Welcome to Boostly Podcast Season 11 Episode 50. This is a recap of our roundtable where we celebrated women in the world of hospitality.
Here's the audio for this episode:
Here's the video for this episode:
Whilst you’re here
Follow Boostly on the following channels to get more tips, tactics and knowledge on how you can increase your direct bookings
Visual – YouTube
Audio – Boostly Podcast
Timestamp
00:00 Start
02:16 Introduction of Guests
13:00 About #TieOnStage
18:00 Lack of female speakers
20:00 How it felt to be on stage
24:00 Julie George of Australia
28:40 Actionable steps to get started
34:00 Quickfire questions
52:00 Know more about our guests
Transcript from the Episode
Heather: My background, you know, goes back quite a long time. So this could take quite some time. I'll keep it short. So I'm I'm an ex psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, management consultant, and serial startup of businesses. And it was that that got me into this way all way back in 1998. And we went on a vacation in Ontario, Canada, and I was from the UK at the time, working as a management consultant with a training company and went to a cottage on a lake and it was I could say it was a disaster. It was a grungy little cottage on a rock and 12 of us went there and there was no indoor plumbing and etc. I mean, this is way back last century. On the last night and I turned to my sister with that with a gin and tonic or two. And I said, you know, we could do this better. And, you know, we could just do a great job with this. And went back to England decided I would buy a property in Canada, went on to buy seven, and moved to Canada three years later started a rental management company. And here I am 18 years later, with one of Ontario's Top Producing property management companies. And I'm now the host of the vacation rental success podcast, which I've been doing for the last seven years is that I'm sort of talking quickly because I know there's a lot to cover there.
Maria: We are based here in the Swiss Alps. It's very, very beautiful outside full of snow, but very cozy, stylish, you can see. And my journey with hospitality actually started with this very place where I'm based right now. It was a 350 years old, old, very, very old farmhouse that I turned into just a kind of summer vacation home because you for sure wouldn't like to stay here in winter, there was no heating, the toilets were was outside. And, and most of the house was dedicated to cows and stable and, and all kinds of huge, huge parts of the house that was really not meant for human being to stay. And we slowly but surely start to kind of renovated for our own needs. Until one day a friend came from New York, we had many little babies at the time. So we suggested for her and her boyfriend to stay here. And then she kind of introduced us to Airbnb, she said, Why don't you Airbnb this place. And I said, what, what is Airbnb, talking about the beginning of I don't know, what about 10 years ago. And she introduced us and we put this place online. And we've been very, very surprised with the kinds of people booking this place, people could stay in a very luxurious place and actually wanted to get to a place like that with the authentic feeling of a Heidi chalet or something like that. And there's a long journey, but not so long in time, since we started to take it in, in a serious way. And today we are managing 3000 properties, mostly in the luxury in 29 countries and 90 destinations. And I'm very, very happy to be in this in this industry of hospitality. Before that I'm coming from the background of communication, lecturer in a university in Israel, where I'm originally from, and, and then I'm just, you know, like, still in the journey, still learning every day, extending the business and very, very lucky to be here in the Swiss Alps.
Vanessa: Well, it's been a rocky story. It's been ups and downs lots of them and but it's all started really in a 25 square meter apartment in the centre of Rome where I decided to create an OTA, the type of Airbnb. Airbnb didn't exist back then. So I wanted to be the middleman. So I found a property manager to work with in Rome, another one in Venice. And I made a website because I was a bit of a premium developer from 10. Developers, I managed to make a website. And I had 1000 years to make this website work and had some properties and decided to I'm going to get some guests. And, and back then it was 2006. Where do you put them in order to make your website work and the time I put them in AdWords, and it wasn't very competitive right at the time, thank God. But yes, it was a make or break situation, either make the thousand years work, or go back to London, pack my bags and find a job kind of thing. But, but I put this on you as an AdWords. And within a week, I was in profit. So I was a early days, Airbnb, if you want and, and I did that for eight years, grew it to 8000 vacation rentals. So you were able to book online throughout the world, which today sounds like nothing, right? But at the time, it was Whoa, right? So eight years later, it became harder and harder because Airbnb, but then millions in booking.com, that millions and everybody was trying to get into our world. And it was really hard to make the marketing bucks work, basically. And so, so came a competitor of ours, also a small to medium-sized agency. And he said, Well, you know, if we don't do something about if we don't get together, we're going to die as agencies, it's too hard. And so we got together, and we came up with four competitors, it was the idea of a distribution platform. And this distribution platform is today rentals united. We let the agencies go we grew renters united. And and this is what I'm doing today. I'm very, very proud that we have 100 employees, and also and in Barcelona, where I'm sitting right now.
About #TieOnStage
Vanessa: #TieOnStage basically was born out of the day when I went to a vacational summit. And I looked at the agenda, I had done a proposal that I wanted to speak on stage and, and I and I looked at the agenda for the day, and I basically was the only woman on stage that day. And it struck me as I How is that possible? And so I decided that during that day, I would, I would raise awareness around the fact that this wasn't quite right. And then I had to think about how do we raise awareness, it was scary, you know, scary because I don't know when you speak up about inequality, it's, it's kind of stick scary. And, and also, you know, you don't want to be I mean, I am a feminist, but somehow, you know, there were lots of men in the crowd and being labeled a feminist sometimes there are negative connotations to it. So the whole process was fairly scary to me. And, and so I decided that somehow we need to raise awareness around the fact that this wasn't right, and how do you raise awareness symbols can help. And so I decided what can we use as a symbol that's easy for us to raise awareness with and that's sort of a tie. Also, because a tie is like a noose around your neck. So we want to liberate ourselves from this noose.
And so this is how, you know the whole process behind #TieOnStage came about and so I did my, I was extremely worried about it my a small speech about the fact that you know, we need to raise awareness with this is not right. And why not, not more women on stage and, and, and to my surprise, it was really welcomed, like, really, really welcomed by men and women, by everyone in the audience, obviously, it's their unconscious biases at the end of the day, I think. And so when, when we spoke about it on stage immediately, there was a, you know, it was what they were welcoming towards it. And so since then, many women have been wearing styled ties on stage, we have a hashtag, which is trending on LinkedIn, etc. where, you know, also in different industries, which I thought was pretty cool. Not it's not an industry, that's been women were, you know, in different industries wearing ties all set. And, and, and so that's, that's what it is, it's basically raising awareness that there is inequality when it comes to public speaking, as well as there is inequality in many other respects in the workplace. But when it comes to public speaking, this is one of the areas where we need to raise awareness. And this is what we're trying to do with the hashtag.
There's definitely room for massive improvement here. And I think, no, I'm not the label of feminists, I'm labeling poorly. I do see a lot of, you know, a lot of organizers of events. And, again, it's unconscious bias, right. And they're organized events. And somehow it's like, 90%, sometimes it's just male. And so I go in and I go #TieOnStage. And, and, you know, and they're welcoming it, they're, they're welcoming. I know that the moderators and and and the people have spoken to about it, the people organize events, since then they do make an effort. And I said I would wear a tie on stage until we're 50-50. So today, obviously, I don't have to, but to all the events where we're not 50-50 our time, just you know, in order to raise awareness, it's all right. It's just all right.
Lack of female speakers
Heather: The proportion of female to male speakers at these events is just is ridiculous. And even, you know, even after Vanessa launched this, and a couple of events that I thought would change their, their rollout of fit in the amount of female speakers they just didn't. And the next, you know, you know, Vanessa, exactly the ones from talking about that. They listened. It's like, yes, you know, and Vanessa got on the stage with the tie. And then still the next one that rolled out and I looked at the lineup, and it's just you did not get that message, that message didn't get across. So I think I think we need to do more. I mean, I've been at these events for the past 10 years, from VRMA To through to the European events, and I am not seeing the difference. So I think there's a lot more that we can do, as women in this industry because there are so many amazing women in this industry. And I don't know whether it is you know, an org the bias of unconscious bias of the organizers, or whether it is a little about the women themselves not feeling confident enough to step up and put that pitch in. And I know that Amy high note is doing wonderful things with the vacation rental women's summit to really encourage women to get on stage because that's just about all there's going to be at the women's summit and she currently is welcoming pitches for the vacation rental women's summit in New Orleans in December. So, you know, just everybody's got something they can talk about. We're all crazy. competent at what we do, and go out there and share it.
How it felt to be on stage
First of all, I think I remember the day that Vanessa was standing on stage for the first time with a tie, I think it was down in 2019, I was in the crowd and thought like, wow, this girl, she's finally saying what we all should, should have said a long time ago. But I have to agree. Also, with Heather mentioning that it has to do with us ladies as well. You know, you cannot choose 50-50 men and woman when there is not 51% woman that you know that you have the ability to speak or at least that somebody knows about their experience. So I would say that beside my own experience that I will say in a second. All of us all the woman in the hospitality. And apparently, hospitality is one of the industries that women have a big toll on. And a lot, a lot of women are busy with hospitality worldwide. So there's really no reason in this industry, not to step up and to and to say more and to be more exposed. So for me, last February in London was not the first time I was on stage. I used to be and I'm still speaking also for another industry. I'm an expert on the sharing economy industry. And also in this kind of conventions, women were not the majority, unfortunately. So and my experience is that it's getting better, because of people like Vanessa, and people like yourself, Mark and all of us that kind of giving this topic another room, or you know, kind of emphasize on it. But I must say that the new app of clubhouse is a great opportunity. And this is where I met Julie for the first time. And this is where I happen to meet another other some of power ladies in hospitality all around the world. So if you're not there yet join and if you can join, I'm also with other professionals, with Mark together and other kinds of foreclosures we have in great room and also there we try to kind of raise the numbers of women speaking. And I think it's it's a great place to discover. And maybe it will give the idea of town stage kind of a boost. To find this more more of these kinds of ladies will be able to speak when events will finally be more, on real stage. But even before even on a digital stage we already and thank you for the opportunity again and for the time that you took to do this kind of podcast around this topic.
Julie George of Australia
Julie: I'm coming to you from Australia where we've had some time changes and it's 5 am here. I thought we were supposed to meet at six anyway. Look, this is because it's all up close friends here. This is a jacket over my pyjamas today. So you guys are seeing the real deal, the real Julie George. So don't worry, I can actually put a tie on with this jacket. I must admit that my I've not heard of #TieOnStage either Mark said to me come and jump on with Heather come and talk with Mariah and, and Vanessa about #TieOnStage. I had to ask What is it? What are you talking about? And when the concept was explained to me, it made total sense. Look, I guess just for anybody who doesn't know me my claim to fame is the little book right here. Shameless plug in the background, million-dollar host, I have had a pretty amazing journey in the sharing economy. Within two and a half years, zero to 130 properties $8 million income package the whole business together, sold the business wrote the best selling book. Now I get to jump up on stages all day, every day. In fact, today, I've got three major events I need to do today. So one of them being a Clubhouse room, and we are talking about the future in clubhouse. And yes, great topic because I'm in Australia already. It's 5am here Tuesday. So I can tell you the future doesn't quite look bright yet because the sun hasn't come up, but it will. And I promise you if I can have success in the sharing economy, you can have success in the sharing economy. clubhouse room, just very briefly. Look, I run a room there religiously every Sunday, but also we are standing for the European markets every Tuesday, Tuesday 11am London time. And it's really just about a gathering of brains and gathering of minds in the short term rental industry. Look, we're there to inspire, encourage support each other. And this industry is one of very few that we all do that we all lift each other up. We all help each other out. And I love the idea of encouraging more women to come in because it's a safe space, you're not going to be judged you're not going to be criticized. And especially on clubhouse where it is knowledge before image. You don't even have to worry about putting a jacket on over your pedometer, you can be doing the dishes, you can be changing the child's nappy you can be well we all know that there have been people sitting on the toilet while they've been talking. Let's be honest, so. So guys, come and join us. If you ever see my name on clubhouse, I want you to make sure that you come onto the stage with me. Even if it's your very first time, I want to support that. So please make sure that you are brave enough to step up. Say your piece. Even if it just says Hello, this is the first time I'm speaking. That's enough. That isn't the first place you need to start and I promise you we will make you feel special. And but it's women I have noticed. Yesterday I did an event and there was 15 of us up on stage, two women. But do you know what? It's okay. We just make ourselves heard. We don't have to compete with you know, the boys. We are very different. We're special. And it's it's quite, it's quite amazing.
Actionable steps to get started
Vanessa: So the hashtag, obviously, you know, suppression is a marketing thing. So the more you use it, the better if you notice, some conferences or webinars where you know it's completely unequal, then do mention it. I think that that could you know, it's, it's about raising awareness towards the organizers, right? The organizers need to understand that then they need to keep an eye on equality and diversity and inclusion, right. So that's, that's, you know, using the hashtag is there for that. But then when it comes to women speaking on stage, I would say, you know, having mentors is really good. If you feel this is a scary, scary thing. If you have something to say you should say it also. And then having mentors Can, can really help. So there are so many groups now, online, in LinkedIn, particularly as we're our own, there are tons of these new groups where women support each other. And, and, and become role models where, you know, you feel so nice, a lot less scary to speak up your mind when, when somebody else has done it before you right as she can do it, I can do it. And then you can get this support, etc. So, so yeah, this I mean, if you have something to say, and you feel you can contribute to the conversation, obviously, you know, if it's just talking air, then it's unimportant. But if you can contribute to a conversation, and you have a knowledge, profound knowledge about something subject, then you should share it. Right. It should be. It should be a must. And then in order to, you know, find help, there's tons of help around from from other females as well.
Heather: For 25 years, I was phone phobic. So 25 years of my life I could not pick up the telephone. And well without a cigarette in one hand in the past. I'm probably I had to have the three glasses of wine before I made the call. But I got over it by getting myself a job as a receptionist, answering the telephone. And if so, so many people I know feel that they are. They have stage fright. They don't want to get on stage they don't want to talk they don't want to be front and center. Just do it. Just do it. If I can do what I do now after being 25 years of phone phobic everybody can.
Quickfire questions
When you're not working, how would you like to spend your time?
Heather: Outside. Look inside, I am like a kid at the on on holiday every single day when the day finishes. I'm out in the winter, it's in the snow and in the summer it's kayaking, running, walking, biking. Whatever. That's it for me. I have to be outside.
Vanessa: For me can be inside or outside, very simple, friends and wine and food.
Maria: With me, it's a bit of a combination. So since I see myself as a kind of a digital nomad, and you're following me, so you know that I've been travelling the whole year. And something that maybe not everybody knows that, me and Ira, my husband that is the founder of this money house. We are also the parents of seven kids. So we travel a lot with them.
And we'd like to spend everything that has to do with family, all kinds of activities outside. And when I'm finally alone, one of the things that I like to do very much is to sing is to play my flute and to dive, I'm a scuba diver. And this kind of, again, this kind of a journey. Hospitality just gave me the the possibility to put it all together all the time. And that's great.
Julie: I'm definitely not playing the flute. I'm definitely not scuba diving. I'm probably watching Netflix sitting there with a cup of tea and good chocolate. And then I'm having a bubble bath, reading a great book. But I just I'd like to unwind and I guess I'm really into extremes if I'm not in front of the camera or have a microphone in front of me. It's it's got to be switched off and completely alone time which is it's kind of two extremes but it's really nice just to switch off and watch some rubbish TV, some housewives or something ridiculous, all of our Australian shows.
What is your guilty pleasure?
Julie: I don't know. It probably is the trash TV. A lot of people are surprised that I actually really enjoy watching the mindless crap that is on television just to chill out, relax and make myself feel normal.
Mariah: We like to show some parties. I like dancing. And sometimes when I'm kind of really dancing freely, I'm feeling like 16 years old, I'm jumping around moving my hair like a, like a group of some kind of a rock band. And it's, it's true. It's a true pleasure. Maybe it's looking ridiculous to somebody from the side. But for me, it's like, the best.
Vanessa: I have a dog, Lola, I adore her. But I'm not you know, I'm a dog owner, but I'm not completely, you know, this dog crazy. However, I got this passion for this Facebook group, all about dogs. And I do find myself spending quite a bit of time checking out other people's posts about their dogs, which has seen I mean, completely ridiculous. And when I catch myself, like, come off, turn it off. And it's very hard to turn off. You know, and I haven't told that anyone.
Heather: My guilty pleasure is is trash TV, Julie, I love a&e, any ambulance anything that I watched gore and blood and stuff. And thank goodness, I'm sitting on my couch. But I will do it with a packet of peanuts and a jar of Marmite. Because the only way to eat them is to put your finger in a jar of Marmite. And I actually have put this on my Facebook page before so people do know. So you put your finger in the Marmite and then you put that finger in the packet of peanuts. So it comes out covered. You know, peanut covered marmite. And I mentioned this on my Facebook page. And somebody sent me a jar of Marmite.
Your most favourite or most used emoji
Heather: It's the head blowing up on, the head explosion.
Mariah: The smiley Of course. You can understand why.
Julie: It's a laughing one on the side with the tears coming out.
What is coming up in the next year that you are most excited about?
Julie: I am busting to travel busting my passport is dusty. It doesn't know what to do with itself. I am in Australia. We're in full lockdown here. So we can't travel in or out. We're in a little Prison Island but super, super safe in Australia. Our COVID situation's fantastic. Like you know, we're healthy, we're safe. But I am busting to travel. I just wrote the details down about that conference in New Orleans in December. Possibly I think we're six months off international travel. But girls, if I'm can get there, the four of us we are going to have a bottle of champagne between the four of us, we will put wine right. I am so looking forward to connecting with people in real life. So that's, that is what I'm looking forward to.
Maria: Well, there is definitely more than one. But they were they are going together. So because a lot of us is happening, we are now busy very much with launching a new kind of a channel that is Villa tracker, and is a software that is dedicated actually to B2B, to reach out to the professionals from different kinds of industries that they all kind of don't know how to reach out to us, the legacy travel agent, concierge companies, travel designers, media production, and others. We couldn't ignore it, we had a lot of booking coming from these kinds of professionals that don't find themselves in the otas in 2020. And we decided to sit on on this product. And it's made that I'm getting a little bit more familiar with tech. And this is like a whole new journey. And at the same time, smiling house is becoming a luxury channel by itself. So lots of lots of excitement coming, coming this year coming very soon.
Vanessa: Well, actually, I have to piggyback on Judy because I've also want to do a shameless plug there is a list of vacation rental events on my blog on the rentalsunited.com/blog, where I was amazed that so many organizers are actually organizing events from September onwards. If you go there you'll you'll see what what is planned from September onwards and tons of in person events. And personally, you know, for me as a marketeer in the vacation rental industry is available in touch and to meet people and to talk to them and to have a drink with them that's you know, face to face. This is where I get my inspiration from us to you know, what is it that what kind of solutions do I need to provide to them to you know, to help them so, so this is what I'm really looking forward to seeing you know, all the all the people in the vacation industry again as of September.
Heather: I'm what they call a Snowbird here. And I joined 350,000 other Canadians every winter and head south and could not do it. I had to experience a winter in Ontario which is not to my liking. So I am I am booked to be in Gulf Shores Alabama for five months from November.
Know more about our guests
Heather: Vacation Rental Success Podcast
Vanessa: RentalsUnited.com
Maria: Smiling House
Julie: Million Dollar Host Book
Our podcast sponsors
Before you leave
Please go and rate, review and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify Google Play or Anchor or visit Boostly Hospitality Podcast for the full list of episodes!
If you have enjoyed this post and want to feed my caffeine addiction you can “Buy me a coffee” ️
