Fireside Chat with Airbnb Brand Ambassador, John Hildebrand

Welcome to Alex and Annie The Real Women of Vacation Rentals. I'm Alex

And I'm Annie.

And we are joined today with John Hildebrand who is the founder of Hilde Homes in Scottsdale, Arizona. John, welcome to the show.

So happy to be here. Thank you guys for calling me out and joining the pod. So they do.

Yeah, we, we've kind of crossed paths digitally, I would say, and we've been following you, and you've got just an incredible following on YouTube. And just the content that you've been putting out kinda drew us to you. And we just figured, you know, we need to know who this guy is. We want to hear all the things he's got going on. So it sounds like it's pretty interesting. But can you give us and our audience a little bit of backstory on your involvement in the space and what you do?

Sure. Yeah. Thank you. So again, my name is John Hildebrand, I'm based in Scottsdale, Arizona. When I was a kid, we moved like 22 times growing up, and so I've kind of like always had my hands in real estate. But once I had a place in Malibu, I was like a starving photographer at the time. So I turned on Airbnb, never thought of it as a business. And that's kind of like how I started that was in 2016. I started my journey, and it literally paid all my rent my bills, I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. Maybe I don't have to be a starving artists forever. I was like, What a weird concept. And then my brother, my brother, and I ended up purchasing a place together because he's in real estate. And he's always looking at the market. We bought a place together strictly for short term rentals in Los Angeles, right next to the football stadium. And it took off, like, right away, and I had no clue what I was doing my brother's like, I'll help buy the house. You have to manage it do everything else like okay, yeah, I can I can do that. No, no problem, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it was amazing. It was awesome learning curve. And that's what kind of brought me to Arizona because I was born here, all my family's from here. And I just felt more comfortable to try to grow a business around family. So I ended up purchasing two Airbnbs at the time, and gutted them down to the two by fours and kind of just started that journey. And then as everybody knows, it happened, right when locked down happen. And then I was kind of a blessing. It kind of just forced me to understand all the ins and outs of the business. So now I'm an Airbnb Ambassador, photographer for Airbnb, sometimes. Really strong voice and advocate with RentResponsibly. We started a group out here. So I have my hands in a lot of the space now. And yeah, pretty quickly.

Very interesting. So do you have anybody else that's that's helping you with the homes? Are you still kind of one man band?

I actually just hired on my first virtual assistant full time, which is a massive learning curve. I have to admit it. Yeah. Amazing, But it's like, it's a process. Yeah.

Well, there's so much and glad you touched on that, because I think they can be so great. But you it's not as easy as it seems. I mean, the upfront work that you've got to do to lay out all your processes and what your SOPs are, and you know, how you want things handled that actually is very time consuming. But hopefully once you get that in place, that it's kind of just plug and play.

Yeah, hopefully, because you you guys probably do the same. That's there's so much in my head. And yeah, yeah, just get it done. I never put it down. And, yeah, it's a process. But I mostly do it myself. I do have like some mentorship programs, where sometimes people really just want to learn, and I'll let them shadow me and they'll help me like, build out the guidebook or build, you know, the online process or whatever, just to get some extra hands. But for the most part, it's me, and then I just have an amazing cleaning crew, maintenance. That makes my life way easier.

So yeah, yeah, that's that's critical, whether you're a business of enterprise level scale, or if you're smaller operator, that's super important. But so I'm interested to learn more about just been your take from being on the smaller side of this business, coming into things. Have you have you? Did you go to VRMA last year? I know like VRMA last year was the first time that they actually invited companies of your size to participate. But did you? Did you go to that, or have you had any involvement with them?

Okay, to be totally honest, I've always been kind of intimidated by all of that, right? Yeah, like the new guy. And I'm still learning all this stuff. And I'm like, I can't go there. I like to, because I used to do all the trade shows for the fashion world. Really, I used to own a sunglass brand. So we used to go to every single tradeshow. Okay, so I know this space really well. So I was like, I don't think I really ready yet? Maybe I need to wait. So I told myself this year I'm going to a lot more of those events.

Okay. Okay. You'll

So you'll be there this year, then?

Yes, ma'am. Yeah,

okay, well, well, you shouldn't be intimidated because everybody, everybody's just as regular as they are, when you meet them on these podcast,

everybody had to start somewhere, you know, and I think, you know, we're we're big proponents of VRMA opening it up so that smaller operators can come in, because as we know, one of the biggest issues we all face, especially as it relates to regulatory issues is professionalism and making sure that these Airbnb hosts mostly where the issues are starting from have the right information to build businesses that will, you know, be good hospitality stewards for the industry. So we're all about it, and you're not the bad apples that were worried about in the first place. But you should feel welcome to go and be part of those. So I think I think that's something that that VRMa and any of our associations can really work on is almost like having a maybe there's different tracks within the agenda or not initiations, but like, you know, Intro intro to kinda things that make me feel more comfortable. But

I'm actually really excited to be a part because I've met so many amazing people along the ways, like you guys now and Wil and people from Rent Responsibly. And like all these amazing companies I've been talking to, and you just meet them on Zoom nowadays? And yeah, I like seeing people in person. So yeah, yeah.

Well, it is a big love fest when we all get together, so. So I think you, you mentioned that COVID, lock down, everything happened, and it kind of gave you an opportunity to pause. And so I think kind of what else, you know, dovetailing off what Alex was asking, I mean, you, you, you're, you're a small organization, you only have eight units, you're obviously you're gonna grow. But you got to start somewhere. And I think one of the things that we've we hear is that some of these people get into the business thinking like, oh, again, it's going to be super easy. I don't need to do my due diligence. I don't need to follow regulations, I can skirt under the, you know, under the radar, I can do all these things. But you took the time to learn and to dive into the technology piece, which is really important. I think, up until recently, a lot of smaller operators didn't have access to technology. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that, and how you came to use some of the systems that you're using now?

Yeah, that's a great question. I love that question. Honestly, I think it's from my background, I've always been an entrepreneur, I've never had a nine to five. I've always just made my own path. And I like to work easy not work all the time. And I love my freedom. I love to go snowboarding whenever I want. I like to go, you know, bike ride or whatever. So I knew there had to be a better system in place to make it easier to run. Like to be on your phone and writing simple guest communications over and over again just didn't seem smart. So I just kind of started diving in. I felt like the lockdown was a little bit of a blessing for me because I was forced to be focused. So I just listened to every single podcast, of course, I was listening to you guys like crazy. It was listening to everybody I could get my hands on. I was reading books, I was like, reaching out to people in the DMS I was trying to learn as much as I could as a sponge and realize that like, oh, there is a platform that lets me do pricing or there is a platform that lets me build like a digital guidebook makes it easier for my guests to check in. I don't have to update it every time. So once I started understanding that I was like, Oh, maybe I can take on more properties. Because this is actually once you get the systems in it started making way more sense. Yeah, yeah. Organizing.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I just kind of dove in. I'm kind of a nerd with that kind of stuff. To be honest,

well, it's fun, but

it's fascinating.

Yeah, and it can it can be tough though to know which which tools are going to be game changers which ones are going to you know slightly move the needle for you what's going to make it more easy for you to run the business there's there's a lot of different level levels of how you pull these different tools together and you can't have all the tools we talked about that a lot. I mean, we all have margins at the end of the day and fairly low margins for us as management companies when you own some and you manage some but on your ones that you just manage obviously your margins are lower there. So keeping an eye on that profitability is is key, but as that relates to profitability, how do you have you use pricing software? I know you use Wheelhouse Correct?

Yeah, I use Wheelhouse and I love love love Wheelhouse. I feel like it's like a it's like a Mac version of pricing, right? It's, I can just kind of dive in and start pushing a bunch of stuff. You're not gonna break anything but you can kind of just learn it and then they have so many great tutorials and luckily for me, their customer service has been amazing also, which is really important to me. So if I have a question I can actually get somebody to respond. Respond.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

But wheelhouse for me has been game changer. I mean, I probably make 30-40% more revenue and definitely get a lot more bookings because of it.

That's awesome. So and you you put your properties on VRBO and Airbnb?

Yes, I do. Yeah. Mostly on Airbnb is where our bookings come from out here. But yeah, I'm on VRBO as well. And then I'm in the process of about to launch my direct booking site with Mark over eight. Yeah, that's super excited about

Awesome. Now before you use wheelhouse were you using any other type of pricing software?

Um, well, when I first started, I didn't even know any of that stuff exists. I just was doing it all manually. I'm like, This is so much work to try to figure out pricing all the time. Yeah. So I did try Pricelabs for a little bit. But for me, it was to PC. It was very complicated. It was, yeah. And then somebody showed me Wheelhouse and I just kind of dove in. And I was like, Oh, this is a lot easier. So then I've been using what else ever since.

Awesome. Awesome. So do you have anybody that you work with that helps with the product, or you just you rely on just their regular customer support.

Um, every now and then I talked to Andrew, who has been a great help with more of like the ambassador part of the program because I am an ambassador for Airbnb. So I'm always trying to educate people from day one, like how important it is to think about a pricing software. So a lot of times he'll send me some tips and tricks or whatever to help me and then help them. But none mostly I just talk strictly with the customer service over there, Mike, hey, my one property is kind of slow. Am I doing something wrong? Can you mind looking at it my pricing, and they're usually pretty amazing. They'll jump in, they'll look at it. They're like, okay, you know, it's really saturated right now. And you're in a slow market this time of month, but the next two months, it looks like it's gonna pick up.

Yeah, sometimes just having somebody else validate what you were thinking is helpful. Yeah, no, that's, that's great. Now you're what is your season like there? I mean, when is your highest season?

So we're in like, crazy, slow season right now. It's probably the slowest, honestly, I've ever seen it. And, you know, my handful of years I've been doing this really are five years. Really, really slow. I think there's a really big buzz in Scottsdale for for short term rentals. So it's crazy. How many new properties are popping up left and right. I think that's part of it. But we're in our slow season. It's 115 degrees. So why do you really want to come here?

Yeah, that's a good point.

I'm trying to get out rent property somewhere else.

Yeah.

You mentioned that you had you and your brother started and you had a rental in LA. Do you still have that? Or did you get away from that?

So the LA one we ended up just selling a little while ago. And it was a lot of reasons why we sold the market went through the roof. It was I mean, it was crazy. The numbers. So we're like, that's kind of tempting. But the regulations were really, really up in the air. And it was pretty scary. Some of the things that we're proposing, and they were like, complete banding in. Right. And there was no groups in LA. Yeah, it was it was starting to be difficult. So we ended up selling that that one?

Yeah. Do you have do you so you just have them in in the Scottsdale area? Are you looking to grow in other markets?

I do still have one in Malibu right now, as well. Unfortunately, the pool foundation crashed. So we're

available for rent in October, I'm headed out that way.

It better be we're trying to get the pool fixed. Trust me, it's not been fun. But yeah, Malibu, and then I used to have one in Park City as well, because we used to have a house and Park City. So I had a couple in Park City, but I was just a manager on those. And when I moved from Park City, I just decided to like focus on Scottsdale.

I found that quite a few people, they again going back to thinking it's easy. It managing from afar. And but I think saying that you have the technology in place that if you go to do this, it's going to be a lot easier than it would have been five or six years ago,

wouldn't you say? Yeah. I mean, I'm always envious of people that are like, Oh, I bought a place in Tennessee or Park City and I live here and I'm like, Okay, I'm always so nervous to do that. Because I'm such a hands on person. I want to be able to drive there and like Yeah, and like physically see if I can make it better or you know, meet the guests sometimes or whatever it may be. But I think I'll get over that fear. assume

it's all about having the right support system. If you're going to do that that somebody that you really trust to be your liaison that's in the market. But you know, I think what you've built is a perfect model. Know that you could be able to scale and you've got the technology in place. And it's just you know, at the end of the day, the technology is great, all of it, but it is still a people business and a hospitality business and just finding that those right people to help you is key to being able to make that work.

Yeah, so true. And I feel so lucky, because I have like, as I was saying, earlier, my cleaning crew out here is like, top notch. And just so excited about them. They do all my linens off site, they have an in house maintenance company, that helps me is and then I partnered up with a like a concierge team as well, that can help me provide like, you know, in home saws and chef and cars.

Yeah, yeah, it's

really, really nice. So it's, it's hard to leave that.

Yeah.

Gotta go rebuild that

somewhere else. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, it just depending on the area. I mean, that's, you don't typically see concierge services like that in our market here in Myrtle Beach area, but it just depends on the market, you know, if that's more common, but yeah, if you're used to providing that level of service, and those different options, and it probably would be good to just find markets that are similar, at least.

Yeah, and I've been lucky enough to, to, in my mind, I've always wanted the luxury side of the market, then, you know, the bigger homes, the the properties with the pools and the hot tubs and all this other amenities. It's always been like, my main focus, because I know that background so well. So most of my properties are, are the luxury side of the property is that, that do kind of expect that, you know, concierge and extra service and whatnot. So it was kind of, I kind of had to figure that out. Yeah,

yeah. So tell us about your involvement with Airbnb. And knowing that, you know, we, as you probably saw on LinkedIn, we had our T shirts. We are not Airbnb. You're not Airbnb, but you're a little more Airbnb than we are. But how did that how did you become a brand ambassador? And what exactly does that entail?

Yeah, it's so it's so wild. I still pinch myself sometimes to be honest. So the lockdown happened. And one of my places was in the last stages of becoming a plus listing on Airbnb. And as some people may know, when the lockdown started happening, Airbnb had to let go of like a lot of people. And the first part was letting go of the entire plus team. And I was like, wow, yeah, first of all, I was devastated. Because everybody I worked for at the plus was like the greatest but I learned so much from these people. Really? Wow. They were so nice. And they were helped me with design and like, building out the, the whole everything about the plus they were really hands on. So it came to the point where they're like, sorry, you're not gonna be pleased. And I'm like, No, that's not happening. And then I went, I'm like, No, I went went way too far and work too hard to get here. What what needs to be done? They're like, Well, you got to do the photos and all this. I'm like, Okay, I'm a photographer. I'll shoot all the photos. Like, no, we need, you know, blah, blah. So I ended up shooting all the photos submitted him to him. They're like, Oh, these are great. Okay, yeah, we'll just use these. So we use my place in there, right. And as I squeezed it in there, Airbnb was trying to figure out ways to get more hosts to join the platform. But virtually because everything was locked down. So my name was thrown in the hat because they're like, Hey, this guy just launched his own plus pretty much and did all this great job he was easy to work with. And his listings are, are killing it. So maybe talk to him. So they reached out to me, and they're like, Hey, we're starting this program. It's called Ask a super host. I don't even think it was called that before. And they're like, We have no idea where this is going. We don't even we you and like three other people are part of the program right now. Wow, I want to do this. And I'm like, at first, honestly, I was like, No, it doesn't sound for me. But I was twiddling my phones. I was so bored. Well, yeah, and for me, it was like, another way to learn. And it was another way for me to get closer to the giant company, Airbnb. Right, right. Yeah. Closer and closer, and learn more and more. I'm just gonna be better host. All right, cool. Yeah. missa. Yes.

And now recently, though, you your account was banned or blocked or how in the world at that. Good. Yeah.

So yeah, like, how does it happen to somebody that does so much for Airbnb? Right,

exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think they were thinking to keep your friends close. Keep your frenemies closer.

And think that went thru did they?

And I joke with him, I'm like, are you guys doing this on purpose? So I have to learn it so I can. Honestly, there's no real answer. That's what's so scary. There was no I mean, it took us months and months and months to like, go back and forth, back and forth. And it was never like, Oh, this is the reason why your account was 100% cut off.

Now. Talk us through when did it happen? And like what how did You know what had happened?

Luckily, it happened. I'm being sarcastic. It happened on like Labor Day weekend or Memorial Day weekend. And last year of last year, okay. And yeah, it was last year. Yeah. And it literally, that entire weekend, there's like no customer service. So like, the only reason I found out I had a guest reach out to me. They're like, hey, we can't get ahold of you. And I'm like, what, but they had my cell number. I'm like, What do you mean? So I looked at my account, and it's like, sorry, you've been suspended? And I'm like,

and what are you supposed to do? How do you respond to to your guests?

You don't luckily it was my co hosting account, which I made a separate account for properties I don't own. Because I don't have 100% control over those properties. So I kind of separated them. And I had admin accounts attached. This is where it gets kind of confusing, but I had admin accounts attached to the CO hosting account. So I was able to log into the admin account. Yeah, like, Hey, this is John, I swear it's same person. This account is locked up for some reason.

Wow.

Yeah, it was a lot of loops.

Yeah, it sounds like it. And were they able to give you any explanation? So the only like, real answer that I figured out was, which, if this is 100%, true, I respect it is Airbnb is trying to clean up the platform. And they're, they're seeing a bunch of duplicate listings, and they're seeing fraud listings, that are listings that aren't real, which I get it. But I've set up probably 2000 different accounts at this point. Wow. And I knew every step, so I was like, What's step on my missing then how am I getting in the same category as a fraud account? Like? Yeah. And the only real answer is, they said, maybe because I was a co host, and I didn't have any real accounts on the actual cohosting account could have triggered it.

But yeah, make sure you're verified is the number one thing really, like, I think one thing I learned is making sure your profile is like your driver's license, and your phone number and your, your photo looks like your driver's license, make sure that's like 100%. Verified, yeah, then you can go in and change it to like a business name and a big business logo.

Okay, that's good to know. I mean, I would imagine, after this, you probably started thinking, though more like what were what we talked about what people like Mark from Boostly, that, you know, is very prevalent within your, you know, the smaller side of property managers, but that you can't build your house on someone else's land and the danger that that presents to you. And did that change how you looked at the business?

Airbnb for listening, it's just a truth. If you're listening now, they know I tell them all the time to be on. I'm like, super honest and vocal about my decisions, right? Like I said, Airbnb has been absolutely amazing to me and built my entire business in my career. Never in a million years that I ever think I would have to think outside a platform. I just never, it never crossed my mind. I was like, why would I'm so busy as it is, I'm booked all the time. Like, I don't need to think about that. And then when I crashed, I was like, oh,

yeah, we're talking about Yeah. And I think that's how most people are to be honest, I think there's and that's what when, you know, kind of goal we've had on the podcast is just trying to open people's minds to understand that you know, the concept of don't build your house on someone else's land, because you never know what could happen. And even though you think right now you have all this business coming in from Airbnb, you know, they could change their rules, they could change their commission, they could change a multitude of things that even you being that connected on a high level with them, you have literally no control over what they do. I mean, they are a behemoth, you know, industry giant that they're not really they're not going to be paying attention to what is going to make a difference for you. So that's that's the challenge of the OTAs all of them when they're all the same in that respect.

Yeah, it was a huge eye opener to say an understatement for me to go like yeah, building on someone else's land. I was like, Okay, why am I buying my own homes? And I'm not thinking that same mindset stuff, right? Right. Yeah. Luckily Mark at Boostly has been just the most amazing human ever has.

He's brilliant. He is brilliant. So what is what is it what does it mean to be an Airbnb ambassador? So I mean, you you clearly I would think it's you're carrying their flag and singing their their praises. But on the flip side, I mean, obviously you have to look out for your business too. So you've got to find balance and and so how do you manage that and like, you know, again, what does it look like to be an Airbnb Ambassador?

Yeah, so the short story The Airbnb Ambassador program was Airbnb. Be saw a lot of new hosts that would join the platform and then fall off, they would either get really close to launching, or they would launch one time. And then and they'd be like, Whoa, this is way harder than I thought it airs or whatever. So, ask a super host program, let's say, you know, somebody wants to join, and they either join with my link, or they go on Airbnb, and they're like, Okay, where do I start, and there's a thing that says, Ask a super host, they can click on that they can be attached to me, as an ambassador, super host. And then once they start to build out their profile, they I get to see their profile as they build it out. So they're like, Hey, I'm having questions with pricing, or how do I upload photos, or it's mostly, like, really common questions. And I could see the listing as it's getting built out, and kind of like, be a bigger brother or hold their hand and, and kind of like, guide him through that. And, and kind of teach them everything that I'm doing from the very ground level. It's like, okay, this is what you guys got to really think about. And then when they launch, they get their first booking. And then that's it, then they're my part of the ambassador part is done. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah. So you're like the subject matter experts for the people wanting to start out? That's, that's that's really the process. really cool. Yeah. So

I think a lot of the questions are so a lot of the questions I had when I was starting, like, Am I doing this right? Do I need a permit for this? Like, so it's cool to be able to get somebody the foundation built really solid from the beginning?

Yeah, absolutely. So what is the process look like now with Boostly, you're doing a website with them? How has that been going?

I mean, I'm not gonna lie. Direct booking was like the scariest thing on earth. For me, it seemed like, oh, I can't blame the platform or something happens. I have to do.

Yeah, different shifts and responsibility.

Fully.But I'm so excited. I think it's like, the best thing I've been working on. And Mark has been an absolutely like his whole team at Woosley have been so hands on. Really helpful taking all of my, you know, my current website, all my photos, my descriptions and putting it in. And hopefully it will be launching, launching soon. Which, that sounds really exciting. Yeah.

Are they going to? Did they help you then market the site? Or what's your plan to now take it and actually use that as a driver?

Yeah. Mark has all kinds of free stuff that he gives out on like, how to get direct bookings, right? Social media and stuff. Yeah, yeah. So I do that quite a bit. And then, like I said, I'm kind of a nerd with that kind of stuff. Anyways, I like social media. And I love Google ads. And

yeah, you can do that on your own then. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.

That is a concern. Still, it's like, how do I get those? Those bookings? You know, a lot of return guests are family and friends that come back. Why not just direct book them? saves them a little money? It's more money for me, maybe, you know, easier. Yeah. That was the learning process. But I can't wait to learn. I'm super excited. Yeah,

yeah, absolutely. One of our favorite tools is a product called flip two. And I know Mark is big fans of them as well. But if that's something that you haven't looked into, I would recommend it because that that one builds your email list. That's people coming on your site, when they searched are prompted to give their name and email and then that puts them into a remarketing cadence of emails. And if they book then they're taken out of those but has a really cool process that after the guest checks out, they're also prompted to submit a story from their stay with a with a picture. And then now this also builds your own owned assets of media from your guests have like really great pictures when we get several of our brochure covers for the last few years have been pictures have come through this program. And that that's that alone has been huge, because in our market, we all use Shutterstock and the same stock photography. So to be able to have our own unique content, like that has been great. And just to curate it very affordably. But that's that's definitely something I recommend looking into.

100% That sounds awesome. I'll definitely look at that. Yeah,

yeah. So what's what's next on the horizon? I mean, what are what are your goals for the rest of the year? I mean, not launching the new site, obviously. But where do you see Hilde Homes going? Within the next year?

Love that questions? Always a good one right. Direct booking is like a huge focus of mine You know, I teamed up with Mark and then I teamed up with SuperHog for like the background checks.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, we love SuperHod

that was like one of my scariest fears really? Am I what about this whole security background? Yeah,

they do a great job with it. Yeah, yeah.

I love that you guys use them that makes me feel even more better?

Yeah, no, there we love Leo. I think they've got a great product that is it's affordable and it just It makes a heck of a lot of sense. So I think they've really played a big role in being able to help Airbnb and people that use Airbnb do so, you know, safely and professionally. But what about I know you, you're president of the Rent Responsibly chapter of your area to tell us a little bit about that experience.

Yeah, I feel so honored to be a part of the voice of the community when it comes to policy and regulation. So I'm gonna have to call Dave again and like fully find out but somehow Dave from Rent Responsibly reached out to me, and we started talking about policy. And then he reached back out and he's like, Hey, Arizona, has a lot of policy stuff going on. You should you should be a voice. And I'm like, No way. I'm way too scared. policy and public speaking and government stuff that's way over my head, like, yeah, no, no, you'd be good. So somehow, I did it. And we started a group out here. And we have like an awesome board, awesome, awesome board that everybody does such a great job. Our president Linda, she has one listing, and she's like a rockstar. It's just mind blowing to me. And our goal is just to educate and teach people, you know, to be a good neighbor, good policy, be able to speak up when laws are presented, and, and be a voice at the table. A lot of times these bills get passed, and they don't even talk to the host. They have no idea what the bill even means. Yep. One thing I learned was talking to these people, they were like, so what's the bill about? I'm like,

Yeah, you need to know. Please find out. Yeah, yeah, as one of my favorite quotes, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu, when it comes to, you know, legislative things, and it's very much true. And it's just been surprising to see we've had we've gotten pretty involved I would say with the advocacy side with just within the last few months of doing the podcast and it's it's so much more interesting to me now than it ever was because I'm hearing from people like you and all over the world. We're talking to you that they're running into these restrictions that are just crippling their businesses and most of it is mis misinformation or like you said they just don't even know what's in the bill. But it's a lot of misinformation. And that's where, you know, our whole premise of We Are Not Airbnb came from because we want to make sure that what we do is differentiated but I mean, you're you are like us you what we're saying is that we are not the whole industry is not bad apples and Airbnb is a platform, but that's not its platform you use but it's not you. I mean, you are Hilde Homes that is providing exceptional guest experiences and using the best technology to make it professional. But there's a lot to do on the education side. And I think, you know, a lot of us have said it needs to be VRMA that steps up and really solidifies what that brand looks like for professionally managed vacation rentals, saying professionally managed vacation rentals isn't the easiest or Sexiest way. I mean, there we might need to even just rephrase how we refer to ourselves when we're having this conversation so that it's something that's that's stickier because I think right now it's just it's not sticky and it's easy just to group everybody together as Airbnb

ever question for you, John, actually, and it's something that we talk with a lot of our guests about and wrestle within, in our day to day is that there is a there's there seems to be if you're in an urban area, you are a short term rental. If you're in a vacation destination, you are a vacation rental. What do you see yourself as?

That's a good question Annie

good one. Good one. Man, that's a good one. I've never had somebody asked me that. Um, it's so weird because even in just Scottsdale alone, I hear both terms. Yeah. All the time. Right. short term rental vacation rental. Wow. And yeah, that's that's a good I would say Malibu is definitely a vacation rental spot. Destination destination. Yeah, yeah. But I would say I'm like a hybrid, I guess a little bit to be honest, because Scottsdale is a big vacation destination. But in the community, everybody says short term rentals. But as a guest side of things, they say vacation rental. Yeah, that makes sense. So yeah.

I think that that's where, you know, like the definition sort of gets muddied and in people living in and I know there's, there's another gentleman, I see him on LinkedIn, that has rentals in Scottsdale area and he was commenting about how he was kind of concerned about the market kind of going like down in terms of rentals. And so I started giving him just pointers, like, here's the things that you could be doing to engage in your destination and have better experience and market yourself and there was things he didn't think about. And so I think that you know, he's operating from a place of I have a rent Well, that is short term. And I'm not thinking about it for a vacation rental standpoint, in that I need to create an experience or a reason for people to when they stay in my rental, what are they going to do in the local community. So I think that that goes into the local community's perception is that you're just having transients come and go all the time. You know, there's nobody in there's nobody taking care of this house. And so I think in the perception becomes reality, and then that reality is what ends up framing some of this these regulations that are happening, and then what we're seeing and even you know, I live in Florida, it's and it's important, you know, vacation rentals, that rentals and overall, but if you knew just vacation, that our state is all about vacationing, we are a destination, but the amount of regulation that they're doing preemptively, because somebody's got a bad rental next to them or a there's a bad steward of the rental business. I think there's a definition that needs to happen. I was just curious as to how you saw yourself. So it's good to know. It's a head scratcher.

Yeah, that

is a head scratcher. And I I've probably now that you say more like that. I'm definitely more on the vacation side, because I love teaming up with like, the surrounding areas of activities, like, good three of my homes are, like I said off the beaten path. So you can do horseback riding, ATV riding, kayak down the river, like stuff like that. But I can't provide all that. So I reach out to all the locals near me. Right? That's like the vacation. Yeah.

Is there a? I'm sure there is. But are you involved with the DMO or CVB? Chamber, whoever it is set up in your area to do promotions with them?

No, I'm not. And I keep saying I want to get more involved in that. But I just been so consumed with policies.

Yeah, I was gonna say you're already you know, and I bet if you reached out to them, I bet they would love to talk to you. Because you're you're so involved in the rent responsibly in the advocacy stuff, I mean, that you would probably be a great resource that they, they would see a lot of benefit of having you at their table conversations, too. That's that's, I mean, there's so much even even on our side, there's still a lot of misinformation and just people just looking at vacation rental businesses as a short term rental businesses as different than regular hospitality players. But you know, in a market, if you're collecting bed tax, or in our area, it's dollar night tax, whatever it is, that's it doesn't matter. I mean, short term rentals fall into that category. So you definitely want to make sure that as a DMO, that you have relationships with those providers, because that's the money that they get to spend to advertise. So

yeah, and the hotel business out here, obviously is extremely strong. So there's Yeah, yeah, tourism, like, Branch, and I don't know what they call it really. I'm trying to get my my seat at the table over there. But the hotel lobby, people don't really want me sitting at that. Yeah.

I can understand that.

Try though. I keep trying.

You keep keep doing what you're doing. You have a good voice, and you're doing it in a follically. And you're not trying to be bombastic about getting your voice heard. So you just keep doing it. And it'll make a difference. Yeah, for sure.

I think one thing that we talked about, I can't remember which episode this was, but we talked about, as far as the short term rental vacation, conversation goes, all vacation rentals are short term rentals. But not all short term rentals are vacation rentals. And that's kind of how we've, we've broken it down. Because we've had some people ask us, they're like, What do you mean, they're different, we're like they are and they're theirs. They're the same, but they're different. It just depends on which area you're in. And yours is an interesting one, because you're urban, but you're also destination at the same time. So like Sarah and Annette, their podcast and their business, they're in Cleveland, I think, which is definitely a vacation destination, but same time people visiting there for sporting events or anything else, that could be a vacation and why they're there. So you know, in some ways, it shouldn't be as black and white between the two, but you just have to, you know, we're all working towards the same thing. And we're all building the same reputation as an industry. So that's why it's important to work together.

Yeah, totally. I love that. I actually want to even bring that up to our short term rental board. Right? And be like, Hey, should we be having the message a lot more vacation?

Yeah. And because I think it's better received, to be honest, I mean, I think vacation rentals doesn't have as much of the connotation of short term rentals does and yeah, it could be that that's maybe the better way to to classify it, you know, when you're having those conversations, but

yeah, I like that a lot. Definitely. Gonna start using that more.

So Well, thank you. brought it up. Well, John, we have thoroughly enjoyed getting to hear more about what you're doing out there and heal the homes and I think you're you're definitely one of the stewards of the good apple group that we want to promote. And did you say you are gonna go to VRMA this fall are you think about it. That's

my that's my plan. I'm going to one in Austin in September with a handful of the ambassadors. Awesome. We can get together and go over there. I think it's I forgot the name of that one off the top my head now, but yeah, definitely.

Yeah. Well, let us let us know if you go to VRMA this fall because I think love to meet you in person. Yeah. And we want to make sure the association sees and meets people like you that are doing it. Right. So happy to make the introduction. Yeah.

Yeah, we're trying, man. We're trying. It's like, it's, I mean, you can't knock people that they don't know what they don't know.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's it all of it comes down to miscommunication misinformation. Yeah, opening up those channels to communicate the opportunity. Awesome. Well, if anybody wants to contact you, John, what's the best way for them to reach out?

I'm really active on Instagram is the most common which is this. John Hildebrand at Sikhi or John Hildebrand Sikhi. Or just go to my websites is Hilde homes.com. And all my links are there. I'm pretty active on YouTube and Instagram most mostly,

yeah, awesome. We will include links for all those in the show notes. And if anybody wants to contact me now you can go to AlexandAnniepodcast.com And until next time, thank you for tuning in. Bye. Thank you.