How Vintory are helping the STR industry

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Transcript from the Episode

[00:00:00] Mark: Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. And welcome everybody to the boosty podcast. The number one podcast in the short term, retinals in hospitality industry. When it comes to marketing and today we've got a very special live recording of the boosty podcast, where we are going to talk about. And we're going to explain to you.

[00:00:18] Mark: How to grow from zero to 500 properties in just five years. We've got a future best selling offer on the call with us. It's welcome to the boosty podcast experience let's get started. All right. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome, Brooke. Thank you so much, uh, for, for being on the, on the call. Withs on the boosty podcast experience with us live.

[00:00:37] Mark: Uh, so what we're gonna do today in this live podcast recording, we're gonna dig into a couple of things. We're gonna go through some awesome things, and we're gonna talk about your new book. That is, is, uh, is going to be readily available to everybody. And it's one that I do recommend everybody checking out.

[00:00:51] Mark: Let's go get this to the top of the Amazon best sellers, because it's gonna be very popular. We're chatting off air and we're talking about Viner. Um, Sort of exposure in the UK and Europe. And this is so exciting to me. You're like, this is something that we, we need to grow. We need to get more of. So, um, before we go any further for everybody that's tuning in for you're watching live.

[00:01:11] Mark: And if you are watching live, we have a hashtag live in the comments. And if you're watching live, we have a hashtag replay in the comments as well. Please. Can you tell me a little bit more about yourself, about Ventry? Uh, give a little very quick promo and plug to the book, and then we're gonna dig into set 10 simple steps to go from zero to 500 in just five years over to you.

Introduction to Brooke and Vintory

[00:01:30] Brooke: let's do it. Well, mark. Thanks for having me. I super excited to be here. Uh, yeah. So quick little background about me. I've been in the vacation rental space for about 14 years. Uh, started a little company called vantage resort Realty in ocean city, Maryland, which is about three hours east of, uh, Washington DC.

[00:01:46] Brooke: And, you know, grew that company pretty quickly, uh, grew that company from zero to 500 properties in, in five years, uh, exited back in 2013. Just have, you know, led some other, uh, companies, uh, in the vacation rental space. But most of my career in the vocational space has been focused exclusively on growing inventory that has been, uh, what I, I really enjoy.

[00:02:08] Brooke: Uh, and it's something that I've been, you know, blessed to be, you know, pretty good at. And, uh, about three years ago, launched a inventory and the idea of inventory is to help kind of level the playing field to help professional vacation rental managers grow their, I. So we don't do anything with guests.

[00:02:23] Brooke: We don't do anything with OTAs. We're not doing anything with operations. We focused exclusively on the supply side, right? We exclusive, we, we, we help professional vacation rental managers add more properties into the rental program and that's it. And in the last three years, we've, uh, we've helped over 300 companies with our inventory acquisition and growth plan.

[00:02:41] Brooke: Uh, and I would say we're, we're the best on the planet of, uh, of doing that. And, uh, about a year ago I started. Uh, I realized I had so much content, cuz by the way, if you go to our website, we have so many resources, so many webinars, so many videos, so many blogs, so many infographics dedicated to helping Al managers grow their inventory.

[00:03:01] Brooke: And I said, you know what? I've got all this content. Like wouldn't it be nice to kind of build it and put it into a book? Uh, so about a year ago, went through that process, uh, of, of writing a book and pulling together all that information and it just launch. You can hear it here first. It actually just launched over the weekend and it is available on Amazon.

[00:03:20] Brooke: So please, uh, go to Amazon, download a copy on Kindle and please leave review. And by the way, 100% of the proceeds go to charity. So, uh, this is not a profit center for me. Uh, this is the help, you know, kind of just tell the world of how to, you know, grow their inventory. Uh, and again, level that playing. Um, and that's, uh, that's where we are today.

[00:03:40] Brooke: I'm super excited to be here. Uh, today. This is the first podcast since I launched the book. So I feel honored. Thanks,

[00:03:44] Mark: Mike. Well, thank you very much for coming on it and, and telling everybody about it. So the, the, the title, can you just give us the, the, the quick title so everybody can go search it while they're listening or watch into this?

[00:03:52] Mark: Yeah,

[00:03:52] Brooke: yeah, exactly. So from zero to 500 properties in five years, uh, a playbook on how to grow your short term vacation rental. I.

[00:04:02] Mark: I think every good book needs to have the word playbook in it. So I feel , I can, I can totally bounce on top of that, which, which, which is awesome. So what we wanted to do today, um, for again, if you're watching live, please do leave a hashtag live and let us know that you're tuning in live.

[00:04:15] Mark: What we wanted to do is we wanted to dig into the, the 10 simple steps. So it's gonna be a core feature that runs throughout the book. I've had a quick skim and I can see it. And I, and I'm excited to dig into it further, but there there's 10 like sort of simple steps and, um, We had a quick chat to it beforehand, and there's definitely 10 things that we can do.

[00:04:33] Mark: And we don't wanna give the full game away. Cause we want everybody to go and get the book, which is obvious. But, um, what we're gonna do is we're gonna dig into 10. Um, we're gonna start with messaging and we're gonna end with, uh, target realtors and influencers, which is an awesome one. What I love about yourself and I have done a bit of research.

[00:04:48] Mark: I've watched a couple of videos, a couple of podcasts that you've been. and there is a lot, which, which is awesome, but you, you come at this from SP speaking my language, which is marketing and some of the things that you really delve into, they, they, they mirror it and they lap over so nicely with what's in the.

[00:05:04] Mark: Which is in the book, direct playbook and everything that we talk about here and all of this isn't specifically talking about, uh, appealing to guests. This is about talking to landlords and management companies. There's so many things that you can listen to what, what Brooke's gonna talk to us about, and you can just repackage it up and go, okay, I can do this for guests.

Inventory is messaging

[00:05:20] Mark: So it's, it's so cool. And, and this is why it's really exciting. So the floor is yours. We're gonna go into number one. So number one of number 10 of, of simple steps to, to grow your vacation. Rental inventory is message. So, can you just please focus on this, uh, expand on this and how is this one of the first steps of 10?

[00:05:39] Brooke: Yeah. Well, we're gonna have to go fast, so let's, let's do it. Um, first up comes down to messaging, right? And the first thing we do whenever we sign up a new partner comes on our rental pro or comes into our program. Is we, we build out the key messaging blocks, right? Um, and this is, you know, there's seven key messaging blocks.

[00:05:56] Brooke: And if anybody emails me, Brooke, inventory.com, Brooke, with an E uh, I will, uh, I will send you, we actually have an infographic on this and I'm happy to share it with you too, mark. And you can make, make it in your show notes. Um, but it starts out with unique selling proposition. What is it that sets your company apart?

[00:06:12] Brooke: What is the one thing? What is that one thing that sets you apart? Uh, for if it was shoes like Toms has a great one, right? Buy one, you know, uh, give one, um, up next comes out to features and benefits. What are, what are those features and benefits within your company that make you unique and make you different?

[00:06:28] Brooke: Right? Highlight those. It could be revenue management. It could be. Uh, whatever it happens to be, let's highlight those different, uh, features and benefits. Um, up next is trust icons. So trust icons would be, if you're an Airbnb super host, if you're a VRBO, premier partner in the United States, you know, they have the better business bureau.

[00:06:47] Brooke: If you're an, a plus on the better business bureau, you might wanna highlight that. Um, what are some things it's, it's gonna, it's a form of social proof that reduces friction, right? It's just, it's establishing trust and credibility with your company. That you're a real company, uh, and they're gonna trust their, uh, you know, one of their largest assets with you up next is social proof.

[00:07:06] Brooke: So these are, uh, testimonials and references and quotes. From owners, other owners in your rental program, um, you typically want to do this and make it seem very similar to them. So if you do start doing some hyper marketing, uh, hyper targeted marketing, let's say specific buildings or areas you want the quotes and, uh, references and testimonials to be from people that look like them sound like them, maybe in the same community, same building.

[00:07:31] Brooke: Um, up next is a compelling offer. I always have my, my acid test for compelling offers are you're standing over a trash, can envision a prospective owner standing over a trash, can reading his or her mail and they're looking flipping through and they see your postcard. Is, is there something in there that's gonna have them kind of stop and pause and put that postcard aside and, you know, call, wanna call you back later and not throw it in the, uh, recycling bin or the trash can, um, you know, examples of compelling offers is, you know, free, smart home package.

[00:08:03] Brooke: Or, um, you know, maybe it's a 0% commission for the six month for the first six months, something to catch their attention. And, um, one of the last ones here is risk reversals. So Vacasa has a, a pretty decent risk reversal. They say that they are going to well risk reversals reduce the friction in the buying process.

[00:08:22] Brooke: So Vacasa is says we will beat your, uh, current manager's numbers, uh, rental income by $5,000. Um, you know, or we'll, you know, refund you the difference. And there's a lot of fine print in there. Uh, evolve has even a really, really good one. It's a, it's a six month, uh, guarantee, uh, where they say you can cancel at any given point or that you can cancel and they will give you a refund of a hundred percent of their management fees.

[00:08:44] Brooke: Now, if you read the fine print, it's only between month six and month seven, but I, it just sounds so great. If you can imagine, you know, you're reading that postcard or you're going through a presentation with them and they say, look, what do you have to. You can cancel and we'll give you a refund of your management fees.

[00:08:58] Brooke: So that's a great example of a risk reversal. And this is the, the one, the last one is call to action CTA, right? You know, all about this, mark it, like, what are you driving them to do? Is it to, you know, fill out the form? Is it to, uh, call, is it to text? Give them a call to action, make it easy. Don't make them have to hunt for what they're you want them to do.

[00:09:18] Brooke: Um, and we like to give them multiple, uh, options. We like to give 'em QR QR code. We like to give. Uh, a phone number. We, we even encourage them to text, you know, some of the younger, uh, you know, targets might be more willing to text than actually make a phone call. Um, so you wanna give 'em as many options as possible on that, uh, that CTA, again, those are the key messaging building blocks.

[00:09:37] Brooke: And if you email me, I'll give you a template that any company, uh, anybody can use for their company. And what I like about this. Is, this is gonna be the baseline of all your marketing efforts, right? This is gonna be the baseline for your landing page. This is gonna be the baseline for your postcards.

[00:09:51] Brooke: This is gonna be a baseline for your, your marketing brochures you build. So you don't have to, you know, reinvent it every single time. You have those key messaging blocks there available for you and you just start rattling it off

[00:10:01] Mark: anytime you need it. So, thi this is what I love about this. Is that again, this is the prime example.

[00:10:06] Mark: Number one of. You can have this. So where it is speaking to a landlord or a property owner that you want to put your business in front of, but also as well, you can reverse engineer everything that's just been said. And you can have that as a key benefit of attracting, attracting guests, unique selling proposition features and benefits, trust icon, social proof, compelling offer, risk reversal, and tons of, of like click to actions, which, which is so cool.

[00:10:29] Mark: So this is how you can speak. And this is how you can get in front of. More people to grow your portfolio. What I wanna very quickly do is just pause the break before we go into number two and from anybody, if that's here and they may be on one property, or they may be on two properties or mean maybe at five and they want to get to get more.

[00:10:47] Mark: And there may be somebody that is sat here right now and going, you know what? I'm in my comfort zone three and fall, I may wanna stop right here. What would be the argument that you would give to them to say, listen, Add on a couple of these, because this is gonna be the true worth. This is why you need to grow.

Why do you need growth?

[00:11:02] Mark: This is why you want to get more. What, what would be something that you would say to somebody to say, this is why you need to grow? And this is the benefits from it.

[00:11:10] Brooke: Well, I mean, you're building the, the best way to build value in your business is to, to grow that business. We have something that's so special here with building businesses.

[00:11:20] Brooke: This is the, the way that you can build net worth and be hopefully, eventually becomes, uh, your legacy or it ends up becoming. You know your way of, uh, you know, funding your retirement. I mean, it's, it's, I love entrepreneurship and I love building businesses. This is the fourth business I've started. And I just love that, that you know, that building value.

[00:11:38] Brooke: And if you think about the value of inventory and what these properties are worth, the, the true value of a management company, mark are these management contracts. I hate to say it. it's, it's not your, uh, it's not your fancy wrap trucks or your cars. It's not your beautiful. It's not your guest database, although there is some value there, but the true value of the management company, when you get purchased, are these management contracts, in fact, uh, VI Casa, I don't know if you read it, but VI CASA's investor deck right before they went public.

[00:12:10] Brooke: And I, I love when these companies go public, cuz they have to release a lot of information and make it public. But they, they published that their average contract that they paid for when they bought, you know, through their corporate development team was $21,000 per contract. So to me, that gives a very good baseline of what these contracts are worth, but here's the, the, the, the great part, the Casa still had a 25% IRR internal rate of.

[00:12:37] Brooke: Post paying $21,000 a contract. So they're still making a ton of money even after paying $21,000 a contract. And if you look at, you know, some of the other purchases that have been made, I mean, when they purchased turnkey, they paid $103,000 per contract. We've been involved in some M and H transactions ourselves.

[00:12:55] Brooke: And we see some of these, some of these management contracts, these values per contract are 70 to $90,000 a contract. So that is the true worth, uh, of your company. And that is the greatest way you can build.

[00:13:07] Mark: So it brings me onto nicely, which is, which is number two. Cause the number two of number 10, you've got down as, as hiring a full-time BD rep, which I assume is business development.

[00:13:17] Mark: So this is somebody right now. Who's going, oh, hiring somebody really like, I don't really have the, the money to do that. I've been doing all of this myself, you know, or me and a partner have been doing this. I, I, I like to do this, but I'm also. Checking in the guests. I'm also doing X, Y, and Z. I'm building out the Ikea furniture.

[00:13:34] Mark: Like what is your argument? When you say to somebody, listen, you need to hire a full-time business development rep to do this. Yeah, and I, I,

[00:13:43] Brooke: I don't want to give so many different numbers, but if you hire the right person, it is worth it. Right. But the key is you have to hire the right person. And we'll talk about that in a second.

[00:13:52] Brooke: How do you identify who that right person is? But it's some very basic math. Uh, if you have a property that's doing $36,000 in gross booking revenue, the average margins that falls to the bottom line, and I've seen this, I've asked this over 200 times, it's 10% of your gross booking revenue. So if you're doing 36 K times 10%, that's $3,600 in margins or net profit per year, but the property doesn't stay in a program for, for one year, right?

[00:14:21] Brooke: It's it actually stays in a rental program for 10 years on average. That's what we see. And again, asking over 200 different companies, the average, uh, you know, uh, 10 is 10 years. So you think about that one, that one property is doing $36,000 in gross booking revenue has a lifetime value in net profit. Of 36,000.

[00:14:38] Brooke: So it's the exact same. So assuming you fall in line with the averages, 10%, uh, margins and 10% churn, which, uh, gives you a 10 year lifetime. You, the gross booking revenue equals your lifetime value. That's that's the quick summary hack, if you will, right? Whatever your gross booking revenue equals your, uh, your revenue.

[00:14:57] Brooke: So if you hire a business development person and let's say, uh, she, you know, you're paying her $80,000 a year. And if she brings on just two properties, per month that she, you wouldn't have had before. Now, the key here is that you wouldn't have had before that's 24 homes in the first year. So if you go through that same math, $3,600 and grow in, in profit margins in year one, uh, times 24 homes that comes out to 80, over $86,000, but you've paid her 80,000.

[00:15:28] Brooke: So you're almost about break even in year. But again, remember those properties are gonna stay in the rental program for probably 10 years. And when you go to sell it, you're gonna get, you know, uh, using the CASA's numbers. You're gonna get another $20,000, you know, per contract when you go to exit. Um, so the math pencils out, but again, the key though is if you hire the right person, so how do you identify, uh, you know, who is the right person?

[00:15:54] Brooke: I mean, I, I there's many different ways. But one of the, it's kind of like Moneyball for hiring it's psychometric personality assessments, and there's two, two different companies out there that, that I know of that do this. And I've been using this for close to a decade and I wouldn't hire a babysitter without using these, these tools.

[00:16:12] Brooke: So there's predictive index and culture index, and these are psychometric ality assessments that identify the core traits of what you're looking for and the traits and the, the profiles that we've seen. That make the grace the, the greatest, uh, uh, BD reps, business development reps. You're looking for captains on predictive index, uh, persuader, uh, is what they're called in both, uh, predictive index and culture index trailblazer is what they're called in culture index.

[00:16:40] Brooke: And then Maverick is a great profile and predictive index and a Rainmaker is a great profile, uh, in, um, in culture index. So again, you want to identify one of those and use one of those, uh, those five profile. Uh, to make sure that you have the right person. Now there's lots of different things. It depends if it's inbound leads versus more of a hunter, uh, somebody that's more of outbound.

[00:17:01] Brooke: Uh, but those are the profiles that we see that consistently have the most success when they're, uh, generating them. Now, if you hire somebody that doesn't necessarily have one of those profiles, they may be good. But you're rolling the dice. And I like to stack the cards in our favor, and that's why we use these psychometric personality assessments because we know time and time again, they

[00:17:19] Mark: work.

[00:17:20] Mark: I will make sure that I've written the comments in the links and the show notes and the blog, whatever we do, we'll make sure that there is a link to the predictive index and the culture index, because it's really important. This is something me personally, that I'm starting to dig into with, with boost Lee and, and, and hiring and just my own personal traits and whatnot.

Landing pages and data

[00:17:38] Mark: So it's really interesting to see two new ones to add to the list, uh, which, which will definitely ones I'll, I'll be, I'll be checking out, but I'll definitely make sure that we linked up. Um, so number three and, and number four. So obviously number three is, is we're talking about landing pages and, and data.

[00:17:53] Mark: I think number three and number four, pretty much speak for themselves. Number, number. As you will agree, you need to have a proper landing page, something that is optimized to speak to the owner, taking in, take into account. Everything that we talked about in number one, with data, obviously in, in the states and in, in, in Canada, it's a lot easier to get hold of, of this maybe in the UK and Europe as it's a little bit tricky, but for just free.

[00:18:13] Mark: And for if you could just give a super quick, like bounce through very quickly on what three and four is to you and, and why you included it in the, in the, in the book. . Yeah. So

[00:18:22] Brooke: what the lowest hanging fruit that we see time and time again, again, doing this over 300 different companies is they don't have an optimized landing page specifically for owner acquisition.

[00:18:32] Brooke: They, they spend all this time on the guest side, right? You, you, you know, they hire these great marketing companies to go out there and help 'em optimize their, their website for conversions. And then it's an afterthought on the owner side. But again, if you go through that math of how valuable these contracts are, You know, you start to realize how important it is.

[00:18:50] Brooke: So the first thing I would recommend is just put a, um, you know, put a, a, a different color link, a, you know, on the homepage, in the upper right hand corner to get that attention and then optimize it, make it really easy. So often they make it very difficult and very challenging to find out where to even go to inquire more information.

[00:19:08] Brooke: So again, you wanna, you wanna use those seven key messaging, uh, building blocks on that landing page, and there's so many different things you can do. I mean, I could do an entire episode just on. Uh, tips and tricks and hacks for building out a landing page. But I know we don't have enough time. We're going, we're going wide on this

[00:19:22] Mark: present.

[00:19:23] Mark: Well, I'm gonna give you a, I'm gonna give you an even bigger shortcut. Boley actually do websites for management companies and then have all that ready. If you wanna find that mark come to come, send me a messages. I'll hook you up. You can literally have it. It will be ready in 24 hours. And again, it's, it'll, it'll knock all that, that you need to do.

[00:19:40] Mark: One thing. I will quickly touch on that. So many people don't do this, but if anybody has ever read StoryBrand by Donald Miller. Um, he talks about this and market in made simple and business made simple. What I would personally be doing is I'd have a, I would have a domain just for your guest booking website, and I would have a separate domain for your management company.

[00:19:59] Mark: Keep it super simple. You don't wanna confuse anybody. You don't wanna confuse a potential property owner or, or landlord by sending to a guest booking site because they'll take one, look at it. They'll get confused. And they. So, again, it's super easy to do. You don't have to have one website that does everything.

[00:20:13] Mark: It's not a Swiss army knife have two separate ones. Your life is so much easier. So let's jump very quickly into number four before we then get into some of it I'm really looking forward to, which is number. . Yeah, so

[00:20:23] Brooke: data is fantastic. We're very lucky in the us, uh, to be able to get data. So there's a couple different sources you can go.

[00:20:29] Brooke: The first is tax records and it's often affiliated with MLS, um, services. Uh, that's the first place to go, cuz it's gonna be free most of the time. Uh, and it's gonna be the most up to date. Uh, if you can't get that, uh, go to list brokers, there's a million different list brokers out there. You just have to pay for the data, but it's pretty, pretty inexpensive.

[00:20:47] Brooke: Um, up next and again, in the United. There's something called the freedom of information act where if a city or township requires a permit, then they have to release that information. Some cities like Nashville, they make it super easy. You literally just go online and download it. It's simple as that. You can actually see the data straight on their website.

[00:21:06] Brooke: Others are gonna make it a little challenging. You gotta go down the courthouse. You give, gotta give 'em a check. You gotta I've actually had, 'em give it to us on a CD rom before. I mean, I don't even know who has a CD rom, uh, anymore, you know, to download it, but, um, you can get those vacation rental permit list, which is great data.

[00:21:22] Brooke: And then the last is you can scrape data so you can scrape, um, the OTAs. Uh, you can scrape your competitors, you can scrape, uh, large venture back conglomerates. Uh, and then the key is to pull all that data together. Uh, it's challenging. It's a whole bunch of steps and honestly, I don't even know how to do it.

[00:21:39] Brooke: That's why we hire a bunch of data. S. Uh, that do this and you can find them a great website, uh, freelancing website called Upwork. In fact, everybody on our data science team was originally hired as a contractor on Upwork. Now they work for us

[00:21:51] Mark: full. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. Well, you've got Upwork, you've got five, uh, online jobs.ph, uh, there's so many cool places that you can go and, and find amazing people that, that, that can do that, which is awesome.

[00:22:02] Mark: Right now, we're gonna really get into the nuts and bolts. So we've talked about the benefits of, so the benefits of having your very structured messaging, which is obviously how you're going to appeal to the right person. We've talked about the benefits of hiring a full. Business development rep because of the, that the actual value of each contractor is gonna be worth to you.

[00:22:20] Mark: We've talked very quickly about landing pages and about how you're gonna go to boost Lee to get one very quickly about data. But now this is where I feel like I could talk to you forever about which is the actual marketing. It's actually getting the boots on the ground, getting into the eyeballs, into the air holes of the people that you wanna be speaking to your landlord, property owners, et cetera.

Executive omnichannel marketing

[00:22:40] Mark: We're gonna go in number five. This is the omnichannel market. So can you just very quickly and we'll have to bounce through each individual. One, if you want more depth, you're gonna have to go get the book zero to 500 properties in five years, obviously on Amazon. Go get it now, but just for like a very quick overview of it and just give some very quick little bouncy ones.

[00:22:59] Mark: What is number five all about with executive omnichannel marketing?

[00:23:03] Brooke: Yeah, so the, the old days of sending out one postcard, uh, per year are dead, right? The, the today's most proactive. Vacation role managers are executing an omnichannel marketing approach and what that means. Is you're encompassing your, your ICP, your ideal customer profile.

[00:23:20] Brooke: You're hitting them in all different channels. And it has a boost effect, right? It's this definition of synergy one plus one equals three. So we start off with direct mail. So direct mail still works. It's one of the, the vacation rental industry is one of the few industries where direct mail still works.

[00:23:36] Brooke: But the key with direct mail is consistency. I'll say it again. The key with direct mail is consistency. I'd much rather. You know, a thousand postcards, six times throughout the course of a year, then just dumping 6,000 postcards once and being done, um, that that's, and there's a whole bunch of different things we can get into direct mail.

[00:23:54] Brooke: Obviously you want to have those key messaging building blocks, uh, in there. Um, up next is email, uh, email works too. Uh, this is one of the ones that really surprised. Um, we first campaign we did for one of our partners in Hawaii, he got two deals. Uh, average gross booking revenue was over a hundred thousand dollars per property.

[00:24:13] Brooke: And remember what those, what those margins are worth and what those contracts are worth. Uh, that was super valuable. And that was a great ROI from just doing cold email outreach. I will say you have to use a cold email outreach tool specific for this. Uh, and uh, some of the ones we recommend are mail shake and limb list, uh, to run that cold email.

[00:24:33] Brooke: Uh, and up next is PPC right? Paid ads, right? The, the, the problem with paid ads is, well, the fir the beauty of paid ads is it has high intent, right? The, the person that is searching for it is looking for something very specific. So it's a great lead, right. But the problem is. There's just so little search volume for this.

[00:24:54] Brooke: Um, so you need to cast as wide a net as possible. Um, we actually inventory our digital marketing team. We actually have 70 keywords that we use to be able to cast that really, really wide net. Um, we found those though. I'll give you the tip, what our team uses. We're using Ahrefs and SCM. To deploy that and really understand what those keywords are.

[00:25:15] Brooke: So again, you use a traps use SCM rush and make sure you're casting a really, really wide. Up next is list based retargeting. So this is through Facebook, uh, Instagram, and even LinkedIn. Uh, you can do this. This is where you get your list of your targets. Uh, if you have emails and phones, you can now start to serve up target ads directly to your tar, your ICP, your ideal customer profile.

[00:25:40] Brooke: Uh, and what we usually do is we do that maybe a week or two in advance of direct mail. We start serving up those display ads on their social feed, um, which is a great way to kind of, you know, prime the pump and warm 'em up a little bit. Uh, and then we hit 'em with a direct mail, another one that's, uh, this one's, you know, probably more in the us, but it's called IP targeting.

[00:26:00] Brooke: So I, I always joke that if the CIA were to get into marketing, uh, this is probably how they would do it. This is where they're able to actually get the IP address of your target. And you can serve up, uh, ads directly as they surf the web. So millions of websites, websites like CNN or the news stations or weather channel, or, you know, even local news sites, you can serve up ads directly to them.

[00:26:21] Brooke: And again, we'd like to co combine this, uh, in advance of those direct mail. Uh, you know, pieces that we're sending. And then one of the last ones here at mark is retargeting. So we know even the best performing landing pages out there, 80 to 95% of the traffic doesn't convert. So you wanna make sure that you have retargeting, uh, on your.

[00:26:40] Brooke: Uh, on your website, on your landing page specific for owners though, you, and what we recommend is just using Google tag manager, they can manage all your tags in one spot, make it really easy to do it. Um, and I'm gonna give you a little bonus hack here with this. So we've, we've been experimenting recently with what's called direct mail retargeting, and this is so cool.

[00:26:59] Brooke: So, uh, our postcards that we're sending out and most of the marketing that we're sending out actually has a QR code and the QR code sends them directly to a Pearl. If you don't know what a Pearl is, it's a personalized URL specific for that person. But here's the beauty of that. They go to that landing page, even if they don't.

[00:27:16] Brooke: Fill out a form. We know that they went to that landing page. Our CRM actually gets notification of that. We know that who went to that page. Now we can have all those workflows in our CRM and our marketing automation software that we can start doing follow up, uh, follow up marketing directly to 'em so we can send out another letter to 'em.

[00:27:34] Brooke: We can send some. Some gifts, some swag as they call it. Uh, we can send out, uh, you know, a text message. If we have their phone number, we can send out an, uh, another email. We can do all different things that are triggers based on them using that Pearl. Even if they don't fill out the form, we know they at least went to it, at least trying to check it out.

[00:27:51] Brooke: So that's a little bonus bonus, uh, hack there for you. Love it.

[00:27:55] Mark: So, um, you talk about we and, and whatnot. So Ventry is the tool. So could you just very, obviously what everybody's going get the. Well, this is something that I know that's gonna be people tuning in and I can see some amazing names in, in the lives like Mike, over in, in Arizona, we've got garden and Megan, we are in the states and Canada and whatnot, and we've got people tuning in from the UK, but thinking all of this sounds cool.

[00:28:17] Mark: But what you've just said, there is just a little bit too far out of my scope. So how does Ry help with this problem where they're thinking this all sounds cool, but I can't do this. So how does Ry come. .

[00:28:28] Brooke: Yeah. And, uh, so first off, you know, this is not meant to be a plug for us, but I I'm happy to help. And one of our missions from the beginning is to help every single vacation rental manager grow their inventory.

[00:28:38] Brooke: Uh, but I know how challenging it is. So if you don't have the bandwidth, you don't have the time to do this. We're happy to do it for you. This is all we do. Right? So inventory is a sales and marketing. That does one thing. And one thing only, and that's helping professional vacation rental managers grow their inventory.

[00:28:52] Brooke: So we have a team of 58 growth experts focused on exclusively this, right. We also have a CRM and marketing automation platform that we've built specifically for the vocational industry. Not only specifically for the VA industry, but specifically for owner acquisition. So I like to give the keys to the safe out, right?

[00:29:13] Brooke: I like to pass out and show everybody how they can do this on their own. I give you all the tips and tricks and tools and everything. So you can do this on your own. But I also understand that's really hard. Being a vacational manager is challenging. Uh, you're wearing 18 different hats. Uh, if you don't have the time to do.

[00:29:32] Brooke: Um, you know, we're happy to help you out there. We have plans that start as, uh, low as, you know, $300 a month. Uh, and we have some that go up to $2,500 a month where we do everything for you. Uh, so it really, we, we have built a solution that fits, uh, you know, every company, uh, out there.

[00:29:46] Mark: Amazing. Amazing. So go check it out.

[00:29:48] Mark: V I N T O R Y uh, dot com. It's literally behind, uh, Brooke's head there. So it's on his hat. So you can go check it out if you don't, how to spell it. So we've got number five, we've got five more to go and we will rattle through because obviously, um, we want to get everybody to go get, check out the book, but number six, And then this is what I think is, is key.

[00:30:08] Mark: And it's becoming even more key with every form of marketing. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna give you a bit of actual advice on when a, a management company wants to, well, sorry, a property owner or a landlord wants to get in touch, but for those of you that aren't looking to sort of grow your inventory and want to do something similar, you can apply this.

[00:30:25] Mark: And put it to if a guest has gotten in contact, so you can use this for both sides. Cause I know there's people in the comments that are saying we had, we had Lisa go, Hey, I, I accidentally became a host five years ago and I've got five, 500 blows my mind. So even if you're watching this and you're going well, I don't wanna get to 500.

[00:30:40] Mark: I don't wanna get more and more and more, but you wanna have a little tactic and tip and take a takeaway from this on how to get in front of a guest. This next step is key. So can you please, I've given you the big build up. What is number six? .

Speed and responsiveness matters

[00:30:51] Brooke: Yeah, well, it just talks about speed and responsiveness really matters.

[00:30:54] Brooke: Right. And we very often we will generate leads for our partners. Uh, we will generate these calls, but if you don't respond quickly, You are you're you're playing down. Right? So, uh, mark bearish, he was employee number three at HubSpot. He was their chief marketing officer. He's now a professor at Harvard university.

[00:31:14] Brooke: He teaches sales, Harvard. He says, if you call back a lead, all the data he has from HubSpot, if you call back a lead within two minutes, you are 10 times more likely to close it than waiting an. Think about that. And if you wait a day, you're 10,000 times more likely to close it versus, uh, waiting that one day.

[00:31:33] Brooke: So speed and responsiveness really, really matters. So we actually have a, a woman on our team, Jade Wolf. Who's awesome. She's secret shop, a hundred vacation rental management companies went to their owner, uh, landing page filled out a form, or she got the phone number for the owner acquisition. She called, do you know mark 34% of the time?

[00:31:53] Brooke: Did they actually answer the. So two thirds of the time, they'd never even picked up the phone. And then when she left a message, 57 per only 57% of the time, they actually called us back. So that means the majority of all the leads that are coming in are being missed. And it reminds me, it reminds me of that old, there's a quote from Woody Allen.

[00:32:11] Brooke: It says 80% of success is just showing up. So if you just pick up the phone, if you just answer your call, or if you just call them back, you're gonna be beating your competition out. And we see this time and time again, because every one of our. Uh, for all of our partners, we use very specific call tracking and we see it all the time.

[00:32:28] Brooke: We coach them on this and they still don't pick up the phone. So if you pick up the phone and you have a system in place to do it, you're gonna win. But here's the, here's the part that, you know, just drives me a little bit crazy when we secret shop the big boys, the SSAS and the turnkeys. Guess what? They had a hundred percent connectivity.

[00:32:47] Brooke: They're not better. They just answer the damn phone

[00:32:51] Mark: and, and, and again, this ties back really nicely to number two. And for those of you, people are thinking, well, how can I afford to hire a full-time business development rep? I think the thing that we should be throwing back to you is how can you afford not to, because with this, if you've got somebody literally on the phone doing this full time, and that call comes in, or that lead comes in, they're gonna be on the phone where yourself, like you say, 16, 18, All the things, all the things that you've got going on, plus as well, you wanna be able to grow the business the way you're not always picking up the phone or doing all the things you wanna be able to hire people.

[00:33:22] Mark: So again, think about number two and if you've missed the, the first part of this conversation, if you've jumped in at a random time where you rely on the replay and you're thinking, what was number two, do rewind, do go back and check that out because it ties in all of this really nicely. So talking about Ty nicely, number seven is getting a CRM with marketing automation.

[00:33:42] Mark: So can you just please expand on that a little. . Yeah.

[00:33:45] Brooke: I mean, again, if you almost every single management company, I know has a CRM for guests, right? Like that's a no brainer. Everyone does it. It's like, yeah, it's a given. But when you ask the average vacation rental manager, if they have a CRM for owners, 90% of the time, they say no, So I would say get one.

[00:34:03] Brooke: what, I'm not, you know, obviously inventory has a CRM with marketing automation built in, but it doesn't have to be us. Right. It can be Salesforce, it can be HubSpot. It can be Zoho, just get something. It could even be an, you know, Google spreadsheet just track your leads somewhere. Right? These leads are so, so valuable.

[00:34:20] Brooke: We found, and again, tying it back to kind of the marketing automation. We found that, uh, tracking this with our partner. Up to 50% of, uh, of our, many of our partners deals come from leads that were put into what's called a long term nurturing sequence. So let's say they inquired, you talked to 'em, they weren't ready to sign up right then.

[00:34:40] Brooke: You drag and drop 'em into a long term, uh, sequencing long term nurturing sequence. And you're just delivering little drips. Uh, throughout the time it's usually more informational, it's less, less salesy. Uh, and it, uh, it works. So again, track these leads again, we've established how valuable they are, um, and, and make sure you're, you're staying in touch

[00:34:59] Mark: with them.

[00:34:59] Mark: So we we're nearly at number 10, uh, but let's do eight and nine together. So leverage your effects and, and inbound marketing. How could you sort of just tie in why they're I.

Leverage effects and inbound marketing

[00:35:09] Brooke: Yeah. So leverage effects. What that means mark is like, what are some tools out there that you can leverage to make your, um, to make you more successful in closing more deals?

[00:35:19] Brooke: So a couple different ones that we recommend, uh, the, well, first off the inventory system has almost all the tools we just talked about. The inventory system has it built into it automatically, right. Uh, but if you decide not do this on your own, that's. Call rail is a great one for call tracking, right?

[00:35:34] Brooke: Every single marketing campaign you have should have a unique phone number on it. So you can track the response of it. You can track the, uh, the, the conversions, uh, and the response rates, uh, but it also is a great tool to have and track these calls, uh, in the future. So you can go back and listen to 'em.

[00:35:49] Brooke: So call rail, we highly recommend, again, the inventory system has it built in, um, uh, chat features? Uh, so there's this fundamental shift moving where people like to. Uh, communicate via chat versus email and filling out forms. So there's, you know, there's, there's many different ones out there drift, uh, I think is one that you can use.

[00:36:09] Brooke: Um, you know, and, and again, inventory system has chat about built, uh, directly into it. It automatically plugs the, the leads right into the CRM, uh, video recording. So loom is one that we use a lot. So let's just say you have a trouble, you know, getting a hold of a contact. You can do a quick little recording, the, uh, loom it's I think it's 10 bucks a.

[00:36:27] Brooke: Send that little presentation over to 'em. Um, it's amazing how much more impactful that is than just sending an email for 10 bucks. It's well worth it. Plus you can, you can show if you have a rental projection or performer, you can kind of show that and highlight that, uh, directly on there. Uh, meeting schedulers are, I mean, I think almost everybody's using those right now.

[00:36:44] Brooke: But a couple things, you know, put 'em on your landing page, you know, don't just have a form to fill out, actually put your meeting link directly on there. Or another hack that we always recommend with all of our partners is as soon as they do fill out the form have on like the thank you page, the confirmation page, have a, a link in there that they can schedule some time just to like save that back and forth.

[00:37:03] Brooke: Look, if they're interested enough to fill a. Give them the opportunity to, uh, schedule time. So you don't, uh, you don't kind of go back and forth, time kills all deals. And then again, inventory, uh, obviously our entire CRM and marketing automation platform was built from the ground up specifically to help Al managers grow their inventory.

[00:37:22] Brooke: All these features that we just highlighted, uh, you know, have, um, are built into our platform, native. Um, so we, we highly recommend, uh, you know, you check that out and then the last one here, you know, or not the last one, but number nine is inbound marketing. So I'm gonna contradict myself a little bit, right?

[00:37:39] Brooke: I talked about how all this outbound approach, uh, is, is, is so helpful to kind of get the leads and get deals. And it is, and you need to have it as part of your arsenal. I mean, even HubSpot, which is known for their inbound machine does outbound, uh, you know, marketing, but, uh, inbound market. You know, there's this fundamental shift where people like to, uh, they, they like to, you know, do all the research in advance.

[00:38:02] Brooke: And then they like to, you know, fill out forms and then they like to, you know, to, to sign up. They don't like to just being, you know, shouted out so to speak. But the it's really hard. It takes a lot of time. Mark. You do a fantastic job at this, but it's exhausting, right? It's it takes a lot of time and effort to do it.

[00:38:19] Brooke: So I always say the crack version, you know, the quick hit version of, uh, inbound marketing is to build out interactive content. So one of the best examples of interactive content, uh, I've seen is my, my buddy, Dave Vanga and smokey mountains.com. He built a fall foliage, uh, map. Uh, it's an interactive map, uh, on his website that you can see how the leaves, what the colors of the leaves will be in every part of the country.

[00:38:43] Brooke: Uh, based on certain, uh, days, and this thing gets so much traffic, it gets so many references from huge national like newscast, uh, USA, uh, you know, um, newspaper and New York times and wall street journal and all these different publications. And that's a great form. But if specifically for vacation rental industry, um, the ones I would re.

[00:39:04] Brooke: Would be, um, let's see, we have the interactive calculators. That's a great source, uh, to do this, you can actually build out interactive calculators on, uh, there's a great little widget called Konic. Uh, it's a calculator. If you can envision a calculator, you can build a, an interactive, uh, calculator around it.

[00:39:24] Brooke: You just embed the code right into your website. And it's a great way to, uh, you know, kind of capture, uh, traffic. And there's a whole bunch of different ways you can do, uh, you know, interactive content. To, uh, get that inbound marketing and get

[00:39:35] Mark: those leads. Lovely. Now, what I love about this and everything that you are stating is that with someone like Cal, it keeps your website sticky and the longer you can keep someone on your site, the longer you can drag that attention, it's gonna work in, in so many levels.

[00:39:48] Mark: And the. As, as you were talking, then the one book that I was coming back to was, was get different by, by Mike MCZ, it's all about different marketing strategies. So what you're gonna do, you're gonna go to Amazon, go and get from zero to 500 properties in five years, add to the basket, Mr. Mike, MCOW get different podcast guests, a couple of weeks back.

[00:40:05] Mark: And again, between those two, you're gonna figure out everything that you need to do to stand out, to be noticed, and then be able to at turn those look. Into inquiries and potentially new contracts, which we've already stated at the start, why it is so important as you are growing this business, talking about doing something different, talking about being different and with your marketing.

Relationship building

[00:40:25] Mark: What I love about number 10 is something that is so simple. It's so effective. It's literally relationship building at its best and its finest, but I guarantee 99% of people aren't doing it. Can you just touch upon as we finish up, as we draw this to a close, what is number 10 and why is it? So I.

[00:40:42] Brooke: Yeah, it's and it's really to go after those realtors and go after those influencers, just like you would go after your owners.

[00:40:50] Brooke: So, you know, build out that omnichannel marketing approach to those influencers, um, you know, the direct mail, email PPC, you know, list space, retargeting, IP targeting, and retarget. Build out specific landing pages specifically for those realtors and, and those influencers that make it easy. And you want to hit them, uh, with the same marketing messages, uh, that you've done before, because you think about it, these realtors and these influencers, you're not just getting one deal.

[00:41:17] Brooke: You're getting multiple deals. I mean, I had a couple realtors in ocean city and my old company that would send us every single month. They were consistently sending us business residual business. And what happens. When you get a referral, it's much easier. You know, it, it, it's not as challenging versus the one person that you're trying to go after cold.

[00:41:36] Brooke: Every time I always got a referral, we always shut 'em down. We always closed them, uh, because it was a referral from somebody that they trusted. Uh, so again, you wanna try to build those relationships up with, uh, those realtors and those, uh, those influencers. And do the same marketing that you're doing to your, uh, owners.

[00:41:52] Mark: And, and I think as, as well, if we're just throwing little 10.5, the power of four little words, do you know anyone? And you can go to anybody that is currently on like your you're working with at the moment. So it could be a landlord, a property owner, anybody that you're currently with and just saying, Hey, I've been working with you, you know, paying the rents or doing a grand fantastic service, your, your bookings and your revenue and all that stuff is looking lovely.

[00:42:14] Mark: I've been doing all this work. Do you know anyone who would benefit from my. And those four little words are, are so powerful. So as I think what you've got now, even if you don't do it all 10, even if you just pick one there's, I guarantee that your business and with what you are doing is gonna be in a better state and a better position, but before you watched or listened to this podcast.

[00:42:33] Mark: So again, if you wanna say thank you for Brooke for this amazing hour that he's given up of his time to do this all you need to do head to. Zero to 500 properties in five years, go type that in, in the search, the, the page will come up. The link will be there, go and download it, go and read it. Make sure you leave a review, uh, because we need to get this to the best seller.

[00:42:52] Mark: We need to get more and more people aware of this because this is going to help. So, so many people and what I that's

[00:42:57] Brooke: only for. Five bucks on Kindle, come on. And a hundred percent of the proceeds go to charity. Come on.

[00:43:02] Mark: Amazing. I know so many people that are going to watch this from my world, like the boosty world that will have maybe never have heard of you or ERY beforehand, who would literally right now, their brains are in overdrive.

[00:43:12] Mark: I can see it in the comments with Chris and garden and Mike, and a few of us that I know that are gonna be watching this on the replay, which is really exciting to me, to be able to check in with them and say, five or six months and go. Okay. What was the big impact in your business this year? And it was this podcast.

[00:43:26] Mark: So Brooke for me, thank you so much for doing this. Um, I want everybody to go check out the book, go check out veterinary, go check out Brooke. There's tons and tons and tons of content behind the scenes. All I ask is don't get overwhelmed with everything that was thrown at you. Just pick one. Implement it and then go on onto the next one, because even if you're just going to do, uh, one thing, which is like estate agents, real as influences, or even if you're gonna just think about, very differently about the person you're going to hire about, well, hang on a second.

[00:43:53] Mark: I could make this work with a full-time business development. If I can just get somebody on the phone and do all of the things, just, just go do that. Um, I think we've given everybody the links, but is there anywhere else you'd like people to chat to? If I wanna reach out, ask any questions, is, is LinkedIn.

[00:44:06] Mark: Your jam is Instagram is Facebook. Where, where, where do you want people to.

[00:44:10] Brooke: Yeah, like LinkedIn is probably the best place for always pushing out content on, uh, LinkedIn and, and every webinar we've ever. And also if you go to our website, every webinar I've ever done, every conference I've ever, uh, presented at that information is, uh, there it's a resource.

[00:44:25] Brooke: You can go back and watch dozens and dozens of, uh, of presentations that we've. Uh, but yeah, LinkedIn is probably the best place to, uh, to reach us amazing. And

[00:44:33] Mark: I'm gonna throw the podcast and the question now over to everybody that, that, that is tuning in. Number one, the question that I want for you to answer in the comments is what out of the 10 tips could you put into practice tomorrow?

[00:44:44] Mark: So what out the 10 things that we've we focused on today? Could you put into practice tomorrow? And also as well, what are you already doing and what has been a success? Thank you so much for checking out today's podcast episode now, before you head and go anywhere else before you click to the next episode, before you do that, do me one big favor and go check out boost Lee dot code at UK slash trust.

[00:45:06] Mark: IRA are the sponsors of all of the booster content and the reason why I work with them. And the reason why we spread the message of IRA is that when a host or a company is looking to get more into direct bookings, the main question they have is around trust as in will a guest trust that I'm a true and real business will IRA take care of all of that.

[00:45:27] Mark: And they've got a special offer that is only available to boostly people, but to do that, you need to go to boost Lee, which is wordpress-520465-1660141.cloudwaysapps.com/trust. You can find out all the information there. You can book in a demo book in a call, and then you'll get your super special off of it is only available to Boostly peoples, thank you again for tuning in do go check out IRA.

[00:45:49] Mark: We'll be back again very shortly with another podcast episode, but until then, we'll see you all very soon. Take care.

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