1st of the Month Bonus Episode: Annie’s Next Big Leap, plus Spring Happenings & Updates

Alex Husner  2:05  
Welcome to Alex and Annie the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex. And I'm Annie and we are here today for the April 1 first of the month bonus episode. And unlike last year, we have a very big announcement. But this one is not a joke. So, drumroll please, I'm very excited Annie to ask you and we even it's Friday after five we've got our nice glass of wine to celebrate. I'm very excited to get to interview you tonight on your new role and your new journey. So tell us a little bit about what you've got going on. Yeah,

Annie Holcombe  2:43  
so I started last week with Nextpax, I'm going to be the Director of Technical supply for the Americas sounds very fancy. Essentially, I get to do what I love to do just play with relationships and like build relationships and play in the vacation rental space all over the place. So I'm really excited about it. I have some sales folks, and that'll be selling for property managers. So we'll obviously work with property managers. But I think it's it's been something that I've been building up for for a really long time to be able to like manage, like the really strategic partnerships that will help grow a business and so it'll be new for me going into South America. I don't know a lot about that. I haven't been there before. So I think I'll get to go visit I have a salesperson that's based in Rio. So I feel like Alex Nene need to go to Rio is

Alex Husner  3:33  
a fabulous idea. It's definitely put that on the bucket list.

Annie Holcombe  3:36  
Yeah, so started this week and or last week, excuse me, and very excited about it. They have a lot of opportunity. I know I've worked with next packs through some other roles that I've had before. And they have a really great platform. So I think that they're real strong in Europe, we didn't want to get stronger in the United States and in South America, and they have plans to grow in Asia too. So I won't be overseeing that. Although I did talk to one of our folks that is based in Indonesia. And he suggested that we have an off site in Bali, so I'm not against that either. So Alexandra, Rio, and then we go to Bali, I guess I

Alex Husner  4:14  
love it. That's awesome. I'm so happy and so proud of you and excited and I mean your your skill set and experience just perfectly complements that role. When I when we first met actually was a little bit before we actually didn't know I've take that back we met at the atma summit but we had just started using booking pal where you worked for a few years and that's where our relationship began because you were amazing at building relationships and it was more than transactional but we became great friends out of it and even you know after we had not used that service anymore for our own reasons you and I stayed in contact so I think you in this role is going to be very beneficial for next packs. In developing relationships is 100% in your skill set? I think it's going to be a great thing. So very excited. I do have a question because we talked about this sometimes on the show and conversations. But you know, people have have said that possibly channel management is going away, and that property management systems are going to do all that heavy lifting, which we know is a lot of heavy lifting. When a property manager, property management software has to also do a lot of other functions. But how do you how does next backs view their role within the ecosystem as something that is unique and necessary beyond just what's in the Property Management System? Well, I

Annie Holcombe  5:42  
think it goes back to even the conversation that we recently had with Julie bird and Travis and CJ stamp, talking about kind of these all in one solutions. Well, not a bad thing, it's if you're going to scale, you kind of want your own pieces in your own parts to your, you know, in llenos words, the Jenga, you know, of the leaning tower of tech. And so I think that next pecs has been around since 2006, it's been here for a long time, they have a very stable connection, very strong partnerships with the OTAs, they have the ability to pivot when something new rolls out with an API, you know, an update, they can update a lot quicker than some of these, I think the the PMs are going to be able to do unless the PMs teams have layers and layers of technology people but I think I think CJ was the one that said it like they're gonna have to go deploy to the thing that is on fire, you know, at that moment, where is if they just allow the different, the different parts of the industry, the different technologies, the industry that are, it's their lane, let them swim in it, let us women our lane, and then we can work together and make the technology stronger for everybody. There's, there's enough business out there for all of us. I think that if we work together, we just better the technology offerings to the partners to the property managers. And to Julie's point, she, you know, comments and about the fact that, you know, there's software out there, but you liked the software that you like, because a lot of times you have a relationship with those people, you know that you know, the platform and you liked the platform and you liked the service that you're getting. And if all of a sudden that has to go under one roof at one point or some point, that ability to get the service that you're used to is not going to be there you're not you're gonna have to learn a whole new way of operating. And that's not easy for anybody to do when you're large. And it's you know, if you're a couple units, sure you can scale into that. I don't think that the channel management is going to go away, I think it's just going to iterate and make things better and offer more solutions and maybe more technologies within their, their, again, their lane, just like the PMS is are but at the end of the day, it's just really about what the property managers want. I think the property managers want stability, but also putting everything all of your eggs in one basket, as it were, is a dangerous place to sit. And you know, one, one outage and a PMS if you're using one solution could potentially disrupt you for days on so many levels. So I don't I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it's it's you know, it's good that people are thinking how do we put technology together, but there's providers like us and others in the general manager space that we have a proven platform and we know how to use it, we know what to do with it. We know how to navigate with the channels, let us do that. And you do what you do on the PMs side handle the accounting and handle the guests, the guests communication, that on property on site, technology that's needed. So I don't know, it'll be interesting to see where things go 234 years from now, but I you know, if I have anything to do with it, it'll stay as it is. We'll have our lane, they'll have their lane, and we'll be able to swim together.

Alex Husner  8:55  
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it brings up a good point that I mean, within anything, whether it's a property management system, whether it's a digital marketing agency, to think that one solution can do everything and be the expert specialist at it is normally not the case, right? I mean, you want whoever is the best at channel management, whoever's the best at whatever it is handling that for you. And I think where things started to kind of get off the rails, you know, a few years ago with in our industry is that it was just so much of that that companies had to really transition from Okay, there might be different logins and places that you have to go to access, different sources of business and how you do things. But it's worth it right and train your team to understand the value of we're going to connect to these channels through next packs because they're getting, we're getting white glove service. We're able to connect to channels that our PMS does not connect to. And at the end of the day, you're going to be maintaining those connections and I would imagine probably the closest way possible that are those connections are gonna continue to change even more often. I mean, API's are complicated as it is. But with AI and everything else, like, it's just a lot for one PMS or company to do all of that, if that's not truly your specialty. So I already have a couple clients interested in working with you.

Annie Holcombe  10:19  
Oh, love it, I know where to send him I'm very excited about also you do have my number. I

Alex Husner  10:25  
do speed now to what what are some channels that you're seeing that are performing really well, outside of verbo Airbnb that people might be interested in? Well,

Annie Holcombe  10:36  
obviously booking.com There, they become a force within the US minute, they're a channel that you shouldn't shouldn't ignore. Wednesday is a great channel for those last minute holes to fill in your calendar, of course homes and villas, if you've got I mean, they'll always be someone I'd recommend for people, it's got luxury or high end properties. But there's a lot of like smaller, unique channels, Emerald Coast byowner, like things that are just very regionally based, we have over 100 channels, I think it's around 150 channels within next pack. So that's the thing that's really nice is that if you're you know, if you're in the Pacific Northwest, we can look at what's your channel mix needs to be in the Pacific Northwest and not it's all things to everybody, because you're in, you know, you're not going to have to do all the channels you can do what you you know, pick and choose. And there's a menu that you can layer in, and we've got account managers that will sit there with you and go through and say like, you know, what is your goal with the channel? Are you looking for marketing? Are you looking for revenue growth? Are you looking for more eyeballs to just see your properties to you know, satisfy that one owner that needs to have his house shown to everybody everywhere? So there's there's a lot of different channels that are out there. But I think those those ones that I mentioned would be the ones that I would for sure add on after Airbnb and VRBO.

Alex Husner  11:52  
Yeah, well, I'm excited to become a client as a representative for the companies that I'm working with. And then I can kind of give my firsthand opinion and feedback on it and work with you guys and share the success stories which I know that they will come I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that this is also a little bit crazy that you and I have just had very big milestones in our lives for the second time together, that we both started at our previous roles after being with companies for a very long time, on November 1 2022. I do, and then now within a month apart, announced have very big announcements that I was going out on my own and now you're doing this new role. And it's just, you know, the again, not planned, but it's just it's interesting how the universe starts showing us these different opportunities. And as David Meltzer, who was just on the show last week, said to us that, you know, the aha moments, they start coming closer and closer together. And, you know, we're so grateful for what the show has done for both of us and the opportunities that it's opened, and that it will continue to open for the companies that we get to work with. And it's it's been exciting, but a unique situation again,

Annie Holcombe  13:10  
yeah, I think we like to do things in pairs, I guess this is what that means. The universe, University has us traveling together. But on that, so pivoting from me to you like what's the update with your CEO? Just directly, Alex, what do you what's going on there? Yeah,

Alex Husner  13:28  
so it's been an incredible start so far. And I feel like I'm so in my lane right now, and just really enjoying what I'm getting to do and working with three companies right now. And I've got a couple others that were in the audit process. And it's just it's been really, it's been eye opening and fun. And it's been a lot of, I guess, kind of what I expected for a little bit, but maybe a little bit more surprised to the extent but at the end of the day, the fundamentals of marketing, it comes down to having somebody that understands the strategy behind how you're doing everything. And I think a lot of companies, you know, they've got an agency, and they might, they're, they're doing SEO, they're doing PPC, they're doing email marketing, they're checking the boxes. But in most of these companies, they don't have necessarily a CMO. And I was CMO at Condor world for those 13 years. And I've really believe that the companies that have someone that is leading from a strategic position are the ones that really benefit from utilizing all the things that you should, should be doing. But make making sure they're working in a meaningful way that really elevates the brand that you know, is booking the properties but is marketing from a different position of you know, we're we talk about this all the time, we're in the business of making memories for these people that come and stay in the properties and I think that's really lost in translation. In a lot of the marketing that I'm seeing that the marketing is very reactive to these properties are down we've got to send something out and that's your that's a very You know, in a vacuum kind of approach, and where I'm coming into the situation is, is like, let's reposition this of, let's get ahead of this earlier, let's know what properties should be booking during which time periods, let's plan campaigns that are going to go throughout the entire year. And that are gonna match the narrative that we want to share about our brand. So really just getting in the weeds of the things that I love. And the three that I'm working with right now, all very different sizes and types of clients, geographically, as well. And I've got to bring along some of my best talent that I had from the Condor world days with me, which is personally super fulfilling, because they're the best in the business. And they're kind of like hidden gems, and they've been so supportive, and for me, and helping get this going. And it's just been a lot of fun. So I'm excited to continue it. And just very grateful for all the opportunities that have come so far. Yeah,

Annie Holcombe  15:57  
well, I'm super proud of you. And I said that last time, but I think it's great for you to be able to be passionate and excited about what you're doing. And you can see it and it's evident, and I talked to you all the time. So I you know, I get to see it firsthand. But I think just the biggest thing is that you can now take that talent and share it with so many people that, you know, we talked about this kind of like idea of the fractional CMO, people that they can't afford to bring to you on full time. But you know, what they can get from you for just a few, you know, the time you can't a lot to them, like it's just going to change their business beyond what they would ever have imagined. And then all of a sudden, you know, they're going to be like, wait a minute, we need this person, and they're going to be like fighting over you to hire you. So it's gonna be it's gonna be great. And I think it's just an just a wonderful asset for the industry to have you being able to help so many other people.

Alex Husner  16:49  
We'll be back in just a minute after a word from our premier brand sponsor turnout. On kingdom, why did and I've been a turnover user for about two years, and I have placed Toronto and marketplace cleaners through hundreds of properties. Throughout three or four states across country. I had worked with cleaners for years, but I couldn't find cleaners that would understand the urgency that I wanted to have on damages. So cleaners wouldn't tell me that sheets were stained and needed to be replaced, like two weeks after guests would be there. You know, like finally, they wouldn't get around to doing the laundry. And by then I would have had already rated the guests five stars, and so they could stay and other great guests and and meanwhile, they weren't the cleaners that, that I found on turnout have been just remarkable. The turnover marketplace is full of these amazing cleaning companies that have so much capabilities and accountability. And they do just a really, really great job. The first time I used turnto, I was set up with a cleaner and his team and came in and I trained them all on how to do the listings, then the next day, they they didn't show up. But because I was on turnout, it was okay, because turno knew that they weren't going to show up. And they pulled in another cleaning company. Turn a customer support is it's like a huge team. There's literally hundreds of them. It's it's fast. And everybody's just like a great team over there that the customer service is really skilled in understanding the back end of turnout. What I appreciate a lot about the turnover customer service is that when you tell them, when you're having trouble with something, they don't, they don't just write you back and tell you like step by step how to do it. Like they write you back and say, I did that for you. And if you want to do it yourself next time, this is how you do it. Do the automations available in the Toronto app, I have been able to streamline and automate so much of my Airbnb business, the activities that you can handle and the automations that you can handle inside of Toronto really do automate so much of the cleaning process, which has helped me save so much money and increase revenue.

Coming in as that leadership position for these companies, and you know, just just knowing that they truly want to exercise every part of the experience that I've built in these past 14 years is great and it's a unique situation that I think the fractional CMO, fractional CFO, fractional CFO, there's a big rise within just not even vacation roles necessarily but within business in general that those you know high level high salary, you know, benefits everything else positions are, are tough to swallow, but when you can tap somebody, whether it's on a you know, six month 12 month or it's it's ongoing that allows you to really bring in that expertise that it just it makes sense to get the company going in the right direction. So very excited on that. But we'll continue to share updates. And I know next one, you'll have a new update for your first month on the seed. Yeah.

Annie Holcombe  20:14  
Let's get into the month of April. Like there's a lot going on this month. So we think we wanted to talk about conferences and then guests on the show,

Alex Husner  20:22  
right? Yeah. So are you going to end up you VRP? I'm

Annie Holcombe  20:26  
not No, I was, I'm not going to be able to go. And I think we had talked about trying to go as Alex any any. And it just there was so many things going on when with us both changing positions that it wasn't going to work out. But I am excited to see like there's some stuff that they had talked with us about when we were there with them last year, they've teased out some potential name change, some potential membership change. So if you're out in the northwest, or you even think you want to go to a different conference that Northwest VRP is happening. Gosh, when is it April 28? I believe it is the end of the end of April.

Alex Husner  21:02  
Yeah, yeah. No, unfortunately, I wish we were able to go we're not but I know, they have a big announcement, and you just did a real with Diane, she didn't have time to get it in by the deadline. But that was super funny. And it's gonna be exciting to see they're announcing a new name. They're going not only nationally, but internationally. And just really trying to take the industry by storm and a very, you know, a courageous leadership position for an for an organization and excited to see what they announce. Hopefully, we can live vicariously without being there. They're all the updates that that we'll see. And hopefully next year, we can be there with them. After that, obviously, we've got vrma spring in New Orleans, definitely looking forward to that that's gonna be a great event. I'm really excited had a last minute opportunity to do a session for marketing that the topic is going to be about what parts of marketing you should keep in house versus what parts you should outsource. Yeah, it's gonna be it's going to be a good one. I think there's different ways to do everything. And there's no right or wrong answer. But are there ways that are that I've seen that have worked very well, for sure. So I'm going to be sharing from my perspective, what, what things I believe should be kept in house versus what should be outsourced to the experts and who you have that handles the outsourcing to the experts to make sure that they're doing everything that they say they're going to do for you. Yeah,

Annie Holcombe  22:32  
good, good. That's I'm looking forward to Verma in New Orleans, because it just New Orleans. It's just a fun town. And we haven't been back there since Amy. Hi notes. Women's Conference. I've definitely. And we were all there. So yeah, gosh, it's been a long time. But it's spring, the weather should be nice. Yeah, yeah,

Alex Husner  22:51  
that's so we got an event. So looking forward to this one. We've got some great guests coming on the show, too. So the actually this Wednesday, we've got rich from extent team. And we're just, you know, over the moon excited that extent team has come on as one of our premier brand partners and just really excited to share their message. We've had the opportunity that and we do this with our sponsors, that we interview their customers, and we really get to hear from them, how they use the service, the benefit. And it's been wonderful just to hear from these people that are literally running their businesses so much more efficiently, effectively, cost cost efficiently. Utilizing extend team and how they really they they specialize in this industry and roles that are very hard to fill that we all know workforce is one of the biggest issues. We talked about it a lot of these conferences, they've solved that problem for a lot of companies to a certain extent. And, you know, Rich is going to be able to share his insights and how he got to where he is and how they've built up this just incredible network.

Annie Holcombe  24:00  
Yeah, really excited. And to your point, I think we've had some really great conversations with some of their partners, and just really drove home the point that what their extent team is allowing all these people to do is work on their business, not in their business. So they're not, they're not just mired down with all of the paperwork and things that that can really prevent somebody from getting to the next level. So yeah, we're very excited about having them as a partner. We had some other guests and I you Erin booth is one that's going to be on. Yeah,

Alex Husner  24:30  
so Aaron was summit mountain rentals. And actually, Simon Lehman connected me with her a few weeks ago, and we just got along fabulously and afterwards I sent her an email. I was like, I don't know if you'd be interested. But would you want to come on to the guests? And she said, Absolutely. But she's got a great story. She worked for Vacasa for many years and has been hired out by summit mountain to help them expand into other markets and is doing a great job is really, you know, turn the ship for them operationally. She's got a lot of experience on a A lot of great stories to tell from her years and just a great operator. So we're excited about that. And we've also got a this is kind of more on the STR side, but we love kind of switching lanes and giving different perspectives. We've got Nate and Dan from home hop, that they are primarily in, like in mostly cities, STR destinations, and have built up a pretty substantial business. And they've got pretty lofty goals. And I think they're going to do well achieving them very, very much. Just truly strong business people, I would say that they've got their mindset, right, they've got their heart set, right? I don't see any way that they're not going to be able to get to where they want to be. And they're very just passionate. Good guys. And those are the ones you want to root for.

Annie Holcombe  25:49  
Yeah, yeah, it was really it was it was interesting. They were just somebody that we got connected to, and just they've just got a great story. They're very, they're very down home, like regular guys that just found a passion for this business. And they're, and again, they're doing all the right things. They're not being flashy, they're working very hard. And they have a long range plan. And I think that after talking to him, I felt more delighted about some of the people that in the STR side because we've had some people that we've met with that were just a little puzzling about how they were, you know, how they were handling the business. And it kind of fed into my worry that there are people aren't educating themselves enough, but I think these guys are a good apples. And they're, you know, they're kind of like John Hildebrand. Like, they just want to know when they're voracious learners, and they want to understand all sides of the business. And they know, they know where their sweet spot is. And they're, they're focusing on it. So I'm excited to share their story.

Alex Husner  26:47  
Yeah, absolutely. And then we've also got Wes Smith with direct software, he's coming on the show. And he's got a big announcement about a new product that they're rolling out within direct. I've known Wes for several years now. And actually, in the condo world days, we had talked to him, mostly because we were just really impressed by their their content management system, their connections to the OTAs, they're a little bit different than some of the other software's I think they've approached it from a little bit different perspective. But we'll let him share more about it, I think what they're about to roll out will really take the PMs on the website to a new level that it's very much connected within their system. And you can actually build a really nice website, very easy to manage website, directly through it, so directly through it. So great terminology there. But yeah, we've got a big month ahead of us and super excited for that. And I don't remember if we've mentioned this or not, but we were asked to speak at the scale rentals show in Italy, this October, which we're super excited to attend, not only attend and go to but for both of us, it's going to be our first time going to Italy and to be able to do that we're both bringing our husbands like there is gonna be a lot of fun. We're very excited.

Annie Holcombe  28:14  
I did want to add a selfish comment to this episode. There's a dear friend of ours in the industry whose wife had an aneurysm recently, Chris Meaghan from AIPAC. And she Yeah, and I just, it just hit me so hard. We've never met Chris in person, but he's been a really big advocate of ours and everything that we've been doing and a big supporter, and I know he is in a, in a struggling position right now. So just if everybody in the industry would just like lift his family and prayers, I think that would be that would be really great. Yeah,

Alex Husner  28:47  
absolutely. My mom had an aneurysm, you know, that whole story. So I understand the struggles and the challenges that he's not only faced so far, but that they're up against. So yeah, we'll definitely be keeping him in his wife in our thoughts and prayers. glad you mentioned that. Well, I think that wraps it up for this first of the month. We're hope we just hope everybody has an amazing April, we hope to see you at vrma in New Orleans. If you have not registered yet. There is still time. We'll include the notes to err in the notes, the link to sign up for the for the conference. It's definitely one that you won't want to miss. I think this is going to be one where a lot more people come to this just because of the time of the year and the location. A lot of people will be at this event. So it's going to be it's going to be a good one. Yeah,

Annie Holcombe  29:36  
yep. See everybody there. Yeah.

Alex Husner  29:39  
If anybody wants to get in touch with us, you can go to Alex and any podcast.com And until next time, thanks for tuning in everyone.