1st of the Month Bonus Episode: Celebrating a Year of Growth and Looking Ahead to 2024

Alex: 0:38

Welcome to Alex and Annie, the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex and I'm Annie, and it is January 1st, it's the first of the year. Happy new year, annie. Happy New Year Everybody. We made it. 2023 is over and 2024 is here, yeah.

Annie: 0:53

I feel like we just split into home base because I'm tired, it's been a year.

Alex: 0:57

Obviously, annie. You did a great job of bringing all these fun things here to wear today, but I actually really can't see any of these, so I take them off. We are here today this is a special episode where I'm actually in Annie's hometown. I am in Canosity Beach and here recording at a beautiful oceanfront condo and just reminiscing on yet another year that what a year it was.

Annie: 1:19

Yeah, so I mean this time last year we were getting ready to like well, we had just started new careers, we had just started new jobs.

Alex: 1:26

On November 1st we both started new jobs, yeah.

Annie: 1:29

We both said that we again apologize to everybody for the calendar blow up that we gave to everyone. But yeah, I don't think we had any idea what we were getting into. No idea it is fun.

Alex: 1:42

I will say this is cool being able to sit and, like, look at you. I like we're behind a screen in most cases when we're interviewing people and just talking to each other. So this is super cool to do that. But, yeah, what a year it was. And I think this time last year we were both bright eyed, bushy tailed, like let's do this. And I don't know that anything's changed. I think we still are, but every year just becomes such a reflection point and for us this podcast has truly become like almost like an ongoing journal. Yeah, I've never been good at journaling. I've recently was in the last I don't know six, eight months started journaling. But this is also looking back. It's been a great way to remember what has happened and see the growth that we've had and also just what the industry has going on. It's just, it's almost like a encyclopedia of our lives and what's going on within vacation rooms.

Annie: 2:31

Yeah, and I think I journaled a lot when I was younger and I got away from that. I journaled when my son was younger and I got away from it, and then I've gotten through. This is like the way of like journaling without actually having to put paper. You know pen to paper. But it's been a crazy year and I know that you know we both, like you said, bright eyed, bushy tailed, and went into the year wide open and really ready to do all these great things. And I know for myself it was getting back into like a big company. I've been in a startup mode for like really the last six years and being back in the organization had a lot of not red tape that's not the right word but a lot of organization to it where you weren't just stepping in other people's lanes. I was just so used to that so that's been like a reset for me. But it's also taught me like where my skill sets needed to be fine tuned and where. I needed to pay more attention to, so I feel like I've grown a lot. That's an example of that, just an understanding that there are people to do certain parts of the business that I don't have to do everything, because I've always been like well, if somebody wasn't there, I could step in and do it With partners. I could step in and I could go to their channel and take care of things, and I could step into the software and I could step into all the different platforms and do all the things and fix it. And so it taught me and it's really funny because it goes back to the words that we were choosing for our year and I chose inspire and you had chose patience. And what I learned was to be patient, and I had to have patience to be able to inspire. So our words really worked well together.

Alex: 3:58

They definitely did, yeah, and what a year of trying to have patience it was. But inspiration too, a lot of inspiration. I think we both got to meet so many amazing people this year. For me personally, I think I was very much inspired by doing these market visits, where we're getting to go and meet different companies and see where they're at and being able to really assess what their needs are and if that was potentially a fit to work with Costco and just met some incredible people and just seeing, literally in the trenches, what is going on, and I think this is probably a good segue of where we want to go with the show in 2024. We want to be able to share more of the stories live in person, because when you're sitting next to somebody and actually hearing what they've gone through and the struggles and the triumphs, it's different than when you're just on Zoom. And I think in your market here in Panama City Beach, there are so many amazing companies that they deserve to have a spotlight on them and, as Amber Hurdle always said to us, you need to shine your light so that others can shine their light, and that's one thing that, from an inspirational standpoint, I think it's been really special for me in this journey, and certainly in the last year, of being able to do that.

Annie: 5:08

Yeah, this podcast. We had no idea where this journey was going to go and we don't know where this journey is going to take us into the new year, and I think the one thing that we have definitely landed on is that surrounding ourselves with people that want to be good people to us, and vice versa, and the people that want to help us be better and push us to be better and bring up Amber Hurdle all the time. What a God's gift she has been to us and to so many in our industry.

Alex: 5:33

So Amber love you, love you so much.

Annie: 5:36

But there's been a lot of other people along the way that we've met. Valgengas is another one.

Alex: 5:40

Oh my gosh, yeah, I love Valerie.

Annie: 5:42

Julie Bird from Cabo Villas. I think we just we've been Lance and Elaine, lance and Stitcher.

Alex: 5:47

Or Madewell yeah, I mean gosh, think about we've so many amazing friends through this. Yeah, and we say this all the time but there is not an industry that is like the one that we exist, and I really and truly believe that. And Amber again is a good example of that because she works with all sorts of different industries and goes to these conferences and she's like I feel like home is with the New York group.

Speaker 1: 6:07

Yeah.

Alex: 6:08

Because, like this, is home to her and we're very, we're very lucky for that. There's a quote from Will Boidera's speech at dawn from his book Unreasonable Hospitality, that the only note that is real is relationships, and I so strongly believe in that that. It's not about text acts, it's not about any of the tactical things. It's about those things. But, at the end of the day, the relationships and the bonds that you form with your people, your employees, your vendors, your friends, your partners, that is what gives you purpose in this industry.

Annie: 6:40

For me at least, oh, 100%, yeah, I just I feel like again the current role that I have at Homes Villas. It's part of a big organization, but one of the things that the team needed from me was they needed that. They needed somebody who understood the business, they needed somebody who was in the business and needs somebody who had the relationships in this. And so, while, yes, I leverage those relationships, I've been able to, like, foster more and be deeper and bring more feedback to the internal. You know people at the organization and vice versa, and I think that whatever it was to be, in that you have the opportunity to people like they might not want to work with you, but they're going to be your friends. Well, I'm a great company that you work for that.

Alex: 7:17

like you were brought in and you've been utilized for your true exactly what you just said your super talents, your experience that you've built up over a couple of decades A long time. A long time. You've done a lot of things here and like they've really leaned into leverage of that and I think any company that does it. I mean it's crazy, right. I mean that's where you're at a place where you should be. A year ago, for me, I had just gotten back from Costco University and literally had just seen things I had never seen before from a hospitality standpoint that you know, being in the business for 14 years, being in marketing, sometimes you feel like you're a little bit of a glass house that you are. You're on a pedestal, you're in a different part of the business and you don't really see in the trenches of what's going on. But we do a great job explaining it and showing it and doing these strategies that get tons of guests to want to come stay with us. But actually seeing the trenches was great and seeing the people and learning the culture that I got to experience In the meantime. This has been a big year for us. We have hit some huge milestones that we could not have gotten to if it wasn't for the amazing support of our listeners, our friends, our partners our families, our families, our husbands, our dogs, everybody. It takes the village and we were now named to the top 5% global podcast of all genres, which, to me, is just absolutely crazy. We didn't know what we were doing a couple years ago. We just stumbled into this and it's so funny. I know you get the same question too. People ask like how did you guys get into this? I'm like the story is just, it sounds like so Mickey Mouse, but it's the truth. We just rolled into it and then we just kept going and we're on for the ride and we're just going to keep going with it. But that was a big thing for us. We were second year for top 35 podcasts for hospitality by the International Hospitality Institute. We've got incredible new sponsor opportunities that we're working on now for 2024. They're really excited to roll out and big news.

Annie: 9:17

Our big sponsors. Yeah, we're super excited to have Terno. We will be announcing more sponsors, but really highlighting Terno. They were like stepped right up and wanted to be the first sponsor for the year. So we're excited and have great commercials that we're going to be doing with them and interviewing their CEO shortly and hopefully we'll go to Hawaii and visit their team there. We would love to. We would love to do that.

Alex: 9:39

Yeah, we would love that.

Annie: 9:40

We're great on the scene.

Alex: 9:41

We're going to behind the camera, but I'm super excited about Terno. If anybody isn't aware of the service, I would say one of the questions I get in every market event of this year, or the things that are the most challenging situations people are dealing with, is still hiring and workforce, absolutely. And especially on the cleaner and maid service side of things. Terno is a marketplace for cleaners that it's host and for the cleaners where it's. Basically it's like an Uber of finding cleaners. It's brilliant and I mean matching you up with seniors. They're going to be perfect for your location. They're vetted, they handle all of the logistics of the HR side of things, the paying them of the benefits, everything else. All you need to do is schedule the cleans. I mean, honestly, it's like it's one of those simple but brilliant apps that so much needed in our industry.

Annie: 10:28

I think this is an overview statement, but this certainly applies for them. It's an abrayner.

Alex: 10:32

It's an abrayner Literally an abrayner yeah.

Annie: 10:34

And it takes the HR. I know, having been in property management before, just having to deal with hiring and doing the processing of somebody. It's such a ridiculous process but it's expensive, and so when you don't aren't able to keep a person, you know it's just money down the drain, and so this is a way that you can get rid of those unnecessary expenses and timely stress for yourself and have somebody who's going to vet and take care of it and again so reused. But it's a total Integrated with all the softwares too.

Alex: 11:02

So it's like every clean is gone through the process super streamlined. So, yeah, we're excited to tell more about their store here in 2024. Another huge thing for us we are releasing our maybe the first maybe there'll be more, but our book the first of like connecting the dots in 2024, that we've been working on for the last few months, and this is going to be a collection of the biggest aha moments that we've learned in this journey, shared through the lens of the amazing people that have been on show. We're so excited about Bringing this to market because here's the thing not everybody listens to podcasts and everybody watches YouTube. Some people like to actually read books.

Annie: 11:43

Yeah, that is still a thing. Yeah, but we've been a really so many amazing people the last two plus years and the stories and then just seeing where some of them have gone to. I mean, we had Marcus from host away- oh yeah, I'm just planning you know Just him planning sees. Then he came back on with us towards the end of last year and talked about where they were at and they just One of the biggest rounds of fundraising for their company that any other technology provider in our space has ever done. And so you know, just really amazing the focus that's on our side of the business and you know we talk about it all the time. Kovac gave us a spotlight, put us on a stage and it's our opportunity to take advantage of that spotlight and stage absolutely so.

Alex: 12:25

Next up, we did this last year and we did it actually in 2022 also. I feel like we were babies back then, but our words of the year and this is something that we again and we got from Amber Hurdle picking our word of the year and I went back and I listened to our episodes in 2022 first, january 1st and 2023, and I wrote down what we had said. For me, 2022, my word was a spree to core at that point I was still with condo world, I was becoming chair of the board of directors for the Chamber of Commerce and a spree to pour afraid of it. Doesn't know that word. It's a military term and it means basically a team coming together for the betterment of the group, and I knew that was going to be an important word for how I would lead that organization, and you know what that really meant, for there's a lot of difficult things that Chambers, cvbs, dmo's have to tackle a lot of different perspectives, opinions, and you have to have the collective group In alignment that you might not always agree, sometimes you disagree, but you can disagree With professionalism and knowing what the goal is of the organization. So that that was mine. 2023, for me, was patience. I forgot that, maybe I at some point. I mostly lost it along the way and you know patience is a tough thing and something that I'm still working on, but it was interesting. For this year, 2024, my word is going to be courage, and that's about being able to take a leap of faith and knowing that I trusted myself and my Abilities and my confidence is what is going to make me go to the next level and do things that Probably are going to scare me, probably still to scare the hell out of me, yeah, but I'm going to do it anyways because I know what's the worst that can happen, right, like Julie George said to us, like, literally, what's the worst that can happen, yeah, so you fail and you learn something. Yeah right.

Annie: 14:20

Yeah, yeah, but I think that's that's a really great. I mean courage is great and I think that, honestly, courage has always been behind you ever since I've known you. It's just, I think it's always been your standby word, but you didn't realize it and now it's time to like put it forward and use it to do bigger and better things. So for me, um, you know, mine was just stepping into myself, and so it again goes back to amber. She just inspired so much. But authenticity was my word in 2022 and I really stepped into me, who I am, and stopped trying to be who I thought other people needed me to be and just really be like yes, I'm not a perfect talker and I'm not a speech maker, and I'm can be awkward and I'm silly and I like to laugh and I like to hug.

Speaker 1: 15:03

I can talk all day I think we provide that.

Annie: 15:06

Yeah, so I mean so I, but I think that that helped me find the confidence to let do this and to be able to do more and like Beyond panels. I was never doing that before, and then last year, when I knew I was taking the position with mariat I, with homes and billows, I knew that I was going to be leading a team and I was leading a team that had been struggling. And not that they weren't capable, they were all completely capable, amazing people so talented. They just needed like a mindset, like shift, and so I thought, okay, my words inspire, because I needed to inspire not only myself, but the team and then others around me, and I think that really was a focal point for everything that we did this year. And I know you know, I've kind of belabored the point about education and and really being there to be helpful and and have been called names for being helpful or wanting to be helpful and and you know people saying that I'm just too nice and that, but that's just who I am. I'm like authentically who I am and if that inspires somebody else to be a nicer person to somebody else, and then spreading joy and love and all those things I love about life in all, that it like made me reflect on a lot of things and so I chose. My word for this year was going to be grace, and I wanted to be able to give others grace, which I had to learn. I learned a lot of lessons this year about being able to like step back and understand that People might be attacking things around you and attacking you from the side. It might not be directly at you, but I needed to look at them and say like they might have something going on in their life and give them trace yeah and at the same point give grace to myself and not over Think things. Not be so judgmental of myself. Not think that everything that I do is not enough, because Sometimes it's more than enough and it's okay If I step back and go like I don't have any more in my tank to give right. Yeah.

Alex: 16:48

Do you find it challenging to allocate enough time to your revenue management strategy, or do you feel like you may be leaving money on the table for your homeowners but you don't know where to begin? If you're seeking support to enhance your revenue management endeavors in 2024, your search ends here. Reven research offers a personalized solution that not only grants you and your team more time, but also empowers you with the knowledge to craft an optimal revenue management strategy. With more time on your hands, you can focus on the most important part of the business growth. As an official partner of key data revenue research clients have access to the data and market trends that help you convert prospective homeowners onto your rental program. In fact, clients of revenue research report growing their inventory by as much as 20 percent. Visit revenue researchcom and mention you heard about them on the alex nanny podcast for a free consultation and I will say I mean in our friendship. You've been just a huge inspiration to me and All three of those words. I've learned so much from you in this process and and the podcast, and I know so many other people have as well, and I think that's the. The cool thing about this is like you have so much experience and so much inside of you that, like the people that didn't know you or hadn't heard your message before, that are now hearing from you, it inspires me to want to keep doing this, because I want more people to know you, because I know I've been, my life has been blessed for the best because of me. Okay, we digress Next up. Sorry, we're changing lanes pretty rapidly here, but lots of cover first of the year, one thing we want to make sure to cover to our top episodes. I mean, we've had honestly, an incredible year of having just wonderful guests on the show and super relevant topics of what they've brought and what we've discussed, but our top five episodes. So actually we should start from the bottom up.

Annie: 18:41

Okay, well, I'm good at it. Okay, number five that was planting seeds with Marcus Rader. So Marcus is just a brilliant human being and what a fascinating person, but the CEO and founder of HostAway and just a great episode. And we had him back later, at the end of last year, and we will hope to have him once a year because I think he's somebody that's going to be just moving and shaking through the business.

Alex: 19:05

Amazing yeah. And the message of planting seeds meant so much to us when we learned that from him or he put it in a way that we both it was just so easily consumed by us. Because of this place, we were in both of our fives in 2022.

Speaker 1: 19:18

It was a ha ha. It was. Yeah, it was not for sure.

Alex: 19:22

Number four it was our first of the month bonus episode was Simon Lehman. It was. Simon says the Airbnb bubble has burst. I'm sorry, but he was right. I mean, I think with that episode got a lot of attention because some people are just like no, what has it? But yes, it has. I mean, times have changed. This is going to be a challenging year. That we're going into 2023 was a challenging year for a lot of areas too. It's not just as you say. It's not just about just putting a property on Airbnb and all of a sudden, you're just going to be wealthy and driving a Bentley by Friday. There's there's a lot more to it and there's so much inventory. That was episode 106. Obviously, you know, simon is one of the largest and most well known thought leaders in our industry, and just as my mentor and friend, the A&I. So anything that he says, we typically just want to listen, but that was a great one.

Annie: 20:08

And then our number three one. This was an interesting one that we kind of came out of left field. We met this lady through LinkedIn but it was unveiling the secrets of high-end concierge service for vacation rentals with Kristen Brown of Concey shared and just a really cool concept and I can't say what we talked about. We talked about some really interesting stories off camera about some people behaving badly in units and let's just say it's not really reserved for just the average dough to behave badly. Some very well known people do behave badly Totally and I was there was episode 93.

Alex: 20:38

If anybody wants to go back and listen to it. One thing that I think is and we 'll get to our predictions point my forward I don't know one of them. I feel like concierge is now becoming much more front of mine. For people, and as people are trying to think about companies, what is going to differentiate themselves going forward because there is so much competition? Concierge one it is. It's a competitive advantage, is also a additional revenue source, and the way that Kristen has done it is makes it a very profitable revenue source. So that was a great episode and something a little bit different for us. I think that's going to be an interesting topic to see. You know, maybe with some other different types of concierge type services in 2024 or what that looks like yeah, yeah, we'll definitely impact that when we talk about our prediction. Yeah, Number two was our 2023 update Markets, revenue bookings and more, with Melanie Brown of Key Data. We love Key Data. Jason Taylor, the whole team there. They're amazing Big fans. This was a great episode because I think when this came out, this was in look at this in April or May might have been May and there were a lot of people at that point that in their companies, if you don't listen to the podcast, if you're not part of Chambers of Commerce, if you don't go to events, if you're only in your own data, you can get really in a silo thinking like I'm doing something wrong.

Speaker 1: 21:54

What am?

Alex: 21:54

I doing wrong and that's why we so strongly believe in the value of masterminds, of you know, collaboration, of working with you know different vendors and Key Data is one of them. That you're able to see such a high level view of, like what is actually going on in your market and in comparative markets, and I think that episode was very popular because of that. That people understood okay, it's not just me and not that that's. It doesn't necessarily make things better, but it at least gives you some peace of mind at the end of the day. That yeah, it's nothing that you've done, because this is a challenging year.

Annie: 22:27

Yeah, I think a lot of people went into the year with very high, lofty expectations. But also, if you're in the business, you know that there's a lot of units that were added into the market that were bought by people at the height of the real estate, so their expectations of what their return on their investment was going to be were so far off what was really possible. And this is where we talk about. We talk about the Lauren made well, a lot about like how do we bring the real estate people to the table? There are real estate people that are property managers and that's great, but there's a whole lot of real estate people that are not in the property management and they're just dabbling in it on, say, airbnb, and maybe they have one unit, but they're making their money selling real estate. So, they want to do that and they're not really talking to people that are in the business and understand the margins and what it takes to be profitable. And really, if you bought last year, being profitable is very, very I don't know. It's a hard, it's a hard thing. So, people have to be in it for the long run. It's not, it's again.

Alex: 23:19

You know my heart's not get rich quick, you're not gonna have a Bentley by Friday, maybe Monday Some good financial and drama role.

Annie: 23:29

The number one episode of 2023 is how to explain changes in revenue and bookings to your homeowner. So this is with our favorite group of people. So Ben Holman from Reven Research, rebecca, and then Lance and Elaine Stitcher. I mean our homies, eastern Shore Virginia. They really dove into their numbers. And they know that what Ben was able to do for them, what Reven Research and that team was able to do for them, was just a game changer. And I think that they weren't afraid to share the good about and the ugly about it. And Ben has such a disarming way of like just making you understand the numbers. You know being excited about the numbers, and so I think that that resonated with everybody because people really just wanted to know, like, what is everybody doing and how are they handling this? And they broke it down in a way that was simple but also explained it in a way that was like you do have to get into the numbers, you do have to get a little bit into the weeds and you have to ask questions and you sometimes have to ask hard questions. But I think again, that was a that was a really great episode. Ben has been a big supporter and sponsor of us for the last year one of our dearest friends and what he's doing for management companies getting in their books and helping them. It's a really if you have. You haven't looked into it. Definitely look into it.

Alex: 24:40

If you're considering hiring a revenue manager and you're not sure if you can afford one, please talk to Reven Research, because they have ways that they can work with you. That will probably be, less expensive than having to have a full time. Until you're at that point, I'm going to see it to a certain point makes sense, but their services are excellent. So great top five episodes. What I did? A couple of years of content looking ahead to 2024 predictions. I think you know we had to. Well, we had started this hashtag back 2022, the hashtag we are not Airbnb. I think that that phrase and what that means is even more relevant now than ever, and that's just based on the content and the posts and the conversations that we keep witnessing on LinkedIn of. Lauren Madewell had a great one today of okay, I'm sorry, otas, you have two customers. You have the host slash, the property management companies and the guests, but we are your customer. If you don't have anything to rent, you won't have a guest, and I think the conversation has not been had to the level that it needs to be had, saying hashtag we are not Airbnb. It is a fact, like property management companies are not a distribution channel. This is not meant to be a derogatory saying against Airbnb. It is truly aligning that we are not a channel. So what does that mean? How do we fix that? We have to figure out who we are as an industry, what we stand for and what, collectively, we can do together to get people to understand that there could be thousands of brands across the United States, and that's probably going to be the way that it will continue to be. There could be regional brands that will be larger within their different areas of the country, but they're always going to be a lot of different brands and that's okay. We don't have to all come under one brand and say that we are Airbnb. Sarah Bradford said it's not an ad, it's not a verb, it's a OTA. But we are a professional industry that needs to have our message out there better, and I think we need the right people driving that force forward, and we've got some ideas on that.

Annie: 26:46

Yeah, yeah. So I think we've all kind of, you know, like scratched our heads and banged our heads against the wall and screamed into the void about this one, because there is a segment of the industry that is start your Airbnb business. Here's how you become Airbnb, that's, and that it just, it has just muddyed the waters and I think that's what has made the divide between STR and VR deeper. Yeah, because there's a lot of resentment on those sides and the people on the STR side feel that the VR side is antiquated and doesn't know. I definitely see that. That's, you know, the total misperception. Yeah, because, again, on the flip side, the VR people look at the STR people as they go. They're just to be young people and they don't understand what the business is.

Alex: 27:26

Somewhere in the middle of the world. Yeah, it's like it's the the right is not as bad and the left is not as bad. Somewhere in the middle.

Annie: 27:33

That's what Alex and I want to do is to be able to bring these two sides together and understand like we can learn from each other. But the one thing that we all have to agree on is that we want to be standalone businesses. Or you know what? If you only want to have your stuff on Airbnb and that's all you want to do, that is completely up to you and that's completely understandable. But don't call yourself Airbnb, because you are not there You're not you're not there, You're still a manager.

Alex: 27:54

It's literally just a fact. But anyway, not abashing the Airbnb.

Annie: 27:56

just a statement of fact that we as an industry have to find a stronger position for the consumer to know exactly what we are. Totally agree. Totally agree.

Alex: 28:07

One other thing that you have predictions. Sarah Bradford also talked about this on our last episode that came out this past week about space management companies going to all white linens in the beds, and I think you know the condo that I'm staying in here is certainly doing that, and I think a lot of companies are going in that direction. It is so much more professional looking, it just feels cleaner, it feels better. I mean, there are a lot of good things that hotels can teach us about hospitality, and that is one of them, and I think having a hodgepodge of bedspreads is kind of a thing of the past. You know, I think companies need to move forward from that, and especially if we're trying to move the needle on professionalization, which we've talked to Simon Lima quite a bit about this, and that's one of the things that he says as well that you have to have certain standards, and to me I feel like that's one that it's not that it's easy to implement, but it is doable by companies on all levels.

Annie: 28:59

Yeah, and I think there's another opportunity where, just within hospitality, we don't have to have this divide. Hotels and vacation rentals and short term rentals can be very complimentary of each other. And I know I'm going to be at IMN in about a week and a half and I'm sitting on a panel. We're talking about how you serve your employees. We're talking about how you service the guest to make them oil to a brand and what you do, and one of the things that I know from like the homes and bill of standpoint is that you know we do tap into 90 plus years of hospitality education and service and a world renowned brand who has these standards, that people know what they travel to you know Istanbul, or they travel to Sydney, australia, like they know that they're going to get the same level of service. And that's what we should strive to for vacation rentals is to have that level of service. So people aren't getting some of these crazy places that don't have beds or they don't have. I saw one that was in. Europe that the back there was a bed. That was in a bathroom, you know like there's there's some things that I think that we could we could learn from the hotel side of the business.

Alex: 30:02

I have slept in a bathtub one time coming back from a trip, when my husband was snoring really loud and I didn't have my ear plugs. I literally slept in the bathroom. Oh, that's gotta be true, oh it's not an Airbnb.

Speaker 1: 30:13

It was not an Airbnb.

Alex: 30:14

It was, I would tell, but yeah, I don't advise it when everybody was terrible. Anyways, just to wrap up, we want to express our sincere gratitude again to everybody that listens to the show. The last two years have been incredible for both of us. We've grown personally, professionally, and just the relationships we've made through doing this show have been incredible and so important to both of us. So thank you to everybody that listens. We're super excited to bring you a ton of new everything in 2024. Can't give a whole lot away yet, but a lot more of this, a lot more in person, a lot more sharing stories and inspiration and aha moments, yeah.

Annie: 30:49

And I would say one last thing that we talked about, the relationships and how important that is for us, and one thing that we've toyed with on the back end of like our other, you know, putting the show together and doing conferences and things is that we wanted to do a lot of good for the industry. And so we are starting and Alex and Annie Foundation, and we gave away our first attendance to a conference to a very deserving individual.

Speaker 1: 31:13

Natasha yeah.

Annie: 31:13

I know she'd be happy to, but a very deserving individual, and so what we want to do is we want to elevate people in the business that are looking to take the next step forward, and they might be working in an organization who doesn't have the wherewithal to support them in that endeavor, so we'll have more coming out about it. But just be mindful that you know we are going to be supporting the industry. We can't write big thousands and thousands of dollars of checks for things, so we will do it as we'll choose an individual to attend Verma or attend Darm. You know we might do two every year, but I think it's really important that as we grow, and we grow with you, that we can help nurture and grow other people in the business.

Alex: 31:52

And the amazing thing about Natasha as the first person that was part of this her first reaction when I was on the phone with her and I said I mean she fell in unfortunate circumstances and was not able to go for the women's conference what was supposed to be a women's conference and Darm was on a panel. It was not able to go to either of them. I said we will buy your ticket. You can choose which one you want to go to. We can't afford to do both, but we'll buy your ticket. And then Lance and Elaine Stitcher had an extra for Darm, so she was able to go to the women's summit and it was still on the panel that she was supposed to go for Darm. Just seeing her network at that event like she's kind of a fairly shy she came out of her shell. She met so many people. She's an amazing revenue manager, so bright and brilliant. That was so great to see and we want to be able to do more of that. And the first thing that she said I'm sorry when I told her we were going to do that was she said I want to pay it back, like I want to be part of who you give this to next year, and I thought that's almost like when you're in line at Dunkin Donuts and somebody pays for you Like that just made my heart warm and I knew that we had obviously started this journey with the right person, so I'm super excited about that. But happy New Year everybody. Thank you for being on this journey. We will see you every Wednesday for now, until the next one. And on the next February 1st bonus episode we'll see what sort of crazy announcements we have at that point. Thank you again. If you want to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to AlexNannyPodcastcom. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone.