Heads In Beds Show - BONUS: Recapping The DARM 2024 Conference From Our Perspective

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

In this episode Paul and Conrad record after the DARM 2024 Conference in Sandestin, Florida recapping all of the great connections, lessons and marketing insights from two and a half action-packed days!Enjoy!⭐️ Links & Show NotesPaul Manzey Conrad O'ConnellConrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental MarketingConrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101DARM Conference🔗 Connect With BuildUp BookingsWebsiteFacebook PageInstagramTwitter🚀 About BuildUp BookingsBuildUp Bookings is a team of creative, problem solvers made to drive you more traffic, direct bookings and results for your accommodations brand. Reach out to us for help on search, social and email marketing for your vacation rental brand.

Welcome to the Head to Med Show presented by Buildup Bookings. We teach you how to get more vacation properties, earn more revenue per property, master marketing, and increase your occupancy. Take your vacation rental marketing game to the next level by listening in. I'm your co-host Conrad. And I'm your co-host Paul. All right, Paul, how's it going? A special episode today. level by listening in. I'm your co-host Conrad. And I'm your co-host Paul. All right, Paul, how's it going? A special episode today.

Special episode. We were lucky enough to get to spend a little time together this week. No, that was a it was a fun time that we could connect and get some face time and try to record. How are you doing, sir? Yeah, well, yeah, I think I think you exposed something, which is that we don't really know how to record in person because we have all the tools and technology and everything to record from afar. So here we are, we were in person hanging out at Darm, and then now we are 1000 miles apart,

and it's actually easier for us to record 1000 miles apart. Because we didn't have all the right hardware and software and all that kind of stuff hooked up. So yeah, that is a bit funny. It's okay, I'll get that tuned in, we'll get that sorted. So if there's a future opportunity down the road, we'll have a little bit better tooling and technology for that. So it's a lesson learned. No, I mean, my first reaction,

everyone's been asking me over the last day or two since I've been back. And we'll try to get this up as soon as we can. If you're listening, it's probably the following week. But yeah, I think it was an awesome conference. I mean, I'm not just saying that because I got to speak at it. But if I compare it honestly,

and I think fairly to the VRMA conference, it was, I don't know if it was more or less people, I feel like it was a similar number of people. But the feeling and the energy at the show was completely different, because we were in a much smaller event space. And there was a lot more, I would say, you know, compression in a good way, where we weren't like all over the place. You know, some of these VRMA events, it's kind of problematic, to be honest with you, when you've got, you know, these massive, massive event halls and multiple layers, and all this kind of stuff. And you don't it's kind of problematic to be honest with you when you've got, you know, these massive, massive event halls and multiple layers and all this kind of stuff. And you don't, it's not like you have, you know, two, three, 4,000 more people there than you do at one of these Dharma events. So I think the way that, you know, Amy and the organizers laid it out was, was excellent because

we were all kind of forced to enter, you know, be in these small little rooms together and we're all like bumping elbows. I think that's a good thing though, in these conferences, you know, I sat down at lunch a few times when we were eating together, where you sit down at a table and run into someone or talk to someone. And I think that's a good thing. Now in these conferences, you know, I sat down at lunch a few times when we were eating together, right, we sat down at a table and run into someone or talk to someone. And I think that's kind of what you want in these events, spaces and conferences. So yeah, it was objectively a good show. I'm biased, you know, we'll cover maybe my session in a minute. I think my session was was well attended. And obviously, that always puts a smile on my face

when folks, you know, turn out to the sessions that I put together, I try to spend a lot of time to put them together. And when people show up and actually engage with them and not long as we're going, that obviously feels really good to me too. So I can't complain. And I think it was one of the better Dharams that I've been to in terms of like engagement

and attendance and a cool area too, by the way. As well, I'd spent, I'd been there one time before, but it was for a VRMA event. It was, I think it was the first VRMA event post COVID. So it was like lightly attended. We were masking, I think too at the time. And there was just a VRMA event. It was, I think it was the first VRMA event post COVID. So it was like lightly attended, you know, we were masking, I think too at the time. And there was just a different kind of energy and feeling to the area,

but driving around and having a rental car and you and I going out to dinner at different places and stuff like that. I really enjoyed it. I can see why people want a vacation there. There's a lot of pluses, but I think it was your first one, like in person, correct me if I'm wrong. What was your perspective on that?

Thoughts on it? That is, this is my second time, but this was, I think, Nashville, a couple years ago, I think I was able to better experience it myself because last time I was I was more tied to a booth. And that it is I think that's the vendors get a bit of a rough shot there, because you can't enjoy some of the I mean, there's some great education that that can be happening for vendors as well.

That's not just for the property managers there. And I think that that's with opportunities, you know, opportunities. It was, it was a great show. I think Amy did a great job. I think she brought in some great people, some great speakers. I think there were, you know, we've got our notes, some better than others. And the, I think you hit the nail on the head with the spread out conference just can, it can tire you out. I mean, that's the reality is, if you're going place to place and you're running back and forth. And, you know, I know it is we kind of had some, I would say maybe shorter session lengths, it felt like

maybe we could have let those breathe a little bit and given the speakers a little time to, to breathe in a few cases there, but I got to sit in on yours and it felt more full than a lot of the sessions that I sat in on. And again, you had some pretty good response from the people who did attend. So the value that I was able to get this time around was certainly a different experience than it was in Nashville for me where I did probably spent five hours a day just sitting at the booth waiting for a potential customer to come around. So yeah, well, I think I think there's something to be said because we just had a podcast on the other

feed that I do on the art of hospitality about designing conferences and Amy was on that podcast, you know, and she was kind of saying, hey, I've got a plan for how I'm going to do this one. Maybe it's pretty similar to what you've seen before in some ways, and we do follow some of the same conference best practices, if you will, but the small things I think matter. Like you were saying, if you're at the booth, but the booth is right next to where you have to walk in to go to a session, and there's four different session halls

side by side by side, that's a good thing, because then people have to interact, and I'm sure it's good for the vendors. It's got to make sense for the vendors. Ultimately, I realize that sometimes the vendor can feel like a bit of a meat market. If you're a vacation home property manager walking through that hall, and folks are trying to grab your attention, hey, you know, please buy my thing or sign up for my thing. I get it, you know, I understand that side of it. But if the vendors aren't there, the property managers can't show up and get any educational information. So you've got to kind of determine what's a reasonable middle ground there. It's like how much commercials are you willing to watch in your favorite TV show depends on what you like the TV show. So we got to put out good content to, you know, back to this idea of like, how much effort you put into the presentation, a lot,

because, you know, if you don't, someone's giving you their attention for 40, you have 35 minutes, to your point, is the length of the show. Honestly, what most people should do, and Amy did this, obviously, and the conference organizers is make it 10 minutes shorter than you want it to be, because then I did have to go into the cutting room floor and snip a few things off my, you know, presentation that I would prefer that I didn't have to snip off. But the same token, if you if every session you go to is 10 or 15 minutes too long, it kind of drains on you a little bit and you kind of feel like that quietness and like not people not really being engaged in it. And I would much much rather

have 20 minutes of someone's attention and try to give you my best stuff in 25 or 35 minutes than an hour, but then you're bored at minute marker like 47, you know, I'm up there monologuing for an hour. That's pretty challenging. So it's kind of like this podcast, honestly, I mean, not to get too bad as people are listening in, but like, we try to not really make these an hour, like we try to make it shorter. You know, we know you don't have a limited time and attention if you're listening on the other side. So we try to figure out, you know, what the right middle ground is

there. So I think that's part of like a well designed, you know, conference and session and things like that. So yeah, some of my notes here I had, you know, opening keynote, I like the key data dashboard stuff. I know they sort of, it's almost like Jason Sprinkles little self-deprecating about it when he's up there, like, oh, it's so boring and stuff like that. I don't find it boring at all. I mean, I think these are the numbers that are explaining

what's going on in the business and key data dashboard. You know, I like the folks at AirDNA, I think they do an awesome job. A key data dashboard, I think is a fair assessment by saying it's without a doubt the most accurate because they actually have source material, source data coming in. So when they get up there and talk for 2530 minutes about what's going on the industry and how the year

ended, I sit there and listen, there's a lot of numbers we probably couldn't do it justice for trying to recap them all in a minute or two. These are the two things that really stuck out to me. We're flat from 2019 when you adjust for inflation, I thought that was an interesting comment because we are up from 2019 in terms of like red par revenue, you know, gross bookings, you know, per property, that's all, you know, up an industry average. But when you kick in that inflation number, because we've had such large inflation, you know, over the past few years,

it's flat from 2019. That feels right to me, you know what I mean? Because when I look at the prices, yes, everything's more expensive. But when I think of like the demand and what we saw pre COVID, it feels kind of similar, like we're back to that level. And this sort of huge bull run up is kind of, you know, it's crested and it's kind of come back down to a lower level. So that's one comment that I got from the opening keynote that they, to them was a smaller comment. To me, I wrote that one down.

I'm like, ah, that makes a lot of sense. The second one was just the Revpar drop. So 172 was the Revpar in their dataset, all these US properties in, I think it was 21 or 22, my mistake for not writing that down, but that was the peak, 172, we're down to 140 right now. So $32 rev part drop, you know, over the last two years, either two or three years, depending on when their data set was from that shows you, you know, how much, you know, revenue has kind of fallen off. If you look broadly speaking, when we

look at occupancy, you know, occupancy can be pretty misleading, you know what I mean? Because you can cut prices and occupancy can stay pretty consistent or flat, right? In many markets, if there's a good enough demand, But the red part number to me was like a good description of thinking about, all right, I've got 300 nights available in this property. Once I take out owner blocks and, you know, maintenance and stuff like that, I'm making 32 less dollars per night, you know,

for every night I had available this year than I probably was a few years ago. That adds up. So, you know, the clients that we're working with that are up five or 10% right now, when I compare to previous years, we're absolutely crushing it, you know, in context to where things were previously. So those two stuck out to me, but what was your take on kind

of opening keynote, you know, and kind of that initial, you know, getting started in the presentation is what you saw. I mean, I think the breakdown of seeing the OTA channels kind of seeing the lift that booking has had seeing kind of the drop in maybe moderation of Verbo and really seeing the Airbnb numbers. I think that what was one of those numbers that stuck out to me was you know how much of an increase Airbnb has had in that four plus bedroom home type of area where that's no longer the short term I got to get it booked within a week or something like that. There's a little more planning process that that's

happening there and and again we're not getting in front of those travelers, maybe enough on the direct side of things. So I think the other thing to take into consideration is more inventory coming onto Airbnb in those sections or in those areas as well. That is a platform that is not skewing more towards the shared spaces. It's been well documented, all these experiences, all these things. I mean, the home loan house is now back up on an Airbnb. So they ruined it by the way, but that's a different discussion. I do.

I think at a, at a basic level, the foundational concept of, of an Airbnb and, and, I mean, look at the trend lines that Airbnb has taken over. The case rental has taken over short term, all those things, but. It's now not just the shared space and the shared space is now the shared I mean, look at the trend lines that Airbnb has taken over vacation until it's taken over short of all those things. But it's now not just the shared space. And I don't think Verbo has a strong case or the home way has a strong case when they make those those commercials of, oh, you know, safety being concerned or just sharing it with your host or doing something like that. That's not the skew anymore.

So I don't think that's a that's a good leg to stand on when you're when you're putting those ads out there. And now it is now you're going to probably have to go a little more performance based and trying to recover some of that revenue on the verbal side. This is this is a very strange analogy, hopefully I can tie it back properly. But it reminds me of my dad's opinion of car companies. And my dad formed his opinion of certain car companies. You know, my dad's was born in 1955. So he's 70 basically in that range.

And he formed his opinion, for example, of Kia when he first saw Kia's when he was in his 20s and 30s and 40s and that sort of thing. So in his mind, a Kia car is cheap Korean cars that aren't made well, right? If you go look at Kia today and you go look at the data and you go look at the price point, that's not the case anymore for Kia.

So this brand perception is my point here that Kia has in my dad's mind is not the reality of what Kia is today. When I buy a Kia, probably not to be honest with you. But like, I don't think it's a bad choice by any stretch. And like, it probably was a bad choice when they were first coming over as imported cars, you know, decades ago. So that I think that speaks to what you're talking about, which is like, yes, Airbnb started as something, whatever it started

out is definitely not what it is today. And certainly, much of the inventory and Airbnb is not a shared room is not a single property host. It is professionally managed inventory. And I think you're right, those those charts and those lines indicated that. And yeah, shout out to booking. I mean, like I used to say, hey, it was insignificant. Don't worry about booking.com.

They are a whisper away from being 10% market share. And they started at 2% with key data dashboard, I think started their data tracking. By the way, I asked this after this didn't make its way into my notes. But I told you I was going to do this. And I did. I walked up to Melanie during one of the breaks and I said, is any other OTA in your data set have more than 1% bookings outside of, you know, you mentioned this big three Airbnb Verbo and booking.com does any other site have more than 1% and I was going to ask Marriott

homes and villas, for example, Google vacation rentals, if you're able to track that as a different source, not a direct one. And she said she could, you know, double check for me. She was like almost positive. That was not the case. If you look across our data set. So we have this big three in Airbnb, Verbo and booking in that order of priority. You're right in that Verbo is tailing off a little bit, bookings going up a little bit, Airbnb is continuing to go up a little bit and direct has come at the expense a little bit. So the data that I had written down here

was that the average is now 29% direct booking, but it has fallen. It was in the low thirties and it's gone down to 29% over the past few years of tracking that data. So it wasn't like a horrifyingly sharp drop off, but it's fair to say that new folks that have gotten the game or people that are getting in the game now find more success in OTAs generally speaking

than maybe you under act. That was one thing that I noted down here. Everything I thought that was interesting though as a contrast to that is that according to key data dashboard data, direct booking see the highest ADR, longest stay length and the longest booking. That was, yeah.

Okay. So that's my note. Yeah. So I stole it. I stole your, I stole your funder there. Apologies. But that to me was the, was the proof of the pudding in what I say to clients, but it's good to have, again, data backup. Well, my, you know, I obviously have a much more limited view than do the folks that key data dashboard. So if you want your bookings to be, you know, want people to pay more for your bookings, if you want bookings to have longer nights, more nights booked, good for business. And you want people to book far in advance. So you have more certainty in your calendar, you should

probably be focused on direct bookings. That was like one of the insights that I had listening to that presentation. So that was one other thing that I wrote down. Again, they went over like, dozens of numbers, I'm picking out the four or five things for me. Last one I had, I don't know if you have any reaction to this one. How do we define luxury? They kind of drew the line at $400 or more per night on like an average rate value. I thought that was fair, you know,

cause it's obviously this is very subjective. We have clients in California where it's like $400 doesn't get you a condo out in California, right? Whereas here in Myrtle beach, you're living, living like a king, you know, if you're booking an off season place for 400 bucks a night, you're getting a whole house with an elevator and you know, all this kind of premium stuff. So obviously this is a very seasonal sort of thing. But if you look at, again, you know, if you're booking an off season place for 400 bucks a night, you're getting a whole house with an elevator and you know, all this kind of premium stuff. So

obviously, this is a very seasonal sort of thing. But if you look at again, maybe like maybe an average or like an ADR property or something like that being that $400 mark, I think that's what that number was referencing the presentation of Henry serves, it was the ADR. Yeah, $400 or more is that luxury price point. So it goes back to something we've talked about talked about before on the podcast about people say they want to manage luxury properties. Well, let's go look at the distribution in their market of when that like, let's say top 15%, maybe maybe 20%, but like 1510 15%, somewhere in that range of 80 yards is and that's the inventory that would

be considered luxury. So I think what we find a lot of folks kind of falling into that we've chatted with over the years specifically in the homeowner marketing side of things is they say we're a luxury property management company but then they rent stuff for $200 a night in a $400 to $500 per night market and that the messaging just doesn't land there so I thought that was an interesting way to like at some point we have to define what luxury is obviously it's depending on the market but 400 was their number of like once

you see that you start to see stuff that's a lot higher quality and it made me realize that like you know not to get again to Medicare but for our own marketing what should we look for? Probably property managers that book at $400 a night or so or more, because that's the person that's targeting the best inventory generally in a given market. So those are my last little notes and insights from the opener. But yeah, anything else that I stole yours? So any other ones you want to add in there?

No, and that's I mean, I think that was I think that that is a good point. The the 400 I would I I'd like to see that almost tiered if they could do that. And I'm sure they probably have, I'm sure they have that dated back there somewhere. But again, for a Myrtle, for a Panhandle type of market, at a luxury property at 250, and then some of those mountain markets,

hey, your luxury may be closer to 600 or 750 or something like that. So just some, I would love to see some type of tier like that, but the data was great. And it's just good. It's great to understand what's happening and get that deep dive into the numbers. Now I agree, Jason definitely short sells himself

because I think that's some of the best content that we get. I love the numbers. That's why we get long. We love the data, we're nerds. That's how of the best content that we get. I love the numbers. That's why we, that's why we get along. We love the data, we're nerds. That's how it works. If you want to go to the Darm conference and then complain about numbers, like get out of there.

Like, I mean, it's literally data revenue management. If you want to go there and talk all touchy feely stuff, man, get, you know, no, I'm kidding. Don't take that out of context. So it doesn't go next year. Well, comrade said I shouldn't go. And he's going to come have my neck on that one. But no, I mean, that was my take on it. Well, Irade said I shouldn't go. But I was like, oh boy. And he's gonna come have my neck on that one. But no, I mean, that was my take on it.

Well, I'll hit some of the highlights from day one though, outside of it. I mean, we went to a lot of the same sessions on day one. So I maybe tried to split apart, but sometimes we wanna go the same one. So, you know, it was interesting to see obviously these kind of like, you know, we were joking, of course, later on LinkedIn about it,

but these kind of quasi SEO celebrities, like Barry Schwartz was there, long time writer. And I've written, you know, I've read, excuse me, hundreds of articles that Barry's written. And it was funny to kind of see him, you know, they're in a very different context from probably what he's used to. And just, you know, it was interesting talking about he was talking about more the history of SEO. I thought it was amazing presentation. We said this after it ended. If you were like, hey, where did where do we start where we today? And it was a great like little history lesson. And ultimately, like, you know, history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. And I was I was reminding myself of that as he was going through these updates that happened back in 2010 or 2004. And I'm like, yeah, it's basically the same thing. I mean, yeah, the updates not the same, but it's the same effect, which is like, you know, one point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I remember at one point, here's a good example. This was when I was entering the space, you know, Google got rid of right rail ads, and they moved to every ad being in the center column. And like, Gary talked about that, you know, for example, the ad layout. At the moment, it was like, Oh, no, like, we can actually we used to get, you know, Google got rid of right rail ads, and they moved to every ad being in the center column. And like Barry talked about that, you know, for example, the ad layout, at the

moment, it was like, Oh, no, like, we can actually we used to get, you know, right ads, rails profitable, and they were so cheap cross click, shoot, my whole ad strategy is busted out because my, you know, the technique that I was using is gone. And then what do you do you adapt, you know, it's no different than today, AI overviews, you're gonna have to adapt, you're gonna have to find something else and stuff like that. So that was interesting. There were some other ones here

that I that I've had some some smaller notes on, but that one kind of caught my attention. I went to the GA four session. And then there was a paid per click session from Jeff's I think it's sour if I'm saying properly. Yeah, I'm taking I've taken some of his classes. That was a solid one, just to confirm some things that I had thought to give the listener some specific idea from that. Or I came to the client right now and making sure that we're using Google ads tracking data not importing things from GA. And we saw a meaningful difference in terms of

the amount of conversions tracked. And I asked him to confirm that and he did. So that's why, you know, Amy was sitting at our table, she was going through those sessions. And she was like, hey, like, you guys should get your resources from other people. That's why I put these people on stage. Like, why not? Why can't we all learn? And I'm 100% of that mindset. Like, I had no problem with, you know, folks being there from outside of our little bubble, because then we can get different contexts. But it also confirmed, you know, honestly, this is what you and I said to each other after Barry Schwartz's presentation was like,

hey, we, you know, we're following this stuff. We know what's going on. Like these people have information, but it's not like they have access to all this information that we don't for the most part, right? Like when we focus on our little bubble, our bubble's pretty well-informed, you know? So it was almost good to like feel somewhat confident

in my like knowledge and skills and things that I try to, you know, learn and share it with our clients that I'm using a lot of the best practices and these people that work on maybe larger brands or different companies or different verticals, they brought some of their stuff to us. And I went, Oh, yeah, I do all that. Or like, actually, did you think about this? And they kind of confirmed or said, Oh, that's a good way of doing it. So those are some of my insights. But again, I know we did some of the same stuff in the morning.

So I don't know if you had other pieces you pulled out of those those first handful of presentations. No, I think that was that was the same stuff in the morning. So I don't know if you had other pieces you pulled out of those, those first handful of presentations. No, I think that was, that was a good, I thought the Google analytics session was, it's always good to try to get more out of G4. I think that we got between the PPC session and the Google analytics for session, I think definitely the managers, if they, if they were in there, they probably got some, some of their marketing team members got some insights and how to get better visibility into, into what's happening.

But I think, overwhelming trend or thread that I heard from the questions that were coming from some of the PMs was, asking Barry, asking Marie, asking, like, what can I do to optimize for a chat GPT? What can I do to optimize for chat GPT? And everybody is just so gung-ho on the chat GPT side of things. And there's, there's a lot of AI discussion and intriguing, interesting. I think we hashed that out a few times too. It's, it's an interesting

concept, but I think Barry Schwartz did a great job of saying, like, there's nothing you can special you can do because literally we don't know. Like, and I think that's something where I feel confident that I do know, like we, know like we are on the front lines. We do know that there's not, first of all, there's nothing you can do. And once there is something you can do, we're going to figure it out. But there's also only 3% market share. Like you said so often, they haven't taken it yet. And that's something that someone had asked, do you think this is the end of Google? And I think that, again, the he gave a fair timeline, I think five to seven years is not is not an unreal. Or maybe maybe that's what you said. Maybe

that's just our own personal conversations. But now that was that was that was said during one of the presentations, this five to seven year. Yeah, yeah, there could be some things that happen. Like it is that the things they're talking about with with Google and what they have to how they have to settle the antitrust. It sounds like they're gonna have to sell Like it is that the things they're talking about with Google and what they have, how they have to settle the antitrust. It sounds like they're going to have to sell off Chrome. It sounds like they're going to have to sell off Android and they're not going

to be able to reenter the search engine market for five years. Like that, that could have a meaningful impact, but that's still a humongous shift of intent. And we know that's a monolithic shift. And it's just not going to happen quickly. So that's, I think that was everybody's just so, so ready to get ahead of AI, that they forget that what you're doing, if you're not doing anything, you're in trouble. But what you are doing right now is,

is going to satisfy the needs of an LLM, just like it does a search engine algorithm. My honest thesis, and I could be wrong, is that a lot of people asking, not everybody, but a lot of people asking about how to optimize for the LLM are not optimizing currently very well for Google today. So they're sitting there worried about, oh no, the next thing I want to make sure I'm first in line or I'm early in line to this next new thing, which on the surface sounds good. Like that

sounds like a good idea to be like early as possible to this new channel. But if you're not so the data just to be clear, I got this wrong initially. So I had to repull it and make sure I got it correct. Correct. Google, it's 26 times more traffic. I think I did a LinkedIn post a while ago those incorrects that I had to correct it. So I'm just double checking that that is the case. So at the moment, there's no 2026 times more visitors come to Google than to chat tbt. But I will say this, this is a interesting piece, the puzzle to is every visit to chat tbt replacing a Google search. And for me, the answer is absolutely not. In fact, I don't use chat

tbt at all. And I use it quite a bit. Like I would use Google, I use chat tbt like a junior employee, they do this, analyze this report for me to just do this, do this, do that. So in the Venn diagram of things that chat GBT or Gemini does, and the things that a search engine does, Google, there is some overlap, of course, but it's not a perfect circle, not even close. So this idea that Google can't continue to have 80 billion visitors a month, which is by the way, similar web data that I'm looking at right now, and could chat GBT eventually have 20 billion visitors a month, and chat GBT still not take all of Google's market

share. I think that's very possible and or plausible and or likely. Now what I did say to a client who asked me about this and I wrote up an email, some reading off this a little bit is that I do think for the first time in a very long time, certainly last 15 years, it's clear that Google is now losing market share and awareness and search. But it's like they're this it's almost like they're a glacier and there's someone at the bottom with an ice pick who's picking away at it. They're chopping out little bits of it. And yes, little pieces of the glacier are coming off. Maybe little pieces of Google search are coming off. But I think people got really way too into this idea. Or you see like people on Twitter who will say this,

I never use Google anymore. You know, I'm using everything through AI search tool. People who are like very early adopters may be saying that or amusing something like perplexity. Awesome. I'm not disputing that there's not people who have swapped over some of their usage to it. But if we're talking, let's go back for a second and we think about marketing our vacation properties to a broad set of, you know, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of potential guests. How many of those people are using these tools today? Is that number going to go up? Absolutely. Is that should you be, you know, putting all of your eggs into a basket that's two or 3% and ignoring the one that's 97%, I really don't think so.

And that was kind of like my way of telling clients this was like, yes, you should be aware of these things. Yes, perhaps there's tools and techniques we're gonna learn in the future of how to optimize for an LLM, just like we've optimized for Google with content creation, link building, technical, all the TLCK framework stuff

that I've come up with over the years. But yeah, I mean, it's like, I think you've gotta like focus on the big thing, you know, first get that in good shape. And then if you're ranking number one, and you're saying, Oh, wow, like our traffic today is much lower than it was previously, even though we rank number one, that's a valid complaint to say, Okay, what other traffic sources are out there? How can I stimulate demand?

Those are very valid questions. But I didn't see people that are like, really established asking those questions. I saw like new people who are like, Oh, let me try to be first in line this new marketing channel. And I'm going to figure it out first. And I'm going to get all this benefit. And I think ultimately it's just like my analogy from a second ago, you're fishing in a much smaller pond

of people there. And is there some traffic available there? Of course. Are you going to get more than Google? I would be shocked if five years from now, we go to Darm and it's like, there's a session on like, delete your Google analytics, or delete your Google, you know, crawling, it doesn't need to worry about anymore. All the traffic is

coming from search GPT, or it's coming from perplexity or something like that. That to me seems pretty unlikely. And I get it. I mean, it's a new fancy tool. So there's people there, you know, Simon's presentation the following morning was about like, look, think of what could be in the future, autonomous robot checks you in and ask your preferences and all this kind of stuff. He may be right, he may be wrong. I don't know. But to me, it feels almost like, you wrong, I don't know. But to me, it feels almost like,

I don't know if you recall watching like 3D TV presentations in 2010, where you were told every time you go and watch your TV in 2024, it's gonna be a 3D TV or Google Glass or all these things that have not really hit. We can point to a lot of tech trends that have, not seen the full impact of it. And to be clear, I don't think that's what AI is.

No, no, no, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. Large language model tools are going to go in that direction. But just this idea that the old stuff will stick around maybe a little bit longer than you think in some regard. And if you're a vacation manager listening, focus on Google right now.

If you've mastered that or you're competent in that, sure, let's have some fun trying to optimize for these LLM tools. But outside of that, I think you're really distracting yourself if you're not good on Google, where, again, 26 times more traffic or more converts today. That is, and I think it's, yeah, maybe five years. If your business is just good for five years, then cool, awesome. Maybe, you know, I mean, don't stop listening, please keep

going. But I think it is, it's just too far in the future. I mean, there will be impacts like it should be on your 2025 roadmap, your 2026 roadmap, but not anything you're actionably doing. Because if someone goes out and gives you an action plan on how to optimize for chat GPT right now, it's not going to help. I almost guaranteed it's guessing at best. I'm guessing you know, it and if you again if you if your marketing team has like a 10% time, which I think is awesome, by the way, if someone you know, is doing that, hey, feel free to spend 10% of your time on channels that you don't know if

we're gonna work or ideas you don't know gonna work. If you want to spend a little bit of time, we're trying to figure out how to rank well and perplexity by you know, modifying some of your content structure, stuff like that cool, go for it. Like I'm not going to stop you from doing stuff like that. But if you're not doing well on Google and then you're gonna sit there and try to optimize for search EPT or perplexity or something,

boy, you are marked up for long trees. And I think that'll be the case for a very, very long time. Yeah. All right, so day one kind of rounded out. I know we're, you know, we don't have unlimited time to recap, day one kind of rounded out with, well, with my presentation, of course, that's how everyone ended.

Well, the best, the top one. Yeah. Yeah. So mine specifically, we referenced that earlier, but just to kind of put it about one exactly what it was. The title of it was Mastering Property Detail Pages and Property Descriptions to get more direct booking. So the main premise, and I do plan on recording a version of it. And I can drop that here in the feed in a future episode or a future week, excuse me. So maybe that's something you guys will listen to a version of down the road. But I always like to give the live version to the conference that I attended. So yeah, long story short, it was basically

because we had such short time periods, all the marketing things I could have done, Amy, excuse me, wanted me to focus into a specific thing. I said, hey, the property detail page is where, honestly, a lot of our consideration and decision-making comes into play. So that was the gist of the presentation. So again, we'll come back and do a more specific version

of it, but long story short is like the way you present your properties matters as far as the people willing to make a reservation at a story at the beginning, which we have actually covered in the podcast before about the Payless, Paylessy brand story where you put the same shoes in a nicer setting and people pay more for them. The same thing in my mind applies to vacation properties.

You put the same properties into the right layout or presented in a different way and people were interested in them. So if that really interests you, by the way, I can send you my slides, just send me an email or fill out the contact form of the Build a Website. I can send you my slides today, but I do plan on recording a version

and I'll either drop out of the feed or have a video that'll push out somewhere on LinkedIn or through the email list or something like that. So, yeah. All right, well, if you more, I mean, what was kind of your main highlights from day two? Anything you wanna hit on there? As you mentioned, I did end up jetting out a little bit early.

So maybe you caught some stuff at the end that I didn't get. So you're telling me for the first time some of this stuff, but yeah, what was kind of your main highlights from day two? Anything you want to hit on there? As you mentioned, I did end up jetting out a little bit earlier. So maybe you caught some stuff at the end that I didn't get. So you're telling me for the first time, some of the stuff. But yeah, what did Yeah, I mean, I think we both started the day what marketing leadership looks like in 25 to 27. I thought that was a solid panel. It was some good leaders in the space. And I thought that one was I really I got quite a few more of the those roundtables the second day, which it was a kind of a different feel. I didn't love just like the arena. I'm going to use those air quotes very heavily in the term really use I was joking that it was like an MMA fighting. And we were all like it was like the octagon and we were all around it.

So the other the layout was kind of strange. But that's it's a different than they did some cameras and it was it was interesting. I don't everybody has different preferences. What where it was fun was Newlywood game was the the best session. I'm sorry. It's it was the most fun. It was truly to see Hunter and Ginger Harrelson to see Heather and Robin Craig and to see Lance and Elaine Stitcher and to see Rob and Rachel all day. Just, you couldn't have had four couples who were gonna have more fun with it. And it just made it. I didn't know what I was missing. I went into another session and it was,

it was not a lot of people there. Now I know why. It was apparently one of the not popular session. It is. I mean, it's funny because Hunter told me specifically, don't miss, don't miss this thing at 145. And I said, okay, I gotta take Hunter. Hunter gotta take up to the advice when he's gonna tell me something like that. But they did not disappoint. And it was I

said, they I think they started I did I even walked in a few minutes late and they had already taken their shots of fireball and they were ready to go. So it was a it is 1pm. It was it was it wasn't a session. And I made the post on LinkedIn. This should have been main stage thing. And I think next year it will, it'll be like something where during the lunchtime or something, I can see that being just kind of the early afternoon entertainment

because that was, that was fantastic. But unfortunately you didn't get to see here. Will's closing speech. Yeah, yeah. He delivers. Highlighter for him. There's just no doubt. I mean, he delivers because I wasn't there last year. I wasn't able to listen. It did. It sounded like he brought a whole new presentation and really talking about, you know,

willing to be vulnerable and willing to say, I'm sorry, he had the four pillars, I didn't write them down, that's my bad. But he was talking about really, that's kind of when you're talking about that unreasonable hospitality, there's not always a willingness to kind of acknowledge that you've done wrong and be willing to kind of exceed those expectations.

What you got? Oh, I think that that's something that it was, it was fun to listen to. And then, and he gave a speech and then Amy kind of did dove in with a fireside chat. And that was pretty fun too, just to kind of hear him be a little more and not that he was, he's not authentic, but just to be a little more off the collar. And he did get dragged pretty well. He had said he booked an Airbnb and oh he got dragged real hard for saying he was staying in a six-week long-term Airbnb and the seconds half he delivered. You know he booked it direct with the property manager but he was there for three

months. He said there was nothing remarkable. You know it's really about delivering those experiences. It doesn't have to be big. So he went to a conference in Texas and there was bags and bags of cowboy hats and boots and everything like that. And he said, I mean, that's not it. But when he came in, he was talking to the Dallas Cowboys, little name drop there.

Yeah. And he got into his hotel room. 10 minutes later, there was a knock at the door and they knew that he was a big in and out burger and big burger, burger and fries guy. So he, the note was from, you know, we know you don't, we like burgers. We don't have in and out. We don't have this. We have what a burger. So they handle over to tray, you know, fries and a cheeseburger. I mean, that's the type of stuff. 20 bucks. Exactly. I think that's where understanding where you can make those small impacts. And

I think he was also very good about, I think that's where there was a little crossover with Simon, you know, and what he was talking about with the AI of this is at our disposal to a certain extent. There's some of this information is this much more readily available. And I think the willingness to take that small amount of time or make that small monetary investment and still be able to deliver that, that's what's going to, that small amount of time or make that small monetary investment and still be able to deliver that. That's what's going to allow us to overcome or supersede at some point Airbnb. Otherwise, if we're not giving anybody that exceptional experience, why would they go anywhere else other than Airbnb, which is that known commodity, you're an unknown commodity,

but when you become a known commodity by delivering that unreasonable hospitality, yeah. It was definitely a pump, it felt like a pump up speech, a nice way to finish things off. And then we almost got blown up by fireworks. Oh, well, I'm really, really sad I missed that. Yeah, I mean, those were two good ways to end it. But yeah, back to Will, and then I do wanna hear the. I mean, those were two good ways to end it. But yeah, yeah. Back to back to

Will. And then I do want to hear the fireworks story. I know we got to wrap here in a few. But um, yeah, I think I think with that idea, this is something that a lot of people say, and everyone nods their head and everyone agrees, which is this idea that my first booking came in through Airbnb, but I'm going to make sure that the next booking comes in through, you know, direct, like everyone says that. And everyone nods and goes, Yeah, yeah, sounds good. Everyone agrees. And then I look

at that. And I look at our's data and I go, well, that's not true. That's not happening because I've seen repeat bookings come in frequently in our clients' data sets when I poke around to try to look for that sort of thing through Airbnb. So obviously there's something to the fact that, no, you don't always deliver on it. And I think the reason for that is very simple. Actually, there's not some complex automation we need to do or some... It's that they don't remember you. You're not memorable. So I think what you know, I wasn't there for that particular well one, but the

one I got last year was like, everything he talks about is memorable, like it sticks in your head. And I think that's the that's the pieces that we're probably missing a lot. Yes, the burger example, or, you know, that's a $20 example, right? That's not anything that's, you know, mind blowing or anything like that, you know, for you, it would have been like a Vikings t shirt, you know, would have like been meant more to you or something, you know, than almost, you know, a bottle of wine or something, you know, because, you know, for you, it would have been like a Vikings t shirt, you know, would have like been meant more to you or something, you know, than almost, you know, a bottle of wine or something,

you know, because, you know, that would make something you partake in, right. So it's like, a good understanding of the person that you're giving that gift to something small, and it doesn't have to be expensive. But what if there was a what if there was a Vikings t shirt waiting for you, and you booked your Airbnb, and then it said, Hey, Paul, and let's say you were there because you were watching a game, you know, and then the game was on TV, watched it, and hopefully your Vikings win and

all that kind of stuff. When you were watching a game, you know, and then the game was on TV, watched it, and hopefully your Vikings win and all that kind of stuff. When you come back next year, you know, for this event, make sure you wear this t-shirt, you know, we hope your favorite team wins. And oh, by the way, book direct, you know, and save. Like that first piece actually makes the second piece more memorable, right? Because it's like, oh, I didn't book with a faceless, brainless, nameless sort of Airbnb host. I booked with blah, blah, blah, property manager, wherever that happens to be. be Conrad school cabins, you know, when I stayed in this, you know, memorable cabin. So I think that's the piece maybe to tie back to our industry of like, what that message means to me, like hearing it secondhand would be memorability comes with like the trust and brand building side of it. And just sending an automated message, although

it's not a bad idea, like, I'm happy to set up an automated message for our clients to be like, hey, by the way, you could have paid less if you booked direct, that's fine. But it's not going to convince anywhere near 100% of people. And it's really how you treat that person when they're there. That means a lot. And yeah, I mean, think about the booking, you referenced the fact that he made a three month booking. I mean, I'm assuming he's staying in a nice place. I'm sure it

will have a lot of success in his business in his career. That could easily have been a 20 $30,000 booking right that he stayed there. And for them to not put, you know, 2% of that budget into trying to at least reach out and check in on him. Hey, can we bring you something? Can we send you some cookies while you're there? I mean, something, right? Just like some small little touch, you know,

maybe it was a nice house and I'm sure hopefully at least a good stay, it met his expectations, but yeah, what an opportunity, someone in your place for three months to, you know, who knows, right? He might come back and stay again if he has a good time with his family. So I think there's something there, but yeah, I got a few odds and ends.

Maybe we can append to the end here because I don't know exactly where they fit. So these are just bullet points that I took there. One of the analytics sessions talked a lot about doing better funnel tracking. I think I think I'm calling myself out here. I think we're weak in that regard. So I want to work better and I'm going to work better over the next few months on getting better event tracking in place and understanding how many people go from home to search results to property detail page to start checkout to finish checkout. I got some I need to have it in more accounts. That's on me. So accountability there that I'm going to property detail page to start checkouts to finish check out. I got it in some I need to have it in

more accounts that's on me. So accountability there that I'm gonna I'm gonna work on that. There were some commentary on cross marketing on social specifically with local businesses and we just haven't done enough with that. So when we're managing social for clients, we're not active reaching out to small local businesses that are nearby. Hey, the best pizza shop in whatever town that we're working in and saying hey, let's do a giveaway. That was something I think it was Cheyenne from Red Rock had mentioned that one, like that idea quite a bit, and we're just not doing enough of it. So again, I'm like raising hands for these are just things that I just want to move on for, you know,

our clients, our own company. Michelle Marquis session was not well attended, but it should have been. That's a miss on a lot of people's part. Maybe it's because she did voice and maybe people think, oh, voice isn't as prominent anymore, but she pulled some data, 21% of reservations with the client she worked in this year are from voice still from phone

So that is a heck of a mess. We have clients that do almost no Reservations over phone over voice and they almost hide their phone number, you know, they almost make it hard to like contact them They don't want people calling in and Michelle I think really proved a lot of people wrong You know who say this kind of stuff that phone phone is dead or phones not, you know what it used to be sure Maybe it's less than it used to be but the idea that if you could turn that channel on and do a better job with that channel, you could add 20% was pretty interesting. Her my favorite insight that she had and I'm going to implement this in our company. Very simple is a leaderboard, you know, hey, here's how much policy in the last 30 days. Here's how much conference

sold in the last 30 days, you know, and just putting that up somewhere. I was like, Oh, that's an idea, you know, for sure that I could implement there. Yeah. And then, you know, again, the idea of like local business or collaboration, I thought was pretty solid. I also got a few, you know, honestly, I just saw some really cool companies there that I plan on following. So I mentioned I met Cheyenne from Red Rock, I'm gonna look at what they're doing, you know, seems like they're doing a really good job on marketing. I was like to

poke around, you know, other markets, we don't have any when that markets why I was just like to poke around, sign up for their list, see other doing things already saw a few things on their Instagram, I thought were kind of clever. So I'm always down for that. I don't know if you have any odds and ends. I know we're up against the timeist, see other doing things. I already saw a few things on their Instagram I thought were kind of clever. So I'm always down for that. I don't know if you have any odds and ends. I know we're up against the time wise, Paula, that you want to put in there.

But the one thing, kind of the final benefit for those who are listening that attended is hopefully you do, if you miss some sessions, I do love that Amy records everything or as much as she can there. So that is the nice part is hopefully you can pick out some of these sessions. If you've got some little tidbits of what we were talking about,

you can go back and listen to all those sessions. And maybe we can give our list of the top three or top five that we that we thought people should listen to. We can pop that on the episode list or something like that. But outside of that, I think we did it good. We did okay. Yeah. Yeah.

It was, it was a good show. Obviously it was a unique experience to, uh, dang out in person. Of course we talk all the time, but it's, it's always a thousand miles away as always. I'm sure that people think in your, you know, a little bit. So you're not just a zoom square or anything like that, a real person. So it was fun, man. Had a good time. And yeah, hopefully we can, hopefully we can rerun it next year. I don't know if she said, did she say where it's going to be next year? Was that something you caught at?

I didn't catch that. Um, Maybe we'll see. That's a open question. Yeah, I'm sure she'll go out and get bids. And I thought this location was good, by the way. And we didn't even touch on the golf that I played the day before because we didn't have time. So if you're interested in that, you send me a message and I could tell you all about how to play the routing on burnt pine hit a bunch of four irons off the tee was less than I wrote there. But it was tight. But it was an awesome course. Beautiful place. So that's it. If you made it all the way to the end, you must have, maybe you were at the event, maybe you saw, maybe we shook your hand.

Again, I always love when people come up and say, hey to me or something like that. Had a few people who say, didn't recognize me at first, then I started talking and they recognized my voice, so that always slows me down a little bit. The idea that people don't actually know what I look like. I mean, it's obviously we've gone LinkedIn and stuff like that, but it takes people a second

and then they've heard maybe a handful of podcast episodes before, so that always puts a smile on my face. But if you made it all the way to the end of this episode, we'd love a review. So go to your podcast app of choice, iTunes, Spotify, those folks where we get the most downloads. So we appreciate your review there the most.

Click follow or click subscribe so you get future episodes and we'll kind of resume our regular scheduled programming here soon enough, but we appreciate it. If you were there at the event, awesome to see you. If not, then maybe you'll be there next year and we could shake hands and say, hey. So thank you, have an awesome day and we'll catch you next time.

Thanks so much.