Heads In Beds Show - The Success Framework: How To KNOW A Vacation Rental Will Work Well

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

In this episode of The Heads In Beds Show, Paul and Conrad recap build the "Success Framework" for vacation rental properties to KNOW if a property will be successful. ⭐️ Links & Show NotesPaul Manzey Conrad O'ConnellConrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental MarketingConrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101🔗 Connect With BuildUp BookingsWebsiteFacebook PageInstagram🚀 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, we're live. Paul, what's cooking Conrad. I'm your co host Paul. All right, we're live Paul, what's cooking?

We just keep whipping these things out now. This is this is the cadence we used to you know, it feels like we used to be more in this realm of boom, boom, boom, knock them out, knock them out, knock them out. I love it. I think we have some great conversations this way. But how are you doing sir? Yeah, pretty good. I feel the momentum as well. And it's good to feel momentum. So we'll keep the momentum as well. And it's good to feel momentum. So we'll keep putting out new ones. And it's making me think, which I think usually when I think,

is when good things happen. At least I try to believe that. Sometimes I overthink, of course. But for the most part, I think me thinking is good. So we'll keep it caveman voice style in that way and just say, we thought of something and we thought we'd share it today and see what people think of it.

So it should be pretty positive. So what we're diving into today, I don't have a great transition. So we'll just dive into it is this idea of so taking taking apart this idea a little bit, it's what actually makes a vacation rental property successful or not successful. And how do we define success, maybe even it's almost like we have to take each of those words and define them to actually break this apart and do well with it. And I mean, our lead forms have been continuing to come in throughout the summer. And a lot of people are reaching out now. I would say they tend to be a little bit more nervous or unsettled. And in some cases, even desperate

than they are like, Hey, I'm making this plan for how to improve my marketing, you know, maybe you could be a part of that, which is kind of maybe what I feel like more in the fall and winter tends to be more of like that future planning look, the person may reaching out right now again, in some cases more just like, shoot, like I don't have the occupancy, I want another revenue I want, what do I do? Are there things that I can potentially execute upon right away that will give me some more bookings? And the answer is yes, by the way, some things you can do will get you a few more bookings. But I want to zoom back a little bit and determine, you know, with some of these people, and just like in general, like what actually makes a property

successful. So the idea is kind of like if there was a success framework for vacation rental properties, what would it look like? And a lot of people have done a lot of good work on this, to be clear. I'll shout out Ben Wolf, who was on the Art of Hospitality podcast probably about a month and a half ago at this point. And he agreed with my assessment of this idea of commodity versus specialty. But I was like, that's not enough to describe what the actual problem is. That got us part of the way there.

But I think I've spent some more time thinking about how to get us all the way there, which is this idea of, in my mind, differentiation and understanding what people actually are looking for is what actually leads to success. Because again, success is such a differential factor, depending on what people are actually trying to achieve with their money, with their property, with whatever they're trying to actually get out of it. So anyways, a lot of high-level concepts there. But what's your read on this? Like

overall situation? Like you see it like me, I suspect which is like, all right, this is a marketing problem, we can get more attention, we get more clicks, we get more eyeballs. But I'm assuming from time to time, you've had the same thoughts too, of just like, are we marketing something that people actually want? Is there a desirability to what we're focused on? I think that was something that I probably didn't consider it

before I got into the owner side with the door. That was something that a numbers of numbers of numbers, like it was keys, it was doors. It was, those were the focuses of, of what we were looking at. So however we had to get marketing, however, we had to market to those properties, to that business, to get those rooms filled. That's all that mattered. But it kind of took looking at how we were marketing to get those new owners and determining Okay. Yeah, you can spray a whole bunch of marketing across

2000 list of 2000 3000 whatever that is But do you want all those 3000 if everybody said yes, would you want to take all of those 3000 properties on? That's that no problem that we had so that's not anything we had to worry about. But hypothetically, when you're actually thinking about that evaluation of homes in your current inventory and as you're looking to grow, I think that's something that I hope, and every market's going to be a little different, every manager's going to be a little different, but you do. You see the people who do try to find a little more unique type of property and you get dependent on their market.

If you're in a broadly known, well-known market or something that's a little more narrow there, it just matches up a lot more. The homeowner gets a better experience. That property manager gets a better experience. Usually the traveler gets a better experience there. So again, everybody's a little different, but I think when you're evaluating bringing new properties on, this has to be something that you're thinking

about. And certainly as you're marketing to these people and figuring out how to get more eyeballs in front of these people, you have to understand how am I going to distinguish this property from every other property or how have we already, you know, just by the nature of the property itself, how has it already set itself apart and now what else do I do to kind of, you know, bring it to that next level or, you know, take it to that ultimate bookings on there. So I think the four primary quadrants here are really, I mean, I think they're straightforward, you know, I'm not gonna, I won't dilly around anymore. You go ahead and go through the four

quadrants and we can talk more about that there. Yeah, happy to do that. But I'll agree with your last statement, which is that homeowner acquisition side of it, because I do think that's a common sentiment in our industry. And I think a lot of that stemmed from this very strong demand we saw in 21, 22, and 23, where I mean, really 21 and 22, I think was fever pitch there where it's like, if I have a home, I can book it. So in that mindset, it's almost like throw a lot of this stuff out the window. If you had a home and put it on there and someone will pay 300 bucks a night, then like you should have done that. That is the only logical thing you could do. If I could go out and, you know, I'm just giving an example. Let's say someone comes to me right now knocks on my door and says, I'll buy your house right now for three million dollars. And spoiler alert for those who've never been to my house, it's not worth anywhere close to that. I'd be an idiot not to sell it, right? Like I can go find another house, you know, in somewhere nearby and you perfectly find that arrangement. So if someone's willing to give you far more than it's quote unquote worth, it is the only right, it's the only logical thing to do, you know, to take that and build it in there.

But that was obviously a fever pitch. That was a temporary moment of demand maybe in the long term, you know, run here. And some people found a lot of success there and they've continued on with their success, maybe at a little bit lower demand level. Other people were like, whoa, I was marketing something that was not, is no longer desirable. The moment that high demand went away, you know, the bottom fell out of this property and it's not doing well at all. And that's where, that's where I'm always the ones that I look at and go, can we help this person or not? And I think this is actually my way of like giving this to my team as well and saying like, can we help this

person or not? So to your point, Paul, the four quadrants. So here's what I thought about it. The X axis is how differentiated the property is, which is more of a commodity or more of a specialty or unique property. And the Y axis is what's the market appeal of that property. So basically, in short, how unique is the property and how many people want that uniqueness, I think is ultimately what matters the most towards these properties that are very successful. So let's, for the sake of the discussion today, call that the premium zone. They're highly unique and they have a broad appeal. So for example, it is a property that's right in the ocean front. It has, you know, beautiful design on the exterior, the architecture is interesting, it has beautiful views, maybe even better to really make it a premium property. It has

three lots left and right of it that can't be built on. So it's more secluded, it's more private, it's more serene than other properties maybe would be even they're relatively close nearby, it has something that other properties don't have. And of course, these are things are very hard to find. So if you're thinking, listening right now and going, that seems hard to find. Yes, I know. That's kind of the point, right? So premium zone is highly unique. And it has broad appeal, right? People would be, people will be interested in the fact that it is a feature on property that's 10 bedrooms that looks beautiful, that has interesting architecture, and really good interior design. And there's a lot of people that want that, that desire

that thing, right? I think that we'll talk on a second. It's very possible, by the way, I think to be highly unique, but not actually have a broad or a great enough appeal for it to work. So for example, you and I always like to talk football. We like to talk about different things.

Let's say for example, that we made the best, well, we'll do the Vikings just for fun. We made the best Vikings themed house you could make. And we put it in the middle of Texas, or we put it in the middle of North Dakota or South Dakota, where no one vacations or no one visits. Well, if you're a Vikings fan, you may like the idea that a property is Vikings themed.

You might have some fun with that idea, but you're like, well, I'm never going to go to Texas or North Dakota or South Dakota. By the way, these aren't real places. They're Dakotas. No one's ever told me otherwise. Total sidebar there. So I might be wrong on that, by the way, these aren't real places. The Dakotas, no one's ever told me otherwise. Total sidebar there. So I'm going to put a bit of a wrong on that, by the way, but I digress. So they're those I call, these are context dependent properties. They're not the premium zone properties. That's that highly unique and they have broad appeal. That's what like everybody wants, right? I think of like sports cars this way too, right? Like a Ferrari is very

unique and has broad appeal. A lot of guys want to drive sports cars, you know, premium fast sports cars, right? The highly unique and narrow appeal thing might work, but it might depend on other factors. So for example, I would say even some of these like unique states type properties are kind of context dependent. There's like the Hobbit house from Christie Wolf that was featured recently, the potato, they're almost like so absurd, but like, they make it enough where it's like, it's kind of risky, you didn't know if people are going to land with that or not. If they do land on it, you look, you look like a genius, and it looks like it all worked out. But there's also a lot of graveyards along the way of people that have tried

something that's really unique, but actually doesn't have the broad appeal there. So I'll run through the next two and then we can react to each of these. Yeah, the next box I think is where most vacational vendors fit into. And I don't think this is necessarily some horrible spot to be in. I just think that this is the nature of it, right? It's low, low uniqueness, but it does have broad appeal. So for example, the if I just have a three bedroom beachfront condo, have a three-bedroom beachfront house in the same market I was talking about earlier, that is a highly unique property, and there's 10 other houses right next to it, that's not that unique, right? There's 10 other properties that are very equivalent to it. Again, same way as selling a Honda Accord, right? There's lots of Honda Accords out there, there's lots of those

types of things. But it has broad appeal. A lot of people want to stay in a three-bedroom beachfront home. At the right price, they absolutely will do that. A lot of people want to stay in a three bedroom beachfront home at the price. They absolutely will do that. A lot of people want to buy a Honda Civic. They sell many of them. In fact, I think Honda sells a lot more cars than Ferrari. So it kind of proves my point there, right? Like that's that's obviously something that's broadly appealing to a lot of people. So therefore the fact that it's not that unique is relatively okay. Now we'll talk in a minute about how to at least try to break and make your commodity appear a little bit nicer than the other commodities out there. But I think that is the commodity and in my brainstorming notes, I put it's a trap, I think it is a trap, if you don't recognize that and then act accordingly. So if you just say I have a commodity property, but I

pretend like it's a premium property, I think that's where you get into trouble. And then finally, the avoid zone, which I think not a lot of uniqueness to the property. And it does not have narrow appeal, right. So I think this is where your bad reviews come in. So let's say you had a property and you said this home is for people that love tennis, I've got tennis courts in the back of the property. But then in the back of that property, the tennis courts are cracked and there's grass growing up in the middle of courts and the nets are maintained. I don't play tennis. So I'm assuming these are all undesirable things for tennis court.

And you go back there and someone does book it because they go, oh, I'm a tennis player, I'm playing tennis. I'm going to have a tennis match here against my friend or partner or whatever the case may be. And then you get there and tennis court sucks. Then you're like, oh, you blew it. Like this wasn't that unique or it was kind of unique. But it didn't have the appeal that I wanted to once I got here. It was just not a good experience. And this is obviously what we rightly have called in our quadrant here, the avoid zone. So you don't want something that has low uniqueness and narrow appeal. And of course, you can kind of blend some of the commodity ideas in there with narrow

appeal and the avoid zone. And this is where you don't want to be. So again, my statement is that most property managers are in the commodity zone. That's relatively okay as long as you know that you're there and you know how to market around it. Most of these kind of unique state people I think are, they think they're in the premium zone, sometimes they are. I think many of them are in the risky or context dependent zone, which is this idea of like really unique but does it appeal to enough people for it to actually work well. And then yeah, I think what we all want to avoid no matter who we are is this avoid zone. Problems that people don't really want, and they're located and they don't have anything that really makes them stand out, or when you try

that thing that stands out, it lets you down. So those are my four quadrants. What's, what's say you about those four and how far off am I on those four? The commodity zone is, is unique in the standpoint of it's not, you're not painting in as bad and it's not bad because think about the different areas, I mean different locations. Let's go to Gatlinburg. There's a lot of cabins. You may have a big beautiful four bedroom, five bedroom cabin. Everybody has big beautiful four bedroom, five bedroom cabins.

Just the same thing in Myrtle Beach. A lot of two, three, one, two, three bedroom condos. That's where the people get sucked into this many bedrooms, this many baths, this many everything like that. Well, when everybody's got the same number, it does, it just becomes something that is that commodity trap. I think of Scottsdale, everybody thinks I've got all these five bedroom homes in Scottsdale. Once again, wonderful spot, broad appeal. Everybody loves going to Scottsdale, but everybody's got those five bedroom homes too. So I think that that's something where it is so market dependent there, even if you think like even whether or not you are a commodity because this same home, yeah, that five bedroom

home down in on the beaches of 38 stands out in your market. It does not. So it's, I think that's what you and I said, when we were down there, we were driving to that conference the one day. And we saw like 35 beach houses right next to each other that were all beautiful, beautiful and big. And they looked amazing. And we were just like, wow, like, that's commodity as amazing as it is, even the fact that it's worth $2 million, it is commodity because there's 34 other ones just like that really makes it difficult to try to be, you know, we talk about sticking your market,

sticking your market because you know your market. You may think that that is the bell ringer, five bedroom, you know, this much, this value, this, this, you know, all these little data points that have pointed in your market to you being trying to trend towards the premium zone, even into the risky context dependent zone. But that is not the case for every market.

So I do, I think that that's a big one. And I think that's everybody, I think that's how we get sucked into the commodity trap is that we think it is unique because oh, it's unique in this market, but it's not necessarily unique in your own market. So I think that's where anytime you are trying to get into the premium zone, you have to understand what is going to differentiate you.

And I like I think of when you were even when you were describing the premium zone and even the risky the risky zone, it immediately went to it's got it. This is Instagram where this is this is where this is tick tock worthy. This is where maybe some of these, it creates that risky context dependent area for you. That might be one of the most effective ways for you to market, doing it on social media, where virality is great until it's not,

or up to the point where you'd never get to that point. So I think that the awe factor, the wow factor, whatever that is, kind of does determine how you can market more. You know, it opens up channels of effective marketing and if you can do it, great. But I think the difference between one and two is sometimes that effective marketing and being able to take it to social take it to a broader you know a broader appeal because that narrow appeal only goes so far and the agro business is great until you realize people don't want to do that as much the outdoors awesome if you're in

the right market there I it. I love experiential. You just have to make sure the experience is something that people are looking for. So it's overall, I think you nailed it. So these are the uniqueness dimensions as I see them. I think you already touched on some really important ideas there. So I try to tie it up into like, our uniqueness is somewhat subjective, right? What I think is kind of unique, you may not think is unique. And I think we should go through those. So number one, architecture and design. So architecture could be the exterior nature of how the property looks and feels. I think design is also interior design as well, right? What does the property actually

look like inside? And sometimes you see that mismatch, you see a really interesting property on the outside or it photographs well, then you get inside and you start clicking through and you go, ah, this doesn't really, you know, match, match well there. And I would say what's more common to some of the markets that you reference is the opposite. You know, think of the Orlando Florida type market as the anchor that I'll often hold up there, where often the architecture of the home is very bland and boring and uninteresting. It's the same 10 bedroom, eight bedroom home. And

I don't know, because you have a client in the market who does a really good job. But you know, he's got he'll say this too, like he's got the same exteriors everybody other client, or every other property manager in those different markets, where he differentiates is on the interior design and the theming of the properties that really make them unique. And again, that's a whole spectrum in itself, right? Putting stickers on a wall is kind of what he detests, or he's like, hey, that's a very not, that's not really considered theming in his mind. Designing your custom bunk bed that's made with the help of a mood designer, you know, set, and then your kids walk in there, it's this magical experience. That's very different

than obviously, hey, I put a Mario sticker on on the wall which is what some people would pass as theming in Orlando. So anyways architecture design I think those are unique dimensions that again one broadly appealing can really make a lot of you know sense and do well there. Location views this is more the actual property itself right where does the property actually sit is in the right location if you're trying to go and I'm trying to go see a Vikings game well I want that to be a reasonable proximity to the Viking stadium this is where I think you can be kind of a subpar designer or like the architecture be kind of boring. But if the location is nice, it kind of saves you a lot from from other sins, right? If you're next right next to a hospital, if you're

next to this, there's all these practical forms of travel that I think people, you know, can can leverage and do well with. Same with oceanfront, right? If you're in a market where oceanfront's hard to come by, and not all markets are this way, some are, some are not, but if you're in a market where that's hard to come by and then you're oceanfront, awesome. You've just now set forth 30-40% of the battle you've already won because of the location that you've chosen. Same with views. You talked about the Smoky Mountains earlier, great market for that because you get a property that is somewhat interesting maybe in terms of just the facts and the figures. It's a three-bedroom, it's a two-bath. What if you had an infinity pool on the backyard looking over and it's right

in the edge of a mountain and you can see all the way down and the smoky mountains, everything's beautiful, it's quiet, it's serene. That property probably do pretty well over the long term because of the views that it has, right? Take that same property, put it at the base of the mountain and the backyard is viewing another cabin and what are you going to get, right? You're going to get a lot worse results from it, generally speaking. Size and space, somewhat self-explanatory there, but obviously, you know, bigger is usually better, as it were, and there's of course exceptions to that. And obviously the community factor there is cost,

if I make it really big, but then it costs a lot more. Can I then justify the extra cost in terms of the extra investment and then the nightly rate I'm gonna have to charge? Tricky question to answer, but that's I think an important unique dimension. If I'm coming with my kids, I now want these three, four bedroom houses. You know, like I want more space for all of my kids

when we start to travel again in the future. Amenities features, again, someone's self-explanatory there. I would say this really matters too with like how desirable those amenities. So we've like hot tub seems to be kind of standard fare now in a lot of markets. Like you don't see a successful vacation rental in some cabin markets or, you know, fall type markets without a hot tub, right? The sauna seems to be like a little bit of a trend.

Some people are doing the sauna, some aren't. It's like, is that enough to sustain? The clients that I have that have done the saunas are kind of torn, to be honest with you. Like we put them in, it seems to help a little bit, but is everyone using the saunas? Is there enough, you know, juice there to really keep it going long-term? Same thing I would say with a cold plunge, like there's kind of these health trends kicking around right now, you know, same kind of thing, right? Like, is that a trend? Is that going to stick? Or is that just there for a moment? I'll give you a great counter to that example, which

is the Peloton bike. I had clients that were tossing the Peloton bikes in a bunch of properties and then here we are a few years later after the pandemic and the Peloton bike just doesn't seem as popular as it once was. Not saying that people don't use Peloton anymore, I'm sure they still have a lot of customers and so on and so forth, but there was a moment there where it was very popular. Now it's seemingly faded off a little bit. So you put the Peloton bike in there, spent the two grand and now you're looking back on it going, you know, is that really worth it? It may not be depending on how people are drawn to that in your specific market. And then finally experience or the theme of the

property itself. So again, we talked about this kind of a second ago with respect to interior design can also be theming, it could also be game rooms, it could also be all these things, right, the backyard has all this fun stuff in it, so on and so forth. So those are kind of my unique dimensions, anything you'd add into those or any commentary on those unique dimensions. dimensions, anything you'd add into those or any commentary on those unique dimensions.

Those are so, so important. I think it requires you to do the walking tour. Don't just sign in sign sight unseen. I think that's the thing again, being going into a a market and understanding that okay, I see I see just a I see all of these things and really understanding the amenities and the design available. I mean, we've all gone through a photo gallery where someone has done a great job on the interior design and it's, it is, it's just a better experience of looking through. I mean, I think if you looked at the,

at session recording data and all that, those with better images are going to have more people that are just looking through more. That's the reality. So they may not book. I would certainly assume the conversion rate would be higher if the images are better and because of the better design. But that's something that at the very least, they're going to engage more and they're going to dream. They can start to dream. The inspiration is starting to come loose there. So I think understanding the more unique you can get, if that's something you're aiming for, yeah, these are certainly the factors you should be considering there.

So yeah, right on. So I'll kind of, well, do you want to take the second one here? Maybe just this idea of matching to the guest priorities, because I think that this is an important thing to understand. Like, yes, you're probably going to make tradeoffs, but what tradeoffs are okay, and what tradeoffs may sink you. So any- That is, I mean, yeah, matching, knowing that you, if you are in a mountain market, there are going to be a lot of people who are going to want that ski in, ski out access. Beach trips, people are going to want to have close proximity to the beach. They may not be as interested in what's inside the condo because how much time on both of

those scenarios are they going to be spending either in the mountain villa, the mountain lodge, the mountain loft or in the beach condo. I mean that's something where being able to get to that easy access to family activities, or just again, the activities that you're going to that destination for, that's gonna be way more important for those people. Family reunions, they can take a little larger family look there.

They're not necessarily going to need the pretty design inside. They need a large space that's going to hold the entire group. They want to make sure that the whole family can eat together, the whole family can play together, the whole family can stay together. That's kind of the three priorities that you're going to want when you have those large groups coming. Now for the millennials that are starting to travel more and more and really want that experience and are doing a lot of that research on the social side of things, those Instagram for the millennials that are starting to travel more and more and really want that experience and are doing a lot of that research on the social side of things, those Instagram travelers.

At that point, photovoltaic is going to be more important than having direct access to a major airport or even a drive-to market, something like that. These people are going to drive to that spot. They want to make sure that they can take that picture, they can have that experience, they can share it with all their followers. That is what they are all about there. So I mean, that's so many some of the examples we have in this in our list, what do you have anything else that stands out to you when you think of those guest priorities as as we're trying to lay them out there?

No, I think I think that explains it well ultimately, because what it comes down to is just like, yeah, like, do you have people are after and I'm sure this has happened where people let's say and particularly in large groups where the let's just say, my wife books something and she picked it more for herself. Well, my parents might get there, let's say it was like a family trip or her parents might get there and like this isn't exactly what I what I would have chosen, but it doesn't mean it's not, you know, good. Like I'll get this happened to me. I'll give you a story. Here's a good story. We booked a fishing trip like two years ago and I went down my father-in-law brought the boat and then we went down to Cape Coral. I think you and I talked about this before and we were staying for a while.

The dock, the location of the dock, everything was set up perfectly for what we were trying to do fishing. The girls got there and they were fine. They had no trouble with what we picked to be clear, but it wouldn't have been what they would pick. That's for sure. Right. And, you know, John, my father-in-law was like, Yeah, but like we get the boat and then we go through this one channel around the bay,

like we're locked in like this is awesome. Right. And then they're just like, Yeah, like it's a little small, it's a little bit older, you know, like they didn't like it. But I thought what we paid would get a good value. And we got a chance to meet the property manager, he was a good guy to deal with. But um, you know, one of those things, right, where it's like, we all have our own preferences. But then, yeah, when you smash the group together, it's like you may find like, Oh, someone else would have preferred a different property versus, you know, one of those things, right, where it's like, we all have our own preferences. But then, yeah, when you smash the group together, it's like, you may find like, someone else would

have preferred a different property versus, you know, someone else. But in that scenario, they didn't have the credit card in their hand when they're making a booking, you know, my father-in-law did. So he chose what he wanted to choose and what matched well for our intent of the trip, which I think is what ultimately what we're talking about there, right? How many people are out there that want a dockfront, you know, fishing type experience with a nice property, don't get me wrong, but a little smaller, a little more dated versus someone that might have picked a bigger one, but like no, no dock access. Oh, you got it. You guys can just drop your boat in every day and not have it leave it at the dock outside the house. And it's like, that's not what we wanted. We wanted that experience. So we paid for it. We got it. So yeah, I think that's it. That's a good one there. So I think I'll go to the third one here. Let me close on the fourth one on your side. So the market depth, here's what I was thinking about.

Okay, these are all good ideas, Conrad, right? At the end of the day, we have to determine some metric or some sustainability model to understand what it actually, is this property actually a good idea or not? Maybe it checks some of the boxes, bub. Maybe it doesn't check other ones. So I was thinking like, here's a good question. Ask yourself, can you hit some percentage of occupancy

at a profitable rate? So let's just pick 65 out of thin air. I looked at an air DNA. I think that's a reasonable number to hit. Can I hit some percentage of occupancy at a profitable rate? So let's just pick 65 out of thin air. I looked at an air DNA. I think that's a reasonable number to hit. Can I hit 65% occupancy while charging X dollars per night on average? Whatever the red part happens to calculate out in that market. So again, if I go back to the problem of the property that's highly unique but not desirable enough, well, if you have 30% occupancy and people who stay there love it, that's probably

not enough though to build a successful property off of it, unless you're able to charge for some reason such a high premium that even a successful property off of, unless you're able to charge for some reason such a high premium that even a 30% occupancy you're profitable, but like most vacational properties, most managers are gonna be too happy with a 30% occupancy property, right? They're gonna want much higher for things to actually work well.

So that's one question I think to understand how deep is this market? Is there enough people again, to actually sustain this and for this to actually work well? Is there enough people that want this type of uniqueness? So again, unique could be not desirable, you know, meek and desirable is what we're after. So you have to understand how large that that piece is, actually. So those are kind of

my questions, which are more of a there's a data component to that. But then there's questions, qualitative questions, you have to ask yourself to understand, am I actually going to be able to hit my numbers? And that's where honestly, the science and the art has to combine itself together. And you might make some mistakes, you might do some things wrong. If you're listening and thinking this sounds good art, it is going to be hard.

That's kind of the point. That's why when you nail it and you get it right, you know, you find that property that's underserved and you get it at the right price and it's profitable. And you have all these unique characteristics, you find a winner that you deserve all the spoils for doing that, because there's a lot of risk associated with these other ones. Well, I think I think different and desirable are definitely two different things. And let's throw back to sports one more time. You can be different and have a Vikings house in Green Bay. Is it desirable? Oh, absolutely not.

So here is the thing that you have to just take into consideration there. And I think, I mean, that's, you know, we'll kind of step into the fourth one as well here, but the competition, like that's what is available in the space and understanding that full ecosystem and what's out there. In every market, that's certainly different.

What is your true competition? What replacement options exist for your specific property? And then what is your differentiation in the local market? That's something that everybody wants to be the different, wants to be able to claim that differentiation, but a lot of people have a really difficult time being able to determine what that is. And I think that that's something that

it takes a little bit of work to really do that research. And this is probably the part that nobody really wants to do. You're just kind of looking what's out there and kind of hoping that you stack up. I think what a lot of people assume will happen is that the traveler is gonna make that that assessment of the competition and they're gonna decide what that is so you don't have to do that but I do I think that self-reflection whatever that is that self you don't have to do that. But I do. I think that self-reflection, whatever that is, that self-assessment, that analysis, that SWOT analysis, whatever it is, really does allow you to have a better differentiator and understand what your differentiating

factors are. You may find out that people are choosing you for a completely different reason than you think, and maybe you can market more effectively. You can get your messaging in better shape, whatever that is. But I do think that that's the tricky one. I mean, it's kind of easy to evaluate based on numbers and kind of evaluate based on what your target persona is. But evaluating that competition as well in accordance with all that, it's one of those things where let's let the traveler dictate more of that and when we understand what's happening there it is in that's where post stay becomes more important than getting

those reviews and getting those surveys back and understanding you know why did you choose us over x y and z or did you choose us over x y and z might be a new question to ask on your about post stay evaluations there but i i guess that's that's a good point, like if you get a five star review, that's probably a really, I don't even, that was nowhere in our outline. I like that idea quite a bit. Cause then it's like, what can I speak more to the, what was your favorite part about the stay? What was your favorite part about this property, et cetera? Like those are all questions to be like, draw out the positive insight. You know, we're so focused on the negative review and that's like, the majority of our talks is like, how do I get, you know, fewer negative reviews or how do I step

into negative reviews and get more good ones? It's like we get a five star and we just close the book and go, oh, I guess we're done. It's like, well, you could argue that like, that's just beginning and there's more to do from there. As far as figuring out what people actually want and to your point why they actually hand over their money to book with you. I like that one. So that puts a bow on this one, the idea of the success framework. So to kind of put it to a close here, this idea is commodity versus unique. That's kind of the X axis of this idea. The Y axis is how, how, what market appeal is associated with this idea is commodity versus unique. That's kind of the X axis of this idea. The Y axis is how, what market appeal associated with this property.

Is a lot of people want this, a few people want this. And the zone you want to live in is a property that's very unique and a lot of people want. If you got that, you got a heck of a business and you got a heck of a property. If you're in the other zone where not a lot of people want it and it's not very unique, you're gonna find yourself struggling a little bit.

So just think about this as you kind of go forward and I think people get a lot of value from it. Speaking of reviews, Paul, one thing to close this year is we want to review. So go to your podcast app of choice, where it's greedy as anybody. And we want our podcast reviews. We know there's tens of thousands of downloads

that have occurred in this podcast, Paul. There's not that many reviews. The ratio of reviews is way off. Like, it's a very small point there. So anywho, if you could head on over to iTunes or Spotify, that's where we get the most downloads. Leave us a review. We super duper appreciate that because then we can bring you more awesome episodes as Paul referenced at the top of the show. Thank you

and have a fantastic day.