Spotlight on Exceptional Property Managers: LIVE with 30A Beach Girls

Speaker 2: 0:38

Welcome to Alex and Annie, the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex and I'm Annie, and we are here today with the 30A Beach Girls. So good to see you. Thank you, holly and Lisa, super helpful to see you.

Speaker 3: 0:48

It's so beautiful to be home. Thank you for inviting us in and the chef's cooking behind us, yes.

Speaker 2: 0:54

It's delicious, absolutely. It's absolutely a gorgeous home and so exciting to be here with you guys. Holly, we met earlier this summer, just got to learn a little bit more about your business and I think you just built up this incredible female empire here. There's gorgeous homes, but also a great culture within your organization and I think the thing that stood out to me the most we met was you really bring unique experiences to your guests, and I guess you know this area is known for just incredible vacations, but I think what you provide is kind of that next level. Yeah, we try. Yeah, For our audience that doesn't know, but tell us how you got started in the business, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 1:30

I actually got started as a housekeeping and maintenance company and we loved the service we were providing, but we just kept hearing from everybody there was something missing. There was something missing, and so we had guests asking us to do other services besides housekeeping, and then homeowners approaching us about you know, can you take it to this level? And it all started with the silliest texts where we would text the guests and say, hey, here's the type report and it was my way of getting in front of anything possibly that they needed for housekeeping or maintenance, so then it wouldn't be reflected negatively. Right, we wanted to be in that contact and it just snowballed from there and then it turned into a management company. And here we are 12 years later. Well, it's interesting because our business says the podcaster started from a text thread.

Speaker 2: 2:13

Yeah, literally yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:14

Throwing is amazing what you can accomplish through the podcast we always say after two glasses of wine.

Speaker 2: 2:19

we like to start flowing, so really good decision, really great ideas.

Speaker 3: 2:23

But, yeah, so you've been doing this now since 20, that was 20, 12. 12. Yeah, oh, my goodness and this I mean so I lived was to hop over from, I mean, in Panama city and just watching this whole area, just boom, it's just, it's been absolutely crazy. But one of the things that Alex and I have found and I I'm very prideful of it is that a lot of really brilliant ideas, companies, people have come from the panhandle. There's some really great leaders who have come up with really great technology, really great service levels, really great standards, and so I think you're a really shiny example of what the panhandle kind of puts out there to the rest of the world. And so I think that you should be very proud of that. For one, Thank you, but love to learn more about the culture that you put together within the 98 Beach Girls. Oh, absolutely, you know. It's all about bringing out everybody's inner talent. I guess you would say you know, everybody has that and wherever they like to shine, we just want to build that, and so Laura and I Laura is one of my employees, and when we started this in the beginning together it is all about, you know we wanted everybody to feel like our guests. It's not just a transaction on the VARBO or website. And so it was about leaving the flowers and leaving great amenities. And then, hey, it's your birthday, we're going to put up some balloons, you know, and all of those were provided and not an extra charge. You know so. And then, you know, you build on it from there. So that's what we like to do we like to find out what drives you, what drives you, so, what drives you the employees, and then it just all comes together.

Speaker 2: 3:51

Let's say, relationship is especially in a market like this where I'm sure you get a lot of repeat guests and they won't be repeat if you're not building those relationships with them. So the more that you can invest in them, you know, as you're just building a business model that just keeps repeating.

Speaker 3: 4:04

Exactly, and it's just asking those right questions. Yeah, but at the same time asking the question.

Speaker 2: 4:09

Asking the question.

Speaker 3: 4:10

Listening it's great to ask the question, but if you're not listening to the answer and I think that's what a lot of management companies who have not succeeded or growing or aren't establishing themselves within their customer base, to be repeat is they're not listening. They're asking that, they're just not listening. So we just were recently at the Darm Conference in December and there was a guest speaker there, Will Goddard, that wrote Unreasonable Hospitality and he spoke about that and I think you're. Another example of that Unreasonable Hospitality is that you were giving so much more than anybody expected, that surprise and delight which, from what we were talking about, hotel business, that's just common in the hotel business. But I think that vacation rentals are starting to adopt that and some of the earlier adopters of it. But that's what really sets you apart from your competitors. It is, you know, just like during Christmas time. You know, we put up Christmas trees in all of our homes. Oh, do you? Yes, we do. But then we take a one step further. Do your kids have a special character that they like? So we had one family that was traveling in and the kids love the Grinch. So we went and bought the four foot Grinch and we had Grinch all over the trees, oh my god. But then we made Grinch trees and we like bent them over and went, and went and went and those people are our guests to this day and that was eight or nine years ago and they still come back to this day and I was on the phone with one family and they love our pinup girl.

Speaker 1: 5:21

That's our local girl, and they just kept going on about it.

Speaker 3: 5:23

So I ordered all these pinup ornaments and they came in this Christmas and our whole trees covered with pinup ornaments. You know what I mean. So it's just you know. Like you said, it's listening and then just taking it that extra mile. Yeah, it goes the one way.

Speaker 2: 5:34

And then using the brand. I mean, that's not the one we're remembering, right? I think we're all in a crisis right now. Hashtag we are not Airbnb. That we all just kind of get popped into that bug bit, right? Sarah Bradford said on our show last week Airbnb is not a noun or a verb. But what we do is a service and it's creating memories, building relationships. Lisa, you're in the revenue side of things. This has been an interesting year. I would say it has been.

Speaker 3: 6:00

Yeah, so I'm retired from the hotel industry until I met Holly and I brought my own home onto her program and after interviewing a number of property management companies, you can see why I made my decision.

Speaker 2: 6:13

So cool yeah, and then you got a job out of it. Double the fun. So I joke.

Speaker 3: 6:17

I wear the ball cap this way when I talk to Rose.

Speaker 2: 6:24

And then I flip it around and figure out how we accomplished something at home.

Speaker 3: 6:29

So, yeah, I should have probably gotten my hobby before I retired, right, I didn't know what to do, what to do, and so just all kind of fell in place and I sold large platforms, enterprise level platforms, to the hotel industry for channel management distribution.

Speaker 1: 6:44

Yeah, and it just kind of worked out.

Speaker 3: 6:46

Yeah, it worked out really well because during COVID, obviously we saw a lot of demand there wasn't a huge increase in supply and so it was really a perfect market for property manager to grow and to take these kinds of risks and create memories during a time where we needed it. And now that's transitioning into a more competitive marketplace and we're having to do things more like the hotel industry in terms of earning that business and not just setting a rate and expecting a Saturday to Saturday.

Speaker 2: 7:15

Exactly, yeah, yeah, so lead times and you know the whole market is changing. Now do you deal with the homeowners if they have questions on pricing and why you've made certain decisions, or is that a more proper Well?

Speaker 3: 7:26

all hill owners are created, not created right, we know yeah, and so there are some property managers that have great relationships, just like we have with guests that you know texts at any time of the day or night for quick answers. And then there are other hill owners, depending on their background, that want to dig in deeper and they want to talk about rest park, and then I can just call you see. Yeah, I've been training for this I'm ready for it. One thing that we found and I came from the hotel business too, and so when I was in condominium and back in the late nineties and then the early 2000s I mean we were using all the hotel thought processes, but it was easier because it was condos. When you deal with homes it's a little different I found there was a lot of rigidity within people who were from the hotel side trying to adapt to vacation rentals and vice versa. But the vacation rentals, understanding that you needed to be dynamically priced and really understanding what the market was doing, not what you wanted the market to do, could not agree more, and I think owners in the hospitality industry are different than owners of properties, right? So, depending on their background. It's easy to enjoy the great times of COVID and want that to continue. In terms of revenue production, absolutely yeah, and if there's a lot we wouldn't want to hold on to, for sure, and I think not believing that that is the new norm has been the hardest. It's a big challenge and I think one of the things, as you said in key data webinars or any of the webinars in our industry, is that you know you hear continuously about rate pressure on rate, yeah, and while I think it's easy to say that rate is coming down, but depending on when your homeowner bought that home, right, that is the big factor. There are people that purchased here in 38, 10 years ago. They can move with those tweets yeah. The ones in the last 18 months not so much. Those are the ones that we struggled to, because we understand that maybe they went in with a very different expectation and we sort of have to be the handholder to say I'm sorry to tell you that it may not pan out the way you're expecting.

Speaker 2: 9:25

And those are probably the most challenging because we personally feel I was a homeowner and you weren't the one that sold it to them, but unfortunately you're having to deal with that unrealistic activity, do you?

Speaker 3: 9:35

say, expectations were just very false during that time. It was great. We call it a unicorn year. Yeah, great, beautiful, yeah, nobody would ever want to do it again. Exactly, yeah, exactly. I mean you can have the money without all the paint.

Speaker 2: 9:47

Do you sell real estate also? No, I don't. Do you work with the real estate community? I'm sure you're paying tax on it. Yeah, there's several.

Speaker 3: 9:54

That's one thing that we've really tried to focus on is that in various markets and I say this all the time because I was in OTA and channel management, so the revenue management component is really key but the problem is that you can't say it's the same in every market. Every market is different. You have to understand and just along the Gulf Coast, I mean, you look at 30A and just within 30A, alice Beach is different than we're using Exactly. So all of this and having the understanding and the nuances of all of that so you mentioned key data, so you use them Are there other platforms that you're using for your pricing? At the moment, we're using key data almost exclusively, because the market is shifting so much that this predictive pricing for me, I haven't found anything that really is on par with the client of data input that I require in order to make better decisions. Well, and that derived data versus screen data is so important, and I talk to people. I'll see them and they'll ask me well, what should I use? I want to use X, y or Z and I'm like, if you can get wherever you can get the best real data, the real actualized data, you want that first and foremost, but supplemented. I think every person that I've ever consulted with in the last 10 years is using key data and another wheelhouse or air DNA, or I'm going to leave some vendors out, but we've tried.

Speaker 2: 11:05

We've tried.

Speaker 3: 11:05

Yeah and. Ernest, if I were to work for you. But I think, at the end of the day, this is such a transition, yeah, and the hockey stick growth that Holly and 38 Beach Girls has experienced, combined with a vast amount of inventory, that the influx of inventory, those homes, even if they're beautiful and they're outside of the four bedroom and they're highly sought after if they're new to program, they're going. I call it a bill of year and I try to prepare homeowners. I think it's so important that you have the conversation at the beginning of the relationship, not six months into your no you don't take the real estate projections and then quietly just try to make that happen. I think you need to sit down and we talk about build year with every new homeowner that comes on to where they start. So it's really difficult to use a traditional revenue management system entirely. I can make some decisions and reflect on some of the pricing recommendations, but in general I'm a controller, so I need to have hands on it. Yeah, I always looked at that. It is just very much again, it's that hotel statement of don't set it and forget it. It's the same thing. It's the same thing. You have to have understanding of the market. It's a lot of gut instinct too, and it really is knowing you're her winners. So having that conversation from the very beginning is so important, and I don't think that enough people are actually doing that. I think that there's too many people and we've talked to quite a number of people that are in markets where there's a lot of the Airbnbers that do well, they've got one unit and they're the ones that are causing these huge fluctuations, right, because they're like oh my gosh, I'm so desperate, I'll sell it for $25 a night. You know they'll do anything, so how big don that likes to do that too.

Speaker 2: 12:35

Every work and whether we yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:36

I'll lead Don, but you don't want to be in that view behind her, right? Yeah, it is almost a question that some people just aren't comfortable. It's kind of like asking for the money and sell. Some people just don't want to ask for the money, so it's kind of hard to ask her. Who matters that question? But you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to know where they're coming from.

Speaker 2: 12:52

Absolutely. What about other software vendors, like? What else is part of how you make this whole operation run.

Speaker 3: 13:01

We're with Streamline. We love Breezeway. We do. We're with all of our task management. We get and say we could be more happy with Breezeway. Yeah, we use Slack as well. Yeah, okay, thanks, out there, now we have. So how many units are on Probe River? 167. 167, that's a large number, especially when you're dealing with large homes and the traffic. Yeah, there's a sprawl.

Speaker 1: 13:22

The sprawl yeah.

Speaker 3: 13:24

What's the distance between your furthest? So we have a couple on PCV and a couple on Miramar, so we've got about a 26 mile stretch, yeah, which could take you two hours to use some of the stuff. It's not too bad. Jumping out in 19 is the best. So we recently just relocated our office to Panama City Beach. We were in the middle of 38 and it's actually easier to get to every door. Oh yeah, from 98 being in here, yeah, and you probably try to make your morning run before everybody's up and going around for sure, yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:50

So behind us we've got an amazing meal that is being cooked.

Speaker 1: 13:54

I don't know if it's happening.

Speaker 2: 13:55

But it's hard to talk my business one. Yeah, I know I'm like, oh yeah, I know.

Speaker 3: 13:58

I grow it when it says it's in Smell the leaves.

Speaker 2: 14:01

Is there a way to like?

Speaker 3: 14:01

introduce scratch and sniff on this Right, right. I'm excited to try stuff that smells really good.

Speaker 2: 14:06

Yeah, so this is just one of many experiences that you offer to your guests that they're able to book. Tell us a little bit about how they book this chef experience in the house.

Speaker 3: 14:14

So when people book with us, we like to reach out. If it's not somebody that has booked with us before, we like to reach out. What are you coming in for? We're not be for anything. It might just be for you know, to come in for a vacation or by the special occasion, but we just kind of start introducing them to things that we have. I would say Instagram is the biggest driver of everything that we do.

Speaker 1: 14:31

When you're in a special occasion. It's awesome yeah.

Speaker 3: 14:34

So a lot of people will call us and go, hey, set us up, we want a chef, we want a pontoon, you just do it, put it together, we're going to show up and we love that. We love it. We call it a trunque vacation. Yeah, whatever we can connect the dots with, we try to do it with them. And you do the jeeps too. Mm-hmm. Yes, yeah, I own several jeeps, yeah, and then we have Broncos as well, so we rent those out and we do package deals with all of it.

Speaker 1: 14:54

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 14:55

I think this definitely is on the list for a girl's experience. Oh sure.

Speaker 2: 14:59

Yeah, we got it. We know where to book next time. Yeah, yeah, we can have a dog meal, yeah.

Speaker 3: 15:02

We can bring in, you know, massage therapist officials. We do all of it. So I mean we haven't come across a question we haven't been able to do for somebody. Yet it's not on my quest. So you know what I would have done. No on that.

Speaker 2: 15:13

Because I love to ask for little votes Just to massage that. I don't know what advice for that. We ask the chef.

Speaker 3: 15:18

What is like craziest meal situation was what is then your craziest ask? Oh, if somebody I'm okay, a male stripper? Yeah, no, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay.

Speaker 2: 15:27

I'm okay.

Speaker 3: 15:27

I'm okay. I'm okay. They're very specific with what they wanted. We found it. I was like, okay, let me know what?

Speaker 2: 15:36

Yeah, I found it in that number of times. My four year birthday party was in that place.

Speaker 3: 15:41

I'm here at your house I tell you what it is. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:44

Ah, oh my gosh, oh wow.

Speaker 3: 15:45

That's awesome, that's reasonable yeah that's reasonable.

Speaker 2: 15:49

The votes. How are you booking those?

Speaker 3: 15:51

So we work with another company, so we just connect up with them. So we've got a special code that we use and we pass it onto the gas. So certain things they've got to book themselves because there's waivers. Yes, right, so we just share the information with them. Yeah, you definitely don't want to get in the middle of everything.

Speaker 2: 16:04

No, yes. What are you looking forward to the most in 2024?

Speaker 3: 16:08

Oh man, you know, growing the concierge part of the business, adding more to it, it's just really exploding for us. So you know, we've been talking to lots of corporations. We started before COVID so we had to kind of pump the brakes and then after COVID, everything blew up. So getting back to those ideas is what we're most excited about. So we had a really big fashion show, basically clothing retreat. That happened this fall and it was a huge success. They're doing it twice next year now so, and then we have an insurance company that's coming in, they're bringing all their top agents down. So we're putting that together right now. So those types of things. And we do it on the shoulder of the city. So it's another benefit to our homeowner. It's a time period where they're normally not going to see tourists who are booking, you know, seven, ten days. So very exciting. That is an interesting point in Hotel Mind. I'm sure you're thinking this too Like the group segment. Like I think that, yeah, I worked with a lot of religious groups and a lot of sports groups and a lot of things like that, but these homes are so large that you can do sales meetings and retreat, business retreats and church retreats and all these other things. So it's like I think that that's another piece of business that a lot of vacation rental and short-term rental companies haven't really tapped into. But, to your point, they'll come in those shoulder seasons I mean, convention time is the fall and the spring, and that's not when we're busy down here, exactly and then we have these homes that are right next to each other. So, that's kind of my strategy lately is to line these homes up next to each other. Everybody's right there, yeah, and then we've got the vehicle so you can drive around or give me vehicles. That's really, really incredible. So you guys, for the next year, what is your growth strategy? I mean, are you planning on doubling in size? Do you look at like only adding 10 or 20 units a year? What is your plan for that? I think we're going to get to 200, probably by the middle of the year, and I think at that point we're just going to kind of level up.

Speaker 2: 17:53

That's a great hammer yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:55

I think we just want to coast and kind of just. You know, you can also find a bigger way to do it. I've always been choosy about my homes, but now we're even choosier, if that makes sense. So there's a certain model that we want in our portfolio. There's some homes down here size-wise that are just saturating, and now that we know what that is for our portfolio, that's really what we're looking for.

Speaker 2: 18:14

What does that look like?

Speaker 3: 18:15

I mean from a revenue size standpoint, like what is the perfect home for you guys, the perfect home for us is, I would say, six plus bedrooms with the pool, close to the golf not necessarily on the golf, but it's multiple family and again it fits the corporation Anything. Six bedroom plus. I mean they're already booking out. We have several homes that are near booked out for the high season next year. And then having these corporate events coming and how do you guys handle maintenance? Because some of these homes I mean again, you have a family. I mean I walked around this unit and there's a lot of bugs, which is great. There's lots of children. So after, like, turning a home that quickly, do you have a break day in between your rentals? We don't, yeah, but thankfully I'm Marindy MacGyver, so rents are maintenance program. And then Lauren has been with me since day one and she runs our housekeepers and most of our housekeepers we've had since we were a housewife. We've had so many, oh, wow, we didn't have to hire any help in the last couple years. So we've had those housekeepers all this time. So everybody's in a good routine. So it's really nice to be able to depend on your people like that, yeah, and that's such an important component of the business that people struggle with. So if you find something that works, that's, you've got to take care of it. Yeah, even if it's me going OK, let's just go clean all the inside windows today.

Speaker 1: 19:23

Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3: 19:24

Just to keep them going. During off season you just want to create as much work as you can, but then that also goes into, you know, planning these corporate retreats and bringing all that in it keeps all of them working even longer. Yeah, yeah, it's wonderful that you're working with them.

Speaker 1: 19:35

It's a win-win for everybody.

Speaker 3: 19:36

Absolutely yeah. I think too many people just think, ok, we got high and we got low. And then I'm trying to think about how do we level it out to be steady all year? And we're seeing the shoulder seasons expand. Yeah, absolutely Over even the last. I mean I've been on board for what 18 months most? And I've seen a dramatic change as I look pre-COVID, yeah, to what these shoulder seasons are doing, what potentials and some of the more people I've seen. I think you know we live in this area, so we know that. The beauty of it. You know it's chilly today, but the golf is still cool. It's sort of cool yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:05

The beaches have used to be up there. Yeah, yeah, and you know eating it.

Speaker 3: 20:08

You know patio somewhere. There's so many beautiful restaurants here. There's so many little great boutiques. There's so much char. We grab a bicycle ride a little bonfire.

Speaker 2: 20:16

Yeah yeah, there are very few 30s in the country.

Speaker 1: 20:20

So very good.

Speaker 3: 20:21

I mean, there's not many best sashes Thank goodness. Do you want things to expand outside of your room? Yeah, it's one of those items that you have in the back of your mind.

Speaker 2: 20:30

I would love to, yeah, I absolutely love to. Yeah, use the Beach Girls brands but, like, maybe with the different besties, beach Bunnies Exactly, I have those.

Speaker 1: 20:36

I have those yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:38

Well, I have to say I love your logo and you mentioned it's a pinup girl and my dad is a post-World War II child but he loves that whole era so I have to make sure I get him a sticker. It's funny. I've seen the logo around and it was so nice to finally meet you, Meet the woman behind it.

Speaker 2: 20:53

Thank you for inviting us into this beautiful home. Thank you so much for having us. We're excited the food is starting to smell.

Speaker 1: 20:59

It's ready to consume.

Speaker 2: 21:02

We're very excited. Thank you guys so much for having us here today. It's pleasure meeting you both. Best wishes for the new year to everyone. Thanks, thank you very much.