Cold open

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Live Let Thrive, a podcast about the Airbnb life, the share economy, and everything in between. Here are your hosts, Micah and Steve.

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let Thrive.

Intro and the HELOC grind

SPEAKER_02 0:23

What's up, Micah Man? I am good, Stevie Stacks. How you doing? I am doing good, man. Uh, going through this HELOC, like we mentioned on the previous cast, and uh man, they they want more stuff than just getting a house. It's crazy. And I thought getting a house was tough, but it's the same process basically. Helocks want everything, it seems like they want more, but anyways, going through that, go go house shopping again. You know how it is, and um, but enough about me. Uh, you've been doing good, Micah.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Yeah, yeah, good man, good, good. I'm actually refinancing the HELOC, so yeah, I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Oh, damn, that's the next level. We'll still use OPM even if they charge us more. Um, welcome to your favorite Airbnb, VRBO, short-term, mid-term, long-term rental podcast in the world coming at you from Fort Worth in Arlington, Texas. And this is Live Let Thrive, as you know, and we have a special guest. His name is Brooke Fouts. Did I say it right? Yeah, you did. Well done. Brooke Fouts. And what he has is a little bio here built a short, he's built a short-term uh vacation rental company to 500 properties and then exited. And then he's helped over 600 companies with their growth efforts. Also, he owns a company called Ventory, which we'll

Brooke Pfautz: 500 properties, then exit

SPEAKER_02 1:46

dive into, and he wrote a book called Vacation Rental Secrets that I can't wait to dive into either. Welcome to the show. What's up, guys? Excited to be here. Excited to have you. So, how did you get your start in this industry and build it up to 500 units? Oh my gosh, insane.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah, so like uh, like most people, I kind of stumbled

Cold-calling Ocean City every Monday in 2007

SPEAKER_01 2:06

into it. Uh, I was actually in um, I was in mortgage banking, believe it or not. So, you guys were talking about mortgages and things like that, but uh yeah, I was in mortgage banking and then um ended up in 2007 stumbling into short-term rentals, uh, and started a company. I live in Baltimore, Maryland, and I decided to start a short-term vacation rental company in Ocean City, Maryland, which is about three hours away. So every Monday I would get in my car, drive down Ocean City, just talk to anybody that was stupid enough to listen to me and kind of tell them my story about how I was gonna build just a killer uh vacation rental company. And they all kind of like laughed at me. They said, Hey, yeah, we uh, you know how many people have driven across this bridge and tried to start a company over here? It'll never work. I said, All right, thank you. But do you know anybody stupid enough to listen to me that I could talk to that wouldn't, you know, maybe will uh help me out? And then they said, You know what? So-and-so, she's kind of crazy. She might talk to you. So did that for a couple of years, and next thing you know, like I got a little bit of momentum, got a little bit of traction, and it just kind of grew from there. Um, so grew it up to about 500 properties under management. So I did not, just to be clear, I did not own these properties. This is strictly uh co-hosting or or vacation rental management. Uh, exited that business in uh in 2013, so yeah, and then I've been been in the short-term space uh since then in various other roles.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Whoa, oh, you said you exited in 2013. So this is like on the brink of Airbnb, kind of really yeah, we didn't even use we didn't even use Airbnb.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Like literally, we never had one reservation the whole time I was there. We were using VRBO. Then it was called VRBO, then it went to homeway, now it's down back to Virbo. So we used uh we used VO. And actually, you know, look, a lot of people give the OTAs a hard time, but if it wasn't for the OTAs, if it wasn't for uh VRBO at the time, I would not have succeeded because here I was going against these legacy companies that have been around for 45 years that had all these repeat bookings, and I had to go head to head with them. And I was trying to figure out how to compete. And the, you know, the these little OTAs just kind of started launching, and uh it really was the what helped me kind of kind of go uh head to head against these big boys

The 85,000-lead summer from Vrbo's wild west

SPEAKER_01 4:09

and and win. And man, we got so many leads in those early days. In the early days of Virgo, you could actually like it was all based on how many photos you had, how you were sorted. So I would pick like one or two of my top properties in every building, and I would get the top uh top uh subscription, and I would never update the calendar. So all these leads. One summer I remember, guys, I had 85,000 leads that came in, like inquiries, because I had literally every building in Ocean City marketed and uh yeah, at the top uh subscription level. It was the it was the it was a wild, wild west of uh vacation rattles for sure.

SPEAKER_03 4:44

Now I have a question. What made you exit in 2013? Like, what was the reason? Like, hey, I got a 500 because like if you look back hindsight 2020, if you would have kept those 500 into the Airbnb space, you know, oh yeah, yeah. So what made you exit?

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Well, look, I'll I'll be very candid. I I had a I had a great business partner, but there were some things we didn't see eye to eye with. And uh I saw a really good opportunity down in Orlando where I could become uh was chief business development officer for one of the top companies down in Orlando, and we actually started getting into development. We uh we uh trademarked a company called Purpose Built Vacation Homes, where we actually were designing and building uh vacation homes. These were seven to 14 bedroom homes. So like I know it's all the rage now to have these really killer, like themed out room, like uh bedrooms and and arcades and everything in Orlando, but we were actually the first company to do that um down there. And um, so uh it was a it was a fun run, five years down in Orlando, kind of building purpose-built homes and kind of helping them grow down there too.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

Awesome, man. Awesome. So, like when you were built, that's a couple because I'm uh I'm I do a little bit of management. Steve does a lot of management. When you were doing this, like up in Baltimore, like for you to get to 500, like what type of owners were you looking for? Because one thing me and Steve always talk about is is

Taking any inventory, then chasing the right owners

SPEAKER_03 5:59

this owner a good fit for my business model? Like, what type of owners were you guys looking for to make sure that they were gonna fit what your business what your business model was?

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah, no, that's that's kind of that's a that's a fantastic question, actually. So in the early days, man, and remember, these properties were in Ocean City, Maryland, which is about three hours away. So Ocean City, Maryland is a, if you're not familiar with it, it's a nine-mile strip of sand with about 20,000 condos of vacation rentals. So there's, I mean, it is a traditional, you know, vacation rental market. Um, so in the early days, I just wanted inventory. Like I just wanted to sign up anybody I could. And then once I started actually getting inventory, I realized like, hey, there's there's these like four or five like newer construction buildings, like newer developments that would do two to three to five X what all the other properties were doing. And guess what? There was no complaints from you know, very few complaints from those guests. All my complaints were coming from the shitty properties, you know. So that was it. So it started with taking anything, then it went into just going after the inventory. Then, though, it actually going it actually went into um the owners. And actually, I talk about that in the book. One of the top 10 mistakes uh that many people made in the when we kind of consolidated this, and we'll talk about that in a second, was taking on the raw wrong properties, but more importantly, the wrong owners. So sometimes like I tell you what, man, it is not worth getting that toxic owner, that one owner. If you think about it, like 90% of your issues, 90% of your stress comes from one or two property owners. It's just not worth the stress on the team and to yourself, you know. So I don't think I answer your question.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

Yeah, man, we we both we both feel it. You feel it, right? We feel it. Yeah, we feel it, we feel it. You know, I've uh I haven't got to the 500 point yet, but I got like um over 50 properties now, and you're right, man. You're totally right. You get me and Micah talked about in the last cast. Like, for example, I took over, I just started managing a property in Austin. It's doing great. We're doing great for this owner. And he he's never done Airbnb before or short-term rentals. So he just, here you go. I trust you guys. Y'all know y'all sound like you know what you're doing, and it's been a beautiful relationship. If you get a property from someone that's been self-managing, that's a different story because that's that's their baby, they know exactly how to do it. Oh, you sure you have it at the right rates? You sure you do it this? Oh my goodness gracious. But uh, we so yeah, we all all the man, all the people management people that are listening to the show are all just shaking their head with in agreement with you, man. Because because yeah, you you're right, you know. If any of my um wonderful clients are listening, I'm not definitely not talking about you. Um but there's so many things we can we could touch on. You you said so much stuff already, but partnerships. I mean, you grew it to 500 with a partner, it's pretty amazing. I don't know. Um well you said after you know, after five after that, um you you jumped you jumped ship, but oh man, partnerships, they're they're a little bit difficult. And and so what what was the what was the main what was the main friction points that you didn't see eye to eye, you said.

Partnership friction and the 50-50 problem

SPEAKER_01 9:10

No, we look it there's so much to go on. I mean, we actually had a pretty decent relationship the entire time. Um, but you know, he had controlling interest, and uh I I we just kind of came to a disagreement and some of the uh what what ended up happening was we end up well, I don't want to get too much into it, but like because I still respect the guy and things like that, but we just were kind of button heads, and uh at the end there, just I had a great opportunity, uh, much better opportunity what I thought uh to work down in Orlando. So uh ended up uh luckily in the um in the agreement we had, we had kind of a buy-sell agreement kind of in place. So it was pretty clear kind of what the uh exit valuation was uh when we negotiated. Unfortunately, you know, values have gone way up since I sold, but there wasn't really uh any room for negotiation because it was kind of in the operating agreement from day one. So there's a kind of a learning lesson in that from the beginning. It's almost like a prenup, right? Spell it out if you have a partner, spell it out in the operating agreement in advance, kind of what that exit looks like if it exits, because there's a high probability there is gonna be an exit, you know, at some point. The odds are you're not gonna um have partners all the way through the end, most likely.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

And um would you would you do another partnership after that experience?

SPEAKER_01 10:29

I mean, yeah. I mean, I I Ventory, I've got two partners now, you know what I mean? So it's uh absolutely it's just um yeah, so I I have no problem doing a partnership. Okay, here's here's one piece of advice though. Don't ever do a 50-50 partnership. Why is that? I well, I apologize if you guys have 50-50 partnerships or something like that, but you need to have somebody ultimately needs to have like kind of be able to cut the tie. You know what I mean? If you guys are in disagreement, somebody needs to break that tie.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

I was taking notes and we were like, never do a 50-50 partnership.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Okay, because someone needs to so you do like a 50 a 5149, or you can have a 50-50 partnership, but like it look, it's gonna get to a point where both of you disagree. Somebody needs to be able to break that tie, you know.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Okay, that's true. You can't have two CEOs, right? Yeah, it doesn't work, but uh enough about the glum stuff. So you jumped ship, went to Orlando, started kicking butt over there. You were there five years, and then and then what happened?

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah, then uh my wife, I was living out of a suitcase for literally 10 years. My wife said, Hey, when are you actually gonna live with your family? You know, me and your two daughters, you know, had two young daughters at the time. And uh, so I ended up uh taking a job uh with a company called LiveRes, which at the time was the largest property management software company. Uh I was VP of sales and marketing. Uh, they're based out of Boise, Idaho, but I was able to do that from my home office here in Baltimore. So uh did that for two years, absolutely loved it. That's when I fell in love with SAS, you know, software as a service and software in general. Um, I just saw how it really kind of expanded. Uh, you can really scale it. Um, and uh yeah, and then after doing that for two years, I said, you know what? Like I actually led these mastermind groups and they were kind of like advisory boards. And um, what I found was the make one of the biggest pain points in the industry was growing inventory, like adding properties. And it's like it was something that I was super passionate about, something that I absolutely enjoyed, something that I was blessed to be pretty good at. And I said, you know what? Like, why is there not a company that's actually helping you grow your inventory? All these companies out there are helping you get guests, they're helping you with marketing, they're helping you with revenue management. Nobody's focused on the supply side of thing. And if you think about it, that is the greatest lever you can pull to increase your top line revenues, is inventory. I mean, think about it. Like, you we've actually done a study on this. If you like, you can impact like your revenue, you know, with revenue management, and you can impact your marketing, you know, get more reservations, but they only have like, and you need to do that. Don't get me wrong, they're important things, but it only moves the needle so much. If you get more inventory, it has this compounding effect. It's so much more effective. Um, and in fact, we found it's uh 3.9 to six times more impactful to grow your inventory than it is to actually increase your revenue through revenue management or through uh marketing and distribution. So it's again, it's the most impactful ever. So again, I see it said, you know what, this is something I'm good about, something I'm really good at, something I'm passionate about. Uh, there's nothing out there like it. Why don't I start a company? And I I remember literally I called up four of my buddies that were in the industry. I said, Hey, I've got this crazy idea. I want to start a uh at the time, it was just a marketing agency to help people grow their inventory. And every one of them, like halfway through my pitch, said, Brooke, shut up. I'm in. And that's when I knew I had something. And I mean, it's just been proverbial lightning in a bottle ever since we've been taken off like crazy. And since then, you know, we've helped over, as you said in the intro, we've helped over 600 companies with their inventory growth efforts. So we've learned a thing or two. We learned what works, we learned what doesn't work, and I would say we're probably the best on the planet. Uh, we've got over 50 growth experts on our team, and that's all we do. Yeah, my dad was an entrepreneur. He said, Brooke, riches and niches, be the best on the planet at one little thing, you know, and this is our thing. I'm not gonna start a PMS, I'm not gonna start a you know an OTA. My thing is inventory and supply.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Now I I want to dive into that. Are you gonna dive into it? Because I moved into inventory too, but go ahead. Yeah, how does inventory get us more? How does Ventory get us more inventory? Because I want more inventory. I want it right now.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

So what pretty much we've taken everything I've learned over the last gosh, 17 years of doing this now, 16 years of doing this, and we put it into a like a software and marketing agency, make it really, really simple. So uh I'll try to keep this as condensed as possible. Data, it all starts with data. We have, I would argue, the largest database of vacation rental homeowners on the planet. We get that data from a couple different sources. We have direct uh pipelines, APIs with all the county courthouses. We scrape all the OTAs. So we're scraping Airbnb, verbo, booking.com. We go out and we have a team in the Philippines that do nothing but get vacation rental permit data. We overlay all that data together, we then append it, we dedupe it, we then go out and get emails and phones and social profiles. So we have this really robust database again of the large largest database of vacation rental homeowners on the planet. So it starts there. Second thing, part two, we have these campaign engines. So this is like, all right, you've identified, you've drawn a little map, you want to identify, hey, I only want four bedroom direct ocean front with a pool, you know, in this little polygon. Then you've identified, you tag that, and you say, all right, now I want to market to these people. How do you market to them? So we can market to them via email. So we run actually cold email outreach directly to them. We do um direct mail. Direct mail still works in the vacation rental industry. It's one of the few industries where it still works. Um, so we have proven templates, proven postcards that have been proven to work. And again, after sending, we I think we send more direct mail in the vacation industry than anybody else out there. We I've um, you know, tons and tons of direct mail. We're sending close up to 100,000 pieces every single month uh through all of our different partners. Um, and then we uh we also have some digital marketing. So we can do what's called list-based targeting. So you identify your targets and you can serve up ads directly on their social feeds. So you can serve up, you know, on their Instagram, on their uh Facebook, on their LinkedIn, whatever you want to do. But again, it's this is not triangulation. This is not look-alike audiences. This is like we are serving up ads directly to those targets, but we're also doing it an omnichannel approach. So we're hitting them with email, we're hitting them with direct mail, and then they see our ads on Facebook, they're like, man, these guys are everywhere. You know, they if they're this good at marketing to me, they must be really good at marketing to guests. So then finally, you know, we send everybody to lead funnels, we send them to landing pages that we build. We build some really cool lead magnets like ROI calculators

Lead funnels, ROI calculators, and DocuSign automation

SPEAKER_01 16:46

and some uh some things that can predict exactly what their property will do in rental income. We capture that information. And then once they raise their hand, they say, Hey, I'm in. Uh, we have a CRM and marketing automation platform that nurtures those leads all the way through the process. And then we can even like we have an integration with DocuSign. So you just drag it to uh send contract, it merges in all the fields, sends a contract directly to them, puts it in there. Then we have an onboarding pipeline because onboarding new properties is a pain in the butt. So it goes through all those processes. And then we even have we're building out this is about the uh release. You guys might be the first to hear that a retention platform because keeping properties in your rental program is just as important as uh getting uh new properties. And then I got a couple other cool things we'll be launching here at VRMA, but uh I'll just leave that as a little tease for you guys. Maybe I'll come back on the pod uh post-October and give you about the next stuff coming out.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

Definitely. Now I noticed and I understand you you mainly target vacation rental markets because that's like a guaranteed, you know, easier to get in front of the people they own. Have you thought about going into metro markets?

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yeah, we do have some uh some urban markets uh that are out there. It's a little bit more challenging because obviously they don't have a ton of proven uh vacation rentals. Um, I mean, there's some out there, but it's just obviously not as uh the breath isn't as deep. Um, but it we we can definitely, you know, our core business is the traditional vacation rental markets. But with that said, we've got a lot of urban market uh vacation rental management companies using our services, um, and even some non-urban, just you know, like and that's I tell you what, the the companies that we see that are most successful right now. Like if I were launching a vacation rental management company right now, I would not, I wouldn't go to Breckenridge, I wouldn't go to Aspen, I wouldn't go to Outer Banks, I'd go to like Hudson Valley, New York, you know, I'd go to Broken Bow, Oklahoma, I'd go to Fredericksburg, Texas, like these little secondary markets that are just kind of coming out, like they don't have a ton of competition. Those are the markets that are ripe. Those are the the partners that we have that are just killing it and growing super fast, those are the ones that are doing a really good job versus the more of the um you know the traditional old school uh vacational markets.

SPEAKER_03 18:51

You said Fredericksburg, Texas. That's I know you know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

I wrote that down.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

I have some in Fredericksburg. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah, I know I'm like, oh I've been there, man. I've I've I've actually been there. It's a cool spot. Had uh had a couple of beers at the uh at the beer garden there.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Uh if yeah, the other ones, I didn't even I've never like you said Hudson, where's it? Hudson Hudson Valley, New York, yeah. It's uh a couple hours, it's about an hour and a half, I think, outside of New York, if I'm not mistaken. Uh, but it's kind of along the Hudson River, beautiful, like bigger, older homes. Um, just a lot of people are getting out of, you know, want to get out of the city. Um, but yeah, it's great, great little spot, but it's a non-traditional market. But it's I mean, these properties are all doing north of 100k. And again, just there's only like a handful of companies out there. Now, I'm sure I'm gonna piss off my partner that I have out there right now because all these people are I keep saying this on the podcast, and people are gonna start coming out there and hitting Hudson Valley, and he's gonna be mad at me, so apologize.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

Yeah, because I've said a few markets on the podcast, and yeah, they're saturated now, so yeah, people start, but you just gotta change with it, you know what I mean. You know how it is.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

So, so one thing you mentioned was the retention. See, now that's cool that you you can help people find, you know, help people find people to manage, you know, places to manage, and um, and I'm very interested in that. I want to definitely hop onto Ventory, see what it can do for me. Um, but the retention side, you know, that's very important as well. Uh, how do you how do you help hosts or co-hosts retain, you know, clients?

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Yeah, so it's it's all about staying in touch with your like one of the biggest complaints that many owners get is lack of communication. So staying in touch with them. Um, but obviously you need to be a little bit more proactive. So we set some little like ticklers in there to like touch base with them to call them. We do some automated uh emails directly to them, just hey, how are things going? Just check and see how things are going. But it seems like you just sent the email. Uh, we do uh NPS surveys. We have an NPS uh survey built into our platform. And then we also do little um, we have uh integration with some handwritten uh programs. So these little handwritten letters that'll just say, you know, hey, today is our your you know, one year anniversary of being in our rental program. Just wanted to thank you for being in our rental program. Uh if there's anything I can do for you, please let me know. Send anniversary cards, birthday cards, holiday cards, all those kind of things. Um, but the the key though is those MPSs, because what you want to do is very often they'll tell you what's bothering them. You know, you just got to get in front of them. So be proactive. Don't let the the time, if they call you and they cancel and you didn't know it, you know, you've got a problem. You know what I mean? It's like you should send out any kind of uh surveys uh you can to kind of get that information and then address it when it when the scores come back. If they do come back low and they say, you know, what's one thing we can do to improve, and they tell you and you don't improve that, shame on you, you know. Um, so that's you know, but a lot of it is really just it's setting up those reminders a lot of times. I hate to say it. I know it's work and nobody has the time to do it and the bandwidth to do it, but it's just pick up the freaking phone and call them, you know. Sometimes they just want to be heard. That's what I I've realized. Yeah, and you can address. It you can get out in front of it. Sometimes it's minor stuff, it's little things that bug them, you know.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

That's true. Um, so so the retention side, that's really cool. And and you're helping P you're helping us pick up properties, which is super important. And um, so yeah, yeah, man, I lost my trade of thought here.

The math: 10% net profit, 10-year lifetime, $75,000 per property

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Well, here's the thing. So here's one very few people have actually gone through the exercise to understand how valuable inventory is. And you know, this is whenever I speak at conferences and things like that, this is how I usually start the presentation. It's because again, nobody's gone through the math of this. So the average property, again, after asking over 600 companies this question, what falls to the bottom line as a percentage of your gross booking revenue? And the number is almost always around 10% of your gross booking revenue, plus or minus. Now it depends. I mean, if you're in the early days, you only have like two or three properties, obviously that's it's gonna be a little bit different. But like for more established, like, you know, co-hosting, you know, property management type companies, 10% falls to the bottom line. So if we just break that down onto like a per property basis, um, let's say you sign up a new property, Steve, let's say you sign up a property that's gonna do about 75K in gross booking revenue. You can almost take to the bank that you're gonna net about $7,500 in net profit from managing that property. Doesn't, and here's the funny thing. It doesn't matter if you're like I was in Ocean City with 13 to 16% you know commission, or you're like some of these guys in Vale and Aspen or charging 45 to 50%. Net, net, net, what falls to the bottom line of net profits is 10%. So $75,000 properties, $75,000 property will net you about $7,500 in uh net profit after year one. But here's the cool thing you don't keep a property in your rental program for one year. So, how do you calculate the lifetime in years that you're gonna keep a property in your rental program? The average from again asking this over 600 different companies, the average churn, which is what percentage of your inventory you lose in a given year, usually averages plus or minus, depending on the market and things like that, but it usually averages about 10%. So to get your lifetime in years, as I I promise you guys no math, but I'm gonna give you a little bit of math. If you take one divided by 10%, that gives you a 10-year lifetime. So the average property stays in a rental program for 10 years, the average profit is 10%, so $7,500. So $7,500 times 10, that's $75,000. So you notice that number was the exact same number as the gross booking revenue. So here's the quick little hack. Assuming you fall within the industry averages, within net margins and churn, your lifetime value is equal to your gross booking revenue. So, Mikey, you go out there, you sign up a $75 or $100,000 property tomorrow. You can take to the bank, that property is going to make you $100,000 over the next 10 years. That's a lot of money. I mean, that's better than, you know, I mean, these real estate agents are like, oh, I don't want to get into short-term rentals. There's no money in it. Well, guess what? There's a lot of money. I'd I'd much rather have $75,000 in net profits than a $20,000 commission, even though it's over time. But it's also what I love about it's an annuity. It just keeps on. That's why private equity is jumping into this space. They're rolling up these vacation rental management companies like crazy because it's predictable recurring revenue. I mean, there were properties I signed up in 2007 that are still in the company that I uh sold. I mean, I mean, and these are like dozens of them are still there. What is that? 16 years later? You know what I mean? Um, so um, it's great. But here's the thing not only do you make this beautiful annuity, if and when you decide to sell your company, you are going to get a check for every one of those management contracts. And the average company is being sold anywhere between four and six times your EBITDA. So, I mean, it's uh it you can get a nice little check. So there's a guy named Jacoby Olin with C2G Advisors. If you don't know, if you're looking to exit, you have a platform, a co-hosting or a management platform, you're thinking about selling, I would definitely call Jacoby again, C2G Advisors. He sold more, he sold $200 million worth of vacation companies last year. And what he did is he looked at all the management contracts that were sold, what the total sales price across all those companies were. And it came out to between $33,000 and $34,000 per contract. So that's what these private equity companies are buying. That because that's when you sell your management company, that's what you're selling. You're selling the management contract. I hate to say they don't care about your guest database, they don't care about your brand, they don't care about your beautiful office or your trucks that are wrapped and all that stuff. What they care about are those management contracts. And on average, they're worth between $33,000 and $34,000. Now I know there's a lot of assumptions built into that. And like you could have only five properties and no profits, you know, you're not going to get that. But overall, if you look at the average of the average of the averages, these contracts are going for $33,000 to $34,000 a pop. So you don't have to own the inventory. So many people think you have to own the inventory to build net worth. You can build net worth by building up a management, a co-hosting platform for sure. You do you help with the contracts? So um on the MA side?

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Yeah, yeah. Like because you said they these companies are going to buy a contract. Now, a lot of us operators out here, we all have our contracts written in a certain way. And and I would assume that you would know how to write them to make them the most attractive they could be to a company trying to buy.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

So look, I've got lots of examples. Happy to help and share some of those with them, but I would I would recommend probably just talking to Jacoby Olin because he knows exactly what they're going to go through. Um, and he's going to pick through those things and he's going to know, you know, you got to here's the key thing. And he's got a whole list, a punch list, everything. One thing you want to make sure you have in there is make the contracts assignable. Do the last thing you want to do is make it where your contracts are not assignable. Because then you know what you have to do when you sell your company, you have to get new contracts signed for every single one, and your deal is going to be contingent on those contracts uh um being rewritten. Uh, so otherwise, you're you're it's just gonna make your a lot more work for yourself. So make sure those contracts are assignable. That's a genius, right?

SPEAKER_03 28:04

That's a gym.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

That's it. Because yeah, I mean, I'll admit it. My contracts aren't, I never thought of making them assignable. And I always thought, what if I didn't end up selling my inventory? Um, how am I gonna explain this to the owner? You know, hey, uh, you're going to another management company. Uh, what the I know I hired you, you know. But if the contract says it's you know, assignable, and nobody's gonna push back, nobody's gonna push out at all.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_02 28:29

Okay, cool. That's that's good to know. Um, so here's I I remember the question I was gonna ask you, you know. Uh, so so I'm currently, and it's so amazing that you have you're hopping on the show at this exact moment because

Building a sales funnel and the consistency problem

SPEAKER_02 28:43

I have, you know, trying to build my own little um sales funnel uh to try to pick up clients, right? And I have my my assistant Manu. Well, shout out to Manu. He's he's there hustling, you know, he's going over all the Zillows, he's going through Airbnb, he's going through other places. Uh, we've got reprimanded by other sites that we shouldn't have been doing it on their site, you know, kind of thing like that. You know, we're just we're putting the we're putting the street signs everywhere kind of deal, you know, uh bandit signs on the internet. Um, so and it's working to an extent, you know. Last month was a pretty good month. We picked up five houses, and that's pretty good for us, you know. Um, but but it kind of this month is just like you know, we hit a we hit a wall, we haven't picked up any yet. And so I still I still want to use him to to try to get out there and pick up as many properties as possible, bring him into the system. And would he be able to use just hop use ventory to help accelerate doing that?

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Of course. I mean, that's that's exactly what we do, right? It would uh I mean again, we've taken everything we've learned over the last 16 years, uh, everything we've learned, helping over 600 different companies and built a system um to make it really easy to do it. Um, so absolutely happy, happy to help you any way we can. And there's a lot of other you know different strategies you can do. You don't have to use Ventury, but what we've learned, and look, here's you know, I wrote I've wrote written a couple books. The the first book from Zero to 500 Properties in Five Years. This is literally the playbook. This is everything we run right here on how we grow, how I grew my company and everything we do. I give you the keys to the to the to the car, um, but it's a lot of freaking work. And what we find is a lot of people say, you know what, man, that's a lot of work. Um, we'd rather just hire you guys to do it for us. Um, so we can we can build that for you. But the key though, the one of the biggest things, the most important thing, and I say it time and time again, it's consistency. You have to be consistent in your marketing. Most most people are very consistent on their marketing, getting new guests. You know, they've got this nice little pipeline, they've got their marketing calendar laid out for the entire year, how they're marketing to their past guests, they do all these things, but it getting inventory is like an afterthought. It's like they lob out one postcard a year and assume that that's going to work. You have to have a proactive strategy and just lay it out there. And that's really what you know, Ventory does. We make it really super simple. Um, and one other little, I'll give myself a little shameless plug. One thing we do is uh we actually have learned one of the most core and important pieces is just having the right person that's actually answering the phone and closing the deals. We leverage uh psychometric personality assessment tools. So that like uh it's like cult, there's one called Culture Index, there's another one called Predictive Index. And what we found is if you have the right profiles, and it's usually like a trailblazer blazer, trailblazer or a persuader, they will do 3x the output of almost every other profile out there. And the reason, so what we did is we launched a fractional outsourced business development team. And the reason we did that was I, you know, every once in a while I'd have a partner that would call me and say, Hey, Brooke, we're canceling, or they email me. I'm like, why are you canceling? They're like, Well, we're just not getting the ROI. And I'd look into their CRM and they had like 16 new leads sitting in there, never touched, never called, never responded to. And I'm like, no wonder you weren't successful. You never responded to your freaking leads. You know, well, I'm just too busy, man. You don't understand. I'm like, I know how busy you are. So, like, but they still canceled. And guess what? It wasn't my fault, but it was my fault. It ultimately affected me and they canceled. And we saw this happen a couple of times. And I said, you know what? I know I can predict if they have the right business development person in that role, if they're going to be successful or not. If they don't, you know, they're not gonna be successful. But I also know that the average management company can't afford like a you know a six-figure salaried, you know, business dev person. So what did we do? We actually built out this, we call it like the SEAL team six of Vicky S Rental uh business development people. We only hire, again, trailblazers and persuaders. We only hire people that are experienced in the short-term rental space. And we built this incredible team. And but the thing is, you only get to hire them on a fractional basis. So rather than paying their six figure six-figure salary, you're only paying a small amount. And then we have a small commission on every new contract you can get. Um, so it's much more economical, it works, and then it's successful. And again, we're we're hiring the best of the best. I mean, we hired one company last month, we signed up five new contracts for them. Um it was fantastic. So uh that's our our little, I apologize for my shameless plug, but that's our little fractional biz dev team right there. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

I love it. Um, no, no, okay. So you guys do all the marketing, you guys go and get them now. So, like, how does it work? Or is it like, do you guys like trying to white label it? So it looks like my company.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. Yeah. So it's completely there's no mention of inventory anywhere on there. Maybe at the very bottom of one of the landing pages in

Ventory pricing: $399 essentials, $2,500 for fractional closers

SPEAKER_01 33:35

fine print says powered by Ventory, but other than that, yeah, it doesn't say anything. So yeah, it's uh it looks like your company looks like your landing pages, all the postcards going out or your brand. Even when the fractional biz dev uh person answers the phone, they're answering it on behalf of your company because we know with it shows up on our phone which uh company it's coming from. So we're actually answering, and they're they're pros, they have a cheat sheet on your program. They'll actually go out to your uh on-site and visit with your team, visit with your market so they understand the market, uh, and then and become a pro, understand your contract inside and out. So, yeah, it's like a full-on, like you know, representation of your team.

SPEAKER_03 34:11

Okay, and then is this like I noticed you said is it subscription based? So we just pay monthly and we keep the leads.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Yep, monthly, menthily, you get to keep obviously the leads, you get to keep all the deals. All those contracts are yours. And I mean, here's the reality: if you can what we always talk about is a 12-month CAC payback. So CAC stands for customer acquisition cost. If you can keep your acquisition cost under a year, you are home free. Because remember, we talked about before the average lifetime was about 10 years. So if it let's just say your first year profits are doing nothing but covering your expenses on acquiring that property, and then from year, you know, from month 13 through year 10 is all profits. So if you can get that CAC recovery 12 months or less, that's kind of like our benchmark where we're really shooting for. Even if you can get it a little bit above that, you're fine, but that's kind of like the goal we usually shoot for. So again, going back to that example, $75,000 property, you're gonna make $7,500 in year one. If you can acquire that property for under $7,500, which you should be able to, that's a home run. I'd take that all day long.

SPEAKER_04 35:18

Love that.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

So let's talk the price. How much how much does something like this cost per month?

SPEAKER_01 35:23

So we've got we've got programs as cheap as $399 a month, you know, for our for our essentials platform. And then if you it goes all the way up, I mean, if you want a biz dev person, it's gonna be an extra uh $2,500 a month. But again, you are getting a six-figure sales prep, um, you know, that you know, like I said, you'd you'd have to pay, you know, well over $100,000 a year for. Oh, wow. So you you're paying them $12,000, $2,500 a month to be the closer. To get that fractional biz dev. You don't need to have that. I mean, if you know how to close, if you can close them and you feel confident that those calls come in and you you feel confident you're in your closing services. Um, and then also just the risk being responsive. We found that most companies, unfortunately, just are not responsive. And that is one of the number one key critical uh pieces of success is how quickly do you respond? We secret shopped 100 management companies. We inquired about property management services, and they only picked up the phone 34 of the time. When we left a message, they only called us back 54 of the time. Here's here's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

So, like I feel like I'm a good closer. I'm I'm I'm good at talking to people, I'm good at listening to them. That's that's my my my high. I mean, I guess the show taught me how to do that. But I love listening to people, I love hearing their stories. I love, yeah, oh, tell me more about that. Oh, people love to talk about themselves, anyways. I could I I'm pretty good at it. My my my partner, uh Manu, who's got there, you know, hustling, getting all the leads. His English ain't the best. He's learning, he's getting, he's coming along really good, right? So he'll he'll actually he's closed a few, but I I really you know would like him to step up more in that role. I know I can do it, and but um he's not quite the the killers like you, like you hire, you know, those those guys, the the wolves of Wall Street, whatever. Um so I'm comfortable like starting something like like you said, 399 price range, and then but I I mean as a CEO, you you should you really want to push as many tasks off to other people as possible, right? So so I mean it is but responsive. I mean, he's that's the thing he's helped me out so long because because um I you know a same same thing with with you and you and your ex-partner, we kind of you know went our separate ways. I took over the company 100%, and um you know, I I just I'm just uh uh bogged down with a million tasks, and I needed him to make these calls, you know what I'm saying? Because I'm just trying to shape the business how I want it, and then I could jump back into the calls. And but I just um I I do you see, I mean, his responsiveness, at least he can can answer the messages and get the and get the ball rolling, get it in a nice place and and then send it to me. I mean, is that is that a possibility?

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Yeah, so if if maybe his if he's super responsive, but he maybe isn't the best closer, what I would do is use him as like uh what they call an inbound marketing response rep, so MRR or SDR sales development rep, and I would use him on the front end to just you know pick up the leads, pick up the calls, or or pick up the phone, or when a lead comes in through like your landing page, respond immediately as fast as you can, um, and then tee up an appointment you know directly

Hot call transfers: 10x more likely to close in two minutes

SPEAKER_01 38:28

for you and then let you close it. Like give him your meeting scheduler link and let him just schedule those appointments or do hot call transfers because every day you wait, there's a chance that the deal is not going to close. Um, one of the things built into our system, we we have something really cool. It's called a hot trap uh hot call transfer. So again, we know that speed responsiveness is one of the most important things. And I'll give you a little stat from a guy named Mark Roberts in a second. But uh, what we'll do as soon as a lead comes in in our system, like let's say they go to the landing page, they fill it out, it'll actually do a hot call transfer directly to you or whoever you assign, and it'll say, Hey, this is the Ventury Lead machine. We have a new lead for you. Press any key to be connected. You press the key, it actually calls them directly and connects you to. So literally, they're probably still on the landing page and it's already called, it's already made an outbound call. And they're like, and usually the comment we get is, man, I'm still on your website. And you're like, exactly, because we know how important that is. Um, so there's a guy named Mark Robert, he was the former chief revenue officer at HubSpot. Um, I think he was employee number three there. So he's got more data on this than anybody because obviously HubSpot is just a like a freaking like $30 billion company and they've you know got all these leads. But he said if you connect with the lead immediately or within two minutes, you are 10 times more likely to close it than waiting just one hour. 10 times.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

That makes sense, makes total sense. Um yeah, that's that's pretty awesome. I do remember I I've seen you before, and it was at one of the the the conventions or whatever, and you were uh with this lady here, the million-dollar host, Julie.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

I gotta get your I gotta get my book up there. I'll send me your address, I'll give you a book. I'm I'm I'm I'll do it right now.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

I'm sitting in it. You need to be on the wall of honor. Um, but yeah, she she mentioned, oh, it's the zero to 500 guy. So she she she blasted you on her socials. I was like, oh, cool, man. You need to get him on the show, and so you're on the show. Thank you so much for hopping on, man. Um, second time on Steve. Yeah, that's right. It's the second time. See, now I now I know where I really know you. But thanks for having on. I made such a good impression last time. You know, it all no, it all that's man. Didn't we have a guest that said all the same, you know, similar stuff last time? Thank you for hopping on again because yeah, we're we're we're growing. Let's let's talk about the new book. I got a new book. Let's talk about the new book.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Yes, let's talk about vacation rental secrets. Let's talk about it. So, this all started again from uh I it was Easter Sunday. I just you know the family all left. I was exhausted, you know. My wife and I were here and uh my my two girls, and I just poured a big glass of wine, and I flipped open, you know, my my phone and flipped open LinkedIn, and I saw this post from a guy from a different industry, and he said, he talked about like the top 10 mistakes that you made. And there's something about that that just intrigued me because if you think about it, where do you really learn? Where do you really get your learning lessons from your mistakes? And the second thing that was really cool about it, just like you know, the vulnerability of like admitting on public like all the mistakes you made, you know, and building your company. So I said, you know, this is pretty cool. So I shot a quick email to four of my friends that were all, you know, owned short-term vacational management companies. And I got a quick response from this one guy named Ryan Dame, who owns Cossego. And he it was fantastic. So I pushed it out onto LinkedIn uh that next morning and it went viral. It was crazy. Like the feedback from that thing was amazing. And then the other three people all responded as well. So I pushed it out. And for the next 52 days straight, every single day at 6 a.m., I pushed out a new post on the top 10 mistakes by some of the top leaders in our space. And the information, the learning lessons from this was so good. And I was like, man, this content is just too good not to share. But it wasn't until I went to the Northwest VRP conference in um in Reno, Nevada, and I this guy came up to me and he just said, Hey, I want to introduce myself. I read your post. I love them. It's probably the most impactful. I look forward to it every single morning. It's the most impactful thing I read. And he goes, I actually print out every one of them and I put them into a binder. I was like, So you made kind of like a little book, huh? He goes, Exactly. And I was like, man, this content's too good. I got to turn this into a book. And that's exactly what I did. So the book is set up like this. The first part is the 52 leaders, all their top 10 mistakes, you know, person by person. And then the second part, what I realized, guys, was you could bucket these into like 10, like it all bucketed into like 10 different groupings. And I bucketed, and what we did is the second part was 10 chapters of the top 10 mistakes. And we kind of pulled it all together, and there's some sub-bullets within that. And just I I like I'm telling you, I wish I had this book. I it would have saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars when I launched my company if I had this. And I really believe that this book becomes like, I don't know if you guys are familiar, you know, Good to Great by Jim Collins. It becomes that kind of book for our industry because the lessons that are learned here from some of the top leaders. I mean, some of the people in here have, you know, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 properties under management. You know, these are like the leaders, the top leaders in our space. And when you can learn from their mistakes, so you don't have to, I mean, it is worth the $14.99 for the book. And on that note, I don't make a dime from this book. All proceeds go to uh advocacy uh efforts to the short term rental uh industry. So I spent thousands and thousands of dollars, but all every single penny that I make from this is going to advocacy uh efforts.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

That's awesome. Can you tell us one like lesson that you learned that was like you would have never thought of that something that jumps out at you like, holy crap, you know, that's wow.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

That's there's so many. Um, well, let me do this. I'll I'll read through real quick just the top 10 and then I'll pick one. So the number one was strategy, number two was team, number three was processes, number four was based around finance and accounting. Number five was cleaning, inspections, laundry, and safety. Uh, number six was communication, feedback, and guest marketing. Number seven, my favorite, of course, inventory acquisition. Number eight, we talked about this a little bit before, taking on the wrong owners and the wrong inventory. Number nine, uh, uh technology. Number 10 was networking, conferences, community, and local competition. And then I threw a little bonus in there. It's like take care of yourself, don't take it personally, and don't forget to celebrate the wins. But I think probably the one that I don't know if it was surprised me the most, but just it was probably the number one. Um, I wasn't expecting to be number one, was really the networking and conferences and local competition. Um, that right there, I mean, how many people talked about like how much they learned from going to conferences, how much they learned from networking. And the one, this was one that I guess shocked me a little bit, if you will, it was like extending an olive branch to your local competitors and looking at them, don't look at them as a foe, but look at them as a friend, because you can gain a lot more from actually extending that olive branch. And that's one thing I've done here at Ventory. Anytime some little company comes up and they try to start something similar to what that we're doing, just because they see kind of how successful we are and how fast we've been growing. The first thing I do is I reach out and I extend an olive branch because I come from more of an abundance mindset. And it actually has worked out really well. I mean, one of the guys that did it, a guy, JJ King, uh, he started a little company called VRM Leads. I uh I saw this little whippers snapper come up and I was like, man, I got to reach out to this kid. Reached out to him. We ended up chatting for the next six months. He finally called me six months later. He goes, Hey man, he's like, honestly, I'm working like 80 hours a week and I'm not even making $30,000 a year. He's like, Will you buy me? And I'm like, absolutely. And we ended up doing like an aqua hire and brought him on the team. But had I not reached out to him, extended that olive branch, uh, we would have probably never acquired him. And he's like I said, one of our star employees right now.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

Collaboration over competition, man.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

I love that spot on.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

And it's funny because uh me and Micah,

Conferences and the $2,500 takeaway at 11pm at the bar

SPEAKER_02 46:31

you know, on doing this show, Live That Thrive. Like I said, we're we're both uh we've been doing short-term rentals for a while. We we've been we've jumped into the management game too. So we do have a lot of, as you say, competition out there, especially in this area, but we still pump out these shows and give away as much free knowledge as possible to our competition. And sometimes, like, ah, should we say that on the show? No, we just we just say everything, we just let it go, but it's it's come back to us like a hundredfold. So it's yeah, yeah, there's something to say about that abundancy mindset.

SPEAKER_03 47:02

Yep. And I love that list. You said number 10 was conferences, man. And you know what's funny? That's the one that I always hang up myself up on. I'm like, man, I gotta get to more conferences. That's mine. So yeah, I definitely got to check out that book. I will be buying it. Um, definitely checking in that out. Live live let thrive review.

SPEAKER_02 47:21

Yes, live let thrive conference coming soon, right? There it is, there it is. Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Well, I tell you what, I I call the $2,500 takeaway. There's never been a conference I've been to or where I haven't walked out with at least a $2,500 takeaway. It pays for itself every time. There you go. But here's the deal: most of the learning lessons, I shouldn't say most learning lessons, many of the learning lessons. It's 11 o'clock at night at the bar. Seriously, I'm telling you. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 47:48

Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. Man, this has been amazing. I'm texting you. See, I did have your number saved. Uh you made such an impression last time. And probably we weren't in the in the right spot to start something like this last time. Um, or you know, you know how it is. Why don't we do this?

SPEAKER_01 48:07

Hey, how about the first five people that like uh send you an email or or I don't know how you ever want to do it? I'll of your listeners, I'll give a free book too. So if you want to do something like that, maybe put something in the show notes or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 48:20

Yeah, in the show notes, and we'll say it now. So the first five people to inquire about Brooks book, Vacation Rental Secrets, at info at Livelit Thrive at info at Livelith Thrive.com. We'll receive what would you say a free copy?

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Yep, five five free copies. So each is one book.

SPEAKER_03 48:37

Yep, yep, yep. Five free copies. So first five emails, get them in as soon as this drops.

SPEAKER_02 48:43

Yeah, nice man. You got any more questions for Brooke here, Michael?

SPEAKER_03 48:47

No, man. I have a whole two pages worth of notes on everything you've done, everything you're putting

Extending an olive branch to local competitors

SPEAKER_03 48:54

out there, man. Uh, good luck to you, and I would be in touch. Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

Yeah, I have a question. So I don't know if your company can help with this. I know definitely Jacoby would like. Let's say, let's say I wanted to buy a few local companies that are doing business here that might be worn out, might be ready to hop out the game. Um, do you do y'all help with that at all?

SPEAKER_01 49:16

Yeah, I would I'd talk to Jacoby for sure. Um, he can help you out. But again, this goes back to the extending the olive branch. You know, we've got one of our partners, that's exactly what he did. He would every time he went up, uh, you know, he would end up uh doing uh lunch with one of his competitors. And finally, she's like, you know what? Vicasa's been hitting me up to sell. I am never selling to Vicasa. She's like, but I'm retired, I'm tired, man. I want to get out of this. Will you buy my company? And she sold that company for probably 10% of what she would have sold at the Vicasa, but she gave, but you know, because she didn't want she didn't want to go to the big boys, she didn't want all her owners to go. So again, it pays to reach out to your local competitors, have lunch with them, take them out for a drink. Who knows? Maybe they're you know, maybe they've had enough of it. Like this this business is tough, man. It's a grind for sure. I've been there.

SPEAKER_03 50:05

And you just gave me our next LLT event. We're going to target it straight to management companies. We're gonna go have a drink. So, yeah, great idea. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

Cool, Brooke. Where can people find you, my brother?

SPEAKER_01 50:19

Yeah, well, I'm I'm all over LinkedIn. Uh, do a lot on LinkedIn, uh, or you can just email me, Brooke B-R-O-O-K-E at Ventory V-I-N-T-O-R-Y dot com. Um, and feel free to go. I mean, we've got tons of information. Every webinar I've ever done, every conference I've ever done is all on either our YouTube channel or it's on our uh on our website. We we give so much information out there. I I literally give everything out there, the keys to the car, it's online. You can do it out yourself, or if you you don't want it, it's a lot of work. You want to hire us, feel free to reach out to us. But if you want to find it online, it's it's there at our website or on our YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

Uh website theventory.com.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

Ventory.com, yep.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

I will dive into that tonight. Well, thank you so much for hopping on again, Brooke, and amazing show. And we look forward to having some drinks with you. Sounds good. Thanks, guys. All right, man.

SPEAKER_03 51:13

Thank you, man. See ya. All right, man. Episode 269 in the bags, man. That was that was a really good episode, man. I took a load of notes on that, man, because growing up management company is I think that's what a lot of people are getting into. And I know me, I'm kind of moving further into management and ownership and uh kind of taking that route. I do love that management and ownership route. So then, you know, even if like you own property and it's under a management company, you can still sell the management company and then still own the house, you know. So setting up your business right is you know very huge too. But man, that that that is that is powerful. That's definitely something we both probably be looking into.

SPEAKER_02 51:55

And and that's what I mean, that's what um I noticed too, is in in my business, is a CEO can get really bogged down in all the small stuff, right? And all of the um, you know, tweaking the listings, trying to get your occupancy up, trying to get you know the most, you know, going into price labs and making a million different rules, trying to get that extra dollar, you know what I'm saying? But like he said, you get another adding another property to your inventory far outweighs, you know, getting a few more bucks per per booking or you know, per per listing, even. So so um that's why I've always been been strong about get the CEO the hell out of that, you know, working in the business role because you hit a wall and you can't grow no more because it'll be too much for you to do if you're trying to work in the business and not letting your team grow and do the all these things for you. So I've been really, really focusing on trying to pull myself, you know, creating the systems I need, so I don't have to do that stuff no more. And it's really progressing good, thank goodness. And and um, and uh having my sales funnel, and now I I look you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna dig into with this Ventory thing. I didn't want this show to sound like an infomercial, you know, people come on, they have their companies and stuff like this, but this sounds really interesting, and it could and it is important to have a sales funnel. I I learned that, you know, and like I said, we've been picking up properties and it's great, but to really, you know, throw some gasoline on the fire and and and really, really build, you know, bring in widen the funnel, get as much um properties and clients, at least talking to people because you might talk to like 10 clients and land one, but that's still good, it's still good. So, so, anyways, I'm excited about this. It hit at the right exactly the right time, and I'm gonna dive into it and hit our boy up, hit up, hit Brooke up. He's a great guy. He'll he'll chat with you, he'll have a beer with you.

SPEAKER_03 53:45

Hell yeah, I'm definitely gonna be uh looking more into it, man. Uh, love just being a connector of the space. I'm happy this podcast is like kept on growing, and we're just a connector of the space. But uh, I definitely do need to hit some conferences. I will be hitting some conferences, man. I've just been last year and a half, man. New baby, all that stuff. So you're like, I can't get to a conference. I'm gonna definitely hit a couple of conferences, man, because I know I'm missing out. So, FOMO, gotta get out there.

SPEAKER_02 54:09

Live Let Thrive conference coming soon.

SPEAKER_03 54:11

Yes, sir. But yeah, man, people find us, my brother. Find us at Livelet Thrive.com. Send us the email, infoliveletrive.com. You can also email us individually, Mike at Livelet Thrive.com, Steve at Livelet Thrive.com. Hit us up. Remember to subscribe and hit that subscribe button below. And uh thank y'all for our continuing to be listeners. We are, man, we're still pushing and we're gonna keep on pushing. We almost had 300 episodes. It's a glorious thing, you know. So yeah, thank y'all. Bye, my brother. Peace. We are out.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Live Let Thrive. Be sure to tune in next week for all the latest in the world of Airbnb and all that entails. Bye bye.