Andrea Bayer

Welcome to this episode of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast. This episode is brought to you by the kind sponsorship from OwnerRez. Providing a powerful and flexible system for managing vacation rental properties, OwnerRez provides booking and maintenance management, payment scheduling and collection, as well as insightful reporting. OwnerRez will provide you with a long-term booking foundation that is scalable for your vacation rental business, while fully managing your channel listings, but still focusing on your brand, your website, and your way of doing things. Listen into the mid-episode break where you will hear more about this internationally recognized leader in vacation rental software. For more information about OwnerRez, click the link in the description of this episode on your smart device. Let's get started. Here is your host, Heather Bayer.

Heather Bayer

In today's episode I'm talking to Travis Wilburn of Stay Charlottesville [West Virginia], and he's also the owner of multiple other supporting companies and the founder of the 100 Collection.

Heather Bayer

This is the Vacation Rental Success Podcast, keeping you up-to-date with news, views, information, and resources on this rapidly changing short-term rental business. I'm your host, Heather Bayer, and with 25-years of experience in this industry, I'm making sure you know what's hot, what's not, what's new, and what will help make your business a success.

Heather Bayer

Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast. This is your host, Heather Bayer, and I'm here again recording this from sunny Gulf Shores, Alabama. Actually not so sunny this morning, but, you know, it could be anything as long as it's not snowing. You know this. I'm a happy bunny when I'm not shoveling as many other people are. There's over 600 people in this campground, and most of them are sheltering down south away from the snow. So we all have this common thread of conversation as we share our driveway photos of snow piled high, etc.

Heather Bayer

Anyhow, that aside, I am talking today to Travis Wilburn, and unfortunately, I've never met Travis in person, although everybody else seems to have done. I know Travis's new project, the 100 Collection, was a hit at VRMA in Las Vegas. I heard that there were a lot of people walking around sporting 100 Collection hats. I didn't get to Las Vegas for VRMA, so I am out of the loop here, and my FOMO is coming back now. So I wanted to make sure that I was up-to-speed on what is going on in Charlottesville and how it relates to many other vacation rental management companies across the country. We're going to be talking to Travis about his experience of being a property manager and also his passion for raising standards in this industry and trying to get away from the verb that we all know people are using that used to be called vacation rentals, and Travis definitely has some views on that. So without further ado, let's move on over to my conversation with Travis Wilburn.

Heather Bayer

So I'm super happy to have with me today Travis Wilburn and Rebecca Lombardo, the co-founders of the 100 Collection. Travis is also the founder of Stay Charlottesville, something we're going to be talking about because that seemed to be the start of it all.  So welcome, both of you. Thank you very much for joining me.

Travis Wilburn

Thanks for having us.

Heather Bayer

Well, this is great. I feel I'm a bit late to the party here because I've seen you and heard you on YouTube videos and other podcasts; Will Slickers, Sarah and T, John and Matteo, listened to your interview on News Radio – WINA – is that it? I think that's it. So I feel I have a little bit of a handle on what's going on here. I missed out on VRMA in Las Vegas, and I think I could probably have found out more about it there. So I'm very much a newbie to what you're doing, which is really good because so much of my audience will be as well. So we're going to explore where you started with all this and where it's all going, basically. So, Travis, let's kick off with you, and I ask everybody about this. How did you get started in this industry? What's your ‘origin' story?

Travis Wilburn

The real origin story is, I accidentally sold my mother's house, got a bunch of furniture, put it in storage – didn't know what to do with that furniture and put it in storage. So I had this wild-hair idea. I was like, I'm going to go build a guest house behind my house. I'll put all that furniture there, and then I don't have to put my Mom in my house, she'll have a guest house. I was like, well, that seems like a horrible idea. I should try to rent this out nightly – and this is 2007.

Travis Wilburn

So I live in Charlottesville urban market surrounded by vineyards – call it the Napa Valley of the east. Everybody told me I was an absolute idiot. This will never work.  Who's going to rent your property out nightly? And those were the days when there might have been 5 listings on Home Away/VRBO. Ironically, there was a thing called collegeweekends.com, that was actually born out of Charlottesville, and there was no credit card processing on those. And so I had a credit card machine right next to my couch and called every single listing. I was like, this is actually doing pretty well.

Travis Wilburn

So I started Stay Charlottesville in 2010, and there's probably about 22 listings, maybe 25 listings on the aforementioned websites. And that's how I got started, with a business partner who I was actually, ironically, working for at the time. And I don't know that I've actually shared this, but he and I would go on these runs in the morning, and I was telling him about the success of the carriage house, and I worked for him, and he was like, hey, we should start a vacation rental company. I'm like, okay, well this is cool. How do you negotiate your share with the guy that pays you full-time to help drive business to their company? And so we started it in 2010.

Heather Bayer

That's great. And your story sort of mirrors mine a bit. Although I didn't sell my mother's house accidentally, but there's that whole starting story where there's not many properties around and you start taking on more and more, and then over time it grows and you have to plant yourself right in that community to get that growth.

Heather Bayer

Rebecca, thanks so much for coming along. What's your origin story in vacation rentals?

Rebecca Lombardo

So I actually came through the vendor side. I was the chief marketing officer for a national photography company, and about 25% of the clients were on the vacation rental side. So I got to work with vacation rental companies who needed property photography. Most of them had 50 to 150 to 1000 properties that they managed. So I got to see a lot of gorgeous properties from there.

Heather Bayer

So I want to talk a little bit about community because community seems to be the sort of foundation of everything that you guys are doing from Stay Charlottesville through to the 100 Collection. So Travis, tell me a bit about the other associated companies that you have that seem to support your core business within your community and seem to have cemented you, from what I've seen in my research, as a pillar of your community.

Travis Wilburn

Absolutely. So a little over 10-years ago, going back to the original story,  there was about 60 different listings, maybe 70 different listings on Home Away/VRBO in 2012. I was like, this is going to become a problem. What are we going to do? How are we going to get direct traffic? All right, well, the wedding industry here seems to be pretty huge, we've got a lot of vineyards. I'm like, I'm going to build an event venue, and I'm going to make that my marketing platform. And I'm going to get the brides to mail out to their 250 closest friends free advertisements for me and for anybody who's listening. That worked incredibly well. Brides also get room blocks that they have to pay for at hotels, and for us, it's completely free. We just put in a little discount code that's specific to them and they did all the advertising. So we built an event venue called Old Metropolitan Hall. This is like, right downtown Charlottesville, which is like our equivalent to ocean-front property. And then right behind that, I realized that a lot of people were coming to do wine tours and they're not driving themselves, but all these wine tour vans keep popping up into our driveways.

Travis Wilburn

I was like, well, I should just do that on my own and do a better service to our guests. So I bought a bunch of Mercedes motor vans, not Ford Transits, mainly because that silly little Mercedes logo appeals to a crowd. And I didn't realize, I was like, all right, well, we just built another sales funnel. And it's kind of crazy because those vans actually go and pick up at all sorts of addresses, including other RBO properties. And I'm like, okay, well, that's another way I can go find and do owner acquisition. So not only am I making money off the guests, but our drivers – like, hey, guys, if you keep going to really cool houses, let us know. And then a hotel got built in town, and they asked us to manage it.  It's called the Townsman, and they were going to do all their own marketing, and they just needed us to run operations and sales. I was like, okay, well, we can try our hand at that. Things just kept on kind of compounding, if you will. And so we most recently accidentally built our own visitors bureau. I'm not even kidding. This is actually not recommended, I don't think a bricks and mortar business is a great idea. But we built our own private DMO website called ‘Charlottesville Insider', which was to support our community during COVID when a lot of retail shops and restaurants were struggling. I was like, we've got to do something different. So we really intended to build an online community, and then just this last September, we opened up, right next to our event venue, a Visitor Center, so that we can just literally point people in the right direction.

Heather Bayer

That's amazing. And this is what I'm finding, as I'm talking to people through the industry, and my very good friend Tyann Marsink – I'm sure you've come across Tyann – she is another person who, I guess like you, is one of these weird people that have more than 24-hours in their day, or it appears that way.  But I've talked to her, and she is so immersed in her community, and this is what she shares when she's talking to other people, is get into that community, become a part of it, and that's how you make your business grow. And that certainly seems to be the foundation of what you are doing. So, having talked about community, because I know that this is a big part of the 100 Collection.

Heather Bayer

So let's explain. What is it? What is the 100 Collection? I've been talking about it. Nobody has actually said, well, what is this thing?

Travis Wilburn

…Rebecca!….I still don't know what it is either.

Rebecca Lombardo

That's why I'm here. The 100 Collection is a collection of the best properties managed by the best vacation rental managers, who are setting the gold standard for hospitality, cleanliness and quality.

Heather Bayer

That is very succinct. That's the elevator pitch; I love it.

Travis Wilburn

It's kind of a combination of the James Beard and the Michelin star to some degree. It's like looking for these great people that are community players, aka James Beard that follows the chef, and then the Michelin star follows the restaurant. So it's like what we were talking about a little bit earlier is with community, it's really important to be embedded in a local community. And so that's one of the very first things that we're looking for with different groups, the James Beard, if you will, and then we look at a certain property collection that they manage and Michelin star it.

Heather Bayer

Okay, so taking that Michelin star analogy forward, it reminded me of a movie, one of my favorite movies called ‘The Hundred-Foot Journey'. I don't know if you've come across that. It's about an Indian family who come to France, and they want to build a restaurant, and they build a restaurant across the road, 100ft from a Michelin-starred restaurant. And their goal is to become Michelin-starred. And I was thinking about it last night because as part of this movie, the owner of the Michelin-starred restaurant tells the up-and-coming chef from the Indian restaurant over the road that she can tell if he has Michelin star quality by the type of omelet he makes. And there is the most fabulous scene in this movie where he's making this omelet, and she tastes it, and she's trying not to say that, yes, you've got it. And I can't recommend this movie enough. It's funny, but it has a really good message. And it made me think of when I was thinking about what I'd read about the 100 Collection, that this is what you are looking for.  You're looking for those property managers who can make that omelet.

Travis Wilburn

Absolutely, 100%, and so the 100 Collection was born.  I think it's funny, a lot of people are like, well, is 100 destinations? Is it 100 property managers? Is it 100 properties? And as a vacation rental manager, we all know the properties that deliver 100%. We all manage a lot of different properties. And I have properties that have been in our portfolio for ten years. And I absolutely love those owners. We've been together for a long time, and my job is to take care of them. However, my job is also to encourage them to update their upholstery and follow best hospitality standards, as a hotel will. Sometimes it's a little bit harder to do than others, as we all are quite aware. But what we look for with the 100 Collection hat on, or the Stay Chatlottesville hat, like, we're looking for properties that best represent these great destinations, that have great bones, that are following hospitality and safety standards. And we're trying to take the guess work out for the guest, which is one of the biggest pieces of feedback that we've heard on a regular basis, as an industry.  It's like, the guest doesn't want to gamble with their vacation when they only have two or three weeks of vacation.

Travis Wilburn

It's like they want to make sure that it's going to deliver that Michelin star experience. I would say one thing, just like the Michelin star it could be a cheeseburger shack, it's just a really great cheeseburger. Or it could be a $5 million restaurant. It's not about luxury. It's about delivery of product. And so, yeah, we're looking for vacation rental managers that also pick up the phone at 02:00 in the morning if there's an issue. Hopefully there's not, but we have a whole list of different standards, some are a little bit more public than others, that we're looking for.

Heather Bayer

Okay, can you share some of those standards? And I know you can't share them all, and we're going to come to that in a second, but what are some of them?

Travis Wilburn

Well, let's just start with the basics, that for anybody that's listening, it's like mattress covers, clean linens, a smoke detector in a bedroom. It shouldn't be a hope, it's got to be a requirement. Fire extinguishers, 24-hour, seven day-a-week support. As we all know, with some of the listing platforms, one of the biggest complaints is getting locked out and not be able to get back in. And so making sure that somebody is going to pick up the phone and that you do have that emergency service, or if something goes wrong, heaven forbid, that there's somebody to call.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, for me, it would be two pillows per person on every bed. I can't say the amount of places I have been to where I've walked in, well, actually, that will turn me off, looking at bedroom photograph. And I'm sure, Rebecca, with your photography background, you know what I mean.  The picture of the bed is just so important. You want to imagine that you could climb into that, and if there's only one flat pillow on there, you've just lost me as a guest.

Rebecca Lombardo

Yeah, it's not good branding.

Travis Wilburn

Yesterday, somebody sent us a property and asked us if we wanted to manage it. And I looked at other photos on their listing platform, I was like, do you guys actually have pillows for your bed? And I'm dead serious, there were no pillows on the bed. I check the link, like, five-star superhost, review phenomenal. I'm like, you got pillows, you got towels, you got sheets? Are you changing that duvet after the guest leaves? I've got a lot of questions.

Heather Bayer

I know from my experience, 20-years of, and I don't know how many properties I saw during those 20 years, you know, close on a thousand plus, I guess, over that time. And we only took on a smattering of those, mainly because if I walked in the door and there was an odd smell or it looked ‘worn out', and I walked in the bedroom and it looked flat and uninteresting and I could see the bed legs, it was just not going to join us.  Sorry, unless they were willing to make changes, and I have to say, we had a lot of owners who were very willing – “Tell me what I have to do. Tell me what I have to do and I'll do it.” And they did it. And they became the owners that stayed with us the longest, the ones who then went on to buy more properties because they learned along the way as well.

Travis Wilburn

Yeah, absolutely. I still do it, like, when I go walk into a property, I still meet with all our homeowners on a regular basis. And I absolutely love it. It's one of my favorite things. It's like meeting new people, and the first thing I do is I walk up to the bed and I push my knee against the foot-board, and if it moves, if it shakes, I'm like, this will not work. Here's a standard – people don't want the bed to fall apart.

Heather Bayer

Well, you joined this industry way back. I bought my first property in Canada in 1998, and at that time the industry was very, very different. You know, guests brought their own everything. We provided some cleaning stuff so they could do a full clean before they left. Grandma's old throws were perfectly fine on old mattresses until we came along and we said, no, this doesn't happen, we have to have cleaning. And there was a massive pushback on the fact that the guests wouldn't have to clean. And I know that there's still some agencies up in Ontario that still ask their guests to do a full clean before they leave.

Travis Wilburn

Yeah, there's a really great commercial by a large hotel brand that has all those different rules listed out, that's being used against the industry right now.

Heather Bayer

It's still out there in Ontario. I love that you brought up the topic of safety. I love what Justin Ford is doing in this industry. I got my safety inspector criteria a couple of years ago now, and just doing that actually allows you to look at a listing and go, there's this wrong, there's that wrong. I have a personal thing about bunk beds shoved up against windows.

Heather Bayer

So anything else you can tell us about your criteria?

Travis Wilburn

Well, I'd say that the first and most important part of our criteria is, behind Rebecca and I, we have a great network of a lot of people that have been in the city for a long time, and we have a lot of people helping push names forward that are doing it right. And so I would say that the first criteria is that you definitely need to be local to your market, and you've got to have boots on the ground. And so if you're a person who's sitting in New York City, and you have 50 properties in San Francisco, 50 properties in Texas and Miami, and you're the superhost, great. That's not the right fit. It is very important for us, as an industry who's dealing with a lot of regulations due to the irresponsibility of a certain platform, that our people we want to help them when regulations do happen and we want to make sure that they have a seat at the table and that they're the ones that are doing it right. So the criteria that is most important for us before anything else is that they're local to their community. And ideally, they know their barista's name down the road at the local coffee shop.  And it's not their favorite coffee, being the largest whatever corporate brand coffee you can get.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. On your website, you talk about doyen, and these are the people, right? These are the people who are the owners, the managers. I've looked at, and I know part of your collection, a couple of people who I know in your 100 Collection, Ginger and Hunter Harrelson for example. They're just down the road from me here in Gulf Shores, Alabama. And then, of course, Lance and Elaine Stitcher from Seaside Vacations. What makes them a doyen?

Rebecca Lombardo

Well, first of all, I don't think you can walk into any bar or restaurant in Orange Beach and have the owner or manager not know who those two are.

Travis Wilburn

Definitely. Hunter and Ginger. Absolutely. With Beachball Properties. Absolutely, what Rebecca said. And Lance and Elaine, they're local to the community. They know everyone and also everybody knows them. No two better people or two groups, really, to represent doyen. And doyen by definition, which is funny, nobody's actually heard that word before in their lives, for the most part, means the most prominent, respected person in a particular field. And that's what we're looking for, is that these people are really well known and embracing their community. And it's easier said than done when we're looking for different groups. But Sharon Walker in Austin, Texas, absolutely 100% local to their groups. We've got two different groups Stay Duvet – those guys are embedded in Charleston, or Island Realty. It's just a lot of different famous names. And from an industry standpoint, it's like, well let me back up, from a guest standpoint, it's like, if I'm having a great stay with me here in Charlottesville, right, and I'm in one of our beautiful estates, it's been really well curated. How do I find that same experience in Charleston? How do I find that same experience in Charleston or wherever else I might want to travel?

Travis Wilburn

It's like, hey, by the way, we have 50 of those doyen and all these different destinations, and they will deliver that experience. And so ultimately, this was born out of us, I argue, as an industry being kind of the worst marketers to some degree, it's like we're supposed to be experts in all these different fields, right? It's like, I've got to do revenue management, I've got to know how to clean, I've got to know how to do safety standards. Yada, yada, yada. There's a long, long list and we're all experts at something. Thankfully, Rebecca has her PhD and photography as well as marketing, which is by no means in my own wheelhouse, but, you know, we've let you know. The airlines and hotels all thought back in 2010 and 2011 of bringing back their market share from the online travel agencies, and it's the exact same thing that's happening in our industry. And so I just don't think it has to. We can keep our brands local, which I think is crucial, and we can help build brand and loyalty amongst ourselves instead of letting other people steer the ship.

Rebecca Lombardo

To kind of piggyback on that. I worked with a company that helped vacation rental managers get more homeowners, to grow their homeowner inventory. And when I worked with them on the marketing side, I would always ask when I was onboarding, okay, what is your unique differentiator? What makes you different than staying at that other place across the street? And would you believe that they all kept telling me the exact same thing? I'm like, Oh, bless your heart, that's not unique; unique means you're different. What makes you different? Because what you just told me is exactly what this company across the street just told me about themselves. Do you realize that's not actually a unique differentiator? So being able to lead with that helps a brand grow and then brand retention, right? Like, getting that repeat business, getting that brand awareness up, that is not an easy thing to do. To Travis's point, you almost have to have a PhD in it, and especially in a competitive field like this to get really high brand retention.

Heather Bayer

Can you give me some examples of this, of uniqueness from some of the different companies? What does make them unique?

Rebecca Lombardo

So just use Stay Charlottesville as an example. When we wrote up the editorial profile about Stay Charlottesville for the 100 Collection, we wrote that he has historic properties, that you get to stay in a historic property. Travis, you want to give the example of that? The one with the grapes, the vineyard….

Travis Wilburn

…The grapes? Yeah. So, Thomas Jefferson is famous for being here and we have the house where Thomas Jefferson first planted grapes. Sorry Napa Valley, it started here in Virginia! We also have a concierge team that has private chefs. And you've got Sharon Walker over in Austin, she's got a Bloody Mary Bar.

Travis Wilburn

It's not just a property, it's not just a bed that we're providing, ultimately, there's different levels of service. And one of the things that we are also helping our vacation managers, aka Doyens, to do is, if they don't have, not everybody has to have, a concierge service right now, but we can show them. I don't mind sharing publicly, we have a James Beard private chef, and we recommend those chefs, and we allow them into our properties. They're relatively expensive to get utilized, and I want to know who the preferred vendor is that is walking into that property each and every time. So we have a giant list and those vendors give us a percentage of revenue and we follow that process to make sure that we're best respecting the property as well as the guest; it costs me absolutely nothing to do.  I can't tell you how many different private chefs go out every Saturday evening or Friday evening to our properties. It's a lot and it's just a simple service to add.

Travis Wilburn

So some people are doing golf carts, some people are doing bikes. I think there's a laundry list of what people are doing that are very different.

Heather Bayer

I remember…. Oh, it's got to be 10-years ago, and I was looking for some differentiators between condos in a certain area of Destin Beach, and I think it was to do it in a course and all these condos were exactly the same. And then there was just one or two that offered beach chairs included in the rental. Not – when you get here, you can go out on the beach and you can pay $49/day for your beach chair. No – you come to us and the beach chair is included, and we also include a cart to take all your things to the beach. And it was just those really simple things that were setting this apart from the rest. So I know that is a very tiny example, but I think that's a differentiator.  Right?

Travis Wilburn

Absolutely!  How well branded were those chairs and golf carts?

Heather Bayer

Oh, absolutely. They were branded, yes.

Travis Wilburn

Remarketing!

Heather Bayer

Yes. And people out on the beach saying, my chairs were included and look at my nice beach cart. So it's that sharing, not quite sending 250 invitations out to wedding guests, but it was still getting the message out. So I love that.

Heather Bayer

I'm going to take a quick break here to have a word from our sponsor OwnerRez, and I'm asking another question of Paul Waldschmidt, the co-founder of OwnerRez.

Heather Bayer

So welcome back, Paul. Your base pricing at OwnerRez is very reasonable. So what's actually included in that?

Paul Waldschmidt

Well, I'm glad you think so. We think it's reasonable as well. The full booking management lifecycle is included, including things like CRM, managing your guests, your inquiries, the messaging that goes along with that as well, all the email and platform messaging. By platform messaging, I mean the messages that you send via channels like Airbnb, you can do that from within OwnerRez e-signatures or digital signatures for things like rental agreements is included. And then the entirety of our channel management system. So it doesn't matter who we integrate with or what channel you turn on, it doesn't matter what settings you turn on. Rates, discounts, that's fully included. And we don't touch the revenue of that either. So there's no percent of revenue that's charged for using channel management, it's just built right in. Our view in recent times is that you can't really manage a modern vacation rental business without a baked-in foundation of channel management.  Port is also fully free, both by email and phone. And then we have a number of other premium features as well; PM websites, SMS, but those are add-ons for a small reasonable cost for those as well.

Heather Bayer

Well, thank you, Paul. And now back to this great discussion with Travis Wilburn and Rebecca Lombardi.

Heather Bayer

Let's go back to the vetting of these companies, I'm really quite interested. You know, I was CEO of a company for 20-years. If I was still in that position, how would I say, hey, Travis, Rebecca, come look at me.

Travis Wilburn

There's a couple of different ways that this is happening on a regular basis. There are a lot of people that are being invited. You mentioned that you were not at VRMA, but if you were at VRMA, there were a lot of people wearing 100 Collection hats that have different involvement. Not necessarily monetarily, but just love what we're doing, trying to keep these people in place. I think there's a lot of passion for our industry, for the people that are doing it right. And you mentioned being done and dusted over there. You're the ones who are doing it right and people just like yourself that are pushing people forward. It's kind of funny and probably not, but the 100 Collection is actually owned by the group that we work for called Blue Cedar Partners. And if you go to our website, there's no contact form, there's no way to get a hold of us.

Heather Bayer

That's a bit like Starlink.

Travis Wilburn

Then there you are. We have quite a few people coming through the 100 Collection site to find us, but the hardest part of what we're doing is just saying, no, we're not necessarily the right fit if you're not local. And so I think that's first and foremost the most important piece for us right now. And then we go through a vetting process and trying to make sure, and I'm going to be careful what I say here, but one person as an example, even a close friend of mine who wanted to be part of it, we realized that they had no respect in the community. I would have never guessed that. But it's just an absolute hard no, we really are that combination of the James Beard and the Michelin Star, and that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to set the gold standard, not only with great properties, but with great people that represent their community; easier said than done.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. It reminds me, going back to the 1980s now, and with my parents, we were running a small hotel in a little town in England, and there was a company called Wolsey Lodges, and they were very much like the 100 Collection. They just represented these very, very special small hotels. And we had somebody come out of the blue, stayed with us and we did not make the cut. I was devastated, i've never forgotten that. But it made us certainly look at exactly what we were doing, and I think I know why we didn't make it. And we did make some changes. Do you go and inspect the places, fully inspect the properties, do interviews? I'm just curious about how the process…..

Travis Wilburn

…..Yeah, actually, well, so the first part is that people push their properties forward. And so every vacation rental manager, if they don't know what the properties are that are best performing in their market, the properties that deliver 100% of the experience that the guest is having for truly five-star properties, then probably something's wrong. So it starts with them. Just as an example, I'll take myself. So it's like, right here, our offices are on the Downtown Mall, which is kind of similar to King Street in Charleston. It's the ocean-front property, at least for downtown Charleston. And I've got an awesome condo that's totally refinished, overlooks the Downtown Mall, great windows. I also have a condo that's right behind that, and it overlooks the parking lot. It's a really great location, but the view.  It serves its purpose, but it's not ocean-front. And so we're starting with properties that really, truly best represent the destination, that deliver the experience that the guest is looking for. And then we do have a process behind the scenes that still stays private, but in which we can audit properties and help also market properties at the same time.

Heather Bayer

Do you find you get recommendations, that people are sending you recommendations? I've been to this property. I've seen these managers at work or I've heard about them.

Rebecca Lombardo

Form on our website. So if you're a guest, if you're a property owner or anybody, you could just go on our website and nominate a VRM.

Heather Bayer

Okay, I've got one to nominate for you.

Travis Wilburn

Who's this?

Heather Bayer

Well, if you listen to yesterday's podcast, it's a small company called Chalets Hygge, in Québec. And the owners, they were awesome, absolutely awesome. They just have six properties. They own them all, and they live in the community, and they do absolutely everything.

Travis Wilburn

That's awesome.

Heather Bayer

It is awesome. I will send you their website. You should go take a look.

Travis Wilburn

Thank you. I will be in Québec soon as my wife is Québécois.

Heather Bayer

Ah right!….

Travis Wilburn

….from Montréal.

Heather Bayer

These guys are from Montréal, too.

Travis Wilburn

Awesome. I still need to practice my French.

Heather Bayer

So there's a lot of small managers trying to make it in this business. I know that because I talked to a ton of them. We all started the same way. I did it back in 2002, managing my own property, and then my sister's property. And then the guy down the road said, can you manage my property? I'm not prepared to pay you for it until you can prove your worth. So I did, and it just grew from there.

Heather Bayer

What tips….I've heard you talk about this in other podcasts, Travis, is about the loneliness of starting out. I mean, of course, way back in 2002 or even 2007, or 2011 when you started, there wasn't the massive networking there is now, there wasn't the help out there, but it's still a lonely process. What tips can you share to help them overcome that feeling of isolation?

Travis Wilburn

So it's actually quite simple. I felt completely alone. I was the only one doing this really in my market. And it was when VRMA was in Nashville, god knows how many people there were there, maybe 800, 900. It was pretty small compared to where we are now, but I realized that there are a lot of other people just like me. And I went and networked, met people, learned what they were doing, learned what they were doing that wasn't working, and started listening. And for anybody that hasn't actually gone to one of those conferences this past year, there's 3000 something people that can relate to what you're going through and so there is no need to feel alone. And there's some great conferences within this industry that you can pay attention to and listen to. And I think VRMA has done a good job of helping represent that audience.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, I remember my first VRMA conference and there were probably about 700 people there. So 3000 is quite daunting. I'm just learning to play pickleball and it's taken me two weeks to pluck up the courage to go out onto these courts where there's all these people there that seem to know what they're doing. I think I'm there, but I'm not sure I'm there enough, confident enough. And that reminds me of what it's like for some of these small operators. And certainly VRMA is a big place to go to when you're only starting up. But there's a ton of other conferences and just the small local events that just get you out there talking to people.

Travis Wilburn

I've said this before, but I think it's so funny how VRMA has changed. It used to be a bunch of bad Hawaiian shirts and flannels and now I can spot a vacation rental manager in a heartbeat. A lot of dark suits, I'm like, you are one of me.

Heather Bayer

I got it.

Travis Wilburn

Definitely shame though. Never wore a dark suit once as a manager now.

Heather Bayer

So what other things…. going back to VRMA…. the conference, what did you take away from it? I've always loved the exhibition hall, just seeing what's new in terms of the tech and crazy stuff that's out there now. What did you take away from it?

Rebecca Lombardo

I would say that that was probably the highest number of vendors I've ever seen at a VRMA event. And it seemed like there were a lot of crowds at two or three booths constantly throughout the conference. And it seemed like a few of the booths had virtually no traffic, even though they were in a pretty good spot on the exhibit floor, without naming names.

Heather Bayer

Was it tech companies that were popular?  I know there's something for everybody there, from buying a pillowcase to a full property management system. What was more popular than others, do you think?

Rebecca Lombardo

There's the core needs, right. The PMS systems, those had traffic, the Wi-Fi, the door locks, the must-haves, the safety, the must-haves were crowded, the well known must-haves, the top big must-haves were crowded.  The newcomers, the adjacent services or tech options, the emerging, those were less traveled.

Heather Bayer

What about you, Travis? What was your takeaway from the exhibition hall?

Travis Wilburn

I'd say my largest takeaway was the need for advocacy, but it wasn't in the exhibition hall necessarily. It's a growing, growing concern that people need to get more involved and know how to do that. But I will name Andrew Kitchell from Wheelhouse who just recently summed it up, he posted a photo, I believe it was on LinkedIn of all the tech that's within the US market…

Heather Bayer

…Yeah, I've been in touch with him. He missed out education in there.

Travis Wilburn

Well, there's a couple of different things that he missed out on, but just in that slide alone, I was like, WOW!  And that was just the US market. That's not even touching the European markets, which is a totally different world. Well, not totally different world, but there's a lot more that's over there that's not over here right now and vice-versa. So I'd say, I was absolutely dumbfounded at the size and how many different people are jumping into the industry. And there's a lot of newbies, there's a lot of pros, everything in between. And to your point in regards to education, it's like going to the vacation rental industry is like going to the school of hard knocks. Right? And it's like I very rarely have ever met anybody that has a PhD in the vacation real industry thus far. I don't know what that looks like yet….

Rebecca Lombardo

….About people feeling kind of isolated and alone, and then you can feel even more alone by going to a conference with 3000 plus people. I will say this, you know, especially for your audience, I've had the privilege of, you know, of seeing a lot of chatter on social media and I've never worked in an industry where people were so giving of their time and their knowledge, even to people that they've never met. So just cold reach outs on social media, raising your hand and saying, I'm a newbie, do you know where I can find X, Y and Z? Or I need help with X, Y and Z. And having no fear that person will come back to you with welcome arms. So I would say that, but that is very encouraging about this industry.

Heather Bayer

That's what I've always felt.  When I started, there was no help whatsoever. Yeah, there was nothing. I had a competitor who I asked a question of and she said, “Do you think I'm going to tell you my secrets?” Now we know, there are no secrets. There are no secrets in this industry. And the sharing is just phenomenal. So it has changed so much in the last 20 years.

Travis Wilburn

Yeah, it's just fresh in my head. It's like, you have somebody like Lance who's very involved on Facebook and these people on different forums ask questions and Lance is going out and responding, or Elaine, and saying, hey, here's some advice; this is what I would do. Or same thing with Ginger Harrelson. I think she has a Facebook forum with over 50,000 people. It's like just trying to help. That's what dumbfounds me in this industry, is that it is really cool. I don't think it's all about money. I think there's a lot of people that are passionate about their communities and want to do right and just really fun people to be around.

Heather Bayer

I've noticed from my own Facebook group, that's been going for…, I started it at the beginning of the Pandemic in 2020. And so we're coming up to three years now and I don't think in that three years I have ever had to censor or delete a post, or tell somebody that wasn't nice. They are just the best, the most giving, the nicest people in this community. So, yeah, from my perspective, if you're a small manager, then just as you say, get out there and ask those questions, somebody will come along and give you a polite answer.

Travis Wilburn

Absolutely, entirely agree with that.

Rebecca Lombardo

And I'm trying to learn from our collection as well and pull together how they're setting the gold standard for things that people want to achieve. So if you want better, how can I get better guest services, how can I get better photography? So we're putting articles out on LinkedIn. They're like, here's how to do it. And it's very explicit, it's very detailed. So taking that aggregate knowledge from everybody in the collection and putting it together in LinkedIn articles will hopefully be helpful for somebody.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, that is great. So I will collect that link to your LinkedIn and make sure it is in the Show Notes, so people can find that. I also will put links to Stay Charlottesville and anything else that you want me to put in the Show Notes that you'd like people to check out. Anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up.  And Travis, don't ask me questions like you did of Will Slickers, because you really put him on the spot where the Interviewee turns interviewer.

Travis Wilburn

Yeah, no, thank you for having us and adding the 100 Collection as a link. I love hearing people's feedback.  We were supposed to launch a version of this pre- or right in first-quarter of 2020 and of course the Pandemic happened and that put everything on pause. And so this is only 90-days old, so we want all the feedback, we want to hear from vacation rental managers. We would prefer to hear from vacation rental managers that are entirely local into the community and that can embrace that.  Our least favorite thing is trying to figure out how to tell somebody they're not the right fit; that's not fun, but we try to lead them on their way. No, thank you so much for having us very much. Appreciate it.

Rebecca Lombardo

Yes, I would echo that as well. Thank you so much. This is such an honor for me, having been a fan of yours for so long, to be able to do this. And I just want to encourage everybody who listens to you, that this isn't about booking a room or even a whole house. This is about the entire experience 100% of the time.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. We didn't actually talk through that. It is the experience, and that's what sets the best managers apart and the best homes apart. And I know this. I went to UK and Germany this last summer and had some experiences that could have been so much better. And it would only take a few tweaks. So just coming back on your point, Travis, about it's tough having to tell somebody that, didn't make the cut. Going back on my experiences with Wolsey Lodges so many years ago, that still sits with me after all that time. Yeah. Letting them know what they can do better. And I'm sure you do that, what they can do to help them make the cut. Perhaps next time around. I never got that feedback. It was just, no, you didn't make it. And I think for all those years, nearly 50 years. No, it can't be 50 years. Nearly 30 years now. I wondered what it was that didn't work.

Travis Wilburn

No, I absolutely get it, and we're trying to be private and quiet about trying to approach the right people. So just like the Michelin star, you don't ever know when they're at your restaurant. And once you get the Michelin star, you're pretty excited about it.

Rebecca Lombardo

Although I will say this, once the VRM is vetted and they start to put forward properties from within their collection, we are very clear about properties that they put forward that need some adjustments for going forward. We're very clear about what those adjustments are.

Heather Bayer

Yeah. So it is the people and the property and marry that together with the community. And that gives you your perfect person.  Right?

Travis Wilburn

Absolutely.

Heather Bayer

Your perfect listing. Excellent. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. I'm sure we could go on and on. I trust we will meet face-to-face, perhaps in Orlando next October, which probably will come up way too fast. I'll look forward to that.

Travis Wilburn

I look forward to it, too. Thank you.

Rebecca Lombardo

Thanks, Heather.

Heather Bayer

What a great conversation. Thank you so much. Travis Wilburn and Rebecca Lombardo. That was amazing. I must admit, when I first saw the 100 Collection, I thought, that's a bit limiting if you're only going to have 100 properties, and now I understand why it's called the 100. I think it's a great brand and I think this one will go a long way. I'm going to be happily promoting this because anything that increases our standards in this industry and really the differentiator from the professional property manager, from the person, as Travis talked about, that's perhaps sitting in New York somewhere with multiple properties in very different places with random cleaners going in and out, where there is really no sense of hospitality, no sense of community. That is not what they are looking for. And it really is a differentiator, and I think the audience, the traveling audience, is going to begin to pick up on this. We've already seen a little of the pushback against some of the OTAs, and it's taking a while. It's taken a number of years since the whole direct book thing started out, but I think it's going to begin really getting some traction this year, and we've got to be there at the forefront of this, making sure that our standards are just so much higher.

Heather Bayer

So that's it for another week. I always love these conversations with people, I hope you do as well. I'd love to hear from you as to what you want me to talk about, or who you would like to hear from. And I know some of the most popular podcasts I've done are those with successful property managers,  and I think I'm probably going to reach out to some of these 100 Collection managers and talk to them, because they're clearly doing it right. So if you think you're doing it right as well, and you want to talk to me about coming on the show, let me know, heather@vacationrentalformula.com; I'd love to speak with you and I'll look forward to being with you again next week.

Andrea Bayer

This episode was brought to you by OwnerRez. For more information about this internationally recognized leader in vacation rental software, click the link in the description of this episode on your smart device, or head over to vacationrentalformula.com/ownerrez to find out more.

Heather Bayer

It's been a pleasure as ever being with you. If there's anything you'd like to comment on, then join the conversation on the Show Notes for this episode at vacationrentalformula.com. We'd love to hear from you and I look forward to being with you again next week.