From Turnaways to Takeaways: Monetizing Referrals through "Have You Got", with Deborah Labi

Alex Husner  3:06  
Welcome to Alex & Annie: the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex and 

Annie Holcombe  3:10  
I'm Annie, 

Alex Husner  3:10  
and we are joined today by Deborah LaVey, who is the founder of Have you got Deborah? It's so good to see you today.

Deborah Labi  3:17  
Hello, and thank you very much for having me. So it's 928,

Annie Holcombe  3:20  
there. Thank you for jumping on late, but I hope you have a glass of wine so you can

Deborah Labi  3:30  
hence the evening lighting. And yes, I've got the wine waiting for the end.

Annie Holcombe  3:34  
We haven't seen you since Italy, so that's been quite a while, and you've been busy. But before we dig into what you've got going on, and there are some people that aren't familiar with you on this side of the Atlantic, so maybe tell us a little bit about your background and vacation rentals.

Deborah Labi  3:50  
Yes, sure, it's a long story. I've been in the industry for 19 years, but to speed things up, I was a property manager for 14 years, managing properties in Sydney. I lost my business when COVID came along and Australia closed the borders because I was working remotely, based out of Europe, going back and forth to Sydney twice a year. I also had a startup that I'd designed and brought to life, 2016 2017 I lost that as well with the closed borders. And then I started doing other things within the industry, helping out on the book, direct show. I ended up with two podcasts, one about technology, one about sustainability, and I brought my startup back to life again. And I've been keeping very busy, so I've got a lot of experience. And yeah, I I'm also a creative so I've got another few ideas up my sleeve too, but I just don't have the time yet.

Alex Husner  4:47  
Oh, well, that's that's a good thing, right? That means you're busy, and now, thank goodness you're not being, uh, held back by restrictions these days.

Deborah Labi  4:58  
I do miss dealing with a guest. Though, I have to say, property management is a tough job, and I wouldn't do it again when you take a break from it. Oh my god, what a relief. However, I do miss the guests. Dealing with the guests, that was a really nice part of it. I

Annie Holcombe  5:12  
would agree with that wholeheartedly. I wouldn't jump back in unless I had a certainty that I could control things. But yeah, the guest is probably the good guys. I mean, not the bad

Alex Husner  5:22  
guys. Yeah, so, and it's interesting, you know, looking at your LinkedIn, I mean, you're the have you got network? You started that in 2016 so this has been around a while, maybe tell us a little bit about that. And I know that you said that you had started before COVID, and now you're getting back into it. But, but what is have you got? What? How does it work? So,

Deborah Labi  5:39  
have you got? Was born because of the situation I found myself in for the previous possibly 10 years, where I was turning away guests that I couldn't accommodate. I was a very successful property manager in Sydney. I had a lot of inquiries, but I always I was actually only a very small property management business. So I had returned guests. I had people finding my website, and they were inquiring, and I was like, I'm sorry, I can't help you. I'm sorry, I can't help you. And I really, really wanted to be able to send those guests to another independent property manager, but I didn't know any so back in 2016 I wasn't really familiar with LinkedIn, and LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups weren't really huge back then, so I was really working in isolation. And I just figured, okay, you know what? I need to build a network so I can share these surplus guests to another independent and then the thing is, my guests were asking, we're going to Melbourne next. Have you got anything in Melbourne? It's like, No. Anyway, that idea basically made me think, okay, I need to design this so that everyone is connected, so it doesn't matter where your guest is going to go, they can still go to another independent property manager. So 2016 I didn't really know much about tech. I knew what the problem was. I had some developers. We built it. It was quite manual, so probably better for the smaller property managers, that could be a bit more hands on. COVID killed out because no one was getting bookings, let alone referrals. So, and I couldn't travel the world to be telling people about it, but at the end of 23 a property manager said, you know, you need to bring Have you got back? I'm turning away guests now, and I suppose, yeah, you know, travel bounced back after COVID, and now I know a lot more about tech. So now have you got is automated, and it's a monetized, automated guest referral platform. But besides the referrals, with all the inventory, everyone's inventory on the platform, it's also a listing site, so the public can find the website and book. The managers can refer guests. They don't have to do anything except share some details. And then have you got, does the rest, and I'm all about the guest experience, so the guest is really looked after with have you got, and the key, key feature of Have you got is that everyone who lists a property on Have you got is professionally ID verified. They go through an ID verification process through auto host. When I, when I first designed it, I was looking at verification companies, you know, who does it for the banks and mobile phone companies, and I was chatting with some people, and when I started doing version two, I was like, Oh, who was I talking to back then? And then I thought, What am I talking about? We'll verify the guest. Well, I can verify the manager the same with the same company. Oh, my God. So now all the property managers are verified. So it's a really key way to sell. Have you got to guess? Everyone is verified. There are no scammers on have you got, so given the scamming going on on Airbnb and booking.com and it'll be verbo soon, so have you got is a nice little oasis with no scammers. The

Alex Husner  8:54  
reason for why it's called, have you got that, I wasn't really sure, but your explanation makes perfect sense, and it reminds me very, very much of my years at condo world, and we built into an OTA also, because the genesis of that was we would have people that would call and they would say, What have you got in Myrtle Beach? And we were in Myrtle and I remember Roy saying, well, we got to get some let's get some partners. If we're not going to rent down there, let's find somebody that we're turning away all these calls and inquiries. So, I mean, very similar concept of what, what you built is, that's what you got, you know, that's, that's what they would do. But what

Deborah Labi  9:29  
have you got was the what I kept hearing in my head when I had this thing, and it was like, Have you got a two bedroom place at Bondi Beach for these days? Have you got a four bedroom house? You know? So I just kept hearing, and I thought, That's it. That's what it's called. I love

Annie Holcombe  9:43  
that. I love that. Yeah, with you doing this, like, So you brought it back to life. So obviously you kind of had to retool it and start over. What do you what does it look like now, in terms of, like, country served, manager served, inventory, like, how much have you grown? Because I know we were talking about it when we were together in Florence last year, yeah. And you were really, really doing a big push. Then, but I think you're trying to be global, right? Like it's not something that's just in

Deborah Labi  10:04  
Europe, yeah, well, it can work anywhere that there's the structure of it, as long as there's two property managers in one town or one city, they can refer and it's on the have you got map? So currently, mainly in Europe, trying to fill up more of Italy. Spain is nice. UK is filling up. I want to fill up some more of France too. At the moment, I'm just shy of 6000 properties. I've also got some in Florida. I've got cassiola, so I've got Cassio on in Florida. Yeah, and a couple of other property managers. So in fact, one property manager signed up out of the blue in Orlando, and I thought, Oh, I wasn't really going to approach America because it's so huge. But hey, you know, if it's going to be near Disney World, that's a nice place to to start. So then I approached Dennis. And so there are property managers in Florida. There's one popped up in the middle of America. I think it's Missouri, Ozark, I don't know. Anyway, okay, okay, so, so one manager popped up and signed up there, and there's a few in Ontario, in Canada. So they're finding it and they're signing up. But really, for referrals to work, you should have at least two, so you know, and three or four is better, of course. And the thing is, it doesn't cost anything to list you list your properties. I do all the onboarding and basically any surplus guests that you have now. The thing is, it's not just about surplus guests, because with Have you got you get a referral link. You could actually capture revenue from your website visitors. So anyone coming to your website, they might see a property and go, that's nice. Oh, but it the dates are not available, and go to leave. But why? Why not catch them as they're going to leave and say, Hey, did you not find what you're looking for? Maybe someone in my network can help. So you keep the guest in the have you got network, and if the guest books within the network in the next six months, you get a referral commission. So with this referral link, there are so many ways you can use it. It's basically passive income that can be an exit intent. Pop up when they're going to leave. Hey, catch them. Then you can have something on your homepage, maybe down the bottom, to say we're part of a global verified network. You know, take a look at our destinations, and if they do travel overseas, click on the link. Oh, yeah, I like, and he's a great property manager. I want, like, what network, or what's the network? Like that, and he's part of click on the link, have a look book somewhere else, and it gets commissioned. So there are ways that you can actually earn extra revenue just by using your referral link. So it's not just sharing the guests because you're full because you've got them in your hand. It's you've also got them on your website, so why not earn revenue from them?

Annie Holcombe  13:06  
Scenario where managers would, and I think about kind of Alex and I have talked about this before, because we were in beach markets where we were always trying to find ways to build up our database and like that. You know, we knew that the people were going to the mountains for the fall and the holidays, you know, Christmas is but we they come into us in the summer. So we wanted to have partnerships with people. Do you see a situation where somebody could have a link and say, like, send it out to their their database to say, Well, if you're looking for these markets, this is, have you got has a network within, you know, Gatlinburg, or whatever the complimentary market might be? That

Deborah Labi  13:39  
is a great idea. I don't know if that situation in Australia, we didn't have that situation, but that's a great idea. Easy, easy to use your referral link to remarket to your guests if they're going to stay in the mountains the next holiday, absolutely. And so the referral link is actually alive for six months no matter how many times they use it. So it's not just to book one trip. If they book, you know, three weekends away, you still get commission for all of those trips. And every time they click on that link, it's another six months.

Annie Holcombe  14:08  
Oh, okay, so it's like a RE, or like a reauthorization of that link, I guess,

Deborah Labi  14:14  
exactly, exactly. So, you know, you can, you can be earning, you could be earning referrals by sharing that link. And the whole idea is to keep all the property managers working together. If we can all work together and share our guests, then it keeps the guests off the OTAs, and it gives the other property managers direct bookings. And I'm all about direct bookings. I was a property manager before Airbnb came around, and so I started off with direct bookings. And when Airbnb started, it's like, oh, wow, didn't this just make life easy? What do I have to do now? Nothing. And then I realized it's like, Wait a second. You know you're just taking over my business. So I was like, no, no, no, no. And I just grabbed control of my business. Again, and I want to give that to the independent property manager. I want them to be in control of their business. They own the guest. I don't own the guest. We're sharing the guest. It's so much easier and cheaper to share a guest than to try and and earn one. You know, find one. You can just share them. Yeah, well, and

Alex Husner  15:23  
I think, yeah, a lot of companies, everybody wants to be multi market. Everybody wants to grow and they want to have different locations. I mean, as Annie mentioned, that if you're in a ski market, you want to have something in beach and vice versa. But the operational and financial abilities to do that are quite complex, right? I mean, there's definitely challenges there. So doing this through a partnership model makes a lot of sense, and that's always what we believed as well, too. I'm curious, do your partners that are part of this, are they training their in house guest services reservations teams to also take phone calls, to, like, respond to inquiries on these other properties? Or, like, how does that work? Because I think that's kind of where the secret sauce kind of falls off the tracks in some of these cases that it's it's tough on two sides. One, they're making a much smaller margin, right? But you have to be able to answer those questions, unless those questions are going directly to the company that manages the property. So curious, how you handle that? Okay,

Deborah Labi  16:19  
I'm just a bit confused. Are you talking about share? When you share the guest, what do you do if you've got the guest on the phone?

Alex Husner  16:26  
So say, I'm located in Australia, and I'm a property manager, and I am I've given a referral. I've had my properties on there, but I am referring a guest because I don't have something in London, for example, is the property manager reporting or responding on the London properties, or are they passing that on to the London manager to respond?

Deborah Labi  16:47  
So this is how have you got works. If you are in Sydney, for example, and your guest is going to London, there are a number of ways you can share that that information. If you have them on the phone, you can take their details and you can fill in the inquiry form, or you can just on your dashboard, enter their name and email address and the and the inquiry form will be emailed to the guest, and the inquiry form is just simply, okay, what? Tell us about your trip, the dates, how many guests do you need? How many beds? In case that's an option that you need. What's your budget, what area you're looking in, any keywords you know, baby items, hot hot tub. And then once the guest hits submit, or even you hit submit, the guest then will get an email within about 30 seconds with a link saying, or with an email saying, we have great news. We have properties for you and a link, and it takes them to have you got, and it's only showing them the properties that suit their criteria. Now no property manager gets to see the guest details until the guest books. So have you got? Does the matching work? And the guest gets the email and gets the link, showing them all the properties that are available. And then it's just like a listing site. They look at the properties, they can see the property manager, they read the reviews, etc, etc, see all the gallery and then when they decide, they book, and then the booking goes to the new property manager, and that's how they get a direct booking. The new property manager won't even know it's a referral. They just get this guest booked. This is the booking deposit they've paid, and this is what's left to charge the guest. And it's basically you put the guest onto your guest journey. You, as the referring manager, will get an email great news. The guest that you referred booked, and this is how much commission you're going to get, because that commission is going to be dependent, is going to depend on how expensive was the stay, which property did they book? So that commission is 5% of the total stay. So then you'll be notified, and you don't have to chase any money. You don't have to do anything. You get paid at the end of the month of check in, just in case, you know, the guest cancels, or something happens along the way. And the other big, big thing about, have you got no no OTA was doing ID verified verifications for the property managers. And no OTA is buying 15 trees, planting 15 trees for every guest that books a stay on. Have you got so this is a very small thing that's trying to combat, you know, some of the travel impact. So it's a great thing for the guest. So when the guest checks in the next day, they get an email with a something from ecology. That's where I'm buying the trees from. They're in your name. These are the trees. These are the projects the country, etc, etc, that it's all in. So that's their contribution. Oh yeah, yeah.

Annie Holcombe  19:47  
Well, yeah, we lost a million trees with the hurricane that came through 2018

Annie Holcombe  19:53  
just because our area is a very big timber area. So a million trees. And what I didn't take into consideration. Is the impact of that on like, just everyday life, like flooding and the heat and and all the things. So I'm going to get you some inventory in the Panhandle so we can get some trees planted.

Unknown Speaker  20:10  
Yeah, yeah,

Annie Holcombe  22:23  
Question to you like going kind of off of Alex's, but more like on the inventory. Do you see yourself connecting with channel managers so you can access more inventory, so people could easier, easily put their inventory on your site? Yes, it's

Deborah Labi  22:38  
definitely something that that I would like to do absolutely, yeah,

Annie Holcombe  22:41  
yeah. And so it's a bit but you said, like, right now it's just you people fill out, and then you're verifying and taking care of it all yourself.

Deborah Labi  22:49  
So it's a, yeah, it's a passive project for you. So it's, it's a chicken and egg thing. So I need the inventory on the platform, and I need, I need to work on getting the inventory on the platform, and I need to work on brand awareness with the public to get the book exactly, you know, it's like, I have people, some people, you know, looking and getting to check out and leaving. So it's like, okay, I need to finesse their journey. And I need to get more properties. I've had referrals go out and there's no, no properties available because there were so few and they booked, or there was just, you know, one property and it was booked, so I need to really pad in the areas with inventory. So I'm working on that. And basically I'm trying to save money with my developer. I've spent enough on it so far, but channel manager, connection is definitely, definitely on the on the roadmap.

Annie Holcombe  23:38  
Yeah, well, we know somebody that can help you with that. Just, well, that's a tough one. Because, I mean, I deal with channels all the time, and it's, it is that it's like, there's, they have the value proposition, but in order to build the value, they got to have the channels, and in order to get your the properties, but in order to get the properties, you have to have the value of the bookings, and, like, you can't get it all at one time. So it is, yes, it's

Deborah Labi  24:02  
a great battle. And I the way, the way I operate, is that I have an idea, and I just go 1000 miles an hour, and I want it done, and it's done, and I want to see success. And with something as big as this, it's just like, oh, it's not, it's not successful enough. How am I doing the right thing? Oh, my God. Oh my god. And then I'm thinking, Wait a second, I'm building this enormous platform. Go easy on yourself, you know, just get the property so on. Just keep doing social media. It'll get there. You know, it's

Alex Husner  24:33  
like we're all saying, how do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time, right? Start with the feet and work your way up to that point. I'm curious. Mean, what is the marketing strategy? Because, I mean, that is definitely a serious hurdle to be able to generate bookings at scale for a large amount of locations. And you know, that's something that we ran into that we were in the areas that we had inventory or had influence in. You know, we were really able to push a lot of volume, but as soon as we. Started getting out of our nest here and where our guests already knew the name, it's like you're really starting from scratch. Even if you're a household name to some people to other people, you're the new kid on the block. So how are you approaching that, as far as content and marketing and scaling to generate bookings? Yeah,

Deborah Labi  25:17  
okay, so the marketing, the way I saw it was two prongs. So with me and what I'm doing, it's all social media every day, or at least Monday to Monday to Friday. Sometimes on the weekend, there's Instagram, there's tick tock, there's YouTube and Facebook. Every day, it gets a post, another product, another property in another country. And YouTube is actually it's not the dark horse, but it's sort of like, oh, okay, there's a lot of views going on through YouTube, and it's sort of bit evergreen, because, you know, people are typing the question so it can get more views even, you know, down the page. You know, I look down and I'm thinking, Oh, wow. Okay, so YouTube, the usual social media. Now, the other way to get brand awareness is through the referrals. If you are referring a guest into the system, they're going to go, oh, well, who's this? It's a verified system, because you know that they trust you. It says it's a trusted network, and then they have a great journey. Now, one of the things about trust, trust is a very big thing for me, and trust I've put it into Have you got the most important thing when you're building trust, and actually for good guest experience, is connection with a guest. And what's the best way to connect with a guest? Show your face. And I think this is why I was quite successful, because I was using video back in 2015 with a booking confirmation email so they they knew my name. All the PMS is auto autumn, the automatic emails came from Deborah, and they saw my face, they heard my voice, they connected with me, and this is why they came back. And maybe these other inquiries could have been word of mouth. And so I applied it to have you got. So when someone books on have you got, they get a video of me thanking them for their booking. You're going to have a great time. You're in great hands, and then telling and telling them what the journey is now that your information has been handed on to the property manager, who's the local area expert, and they're going to look after you. It's

Alex Husner  27:16  
brilliant. It's so simple, but it's like that is so important, and I feel like it's something that is just, like, completely missing, that it doesn't, you know, I'm like, There's ways to do this, that even at scale, you could have one welcome video for all the properties, right? I mean, it's like, but it's such a missing piece of for companies that want to reclaim Airbnb. You know, this is, this gives you that ability to have that human connection. So I love it. I think it's great.

Deborah Labi  27:44  
I gave a talk at it about it at scale last year scale conference, and it is about showing your face on the About Us page. You would be surprised how many people don't show their face and then they don't use their name, even, like, I'm trying to approach people to get out and have you got and it's like, who are you? I'm looking at your website. There's no face and there's no name, please. You know, help me out here, you know. And what's a guest going to feel if they they can't see you? So yes, there's the booking confirmation email, and also check in. So you can use a check in a video for check in, and just first thing you say is, I hope you had a great trip over, and you can use one video for all of the check ins, just to say, you know, we're always here to help you. If you have any issue at all, don't hesitate to get in touch, and we'll look after it straight away. That way you deal with the fact that if there is something wrong, you can deal with it before it gets to the review, so that that will help with your reviews. It's best if it's all filmed in, you know, in the property that they're checking into, because then you can just do, okay, the towels are here, and this is the fuse box in case it goes out, etc, etc. Or you can just do the one, but it's so important to show your face, and then that way, you know, they feel like they know you, and they go a bit easier on you. If something does go wrong, you know, and you try to fix it, it's like, oh, yeah, no problem. Good. 100%

Annie Holcombe  29:11  
Yeah. So scalability is obviously a question, and so just basic based on what you're just telling me now, I'm assuming that your target manager is someone that's not managing 1000 properties, likely.

Deborah Labi  29:23  
Okay, so it's very interesting. So the thing is, I think again, looking at these, at the data that you see at all the conferences, the bigger the company gets, the more inventory, the worse the reviews get, particularly around communication. So what I see, because I had so many return guests and inquiries, etc, etc. I think it's the smaller property managers that are doing the connection and the personal service, and it's the smaller ones that are going to get booked up or don't have a property in the area that the guest is asking about, but it's the bigger property managers that I need there for the inventory. To send those guests to. So I do need both. I need that. I need that the smaller ones that are connecting with the guests and doing a great job, because I think these bigger ones, they just don't get it. They don't get how easy it is to connect with the guest. It's such a good return on investment. You know, you do one video and and that, and what you could earn from that, just in terms of connection, repeat guests, word of mouth, but yeah, these big companies are a bit slow to move.

Annie Holcombe  30:27  
Yeah, we face it all the time with, like, some of the technology that we have at next packs, like we have messaging, and we find that the larger managers aren't using the messaging, and it's like, and a lot of the a lot of it has to do with kind of the bandwidth within their team. They don't have the people and not they're not they're not thinking long term. That like the investment in having somebody, even if it's a VA from the Philippines or somewhere else, that could go in and manage it, what that return is like, just the responsiveness to be able to say, like you're getting back to a guest within a reasonable amount of time, or you're answering their questions, or even if you don't know the answer, you're at least letting them know that you're looking into it. I think that that goes a long way in peace. Goes a long way. And people underestimate the the amount of return that they can get by just exactly little things. And I think a video is a really great touch point, yeah,

Deborah Labi  31:12  
and that with AI coming along, so we do need to keep that human touch, you know. Okay, look, it is a bit scary, because when I did this presentation. Oh my god. So there will be AI that will, you know, you'll have me, for example, saying, Hi Annie, you're going to have a great day. I'm here for you. Blah, blah, blah. And then the next video is, Hi Alex, you're going to have a great day. La, la, la, oh my god. So it's going to be like near but that's the video aspect. But you know, we have to keep the human touch, because hospitality is about humans. I I'm very sensitive about this hospitality versus fully automated. Fully automated, it's not a hospitality business anymore, is it?

Alex Husner  31:54  
There's no way that you can plan for every possible thing that a guest is going to ask. You know, I think there's, you know, quite a few things that you can regulate, as far as the questions that you commonly get about how you turn the TV on, how you get the Wi Fi on, what to do, if the pool work, or, you know, things like that. Those are prescribed questions that you can plan ahead for, but where it needs to be a balance of and I happen to wearing my boom shirt today, where I think, you know, the smart AI companies are really doing this right is that it's, you can, you can have it on, like co pilot, that once it escalates, and this is where the AI has to really be very advanced to do this. But like, once it gets to a certain point that it's reading the sentiment from the person, and you can see this is not, this is not going down the path that you can just be referencing policies. It needs to then shift over to the agent, right? You can't have just like, it's fully one way, unless you know if you've been doing it for long enough. And the AI has been through every possible situation, which I don't know that that's possible, maybe someday, but it's going to take AI, no matter what platform you're using, a while, to learn all those things. And then the good thing is that it is learning. So, I mean, it's, it's getting better over time with any of the platforms, but you have to still be able to have that human touch to jump in. But if you can cut down on the, you know, redundant messages that you don't need to be Deborah doesn't need to be writing those like, that's where it saves you time, and a manager time that they can be focusing on higher level, higher strategic type things,

Deborah Labi  33:22  
well, out of interest. What are your both of your, your takes on face to face, meet and greet. I know you work for bigger companies, so it may not have been possible, but what, what is your take on it? But

Annie Holcombe  33:33  
do you think for the luxury market? I think it's really I think it's really imperative, and that's where I see it still continuing with larger companies. I do see people who have 1000 units and they're working in very dense markets, or they have condominiums, they can't scale that. It's just, it's impossible one, because you couldn't go to, you know, if you have 1000 condos spread over 27 buildings in a market. I mean, there's just no way to get enough people out to do that. So I think that the video is a really great play to kind of fill that void I do see in the luxury market. If somebody's spending 3040, 50,000 euros or dollars, whatever, you know, currency a week for a vacation, I mean, they want white glove service, they're going to want that. And I think at that at that level, it's almost expected, and you should do it. So I think wherever possible, you should do it. But if you can't do it in person, a video or even a handwritten note. I think I know that's what we did the last management company I was at, is because we did condos, and it was the same thing. So wherever we could possibly do it, we the housekeepers would drop in handwritten notes to people if they were staying more than a certain like, if they were staying a week and it was a family, like, if they were staying one night and it was a last year check in. Obviously couldn't do that, but I do think whenever you can do something that's just a comforting touch to somebody to just, just to say, like, you know, we we appreciate you and people the smallest bit, I think they take that to heart and remember it, yeah,

Alex Husner  34:51  
I think it's, it's still an area where hotels be given the nature of how people check in have an advantage over vacation rentals right now that am. Unless you're doing the you get the pass, or if you're a bonvoy member or Hilton honors, to go right to your room. But most people, I mean, they're still having to go to the front desk at some point to check in. And I think that experience that you have talking to somebody them, how they greet you, the questions they ask, the information they provide, like that that does it sets the standard for the rest of your stay. Now that everything has changed with vacation rentals, that it used to be that it used to be that they would come to our offices and check in, now that they're going straight to the property, we've lost that. But at the same time, I know myself, like, even if I'm checking into a hotel, I would not want somebody, a general manager, coming to my room introducing themselves. Or if I'm staying in a you know, Annie and I are with our girlfriends and we're staying in a beach house, like, I don't want somebody coming in to say, I don't want something like, if we've been driving for hours, like we want to get there and get on with our vacation. But I think we're definitely in the age now, especially with the Airbnb off platform rules, that it is more important than ever to make sure that you are really owning that experience when the guest is in the property, and just making sure your branding is everywhere, and that any at any chance that they might have a question, it's super easy for how they get in touch with you, so you're not invading their space. But whether it's QR codes next to the TV remote or the Wi Fi or the dishwasher or the hot tub or, you know, within your the guest app, if you're doing it, you know, according to the new rules, just making it super easy for somebody to know they've got someone to reach out to. I mean, I still, I think that text messages are probably the most relevant these days of as soon as the guest gets there, if you're using a platform that can just shoot out a text, we hope you're having a great time. If you need anything, we're here for you. Like, that's, that's like, the gentle nudge of like here, and like, making sure that the tone of like, how that is written is it's a, you know, reflective of your brand, and also just like, welcoming, casual, friendly, that's, that's, you know, that's kind of like the best thing we can do these days, I think, to keep people

Deborah Labi  36:56  
and with the video, you can also say the same thing, You know. It reminds me, you know, we've got you covered if something goes wrong. And you can also say, and you know, don't forget next time to book direct,

Alex Husner  37:08  
sure, yeah, here's a question. Do you think that the general public understand what that even means? Book direct?

Deborah Labi  37:15  
I think they're getting it more and more, because I have spoken to some guests, and they were mortified when they heard the that, that, you know, how much commission is taken from what they've paid. They were mortified. So I do believe that the book direct movement has to keep going. It will get there. And I feel a bit bad because I'm taking a guest fee for Have you got when I, when I was doing version two, I put word out to everyone. I said, Look, these things cost money. It's either you, as property managers, you pay or the guest pays. You know, which is it, and the guest pays, the guest pays and and, you know, I was thinking this evening, actually, when Airbnb first started, the guest did pay, like, 12% and the manager paid 3% and that was all right, no one complained that the guest is paying the guests didn't know, okay, and that's how Airbnb built their business. And then they decided to switch it and go, you know, in favor of the guests. So that's, yeah, yeah, but I'm all for direct bookings, and I think, you know, we need to keep training the guest, you know, and I think they are catching on.

Annie Holcombe  40:28  
wonder, though, if it's localized, where people understand direct versus, you know, channel, because I think there's it seems like certain markets, if you look at like the makeup of where the bookings are coming from. Certain markets are very dependent on the OTA bookings. There's, there's, there's no direct, there's just no direct way I mean, and I really think that urban markets specifically is where I would, where I would look at that, because so many hotels got built in these urban centers that no hotel brand could carry the weight of the marketing that was needed to get direct bookings on their brand site. So they had to ultimately go to OTAs to diversify and make sure that they were getting every eyeball that was possibly coming into market. So as people went into short term rentals, they also had to be out there on the same platforms that the hotels were on, because nobody can support that level of marketing that needs to be done. The OTAs are the only ones that have the large enough, the large enough billfold to do that. So I, you know, I like having been on that side of it, like trying to drive drug bookings and and it was funny, because I used to argue with my Expedia rep all the time, like, I don't need your business. I'm doing just fine. And it was like, the argument was always like, Okay, well, what's your occupancy and like? And it was like, Well, I know what my like that. I'm doing just fine. But it was like, look at the whole piece. And so when I started working for OTAs, like, that's what it was, is like, how do you the sell of the OTAs is really getting that extra guest filling your calendar, extending your calendar. And so for a market like Panama City Beach, which I've been in for 30 years, the OTAs have absolutely 100% helped out when we've had hurricanes, whenever we had the oil spill, like they've helped out in areas that the market could not recover without that support, so like balance in it. But I just think that consumers that when the world opened up to this digital space of being able to book travel on a whim and being able to book travel last minute, and now that you literally can say, I always tell my son, like, as long as you have a passport and you've got money in your bank account, you could go to Vietnam tomorrow, like, there's no planning, and going to a travel agent and having to really think things out six months in advance, so you're not necessarily making all these phone calls. You can do it on a whim. So the technology has sort of enabled some of this to happen. But I also think that the consumer doesn't get it, because it's just like, well, I want to go where the it's the quickest, easiest route to get to where I want to go. And so if, if managers made that quick, easy and accessible, and, you know, felt they felt comfortable, that brand had that trust. And I always think about, like Chris Mogg and like his the trust factor with I practice that he talks about all the time, it's like, at the end of the day, it's like, you're like, you're going to do business with people that you know, like and trust. And you may not know that brand, but you trust it. So how, how do you help? No, so how does have you got help those managers, that brand? So I think you're doing all the right little pieces in there, giving them touch points that are more human. And it goes back to the conversation I think a lot of people have been having lately is, I having lately is, where did hospitality go? And technology has taken hospitality away, which has driven people to use technology, which removes that ability to talk to them, and so they're just going to the the path of least resistance, I guess, is, yeah, yeah. They're choosing

Deborah Labi  43:38  
just further to that at a recent presentation that I did, okay, one of the slides was, what do the OTAs have that we don't they have inventory. They spend billions on marketing, I can't remember, and trust and social engagement and that sort of thing. But if every property manager pooled together, we would have inventory. We would have all of that too. We would have the social engagement. We would have all of that marketing spend together. So why can't have you got be that OTA, that all the property managers join and connect and and work together with. So you become the trusted Airbnb, and Annie becomes a trusted Airbnb. Alex becomes a trusted Airbnb. People come to you, to trust you and into the system, or they stay within the

Alex Husner  44:27  
system. I agree with you completely, and I think somebody needs to step up to the plate. And I think there's a lot of companies that are OTAs out there that are wanting to do something similar. But like, how do you become that one? Like, what is going to be the plan of you know, at a certain point it comes down to, you're going to need more money to advertise, right to market, to go out and be able to do more things than just the social but like, how do you get more people involved in that? And like, Get behind you, to rally on your site versus vacation finder? Or savvy, or, gosh, I don't even know Annie knows all of them, but there's, I mean, there's probably a dozen of these OTAs that are similar in concept.

Deborah Labi  45:08  
Yeah, I think the main difference, like I was saying, was the ID verification factor and the sustainability factor. And once it does kick off, a bit more and once more, property managers understand that they can earn passive income from their referral links and things like that. That's the difference. It's, it's extra revenue you can earn, not just from from direct bookings on, on the other, the other OTAs, it is a separate it's a standalone thing that's, it hasn't been replicated yet, and the, it's the, it's the referral network. That's, that's the key difference, verified global referral network, yeah, and I will get investment, and I will, you know, eventually it does have to grow. I can't do this all on my own. It will definitely grow. And it will be the independent property manager, OTA,

Alex Husner  46:02  
yeah, the referral network, for sure, is a big part of it. I think the other two that come to mind that are similar in that respect would be stream, share. So streamline software, they have a similar program that really is not anywhere near utilized the way that it probably should be, that you can, if you're a streamline user, you can pull in inventory from other places, and as long as you have a deal with that other company, you can book their inventory and then Z point so Larry hoffers company, they've got rentals.com that is similar to that. You can put your inventory and you can push out inventory from from other areas. But I like the referral part. I think that has the biggest upside and ability for this to grow outside of just being an OTA that throws a ton of money at advertising. So yeah, I think that you're on the right path. For

Deborah Labi  46:49  
sure. There are, there are solutions out there about pooling inventory. There are a few definitely out there. But the key difference and so another presentation that I did recently. The analogy is, what kind of shopkeeper Are you? Do you help your guests? Do you go to your guests and say, How can I help you? Are you after anything in particular, or are you just becoming a department store? Because by by pooling, by pooling all that inventory, you're not helping the guest. You're not doing the guest. You're not connecting with the guests and offering help. The thing about have you got is you are offering help, in which case, then you connect with the guest. The guest is loyal to you and trusts you. You can become a department store, sure, and other people will buy other people's labels, you know, other people's properties. But where's the help? Having more inventory is not helpful. I mean, it's helpful, but then you just become another Airbnb. And what I want to do is, you know, like I said, with using the video, I want have you got to have a face. I want to, actually, I'm trying to convince the property managers use video because I want a lot of faces in this OTA to build trust and to have this great network so slowly, slowly that might get there. But, you know, Airbnb doesn't have a face booking.com. Doesn't have a face they've spent billions connecting with that logo. But let's be human and connect with faces and people.

Annie Holcombe  48:16  
Yeah, I love that. I think that that's something that's very much missed, and I am a person, and Alex knows it's always funny. I the AI thing freaks me out, and I don't like that, the thought that a person that I could be talking to isn't a real person like that, just really it just, and I know it's the unknown, which is part of it, but it just scares me. And I think that by being able to know that it's a real person, versus, like, just some AI bot on the back end, like messaging you that doesn't really, can't empathize with your situation, or really, and I think people get frustrated all the time when they get stuck in that loop of, like the AI bot asking questions, and it's like, You're not helping me, and you get frustrated, and then it's a bad experience all the way around. So anyway, you can infuse the human element of it, I think, is really important. And you're right, the OTAs, they don't have the ability to do that at the size that they are now. Had they started it and scaled it up, sure, maybe. But like you said, it takes people. And I would think that convincing the tiktokers that are on like Airbnb and tiktokers and Instagram, they would probably be fairly easy to convince to do a video, because they like to do videos. So yeah, seems like that's, that's a good market. It's probably these, like traditional managers, that have been doing everything, kind of behind the scenes, and they want, they're, they're they're thinking that their brand can speak for itself. And anymore, there's too many brands, and the advertising dollar can't go as far as it used to go.

Deborah Labi  49:38  
The only problem with Have you got is that I can't offer free stays. I mean, if you know if I could offer free stays for the influencers or whatever else, great, but, I mean, they're not my properties. I mean, I could ask, but I don't know if people will hand over their properties. But to advertise, have you got?

Alex Husner  49:56  
Yeah, no, that's a good that's a good point. So what. As far as growth this year, Deborah, where are you looking to expand to, like any areas in particular that you've got your eye on?

Deborah Labi  50:08  
Well, I would love to expand into the US now. Thank you very much. Yes. Look like I said, it only takes two property managers in one area to kick start the referrals. The refer Have you got is a referral infrastructure. You just two people need to be on, and you can start referring guests to each other. But if you zoom back, that's when it starts to get bigger. You can refer across the country. You can refer globally. It doesn't matter, but it starts off with two property managers in one location, so anyone can sign up, preferably if you're already using WhatsApp. For example, there are many property managers that have WhatsApp groups and Facebook groups. It looks so unprofessional and it takes so much of your time to share and to answer and to send a quote or send a flyer or whatever. However, people do things, this is much, much quicker and easier. There are three ways to share. You can just share your link and say, come on board and have a look in my network. So it's a very quick, professional looking way to do it, and you don't have to follow up with, oh, where's my commission? I sent you a booking last month, and you know, you haven't paid me my commission Yeah. So it's just a much easier way to share those guests. And the thing is, the guests will feel so helped that they they will become so much more loyal to you because you've helped them and in a really nice, professional way, and they don't know that you're earning 5% in the background. So everyone's happy, you know? The guest is happy, the property managers are happy.

Alex Husner  51:42  
Yeah, they've got that trust. I love it. Yeah, yeah. Will we be seeing you at any conferences in the United States?

Deborah Labi  51:49  
Oh, in the United States? Well, I heard Amy's having another women's conference, and I did go to her first one, and it was fantastic. But no, I've got to sort of save my money. I've spent a lot between Have you got and my other new baby?

Alex Husner  52:05  
Spend a lot. Could be the next.

Annie Holcombe  52:13  
We'll see you at scale and the Women's Summit in general Italy in September.

Deborah Labi  52:17  
Yes, yep, I'm moderating, I'm moderating a panel about AI, and it should be very interesting,

Annie Holcombe  52:24  
very cool. Well, if anybody wants in touch with you and learn more about, have you got what's the best way to do that,

Deborah Labi  52:29  
you can send me an email to connect at, have you got.com or you can just go and have a look at, have you got.com if you slide down to the very bottom, to the footer, you'll also see the manager site, and that will explain why you should sign up and how it all works and things like that. So there's have you got.com and it's the other the manager site is the have you got dot network,

Annie Holcombe  52:55  
great. And I know there's a listener that listens religiously every week who loves new channels. Terry White. Check it out. You know, Deborah's good for it. So getting his feedback, I think

Deborah Labi  53:09  
will be, will be, oh, yes, I think I did actually reach out to him last year. He is good guy.

Alex Husner  53:16  
Properties in Anna Maria Island area. So that would be a great one. Get some more Florida properties there. Well, thank you, Deborah, so much for coming on. I know this was a long time coming, and we got to interview you in Italy, but of course, had some AV issues and didn't have the files to then share. Glad to have this in person with you. But thank you so much, and we look forward to seeing you later this year. If anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to Alex and Annie podcast.com and until next time, thanks for tuning in, everybody.

Unknown Speaker  53:46  
You.