Heather Bayer
I am super delighted to have back with me once again, David Angotti, the Chief Evangelist at Guesty. It's only been a few weeks, David, but always an absolute pleasure to have you with me.

David Angotti
Thanks for having me, Heather. Glad to be back again.

Heather Bayer
Well, this is just the great kickoff for SSTIR Crazy Month, and we're super happy, delighted, excited that this is finally getting off the ground. And you are the perfect person to come along and share your thoughts, because as we go through this month, we're talking about this fictional, although it's becoming more real to me every day, this fictional company Stay Wise Rentals, that is going through so many issues at the moment. But it's been growing over time and they have a tech stack in place and this is something that over the next five weeks, they're going to be looking at their tech stack. Which is why I wanted to kick off with you, because we want to talk about property management systems and property management software, because this is the core of the business. But before we do that, David, let's start off by you just giving me a quick temperature check on the vacation rental industry at the moment. Where are we now?

David Angotti
Each year, it feels like property managers at this time of year, hosts at this time of year, have goals. They have goals that they're already starting to hit, or maybe they've already given up on, even at this point. And what we're hearing in almost every conversation I have with property managers, with hosts, is how do I maximize revenue this year? How do I make sure my listing stands out this year?

David Angotti
I'm a little bit concerned as we head into booking season, it may not be peak season yet, but in the booking season on more exposure and booking starting to flow in so I don't upset owners, because we all know if there's not bookings on the calendar, the owners aren't afraid to reach out to us. And so this is a conversation that I'm having over and over again already is basically, how do I pump up the revenue? How do I pump up the bookings coming into my listings at this time of year for the purpose of profitability and stability?

Heather Bayer
Well, back in my early days as a property manager, I never even considered the thought that the booking system, we didn't call it property management software at the time, but the booking system we were using had these capabilities to do anything bar just recording a booking and collecting the money and paying out to the owner. We didn't even think beyond that. That's something we're going to go into now, because it has changed so dramatically over those years, and the PMS is such an integral part of a property management company now.

Heather Bayer
Let's talk about transitioning between property management systems, because over the years as a property manager, we did it twice. We started out with, as many did, way back 25 years ago with everything on paper and Excel spreadsheets, and that's what we use quite well. We used fax machines. For those of you out there who don't know what a fax machine is, you put a piece of paper in it, it comes out at the other end somehow, magically. So we started with that very clunky system, and it worked fine till we were at about 30 properties, and then we realized that this is not scalable in any way.

Heather Bayer
So we made one change, and then several years later, we made another change. Both those times, it was agonizing. It was so difficult to do, and it is a daunting thing. But I've shared my experience at why I thought it was time to switch systems, where do you sit on this one? When is it time for a property manager to even start considering it?

David Angotti
There's a lot of what we call switch signals that exist, and you actually just identified one of the early ones there. You said, Hey, we grew to this size, and what we had wasn't really working anymore. That's one of the switch signals that we see oftentimes. Somebody's with a property management software or a booking tool that maybe was okay when they had one listing or five listings, but they've outgrown it. And that's okay. It's not saying anything bad about those solutions. But we see that switch signal start to really be emphasized and to be more painful around 10 listings.

David Angotti
And so if you start with one listing and you choose a software with one listing, what you need with one listing is completely It's really different than what you need with 10. And by the time you get to 30, you're really getting stressed. So you just said you got to 30, so it was probably at that point, we have to find something else and right away, because really, the property management software is the hub for the entire business, and it needs to be able to handle a lot of individual tasks really, really well. It's almost like a symphony, there's these individual instruments that are all playing together to create the song of the operations, and the distribution, and the revenue, and this piece, and that piece.

David Angotti
But you mentioned the pain of a switch, and there is some amount of pain to switching software. That's just inevitable. And what our job is, as the property management software, is really to reduce that pain for anybody that's thinking about switching. And we have different ways, and we can talk about that we're on that we reduce the pain. But if that's our job, your job as the property manager is to make sure you have buy-in from your team and know why you're switching, and that your team knows why you're switching. Because if you're just switching because you walked a trade show, and you saw a shiny button on a new software, that's the wrong reason. There has to be a solid reason to switch that everybody on the team understands and can coalesce behind, because there is going to be some work required out of team members just to learn the new software. And we will come back onto the razzle-dazzle of trade shows and bells and whistles a bit later on.

Heather Bayer
But what are some of these key signs that are perhaps aside from seeing the snazzy booths?

David Angotti
Yeah, so we can actually give you the document we've prepared with the switch signals, it's like a quiz you can take and see, Hey, where am I measuring it up versus the industry, versus these features that maybe I should have?

David Angotti
But just speaking at a high level, are you happy with your overall distribution today? Do you wish you could reach a wider audience when you look at the distribution channels that are available to you? And then are you happy with your rank on those different channels? Do you wish you were higher on Vrbo or Airbnb. And another signal that's oftentimes a time to say, Hey, let's really evaluate this, is, are you happy with the different apps that are available in the marketplace of your software? Or maybe you want to build one on top? Do you have that capability to do that today?

David Angotti
Ultimately, most of these are going to focus around a couple of things. One, are you good with the revenue that's coming in today? Or do you need wider distribution with better rankings? Then you also have operations. Are there efficiencies, where if those efficiencies were present, that you would be able to do more as property managers or just team members?

David Angotti
And then basically, I would say another big one is, what do the operations look like? Are you able to know where things stand in all of your units at any given time? But we have our whole list of these, and we'll put the document maybe in the Show Notes or wherever we can get it out to your audience.

Heather Bayer
That would be fantastic. I'll make sure the link to that is in the Show Notes.

Heather Bayer
You mentioned something that really impacted us and was probably one of the key signs for us, and that was efficiencies. When we were spending all our time doing manual work, possibly because we weren't using the software to its maximum. I think this is a discussion we've had before, that often companies, after they've onboarded with a company with a PMS, they lose sight of all those bells and whistles that actually attracted them in the first place and never get into using them and end up doing stuff manually that is built into the PMS. We did that for years with our PMS. We were just inefficient with it. When we went looking for the efficiencies, they weren't there. Whereas they may be with some of the better systems, they certainly weren't with the one that we were using at the time.

Heather Bayer
I want to move on because it's something else you said about the team. And I know I was as guilty of this as I'm sure many of our listeners are, is going to VRMA, going around the exhibition hall, coming back, and just being so full of that post-conference enthusiasm and excitement and going, Okay, we're going to do this, this, and this. I've seen this. It's so exciting. It's brilliant. We're going to make some changes.

Heather Bayer
My operations manager sitting there going, Not again. You could almost see the cloud over her head going, I don't want to be doing this again. What's the purpose? Why are we doing this? From your experience, what role does team readiness play in ensuring this successful transition? I mean, the transition from actually where we are now to even thinking about going somewhere new, doing something else. And how can leaders prepare their teams for this? And I'm sure it's a better way than arriving back on a Thursday morning from VRMA and saying, okay, folks, wait for it. We're about to make some big changes.

David Angotti
Yeah, so I don't really think about this like it's a vote and we're a democracy, and everybody gets their vote. Then ultimately, if that happens, maybe half the team is disappointed in this decision. That's not how I think about it. I think you said the key word, leader. And there should be a leader in your company that can take this decision and really be the person that owns the decision, but also gets buy-in from others. And that person had better understand how the decision of switching software is going to benefit each of the stakeholders within their business, because there will be some pain in changing software. That's inevitable.

David Angotti
Now, you want to make sure you're dealing with a property management software that has an excellent track record of completing onboarding and getting people live. That's a question that I would definitely be asking the salespeople on the floor and asking around to your colleagues in the industry. We do have that, it's over 90% at Guesty. That's something that's an important metric that you do want to know. The other piece of this, and I think this is built in, when the leader has the mentality of, Okay, I need to understand why this benefits a reservationist, why this benefits a housekeeping manager or revenue manager?

David Angotti
All of a sudden, when you take ownership of really being the person that pushes this forward in your organization, you have to research this decision quite a bit more. It doesn't become one of those, Hey, I'm walking to the trade show floor. That shiny object catches my eye. I'm signing on the dotted line. Let's go live. All of a sudden, it becomes this, okay, how does this legitimately benefit each aspect of the business, because I'm going to take that back to my organization, and I'm going to talk to them about these native apps that are built in, or this marketplace with hundreds of apps available to my team. And I'm going to really speak to how that's going to shift our company on the whole and make us more productive and more profitable and our jobs more enjoyable and help us keep up with the times. And now it shifts from that shiny object to, I'm the leader, and as the leader, I'm going to tell the team and sell this to my internal team on every aspect of this software. And to do that, you have to understand what you're buying.

Heather Bayer
That is so true. And I think I was once again, guilty of this, not really understanding what I was buying. And now with the change in what's included in software, I'm not sure I could go back and really understand it fully from a simple discussion on a trade show floor.

Heather Bayer
Let's just shift onto that a little bit. What does good software actually do now? We're talking about going from a lot of companies surviving in this industry right now. It's difficult times for everybody. You're surviving. There was a post by Simon Lehman on LinkedIn this morning just talking about the razor-thin margins that most property management companies are operating within now. So let's talk about going from surviving to thriving. What is the answer to that, and how can a good PMS fit into that?

David Angotti
The sad part to this answer is, I don't have a magic bullet. There's not one magic bullet you get to fire, then you're good. It just doesn't work that way. I understand that's what everybody wants when it comes to anything unlike this. It's like, what's that magic bullet?

David Angotti
The reality is, this is going to take lots of hard work, whether you're with Guesty or anybody else. But what you don't want is extra hard work. You don't want resistance against your team to accomplish the things you have to do over and over and over again. So what does this look like? Well, I think of software, specifically property management software, needs to serve three sets of people. And how well are we going to serve those three sets of people? Those are, of course, the guests, the owners, and our teams. And so as we start to think about that, there ought to be things that this software empowers my team to do in each of those areas. And so if we're thinking about the guests, how do we reach the maximum number of guests? How do we minimize their frustrations as their booking a property on our own website or on a third party channel?

David Angotti
How do we make sure that there aren't double bookings and things like that, which actually starts to hurt all three categories? And so we think about something like, just as simple as one category, like guests. And all of a sudden, we start to see that has far and wide reach. It's housekeeping, it's review management, it's the CRM, it's pricing, it's everything baked in to even how do we take good care of our guests. And what you'll start to see is there's this crossover between each of those three types of stakeholders in the business. And so at a high level, I want to take really great care of each of those different stakeholder And then what I also want to do is eliminate busy work, eliminate the manual work, and maximize and amplify my team. This isn't here to say, Hey, we're going to get rid of all of our team members. This is to free up those team members to be more empowered to go forth and deliver incredible experiences to guests, instead of manually copy one cell on this spreadsheet over to this place over here.

David Angotti
I never want somebody copying and pasting or doing that type of thing if we can eliminate it, I want rather to empower them. Maybe we automate some messages that seem highly personable. And then when the guest responds, those flow back into my team. So now basically, we've automated the process that could break, like remembering to reach out to the guests, How is everything so far? And then we've left it to the humans to actually deliver the exceptional experience when the guest tells us what we can do to make their  experience better. And so that's how I'm thinking about this. How do these three pieces fit together? Our owners, our guests, our employees. And how do we use the software to eliminate manual tasks, maximize revenue, of course, but then also deliver these exceptional experiences to the guest?

Heather Bayer
What about revenue, David? Because back when I was looking at new software, there were a lot of them who were telling me, I could increase your revenue. And as I said earlier, going back to my origins, I didn't think a software could help me increase revenue. I mean, to me, it was there to do this one job and make my life easier in that. But clearly, the revenue building side of it is a big part now.

David Angotti
Yeah, so when I think revenue, this breaks down a few ways. One, we have to have the right price. There have been lots of studies done on this, a little bit over market prices, and you can lose as much as half of your bookings just from being just slightly over what the market is, especially if you're a commoditizer rental with the same two bedroom, two bath condo that everybody else has, and you don't have a differentiation. It does not take much above market to just start to see all of your bookings fall away. So we have to get the right price. That's like the ticket to enter into this conversation is right pricing. At this point, I think we're past like, hey, do we need dynamic pricing? Everybody pretty much agrees. And if not, we can have a sidebar conversation on that later. So once you decide, Okay, I need a pricing tool, I would say that there are big benefits to using a tool like Guesty Price Optimizer that's actually natively embedded into your software, also has access to native data on hundreds of thousands of listings, and from something like that, it just becomes this seamless pricing tool that's easier to work with. It's built right in. It's not a separate login for your team. It's not clunky to work with. So there's a lot of advantages to that.

David Angotti
But once we get the pricing right, which we have to get pricing right, then it boils down to how do we distribute the properties, the prices, everything to a channel. And the higher the quality of that distribution, the better the property will perform on that channel. This isn't market science. Airbnb is not a nonprofit, and neither is Vrbo. They're looking to actually create bookings because they take a share of those bookings. And so they have measurements on how does this property management software, this technology partner, do at distributing to us? And so you can go look at those.

David Angotti
I'll save your listeners the work. Across the board, we're top tier rankings on all of the big OTAs. But once you've distributed to an the OTA, and you've done it all right, now where you really want to next focus on is how many different OTAs? How many tertiary channels are there? How many primary channels are there? Can you get all of the OTAs? Because that's additional exposure. And on this, I would say there is a pretty solid formula that I've seen and that I've talked to a lot of people about. And that is you want approximately, in an ideal situation, 50% of your bookings coming from direct bookings, and 50% coming from four additional channels. And what you have when you do that is a reduction in risk to your business. And so even if you could maybe inch it up to 70% direct booking, which would be great, I would say instead, boost your rates, keep it at that 50-50, 50 from direct, 50 from these other four channels. And when you do that, you have business stability, you have higher ADRs, and everything just starts humming along from a revenue standpoint. But basically, how do we get to as many channels as possible, as high rankings as possible with the best pricing for that market is what I would be looking to do.

Heather Bayer
Well, I think you are convincing Sarah and Mike at Stay Wise Rentals that this is something that they really need to consider and go into more seriously. We'll be covering this over the course of the next five weeks as we go through some of the situations they're dealing with.

Heather Bayer
But I'm going to go back again to switching, because they are currently using another property management software that is clearly, as we'll see over the next few weeks, is not serving them well. What could you advise them in terms of common mistakes that perhaps property managers make during a switching process? How can they avoid those mistakes?

David Angotti
We've talked about one already, and that's just like walk on the trade show floor, you see the shiny object, you sign up, you don't really know what you're getting. You haven't done research ahead of time, you didn't ask the right questions at time of sign up. That's a big mistake that I see quite a few newer property managers make. Once you've made that mistake once, you're not going to make that again, but that is a mistake we see from time to time.

David Angotti
Another mistake that I definitely see property managers making is the temperature check, I'm putting my finger up in the air and seeing which way is the wind blowing today. And once they know that, they're like, Oh, I'm going to go with whatever everybody else is signing up for. That's probably not the right way to handle this. What's right for one company may be not right for the next, or there may be different reasons it's right for the next company. And those are important things to know, even if it's the same software, why are you signing up with them? So you can go back and represent it properly to the different decision makers in the business, as well as the different employees in the business.

David Angotti
And then to your point earlier, once everybody knows the advantage of switching, they're not going to forget about that little feature in the software and never actually use the feature that was the reason they switched, which I have heard about many times. So that's a big one.

David Angotti
I would also say, let's slow down our process of making decisions. Everybody's going to make big claims. And so these big claims can be around all kinds of things. And I'll give you an example. There could be a claim around funding. And the funding that a company receives, Guesty's received about half a billion dollars. That's a lot of money. And there's other companies that have received a lot of money. What have they done with the funding? That's the question. How many employees do you have? Because this funding could be used for R&D, or it could be used to clear an owner off the cap table [capitalization table]. Those are two different ways that it can be being used. One way creates a lot of features for the end user. The other creates no value for the end user, but a lot of value for the founder.

David Angotti
And so you want to think through things rather than just read this headline up. Oh, wow, there's a lot of funding. What did that funding buy you as a property manager? Because you really don't care if the founder just made a lot of money. You care, are there features being shipped? And I can tell you, we shipped hundreds of features last year, and 70% of those features had to do with what actual users were asking for. And so you want to know not the high, the big, bold headline at the top. Instead, you want to know what that big, bold headline at the top means to you and your business. Okay, maybe this is the top rated software. What does that mean to us? How does that apply in whatever market you happen to be operating in, whether that's Steamboat, Springs, Colorado, or Nashville, or Destin? There's different reasons that that headline matters to you and your business, I would say.

Heather Bayer
That's some really great points there. Wish you'd been around 10 years ago.

David Angotti
We were just starting out.

Heather Bayer
Well, I know that because we did the Vacation Rental Success Summit, as you know, because you keynoted it way back in 2016, and Guesty was our big sponsor there. They supported us from the very start. So this is rather nice, this circular thing we're going through at the moment.

David Angotti
It feels like it was meant to be. It is so funny you say that because that's actually, I believe the first time I met Amiad [Soto], our CEO was in Toronto at the VRSS Summit up there.

Heather Bayer
Yes, meant to be, as you say.

Heather Bayer
Let's talk about onboarding, because let's say Sarah and Mike are deciding that, yes, over the next five weeks, as this goes on, they're going to be thinking about making a switch. But they've never done this before. And I know from lots of experience that onboarding can be challenging, because I wasn't expecting it. It's a bit like selling my company. I wasn't quite expecting what I went through to sell my company until I got into the due diligence side of it. So in terms of onboarding with new software, what can property managers expect? What can Sarah and Mike expect when they go through this process?

David Angotti
Yeah, so the first thing with onboarding that I would caution anybody on is, don't rush this. This isn't something that you want to try to do in four days or push faster than really the time frames that the salesperson is telling you is the best possible time frame. Because really, you want to talk to end users that have actually gone through the process? How long did this take you? So for example, let's say another user of our software is like, Hey, it took about two months. Don't now go into it with the mindset of, Hey, my team's better. We're going to do it a little faster. We're going to do it in three weeks. Because you've talked to real end users. They've told you it takes this amount of time, and your salesperson is telling you it takes a certain amount of time. And if you rush it, what we've seen is that's where mistakes start to happen, either on our end or on your end, because there's work really required on both sides. It's a team project to make this go live and get the maximum value out of it, which is what we want.

David Angotti
So the perception is that switching up PMS is both time consuming and risky. And there's different risks to that, like, how does my team perceive this? But then there's also the risks of disruption to your operations and the importing of data into the new system? How does that work? Do we miss out on the opportunity for bookings? How does the listing map over from from Airbnb or another channel? So these are some of the traditional problems, if you will. So So Guesty has a brand new opportunity for property managers, where basically we allow them to stay live on their other PMS. So they're still live on that. They're still accepting bookings through the original PMS as they're going live with us. And so we do an import of data to create the listings, to create the calendars and the rates and everything in a risk-free environment. So they can check that before they ever go live again. And so what we've done with this new system is we've de-risked. It doesn't take all the work out of it, but we have taken out a lot of the work, call it 75% of the work, and we've removed nearly 100% of the risk with that turn off and turn back on that you have to have with the property management software changeover.

David Angotti
And so that's one of the things I'm most excited about in our onboarding is this new tool we've created. This is part of what having 300 developers and product managers on your team gives you, are features like this that allow you to have smoother changeover, smoother operations. And so this is something we're pretty proud of. It's the first one of its type in this entire industry.

Heather Bayer
I love this Sandbox idea so that you can check it out. Try before you buy, I suppose, except you probably have bought by then, but it's a try before you launch. And going back to one of my experiences, that was the issue we had on changeover day. The switch went and things weren't working. It did not work.

David Angotti
Yeah. So I wouldn't so much to think of it as a try before you buy or even... it is somewhat of a Sandbox environment. But what I would think of this as, what if we could get rid of the pain of importing all these listings over to the new software and importing the calendars over and these features over and all these things? What if we could get rid of that pain altogether? What if we could get rid of the risk on what happens when we turn this one off over here and turn this one on over here? What if we could de-risk that? And so I would think this as really a time... We're giving you back a ton of time, and then we're also taking away a ton of risk with this new tools. It's more of that than a sample that you're going to get of the software. It's this, how do we give you back time and take away the risk?

Heather Bayer
Yeah. So how can a property manager actually assess if that switch was worth the effort? Once they've gone through this, they've made the change. What metrics should they be tracking to ensure?... Because you get into that state of mind where you say, did I make the right decision? Was this the right thing to do? Because everything's different. Things are different than what it was like the previous week or the previous month. Have we made a mistake? That's the big one. But if you've got the metrics to track, that those are in place and you know what you're looking for, then that's going to ease the path, I'm quite sure. So what are those metrics?

David Angotti
Other than how you feel every day when you report to work and then you log into your software, because we do believe that there's intangibles like that. How somebody feels as they're using our software does matter to us. But if you're looking for the hard and the concrete, which I think is what you're getting at with this, it boils down to track that ADR, track the occupancy, and track the number of listings. These are the things that are going to really drive the revenue and results for your business more so than just about anything else.

David Angotti
We have tracked those things with different property managers that are switching over to us, and we're seeing positive metrics in each of those areas. And I would say we have skin in that game. We win if you sign more listings. We win if you retain owners. We win if you get more money per night. All of those things. We're in this together. And so we have this mutual relationship, this mutually beneficial relationship. And we care about the same KPIs you care about. And if you can track those KPIs and you see movement in those KPIs, then that's a winning formula. And you can be very, very confident in the switch.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. For some companies, and I know we were one of them for a great many years, it changed over the years, we didn't actually have KPIs. I'm not even sure I knew what they were when I started out in this business. So could you define a couple that smaller companies in particular should be looking at?

David Angotti
So basically the KPIs would be different for each role. At the top business level is revenue, year over year, revenue per listing, year over year. And then it comes down to the ADRs. How are those? Are they going up? Are they going down? What's your occupancy looking like? These are the ones that when you log into a dashboard, if you're an executive at the company you should be paying attention to. And we do have the whole Guesty Analytics Suite that can be modified to that individual role or that individual company. And so we can take these KPIs, and we can actually expose them in Guesty Analytics, which is pretty cool. But then let's say you're a reservationist. How long are we having somebody on hold before we answer the call? That's something you could definitely track. What are the close rate percentages if they're talking to somebody on the phone? That's a KPI for a reservationist. For a housekeeper, a KPI would be, how many missed cleans? What are the clean scores? And so you're going to want these KPIs across each area of the business. And all of a sudden, if we have a housekeeping score that's moving up, at the same time, we have a reservation score that's moving up, and an ADR that's moving up, the business is extremely healthy.

David Angotti
If any one of those areas starts to suffer, it's actually going to drag the other areas down over time. And so we have to make sure that each individual role is laser-focused on really the common sense things that are going to drive business results. And so it's not rocket science if you're a housekeeper to understand it needs to be clean. If it's really, really clean, it's going to get a better clean score, and it definitely can't have a missed clean. So that's important. Maintenance, we want everything working when the guest checks in, so on and so forth. So these KPIs need to map basically common sense and guest expectations along with the overall revenue and how that's moving as a business.

Heather Bayer
So thinking back for me, I know that if I had been at one of those tipping points and I listened to this conversation, I would be feeling much better about making a switch. But for those who are out there listening to this, and for Sarah and Mike as well considering their first switch, what three questions should they absolutely ask a provider before they commit?

David Angotti
The first one would be about why are you different than the other players out there? What sets you apart from the other property management software? And so what I would say, as Guesty, what sets us apart is a few things. We are still founder-led. What that means is, our CEO today, Amiad, is the same guy that started this company. And he has sat in the same shoes as a lot of people out here that are listening to the podcast. He's cleaned properties, he's dropped off supplies at properties, he knows what it's like. Don't think of him as this guy that's created a tech unicorn that sits in his high office that doesn't understand the challenges. So we have this founder that really understands the core problem and is passionate about solving the core problem.

David Angotti
But it's not just the founder. It's almost a thousand employees now. And we have grown to be this size by really delivering on what we promise. And when we think about the size that we've reached, almost a half billion dollars in funding, this team of about a thousand people, 300 people in our R&D, shipping hundreds of features, and all of that, that's the thing you want to ask. What sets you apart? And I would tell you all of that.

David Angotti
And then I would tell you we also have market managers that are in all of the major markets in the United States. And so that means if you're in Tampa, Jared O'Neill's on our team is in Tampa. If you're in Orlando, Steve Green's on our team in Orlando. And these people are there to stop by your office. This isn't something where you see the one salesperson on the trade show that get the contract and we forget about you. That's what the whole market manager program was that Gusty rolled out, is these people in individual markets that care deeply about the end users.

David Angotti
So question one, what sets you apart? That's how I would answer that. The next question would be, okay, so once I sign on the dotted line, what happens next? What's the time frame to get lined? What happens if something goes wrong along those go-live processes? Who am I going to reach out to with my questions? What is the percentage of people that are successfully making it through onboarding and graduating? Everything about onboarding, so you have a really good understanding of how long is this going to take? What are the resources required? What are ultimately my chances for success on this project?

David Angotti
And then I would also ask, hey, I'm thinking about switching from this property management software to you. Who can you give me as a reference that's made that same switch? And somebody that switched from another software to us, they're going to be able to shoot very, very straight with you and tell you, hey, here's the thing that I really liked over here in this property management software that maybe Guesty has, and you have to use a workaround, or maybe Guesty doesn't have it. But I'm still happy with Guesty, and here's why, because it does this, this, and this that I didn't used to have. Well, now when you hear that, that should provide comfort to you versus just trying to listen to a salesperson or somebody that's biased, trying to convince you to make the switch. So I would definitely talk to a customer that's made the switch as well. Then I would ask, Hey, what are the KPIs, like we were talking about a second ago, that I should pay attention to 30 days after and 90 days after to know this was a good decision?

David Angotti
And so these are some of the questions that I would ask. There's a lot of other ones? Hey, can I distribute to all the big channels? What about other smaller channels? And what are your rankings across all of those? What's distribution and revenue management look like on your platform? These are also very important questions. That's higher up in the decision making process, because for me, if you can't answer those right, I'm not getting to those final three questions.

Heather Bayer
Those are great, and I'll make sure that they're reiterated in the Show Notes.

Heather Bayer
So, David, this has been such a great conversation. I know that Sarah and Mike at Stay Wise Rentals will have found this incredibly useful to them as they contemplate making a switch from their current property management software provider to a new one, and everybody else that's listening. Do you have any last pieces of wisdom or advice to give our listeners?

David Angotti
Yeah, I would say that the big piece of advice I have to anybody that's thinking about changing property management software is this. Know why you are considering the change. Do not just decide on, I might need a new software this year. Are we considering the change because we see that the technology is increasing at a lightning speed? I just saw a stat today. AI is going to increase at least tenfold in the next year and have a one-tenth cost factor in the next year. So it's mind boggling how fast technology is switching. If that's your motivator for the switch, then that should really drive part of that decision. Who is doing the most on AI? Who has the best tech team? So there's things like that. But know why you're making the switch. Once you know that reason, if it's, Hey, I'm not happy with distribution. If it's, I want a forward-thinking AI technology company. There's all these different things that will matter to different people. But once you have that reason, the why, it can start to laser focus you on the couple correct companies. And there will be more than one.

David Angotti
It's not going to just be Guesty at the table, as much as I'd like that to be the answer. You're going to pick two or three or four, and then you're going to start to interview them. You're going to ask them the right questions. From all of that, you'll make the right decision. I would say, know your why. Don't just do this for fun because there's going to be parts of it that aren't fun.

Heather Bayer
I'm glad you brought up AI in that final response, because that's my current obsession. I'm finding, as I get more immersed and involved in AI, that I'm finding more people who just haven't even started in there yet. There is this massive gap. I think working with a company that is well-versed in AI and not just has AI written in their brochure or on their website, but understands fundamentally why they're using it and what benefits there are. So thank you for bringing that in as well.

Heather Bayer
David, it's been an absolute pleasure talking with you. We're going to be hearing from you a lot over the next 10 weeks as Guesty continues to sponsor the SSTIR Crazy Month and the podcasts beyond that. You're going to be talking in the middle of each interview I do for the next 10 weeks about Guesty and about the benefits of the software, why people should perhaps be considering it, and a lot more. So we will continue to talk.

David Angotti
Sounds good, Heather. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the time.

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