Heads In Beds Show - VRMA 2025 Recap: The Hot Seat Session, Industry Trends & More!

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

In this episode of The Heads In Beds Show, we recap the VRMA 2025 show! We talk all things about The Hot Seat Session, industry trends, marketing ideas and more...⭐️ 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 Heads of Med Show presented by Build Up Bookings. We teach you how to get more vacation rental 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. Hey, Paul. What's going on? You know, we're just back from. grandma. It's I still am running on far less sleep than I would like right now as I think we all

are. But yeah, I'm I'm back in a place where 50 degrees in a sweatshirt or something like this is what I have to wear, not as opposed to, you know, I was getting a little used to those shorts and the polos and that's no longer. So yeah, it's a, I would say right now my brain just wants maybe an hour or two to not think about the vacation rental space, but that's not now. That's not what we're going to do now. How are you doing, sir? How are you feeling coming back from Vegas? Yeah, I feel already more, less dry, like my eyes and everything.

I'm just not meant to be, I don't think of the desert long term. There's bits and pieces of it that I enjoy, or I just need to be there for a much longer period of time. Maybe if I'm there for like a month, I would just get used to the, whatever it may be, the weather or, you know, the general, you know, experience to be. there. But as it stands right now, you know, all good, feeling good on my side of things. Everything's going pretty good with respect to weather and everything like that here. So no complaints. I think it's 59 here today. So you said it was 50. It's 59 here today. So we're

actually pretty similar on the weather side. Maybe it's a little bit warmer now. The sun's out and been out all day. So no, I enjoyed VRMA. We can we can dive right into it for sure. And this is meant to be kind of our VRMA 2025 recap, which I don't think we've, we've probably have done one in the past, but you didn't go to the VRMA last year, correct? So this is your first one since what was last time you went to one on your end? I don't know if I went in 23. I might have been, well, last time we were in Vegas. I mean, that's the last Verma I was at. Okay, so that was two years ago, I believe. So this was Vegas. The year prior was Arizona. The year prior was Orlando. We figured that when you're there. We're all trying to go back and

remember. And then I think the year prior to that would have been Vegas. Yeah. So that would have been. Yeah. So 22 would have been the last one that I went. Yeah. Before that. Yeah. So definitely changes. So you missed, I think, a few years in there, right? that's where a lot of this complaints were stemming from last year in particular a lot of complaints were stemming from that so i think uh there's a poll on um lincoln i think dennis from cassiola is running it and it was what is your opinion what was your opinion of irma and i'll get up the results here as we're recording we're recording Thursday afternoon just for reference um i was say when i voted it was early enough on but i think it was like 73 27 good and then the bottom result was

27 changes i think well the bottom was changes what changes or something like that but i didn't at that There was nobody on the, I think it was better, worse, and what changes is the joke. There wasn't anybody on that middle line at that point. So I would assume since that is still the case. So as we're recording, again, this poll could change. A lot more people get seen over the next few days. But as of recording, 56 attendees from VRMA have voted, 75% said they liked you better. 25% said, wait, what changes in the poll result?

So again, by time this podcast comes out, that may be a little bit different. But like, pretty good that we had 56 straight people say that it was better or the same. I mean, maybe, you know, no one said it was worse. far in that poll. And like walking out of the room, seeing the energy or just like seeing the people, like, obviously it feels like we're headed back in the right direction. We have to sustain this momentum. We've got to keep that going. You know, I think there's still things that we can improve upon or whatever the case may be. But like overall, like good, I think is the, is the analysis, if you will, at a high level. Now, what you're hoping to get out of it,

maybe a separate piece of the discussion or a separate piece of the conversation. So maybe that's even a jumping off point here. So you had been in a few years. I was talking to all people who go every year and they hadn't missed one in a while. But what I'm hoping to get out of it, maybe I'll just kind of start on my side of things. I'm hoping to get out of it, obviously is somewhat biased towards being more of a vendor, being more of a supplier, I want to get new leads. I want to get new customers. One of my main value propositions now at this point, honestly, just because we've grown

is seeing existing customers, existing clients that were already working with there. I was able to do that, including people who are like traveling from countries far away. Like I met a client who we signed about a month ago in Aruba, and I've actually been there on vacation before, but I probably, be able to say, wouldn't go down to Aruba for two days to meet with a client in person, just on that basis. so that's an example of like that's awesome like to go in one place and see a dozen people that I've only seen on Zoom squares and meet them in person is fantastic I guess the hard part that there's not really any like structured time for me to spend with those people for the most part so it's like very quick like 10 minute you know hey how I was going so cool to see you but I don't get a lot of depth out of it but that's probably just more of the fact that it's two days and there's a thousand things going on and it's a good way to like at least kind of break that you know break the physical ice like you said of just meeting someone in a person that's a good thing but I know a lot of people are going for education too so that's kind of like another arm of it but But like, you're smaller, you're coming there as a supplier. What was kind of your perspective on what you're hoping to get out of it?

Do you think you got out of that way you're aiming for? Oh, yeah. I mean, I think this is, it's one of those things where I have been around the space for a while and grateful for that. But I kind of forget sometimes. And it does. It's where my little jealous green monster of you've been there representing yourself for the last decade plus. And people know you in person. And it's very interesting to like meet people that I have been talking to for years and years and years across multiple different companies.

But now, I mean, truly the fact that we did the, Adam and I had never met, I mean, the fact that we talked about that pretty frequently there, that like these are people that, yeah, digitally I've known for years, but I'm still making introductions to people. And that's, you know, just based on the nature of how I got to go to these events. events with the previous companies that I work with. And it is. This is, it's, for me, that is a big part of it. It's, it's kind of reintroducing myself every time because I, I mean, I do. I've got a lot of great people that I got that I do work with that. I got to meet there and see and get them good, get that good face time. But there are enough people that I have worked with previously and would like to work with down the road as well. And it is, it's just that, oh, Paul, and those moments of, oh, geez, this is, this feels like I'm, I'm digging out of a 13 year

hole at certain times. But, but it is. It's, it's good to see the people that you have worked. It's good to see the people you've made connections with. It's good to, you know, just be, I do. I love the family reunion aspect of it. There's, do I want it to be all of it? No, absolutely not. I think there's certainly value to be had in just doing some other items, getting people awareness across the board, whether it's, I don't know if it's advocacy, that's another conversation we'll have a little later here, but I do. I think that this is still a spot where every property manager could go there and get some value out of it.

You know, I think that that's something that what kind of value you're looking for. again, I don't know exactly what everybody's needs are with the complexity of your business, with the age of your business, with how you're trying to do, what you're trying to do moving forward, what your roadmap looks like over the next three to five years. It is. I mean, it's still, let's call a spade of space, it's still a vendor heavy space. This is, I mean, it's, I would guess, and I didn't have the attendee list, but I would guess probably two to one vendors to property manager attendees.

if I were going to, you know, that's not a bad thing, but it does. It makes it feel like you're being hunted and poached. I remember talking to property, man, just like, it's, that's, like, everybody's going in for the kill. And those white lanyards are pretty clear indicators that when you were in the media, I bet if people didn't know you, they would have started to pull you sides. Hey, Conrad, look at all this stuff we do over here with A, B, and C, and all that. that good stuff. So yeah, I mean, did I get out of it when I wanted to? Absolutely. Got some

great connections, got some good people we got in front of. And, and we got to do a little presentation as well. And that's always fun. So it was good. We didn't. Yeah. Well, so one more note, and then we can dive over into the session that we did together. So I think, I think for me, you know, when I went to the first one by myself, you know, and it wasn't right away after I sort of started build up and was down that path solo, it did feel really awkward because I probably had like most of the connections I had were at the company that I was basically working up previously and it was like I'm going to say burn that bridge I don't think that I did but certainly it wasn't like welcoming with open arms type of situation it was like okay I'm going

out of my own and I'm sort of offering the same type of service that was offering that the old agency offered so it did become a little bit of a competitive environment for me and yeah they were bigger and they'd been around for a while and it felt awkward for me so I think I went to a lot of sessions previously because I was like hey I always think I can learn so like for me that's I'm never opposed to going to a session. I did ask one speaker who I won't say his name if you didn't want me to say this basically but you know out there but I was like hey should I go to your session he was doing the marketing you know presentation session and he looked at me and he kind of rolled his eyes a little bit and he's like no like you're not going to learn anything in that particular session it was more

beginner entry level type stuff so and I was like okay well awesome you know if that's how you feel about it it's just more entry level stuff I won't I was willing to in that time frame but I didn't end up going and I would just walk the vendor hall basically and see people and yeah it really is I think it is you know this is the largest trade organization in our industry our industry you know is it well represented as far as like the actual cross section of every single vacation rental manager not even close unfortunately you know as as as the arma is i think that they're probably i don't know what the math would be one of every 20 maybe one of every 30 or 40 maybe property managers um would be a member of vrma maybe it's a little bit more prevalent in certain areas but

that's probably about the right ratio so you know but anyone willing to go to that event you know block off a few days in their calendar, fly to Las Vegas from the East Coast, by the way, which is where most vacation rental managers are if you look at the data and go and have that is probably by proxy or just by like deduction, like a top 10% property manager just based on that activity alone. So that is an interesting thing. You know, the idea that someone going to a VRMA event is automatically like a better quality manager most likely because they're willing to sit there and improve their business. They're not just doing this as a whatever, right, you know, as a side hustle or a sidebar to their other business.

So that alone, I think, is an interesting piece of the puzzle. But yeah, I think if you're an attendee, if you're a vacation rental manager, you have to not be thrilled, I would say, by the fact that the vendor ratio is there and it's so high. And every vendor there, to your point, it's like a meat market. They're trying to dig their teeth into you and get you to buy something. Of course, you're afraid to tell them, you know, all them, they'll thank you and they'll happily leave you alone. You know, it won't be that way. But, you know, I do know a lot of people go there to switch software. I know a lot of people go there to learn about new things.

And so the vendor hall is obviously a great way of doing that. And there's a mix of things. Like I think we see the big shiny. It's like OTAs and software, you're big fish in that pond, right? They're the one spending for the most part a lot of the money on their booths and stuff like that. And really, you know, almost like a, you know,

you and I joked about it as kind of like an ego contest. We didn't use the word ego. We use the different contest to say how big and how badass can my booth be, basically. But I do think you see a lot of vendors there at the vendor hall that are offering something very discreet and unique. That's like the host GPO booth was cool. I think it actually, I saw that they posted this morning that they like won the booth at the year.

That was kind of cool. It's like physical products. That actually makes a ton of sense that the ARMA conference stuff, a bunch of physical products of like, here's the sheets that we're going to get through the host GPO group bribe program that you can put in your vacation rentals

and you can touch them and look at them. That's awesome. Like I think stuff like that is obviously very, very hard to replicate online. I think anyone could do a, you know, a guesty demo or a streamlined demo, you know, through Zoom and it's kind of the same thing.

So maybe those software vendors are getting something different out of it, but I think it's awesome to see the other views too, for sure. I mean, I think that's something that I can remember when, I mean, everything was just 10 by 10s.

The little 10 by 10 cloth over the covering. And I remember when we we got a travel note, we did like a triple booth or something. We did it big. And we made something that I think was like 20 by 40. Like we made it extra big, extra tall. But like it was still just a cloth covering.

And now you see all these modular booths. And again, credit to the track team, credit to the inhabit team. They are investing that capital in some marketing to try to get people through the doors at these. And Verbo and Airbnb. be. I mean, verbal having like a little glass containing thing. These are cool. This are, this makes it feel like I think as an industry we're leveling up. I mean, you go to, I remember

going to high tech one time. And that was like, oh, it's a different scale. I mean, we're talking about big, big companies doing big type of booths. And I think that's where we got the idea to try to go bigger, to try to see what a modular booth looked like, to try to, because you can't stay in that space and be a 10 by 10 cloth over type of thing. So I think that's kind of cool. I mean, it is. It's so funny because that's the first ever track booth I saw was one of those. So I saw a track booth 2014, my first ever VRMA, the track booth was across from the agency

that I was working for at the time booth. And it was like, I don't remember who it was. I think you told me who it was. But it was like, yeah, they literally had like a sign. And it was just like track PMS coming soon eventually. I don't think they were pitching track. I think they were pitching more of the call product in their reserves. yeah before they were been track pulse and resorts and lodges yeah no i think there was a

memory service i think there was a separate resorts and lodges booth maybe i think they had like a separate booth for it we did have something like we did have a little bit of that for a while too yeah and then yeah look at i remember there was a pms there called maxton or maxin or something like that rented a Ferrari or a Lamborghini and their booth thing was like drive a like sit in the Ferrari for a side this was inside by the way so like you couldn't turn it on or anything it was just like sit in the Ferrari take a picture and then they're like hey by the way do you want to buy her pms i'm pretty sure that either a that pms out of business or i've just never seen them since then. That just brought up like a memory from 10 plus years.

I do remember it, but you're right. I haven't seen it since. So I don't think the Ferrari was effective in that case. Yeah. I mean, that's a thing, right? Getting someone at the end of day, I was told reliably one of those big booths that was someone that was involved in setting one up that was over $200,000 set of the booth to buy everything, get a ship there, set it up was well over $200,000. So that's the investment that some of these companies are making into hopefully capturing, you know, what, 10 minutes of your time while you're there at the conference? Like, it's interesting, you know, to your point of like, is there an ROI on that? that's always the vendor conversation. Is there an ROI in this? And I think it's like on the

surface, you probably are going to have a really hard time justifying like, hey, I spend 10, 20, 30, $40,000, $40,000 if you're a small business, a smaller vendor there and saying, okay, I can exactly definitively track, you know, $40,000 or more of revenue from this particular event. That's probably really hard for you as a vendor. But I do think it's like, you are now a piece of this, you know, event, people see you. And whether fair or unfair, I see this a lot, by the way. Once you make a big deal out of your booth, you almost like that is your standard going forward. And like, if you go downgrade the booth later. It's not seen as a positive thing amongst people in the VRMA community. So it's like until you feel like you're going to do that booth for a long

time, like the Airbnb could do whatever booth they want. Verbo can do whatever the booth they want for the most part, right? These are multi-billion dollar companies. They obviously have no trouble spending a few hundred grand out of booth and making it all, you know, kid it out as it were. But if you're like a smaller vendor and you think like, I'm going to make a splash and make my booth really fancy. And the next year I'm going to make it more simple. I really wouldn't suggest doing that. Like I think people, I guarantee you property managers will speak negatively about your brand if you have, if you go from very fancy to a more plain booth. So I think you're better off like leveling up, but then only jumping to that

year when you feel it's more comfortable. I remember, again, 2014. This is just like so funny how I remember that one. Because I feel like I don't remember as many after that. But I think it was because it was so new to me and just seeing it in there. And it be my first one. I just have all these core memories from San Diego as well as just liking San Diego a lot. But LiveRos had, I think a triple booth and a couch. So like you could actually sit at the booth and it wasn't like uncomfortable and things like that. And now it's funny to think like that was the PMS that was making a big splash back then. Now that PMS is going going away and it's going to get killed by streamlined in the next six or eight months. So it's just funny to think like in a way how fast

things can change, but just the idea of like, you know, if you're a vendor too, like don't get down. Like if your VRMA didn't go that well. Like it's just one event. Like there's, there's 363 other days next year that you can do in market to your business and get more customers. And I've been at booth before and people have been like really upset and unhappy and I'm just like, this isn't going to save you. Like the booth is just one thing amongst many things you need to be doing. So vendors, I think you shouldn't pin your hopes on VRMA if you're a vendor and being like this is going to help save me or give me a lot more demand or whatever the case may be. well and I think I mean there were definitely some like notable booths because I was I was walking the floor a lot that's I mean you know like I was walking the whole time but there were a few that like every time I walked by there was nobody there maybe trying to like reach out and get anybody there but I think it's not just a boot cost at at right for the conference it's I mean it's it's the sponsor shifts up and it's the meals dinners it's all these little touch points along the way.

And that's where I think the ROI becomes even harder, like, because it is, you have so many, some of these big companies, you know, are bringing 20, 50, 100 people along with them, it feels like, yeah, at some point, it's not that you're not going to turn an ROI on that. You are going to, you're almost using that, by the way, as like a replacement for doing like a team off site or something like that, I would say, right? Yeah. So if that's your, if that's your objective, obviously, you don't need 100 people at your booth if you're in habit. I know it's a big company with many different arms and subarms and, you know, subsidiaries and things like that. But we can all agree that that's probably not necessary. You know, I think it is they're using it as a proxy for, hey, let's all get together and chat as a team.

And that makes a ton of sense to me, obviously. And I think intentionally, the inhabit team, I think they did. They all stuck around from what I heard from a couple of people, they all stuck around a couple days extra just to do like some on-site planning and do stuff like that. So, I mean, that's, that's an effective way to bring everybody together in a, at least a, something that we're all kind of coordinated around otherwise trying to coordinate throughout the year to do something like that it's it's tough like we're all busy we're all trying to we want to take we have to take care of our people

while still trying to you know upgrade talent and and make sure that we're all reaching our best practice or our standards or everything like that so yeah good agree all right so we'll turn the page a bit so our session so we did a session new type I pitched a few different sessions to be our made this was the one that got selected So the premise was a hot seat. So we actually put three vacation rental managers up there, you know, on the stage with us. We took Tyenne from Branson Family. Well, she has multiple brands, but Tyon from her Branson brand that she's working on, Tiam Marston, Hammond, we had Tom Goodwin from Mountain Lower Chalais.

And then we had two T from Abode Luxury Rentals up there on the stage. And it was fun. Like I think that we did get some feedback on we had a list notes. We went through those notes. We kind of live interviewed these people. Hey, it was a new idea. You know, so it did it go perfectly or exactly how we expected, probably not maybe. The one feedback that I did get from a client who was attending that session was to make it more visual next time.

So that's feedback that we'll definitely take into account if we do it again, which we might rerun by the way at Darm. So that already has been discussed with Amy, who was there at the BRMA show to maybe rerun that in Durham. Maybe a, due to two people in an hour, not three people in 45 minutes. It's just hard to with 13, 14 minutes per person. It's like what detail can you go into. And then B, make it way more visual. Like put stuff up on the screen exactly what we're suggesting, which again would have been possible, like had we had a lot more legwork to do in advance. So those are all things I think that we can improve upon for the next time.

But it was fun. Like I enjoyed the format. I think it was good. I think people definitely got something out of it. And we pulled like a few ideas from each thing where it's like very actionable. So that's the kind of session that I like to do is that people walk out of it. And they go, I am implementing XYZ in my business because of the session that I went to that you and Paul held. I like hearing that a lot versus like more this conceptual like you talked about AI discussions where it was, hey, AI is great.

Here's an example of a thousand things that AI can do where here's keeping you up to date in the models that are being released by the big company. but it's like, okay, but what do I do with that information? I don't think people go to like stay up to day on AI. Honestly, no one at that conference knows more than like a mainstream AI travel or not a travel blog, but like in mainstream AI news blog would have. So I think it's better to like narrow it down, niche you down, give people tactical advice. And I think that that was there, you know, in some quantity, obviously during the hot seat session.

But how do you think it went overall? We probably had 50-ish people in the room outside, maybe a plus or minus five or 10, something like that. Yeah, I mean, I think I think it went well. I think it's one of those things where even as we were like doing some of our own little pre-planning, I was just like, in my head, I'm like, hmm, be good if we could get this up. But at that point, we're just going through the companies and really just firming things up there. So, I mean, what I would love to do is like what you and I do on a regular movie is it is it's bringing it up.

It's showing people not just like showing people a website, showing people what's good about a website, what's not good about a website. It's that audit portion of the hot seat. I think that's the one thing that if we had more time, would have been a lot more fun to just kind of just dig in. And I don't think we had a chance to nerd out. That's what I think that's, I think that's what sets us apart from other people is that we do. We like this stuff.

We get into this stuff. And we got to nerd out a little bit, but not to the degree that I think would have maybe driven a little more value for people. I think that you can get more actionable things when you're seeing how we try to look at things, not that they need to know the depth that we look at items, but I do. I think it helps to be able to peek behind the curtain. That is the one note I heard. We wanted to peek behind the curtain a little bit, and that's fine.

Maybe at some point you can get that, but yeah, I mean, it was fun. I think it's always fun to be in front of a group of either peers or other people in the space and just being able to, I don't know. Again, we have a lot of people that come up to us and say, hey, we listen to the podcast, and there's one guy specifically says, I listen to all my podcast, 2X speed, and you're the only one I listen to at regular speed. So it's those little things that, like,

I keep trying to work on that. And I've just accepted at this point, it's not going to happen. So the only thing that's probably going to help me is age, to be honest with you, maybe just when I get older. I'll speak slower. Like my grandfather used to speak routes of it quickly. Now he's in his 90s,

and he definitely does not speak quickly. and I love the man because the brain's still there and the mouth just goes slower. So I don't know, maybe, you know, if we're running the stuff in our 90s, it'll be on episode 10,000, you know, it'll be a lot slower. I would say if you don't like me on 2x or, you know, or you don't like me on 1x, put me on 0.8X. Like most podcast apps allow that. If not, then, you know, try something else as it were.

So, no, I'm just joking. But now, it's for sure. I think, A, it's an interesting format. I think people like feedback and they like tactical advice, tactical information. So I'm a big fan of that. And I even said to someone I was there, I'm like, cool, let's do yours and like, we'll just hop on Zoom and I'll just screen share and like I'll just record it. And that could be basically a hot seat session in that respect where it's just like giving someone practical advice. So I do think there's more legs in this idea and we can definitely, you know, build on this and continue to, you know, work on some additional things with that idea.

So I was humped about it. Yeah. Well, you mentioned, so if you had their odds and ends, I want to clean up here. So you mentioned this idea of VRMA, the organization is here to run this annual event. They also have like maybe smaller regional pop-up events. That's, we can all agree, that's probably a positive thing. VRMA should champion and should put forward education. So working with VRM on educational content. And obviously we have a very marketing focused lens with you and I.

But like there's a lot of sessions there about like dealing with homeowners, how to, how to change a bed sheet the right way, safety. Like there's so many topics that are like not you and I's wheelhouse at all, but are obviously very important, you know, pieces of the process, operations, accounting stuff. I was joke about accounting like my least favorite thing to do in my own business. So I should definitely never touch. a vacation rental manager's books because they're 10 times, 100 times more complicated than my books,

that's for sure. And I sometimes stress out about doing my accounting. But like, yeah, if you have to imagine that's a drag on your business and your operations. And honestly, it probably is drag on your marketing because you probably don't feel like you can know what to spend.

So like, I think we're in agreement there that like education and the running these events is like the one of the most valuable use cases for VRMA. But what Adam and I were talking about when we were there and this is going to come out in the art of hospitality feed, I suspect at the same time this one is, is the VRMA's primary,

one of their primary objectives need to be, understanding regulation, understanding these local, you know, environments. And we heard from different people kind of at the event and we recorded while we were there about, you know, Adam's kind of thesis or theory was like, maybe that is a separate discussion. Maybe that is something that's different. Or that's like a different organization. We heard from Jamie Lane to AirDNA and his sort of comparison point was in the hotel space. That's mostly a regional.

So that's the case where someone is not a member of some large organization solely. And then that's where they put time, effort, energy dollars into. But they're a member of like the hotel associations owners in South Carolina or in Minnesota or something like that. And that's where they're like, all right, we can keep the scope smaller by focusing on one region at a time. And maybe you can make the case of like of New England or something like that. Like I can't imagine the Rhode Island, you know, hotel association would be that big.

If that were the case, it was just that state. But, you know, point remains of like the RMA is trying to cover the whole country. That's a very vast, large scope on regulation and government affairs and things like that. But that's a very local problem. When it does pop up, it's like, we need someone here who's bought into the process. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, but that seemed like an interesting piece of discussion of like there's a lot of effort that the event puts into like the Monday party or the

Monday whatever you want to call a gathering is all about advocacy and government regulation affairs et cetera but it's like everyone going to that is like knows we're kind of putting money into this big bucket but we don't know if that bucket's ever going to actually you know rain down on us and we want it to when we want that assistance so you know I'm a little more torn on that I don't have any thoughts on that yeah it's I do I think that and we talked about a little bit I mean I think rent responsibly was as a company that has really tried to champion that, has, you know, tried to put together these alliances, has done a lot of work there. And it's, it's, I mean, I think the fact that maybe we don't see as much of them

out there right now, I think there's, there's an acknowledgement, whether it's self-acknowledgement on their end or just we have to acknowledge that what they're trying to do is very difficult. And it is. It's the same reason social media is effective. This is local stuff. Like, this is something that it is difficult to put a national spin because every, I mean, it's city, municipality, county. I mean, it's a very different level at which some of these concerns are being brought up. That's some of this regulation. I mean, just straight laws, whatever it is, it's tough.

And to expect a company, like you said, to be as comprehensive in doing everything and then do the advocacy on top of that. yeah it's tough i do not envy anybody who's trying to marry all those things together but i think it's a matter of like where do people where do the property managers see like does add the do they expect the advocacy to come at the national level at i know in certain markets you do have smaller advocacy groups with some of the top players in the space they are doing that work they're spearheading that work um so i would agree i'm i'm kind of torn as to whose responsibility that is And if it's not a Vermos, if it's not a VRNations, if it's not, you know, who?

Yeah, I think our position isn't even that it's not necessarily not VRMA's job, but almost it's like a separate organization, like it's a separate sub, you know, thing. And JJ, when we interviewed JJ King on the podcast, his sort of take was like, no, those things can be done effectively together. It's two objectives, but it's just putting the right people in the team. So it's like, okay, the executive leadership team is going to have objective one, you know, and two, maybe conferences, events, education, et cetera. That's kind of objective one and two.

And then no reason to think that Objective 3 couldn't be its own, you know, team or its own specialized unit, if you will, think of the army. We've got the Air Force and the Marines and the, you know, all this kind of stuff, different people that are specialized Air Force and specific things. You know, no reason to think that we just got to put the right person in that role and the right team in that role. And they're going to be able to drive some benefit there. So I'm not sure. You know, I think it's something I think worth discussing. So as we try to, again, it feels like VRMA is interesting because in the past, I used to think of it as its own organization that was kind of running. and it was like we chose to be a member of not or not.

And it feels like the tone or the tenor from people that we've spoken to who have volunteered who have gotten on these committees or got elected to the board or whatever is that, okay, everyone's looking around for like VR may to fix it. That was kind of the problem for a while. Maybe leadership was bad before. You can pass your own judgment on what you think about that. Maybe leadership is better now. Again, you can pass your own judgment on what you think about that.

At least seems like a lot of people are positive. But no one person can make this organization run and hum along like a perfectly running top. It takes essentially volunteering. So that's just the tricky part about this whole. I think is the idea that like you're donating your time, effort, energy and money in some cases to like make, you know, the VRMA great organization to make it work well. And, you know, a lot of people volunteering, by the way, don't get paid anything. So they're spending all their time effort energy, improving an organization. They might receive some tiny benefit themselves in terms of like, sure, they get to go on one trip a year to Vegas and scout out the conference and event, you know, ahead of time. Maybe their travels covered. Maybe their, you know, meals are covered for a day or two. Okay, sure. That's a tiny perk. But they're taking time away from a business that might generate several million dollars year in revenue. And potentially $1 or $2 million a year in profit. They're taking time away from that, which you could argue would be much more financially and viable for them just to double down on their business and work on it to make VRMA better.

And as a result, like, I do kind of feel that sense of like, all right, we should say what we think and get our opinions out there because I do feel like it's kind of like the VRMA is kind of the boat that we're all in and the captain may have changed out a few times, but it's like we're all in this boat somewhat together. And it feels like if we're not trying to make the boat better and we're just tearing it down and we're talking about how problematic is or how bad it is, how is it ever going to get better, you know, if people aren't donating. And that was the tenor that I stopped running through folks like JJ and Dennis and some of these other people that we interviewed where they're

like, we want to make this better and we were willing to put our time, which I would argue is one of our scarcest assets into this to make it even better and improve it. So I thought that was a good thing overall. Here's the thing. I think at one point, if you had the VRMA badge, the member badge on your website, I think it might have carried some like now. I don't know. I think if the average Traveler looked at a website from a professional property manager and they saw Airbnb Superhost, which has zero value. They saw Verbo, whatever, and then they saw Burma Association member. People know it.

You say it has no value, but people would recognize that more than they'd recognize VRMA, right? It is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, most definitely. But again, what moves the needle there? Probably not the last one. And you can make an argument for any of the other ones there too. but I do. I think that that's something that I think the VRMA membership meant something at that point.

I think that's different than saying, you know, what's good about the conference, what's not good about the conference. I think there was a distinct, you wanted to, you had to be a member of the professional management association. Now, because I think it is, Airbnb co-hosted Airbnb hosts and this and that. And thanks, TikTok, because you kind of devalued the cooperation, the corporation, the company. coalition. And you did it. You made it more of an individually run business. And that's fine.

Again, that's not the discussion point here. But I think that when you have that fracturing over all of the space, of the vertical, of the whatever that is, it does. I mean, like, I would argue that as we're trending right now, and you look at the STR Wealth Conference, which scares me because it's a different, it's, that's a different mindset. It's all about how can I make the money as fast as I can, how can I print it, how can I take the hospitality out of it? I think that's something that that event, that membership is actually growing. I think that's more of a bad sign. I'm like, how can we get, I don't know that we want

to pull, because I think that's been a, that's been a conversation last couple years, how do we pull more of those people in? You might want to pull them in. That's not, it's not to say that we don't want to, you know, this isn't a discriminatory thing. But there's a different mindset that I think those two different entities have kind of created. And again, you like it, hated, that's where we are. So we just kind of have to adapt to that a little bit. I don't know if I agree that like the host mindset is not like focused on hospitality as much. I think. I would say hosts versus hosts who are going to the S-Ther wealth conference. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I know some people that are in that world. And like, to your point, that that world is different than I think the world that

we, you and I spend time in because it is very dollars and cents investment focused. Even like the style of the presentations, the style of the leaders of those groups, they talk and they speak in a very different way. Like they are going towards this obviously Tony Robbins-esque, duroesk direction, right? And I don't think that they would disagree with that logic, even if they were sitting here with us. Like, it's very obvious what they're mimicking off of. And it's not a trade organization that has like a committee and is filled with bureaucracy and stuff like that. So that's a very different style of presentation and of, you know, person. I would agree that 100%.

To your point of like, should the, it's kind of like a political conversation almost a little bit, right? Should our tent get bigger to include these other people? And like, and we don't have to get, we have the comment on the fact that this occurred, but rather just the fact that like the Republican Party has tried that in the past. They've been like, we're going to include new people. Trump was including different people in his cause. And if you, you could dislike him or like him again, that's up to you.

But like, that did create more interest and it did create more voters. And that is a common political party tactic on the, on the left and the right. We need to get more people in our tent, and that's a good thing. So you could make the case that like the VRMA tent should try to get bigger. I don't disagree with that logic.

I do wonder if maybe the way to do that would be to in theory have like separate tracks or like you're on the host track, you're on the small property manager track, you're on the big property manager track. And then in theory, that could be done. And then if you're in a track, you could have concurrent sessions going on

where it's like, okay, but I'm a red tag or a red green label. I should be going to these two sessions, mostly red or green. And then the orange label is meant for larger property managers. And then you could actually tailor the content and trailer the messaging to be more specific, just like what I referenced earlier

with the event or the speaker that I was chatting with who said, should I go to your analytics tracking one? He's like, no, because it's more basic, which is fine. Like, we need that too. That's what I'm saying. Like, I think having more opportunities for someone to be like, I'm coming in and there's people that are coming in at all different skill levels, you know, it does change how they should be using the event. And as a result, more sessions or having a little bit of a wider 10 could be a good thing. Now, when they go in general, though, and then it becomes a little bit harder where it's like, all right, we're in general session, we're doing a rara speech from whatever motivational speaker. I'm just not as dialed into those things. So I don't typically spend as much time

commenting on that. But like as a result, it seems like it would make it a little bit harder to make that messaging land amongst all those groups unless you just kept it very broad and very high levels. So that's, I guess, the alternative for that. But yeah, the idea of like the RMA, like you being a quote-unquote professional host, you know, even if you have one or two listings and then go into the RMA event to learn about different software, different vendors or learn how a property manager does there. I suspect that the motivation of the currently leadership team is if someone were to go of that size, how do we convince them that they want to be the next great property manager? That if they're doing an amazing job and they are very

focused on hospitality, they run great properties, but they've got two of them that they own, how do we get that person to manage 10 more? And then maybe they're going to be more excited to come to future VRMA events because their business is bigger. That's probably what I suspect. Whereas to your point, the investment angle seems to be more of like, this is a very high use of my dollars of my personal investment. Like in theory, I'll get more money by doing this, which is how the world goes around. So like, I'm not boohooing that idea. But I don't think that the number one mindset on general or like when we open the conference is like, yeah, guys, like this is how we're going to extract every dollar possible out of this

particular investment. Although I think that can be a valuable tool in understanding the role that an investor plays in our space or the role that an owner plays in our space, I think that it is a little detached from like the typical reason that someone buys a vacation home, which is very different that I think what some of those investor people think, they don't understand the mindset of I want something for personal use. I don't even care if it makes that much money necessarily. I just don't want it to lose money.

that's different than someone I always talk about like the word I use in the negative connotation that I would have is like the guy with the spreadsheet, you know, focusing on shaving a percentage here and there and getting his net returns better. I get different mindset. So, but, you know, like I want my business to do well. I wouldn't want to go to an event or a conference. That's just like, you know, yeah, spend all your time, effort, energy, money, et cetera here and don't focus on improving your, you know, business because like I want my business to generate more profit. I want myself to have wealth, you know, when I, you know, continue to run my business. So those are things I think that it all just have to be kind of put into account here.

And to be fair, the vacational manager has a really hard job because they're trying like heck to keep the gas super happy. They're trying to keep the owner happy. The owner wants to make money. They've got to make money, by the way, the whole time. Sometimes these things are at odds. So it's a very, very challenging situation, I would say for sure to run these business as well. And that's where when people figure it out and they're running them well, you know,

we go through and we look at it and we say, like, those companies are deserving of praise because they've managed to juggle a knife and a lighter and, you know, a grenade and keep everyone happy and get good reviews all around. As you know, it's very hard to do. At the very least, this is a, I think it's an exhibit of when, when the property managers and the successful vendors are willing to share what has made them successful with the greater industry, I think that's one of the greatest benefits of revenue. That's the thing is that you can sit down, if you are going to session to session, you can sit down and hear one of the top property managers in the Smokies, and then one of the top property managers in 38, and then one of the top property managers in Texas. And like, you're bringing all these great minds together and great operators together. And I still think there's value there.

You're going to glean what you want to out of it. But I think that has to be the ultimate goal of that, of the presentation is that all the rising tides are rising all ships. And that is why I hope Verma continues to grow and expand. The tone, to put a close on it, right, the tone was optimistic. which was not the case last year. So like, do we have to build momentum? Yes. But like it's almost like not to do like an NFL comparison.

But like you got to be good before you can be great. You're not going to go from a terrible team to a great team right away. Any team that's actually done that, it actually doesn't sustain. It's like a one year wonder. So it's like I think that the people that are spending their time on it, want the VR made to be great, not just good for one year. And there's a lot of reasons to think that'll that'll continue on. So I feel there's, again, odds and ends I want to clean up AI.

So like AI at the last dorm conference in December was like every single session out of the AI. We were putting people on the stage in, in general, during Maine, where it was like everything was AI, AI, AI, AI, AI was absolutely still a topic amongst many of the, you know, sessions that I saw that, you know, on the agenda, that sort of thing. But it seemed like we found a little bit more of a healthier middle ground on like, okay, this is something that we should be using their business, absolutely. And here was the analogy that it came up with at this conversation with several people. I'm going to refer back to an old board game, shoots and ladders. And I had to refresh my memory on exactly how this game worked because I misrepresented the

analogy earlier when I had a shoot versus a ladder. But the game shoots and ladders, have you never played it before. Basically, as you go about the board, there's these little spots where if you hit it, you go up a ladder and you skip a portion of the, you know, map. So the goal is to kind of get from like the beginning of the map to the end, the map as quick as possible. Every time we find a ladder, you skip past it. Every time you find a shoot, it's a slide and it kicks you backwards, basically, is the premise of the game. So I said to me, AI is the ladder.

AI is I'm going and doing a specific task every once in a while, instead of having to go 10 more steps this way and like loop back around and begin to go this way, actually found a ladder and I was able to skip 10 or 15 steps right away. That is very impactful. That is very valuable to my business and to many businesses that are going to VRMA and those types of problems where it's like, oh, man, like the latter is the AI responding when a guest asks, what's the Wi-Fi code, what's the door code? And they pull from my PMS, they pull from my knowledge book, and they send over what the

Wi-Fi or the DoCode is instantly. And I don't have to go and waste my team's time, my Res team's time ongoing and responding to very simple questions. That is AI. That is the ladder that helps you. It can be a shoot, if done improperly. You know, there's a demo, and I'm not making this up at Darm. last year where someone was demoing a, you know, a particular, like, chat bot basically

with guests. And the guest asked for a discount. And the bot approved it. They're like, yeah, sure, we'll take $800 for this property because it had been trained to like not to do discounts. And to be fair, the vendor was like, yeah, my bad. Like, we'll fix that, obviously. And we will train is what doesn't do that again. And we'll cover the difference. Like, because they took the booking. They're like, well, we agreed to it basically. Legally, I don't think we could turn it down at that point. So there was this fever pitch, like, again, interest where like AI was the number one thing. I think we found a little bit more of a solid level this year of like learn how to use this tool in the same way that the analogy you've done before. A farmer learned

how to use a tractor a hundred years ago. That's going to make his job easier. Did it make everything more efficient and better? Absolutely. Did it like change everything? Some of that can be a little bit, you know, a little bit of tension grabbing. So that's my AI, you know, take, I guess. Shoots and ladders. AI's the ladder. It's going to help you. But it's certainly not going to fix a broken process or a broken company and make everything amazing. So I don't have any AI thoughts before we come to a close here in a few minutes. Yeah, I mean, I think that that was last, like you said, last year, it was AI everything. This year it was, I think, AI specific.

So how do you use AI with owners? How do you use AI with operations? Like, I think it was, again, practical things. You could take practical takeaways, practical actionable items that you could take away and hopefully implement in your business. But I still go back to that general session with Jennifer Muruka from arrived. saying when she looks at implementing AI into her business, it's not just to remove a person. They're keeping hospitality.

They're keeping the guest experience and the owner experience front of mind. And I think that that's really important. With anything we're doing with AI is that it's not just, it's, it's, it shouldn't be viewed through the money making lens. It shouldn't be viewed through the efficiency lens, really as well, outside of making your team members. We're not trying to replace people. We're a people business. And then maybe you are. But I think it is vitally important to make sure that if it's easier for you, does that necessarily make it better for the guest, for the owner, for the overall experience? Because those are two

different things. Easier for you certainly doesn't guarantee that it's better for the guest or vice versa, right? Like those are two different discussions. So I think that was the main takeaway on the AI side of things is that, yes, we should absolutely be leveraging AI tools, but always, always, always, be doing that, keeping the overall guest experience, the overall owner experience, and the overall, like, hospitality experience in mind. Because once we've thrown that away, we've lost the bit. And at that point, AI isn't doing, I mean, all we're doing is running robots around. And what good does that do at this point?

And, yeah, and ultimately, people, there's a lot of terms that have come out, you know, last year about this, the number one being AI slop, this idea, like, we're getting fed AI generated videos or content or articles or information. And that's just not that great. And it's just, it's not giving you the value that you deserve as a consumer of whatever media it is that you're choosing. So you got to be very careful about that. Like it is a tool that overused or used it properly just becomes a little bit of a problematic thing and people don't enjoy it. So that's it.

That's all we got in VRMA. All right. Last thought here, Paul. Over under. How many shots did we hit in the rocks up at Paiute when we played golf on Sunday? What is your over under on? How many collective shots both you and I hit into the rocks? Mine was three to one over what yours was.

So I would say probably combined. We probably, I mean, I had some of the rocks. Don't get me wrong. You did. You did. I wouldn't say we were a couple dozen, but we were north of 10, north of a dozen. North of 10. North of 10.

Desert golf is just very, it was a good. That course was beautiful, really. We definitely would go back there again. I would not break my driver on the driving range before I stepped on it again. You would really displeased the rest of the round. That was very, very disappointing. So hit three went around all day. And I will say the ball goes a mile out there.

So honestly, three, what's kind of fine. I was going to say, I hit him multiple many drivers over 300 yards out there with roll. So that's interesting. That definitely does not happen at home. It's closer to like 265 at home maybe. So someone asked me that, by the way, when I played the day before, someone asked me, how far do you carry this thing? And I'm like, like, 250.

Like, I think that's fair. Like, it's fair assessment. And then I carried a 278 and didn't even hit it well. So I told my wife, I'm like, we're retiring somewhere at elevation. Like, when I get older and the ball speeds down, like when it's in the 150s, like, I'm going to retire somewhere where my drives keep going 300 even when I'm in my 50s or 60s because like that is super fun. I will say that. So what you're saying is I have to move to elevation.

Thank you. No, no, we got to get you speed training. I'll get you speed training. Then you'll get you'll get all that distance. That's what I've been doing. But now I'll find the golf course out there, honestly desert golf very unique because what I learned and that's what we're talking about, Paul and I, the moment you're on the fairway. When I was on the fairway, I think I was like one or two over.

Like on the 13, 14 holes we played. I was like doing pretty good. Like I think I had one three pot and maybe missed one green, kind of get up and down. when I wasn't at the fairway it was like six or seven over on like a few holes I lost almost all my shots when I just wasn't in the fairway because you're just chipping out sideways and in the rocks so yeah desert golf is nothing like what I'm used to here and it definitely chewed me up a little bit and spit me out but that's okay you know you live and you learn and it's more just about that makes the pros so good people to understand how good the pros are but what makes the pro so good is they can show somewhere they've never seen before we don't know anything about it they go there and they go to the same course every single day like I might get a handful of shots better These guys can show up, roll off the truck, look at a yardage book and shoot 68, it is wild. Some of us are happy to shoot a 78, maybe. That's kind of what I was trending for. It's how it's how good, man.

Arrow, put a bow on this one. If you made it all over the end, dear listener, we need a review. Go to your podcast, have the choice. We'll kind of have regular marketing topics out here next week coming up. We've got some new ones planned. Don't worry about that. But this will just be your view on our VRMA recap episode. If you're at VRMA and you have thoughts on it, let us know.

Email us or drop us a message on LinkedIn. That's where we're most active, most likely. We'll get some thoughts there. We appreciate it. otherwise have an awesome day dear listener we appreciate it catch you next time