Heather Bayer’s Trust-Based Blueprint for Vacation Rental Success

Alex Husner  0:00  
Welcome to Alex nanny, the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex, and I'm Annie, and we are joined today with Heather Bayer, who is the Director of Training for the vacation rental formula Business School, among many other things. Podcast host extraordinaire, and just a queen of the industry, I would say. But it's so good to finally have you on the show, Heather.

Heather Bayer  0:21  
Oh, thank you. I am, I am just so honored, honored to be here it is, bucket list. Bucket List. Get on to Alex and Annie.

Annie Holcombe  0:29  
Wow. I didn't know we were starting to make it to people's bucket list. I guess that means we have staying power.

But Heather, Heather, we've had a chance to talk before, and it was so exciting to finally meet you face to face last fall. I think we met at Verma, and so wonderful to finally meet you in person. You've done. As Alex said, You're like the queen of everything in this industry. You've been around for a long time, but I think there might be some listeners that actually don't know who you are, which I'd be surprised. But why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey into vacation rentals? Oh, sure, I will try and keep this really short. I was running a training company in England. I was a was management training. And we were doing management training for the NHS, which is the National Health Service, so as far away from vacation rentals as you can possibly get. And I came out to Canada for a wedding in 1998

Heather Bayer  1:24  
and stayed in a vacation rental. So not the first time I'd stayed in one, because we'd done it in England a lot, but the first time I'd done it in North America, and it was quite the experience. And I remember sitting out on I mean, it's a beautiful location, but the accommodation itself left a lot to be desired, and it was a water access only property, and we've been provided with this very rickety boat with a motor that kept breaking down. There were 12 of us who came across for this wedding. It was a three bedroom cottage that my brother had found for us. It hadn't been occupied for six months, and nobody had cleaned it in that time. So we arrived to, you couldn't really see the floor in the kitchen for the mouse droppings. So tolerant, we were way more tolerant in those days. So we spent the first two days cleaning out the place, and after that, it was pretty idyllic. You know, on the water, and beautiful wedding we went to. And on the last day, my sister and I were sat out on a rock looking out over, over this lake, and the sun was going down, and I just something came into my head, and I said, you know, we could do this, and we could do it so much better. And at the time, we really had no idea that we were going to move to Canada, and I went back home, back to England, and set the wheels in motion. Within two months, I'd started a holiday company in England that offered Ontario cottages to the British market, and I traveled out to Canada every six weeks to pull in new inventory for our very newly minted holiday company. And the same time, I started buying properties. So after a year, we had three properties that we were renting from afar and a nice little tour operator company going in UK where we we packaged up the flights and the accommodation and sent people from UK to Ontario. However, we were getting way more interest from Toronto, which sort of amused me, because there we were in England, getting calls from Toronto asking for properties that were two hours up the road from them. And that's when the light bulb went off again and and that's when we decided to emigrate from England to Canada and start a property management company, which we then ran for 20 years, which I sold two years ago. But as you can tell, there's probably there's a lot more to to that story than I could fit in here. I've told it. I've told it many times. What really started everything off was that when I did start a property management company in Ontario, nobody would give me any advice or help or assistance, and I had to do the whole thing from absolutely nothing. There were no Facebook groups, there were no forums. I just had to do what I thought was best and hope it would work. And over the years, it did work. But in 2005 I decided I wanted to share what I learned in the first five years, and I wrote a book called renting a recreational property for profit, and that sold really well in Ontario, and then it was republished again in 2007 please don't go looking for it. Don't buy that book marketing technique. So, because it was way before Airbnb, and it was way before any form of digital marketing, so it's very, very out of date. But I did that, and. Then started a podcast in 2013 called the vacation rental success podcast, which has published every week since then, wow. Well, I know you were one of the I mean, I think you were the original podcast, right? I mean, there were no other ones out there when you had started. Yeah, there was me and get paid for your pad. I think was, wow, okay, yeah, they've been around a long, yeah, around about the same time, because that was around about 2014 that one

Alex Husner  5:28  
Annie came on your show about a year ago, and I listened to that this morning, and I was laughing so hard because Annie called Heather an OG and you asked me, and you said, old guard. I said, I'm thinking myself. It means original gangster.

Annie Holcombe  5:43  
I couldn't call her an original gangster.

Alex Husner  5:48  
She's no Gino original gangster, but,

Annie Holcombe  5:53  
yeah, it is original gangster. But I didn't want to say that, for fear it would be like I'm a gangster. Oh my gosh.

Alex Husner  6:00  
You've certainly been around and seen you've been through the test of time, and you've seen things from all sides of running the business, selling the business, you know, turning yourself into a media company of sorts, and and then now in the training side. And I think it's all, you know, we talk about this a lot of it's like all these dots that you connect and all these experiences that you have lead to where you're able to do this now, and it sounds like you really love the training side.

Heather Bayer  6:24  
 Well, that was, that was my core, you know, that's where I came from. Was from the training, training business. I mean, prior to that, I was a psychotherapist and a hypnotherapist for for a number of Wow. So, you know, I've moved out of careers over time, but they all seem to be as useful now as they were there independently, but now useful collectively. So, you know, while I could still make people cluck like a chicken through hypnosis,

Speaker 1  6:53  
oh, you're doing something. Wow, yeah. So I was, I was a hypnotherapist for a number of years, but while I don't actually do that anymore, I still use hypnotic techniques in communications, and of course, 10 years running my own training company has enabled me to bring the style of education that I want to bring into this space, because I think education is just such A huge gap, and we can't fill it with one off master classes from people who've been around three years. Oh, yeah, that hits to the heart of one of the frustrations that Alex and I talk about on the show all the time is these new people that have come in and they're being lured over to one side by tiktokers, or, you know, the we call them the get rich quick guys, and they're not giving them good information. They're getting them flashy ideas, which is not, I'm not opposed to it, but that's how they're the sum total of the knowledge that they have of the industry. And it's very frustrating, because it affects all of us on so many different levels, and most importantly, hits home with regulatory problems when they don't know what they're doing. Yeah, exactly. I saw a post on LinkedIn by Chris Morne this week talking about the rise of the masterclass and how people can offer what's called a masterclass when they haven't been around any length of time enough right to create any mastery themselves before pass before saying they're going to pass that mastery on to others. And there's a huge danger in that, and that gap is there, and that's what we are trying to bring to the industry now with with what we're doing in the education space. Yeah, I love that. And I think there's been beyond just the get rich quickers out there. There's been other attempts at building, you know, some sort of a vacation rental school. There's been some different, you know, online classes and certifications. And some done more on the broad level, like at vrma, their certification and, you know, some more on the private side. But I don't feel like any of them have really stuck yet, you know. And I think it's, it's hard, because for it to be widely recognized, you have to have a lot of people that do it and adopt that. Okay, this is the go to source, and this is the standards that we're all going to try and operate under. But I'm curious your approach with that, whether that that matters to you or not, or is it more that you want to be able to work with a smaller group and just have more of an impact, and know that the information you've given them is going to be what you know is true. Well over the years, we've we've we've built courses, and we've sold courses, but we know that the online education, unless there is massive, massive motivation, it does not work. The stats are that only 6% of people will ever complete fully complete an online course that they pay for. And I know because I'm just as guilty of that as everybody else guilty of that too. Yeah, I buy courses and don't pay for them. So we wanted to, we wanted to do something that would enable us to deliver training.

Heather Bayer  10:00  
That wasn't necessarily face to face, but would get into property management companies and become a part of the fabric of the company. So it was almost like building a training department within a company and helping them develop that and that's what we're doing with our what we've called the Thrive program, thrive standing for trust, responsibility, hospitality in a vibrant environment. So it's talking about our four key stakeholders, the guests, the owners, the community and the team, and how those core values of trust responsibility and hospitality are developed throughout a company and delivered by those, delivered by and to those stakeholders. So we've created a online course. It is an online course, but it is completed within companies with the help of what we've called our Thrive ambassador, which is somebody nominated within a company that actually moderates the course as people go through it, as all the staff go through that the training program, there is somebody in house that moderates it, that answers questions, and make sure that everybody is applying what they learn to their stakeholders. And we're working with a couple of property management companies in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach at the moment, and it's in its beta stage, but we are really enthusiastic about it, and we're getting a lot of enthusiasm back from those companies at the moment. But it is a different type of it's not saying to somebody who's on the front desk, you know, here's a course. Go, go, do that. Course, that's it, and it's a tick in the box. This is more about doing ongoing and continuous training and learning. So it's not a one off, it's not so not once and done. It is continuous. So we'll go on to train people within organizations to actually deliver the course one on one as well. So that's, that's the plan, gotcha. So it's a, it's a guided program. I think that makes a lot of sense, because it is hard. I mean, even if, if leadership is totally on board, sometimes, you know, you get it back to a company and it's like, there's other priorities, and then trying to get the your staff to want to do something is can be a challenge. So that makes a lot of sense, that like an accountability kind of partner in it. Yeah, exactly. And we, you know, we have to get the buy in from the top level of every company before we start delivering it a lower level, they need to understand what's in it, what we're asking everybody to do, because there's, there's a lot of practical activities that encourages them to take everything they're learning. And again, it's modules. Are on trust, they're on responsibility, they're on hospitality and on teamwork. So for example, on the teamwork side, we talk about the languages of appreciation in the workplace, and encourage everybody to do the tests so they know what their language of appreciation is, but also to understand that the owners have their own languages of appreciation, and so do the people they're dealing with in the community. And through through the training on how they can deliver their communication, based on on that understanding that everybody has a different method of of communicating and being appreciated, it makes that communication so much better.

Annie Holcombe  13:27  
We just had a couple on a couple of weeks ago, and we were talking about Enneagram and how companies can utilize Enneagram, but we got into the conversation of like, how great would it be if you could do Enneagram on your owners to the point, to the point of like knowing, knowing the language to speak to them. It's just like, if you understand how you work with the other people in your organization, if you know their Enneagram, you know how to work with them. It would be equally important to or helpful to know what those owners you know. You know what their Enneagram is, or whatever you know test you decided to use. But I think it's really important that companies start to focus not just on the customer that's booking the rental. It's the rental itself, the owner of that rental, but also the team, and like understanding all the different personalities that are involved. Because I think we talk about a lot, people like to assume that the owners are all exactly the same type of person. They all have a rental and they want to make some money, and therefore we need to treat them all the same exact way. So it's really good that you've called that out as something to focus on. It's something that we did a lot within our company. It's understanding that all the owners were very, very different, and they just required different levels of communication. They needed different things. And couple of years ago, I did a joint presentation with Diane marsink and with Andy McNulty, and we did that on the five love languages. So it was, it was before Paul King and Gary Chapman had produced

Heather Bayer  14:54  
the languages of appreciation in the workplace. So we were working on the original Gary Chapman's five love language.

Languages and, and we did. It was a great little presentation on understanding what your guests love languages were and, and how, if, how you could recognize what their love languages are because you aren't. It would be lovely to ask every guest and every owner to do one of these

Alex Husner  15:21  
questions, yeah, before you book or before you sign a rental agreement, this is yeah, exactly yes, they will know whether to leave you a gift, right, whether make sure you pillow. Think about it. It's almost like everybody should have that next or their driver's license of right, personality type card. That are tests that it is that you do. But whenever you go anywhere, when you go to a restaurant, when you go shopping, when you go stay at a hotel or a vacation rental, and you just hand it to them, you show it to somebody, they're like, Okay, I know exactly how we're going to deal with you in a good way, hopefully. But, yeah, I think it's, it's cool to see that that's being so much more adopted within, within our industry. I think it kind of started with, you know, pi and CI and, you know, disc assessments and those types of things. But I think there's also more creative and different ways to look at those tests. And I feel like we talk about them all the time. Now, we've had so many on the show recently that this topic comes up all the time. Yeah, I did a LinkedIn Post this morning about, I think it started with, you know, I've done predictive index, I've done culture index, I've done disc I've done Myers, Briggs and all it trying to make me into a better salesperson, but

Annie Holcombe  16:32  
every one of them comes out the same every single time. You can't change that personality type. But yes, I'd mentioned that this morning, and I think there's a lot more discussion around and about on what personality assessments there are, and you know how to use them and how to use them in educated way. I mean, there's entertainment, there's entertainment purposes, of course, you know, love languages, we all see as being the entertainment type of assessment, but they can be used just so well in the workplace. Is just having knowledge of what's out there and that we in fact, it's simply having the knowledge that we are different, and we do treat each other in the way that we like to be treated, but that's not necessarily the way that they want to be treated. Yeah, I found it so helpful just to understand like, I feel like I've done enough of them like you said that you're just, you're the same type of person, no matter which test they just call you something different. But it's really helpful to learn about the people that you work with or interact with. I know I was in a situation the last couple of years where I worked with somebody that I just on a personal level, we clicked. We had a great time, but in the workplace, it was just struggled, and I didn't understand her type. And then once we actually did that, one was the culture index, and when we did it, her personality was so opposite of mine. I was just treating her because she was in the same world as me as she was, because again, socially, we got along great. But in the workplace, she was very black and white, rules, structure, spreadsheets, like, you know, she just had to have things, just so and so, when I would try to, like, bend the rules, she would be very rigid with me, and that would, like, create a lot of, like, tension. And I was like, gosh, I just don't know. So once I You're not like this, right? You're and so. But I did go to her, and I was like, I'm I apologize. Like, I just didn't know that this is what you needed from me. So now I knew how to approach her with stuff. Like, if I wanted to try to bend the rules, I'd be like, Okay, I know you want to do it this way, but, and I think, right, yeah, to foster better, better working relationships. But I'm curious. So you're doing all of these parts of this training, and you said you're going to do some of it online and some of it in person. Tell us a little bit about how you put this group together and who the stakeholders are within each segment of the training. 

Heather Bayer  18:47  
So we are, we are kicking off a coaching program. I've called it a coaching program because I've just gone into I'm about six weeks in now to a mastermind and a coaching program and and it's changed my business life totally just in six weeks. You know, the people in it have nothing to do with this business. The coach that I chose is Cliff Ravenscraft. He taught me how to podcast back in 2013 and he's been pretty much a mentor over those years. He's got a fabulous podcast that I listened to a lot, and I've known he was doing a mastermind program and coaching, so I invested in that, and probably the best big money I've ever spent on and that's just in the first six weeks. And I have another 40 odd weeks, 40, yeah, 45 weeks to go of this program. It got me thinking about how we coach, how we train, how we educate in this industry. And I was looking about to see what's available, and we have so many wonderfully educated and experienced people and inspiring people in this business, but to get. To see them, to get to talk to them, you've got to go to Verma conference or DARM, and then, you know they're they're on a stage, and perhaps you don't get that one on one. And I thought, wouldn't it be great if we could do a program over a number of weeks, and we chose eight weeks where we bring one person in a week to share their knowledge and to take questions, to take, you know, one on one, coaching questions live. And that was really the start of it, because I looked around, I thought, there's nothing out there like it. So I went out to a few people I knew, and asked them if they'd be interested in every single one of them came back and said, yes, they would. And, you know, I started with my friend Matt Landau, because Matt and I have known each other for I mean, he's probably one of the first people I met in this industry. Him and Ty Ann marsink Way, Way Back at a home away summit in 2012 and we've been friends ever since. So Matt come and join me, come and talk to people about creativity and how to look at your business in a different way. And he said, Yeah, absolutely, I'll come and do that. And I asked Ty Anne, and she said, Yes, I'll come and talk about the guest experience and what you can do differently to create a better guest experience. And I talked to Brooke Fouts about owner acquisition, and Steve trover about building a better team. Travis Wilburn about how you can create better community relations, and Chris Morne about trust. And somewhere along the line, Justin Ford is going to appear as well.

Alex Husner  21:44  
That's a great group you got there. That's awesome. 

Heather Bayer  21:47  
Oh, and Alexa. I forgot Alexa. Nota is talk about responsible rental. So we're going to be dealing with these, these more foundational issues, you know, such as trust, with with Chris and responsibility with Alexa and hospitality with Ty Ann. So each 90 minute session will consist of them delivering a short presentation, or we're going to have an interview. It depends what they want to do, and then we open it up to questions. So anybody who's there can do their one on one questioning and and, you know, get that one on one time with these people that are not necessarily as approachable. I mean, they are approachable, but you've got to be there at the right time to chat with them. And then in the in between each week, we've got a community on Facebook that that they can people can come in and continue to ask their questions. So it's one of its kind. First of its kind. I have no idea how it's going to work, but I'm got some of the best people in the industry just giving their knowledge and sharing their experience, and I don't think they can be much better than that. I love it. I think it sounds like a brilliant idea. So how do people apply or like what is the criteria to become part of the group? Well, it starts on September the fifth, Thursday, September the fifth, and they can go to our website, at vacation rental formula.com, and right on the homepage, it says, join the coaching program. And all the information is on there? Is it free? Or is it a choice? It is not. It is not free. I wouldn't expect it was. Is it like an application, like, did they apply to get in? Or is it just, no, no, it's it's a it's a single price, it's $1,500 for the eight weeks. That's it. And we thought long and hard about that. You know, there's so much out there that's 497, or 597, this is massive, massive value, and people are going to go away with some really high value information. And I was talking to my coach, Cliff the other day, and we were we were talking about this, and he said, you know, if just out of one session, something changes in that property manager's mind and they do something different. The value of that is, is huge. Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, I think that's a very reasonable price for that. Yeah, that's, that's great. 

Alex Husner  24:18  
What about do you think you'll ever do it in person, like as a conference or a meetup or anything like that. 

Heather Bayer  24:24  
I would love to you know we did, we did conferences years ago in 2016 17 and 18. We ran what we call the vacation rental Success Summit. We did two in Toronto, and then we did one in San Antonio. Did you do it around Burma, like at the same time? Or was it was a two day conference. And yeah, I mean, the third one, the one in San Antonio, I think we had 350 people there. And so that was the last one in 2018 we decided to give it a miss in 2019 and then we're going to do it in 2020 but of course, yeah. We know how that went. We know how that went. And of course, in the meantime, just so many more conferences. Yeah, yeah, came about, and I loved it. I really did. We got some fabulous speakers. It was very cool. But I'm not sure we do it again. You know, scale has come along to certainly in Europe, and I think scale is going to be leaping the pond before too long, and doing their first scale us. And then there's, there's all the other smaller conferences, you know, VR, nation, Dom, of course, and the Women's Summit every two years. So we might not do live again. We'll see well, I mean, you certainly have a dynamic group of people in terms of, like, knowledge, but just all their personalities, or their big personalities, and they're fun personalities, and they're people that people want to see. So I think that if you did do something live and in person, you would get it, you would, even if you did it, like regionally or something, you'd get a good take to it. Oh yes, yeah. I mean, that's, that's the benefit having been in the industry for over 25 years now, I've just amassed all these contacts and connections, the networking and you know, well, wonderful. It is with a podcast that you get to speak to the people that maybe you'd never get to meet normally. 

Annie Holcombe  26:15  
Yeah, we talk about that all the time since I got out of the property management side, on the salesy side of things, and people that would never take my phone call, but now, if I reach out, they assume that I'm reaching out about the podcast, you know, and they'll talk to me, or they'll approach me and say, Hey, can I come on your podcast? I'm like, Hey, can I talk to you about that? You know? So it definitely does open, but it's also just like the opportunity for us to learn from people. And I think one of the things I wanted to like, we talk about a lot, and Alex and are so excited to what we get to do with the podcast, and you get to do with yours, is sharing people's stories. But our industry is so giving and so open to share knowledge. And I know I get calls and emails, and you know, linkedins from people, and Alex the same way, it's like, you know, you don't want to try to monetize everything that you do, and at some point you do have to make a living. And so it's understandable, but I think for the most part, people are all genuinely wanting to help each other. So if somebody called you and asked you a one off question about, hey, I need some advice on something. You know, you could call any number of the 50 some people that you have good relationships with, and it's probably for you 500 but you could call anybody and they would answer you, because our industry is a very gracious and giving and wonderful industry to be in, yeah, I just wonder when that happened, you know, because, I mean, I know it wasn't like that when I started, for sure, yeah, maybe covid did it. Maybe covid made us a kinder, gentler, like group. I don't know. I don't know it's 

Heather Bayer  27:38  
Yeah, I think it started. May have started before that. I remember going to that home away summit in 2012 and that was my very first it was my very first conference, and it was my first exposure to other people who were doing the same thing and and that huge aha that I'm not on my own. And of course, anybody enter entering the industry now knows they're not on their own, because they've probably done all this research way in advance, and they've been on the Facebook groups, and they've networked with so many different people. But I love the fact that people are so giving. And yeah, it's the best industry to be in, hands down, and I've been in a

Annie Holcombe  28:24  
hooked 100% what is your ideal customer for this? Is it somebody who is starting out? Is it somebody who's been in it for 20 years and really just struggling? Is it right in between, like, what do you think your ideal person is? 

Heather Bayer  28:37  
I think it's, you know, it's somebody who's perhaps got now maybe 10 to 50 properties and and is perhaps a little bit stuck, and because they've started out with one focus and realize that that's not enough, and that's why we're going back to some of the foundational stuff, like the trust and responsibility. I was also thinking that this is so great for people who are into the industry who don't get that opportunity to go to the conferences. Oh, absolutely, yeah, you know the people who are sitting at their desks and who perhaps have huge potential to grow in their company and and it's just an education. It's an eight week education for them. 

Alex Husner  29:21  
I love the online component of that. And we have these Annie and I have these conversations all the time that it's like, you know, it's so expensive for a company to send not even a whole team, but even just a couple people to these conferences. And there's plenty of people, and all all the companies that would be great to go and learn and share, but you know, you can't bring 10 people to Verma is a heavy, heavy expense. So I think the more that you can make it digital, that really helps you kind of reach a wider net. But the challenge is, and I think you're gonna have it figured out. I think the challenge most companies are groups putting stuff like this together, is, how do you make it sticky enough that they're going to continue to show up? And, you know, bring their questions and really be actively involved in that they don't fizzle out. Because sometimes, even if you buy something, I know I'm guilty of that, that I'll buy it, but I'll do most of it, but I don't finish all of it. So it's like, you know, how do you get them to stay for the entire thing? Because I'm sure probably how your planning is is or programming is planned out. It kind of all, like, ties together all the different things you talk about in the eight weeks. 

Heather Bayer  30:21  
Yeah, there's an accountability component that at the end of the last 10 minutes of every session, we will go through everybody who's there and look for their accountability moment. What is it that we can hold you accountable for over this next week? And then we will be in touch with them. You know, this is, this is a constant communication over the eight weeks. So if you tell us you're going to do something, we're going to be in touch with you and check it out and and if they want conversation within that week, we're going to have that conversation with them, whether it's one on one or within the Facebook group. And we will, you know, follow up if it's not quite the same as doing an online course where you're off doing the self directed learning, we're going to be following up on all our attendees. And if somebody misses a session, every session is going to be recorded so they will get the session after if they do miss it, but we are going to be asking them the question about, is there something that we could have done better? Or how, you know, how can we encourage you to come back to the one next week? So, you know, it is an issue. I get super excited about things that come along. I mean, don't we all, you know, oh, my God, this is, this is so great. I'm inspired, I'm motivated. And then you sign up and and then life happens, or a meeting comes up, and you think, Oh, well, you know, what am I going to do? I'll let this meeting supersede right what I've just paid for. And so, so we will, we will be doing that encouragement along the way. Do you see this morphing into once people go through the program? Are there going to be a next levels, like additional refresher courses, or things like that, that they can take in a year, or participate within the group in a different level after they've done the course, what we would hope would happen is that once we've done this, that the whole idea of the Thrive program, which is the company based program, we can start introducing that into their companies, if it's on a very basic level, because that, You know, that's our that's our core product, and it's, it's continuous learning, yeah, it's taking that education on to the next level. Sure, yeah, yeah. I think you know, our mantra here is, it's never once and done. It just ongoing, going it's ongoing. You keep learning. I mean, I've, I'm a, I'm a continual learner. I just there's stacks of books and courses and things, and if I've got 10 minutes, then, you know, I'm on to learning something else. I mean, just a complete segue out of that. I'm just reading a book called Mind magic, which is just a brilliant book on manifestation, but from a neurological perspective, and it's about how the brain works. So when I was doing my my degree, my psychology degree, years and years ago, I was doing a course called biology, brain and behavior, and we had a little brain we could take apart, and there was a coloring book of the brain, and I loved that book. It allowed me to understand all the different aspects of the brain and how it works. I've just ordered that book again because the book mind magic talks about, you know, how manifestation takes place within the brain, and it talks about the parasympathetic nervous system and the autonomic nervous system and the amygdala and the hippocampus and all these things I remember. So, yeah, that's my current learning. When I get go off from this call, I'm so excited that I go and get my crayons out and I'm going to start coloring them, coloring the brain. 

Annie Holcombe  33:56  
Oh, I love that. I do like that. So we do a session. We do a session at Verma and that I would love to go to, something like, super fascinating,

Heather Bayer  34:06  
yeah, I was to, I was turned down for Verma this year, so still rankles slightly,

Alex Husner  34:14  
you and many others.

Heather Bayer  34:17  
Whole other topic, yeah, yeah. I know there was a whole thread on LinkedIn about, yeah, and I'm thinking, Okay, I don't feel so bad now.

Alex Husner  34:28  
I think that's that's actually something that's probably not talked about enough in our industry. I would say, I mean, the rise of the personality tests and those things have become more prominent. But, you know, the manifestation is a little bit it's definitely different than that, but that's not really talked about. And I know my life changed significantly when I read the book. The secret probably, I don't know, almost 10 years ago, and my mom had just had a brain aneurysm, and she was, was not well, but was, I mean, semi on her own, and we were dealing with getting my grandmother into a system. Living, and it was just so stressful. And somebody had told me about that book, and I read it, and it connected with me on two different levels. That one, you can get through anything, you can accomplish anything, if, as long as you believe it and your mindset is right, and that's the manifestation, but it also really motivated me in business at that time, too. And this one, I was still pretty early in my career, and it's that's one of those books that I just I always remember, and I've done more manifestation type things. I did transcendental meditation training that our, our good friend Valerie Genghis told us about. I did that earlier this year, and that was also really impactful. But that's that could be a good topic to bring up in in more of these sessions or just conversations, I guess, within the industry, any any great like business person, or any person that's that's accomplished really big things, believes in manifestation. Oh, I'm, I am an absolutely firm believer. 

Heather Bayer  35:55  
There's so many things that I have manifested in my life, when I look back on them, and I think I made that happen, yeah, yeah. I made emigrating from the UK to Canada happen. I've made new houses happen, and I know how I've made them happen too. So I you know that would be a great one for the Women's Summit.

Annie Holcombe  36:19  
 Yeah, it really? I agree with that. I agree with that. Yeah, I've tried, I tried to manifest height, but it hasn't worked yet. There are some limitations with manifestation. I've learned 

Alex Husner  36:31  
a new pair of high heels could end up on your doorstep tomorrow, and I and I twisted my ankle. But it's true too, that, I mean, manifestation isn't necessarily always a positive thing, that you can manifest bad things. And basically, what you give power to, and what you give your focus to, is what comes about in your life. And so if you're thinking about how bad something's going to go, or you're worrying about things typically that it, that's what ends up happening. But if you focus on not thinking about how bad it's going to go, how it could go great, and what you want to happen. That's normally where it goes. But it's all very interesting to think that we're actually in control of things.

Heather Bayer  37:11  
Oh, for sure, I've read, I've read all these books a secret and the teachings of Abraham and the Seth books. And what it all condenses down to is that if you can feel joy or feel good at all times, you'll get what you wish for, and it's just all about it's all about feeling good and but I think the difficult thing is, is that people say, you know, something really awful has happened. How can I feel good about it? Well, we all have choice. We all have choice about how we feel. And it doesn't have to be magic and make it happen overnight, but it if you just concentrate on the things around you that do feel good and feeling positive about things. Yeah, miracles do happen. Yeah, 100%

100% Wow, wow. We've, we've we've segued out of here, haven't we?

Alex Husner  38:03  
 Oh no. It's great. Though it's great, you know? I mean, all this is whether you're on vacation rentals, whether you're a doctor or realtor, whatever it is that you are. I mean, all these things apply to just daily life. And I think that's what's interesting to me. And really, I mean, we're all much more understandable in our own lives and what our capabilities are when you start to look at things that way. So yeah, to me, it's all about being joyful. Yeah, absolutely. That's a Annie's favorite word, yeah. 

Annie Holcombe  38:34  
Well, my one of my closest friends, she just passed away recently, and her name is Joy. We called her joyful. And so what's really interesting is we were recently watching the Democratic National Convention, and like every night, they had something, but we were watching this recap what a comedian was doing last night, and he was showing all the all the things where they said joy, and they gave the sign for joy and choose joy, and all this stuff. And my, one of my one of our best friends, she came over to see me yesterday, and she said, Don't you feel like joy is like the theme of the year, and it really does. And and so like, like, at her, at her service, everybody was talking about, like, you know, just like, we have to live with purpose, and we all have to go forward choosing joy. And so, like, that's just the thing. So you said that. And I was just like, Oh yeah, it's just, it's wonderful, Heather, we're coming close to the end. And I actually wanted to ask you a question that we try to ask everybody, as of lame, just on the podcast. But what is something that you think that we're not talking enough about within the vacation, short term rental industry that we should be

Heather Bayer  39:35  
oh, gosh, that's a question. I mean, my big thing is, trust is that we, I don't think we're talking enough about trust. And I know Chris Morne would would agree with me 100% Yeah. And I was thinking about it this morning because I was looking at Facebook posts, and people are talking about, you know, the the gifts they leave their guests, and the style of bedding and how many toilet rolls are we. And should I? Should I build a pickleball court or put something equal, you know, something really outrageous, in the garden and but I don't think we're talking enough about the core. What's at the core of this business, particularly if we're wanting to book direct, and that is rust, because nobody's going to trust us unless we convey how trustworthy that we are, and in the main, nobody's really thinking about conveying trust. I will tag Chris. You gotta listen, yeah, no, you'll be happy when we brought it up. 

Annie Holcombe  40:36  
I know that. I think you're right. I think people trust. That's why people go to these brands. You know, they book on Airbnb over yavio or whatever, because they trust that brand, not that, not that they know it, but they trust it because they've seen it everywhere. And you can build the trust. It's expensive in some levels like to build that level of trust. But I think, you know, again, you can put out a brand that's authentic, and again, it goes back to being authentic, I think, but, but I think you're right. I think trust is important.

Heather Bayer  41:02  
 I think it's such an authentic it's such a great word. I love that I had a connection with somebody the other day who was looking for some consultancy, and I realized pretty quick I was not going to be the right one for them, because when I asked about their goals, it was, we want to be as hands off as possible. We want everything automated, and we want to know how to automate this business and and they have their own book, Direct website, and I'd ask the question, you know, do you want to grow that? Well, yes, but there was no concept of, how are you going to get guests to trust you, to rent your properties? How are you going to get owners to trust you, to give their properties to you, to manage and and that was not an issue at all. It's just simply tell us how to automate the heck out of this thing. 

Alex Husner  41:50  
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think there's so many people that they've realized getting into this, or even if they've been on it for a long time, it's the business has gotten more and more complex over the years, because of a lot of it is, I mean, guests, they they want more, and they deserve more, you know, and it's, there's just so many more steps to have to go into the business. But I think to Annie's point on the authenticity, I mean, that's really trust is it's in building a relationship. And if you're a traveler, that you feel trust in Airbnb or a big company, because, you know, if something goes wrong, there's likely somebody that I can talk to to have me, to help me in this situation. But if it's a small company, I don't think that it necessarily matters. But what does matter in the way that you build that trust is the communication that you're having with that guest, I mean, in the pre arrival stage, once they've booked, once they've departed, and building a relationship with them. Because, I mean, have you ever trusted anybody that you don't have a relationship with, or vice versa? I mean, like trust and relationships go both ways. And, you know, the big brands, they're not building relationships, but they have more systems and things and technology in place to make it feel like they're trustworthy, and you can get in touch with somebody. But small companies have even more of an opportunity to, you know, really focus on the relationship Exactly. So, yeah, that's my word is trust. Yeah. Well, that's a great answer. Yeah, a great answer. Well, where are we going to see you this fall? Heather, I think you mentioned you're going to go to DARM. I'm not sure about DARM yet, and I'm not going to Verma. That wasn't just oh, they're not, they're not allowing me to split.

Heather Bayer  43:24  
Yeah, there's a number of things that are sort of surrounding not going to DARM, I will be going to the Vermont short term rental Alliance Summit. One of the reasons for that is one of my good friends I haven't seen for years and years, Sibylla. Kim has she has a property in Vermont, but she's also, you know, big part of that group. And she's going to be there, as is Justin Ford, as is my son, Mike, and myself, and the four of us were at our very first vacation rental Success Summit in 2016 so that is going to be, oh, and Tyan. Of course, Tyan was there too, so we're going to have a good a good reunion. But yeah, I'm pretty quiet on the conference front this winter. Well, it sounds like you've got a lot of things going on anyway, so you're not going to be wanting for any Yeah, I'm not going to be doing the FOMO bit this year, which I have. Yeah.

Alex Husner  44:19  
Oh, well, if we don't get to see you, I'm glad that we at least got to spend the time today, and I'm looking forward to coming on your show here in a couple weeks. Also, that'll be a lot of fun. So that is going to be fun. Yeah, awesome. Well, if anybody wants to get in touch, Heather, what's the best way for them to reach out to you or to hear more about the program that you've got going on? 

Heather Bayer  44:38  
Well, you can find me on LinkedIn, and you can go to vacation rental formula.comwhich is our website, and you can connect with me on there. And I love to hear from people. I really do you know. And so I say at the end of all my episodes, get in touch with me, Heather at vacation rental formula.com and I will get back to you. Oh, that's great. Well, same for us. If anybody wants to get in touch with Anne.

Alex Husner  45:00  
And I you can go to alexandanypodcast.com fill out a contact form, and we will certainly get back in touch with you as well. Thank you, Heather, so much for being here with us today, and it was just wonderful to spend time. So thank you such a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai