Mike Bayer
Welcome to the Vacation Rental Success Podcast. We've been sharing information about the Vacation Rental Management Growth Accelerator Coaching Program for the last few episodes and how this is your opportunity to solve your biggest rental business challenges and get a top coach in your corner.

Mike Bayer
However, one of the most valuable aspects of the program are the guest presenters. Over eight weeks, you'll join a group of ambitious professionals and gain insights from a collection of incredible guest presenters like Brooke Pfautz, Tyann Marcink, Alexa Nota, and Travis Wilburn. These industry leaders will share their expertise on topics like building trust, mastering owner acquisition, crafting exceptional guests experiences, and more.

Mike Bayer
Led by your favorite podcast host and coach, Heather Bayer, this program dives deep into the core areas of your business, providing you with actionable strategies to tackle your biggest challenges. And by the end of this program, you'll have a personalized growth plan and the confidence to lead your business into the future. Don't let another season pass you by. Learn from the best and invest in your success today. Click on the link in the description of this episode or visit vacationrentalformula.com for more information.

Mike Bayer
Let's get started. Here's your host and coach, Heather Bayer.

Heather Bayer
I love a good story. Tell me one when you're trying to sell me something and you've probably got yourself a customer. Stories are about relationships, about community and connections and history, and they can trigger emotions that can change minds. In today's episode, we are talking about storytelling, and my guest is Jeff Bartsch, a communication strategist at Story Greenlight, and he's going to come on and us how we can tell better stories.

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.

Heather Bayer
Hey, it's really hot in Ontario this week. The temperature is soaring, and I've been swimming a lot. And I'm going to tell you a story about that in a moment, because today we are talking about storytelling. We're talking about how we can stand apart from our competition and make a real impact with a good story. I've talked about this before. We have explored storytelling in About Us pages and other pages of your website. But in today's episode, my guest is going to be talking about strategic and tactical storytelling. And I think you are going to love this, but I want to share a story with you.

Heather Bayer
To start with, I've got a river at the bottom of my back garden, and it's called the Big East, and it's what's known as an oxbow river. I remember this from geography classes at school. You know, it's one of the few things I do remember from school - it was quite a long time ago! But the Big East is a meandering river. It curves and it creates these massive sandbanks and beaches, and we're fortunate enough to live on one. But the river is cold at times, very cold, and in the years I've been here, I've spent hours swimming in our deep water holes. But it can take me sometimes up to half an hour to actually get myself submerged. I will inch out, feeling my way, and make sure I'm comfortable with the temperature at each step as I get deeper into it. And then I finally take a plunge into the icy depths. Actually, that's a bit overdramatic. But, hey, this is a story.

Heather Bayer
Anyhow, I have my twelve year old granddaughter staying with me, and her method of getting in the water is asking me to give her a count of three, two, one. And then she just runs and dives in. But hey, she's twelve, that's what they do. The water's still cold and I can hear this from her entry scream, but she does it in one. So this week I've been taking the plunge Arya style. And after I'd done that a few times, it struck me that I so often do this type of thing in business as well. I'm slow, I test the water on multiple occasions before committing to something. I'm hesitant and reluctant, but when I finally jump in and get over the shock of making that final decision, it's invariably fine. And it makes me wonder why I hesitated so much at the start. I'm going to ponder that one a little bit more.

Heather Bayer
But anyway, that's a story. You might have resonated with it in some way. You might have got a visual of the run and dive into a flowing river, and you might have heard that scream in your head. It could have dredged up a memory or an emotion of being a child and then moving on into that caution of adulthood, which is where I'm coming from. But that's what a well told story does. And in our world, it can transform a potential guest's curiosity into a booking. It can change a one time visitor into a loyal repeat customer. And it has the power to build trust in the mind of an owner who's looking for a property management option. And it could make you the number one choice.

Heather Bayer
So today we're exploring a topic that can change your business, the power of storytelling. Because creating powerful and compelling stories can set you apart. It can help you attract more guests and build lasting relationships with property owners and with the community. So to guide us through this fascinating subject, I've got a special guest. Jeff Bartsch is a communication strategist at Story Greenlight. He's got a great background, mainly in Hollywood, where he shaped content for major media outlets, including ABC, NBC, Disney, Apple, Netflix, and his expertise doesn't stop there. Jeff has also been recognized as a top 30 thought leader in the accounting advisory world, supporting thousands of students and clients in over 50 countries. I'm going to talk about this. You know, how do you go from Hollywood to accounting? Interesting story.

Heather Bayer
But through Story Greenlight, Jeff empowers professionals to attract and retain their ideal clients by leveraging the power of story. Now Jeff lives in Cleveland, Ohio; I'm going to ask that question too. How do you go from Hollywood to Cleveland? He lives with his wife and two young children, continues to inspire and teach others about the transformative potential of storytelling, and he believes that the power of story is within reach of everyone, and that human connection is everything. So, without further ado, let's move on over to my great discussion with Jeff Bartsch.

Heather Bayer
So I am super excited to have with me today my new mastermind... colleague - colleague I guess - Jeff Bartsch. And when I say mastermind colleague, I've just joined Cliff Ravenscraft's Next Level Mastermind Program. And as I was just saying to Jeff, before we got into this discussion, it was like being a new girl at school, because there's some fantastic people within this mastermind group, but they've been talking to each other for a long time, and I've just sort of arrived and they've made me super, super welcome. And when I heard what Jeff did and how amazing he is at talking about storytelling, I wanted to share him with you. So welcome, Jeff. Thanks so much for joining me.

Jeff Bartsch
Thanks, Heather. Looking forward to this. This is going to be good.

Heather Bayer
This is going to be great. And yes, you know, that new girl at school thing is beginning to fade off a bit now, because I've been around for a few weeks loving this whole mastermind experience, and I know you've been doing it quite some time with Cliff. Just give me a quick overview of how long you have been within that group.

Jeff Bartsch
Well, it's actually, truth be told, I am still within my first year within that group. So there are members of the group who've been in there for multiple years, but this is actually my first year. But when one meets week after week, you do learn a lot about each other. So it's a great group and it's some great bonding that takes place and a lot of huge perspective shared across different industries. And that's one of the cool things that I love about that group. And I know that's going to happen in our conversation here, too.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, and I love this. There's some shifts that go on there, and, you know, I've only been along to, I think, two or three, and I've seen shifts that have taken place, so I'm loving it. But let's focus this right on you, because you've got such an amazing.... We're going to be talking about storytelling, and you have an amazing story yourself. I just want you to share the story. You know, what took you from Hollywood to Cleveland?

Jeff Bartsch
Well, you know what? There are, as any good story does, it has multiple different chapters, lots of different twists and turns. But for the case of our discussion here, I'll start at the idea of, I ended up growing up in the Midwest, US, and I ended up in Hollywood, making TV for a living for some of the biggest media companies on the face of the planet. So here I am, I'm in my early twenties, making content for ABC and NBC and Universal and Disney and Apple and Netflix. And I used to think that Hollywood was all about TV and movies. What I learned over the years was that it's about something much more powerful and deep rooted than just TV or movies. And when I figured out how to wrap my head around what those ideas are, I discovered that you can transfer them into all kinds of different contexts, especially business.

Jeff Bartsch
And there was a time when I was at an industry panel, and one of the people on this panel was a gentleman who did what we call re-recording mixing at Warner Brothers Studios. So this guy, his job was to sit in his own private movie theater every day, and he had a crew of people who worked with him, and together they would mix hundreds of channels of sound into the final soundtrack that people would experience as the sound of the movie. And so to say that this had a lot of moving parts with it would be a massive understatement. I mean, this guy sat at this mixing console that literally stretched from one side of the room to the other. It was, you take a look at these mixing consoles, and you go, just how many knobs and buttons and things are on there? How do you know how to use all that? And someone in the audience asked this guy, how do you just stay on top of all the technology? How do you keep track of all the moving parts? And he said something I'll never forget. He said, the bigger the tools that you use and the more complicated the situation that you're in, the more you have to know the tools, like the back of your hand, so that you can make them disappear. And he went on to say that when you come to the point where you know the tools of the trade and you can make them disappear, that means you are able to focus on what truly matters.

Jeff Bartsch
In his case, it was creating the experience of the movie, the experience that Maya Angelou said at one point, one of my favorite quotes from her. She said, I've learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. And I've come to find that whatever context we're in, what we do, and what we say, that's like, the tools that we're working with, but creating the experience of how people feel is what drives us all in any context.

Heather Bayer
And of course, that is so relevant to our industry. And we talk about the guest experience all the time, and that's what we want. We want to make people feel amazing. Then the way to do that is just as you've said, you know, just be so knowledgeable about what goes in to making all that happen that it comes across as a completely seamless experience.

Jeff Bartsch
It's almost like you're thinking about any context that we go into. It has the core elements. It has the cake. You have to put all the elements, all the ingredients, have to be there, and they have to be put together in the right way so that you can actually make a decent cake. But in any context, there's also the frosting. What is the extra? What makes this cake be amazing? What makes it go over the top? And that is equally applicable when you're talking about my background, in my time back in LA - which I never actually answered - how I got to Cleveland, I'll get to that in a second. But within the context of making TV, you can have just a regular piece of content. How do you elevate it to that upper level?

Jeff Bartsch
And the same thing when you are preparing a property or when you're putting a property on a market so people will come and experience it. How do you make that into an experience that people truly remember? And those kinds of experiences are what might feel intangible and squishy, but those feelings translate into revenue, they translate into bookings. They translate into higher average daily rates. They translate into higher occupancy. You name it. It all goes back to feelings.

Heather Bayer
I love the way you put that. Well, how do we get those.... Oh, before we get into that, how did you get to Cleveland?

Jeff Bartsch
Okay, so talking about the technicalities of things, everyone said that what we do in television absolutely required everyone to be physically present. It cannot be done remotely. It will never happen. It cannot be done. Along comes 2020 and says, here, hold my beer. You know? And they say, well, it's time to figure it out now, so do it, and people will figure it out. And that allowed me to no longer be physically required to be in Los Angeles. And we moved to northeast Ohio, to the Cleveland area to be closer to my wife's family.

Heather Bayer
So you're still working within that industry?

Jeff Bartsch
I occasionally still do client work with different production companies in that industry. In fact, I just locked myself in for another engagement for a show on NBC called American Ninja Warrior. It's going into season 17. It's one of my favorite television shows I've ever worked on. I've worked on it for a very long time, and I love, love, love the stories I get to tell with them. I also do that alongside my consulting work within the accounting industry in terms of...., and people say, how on earth did that happen?

Heather Bayer
I was going to ask that question.

Jeff Bartsch
Along the time when I was first learning about television, I started learning about online business building and coaching, and I started professional coaching that started within the entertainment industry. It expanded to business experts and consultants on their communication skills. And there was a time when an accounting company said, we have in-house experts that we want to....., they need to become excellent, confident communicators, but they are mumbly accountants. Please help us. Can you do this? And I said, yes, I can. So worked with that company and many different people within that company, and I've been focusing exclusively with communication strategy and communication coaching within the accounting industry ever since.

Jeff Bartsch
To my point that I made earlier, I thought Hollywood was just about TV and movies. It is about the ideas. It is about the emotions and the concepts that drive the feelings underneath them. That applies to accounting and that most definitely applies to short-term rentals.

Heather Bayer
It does indeed. So let's move into talking about how storytelling just contributes to those feelings. Because it's easy for somebody who's thinking about going on vacation. They go to Airbnb, say they go to a listing, they like what they see, they click the book now button, and off they go. And there's a lot of people who are more than happy to do that. There's an equally large number of people who want more than that. They want some form of authenticity about where they're going. It's not just a pinpoint on a map. They're going to a place, a location. They want to experience everything about that, and they cannot find that information just simply by instant booking on an OTA platform. And these are the people that we are trying to reach, the people that want these more authentic travel experiences to learn about the locations, and storytelling is all about how we get that information that we as property managers and hosts know about, you know, where we live and where we've grown up and where we've bought our holiday home and to be able to share that with these guests. So talk a little bit more about what story actually is.

Heather Bayer
I mean, your company is called...., the company where you're helping and coaching accountants is called Story Greenlight. So I think I'm going to ask you to explain that first, how we got that name. And then I want you to talk about story itself. What is it? And how we can adapt and we can take this on board ourselves to create something special for our guests.

Jeff Bartsch
Sure. Well, originally, when I first thought about the concept, when I first named the company Story Greenlight, at the time, I thought that story was the whole point. I have since realized that story is not the whole point. Story is a vehicle. We'll get to that in a second. I mean, we've already kind of been talking about that a little bit, but story is something inherently human. It is one of the primal forms of communication that we do. So it's almost impossible to engage in any kind of human communication at all without the concepts that drive story coming into play.

Jeff Bartsch
So I'll put a pin in that for a second, because story is not what most people think it is, at least not in its full sense. Then in terms of the Greenlight, a lot of people might have heard of the term green light in terms of a stamp of approval or the idea of a thumbs up to say, yes, let's go do this. And for many, many decades, people have been coming to Hollywood, going to a TV network or a movie studio, saying, hey, I have a story to tell. Will you please give me permission to tell my story with your resources, with your soundstage, with your crews and technicians and creatives, and your distribution platform, and please let me tell my story. Will you give me permission? And the executive said, why? Well, okay. Well, all right. Most people would say no, but for you, we will say yes, here, sign this incredibly limiting contract, and we will make most of the money. And most storytellers say yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Can I have another?

Jeff Bartsch
So the fact of the matter is, the world has clearly changed to the point where anyone who has a phone now has a production studio in their pocket, and anyone who has access to the Internet has the distribution platform. So the question is no longer do I have permission to say what I want to say. The question is, now what do I say? How do I say it? Where do I say it, and why do I say it? And all of a sudden, you have people who are confronted with these questions that are far bigger than they might have ever considered. And so those are the kind of things that we talk about. Story Greenlight, what you say, how you say it, and where you say it.

Jeff Bartsch
And in the business context, why does this matter? How does this help business? How does this help our clients and our customers get what they want? So that's the idea of Story Greenlight within the name of the company. But the thing that I want to point out at the very beginning is story is not what people necessarily think it is, because you say the word story and a lot of people say, oh, well, that's the thing that we, you know, you do over the water cooler, whether in person, or digitally remote water cooler kind of thing, and you say, hey, here's what happened over the weekend and that kind of thing. And you share an anecdote. That is what I refer to as a tactical story.

Jeff Bartsch
We have all heard tactical stories told well, and we've all heard tactical stories told badly. And people think that, oh well, it's just something you're born with, because the people who tell stories really well, they just make it seem effortless. They must have some talent that they're born with, and the fact is, this is not. Anyone who's a master at something makes it look easy.  Storytelling is based on frameworks and ideas and skills. Frameworks and ideas and skills can be learned by anyone, full stop. So if you want to learn how to become a communicator through storytelling, you absolutely can. End of story right there.

Jeff Bartsch
The bigger picture, the reason why tactical stories either work or don't work, is based on what I refer to as the strategic storytelling forces, which operate at the big picture at 40,000ft. And it all starts where I take all of my clients. We always start at the place of what a story is. I use this definition that I've expanded from some early writings by Donald Miller. And I say that a story is where a character wants something, overcomes obstacles to get it, and experiences transformation as a result. Now, if you're listening to this or watching this, and you have the opportunity to hit the back, the 50 or 30 second back button, and just write that down and put it up on your wall. I guarantee if you put that [up on your wall] and you get that into your brain, it will change the way how you communicate with anyone, anywhere, for any reason, ever, period. And if it sounds like I'm exaggerating, I promise you I'm not.

Jeff Bartsch
But when you think about it, you have this idea of a character who wants something, overcomes obstacles to get it, and experiences transformation as a result. You have the ideas of identity, you have desire, you have obstacles, and you have change. We're all looking for change into the world, and whether we're looking for that for our businesses, or for our owners, or for our hosts, or for our guests. So, as you could guess, I could talk about this for a very long time. So I'll stop talking now. What are any reactions so far?

Heather Bayer
Okay. So coming back to that core definition, just tell me again.

Jeff Bartsch
Okay, so the core definition of what a story is, is a character who wants something, overcomes obstacles to get it.

Heather Bayer
Okay. Yeah.

Jeff Bartsch
And experiences transformation as a result.

Heather Bayer
I was jumping ahead from there. So I can see that our, you know, our guest, you know, is the character that wants something. And the.....

Jeff Bartsch
Or depending on the context, if you are a management company looking to take on a new property and you're engaging with the owner, maybe they're the character. Maybe they're the character in this.

Heather Bayer
Right. So it's anybody, really, that you deal with. I mean, in our organization, in the Vacation Rental Formula Business School, on our THRIVE program, we talk about our key stakeholders, which are our guests, our owners, the community, and the team.

Jeff Bartsch
Okay.

Heather Bayer
So it seems that each one of these can be..... Each one of these stakeholders can be addressed by this core framework.

Jeff Bartsch
100%. Absolutely. So the challenge with these kinds of ideas is they're so big picture and they're so strategic in nature, it's easy to say, okay, well that's nice, but how do you actually put this into use? So let's start digging down here. What context do you want to go to first?

Heather Bayer
I would like to go to the context that I think a lot of property managers are struggling with at the moment in this current market. We've been through COVID. We went through some very, just massively busy years in 2020 and 2021, to a degree, in 2022, and then it's begun to wind down. And what's happened is that there is a mass, or there was saturation in the market. A lot of people went out at the end of COVID and saw that this was a great market to be in. So they bought properties and they put them on the rental market, which in some areas, just doubled the inventory, the supply. And now there is this massive saturation in so many areas. And at the same time, the economy has stretched people's ability to take vacations like they used to.

Heather Bayer
The 'revenge travel' is beginning to wind down a little bit, and people are settling back into pre-COVID style of living, I guess. But the thing is, is that pre-COVID, there were half the amount, or probably way less than half the amount of available properties that there are now. So that's a long way of saying that property managers are struggling because of saturation, because of not as many guests as they would like to have. So they need to find ways to differentiate. So that was a long way round saying that these property managers are looking for differentiation. How do they do this by using story?

Jeff Bartsch
Number one answer is know your ideal client. You cannot say, we will rent this property to anyone. I know that might sound like heresy to some people, but if you say, we are for everyone, look at this amazing property, it's good for everyone. People who have specific needs.... Well, first of all, people who are just looking for a property in general, they have no way of knowing that your property is any different, or in any way unique from anything else. If that's all you say is, we're great for everyone. However, if you say we are the perfect property for you, if you are ??????, fill in the blank.

Jeff Bartsch
I've heard some of your conversations on some of your episodes. So if you love your pets and you need to have a pet with you, say you have a service dog. Say you have two service dogs. And most properties are, you know, properties might be okay with one animal, but hardly any of them would ever be okay with two, even if they're highly trained. Just as, if you have any kind of special needs, mobility, access, if you have any specific interests, if you're specifically going to this place because you want to catch the World Series or some of my family members are coming in, they live on the other side of the world, but they are actually coming to visit family here. And while they're here, they're taking in some soccer games, which the rest of the world knows as football. But here in the US, you know, we call it soccer.

Heather Bayer
It's footy to us.

Jeff Bartsch
Okay, footy. So all that. And so if they specifically are looking for this property because they want to catch the footy game, when you are able to present your property in a specific way for a specific person who says, I specifically want this for this reason, these are the things that I want. I'm the character and I want these things, also by the way, we do not want those things. It's a whole other angle you can approach things from too. That is how you say, okay, this is how you start to differentiate your property. And this is all, just to throw this for one of the overall themes that I'd like to people to be able to take away. When you use strategic storytelling, you can use the power of story in your communication without ever telling a tactical story at all. Now, tactical storytelling, the way that we most normally understand it, is an incredibly powerful tool, but it doesn't even have to be anything that you do necessarily. It can be, but it doesn't have to be.

Heather Bayer
So just come back to this whole idea of tactical storytelling again. So give me that differentiation in the terms of this property manager offering something that's not the same as their competitors. How did they approach this from both a tactical and a strategic story place?

Jeff Bartsch
Yeah. So when you're wanting to present a property, for instance. When you are able to have a very specific audience in mind, you can take elements of..... Well, that is the strategic view of storytelling, by knowing who they are, knowing what they want, offering them what they want, and so that they get the change in their life that they're looking for, that experience, that perfect property, etc. That is the strategic element of these things. If you happen to use tactical versions of storytelling, as in the obvious places on your about page, who are you? Why did we get into this? What do we care about? And, what do we want to see happen with people who come to our properties? That's where you can put a tactical story in there. However, you can even take this in terms of saying a tactical story, attaching that to a specific property, in the property description. Instead of just being like everyone else, who says, these are all the features, this is the neighborhood. Even if you have a short couple of sentences about something unique about the neighborhood, how the neighborhood was set up.

Jeff Bartsch
I don't know. Maybe there's a museum set up nearby, and the neighborhood used to be connected to the owner of the museum. And so, you know, you can mention that within that, because that helps start to give some character of this specific property within a specific neighborhood. If that makes sense to the property, then that's how you can start weaving a small version of tactical storytelling, when you keep that strategic picture in mind of who your audience is and what they want.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, there's a number of people who do this so well. I interviewed recently Lorraine Woodward from a company called..., it's a listing site called Becoming RentABLE. And that is, you know, it's all accessible accommodation. So that is specifically aimed, so that's strategic way, it's aiming that at the people that...., and she talks about accessibility, not just  having a ramp and some grab bars in a shower, but talking about the neighborhood and how you can access around the neighborhood. But also talking about different types of disabilities that her guests may have, you know, maybe it's older people who need more lighting inside a property. And just mentioning that, mentioning how wonderful it would be to sit in this beautiful reading chair, which is well lit. I mean, that to me, if I was in that position of perhaps being partially sighted or having some sight issues, that would speak right to me, because that's what I want. I want to be able to sit and read a book and not have to worry about lighting and having overhead, harsh lighting on. So that's just one. Is that one good example?

Jeff Bartsch
Absolutely. I mean, and even one of the big things that happens, I actually heard a good chunk of that conversation talking about [Becoming] RentABLE. And just the idea of, there are a lot of people who don't know that disabilities or alternative 'ablement' is not just, are you in a wheelchair or not? There is the mental and psychological side of things, and there are other versions of physical challenges. I mean, when even just saying we've hosted people with all ranges of physical levels of ablement, and here's how we've adjusted our property to be a welcoming place for you. That right there is strategic, it is strategically placed communication, that is not a tactical story, but it actually speaks to the strategic desire of what people want. And it can also function as an idea of education, because a lot of people, they may not even know that these different levels of ability or ablement even exist. So I think one of the things that just came to mind, as you're saying that, was a lot of the times when you look at a property listing, so much of it is focused around features.

Jeff Bartsch
One of the core concepts in marketing is to say, okay, features are important, but what are the benefits? What's the 'So What?' What does this mean? What does this make possible? I think a very powerful way to communicate these bigger picture strategic desires is to say, when you're talking about your listing, reading nook, beautifully well lit, dimmable light sources so that you can have as much, or as little light for your reading experience as you like. It's not just, we have a reading nook with a lamp.

Heather Bayer
Yes.

Jeff Bartsch
How does this help you get what you want?

Heather Bayer
Yeah, I love that. I love that. Once again, a story in itself, because you just imagine yourself being there and sitting and doing that thing that you like to do on vacation.

Heather Bayer
So we've been talking a bit about communicating more at a surface level. I want to talk about, how do you connect with an audience's deeper emotions, their deeper needs, about a location, about visiting somewhere they've never visited before.

Jeff Bartsch
Right. So one of the core concepts I talk about with my clients is an idea called the thing under the thing. And one of the easiest ways to imagine this is the classic idea of an iceberg. And you see an iceberg in the ocean, and you say, Oh look, there's an iceberg that's floating on top of the ocean. But what you don't see is that the true bulk, the mass of this enormous iceberg, is all hidden under the surface. And what happens is, people tend to talk about things that are obvious, things that are surface level. People talk about the features of the, you know, the benefits of the property in this context. But if you actually go down below the surface and you know who your audience is, and you know the things that they care about, or you have done the homework to ask the questions about what they care about, you will find that they have made attachments from the surface level things to the deeply rooted things that they really, really care about.

Jeff Bartsch
Another example of this, completely outside the rental home world you know. In Hollywood, there's a district that has stars on the sidewalk. It's known as the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And most people in Los Angeles stay away from it, because it's covered with tourists most of the time. But there are some people among the thousands and thousands of people who come to Los Angeles, with a dream in their heart. They walk on that sidewalk, and they look at the names of the people on those stars, and they say, Wow, that person did it. That person became a star. This person did it. This person did it. If they did it, I can do it, too. And so for them, they're walking on that same surface level thing. They're walking on a sidewalk with some decorations on it, but that sidewalk represents to them their own dreams.

Jeff Bartsch
It's equally possible that someone has been in Hollywood for five years or ten years, and they've been banging their head against the wall. They've not achieved their dreams, and they can then, at that point, after banging their head against the wall and being rejected over and over and over and over and over, they walk on that same sidewalk. And that sidewalk is no longer connected to the idea of dreams that are possible. It's the dreams that have been shattered. So those ideas, it's the same surface. It's the thing that's connected to completely different things under the thing. They can be completely different depending on who the person is and what they care about, which is why it's so important.

Jeff Bartsch
Bringing it about, bringing it back to our context here. You must know who you're talking to. You must know what they care about, because when you can talk about this house, it's a row house in the historical district of Philadelphia, where the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. If someone deeply cares about the history of the United States, you will trigger emotional connections with those people by saying, this property is here, where it all happened. All these things happen right here. You can be right in the middle of the history. You can participate in the history of your country. That is a deeply, deeply emotional element that you can attach to that property that you would never have gotten if you would have just said, it's close to the Liberty Bell.

Jeff Bartsch
It's, you know, it's in downtown Philadelphia. Not much street parking. Good luck with that. You know, just whatever. But the bigger point is, when you can know who your person is, what they care about, and you can make a reference to those deeper level things within the pictures of your property. The exterior, the interior, some of the details of the property. If you can, even drop a couple sentences or even a phrase here or there, talking about the history or the cultural relevance or the style of what's there, all of a sudden you have the possibility of tapping into those deeply held emotional desires that are already there in your clients.

Heather Bayer
When I was running my property management company, we had a gorgeous little cottage, and it was very..... It was pretty basic, but it sat on a little spit of land, so it had water on three sides, and you'd sit in the dining room, and all you had was..... It was like being in a boat. You had water on three sides. All our properties were waterfront, every single one of them. And, in fact, you know, anybody looking to rent a property in Ontario was looking for a property on the water. So it really didn't distinguish itself from any others apart from we could say it's like sitting on a boat. But what it did have, and first thing when I went to look at this property, on the wall there were some photos that were taken way back in the 19....., I can't remember now, 1930s, 1940s, of people enjoying their time at this cottage. Very early photos. But it wasn't just people. This was the founder of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey [team].

Jeff Bartsch
Ooh.

Heather Bayer
And.

Jeff Bartsch
Okay, keep going.

Heather Bayer
And it was, and I probably got my timings wrong, my dates wrong, but it was whatever. At that time was when the Maple Leafs was founded, the owner would bring...., I believe he owned the cottage, and he would bring his friends, and that's where they talked about starting this hockey team. That's what we hooked into.

Jeff Bartsch
That is genius.

Heather Bayer
Not so much the water on three sides, but this one photograph. And people would come because it had that connection.

Jeff Bartsch
So what did people say?

Heather Bayer
Well, yeah, I mean, if you know anything about the Maple Leafs, you know, it's been a long time since they won the Stanley Cup. Yeah we had a lot of jokes about that, but people would come because it had that historical story. It had history, and that's what we tried to seek in a lot of properties that were older, that really didn't have much going for them, apart from water, which is just like everybody else's water. Yeah, but we would seek out the stories. The first people that bought it, was it your grandfather that emigrated? And the first thing they did was build this cottage on a lake, because that was the story that drove the marketing.

Jeff Bartsch
Yeah. Beautiful.

Heather Bayer
And we had quite a few of those. We had one property, it was a beautiful stone place, but the original story was that the cottage was brought to the location on a horse drawn cart.

Jeff Bartsch
What!

Heather Bayer
The original cabin was towed to this place on a horse drawn cart.

Jeff Bartsch
That's amazing.

Heather Bayer
And then the stonework was all built around it, but it still had those original features, and they had photos of this cabin on the back of this cart.

Jeff Bartsch
That is so cool.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, I just love that. I mean, that to me is using story to create that picture and to actually get to the emotions and memories of people who are coming.

Jeff Bartsch
And again, it's not just, this is something that's nice to have because it's a cool little story. These are things that make your property stand out, and it makes people pick your property instead of the other one, which means more revenue for your property. So, it's easy to sleep on these ideas and to think, oh well, this is nice, and it's not a big deal, and I need to refresh my data feed from AirDNA and make sure my dynamic pricing is up to snuff. Yes, that's part of the cake, but the experience of what is being delivered through the property, what people want, what people expect, how you are delivering on their expectations, and how you are creating memories for them, that is what sets properties apart in a unique and special way.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, that's perfect. Just as we're coming up to our time, I've got loads more questions, but I'm not going to get through them all. But I wanted to come to this particular one, which was about thought leaders. How can rental managers leverage storytelling to position themselves as thought leaders in their location? Because that is one thing that can set them apart. And I know of many who have done exactly this. They understand their community, and they share that through their storytelling about what happens in the community and how long they've been there and why they chose it in the first place. So just finish off, Jeff, by sort of linking into what you're doing with your current accountancy audience, helping them become thought leaders. How can thought leaders be generated in this industry using these same tactics?

Jeff Bartsch
Sure. Well, within the accounting world, a lot of the clients that I'm working with are focusing on how do they communicate in a way that creates the client-advisor relationship. And a lot of people are surprised when I ask them and say, have you ever thought of yourself as a thought leader? They say, Oh, no, no. I don't have a Wall Street Journal or New York Times best selling book. I'm not standing on a TED talk stage, and I have no desire to.... just keep me away. And I say, What if, when you are engaging with a one-on-one conversation with a client and you're helping them see the world differently, what if that was thought leadership right there? What if it was you offering new ideas or perspectives to your clients or within a broader business context, your stakeholders or your potential clients or, you know, just whoever. When you are offering a new way of thinking, people, you are already being a thought leader. So the question is, how well are you doing at that? Because the bigger point is that thought leadership can actually be seen as a continuum, goes from one-on-one conversations all the way up to the one-to-many, thousands, millions, whatever.

Jeff Bartsch
It's all part of that within our context here. When you stand up, kind of what we were talking about before we hit record here, when you talk about the OTAs saying, we have 87 million listings here, we're the monsters in the room, and you say, Well, okay, well, we don't know where this property is. What's the neighborhood like, what's there, what's not there? When you, as a manager, or an independent host, or independent owner, can stand up and say, hey, I know the neighborhood. I know what the history is. I know what's happening here. I know what it's like. What do you want to know about this? Here are some answers to your questions. You can do this, you can stand up, and you can differentiate yourself as a thought leader within your region, within your neighborhood, within your city and say, the big guys don't know about this stuff. Let me give you the real inside scoop. Here's why this neighborhood is so cool, and here's why you need to stay here.

Jeff Bartsch
And that can show up in one-on-one conversations, that can show up with you on social media, that can just show up on your about page, on your website and work through all your website. It can go anywhere you want. But it starts by thinking of, hey, there's a different perspective that's available for you, and you can be better off if you see the world in a new way.

Heather Bayer
I love that. I love that. And that is a great point where we will wrap this up. Jeff, I think that you've done an amazing job sharing your story about story. Where can the people who are listening get hold of you? Where can they get in touch with you?

Jeff Bartsch
Well, if you're listening to what we're talking about and you like the ideas and you're looking to say, Okay, tell me more. How do these ideas fit on top of themselves? I actually have a select group of podcast episodes that, for the record, is targeted specifically towards the world of accounting. However, the ideas are absolutely applicable towards the context that we've been talking about here. You can learn about those ideas and how they all stack on top of each other. If you go to storygreenlight.com/vrs, as in Vacation Rental Success, go to storygreenlight.com/vrs. And if you are in a place where you saying, you know what, this is important. I would like more help personalizing these ideas for myself, for my people, for my team, for whatever stakeholders I have. There's a way for a complimentary, no strings attached consultation one-on-one with me at that URL. And it would be my gift to you as a listener to this podcast so that can be found at storygreenlight.com/vrs.

Heather Bayer
That is an amazing offer, Jeff. Thank you so much for sharing that. I will see you tomorrow in our mastermind, bright and early. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show and having you share your knowledge of communications and storytelling, and you've told some great stories. So thank you. I really appreciate you.

Jeff Bartsch
Huge appreciation for you, Heather. Thank you.

Heather Bayer
Thank you so much Jeff Bartsch from Story Greenlight. I really loved that conversation. We've talked about story before, but not so much in-depth as we did there. So, you know, I definitely encourage you to go check out Story Greenlight, go and check out some of Jeff's podcast episodes, and go get a complimentary consultation with him as well, because he's got a really nice voice, so it's very nice to listen to, and he really knows his stuff.

Heather Bayer
So that's it for another week. I hope you have enjoyed this as much as I did, and I look forward to being back with you again next time.

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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