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

For those of you who've been listening to my podcast for some time, you'll recall that I've talked to the one and only Matt Landau on many occasions. We used to call it “The Mash-up With Matt”, where we would just talk about what's going on in the industry and where the industry is actually going. Resurrecting this, I so enjoyed my discussion with Matt Landau, and I'm sure you will too.

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 super excited to be back with you once again. Today we're talking about all things hospitality, and I know we do this a lot, but I am talking to the one and only Matt Landau about the way that hospitality is heading, and if it's going in the right direction and what we can do to stay the course and keep the whole concept of limited edition front and center in the minds of our guests and of the professional operators in this business.  There's a lot to unpack in this episode. I'm sure you're going to enjoy it. Without further ado, let's go on straight over to my interview with Matt.

Heather Bayer

Super happy to have with me yet again, and it's been a little while actually, Matt, the great Matt Landau from the VRMB and the Inner Circle and now, Keystone Retreats, and that is where Matt is coming from – the new event called Keystone Retreats. So firstly, thank you so much for joining me for another… I'm going to be calling it “A Mash-up With Matt” because we haven't done that for ages, and I thought we should reinstate this. Tell us a little bit about what you're doing at the moment, and then we'll go in and explore what you've been doing.

Matt Landau

The Keystone Retreat is a private series of gatherings that I started putting on back in August, along with Steve Schwab, who you may know, of Casago. He's been in the industry for quite some time. He and I had always talked about putting together small groups of leaders and talking through some of the stuff that you don't get a chance to really dive into at a conference, just because there's so many people and you want to do everything. You might get a little tip passing in the hallway for a brief moment, but when you have small gatherings of great people, you get to discuss some really important stuff. So this is now our second Keystone Retreat. The first one was at a farm just outside Nashville, Tennessee. I am currently on a farm called Emma's Driftwood Farm. And this place, Heather, is very limited edition.

Heather Bayer

It looks awesome.

Matt Landau

Yeah, the cabins have all been refurbished. They look really old and just worn. But the moment you open the doors, they're all beautifully manicured. And there are all these beautiful trees with, I don't want to call them weeping willows, but they've got all this Spanish moss. And when I woke up this morning, there was somebody outside cutting the lawn. And I said, Hello. And he introduced himself as the Mayor of Darien, Georgia. And I said, Really? You're really the Mayor? He said, Yeah. And he gave me his card. So he happens to take care of the properties. He's going to be coming and meeting our guests for breakfast each morning. We had a lovely conversation about what community means in this part of Georgia.

Heather Bayer

That's fantastic, because I think community and hospitality is going to be a little bit of the theme of what we're going to be talking about today, because there's lots of stuff that's been coming up recently, stuff on VRMB and then stuff that I've been reading. I just thought we should explore a little bit about this. So in relation to limited edition, and I guess since it's been a while since we talked about it, you should perhaps give us a quick definition of what limited edition actually is.

Matt Landau

Limited edition, for me, is one-of-a-kind positioning. It's something that we all have within us. We are individual. We have our own way of seeing the world. It's about channeling that one-of-a-kind spirit, which makes vacation rental properties and hosts wonderful, and actually packaging it and presenting it in a polished way so that when people find it, they see it for its value. I was originally introduced to this idea of limited edition in Casco Viejo [Panama], the historic district where I lived for so long.  The realtor in town referred to investments in Casco Viejo as limited edition investments because UNESCO had created all these preservation rules. You couldn't just build, however much you wanted. You had to retain the facade. You had to retain the blueprint. And therefore, there would never be more than a fixed amount of properties on the market. And she referred to that as a limited edition investment. That sent me down the limited edition rabbit hole of exploring ways in which vacation rental professionals can be more original, ways that we can make our guests feel one-of-a-kind, create these special moments, these special experiences for them.  It's something that really plays into the hands of the little guys and gals, and it deserves more championing.

Heather Bayer

Well, you just come back from Israel recently, and you experienced some limited edition hospitality there. So let's explore that, because I think that's a great starting point.

Matt Landau

Wow, this was such a huge trip for me. I don't know, Heather, if you've ever gone on a trip, a vacation, a solo trip at a particular time in your life in which things just clicked and little sparks happened, have you?

Heather Bayer

I think so. When I first came out to Canada, that was my time, yes.

Matt Landau

Well, I think this was the case with Israel. I have some wonderful VRMB community members from Sea N' Rent, which is a vacation rental management company in Israel. They also have properties in Florence now. They had been saying, Matt, you're Jewish. You've never been to Israel in 40 years. You missed the opportunity with Birthright [Birthright Israel Foundation]; come visit. And I never visited. I never took them up on this invitation. And upon reflecting, I think it was because of the media.

Matt Landau

Just subconsciously in my background, you hear about all the stuff that's happening and you're like, I want to go on vacation to somewhere where there's not any drama. I think that's what kept me from visiting all these years, from placing it higher on my priorities list. But I finally went for my 40th birthday. My best friend, Adam and I, decided to gift ourselves a trip to Israel to celebrate. And it was incredible. Everything everybody says about Israel, it was and more. And I was really just moved by the entire experience. The actual hospitality, I would say, from the team at Sea N' Rent very simply looked like a friend. When you go to a new place, you want to have somebody who can point you in the right direction or point you away from the wrong direction. And this team, they know what they're doing. And prior to arrival, they answered all the questions that I had. And then they posed to me, Heather, a most perplexing of questions. They said, What's the purpose of your trip to Israel? I was like, Vacation? Birthday? Birthday party?

Matt Landau

I was like, I'm not prepared for this, but give me some time to reflect. And by the end of the trip, I had been asking myself, What's the purpose of this trip?  And by the end of the trip, I realized the purpose, which was at this new stage in my professional career, wanting to tell stories better than I have before. To become a better storyteller, I need to become a deeper human in order to really resonate with people. And I think this trip was a little personal discovery process, knowing myself better, where I came from, why I am the way I am. Everybody looks like me there. So it was really remarkable. It's just one of those trips that I think will mark an important inflection point in my thinking.

Heather Bayer

Was there anything that really stood out to you in terms of hospitality and a limited edition type of feeling?

Matt Landau

Well, this company, Sea N' Rent, practices all the limited edition pillars. They're a family business. They're locally based. They're specialized in particular property types, and they provide these wonderful little surprises. On arrival, there was this great little introduction spread, and suggested reservations at a restaurant. But I will take that question a little more meta, because everyone in Israel, if you're Jewish and it's your first time there, they try to get you to stay. And they each have their own version of doing this, some more aggressive than others. I went to a Shabbat dinner where the sister of one of our community members, Leal, she was definitely into, ‘Let's get Matt to move here' mode. And she gave me the business card of her favorite rabbi in the United States. That was one hospitality. Eat all this food, meet all these people, you were born to be here right now.  Stay!

Matt Landau

And then on the other end of this spectrum was Guy, who's one of the founders of Sea N' Rent, and he took me for a tour of where he lives up north. And he's like the opposite of Orthodox or Conventional or aggressively trying to get anybody to do anything. He's like a hippie. Guy, in his own way, gave me a reason to want to move there. He gave me his version of the town. And I thought it was very moving. I think both of those Jewish things were just very hospitable, felt great, felt like I was at home.

Heather Bayer

I think that nails it, doesn't it? You just said treating you like a friend and then as if you were at home too. And that is the core, really, of hospitality. So I want to move on from that, to a post you made on the Inner Circle about your friend Molly. And that was really the trigger for me to connect with you and say, come on the show and let's talk about this, because it sent me down a rabbit hole, that post. You said, my friend Molly is on vacation in India and shared with me how hospitable everyone is.  How strangers were so generous and welcoming with food.  How everyone referred to her as Miss and Madame, how she felt like royalty and soon discovered the Sanskrit phrase, and I'm not sure I'm going to say this right, “Atithi Devo Bhava”, which translates as “The Guest is God.” This could come as a shocker to many! And certainly, if you're looking around on Facebook groups, the concept of the guest is God is probably not going to go down too well. Take that a little bit further and tell me what you think.

Matt Landau

It's so funny because those Facebook groups, people are complaining about how terrible and disrespectful and unwelcome guests are in their home. I'm like, wait, isn't this a hospitality business? If you're this miserable with your guests online, I can only imagine how it feels to stay in your property.

Heather Bayer

Exactly. And as I say, it's always a shocker to me to see some of those posts. And I remember years ago when I was in the beginnings of the property management company and we had a cleaner and it was one of the first things I think that really got me about being hospitable, that you have to train everybody. It's not just you as an owner or an operator. Everybody that is involved with guests has to be on the same page, because I had a call from my cleaner and when she went to do a changeover, and her first words were, “Those renters were pigs.” And I was blown away by that. And I said, Hey, hold on a second – those renters… all those guests… that's the first thing. It took me a long time in Ontario to change that word from renters to guests. But I said, “First thing, they're not renters, they are guests in my home. And the second thing is, we don't make judgments like that and certainly don't use words like that!”

Heather Bayer

But it was just interesting how I heard this from many people in the housekeeping business in Ontario that they were advocating for the owners. They were being loyal. They didn't like the fact that occasionally a property may be disrespected, but we had to change the language to start with. Once we'd done that, that made quite the difference. But to see it continuing in those Facebook groups now is still….. And I think when I talked earlier about the great divide, I think I'm seeing this as becoming…. It's not just a divide, it's a yawning chasm between those professional operators who see hospitality as being the primary function, versus the operators that are simply looking at the income and money. So this whole concept of the guest is God is going to be alien to many of them.

Matt Landau

Yeah. A lot of property managers would argue that the property owner is God and the guest is next, to use the same metaphor. I think that's the chasm you're talking about, they're not mutually exclusive. I've found that the reason people get excited about being in the hospitality industry is because of the way that they feel doing it and the way that they make other people feel doing it. The key word in both those sentences being feel and connected emotionally to what is happening. Are you part of a guest's birthday or reunion or last vacation together? That's a feeling. Those are real feelings that your guests have. I think the people that we work with get that. They get that feeling. They're connected to that emotion, and they want to do it for that reason, because they know it makes the guest feel in a certain way because they know it makes them feel in a certain way. It's almost artistic in a way, versus the operational or technical side, which I think is much more linear, it's much easier to scale, it's much more profitable. When done quickly, hospitality at its core is not a quick overnight success profitably speaking.  It tends to be more of a long relationship. But I like to think that the one offs, the individual interactions that we have, whether it's a guest or a homeowner or a neighbor, the Mayor, it's the way that that person makes you feel. And if that person and the environment is making you feel in a way that is positive, because let's not avoid the fact that you can also make people feel terrified. If you're making guests feel good, that's a really special calling, I think.

Heather Bayer

And a bit of an overused quote, perhaps, but Maya Angelou's quote of, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, they'll forget what you did, but people never forget how you make them feel” is a useful one just to always keep in mind. One of those that you should have perhaps stuck at the back of your desk so you never forget it.

Matt Landau

Yeah. And if you tend to lean towards the side of non-hospitality, if you're operational technical growth, that's great. Do a little diving into the hospitality feeling side. If you're all about the hospitality feeling side and you tend to avoid the technical operational growth stuff, do a little diving into that. Verse yourself on how to be more balanced. I think that is really the key. They're not mutually exclusive.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, that is a good point to make. There was a comment on that post on the Inner Circle about the guest being God. It was about boundaries. It was…and I think actually it's a lady called Heather B, which I looked at it and I thought, I didn't say that.

Matt Landau

Imposter!

Heather Bayer

I didn't say that. It's really good, but I didn't say it. She said, If you empty the tank by not having any boundaries, you have nothing else to give others and can't be very gracious, kind, or hospitable. And I think that was a really important thing to hear.

Matt Landau

Yeah, back to those Airbnb hosts. I hate to harp on it, but if you feel bad, or angry, or pissed off about having pigs in your house, chances are your guests will feel that. It conveys, and vice versa. If you're authentically connected with what you're doing and you do have boundaries, it's not unprofessional. In fact, it's the essence of professional to say, Sorry that's not something that we offer, or This might not be for you. I think there's just so much to be said about knowing what you really like and serving that to people who will respect you for it and enjoying that. And that enjoyment fuels, right? It compounds.

Heather Bayer

Yes. I was listening to a podcast recently by John DiJulius, who is the author of the Customer Service Revolution. We were at a VRMA conference, I think it was in Phoenix, a number of years ago, and John DiJulius was the opening speaker. And his performance was electrifying, I thought. I've never forgotten that. Got his book immediately after it, and it's one of my most tabbed books ever. There's just so many ‘aha moments' in that. I have to say, since I saw that, I ran my business along the Customer Service Revolution lines, learning more about your guests, finding out their F.O.R.D; what their Family is, their Occupation, what they like to do for Rest and relaxation, and their Dreams. Easy enough to speak to every guest and find that out and then use that to create those experiences for them. But it was interesting in the podcast I was listening to that he said the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which measures every industry, this year noted we've hit a 17-year low in customer satisfaction across the board. And I guess COVID had a lot to do with this. People had a lot more time sitting at home wondering about how they've been treated and whether it's acceptable or not.

Heather Bayer

But also I'm looking at – I'm going off on a tangent now – looking at AI and the impact that's having on us. And I found recently that, going away from our industry, just in other industries where I'm trying to get service from somebody, I'm spending twice as long going through chat bots and getting answers that actually aren't relevant to me, and then spending ages saying, Get me a person, I want to speak to a live person, before finally getting my issue resolved. Touching on what you just said about knowing the technical side of it and spending some time on that, how do you feel about where we're going with AI and the service connection with our guests from a technical and machine learning perspective?

Matt Landau

It's terrifying, the power of this revolution. You can't deny it, you can't stop it. It will only get better and faster. Think about it, this is like the very first glimmers. This is the very beginnings of the first inning of all that stuff. So I think it fosters, certainly, a kind of change. We need to be ready for all kinds of change. It definitely fosters people looking for shortcuts. Not to say that that's a bad thing. Sometimes using a tool like that to achieve a task that you would have otherwise done manually and having it do that better and instantaneously, that's a good use of technology, I would say. But looking for shortcuts on the way we make people feel, the hospitality side of things, I have yet to find any shortcuts for that stuff. And I think that's where you start to see all the Airbnb hustler-type selling the courses online. They have definitely been evolving, I don't know if you've kept an eye on them, but they have been evolving. It's much more hospitality oriented now, at least they use those words. But if you really peel back all these layers and you look at the most successful hospitality professionals, whether in our industry or in hotels and other travel businesses, it's not a hackable process.  It's people that are really good people who are trained well and who make customers feel a certain way.

Heather Bayer

It's about people who care. I'm not sure how far does AI go to making people feel that somebody on the other side of their phone, or whatever device they're on, is actually caring about them.

Matt Landau

Well, get this. I just got off the call with a machine that handwrites letters. Have you seen this machine? You literally put a pen in a little robotic….

Heather Bayer

Oh, no, I haven't seen that.

Matt Landau

Yeah, it looks like a paper cutter gone full bionic. It's got this little robotic arm that holds an actual pen. You load in paper and you type into a little computer what you want it to write, and then the little arm begins moving like a finger, like a hand. And I was like, this thing represents quite a crossroads, I feel very conflicted about this. It's deceiving people into thinking it was a handwritten note….but I really want one. I could crank out hundreds of handwritten welcome notes with this thing. And the conversation ended with the woman who was hilarious. We ended up talking for an hour and a half. She thought that our industry was fascinating. She thought that bespoke hospitality is really interesting. But she said, Now, don't go telling too many people about us because the moment too many people know about us, our business becomes obsolete. And what I realized, it took a second to process, but what she meant is when everyone knows that that handwritten note was actually done by a machine, does it hold the clout anymore?

Heather Bayer

Yeah. Exactly.

Matt Landau

And here I've just told everybody about it.

Heather Bayer

Yes.

Matt Landau

We won't mention the name.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, fascinating though, I love that. But it's not something new. I know Tyann's been using services that write postcards, like handwritten pieces for a long time. But don't most people realize when they get something that's handwritten and it's not messy and scrappy? I know if I handwrite now, I mean all of us, can we actually do handwriting anymore?

Matt Landau

I've just been handwriting a bunch of welcome letters, and it looks like an eight year old.

Heather Bayer

Will this machine allow you to do that? Can you program it and say, make a mess of this, make it look like I haven't been handwriting for the last 30 years?

Matt Landau

That's a very good question. I know it can do different fonts, but it ended up being far too expensive for me, for my budget. And I will never know.  Maybe.

Heather Bayer

Well, everything I get handwritten now, I'm going to stare at it, even if it comes from Auntie Ada.

Matt Landau

Are we now doubting humans?

Heather Bayer

Well, aren't we looking at material that's on websites now and saying, did you actually write this? And journalistic articles, did you write this or was it written by ChatGPT in the main and you just made a few corrections and personalisations here and there?

Matt Landau

Yeah. Or is the person you're chatting with, or text messaging with, a bot? And is it good enough to give you great information? These are legitimate conflicts that I think our industry needs to talk about more, because they are really conflicting. And I think from a very broad level, short-term rentals done really well are amazing. They change our lives. Short-term rentals done poorly ruin lives. That's one big conflict that you have to be honest about.

Heather Bayer

Which is a good segue, but before we go there, we're going to pause a few moments to hear from our sponsor, OwnerRez. The founder of OwnerRez, Paul WaldSchmidt, joins me to answer a question that's often asked by hosts and managers looking at options for property management software.

Heather Bayer

Welcome back, Paul. What are the top three features your clients find the most useful in the OwnerRez software?

Paul Waldschmidt

Wow, that's a really hard question. We divide up our features into what we call verticals internally, and there are eight of them. So you're asking me to pick the most valuable of those eight. But I think probably channel management would have to be number one. You'd be hard pressed to find a user – we do have some who run RV parks and little specialty types of vacation rentals – that doesn't use it. But channel management is just so ubiquitous now, you'd have to say that's number one. It's also where you can see how hard we've worked in our elite status with Vrbo and Airbnb; that's definitely at the top. Messaging, I think, is probably number two. We have a number of different messaging features, and we're constantly working to improve and drive that. But again, you'd be hard pressed to find users in our system who did not use our triggers, automated inquiry, auto responders, the triggers for SMS as well in Airbnb. There's just so much of OwnerRez in the booking lifecycle that is driven by that trigger and automated messaging, and manual messaging system. Very versatile, ability to theme and make it your own and really use it; it would definitely be in the top three. The third one, I'm not quite sure if I would go either website or accounting. Accounting is a huge part of OwnerRez. It really encapsulates payment processing, the ability to create line item invoices, multiple payments, damage deposits, be it a security hold or a refundable. The accounting is so spread through the system and it has its tentacles into the property management side as well. It's a very big reporting suite. I guess that answers it for you then. I'm going to go with accounting for number three. We'll leave websites for number 4.

Heather Bayer

Thank you.

Paul Waldschmidt

Those are the top three.

Heather Bayer

Sorry, I had to limit you to just three. Now, let's get back to my interview with Matt Landau talking about a recent article I was reading.

Heather Bayer

Which is a good segue into that article that you've read. I only picked it up this morning. I realized I looked at it, it said February 9, and I thought, oh, that's today. I realized my life is passing me by far too quickly at the moment, and it's now a week later. So this was in Texas Monthly, and it was titled “Inside the Bro-tastic……..” Bro-tastic?!

Matt Landau

Bro-tastic, yeah. Bro is like the word, bros.

Heather Bayer

“Inside the Bro-tastic Mansions that are Up-ending a Historic Austin Community.” I'll put a link to that so people can go take a look. It's a fairly lengthy article, but I was quite fascinated by it because it's nothing new, is it? Different communities have been facing this for a long time, which has triggered so much of the call for regulations and the advocacy movements working to look at these. So it's not new, but it was very focused and it triggered a few things with me. There was one thing in there about an elementary school closing because there's no longer enough children in the area to populate it, because so many of the properties have moved over to being short-term rentals. What were your thoughts on that article?

Matt Landau

I didn't feel it was a balanced journalistic piece, first of all. It was only one perspective. That said, I thought it was all very valid. And it was.  If I was living in those houses, if I was those neighbors who were complaining, I would probably say something similar. And that's the harsh pill to swallow as an industry leader, as a market leader, really. If you're in any market and you're doing things professionally, this is something that you have to accept. I think here's where it starts to actually affect you, because it would be just as easy to go about ignoring these articles, ignoring these neighbors. Where it really starts to affect you is, like you said, Heather, this chain of events of having irresponsible hosts, who have irresponsible guests, who ruin the neighborhood, who now have all these opponents – other neighbors, politicians – angry, who in turn implement some unfair regulation. And that word unfair is obviously not exact. I use it because I think short-term rental professionals need to hear that it will not be in their favor.

Matt Landau

From a very selfish perspective, it's unfair. I think I may use different words when I'm talking with lawmakers or to non-vacation rental stakeholders, but for us, it will be something that goes against your interests. Unless you're actively participating in this advocacy stuff, and where it's really becoming a nightmare for people is when they had no idea it was coming and they just thought, Oh, I'll just continue operating. I'm doing my work fine. I'm doing this on the side. I don't have time to contribute to advocacy efforts. What does that even mean? Suddenly, you're shutting down my short-term rental and it's too late to go and begin participating and having conversations and building an alliance. So that's where I think it's going to catch a lot of people off guard. That's where it's going to affect your bottom line. And the longer we put off these kinds of topics, I think, the more dangerous it gets.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. I'll put a link on the show notes to Rent Responsibly [www.rentresponsibly.org]. I think that's a good start for everybody that's in this business to go and check out Rent Responsibly and actually start to talk to these guys who run it, because they're out there looking out for your interest, but they also want everybody to be involved in advocacy. So there was something that I picked out in the article, and I think you're absolutely right, it was written from one perspective and there was an axe to grind for sure. But there was just one piece and it said, prior to construction – and this was about a residence that they were talking about – prior to construction, the residence had three bedrooms. Now, with closets converted into miniature sleeping quarters, it contains seven bedrooms with 15 beds. And here's where the perspective comes in – allowing the property to function as a mini hotel – because I think they're using that as a catch-all phrase to ferment unrest, if you like. But I think I'd love to get Justin Ford in there to take a look at these closet bedrooms. But that to me is where the responsibility lies.

Heather Bayer

And it's not where the professional host and manager is going to pack them in as much as they can. And then I guess when I read into it more, the graffiti bus in the yard, the electric scooters, the stripper's pole, possibly pointing to something that neighbors could be upset about.

Matt Landau

I would be upset about it. In fact, I mean, these kinds of things, we have to put ourselves in other people's shoes, whether it's a neighbor, whether it's an elementary school employee, whether it's a local business. It really is helpful. I think the people who understand that this is not a simple system, this is a complex system with lots of moving parts. It's like a system in a lot of ways. You need to understand that there's things that you can do and there's perhaps an obligation proportional to the size of the amount that you extract. This is where I think we need to hold the OTAs more accountable. They are profiting proportionally more than any other company in the industry, arguably. Are they contributing on behalf of the core stakeholders, the property managers, the hosts? Are they contributing to local advocacy efforts that represent all those stakeholders? Or are they just going in and inking deals that allow them to deliver better earnings reports. I think having honest conversations with the OTAs is long overdue.

Heather Bayer

I guess that will be Rent Responsibility and the other organizations that are promoting advocacy, VRMA, I would hope, is going in that direction.

Heather Bayer

Matt, before we wrap up, I know you are eager to head into your retreat over the next couple of days. So before we go, let's give the listeners some action points that they can take following this conversation. Having talked about hospitality, we've talked about boundaries, we've talked about customer satisfaction, not posting on Facebook groups, really thinking about how you buy into some of those more contentious posts. Can you come up with a few action points for people?

Matt Landau

We need leaders, and most of our leaders don't realize they're leaders. So most of the people who listen to this podcast certainly are. They're already doing a lot of this stuff, and they're trying desperately to preach it to other people so that they will listen, which is the objective here. The single best advice is to attend conferences, to attend events where there's a whole bunch of other leaders who are trying to do things similarly. It's way too complex of a world to try to navigate on your own. I recommend any conference. There are some that are a little more skewed towards success. No, that's actually not right. That was yours. What are these other ones skewed towards, Heather?

Heather Bayer

There is a conference that I have not been to…..

Matt Landau

Yeah, wealth. It's about wealth.

Heather Bayer

Wealth. That's the one.  Where it's wealth, not hospitality.

Matt Landau

Exactly. There's just something that happens. We have to be honest here. There's something that happens when you promote, when you lead with, a theme of ‘Wealth', ‘Growth', ‘Scale', ‘Make Money'. When you lead with that, you attract that. And then the hospitality stuff somewhere is supposed to fall in afterwards. So my big advice here is to attend one of these events – not of those events – attend an event that caters to this professional side that we talk about, which I would argue is a hospitality-first leader. This particular event that we're hosting here, we found that these kinds of leaders need safe spaces, small environments to practice that thought leadership, to realize that something they're doing is actually a first, or to simply recognize that there are other people doing it along with them and that they have some confidence to begin sharing it a little bit more so that on stages at the big conferences, we can begin to see new voices and new perspectives and people who are doing things in a different way, but in an equally professional and admirable way. That's my big wish for 2023, I'm sure we can share a link to the events that are taking place throughout the course of the year.

Heather Bayer

Yes, exactly. Talk about that. Where are you going to be? Mind you, that's probably a very long list.

Matt Landau

Right now, I'm most excited about and planning on more of these Keystone Retreats. We're doing three more over this year and then something else a little bit bigger. These are just small things. These are cohorts of 15 or 20 people hosted in beautiful settings. So we're doing another one in May. It doesn't look like we will get to have you, Heather, at that one. But if anybody's interested, you can just email me and we'll provide more information.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, I will be at the Short Stay Week in Barcelona.

Matt Landau

A wonderful event unto itself.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. Shout out to Damian Sheridan for these events that he puts on. You were there at the Book Direct Show in Miami, which was exactly one of those events that you're talking about. It was small, it was intimate. The networking was outstanding, and you got to talk to everybody that was there.

Matt Landau

And of course… a shout out to these event coordinators.  Man, they are another breed of human.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, I've been there. Not sure I ever want to go there again. But then when I talk to Damian, he's putting on an entire week in Barcelona. So it's a Book Direct Show and it's the Scale Conference and there's a Luxe Conference, and then Touch Stay are doing workshops and it's going to be a great week. And I thought that's a brilliant thing to do when you're bringing people into a really great city like Barcelona. So you're not just asking them to pop in for a couple of days and go, but give them a whole week and they can pick and mix what they do, what they attend, and then just explore the city for the rest of the time. It's a great way of doing it. And then, of course, a big shout out to Antonio Bortolotti for his conference, which will be on the list as well, because over the years he has grown that into such an amazing event.

Matt Landau

These people, they put out the vibes. They attract people who like those vibes, who are similar kinds of people, who get to know one another and end up becoming ‘besties', very much like you and I did. So it's the big hump of choosing one event, your first event to attend. Even if you didn't like it, you don't end up regretting it. You end up thinking to yourself, Wow, there's this whole other world out there that I can be part of, and it's waiting for you.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. Well, thank you for bringing up events. I think that is a great chance for me to add that to the show notes, and people can go there and check out those events. So finally, I caught… Was it the Homerunners episode you did? The Shorts with Lance and Elaine, and Seaside Vacations, which I watched twice. I thought that was just brilliant. They are the essence of what professional property managers are, so immersed in their community. Are there going to be any more of these shorts and shows?

Matt Landau

Yes. I asked myself, what is the story that we're trying to tell here, towards the end of last year? What is this story that I want to tell? And that was actually not a question that I had held myself to ever. And it's taken a number of months to reflect on that question. What is this story of our industry that we want to tell the world? And I never had any experience in storytelling. I just did it naturally. But suddenly realized that this is a whole craft. Storytelling is an entire world and something very valuable that I could invest in. So I took some master classes in storytelling over the months, and I'm finally coming full circle into being able to put that story into a narrative. And I think this is a big breakthrough for me. But finally, for the first time, I'll be able to see where each of these amazing Homerunners, the Lance and Elaine Stitchers, the Tim Johnsons, the Steve Milos and Steve Schwabs, and all the Steves inbetween, where all these Homerunners fit in the story that I want to tell to the public about this industry and how we're changing hospitality.

Matt Landau

As you can tell, that's a big question, a big endeavor. But I'm actually super close to the finish line. So I'm thrilled to actually put that finally into words. But it was a process of de-tangling a bunch of amazing stories that all have their own essence into something cohesive that I'm really excited about.

Heather Bayer

Well, we will watch out for that.

Matt Landau

Yeah. And look what I got on. I forgot.  This is from Ruth in Italy. She sent me this shirt.

Heather Bayer

That's wonderful. Matt, it's been an absolute pleasure talking with you. I know you've got busy time ahead of you. Have a wonderful few days. You've got an amazing bunch of people there. I'm sure it's going to be a very special time. So look forward to hearing about that from Tyann, at least, because I know Tyann's going to be there over this next few days. And I look forward at some point to being able to join you at one of these retreats.

Matt Landau

Yes, indeed. Thank you, Heather.

Heather Bayer

It's always a pleasure to have Matt. Thank you so much, Matt, for joining me. It's always so great to chat and to just talk about the industry in general, where you see it going. You have such a pragmatic view of it. I tend to go into looking at some things with a bit more emotion, knee-jerk reactions. When talking to Matt, he has thought through all of these issues and is very, as I say, pragmatic about the approach he takes to them. So it's like it's grounding, I guess. So I'm hoping that I can chat with Matt a little more often over the next few months, years, however long we continue with this podcast, which we're approaching 500 episodes. And I'm thinking, yeah, perhaps I shall continue doing this till we get to 1,000 episodes, which is near enough for another nine or 10 years. So….. Hang on, let me think about that….my math is not very good. Yeah, I think I'm about right. It's probably about nine or 10 years. Anyway, enough of me blundering through the intro. As my husband will tell me when he's trying to edit it, I'm going to end this now.

Heather Bayer

Thank you so much for listening. Do not forget that we are beginning to ‘slow promote' the Vacation Rental Business School, and you will be hearing more about this over the next few weeks. We'll be launching a new website before too long and bringing you a ton of training content. And last week, Lance Stitcher, I think, in the episode said that you can't teach this stuff. You have to be in there and doing it. But actually, I'm not sure I agree with that. There is so much that you can teach. And we have people in this industry who've been doing this for many, many years. And these are the people that we're bringing you to teach it, not those that started out six months ago and have made their first million. Well, I'm not sure they can do that, but they're claiming they've made their first million and they're going to tell you how to do it. We are bringing you those who have been there, who have done it, and who want to share that experience with you because they've got proven results. And they've probably made their millions too. It's just taken a little bit longer and there will be more longevity in what they are doing and in what they are teaching you to do.

Heather Bayer

So to learn more, go to the link in the show notes to the Vacation Rental Business School, or you can go to www.vacationrentalformula.com and you can find all the information there as well. So thank you once again for joining me this week and I am really looking forward to the next episode that I will bring you.

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 www.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 the episode at www.vacationrentalformula.com. We'd love to hear from you and I look forward to being with you again next week.