Heads In Beds Show - VRMA Recap: Las Vegas 2022

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

⭐️ Links & Show NotesPaul Manzey Conrad O'ConnellVRMA🔗 Connect With BuildUp BookingsWebsiteFacebook PageInstagramTwitter🚀 About BuildUp BookingsBuildUp Bookings is a team of creative, problem solvers made to drive you more traffic, direct bookings and results for your accommodations brand. Reach out to us for help on search, social and email marketing for your vacation rental brand.

All right, Paul, we're back from VRMA. First of all, how was Vegas? How did you enjoy the conference this year? Vegas was fantastic. I wish I would have seen outside of the casino every once in a while, but that's the part about going to Vegas for a conference is that we just don't get to see the outside world that much. Outside of that, it was fantastic. Being able to connect with partners, Venturi being a completely remote workforce, being able to connect internally with our own team members and being able to connect externally with partners is fantastic. That's what I miss about being in more of a traditional office environment is just being able to make those connections every once in a while. So seeing everybody, seeing you, seeing just other vendors, again, seeing people

that I used to work with at other companies now, it's just one of those times where I think it's that family reunion. It truly is the vacation rental industry family reunion. And it was great to participate in it, I would say. How about you? Yeah, I liked it quite a bit. So really, it was kind of my first one in a while. Last year, I missed my daughter was like a week old. So I didn't go in COVID the year before. So it's been a while for me to go to that conference. And I saw a few clients that I hadn't seen in person in that amount of time. I know we've talked on the phone, I don't know, 30 times since then, but it's just different. I met one of my clients and he's like, yeah, I'm a little bit grayer pointing to his hair. I'm like, you're still tall and good looking.

Don't get too worked up about it. But no, it was fun. We had a good time. And for me, I just, I ran out of time. Honestly, I didn't get to see everything I wanted to see or everybody I wanted to see. And I think that's just the lesson in how big the event has gotten, whatever they said, 2,500 plus people. I don't know more than that. The main general sessions was the size of a football field, like that Caesars ballroom area. And there's people standing in the back. It was huge. And the seats were tight. So it was massive. Absolutely insane. I mean, it is. I think we can feel how big the industry is when we're with so many people and we have reach. But to see that digital reach and then

to see the personal reach of actually seeing all these people, it is such a fantastic industry to be a part of. And obviously we'll say that with the bias that it deserves, but to be in this space right now as the vacation rental industry continues to grow. And as we talked about some pretty important, I think there was a lot of important conversations that were taking place there. I think it is. It's an exciting time to be in the vacation rental space and to be working with some of those amazing professionals that we get to work with. Yeah, that's the fun part for me too, I think is like seeing people is fun and going through. But like I didn't make it to as many sessions this year as I have in the past

because I was just seeing a lot of people. But the sessions I did go to, there's people in there that are like, aggressively taking notes and improving and taking action on what they hear from it. And I think that's the fun part to me too, is just that we can be a part of it, hopefully educating and sharing what we know here in this format. And then I had a chance, I did a session on day two with Margot from Hostfully and John from Hopper Homes. And we did a TikTok session, which is like, this is the new generation. I think it was well attended. I don't know because I didn't go to a ton, but there was a lot of people in there. I got positive feedback after. So I'll just give myself credit and say it was good, even if there's no one there on here to say that it wasn't good. And I think that that was my sense

of it was that people were there, they were asking real questions. They really want to improve their businesses. And it wasn't something where in the past, I feel like I've seen that at conferences in the poor, or I go to like non-vacation rental conferences. I've been to like general digital marketing conferences and they're just there because their boss sent them and they don't really care. That's not the case here. Like most people coming are small businesses. They're part of small business. They own the small business. They are very actively working and motivated to improve things. And I think that's like the exciting part for me, for sure. Yeah. I think that was for us at the booth, that was always fun to hear. Getting that word of mouth out here. Well, I've been hearing about you. I've been hearing about you. I've been hearing about you. And that's something that you always hope for. That's something I think everybody is going to say. That's what people were saying when they came up to their booth one way or another. Maybe Venturi had a good time, a good show. I certainly thought we did. We were pretty busy and we did some fun giveaways, which was a lot of fun. But I also, we were certainly browsing around the other vendors and exhibitors

and seeing what they were doing as well. And this is, I think, even if it was the culmination of, yes, last year, people were still a little wary just post COVID. Two years ago, it was COVID. So we weren't even doing these things. Yeah. To see the the people not just experiencing the conference, but really diving in and taking notes and coming back with those notes to the specific vendor and saying, okay, I heard about this and this. Now, what does that mean for the other partnerships I have? And I think that's another important part of these is making sure vendor to vendor, talking vendor to vendor and making sure that, hey, if you're one of the main property management systems or you're one of the main XYZ guest experience applications or something like that, you're talking with other businesses

that are going to help provide a better experience for your owners, for your guests, et cetera, down the road. So I think that's just as important as meeting with those professional managers, but also meeting with some of those vendors and making sure, hey, are we all on the same page? Are we all aligned? Are we all supporting? And can we make sure that we have a good partnership moving forward? Yeah, I like that quite a bit. The idea of continual improvement. And honestly, it's like introducing a new tool or platform or agency or company, whatever, into your stack is not something that I think a lot of the best operators don't take that lightly. They know on the surface that it sounds good to do X and Y and Z in their business, but they also realize that it adds a heck of a lot of complexity.

And the best ones, I think they ask really good questions. That's one thing that I've noticed quite a bit. Some of the people that I saw there that we've had conversations leading up to it, and I saw them there and I was trying to push them over the edge a little bit. To be honest, from a services standpoint, is all the people that I thought were there were asking good questions. They weren't just saying, yeah, this sounds good. Let's proceed. They were thinking, what's the true cost? How much do we have to spend on ads, not just the actual service fee? How much is this? How do we measure this? How do we track this, et cetera? And I do, I have to go back to companies that I have competed with on contracts before, marketing contracts before. I have to go back to companies that I used to work for and ask them

questions about tracking. And they're super helpful. They're helpful to me and they answer my questions and they're kind and they're polite. And I think that's the ultimate thing, which is a lot of people in that vendor hall are competing with one another. They're all battling in a sense for that. I joke sometimes when the vacation manager walks through, it's like a slab of meat. Vendors are tearing into you a little bit. But ultimately everyone there is there. And I think they have your best interest at heart, or at least in mind, they want you to have a good outcome with your business. And with where you're trying to go in the next year. And make no mistake, it's more competitive now than it ever was in the past when I attended previous ones. But I don't think that's necessarily

a super negative thing. I just think it's capitalism. That's what I tell people all the time. It's capitalism, maybe. If you're going to go compete in the marketplace, and yeah, that's business. I think it's ultimately only going to make yourself better. If you're someone who, there's a. I think it's ultimately only going to make yourself better. If you're someone who there's a vendor, I saw they're complaining about being close enough to another vendor offering the same thing. And I'm like, that's going to knock you off your spot, man. You're not going to make it, right? You're not going to make it if that's really bothering you that much. So you were there where the, like you said, ocean is getting bigger. The pie is getting bigger, whatever analogy you want to

draw. So you're there to compete and offer your services up and your competition may not actually be the other people offering the same service. It might be the property manager investing in a completely different area of their business right now. The laundry stuff always blows my mind whenever that gets brought up at these conferences, because I know nothing about laundry. Don't ask me a single question about laundry. But there's companies, and I've worked with some in the past, that spend a million dollars to build a laundry facility. If that was on their investment chart this year to build a laundry facility in 2023, they may do less marketing. It has nothing to do with the fact that marketing is good or bad. It just has to do with the fact that they need to make that investment for the long term health of their business. So I

think that's also what I always learned there is that opens my eyes because I have this frame that I focus on, you and I are similar in that way. We focus on kind of two sides of the same coin, but we are in the same coin for the most part. But there's 15 to 55 other things that these property managers are doing on a day to day,day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis that is unbelievably complex. There's a lot of professionals that work in these other areas that I don't know much about. The cleaning, I always see Dirk's sessions, not being the most attended, but the dude is, he knows the most about that topic than anybody. And so people that go in those sessions, I bet they learn stuff that's super helpful,

super valuable to their growth goals as it relates to cleaning. And you can mark it so you're blue in the face. If your operations suck, if you can't clean the property, then who cares? What's the number one source of negative reviews that we've seen on the traveler side before? Property wasn't clean. We can market all day long if you can't recover that. So I think that's the benefit to a VRMA is you can go there as a rental manager. You get a whole 360 view of everything you need to be doing. No, you can't see everything and do everything. It's just not possible. But you can at least level up in each of these different areas. And then by the time you get done with everything, you can take it, bring it back home, get better,

come back and try to keep getting better the next year. And you need to because if you sit on your laurels, if you're not aggressive enough, someone's going to come up behind you and take your properties from you and take your market share from you. That's just how it is. We mean, we had that right in the conference. We were meeting with someone who's a great partner. He actually came to, we had a mastermind prior to the conference. So he put the full effort in, came in on Saturday, and I think he left on Wednesday afternoon. But on Tuesday, I believe he did. He had Bacasa come into his market and take up two competitors, 250 units.

So right in the conference, all of a sudden we had to make a little shift and pivot in our strategy. And that was something that obviously we were able to do on the fly there, but it is, it's still happening. I think while the industry feels like it shuts down for a week or so, business is still going on behind the scenes and all that stuff is still happening. Everything's still existing there. So it is, I think we are, again, we're still living in a very active space. It feels like that M&A activity has decreased a little bit recently, but sure enough, they're still popping their heads in and looking for ways to get out there. Yeah, it's awesome. I think that the recap here, this little kind of mini episode that we're dropping in the

feed, I think will be a good thing. I think our next episode will have a more meaty topic that I've been to, but it was great to, like you said, connect with everyone. If you want to be our man you're listening to this definitely come next year i think orlando florida is my understanding of next year which might be a little bit easier for some east coast folks to get to a lot less gambling going on there i suspect orlando although i think you can drive to me i was gonna say here's my big here's my biggest story and then we can we can put a bow on it the patriots game was monday night and i was actually having dinner with

someone and i was like hey before we have dinner i want to walk over to the book and put a bow on it. The Patriots game was Monday night and I was actually having dinner with someone and I was like, hey, before we have dinner, I want to walk over to the book and put a bet on the Patriots. I was sure they were going to win. And we got busy talking and by the time I got over to the book, the game had already started and I was like, oh no, I missed my chance.

And of course, Patriots get killed. So my Vegas donation, I actually was not able to get my Vegas donation. So thank you to client Axel, remain anonymous, excuse me, for saving me whatever, a hundred bucks on the Vegas donation that I would have made. So I didn't lose any money in vegas which has to be like the i didn't play any games or anything like that how about you did you get it into any games or did

you say a clean sheet as far as your wallet i no i invested a couple i we're gonna call them investments i did i put a little money down on a couple games and i came out in the green we'll say that but it was minimal in the green and it was because if i kept going in the green at some point you're gonna drop down into the red there so no i will say yes a couple college games i did end up in the green so we'll leave it at that i know there were some people who didn't so i'm not gonna go out and say hell yeah i came out rich we weren't vegas rich and after all the client meals and client drinks, I think we're probably never going to be Vegas rich for a while there, but that's okay. Yeah. Hey, if you beat the

book, even on a small amount, you won in my view. Awesome. Yeah. I'd love to do this little recap episode. We'll put this out on the feed so people can check it out if they weren't at VRMA. And next week we are coming back with a more specific episode about all things digital marketing. So we'll dive back into that one. Thanks so much, Paul. And we'll see you on the next episode. See you.