Sound Strategy: Rediscovering Our 'Why': A Time for Reflection and Connection

By Clark Twiddy

Among the many vacation rental businesses along our nation's shorelines, the arrival of Memorial Day weekend is an inflection point for nearly all of them.?We'll begin to see the start of summer travel in earnest as temperatures rise and school schedules begin to arch toward summer, with families happily seeking the beach for both a moment and a memory.??

For the business operators among us in the visitor economy, it's also the perfect time to remember the "why" of what we do; as highlighted recently in an excellent Morningstar?article, it's not enough to?simply?understand the "how" and the "what" of the things we do–to be successful over time, we'll need to make sure that both our wonderful customers and our talented staffs understand the "why" that causes us all to put one foot ahead of the other in the morning.??

As we reconsider our "why" with the holiday weekend fast approaching, I am reminded of a great piece of career advice that's continued to resonate with me many years later: in choosing a career well spent, focus on either saving lives or improving them–and in doing so, you'll always know you made a difference.??

In our local visitor economy, we know we don't always–if ever–focus on saving lives, although we're superbly proud of those neighbors among us who do.?We do, though,?spend?an amazing?amount of time trying to improve the lives of those who choose to visit our shores.?Now more than ever,?it seems?Americans need a few moments to rest, recharge, and make a memory alongside the most important things in their lives.?It's a remarkable privilege to be the host for that kind of goal, and we're proud that as we consider the so many "what" and "how" questions around the ways we work to meet that goal, the "why" is never for a moment unappreciated.??

It's pretty straightforward, actually–vacations exist to provide a simple reset to a complex life surrounded by the things we work so hard for in the first place; our family and our friends.?We've learned over decades that vacations, in many cases, are the highlights of a life well lived and a common family experience that can even define what being a family means in a busy world.?At the end of any year, looking back through a year's worth of saved iPhone photos hopefully always includes a collection of smiling, sunsetting,?sunscreened?family faces from the beach.?Like an education, they can never be taken away from who we are. This is the impact we have on families, and it's what inspires us to keep doing what we do.??

We'll do that, clearly, with a lot of "what" and a lot of "how," but our "why" will always be to improve the lives of our customers in every interaction and across every experiential canvas we can imagine.?When we do so, we'll have an opportunity to welcome back not just wonderful families but generations of families over time–that opportunity is a supreme "why" moment that each member of our team has a chance to see nearly every summer day. It's a joy and a privilege to be a part of these cherished memories, and it's what makes our work truly meaningful.

So we welcome the holiday weekend with an old-fashioned sense of anticipation and excitement and are confident that what we do on behalf of other people just plain matters.?Happy Memorial Day weekend as we pause to remember and welcome back to the kind of summer your family will?always remember.??

Clark Twiddy is the president of Twiddy & Company, a vacation rental asset management and hospitality firm founded in 1978 along the North Carolina Outer Banks. He was raised in Duck, North Carolina, and is a combat veteran of the U.S. Navy and an alumni of several universities. Clark has served in numerous public, private, government and nonprofit capacities at various levels from volunteer to chair.