Mike Bayer
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Mike Bayer
Without further ado, let's get this episode started. Here's your host, Heather Bayer.

Heather Bayer
There are changes coming to this business. There's always been change, but I fear the future is more uncertain than it has ever been. And in today's episode, I'm talking to someone who has been in this industry a long, long time and can bring his perspective to where we are going and what the future holds for us. Today, I'm welcoming Matt Landau for his 20-plus appearance on the podcast. So listen in.

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 as ever, I'm super delighted to be back with you once again. You know, since I sold my business, coming up on two years ago now - gosh, time is really flying past - but since I sold it, I have spent way more time looking at where this industry is going, mainly because I have got more time to spend on LinkedIn posts and Facebook and forums and news outlets such as Short Term Rentalz; that's Short Term Rentalz with a 'Z'. If you haven't come across that, it is a great resource for what's going on in our business. I mean, I know there's always been changes in the business, but it just seems that so much is happening now. So many things are changing. And even the underlying structure of the industry seems to be changing.

Heather Bayer
I recall at a VRMA conference, maybe sometime around 2012, maybe it was 2014, not quite sure, but the talk was of fragmentation in the industry and how we needed to capture the outliers, bring them all in together under one happy roof. I think somebody said, Good luck with that, and the same is happening now. Maybe there is less fragmentation now. But what seems to have happened is that two separate camps are developing and there appears to be little chance of integrating them into a unified whole that is the short-term rental/vacation rental space. And as I say that, I'm thinking we're still arguing about what to call ourselves, as the opening panel at last year's VRMA actually demonstrated, because that was - think enormous conference - you'd usually have a massive keynote presentation with a celebrity of some sort. But no, they open with a panel and the first question is about what we call ourselves.

Heather Bayer
So I've talked to hundreds of guests over the 10 years this podcast has been broadcasting. Some have been on a few times, but only one has appeared on more than 20 episodes, and that's Matt Landau. The founder of VRMB has keynoted multiple conference events. He's helped large and small companies recognize their weaknesses and hone in on their strengths. And he's inspired thousands of independent owners to find their uniqueness. And he's also the face of series such as The Vacation Rental Show and Homerunners, and host of The Unlocked Podcast and how to save a Vacation Rental Business that he co-host with Dana Lubner of Rent Responsibly. Matt, like me, eats, breathes, and lives this business. And ever since I met him a decade ago, he's done it with passion, professionalism, and a lot of integrity. His newsletter is one of the very few I subscribe to that gets read right the way through to the end. And this week, he talked about a new conference that was launched a year ago, because the second event was held in Miami recently where Matt lives.

Heather Bayer
And IMN - and I saw this last year - seems to bring in a really different type of attendee, and Matt explained this in his newsletter. So I'm going to let him share his thoughts on this and the wider implications of the changes we're seeing. So without further ado, let's go straight on over to my interview with my friend, Matt Landau.

Heather Bayer
Well, I'm here once again, and I think, I might be wrong, but I think it is for the 21st time with Matt Landau, who really needs no other introduction.

Matt Landau
I can officially now drink at 21.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, you should be sitting there with a glass of something so you can officially drink on the podcast.

Matt Landau
Hello, Heather...

Heather Bayer
As long as you haven't been drinking for the previous two hours. So hello, Matt. Matt, how lovely to have you back on here again. It's always an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Going back to that very first time we met, way back in whatever year that was at that fateful HomeAway conference in Phoenix.

Matt Landau
Never forget it.

Heather Bayer
I know. I will never forget that. What was it? Leap Frog, Leap....?

Matt Landau
Oh, I can't remember.

Heather Bayer
Yes, you can.

Matt Landau
Oh, VR Leap.

Heather Bayer
VR Leap. Yeah, I remembered 'frog' because there was a frog in the logo.

Matt Landau
Yeah, VR Leap. That's right.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, I will put it out there to my listeners. So if anybody remembers VR Leap or has any images of VR Leap, then you've got to send them to me.

Matt Landau
Nostalgia.

Heather Bayer
Yes. So a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. Just to recap for those who perhaps haven't heard from you for a while. What's going on in your world right now?

Matt Landau
I've spent a lot of the last year really examining what growth looks like in our industry. I think it's a lot of what we're going to talk about today. But the vision is changing in a lot of ways, and the realities are changing. And this is not the same industry as when we first met, by any means. Heck, this isn't the same industry from last year. Adapting to that change as someone who's been doing this for a long time, i.e, many of your listeners, it's not easy by any means, and it's not familiar. At least it's not familiar to me. I've been trying to process all of that and really understand who are the organizations that are navigating through and actually doing exceptionally well, who are the ones who are really struggling and why, and what really currents beneath the surface seem to be accelerating to the that if you're starting to feel a bit of a crunch or a discomfort now, it seems to get worse and worse and worse and worse with time. So I've really spent the last year and a half examining those things, both in person at our Keystone Retreats, and also just personally, I'm really curious to understand how people are dealing with the evolution of this industry.

Matt Landau
Actually, I think I've put my finger on something pretty unique, and we can talk about that, too. But that's been really a year and a half of reflection and research.

Heather Bayer
I was saying in the introduction that since I sold my business in 2022, just coming up on two years ago, I've had that time for reflection as well and also for spending more time reading what people are writing about it. I'm feeling that there are currents under the surface.

Heather Bayer
You and I had a long chat about a month ago about me feeling like I'm not sure where I am in this industry now, and should I be making some pivots, which is something that we're working on right now. But that really came out of this feeling that there's something going on and feeling a little bit of an uncertainty or a wobble. I've been doing a lot of reading about trust and why trust is so important in our industry recently. I came across a TED Talk where it was talking about the three pillars of trust. If you break down on any one of them, then you're going to have an issue. I'll put a link to that TED Talk in the Show Notes; that's by-the-by. I'm just feeling that same wobble. There's something going on underneath. I think when I hear from other people that I talk to on a day-to-day basis, they're feeling something similar.

Heather Bayer
But what got me to say, I need to speak to Matt, was your newsletter last week, and you were talking about going to the IMN Conference in Miami. Now, those people who have no clue what the IMN Conference is, because all you really know of is VRMA and Vacation Rental World Summit and Vacation Rental Women's Summit and DARM, IMN is a panel-based conference, but it invites a very, very different audience. And I was invited to speak on a panel, and they sent me this long list of panel topics. It was so much real estate investment-focused, I thought, that's not where I'm coming from. I couldn't find one that was relevant to me; however, it's clearly a major part of this industry now. I wanted you to share what those thoughts were. And you talked about a discussion in a parking lot, and I was really interested in you sharing that with those listening.

Matt Landau
Well, first I have to reveal that I actually didn't attend the conference itself.

Heather Bayer
Oh, you just hung around in the parking lot?

Matt Landau
No, I went to go have dinner with a number of people that I knew were going to be attending, and I planned to see a couple of other people. For instance, one colleague, Kent, he owed me a T-shirt. He owed me a shirt that he had stolen from me. So I went to go get that. I went to see colleagues. When you attend, when you go to the bar at one of these conferences, you end up meeting all the people in a very confined space, and you talk to people, and you get a pretty quick sense of the vibe of any given conference. It's probably true about any profession. If you go to the bar in the evening after the conference, you can probably get a sense of what's happening in that industry. That was why I went, initially, was to get the shirt and to get dinner with some colleagues. But it was overwhelming, the homogeneity, the homogenous aspect of the people who were attending, which were almost all men, and almost all wearing suit outfits. I have nothing against suits, and I have nothing against men. But that's like just one of these clichés, men in suits, that speaks volumes. The nature of the discussions fit the suits cliché as well.

Matt Landau
I also just wanted to share, I have been peppered by this company, IMN, to speak at these events. And the style of interaction, which is basically completely tone deaf, and let's just reach out to as many people as humanly possible, and there's zero substance about any of the relationship there. I was always turned off by that, especially As a hospitality industry, that to me felt, I knew nothing about IMN, but it felt like a very transactional initiative. If you look into it, the business model of that company is to host finance and real estate-oriented conferences. That's the business, so I get it. But that was never a vibe that I was super excited to surround myself with. I have been to an event in the past, but this event in particular, I just decided to go and afterwards meet some colleagues. In addition to meeting all the people who are in attendance, my colleagues, who I admire and respect a great deal, who have been in the industry for quite some time, they're able to get a pulse on things, and they were all singing effectively the same song.

Heather Bayer
You talked about speaking to a few people in the parking lot and was a little startled as they used the phrase mom-and-pop in a derogatory way to describe what their company, a real estate investment trust or REIT, considers ripe for disrupting. That was too short a nugget there, I want you to expand on that? I'm sure it wasn't a very quick conversation.

Matt Landau
Well, first of all, I've got to give them props, because they were smoking a joint. I was like, Oh hello, as I was going past. I struck up a conversation with them, because I was on my way to my car to drive home. They had no idea that I had a place in the industry. I had no idea their place in the industry. They were explaining to me basically their pitch. It's a very financially sound vision. I have nothing against, by the way, these kinds of businesses. They have their own craft and way of doing things, and they are very successful. They were explaining to me their plan to develop short-term rentals from scratch on property that they owned in a market that was desperate for inventory. And I'm thinking to myself, that's a great model if you're building a home from scratch, built for vacation rentals, which is very hard to find. And if you're calculated in the sense that you know how much supply is on the market, that's a brilliant initiative. And I'm like, okay, this is great. But then they threw down the mom-and-pop line several times. And as you know, Heather, I am I am the son of a mom-and-pop shop.

Matt Landau
My family ran a garment store in Princeton, New Jersey. That was where I grew up. That was where I learned about community. That was where I shoveled the sidewalk when it snowed each winter. I just have an affinity for mom-and-pop. That phrase, to me, is something endearing, increasingly rare. I think it was just a little bit unsettling for me to hear that viewed as such a negative thing that needs to be disrupted. And that was my initial reaction, like, throw up my feathers. That was my initial reaction. I think I have actually evolved since that conversation a great deal, because I thought about it a lot. And what they were actually saying was all entirely accurate, probably from their perspective. And what they were planning on doing was probably going to work. And it was the emotional issue I took with this idea that I thought was so great being eroded or removed or replaced. I think it was the emotional reactions like, Where does that leave us? Where is the soul if everything is a REIT? And that is, I think, a conversation that's worth having. And I don't know all the answers to that. But I think it was the startled nature of my reaction was really emotionally uncomfortable with this change that was happening.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. To go back a little bit, the mom-and-pop idea I mean. Years ago, when we were about 10 years into our business, we engaged a business consultant. We were at one of those tipping points where we'd got to about 80, 90 properties, and we weren't sure whether we should do a significant change to our business model, or whether we just continue on and just add on a few more properties here and there. And this business consultant came along and she actually knew nothing about the business, which we thought was going to be a good thing. Get somebody from outside to come and look at our business and see what she thought. And the report came back. The pivot we were trying to do was to go from being a 10-week a year seasonal company into making it a year-round location and really pushing off-season initiatives to bring people up to our locations. And her response was, No, no, no. There's a lot of mom-and-pop shops like you in this area, and they all run the seasonal businesses. They've been around longer than you, and they know what this business is about. You don't need to be disrupting it because it won't be successful. It was derogatory because she was saying, Stick with the mom-and-pops; don't try and make it bigger. That really rankled with me because I'd never even thought about it as these were those businesses in our area.

Matt Landau
I think I would have felt the exact same way you would did. I think what it's really pointing out is our, yours and my, lack of imagining a future, a new something, and probably hers as well. Her lack of creativity in imagining a new something that maybe it's built with many of the elements of the things that made a mom-and-pop great. I think it's like the fear of letting go of that old stuff is what's really hard, super hard. For me, at least, the processing of all that has been recognizing that the old elements that you love the most can have a place in this new version. But there's a reason people speak about it derogatorially. It's because there's parts that are just antiquated and not best for the guest. I'm trying to book a vacation rental right now that doesn't use any property management software, doesn't have any booking process. So I'm filling out these different forms, and I get so frustrated. I'm spending so much time on this. That is not a good mom-and-pop that I expect. I think just recognizing that maybe that mom-and-pop thing, as much as we loved it, can end. And maybe this next version - I wouldn't call it mom-and-pop 2.0. - I'd call it something totally new. Maybe this new evolved version can begin.

Heather Bayer
I go on some of these Facebook groups, where the independent owners are there and they're saying, Never put your property with a property manager because they're all crap. They're all rubbish and you will not get any guests. I try and refrain from response, but I didn't the other day, and I just went in and said, Look, there are thousands, 25,000 property management companies in the US, maybe more. You're just branding them all under one roof as 'property manager'.

Heather Bayer
I went out for coffee last week with Deb Furlong from Beach Getaway down here in Orange Beach. I suppose - there's Deb and there's Ken and their daughter - it's the epitome of a mom-and-pop business. Yet they're running over 350 properties. They've got offices in Orange Beach, in Pensacola and now down on [FL-State Road] 30A. They run on very traditional values. Deb showed me a printed... have you seen it? The little printed book she has? Oh, of course, because Deb was at a Keystone Retreat because she told me that. And Deb will be on the podcast in a few weeks talking about these values and just how she pulls together her team like that. But what I'm trying to get across here is that you can be a mom-and-pop shop with just two people or one person and no staff, or you can be classified as a mom-and-pop shop when you've got 350 properties as well. How do you get it across to these REIT people, for want of a better expression, that we're not all classified as the same?

Matt Landau
I don't consider that to be my job, and I most certainly didn't attempt to do that. I think about myself as an operator, and labels always bothered me. What I have always judged people on is how original their work is. There are original property owners with one property who are so much infinitely more memorable than a property manager with one million, and everything in between. But I've always used that element of originality and really a clear understanding of what makes you original. And that is way easier said than done. You mentioned Deb and her business values. That's a great way to get clearer on who you are and what your company is all about. And that gives Deb the ability to hire the right kinds of people who are aligned with those styles of doing business.

Matt Landau
And it allows Deb to leave. For instance, she went on vacation to walk El Camino de Santiago and trust that her team will do what she would have done if she was there. And that was a huge leap for Deb. And I think that's a real leap for any entrepreneur. I've frankly never arrived at that level of team alignment. I've always had very small teams. But the clarity on what you are doing and why you are doing it and where you're going and what you stand for, that for me is what allows one to navigate the storm or to get sunk. And as we see, more and more change happening every single day. You need to reevaluate your positioning, and it might be a good time to get clearer on those things if you're starting to feel wobbly, like you said.

Heather Bayer
Okay, let's explore that a little bit more. What would you look at first if you're evaluating where you are?

Matt Landau
How excited I am to go to work, how much my heart races for the work I'm about to do today.

Heather Bayer
So is that essential? Are these men in suits doing that, or is it just passion about the money?

Matt Landau
They were giddy about the money. They were absolutely giddy. Got to hand it to them. If you get giddy about money and putting together models, great. That's not my style. I would say I'm much more... what's the right word? Maybe human-driven in the sense that I really thrive when I'm interacting with other people and learning from them and asking them questions. That's my environment. That's my vibe. That's what I think made my operation in Panama so successful. We're going to give you the most human connection with this neighborhood that you couldn't even imagine. That was our version of hospitality. That was who we were, and we all loved that. I think over the years, actually, I have started to get a little bit burned out, whether it was with the property management company or with blogging, which is how I first met you. But I remembered that feeling of cannot wait to go jump out of bed and go work on stuff. I really desperately wanted that. I think I found that in a lot of ways over the last year.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, it certainly sounds from the conversations we've had, I'm interested in seeing what directions you are going in. But I just want to come back to something else you said in that newsletter. It felt odd having these men tell me their vision of short-term rentals because I found it boring and void of any personality or magic. And then you've just said, getting up in the morning and just feeling that passion. But it is a different passion. Their magic is in the dollars. It's in the bottom line. And your passion is in the people and that emotional connection. Is there a space for... I don't feel there's a space for them. And I know there is. I really know there is. But maybe it's because I don't want there to be a space for them, because it feels so impersonal. It feels sterile.

Matt Landau
You don't get to decide that.

Heather Bayer
I know. But how do I, and everybody else, get their feelings out of this and perhaps look at it in a more impersonal fashion?

Matt Landau
I do think reevaluating your positioning and how clear you are on your style and your own vision, that's all you need. Because if you're clear on who you are, on what you like, and how you run your business, there's place for everyone. There's place for the REITs as well. And you don't care, frankly, about anybody else's place. I think the competition in this industry really disrupts most, those who are not clear exactly on who they are. And when you hear people bashing one another or trying to throw each other under the bus, that's because someone's scared. Whereas if you're confident and clear on exactly what you're doing and who you are, you have no need to bash any competition. In fact, more often than not, from the instances I like in our industry, you help everyone else just because it's a great feeling. It's a great flywheel.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. You don't hear any of that coming from Robin Cragan at Moving Mountains or Lauren Madewell at Auntie Belham's or Deb Furlong, and these are the people, and the Stitchers...., I'm going to get it wrong...., Seaside Vacations? Yes.

Matt Landau
Yes. No, exactly. You don't hear that.

Heather Bayer
These come to my mind because they're clear on where they're going, and they probably aren't sitting around thinking about men in suits.

Matt Landau
I'll tell you, part of my research over the last year has been all about creativity and art. And I've been hanging around a lot of artists, and they never talk about their business, which is business, because they're selling this work for, in some cases, a lot of money. They never talk about others as competitors, or they don't see them as rivals, because they know deep down that what they create is one of a kind. And if you create something that's one of a kind, and you think it's awesome, and your clients think it's awesome, you don't really care what anybody else is doing. In fact, it just becomes this unlimited investment in yourself. And that's the exciting part for me, is that there really is... We've barely scratched the surface in our industry. I mean, to a great degree, these people are disrupting what we have failed..... like let to sit and erode over the years. We've gotten so stale.

Heather Bayer
I'm going to break into the interview for just a few moments to hear about our sponsor, Minut. We'll be right back with more great conversation shortly.

Heather Bayer
Well, welcome back, Nathan. We've been hearing over the weeks all the different features of Minut, and what a great product it is for independent owners and for property managers. So let's wrap it up a bit. What are the additional features of Minut that makes it such a helpful product for everybody who is operating in this industry?

Nathan Smith
Most people know us for our noise monitoring, our cigarette detection, maybe even our crowd detection. But there are definitely some features that people either overlook, or simply don't know that we offer. So I've mentioned it a time or two in our chats together, but we do have temperature and humidity monitoring, so that you can set a threshold at a high end or low end of temperature and humidity and receive an alert if those things change. We've had people use these features and let us save them from a burst pipe when a heater goes out and the temperature drops suddenly. We've had people tell us that it alerted them of a burst pipe because the humidity level suddenly rose and they received an alert that it had changed. So features like that can be beneficial. Additionally, we have a security feature that monitors motion inside the property. So if you have a rental that will be unoccupied for quite some time, you could turn this on and rest assured that you would be alerted if anyone were inside the property when you're not expecting it.

Nathan Smith
We also have an alarm recognition feature that will listen for a fire alarm or carbon monoxide alarm or some alarm happening inside the home and lets you know that it hears this. So it essentially makes some tools that maybe don't have Internet connectivity a bit smarter. These are really just a few of the additional features that we have that people overlook. If you want a full rundown of our features, obviously, you can visit our website at Minut.com, or even better, book in a demo and let us show you around the tool.

Heather Bayer
That's great, Nathan. Thank you so much.

Heather Bayer
Something just came to mind. Oh, yes. The Limited Edition. Limited Edition is still alive and well then.

Matt Landau
Well, I added two letters. Now I call it Unlimited Edition. This came at a bit of a turning point in my life over the last year in which I realized that my theory of limited edition, which is you should limit, use scarcity with your product to drive up value. It was built off of the collector's items dynamics. The more steeped in individuality and one of a kindness that your object, whether it's a property or your brand, is, the more value you're able to drive, because there's always greater demand. However, I mentioned to you that I was starting to feel stuck over the last year and a half or so. And I'm starting to think to myself, wait a minute, am I thinking somehow in a limited way? Is it actually not a finite pool, but is it actually an unlimited value that you can create. And I thought of these two letters [while] sitting on the side of my bed, and I almost started crying, because I realized that the limited edition  was me, this was everything about me that I would project on the world. It was me, that I was limiting myself and that actually, along the lines of the best artists, musicians, painters, if you are investing in yourself and you're getting deeper and clearer on what is 100% originally you, only you, one-of-a-kind you, then the possibilities start to get extremely exciting. And it doesn't feel confined, and it doesn't feel limited, it feels unlimited. So that's my announcement, I guess, here.

Heather Bayer
So where are you going with this?

Matt Landau
Well, the first instinct was I need to meet the most creative people in the world. And I know a lot of very creative people, at least people that I look up to and that blow my mind, whether they're in business as innovators and disruptors, or fashion, or music, or art. My first instinct was, I got to go meet those people and interview them, of course. I know the podcast form. I'm comfortable here with a microphone. I googled 'recording studio in Miami'. The first thing that popped up was a premium recording studio, like A-List musicians, and it was three blocks from my house. I was like, Wow, if I could record in a professional studio, these most creative people, that would be exciting. And that would apply directly to everything that I have been researching, because if creativity is this whole game changer in our industry in hospitality, if we're so stale and limited, and this creative juice, this new way of problem solving or thinking outside the box is the big unlock, I got to meet the THE best people in the world at this.

Matt Landau
So I asked them, Heather, you would love this. I asked them if I could use the studio for podcast interviews, if I could rent it? And they said, Oh, we would love that. We have nothing going on during the day because we're only recording the musicians at night. So I rented 20 hours in the studio, and I had my first interview last week. It was with a street artist that I know who is famous in Miami And tomorrow, Heather, episode number 2 of Unlimited Edition - The Podcast, I'm interviewing a woman named Barbara [Hulanicki], who is the inventor of the mini-dress.

Heather Bayer
Oh, cool. Oh, cool. I love that.

Matt Landau
She's like 85. She started the biggest department store in London after the war that was called Biba.

Heather Bayer
I know Biba. I know Biba. You know. It was in Carnaby Street.

Matt Landau
Carnaby Street? Is that what it...

Heather Bayer
Yeah....

Matt Landau
Okay. I'll mention that in the interview, like I knew what I was talking about.

Heather Bayer
Carnaby Street was the street in the '60s and '70s, that was the in place. You had to visit the boutiques in Carnaby Street. I believe Biba was in Carnaby Street. [Edit - Biba actually started in Abingdon Road, Kensington, then moved to Kensington Church Street and ultimately to Kensington High Street.]

Matt Landau
Ever since I first met this woman, Barbara, I was just like, She is badass. This woman knows how to live. This woman knows how the world works. And this woman is so extraordinarily original with everything that she does and how she sees things. And so when I asked her if she would come and be on the podcast, she's like, Oh, fabulous. So that's going to happen tomorrow morning, the second recording. And I'm going to do a series of these. They're all featuring these wonderful creatives, and we're exploring the case for more creativity for those us who are not so creative in our businesses.

Heather Bayer
Oh, I truly love that. I freely admit I'm not a creative person, but I'm sure we all are. We're all creative inside. This is what you're trying to get around to. We can say, I'm not creative, but we are all creative in different ways.

Matt Landau
Yeah, so true. I have to give a shout out to... I took a creativity workshop from a young woman whose name is Alejandra, and she had me over the course of eight weeks doing the strangest acts of expression with all these different materials and papers. Each time, I felt sillier and more uncomfortable than the last. But what I came out of that workshop thinking to myself was, Oh, creativity is a skill, and you have to practice it regularly. Everybody can practice it regularly. And I started thinking outside of those classes in new ways. And I started seeing one of the things that was recommended is if you see something that's really beautiful or something that really catches your eye or a texture or a way of saying something, take a photo of it and save it in a folder. I was like, Oh, I could totally do that. She said, Yeah, that's developing your style. That's developing what you think is cool or what somehow resonates with you. I'm like, Yeah, I can totally do this. She's like, Yeah, you can. Everybody can. But it requires some intention.

Heather Bayer
I'm going with this. Intention is my word for 2024.

Matt Landau
What are you hoping to be? What are you more intentional about?

Heather Bayer
Just about everything, so that everything I do has intention behind it. So I have an intention now for next time I go for a walk. I tend to take photographs of things that are beautiful. An intention because I miss so much, and I think we all do, we miss a lot because we're not intentional. We don't think about where we're going and why we're going there and what we want to do when we get there. That just fell out of my mouth, and I'm not sure it made any sense whatsoever.

Matt Landau
It did 100 %. And I was just thinking this morning as I was walking back from swimming about routine. And I love routine. My routine here, my morning routine. Routine is my everything here. I was thinking, doesn't routine in a way, kill innovation? Because if you're doing the same thing in that comfortable, familiar way every day, don't you eventually miss the new, or the different, or the outside of the box? What do you think?

Heather Bayer
Well, that got me thinking because I'm a routine person, too. My dog is a routine person. When we first came down here to Gulf Shores, I wanted to go different walks every morning, but at least I was walking 3-5 miles every single morning. Because we're on a campground you can't let the dog off the leash. I wanted to find somewhere I could let her off the leash and throw her rubber shark, which she absolutely loves. She's a German Shepherd, by the way - 75-pounds of ferociousness, not. She has decided that she only wants to go one way in the morning. When we go out for a walk, she pulls in one direction because she knows exactly where she is going, where this nice trail is, and if there's nobody else around, I can take her off the leash and I can throw this shark, and she has the most wonderful time doing it. So my routine has completely changed, and now it's the same thing every single day. I was thinking, it's exactly that, this morning. Well, you're not getting any variation on this.

Heather Bayer
But every day I meet different people. It's the same routine, but I'm meeting somebody different every day. Sometimes it's the same people because they're walking the same route. But I make it a point of stopping to talk to somebody different every single day, even though I'm following that same routine. So there is difference in a routine. It's like you're walking back from swimming. Do you walk the same route? Or do you vary your route back?

Matt Landau
Well, just this past week, I decided to mix up my routine. I decided to start yoga, and this has been the sorest week, I mean, I feel like Jello right now, Heather.

Heather Bayer
I know that feeling. It's hard. You want to add a few decades on, then you'll know how hard that feels.

Matt Landau
But it feels really hard and it feels sore, but I feel different muscles in my body that I hadn't felt before. And I feel in only one week, stronger. I feel stronger, my forearm feels sturdier. And I am happy about that because that's giving me a little incentive to continue diversifying my exercise in the morning, for instance. My swimmers are all a little pissed. What's with you and yoga? But yeah, I think you're right, I think routine is really great, especially when you're paying careful attention to how it's making you feel. If it's making you feel alive every morning and happy, then keep doing it. If it's making you feel a little bored or stale, then change it up.

Heather Bayer
When you ask about routine, I got just briefly thinking about that. You're doing the same thing every day, but there's always something different. If that intention is to find something different every time you follow that routine, so it's not mindless. So taking away mindless routine and putting into it some...

Matt Landau
Adventure.

Heather Bayer
Some adventure. Yes. Well we sort of got off the topic of... Did we get off the topic?

Matt Landau
No, we didn't.

Heather Bayer
Where we are.... tie it all in together then.

Matt Landau
It is all exactly the same thing. It is. What we're talking about is being more connected and feeling better and being clearer, more original versions of ourselves. And that is all the same. It's not business, it's not personal, it's everything, I think.

Heather Bayer
I like that. Okay, I want you to tell us a bit more about Keystone Retreats, because I'm hearing about this from so many people. So many people now I was saying, I've been to a Keystone Retreat and I learned this, and I did that, and something changed in my life, and I think...., well, I was getting a little FOMO about it. So tell us, what's happening to these people? What's happening to these people that they're coming back from a Keystone Retreat with a new zest? I got that from Deb when she came back and something had changed, something had shifted, and maybe she'd lost her wobble and had got back onto some firmer footing. That was a good turning back to what we talked about earlier, wasn't it?

Matt Landau
Indeed. I think also what we talked about earlier, this difficulty of assessing how things have changed in one's life and determining whether some reevaluating is necessary, whether it relates to the amount of time that you're spending in your business, relationships, health. I think the last few years, especially for a lot of us, has accelerated the need to get serious with ourselves and recognize, at least in my case, I'm not nearly as thrilled and excited as I was when I started my vacation rental company. I remember what it was like, and I want it, but I know that I don't feel that way anymore, and I don't want to start managing properties again, for instance. A lot of us get stuck, myself included, in recognizing all of that and not knowing where to go next, because it's not like a book that you read or a video tutorial. It's a different experience, a different learning experience, where you are challenged in new ways. And that means being asked questions that maybe you haven't been asked before. Maybe people have asked but you avoid them. And the premise of this whole line of work, the retreats, my new creative podcasting, the whole point is to help people think about those types of next steps in different new ways.

Matt Landau
And it almost always, when it takes place in person or on Zoom, requires time. It's not going to happen overnight. And it It also requires a very difficult process of basically letting go of your old way of doing things. We put a lot of effort with the retreats into creating the right environment for somebody to let go of something old in order to create that something new. But that process of letting go a little bit and saying, Okay, I'm entering into some new territory for me, and it's freaking scary, and it's disorienting, and I have no idea how it's going to work out, but I need it because I sense that there is more, and I've felt it before, and I want that, and I'm ready for that. I'm ready to actually do the stuff. I'm not just going to say, I want it one morning and the next day, Oh, it didn't work. I'm really serious about this. And so the whole methodology that we developed is one of peeling back layers with small groups, and getting to the real heart of the matter and being more honest with ourselves. And sometimes it takes that stepping away from your business, stepping away from your team, stepping away from your partner, your family, and having a new voice who's just there, because they want to help, and they have a similar thing that they're going through.

Matt Landau
There's something about that vibe when it's created that is so, so valuable. And I don't think I could have done it on my own. I had to be working with people in this transformation process. And whether it's a small transformation, reimagining the new business model that you're going to use moving forward, or personal. For Deb, it was very personal. It was, I need more time to start walking, because I want to fulfill my lifelong dream of walking El Camino. That was like, whoa. She thought she was coming to pick a property management software or tips on how to hire a general manager. But way beneath the surface was this thing that Deb just needed a little bit of peeling back. And she was courageous enough to find that. Everybody has, in my experience, some little version of that from our work together. It's certainly what I've had. And I'm just so excited to continue to do more of this, because it's really powerful. And anybody who's gone through a shift before knows that having a guide or at least having a group of people around you so you don't feel like you're completely on your own.

Matt Landau
That's the name of the game. That's what I'm most excited about is working directly with people and doing more of these engagements. Just last month, I facilitated the OwnerRez Company Retreat in the Dominican Republic. You know and love your OwnerRez people, right?

Heather Bayer
Oh, yes.

Matt Landau
It was a remarkable experience for me. I think they would say the same things, in that we uncovered some stuff as a team that made that bond so much stronger and that trust so much more real and human than I think we expected, certainly that I expected. And there's just an amazing feeling when you're suddenly excited again. And it just so happens that it doesn't take place on Facebook or Zoom, in person with people. That's what it's all about.

Heather Bayer
Or at an IMN conference.

Matt Landau
In the parking lot.

Heather Bayer
In the parking lot. Matt, we're running out of time. And I just want to say I'll put a link to any information on the next Keystone Retreat on the Show Notes. I think that's coming up in March. Am I right?

Matt Landau
Yeah. Feel free to have anybody reach out to me. Matt@vrmb.com. I read and respond to every email myself.

Heather Bayer
You do. You certainly read and respond to mine very, very quickly.

Matt Landau
That's a rarity these days.

Matt Landau
It is. It really is. I had so much more I wanted to talk about, but I think we've covered so much in this. I'm excited. You've motivated me, and I can't wait to listen to Barbara on your new podcast.

Matt Landau
I just want to say one more thing. The excitement that I feel right now, that I guess oozed off onto you a little bit just now. Think of, listener, think of how this could ripple effect in your organization. So it is the enthusiasm and the excitement and the clarity of the leader that sets the tone for everybody else. When you are excited about something, everybody gets excited about it. And that is something that I believe has a direct ROI. And you should pay very careful attention if you're not excited, and you're not focused in that way, because that's when I think the rest of the organization begins to fray.

Heather Bayer
I love that. I'm writing that down. But yes, because I've been there, I've done that, and relatively recently, too. Matt, always an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. I love it. We will continue to do this at regular intervals. So before long, we'll get 30 appearances.

Matt Landau
That's right. 21. First, I'm going to have to go have my first drink.

Heather Bayer
Enjoy the rest of your day, and we'll talk soon.

Matt Landau
Bye, Heather.

Heather Bayer
Oh, wow. That conversation got pretty deep, and I hope you enjoyed it because it goes against what you're hearing a lot in so many podcasts right now. What I've been thinking recently is just same old, same old.  Same old people being rolled out across the podcast network. Everybody's interviewing the same people. They're talking about the same things. They're asking the same questions, getting the same answers. We are really working on making a change.

Heather Bayer
After I'd finished with that session with Matt, we had a little chat afterwards and said we should get together more often and talk more on these sorts of levels. How does this industry impact us personally? How can we become more creative? How can we become inspired to come to work every day? Again, I'd be really interested in hearing from you about how you enjoyed this episode. And if you'd like to hear more like it, I'd like to talk to more people about these types of things rather than talking about dynamic pricing and revenue management and Instagram accounts. So let me know.

Heather Bayer
I tend to go off on a tangent and think I know what everybody wants to listen to, but I need to hear from you. So let me know, heather@vacationrentalformula.com, or go on to the Facebook group at The Business of Short-term Rental and Property Management, and tell me what you think. I'd love to hear from you. That's it for another week. Always a pleasure being with you and I'll be with you again very soon.

Mike Bayer
We hope you enjoyed this episode brought to you by Minut. Don't forget to check the link in the description of this episode to meet Minut and discover the best smart device you will ever integrate into your short-term rental business to help protect your investment and keep your neighbors happy.

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

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