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Welcome to Alex & Annie, the real women of Vacation Rentals.
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With more than 35 years combined industry experience, Alex Heoster and Annie Holcomb have tuned up to connect the dots between inspiration and opportunity.
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Teacher to find the one story, idea, strategy, or decision that led to their guests to fake a hard moment.
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Join them as they highlight the real stories behind the people and brands that have built vacation rentals into the$100 billion industry it is today.
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And now, it's time to get real and have some fun with your hosts, Alex and Annie.
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It's the first of the month, which means it's time for our first of the month wrangle brought to you by Lasso.
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Every month we take one big idea shaping the vacation rental industry.
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And instead of just talking about it, we actually pull it apart.
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What's working, what's not, and what people aren't saying out loud.
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And we've got Orly Benjamin, CEO of Lasso, here to help us do just exactly that.
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Okay, Orley, let's wrangle it.
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Welcome to Alex and Annie, the real woman of vacation rentals.
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I'm Alex.
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And I'm Annie.
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And we are joined today for the first first of the month episode with Orley Benjamin, who is the CEO and founder of Lasso.
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And this is the kickoff of a really fun series that we've got coming for this year where we're going to be talking about vacation rental marketing, direct bookings, and how you get more of them.
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So, Orly, so good to see you.
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Alex, Annie, thank you for having me.
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I am super excited for everything we're going to talk about.
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Yeah, we're really excited.
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I love having a conversation with you because it feels like every single time I talk to you, I learn something new because you come from a completely different world.
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You're not vacation rental heavy.
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You had you are a vacation rental operator.
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Um, but I think what we wanted to do for this first episode is kind of set the stage for Orly Benjamin, her business, and what you are bringing to the industry with your background, your knowledge, and building lasso.
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I'd love to talk about it.
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I I can tell you that this all started with me being an operator of a very small, you know, single unit business.
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I, my background before that is I came from corporate America and I worked in marketing roles in a lot of really big companies.
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So I had this sort of really great um training experience in corporate America on marketing, and then I decided I wanted out.
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And so I went to create a lifestyle business around vacation rental management.
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And when I did that, I felt that the industry didn't have the technology that where I came from had in a way that, you know, a lot of vacation rental operators are underserved.
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They don't have the tools to do some of the things that really enable businesses to own their book of business by having relationships with guests and driving direct revenue.
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So for me, that was the light bulb moment.
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And uh everything since then has been totally focused on the mission of democratizing marketing so that vacation rental operators can really own their business and not just be reliant on distribution channels for revenue.
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I love that.
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I love the term democratizing marketing.
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I think that that is very well suited here.
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I've have had many conversations over the last couple months with people about direct bookings this year and just you know, the general, the general feel for where things are going.
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And, you know, my background, I once was with a company that did 95% direct bookings.
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And I've said to people, you know, I would I would never recommend that anymore.
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I mean, that that was a unique kind of unicorn strategy that we had, but it's it's becoming more clear to operators that you have to embrace the OTAs and you want to use them for the ways that you get new customers in the door.
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But then at that point, it's your job to make sure that if they come back to that destination, that they choose you.
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And I think there's, you know, there's there's layers of complexity.
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But I wanted to, my first question I wanted to start with is compared to what you saw in corporate America.
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I mean, give us some examples of when you started in the vacation rental industry, like what did you see as the main difference and how did you see it?
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Because you couldn't have used all the softwares.
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And I feel like, you know, from our experience, we've either used or familiar with with many of them, and we can pinpoint where the you know the downsides are or and the upsides.
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But what was it that made you see, okay, this there's something huge that's missing here?
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So when I started my business, I did demos with a handful of different property management systems.
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And what became clear to me is that the role of the PMS is really three things.
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First, I'd call it inventory management or listing management.
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It's the same source of truth where all of the properties live.
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The second thing that they do is channel management, which means your inventory can then be distributed across a variety of different places so that it can be found by customers.
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And then finally, payment processing.
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Those are the three common things I saw.
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But what I didn't see was a lot of the stuff that I was looking for, based off my experience in marketing, which is where's the single source of truth for all of the guest contact data?
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And how do I how do I merchandise my inventory?
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Because I come from retail, right?
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And so when you think about retail, the structures, there's inventory management, maybe it's a t-shirt.
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And then there's a merchandising engine, which in our industry is actually a booking engine, which means, okay, well, this t-shirt is pink, but this t-shirt is, you know, graphic, but the color and and and design style are actually things you filter by when you go shopping.
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There's like it's really hard to navigate through properties, especially with portfolios that are really big, right?
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That's what Airbnb does really well.
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They're not just a distribution channel, they're incredible at merchandising.
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And um, I felt like that was missing.
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And then what I also feel like is missing is once that guest books is the ability to know who that guest is, because uh the booking channels intentionally intermediate the relationship between the operators and the guests.
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In fact, Airbnb tells their guests do not communicate off platform, it is unsafe, right?
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There's the whole argument on whose customer so dangerous.
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Yeah, I know.
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You could go sleep in their house, but don't talk to them.
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Yeah, don't talk to them.
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Well, it's like to be there, not to talk to them.
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Stranger danger, stranger danger, stranger danger.
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Yeah.
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So how did you go about tackling that?
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Like that's structured and it makes perfect sense.
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But like again, to Alex's point, we already have all these solutions.
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So you almost had to like say, okay, I want one piece of one part of one solution, and I'm gonna build off of that.
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Is that kind of how you thought of it?
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Or what was the approach?
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Yeah.
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I actually into your brain.
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I I actually initially was like, do I create a point solution or do I create an ecosystem?
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And um, being the irrational and optimistic person that I am, I was like, well, I'm gonna create an ecosystem.
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Why would I create a point solution?
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So I before anything was engineered, I spent about six months doing market research.
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I went to conferences as an owner and operator of one unit, which by the way, no one cares about you when you're going into booths, and you're an owner operator of one unit.
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So you can ask a lot of really smart questions and be completely forgotten.
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And so I learned about the industry by showing up at conferences as an owner-operator of one unit.
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And that process for me was a discovery process.
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And then I also did some surveys via um Facebook and other platforms where I could get people to answer questions.
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At some point, I should share the survey results.
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They were really interesting.
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Love to see things like what is your biggest pain point right now?
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And what portion of your business is direct booking?
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And do you have an email marketing program?
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And one of the answers was I don't know.
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You'd be shocked with how many people don't know if they have an email marketing program.
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Really?
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That's interesting.
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They don't know what that means.
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Interesting.
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Interesting.
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Yeah.
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Alex, you need to go, you need to help more people.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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That's wild.
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Wow.
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No, that's that's cool.
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And I mean, the interesting thing is, I think we've got like three different buckets here of okay, I would say travel as a whole.
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And this is hard to say because you know, people might disagree, but we've seen it.
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Travel as a whole, I think the technology really has not kept up with the rest of the world's technology.
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And within that, we have hotels, you have uh vacation rentals, you have activities.
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And I think post-COVID, the vacation rental industry actually really made a lot of strides that we even how it is right now, we actually have better tech in a lot of cases than a lot of the hotels out there as far as being more connected.
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That like hotel has their PMS that's exactly what you just just described as those three core functions.
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But then they have a CRS, and then they have a booking engine, and then they have a CRM, and it's like it's on a revenue management platform, and it's like it's very convoluted.
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But I think Vacation Rentals has done a good job of consolidating a lot of things, but to to what end would be you know my question, because a PMS normally is not uh, you know, looking at things from an email marketing standpoint that was not the the focus of what the business was.
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And even some of the PMSs that are in the industry that you know do have CRMs, they're not CRMs to the way that you're talking about it and looking at things.
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And I feel like that's really where the industry needs to go, that we have plenty of tools that manage the inventory, the rates, the distribution.
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But maybe it maybe it's our own fault how direct bookings have not been great for the companies that just kind of follow the regular playbook of what their PMS suggests because they don't have the tools to do it.
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I had a really interesting conversation this week from someone who is very well respected in the hotel space because I'm actually learning about the hotel space.
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I come from aviation.
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I worked at NetJets, which is a private jet company, and then I worked at American Airlines.
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Hospitality, experience as a product, but still a different industry.
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And he explained to me that in hotels, you have asset management as a function, and then you have experience management, and then you actually have marketing.
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We don't have that many functional areas.
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And so I actually think most vacation rental managers are asset managers in the hotel space.
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And even think about what we're calling it property manager, property management system.
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The entire focus is on the asset.
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What about the guest?
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I mean, this term hotelier, we know what a hotelier is.
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They manufacture experiences.
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What's that term for industry?
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I don't know, haven't heard of it yet.
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But that's really true.
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It's a really good point.
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So, do you think to that point, like that's why so many people on the smaller operator side have stuck with host instead of property manager because they're they can be more experiential at the smaller level.
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So maybe it's about taking that function and being able to scale that function.
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Exactly.
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Because at the end of the day, the property is where people stay, but the product is the experience from the point of booking.
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That's what we talked about in NetJets all the time.
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It's not time on the jet, it's every touch point with the brand from the point of connecting with someone to the point of leaving the plane and getting to your next destination.
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NetJets was in the experience business, right?
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And even Disney, who I interned with, also in the experience business.
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But this industry, in my opinion, has a lot of really great operators as it relates to day-to-day operations, people that can do math and people that can do pricing strategy.
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But it feels like when you start to scale this idea from a host of property management, the hospitality gets lost.
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And the soul of welcoming someone into an experience, it's just really hard to scale.
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And I think that's one of the reasons why.
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And it's also in the scheme of things the easiest thing to throw off the boat because you have to have day-up operations, you have to have a good pricing strategy.
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Experience, I mean, it it can be like a tier three priority relative to those other things.
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And if you have limited resources and limited time, it's easier to easier to put that aside and not focus any attention on it.
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Yeah.
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And one thing I've definitely noticed too from direct experience and just observation, that there's two types of CEOs of property management companies.
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You've got the kind that they are more the operational or like financially background to them.
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And then you've got ones that are more entrepreneurial or like marketing-minded.
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And they can go one of two paths.
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The ones that are the marketing-minded CEOs, typically, you know, the business goes in a different direction.
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And, you know, it could be good or bad, but like they are the ones that are paying attention, really putting emphasis on the guest experience more, on having, you know, good marketing teams, whether that's in-house or outsourced.
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I mean, there's different reasons for having both, but they're really leveraging that.
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And I think in a lot of cases, when people come into property management, that it is more of an operations, it is more of a financial type of a job, they're thinking about the exact job of property management, you know, and it's like that was the hospitality side or the guest experience side isn't necessarily really their forte.
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And, you know, they can run a business without really focusing on that.
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They can get bookings and they can be going to bat every day to get more bookings, but not rely or know that they've got direct and and repeats coming to a certain extent.
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I'm glad we're having this conversation because I think where you're going with this and what you've kind of identified as some of the gaps is really important for how we we move collectively vacation rental marketing uh forward.
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It's actually the story of my career.
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Like I started in pricing strategy at American Earls, and what I felt was missing is what I always, and I worked on like a couple of things.
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I managed the priceline channel, which is liquidating, you know, left opaque channel, liquidating inventory.
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The second was upsells.
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How do you create unique products that maximize revenue?
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So I didn't manage the pricing per market, but all of my other peers did.
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I just happened to be in sort of an ad hoc strategy role versus like an operational market role.
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And I just felt that like we were looking at numbers, but we didn't understand the people behind the numbers because at the end of the day, the numbers are a dependent factor on the way humans make decisions.
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And that's why I changed my career to move into marketing.
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And that's when I went to Victoria's Secret.
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And so the reason I bring this up is that you know, you've got like this common structure in businesses where you have someone who's commercially minded and someone who's operationally minded, whether it's a CRO, a CMO, or a COO or a CFO.
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And the commercially minded people focus on growth.
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And the operationally minded people tend to focus on bottom line.
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And ideally, if you have a leadership team, you have the balance, you want healthy conflict because someone should be counting pennies and creating efficiencies while someone else is thinking, let's be bigger, let's grow to bigger, let's understand our customer.
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And so I think it's actually the tension between those two roles that's super important to create balance in a business.
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And uh, if businesses don't have balance, then they're gonna lead one way.
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I think that goes to something that Alex has long said that um, and we've talked about with people is that in in the business, like the revenue management management department, revenue management team, and the marketing team should be working together instead of in silos.
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And you have some organizations where the revenue management is driving marketing, where marketing like is is like an afterthought to revenue decisions.
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And they really shouldn't be not it, it's not to say that one should be better than the other, but they should be working in tandem to understand what is it that you need to do for the customer's desire.
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Is it about the marketing look and feel, or is it just about the price?
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I mean, I think that those two pieces have to talk to each other.
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And X, I mean, price and rates will never drive demand.
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I mean, that you have to create the demand, whether that's what you're doing in your own direct booking and marketing strategies, whether that's working with the you know, destination marketing organization in your area, whatever that is, the demand has to start somewhere.
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And then the price has to be right when somebody gets there to book it, you know.
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But I I've definitely that's a good, good um memory or bad memory.
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But like there, there's there's no way that revenue can just replace marketing because they're two different functions of the business.
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But I've seen companies try and do it and it's not good.
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They're another area.
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You want healthy conflict, right?
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Healthy conflict, exactly.
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That's why we don't have it.
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I believe in healthy conflict.
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I love healthy conflict.
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Yeah.
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But if you've got pricing strategy and you're trying to make sure you ride the wave on an upside and you make sure you don't miss um the opportunity to gain occupancy when otherwise you wouldn't, that's one lever.
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But when you actually think about the levers for growth, that is a subset.
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The levers for growth are three things.
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First, how many customers do you have?
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Second, how much are they spending each time they come in?
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And how often do they come back?
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How much they're spending each time they come in in the middle, that's a pricing strategy.
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But how many customers do you have?
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To your point, Alex, the pricing doesn't relate to customers, and then getting them to come back is a whole thing.
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So I think that revenue management lives here, but marketing lives here.
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And what you have is this really lovely collaboration between pricing strategy and marketing because you can start with what inventory do we need to liquidate, which is like what I did at American Airlines, but you can also start with what customers do I need to re-engage, or what customers do I need to go activate that have never engaged with us before?
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Totally different journeys, totally different starting points.
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One is about inventory and one is about guest.
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And it goes back to actually how for me, what I felt like was missing, I felt like everything in the industry is about inventory.
00:17:51.920 --> 00:17:53.200
Nothing is about guest.
00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:54.799
How do you know who your guest is?
00:17:54.960 --> 00:17:56.000
How do you know their behaviors?
00:17:56.079 --> 00:17:57.519
How do you know their lifetime value?
00:17:57.680 --> 00:17:59.279
How do you know how many times they've stayed?
00:17:59.359 --> 00:18:00.799
How do you know who else has stayed with them?
00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:02.240
What is the definition of guest?
00:18:02.400 --> 00:18:03.759
Is it only the person that books?
00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:09.440
Because from my perspective, every single person who stays on the property is a guest and is a customer, not just the person who books it.
00:18:09.680 --> 00:18:19.279
And that's the right way to look at it because just because you're the booker, if the three of us go on a girls' trip and you book it this time, but next year Annie books it, like I mean, and that that's very valid.
00:18:19.359 --> 00:18:22.160
That can happen in families or groups or whatever.
00:18:22.319 --> 00:18:26.240
And yeah, I think that's always been a big struggle for the industry.
00:18:26.319 --> 00:18:48.799
And as far as the CRMs that I've I've seen and used, is that they don't do a good job of really of aggregating that data and and keeping the guest profiles of, like, you know, these are associated, or, you know, worst case scenario, that it's the same person, but on one reservation, they have the email, the email might be different, but the phone number is the same, but it still isn't, it's still not matching that as a repeat guest.
00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:50.640
You hear us talk about this all the time.
00:18:50.880 --> 00:18:54.960
Everyone wants more revenue, less OTA reliance, and better guest experiences.
00:18:55.119 --> 00:18:59.200
But most teams are still piecing all of that together across multiple tools.
00:18:59.359 --> 00:19:02.160
That's exactly why we like what Lasso is doing.
00:19:02.319 --> 00:19:10.799
They've built smart guest marketing to actually do the work for you, turning every guest interaction into more revenue and stronger guest relationships.
00:19:11.039 --> 00:19:16.079
So instead of just getting the booker's info, you're capturing data from every guest in the stay.
00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:20.799
Instead of just generic messaging, you're delivering personalized experiences.
00:19:20.960 --> 00:19:24.799
And instead of just one-time bookings, you're creating repeat guests.
00:19:24.960 --> 00:19:26.079
That's the secret sauce.
00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:32.799
It's all powered through their house manual guest portal and for early users, their smart marketing platform launching this April.
00:19:32.880 --> 00:19:38.960
If you want to check it out, Lasso's offering 20% off a monthly or annual subscription for Alex Danny listeners.
00:19:39.200 --> 00:19:43.039
Just mentioned Alex Danny Podcast when you reach out to them at lasso.io.
00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:45.920
That's L-A-S-O-H.io.
00:19:46.480 --> 00:19:50.799
I'll never forget this was towards the beginning of when we started the podcast.
00:19:50.880 --> 00:20:02.240
We were at the Women's Summit in New Orleans and I was on a panel, and I asked the audience a question, it was about direct bookings, and I asked, you know, how many of you know what your percentage of direct bookings are?
00:20:02.640 --> 00:20:05.599
And we got some hand, some hand raises, I guess.
00:20:05.759 --> 00:20:10.799
And I said, How many do you know, how many of you know how what percentage of repeat versus new guests you have?
00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:17.279
And there's only like a couple people that raised their hand, and there is probably, I don't know, 50 people in the room.
00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:19.200
So it's it's a challenge.
00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:23.519
And if you're able to solve this, I think you're on to something.
00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:24.799
It's naked.
00:20:25.200 --> 00:20:27.039
I could have a system that did that for me.
00:20:27.119 --> 00:20:29.519
I had to run reports and then I had to finesse data.
00:20:29.680 --> 00:20:44.720
I mean, that's one of the many things that the lasso software does, is it looks at everything guest first, the P and it connects with the PMS, and now you have this healthy conflict between PMS and together they make magic, right?
00:20:44.880 --> 00:20:45.359
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:45.599 --> 00:20:47.759
So where does lasso sit in it?
00:20:47.920 --> 00:20:50.880
Is it integrated between two?
00:20:51.039 --> 00:20:53.279
Is it uh it function like replace a CRN?
00:20:53.519 --> 00:21:00.240
Like where does it all it's not a extra software because it's actually it's cloud-based, web-based, like right?
00:21:00.319 --> 00:21:03.200
It's not a piece of like explain this to me.
00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:04.559
Everything is web-based.
00:21:04.960 --> 00:21:15.279
Okay, it's a web-based application that's um optimized, which means if you look at it on your phone or you look at it on your desktop, it's responsive to whatever interface you're engaging with.
00:21:15.519 --> 00:21:19.839
There's an interface that the guests use, that is our guest portal product.
00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:29.279
The guest portal product, the value proposition there is get marketable contact information from everyone in the group, not just the person who books, as well as drive revenue through upsells.
00:21:29.599 --> 00:21:32.799
And finally, the third value proposition is know your customer.
00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:49.119
And there's a variety of ways that we help operators know their customer in the same way that I know Disney does, because when I go to Disneyland and I'm engaging with the app and I click on things, they have a database that knows everything I've done and they know who I am and they can create sociographic segments around who I am vers somebody else, right?
00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:59.759
So that's the guest portal, which is sort of harvesting the data around marketable contacts, understanding who they are by how they engage, and then also driving revenue to pay for itself and more.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:00.799
Through web sales.
00:22:01.599 --> 00:22:12.160
The marketing suite, which we're launching in April, is essentially all that data that you harvest from the guest portal now can be turned into revenue driving campaigns.
00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:16.160
And the way that happens is there's an AI-enabled CRM.
00:22:16.319 --> 00:22:18.480
Now the guest portal has a classic CRM.
00:22:18.559 --> 00:22:20.640
Everything's in a field, you can export it.
00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:22.559
You can go use it for email messaging systems.
00:22:22.640 --> 00:22:24.160
You can go do whatever you want with it.
00:22:24.559 --> 00:22:28.319
You can use the guest portal as a like gathering of data.
00:22:28.400 --> 00:22:36.559
And then you can go use HubSpot or Salesforce or Zoho or whatever you're using and just go right and go manually create email messaging campaigns.
00:22:36.799 --> 00:22:39.759
But ours is AI first in terms of our marketing suite.
00:22:39.839 --> 00:22:45.039
And so the AI CRM basically is my brain, along with several other really reputable marketers.
00:22:45.359 --> 00:22:51.279
My prior boss, who was the chief marketing officer at DSW and the chief digital officer at Under Armour, her brain's in it.
00:22:51.359 --> 00:22:55.519
And I'm not going to name the third marketer, but she's a deep industry marketer.
00:22:55.759 --> 00:23:02.160
She's currently the head of marketing for a vacation rental management company with 400 units that plans to go to thousands of units.
00:23:02.240 --> 00:23:05.519
And she has worked on both the SaaS side and on the operator side.
00:23:05.759 --> 00:23:19.920
So what you have is Fortune 500 CMO, like me, who like really understands tech and understands how to bring Fortune 500 CMO entering into this world of vacation rental management and then deep vacation rental management experience.
00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:21.359
And that almost creates an L shape.
00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:37.440
So with these three minds, we are creating a very proprietary marketing engine that actually does the marketing for you and proposes ideas to you instead of you having to be the one that understands what to do with the data and go make it.
00:23:37.680 --> 00:23:45.519
And what that does specifically is it recommends segments, it recommends campaigns, and it writes email messages for you.
00:23:45.680 --> 00:23:47.200
That's what we're gonna have in April.
00:23:47.359 --> 00:23:56.480
There's a world of additional products that we'll be adding that I don't want to speak to yet, but there's more coming and we'll be continuously sharing as we drop more capabilities.
00:23:56.559 --> 00:23:59.119
But those three things are what's coming first for the marketing suite.
00:23:59.200 --> 00:23:59.440
I love it.
00:24:02.559 --> 00:24:04.799
Sorry, I don't think you've only got plenty of these coming up.
00:24:05.039 --> 00:24:11.119
Yeah, it's gonna be fun to, and I think on one of the episodes, maybe we'll have you do a screen share so you can show us a little bit behind the hood.
00:24:11.279 --> 00:24:12.480
Here's here's my question.
00:24:12.640 --> 00:24:19.119
So there I've seen other software out there that it's it's not exactly the same as what you're doing, but I can't even think of the name of the platform.
00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:29.039
But there's something similar that you can easily generate social media posts and email blast campaigns because it's pulling in Blaze is a really good one.
00:24:29.119 --> 00:24:30.559
It auto-creates social content.
00:24:30.799 --> 00:24:32.240
Okay, maybe though I can't remember.
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:35.440
It was a long time ago I talked to them, but I think there's there is value there.
00:24:35.599 --> 00:24:45.279
But my argument to that would be that the one thing that drives me nuts about vacation rental marketing is when it's only just property, property, property, property, property.
00:24:45.359 --> 00:24:46.720
Like it gets very, very boring.
00:24:46.799 --> 00:24:52.480
Unless you have absolutely spectacular properties, I think it's very hard for that to work.
00:24:52.640 --> 00:25:08.480
There's been some cases for sure where there's there's a few companies in that come to mind that are in like the Smokies and Chattanooga market, and there's a good social media agency that's done some really great content for them, that those properties are they're the the destination themselves.
00:25:08.559 --> 00:25:11.759
I mean, like those properties really standalone that they're going to be eye-catching.
00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:29.680
But for a market like Myrtle Beach or Panama City, where Annie and I are, there's a lot of three-bedroom condos, a lot of three-bedroom condos, and some look better than others, but when you're just sending out emails or social and just posting that same same condo that just has different decor in the same building, it doesn't get engagement.
00:25:29.759 --> 00:25:30.720
And why would it?
00:25:30.799 --> 00:25:46.480
How do you wrangle in uh the brand into these emails and how you're the output of what it is that it looks different and then it also it's like touching more of like the emotional side of why people are visiting, which we know is an important driver.
00:25:46.799 --> 00:25:55.359
Well, that's the most exciting part is everything that's created comes from the brand of the vacation rental manager, and it's guests first if you want it to be guests first.
00:25:55.519 --> 00:25:57.279
So let's just talk about some use cases.
00:25:57.599 --> 00:25:59.839
Alex, I know you have a dog, I don't know your dog's name.
00:25:59.920 --> 00:26:02.079
Tell me about three, three, three dogs.
00:26:02.160 --> 00:26:02.240
Okay.
00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:04.480
Uh Tito and Chloe.
00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:05.119
Okay.
00:26:05.279 --> 00:26:14.559
I probably won't be able to say that back to you, but if you got a message that was like, hey, Alex, um, we can't wait to host you and the three Tito and Chloe.
00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:19.119
We've actually added some amenities that are dog centric, just so you know.
00:26:19.200 --> 00:26:22.640
And there's some events that are happening nearby that they would love.
00:26:22.799 --> 00:26:25.920
Um here's some of the options for you to book.
00:26:26.160 --> 00:26:30.720
That is a guest-centric message that is specifically personalized to you.
00:26:31.279 --> 00:26:34.799
That is what I mean about guest marketing versus inventory marketing, right?
00:26:35.039 --> 00:26:38.799
Everybody thinks inventory marketing, which is look at this thing I'm selling.
00:26:39.119 --> 00:26:47.279
Um, but I think really good commercial strategy understands the customer and actually meets them where they're at in a way that provides value to them.
00:26:47.599 --> 00:26:50.960
So I'm just gonna use Annie as another use case, right?
00:26:51.039 --> 00:26:57.039
Let's just say Annie and her husband have celebrated a milestone anniversary and they want to get away.
00:26:57.279 --> 00:27:02.559
And for some reason, we already know that information because we've been able to somehow gather it and store it.
00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:05.119
If we know that Alex and it's Patrick, right?
00:27:05.200 --> 00:27:06.240
It's your husband's name.
00:27:06.480 --> 00:27:08.400
Yeah, well, Alex is my Annie.
00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:10.880
Did I ever say the wrong names?
00:27:10.960 --> 00:27:11.359
I'm so sorry.
00:27:13.920 --> 00:27:14.079
Okay.
00:27:14.720 --> 00:27:15.680
Annie and Patrick.
00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:17.519
Apparently, I only know your husband's name, not yours.
00:27:17.920 --> 00:27:18.720
Yeah, it's okay.
00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:32.000
Are are are uh going on a you know romantic uh anniversary event, like having curated messaging like six months before your next anniversary to say, hey, it's time to book that anniversary trip again.
00:27:32.160 --> 00:27:34.240
And we have availability here.
00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:36.480
That is guest-centric marketing.
00:27:36.640 --> 00:27:41.279
And so it's knowing the special occasions and the makeup of the family.
00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:45.279
And you know, you can think of it as inventory marketing, guest marketing.
00:27:45.359 --> 00:27:47.839
And then I think there's this third bucket, which is event marketing.
00:27:48.079 --> 00:27:49.839
That could be Coachella's coming.
00:27:50.319 --> 00:27:59.759
Well, everybody wants to go to Coachella, but I think these three different buckets are different strategies, and you start with different facts to make them happen.
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:00.240
Yeah.
00:28:00.319 --> 00:28:10.319
And I think it goes back to like that with, you know, that, and I don't, there's, I know there's like a this uh adage for it, but it's that, you know, the brands that do really well are the brands that connect with people.
00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:13.839
Like they have an actual emotional connection to them.
00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:22.400
And if you can connect it someone with somebody on a personal level, it's that, it's that, you know, they they they might not remember who you are, but they remember how you made them feel.
00:28:22.559 --> 00:28:27.279
And so you've already reached out and tried to make that connection and said, Oh, so I feel special.
00:28:27.359 --> 00:28:29.119
I feel like, oh, you recognize my anniversary.
00:28:30.319 --> 00:28:32.079
Yeah, you you took time.
00:28:32.240 --> 00:28:34.160
Now, did you did you really take a lot of time?
00:28:34.319 --> 00:28:54.240
No, but you put a system into place that's gonna, but but that's what you're talking about with the past that because in my hairy day, nobody's taking the time to say, Hey, Annie, we think you would really enjoy this because of this special occasion that you're about to sell, you know, like I think that that's that's something that managers don't have the time to get that granular.
00:28:54.400 --> 00:29:00.799
And that goes back to you know what I said earlier about like hosts have the time to do it, they can do it with one or two properties.
00:29:00.880 --> 00:29:05.359
But a manager that's got 50, 60, 100, you you you you can't do it.
00:29:05.440 --> 00:29:12.079
So you have to have all of this data sourced and then the way to be able to deliver the data based on what messaging.
00:29:12.400 --> 00:29:13.440
I mean, I love all this.
00:29:13.519 --> 00:29:15.920
I think what you've done is absolutely brilliant.
00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:21.200
But I'd like to go, how did you pitch this?
00:29:21.440 --> 00:29:30.720
Because kind of like to the all the questions we're asking, I mean, there are companies that are like, well, we have a CRM, we can market to your guests, and then people will say, I'm already marketing to my guests.
00:29:30.799 --> 00:29:35.200
But we already know based on this conversation, most people aren't truly marketing to your guests.
00:29:35.279 --> 00:29:41.440
So you're trying to jump into a crowded field that a question that nobody's asking.
00:29:41.680 --> 00:29:42.960
They should be, but they're not.
00:29:43.119 --> 00:29:45.039
So tell me, take us back to the beginning.
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:48.079
When you say petchet, do you mean pet it to potential customers?
00:29:48.240 --> 00:29:48.880
Like how do I talk about it?
00:29:49.440 --> 00:29:49.599
Yeah.
00:29:49.759 --> 00:29:54.720
How did you talk about like you well, you had to pitch it in your mind, first of all, of like, okay, this is what I think I need.
00:29:54.880 --> 00:29:56.960
I need to put it on paper, I need to build it.
00:29:57.119 --> 00:29:59.440
So you had to get people to buy in to help you build it.
00:29:59.519 --> 00:30:00.960
So there's like maybe that pitch.
00:30:01.039 --> 00:30:04.000
But then also once you got it, it's the proof of concept.
00:30:04.079 --> 00:30:06.240
It's like, how do you get people to actually adopt it?
00:30:06.319 --> 00:30:08.319
So maybe those are the our two questions.
00:30:08.480 --> 00:30:11.759
And you can start from like the first one, how did you put it together?
00:30:11.839 --> 00:30:16.880
And then once you did and you felt like, okay, I've got a solid product, I'm using it myself because I know you did.
00:30:17.119 --> 00:30:21.440
Because I remember when you brought it to me to show it to me, you were already using it for yourself.
00:30:21.599 --> 00:30:36.559
But once you felt like you had it, like talking to people about it, because again, I think the industry got to a point for sure last year where they felt like there was just so much, and everybody had a new tech and everybody had something, and it's like, oh, please don't bring anything more to me.
00:30:36.640 --> 00:30:42.400
But you have something that you really felt that was gonna answer a challenge that nobody was really addressing.
00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:44.720
I started with something you have to start somewhere.
00:30:44.880 --> 00:30:46.319
Everything is crawl, walk, run.
00:30:46.640 --> 00:30:49.200
And I think we're barely walking right now.
00:30:49.359 --> 00:30:50.640
I can't wait to run.
00:30:50.799 --> 00:30:54.240
But I started with crawling and um I used it.
00:30:54.480 --> 00:31:02.559
I got a small number of early customers that agreed that this pain was painful and they wanted to be early users or something to solve it.
00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:05.039
They I call them design partners.
00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:14.240
They're people that tell me about their pains and we can and I build the software to solve their problems, and they have influence over where the software goes.
00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:26.400
And now I think that first product, the guest portal, is in a meaningful position to actually provide an ROI, not only financially, but around personalization and around guest data capture, that thing's ready to go.
00:31:26.799 --> 00:31:33.359
The second thing that I really learned through all these conversations is marketing's really hard and email marketing is like so tedious.
00:31:33.519 --> 00:31:35.359
And so I kind of listen to pain.
00:31:35.440 --> 00:31:45.200
And by listening to pain, you think about creative ways to solve problems and the continuous relationship with not only design partners, but folks that also say no.
00:31:45.359 --> 00:31:50.000
Every time I get a no, I'm like, great, I learned something about something I need to be doing differently.
00:31:50.079 --> 00:31:52.880
And eventually you just shape it to the point where it is useful.
00:31:53.039 --> 00:31:54.240
So that's a rejection.
00:31:55.200 --> 00:31:56.720
Yeah, healthy conflict, I guess.
00:31:56.799 --> 00:31:58.160
Yeah, healthy conflict there.
00:31:58.319 --> 00:32:00.480
No, and that's how the best brands are made.
00:32:00.559 --> 00:32:07.119
And I think the future is wide open for this type of thinking, and it's really it's necessary.
00:32:07.279 --> 00:32:16.319
I think it's been attempted in some cases to build something similar in the past in our industry, but I don't think that anybody has done it with the vision of what you have.
00:32:16.480 --> 00:32:23.440
And you know, we've we've shared some some calls so we could learn a little bit more, and and we're you know certainly very impressed by what this is.
00:32:23.519 --> 00:32:25.839
And I think it's gonna be a game changer.
00:32:26.079 --> 00:32:31.680
So it's gonna be a fun year and fun, uh, fun runway ahead of lasso for sure.
00:32:31.759 --> 00:32:33.680
We just gotta keep you wrangled.
00:32:34.160 --> 00:32:38.559
Well, and if anyone's at the R Nation in a couple of weeks, come by and stop and see it.
00:32:38.799 --> 00:32:39.279
That's right.
00:32:39.440 --> 00:32:39.599
Yeah.
00:32:40.720 --> 00:32:42.480
Tell me what you hate, tell me what you love.
00:32:42.559 --> 00:32:43.279
Either way, I win.
00:32:43.440 --> 00:32:44.079
Yeah, absolutely.
00:32:44.480 --> 00:32:51.920
We interviewed a CEO of a of a tech company not too long ago, and he talked about how feedback is a gift, whether it's good or it's bad.
00:32:52.079 --> 00:32:55.359
And it's better to have all of it than have none of it.
00:32:55.519 --> 00:32:57.920
So I think you're you're going down the right path.
00:32:58.000 --> 00:32:59.680
But I'm excited about this series.
00:32:59.839 --> 00:33:14.559
I think we've got a lot to really dig and dig in and slice and dice, and we'll do some deeper dives into this and bring some really good questions so you can help refine the product, make it good, make it useful, make it the best in class it can be.
00:33:14.720 --> 00:33:16.799
So I'm looking forward to this series with you, Orly.
00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:17.839
I think it's gonna be a good time.
00:33:18.079 --> 00:33:21.200
I appreciate the opportunity to talk about something I care about so deeply.
00:33:21.279 --> 00:33:23.119
So thank you for helping me do that.
00:33:23.359 --> 00:33:23.839
Absolutely.
00:33:24.079 --> 00:33:28.799
Well, okay, if you're going to VR Nation, make sure to stop by, see Orly, and check out Lasso.
00:33:29.119 --> 00:33:34.079
In the meantime, though, or for anybody who's not going to the show, what's a good way for them to reach out to you?
00:33:34.480 --> 00:33:36.480
Schedule time with me directly from the website.
00:33:36.559 --> 00:33:37.839
Uh, there's a demo link.
00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:42.000
I will gladly show people the product, even if they hate all of it.
00:33:42.079 --> 00:33:44.000
I'm gonna learn, like I mentioned earlier.
00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:45.759
You can also find me on LinkedIn.
00:33:46.079 --> 00:33:50.720
I do manage my messages, so I will directly communicate back to anyone.
00:33:50.960 --> 00:33:54.720
The lasso website is full of content around the product.
00:33:54.799 --> 00:34:02.720
And then we have several other social channels that are linked on the lasso website that you can also engage with me or lasso through those.
00:34:02.960 --> 00:34:07.440
And the website domain is L-A-S-O-H.io.io.
00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:09.679
I can't afford a real spelling yet.
00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:12.800
We we have a couple of years before I can buy that domain.
00:34:13.760 --> 00:34:14.400
We'll get there.
00:34:15.119 --> 00:34:15.760
We'll get there.
00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:16.400
Awesome.
00:34:16.480 --> 00:34:17.440
Well, thank you, Orley.
00:34:17.599 --> 00:34:26.960
If anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to alexandypodcast.com and be sure to tune in for the rest of our first of the month series coming up.
00:34:27.039 --> 00:34:34.719
Next month, we've got Beyond, and they're going to be talking about revenue management, which goes hand in hand with marketing as we talked about today.
00:34:34.880 --> 00:34:38.320
Um, and then Orley will be joining us every other month on the marketing side.
00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:39.760
So looking forward to it.
00:34:39.840 --> 00:34:41.360
Thanks for tuning in, everybody.
