[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.

Well hello and welcome to another episode of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast, I'm your host Heather Bayer and I'm so delighted to be back with you once again.

So today we're kicking off a brand new series focused on leadership and I honestly couldn't think of a better person to launch this than Matt Landau. If you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you'll know that Matt's no stranger to this show. In fact, we've lost count of how many times he's been on. It's safe to say he's way more than a guest at this point. Matt was actually the first person I really connected with in the vacation rental industry way back in 2012 and if you've been listening to the podcast over the years, you'll have heard that story, and he's been part of this journey from the very beginning.

Matt's story is such a great example of organic leadership. He started out over a decade ago managing a boutique vacation rental business in Panama City's historic Casco Viejo district. It was called Los Cuatro Tulipanes, and I think after all these years, I finally got to pronouncing that correctly. When he started that, it was a time when this industry was still finding its feet, but Matt was already testing. He was learning and he was building community both with his guests and with fellow hosts. And he went on to found The Vacation Rental Marketing Blog, which subsequently became VRMB.com. And it became a go-to resource for thousands of owners and managers who are trying to figure out how to market smarter and connect more deeply with guests. And from that, he launched The Inner Circle, a membership-based community that over time has helped elevate the professionalism of our entire industry. But in the last few years, Matt's taken a bit of a turn.

Apart from relocating from Panama City to New Orleans, then to Miami, he's gone through a personal and professional evolution that's led him onto something much deeper. And with his new project, which is called Here Goes Nothin', Matt is now working one-on-one with leaders and teams across the hospitality space to help them reconnect with purpose, tap into their authenticity, and to step outside the grind of daily business life to see the bigger picture. So over the last few years, he teamed up with Steve Schwab from Casago to create Keystone Retreats. And I know a lot of leaders who went to the Keystone Retreats where they had breakthrough moments. And from my conversations with them, going to these events completely reshaped how they are showing up today as leaders in their companies.

I really wanted to go to a Keystone Retreat, never was able to get there. At some point in the future, I will get to a Here Goes Nothin' Retreat. Unfortunately, it's going to be later rather than sooner. The next one's coming up in May. I just cannot get to those, but I will. I am committing to go to one in the future.

But anyway, back to this episode where we're going to talk about what it means to lead with intention. And in the conversation, we look at how, when you step back from your business, even when it feels impossible, and I know that from running a property management company how difficult it is to step away for an hour or two, let alone days. When you do that, it's sometimes the most important move that you can ever do.

So we explore the differences between chasing the next idea and actually transforming the way you think, lead, and live. Talk about what comes first. Having that transformation before you put the idea into some form of implementation.

So this is one of those conversations I think you'll carry with you for a while, especially if you've been feeling stuck recently. Listen to it once, listen to it twice, take notes, run this transcript through ChatGPT and ask it questions. There's so much value in here. I think you'll really enjoy it. So settle in. And here's my chat with my old friend, Matt Landau.

[Heather Bayer]
So, as ever, I am so happy to have my friend, Matt Landau, back with us once again. We have lost count of the amount of times that you have been on this podcast. In fact, we're almost at the stage where we are co-hosting. Maybe that's something for the future.

[Matt Landau]
I mean, when you find someone that you enjoy having good conversations with and you have the platform to share those conversations, why not?

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, absolutely, and our conversations are really good. I heard from somebody yesterday and he said, I've just started listening to your podcast and I've started right from the beginning and I thought, No, just tell me when you get to the one with me and Matt Landau talking about Airbnb and why it's a flash in the pan.

[Matt Landau]
Oh, wow, I don't remember that one. Was that us?

[Heather Bayer]
It was, it was around...., it was really early on, around 2013-2014.

[Matt Landau]
Gosh, we should totally revisit that.

[Heather Bayer]
And it was a little disparaging.

[Matt Landau]
Of course, defensive.

[Heather Bayer]
Yes, yeah, exactly. So, great to have you on here today.

I've been watching everything you're doing on LinkedIn. Certainly we've been talking about the retreats that you're doing, but you're moving on and talking a lot more now about a redefinition of where we are. Getting people to really go deep within themselves and take some time thinking about what their position is in the industry and what being here is all about. So that's probably a very clumsy way of putting what you've been putting so eloquently. So I'm gonna turn it over to you and ask you to talk about where you're going at the moment with this whole idea of local heroes and talking about authenticity in this business.

[Matt Landau]
So first, I have just found it so primordial to my own growth, to my own excitement and focus and energy, to take a step back from my grind, from my routine, from my flow, from my linear growth, to take a big step back and just recalibrate and reassess where I'm at. Maybe some things have changed about me and my needs in my business. Maybe some things have changed in the market and maybe some things have changed in the world.

Most certainly things have changed in the world and so stepping back is like so simple and actually surprisingly difficult because you're inside of the grind, you have an entire team who's depending on you, you have a way of doing things, you have an income stream, you have tasks that need to be done, yada yada yada. And stepping away from that to actually reflect on, What am I doing here? Or, Are things going the way that I want? Or, How is this gonna play out over the course of the next few years? Or, What are the trends pointing to? Stepping back and really seeing that big perspective, I've found it's most helpful to do this with other people just because they see us sometimes even more clearly than we see ourselves.

But this act of stepping back and really re-evaluating, re-charting the course is like, for me, like a huge game changer right now, when so many people are just seeking inspiration and excitement and new breakthroughs in their business, just feeling like either dull, or commoditized, or cloudy, or diluted, or spread thin, or like you're spinning plates, or just any gamut of these feelings, right?

[Heather Bayer]
You're describing every property manager out there, right? But you did this over the course of the last few years when you're going out doing the Keystone Retreats with Steve Schwab, you were getting these people together and having these conversations and getting the people who attended to really go inward and make some discoveries. So you did 15 of those. So what's different?

[Matt Landau]
A huge breakthrough in my life.

[Heather Bayer]
And I never got to one of those, but I've talked to people who've been there and they said it was a huge breakthrough in their lives as well, and they came back and started to do things differently. So what is what you're doing right now different from that?

[Matt Landau]
It's very similar. It's deeper and it's even more transformative in that sense. Like it's even more breakthrough.

Like with Keystone, this big AHA moment was, Wow, I'm really good at connecting people and I am genuinely really a curious dude. That's actually a job. Facilitator is a job that I never knew existed. And it took taking a step back and going to a couple of conferences outside of our industry to see that, Oh, there are facilitators who do this for a living. And I was like, Wow, this is awesome. I want this new level of excitement and fulfillment.

So that was a huge shift for me. That was one big stepping back and being like, I want to do all of my work now in person, in nature, with leaders.

And that was just like a huge benefit of the stepping back process. That said, with Keystone, I was only scratching the surface. With Keystone, I was new to the world of breakthroughs and discovery.

And you start to see patterns. You start to see that like all the real breakthroughs are very personal things. It's like a new priority in your life has suddenly become clear and you have to change the way you're running your business to accommodate it.

And that's a hard process to come to on your own. So like in Keystone, we started to see that these common patterns were like, it's very hard for leaders to step away and let go. It's very hard for especially if you're like control freak like me.

It's very hard for people to open up to what next level of growth could be like. Because a lot of us have just been kind of working under the same business model and the same terms for so long. So like the people we had at Keystone were like, wait, I have much more purpose here. If I come back to this vacation rental business with the intent of fostering human connection, like if that's my priority, and I've lost sight of that, getting so tied up in all of this technology and an operational complexity. So you return to your business, you're like, no, human connection is one of our top priorities. And you share that with your team.

And we can talk about this in a little bit. But I think this represents a fundamental shift in how we are running our business. And if you as the leader are really ready to like go there, then that excitement and that discovery, like, wow, guys, I just figured out that human connection has actually been stifled in our business over time.

And we want to reprioritize it to the very top. What do you think? Your team is gonna love it? Because they're like, Yeah, we felt that too, but we didn't want to say anything. Or, We didn't know how to fix it. But now it becomes kind of part of the business value of the organization, a new like compass forward.

I think that is just so powerful. And to tie it back to the first part of the question, I don't think we come to those conclusions inside of the bubble.

[Heather Bayer]
Mm hmm.

[Matt Landau]
We have to go somewhere new. We have to step away. Okay, we need to meet the new perspective.

[Heather Bayer]
Define that first of all 'inside of the bubble'. And then where do you go when you go away?

[Matt Landau]
I did this hilarious little exercise with ChatGPT. I typed in I said, show me what it looks like, the level of focus needed to start a new venture. And it showed this man inside of like a library with a bubble around him, like very serene and like calm and focused.

And then I said now show me the same scene after too long, like if you're too focused on one thing. And it showed the exact same bubble, but the bubble was like super polluted. And all the people around him looked like they were like post-apocalyptic zombie corporate people inside the bubble still. And then the final question was ChatGPT depict what's needed to break this 'stuckness', this limitation. And it depicted, Heather, the same bubble being popped by a hand like a corporate hand from God and exploding. And I was like, Wow, it gets it. Like, that's the essence is that as we focus on something, as we get really good on something, as we work really hard on something, we end up forming our own echo chamber, we need it like it's necessary in order to get something off the ground. And to an extent, it's necessary in order to succeed.

When we're stuck is when the bubble ends up limiting everything because it's all we see. And the air we're breathing is that same recycled air. And the voices we're hearing and the people we're interacting with are all the same recycled people and voices.

You may apply this to our industry that you need to pop it somehow. And for me personally, I just started going to events outside of our industry. Like that was a huge bubble popping moment for me hanging around creative leaders from all different industries.

I was like, Whoa, there's people doing extraordinary things out there. And whoa, our industry needs some creative juice. We need the bubble popping.

So I think you can take it any number of ways you can take an afternoon out of your day and go somewhere really peaceful in nature and be by yourself and reflect on a new question or challenge that you're working on, or with someone who's really good at asking questions. Like that incorporated into the daily or weekly workflow, I think is like I said, primordial. That's not asking too much.

[Heather Bayer]
So it's like taking on a coach, having a coach who you said asked the right questions, a good coach is asking the right questions and is drawing things out from you. So  that's one method. You don't have to go to an organized event. You can do this on your own, individually.

Now let's go back to ChatGPT. I can't wait....

[Matt Landau]
I would just add one last thing. Our mutual friend David Angotti, he finds this powerful time running. He runs long distances. And he told me he's like, I never realized how difficult it is to just sit with myself.

That as a baseline, I think is a huge bubbleburster, you know, bringing on a coach or people who know how to ask questions, the next level, but simply taking time to yourself to be by yourself without devices, I think is huge....

[Heather Bayer]
Yeah, so could you not take this into ChatGPT? Take this introspection and ask the questions. You know, I've seen models that are now using ChatGPT or versions of it for therapy, for different types of therapy, you know, act as a cognitive behavioral therapist, act as a Freudian therapist.

[Matt Landau]
Wow!

[Heather Bayer]
And you will get the answers back from that form of therapy. So you know that that brings stuff to mind. If you don't have a coach, if you don't have this person, if you're not able to go out, I know there are arguments for and against using large language models, but there's no denying they're out there and they can be useful. So I guess that is another way of starting this conversation.

[Matt Landau]
I see it in two different parts. I see if you have a really clear idea of what you want, and where you're going, if you know the path, the direction, you're not necessarily sure about the pieces that are going to get you there. But you're really clear on what you want or who you are.

I think it serves as an amazing tool to shake things up, to give you ideas. Amazing. If you don't know what you want, and if you don't really know where you're going, if you don't really know who you are, then I actually think it is dangerous because it's the same kind of avoidance that people use any addiction, alcohol, drugs, any addiction work to avoid an actual truth, which is, you don't know who you are.

And there is just something incredibly powerful. I'm new to this whole thing, by the way, I just started meditating thanks to Valerie Gangas, turning me onto Transcendental Meditation. Now I can actually sit by myself for 20 minutes. And I feel so proud of that, because before I couldn't even sit for five minutes. And this, for me, this baseline of reconnecting with oneself, being able to clear the mind in what's otherwise a very noisy world right now, I think it's just become a superpower for me.

And for me, gives me much more clarity on what I want. And it gives me much more clarity on how I want to lead. And I just think there's two different sides of the discovery spectrum.

And sometimes in your life, you may need one and sometimes you may need the other. It's kind of knowing when to use them. I think that makes it most powerful.

[Heather Bayer]
Mm hmm. So we've been talking mostly sort of theoretical, I just want to move this a little bit into practical for those who listening say, Okay, I'm asking me to go inside myself and do all this fuzzy, fluffy stuff. But how does this relate to my actual business when I am, as you said earlier on, you know, I've got a gazillion plates in the air.

I've got teams who are gonna say I'm going nuts. If I say I'm going off onto a retreat to find my inner purpose, and I'm going to come back and share it all with you. I know that if I'd done that with my team, I can see the size now.

See how they would sit back and say, Oh, yeah, yeah, here we go again. You're going to go somewhere, you're going to come back with a whole bunch of new ideas that's going to shift the status quo and you're going to throw everything into disarray. Now, I say that because I did that a lot in my business.

I would go places and get these amazing ideas and come back and say, Hey guys, look, we should be doing this, we should be doing this and we could go places with this. And I tended to get a maybe I wasn't explaining it well enough to my team, but I would see that look come over that glazed expression, particularly over my business partner's face. You know, she's come back with those five words that are four words that he hated.

I've got an idea because he knew where that went. So let's go practical here. How can you take transformation and explain it to other people who are simply coming in to do their jobs every day?

[Matt Landau]
That's a couple of different questions, but I want to start with the first one, which is the difference between an idea that you got randomly at a conference or the 20 ideas or the 200 that you got random. Oh, that's a great idea. Let's try that.

There's a difference between returning home with that list and excitement versus returning home and saying, I just had an experience that changed everything for me. I just had a profound discovery and we can get this from anything in life. Like you can get it from traveling. You can get it from something happening in your life that was unexpected, but like an energetic shift happened. There's something very different about returning from that trip and saying, I don't have any specific new ideas. I just know that things need to change.

And it's a significantly different tone that I think is worth distinguishing. It's not just a quick tip on how to do revenue management. It's not just a quick idea on how to make guests more loyal. It's like a profound personal experience. And that could be, again, anything. It doesn't have to come from one of my retreats or consults.

It can come from anything, but there is a significant change that happens when you return transformed or when you're physiologically changed somehow. For me, going to nature is an amazing way to tap into that. For me, meeting people who are like more developed humans and learning from them and seeing how they interact this kind of just helps me understand that there's another level that I can get to, that it's not just my own echo chamber, but something beyond that.

So I think, first of all, that's really worth distinguishing. Practically speaking, you come back, right, and you have some experience, some moment that internally changed you somehow. You come back and now like, uh-oh, this is like a very common thing that I have heard from people who have attended our retreats, but also my own life.

You come back, you're like, uh-oh, I don't like the way things are laid out right now. Like, this is broken beyond repair. Or like, I don't really want to spend the next two years doing this.

I don't really want to spend the next two years in this position at this company or with this person. That's like terrifying. And there is not an easy, practical answer other than you now know.

Like, it has accelerated something that, in my case, would have gotten slowly more uncomfortable over time. It's like that story of the dog sitting on the porch with the nail who's moaning, and the neighbor's like, sir, why is your dog moaning? He's like, because he's sitting on a nail. And he says, well, if he's sitting on the nail, why doesn't he move? And the owner says, it must not be painful enough yet.

Which is like, if I think about my own life, I was just kind of in this sort of pebble in my shoe type mode.

And I was not going to move until I really understood that, whoa, none of these trends are trending in my favor. In fact, this was my personal AHA, I'm the common denominator. My lack of clarity is the common denominator in all of these wobbling things. So like, it's a much more profound, personal type of learning experience that we're talking about here. And you go back and you're like, well, what do I do now? That is where I think a really cool creative process can begin. And like, I get this question a lot. It's like, well, you're suggesting that I step away and reevaluate what I really want, but then I come back into my real world and it's not even possible.

Let's start talking about that. Let's start having conversations about that. How could you potentially weave some of this new thing that you want into your current day?
What really is blocking you from doing that? What sacrifices do you need to make? What do you need to let go? What do you need to burn down? Like, that's a whole conversation, a whole creative discovery process, I'd call it, that I think just most humans are not used to. And it's a daunting process. It's very unknown. Like, you don't really know what's about to happen next, but for me, it's just become so much more clearly the way, because I understand it now. Understand why things aren't working much more clearly.

I understand what really gets me just more fulfilled than ever before and I can make my decisions around those things. Whereas in the past, if I didn't really step back and have a personal discovery, I don't think I would have changed.

[Heather Bayer]
So what's the next move for somebody who's listening to this and thinking, this is all well and good, but I'm going, you know, I could go to one of these, you know, a retreat or I could go and find time on myself and I get back into my world and I'm back into headless chicken mode. Because that's what's happening certainly now, you know, these where are we, March, end of March, leading into April. There's probably another month of down time before that headless chicken mode just takes over.

And, you know, I've heard people say, I can't go to a conference in June or I can't go to this in June or July or August because it's the busy season and, you know, they can't do without me. How do you get that? I'm still trying to get there.

I know there is a holy grail here, you know, let's get there and you call it, what is it, you're calling it, well it's authenticity. It's, you're placing, you know, human connection at the heart of the business. But how do you define that when, you know, once again you've got your gazillion plates in the air?

[Matt Landau]
Yeah, it's a very real conversation. I think it's a really powerful conversation to have. For me, it's a spectrum.

There's the massive breakthrough that you need every decade or two or whatever. And then there's like the little breakthrough that you need to take you up to the next level and everything in between. So I think first recognizing what kind of breakthrough you're really looking for is a helpful first step.

Second, I think returning to the grind with this new vision, new clarity, new understanding, you now, let's just say you return back and you're like, man, my health has really suffered and I'm running a great business but I'm inside of it every day and I am, my body is suffering. I'm not sleeping well enough. I don't eat. I'm stressed. I don't spend time with my family who likes to go out and exercise, blah, blah, blah. You return back and at the very least you can now say, well, part of my routine is going to include, I'm making a sacrifice. Part of my weekly routine is going to include exercise. That's a new priority. It wasn't five years ago. But now it is. And maybe you could say the same for something with the team. You're like, well, we don't really ever talk about what human connection means to us.

We don't ever really connect as humans. We're just constantly like doing tasks for one another and like demanding like, you know, problems get solved. What if we allocate time each week to actually go and connect as humans? And as you know, Heather, like a pizza party or a meal together with a staff is like so replenishing. And it just so happens that if you feel more replenished connecting with your team, you also are able to more connect with your guests. So like for me, the breakthrough, that could be a breakthrough. It's like human connection is really important for us. We're reallocating resources on what that means. We're starting with weekly time as a group.

We're starting with time in nature. We're starting meeting every guest for the next couple of weeks in person and delivering something special as an experiment. And I think this is where the breakthrough mindset becomes very helpful.

I call it Here Goes Nothin' because it does require a courageous shift in priorities. But it's like, no, we're going to give it a try. We're going to try this and see how it goes. So like let's allocate a budget. Let's put someone in charge and let's see where these new types of initiatives that revolve around these things that are now very important to us that are getting lost. See how they go and let's circle back after a month or whatever and see how it went.

That I think is a really helpful innovation process. Like this is the creative act. You talk to artists. They're out there just trying everything. And they come back and they see if they liked it or not. They see if people will want to buy it or not. And then they go back and do it again. I think there's something that all of us linear business thinkers, myself included, need more of in our lives, which is shake up, try new things, and then reporting back. I like to add on the layer of telling the story.

So like we're going to try this crazy new thing that is doubling down on human connection. It sounds ridiculous, but we're going to come back and we're going to tell the story of how it went to all of our guests. Like that's exciting. And I think that the storytelling aspect just helps reinforce this path. And like you said, like it's not going to happen overnight, the change necessarily, if you don't need it badly enough. But it can start to incorporate this creative breakthrough muscle into your workflow.

And I think also this is what people on teams are desperate for as well. Like the permission to be themselves, more themselves, and more creative with how they're solving problems. Like that's the outcome, I would say, is that they're able to solve problems in a more creative way that's not following standard operating procedure. There's a massive ROI on that.

[Heather Bayer]
So what businesses are out there already doing this? Because I know there's a number of them. I know Valerie Gangas with Juniper Holiday and Home and Rachel Alday with Abode Luxury Retreats and Robin Craigen and Moving Mountains. These are people who are out there doing this. They are walking that talk. Do you have any other examples of businesses that are on that pathway?

[Matt Landau]
I just visited an amazing vacation rental manager in Key West named Cindy Rhodes. You may be familiar with Cindy and her company Vacation Homes of Key West. She's run it for  30 years. And it's the premium vacation rental management company of Key West. They have all the best homes. They offer the best, most authentic style of hospitality. Their team is amazing. They're woven into their community. It's like as authentic of a Key West experience as you will get because that's where they're from. And that's what they're proud of. So I visited them and I met Cindy's grandson, Sam, who's 30, maybe 35, used to work in finance, felt that the world was losing its soul, decided to come back and take over the family company from Cindy.

So Sam, who's just a remarkable like wise beyond his years young man, steps in, this is like only over the last couple months, steps in and needs to understand first of all, what is the soul of this company? Like what is it that makes us so unique and so authentic and that people keep coming back year after year? He needs to understand that. But then he also needs to do this very challenging job of integrating and updating the company to 2025.

They had been using their own property management software that they built themselves for decades. And they had kind of an old website and they had this old logo and they had this desperate need for new juice. And I just think it's a fascinating story. Who knows how it's going to go? But when I met Sam, he has this acumen and this intuition, I would say, for what is really cool in terms of travel and hospitality and community. Like what people are really seeking and it just so happens.

It's human. It's authentic. It's creative, it's like real human essence, human core. And so they just updated their entire website. They went to Hostfully, no, Hostaway.
And they have a whole new workflow where people can book online. And it's just like, for me, such a wonderful microcosm of where the industry is at. We have to adapt to change. We have to bring our companies with technology and all this into the future, but we also wanna preserve what makes us unique. And that's work.

[Heather Bayer]
So is this where the local hero comes into it? Because this is something I'm hearing more from you talking about local heroes.

And, you know, we have to find ways of differentiating ourselves as companies. And that is one amazing thing that people can do because if you're running this company and you live in that community, is that what that means by being a local hero? I think there's a lot more to it.

So expand on that for me.

[Matt Landau]
Well, so I can't claim that phrase. That's Steve Schwab's phrase. That's something they use within Casago. And the thinking is that it's a franchise business model. So all of these local business people who are powered by Casago on the backend, they use this technology and the heavy lifting, but on the ground, they are empowered to be themselves. Kind of like real estate agents in a way, franchises in a way, but it's like hospitality is a very human thing.

So we're gonna champion the local heroes in every destination. We want each of our franchisees to feel like local heroes. And I think it's a great way of thinking about what we're talking about. And in a way, everybody should come up with their own version of local heroes, because ultimately it's capturing something special, right?

[Heather Bayer]
Absolutely, I experienced this a couple of weeks ago down in Rocky Point, when we went down to visit the Casago team and experience that hospitality for the first time. And it was, I was blown away with how different it was. I hadn't experienced that in many places before.

[Matt Landau]
How specifically?

[Heather Bayer]
One specific, we stayed in an apartment in the Encantame Towers, which is a massive new development just outside Rocky Point, and it's managed by Casago. Now, you know, if you walk into a hotel normally, and you've got this row of people sitting at a reception desk, and if you get any eye contact, you are very fortunate. You know, they're heads down, they're typing, they're on the phones, nobody's looking at you. And then maybe one does eventually, and they'll look up and say, what could I do for you? We walked in to this reception area at Encantame Towers, and the moment the door opened, there were three people in a line at the reception desk, and they all looked up, and all gave these huge, broad smiles. And one of them said, welcome, it's great to have you here. And they had no idea that we were down there as guests of Steve. They didn't know who we were, we just walked in the door. And then one of them stood up and gave me his name, Juan. I have a lovely photograph of me and him, because he was attentive to everything we wanted or needed throughout the time we were there. But he owned that relationship. There were three of them who all gave that same greeting, but Juan stood up. He was the one who was gonna own that relationship. And I know this is part of Casagao Hospitality.

It's there, you know, I've spent a lot of time studying their credo and working out ways to share that through the online format when it's impossible for people to come in the face-to-face, which is interesting. We'll probably have this discussion about how we do this. But that was my experience.

And then we went into town and we went to the Casagao office and got exactly the same response when we walked in. Head up, eye contact, smile. I'm owning this relationship.
You and I are having this connection. And I think that's what it comes down to, that somehow they made a connection. It wasn't just, I'm a receptionist or I'm a reservationist. I'm sitting there doing my job. It was, I am here and I'm making a connection with you. And I thought, wow, if you can pass that across an entire organization, wow, what difference that would make. And then I realized that within Casagao, that that's what they are doing. They are sharing that whole culture across each of the franchises, but the organization as a whole. So yeah, I'm very sold on that.

[Matt Landau]
I think a lot of us have experienced that with whatever other kinds of businesses out there. You know the kind of business that people are just like unusually on, right? And it's so obvious because you're like, wow, this service is amazing.

They're really connected. They're really tuned in. One of the things Casagao does really well from a technical or operational standpoint, to really like break this culture down because that's what it is.

It's a culture and a language, a set of norms within the organization. One of the things Casagao does really well is an ultra clear idea of what their values are and an ultra clear idea of what their principles are, which are basically rules that operationalize those values. To say that again, the business values, what we stand for and the principles which operationalize those values so that anyone including Juan can channel that value in his own unique way.

They talk about those values and those principles. It's kind of encapsulated in their orange credo. They talk about it every day and every week on their group calls.

They repeat it and they say, what was an example in which you had an example of this value this week? And for me, that repetition, that discussion and expansion around what does it mean to be excellent? Oh, well, we're an excellent company.

Give me some examples of how you are excellence. What does excellence mean to you this week? And I think there's just something beautiful about pulling apart and putting together and having just what I would think of as creative leadership conversations around these core values.

Regularly, that over time is what creates a kind of language. This is how we do things. Oh, I channeled the value of connection today because I went out of my way to help Heather do this.

It's just a way of getting everybody rowing in the same direction. And just technically speaking, I think it's a practical way that we can put some of this theoretical talk into action.

[Heather Bayer]
Well, that was it. I saw that theory in practice. And it's taught. They have Casago University that actually talks it, but they walk the talk every single day. And yeah, I love that. And that whole idea of...., oh, go on.

[Matt Landau]
Well, something else just became very clear, connected the dots. We were talking earlier about ways that you can incorporate this deeper vision or new understanding or new priority into your daily grind where you're back like a chicken with your head cut off, right? If one of your new business values is curiosity, let's say, you realize you're not really listening well enough.

You're not really being curious and peeling back layers and asking better questions. And for that reason, you don't really understand the problem or the need for a solution. If you put curiosity at the top of your business values list and you start incorporating it into every team meeting, today we're gonna talk about how Heather was curious with XYZ.

Another example could be creativity. Today we're gonna talk about how Juan wielded creative leadership in his own way representing Casago. Like that is part of the like shift for me. It's a shift in mindset and is huge. Like it's not a tiny thing that we just sprinkle on and expect it to be done. This is like a significant change.

But what I really wanna convey here is that you will need it more and more moving forward. Like it is the capacity that all of our businesses desperately need and it's worth starting to develop it now before whatever crisis happens and you don't have the ability to adapt to the change. Like this is adapting to change.

This is like the story of humans.

[Heather Bayer]
So I know you've got a hard stop in a few minutes time. So I want to sort of wrap up this conversation neatly. Summarize it.

So I'm gonna pass that over to you to wrap it all up and.....

[Matt Landau]
We don't have a ChatGPT that can do that?

[Heather Bayer]
Well, I could just, I'm doing this right now, you know. I do it afterwards for my Show Notes. So wrap it up. Give me a summary of everything, and some key takeaways for those people who are listening to this.

[Matt Landau]
Business is losing its soul. We all feel it in all aspects of our life. The business leaders of the future are ones that know how to reintroduce soul into the front and center of their business. That process means or deeply understanding who you are as a company, what you stand for, what makes you originally you, that's where the breakthroughs come from. That's an unearthing process that requires some attention. Like you need to be serious that you want the change.

You need to see that like you're all going like with the cards stacked against you and you need to be deliberate and intentional about wanting to try something new. One of the ways that I've found that's really helpful to begin incorporating this into the day-to-day life is trying something new. Try a new experiment with your team that revolves around this newly important priority. Report back, see how it went. Tell the story to your guests. Maybe it was a complete flop and you made a complete fool of yourself. That makes for a great story. Maybe it went great and it's like the huge next breakthrough. It's the experiment that gives you a whole new world of opportunities.

This is a mindset that most of us utilize when we got started 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago, because there were no best practices. We just tried all these things and we saw what was working and we did more of that. This is like a new phase of that type of discovery for me and I just can't see it any other way now. I look at the best companies. They are all peeling back their layers in order to find their next big breakthrough. They're all doubling down on themselves as opposed to worrying about what all the commodities and what all the noise is doing. They're spending time to look for their breakthroughs as a team and internally as individuals and I've just, like for me, part of the process is just going for it, stepping out there without necessarily knowing exactly what's gonna happen next, trying this new stuff, learning something new about yourself or the organization about who you really are or what you really like or what you really don't like and the direction that you wanna go and then circling back. That, for me, has become this endless source of excitement and energy in my business and in my life.

For years, Heather, you saw me. I was bored as hell talking about technology and dynamic pricing. This started boring me. Where do I go from there? Inwards and every single time I look there for something new, I discover a new shift and I can't see this any other way. It's why I'm hosting my retreats now that go there with one another, walk people through these types of creative processes surrounded by peers. It's the theme of all of my talks and my consulting, my one-on-one engagements with teams and when I go to a team and do a retreat, I'm like, let's explore what an even more authentic version of your company looks like. Well, we don't know what that is. Right, let's go there.

This is all I can think about right now and when we see the news of Casago and Vacasa, perhaps telling a bigger story about this industry, this is the direction that I believe all small to medium, large-sized vacation rental managers should be going and it requires some courage. It's like, I'm pretty sure that that's not gonna work, so I'm gonna bet on myself and that's what I'm here to do, that's all I wanna do and it's the same through line of our work in this industry for the last 20 years. It's like, we're different. We're gonna be our independent selves even if it's not a cookie cutter and I think that's what it's all about.

[Heather Bayer]
You know, I've known you a long time over 10 or 12 years now and I've seen you passionate about things. I have never seen the passion that you're showing now. And it is, yeah, it is wonderful to see. I love hearing the stories of the people who've worked with you and have been to the retreats and come back with different, come back almost as different versions of themselves. So how do people find out more about you, what you do, about retreats, about whatever, where do they go?

[Matt Landau]
They can email me, Matt, with two T's, @vrmb.com. The retreats website, heregoesnothin.com, without the G. I was able to score that domain, Here Goes Nothin'.

Those are two wonderful ways to get in touch with me. I love receiving backstories and interesting things that are happening. I read everything, so that would be an amazing, amazing thing.

[Heather Bayer]
Okay, I'll make sure that information is put on the Show Notes.

Matt, as ever, you deliver and I just love our conversations. Long may they last.

[Matt Landau]
Long may they last. Thank you, Heather.

[Heather Bayer]
Well, thank you so much, Matt. That was a wonderful conversation. And I hope it left you feeling energized and reflective, maybe even a little bit inspired to press pause along the way and reassess your own path.

So this episode has really set the tone for what's to come in the next few weeks as we embark on our special leadership series. Over those weeks, I'm going to be speaking with more outstanding leaders in our industry. People who are innovating, who are mentoring, who are building strong cultures, who are guiding their teams through both challenges and change.

And we'll be really digging into the real stories behind leadership in vacation rentals, what it looks like in the trenches, how it evolves over time and why it matters more now than ever before. So if today's episode resonated with you, be sure to subscribe, tell somebody else about it and keep tuning in. There's so much more to come.

And as always, thanks so much for listening. 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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