Building a Podcast Empire: How Wil Slickers Scaled Hospitality.FM into a Media Company

Alex Husner  
Welcome to Alex & Annie, the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex 

Annie Holcombe  
and I'm Annie, 

Alex Husner  
and we are joined today with podcast and industry legend will slickers, who is the founder of hospitality FM. Wil, it's so good to see you.

Wil Slickers  
Wow. Podcast and industry legend. Epic intro. Thank you. I appreciate it. Super excited to be on the show the

Annie Holcombe  
legend before 30 right? 

Wil Slickers  
Yeah, I guess no. Next February, when this comes out, yeah, February, I'll be

Annie Holcombe  
gonna celebrate your birthday.

Alex Husner  
I had no idea you were that young. Wow. Now

Wil Slickers  
I always hate telling people my age, especially because I'm trying to date a little bit more in Denver and some ladies are a little bit older. They're like, how are you? Like, Oh, dang it. Don't ask this question, but

Annie Holcombe  
I'm really, really well traveled and smart. So yeah. So I feel like we don't need to introduce you, but maybe give us a little bit of your bio, and then we can just dive right into it, because we have not talked in a long time, and I feel like we've got a gazillion things to catch up, including Google saying that you're a musical artist, so you've been hiding a whole other self out there that we have to talk about breaking news.

Wil Slickers  
I have another life, but I will say thank you for having me on and for the listeners who maybe never heard of me, I got started in the industry as a Front Desk Agent with Marriott. That was my first debut into hotels and hospitality, and fell in love with it. Eventually scaled my way up to management at a different property in Oregon, and yeah, still fell in love with it, but started a podcast in 2018 went full time with it in 2019, and then here we are today, with a podcast network and property management company and a couple other small businesses in the mix. So yeah, it's kind of a big, escalating scale of stuff, I guess. Yeah, the

Alex Husner  
legend, well, I mean, you did. You started within the vacation rental podcast scene ahead of a lot of the podcasts that have come out since then, right? I mean, ours included, we launched in 2021 Yeah, 2021 but you got a really good head start. And I think any of the podcasts, no matter what industry you're in, if you're one of the first movers in it. It definitely gives you a great advantage and but not even just an advantage, but also sets the scene for other podcasters to come in and see what's out there and just be motivated by it and want to start the show. But I would be remiss if I didn't talk about when we first met you, because this ties, does tie back to when we first decided to start the show, and it was in San Antonio at vrma That that was such a fun gathering, because it was right after everybody had been apart from COVID and everything. And I remember sitting with you in the little lobby, not little the big lobby bar there that everybody had to pass through, and I ate half of your buffalo or barbecue

Annie Holcombe  
chicken pizza.

Alex Husner  
Like, tell me more about this podcast. Will

Annie Holcombe  
was starving. He's like, I gotta eat.

Alex Husner  
But you are such a inspiration to us. And we also, moments later, met Sarah and Annette in the bathroom and learned about their podcast experience. And we've shared that story on the show too, but you've grown a lot since then, right? I mean, like that was, you know, 2021 like your network has just blown up, and you've got tons of shows that you work with, and now you're expanding into another vertical or multiple other verticals. So tell us a little bit about the new business and where you're going in 2025 Well,

Wil Slickers  
yeah, before we even get to the new stuff, it's actually funny, because I tell the story about the pizza and San Antonio and all that good stuff, because you guys actually were part of the, I guess, push that made me want to start hospitality FM. I was hesitant already. I tried it a year before without really making any announcement or splash. Was like, Alright, can we make a podcast and work in hospitality? And I didn't think we could do it. And then I was like, oh, maybe there's enough. Like, I'm full on sponsors. There's enough podcasters now popping up trying to do this, and maybe we can make it work. And yeah, the conversation we had in San Antonio, I think, really kind of gave me that, that push, like, All right, let's go in and make this happen. And so yeah, I owe it to you guys for for such a fun, good conversation with buffalo chicken pizza.

Alex Husner  
Well, because we had all the questions too. I remember sitting there being, what, Mike, do we need? What this it was like, I'm

Annie Holcombe  
surprised you didn't you. You probably walked away from that thinking like, Lord, there's a lot of people out there that need my help. Like, well,

Wil Slickers  
it wasn't even that. It was like, you guys. And then all of a sudden, Annette was asking questions, and then John Stoker and were asking questions, and I'm like, Okay, there's, this is kind of like my product market fit moment, right? Okay, there's definitely something here. So I think it just kind of took that initial push in that room, right? It was, it was a really important moment,

Alex Husner  
yeah, and before we jump into your announcement too, because I think that's interesting to continue on. Um, one thing that was interesting to me, and I don't know that we really were purposely doing this, but I guess it's just like the marketing mindset that we had, like when we launched the show we launched it kind of like how a good vacation rental company should build a direct booking brand, right? Like we did the website, we made sure we had distribution to all the channels. We set up all of our social media, we set up the email marketing, and it wasn't hard, but it's one of those things that it's like, you got to, kind of, it's like a pinball trying to go through, like, I have to do this, than that, this and that, and like, kind of getting it together is, I think we're doing this right, but is, is that something that you help your your clients with now? Because, I mean, it's, again, it's not hard, it's just, it's time consuming. And if you're somebody that doesn't have a marketing mind, I think it's probably a lot more challenging to figure out what you should or shouldn't be doing 100%

Wil Slickers  
and that's the thing is, you can't have a podcast without the rest. Now, I don't believe you can. I don't think you can just do a show. Like I was originally just doing a podcast. I didn't have an email list, I barely had a website. I was promoting clips or promoting links on LinkedIn, and that was like, as far as I was really going. But now we tell all of our creators, like, if you're going to work with us, it's not like a hobby. You're going to do a show. It's going to be video and audio, you're going to have a YouTube channel, you're going to create an email list, you're going to actually set up all this stuff. Like, we need to build this. Do you have an idea of a book? Do you have an idea on topics you can speak on? Can we get you at events and conferences, the list goes on right and how do you, you know, do better for sponsors. When sponsors are giving you money for ad placements, it's not ad placement. You gotta give the newsletter. You gotta incorporate all the pieces. So for us, we try to really focus on the ecosystem. Like you said, of pretty much like a property management company. It really is your hosting platform. Is your property management software, Apple and Spotify, or VRBO and Airbnb, it's really not that different. So you're just creating a different type of inventory and different type of product. But yeah, you have to have the rest if you're going to do a podcast, and that's what we really focus on with everybody the ecosystem. You're not a podcaster, you're a creator. So you're going to create multiple things, whether it's a product, whether it's advertising, whether it's courses, whether it's a conference, whether it's retreats, the list can go on. It could be coffee. You can create your own coffee brand and use it for this. Like, we would like, yeah, so

Alex Husner  
Steve chart did that. We just had him on the chart a couple weeks ago.

Annie Holcombe  
Yeah, yeah. So you took this leap. You started out with a couple of podcasts, but now you have an entire, like, network of people, and then again, we're going into this evolution of your business. Like, was it that methodical in, in how you built this out? Or is it just sort of something that organically happened as you added various podcasts in and started to see what other things were out there to be to do. Yeah,

Wil Slickers  
really good question. Because originally it was just like, hey, let's be a Podcast Network. Let's become the gimlet media, or the solely focused like Podcast Network for hospitality. And then it actually kind of just naturally, organically grew into, hey, let's go into more broader media than just podcasts, because they all do support each other so well. So it was kind of not making sense to refuse the rest and only accept the one. And for a lot of our creators and a lot of people we work with, whether they're assigned to the network under our own shows that we own, or it's their own show that we manage or produce, everyone's doing it, everyone's creating and trying to focus on, like, how can we monetize? How we can grow audience? How can you provide impact and create community? So it's a really kind of, it was already in front of us. It just kind of had to naturally, kind of evolve and form into this.

Alex Husner  
And I will say to one of the shows that I know inspired you in the early days, and also inspired me that I didn't know later would make me want to have a podcast, but we both listened to it was the fuel hotel Marketing podcast. Now it's called Travel boom, but a good friend of all three of ours, Stuart Butler and their team, yeah. And, like, they just absolutely killed it. And they started way earlier. Like, I think they started 2013 or 2014 so like, not just when, like, hospitality podcasts were going up, but just when podcasts, in general, started being something that people understood or even thought about. But I think, you know, one thing that I always took from their show, and I hope that we've been able to create it with ours, and I think we have, and I think you have, too with all your shows is that it was less about like, training, teaching, like dot, dot, dot. This is what you need to do, and it was more conversational and relationship building. And like, feeling like we have people say to us all time, we feel like we're just a fly on the wall listening to an interesting conversation with you and the amazing guests that you have on. But I think you know, hearing those shows early on, it definitely has an impact on the future of what you end up building.

Wil Slickers  
Oh, yeah, like, especially fuel hotel marketing at the time, that was one of my like, go to almost religiously. I was, like, every week just got awesome. It was, it was great. And it was one of the reasons why I started slick talk, was because, like, Okay, I had this one show that I could listen to because. That took me, actually, quite a while to find, and I was a young hotel manager, so I'm like, how, why is there not enough content out there for me to consume to, like, become a better manager, I'd be a better leader to learn about hotel stuff that I don't know. And so I was like, Well, okay, I can start my own because, you know, yes, I loved fuel hotel, but there was that one. It was like, there was nothing else, and I didn't think anything of it was like, Okay, maybe there's a couple other young managers or supervisors that want to get into this too, and they can listen and maybe, like, it's kind of like a peer to peer type show, and we're all kind of learning together and figuring it out. And that was it, right? Like, and then now it's here we are, 2025 when this comes out, and there's over at least 100 shows, at least in just hospitality around hotels and vacation rentals, not including food and beverage and travel and cruise ships and airlines and yeah,

Alex Husner  
and I think it's really interesting too, because, I mean, you were on the hotel side. You You got you kind of, like, dabbled a little bit, I mean, like, started the vacation rental company, but it's not like you started and had tons of inventory or anything. But like, your entrance into the industry was an interesting entrance that you came in, but you came in with the podcast. But like, did you ever feel like you were kind of, like on the inside looking or the outside looking in, in a way, because, I mean, like you had this microphone, but like you were, you were just getting started in short term rentals in those early days,

Wil Slickers  
yeah, but in, in the early because I think my first real vacation rental type content was in late, late 2019 like, maybe summer, like summertime, August, July. And I maybe, I think I talked about stay Alfred, and then, so stay Alfred was a really big interesting thing for me on the hotel side, because I was like, this solves all our problems. Smart locks at the doors, no front desk. All like, oh my gosh, this is what we need. And so I got excited about it, and I shared about it on the show. It got put into some vacation rental companies blog as, like, one of the top vacation rental podcasts. Because of that one episode, there was only a few other podcasts out there was, like, Matt landaus and Heather bears and, like, you know, fuel Hotel. So that came out, and I was like, Oh, interesting. What's this vacation rental site? Because I was still a hotel manager. I was still figuring out the term vacation rental. I knew, you know, vacation homes were there, but it was kind of funny, so I go more into it. And then, after seeing that article, and then I was like, Okay, let me create a series on the top 10 masterminds of vacation rentals, and just kind of see how that series does. I find this really interesting, as it solves a lot of problems, and I was mostly talking about hospitality, not about operations, or, you know, the actual in inner workings of a property management company, because I didn't have that experience. Only had the hospitality, guest service, you know, type side of things. So that was kind of my point of view. And I think that's why, for me, it was easier, because then I didn't feel like I was on the outside looking in, because I wasn't trying to pretend I was an operator. I was just trying to be really excited about hospitality in general.

Annie Holcombe  
Yeah. And I think that the thing that that came through for me when I started listening to you was, like, this genuine curiosity. You really wanted to know. So you were interviewing people from the place of, like, I want to understand this more. It wasn't like, just tell me about your business and we're just talking, you know, not trying to learn anything. So I think that that's what, that's what grew out of it. And so you started this network. And how many podcasts do you have now, between

Wil Slickers  
production and management, we have close to 40. Close to 40 shows. Incredible.

Annie Holcombe  
Congratulations. That's so wonderful to see. That's yeah and fun, yeah. Do you sleep? Do you have days off? When? When do you when you take down time? Yeah,

Wil Slickers  
I'm pretty much taking all of December off. So that's that's been interesting, because my team's like, Hey, did you see my email or my slack? I'm like, Yeah, I'll get to it. And you should, you should also, you know, take some time off too. It's not like we're, we're really trying to, you know, put out a burning building or anything right now. So, yeah, life, life is good. Holidays are coming. We should all chill out, relax. So, yeah, getting getting used to it, trying to force it on me a little bit more. So,

Annie Holcombe  
40 podcasts. Well, is everything in hospitality space, or have you diversified and gone outside? Yeah.

Wil Slickers  
So like hospitality within hotels, vacation rentals, some restaurants, and then we have a couple that mostly kind of dabble on the real estate side, but still, like boutique hotel, real estate, vacation rental, real estate type situations, so kind of within those sectors of hospitality

Alex Husner  
well, so let's jump into this new version of what you're you're looking to do, and the different offerings that hospitality FM is going to be able to offer in 2025

Wil Slickers  
Yeah. So basically, instead of just podcasts from video and audio, we're realizing, as we've just discussed, there's a lot more to the Creator ecosystem around a podcast host or a brand that starts a show, and so we want to facilitate and be a part of the whole ecosystem. We don't want to just do one portion, because they all support each other, and we know the inner workings we feel like. So we've launched multiple divisions, and we're going to start putting the right people in the right seats, instead of having a lot of it be. On me or some upper management, but we're going to have some new divisions around book publishing, speaking management, retreats and event planning, and obviously our production division will continue to move forward for podcasts, video, audio, and doing some other things around conferences and sponsorship management and all the good stuff. So we're going, we're going multimedia. I

Annie Holcombe  
love that. So how many people are on your team now there's only

Wil Slickers  
four of us, and so we're four, and we're about to pretty much double in terms of, again, putting the right people in the right seats of these divisions. Because I don't know much about book publishing, but I do know that I can support it, and we can come up with the talents, right? We have the voices. We have the people. I think of people like Megan Moylan, who, when I was just talking to her this week, or, sorry, Megan Myers, now, Myers, yes, just talking to her this week, and she's like, Yeah, so many people at DARM and VR May, we're bringing up the podcast, and I feel like I never, you know, got like, Yeah, I had a network, but I didn't really know, like, how many people would, like, know me without me knowing them. And it's just as crazy how it feels like I have a spotlight now, and that's what I want. I want to create the the voices and the talent and and be the platform and not be the person in the spotlight. If we can create the stage, I think we're, we're in a well positioned part of the market, yeah.

Alex Husner  
And so you did an event, a retreat a few months ago, back at one of the universities. Wasn't it somewhere? Was it outside of Savannah? Yeah,

Wil Slickers  
it was the the Auburn hospitality School of horse Schultz, okay,

Alex Husner  
wow, yeah. And tell us about that. I mean, how did that come about? How did you pick that venue. What was the content like? Yeah. So

Wil Slickers  
for our good morning hospitality podcast, we wanted to create kind of a line of Good morning so we have good morning coffee and good morning startups and all this other good morning stuff. And we want to get some some retreats on the books, because we do retreats together with industry friends, and figured it's been a good formula. Why not go a little bit bigger? But let's add a theme to it. Let's, like, actually make a retreat. That's not just like, around hanging out with your buddies in the industry and having cocktails, you know? And so we're thinking about a theme, and the number of theme, or number one thing we were seeing a lot throughout the news cycles, and even just shifts in the industry, is a lot of vacation rental people don't come from traditional hospitality. They come from real estate or completely opposite industries that have nothing to do with vacation rentals or taking care of people. And they got somehow, got, you know, the stories that you guys talk about on your show and all of our other shows, right? Like everyone kind of stumbles into this without true Hospitality Management School or training. And so we said Michael golden knew the school and kind of the director and how, you know, they do kind of their own, I wouldn't call it sessions, but kind of like tours and things that they have. So we talked to them about booking out the whole hotel and getting everyone in there to do, like a master sommelier session and private chef like Michelin dinner and actual, like hospitality training. And then we talked to the director, like, Hey, horschie, the co founder of Ritz Carlton, do you think he would talk to everybody and, like, if we bought his book, and, you know, buy his book for everyone to have. Like, do you think that would be something he would be only willing to sign or do something with? And so they all agreed, and we're like, alright, let's make a retreat and bring everybody in. I've read it.

Alex Husner  
I'm googled it right now. X plus wins, yes, yeah, it's a great book too. I Yeah, I did the audio version of it a couple years ago, and I think I've listened to it a couple times because it was really, really good. Yeah, definitely great

Wil Slickers  
book. So, yeah, anyways, that's kind of the concept. And we had a couple, like 25 different property management companies come in, and they were like, the moment you walk up, it's a five star hotel, and it's all the staff are students, usually, and so when we walked up, they're like, Oh, Mr. Slicker. Is like, welcome. And you're like, how do you know my name? And they're like, No, we they memorize everyone's picture and name and profile. And really, it was crazy. Well, did

Alex Husner  
they ask you about your musical career? Because

Wil Slickers  
yeah, I got a couple autograph signings. Google

Alex Husner  
will slingers. It says you're a musical artist. They roll out the red carpet like, This guy's a big deal.

Wil Slickers  
Yeah, they're like, Oh, this guy's selling,

Annie Holcombe  
right, right? I get his autograph before he's too famous, right? So how did you, how did you go about curating the invites, or deciding who would you you would invite to? Did you just throw it out there and the first 25 managers that got it got it? Or did you have an idea of what, of who you wanted to attend? Yeah,

Wil Slickers  
we, we figured, okay, this is hospitality training, right? So we toured the school. We got training done by the director horse Schultz. He talked to everybody. We got them at, like, everything was around training. So we've figured, like, this is better for property managers, not vendors. Let's get the actual operators, boots on the ground here to experience this. And so what we kind of did, we've done some private retreats in the past, so we kind of went through some old attendees, right? Saying, Hey, like, we know you're a good time. You're. Fun person, you have a good business, like, you're not going to be, it's not going to be like a shit show, right? Like, we want to be around good people. And so went through that, and then we had an email list too that we kind of just started advertising it to saying, Hey, we're launching our first good morning retreat. It's going to be at the horse Schulte training school or hospitality training school. Everything in your tickets included. And we just started marketing it. And eventually we got people showing a lot of interest, and yeah, just ended up being a perfect fit.

Annie Holcombe  
So will you do it again? Do you think like that? That same format? Yeah, in the same location, or maybe another hospitality school,

Wil Slickers  
yeah? So we want to try and do a kind of a summer rotation with them, so doing a different cohorts of different people every every summer or every other summer type situation, because we would love, love to go to other hospitality schools, but a lot of them are overseas or, you know, obviously in Europe. So for us, we're looking at doing a kind of a yearly thing with them. For now, I love that.

Alex Husner  
We all wish there was a vacation rental school that we could go into, right? But that just doesn't exist. So I think that's really cool to to go and learn under, you know, that auspices. And, you know, I mean, thinking about it, the hotel industry has been certainly more they've, they've, they've built these programs. I mean, they've been around a lot longer than vacation rentals, but they've built these programs. And there's so much to be learned. And you can just tell a difference when you go into, you know, a true, really good, well run establishment. That's, I would tell that, like, in your case, I've never been to one that they knew who I was before I walked up. I don't think, but it's sometimes it's just it's little touches, you know, that's that's exceptional, but like, it's just, it's truly little touches that make a big difference, and making a guest feel like they're at home and that they are wanted there and that they belong there. That's how you get repeat guests, you know. And we have this conversation with people all the time of I want to do, I want to build my direct book booking strategy. If they've never gone into this before, because they've only used Airbnb, and it's like, okay, let's do that. But let's also, let's figure out how you get more of the guests you've already gotten, and then what guests you'll continue to get back to rebook with you, you know? I mean, like, that's kind of like, that's lowest barrier to entry, I would say, to start building a repeat business, building your direct booking brand. Yeah, it's little things that add up and compound over time. And

Wil Slickers  
everyone thinks it's like the anticipation of the guest needs, as in like a guest service way. And I think it's very true. Yes, you should anticipate their needs and what they want, but anticipate they're welcome, anticipate like they're arriving, anticipate the fact that they're here. And I think that's kind of the big takeaway from that school experience, is like every one of our attendees, not just me, every one of us, whether it was me, my camera guy, any of our attendees actually, like, paid to be there, like they all knew him by name. And it was like, Hey, we're so excited that you guys are here. This is so cool. I love what you've been building with your company, free, wild, like they knew people's property management businesses, and they did their homework. They did their homework. And so it wasn't like, just a service level, like, Hey, Mr. Slickers, we're excited you're here, and I'm paid to, like, know this list of people today. It was like a legit like, oh my gosh, I actually looked up a couple of your podcast. Like they actually cared enough. Wow, anticipation of the arrival, and it just made it so cool. And for me, I think that's like, where my focus for the rest of the year, and going into 2025 is like, okay, like, how do we get to that again? How do we get back to the cool, core experience of hospitality that we all know and love? And I think maybe I've maybe lost a little bit of touch with, you know, those last couple years. So yeah, it was really exciting experience. And I'm excited for, uh, the like impact and inspiration that type of moment creates in our industry.

Alex Husner  
How many events do you think you'll do in 2025 um, we're

Wil Slickers  
hoping to stick around like two to four, so definitely do two, but we'll have some smaller weekend kind of like retreats built in little less planning involved, when it's 10 people versus 25 or 30. So

Alex Husner  
one thing I noticed going to, I went to Keystone retreats with Matt Landau a year and a half ago or so, and that was, you know, similar small group of people that ended up being, it was an exceptional event, but it was small group, kind of like more mastermind ish, like in the tone of the discussions. It was about the business, but was also about personal development. And you end up, you make connections with people that you may have never even met. I remember walking in I didn't the way that Matt did. It was you didn't know who else was going to be. Called it a cohort. You didn't know who else was going to be in your cohort. And so I figured, I know so many people in this industry, surely there will be plenty of people that I know there. And when I walked in, the first person I saw was Valerie Genghis, who now she's one of our besties. But I didn't I had never met her before. I just knew her from LinkedIn. So I was like, Okay, I recognize her. But then walking around the room, I'm like, I actually did not know anybody else there. Like, I did not ever even know they existed. And so that was really fun. And it was kind of, it was kind of like real world back in the day the MTV show, like, when they arrive and they don't know Jersey Shore, they don't know who's gonna be there, I was

Wil Slickers  
thinking, Jersey Shore. I was like, Oh, the first thing

Alex Husner  
Sammy gonna be there or not. But do you take a similar approach? Like, do people know ahead of time who's gonna be there? Is it also kind of a surprise? So

Wil Slickers  
this, this first one in July. We didn't tell anybody anything. Basically, we gave a slight agenda on like, Hey, I arrive at this time in this day. Obviously, bring a nice formal attire, like we kind of gave people a heads up on some stuff that we were going to be doing, but we wanted to keep some surprises. We announced our coffee brand. There we had the signed copies of Horace Schultz he's book in everyone's room, plus a bunch of other sponsorship gifts that we got from, you know, people like sojo and couple other companies in the industry, and so we wanted to leave it up to surprise. But some feedback we got at the end was, hey, it would actually have been cool to, like, know who was going to be there so we can try to connect before and, like, find things like, have have discussions about or maybe I had the idea from that to then, like, hey, let's create an attendee profile and then use like, chat, GBT and AI to, like, run all these profile forms, like, submissions through and like, see if we can kind of match, make people a little bit like, Hey, you guys should actually connect and, like, do some introductions and find some things like you have, you have a bunch of stuff in common, right, to facilitate a little bit more of a more intention around, like, networking and getting to know others. But

Annie Holcombe  
yeah, yeah, yeah, it might be cool to have them, know, like, no, like, give them an assignment, like, prior to, like, pair up with somebody to, you know, maybe they, maybe they pair up to present something, you know, to the group, or something like, a project they could work on to get to know each other better. That would be, might be kind of cool, yeah,

Wil Slickers  
something like, yeah, building up on into, the way in. But yeah, we wanted to keep it like, we kind of marketed the retreat as it's the best things that conferences don't give you intimate, quiet settings with people that you actually want to be with, instead of a bunch of people that are like, maybe you don't know, and it's just a crowded vendor Hall, right? You know, people so, you know, we wanted to really focus and then, like, the actual quality of the content is going to be highly, highly curated for this group. And it's not just going to be, you know, the same people on same stages. We wanted to focus on the theme or core. So yeah, we kind of just took what the negatives have been from conferences these last couple years and really said, like, this is going to be all the positives that we want. Yeah,

Alex Husner  
yeah, the smaller mastermind groups are definitely gaining steam. And I think, you know, there have been some that have been going on in our industry for a long time that were not like widely publicized. Don't know that they were private, but it wasn't like them posting pictures and stuff. But there's one group that I know Ryan Swain and Lance and Elaine are in, and some of the larger East Coast operators where they go and they visit another property management company. They alternate each year who they go visit and stay with, and they stay in their properties, and they see their whole experience. And then, you know, it's a lot of learning and networking and just question asking, but also a lot of fun too. And there's just, there's so much to be gained from those opportunities. Because, you know, the mega conferences are great to see the vendors to, you know, connect on a wider scale, but it's those more intimate gatherings, I think that people are really searching for 100% Yeah? And who

Wil Slickers  
doesn't love a couple? Yeah, a little bit of fun mix in between some networking and

Alex Husner  
hopefully, hopefully barbecue chicken is pizza is always on. Wills.

Wil Slickers  
Invite for the next retreat you're gonna be like, what the gonna be like, what's on the menu? It's

Alex Husner  
already cute. So tell us a lot about the book, part of it too, that's interesting. I mean, I know there's a lot of interest from people within our space to write a book, and, you know, go down that journey, and it can be very daunting. But what services you offer with that for somebody that comes to you and they've got an idea what, how does it work? Yeah, so

Wil Slickers  
as the time of this recording, I can't really share too many details on the partners, but we're going to partner with a current, existing publishing house that already knows and has the infrastructure for the knowledge of actually book publishing, because we wanted to make sure we weren't just doing, you know, yes, you could do, you know, print on demand through Amazon, a couple other things, but we wanted to kind of go a little bit bigger. And, you know, one of the big things I've learned starting hospitality FM is that, you know, if I ever want to get acquired, or you know why I actually have some value, as in terms of assets, as a media company, you actually have to own IP. So owning IP for us has actually, like, been a really big important shift to move away from the original model, where we didn't have any ownership or stake in any shows or programs owning IP. What does that mean? Intellectual property? Yeah, intellectual property. So the content that we create our own shows, so the reason why we have hospitality FM originals is because the originals is like something that we actually have ownership in. And then we basically hire a host or sign a contract with the host to then become the voice, and then we're the actual back of house everything, and they're just the host of it. So if they left or quit, or we want to fire them and replace them with. Somebody else we had the full right. And so for us, IP now is going into more than just the show. It's going to go into book publishing, speaking, management agreements, exclusivity with sponsorship and advertising terms and all sorts of other things that we can, you know, kind of go more into Interesting,

Alex Husner  
interesting so the

Annie Holcombe  
events, on the event side of that, I wanted to ask you that, are you going to be doing like, I'm trying to think of, like, I don't want to say, like, the STR wealth, like, I'm thinking, like, those type of events, are you looking to do that as well? And then that all folds, I guess it all feeds into, like, you could do book launches and all this other stuff. Is that kind of where this all goes. It's, it has no end, really. You've got a lot of runway. Yeah,

Wil Slickers  
I don't know if it will go in the terms of us, like creating an STR wealth type of an event or an experience, but more or less offering the management and Event Services, so helping conferences like STR wealth, or level up your listing or whatever, with sponsorship, management, speaking management, doing anything around their books and their own stuff, especially if they're a creator signed under us, right? We want to make sure that they're getting the full exposure. And so yeah, that would be kind of the focus. And maybe we'll create some of our own things, like we have in the works, already started planning three months ago in October, but like the Good morning summit in 2026 here in Denver. So we're going to do a hotel and str conference that's going to be a little bit different than the rest from what we've seen. So, like, we'll create our own things like that, but I don't think we'll go super big and, like, create a pinnacle event that's going to be like, the Super Bowl of our industry every year. Well, we're

Annie Holcombe  
looking forward to that. So you can come in, like, Sky, dive into the

Wil Slickers  
like a musical artist, exactly.

Alex Husner  
I went to the Grant Cardone 10x conference back 2019 and he had it at Marlin Stadium in Miami, and he sky dived into the event. And it was absolutely amazing. So I think that's the route that we should be pushing you to do at some point. Well, we can film stadium. I mean, the sky's the limit.

Wil Slickers  
I got a tattoo for for one of our podcasts. I'll skydive for a couple of hours. Yeah, when I was in New York for this gift global forum, I got good morning hospitality tattooed on my arm after some some cocktails with Jeff from host GPO and Bessie a from BESTie AI, and Steve from aberto and a couple others. So yeah, it was fun time. Oh, it's

Annie Holcombe  
funny. I saw pictures of y'all hanging out. I didn't realize that's where it ultimately ended up. Okay,

Wil Slickers  
oh yeah, it was like, we had one drink, and they're like, Hey, let's go to this one bar. And this one bar was giving tattoos for basically free. So wow, yeah, it was like, a nicer, like, uppity bar, but yeah, they had a tattoo artist there and a DJ. It was fun. So Wow.

Alex Husner  
Well, it's good that we missed that good or bad that we missed that conference, because I can guarantee Annie and I would have said, Yeah, hell yeah, let's get an Alex standing tattoo. Sounds like a great idea. I don't know ferma is in Vegas next fall. No, I don't

Wil Slickers  
like complete like, no, please,

Annie Holcombe  
yeah. Well, I just, I just found out that I'm going to be on the planning committee for international conference this year, which I'm excited about, because I feel like, I feel like it's taken me years to get into this, like, part of, like, letting my voice be heard, but other, you know, for everybody so sure. I mean, I don't know, do I need to, like, try to have a tattoo parlor on site for the

Wil Slickers  
martinis and tattoos? I think that would go perfectly. You guys. The question, since you just mentioned Verma and planning and how you're excited about it, what's your guys's overall take for next year in terms of the industry, how the industry is responding to vrma and some of the drama that's happened this year, I would love to know what your your guys thoughts are the drama?

Alex Husner  
Yeah, well, it's unavoidable, unfortunately, especially for both of us. But you know, I think the way that I look at it is, and I think most people feel this way, but sometimes they don't think about the repercussions of their actions. Is, you know, none of us want Verma to fall in in a bad place, right? Like it's the it's the main organization of our industry, our organ. Our industry needs a main organization. Every industry has one. We need to be able to support it, but does it need to perform better? Yes. I mean, like, do we need to rework how things are done? Probably, but at the end of the day, it's like we all, in my opinion, should be supportive of it and try and be proactive and productive in the feedback that we give on. I I think for the most part, our industry has has done that, and I think that they feel like they haven't been listened to, and that's part of the problem. But I do think that Anne, who's the new president, I think she seems to be really listening and, I mean, she's really paying attention to LinkedIn. I mean, Shahar from from boom, had posted, not, not a critical post about his thoughts after VR may International, but called out a couple things that he's, you know, just people, the vendors, were upset about in a professional way. And she immediately, you know, messaged him and said, let's get on the phone. I want to understand more about this. So to me, that that speaks a lot, that she's really trying to understand. And I think, you know, they have to really kind of re envision what this is. But when you look at the purpose of VMA, I mean, the VRA is a conference organization, so they need to be really good at conferences. Like, there's, there's room to improve here, but international is really about it's a trade show. Like, if you go to any other conference in Vegas that are trade shows. They're not trying to take you here, there, wherever to go to a million different sessions. It's the sessions are in the trade show where you're with the sponsors, that you're getting the most recent, updated information from the people that are like on the cusp of technology. And I think that's the biggest thing that could be improved, is just instead of separating everybody, because we know that creates such a divide, and it makes the sponsors upset because they don't have access to the people that they're there to meet. Move it all into one. And maybe it doesn't need to be such a mega show. Maybe it doesn't have to have 2020 500 people. Maybe it's 1500 San Antonio is about 1500 and that was a great show. Everybody was very happy after that one. So I think looking at the size and how the structure and how things are set up, where the meetings are, where the sponsors are, is probably the biggest thing that they can do for next year.

Wil Slickers  
Yeah, very well. Said, couldn't disagree with any of that. Another

Annie Holcombe  
committee that I sit on, we were talking about, like, feedback we were getting from members and like, you know, members that hadn't come back, and members that had stepped away, and members that just weren't, weren't engaged, and she listened, and I told her that it's it was the first time in all the involvement that I've had that I felt listened to by leadership, and not that I don't think that Smith Buckland wants to do the right thing. I just think that that that there wasn't this sense of like, okay, these people are in the trenches. They're in the business. They know what's going on. Instead of looking at this, okay, we're a conference Association. We're trying to do a conference and make money. And I, you know, I think people just got to the point where I was like, we were being monetized to death, and we were getting nothing out of it, because we weren't even being heard and weren't even being taught to so I feel like there's definitely a change. You know, having some having like Megan and Rachel on the board, that's a that's a big opportunity for new voices to be, you know, to be heard. There's more people being brought in the loop that are, like younger and maybe from different parts of the industry. And it's not the same old, same old. And I think that you're seeing a lot of that. So I feel like this is a really critical year for the association to, like, really make a change and make a statement that we want to we're not. We don't need to be all things to everybody. I mean, I certainly understand that, but we can't continue to go to the same pool of people every single year and hope that the association is going to be able to survive, and we have to be innovative. And that's where, again, you know, yes, the podcast thing, I know the three of us have talked to this off, you know, a lot, we have a lot of industry voices, and we have a lot of people that are doing this because they're passionate about what they do, and they're passionate about the industry, and they want to help and and to have all these voices that want to help, to be told like, yeah, you can do it in another room and pay for it like that, just felt very tone deaf to what the industry needs. So I feel like we have people that are open and eager and awaiting new ideas, and either they're going to listen to them this year or they're not, but I have a feeling that if they, if they don't do something in the next 18 months, it'll be a whole, whole different Association two years.

Wil Slickers  
Yeah, both of you very much agreed. And I my one thing, I'd say that's a little bit different just from that, because I was so well said. But like, I think they need to get back to actual advocacy and, like, actually creating, like, the true funds that are going to go to lobbying and going towards the things, because I haven't seen much of that. I know there's been some drama, or maybe some just pull between the Advocacy Fund and who's going to manage it and get be a part of this and that, but at the end of the day, I think, you know, that was kind of the whole goal of vrma was to create that kind of Government Association voice that can naturally step in when stuff is getting a little bit dicey. And I don't think we've seen that. We've seen if that was the case, then grant responsibly and other things and groups and would have popped up, or maybe not as popped up as fast, because, yeah, they would have been doing their job. So

Alex Husner  
yeah, and I think I remember back to ship. Chicago, VR, may spring. That was 2022, when Miller Hawkins was president. And like, being in the, like the main session, when he was going over the advocacy does donations, and people were just walking up to the stage, and, like, committing big amounts of money. And it was, it was exciting. I mean, it was, it was inspiring. Like everybody was like, we're in this together, not taking the mindset of, oh, well, I'm in Myrtle Beach, and I have no problems because we're heavily protected, which we are. But everybody thinks that until you're not. But like people from markets that felt that way, that we're still saying, you know, I want to help somebody that's in, you know, Denver, or somebody that's in, you know, the Southwest that, like their area, does not have that ability. So I agree with you. I think that should be more of a focus going forward, too, and it likely will be. I mean, like we're the advocacy and regulation battles are only getting worse. I mean, you know, it's like we thought that maybe they would calm down after COVID, but that's not what we're hearing from people that come on the show. So

Wil Slickers  
it's rough, but I'm hopeful. I'm very hopeful. I think more optimistic now with Rachel and Megan and JJ and everyone kind of coming in, and some people that are like, legit, great voices of the industry that can represent everyone well and and really be a big advocate for what the, you know, the proper changes that we want. So

Annie Holcombe  
yeah, I think there's people that aren't afraid to stand up to the legacy voices that have been kind of leading the charge for so long. So yeah, I agree.

Alex Husner  
I think it comes down to two Smith Bucha and really listening. You know, I've served on the board, so I get it like, you know, you can have all the ideas in the world, but at this at the end of the day, the board is not paid or part time or a full time position, it's you meet four to five times a year. So we really rely on that organization to execute on the things that we bring to the table. And I would say, most people I talk to, I would say 99% of them don't even know what Smith Bucklin is like when I start talking about things, they're like, We thought the board ran I'm like, No, we're oversight, or the board is oversight. But Smith Bucklin is an organization that manages conferences and associations for all different industries, dentists and construction and, you know, doctors, everything. So I don't know if all industries have as active as a community as we do, which we're probably a little bit of a hard client, I would say, but plenty of feedback. So if you listen to your customers, you can probably figure it out. But yeah, one thing I was gonna ask you will too other conferences outside since you came from the hotel industry. I mean, have you been to other hotel conferences that you feel like they've done it really well? And I'm drawing a blank right now, what's the one hotel conference that's like the big tech? One? High tech? Yeah, high tech. Have you been to that? Or any other ones that you saw? Some good takeaways, Yeah, unfortunately,

Wil Slickers  
I haven't been too many. I've been to high tech once. I think it was 2022, ish, but then a few others in between, but not, not enough to really, yeah, like, it's not very different, so maybe a little bit more buttoned up in the sense of, the attendees aren't in Hawaiian shirts and shorts, but they're, you know, outside of that, it's, it's pretty much just a lot of the similar things for us. And we're hospitality FM, we're not short term rental FM, so we're trying to get more into other sectors of the the industry to obviously differentiate or kind of broaden our horizons. So next year, 2025, I'll be going to a lot more hotel conferences and short term rental but, yeah, excited to report back, I guess after, after next year. Yeah,

Alex Husner  
get your suits out. But yeah,

Wil Slickers  
go run, lose a couple pounds and put those suits back on? Yeah. No,

Alex Husner  
I do think one thing that I've always heard about high tech in particular, and I think you might have done this when you were there, vaguely remember seeing pictures, but they have in like, the center of the event, they've got a media station where they've got different podcasts and whatever kind of media that is, is broadcasting about the event. And it's it's such a smart thing, you know, that's one thing we've been saying for years at any of these conferences, that if you want to reach more people that aren't there, you want to show people that have audience like what it's like being here and how much they're missing out on. And I'm hoping to see more of that next year at all the conferences I know. Annie and I were going to the track conference in February, and they've very graciously offered us that kind of position there to be in a booth and broadcasting live and interviewing people. And it's like, you know, it's not rocket science, but it's like, that's how you connect with people and and build excitement to come to the event next year if you didn't go that year. So yeah,

Wil Slickers  
I've been saying it for a long time. For a long time. Yeah, most missed. Op, yeah, because, like, it's easy to market an event before it happens without any content from the actual event itself. So it's like, okay, you're you're missing out. Like, there's people willing to record content of your event for free, put it into your audience. And talk about it on a long form podcast, or whatever. You should let them do it.

Alex Husner  
I know, I know you get this too. A lot of a lot of your listeners, a lot of our listeners, they've never been to a Verma conference. They've never been to any of the industry ones. And a lot of them didn't even know they existed, or the association exists. So it's like, you know, there's a lot of people out there that the masses are kind of core group of people that we've been doing this for a long time, like we're still only touching a very small subset of the industry, that there's a lot that they don't go to these things. So how do we bring them in? How do we make them feel welcome? I do think that one thing that Burma did really well this year. I don't know if any if you went to it. But I know Val and Elaine, they were part of, like, the welcome reception for new members this year. And that was, that was, okay, yeah, that was, that was a really good event, right? I mean, that was like, Well, they

Annie Holcombe  
did it. They did it in Orlando too, because they, I know, I mean, because I was on membership committee, membership, and the new member, like, they, so, yeah, and it was actually, I felt like both times it was well attended. But I think it's also like, for new people, it's so overwhelming because you walk in and it's like, if you don't know anybody, there's like, 2000 people staring you in the face, like it's, it's really, it's really, really overwhelming. But you know, there you're to your point, there are so many people that don't go because either they, you know, they can't afford it, or, you know, we talk about this, well, they're too busy. Or, you know, it's like, if it's on the west coast, the East Coast, people aren't necessarily going to go and if you do it on the east coast, but it's almost like, do you, do you walk away from doing one big one that's International, that they call International. It's really not International. They don't have a, you know, they don't have a footprint in Europe. So there's too many shows in Europe for them to try to break into that like, you know, what is the best route? I, you know? I don't know what it is, but it is. It has to be getting in front of people and and meeting them where they're at and if they're not going to be at the show, like, what is that vehicle? Is it the podcast? Is it doing smaller shows? Is it? Is it books? You know, what? What is it? And I just think that there just been tunnel vision for too long. Yeah, or

Wil Slickers  
just become an organization that's just about advocacy and start and create media around it, be the one that reports all this stuff, be a source of of information and a source of truth. For a lot of people that, like you guys said, feel like they're siloed. A lot of these industry operators that don't, especially don't, go to a conference every years, where it's the one true opportunity to really connect with your peers and your colleagues, that they feel siloed, they feel alone, they don't know what's really happening and outside of their market or outside of their portfolio. So, you know, to be an organization that can kind of be that Northern Star, I think, in general, like, I would be totally fine if they only did 1000 people, 500 people for their international conference, if they were better at being involved in government affairs and then also reporting and distributing proper news and resources and information to the operators that are too busy to attend and too busy to get away and really trying to Make a well profitable, oil, five star guest service machine, right? Like, it's, it's, yeah, I don't know

Alex Husner  
you think about it too. I mean, skift, they've Annie went to one of their, their events last year. I've been invited to some. I haven't been able to, but they're first to say, like, Oh, absolutely. Like, we do media passes. Like, you can, you can come to the event for free. I think that's something that it's overlooked, and for any of the conference organizers, whichever Association you're with listening to this, like, I mean, we have access an audience of, gosh, between the three of us, 1000s and 1000s of people, literally 1000s, like 10s of 1000s of people. So take care of your podcasters, and we'll take care of you. I mean, need to build that more awareness for all of it, and it just, it benefits everybody. But will we could honestly talk with you? Probably this could be a Joe Rogan episode that we could keep talking for a good two hours late on a Friday, and we could just keep going. But so good to finally have you on the show, and we just, we appreciate you as a friend and as just a great advocate for the industry and everything that you do,

Wil Slickers  
of course. Well, thanks for having me on and for the friendship and the good laughs and the Geek Out podcast moments we get to have. It's always my favorite, especially when in person. So thanks again.

Annie Holcombe  
Well, I feel like, I feel like watching you has been like watching like our little brother, like, just become this big musical mogul. It's really, it's really cool, because again, you You inspired us, and you were there to answer questions, and no matter how many times we asked them, you were always very supportive. And so you're doing exactly the right thing to be able to get other people the information they need to be successful. And that's why you're doing so well, because you're you're willing to help others, and it's just great. So, yeah,

Speaker 1  
it did on his Yeah,

Alex Husner  
all right, if you're not working on YouTube, we're making

Annie Holcombe  
will will send us harsh we. Can't send

Alex Husner  
it we obviously, we need to ask them offline. How we get our technology stack in line to be able to do that. We'll be doing that during all of our episodes. Well, if anybody wants to get in touch with you, I would go so far to say hospitality FM is the best bet, and probably LinkedIn. But if there's any other way, okay, awesome. If anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I you go to Alex and Annie podcast.com and until next time, thanks for tuning in. Everybody.