As you have read and maybe have been seeing on socials, we had a big conference stretch! From Australia to Miami, we attended the Here To Stay Conference, No Vacancy expo, The Book Direct Show and VRMA conference, and had a blast along the way. A record attendance, a record number of industry leaders, and a record number of educational sessions made for great discussions. The conferences were huge—it was an amazing experience and I learned a lot of new things, met a lot of new people, made some presentations, and got all the lanyards to show for it. I hope you all had the opportunity to rest and recover if you were in attendance! 

There is a lot to unpack from our travels and I am excited to share my experience with you guys.  

On this diamond of an episode, set your sails, we’ve got The Million Dollar Host, a two-time guest, and a good friend of the show, busting in, it’s Julie Gorge! She is passionate about helping others create financial independence through accommodation so they can pursue their passions and leave their mark on the world. She and I are recapping our conference experience and sharing some of the valuable takeaways we gained to continue providing you with the Gold Standard. We talk about the why? How? Who? of conferences! Julie breaks down all the 2022 conferences she has attended, what she learned, and who she met. We also talk about strategies to make the most out of your conference experience.

What we cover in this episode:

• How to make meaningful connections and maintain them long after the events.

• What’s new in the hospitality sector?

• What the power players and brand leaders are saying about the accommodation business today.

• Insights into the latest trends in tech and suppliers.

• What should be on your to-do list after a conference?

• How to make the best out of a conference day.

• What are some new business opportunities from attending?

Julie George is the Co-Author of ‘Hospitable Hosts’ and the Author of ‘Million Dollar Host’ which outlines her story and unique STR property management business model that resulted in a portfolio of 130 properties and generated more than $8 million in income in 3 years. Both books have become international bestsellers and proving to add incredible value to budding entrepreneurs around the world.

This businesswoman from Australia is now considered one of the world’s leading experts in Short Term Rentals, Judge of the Shortyz Awards (the most prestigious Industry worldwide awards), Investor, Shareholder, and Advisor to many well-known companies in the hospitality industry.  

Julie has been featured in Podcasts, Newspapers, Magazines, and on TV worldwide.  She travels the world speaking at conferences.  As one of the most influential names in the Short-Term Rental space she supports, mentors and inspires thousands of Hosts worldwide. Julie offers to consult and mentoring to others wanting to replicate her success.

This was an incredible episode that really helps steer the conversation for our industry to fully take this topic into the higher levels of importance of connecting with each other, sharing wisdom, and seeing what others in our industry are doing in different parts of the world.

Thank you to everyone for coming up to us during the conferences and showing your support for the show! It was a pleasure and we couldn’t be more thankful to keep the show going for our thousands of listeners from around the world!

📣   Listen to the episode here
👓   Watch the episode here

Transcription:

Hello and welcome back to The Accommodation Show. We help accommodation owners like you, get the knowledge and skills you need to grow your business, improve your guest experience and increase your profitability.

Bart: Okay everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Accommodations Show. We are wrapping up 2022 with the glorious, Julie George. Welcome to the show, Julie George.

Julie: Hello. Gosh, I’m finally back on The Accommodation Show how exciting.

Bart: I’m so glad to have you back. The last time we saw each other was roughly about a month ago in Queensland when we were at the Here to stay conference, for Astra that was the first time we met face to face. How did you go?

Julie: It was just so bizarre it was like a school reunion. I mean, you and I have had so much connection via audio, via zoom to finally you know, see how tall you were like that was? That was fantastic. And that was such a nice feeling to give you a big hug.

Bart: Yeah, it was it was wonderful. I think what the episode will be about today is meeting people and making connections. And one of the primary things we’re going to talk about is the relationship between hosts from all over the world and experts from all over the world. So particularly in Australia and the USA, what that means what to expect in 2023? But before we get into it, Joey George, do you want to tell everybody a story of how you greeted me on the first day that we met?

Julie: Oh, I don’t even Oh, what do you mean when we met at Top House? Is

Bart: You remember what happened to my shirt?

Julie: Oh, well, we met in person. Oh, gosh. Okay, audience, I do owe Bart Sobeys a new T-shirt because I met him. We bought a glass of wine. Guess who spilled the wine all over Bart’s t-shirt? And you know what? Don’t feel special because this is not the first time I’ve done this to a colleague in the industry. In fact, I’m about to meet up with Steve Taggart, who runs one of the biggest UK management platforms. Sorry, operations. I’ve spilled wine on him twice. So obviously, I’ve got an issue. May have to stop going to meetings but I do like to throw my wine at people so sorry, Bart. 

Bart: If you get showered in line when you meet Julie, you know that you’re special that you’re in the cookbooks? That’s hysterical. Yeah. So that happened. We were at a bar with a couple of people and then all of a sudden and all my parents as well and the t-shirt and I had to go get changed. Sorry to put you on the spot. Julie George, but we are talking about the good things.

Julie: Now, but that’s just really solidified our relationship button. That’s what we’re here to talk about today. Right? That’s exactly right.

Bart: Like we’re always gonna have this story forever to lead us, Julie. So I thought it’d be great to do a wrap for everybody and sort of whatever we understand why we do what we do, why we go and we travel to different events and I’ve got something which I was going to do a little post about, but I haven’t done it yet. But this is my lanyard from the book direct show. Have you got yours as well? You’re ready. Hang on. Here’s the VRMAI gotta keep it moving just so that there you go. There you go. So we’ve been we’ve been. we’ve been pretty oh there you go. Oh,

Julie: I’ve got That’s Barcelona. There’s Nashville. We’ve got London. Oh, that’s, that’s sorry. That’s that is the Gold Coast where we just met. I’ve been collecting and I’ve done 11 weeks of international travel to conferences this year alone but getting quite a collection. 

Bart: Let’s start off with one of the most difficult questions. Our audience is listening, they’re they don’t make money from going to conferences as such, they make money from guests coming to their properties and staying with them and from selling that particular experience. So here we are. Conferences are great. We’ve been to a million of them and we had a great time. What do you think it is about conferences that are so important for an individual owner this is actually hotels as well because I’ve done a bunch of hotel conferences. Why go to these conferences and why go all the way from Australia to the US for the conferences?

Julie: Absolutely great question. It is about connection. It is about forming some strategic relationships and just having that support that community support. I think this business this hospitality business can be very, very lonely at times. And a lot of people that I’ve talked to in the industry feel like they’re on their own. Yet they may reach out on Facebook to the Facebook groups and look for support, look for help, and some motivation. It’s just not there. But I can tell you that at these conferences, you’re meeting with like-minded people. It is such a collaborative industry. And that’s probably one of the key takeaways for me is that I’ve never been involved in an industry where we all just want to give each other a big group hug. 

It was very, very prominent, and in the Gold Coast last month at the Australian short-term rental Association. 250 people in a room that could have been seen as competitors to each other. None a night. It was like a big school reunion where everybody wanted to support each other and mentor each other give each other advice, tips, and tricks, I just love seeing everybody coming together and helping each other there’s enough work to go around. But we’ve just got to pull together as a united voice as well. It’s going to help with when it comes to regulations or, you know, we were talking with the poor Byron Bay crew at the Gold Coast. And by the end of the two-day conference, we were all there ready to pitch in, put together some money, put together our voices as a collaborative, you know, united front, and that was pretty cool. It was really cool.

Bart: And what I’ve what I find really interesting with the conferences and going, seeing people speak is generally when they come and they’ve been invited to speak they tend to give their best bits. They don’t hold back they go hey, here’s all of my, I guess intellectual property. There is the things that I’ve learned over the past five or 10 years and I’m gonna give you this for free. Well, obviously the cost of getting into the conference, but there’s for a lot of speakers it’s not about that I’m trying to commercialize their ideas. They’ve already done it, they’ve done the work and they’ve got this experience and they just want to share the experience with other people without fear of someone stealing their ideas and that sort of thing. So that’s one of the things for me, what’s most striking is the willingness for people to give and understand that from a commercial point of view. They’re doing it, not to make money but to build relationships with people and also to become experts within their fields. Because you do find the same thing at all the different conferences that you went to.

Julie: I did and what was striking was there were no sales pitches from the stage and in the end, it was authentic, genuine help that was being offered tips and tricks from experience that was being offered. And what I guess you know, we saw at will the conference that we were just recently at but if just some of those attendees were able to take one or two points away and then put them into action. It was going to improve their accommodation business. It was going to make a difference in their lifestyle. So yeah, it was pretty cool. Did I know you just recently did a stint across to Miami? In Las Vegas with it. Was that sort of the same sort of thing there? Did you see it?

Bart: Like in terms of the level of people sharing it was pretty incredible. So that’s sort of my there were a few takeaways that I had, which I think will be incredibly valuable to everybody in the audience. One and both conferences were a little bit different in terms of what you get out of them. So that’s important for everyone to know. Don’t think that you’re going to one conference and get it all I think you do need to go to a couple of them to get some more ideas and more inspiration because they are different and it’s different. So

Julie: what were the differences what was Miami like compared to the VRMA? So

Bart: Miami was the book direct show. So as primarily around book direct and that sort of thing. VRMA was a lot broader. So you had sort of like all segments of the short-term rental industry sort of converging and coming together. A lot bigger, many more suppliers out there. And I think that the biggest difference was on the supplier side. The people that were in the room are pretty similar in terms of profile in terms of attendees but in terms of actual suppliers. There’s just far more VRMA and what that does, it actually cements in your mind that from a technology point of view was a very young industry. We’re learning an awful lot but it’s going so fast that you know in the room there are 20 PMS companies you can go and talk to absolutely every single one of them and have a chat about what they’re doing and what their solution is. 

So that was one of the things was the technology part. I found that had I not been there. I wouldn’t know about some of these companies that actually exist. And there are some big-name companies that have zero exposure across the world. They’re absolutely massive in the States, but I haven’t heard of them before I went to VRMA and I don’t want to call them out on this because they’re gonna say, Oh, why did you talk about us in that way? But it’s the technological point of view. I don’t want to digress too much, but I guess Yes, so the biggest differences were the technology side and the supplier side in that you went to a few different conferences across the world and I guess all of them were short-term rental related. What are the sort of from Europe to the US to Australia? What would you kind of pain the biggest differences as all?

Julie: You know, probably the one that surprised me the most was Barcelona. I went to one called a scale conference and that was for operators of 50-plus properties. I went there thinking I was, you know, pretty important with my 130 properties that I had run in Cannes, North Queensland. No, no, no, there were people in the audience that had 1500 properties 2000 properties, and suddenly, I realized that I was a very small fish in the sea and, but they’re still wanting to learn from us in Australia. They really admire what we’re doing in Australia, in terms of, you know, just our business. 

The structures that we’re putting into place, the strategies that we’ve got into place, people are looking in the spotlight is on Australia so that Barcelona conference was probably an eye opener. I found the Americans I just love love love working with the Americans because this is so entrepreneurial, they’re so ambitious this they’re just willing to give anything a try. They’re just a delight to work with so it was really interesting doing the full rounds. And then of course to come back to Australia and to the pride that I felt last month seeing our own Aziz get up on stage on the Gold Coast. We are world-class, Bart, like honestly, I’ve done 11 weeks of conferences around the world this year. What we produce in Australia in terms of conferences, our technology providers, our hosts, our companies that the hospitality companies that were at the short-term rental conference on the Gold Coast, next level.  I’m so so proud that we were leading the PAP like we were really I can understand why the spotlight is on Australia.

Bart: Yeah, and I was gonna say that I and you’re actually a bit of a testament to that as well because you would come in and as the MC for the strange short-term rental associations conference, and you’re like, we work together towards bringing up that standard. And I think the fact that you were MC, you managed to help to pull all that standard together and get us to where we needed to be and everyone in the room did that right in their own right with their presentations with their panels. Even as the flies that were helping us with the event. They did an unbelievable job to get us to where we needed to be.

Julie: Folks, just on that point, I love the emceeing so much so that was actually my first emceeing gig Bart, and thank you for giving me the opportunity. You know, I know you’re crucial to that, but folks, I love it. So much so that I am available for weddings, birthdays, and short-term rentals.

Bart:: We’ll be talking about short-term rentals at them though, right?

Julie: But, look, I really loved it, do what it was it was setting the tone and the energy in the room. But then of course, just celebrating everybody that was getting up on stage. Just celebrating the people that were sharing their information and their success. So what a blast and folks if you are listening in right now, make sure you get to the next short-term rental conference, the Australian short term rental Association conference next year because you do not want to miss that event

Bart: It is one of the best reasons to claim on taxes as well. You’re going all the way to Australia. Hopefully, we’ll put it somewhere nice as well where you can enjoy the sights as you’re going. The one thing that I wanted to mention about the emceeing and that part, and this goes back to almost two years ago when we started doing clubhouse rooms and getting ourselves a bit more traction and getting ourselves known out there. There are so many suppliers and so many people they talk to over in the US when I was in Vegas and they were like, Oh yeah, we’ve heard about your conference. Oh, yeah, we know what happened. Oh, Julie Gorge was the MC is the MC. Oh, you did the book direct presentation. Yeah, of course, I did. So why do you think it is that one, we’ve managed to get traction over the US and why are people hearing about what it is we’re actually doing?

Julie: They love us. They love our accents. Let’s put that number one they love the Australian accent. Number two they think that we are the party people of the world which we represent pretty well don’t we Bart? I think they love a good success story. And we’ve got so many success stories right here down under. We’ve got such a small population. But yet, look at how many success stories we have in the hospitality field and the short-term rental field. I just think that the Aussies just sorry, the Americans in particular, just embrace that and they want they’re like sponges, they want to know more they want to be around us they want that proximity. And everybody I’ve spoken to would love to come down under so if we can give them an excuse and put on an Australian retreat in conjunction with the conference next year, which is, you know, let’s pet a koala kangaroo. It’s a Vegemite together. You know, we and in fact, I often make the joke that you know when we’re traveling over to the US or to Europe that Tourism Australia should be sponsoring us because we’re doing I mean, we’re taking our clip on koalas. We’re taking the packets of Tim Tams. They all know that we’re there when we turn up to a conference, but it’s just a lot of fun. And folks, you know I’ve got to say I’m living the dream during these travels. But you’ve just had a taste of it as well. Are you going to be going back next year?

Bart: 100%. It’s just about figuring out which conferences to go to because there are so many. I think this is another important point that we need to cover, there are a plethora of different events that are coming up from different experts on different sides of the industry. And one of the things that I find interesting is that you’ve got conferences and events that may appeal to smaller hosts but then you can see that the industry is professionalizing, and there’s going to be less and less of a smaller house and more and more professional management companies that are coming in looking for information looking for connections looking for that kind of networking to help build their businesses. And we’re back in the day like you said it might have been 50 or 100 properties was was big. You know you’re talking, you know, 2000 properties are 3000. I was sitting down for dinner and someone’s like, Oh, I’ve got about 450 And I’m like is that all? Is that all right? So there’s a massive change or shift I think in terms of what people’s expectations are in terms of the demographic that these conferences will appeal to. So there are a lot of conferences coming up in the US. You’ve already got a bit of a plan for the first I guess three to six months as to what you’re doing. What do you suggest people do in terms of events that they go to? Oh, let’s rewind that. What are you doing?

Julie: Where are we? I am what are we doing? Okay, so my favorite events are the ones that I had been through already this year but I’m choosing to definitely put them on the calendar for next year. So firstly, there is an event in Phoenix. Sorry, Scottsdale, Arizona in February. Now it’s for women. The women of short-term rentals are just wanting to put on something of their own and it’s called the level up your listing,28th of Feb. So folks if you’re interested in that one get in touch because I’m going to be there I’m speaking at that one. But come on over. And then I’m going to hang around for a couple of weeks and go to one late March 20 to the 22nd of March in Nashville. 

Now if you are a friend of mine on social media, you would have seen me riding a bucking bull in Nashville this year. Who knows what will happen next year, but you’ve got to be there to find out. So if you’re interested in that one, I will be at that conference as well over 1000 people in what a venue called the wild horse saloon. Three levels, it’s like a rock concert. We had the Karate Kid there last year. We’ve got Mike I can’t pronounce his last name but he wrote Profit First Pumpkin Patch. He’s a famous author who’s going to be our keynote this next year. But they’re the ones that I will definitely be going to in the states and then of course I am going to Europe as well. But what’s really important we didn’t even talk about discussing on the podcast is that there is some financial help from the Australian Government for those who want to go and travel overseas to generate income back into Australia. And we have logged in but have both taken advantage of the export marketing grant. So there is a grant that is available if you want to travel. Get in touch with us and we’ll tell you about that as well.

Bart: Yeah, absolutely. So it’s the EMDG grant. I think that they’ve earmarked roughly around about if you’re on the top tier, you’ll get $70 $36,000 you spend $70 to get $36,000 back in kind for spending on marketing, market generating activities. So if you’re bringing guests over from the US to Australia if you’re bringing guests over from the UK to Australia, you can do all sorts of things. It’s an interesting program. We both got into it last year, the cats out of the bag jewelry.

Julie: That’s how we can afford to go, business class. I mean sometimes.

Bart:  I sit at the back of the plane still. 

Julie: Our Australian government has been so generous in putting that out there and it just allows us to do some more marketing overseas to our colleagues and our friends over there and bring that income back into Australia. So look, get onto those grants, but come along to some of these conferences. You won’t regret it because it’s a lot of fun. There’s a lot of collaboration. It is friendly. It’s also relevant for Australians, a lot of people asked me, Is it relevant, aren’t they talking about Americans? You know, all the American terms and legislation will show they are talking about their creative financing. I cannot believe how they can get loans over there, the structure of their property loans, but a lot of it 99% of it is relevant to us in Australia. And vice versa. What we are teaching them is relevant to those people there. So we’re facing the same challenges, but just a little bit different. Did you find that?

Bart:  It’s a really good segue actually because I do want to ask you about something and that’s on the coaching side and the motivation side and helping people that are in a foreign market that we flip it back again and folks, there’s quite deliberate. I’m trying to flip it from Australia to the USA, USA to Australia because we’ve got so much in common that we share. And actually, this is another one is that 70% of our business I booked online is actually derived from us clients. It’s far above what we do in Australia. We’ve actually got more clients in Australia but we make more money from the USA because we do a lot more in-depth work to really build these businesses and build their brands going from 10 properties to 50 to 100. 

Like it’s way more involved at work and what I find is that there are two things that happen with us is that we’ve got the one size we’ve got the skills, that expertise. We’ve got really great people that work with us, but we just needed clients that are willing to say yes, alright, let’s do it. Let’s give it a go. And that’s what I find with the USA as people like if you want to give it a go work with us and we’ll get it done. And that’s the attitude that I really struggle with. Over here in Australia. It’s kind of it’s more kind of tall poppy syndrome or no you could never do that never get it right. But anyway, I don’t want to go into that but

Julie: I do tend to hold back a little bit whereas the Americans go, let’s just do it. And you know, and probably I’d say 90% of my coaching clients I’m doing one on one consulting and coaching 90% are American, a few over in Europe occasionally. A couple in Australia, but it’s the Americans who adjust all gung ho let’s do it. And I’ll tell you what the exchange rate is not too bad either when you’re getting paid in us dollars.

Bart: Never quote in Australian dollars it’s getting right now. So tell me about that. So you’re working with people, so you go to the conferences, and then you’ll talk and then I think most of the time you’ll get onto the stage to talk to people. And then they’ll say hey, I think Julie George is someone that we want to have, like kind of consulting and business helping us with that growth, strategy, helping us with that path. And as you said, they like you because of your accent, obviously because of your experience and your expertise. In terms of actual real-time results. Do you think that you can derive better results than maybe an American counterpart? 

Julie: I’ll just say yes, but really. I just think that maybe what I’m offering is very different from what the Americans have got on offer from their counterparts. I’m doing one on one coaching where I’m diving deep into their business. I’m not doing group coaching where they’re listening to maybe four other people in the group talk about their issues or just receiving generic information. I want to get into the weeds of their businesses. So I’m only working with five or six people at a time via zoom, but I’m seeing some incredible results of people scaling their businesses, being able to work on it, not in it, and just you know, that’s what gets me excited these days is not it’s seeing other people succeed and look if I can dive in and help and then if they asked me questions about direct booking, you know, I’m throwing them your way or, or I can refer business to others, but it’s, I just love it and it’s modifying.

Bart: So one of the key things for me in this in this journey, there were two people that were incredibly influential for me to go over to the US and do this trip. Well, actually, there are three things one was the grant, which was obvious. That’s something that we worked on together and we got which is great. The other thing was, I don’t know if you were first or second in line, I think it was the second line. I talked to a chap called Pete Smith from Weekender, and he had been going to these conferences for quite a number of years and he’s a bar you have to go and then I remember there was this period, it was actually just before the end of the tax year I had to make a decision whether I was going to pull the trigger and booked my flights and get over there. And I remember talking to you and you’re like but just do it. Just do it. Just get on a plane and do it which I don’t regret it at all. Now, in hindsight, my bank balance is a bit lighter, but they’ll come back tenfold and I’m very confident of that. We’ve already signed up a bunch of clients that are like oh my god bar called Can you help us and the other thing which is actually quite important for our businesses, because of the time zones you might think that it’s counterintuitive to work with us. But actually, when I get up in the morning you’ve already done your morning stick and so therefore you’ve already done all the staff and got out of the way and now you can focus on our appointment and our meeting. 

Then when you go to bed that’s when my team is working on all of your problems and fixing everything and getting everything right so that when you wake up in the morning, it’s all already done rather than working on the same schedule and you get a bit of a delay. So that’s a really great thing about this sort of interest intercontinental relationship even though there is like physical distance doesn’t matter anymore when we’re working with people to zoom.

Julie: These days and WhatsApp and I mean, I’m constantly on the phone but it’s usually with my American counterparts and I haven’t quite dialed in the Hey y’all accent yet but I’ll keep trying. And, it works beautifully. I mean, yes, it’s early morning. Usually, I’m up at like 5 am most mornings and I’ll work through to say midday, but guess what, they don’t have the lifestyle balance after I finish midday calls. I will feel wine on Sunday. So it’s it is pretty cool. You mentioned Pete Smith, Pete Smith, you’re flying the flag for us as well over there and he needs a shout-out because I was getting some great messages from him when he was in Las Vegas and so proud to know that he partied at heart as hard as he worked over this so. So folks, if you are thinking next year that you might want to come to Vegas, there’s a bunch of us that will be there at the VRMA Nashville. You know the conferences that we’ve mentioned. But please come along because you will be embraced, people will just absolutely love talking to you. And you’ll learn as much as you probably teach while you’re over there.

Bart: I’ll definitely be heading over to the VRMA next year. I mean, that it’s going to be a fixture in our calendar with ibooked online.

Julie: I’ve got to say well, while you’re thinking about that, let me just give you some other exciting news throughout these international travels, somebody has been watching what’s going on and that is Netflix. Netflix has now picked up hospitable hosts which is the latest book that I’ve been going through him turning into a TV series. So folks, if you’re Netflix watches be ready the Aussie will be presenting in the writing of a TV series on Netflix and that just puts us in the spotlight down under even more so

Bart: Massive congratulations to you, Julie for that, and I know that you’re such a big driver of creating these opportunities for people and for collaborating the point that I was gonna say is Isn’t it incredible? How we’ve only met each other through this these platforms through talking to each other but 95% of the people that I’ve met on my journeys, they’re exactly as I would imagine they want them to be like, Oh, you’re exactly as you are on the camera. 

And from a trust point of view and working together and collaborating and makes it so much easier because you can cut through the fat a lot quicker. And it is like you’ve got a real relationship. It’s not like oh, we’re going to start building a relationship once we’ve met and I think that’s a really important point is that when you’re going to these events if you educate yourself, you figure out who’s going to be there. You can see them on different platforms, you can reach out to them before and have a Zoom meeting. Just have a catch-up on the time of the conference. That’s not what you’re doing in your meetings and doing your business. That’s just the time to chat and then you go home and you do your business. How are you finding that? That part?

Julie: Yeah. It’s so important though. And I’ve got a bunch of business cards here and I know you do too. We need to follow up and that is one tip that I would give to you. If you’re listening right now you’re thinking about going to these conferences Yes, take notes, take action from the information you’re learning at the conference, but then reconnect with those people that you’ve met at the conference just a couple of weeks later, reach out set up a zoom call to keep that momentum going and that relationship going because that is super important. And it’s something that we’ve run short of time the last few weeks but we need to make sure we do that so we’ll keep each other accountable and we need to follow up with our new colleagues.

Bart: I’m so blessed because I put out a wonderful team. So this is how we do it. So I grabbed the business cards, put a note of who it is what the conversation was, take a picture, put it through to my team, and they look after the next steps for me. So then I come back and it’s organized which I’m grateful for super grateful for but that’s how we manage it. So if we will try and wrap this one up. The 2023 plan for not for us, who cares about us right people will see us here and there for a property management company. What would you say is a tough one to three things that they need to think about when it’s talking about events and I guess the training and education side of their business?

Julie: Okay, so there are a couple of really key international events that I would be looking at one of them that we haven’t talked about is the shorties awards, based in London, now that will be in April, or May next year. Australians we had quite a few people nominate the short-term rental awards, but I would say property managers in Australia. You guys have got the most amazing success stories here down under putting your nominations for these worldwide awards. I may just happen to be the judge of those awards and I will try to be very, not biased but I just get such a thrill when I see these Ozzie nominations come through. So putting those nominations for this shorties awards. You will that will be a benefit VRMA which will now be in Orlando next year. In October of next year. Orlando. Get on that come with Bart’s eye across to the verge vacation Rentals Managers Association. Is that right? Yes, they are. I mean, that’s one to definitely be at. And then my third one that I would suggest is Nashville on March 23, and 22nd. It is just a huge party. But there is a little bit of work involved in folks who come to Nashville as well as Nashville, Orlando, and probably London for the shortage awards. They will be the top three that I would suggest for property managers in Australia to keep an eye

Bart: My tips will be there says don’t forget about your team. So when you go into these events and when you’re thinking about them you as the founder or as the owner of the business you’d like I’ll take myself you gain far more from your team going and learning. And you as a leader, want to teach them how to best go about getting the most out of a conference. So going and talking to all the vendors. I know that there are a few people who split the team up into three and they go down each aisle and at the end they all meet up and they say what did you get from this one who do we talk to what was interesting because there’s not that much time so you need to plan well in advance. So that’s the first one is a planet because of a lot of the stuff out there. 

The second one definitely brought your team and then the third one is probably don’t overdo it. So try to figure out two or three events that you’re keen on that you think you’ll get something out of. And then just plan around those and put them into your calendar. And if you’re thinking about your teams and bringing them across, make it fun, make it a reward make it something that’s part of your company culture, that you get to go and do these events and you get to collaborate and learn from the industry because I can assure you that you’ll probably get more they’ll probably the staff will probably get more out of it than you will as a founder or your business owner. Because they’re in the weeds. They’re in the thick of it and they’re thinking about all these problems and you’re gonna teach them how to resolve them. So those are my tips for conferences in 2023.

Julie: And take your Brocker Tim Tams

Bart: Electrolytes I had electrolytes and just to keep, like Morocco, that sort of thing. Just like most mornings.

Julie: Good so bad for me in Miami and here I am living all the secrets out. I had to go and get an IV drip to recharge so that folks it works and but just be prepared to have as much fun as you do as put in the work. And it’s a win-win at what a great industry we work in.

Bart: Absolutely. Look what we’ll do is obviously we’ll do a few more of these throughout the year, next year different topics and sort of keep everyone up to date as to our movements, what we’re doing where we’re going. And I think that’s very important. If you’re watching the episode and you’ve got anything out of it, let us know if you’ve got any more ideas on different events that we haven’t mentioned. If you are an event organizer, please let us know as well as put it in the comments so that we know what events people are putting on and what they’re doing. 

There’s a whole bunch that we haven’t talked about which is crucial for the industry as well. And as usual, please make sure that you give us a like and a subscribe. It makes the world of difference to us producing this show and putting it together and spending our time on it because it means that we’ve got a bigger audience following us, Julie George.

Julie: Thank you, Bart Sobeys. I think we should run The Accommodation Show from Orlando next year. How about that?

Bart: I love the idea. I absolutely love the idea. I’ll have to talk to the VRMA team and figure out how to get on there. You’re wonderful. I wish you the best in your travels. And I’m sure that we’re going to talk again in no time. 

Julie: Thanks so much. 

Thank you so much for listening to the show. You can find this at theaccommodationshow.com where you can find all the show notes, and links to resources we have talked about in transcripts from the show. I really do appreciate you listening. And if you’d like to support the show, please subscribe, leave a comment and share it with others.