing their research, getting a feel for you, and anticipating their intended stay for weeks or even months before they actually walk through the door of your property. PR can support positive anticipation and help continue to foster the good feeling that your customer has made the right decision. This can be encouraged through social communities and dialogue. At this stage, your future guests may even start to join the conversation by expressing their excitement about their upcoming trip. Your customers will also be looking to you to ensure they have made the right decision by further researching the experience they can expect to have during their stay.

Encouraging Advocacy Customer advocacy is essential for supporting lead generation and input for the top of the sales funnel. This is especially true for trav-

el experiences. Happy customers make the best PR advocates. In today’s digital and social age, the power of customer advocacy can be a force in its own right. This is, as anyone who has had a bad TripAdvisor review knows, also very true for negative feedback. People are highly influenced by what their friends and family think and say, even if these “friends” are tenuous relationships via social media. Each individual’s social platform has become his or her own mini blog and review site. Happy guests can also become excellent customercentric case studies that encourage fostering the emotional connection often needed to encourage prospects down the funnel through consideration and purchase.

The Cycle Continues Again, good PR doesn’t exist in a vacuum—or at least, it shouldn’t. PR works alongside all aspects of the sales and marketing funnel to support the guest journey from awareness to advocate and back again. About Jessica Gillingham

Jessica Gillingham is the director of Abode PR, a PR agency specializing in servicing the international vacation rental industry, partnering with both B2B and B2C brands. Over the years, Jessica has worked with many brands, big and small (some travel and some not), and is a member of the Chartered Institute for Public Relations. www.abode-pr.com

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FINDING AN EDGE

WITH SKYRUN'S BARRY COX CARVING YOUR WAY TO BUSINESS SUCCESS IN THE VACATION RENTAL INDUSTRY

’ve lived in the mountains of Colorado for seventeen years now, a transplant from the East Coast by way of the Midwest. Given that winter is coming, a snow metaphor is appropriate. When you’re skiing or boarding down a mountain, in order to turn you need to be able to tip your skis or snowboard up and “get an edge.” When you do it right, it’s called “carving.” Carving a good turn by using your edges feels fabulous and keeps you moving forward with speed and in style. In business everyone seeks an edge, and the vacation rental business is no exception. When you find an edge, you’ll be able to carve your way to business success. In this article I’m going to describe three edges that I think are becoming increasingly important as the vacation rental industry consolidates. First, a little background. I’d been working with IBM for fourteen years when I moved to Colorado in 1999 to take a new position within the company. About five years later, my family bought our first vacation home in Keystone, Colorado. To make a long story short, I started managing it and began managing other properties for friends.

Steve Falk and I started SkyRun in 2004 alongside our day jobs. We grew SkyRun to one hundred properties, and we both left our other full-time jobs. With his legal and market development background and my technology and business consulting background, we made a good team. This was 2004–2007, and property management was booming. To get back to the snow metaphor, that time frame was what we call a “powder day”: when you get a foot or more of fluffy new “white gold,” the fun and ease of being on the mountain is magnified a hundred times, and staff who are more committed to the snow than to the job take a personal day. Fresh powder is sometimes called “hero snow” because anybody can get an “edge” when turning in 54

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

powder. It doesn’t matter whether you have perfect technique, how good your equipment is, or how good your physical conditioning is—you’re in for a good day on a powder day.

It’s the same way in business. When conditions are good, business is good. Your weaknesses are most exposed during the bad times. From 2008 to 2011 the powder days we dreamed of turned into the “wind-blown, hard-packed, and icy days” we dread. This became an era when your weaknesses were most exposed and you hoped to merely hold an edge. In 2017, we find ourselves again in a powder day period. But powder days don’t last forever. Better sharpen those edges...

As Steve and I learned more about the industry, we gradually realized that the future belonged to multi-location property managers. To be competitive, we needed to have scale. Our thought process was the following:

B We could remain a single-location property manager and grow

by adding properties that compete with the hundred we already have.

C We could diversify our risk by adding a location in another ge-

ography, perhaps even at a beach, but we still would have one hundred more toilets to worry about remotely.

D Or we could license our brand, process, and systems to enable other local entrepreneurs to serve vacation guests and property owners the way the industry has for decades. Locally.

We chose option number three, and SkyRun has become a rapidly growing multi-location organization with six hundred properties

in twenty-five locations. As poet Robert Frost said, “And that has made all the difference.”

I believe that choice has given SkyRun its particular edge, and that is how you too can get a similar edge. Regardless of how competitive your market is, and whether you’re a single-location manager or part of the growing number of large multi-location companies, whether you’re new in the industry or you’ve been around long enough to know what “GLA” stands for and how to send one (by fax), and whether you operate in the mountains or beaches, you can get an edge. We’ve developed our edge through three practices: having strength in numbers, being efficient, and operating with a local touch. Let’s take a deeper look.

Edge 1: Go Big—There Is Strength in Numbers Business leaders from Henry Ford to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos know that critical mass and repeatable processes are vital to longterm business success and ultimately vital to how well you serve your guests and owners. A company with six hundred properties will simply be able to get better pricing and service than a company with only twenty, on everything from bed sheets to credit card fees to OTA listings. Industry studies such as the VRMA annual survey show that a manager with more than five-hundred properties makes much more profit per property (27 percent more at last measure) than a manager with fewer than 100 properties. In an industry that has a 20 percent to 30 percent commission margin, 27 percent more is a big deal.

Take hotels as an example from our hospitality industry. When I was growing up, there were still mom-and-pop hotels dotting the roads of America. The experience in each was unique, and most of them had some charm. There were no central reservations. There was no online, just a phone line. You could talk to mom or you could talk to pop. Then came hotel chains with buying power, central reservations with one number to call, a consistent experience, and lower prices. Who can blame us as consumers for flocking to the Holiday Inn or Howard Johnson or later Marriott and Hilton? We traded the local experience of dealing directly with mom or pop for what was more desirable: lower prices, consistency, and ease of booking.

Yet we consumers made a trade-off. Most of us would still prefer local knowledge and would prefer to deal with mom or pop. Perhaps that’s one reason the direct-from-owner renting of VRBO and shared spaces of Airbnb has taken off so rapidly. What if we could, as an industry, have both scale and local touch? That’s a teaser; more on that later.

Edge 2: Operate Efficiently We experience increasing competition from professional property management companies that offer a lower commission (if you are one of these, then kindly skip to Edge 3). Of course we traditionally priced managers will argue that they get you with other fees, and that’s true in many cases. I’m sure both mom and pop would have made this argument too, right until they put the “Closed” sign on the front door or sold out to a larger company. The point is that the manager who is built from the ground up to be able to operate at a lower commission will always be able to provide a better product in the long term. You can add more and more fees and charge more and more for light bulbs, but as long as your cost of providing the same level of service is higher than that of your competitors, your

profits will eventually shrink or you will have to cut services.

Our industry is very people-focused, so an industry benchmark that I always pay attention to as a measure for efficiency (but which is not widely measured) is how many properties you manage divided by how many full-time equivalent (FTE) employees you have.

That gives you the number of properties you manage per FTE. If this number is less than ten, you should consider whether there are valid reasons for it to be that low. Perhaps you manage single-family homes and not condos, your properties are farther apart, or you have a higher-end clientele who require more attention (hopefully at premium prices). I find that an ideal number is about fifteen or twenty properties per FTE. So how do you become more efficient? Quality People

A manager can get to twenty properties per FTE overnight by firing people and letting quality suffer. That is unequivocally not what I am suggesting here. I am talking about a superior product being the foundational assumption and the number of people it takes to provide that product being the measure of your efficiency.

By this measure, a better quality staff is key. Those people we all know and have working on our teams who can do more with less. Those who show up on a powder day. This measure doesn’t factor in the cost of higher-quality staff, and that’s on purpose. Always hire the better person. Technology

Quality people require quality processes, and quality processes require quality technology. Some industries are ripe for technology. That vacation rentals is one of those industries is what attracted me and is what attracts so much venture capital. Examples of processes that are ripe for automation abound in this industry.

As much as they like talking to you and we like talking to them, our guests would rather self-serve in almost every phase of their stay. Most guests would prefer automated online reservations and lead tracking; a good website with detailed information that anticipates and answers all of their questions; clear and accurate pricing; online, instant, and secure booking; the ability to look and book on their mobile, tablet, or desktop; preparation and arrival instructions by email; and an app that stays with them on their device. From shopping to preparing to staying to checking out, today’s guests would rather interact with you on their devices than call. I submit that this is a good thing because it is a much more efficient way for us to interact and doesn’t require as many staff. Being able to automate all this without dropping quality depends on several factors. First, guests and owners must be able to reach a real local person 24/7 when something inevitably goes wrong. And second, preparation and maintenance of the property and the accuracy of listings and instructions must be outstanding. These are not easy things. Many other examples exist of processes ripe for technology in the client/owner interaction aspect of the business. These include an owner self-serve portal for onboarding and ongoing communication; remote home care and monitoring through home automation; operational processes such as checklists, real-time call-in updates from housekeeping, good work order and property needs tracking; and remarketing/remaining in contact with guests after their stay (which hopefully means prior to their next stay). VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

At SkyRun, our background in technology and having several locations sharing the cost allows us to use our own proprietary software for most of our core functions. It is tailored to our needs and priorities. So if we want to add a function to meet a market demand, we just do. We buy off-the-shelf software for some functions but always do a build-versus-buy analysis to determine whether that’s the best choice.

Interestingly, most multi-location property managers have chosen the path of developing their own proprietary software. With software development advances in open-source and standard APIs, this is becoming an option for more and more companies. It can be a competitive advantage if implemented wisely or a huge waste of time and money if not. Sharing/Centralization

In addition to a quality team and technology, another way to be more efficient is to share or centralize processes or assets. You can do this in many ways. If you are a single-location property manager, you can buy off-the-shelf software to share the cost of software development. You can attend VRMA to learn from your industry peers. Additional opportunities for sharing data and resources include the VRM Intel’s Dashboard Reports with comparative market analytics and VRMA’s government advocacy resources. By sharing, you will gain efficiency.

Efficiency is where multi-location organizations have a distinct edge. In addition to the sharing described above, they can leverage shared infrastructure, processes, and staff. Sharing can happen in technical areas such as a phone system, HR and IT resources, and a reservations or on-call service as well as in marketing. Ultimately, the biggest advantage multi-location organizations share is building their brand.

Operating in a multi-location organization is like operating a single-location business without needing your own phone system, IT or HR department, reservation call center, or a team for marketing, search engine optimization, and social media. You have an edge by being able to concentrate on your guests and your owners and their properties. At SkyRun, we even share physical items such as two Matterport cameras and our SkyEye drone—things that one location doesn’t necessarily need completely to itself, so efficiencies are gained by sharing.

Edge 3: Local Touch, Local Fun™ Being big and efficient gives you two edges but can also come at a huge cost. Our business, after all, is to provide personal vacations and local experiences for our guests. Both VRBO and Airbnb, arguably the two most successful companies in the vacation rental industry, have that direct connection to the location through the property owner as their foundation. If we get an edge on efficiency by cutting staff and therefore service level, that’s not an edge. If you get an edge by doing everything the way it’s done in headquarters somewhere far away (hypothetically in the Northwest) or by relying only on technology without a personal touch, is that an edge? The question I posed earlier was, “What if we as an industry could have both scale and a local touch?” Having a local touch is the area in which single-location property managers should and do have an undeniable edge. Being able to provide guests a personalized and local experience only comes from a local company or local owner. At SkyRun we refer to this as Local Touch, Local Fun™. Every location is independently owned and operated by a local owner and/or local staff who know the area and who are passionate about it. Also, all SkyRun guests receive a 56

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SkyCard with discounted or free local activities and in-room information written by our local staff that helps them enjoy the location the way a local would. So it’s possible to get this local edge as a multi-location organization. In fact, ironically, if done right, we (speaking as a multi-location organization myself ) can use our edge in efficiency and numbers and shared processes to be better at being local too.

Examples of being both global and local are Ace Hardware and True Value Hardware and the Best Western hotel group in our industry. These owners are local businesspeople who pay local taxes, serve on the boards of local nonprofits, send their children to local schools, and are part of the community. When you go in, the owner is there to chat with, and he or she knows what product works best in the local area and what time is best to plant or paint. They stock snow sleds in Colorado and beach toys in Destin. And by being part of a larger brand, they leverage shared buying power, technology and processes, and loyalty programs to provide businesses that are tailored to be local yet are competitive with the box stores. It’s a remarkable innovation that we can emulate in the vacation rental industry.

So if you are a single-location property manager, your edge comes from leveraging your focus and expertise and list of past visitors to your location to provide the best locally focused guest experiences. To be competitive, you must also strive to be efficient and to sign as many properties as you can to grow. When you are a multi-location manager, your edge comes from leveraging your inherent advantage of size and efficiency. To be competitive, we must also strive to provide the same local service that a single-location manager provides.

Perhaps the time has come for single-location managers to consider forming or joining a group of locally owned and operated locations with multiple locations. For a single-location manager, this could be an alternative to retooling or selling your business. Any pursuit is more enjoyable when you have an edge. In an increasingly competitive and global industry such as vacation rentals, you need as many edges as you can get. Edges help you enjoy the powder days and survive the coming days when things inevitably become more challenging. *I hope this article isn’t too edgy!

Barry Cox is cofounder and CEO of SkyRun Vacation Rentals, a multi-location property manager with twenty-five independently owned and operated licensed locations in nine states in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Although Barry may be able to help you get an edge in business, he admittedly is not the best “carver” on the mountains of Colorado, but he’s working on it . . . a lot . . . You can learn more about SkyRun at biz.SkyRun.com or www. SkyRun.com, or contact barry@skyrun.com.

THE FUTURE OF VACATION RENTALS IS GUEST EXPERIENCE

GUEST EXPERIENCE PLATFORM Create beau8ful, mobile-friendly des8na8on guides for your guests in minutes. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017 future@ruebarue.com | www.ruebarue.com

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OTA s Are Not the Problem—Dependency Is By Heather Weiermann

ne of the more popular sports in the vacation rental industry today seems to be bashing listing sites and OTAs (online travel agencies). The likes of HomeAway, Expedia, Airbnb, and—don’t forget—TripAdvisor are being blamed for commoditizing vacation homes, for diminishing rates, and for training guests to expect deep discounts or refunds. If we put a little effort into it, we can probably also find some way to blame them for the earthquakes and hurricanes we’ve seen of late.

OTAs don’t need me to defend them. But the reality is that we, as vacation rental managers, share the blame. It’s our signature on those OTA agreements. We give these services access to inventory, booking pace, rate data, and all sorts of other proprietary information. We let the fox in the henhouse ourselves. We’ve even allowed our guests to believe they are better protected and told them they will get the best rate when they book via OTA sites. Case in point: While reserving a vacation home in Austin earlier this year, I found four different rates for the same property. The lowest came from the property manager’s own website—but I had to work really hard to find a way to contact them directly; it took multiple calls and emails for me to get what I needed to reserve my dates. Such rate disparities are rampant, and the difficulty of booking directly is often not worth the savings or the possibility of losing the dates a guest wants to reserve. For many of us, what started as an exciting new way to get more exposure for our vacation home inventory has become an unhealthy reliance on a single source of rental demand.

Meanwhile, those who have held off are starting to feel like they are missing out and want to get into the game. And, all the while, the OTAs are reporting immense growth and market dominance. It’s time to take back some of the control before it is too late. To get started, here are five steps vacation rental managers should consider when working to ease their dependency on OTAs: B OTAs are not the problem. They are, however, enablers—and the competitors in your market may be codependents. If you rely on OTAs for a majority of your rental demand, you have likely become dependent on these sites for your company’s overall performance. What will you do when they increase their commission rates or limit the ways you can communicate with potential guests? If you are not marketing your homes via multiple channels, you are no longer in control—and the OTAs will be able to dictate to you how you run the reservation side of your business, as well as the costs.

C Math it out. Yes, OTAs can fill your calendar with what feels like less work for you. But at what cost? The terms of OTA agreements will vary, but typical commissions range between 3 and 25 percent. Vacation rental managers with lots of inventory pay the least, whereas smaller, boutique companies pay the most. For those paying top dollar in commissions, the cost will be 25 percent in commissions for a three-night stay at $300 per night, or $225. Take a look at your last year’s profit and loss statement. How much did you pay out in commissions last year? Imagine if you had used even half of that toward marketing your own brand to drive more direct bookings and put the other half in your pocket. D Make booking directly the best option. Guests should get the best rates and benefits by booking directly, period. If you’ve already signed your rate parity agreements, honor them—but implement a best-rate guarantee and clearly state the advantages of booking directly, as Hilton does in its “Stop Clicking Around” ad campaign. As an added incentive, offer value-adds not available via non-direct booking methods. E OTAs can be partners and competitors. OTAs have made it clear they don’t care whether a guest books with a property manager or with an owner, as long as they book through the OTA site. How can OTAs command their high commissions, and just where does the money go? Have you seen the television commercials, the pay-perclick ads, the print ads, and banners? They’re competing with you and driving up your advertising costs, all while luring travelers from booking via direct channels. F Make it easy to book with you. OTAs are expert marketers—in fact, that’s really all they do! Improving the consumer experience is one of the easiest ways for these sites to build a loyal brand following. How does the booking experience on your site compare? Is your website mobile phone-compatible? How easy is it for a guest to call you from your site if they have a question or need assistance before booking? Does your website interface with your property management software to reduce the time you spend managing availability and rates and give you back time that can be spent strategizing? As for that vacation home in Austin, I was lucky enough to finally secure my booking at the lower rate before someone else booked my dates; however, I was worried it would not happen, and I would need to start my search all over again. Please don’t make your guests jump through the same hoops. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Using Social Media

to Build Your Brand David Thompson, Social Media Director Paul Hanak, Digital Marketing Director, InterCoastal Net Designs

Overview

e are sorry to say that if you aren’t using social media in your marketing plan, you are behind the times. And if you are using social media, we are sorry to say that you are probably doing it wrong. Although social media use is an extremely powerful tool in a marketing arsenal, it is not a cure-all and won’t be a viable source for direct bookings that you can measure. But it is vital to your brand and your online reputation. For some reason, over the past several years social media has morphed from a fun, interactive tool to a trendy sales tool in the eyes of page owners and businesses—this is where the danger begins.

First, let’s think back to the birthplace of modern social media, Facebook.

If you aren’t engaging your audience, you’re doing it wrong.

Think about this for a moment. You probably have 150 to 700 “friends” on Facebook. (Don’t worry about the business side, I’m speaking merely about your personal friends.) You’re popular, right?! However, do you have friends who hardly ever post? Maybe someone you didn’t really know, but who hit that “accept” button anyway? It’s not that they aren’t posting anything. It’s that you don’t hit their like button or comment on their stuff—ever. Facebook realizes this (through its algorithm) and filters out their content from your wall because you are clearly not interested in it. Now apply that to your business page. If you have fans who never click “like” or comment on your posts, Facebook is going to show less and less of your content to them. It’s the algorithm!

If you post only promotional stuff and do not understand the algorithm, you’re doing it wrong.

People engage in social media for several reasons, and one of those is to maintain relationships. When we approach our fans with the mind-set of a relationship rather than a sale or a booking, we see more engagement, better reviews, and overall happier fans, both now and long term.

Here Is the ROI Issue….

Facebook was spawned from an invention of Mark Zuckerberg called Facemash, which was originally designed to rate fellow college students on their physical attractiveness (Yes, really). Over the years, Facebook has become an extremely engaging platform, even with the ability to market to users. But let’s not forget why Facebook was made in the first place—so people could engage online with one another on a personal level. 60

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What kind of ROI can you expect from social media? That is a question that really should not exist. Yes, you can see the ROI in your social platforms; it does exist. However, asking this question means that you are expecting all your social touchpoints to result in bookings; it just doesn’t work that way. Social media bookings come from good branding, and good branding comes from patience and a well-organized plan.

If you are wondering where to start, ask yourself the following: “What sort of content do my fans like?” You can publish various types of content and measure the results—count your likes and engagement. Facebook lays it all out for you in your admin panel. By promoting your brand in that fun, non-salesman way, you are giving your fans what they like. This leads to more engagement, which

content. This is what we call user-generated content and is considered by some to be the holy grail of the content world because, well, it’s real and from a trusted source—a reviewer. There is no better way to build trust than to let your audience tell others how much they love you. A great strategy is to post reviews about a rental AND photos of that rental. You could even use this as a remarketing tactic with paid campaigns.

Speaking of Paid Campaigns Yes, Facebook is a business. It enjoys collecting our money, too. But do the ads work in the vacation rental industry? Of course they do, but again, more for brand recognition than anything else. We won’t get into the differences in “like” campaigns and “audience” campaigns here, but your ads normally get many more impressions than they do clicks, which is why they’re great for promoting your brand. leads to much better brand recognition in the long run!

If you post more content about your company and products than destination-related info, you’re doing it wrong.

The Visual Experience A popular saying is, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Actually, Fred R. Barnard said, “A picture is worth ten thousand words.” Either way, social media is a visual experience and visual content is at least forty times more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content (HubSpot). When you think about it, every social platform centers on visual content.

This is your opportunity to publish the funniest, coolest visual content you can, whether that’s photos, videos, GIFs, memes, and so on. Start producing content that amuses your audience, but remember, there might be a difference between what you like and what your audience likes. Again, test and measure. If you don’t support your message with a nice visual, you’re doing it wrong.

Opinions Matter One of the most overlooked aspects of social media is reviews. If there is one thing we know about the Internet, it’s that everyone has a loud virtual mouth. Reviews are a powerful tool and have the potential to help or hurt your brand image in a heartbeat!

Remarketing is probably the best tactic you can use on paid Facebook. It’s simple but effective. Remarketing ads on Facebook are ads that display on their Facebook feed after they have visited your website, attempting to hook them again. Again, What You Should Be Doing think of engaging information here as well, such as reviews, or for Social Media—The Bare Minimum bringing them back to a page they may have missed. • Post three to four times a week to your Facebook Page.

Does Social Media Help with SEO?

• Post something fun 80 percent of the time and post something promotional 20 percent of the time to increase engagement and reach.

To make a long story short, yes. A strong social media presence with interactions from users does help with search engine optimization. Search engines use “social signals” in their algorithms—yet another reason to have a good audience following. Of course, it’s difficult and time-consuming to be present on ALL social media channels, so at least make sure you keep up with the competition. If you and a competitor are running from a bear, you don’t have to be faster than the bear, just faster than your competitor.

• Respond to your reviews (good and bad) and private messages on Facebook within an hour (a badge on your page displays your response time).

What Now?

• Spend money either remarketing on Facebook or boosting posts.

Great Ideas for Facebook Remarketing Ads • Drive users to a page on your website that they may not have seen before, or one that is normally hidden, such as “New Rentals” or “Why we rock as a rental company.” • Create ads that are guest reviews and rotate them to reaffirm customers’ choice in you. Link to more testimonials. • Use a special Facebook-only coupon code and tease it in the ad to get visitors back to a page that has the coupon (you could also ask them to enter their email address to get the coupon code). Track the code so you know how many bookings you get.

So now you know that social media for the vacation rental industry, whether on Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram, is about building a trusted brand, not making a sale. It’s about winning over an audience, not pushing them to book. We admit, there are a lot of moving parts when it comes to planning and executing content through your social channels. Writing all those steps down would turn this article into a book. And don’t get us wrong—there is a place on social media for promoting your rental units, but do it in the paid channel portions, not the regular wall posts. So how do we use reviews? Actually, republishing reviews could have a great impact on your audience and makes for some fantastic

Just remember, if you use social media as a tool to build your brand as a whole instead of booking units, you’re doing it right. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Five Keys to Successful

Content Marketing C

ontent marketing is more than a hot buzzword. It is a highly effective marketing strategy that can boost your company’s profits and decrease your dependence on listing sites.

Although this content does not specifically promote your company, it does help you acquire new leads and gain the trust of potential travelers. This is precisely the type of content that people want to interact with, and it helps them.

This article assumes the following: B You have a website for your brand. C You have a general understanding of guest needs/wants in your

market. D You understand that bad content is worse than no content. OK, let’s get started! 62

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Ideas: Don’t Overcomplicate Things Although content calendars, keyword research, and personas can be helpful, the effort required to accomplish these “best practices” can discourage people who aren’t marketing professionals. The majority of business owners and property managers simply don’t have the expertise or training required to accomplish these types of things quickly, and becoming discouraged can often drive them to just give up.

Instead of focusing on marketing agency exercises, leverage your expertise. You intimately understand the types of visitors, their questions, insider tips, and more! Use your subject matter expertise to create killer content for your guests and potential guests. For example, what questions do you regularly receive from guests? The inspiration for our Predictive Fall Leaf Map was not a result of keyword research. Instead, it was inspired by hundreds of guests who had asked us when the leaves would peak in our area.

Leverage the intersection of guest interactions and your local expertise to create content that perfectly satisfies the needs of your guests. For example, The Ten Best Spots in Destin for a Rehearsal Dinner or 7 Things to Do in Seattle on a Rainy Day are almost guaranteed to perform well because they are based on real questions. Why waste time ideating? You have direct access to an endless pool of ideas from your guests.

EducatION: Help, Don’t Sell Too often businesses try to force customers into conversations about buying a product. This is an awful content marketing strategy! Forcing spammy, salesy content on a site visitor who is not ready to buy is worse than a used car salesperson in a plaid jacket and a cheap tie. The buying journey for vacation lodging is very different from most online purchases. This is not an Amazon Prime purchase that someone is going to make on a first-time visit to your site after a few minutes of research. Instead, this product is relational, and your brand must prove that you are worthy. By creating helpful information, your potential guests’ first interactions with your brand are positive ones. You win their trust and have a chance to win business.

Creating content that answers questions is automatically helpful; you are solving a real problem in the moment. A well-written review of a restaurant by a local expert with insider information can be extremely helpful. Your content is an insurance policy against clients wasting a precious night of their vacation on a subpar dining experience. A previous guest asked about this restaurant. As a result, you visited the restaurant, took high-resolution photos, and created a detailed review. You are now helping your guests and enhancing their vacations. This is where it becomes really fun. Winning customers from the competition can easily start while they are staying in the competition’s property. Let that sink in. If you help your competitor’s guest with excellent content during a stay, they may book with you the next time around.

Tenacity: Rinse, Wash, and Repeat Recently, I was researching our brand’s past content and discovered that a miniscule 1 percent of our content was driving a whopping 72 percent of our total traffic. The really depressing (or invigorating) stat was that one page drove over 38 percent of our total traffic. My conclusion from this research is that you must fail and fail often to succeed at content marketing. If less than 1 percent of your content is going to drive 70 percent of your traffic, a logical conclusion is that you need to produce a ton of content to figure out what will work well for your brand. Once you identify a top-performing content type, duplicate this success! If it was a top-ten list that resonated with pet owners, produce more pet-friendly content. Why is failure necessary? Although we think we know our audience and what they want to read, our content may underperform as a result of issues with the content itself, delivery, brand authority, or a myriad of other reasons. Unfortunately, there will be many failures for each success. This is

reality. Fortunately, the tenacity and patience that are required to be successful are not common traits. If you possess these traits, you are exponentially more likely to be successful.

Patience: Wait and Wait Some More If you need results today, content marketing is not the right marketing channel for you. Channels that include near-instant results include PPC, paid social, email marketing, and listing sites. However, if you are willing to be patient, content marketing is a crucial part of building a long-term, sustainable brand. A recent study by Ahrefs disclosed that a miniscule 5.7 percent of pages will rank for a high-volume term within one year of publishing content. For the lucky 5.7 percent, it typically takes between 61 and 182 days to rank.

Until the page ranks in the search engines, you will have to drive traffic to the content using your email list, social following, or paid channels. This is not going to happen overnight, but the wait will be well worth it!

Knowledge is power. Don’t expect to write a blog post today and immediately see a huge increase in occupied nights. Content marketing is a long-term strategy that may need to be augmented by short-term tactics. Once the results kick in, the value to your brand will be enormous.

ConverSION: Move People through the Funnel OK, now that you have attracted people to your content, what do you do with them? Great question! Nurture them. These baby leads must be fostered and grown into conversions. If you ignore them, they will die. Why not use a tool like AdRoll or Facebook Ads to cookie and retarget every visitor? Once visitors have accessed your page, you can retarget them inexpensively. My recommendation would be to use content to slowly transition them down the buying funnel to an eventual purchase. It is perfectly acceptable to have an “ethical bribe” that promises to send an e-book with Twenty-Two Secrets About [Destination Name] featured near your helpful content. If your content was truly helpful, chances are this form will convert well.

The method you use to move them through the purchase funnel does not matter, but do not ignore a lead. An ignored lead will become a worthless lead very quickly. Email them about new content, events, and specials (occasionally), and you will eventually win them as paying customers.

Conclusion If you are looking to amplify your marketing efforts, content marketing is a great option. This advertising method simultaneously helps others and builds your brand. To get started, stay focused on creating content that answers common questions and attempts to help and on fostering your leads. By David Angotti

If you listen to your guests, you will find that they have great questions. What should I do on a rainy day? Where can we buy groceries? Are there any good restaurants for a rehearsal dinner?

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

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Call or email for a free quote. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017 64 919-761-1560 â&#x20AC;¢ sales@lynnbrookgroup.com

Making the Most of Your PPC Ad Spend

By Joshua Guerra

hen it comes to PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, marketers are always looking for ways to improve performance. The goal is to optimize the account continuously, finding ways to save money and spend more efficiently. Anyone with PPC experience knows that there are countless ways to do this, including adjusting keyword bids, setting daily ad schedules, adding negative keywords, and so on. Why is it that one of the most obvious ways to spend more efficiently is often overlooked? While everyone is spending time making little tweaks to try and push the needle forward, they often lose sight of the bigger picture, which is the account’s overall budget allocation throughout the year. Using both historical data and competitor’s data and being prepared to adjust on the fly, you can ensure that you are not limited when business is booming and that you’re tightening up and maintaining discipline during slower seasons. The most common tactic employed when trying to optimize spend throughout the year is seasonal budget adjustments. This is especially true in the vacation rental industry. Many travel destinations experience busy seasons where it is important to fill all vacation rental properties, meaning it is important to allocate additional ad spend to these months.

Property managers near ski resorts need to ensure that their winter ad spend budgets can keep up with increased winter demand. If budgets are limited during these important months, it can mean leaving easy money on the table. On the opposite end of the spectrum, once the ski season ends and the snow begins to melt, these destinations tend to experience a lull in traffic. This can be a good time to reduce bids and budgets to save up for the next big push. This is also a good opportunity to shift focus toward homeowner acquisition as opposed to reservations.

can change out of the blue because of unforeseen weather events, natural disasters, or other large-scale events. I imagine most businesses in Houston would have benefited from completely pausing ad spend during and in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, as the focus of the entire city shifted squarely toward recovery. Similar things can be said for locations dealing with forest fires, mass protests, and so on. All in all, the moral of the story is that an easy—but often overlooked—strategy for improving account efficiency is better allocating your overall budget throughout the year. Be prepared to take full advantage of busy seasons and important holidays and to spend more efficiently during slower time periods. And most important, be ready to adapt to any unforeseen events. By being prepared you can continue to decrease the amount of wasted spend in your account and improve overall efficiency.

Joshua Guerra has been actively involved in Internet marketing since 2005 and the vacation rental management industry since 2009. Joshua’s knowledge and passion for Internet marketing has led his business, BIZCOR.com, to become an industry leader predominantly focused on helping vacation rental management companies.

On a similar note, it is also important to understand how specific holidays affect performance. Holidays should be considered their own entities, and even during a slow month or season it may be important to jack up budgets for a brief period to ensure maximum efficiency.

Sticking with the ski town example, April and May (a.k.a. “mud season”) tend to be very slow booking months as snow is melting, but Memorial Day can lead to a nice influx of visitors, especially if the specific town is hosting an event. Thus, it is important that spend begins to increase leading up to Memorial Day to ensure that your budget is keeping up with traffic. It is also important to keep an eye on competitors and their actions, as it may be an important factor in how you spend your budget. If a competitor begins to increase their budget and bids, it is going to lead to an increase in CPC for your account. If this is during a busy period, it may mean that you need to increase the budget even further to keep up. Even though it’ll be more expensive to generate conversions, many times it is too profitable of a time period to let the competition win. Lastly, it is important to be able to adjust strategy on the fly due to unforeseen circumstances. While a lot of the previous examples involved using historical data to formulate a plan of attack, things

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

It’s All about Experiences By Andy Gaylord, Bluetent SEM Account Manager

acations, at their essence, are experiences. Your guests come to you in search of fun and excitement. When they return home, what they will remember most is how they felt and the things they did with their friends and family. To succeed as vacation rental managers, you must create complete experiences, full of activities, personal service, and great value. Guests expect more, so you must give them more. This, however, is easier said than done. Activity providers remain separate, guests’ expectations are higher than ever, and everyone is offering discounted rates. Giving your guests everything they want isn’t easy. To do so, you must value experiences first and foremost. In this article, we’ll examine how successful vacation rental companies are adopting an experience-first mentality. We’ll then determine how you can take immediate actions to embrace what matters most—your guests’ experiences.

What the Big Dogs Are Doing The big dogs in the travel and hospitality industry have realized that experiences come first. In this integrated digital world, consumers are accustomed to purchasing complete vacations with the touch of a button. Over the past year, both Expedia and Airbnb have invested a great deal in creating complete guest experiences.

When you visit Expedia.com, “Bundle Deals” and “Things to Do” are both featured prominently in the main navigation bar. Bundle Deals, which had previously included just flights and hotels, now also include special offers that highlight activities, such as free tickets to the local waterpark. Within Bundle Deals, there are clear 66

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links to area activities as well as opportunities to add specific activities to your package.

On Expedia’s homepage, there’s also a section titled, “Today’s Popular Destinations.” When you choose a destination, you’re directed to a travel guide page that doesn’t even mention accommodations or flights. It simply highlights the area’s attractions and provides guests with great information for planning their vacation. This is clearly intentional. Expedia understands that when guests are booking accommodations and flights, they aren’t just thinking about those two items. Instead, they’re thinking about all the things they are going to do on their vacation. By allowing guests to imagine experiences, Expedia is tapping into their emotions, which can build tremendous loyalty when done effectively.

Airbnb, one of the most disruptive companies of the past ten years, now features experiences, not rentals, at the top of their homepage. Their tagline is, “Book unique homes and experience a city like a local.” Also, under the “Places” tab, they’ve created personally curated guides to cool places all over the world. Some of these guides even highlight famous actors, such as Ashton Kutcher’s go-to spot for family fun. When you book on Airbnb, you understand you’re getting a distinct experience. Guests who book with Airbnb are very loyal, and much of this is because booking with Airbnb gives them something different from a traditional hotel or vacation rental.

Be the Local Expert I know what you’re thinking: This is overwhelming! Both Expedia and Airbnb have huge budgets and endless resources. How am I

supposed to compete? The truth is, however, as local property managers, you have the advantage. You know your destination better than these big brands, and your connections with local businesses and activity providers are authentic and personal. Use your local knowledge to help your guests create memorable experiences.

Display Vivid Content

rants to visit. Better yet, partner with companies such as Xplorie, a business that connects property managers with activity providers. Working with Xplorie allows you to offer free activities to your guests. There are tons of ways to give your guests better experiences.

Provide Superior Guest Service

One easy place to encourage experiences is on your website. When guests are planning a trip to Destin, Florida, for example, they’re dreaming about dolphin cruises and snorkeling in the crystal-clear water. If they see images of dolphins or people snorkeling with sea turtles on your website, they will immediately imagine themselves on vacation.

Superior guest service builds loyalty. Today, many companies get so tied up in trying to drive bookings that they overlook the importance of personalized guest services. Invest in good housekeeping, be proactive in responding to guests’ needs, and most important, show your guests that you care. When you go above and beyond to ensure that your guests are taken care of, they will remember you and book with you again and again.

Reveal Knowledge

Quality Experiences Last Forever

Images are just the beginning. Writing unique content on your website that highlights area activities and events not only broadens your ability to attract search engine traffic, it also builds trust and loyalty. Display your local expertise and provide your guests with information that only a local would know.

Taking an experience-first mentality has many lasting benefits. It will help you define your brand and allow you to connect with your guests emotionally. You will also give your guests more value and establish lasting relationships. Vacations are experiences. If you create them, your guests will come.

Make Connections

About Bluetent

Even though activities make up a significant portion of the travel industry, very few vacation rental managers have fully integrated activities into their businesses. Every destination is known for specific activities. Identify your area’s top activities, and tie your business to them closely. Offer guests discounted passes to popular activities and provide recommendations for local shops and restau-

Bluetent believes that all vacation rental managers, no matter the size of their business, should have the tools to succeed in the modern digital landscape. In 2017, Rezfusion, Bluetent’s proprietary platform, will process over $300 million in direct online bookings. Bluetent’s products and services reach travelers, inspire guests, and attract owners.

C O N S U L T I N G G R O U P TomK

TomK

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VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

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VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

The Future Is Now

By Matt Bare, Founder, Q4Launch

4 Things Websites Should Have in 2018

If you’re not convinced you need to take steps to prep for the future, consider how far we’ve come. In a recent conversation with a client, we were chatting about the pace of change. Alice has been in the business for over forty years, and she agreed that she’s seen more change in the past year than she’s seen in the previous forty years combined!

Think about how mobile devices have changed the way consumers make a purchase. Using a device the size of their hand, customers can search, book, and buy while they commute to work, relax on the beach, or discuss weekend plans with friends over dinner. That capability was just a dream a few years ago. Now it’s commonplace. So what’s next? And how do you make sure your website and marketing can keep up? We’ll explain.

B Future-Proof Your Website You and your business are not immune to changes in technology. You need a website that embraces technology and is designed to accommodate new developments quickly. We know that over 65 percent of travelers search for travel information on a mobile device. That means that if you want your website to look good on all mobile devices, optimize it for every new device that hits the market. In order for your website to accommodate all of these platforms, it should behave more like an operating system than a static site.

Think of how often you update apps on your phone. All that’s required is a Wi-Fi connection and a few minutes. Website updates should be that easy. Even better, updates should be recommended as a solution before you even knew you needed them!

We built a website platform with the future in mind. We have over one hundred customers on this framework, and to date, they’ve received more than eighty updates without ever asking for them. That is what a future-proof website looks like.

C Personalization through Integration What if there was a way to customize what visitors see on your website based on who they are, what they are viewing, and their past behavior? What if you could feed that information into a customer-relationship management tool to inform future lifecycle marketing campaigns and streamline the way your website converts browsers into buyers? This type of technology has been available at the enterprise level for some time, but it has been too expensive for the average business owner to implement.

Today, personalization through integration is becoming more and more affordable thanks to marketing automation tools and campaigns. It boils down to this: When you better understand your customers, you can market to them more effectively with personalized, relevant content, which translates into more bookings.

D Focus on Copy vs. Photography It’s funny, but some people don’t realize that “content” consists of copy and photography. They are both incredibly important. Somewhere along the way, the emphasis has tipped the scales to the photography side, leaving copy sadly neglected. Photography is important, but we know that copy is equally important. We've launched hundreds of websites, and a customer might sometimes say, “We need to wait until our photography is updated.” Customers never say they need to wait until their copy is updated. That is overlooking an important opportunity. Copy is not a “set it and forget it” concept. Whereas you can take a set of photos and use them for years, copy is ever-evolving. It needs to be nurtured on a regular basis to drive conversion. In fact, our data shows that websites can successfully double their conversion with the right content.

What does the “right content” look like? We believe in a balance of photos and copy that’s brand focused, optimized to increase traffic, and geared for conversion. You can increase traffic to your website, but if you’re not increasing leads and bookings, there’s no point. This is a tremendous opportunity to differentiate yourself in the marketplace now and in the future, because chances are, your competitors won’t make an ongoing investment in quality content.

E Artificial Intelligence and Instant Access Our society is used to getting information in an instant, and that fact holds true when a potential guest visits your website. Research shows that the faster you reply to an inquiry, the higher the conversion rate will be. The challenge is that we’re all so busy that it’s hard to respond promptly. If the only thing stopping a person from booking with you is the answer to a question, you want to be on top of that. We like to say, “Don’t make it hard for people to give you their money!” Automation can help.

Today, chatbots can be employed to answer standard questions, and that functionality can be used to increase website conversion. Sometimes, a fast answer to a question makes the difference between booking and abandonment.

Return on Your Investment

eeping up with technology can be frustrating, especially when the pace of change increases exponentially each day. Your website is a perfect example. Because it can take up to six months to research, design, and implement from beginning to end, your new site might be outdated the day it launches. To avoid this outcome, you need to be planning for tomorrow’s world rather than solving for yesterday’s.

You don’t invest money into websites or marketing just because you think you should. You do it to drive growth in your business. It’s your right to expect a website that provides a return on investment. As you look to partner with a provider, look for people with expertise in website design and vacation rental management and with a commitment to ROI. A future-proof approach to your web design is the first step to ensuring your website stays current with technology. It’s possible, and you can have it! VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Living in a world of 800-pound gorillas Convergence Drives Growth…and Opportunity

he short-term rental industry is expanding rapidly. As Douglas Quinby of Phocuswright reminds us, our industry is increasingly converging with the hotel industry, and what used to be called “alternative accommodation” is becoming mainstream.

Converging with an industry that’s seven times our size (as measured in available room nights) is great news and explains why our segment is expected to grow at 14 percent compared with traditional lodging, which is expected to grow in the low single digits. But it is also scary—our own industry had recently seen strong consolidation. As our industry converges with the traditional lodging industry, are we being catapulted into a world of 800-pound gorillas?

Different Expectations Convergence means that our product is increasingly being compared with hotels. Guests expect the same level of quality—or more—than what they experience at hotels. While dynamic newcomers like Airbnb are selling new segments of guests on experiential travel, those guests expect unique accommodations and consistent quality. Heather Bayer, an experienced VRM and the writer behind Cottageblogger, tells readers that the days when guests bring their own sheets are long gone. As an informal show of hands at VRM Intel Live in Denver indicated, equally gone are the days when all guests arrive and leave on the same day of the week, adding complexity to the process.

Today’s guests expect hotel-like quality, smooth processes, and quality amenities, and they also expect that the Wi-Fi works well and that their experience is built around their specific requirements, such as a list of great fishing spots, a cot for the toddler, a doggie bowl and bed for four-legged companions, and referrals to a great dive bar.

An Impossible Task? This becomes an operational nightmare. Hotels deal with rooms that have been built for easy cleaning and where every component is standardized. They employ housekeeping staff that go from room to room, each two yards from the next, and a concierge in the lobby is equipped to cater to the guests’ every wish and desire. 70

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Meanwhile, what VRMs pull off every day is more akin to managing a hotel with 300 rooms where every room has a different owner, was built by a different architect, is cleaned by a different housekeeper, and is spread across the landscape. As the platforms (OTAs and distribution sites) continue to drive professionalization, growth, and traffic, the pressure mounts.

The Platforms: Drivers of Growth, Necessary Evil, or Upcoming Epic Battle? As a key driver of both growth and professionalization, the platforms have done much good for our industry. But there are clouds on the horizon: as Steve Milo of Vacation Rental Pros has presented artfully and entertainingly at VRM Intel Live events, the platforms often fall short on accommodating a VRM’s day-to day needs or business model. Even if these “teething pains” can be worked out, it’s unclear whether a VRM’s interests are aligned with the platforms in the long term.

As the country manager of a major listing platform told me privately, “Just a few years ago, the property manager was responsible for both marketing and day-to-day operations. These days, [the platforms] take care of much of the marketing and pay for it dearly, yet the VRMs are still getting the same commission. A battle over margins is likely on the horizon.” Also on the horizon is a battle over who owns the guest. As every platform has now adopted Airbnb’s per-transaction pricing, control of the guest relationship has become a more contentious topic.

The Big Squeeze With the rise of the urban VRM, which typically prices at lower commission rates; Airbnb’s support of micro-VRMs; and emerging low-cost, unbundled models like Evolve, this is likely to increase competition for owners. And increased competition will result in lower prices and higher expectations. Is a big squeeze on the horizon for property managers? It’s in everyone's interest to leave enough—arguably, more—money on the table for the owner. After all, the industry is still supply constrained, so it behooves everyone to get more of the millions of second homes not currently listed available for rental. The platforms

need to start recouping some of their multibillion dollar investments that drove much of the industry growth.

Comparing Cottage Industries Is the short-term rental property management industry well positioned to withstand that squeeze? It’s unclear. While the industry has seen a huge amount of consolidation, the consolidation has mostly been at the distribution level, where four players substantially control the global market (Priceline/Booking.com, Ctrip, Expedia/HomeAway, and Airbnb). Meanwhile, property management remains a highly fragmented industry. By our count, enterprise VRMs (those with more than 1,000 listings) collectively manage under 30,000 listings in the United States—that’s only 1.5 percent of the US market.

We recently witnessed how much effort it took for a leading US VRM to schedule a meeting with a senior executive at one of the global listing platforms. For the listing platforms, the United States is today not the major battleground—Europe (the current market) and Asia (the future market) feature much more prominently. Our industry is supported by 400+ VRM vendors, plus an emerging ecosystem of add-ons. And we all rely on a network of service providers that is just as fragmented as our own industry. These cottage industries combined may make easy work for the global platforms if their interests no longer coincide with ours. So, where is the good news?

Finding a Competitive Advantage in Operations VRMs have a competitive advantage: they manage day-to-day operations for the listing and, as opposed to the platforms, own an exclusive relationship. Operational management of the listing is the most difficult part of the VR equation. On the other side, Simon Lehmann, formerly of Phocuswright, at VRMA (Europe) in Amsterdam, said building a brand is an exercise in futility for a VRM. If he is correct, day-to-day operational management of properties will become the key competitive advantage of property managers. The operational component is likely a key reason why this industry is dominated by local players: knowing the local ecosystem of suppliers has been a key factor in success, as is being close to the property and being able to locally manage the details.

The platforms realize just how important professional operations are. Witness Airbnb’s purchase of Luxury Retreats early this year as an example of exercising more control over the product. And rumors persist that Airbnb will soon launch a “Select” brand, covering a much larger segment of its inventory for exactly that reason—marrying the uniqueness of short term-rentals with the consistent operations expected at hotels. This has also been the theme for well-funded newcomers Stay Alfred and Sonder.

A Massive Greenfield Opportunity With an emphasis on professionalizing property operations, the outlook for VRMs is promising, and the upcoming fight over margins and market share may be a temporary struggle. If convergence into an industry seven times our size is the theme, then the outlook for the industry on the demand side is extremely lucrative.

But for sustained industry growth, we need supply growth. And two key drivers of supply growth are intrinsically linked to operational excellence. The first driver is the millions of second homes that are not currently for rent. This is a massive greenfield oppor-

tunity. Those owners may be less focused on revenue and care more about the stewardship of their asset, their second home. If we can deliver peace of mind, operational excellence, and real-time visibility into how their property is being managed, we may unlock a significant portion of that latent supply.

The second driver is slowing down the regulatory onslaught our industry has recently suffered. While operational excellence is no panacea, it can reassure nervous city councils; the tighter we run the ship, the more accepted and acceptable we will be. Whether this is prestay (vetting guests), during the stay (noise and occupancy alerts), or poststay (having effective, consistent and scalable processes to address any problems), we are better positioned to minimize regulations.

Combatting the Bull in the China Shop Given the rapid growth of our industry, regulatory resistance was all but inevitable. The writing has been on the wall for Airbnb in its urban core markets for a while, and it is now spilling into traditional vacation rental markets. With its aggressive push into urban markets and awkward handling of the initial response, Airbnb attracted most of the early arrows. Not much love is lost in city councils around the world for a multi-billion California company that stepped into constrained urban housing markets like the bull in the proverbial china shop. Local property managers present a much friendlier face as they are grounded in their communities. Even more importantly, property managers contract for billions of dollars of local services. And because these services are provided by local sole proprietorships and small businesses, they touch an important local constituency. As an industry, it is critical for us to showcase the local impact we have. City councils won’t shed a tear for a billion-dollar, far-away corporation. But they will pay attention when they understand how STR regulation affects Jane the contractor, Bob the gardener, and Pat the housekeeper. Hotels spend 14–18 percent of their revenue on housekeeping. Assuming that our industry will spend 15 percent on local operational costs, that’s more than $2 billion in local spend per year.

A VRM’s Crown Jewels: Scalable Processes and Great People To achieve operational excellence, which underpins our industry’s competitive advantage, we need consistent, replicable, and scalable processes. We may not be able to outcompete Booking.com or Expedia’s long-tail performance marketing, Airbnb’s brand marketing, or Ctrip’s access to new customer groups in the long run, but we can run circles around competitors by turning our local, on-the-ground operational experience into consistent, scalable, and replicable processes. In other words, our processes are our crown jewels, the key to our competitive advantage (and if we so choose, to scale). Personally, I’m still learning something new every day: just last week, a guest managed to incinerate a bowl of rice in the microwave so effectively that two rooms in the house suffered smoke damage. Never having dealt with this problem before, it was a first-time adventure for me. I’ve turned the response into a process, which is ready for when I (or anyone else) needs it next. Of course, processes are only as good as the people executing them. We need to spend just as much time on recruiting, training, motivating, monitoring, and delivering feedback to our partners on the ground. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Tech as the Enabler: The Forgotten Stack Technology plays an important role as an enabler of processes and people. Our biggest investment needs to be in developing our people and fine-tuning and iterating on our processes. Technology is subordinate to that. Technology can help us capture processes and manage them deep into the field, and provide actionable feedback to our people—in that role, technology becomes core to our competitive advantage. Walter Buschta of Phocuswright gave an excellent overview of the VR tech stack at VRM Intel Live in Denver recently. Quite tellingly, the tech stack he described focused almost exclusively on the marketing side. But this is only half the story: the other part of the story is the forgotten operations tech stack. As operational prowess becomes more critical to the success of VRMs, this will be the stack to focus on. The key layer of the operational tech stack needs to enable process and people management—this is what VRMs spend 60 percent of their resources on, and it is key to their competitive advantage. But the operations tech stack shouldn’t and can’t live by itself: it needs to integrate with the core property management system (PMS).

in technology development. At the current scale, the largest US VRM would have about a 0.1 percent share of the global market—certainly not enough to get to a viable scale for sustainable technology development.

Software vs. Platform A final consideration is the difference between software and a platform. Software is implemented inside a company; a platform connects many participants across a fragmented industry. Given the fragmentation at both the VRM and service supplier level, a platform approach seems ideally suited for the short-term rental industry. Imagine a future where the entire industry collaborates on training and rating its service providers; where VRMs can efficiently schedule service providers; and where the key differentiator becomes the quality, breadth, and scope of processes and the effective management of our human resources—all enabled by technology.

Conclusion Industry in Rapid Transformation, Lots of Opportunity for the Well-prepared

Conversely, the core PMS is unlikely to cover this function well: PMSs are fundamentally delivered as cloud-based web software. The operational tech stack needs to connect myriad outside providers and devices with the processes of the VRM. The common denominators are native apps and mobile phones first, and APIs second. This requires scale, such as platform needs, to connect anyone from Jane the contractor, and Pat the housekeeper to the smart home thermostat, the NoiseAware noise monitor, the PartyCrasher occupancy monitor, and the grocery or restaurant delivery…everyone—and everything—into one common fabric.

“Alternative accommodation” is certainly becoming mainstream. And with an increasing percentage of distribution handled by four large global platforms, VRMs will have to get used to living in a world of 800-pound gorillas.

Hardware and How To Make It All Scalable

But on balance, VRMs have not been dealt a bad deck of cards. Where there is rapid change, there is opportunity. Operational excellence is one likely area where VRMs have a competitive advantage. Ironically, operational complexity has resulted in keeping our industry fragmented. Building on this competitive advantage will require attention to processes and people management—underpinned by technology as an enabler—and a platform approach.

The last twelve months have seen exciting developments in hardware that can support VRM operations. Connected smart locks are making inroads into the consumer side of the market. This will hopefully help drive expenses down and accelerate acceptance. Point solutions are being developed for VR industry-specific problems (e.g., NoiseAware as a noise monitor and PartyCrasher as an occupancy sensor). But the problem with many of these solutions is that they are standalone solutions. VRMs must consider tying these solutions together into a common framework—a noise alert is of little use unless it attracts the attention of the on-call listing manager, and that listing manager knows what to do. Ultimately, process management and smart home device management must be tightly integrated into one infrastructure where all the pieces work seamlessly together. Perhaps most interesting is the tech battle over who gets to sell add-on services to the guest: the property manager via an app, the platform via its guest app (e.g., Airbnb); or the PM with a partner via an in-home device (e.g., Amazon Echo powered by Alexa voice control).

The Tech-Enabled VRM: Developer or Integrator? “The tech-enabled VRM” has developed much excitement. The debate whether the term is more substance or marketing speak is valid. But the outlines of the tech-enabled VRM are becoming clearer: increasingly, they are smart integrators, as opposed to developing technology in-house. This was one of the insights from VRM Intel Live in Denver—even the enterprise-scale VR managers are moving away from in-house technology development. This makes sense: with ever more complex integrations, scale is required 72

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It remains to be seen whether the gorillas will be friendly or threatening. There will likely be some skirmishes over margins and over who owns the guest. The current honeymoon where the platforms aggressively court VRMs in the battle for market share will end, at least in some geographies. Our urban colleagues in many cities are already seeing this.

Technology platforms level the playing field for smaller participants. VRMs have the additional advantage of having an exclusive relationship with owners. In a world of increasingly professional managers who crosslist on many listing platforms, it makes sense for service providers to forge relationships with the exclusive manager of a property. The more VRMs can showcase operational prowess, deliver peace of mind, and inject real-time visibility into property operations, the more likely they are to unlock the millions of second homes that are not currently available for rent and truly grow the market. This will make for a bright future for those VRMs who prepare for the coming changes.

Alex Nigg is the founder and CEO of Properly, an operations platform for short-term rentals connecting thousands of properties across North America, Europe and Australasia with their service providers. Nigg is a frequent speaker at industry events in North America and Europe. With his partner Tammi, he also manages vacation rentals in San Francisco, Seattle, and New Zealand. Prior to finding his passion for the vacation rental industry, Alex was a management consultant at Bain & Company, an entrepreneur, and a venture capital investor in Silicon Valley.

3 Big Myths about Direct Bookings “O ne would think that given all of the industry attention on direct booking, there would be a more uniform way of looking at what it actually is. The most obvious type of purchase that all hotels clearly count as direct is the booking that occurs on the brand.com website or app where there is no third party involved in facilitating the transaction.” (Skift, May 2017) Yes, after so many years of debating the booking issue—an argument that has resulted in the “direct booking wars,” a phrase even consumers now recognize—we should all be agreeing about the definition of a direct booking. However, we are still far from a robust (or profitable) understanding of website direct bookings. Out of the many myths about direct bookings, let’s break down a few.

Big Myth #1: A direct booking is a website booking. Direct bookings existed long before OTAs came along, even before websites existed. While they include bookings on brand.com, the most obvious direct booking is the one that happens when a guest either dials those ten digits or uses click-to-call to reach a reservations agent. Aside from old-fashioned walk-ins, phone calls are the oldest form of direct booking, and contrary to popular belief, they still matter—quite a lot.

While supplier websites yielded 27 percent of bookings in 2015, calls to hotels were at a valuable 17 percent (much higher for private accommodations). Combined with bookings at the property and metasearches, non-brand.com direct bookings were 31 percent of all bookings, outpacing website bookings (U.S. Consumer Travel Report Eighth Edition, Phocuswright, 2016). We can debate the inclusion of metasearch as a direct booking; however, we’re inclined to include it because it’s closely related to pay-per-click or click-to-call. While we can argue about what to consider as direct bookings, the category comprises far more than brand.com. Imagine what these percentages might be if we cast the direct booking net wider than just websites and included those third-party numbers?

Big Myth #2: Online bookings are profit engines; everything else is a profit drain. This might be true if the guest went straight to your website and booked without ever seeing your property via Google pay-per-click or on a metasearch site or an OTA—or without a quick phone call to verify something about the property, which happens 71 percent of the time, according to HomeAway. These views have a price, but few properties are tracking the full path to purchase and attributing their earnings appropriately. Most managers just assume that, if the booking came through the website, it had some vague website

marketing costs attached to it but that it’s cheaper than an OTA or paying the overhead on a reservations agent. Not true. Every online booking has costs attached, and understanding those costs is essential to understanding how to spend dollars on visibility and training. NAVIS tracks the entire path to purchase so managers can trace exactly how many dollars were spent and which dollars spent were most profitable. Regarding direct booking via a website or the voice channel, note that:

 Direct bookings via phone have a higher value, generating $3 for every $1 generated online.

 Reservations agents convert at an impressive 42.5 percent when they are properly trained in the art of sales.

 Agents can add another 10 percent to that if they are trained to handle outbound calls in their downtime.

Not performing at these levels means you’re losing significant revenue every day.

Big Myth #3: If you build a website, direct bookings will come. Here is the notion about direct bookings that can be their biggest drawback. A website neither creates nor converts demand. Desktop and mobile websites can be frequent parts of today’s complicated path to purchase; however, as Google notes, to “earn (and re-earn) each person’s consideration . . . you’ll need to do more than just show up” (Think with Google, July 2016).

Capturing and converting guests requires giving them all the information and tools they need across all available channels and devices, including voice. Expedia’s The American Traveler’s Path to Purchase notes that travelers use online resources 20 times per week in the 45 days prior to booking and, on average, three resource types. Notably, these resources are both online and off-line. Think of the path to purchase as a zigzag from online to off-line and back. Keeping travelers on the channels you own, rather than letting them wander off to OTAs or metasearch sites, is essential. If you prominently include a clickable phone number and chat options on your mobile website, you can steer customers toward your most profitable voice channel. Looking clearly at direct bookings opens up more opportunities. As a hotel or vacation rental owner, when you embrace the off-line channel and tune in to the evolving habits of travelers, you can increase demand as well as increase conversions with your existing demand. Get downloadable worksheets, webinar recordings, and e-books on this topic and on the latest vacation rental industry trends at Learn. TheNavisway.com. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Time to Overshare

Your Property Care By Jeremiah Gall, Founder, Breezeway

e all have that friend—everyone has one or two— who loves to overshare. You know the type. Maybe they post too many Facebook updates or include too many details in that story from last summer told over dinner. Oversharing is a thing, and it’s easy to do.

Unfortunately, when it comes to property management and care, the norm has been the opposite. Managers fail to build and organize robust property information, and not enough information is shared with property owners. Owners have come to expect more transparency and detail about how their home is being maintained, so now is the time to improve your property care program and start oversharing by communicating the details of your service to your clients. We live in the information age. We have the ability to create and digest an incredible amount of information, hampered only by our access to Wi-Fi (which is a challenge at the moment while I write this from a rustic vacation rental on Squam Lake, New Hampshire). This digitizing, cataloging, and organizing of information has opened access to data on a granular level. We can get the status of a flight down to the minute of departure and progress en route, track the delivery of a package from the distribution center to the local warehouse and down to the truck it’s riding on to your front door, or check real-time updates on investment portfolios. We’ve come to expect this level of detail, access, and transparency. Vacation rental homeowners are beginning to expect this level of detail, access, and information about their property as well. They want to know how their most valuable asset is being cared for and maintained. Monthly income and owner statements cover the accounting details, but they don’t provide a full picture of the asset protection and care that owners are increasingly demanding from their property managers. 74

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Creating and transparently sharing the details of comprehensive property care programs with their owners is a growing trend for progressive property managers like Paso Robles Vacation Rentals in California and 360 Blue in Destin. By collecting, tracking, and sharing more information with owners, they are strengthening their relationships with their clients. In this article, we’ll provide tips on how to better communicate your property care program to owners and capture the full value of property management and asset protection services.

The best part is that it’s simple to add better reporting to the workflow that managers are already using. In the services industry there is nothing better than receiving additional credit and potentially charging more while providing the same service.

B Frequent Property-Condition Reports The first step in a comprehensive property care program is frequent, quick inspections of the condition of the property. This is the best way to demonstrate continued property care and attention for absent homeowners concerned about the state of their home. Managers are interacting with their owners’ homes multiple times a week, including cleanings, post-departure inspections, and routine maintenance repairs. Each interaction is an opportunity to demonstrate to the property owner the time that is being dedicated to their property.

These reports can be as simple as quick condition reports or as thorough as a fifty-point housekeeping inspection report, as long as they are consistent, professional, and transparent. In addition to the efficiency gains the reports drive internally, property managers build trust with the owner and increase the owner’s positive interaction with the brand by sharing the reports externally with clients.

Frequent condition reports are the appropriate place for demonstrating property care and introducing any necessary improvements and repairs; it is not a monthly owner statement. Monthly statements should be used for accounting purposes, not to showcase how well the property is being maintained and cared for. Too often, these monthly statements include surprise maintenance charges, which clients may be seeing for the first time and long after the necessary services have been provided.

Additionally, these reports provide a history of property care. Condition reporting builds over time, adding multiple data points for each element of the property on each inspection. In the aggregate, this demonstrates the type of consistent asset protection and management that is so valuable to property owners.

By using a platform like Breezeway, managers can complete their entire seasonal inspection and automatically add the details to the inventory. This creates an excellent history of the condition of the property to be used for future reports, maintenance, and operations.

E Inventory and Property History Reports With the number of vacation rental investment properties growing, asset protection and maintenance are critical considerations for owners. Managers should leverage their frequent interaction with the property to build a deep property profile, complete inventory, and maintenance history. Operationally, this helps managers ensure that all necessary preventative maintenance is being completed and documented. Sharing this information on an annual basis provides an opportunity to help owners track contents; budget maintenance expenses for the following year; and feel confident that their property manager is keeping a full record of their property maintenance for insurance renewals, claims, or to demonstrate excellent asset preservation for a future property sale.

C Capture All the Details Communicating the full value of property management requires tracking and sharing more details about the exact services you provide. There are so many little tasks and details that go into keeping vacation rental property maintained and ready for guests. Property managers change filters, light bulbs, fix running toilets, and any number of small repairs in the course of the weekly turnover process. Much of this work may not require an individual service charge, meaning it doesn’t show up on the monthly statement and is never shared with property owners. Start using smart technology to capture and organize every touch point with each property and automatically add them to the property profile. Operational costs are too high to perform services without receiving credit.

Take advantage of all the detailed work that goes into vacation rental management and share it with owners. It has never been easier to be a “rent by owner,” with the growth of listing sites and online tools. If property managers are going to stay competitive, they need to show owners exactly how they are maintaining the property and all of the hard work that goes into it. Don’t worry about oversharing, and don’t be discouraged if owners ignore your updates. Every touch adds confidence in the management service, particularly in an industry that hasn’t shared much in the past.

D Seasonal Inspection Reports Part of a thorough property care program is a seasonal inspection. This provides owners with comprehensive insight into the condition of their property, should highlight maintenance issues that were completed during the inspection, and introduces any suggested future repairs or maintenance that the property owner should be aware of and approve. An end-of-season property review and inventory has been the standard procedure for vacation rental managers for many years. However, most managers still complete this by hand using paper checklists or a generic digital checklist. Consider interviewing owners and including customized programs for each owner based on their specific concerns for the property. Impress clients with a seasonal inspection that is tailored to their property and highlights the special attention that staff paid to checking each bedroom and bathroom and each unique feature of the property.

Leveraging all the information from routine condition reports and seasonal inspections, managers can easily create a full property inventory report for clients. At the end of the year when clients are reviewing annual statements and taking stock of their rental income, it’s powerful to remind them of all the work that was done to carefully maintain their home throughout the year and how well their property manager knows their property and is best qualified to continue to care for it in the future.

About Jeremiah Gall

Jeremiah Gall is a serial entrepreneur and vacation rental market veteran with a history of delivering great products to rental managers over the past twelve years. In 2006, Jeremy cofounded FlipKey.com and developed marketing tools and the first verified guest review platform for professional rental managers. He continued to manage FlipKey’s global professional services group, working with more than three thousand property manager clients. Before leaving in 2013 and after the acquisition by TripAdvisor, Jeremy grew FlipKey into one of the largest vacation rental businesses in the world. Jeremy is the founder and CEO of Breezeway. Breezeway’s mobile app and solutions give rental managers the tools they need for optimized turn days, efficient operations, and excellent property care programs. Jeremy has shared in-depth analyses of the vacation rental market at national travel shows and in industry publications and is a regular presenter at VRMA conferences, MIT, and Boston College. He is an avid vacation rental fan and enjoys splitting time between Boston and South Carolina.

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

It’s Time to Ask More from VR Revenue Management Tools W

hen it comes to managing your portfolio of vacation rentals, no one knows your strategy better than you do. Working in conjunction with your owners, you’ve established an end goal, and you know you need to adjust your rates, minimum night stays, and marketing tactics to get there. So perhaps, like many VR property managers who want to keep up with the latest tech, you’ve invested in a few software tools to help you out. There are several new tools in market that focus on revenue management—specifically rate adjustments. These tools claim that they can do all the work for you, and if you just listen to their recommendations and don’t ask too many questions, your business will grow exponentially. But to ensure you’re making the right decisions to reach your strategic goals, you need data you can trust. And to trust data, you need three things: to know where it’s coming from, to have enough of it, and to be able to interpret it to derive meaningful insights.

Get access to the right data—and a lot of it Many revenue management tools available today have great aspirations but can’t deliver on their promises because they just don’t have access to the data. They may have some information about the larger market, but they don’t have visibility into traveler search traffic or market occupancy—data points that reveal actual supply and demand. (Which, when you’re in the business of economics, you definitely need.) Without some of those key data points, these tools may not even be able to identify a true competitive set for your portfolio of rentals. And if the comp set’s wrong, you won’t get the guidance you need to set your rates appropriately no matter how much data there is.

You have to see data to believe it Of course, the companies large enough to have a lot of data often aren’t willing to share it—certainly not all of it. But you can’t trust a

tool that’s a black box. When it comes to making decisions that are going to impact your business, you shouldn’t be expected to blindly accept what a piece of software tells you to do. Many tools acquire their data by scraping it from online travel agencies and other sites, which means it could be incomplete or inaccurate. Any leading revenue management tool of the future needs to provide real-time, proprietary data to its users—and it needs to be transparent.

Data is science. Interpretation is a fine art. But ultimately, transparent access to all the data in the world won’t get you anywhere unless you can interpret it to find meaningful, actionable insights. That’s where expertise comes in. Startups may have a scrappy team of data scientists and software developers, but you want a tool that’s built by a team with years of real-world, firsthand experience in delivering solutions for property managers and in revenue management solutions. You want the right data at the right time, presented in the right way for your business. And only someone who’s been in both industries can deliver that.

It’s time for a new kind of revenue management tool Revenue management for the VR industry isn’t a new concept. It requires some adaptation from the world of hotels, but the fundamental principles remain the same. You set your business goals, establish a strategy, and make tactical decisions to move forward. If those decisions aren’t based on data you can trust, you can’t be confident that you’ll reach those goals. It’s time to start looking for a revenue management tool that understands your business, gets you the data you need, and gives you insights to succeed. By Cliff Vars, General Manager HomeAway Software VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Is Your Company Set Up for Dynamic Pricing? 5 Things to Do to Get Your Company (and Owners) Ready

oing from setting rates once a year through a handful of seasons to having rates that change daily has major implications for all levels of your organization. We will show you the five things you need to do now to make sure you’re set up to take advantage of dynamic pricing. Whether you are using some sort of rules-based system from your PMS that changes prices based on your own occupancy or number of days out or you are using a sophisticated, third-party revenue management system that changes prices based on fluctuations in market supply and demand, one thing is true: gone are the days of having rates that change based only on the season and that are set once per year.

While this may seem like a minor change, it affects all levels of your organization, so it is important to get your whole team on board before flipping the switch. In working with hundreds of managers, we have found that once you have made the decision to get more sophisticated with your pricing, you still have a few things to think about regarding how you do business.

continually, and guests should be encouraged to book now to lock in that great rate. If you look at most other sectors of the travel industry, this is nothing new. Even “old school” travel agents who sell packaged vacations and send out PDF quotes still state very clearly that the proposed rates are not valid until the property is booked.

Most guests are quite used to the idea of rates not being the same if they return days later (sometimes even hours later, in the case of flights) to book, so don’t fret about a customer backlash. Prepare your agents for explaining that, just as for flights, hotels, and car rentals, prices and availability for vacation rentals are subject to change.

This strategy will help your reservationists with the pricing system conversion, as guests will now have an incentive for making a decision. It will be clear that if they wait, the rate could change (or someone else could book it), so it would be best to lock it in as soon as possible. The reality is that rates will not change drastically (unless a major event is suddenly announced and demand peaks).

B Retrain Your Reservations Staff

If you have repeat guests who are upset that prices might be different from last year, you can always train your reservationists to use that as an opportunity to inspire loyalty in guests. You can instruct them to offer the same rate the guest paid last year (or 5 percent more), noting that the offer is only available to repeat guests.

Sending out PDF quotes with rates that will be honored indefinitely is a thing of the past. You will need to retrain your reservations staff to communicate that rates (just like availability) change

The last thing reservationists need to recognize is that depending on their PMS software, how they adjust a folio if guests add or subtract a day from their stay may change the rate. Make sure to

Here are the top five things we have encountered.

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

review with the staff how your system works and how you want to handle that scenario. You want to avoid recalculating the entire stay because rates may have gone up or demand may have peaked since the initial booking.

C Make Sure Your Website Can Handle It Using just a static rate table will no longer suffice. Airlines and hotels did away with rate tables decades ago. If you really want to keep a rate table, it will either have a lot more rates or you should make sure your website provider can display a minimum and maximum price during the “season” you define. Several OTAs, such as HomeAway, support a seasonal minimum and maximum rate. However, the more dynamic your pricing, the less meaningful those rates are: if you show a wide range of prices, that in reality they might need to enter their dates just to get an accurate quote. If you have not already noticed, HomeAway and other channels are hiding or completely getting rid of rate tables and pushing guests to enter dates to get a quote. The data somewhat supports this strategy: conversion goes up when guests enter their dates, in part because it makes it easier to see which units are available and what the relative rates are. Other options for displaying your rates include the following:

 Calendar view (with no rates, with rates on the calendar, or with rates appearing when the cursor hovers over a date)  No rates tab (guests need to enter their dates to see prices)

We generally recommend using one of these two options. If your website provider is having a hard time making its rate table or calendar match your dynamic rates, we strongly recommend just going with no rates tab.

One of the major issues in how your website provider displays rates relates to how it receives rates from the PMS you use. We will address how PMS systems handle dynamic rates below, but this was one of the major issues with rate feeds once dynamic pricing was implemented.

D Get Owners on Board Owners will no longer be able to easily know what you are charging, and they may try to micromanage things. Make sure to explain what you are doing and why. When you start, we recommend that you implement dynamic pricing only with the owners you know will be okay with your making all the decisions when it comes to pricing. You can, either put together an FAQ and some literature on the merits of dynamic pricing and poll your owners to see who wants to opt in, or you can simply exclude those pesky owners who are always looking over your shoulder and think they know better how to manage the pricing of their properties.

owners have hired you to make these kinds of decisions, just as they trust you to pick the right pictures for your listings and the right way to answer the phone for guests.

E Make Sure Your Channel Manager and PMS Can Handle Dynamic Rates Every PMS system handles rates differently. If you are using a channel manager provided by your PMS or a third-party manager, make sure that their rate feed incorporates your dynamic pricing correctly. The main issue is that many dynamic pricing systems are based on a set of rules (e.g., when my occupancy is 80 percent, increase price 10 percent). Those rules are then applied when someone sends a request for a quote, but often they are not translated into a given price per day or price per season. Ask your PMS system whether their rate feed is accurate. Often it is not, and this is a huge problem in the industry. All dynamic rates should be able to be translated into a feed that has a given price for every season or day. A season is really just a range of days.

It is essential that all PMS systems and channel managers standardize translating rates into a given price per day or range of days, potentially with length of stay adjustments where supported (e.g., offer discount if length of stay is greater than seven days or increase if fewer than three). Finally, ask your PMS system whether they can handle multiple listings that change rates daily. If they can’t, you may want to consider switching to a more rate-sophisticated PMS.

F Ease into It Set some boundaries (minimums and, potentially, maximums) as you get comfortable. Test things out with your most lenient owners.

Also, you will want to know where you stand in the market. Whether you are setting rules or using independent third-party reporting or a revenue management system such as Beyond Pricing, you need information such as the pricing levels of your competitors and their occupancy trends. And you likely will want to know that information across as many advertising channels as possible (not just on Airbnb and HomeAway). Knowing current market trends helps you put your dynamic pricing into context so you are not flying blind. If your dynamic pricing product does not provide this kind of market intelligence, consider supplementing it with this kind of data. Do not be afraid to ask for help from fellow managers who have made the switch. They, better than anyone else, can guide you and help you proceed to the next level in what is probably the most exciting change toward modernizing vacation rentals since smart locks!

We’ve seen managers make the switch without fully considering those owners who constantly look at their rate table on VRBO and compare it with their neighbor’s rate—and then cannot understand why you are pricing higher than their neighbor on Christmas. Often, those owners are more trouble than they are worth, and it would be better to leave them out of your dynamic pricing program. Lastly, make sure your contracts with owners allow you to fully manage rates. You would be surprised how many vacation rental management contracts look more like real estate agent listing contracts than hotel management contracts. You are the expert, and the

By Ian McHenry CEO, Beyond Pricing VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

RedAwning CEO Tim Choate Discusses Its Recent $40 million Funding

By Amy Hinote

edAwning recently announced it secured $40 million in a Series A funding round led by Bostonbased growth equity firm Silversmith Capital Partners. RedAwning primarily offers “channel management” software but also offers a more comprehensive approach that helps property managers not only list but also succeed in booking on different channels, such as Airbnb, Expedia, and Booking.com. According to the company, the RedAwning solution includes 24/7 reservation and guest support services via phone, text, and email; connectivity and technical integration; payment processing; standardized contracts; and, according to its website, the “industry’s largest data analytics engine to competitively rank your properties on major travel sites.” Due to the increase in direct connections to OTAs provided by software companies and the rising sensitivity related to third-party distributors taking more ownership of the relationship with guests, the future of channel managers is a topic of industry debate. However, RedAwning’s $40 million funding round demonstrates that the investment community is banking on the vacation rental industry’s ongoing and long-term need for channel management services. RedAwning currently has 100,000 properties in its network, half of which are in Europe. RedAwning also has a model for individual homeowners that offers the ability to list vacation homes on major OTAs for a 3 percent transactional fee. In addition, RedAwning has multiple channels of its own and recently resurrected VaycayHero to further extend its presence as a single marketing hub for vacation properties listed within the RedAwning network.

Although its direct competitors have historically struggled in the channel management space, RedAwning maintains that the company is profitable and says it will use funding to double its staff, secure a larger office space, and expand into existing markets in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, as well as other new global territories. According to its press release, “Funds will also be used to accelerate development of its innovative technology platform, which enables property managers to consistently beat competitive property booking results through a combination of listing optimization, marketing algorithms, dynamic analytics, and targeted distribution.” We 80

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

reached out to CEO Tim Choate to learn more about RedAwning’s models and plans for the future.

Amy Hinote (AH): This level of funding is much larger than we normally see for a technology provider for the professionally managed vacation rental industry. Is the professionally managed vacation rental channel distribution space large enough to warrant the kind of returns VCs like to see? Are you expanding into additional or supplemental verticals and offerings?

Tim Choate (TC): We are profitable and al-

ready growing at a 300 percent annual rate. With this funding, we plan to grow even

you are connected in terms of optimizing ads, serving guests better, developing new marketing approaches, and more. For our property managers, we handle connectivity like everyone else does, plus contracts, payment processing, guest services, full damage claim support, listing optimization, exclusive marketing techniques, and so much more.

AH: What do you see as the long-term vision for PMs for channel distribution?

TC: We see the guest world gravitating to

online and mobile booking, and the channels dominating the customer base, so we see channel distribution as fundamental to the success and survival of most property managers. The old model in which guests return to the same destination each year is rapidly fading as consumers desire new destinations and experiences, and they are mostly turning to the large channels to find their next destination.

AH: In your press release, you mentioned faster, and the market opportunity is essentially unlimited given the $100 billion vacation rental industry.

AH: What does RedAwning do differently

from other companies that allows you to be profitable where others have failed (e.g., LeisureLink)? Have you noticed mistakes other companies made that RedAwning has either learned from or avoided?

TC: Yes, we have a [profitable] business

model, and most players in vacation rental channel management do not, which is why even LeisureLink failed. If you think about it, earning 1 percent or even 3 percent of bookings as one’s revenues would never translate into a thriving company. Even $100 million in bookings generates only $1 to $3 million in revenue. $1 billion in bookings generates $10 to $30 million in revenue. This simply does not work. We do more work for property managers and earn more than any channel manager does. As a result, our profits exceed the revenues of most vacation rental channel managers.

Our offerings for property managers and guests are much broader and more robust than our competitors’ offerings. In our view, connectivity is only an access point, and, especially these days, connectivity does not equal success. The real work comes after

recent innovations in “marketing algorithms, dynamic analytics, and targeted distribution.” Can you expand on these innovations you will be rolling out?

TC: Given our scale in properties on each

channel, we already run many more tests than anyone else and know how to perform better. In addition, we are working on new strategies related to yield and last-minute bookings that can be distributed to channels that do not do “live quote” for bookings, which includes today’s largest channels. We also have additional exciting technology projects in development that we will announce in the future.

AH: We’ve noticed a “by RedAwning” tag

in the property titles on certain channels. What is RedAwning’s position on branding?

TC: Yes. We do branding differently in each

channel based on the channel requirements. Our view is that the “by RedAwning” approach adds value to each of our listings because guests like the added services we include in each stay. Trust also remains the most important factor in vacation rental booking for consumers, so our view is that when you see 10,000+ properties on a website labeled as “by RedAwning,” you will have greater confidence that there is a strong company behind those listings, thus increasing your likelihood to book.

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

The State of Vacation Rental Software 2018 Part Two:

The Tech-Enabled Vacation Rental Manager

n the article, “The Tech-Enabled Vacation Rental Manager,” in the 2017 summer issue of VRM Intel magazine, we examined the increase of technology functionality utilized by property managers (PMs) to meet and scale needs throughout the company. In this second part of the series, we take a deeper dive into the features that have been released in property management systems (PMS) in 2017, new functionality that is on the horizon, and software challenges facing PMS providers in today’s fast-evolving technology landscape. Executives at Barefoot, CiiRUS, LiveRez, Maxxton, RealTimeRental, Streamline, and Virtual Resort Manager (VRM) let us in on their recent developments and provide insight into what vacation rental managers can expect to see from the software industry in the coming year.

HomeAway Software, Kigo, and RNS had not responded by press time.

Where the Software Industry Is Heading in the Future We asked these innovators about the challenges they face, their take on the all-in-one solution versus plug-and-play models, and the future of consolidation in technology.

What are the biggest challenges that software providers face today? Ed Ulmer, Barefoot: Many clients are struggling to understand technology overall—it has so many complexities that without a fulltime IT person on staff, even getting a grasp on what is needed or mission critical can be a challenge. So, it is important for the software provider to bridge the gap in many instances, breaking down the technology to “bite-sized pieces” to make a complete picture. 82

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

An additional challenge is that many consumers start with the question, “What is this going to cost me?” instead of taking the time to understand the value being provided. Price is important, but do the work to understand that by spending $1,000 you might save $50,000 in staff time or lost opportunity costs. The market comprises many players, and that causes a lot of “noise.” The noise and saturation will end as this market begins to consolidate.

Josh Parry, CiiRUS: The industry has ever-changing needs and expectations, both in terms of legislation and technology. A big focus of our system is channel management, which requires us to work within the parameters of over thirty directly connected channels, each of which has different needs and technology with which we must make our system work. There is also the difficulty that property managers are becoming more discerning. This is fantastic because it means that managers are asking the right questions and are picky about the systems they’re going to be using, but it also keeps us on our toes. As managers become more tech enabled and more aware of essential tools and trends, we need to constantly be on the leading edge of that. It’s a very fun challenge. Tina Upson, LiveRez: One of the biggest challenges we face is building software that accommodates managers with a wide variety of business practices. It requires building a lot of flexibility into our software while at the same time making sure it’s is still intuitive and easy to use. Our job is made a lot easier, though, because we leverage our partners throughout the entire development process, from deciding what to build to assessing if what we built is solving the problem we set out to tackle to having real managers test the software before it’s released. Every time we build a new feature, we try to leverage the latest technology. This means our developers must not only stay in the know about the latest advancements but also quickly learn how to utilize them. Lucky for us, we have a team that totally thrives on this challenge.

Joe Testa, RealTimeRental: [The challenge facing software providers] the ability to monetize all the new developments we add to our platform; the fear that we are developing a platform or solution that might be a bit too sophisticated for our user base; and understanding what the PM wants, needs, and is willing to pay for.

Carlos Corzo, Streamline: TIME. Ideally, you want to build and execute on all of your ideas. Due to the complexity of the system, there is a very long learning curve for new developers. Luckily, our developer retention rate is outstanding. We also strive to create an environment where companies can thrive and build their forward-thinking ideas. Streamline is one of the few companies that make a commitment to building custom solutions designed and engineered by our very own property managers. Regardless, we want to be at the forefront of technology. New companies with new techniques are always coming into the market. Ingenuity and staying the course, while listening to the needs of our PMs, have been the key to success. Pete Wenk, VRM: [The challenge facing software providers] third-party distribution, third-party integrations (including housekeeping/ maintenance, smart homes), and yield management and pricing.

In the future, do you think we will see movement to allin-one tech solutions or plug-and-play solutions? Ed Ulmer, Barefoot: We will see providers try to offer all-in-one solutions primarily as a mechanism for driving more profitability from customers. This is also a good way to make sure customers invest in the value of the entire system. However, plug-and-play solutions will still have a significant role to play as new technology and innovation tends to come from start-ups.

Barefoot is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, and as a result, we straddle both options. We continue to add new functionality to provide end-to-end software. But we also develop our API, which allows new-to-market technology to be integrated rapidly. Josh Parry, CiiRUS: The CiiRUS model, a turnkey solution with custom development options, will become more popular. The backbone of the PMS usually fits all customers like a glove, but each may require some bespoke customization. This is a great middle ground because it allows us to implement the standard PMS immediately to begin fulfilling the client’s needs while we work on any bespoke functionality they need.

Tina Upson, LiveRez: Managers want three things when it comes to technology: something with good functionality, something that is convenient, and something that is well supported. Early on, professional managers were forced to use third-party solutions because their own software systems didn’t offer the features they needed (or their software system’s features didn’t meet their needs). This created an ecosystem where niche, third-party software providers flourished. But, as software systems have evolved to include more features, we’ve seen property managers make the switch to all-inone software systems such as LiveRez. The convenience of an allin-one system is hard to beat. You log into one system, get support from one provider, and get one bill a month. The features all work together flawlessly because they’re developed and supported by a single company. Of course, some circumstances exist where you need your software to connect to other pieces of technology, such as channel management, credit card processing, travel insurance, or smart home automation, for example. These connections require that both your software provider and the third-party vendor maintain the connection and keep it up to date (and some providers do a better job at

this than others). Sure, having hundreds of these API connections allows you to offer your customers a lot of options, but there’s also a big cost to maintaining them. The time and money spent focusing on these external connections could often be used to improve your own software instead. At LiveRez, our philosophy is to assess our partners’ needs in a particular area, determine if we can meet these needs internally, and if we can’t (or if it doesn’t make sense for us to do so), then we will develop strong connections to one or two vendors that we carefully vet. This allows us to establish close relationships with these vendors and ensure that we can maintain the highest levels of functionality. It’s really a tradeoff between quality and quantity, and we always strive for quality first. Joe Testa, RealTimeRental: [We will see movement to] plug-and-play systems. Companies are offering very specific technology, and it would be very expensive to replicate that. Plug-and-play models eliminate that.

Carlos Corzo, Streamline: Over time, Streamline will be an all-in-one solution; we are looking to create a one-stop shop. You can look at this in different ways. We want to optimize our pricing core and its flexibility to our clients. However, I still feel that third-party vendors can be a critical piece to the success of a property manager. As I mentioned earlier, I have been privy to some ingenious solutions. We don’t believe in taking any tools to success away from our clients. Ultimately, we want to seamlessly integrate third-party vendors into our menu structure. One login, one URL, one username, one password. Streamline will always offer solutions for different types of users, whether you’re new, small, intermediate, or power users. We give you the ability to run your entire company by just using Streamline as the main engine. So, I do see an all-in-one solution. However, you always want to integrate with third-party vendors because they can be essential to your success in specific locations.

Pete Wenk, VRM: In our opinion, both are viable solutions, depending on the needs of the individual company. The plug-and-play systems generally offer sophisticated solutions to simple problems that can, in many cases, be solved in the all-in-one (AIO) solution. Larger companies often need more than the AIO solutions can provide.

Do you predict that we will see consolidation in the software space? Ed Ulmer, Barefoot: Of course, there will be winners and those who are less successful. Acquisitions will certainly be made, and many of the small players, who do not operate in a niche, will be out of business. Josh Parry, Ciirus: Perhaps not separate software like Streamline and CiiRUS consolidating, but it is certainly possible that major channels and companies such as HomeAway and Airbnb will acquire software. While the separate software services generally compete very respectfully, the technologies just have such different foundations, competencies, and focuses. If they were to consolidate, it would be to liquidate the purchasing systems, not to merge their systems and work together. That would just be such a huge undertaking, and I don’t think it would benefit the property managers at all. Take, for example, the recent merger of the two systems that turned into Kigo. When the legacy system was retired, hundreds of property managers were given an ultimatum to leave the system or pay a huge premium to upgrade. That sort of stuff doesn’t go down so well. Tina Upson, LiveRez: We’re already seeing some consolidation in the space. RealPage bought both Kigo and InstaManager in 2014 VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Barefoot New Features Released in 2017  UI upgrade  eSignature tool  Barefoot Sales Agent for lead management that includes an email management tool  Additional Group Module functionality  Direct integration to Airbnb  New and enhanced reporting  Enhanced customization functionality

New Functionality for 2018  Housekeeping and work order mobile application  Enhanced Barefoot Sales Agent tool to include phone integration.  More management options for our dynamic pricing tool  Integration with Destimetrics, VRM Intel Dashboard and others

Streamline New Features Released in 2017  Automated postcards with triggers such as check-out, birthdates, anniversaries and more  Expanded lead management system with an owner acquisition and retention component

that leverages real-time event handling, automation and responsive technology to simplify property managers' trust accounting processes  Tax Authorities: A new tax management system that allows managers to set taxes by location and by tax authority.  LiveCommunity: A community forum where partners can suggest software enhancements, share best practices and discover solutions  LiveScore: Enhanced guest survey and review platform that now leverages NPS-style questions, allows for completely custom surveys, and includes integrated social media sharing  LiveStay Guest App: Guest experience portal that gives guests the ability to easily manage their reservations post-booking, make payments and add additional concierge services

New Functionality for 2018  LiveManager Work Order System to manage, track and execute their on-the-ground operations from any device

 LiveStay Booking Site: Booking site where consumers will browse and book only professionally managed homes  Channel Manager: Allows LiveRez partners to seamlessly list their properties on 300+ booking portals around the world

RealTimeRental

 Website division focused on developing creative conversion techniques

 New Tenant Portal giving the guest more information at their fingertips about current and past stays and incorapting reviews. The ability for the PM and guest to communicate directly. Ability to transact within the portal.

 An improved data import process from old systems that allows new clients to bring in their historical reservation, owner and work order information

New Features Released in 2017

 Mobile App  Enhancements and addition of new API’s

 Multi-currency and multi-lingual options for websites

 Upgrades to the Owner Portal to display more activity on the property

 StreamShare: Where companies in Streamline have the option to seamlessly share inventory

 New relationships with third party distribution partners and channel partners, and with unique companies (i.e. T.A.P Tag Technology and the use of NFC technology as a new way for marketing and promoting a PM’s inventory)

New Functionality for 2018  Development of revenue management  Additional third-party integrations  New system design allowing clients to do all of their work directly from their cell phone

LiveRez

 Ability to customize features  RTR Smart Device Platform

VRM New Features Released in 2017  Comprehensive lead tracking system  Fully functional property readiness system that includes housekeeping management and enhanced maintenance management  Upgraded dynamic pricing system with yield management  Upgraded long-term (annual) property management system  Upgraded user interface featuring the ability to graphically display key information

 LiveNet: Allows partners to advertise each other’s properties and seamlessly refer bookings

 New revenue management division that will work with you to establish a strategy to maximize revenue

 New, more flexible and comprehensive open API

New Functionality for 2018  Redesign and upgrade of the RTR User Interface (This will be the 3rd overhaul in 17 years.) to make the platform more visual with graphs and charts and quick navigation

 Enhanced Rental Retreat to be able to import and market inventory from any PM no matter what software platform they are using  New integration with Airbnb  New relationships with third party distribution partners and channel partners

New Functionality for 2018  Comprehensive document management system  High definition photo processing  Functionality to manage interval ownership properties  New reporting system  Enhanced portal management

CiiRUS New Features Released in 2017  HomeAway 4.0 Upgrade: inquiry sync, autoresponder, multi-unit/book-by-representative-type listing integration  Direct connection to Airbnb, Booking.com, Tripping.com, and NAVIS  Property Assistant: Assists in adding new homes to the system, shows progress completion bar, and analyzes completeness quality of data for performance on each channel  Keyboard quick-shortcuts for crucial features allows you to perform tasks from anywhere in the system (i.e., Ctrl+N opens up the add-booking facility)  Multi-screen support. Pop-out and drag modules to second/third monitors (i.e., dock your housekeeping and maintenance dashboard to a second screen while you work in the reservations module)

 eSignature

 Right eSignature

 UI improvements and redesigned image gallery for auto-resizing and management of galleries across various channels

 LiveTrust: A powerful trust accounting system

 Enhanced financial reporting

 Launch of CiiRUS TV. An In-app 24/7 content

New Features Released in 2017

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

stream of training webinars, interviews with industry-leaders, and live demos.  “Quick-find” bar on main panel allows quick search of any system-ID code such as bookings, owners, homes, cleans, maintenance, guests  ACH Payments  Improvements to CiiRUS CalendarSync, which enables users to share and list each other’s inventory with total data sync

New Functionality for 2018  CiiRUS ONE: Fully mobile responsive overhaul of the main CiiRUS application  Direct connections to Expedia, Agoda, and Siteminder  eSignatures

Maxxton New Features Released in 2017  A rebuild of Maxxton software with high-performance GUI  New web-based UI for managing rates and distribution channels. Features include: Closed to arrival and departure, min/max length of stay, batch rate updates, and the ability to manage derived rates/rate types  Implementation Manager: Map and import data  Owner Manager: View/edit/store owner details, turnover, contracts, communication etc. per property.  Content Manager: View/edit images and content related to units, types, resorts/buildings etc.  Interfaces with Track Pulse, Phone Sync (Calista & WBR phone system), Visual Data Systems, Canada Stays, RCI, and Airbnb

New Functionality for 2018  Interhome integration  Enhancement to existing Booking.com interface by adding Content API"  New REST-API replacing old API  Reservation Manager: New web-based call center application with intuitive resort cross-sell functionality  TV dashboards delivering real-time information to the Call Center, Reception desk, Housekeeping and Maintenance

and announced that it had integrated the two in 2015. HomeAway seems to be actively moving customers off its non-cloud-based platforms to its two cloudbased systems, Escapia and V12.net. And we’ve seen a number of niche software services and listing sites close their doors and/or get bought by other providers. We also have consolidation of the software market share as a result of large-scale managers such as Vacasa, TurnKey, and Wyndham acquiring smaller companies and moving them onto their systems. On the flip side, new software companies are entering the market every year. Just on the Capterra review site alone, 118 software systems are listed. Unfortunately, a number of these companies probably won’t have the longevity to remain viable for the long term, so they’ll either shut their doors or sell to other providers. Consolidation doesn’t necessarily make sense from a purely functional standpoint unless you can easily combine the systems into a single software platform that is far superior. I can see how it may make sense for a property management software system to acquire a niche software company that focuses on a different, more specialized subset of problems facing managers to expand its offerings. From a business perspective, it may make more sense if you hope to transition users from one system to another. But we feel that if you just focus on building the very best software on the market, managers will organically switch to your solution (no consolidation necessary). Another line of thought is that it’s worth acquiring another company just to gain access to data that could be used to enhance its solution. This is one of the reasons why it’s so important for property managers to really investigate the software company with which they partner. Looking beyond just software functionality, you must consider the company’s values, its financial stability, and the leadership team. Joe Testa, RealTimeRental: Yes. We are in acquisition mode.

Carlos Corzo, Streamline: Definitely. I don’t know if it will be through acquisition. I am starting to see less focus on new features and development. PMs know they need an edge, and they are looking for the systems that offer that edge. In time, I only see a few systems surviving the continuing demands. Revenue management and guest/owner retention are constantly changing. We are going to be getting into the social media vacation goers, and they will have different needs and expectations. This will be a technological movement that will require new and creative strategies. Traditional methods will simply not work, and this will lead to the necessity to switch software. Pete Wenk, VRM: We have not seen any indication of movement in that arena.

 Features Released over the Last Year It is clear that these PMS providers are not coasting on what they have already developed. Over the last few months, we noticed some similarities in tech progress in the industry in advancements in API communications, lead management, housekeeping and maintenance workflows, and revenue management. The industry is also seeing widespread adoption of eSignatures, enhanced reporting, inventory “sharing” among users, and more user-friendly interface design. In addition, all the companies are completing more direct connections to OTAs and third-party channels. It will be interesting to see how this affects the channel management companies whose model relies on the present lack of this functionality in software companies.

It is important to note that newer software companies are developing features that already exist in other systems. In the following feature list, keep in mind that some systems already offer features that have recently been created in others.

 Features in Development for 2018 Although the PMS executives were hesitant to give away all their development secrets for 2018, they provided us with a glimpse into new functionality that is in development for 2018. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Who Owns Your Data? Technology Companies Weigh in on Renewed Concerns about Data Privacy and Usage 86

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ast month, HomeAway reportedly contacted several software companies requesting “strategic partnerships” between HomeAway and software providers in which the software companies would share client data with HomeAway to be included in the pilot program for HomeAway’s new revenue management platform known as MarketMaker. A few days later, at RezFest, HomeAway’s Cliff Vars announced the launch of MarketMaker, which offers users competitive reporting and pricing tools. He also thanked CiiRUS and Streamline for partnering with the company to make this a solution for the whole industry, not just HomeAway users.

As a result, Streamline CEO Carlos Corzo, wrote VRM Intel to emphatically clarify: “We don’t share data with other software providers or industry solutions without [our customers’] consent.” The discussions between HomeAway and property management system (PMS) providers prompted a renewed interest in the question, “Who owns your data?”

We reached out to several PMS CEOs and company leaders to find out more about their policies and paradigms surrounding privacy and usage of the data being entrusted by vacation rental managers within the PMS. Although HomeAway Software and Kigo had not responded by the time this issue went to press, Barefoot, CiiRUS, LiveRez, NAVIS, RealTimeRental, Streamline, and Virtual Resort Manager (VRM) shared their ideas surrounding data privacy.

Should VRMs assume that their tech partners are protecting their data? Ed Ulmer, Barefoot: Yes. This is in our Barefoot Subscription License Agreement. It is the foundation of our partnership. 4.1 Customer Data/Customer may upload and publish its own content to the Service. The parties acknowledge that all Customer Data used with the Service and the Barefoot Software and all data derived from such Customer Data is and shall remain the property of Customer. Barefoot has no right to use the Customer Data without written permission by Customer.

Josh Parry, CiiRUS: Absolutely. The most crucial part of our service is providing a safe environment for our clients’ data. That means powerful servers, server redundancies, and confidentiality of the data.

Tina Upson, LiveRez: At a minimum, managers should expect that their tech partners are taking every reasonable measure to secure their data. This includes storing their data in high-security data centers with regular backups, ensuring PCI-compliance, securing system logins, having user rights management built into the system, providing an easy way for managers to revoke access to employees, etc. Kyle Buehner, NAVIS: Yes. First, make sure it is clear in each of your contracts that you are the sole owner of the data, and that any use of your data by your tech partner is limited to noncompetitive purposes. Your data is highly valuable, and you should keep ownership of this asset very clear. Each VRM should also look to work with vendors who can clearly demonstrate their commitment to safeguarding your data from theft.

Joe Testa, RealTimeRental: Yes, vacation rental managers should expect that their tech partners are protecting their data. We make sure to keep up with industry security standards to keep our client’s data safe. RealTimeRental is PCI compliant and utilizes SSL encryption, as well as maintaining a 24/7 firewall protection on our server environment. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Carlos Corzo, Streamline: I would hope so. We spend a lot of resources and money to make sure that our VRMs are protected. To do this, we take advantage of external vaults that tokenize data and provide extra layers of protection. We also employ Amazon Web Services, which provides great tools for monitoring and identifying strange activity. Beyond that, to avoid potential problems from disgruntled employees sharing data with competitors, we keep logs of every single user transaction in our system, which allows us to define anyone who has run specific reports. This year, we started whitelisting IPs for system access and requiring tokens to connect through our API, while also employing a system configuration that puts critical data into servers that are not accessible without the proper access. To add one final layer of security, we also enforce a strict password policy, where passwords cannot be seen. They can only be reset. What is most surprising to me is that companies are not taking advantage of our double OAuth (Open Authorization) capabilities. This is something that all employees at Streamline have to use, and it takes security beyond just the password. While it may be an inconvenience, it is your data. You need to do anything you can to keep it secure. Pete Wenk, VRM: Absolutely.

Should technology providers be required to disclose to clients all the ways in which their aggregated data is being used? Ed Ulmer, Barefoot: Barefoot has always been forthcoming in our agreements, and we have been clear since we started that your data belongs to you. We will always side with our clients about how and when they share their data. For example, we have an opportunity for our clients to share their information with the VRM Intel data analysis project. This will be shared on a by-client basis based on their interest. We strive to act only on our clients’ behalf. Josh Parry, CiiRUS: Yes. The technology provider should have nothing to hide. If the provider intends to use the client’s data for anything but internal analytics, it should be proposed in the contract.

Tina Upson, LiveRez: All software companies should provide their users with guidelines about how their users’ aggregate data could be used. And, when they do use any aggregate data, these companies should be transparent about how they are using it. We use aggregate data for internal analytics to identify how we can better serve our partners, and even then it is accessible to only an extremely small group of team members. When an integration requires that we share a partner's data, we’re extremely careful to limit that data to only what is needed to make the service function (and that data is only shared when the partner opts into using the service in question). We also carefully vet any and all integration partners, and for a variety of reasons we have decided to not work directly with certain companies. Kyle Buehner, NAVIS: Your data is a highly valuable asset of your company. I believe it is imperative that you understand and agree with your technology vendor about its uses, ownership, and protections. Joe Testa, RealTimeRental: Yes, it is very important for vacation rental managers to understand how their data is being used.

Carlos Corzo: Streamline: Yes. If I were going to store a valuable asset, I would want to know all security measures taken by the facility. If someone does not want to disclose how they protect client data, I would be concerned about the strategies they are using. Pete Wenk, VRM: If I was a property manager, I would require that. 88

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What are the potential implications of giving tech companies your data without understanding how they are using it? Ed Ulmer, Barefoot: We have always felt that our clients have absolute control for overseeing their data. We are deep supporters of understanding who, what, and when other entities are accessing your data. Without this, there can be no relationship between a customer and a provider without the trust that an open relationship provides. Josh Parry, CiiRUS: The implications should be clear, provided you have read the agreement.

Tina Upson, LiveRez: There's a long list of potential implications. The real questions professional managers should be asking themselves are "Who stands to benefit the most from my data?" and "What potential reward would my software company have for sharing that data?" Kyle Buehner, NAVIS: The list of negative things that could happen is long and concerning (just talk to your insurance agent about a cybersecurity policy). The companies with which you choose to share your sensitive and valuable data should be companies you trust highly. It is also important to understand how your tech partner can contractually use your data. For example, no VRM would ever want to be surprised that the tech company they partner with actually competes with them and is using their data to market directly to guests or owners. Joe Testa, RealTimeRental: It is very important to trust the companies you decide to work with. Tech partners should have proper security measures in place and not share or sell client data with third parties without your permission to do so. Carlos Corzo, Streamline: This is an interesting question. I have learned over the years that companies retain the right to use your data and sometimes claim ownership to the data. Streamline does not believe in using your data without your consent. As most of us know, there is often a correlation between vacation rental software and online booking engines. This is no secret, and these companies legally have access to clients’ data. Property managers need to do their due diligence and understand how their data is being used. If they don’t, many tech partners may be taking your competitive advantage and giving it away. As a property manager in Park City, I don’t want anyone to see or use our data. It gives us the tools to analyze the market and identify strategies from year to year. If someone has the ability to aggregate all the actual data in a market, it makes them extremely powerful. Pete Wenk, VRM: Loss of control of your inventory and the potential guest; potential for the VRM industry to relinquish booking to OTAs, as in the hotel experience of recent decades.

How important is it for VRMs to read and understand End User Agreements and Terms and Conditions? Ed Ulmer, Barefoot: Vital to running a business.

Josh Parry, CiiRUS: Extremely, extremely important. For instance, the activation agreement for CiiRUS is five pages of information neatly organized in regular-sized font. It is the least intimidating document in existence, but it still does not get read by all users. It is important to understand your pricing, available features, and terms. You are doing your business a direct disservice by disregarding these agreements and potentially getting yourself in a situation to

fall out with your provider very quickly over something that should have been clear via the agreement. Tina Upson, LiveRez: It’s incredibly important for VRMs to not only read and understand their agreements but also seek clarification if they don’t understand something. That actually helps software companies better understand their customers’ concerns, resolve their issues, communicate more clearly, and sometimes even improve their agreements. Joe Testa, RealTimeRental: Very important. We have had user agreements for nearly eighteen years. In the early days, every property manager had them reviewed by their council. Today, I believe very few do that. Carlos Corzo, Streamline: This is becoming more and more crucial. I find myself signing contracts nearly every other day. Every contract goes through our Legal Department, and it is amazing what is discovered. I don’t know that anyone has malicious intent in this industry; however, we all know that data is power. At the end of the day, it is your data, and you need to be comfortable with who gets access to it. Pete Wenk, VRM: Things can be obfuscated in legalese, so it is vital to read and understand EULAs in the context of what is happening in our industry today. When making a purchasing decision, VRMs should consider the future and how language in the EULA might adversely affect their ability to control their inventory and data down the road.

Do you think we are beginning to or will see software companies seeking to monetize customer data? Ed Ulmer, Barefoot: Yes.

Josh Parry, CiiRUS: I really hope not. It is our job to sow as much trust as possible with our users, and monetizing their data flies directly in

the face of that. I can’t think of any other major contemporary software platform that is currently doing this or would think of proposing this. I don’t think our property managers would let this happen! Tina Upson, LiveRez: It's already happening in the general tech space when you look at the ways some free online services leverage your data in selling advertisements on their platforms. In the vacation rental space, data is important for a lot of the same reasons. Your guest lists, owner lists, pricing data, etc. could all be misused by a company to either market directly to your customers (both guests and owners) or to use the aggregate data for a tool that they could then sell or use to influence market economics in their favor. It doesn't matter if it's the software company directly doing this, or if it's the software company providing this data to a third-party it integrates with (or is associated with in any way). And while it's important to read your agreements and contracts, it's just as important to do business with companies you can trust. Because, who's to say what really goes on behind closed doors?

Joe Testa, RealTimeRental: I think it is important for vacation rental managers to be aware of this trend in the industry. It is important that vacation rental managers use trustworthy tech partners. Beware of certain tech companies that offer free services, because often these free services are a way for companies to collect data to sell. We do not monetize customer data, and we take the proper security measures to keep that information safe. Carlos Corzo, Streamline: This depends on the ultimate goal of a software company. There are many ways to get market data; however, it is no secret that software companies have access to the necessary data to make intelligent decisions. Our focus is on software and doing anything to help our PMs grow and be successful. If we were to use company data to our advantage, we would make sure to get approval from the customer. After all, it is your data! Pete Wenk, VRM: Yes, particularly in the case of the larger software companies. In our case, we will not attempt to monetize customer data. The customers’ data is, in our concept, strictly controlled by them, and we do not have any claim on it. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Successfully Navigating Changing Your

VRM Software

with barefoot's Claiborne Yarbrough

othing strikes fear in the hearts of people and organizations more than the word change. While change is a natural part of any life cycle, it is often viewed from the perspective of organizational crisis instead of unlimited opportunity. Every day, in talking to people about making the change to a new vacation rental management software, I really listen. I listen for and try to anticipate the underlying stress that implementing a new technology will have on an organization. This article offers suggestions for mitigating the feelings of crisis when confronting change and focuses on the opportunity change presents. The key to successful change is to understand and handle your staff ’s styles for dealing with change and follow proven processes.

The Opportunity Changing software is more than just a change in the technology that you use; it is a huge opportunity to affect your company’s culture, to sync your technology and processes, and to bring into sharp relief your company’s ability to evolve. Changes are natural in the life cycle of all organizations. In fact, the ability to change is essential to continued existence. Change in business is often the result of needing to realign people, roles, and processes with new technologies. What has served well as a business model for years may no longer be acceptable because of market forces beyond the control of your business. In the vacation rental or property management business, this has never been truer. Rapid 90

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change has required the evolution of the vacation rental landscape, including instant booking, transitions to nightly instead of weekly rates, and protecting your data and leveraging it in micro-targeted marketing campaigns. As a response, vacation rental companies must position themselves against or leverage new marketing initiatives in their market while continuing to keep costs down. The fastest way to do this is by applying new technology. Appropriate technology helps companies address trends in the market, puts building blocks into place that facilitate growth and develop customer loyalty, and provides operational efficiencies that limit or cut expenditures. If the technology supporting your vacation rental business hasn’t changed or offered new functionality in the past three years, there is no question that you need to revisit change to stay competitive.

Preparing Your Staff for Change New technology means changes to your staff ’s everyday work reality. You should plan on positive reactions as well as fear, resistance, and discomfort. Research suggests that each person has a “change style.” Understanding people’s change types and the best way to communicate with each type is important to help prevent or minimize complaints and resistance or even sabotage. Discovery Learning, Intl, compiled the aggregate results from 150,000 change-style assessments performed using its proprietary Change Style Indicator® to support its research. The results indicated that people can be grouped into three categories based on how they deal with change:

Pragmatists are in the middle of the continuum. They are more likely to evaluate the ability to change to solve problems. With this perspective, they will often be the ones in the organization who see both sides of the issue and function as mediators between those who are resistant to change and those who embrace it.

Originators are agents of change. They usually have a strong streak of entrepreneurial spirit. They like change for change’s sake and will often seem too spontaneous or “willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater.” With their enthusiasm for change, they may miss details that need to be considered, as they are so caught up in their vision.

So how can you best use knowledge of change styles Ultimately, it is It’s all about effective communication and processes to support change. Understanding the various perspectives and helping inform all change styles in a way they can relate to will make the process of change smoother for your company.

Strategies for Successful Change Here are some strategies for implementing successful change:

 Ownership and Vision  What are the goals that you are trying to achieve? They include personal goals if you are the owner of the company, especially if you are considering selling the company. With these goals in mind, you take ownership of the change process and become the visionary. Want to grow your inventory, acquire a competitor, or be acquired? You need to own the vision of the company and the changes you need to make to achieve your goal.

 Examine the Consequences  One way to reduce fear of change is to understand its consequences. Identify three opportunities and potential pitfalls of making changes. Involve people in all levels of the organization. You may want to consider involving customers to get their perspectives on your proposed changes.

 Communication  Your timeline should include communicating whether via a presentation to staff at the outset to present your goals or weekly checkins against your timeline. Make sure that you build communication into all parts of the change process. Remember that pragmatists often can function as go-betweens for the conservers and originators, so make sure that all staff change styles are given equal participation in discussions and your communication planning.

zation to uncover best practices. Use rounds of feedback to gain both business and operational efficiencies and to build consensus.

 Structure and Timelines  Remember your conservers and pragmatists in your organization and their need for the comfort they receive from structure. Develop a logical sequence of events that everyone in the organization can agree is in manageable blocks. This will also hold everyone in the organization accountable to task-oriented goals. Often, a project management tool, such as Basecamp, can be used to provide structure and timelines.

 Create a Map of Success  Everyone likes to be praised and to receive positive feedback; both are never more valuable or useful than during a time of change. Build a series of “quick wins” into your timeline, and then when those are met, celebrate them. Have a pizza lunch or give everyone an hour off early. Doing so will show how much everyone on the team is appreciated for his or her willingness to undertake the change that is needed to reach your goals.

 Document Your Changes  Not one of the most interesting aspects of the change process but one that is necessary is documenting how you implemented changes: what did and didn’t work, what the stressful times were that in hindsight could have been avoided, and what went more easily than anticipated. This information will be invaluable to you as you confront another time of significant change in the organization.

Facilitating Change Vacation rental managers have different goals that factor into their software selection decisions. Sometimes, they are positioning for growth. Sometimes, they are working in a system where they have had long-standing workarounds to support their process. Sometimes, they need to tailor or customize software because they are doing something innovative in their market. Whatever the reason, we try to offer a very different perspective about how to successfully pursue this significant change by talking about vision and consequences. We know that various stakeholders are going to need different types of strategies to manage their concerns around change. We have a strong expectation that communication is vital, and we encourage rounds of feedback that are built into our implementation process. Structure and timelines are discussed, such as how and when we do dataporting and how and when our partner integrations are brought into the mix. All of this is documented before we go to contract so that we have a strong foundation for our transition process. Changes in technology can be successfully navigated with preparation, leadership, and communication whether you are a large or small organization. It is also an excellent opportunity to implement valuable processes and cultural change within your organization.

 Request Feedback  One of my former colleagues loved to say, “There are three reasons why you do what you do every day: the first is because that is how you have always done it, the second is because of the limitations of your software or other infrastructures, and the third is because of best practices.” Remember that changing software is a huge opportunity. Take the time to get feedback from all levels of the organi-

Claiborne Yarbrough has been in the software industry for more than 28 years, primarily focused on marketing. Her favorite thing about working as the director of Customer Engagement at Barefoot Technologies is helping her clients solve their business needs and making friends along the way. You can reach Claiborne at claiborne@barefoot.com or 804.212.1280. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Software Companies Provide Insight on Changing Your Property Management Software

Conservers tend to be the most reticent of the change styles and may seem as if they are inflexible or resistant. They prefer to work in existing structures and processes. They honor tradition and highly value the way things have always been done. When faced with change, conservers want clear communication, guidelines, and processes to mitigate their internal stress.

Scared about

Changing Your Property Management Software? with STREAMLINE'S CARLOS CORZO

s business owners and property managers, we are all accustomed to making difficult decisions. Some may just be choosing which team member needs to work on the upcoming holiday weekend, while others fundamentally change how you manage your properties and business. Changing your property management software (PMS), of course, falls into the latter category.

out attempting to replicate and match a month-end close from their previous software—you don’t want any part of that.

Changing your PMS is a huge undertaking that comes with builtin fears. From accounting worries to fears of losing historical data, long-term relationships, or change itself, there are many reasons why you might find it difficult to peel off that Band–Aid and finally make the switch. But as technology improves and the needs of the modern property manager grow, it becomes more and more crucial to take the leap and face any fears you may have. Fortunately, we’re here to help—so you can stop holding back and provide your company with the PMS it needs. Trust me: upgrading may not be as scary as you think.

Historical Data

Accounting Accounting may be the biggest fear in this industry. Making sure you stay “in trust” is making sure you stay in business, and choosing a PMS that doesn’t have compatible accounting can be a death knell. After years of imports, I have seen many clients go live with92

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Yes, this is a daunting task, but the right PMS team can help you avoid compatibility issues with your current accounting processes. In fact, Streamline includes accounting as a key process for verification prior to taking a client live.

Historically, it has been a struggle to obtain data easily from other software systems. Many property managers often find themselves arguing with PMS providers about who owns their data. To us, it is obvious that the owner is you. It is equally clear that you may import that data to future software. That’s why we have devised techniques that allow us to import reservations, historical disbursements, users, owners, owner statements, units, and closed work orders to create checks and balances. We work with each client to review any data available, define relationships across the data sets, and rebuild their historical data. We understand that you need to look at prior-year history, occupancy, and pricing so you can make informed decisions on how to run your business.

Don’t ever let a vacation-rental software company hold you hostage.

3 Ways PMS Providers Can Be Misleading

Many software companies in the property-management industry like to control their clients’ data as well as their websites. While Streamline provides clients with free websites when they purchase our software, we provide an open API that allows them to work with any web-development company they choose. Like your data, you own your domain. We work closely with exceptional website development companies such as BizCor, ICND, Bluetent, and Blizzard. These companies are on the cutting edge of web development, and if you are already working with one of them, you won’t skip a beat.

Many PMS providers say all they can to get your business—including making impossible promises they will not be able to keep. Don’t be misled by these common “above and beyond” promises.

Long Term Relationships We are here to stay. Having been in the vacation rental space for over sixteen years and working with Streamline for thirteen of them, this is what I know and love. I am extremely passionate about making my clients successful. This market seems to be changing every day. We boast the best retention rate in the industry because we treat our clients like family.

Change The fear of changing software is a valid fear. Many larger companies struggle with making software changes because their staffs are so accustomed to their daily routines. Throwing one monkey wrench such as a software change into the cog can bring the whole operation down, or at least slow you down for a few months while everyone gets up to speed. It all comes down to planning. Defining the right checkpoints throughout the go-live process is critical. These points include:

On-site Evaluations: This allows us to tailor your training to your day-to-day operations.

Imports: For imports to be successful, you need to introduce them at the right time during the training process. You cannot train without having the necessary information in your system.

B Pretty vs. Functional It is easy to paint a pretty picture. It is even easier to show a pretty interface. But you must evaluate the underlying technology running your operation. While we understand that “pretty” is important, you should never make that a deciding factor when you choose your software. “Pretty” is not going to make you more bookings. Data is king in this industry. Make sure that all the critical aspects of your day-to-day operation are in place—especially your trust accounting.

C Access to Historical Information Don’t be misled by companies telling you that if you leave, you will lose all your historical information. That is just not true, and companies often use it as a tactic to get you to stay. Everyone has the ability to run reports, and these reports can be reverse engineered to rebuild the data in your system. I see this mistake a lot. Companies that have ten to twenty years of data simply leave it behind because they are told it is impossible to bring it with them. Keeping your data is imperative.

D Stale Technology vs. Companies Focused on Research and Development I have seen a major shift over the years into stale solutions. These companies scale back on resources—especially development—because they have reached comfortable client bases. As mentioned above, this industry is constantly changing. Don’t be left behind. Just because you’re ready to make the change to a new PMS doesn’t mean you should believe everything you hear. Do your research and understand what every PMS can and can’t do—your business will thank you for it.

Accounting Audit: This is a step that is often overlooked, and it is

possibly the most important in the transition from one system to another. You have to prove and justify that your accounting actually works and aligns exactly with your current software. You can accomplish this by mapping out your imports so you can simulate the close of a month in both systems. This will allow you to identify any shortcomings and fix them. Until this audit is perfect, you should never jump the gun and go live.

Soft Launch: Tell the company you are going live and ask it to do double entry for a day or two. Use this as a way to identify problems and challenges and address any fears from your team. It is imperative that you have a trainer on-site to help everyone work through their issues.

Go Live: For those of you who remember Love Connection, “We’ll be back in 2 and 2.” You need someone on site a minimum of two days before and two days after you go live. Making your employees comfortable is a big part of a successful transition.

If you already have a thriving business, a smooth transition to a new, modern system with features to help increase revenues is key. Change is not easy, but if you are well prepared, it can make a world of a difference.

Carlos Corzo founded and currently serves as CEO at Streamline Vacation Rental Software. Corzo regularly provides his valuable insight into the inner workings of vacation rental marketing and technology VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Software Companies Provide Insight on Changing Your Property Management Software

Websites

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

Smart Home Automation Supplier Checklist How to make smart choices when selecting a smart home provider.

acation rental managers shopping for Smart Home automation are presented with a plethora of choices in companies and technologies. Making the wrong choice can cost a lot of time and money. Making the right choice can save you a lot of time and money. Getting it right can make you a hero. Getting it wrong could mean your job.

This article is intended to provide an objective checklist to guide you through the decision process and help you make the right choice.

 Can they help you sell this to your homeowners? Do they offer Best Practices and documented experience that other VRMs have used to educate and convince their homeowners about the benefits of Home Automation?

 Is the supplier proven? How many installations does the supplier have? How many customers do they have in the vacation rental industry? Any company can give you two or three testimonials from happy customers, but how many total customers do they have?

 What type of architecture do they use? If their Smart Home solution requires Wi-Fi, you are guaranteed reliability problems down the road. Wi-Fi is notorious for dropping, and often requires a manual reset. Research by Cisco reveals that 40 percent of households experience a Wi-Fi drop every month. Cellular-based systems are more reliable, and when combined with a private cellular network and hardened cloud architecture, are much more reliable.

 Is the supplier financially stable? The worst possible outcome is to enter into an agreement with a supplier only to have them disappear in a year. Do they ask you to pre-pay for a year’s worth of software? Financial stability will ensure that your supplier is there as a partner for the long haul.

 Do they offer the features that you need? Beyond the lock, what do they offer? A smart thermostat will save your homeowners 15 percent on their energy bill every month. Do they have window and door sensors that automatically shut off the AC when a door or window is left open? Does the software allow you to set high and low limits on the thermostat? Can you automatically set the temperature to a comfortable level for guest arrival and return it to an energy-saving level upon departure? When guests arrive early, can you automatically notify them when their rental is ready and activate their lock code ahead of schedule? Is all of this available in a customized dashboard that helps you see what is going on with your business?

 Do they have a support team? How many people are there to help? When are they available? How do you get in touch with them? How long does it take to get help? What do their customers have to say about their support? How many engineers do they have? Do they offer DIY tools to help you install? Do they offer an install team?

 Do they interface with your property management software? Who do they interface with? What exactly does the interface do? Of course, there’s always the cost. But frankly, if you haven’t been satisfied with the answers to the above, it could be free and it would still be the wrong choice. Be smart. Make the safe choice, the right choice. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

What’s Happening to Your Profit? T

here’s a leak somewhere. You can hear it. Drip. Drip. Drip. If this keeps up, your whole house will be flooded. Naturally, you will find the source of the leak and either fix it yourself or hire a professional to do it for you. We don’t leave leaks unaddressed in our homes, so why do we allow our profits to continually leak out of our businesses? As small business owners, we’ve got a simple decision to make: Will we continue to exhaust ourselves, working to just get by and maintain the status quo, or will we decide to stop the leak and begin to enjoy the potential profits in our businesses? Thousands of businesses, both big and small, are just barely getting by. They make it month to month, surviving with “on paper” profit but with little to no real cash flow. If this sounds like you, how can you find a solution for your business? We have all been there: chasing the mighty promise of profits, only to end the year with nothing to show for it. I made a number of mistakes and finally decided that I’d had enough. The perpetual hamster wheel was getting me nowhere. That’s when I decided to dig into my numbers. I pored over the financials trying to simplify the rows and columns of numbers and figures on my P&L and balance sheet. The business seemed to be running well, except for the glaring fact that I had very little cash profit to show for all my effort.

That’s when it hit me, like someone was banging a huge gong inside my head. I was overcomplicating the whole thing. Keep it simple, 96

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stupid. What’s the one thing that defines your business? How do you get paid? For the vacation rental business, it’s a reservation, a turnover, a guest departure, or a checkout.

I realized that I didn’t need to have fifty different line items in my P&L, and I decided to simplify the financials to its most basic form. Profit is traditionally calculated by subtracting your expenses from your revenue (Revenue − Expenses = Profit). This is not rocket science. What I saw was that I was looking at my financials too broadly. As I drilled down and looked a little closer, I began to find the leaks. They weren’t just small leaks, either. It wasn’t just a drip. There was a steady flow of money leaking out of the business. I felt sick to my stomach. I had fought tirelessly to grow my business, thinking that growth would result in higher profits. I was wrong. My mind raced back, and I quickly calculated what I had lost due to my inability to see this in the past. It was several hundred thousand dollars. I needed a drink. The night of this realization, I couldn’t sleep; it was like I was haunted by little personified dollar bills. They were chasing me around in my dreams. I kept waking up, thinking about all the money I could have made, thinking about how different the business could have been if I’d seen this earlier. Then it came to me—the reason for my leaking profits. I shared the reason with a good friend of mine (we’ll call him Teddy), who had asked me to help him with his business. When I first shared my idea with him, he looked at me blankly and then he said, “There’s

no way I can do that. I want to grow my business. If I do what you say, I won’t be able to support my growth.” I tried to explain my idea to him, but he didn’t get it. I wanted to shake him and yell, “Dude, listen to me!” I didn’t. I just shrugged it off and helped him focus on his challenge at the time. It turns out that there are often several issues affecting profitability, but for him, there was one glaring issue.

A couple of months later Teddy called me, frantic. He said, “You were right. You were right! I just checked my expenses per property. I average $125 per turnover. That includes the cost of marketing, reservations, guest relations, accounting, and administration [his total cost per turn]. On some of my properties, I only make $120 per turnover. I’m losing money by managing these properties. Holy crap, you were right! I need to cut some of these properties. I’m making no profit on any of these properties!” What I had discovered, and what Teddy eventually discovered as well, may seem counterintuitive at first. Decreasing the number of properties in your inventory (or clients you serve) can in fact improve your bottom line. You try to rationalize it; “Self, they are covering my overhead. My gross sales are off the charts. I am crushing it! If I cut them, then I’m not growing.”

If you are honest with yourself, though, you know that they are the reason for your ridiculous overhead costs. You’ve hired more personnel just to cover the day-to-day activities required to service those clients. You don’t have time to train all those employees, so frustrated employees leave to find greener pastures, or, worse, they stay and bog down your inefficient machine. Nevertheless, you had this grand vision that you needed to be the biggest and baddest [insert your title and dream jobs here] on the planet. You thought that by growing your business as large as you could, you would naturally reap higher profits. Unfortunately for you, and for most businesses in the world, high gross sales do not necessarily mean higher profits.

Someone once told me, “Volume fixes all your revenue problems.” I couldn’t disagree more. Gross sales and volume do not fix all your problems. They can actually exacerbate your problems. Do you have poor profit margins on a specific client? Do you think it’s a great idea to pick up one hundred of those clients before you know that you have poor margins? In this case, two negatives do not make a positive. It makes one huge problem. I’m no accountant, but I think somewhere along the way, we overcomplicated the way we manage the financials of our businesses.

Granted, maintaining accurate financial statements is imperative if you ever want to sell your business or if you want to keep Uncle Sam off your back. There are great accountants out there for that. As a busy manager of a thriving small business, you don’t have time for that. You need to focus on your business and to focus on your profit above expenses and gross sales. Growing sales tends to boost our egos, which subsequently fuels an expense-driven fire that eventually burns down our businesses. And we wonder why so many businesses fail! There’s a beautiful mix between gross sales and minimal expenses that will make you profitable. I’d encourage you to simplify your business financials as much as possible; in fact, try to find the simplest metric in your business that will help you easily identify your profit potential (think like Teddy did). I don’t know your magic number, but I’m certain we could figure it out. Below are simple steps to help you push your business toward profitability and sustainability. It would be silly to think that these would fix every problem in your business. They won’t necessarily make your business run like a well-oiled machine, but you should no longer be driving a Ford Pinto.

7 Ways to Foolproof Your Business B Define Your Vision. Focus, focus, focus. Stop acting like a squirrel, chasing every distraction under the sun. Focus on the verticals with the most opportunity. While you’re at it, mathematically define what that opportunity looks like. Does it meet your profit requirements in the next step?

C Simplify Your Financials. Revenue − Expenses = Profit. I like to know the conclusion first. If I know where I’m going, I can get there faster: Profit = Revenue − Expenses. There we go. I feel better now. Profit! Set your profit margin. Be realistic. Adjust your profit margin. Try to focus on transactions that will meet your profit requirements. There will be times when you negotiate and reduce your profit, but don’t sacrifice too much. Simplify your financials. For each client and each widget, do you meet your required profit margin? If not, what’s going on, and can you adjust the variables?

D Standardize Your Business.  Create standard operating procedures (SOPs). What makes your business run smoothly? How can you re-create that process? Test it. Test it again. Write it down. Now you have your standard operating process. Repeat those steps until you have documented all the day-to-day routines in your business.  Create HR manuals. Vacations, sick days, payroll, benefits—all these policies need to be documented. You also need to comply with state and federal regulations for how to treat your employees. Your goal is to keep from having any lawsuits and to make sure everyone is treated fairly.  Articulate Job Descriptions. You can’t manage what you can’t measure. You can’t measure what you haven’t defined. You need to be sure to document your expectations for all the roles within your business. There are a plethora of job descriptions online for almost any position you envision.

E Train, train, train. You have to replicate yourself and all your best employees. Here’s the truth: you are going to burn out. OK, maybe not tomorrow or next week, but soon. Then again, maybe you won’t burn out, but you will want to enjoy your life outside of work. Life is too short to work all the time. Create your clones and encourage them to create theirs.

F Find a mentor. There are lots of experienced guys and gals who have already gone through what you’re going through. Their experiences have given them wisdom that you could use. My wife would laugh at that previous sentence. It has taken me a long time and a lot of mistakes to begin admitting that I need help, but I do. I don’t know everything, and I need help. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Find someone who’s been where you want to go and ask that person for advice. If he or she won’t give it to you, annoy him or her until he or she concedes to your nagging. Once you find a mentor, go VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

ahead and lose your pride. He or she will bust your chops. It’s good for you, and you need to be humble enough to listen to his or her advice.

G Marry your people with technology. Utilize your people for what they were intended to do: have and develop relationships. Use technology to manage the portion of your business that computers can handle. Computers weren’t created to build relationships, and people weren’t built to be logic-driven, data-crunching machines. Leverage the strengths of each and see your business takeoff.

H Put your people before your business. Putting people first doesn’t mean hiring people who are unqualified. Your employees are the most important asset of your business. Cultivate and care for them, and they will help you achieve your vision. I remember, when Pop, my step-grandfather passed away, how many people came to his funeral. I had only known him for a couple of years, but I was impressed with how loved he was. I didn’t realize the extent of that love until a couple years later. I was hanging out with one of Pop’s friends, William. We were chatting over a few cold beers, and I told him that I wanted to eventually run my own business, and impact people the way Pop had. He exploded! Think grizzly bear attacking a small child, except that I was a grown man and might have peed myself. I played dead. William screamed at me, “You’ll never be half the man Pop was. Your Pop saved the lives of half of the people in that town we live in. Don’t ever think

VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

that you’ll be even near what he was.” I thought about what he said later and continue to think about it every now and again. Life is built on relationships. Life excels on relationships. William wasn’t mad at me because I thought I could be Pop. William just wanted me to understand that Pop sacrificed so much for so many, thereby endearing himself to his employees. A leader must first serve; William taught me that was how Pop inspired him. I wanted to be like Pop. Danny Bradford recently moved from Destin, Florida to Nashville, Tennessee to join the team of energy experts at NTE Assurance. In college, Danny studied aerospace engineering in hopes of one day being the next rocket man. His rocket-fueled dreams quickly flamed out in college when he learned there was no way anyone his height would ever go to space. Nevertheless, he pressed on and got his degree. After college, Danny worked for a defense contractor in the Destin area, in which he led various programs including design projects for unmanned aircraft programs and for the cargo handling system of the KC-390 military transport aircraft. Danny decided to hang up his pocket protector and calculator and help his good friend build RealJoy Vacations, a small vacation rental company along Florida’s Emerald Coast. From April 2013 to January 2017, Danny was Chief Operating Officer at RealJoy, establishing all the basic day-to-day processes necessary for running the business. During that time, he gained invaluable insight into the goals and needs of the individual property owners. His net revenue focus for his clients helped to secure longstanding relationships between the company and the client, enabling them to grow from 80 properties to over 400 properties within just three years. Looking for a new challenge, Danny decided to leave the vacation rental industry and join the team at NTE Assurance, utilizing his engineering background and experience in the hospitality industry to help mold their operations. Passionate about the energy industry and grateful for an amazing team at NTE, Danny is excited about the future with such an incredible company.

particularly so for me because after one day on the job—just one day—I learned so much that I would have changed in every single housekeeping department I had managed or with which I had worked. That is how powerful the systems and procedures that I learned on the first day of work were.

As I drove home that night, my head swimming from what I had learned that day, I thought about what lay ahead. How do you clean a six-bedroom house with two kitchens and seven bathrooms in between check-out and check-in time? I was worried!

My first VRHP

National Conference with Durk Johnson

n October 1, 2001, I started my new job as the assistant director of housekeeping for Deer Valley Lodging in Park City, Utah. It was a new job in an area of hospitality new to me. Before that day, I had worked in several bed-and-breakfasts and a hotel. I was ready for a different flavor of hospitality experience. Showing up for my first day of work, I had the usual new-job jitters. I wondered:  Would the staff accept me?

 What would they think of this new person with no vacation rental experience?

Over the next several years, my boss Nathan Jurgens took me under his wing and began to teach me the techniques for cleaning a vacation rental. I was a sponge, asking questions and making mistakes as I applied what I was being taught. Many times, I succeeded; other times, I stumbled and tripped, which deepened my understanding of the procedures. One day, Nathan approached me and asked if I would like to attend a Vacation Rental Housekeeping Professionals (VRHP) National Conference. I said “yes.” Who would turn down an all-expenses-paid trip for work, right?

All I remember is being awestruck. I was sitting in a room full of other vacation rental professionals, discussing housekeeping tips, methodology, and best practices with the best minds in the industry. I was amazed and astounded at their openness and willingness to share what they knew and how they did their work. I was drinking from a fire hose. Then, Steve Craig stood up and started to present. It was like was standing under Niagara Falls; I was awash with the knowledge and wisdom he imparted about vacation rental housekeeping. I could not take notes fast enough.

It has been fifteen years since my first VRHP National Conference, and each year I attend, I learn something new. Attending the conference is like a giant family reunion (without the family bickering). It is a time to renew old friendships, make new ones, and learn from the best in the business. This year, VRHP is joining forces with VRM Intel to host one big national conference. I am stoked about this opportunity! By combining the back of the house education content of VRHP with the front of the house knowledge of VRM Intel, the organizers have made this a conference of pertinent and current information.

I owe a large part of my professional success to the VRHP National Conference and the educational content it has provided. I invite you and your back of the house staff, front of the house staff, and support staff to attend this year’s combined national conference. I look forward to seeing you there.

By: Durk V. Johnson, Industry Consultant and Executive Director, Vacation Rental Housekeeping Professionals

 How would I answer questions for which I did not have a reference? and most importantly…  Where do I park my car, and where is the bathroom?

Thankfully, my new boss set me at ease, the office staff welcomed me, and the members of my staff, while a little nervous, were helpful. The first day of work is always memorable, and this one was VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

AVROA 2.0 What to Expect in 2018 V

acation rental owners and managers are preparing to fight back against the changes imposed on them over the past two years. The Association of Vacation Rental Owners and Affiliates (AVROA) is being reimagined and reinvigorated, and 2018 will be the year vacation rental owners begin to have a strong voice, active education, and participation in the vacation industry.

On September 8, in offices located on the thirty-first floor of the Chicago Board of Trade Building, a group of owners, managers, and vacation rental (VR) industry companies from the United States, Canada, and Europe met to take the first step toward creating AVROA 2.0. All had a shared purpose: to discuss how AVROA could do more to create value for its members and support the industry. Here are a summary of what happened in that meeting and a peek at what you can expect in 2018.

Effective January 1, 2018, AVROA will formally become a nonprofit agency. The association has created a fifteen-person board comprised of VR owners, managers, and affiliated companies. April Salter, founder of the Just Say No to VRBO Service Fees movement, will be AVROA’s chair; Rod Fitts, founder of AVROA, will be vice chair; and Ralph Moorhouse, a VR owner, will be treasurer. Five subcommittees, each chaired by AVROA board members, also were created. These subcommittees will focus the association’s efforts in five key areas: education, member engagement, marketing, advocacy, and listing services relations. After laying some of the initial groundwork, these committees will expand to include others who have volunteered to help. To give you a glimpse of the future, the chairs of the education, marketing, and advocacy subcommittees have written summaries of their objectives for 2018. 100

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AVROA’s Education Priorities Our task in Chicago with the education subcommittee was to work out how we could create value for AVROA members by first researching what is already being offered and then committing to create a library of materials for members.

Over the past few years, many new providers have launched training products that advertise how owners and managers can increase income and occupancy while significantly reducing workload. Although this material is what owners and managers are looking for, sifting through courses, downloads, and webinars is time-consuming at best, and figuring out which courses are worth the investment can be frustrating and confusing. Initially, we believed the best course of action was to find all available content and establish some form of evaluation process. As time went on, our thoughts turned to how we could help launch AVROA in January and provide some real value. We all knew of courses and training programs being delivered by prominent industry players with vast experience, so we decided to offer an evaluation of these programs at the outset and use this evaluation to create a set of standards as a benchmark. Thus, our work begins.

The goal for 2018 is to create a solid education hub through which AVROA members can search a database of books, training programs, and short courses while also having access to a library of downloadable resources. We also turned our attention to the different types of members who would benefit from these materials, from the new, independent owner needing basic but thorough information to the professional owner or manager seeking listing site independence. Collating all these resources is going to be a chal-

lenge, but we are an enthusiastic and motivated team committed to bringing the best to this new venture. Heather Bayer (chair), Trevor Wiesnewski, Ryan Liebentritt, Ralph Moorehouse, and Maria Rekrut, AVROA Education Committee

AVROA’s Membership and Marketing Priorities The year 2018 will be a leap forward in AVROA member involvement. We want our members to be engaged in AVROA, not just standing on the sidelines. We are assembling an all-star cast to train our members on best practices in areas such as guest relations, operations, marketing, and investments. AVROA will be the hub for members to gain elite training for the VR industry. Our industry needs a place to meet, connect, and share wins and losses. We are excited to create this place with our AVROA Members Community. Not only will this group serve as the ultimate FAQ sounding board, but members will have a place to network with each other. The AVROA Members Community also will help unite owners and managers under a common mission and with a common voice. Industry news will be aggregated into this community, consolidating the many sources owners and managers use today.

AVROA’s new website will help members identify why they are joining AVROA, and it will deliver a best practice guide for our trainings. This guide can be customized to members’ needs. Thus, whether members are just getting started with their first rental, already own and manage a handful of rentals, or have a property management company, they can rest assured that the recommended training will be on point, meet them at their level, and help their business grow. The best training programs in the world fail, however, if nobody knows they exist. Our marketing committee is here to make sure members are in the loop as each training tool or resource is announced. We also are tasked with spreading the AVROA mission and bringing in new members to help strengthen the community. Jason Beaton (co-chair), Annie Switzer (co-chair), Barbara Wilde, Erin Sandoval, April Salter, AVROA Education and Marketing Committee

AVROA’s Advocacy Priorities The best way to begin a discussion of our plans is to state who we are and what we stand for: We are property owners and managers. We are small business owners, kitchen-table businesses, and sometimes mom-and-pop businesses. We are the boots on the ground, the ones responsible for paying bank loans and property taxes, for

keeping the paint fresh and creating amazing vacation environments. We are the ones who, in all likelihood, bought our properties because we love being there. We are passionate about them. Arguably, we are an odd bunch, and we get really excited about participating in the human interaction of helping the traveler plan that most precious event—a vacation. We are small businesses, but there are tens of thousands of us. Over the past eighteen months, it has become clear that VR owners and managers need a stronger voice in the industry. Working together, we can have a greater impact. We seek to earn your trust as an organization. We seek to be your voice, your advocate for change, your mouthpiece, and your warrior.

AVROA’s advocacy roles will be as follows:  We will be spokespersons for VR owners and managers when issues concerning our industry arise. We will issue press releases and statements and speak with a unified voice to online travel agents, media, and policy makers about issues that are common to our members.  We will provide resources to help members battle unreasonable local ordinances and harmful zoning proposals. These tools will include sample letters, tips to organize opposition, and advice about how to talk to elected officials.  We will monitor and report on issues that could affect large segments of our membership.  We will develop partnerships with organizations and companies that support our policy positions. We will focus on shaping our advocacy positions and launching tools for our members in the second quarter of 2018.

The time is here. We need a voice. We need education. We need advocacy. We need a way to network with each other and provide leadership for our industry. If you are interested in advocacy or know someone who is, contact Byron Ackerman at byron@ackerman5.net. Byron Ackerman (chair), Erin Sandoval, April Salter, AVROA Advocacy Committee

By the end of the Chicago meeting, there was a growing feeling among VR owners and managers, one that many had not felt in a while. It was a feeling of hope and a belief that real tools may have emerged from this meeting and that owners and managers will be able to have a voice in the market and re-establish those values that many see slipping away. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

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| Business

 Nashville, TN  TBD  www.vrmastered.com

PHOCUSWRIGHT CONFERENCE

NOV

0609

NOVEMBER

VR MASTERED VACATION RENTAL BOOT CAMP

NOV

1923

NOVEMBER

OCT

OCTOBER

Calendar of Events  Hollywood, FL  JW Marriott  www.phocuswrightconference.com

HOMEAWAY BREAKFAST SEMINAR

 Asheville, NC  Renaissance Asheville  www.software.homeaway.com

 Honolulu, HI  Honolulu Convention Center  www.homeaway.com/lp/partner-summit/?

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HOMEAWAY BREAKFAST SEMINAR

 Gatlinburg, TN  TBD  www.software.homeaway.com

NOV

AUSTRALIAN HOME HOSTING EXPO

 Melbourne, AU  Melbourne Showgrounds Epsom Rd, Ascot Vale  australianhomehostingexpo.com

DEC

NOVEMBER

NOV

OPMA FALL EXECUTIVE SUMMIT

DECEMBER

HOMEAWAY PARTNER SUMMIT

1315

 Orlando, FL  The Reunion Golf & Spa Resort  www.theopma.org

NOV

0607

NOVEMBER

VRHP ANNUAL CONFERENCE AND VRM INTEL LIVE! COMBO

NOVEMBER

0608

 Gatlinburg, TN  Gatlinburg Convention Center  www.vrmintellive.com & vrhp.org (see page 102-103)

NOV

NOVEMBER

NOV

NOVEMBER

A SPECIAL VACATION RENTAL COMMUNITY EVENT

NEW ENGLAND VACATION RENTAL MANAGEMENT (NEVRMA)

 Lincoln, NH  Loon Mountain Club  carla.hemmings71@gmail.com

MAY

MAY  Portland, OR  Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront  www.vrma.com

AUG

PHOCUSWRIGHT EUROPE

 Amsterdam, Netherlands  Beurs van Berlage  www.phocuswrighteurope.com

2324

FVRMA XTRAVAGANZA

 Orlando, FL  Westgate Lakes Resort & Spa  www.vrmxtravaganza.com

0809

VRM INTEL TECHNOLOGY FORUM

 Denver, CO  TBD  www.vrmintellive.com

OCT

1518

VR SUCCESS SUMMIT

 San Antonio, TX  The Westin Riverwalk  www.vrmxtravaganza.com

NWVRP ANNUAL CONFERENCE

AUGUST

APR

APRIL

APR VRMA WESTERN REGIONAL CONFERENCE

2325

OCTOBER

2627

VRMA EASTERN REGIONAL CONFERENCE

 Honolulu, HI  Honolulu Convention Center  www.nwvrp.org

MAY

 Paris, France  Le Meridien Etoile  www.vrma.com

1617

 Miami, FL  Hyatt Regency Miami  www.vrma.com

VRMA EUROPEAN CONFERENCE

APRIL

0408

MAY

FEB

FEBRUARY

MAR

MARCH

VACATION RENTAL WOMEN’S SUMMIT

 New Orleans, LA  TBD  www.vrmintel.com/womenssummit

MAR

MARCH

2123

1920

2730

VRMA NATIONAL CONFERENCE

 Las Vegas, NV  MGM Grand Las Vegas Hotel & Casino  www.vrma.com

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VRHP Annual Conference 6-8 & VRM Intel Live Nov

Combined!

Gatlinburg, Tennessee Gatlinburg Convention Center $399 Registration FEE vrhp.org and vrmintellive.com

4 Educational Tracks & 32 Sessions Plus…The Rebuilding of a Destination, One Year After the Fire: Gatlinburg's Success Story Mark Adams, President & CEO, Gatlinburg Convention & Visitors Bureau

VRHP’s 2017 Executive Housekeeper of the Year and VRM Intel’s 2017 Best VRM Website Award Presentation The Vacation Rental Housekeeping Professionals’ Annual Conference and VRM Intel Live! have joined together in Gatlinburg to create an special vacation rental community event like none other. With a high-level educational lineup that includes industry leaders, operational experts, hands-on workshops, group sessions, networking, and a special Gatlinburg community event, this is one of the vacation rental industry’s can’t-miss events of 2017.

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Nov 6 | Nov 7 | Nov 7 | Nov 8 | Nov 8 |

6:00 pm – 8:00 pm 8:00 am – 5:00 pm 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm 8:00 am – 4:00 pm 5:00 am – 8:00 pm

6-8 Nov 17

Welcome Reception Breakfast, Lunch, Sessions and Networking Vacation Rental hoedown and Award Presentation Breakfast, Lunch, Sessions and Networking Gatlinburg Winter Magic Kickoff & Chili Cookoff Community Event

GENERAL SESSIONS • BOOK OF EXCELLENCE: TRUE GROWTH—SIMPLE INSIGHTS ON HOW TO LIVE AND LEAD WITH AUTHENTICITY WITH BEST-SELLING AUTHOR, BYRD BAGGETT • THE REBUILDING OF A DESTINATION WITH GATLINBURG CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU CEO, MARK ADAMS • THE REAL TRUTH OF WORKING WITH OTAS - UNFILTERED AND UPDATED WITH STEVE MILO • BEST PRACTICES IN 2018 HOUSEKEEPING AND MAINTENANCE WITH STEVE CRAIG • WHERE THE VACATION RENTAL INDUSTRY IS HEADING WITH CEOS, DOUG BRINDLEY, TIM CAFFERTY, AMY GASTER, MILLER HAWKINS, JODI REFOSCO, AND CLARK TWIDDY

HOUSEKEEPING AND MAINTENANCE SESSIONS • ROUND TABLE DISCUSSIONS: HOUSEKEEPING, MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS • GUEST SERVICE TRAINING FOR HOUSEKEEPING STAFF WITH JODI REFOSCO • SETTING UP PIECE RATES WITH DURK JOHNSON • CREATING AND MANAGING BUDGETS AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS • LINEN LIFE EXPECTANCY AND DIFFERENT TYPES OF LINEN (SHOW AND TELL) • THE COST OF DISENGAGED EMPLOYEES WITH SUE JONES • BUILDING AN IN-HOUSE LAUNDRY FACILITY WITH JOE REFOSCO • GENERATING INCOME FOR YOUR HOUSEKEEPING DEPARTMENT WITH STEVE CRAIG • SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTS AND GREEN CERTIFICATIONS WITH DURK JOHNSON • HOUSEKEEPERS: GUARDIAN OF THE BRAND WITH TIM CAFFERTY • Q&A: WHAT IS ON YOUR MIND? • SECOND ANNUAL HOUSEKEEPING SURVEY RESULTS AND Q&A WITH NEW EXECUTIVE HOUSEKEEPER OF THE YEAR

MANAGEMENT SESSIONS • KEYS TO LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT WITH BYRD BAGGETT • BENCHMARK REPORTING AND REVENUE MANAGEMENT WITH STR GLOBAL • SKIPPING OVER THE PITFALLS IN CHANGING PROPERTY MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE WITH DOUG MACNAUGHT • PROPERTY CARE TRENDS AND TECHNOLOGY WITH JEREMY GALL • FACING THE 800 LB. GORILLAS WITH ALEX NIGG • CREDIT CARD PROCESSING, TRAVEL INSURANCE AND SMART HOME UPDATES, PANEL • FINDING NEW REVENUE STREAMS, PANEL • STRONGER TOGETHER: LEVERAGING YOUR SPHERE OF INFLUENCE WITH C.J. STAM AND TINA UPSON

MARKETING SESSIONS • MANAGING AN IN-HOUSE MARKETING DEPARTMENT WITH KATRINA MURRAY • IF WE DON’T LEARN FROM HISTORY, IT WILL SURELY REPEAT ITSELF WITH MICHELLE MARQUIS • INCREASING WEBSITE CONVERSION RATES WITH BRANDON SAULS • THE UNIVERSE OF DIGITAL PROPERTY DISPLAY WITH SUZI CUSACK • LEAD ACQUISITION AND CONVERSION WITH MATT RENNER AND RYAN BAILEY • ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGIES WITH PETER SCOTT • EMAIL MARKETING WORKSHOP WITH HEATHER WEIERMANN • 2018 MARKETING STRATEGIES WITH MATT BARE

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VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

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You’ve been told you have to change software by 2019. Virtual Resort Manager is your superior alternative. • • • •

Superior Software System Superior Installation Procedures Superior Websites and Marketing Services Superior Customer Service and Support

Before you sign the line, visit our website and schedule a demo. www.VirtualResortManager.com 252-241-9533 | sales@virtualresortmanager.com

Compare Your Business KPIs

to Local, Regional, and National Markets

Introducing the vacation rental industryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first independent industry-specific benchmark reporting with real-time, actionable, forward-looking data For more information, go to vrmintel.com/dashboard or contact Rob Johnson, Sr. VP of Sales, at 410-829-0711 or rob.johnson@vrmintel.com.

INDEPENDENT, UNBIASED AND OBJECTIVE With VRM Intel Dashboards, your managers will be equipped with independent business intelligence comparing your vacation rental company with an aggregated data set of other companies in the market, including average daily rate, length of stay, booking window, occupancy rates, RevPAN, etc. You are also able to slice, dice, and compare aggregated data by year-over-year-daily, weekly, monthly, or annually-and filter by bedroom size, location, type, and amenities. It is the difference between widely available online information and a uniquely created perspective on developments and events that yield a competitive edge. VRM Intel Magazine | Fall 2017

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Offer your guests the most comprehensive destination specific travel insurance available in the Vacation Rental Management Industry.

re dsky insurance .com â&#x20AC;˘ 8 6 6 .5 4 9 .5 2 83

VRMisIntel Magazine by | Fall 2017 108 Coverage underwritten Arch Insurance Company (a Missouri corporation, NAIC #11150) with executive offices located in New York, NY. Not all insurance products or coverage are available in all jurisdictions. Coverage is subject to actual policy language.