The Communities WE Build: LiveRez Partner Conference 2021

Another week, another amazing vacation rental conference. This time it was LiveRez’s Partner Conference in Boise, Idaho. Having never been to Boise before, I was pleasantly surprised by the town’s beauty and all it had to offer. As I came to learn over the next few days, the conference 2 years in the making offered even more than the town itself.

Seamless Transition

Not having time to travel home in between conferences, I ended up in Boise the weekend before the conference kicked off. This gave me the opportunity to take a beautiful walk along the river with the event’s MC, Wil Slickers. It’s funny to think, but as much as it felt I already knew Wil, this conference season was the first time we had ever actually met in person.

What was immediately apparent as we talked about our industry, what was happening, and where it, and we are headed, was that the mentorship theme that was so prominent at the VRMA conference the week before permeated even more deeply than I realized.

Just as many PMs in San Antonio talked about how grateful they were for the mentorship they received when they first joined the industry, Wil talked about how beneficial the mentorship of Matt Landau has been in his own efforts to get his hospitality media business off of the ground. Also, like the PMs I spoke with in San Antonio, Wil was excited to now be paying it forward, telling me about a new way he was planning to help others trying to build their own podcasts and voices in the industry.

Watch this space for exciting things to come. The virtuous cycle continues!

The Power of the Big Players

As much as many of us talk about #bookdirect, and building our own brands, more than once I heard PMs and other conference attendees refer to the “Airbnb” they booked rather than staying at the conference hotel.

On one hand it is great to support our own short term rental industry. On the other, it makes clear just how much “Airbnb” has become a verb, and not just a distribution channel. The pros and cons to this are just as strong for Airbnb (the company) as they are for us as Property Managers and industry professionals.

First, the pros. The immediate brand recognition from guests, even those who do the hard work of management themselves, is certainly a plus for a company looking to decrease its marketing spend in its continued efforts to reach profitability. At the same time, that amazing brand awareness has virtuously increased awareness of our category, growing the overall pie for managers and industry professionals alike.

But the cons are real. For Airbnb, becoming a verb is a double-edged sword, commoditizing their brand, and a slippery slope that companies like Xerox and Kleenex before them have come to lament in retrospect. For Property Managers, it’s also evidence of the difficulty inherent in building a brand and building that name recognition necessary with prior guests to encourage future direct bookings, and decrease their own marketing costs.

Difficult, but not impossible. As an interesting panel moderated by Matt Landau with Stacey Shomion of Vrbo, Bryann Boice of HomeToGo, and Braeden Flaherty of InhabitIQ, made clear, there are indeed “ways to make OTAs work for you,” but it takes dedication and focused effort.

Fortunately, Dedication Is Not Lacking

As anyone reading this knows all too well, the job of a property manager is ALL about dedication. After all, who else would be willing to “scrape poop off of other people’s toilets,” as Sarah Bradford so memorably put it?

This fact was further evidenced by a future visioning question posed in one of the sessions. The managers on stage were asked “what does your dream business look like in the next five years?” Almost to the person, every manager on stage replied with some version of “a business where I can actually take a day or two off each week!” The job is 24/7/365, and as rewarding as it is, it’s also exhausting.

But there’s hope. Dawn Huff of Miss Kitty’s Fishing Getaways in Rockport, Texas was the notable exception. Having started her company 19 years ago (the first property she listed was the 4th on Vrbo in Rockport), it may have taken nearly two decades, but she credited her ability to hire people around her whom she trusted, and who can do things even better than her, with helping her work in her dream business today. There is a way, and it all comes down to the team you build.

And The Community We Build

LiveRez also demonstrated very well how the “team” can and should be bigger than the people on your payroll. As their slogan so eloquently states: “Without partnership, it’s just software.”

This was a theme that came up again and again. It isn’t just about software providers and other vendors being true partners, it’s also about how and why we need to get more involved and active in our local communities. In the past, far too many of us have acted (or failed to act) as if this is something for others. That is, until trouble starts knocking on our door in the shape of new and restrictive rental regulations.

Fortunately, there was ample evidence of change on this front in Boise. The most obvious, and likely impactful, is the Right to Rent initiative being led by VRMA and InhabitIQ. But as to be expected when it comes to community, the even more inspiring examples came from the Property Managers themselves. Things like their efforts to use locally sourced and branded coffee, chocolates, and toiletries, as well as to partnerships with local event providers and restaurants.

Even outside of the conference itself, Amber and LiveRez demonstrated that this community and partnership mindset is far more than lip service for them when I had the pleasure of visiting the amazing Boise restaurant Saint Lawrence Gridiron that was actually started by Amber and her husband. They are true fixtures in the local community, and it showed.

Now, finally home after a whirlwind couple of weeks, I can say that conferences and business travel are back, and there is not another community I would rather travel to see, get to know, and be a part of than what we have, and are continuing to build in vacation rentals.