The Future of Staffing in Vacation Rentals: An Interview with Rich Sippos of Extenteam

Alex Husner  0:02  
Welcome to Alex and Annie the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex. And I'm Annie. And we are joined today with Rich Sippos, who is the head of sales for extenteam. And just another interview we've been so excited to have and just as a longtime coming, but, Rich, it's great to see you today. 

Rich Sippos  0:20  
Yeah, likewise, it's good to see you both. It's about time for conferences and again, so seeing people on Zoom and seeing people in person are a little different. So I'm excited for that, too. Yeah, very, very true. Before we get started and get into the meat of extent team, tell us a little bit about you and your journey in vacation rentals and how you ended up with extend team. Yeah, it's a wild one, really, I moved to Park City, Utah, right after the Olympics, and was a software consultant at the time, I wanted something different. I wanted to do something I don't know, more meaningful than what I was doing before, I had the opportunity to start this business park city resort properties. So I did, I knew it was something that I had to do, or I would regret. So I opened that company in late 2004. And then grew it to about 80 properties under management for about 10 years. So got into the industry 20 years ago, and then owned and operated that plus triple A Property Services in Park City, and exited both of those businesses, 2014 and 15. And that have been in the industry since basically as a consultant. And then you know, with extend team for the past three years. So been a long journey, but it feels like it was yesterday. 

Alex Husner  1:43  
Yeah, as as they normally do. And yeah, the days are long. But the years go by fast. As we all know, for sure. Well, we're excited for many reasons to have you on today. And to learn more about extend team and to share the story with our listeners. Because I mean, really, you know, one of the hot topics within the industry, and certainly at conferences over the last few years has been workforce and the challenges that that presents for managers no matter where you are. And I think what extent team has brought to the table really solves for a lot of those problems. So I guess let's let's just jump in and tell us kind of a high level of what extent team does. And then we've got plenty of questions that we want to run you through. 

Rich Sippos  2:23  
Yeah, for sure. So our initial product offering with extend team, and it still is our main product offering is full time dedicated team members, to companies. So really anything that can be done remotely with your business we're helping with. So simply whatever that might be, we solve for the problem that you have, and provide full time service for the for those problems and solving those problems.

Annie Holcombe  2:52  
Awesome. So one of the things I think we talked about previous we'd met was that there's like some misunderstanding about exactly what extent team does. So I think maybe we want to explore that. So we can clarify that for people have like you know, the level of service that you give and where that service can help the property managers out? 

Rich Sippos  3:10  
Yeah, for sure. So I think a bit of a misconception sometimes is that we're some sort of call center. And that's the furthest from the truth, right. So we have dedicated team members that are working from their homes, right global workforce. So we provide workforce from the Philippines and Mexico, handling all different positions, whether that's guest services or reservations, or inside sales, or homeowner relations, or really whatever can be done remotely, we're solving for those problems. So we do that, again, by providing dedicated individual team members that are solely working for the that business. So it's not like a customer will call and then get a different agent every time we're actually providing people that will be integrated into the business become actually a part of that team. And of course, the the name of the company, extend team become an extension of that team. I love that. And I mean, I really love that extend team is specific to vacation rentals as well. And midterm and long term, though, also right? Yeah, that's true. You know, really, the meat of our business is in vacation rentals, and that's where, you know, majority of us are from we have over 100 years of experience within our leadership team. It within the vacation rental industry. So I think not many companies can really say that, but truly do and and and so we we stay with what we're good at, right? We're not going to stray outside of what that is. And that is the rental industry. So vacation rentals make up about 85% of our business and traditional long term rental companies are about 15% of the business and then plenty of companies that do both. 

Alex Husner  4:58  
Yeah, and I think you know the diff differences, you can go and get a VA from all sorts of different places, but because you are training them in the way to understand the industry, that's a pretty big differentiation, right. And I think that really makes extend team very unique and what the offering is, and it seems like, I mean, these people, the that the employees that get hired by the property management companies, they become literally an extension of their team and are looked at as true employees. They're part of the experience, they learn all about their business. I've heard many people who they, you know, they, the VAs Come on, when they do birthday, Zoom calls, and team building things like they're really integrated. So maybe just tell us a little bit about how you foster that and how all that works. 

Rich Sippos  5:49  
Yeah, I mean, it's amazing, really, the the longer that we're in business, the more that the candidates that we get realize that you know, the industry that we're in, we're getting more industry experience through all of our team members that are, you know, coming to extend team and want to work for extend team. So now that we're an established company, and that employees really know that we really, truly take care of our of our people, they want to work for extend team. So that's amazing to me. And that's really like why we're all in this to begin with, right? I mean, we're a people business, the people industry, and we're providing those experiences were an integral part of what that is. So extend team is an integral part of vacations of companies, of owners of homeowners. So it's exciting to be that true integral piece of the industry. 

Annie Holcombe  6:46  
So we're excited just again, to have you here, but also because extend team is signed on to be a brand partner, brand sponsor of Alex at any show. And so we're really excited about having bringing you into our family. And we feel that you know, that partnership, and we want to help, you know, we want to help you grow, you want to help us grow. And I think you guys have just been from the very getgo. Everybody's just been so personable. And so I think that that what we're finding and talking to some of your partners is that translates over to how you actually work with the managers. And we've talked to various sizes. So I think some of the misnomers about source staffing. And something that I think we could clarify is that it doesn't matter how big or how small a company is, if they have a staffing need, you guys can help fulfill that and help them as one of your partners had said to us to work on their business, not in their business, you'd be able to help them with their staffing. So why don't you talk a little bit about kind of what your target audience is and what you can do for a smaller operator to scale their business up? 

Rich Sippos  7:43  
Yeah. So as I explained, you know, our initial offering when we started was dedicated team members, we now have two more products, right. And one of those products is really geared towards smaller, newer operators. And that's our tailwind product, tailwind 24/7 guests communication. So that is a shared service. But it is, you know, a dedicated group of agents working on a dedicated group of accounts. So it's not like those agents are going to be working on 200 Different companies, not really understanding who they're working with, or, you know, when a call comes in, what company it's coming from, we keep that those teams small, so that we're able to provide that right service. And that service truly is 24/7 guests communications that we would take over from that company. So we would be able to provide, you know, answering OTA inquiries and guest problems when they have them, whether that's at 2am or 10am. And then guest questions, you know, just what they have to do when they get to the property or, you know, check in checkout type of things, but really all guests communications, so that's geared towards the smaller operators. And then when they get to be, you know, a certain size, they can kind of graduate out of that and into, you know, a dedicated team member that could help them and be really a true integral part of that brand. So we're able to work with people as they get started in the industry, and then continue with them, as they scale grow their business. And if they stay small, five to 10 properties, 15 properties, whatever that may be, we can continue to provide that support for as long as they would want. And then finally, third, we have accounting services. So I think a lot of companies don't realize we provide true trust accounting and operational accounting services for property management companies. We have a dedicated group of about 12 accountants that are working in that group. Wow, that's huge. One of the things that I've noticed the most in the customers that we've talked to of yours so far is it really does come down to are one of the benefits they pointed out is the responses for VRBO, Airbnb and like getting back to guests very quickly in that in the booking process. And I've seen many companies who you know

Alex Husner  10:00  
It's five o'clock, you're not going to get an answer till tomorrow at 9am when we're all back in the office, and to think of how many missed reservations happen because of that, I mean, people don't want to have to wait, you know, 12 hours to get a response on something. So, I think that that is a huge benefit that I can see any company of any size as I mean, unless you have a 24/7. In house reservation Day, which nobody has, that's a really big benefit and a revenue driver. 

We'll be back in just a minute after a word from our premier brand sponsor, extend team.

Rich Sippos  12:26  
I think most people don't realize the impact that that can have. And, you know, for instance, we're talking to companies that maybe have 3040 properties under management. And they say, Well, we really need someone for some after hours coverage, say 5pm to midnight 5pm to 1am. But we really don't know if we have a full, you know, amount of work for them to do. So I don't know if this makes sense. And really looking at one thing, one thing only, if you're able to answer OTA requests within minutes, sometimes seconds, you'll gain those reservations rather than your competitor down the street, who they'll go to next, if they actually answer those questions and sell a reservation right at that at that moment in time. So that's a huge ROI right there. If people really want to think about things from a monetary perspective, there's a lot more to think about than that, right? I mean, the reputation of your business as a whole another one too, right? You have somebody that really wants to help someone that really wants to make a difference in their vacation. That also has a return on investment too. But an actual monetary return on investment right there right then, is exactly that answering those OTA questions. Selling that reservation, whether somebody needs a four bedroom house with the master on the main level, and the property that they're looking at, they love but that's not it, you can sell them another one that's within your inventory, and capture that reservation right there. So does it pay for itself in one phone call? Or in one OTA message? Probably. So I mean, that's one way to look at it. Yeah, I think that's so important, especially in some of these really traditional markets where they want to talk to the guests, they want to interact with the guests. So they might be on a request to book on some of the channels or an inquiry only basis. And let's face it, most people are doing their shopping for their vacation, when they get the family together after dinner, they're going to make that decision. And if they reach out, when that is the difference between getting a booking confirmed and losing it to your competitor. So that definitely gives anybody using your services a competitive edge in their market, right? Yeah, exactly. Right. And you think about, like you mentioned markets where people still use the phone over and over and over. Yeah, make reservations. The same people are going to the same lake year after year staying for the same two, three weeks, year after year. It still happens and they make phone calls and they want to have somebody that they recognize. They want to have a brand that they recognize

Alex Husner  15:00  
And our extended team team members represent the brand of those companies. So works out? Well. Yeah, I think that's something that has just kind of been overlooked in the last few years within our industry, just as how important being able to answer on the phone in general still is, I mean, these are big purchases for a family or a couple of whatever the case may be that if you're the one making that decision on the booking, it's your neck, if it doesn't work out.

You've in a lot of cases, if you're booking a, you know, multi, many $1,000, beach home or mountain home, you want to make sure that this is the right one. And you know, sometimes people just they feel more comfortable, being able to pick up the phone, make sure that this is legit. And if you don't offer that service, like any set, I mean, that's just you know, you're losing business, but the ones that do offer it in a market, that becomes a competitive advantage. But I did want to ask a little bit too about, you know, coming from the Philippines, I think they're people that have not used VA or aren't familiar with it, maybe there's some misconceptions about, you know, the quality of the workers that you can get as a VA, and from my experience, when we have a VA that does our podcast editing for us. And he's been absolutely exceptional, and just extremely resourceful, and, you know, always has a great attitude wants to help and writes perfect English. So, you know, I feel like, you know, some people might think, oh, that's, you know, a country so far away, like, how are they really going to understand our culture and how to respond to things. But do you think I mean, is it how they're taught in school? Or like, how is it that Philippines has produced, you know, this group of workers that are just so well fit within the hospitality space, 

Rich Sippos  16:45  
I hear this 1000 times 2000 times 10,000 times answering it the same way, you know, every single time, but the literacy rate in the Philippines is 99.3%. And the literacy rate in the US is 99.4%. So that alone should tell you like you're you're dealing with a country that is as literate as the United States. And in some cases, I would say more literate than in the United States. But that said, I mean, people in the Philippines are speaking English on a daily basis. So it's not like it's just a completely a second language. It's like, yeah, they're second first language, right. So, you know, people are speaking English all the time, they're dealing with English speaking other people throughout the world all the time. It's a country where many, many industries are pulling talent from, because you have educated well spoken people and people that really, truly want to help others. So when we find those people within the hospitality industry in the Philippines, we want every one of them to work for exteteam. And we want every one of them to represent the brands that are out there for every single vacation rental company throughout the US, Canada, and everywhere else, these people really, truly want to help others. And that's amazing. Like, you have to find people that are doing that, and really care about it. That is our industry. That is what we do. So when somebody actually gets to, to have one of those people working for them in any capacity, and then realize, like, holy cow, this is what was I was missing.

Alex Husner  18:24  
This again, you know, we meet, again, with with eight other positions that we have. So yeah. And we have seen that, that there's several that we've talked to that work with you guys that have said they started with one or two, and now they might have like three or four or five employees that have come over. So that definitely speaks to the effectiveness of it for sure. 

Rich Sippos  18:45  
Yeah, in some cases, or 16, or 18, or Wow, yeah. So it's really exciting when, when we have a partner, trust us with a position and then has a great experience. And immediately just says, We know that you can fulfill the other roles that we have. So they trust us already. And then we're just filling new roles. And when we have success with those, you know, we just fulfill more. So that's our aim. I mean, we want to be able to fill all the remote positions that every company can have. And you know, we're evolving just like anybody else. We make mistakes, just like everybody else. But in the same sense. We look at the mistakes and we fix them. And we make sure that we're evolving as a company as people and make sure that we're doing the right things. So what are the things I wanted to touch on within peak season and some of the beach markets and then we're gonna have a little bit of a lull and then go into the summer season and I think everybody's just panicking getting their staffing in order. But one of the things that we had talked about previously with you was that you guys have I believe, it's called the talent assurance program, and it's kind of an SLA of how quickly you can get staffing. And I think it's very important having come from the rental industry, previous for myself.

Annie Holcombe  20:00  
Have you lose people in the middle of season and it is so hard when you're in the throes of chaos of dealing with guests and dealing with the onsite stuff that goes on to like, try to figure out, I gotta place an ad, I gotta find a person, how you know how quickly it can drag on for months through that process. But tell us a little bit about that program and how that works for your partners. 

Rich Sippos  20:19  
Yeah, yeah. So first of all, our SLA for getting any sort of position. That's one of our standard roles. We have a 14 day SLA, so literally, from the signature of the agreement, through hiring that team member, and then setting them up for an onboarding call with with our partner is 14 days. So if somebody is ready, and we have our, we have the job description setup, and we have a schedule setup for that person, 14 days from the time of signature to the time we actually hire that that person. So that helps a lot, right. So if we're talking to a partner, and they're really not quite ready, I mean, happens often, right? I mean, you will talk to a partner, you know, in August, and they'll say, Man, this is perfect, this sounds great for us, we're not quite ready, March, April comes along one of their key employees leaves in the throes of a busy week. And they're calling us and we're like we're ready, now's the time, we're ready to go, you know, like, we're ready to get started with them, we have all of the notes, everything we've talked about in the past, and we're just ready to move on with them. So that's great. And then specialized positions can be something different, you know, somebody's looking for a manager or a team lead takes a little bit longer, like three weeks, maybe a little bit longer to get the right person, but we want to make sure we get the right person, the right fit for that company. So that, you know, the team member stays, the company stays, and everybody's happy from the start. We want to get things right. But when you mentioned talent and talent assurance program, that's exactly what that's for. So we're dealing with people, this isn't software where you just turn it on, turn it off, we're dealing with people. So things change, you know, someone might leave for maternity leave, right happens often, then you have to replace that team member, we can do that through the talent insurance program, or who knows someone changes their mind, they want to be a banker, rather than work for a vacation rental company, this happens to and we have to replace that person, the company says Oh, my goodness, this person was perfect for us whatever, well, the person didn't like the job anymore wanted to do something different. We can replace that person and the talent assurance program makes that happen. So we take that replacement, put them to the top of our queue. So they'll get first choice on the next person that we hire. So we can replace them quickly, we'll also provide the first two weeks free for that person to in a replacement deal. And then there's no more implementation fees, that's all waived. And then if they have another high performing team member, we can take that team member and give them 20 hours worth of work to help train shadow or you know, just be a mentor to that new team member that's coming in. And that can be done off of their hours. So that's truly the talent replacement for our talent assurance program. It's really to replace team members for any situation that happens, whether that's you know, maybe they're not getting along with the management, maybe the team member doesn't get along with the management or vice versa. Anything can happen. When you're dealing with people, we're not going to pretend like we're perfect. We can't be but we can make sure that we do things right, when we're replacing that team member. And then sometimes we can also get it even better, right? We can get it right. The second time even better. Like they said, well, this person, maybe they the quality that we're really looking for is this. And then we can add that in and find that that right person the second time, so that certainly happens. 

Alex Husner  23:58  
Yeah, I love that. So it's very clear that you and everybody to extend team, I mean, your business is based on being, you know, very methodical, SOP driven. You know, if this then that, which I feel like in the industry in the last year, a few years again, has progressed for companies that are really trying to get SOPs down internally on how they onboard units, how they you know, how maintenance works, how marketing works, and it didn't used to be that way. You know, it used to be that everything was in everyone's heads. And if that had ended up leaving the business, then you could be in a really, you know, big pickle. But for companies that have not gotten to that point that maybe they know that they need to have certain SOPs in place, but they're listening to this and they're interested and they feel like they could benefit from it, but they're thinking to themselves, I need help with so many things. How do I even know where to begin and how do I even know what things VA could take over for me? Do you work with them to help them kind of like almost like counsel them of like, these are the tell me everything You do? And these are the things that we can, you know, help peel away? How does that work? 

Rich Sippos  25:04  
Yeah, sometimes it can be very much like consulting, right? So you're listening to all the needs that they have. I mean, you take the experience that you have, and then the experience that the company has, and how we've Republique placed people into those same situations, and how it's worked for them. So we can draw on our own experiences from the past. But we can also draw on the experiences that we're having placing other team members, and in the companies that have been successful that are in those positions, we've worked with plenty of companies that don't really have an SOP in place when it comes to training, even for their daily activities for that matter, right. I mean, how a house is turned over? Or, you know, what happens? When a house is checked out? What do you go through, we found that some of our team members actually help them create those SOPs. So that's a great activity for someone to learn your business is to have them understand how things work from a guest, reserving house through the guest checking out of that house and turning over to the next guest. So once they learn how that happens, they can even help write some of those SOPs that I mean, it's not always the case, right? It's not always for everybody. But if we know that that's the case, we can find somebody that has some of that experience in developing and writing SOPs that can be part of our job description, we can put that in place. And you know, and our our partner success team, which is the lifeline of all of our partners, they'll help through some of that coaching and things too. They're in touch with them all the time after the sales process. So a lot of times, they're the ones that are consulting with them after the fact too. So when somebody comes back to us and says, Well, the other doing amazing job, I wish I had more to give them, our partner success team can start talking to them about what other tasks our team members are doing, or what other tasks that our team members can actually help with to or that specific team member, what they can help with. That team member also has the ability to work with our workforce team directly to go through things and problems that they're having, whether that be it related, whether that be payment related, whether that be how they're handling their their job with a new partner, our workforce team is there to help too. So there's a lot of things that go that go behind the scenes. That's not like, we're not just throwing a VA at a company. That's not how this works. Like, that's not how this works. And we want to be clear to everybody why there's so much behind what we're doing. And so many people behind making our partner successful, that it's a lot a lot more difficult than just will get you a VA, that's not how this works. You know, we're getting you a professional, hospitality professional that's customer facing that has experience. It's a big difference. We'll be back in just a minute after a word from our premier brand sponsor turnover.

Annie Holcombe  29:04  
I would imagine that you're amassing quite a library of information and SOPs from all over the place. And one of the things that we talked to people about is the uniqueness of vacation rentals. And I think it's so it's hospitality. So at the core of it, it's and I think that's what's great about the Philippines is I think their culture is very hospitable. But in terms of vacation rentals, you have regionalized kind of types of operations. So it is it is a little different than, you know, like in the hotel world, if you want to run a hotel, you can take that playbook, and you could replicate it all over the country. And it really doesn't matter whether you're in a beach town or a mountain town, few nuances there. But with vacation rentals, it's so inherently different. Even within one market, just on one block, you could have very different operators. So I think you probably, I would imagine you probably have a good idea as you go into businesses like what their style is. And what you would want to propose is do you have kind of like a, an avatar for each type of? Operator? 

Rich Sippos  31:21  
That's a good question I wish that we did, it is so drastically different, like you said, even from one block to, you know, to the next block over or how a company actually runs their their business relative to another in the same market, even though they have the same similar type of guests, the companies may run quite differently. But for that matter, we talked to so many different companies, we do start to get the idea, like what's most important for them, when we're talking about, you know, solving their actual business problem. Like, in so many cases, you talk to somebody and they say, well, Guest Services is really the most important. But as you go through a conversation, you realize, selling the reservation is really more important than the guest service aside. And those are two drastically different types of people, different types of predictive index profiles, right. So we use predictive index to in our hiring process as well. So we want to make sure that we're matching up the right person to the actual business need. And then, you know, learning the business itself, sometimes that that's a trial and error piece, too. But, you know, the more and more companies that we work with, the more data that we get, and the more information that we get based upon those companies to be able to sell differently to those companies be able to provide the right people in the right setting. So yeah, it's a learning process, just like anything else being in business for you know, going on for years. It's like dog years, right? I mean, it feels like we've been here for 100 years. And, you know, it's, it's just amazing. I mean, we've evolved quite a bit. That's great. And you're working with Doug Kennedy, I think, too, right, as he doing some some hospitality training. Is that is that for all of the workforce? Or how does that work? Yeah, so we partnered with Doug a while back now, definitely more than two years ago. Um, he created extend team University for us, which is self guided modules that all of our team members go through when they join extend team. And they teach nuances of the industry or cybersecurity information, how to handle difficult situations, you know, a lot of things that Doug and his company are famous for providing training for, when it comes to reservations, or guest services or anything hospitality related, we've packaged that up and really made it an integral part of when someone starts with extend team. So we value Doug quite a bit. I've worked with him personally. And he does amazing things for teams. So I'm sure your team has enjoyed and learned a lot from him, too. He's an OG for sure. Yeah. And he's helped us in other areas, too. In, you know, we call on him, you know, frequently to help us with different situations that we're going through, and how to handle them, or you know, what kind of future training that we can help provide. And so we're in constant contact with Doug, I wanted to ask one question about, one of the things you were talking about is just like how, you know, these team members become part of the family of the organization. And I think one of the things that a lot of companies struggle with, I know I personally have had to deal with it is that the end of the season, and the business starts to wane, and it's slow down and you have to cut their hours or let them go or, you know, take them off for the summer. Do you is your program such that these people I would assume that you can move them to other organizations with a seasonality. So again, somebody could work a beach market and then they can work a ski market, so they wouldn't be balanced out. But again, they're very, that way. They're more invested in staying within in the ecosystem of vacation rentals for their work. Yeah, for sure. Um, you know, it's always a difficult thing.

Right, if you have a person that you've hired for a season, and you get attached to that person, right, we, this has happened to every single one of us, who has been in this business who's worked with someone that that, you know, they're probably going away, at the end of the season, you really want to keep them there. Well, that happens too. So we have people that have hired people, seasonally, through extend team, and then realize like, this person is way too valuable to let go, like, because we're not going to get them back. And we're very clear with our partners. If you get attached to that person, and that person is an amazing employee for you, it's going to be tough for you to let them go. But it's going to be easy for us to place them with another person and another company, because their skill set and their abilities are, you know, easily marketable through extension. So we'll place them with another partner, we don't want to do that for the partner sake. But you know, business decisions or business decisions sometimes, and you have to Dan sometimes have to be made. But in some cases, we want to really keep that person there, because we know that they could help them, you know, in the long run. So that's always a difficult thing. But, but certainly we can keep any of those extend team team members working with another partner, they've gained valuable experience through that past partner. And in some cases, you know, could be top level experience that people are looking for. And we can place them very quickly then at that point. So that certainly happens where we have team members coming off of other contracts, and that we can instantly replace them with a new partner, and could they be requested for another year? So like, if you had someone this summer, could you request them again, for next summer? It could be possible, if they're already working for another partner in a full time capacity, then yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, it's such a well rounded program. You know, I think even the fact that you cover the benefits for these people as well, I mean, that's huge to not only cover the benefits, but to not have to worry about, you know, different labor laws of a different country. If somebody was to do this on their own. I feel like you've, you've kind of checked all the boxes, and you've figured out all the needs and the wants and definitely fulfilled them to a large extent, but wanted to ask you a couple other questions rich, and just kind of more on your perspective of within the industry. We're about to head into conference season now. And we've all been apart for a few months. But one question we like to ask all of our guests is, what do you think is something in the industry that's just not being talked about? Enough? We know, staffing, but maybe something outside of out of this conversation? Yeah, I love it. I mean, this, this gets me into kind of the meat of what I really wanted to get across to where it's so data driven companies are data driven. And that's amazing. They have to be right. I mean, as as the as the sales leader, for extend team, we have to be data driven, right. I mean, for sure. Scaling businesses, profitability, all of that makes sense. But we forget that we're in this industry where people matter, the relationships matter, vacations really matter, like I just came off of an amazing one, Royal Caribbean, I'll give them a little shout out because it was awesome. Eight day cruise to the southern Caribbean was or all four of us went, my wife, myself and two daughters. It was awesome. Such an amazing vacation, great service, everything was perfect, you realize you're we're in that same business, all of us are in that same business. And we're such an integral part of that people make such a huge difference there. And data is great. But you know, humans naturally have this, you know, value that they want to be a part of something like, you know, they want to be a part of what what's happening. And so when we're like a true part of of something, we're happy, we have a desire to make things better, we perform better. This is the case with our industry. And I think that's something that's missing. I know that others in our industry have been talking about this recently. I remember Robin talking about this recently, with a couple of experiences that he had, just in vacation rental stays or just hospitality in general, we really matter as people to other people. And that's, that gets lost. And we really want to be clear that that's what's that extend team is about. We extend team want to be part of something. We're an integral part of the vacations. We're an integral part of providing positions in this industry for hospitality professionals. And, you know, our corporate team gets to do both sides of that, right? We get to hire people to place them into great partners, and then we get to see them flourish within those within those partners. So for us, it's a huge part of what we are and like why we do what we're doing. I think it's such a great point. We

Alex Husner  40:00  
I talked about that a little bit on an episode, we recently had the, with the OGS of the Panhandle. It was one of our greatest hits the last couple of years. But you know, that really is the case, because back in the day, you know, a lot of the decisions were all making. Now, we're not part of those conversations. But everybody has really gotten focused around technology and the data and it is so enabling in a lot of ways, but it's also you could be argued as disabling and ways to because it is taking away from, you know, what it is that we are all truly in business for, and that is to create amazing memories for our guests and to take care of the homeowners, so and our employees. And that's, that goes back to relationships and making people feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves, and that they're contributing to the larger picture out there. And, you know, I think it's important to remember the hospitality part of our business, that perfect example, we were at Vera Mae international last fall, and was sitting next to a gentleman at any I think you were at dinner. I don't remember his name, but he was good friends with Matt Landau. And it was the first vrma He had been to and and we asked him what he thought about just just vacation rental conferences in general. And he said, I don't feel like I've heard one thing yet about hospitality since I've been here. And it's because I mean, a lot of the sessions not vrma specific, but at any of the conferences, like we're all so focused on learning the technology. But there is that importance of you know, the Doug Kennedy more style, the heart of hospitality, that's really important to make sure people still keep in mind. 

Rich Sippos  41:34  
Yeah, and the awesome thing is, we get to see this, like, every month, so we have town halls for all of our team members. And that includes the corporate team, too. So each town hall has a different theme, they're run by our team members, there's all sorts of things that happened within the town hall games, laughs, people having a good time, having companies that give just great testimonials, for the team members, those are showcased there, then we have a guest speaker who is one of our team members talking about their experience, why and not only they love extend team and their partner, but what impact that they're making in the industry. So all those things we're doing are doing, you know, all the time. So when we could see that it's really fulfilling. Yeah, absolutely. At the end of the day, that's a very important

Annie Holcombe  42:27  
to feel some sort of fulfillment. That's, that's what it's all about. Well, on that note, talking of conferences, where can we find you and your team in the next few months? 

Rich Sippos  42:38  
Yeah, we'll be at vrma in New Orleans, will also be at the live res conference in Austin, Northwest VRP. in Boise favor, I believe it's in it's in may favor. My favorite vendor, there's another conference in May, and then vrma executive summit will be there also at the end of May, because they're busy out on the circuit. So about that time, I always look, I always look forward to it too, though, you know, I I'm not traveling to as many shows as I have in the past, but I'll still personally be in New Orleans, and I'll be at Northwest VRP members of our sales team, Jen and Brandon will be live res. So we're well represented all over the place. Oh, that's great. Well, we'll definitely be spending some time at your booth at the shows that we get to end also. So excited to get to know more of your team, thank you so much for being here today rich, and again, just to the whole extent team for this partnership, and just something that we truly believe in for the value of what it can provide to property management businesses. We have just enjoyed this very much. And we wish you the best of luck this year. And we know we'll see you at a conference very soon. Yeah, likewise, we value you know, the show that you guys put on and the people that you have on and you know, really does showcase a lot of people and we love that too. So thanks for putting on the show. And we're happy to be a partner. What's the best way for our listeners to get in touch with you if they want to reach out easiest thing is just extend team.com way actually extend team.com/alex And Danny, we have our own URL. That is true. That is true. So you're gonna have to you're gonna have to put that full URL and we will we will. Yeah, we do. We do have a promotion with Alex and Annie and you guys can talk about it right now. This is all on you. Yes, sir. It's 50% off the onboarding fee. So yeah, that's actually a great place for them to go extend team.com And there's only one T and extend team. Yeah. Slash Alex and Annie with an spelled out but well, we will include that in the show notes rich and also your contact information LinkedIn and everything so anybody can reach out and hopefully start streamlining their businesses and operating more efficiently effectively. If anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and now you can go to Alex and Annie podcast.com And until next time thanks for tuning in everyone