[Heather Bayer]

So I am super delighted to have with me today Heather Fillmore from StayLuxe in Utah. Welcome, Heather. It's an absolute pleasure to have you with me.

We've been chatting backwards and forwards over Zoom and over LinkedIn. It's just a pleasure actually having you sort of almost on the other side of the table with me. We should be having coffee.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

I'm excited to be here. I'm actually probably even more than excited, I'm just honored because I have admired you from afar for close to seven years now.

I think you're one of the first names that came up as I started in the industry and started researching where I can learn from, because I had no idea anything about vacation rentals seven years ago. I just kind of fell into this. And so I am an avid learner and that was a big part of learning was getting on webinars, listening to podcasts, whatever it was that I needed to be able to increase my knowledge and skill set in the space. So I'm honored.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

You have no idea how many people have said to me, I fell into this. It's not an industry you leave college and you go, I'm going to go into short term rentals. Well, maybe some do if they're going into investing and they're deciding not to go into entrepreneurship. But in general, people just fall into it somehow. 

So tell us a story. How did you fall into it?

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

So I'll try to give the briefest version possible. My business partner and I, we were former spouses. So Beau and I, we survived a massive flood, that's a soft spot for me right now because I'm originally from Texas.

And I moved to Louisiana when I married Beau. And so all the flooding that's happening in Texas, that's home for me as I'm watching what's happening in Texas right now. And so in August of 2016, there was a massive flood similar to what they're experiencing in Texas right now that wiped out almost all of Baton Rouge. And Beau and I were there. And when the flood waters receded, we looked around and said, we've got to go somewhere else. Like the economy in Louisiana is not the best in the nation.

And so we kind of had an idea that we needed to move into a place that had better economy. His mom lived here in the Salt Lake Valley. And so we made that move just kind of packed up what was left after the flood - very little. It was literally our two vehicles and a 6x12 pull-behind trailer and brought that with us and started here in Salt Lake. 

Well, meanwhile, Beau was always in multifamily housing management. So that was his background. There was a knowledge of property management. I had been the office administrator for a small construction company. And I've always been in the construction design, staging, that real estate space.

And so he actually got a job with a company in Park City. After we got here, he managed to get a job with a vacation rental management company in Park City. And I had gone to visit my sister during the time that he was doing that. My brother-in-law was dying of cancer and I went to go be with her.

And then when I came back, a job was created for me. So we started and I actually like to tell people when they ask me for advice on how to get started in the vacation rental industry. My single piece of advice every time is work for someone else first. Don't start your own company first without knowing what you're doing. That could be an absolute nightmare. I can't even imagine how people do that.

So we started with another vacation rental management company and learned the ropes by the time we were there for two years. And by the time that all ended, Beau and I were pretty much running the Park City market, the two of us, along with an outside cleaner and a couple of little maintenance people, that sort of thing. But yeah, in June of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, we decided that this would be a great idea to start our own company.

And so on July 1st of 2020, yeah, we started StayLuxe Properties with 15 homes, because we had relationships with some of these owners that we had worked with for the other company. And I always give this disclaimer, there was no illegal activity going on there. There was no non-compete or anything like that. And so we didn't have any problems with reaching out to these owners and saying, Hey, this is what we're doing. If you're interested, great. If you're not, that's okay, too. And very quickly, 15 of those owners came and came with us. And we started StayLuxe on July 1st of 2020.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

In fact, I was still running my property management company in 2020. And I know 2020 and 2021 were our biggest years ever. Yeah, they were the busiest, busiest times because, you know, people were getting away to the country and we were in the country.

You're pretty much in the mountains. It's a getaway from it all location. So, yes, you probably got in there with your own company at just the right time, because that would have certainly pleased the owners.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

Yeah, for sure. It helped to catapult us forward, because we very quickly went from 15 to 23 almost overnight, we went from 15 properties to 23 properties. And but, you know, there were struggles along the way when you're talking about from 2020 to 2025.

I actually had an interesting conversation with a potential owner just this last week, I think it was, we were texting. But when I had gone to meet with them, they had this beautiful home in Upper Deer Valley, then they've owned it outright and have never rented it before. And now they're empty nesters, kids are going off to college and getting married, that sort of thing. And they thought, you know, maybe we'll dip our toe in the water of vacation rentals. And one of our current owner partners is a good friend, a college friend of one of the owners and said, oh, you should talk to Beau and Heather. They're great.

So we go in and walk through and interview and the house is great. I follow up with them, as I always do with owner acquisition kind of conversations, follow up with them a couple of times. And on the second follow up, the man responds to me and says, well, I'm not sure that I understand the rental projection that you've given me, because in 2020, we had looked into the possibility of renting and they gave us like $3K a night as the average night. And I'm just looking. And then, you know, further, he says, I'm also looking at what the current, you know, our neighbors and things are what they're listing their place for. So two things that he was doing wrong there that I then had to inform him/educate him in was number one, the numbers you were looking at in 2020 were complete anomalies. That is not real. And then number two, that idea of when owners do this all the time, you and I both know they're looking on like any of the OTAs and they're saying, oh, my neighbors got theirs listed for this. Okay, but that doesn't mean that they're going to rent it for that.

That is not a real number. And so, of course, when I'm giving rental projections, I always tell my potential owners, I'm going to give you something that is real, something that's conservative because I would much rather outperform than underperform the number that I'm giving you. And I told them that I said, is there a possibility that you could get two or three thousand dollars a night for this place? Absolutely there is. But I'm not going to give that number to you if key data is telling me something different. So it was interesting that shift from 2020 to today.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Yeah. So normally, nowadays, in 2025, you're not coming across those people who are comparing it to 2020, but you just had one that was looking then and then started to look again five years later.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

Yeah.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

So what's the competition like in Park City?

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

Pretty stiff. It's pretty stiff. There's a lot of activity. I mean, the fact of the matter is Park City is a bedroom community. It is in and of itself. It started as a mining town many, many, many moons ago. That's how it started. So you do have the 'Parkites' that have been here for forever that really hate vacation rentals. But the fact of the matter is, it's the largest ski resort complex in the United States. So people are going to come. That is a given. It's just a matter of figuring out what that balance is between making sure that travelers are taken care of and have places to stay, and residents, full-time residents, are seen and heard.

I actually had a sit down talk with the mayor. She's leaving office, but I had a sit down talk with the mayor. I guess it was about a year ago. And I went in there very open-minded and said to her, just tell me what's the sentiment? What's the sentiment in Park City? And she said, well, I'm going to be real honest with you. People don't like vacation rentals here. And I said, okay, tell me more. What's the basis? What are the reasons why? And as you can imagine, it's going to be the top three, it's going to be noise, trash, and parking. And how do we fix that?

And for me, the only way that we can ever get this fixed is by having open conversations with the powers that be, the people who make the decisions and that sort of thing. Because let's be honest, those of us who are operating professionally, I don't know of a single person that I've met so far that's doing professional property management or vacation rentals that is opposed to meaningful and fair regulation.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Exactly. And I hear this so often from people, well, you don't want us coming and giving you regulations. Well, actually we do.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

Yeah. You know, welcome reasonable regulations. Yeah, absolutely.

We want to make sure that the people who are just coming in here because it seems like easy money are then held to a certain standard because that lifts all of us. If everybody's held to a certain standard, which I think that goes into something that you and I share as a kind of a passion project is the education space, right? And that's one of the places where I've been able to spend more time with you is through VRNation and helping to shape what does education in this space look like.

And by no stretch of the imagination, do I come in here and believe that somehow I'm some sort of guru in this space, because in comparison to somebody like you and some of the other people that are on the VRNation Board, I'm very new to this, but I do have strong ideas and I do feel strongly that open communication, not going in with a bullhorn telling everybody leave us alone. We don't want you in here regulating us or whatever. I do feel strongly that the best way I have always felt this.

If there was proper education available to everyone in this space, guests and hosts alike and cities, there actually would be no reason to have regulation. Regulation would go off, go away if everybody was properly educated and following a certain set of standards.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Yes. Yeah. Well, you know, I do agree being in the education space, but practically, practically, there are those who are, who are perhaps, maybe I'm going to make up a new word, ineducable.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

Yes. Yes. Unwilling to educate themselves for sure.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

That's a good definition of my new word.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

Yeah. Yeah. Because they do.

I mean, the reality of it is the barrier to entry is zero. And so anybody can come in here and say, well, I don't like the way that you're telling me to do this.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Yeah.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

And nobody can stop me.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Yeah. It's my property. I can do what I want.

So this sort of leads on to my next question about operational and leadership challenges that you're dealing with right now. Right now we've passed COVID. We're into a different time. Tourism is down. So we're told. 

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

Oh, yeah.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

And I'm seeing posts from a lot of people saying, you know, this is a really challenging year. How is it impacting you and your company?

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

You know, that's interesting. I think that the person that I am today is very different than the person that I was in 2020. That's the first thing that I would say, leadership wise, I think my challenge, my biggest challenge always lies in perfectionism. And that was true in 2020 and it still is today. In 2020, it shaped itself more, or it manifested itself, I guess I should say more in that I felt that when I built the business, that it needed to be perfect before I opened the door, so to speak.

And I learned very quickly that that wasn't true, that consistent progress will win over perfection every time. Whether it's with your guests, whether it's with your owners, whether it's with your team, consistent progress will win over perfection every time. And that was a hard lesson for me to learn from a leadership standpoint, as far as today, kind of the shift in how I feel, that was kind of the beginning of that shift.

But today I think the shift that I feel is as a perfectionist, it's hard not to want to control every bit and piece of what's happening. And when you're talking about a year where bookings are down, booking windows are extremely short. People are unsure about the economy, so they're not as willing to give up their dollars.

I think what has happened for me is in order to survive that, I have had to do two things. And one is that I have had to let go. I've had to let go and say, you know what? Whatever is going to happen is what's going to happen. I don't have control over the economy. I don't have control over travel or sentiment. I don't have control over any of those things. And let's be honest, none of us really have control over anything. We make our beds in the morning, and that's pretty much the last thing you have control over is making your bed, and then after that, it's chaos.

So for me, that's the first thing that I would say has shifted. And the second thing that has shifted, and not in a grand way, but in a small way, is the way that I communicate with my owners. What are the things that I'm sharing with them, and how am I sharing them?

‍

[Heather Bayer]

So tell me more about that. Tell me more about what has changed in the way you're communicating.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

So one thing that I try to do now is I try to do, instead of this long email with bullet points or whatever, is I try to do a video. I try to email a video where I feel that I'm connecting with them a little bit more by saying, Hey, here I am. Nice to see you again this month. Let me tell you what's going on. And then I have to carefully frame what I'm sharing with them about market conditions, because I don't ever want my owners to feel fearful. I don't ever want to convey what's happening in the market, especially in a down year, in such a way that my owners think, oh, well, then I'm out. I don't want to deal with this kind of thing. Instead, it needs to be framed in such a way that it's looking towards the future, if that makes sense. And hey, this is what we're doing to work towards increasing your bookings as we move forward.

Not, Hey, the focus right now is going to be on bookings are down. You're not getting any bookings. Year over year decrease is 19% or whatever it is. I don't want to harp on that. They already know that. They're already looking at their calendar. Why do I need to remind them of that? Instead, I would rather be forward thinking as I'm talking to them and saying, these are the things that our team is doing to help move us forward and ensure that we are ready for when bookings start picking back up again.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Yeah, I love that. I love the idea of doing this by video, because you can convey..... this is not rocket science..... You can convey so much more in a video than you can in an email. And nobody's going to come back to you. Or maybe they will say this is just AI generated. Because I haven't said that I've seen so many very, very realistic avatars.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

Oh, that's so interesting. I'm not that far into AI yet to know how to do that. But yeah, I can imagine that that could be a question.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

So yeah, I've got so far as I've cloned my voice. And yeah, and it blew me away when I gave it a script to read. And it's my..... I never said that.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

That is amazing. You're creating deep fakes in the vacation rental world.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Yeah, yeah, this is not me. You know, this is just my AI avatar.

Oh, I've got to tell you this. And this is just apropos of absolutely nothing. I was listening to a podcast with this woman who was talking about having created her AI avatar, that she sends to Zoom meetings when she can't get to them. 

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

And it interacts? 

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Yes, it does. If anybody has a question, they can ask her AI avatar the question, and it will answer as if it was her, which is just.....

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

That is wild. And you know, I guess that's one of those moments where you think to yourself, should I be worried? Or should I be excited about that?

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Yeah, it's where we're entering a new world, when you will...., do you know, I did say to myself, I'm not going to talk about AI in this episode, because I'm talking about AI.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

I love AI. And yeah, that that's something that I've been leaning into. I think I was in that camp in the very beginning of just kind of like, well, you know, we're getting rid of the human touch if we're using AI and all of that. But the reality is I have found that as you start to dive in, and just play with it. And that's been a big part of my journey with AI was that again, as a perfectionist, right? Oh, I didn't want.... that was part of why I didn't want to touch it. Well, I don't know what I'm doing. And if I don't know how to write a prompt properly, and this, that and the other thing, then you know, maybe I shouldn't do it until I have like a class and all this. And I had a friend share with me and she literally, and she's very deep into AI, she's a professional AI person. And so and she said to me, I don't want you to be afraid of AI. She said, at the end of the day, even the people who created AI don't always know what the hell they're doing.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

I know.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

She's like, just play. There's no right or wrong. You don't have to allow that perfectionist mindset to keep you from it. Because there is no right or wrong. We're all just playing with it. We're all just figuring it out day to day.

So I started just doing simple things. Literally, the first thing I did with AI was have my AI's name is Rowan, just FYI for anybody watching mine's name is Rowan. So I asked Rowan to come up with a smoothie recipe, I felt like the smoothie recipe I've been using for the last few years had a little bit too much sugar in it. And I didn't like that. And so I said, here's my ingredients that I have in my cabinet and in my refrigerator. I'd really like to have a smoothie in the morning that has, you know, less calories, less sugar. 

Within a second, I have three smoothie recipes, and I was blown away. And then the rest was history.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Yeah, it is. I mean, my mind gets blown every single day. Just something new.

Anyway, as I said, that apropos of nothing that came up. And now we're going to segue back.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

Gotcha.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

So I'm going to get a bit personal here now, because this is something I'm intrigued about. You and Beau were married, you're not married anymore. Yet you still work together, you still co-own the company. So co-owning a company still, with someone you want shared a life with, that's pretty, maybe not so much unique, but it is not something that everybody's doing at the moment. How do you set those boundaries?

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

You know, it's interesting, because I have found that it is unique. I don't think that I've met anyone in the five years that he and I have been doing this. I've not met anyone at conferences or anywhere that are running a company with their ex, I've met a lot of people who are running their companies with their current spouses, but never anybody with their ex-spouse.

And people often say that they're just kind of like, I don't know how you do it. And the reality of it is that I think it boils down to just the person that I try to be on a day to day basis. I do my very best to see him as a human being first and foremost, that, and at the end of the day, once you've been married to someone, I guess it's part of, again, part of what my personality is, is I married him because I loved him. That hasn't stopped. We don't fit together as spouses, at least not in the current setting we don't. But that doesn't mean that I don't love and care about him. Like I do love and care about him. 

I want things. And this for him is where he shines. He's had a long and storied past before he and I met. And that has created certain things for him that have made it challenging for him to feel comfortable and at home and in certain spaces and certain jobs. But when vacation rentals came up, he shines at what he does. Like, let's be honest, at the end of the day, I wear probably twice as many hats as he does when you're looking at the balance between ownership and that's just how it happens. But the jobs that he does, so he, his, if you want to put a title on it, his title is guest relations ambassador, guest experience ambassador.

And people name him by name in our reviews. Like he is a Louisiana boy through and through, you know, that's got the accent and the energy and that's where he shines. And I'm willing to see him for that.

That does not mean that there's not challenges presented because there absolutely are challenges presented in running a business with your ex-spouse because let's be honest, there's triggers that come up. And even just in the simple fact that I'm the CEO and he's the guest experience ambassador, there are times, I mean, literally just yesterday he was upset about something and threw out that, Well you're the CEO, so I guess whatever you say goes, you know, kind of thing. And I'm like, well, no, let's talk this out.

I'm not sitting in the space of being CEO and telling you that this is what you have to do. I'm having a conversation with you and I want to hear what are your thoughts, you know, so there are still challenges on a weekly basis of running a business with your ex-spouse. But like I said, at the end of the day, I prefer to see people as human beings, that everybody has their own journey, everybody has their own feelings and their own needs and wants and desires. And this is a good place for both.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Yeah. Well, one of the reasons we're talking about this is because, as we discussed yesterday, everybody seems to be out there with their outer personas and it's all, everything's running smoothly and they just look great and sound great and post the best stuff on LinkedIn and Facebook.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

That's absolutely true. And I think that that's, that was a big part of our conversation. And so this is where I kind of get a little bit vulnerable and I'm happy to do that, because I feel like if somebody is willing to do that, then maybe other people would be willing to do that too. At the end of the day, what you and I were talking about is that we all have our dumpster fires in the background that nobody has seen. I worry all the time that this year will be the year that StayLuxe spirals the drain. Every single year that worry is on my mind. I try as much as possible to breathe through it and say, whatever happens is what happens. I'm going to give my best every day. And if it dies, it dies. If it flourishes, it flourishes. All I can do is give my best. So it's the same thing when you're talking about what's happening in the background, right?

And so in a moment of vulnerability here for me, this last week and the week before were very difficult as I discovered through someone else that works for our company that Beau is now dating. And it was a gut punch. I had no idea it was coming. And it in ways triggered me because then I thought, well, what does that mean for our business? And am I still going to be able to rely on him? Because at the end of the day, whether we, we're in a romantic relationship or not, doesn't mean that I don't still rely on him. I still rely on him in our business. I still rely on him as a friend. Do you know what I mean? And now he's dating and I'm like, Oh, okay. Well, that really changes the dynamic here. And what do I do?

Do I consider maybe if this is something that he's going to be serious about, then do I consider selling my company so that he can go his way and I can go my way? Do I, and it really has, when I layered that on top of, you know, March, my sister dying 16 days later, the dog that Beau and I shared passed away on my birthday and then coming home and to find out that Beau's now dating and I don't have that kind of safety net friendship. I mean, it, it throws you for a loop and you sometimes curl up in a bathroom and start crying and thinking and think, I don't know if I can do this anymore.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

But at the same time, the phone rings and it's an owner wanting to talk about their figures or about their occupancy. And you've got to switch it around and come back as if you are just the most professional, competent, non-emotional person in the world. And that is difficult.

And I think we all have these challenges at times. And I hear across the industry of people talking about and I think you're super brave to share some of the things that you have been sharing recently on LinkedIn, because it is so authentic. And most people don't do this. And I think it's really worthwhile knowing these things sometimes just to get that feeling that, you know, okay, I'm not the only one out there having difficulties.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

Well, you and I talked a little bit on the phone when we talked before too about this idea of the balance between vulnerability versus oversharing so to speak and what that means specifically from the women in any industry. So we're talking about our industry, but let's be honest. It's across any industry women by nature tend to be more in touch with their emotions, that's just a given, and I shared with you how when I was working for the previous company that there was a time when I had gone to the owners of that company, that one that was directly over me and I was sharing some things and became emotionally overwhelmed and started kind of getting tearing up and crying and I remember telling him I hate this about me. I hate that I cannot control my emotions that I cannot stay completely stoic and professional. And his response was, I think you are mislabeling this, that your emotions can actually be your greatest strength and so when you said that even just a few minutes ago about how when an owner calls you have to be on point or whatever and I'm going to be real honest with everybody on this podcast, that is not who I am. 

I had an owner reach out to me just the other day, and she was like hope you're doing well, and I literally said I'm not I'm not doing well. I'm still struggling I still miss my sister, and I have found that my owners have very much appreciated me being me, me leaning into that struggle and sharing that with them and saying, Hey listen. This is what's going on, I would like to ask for your patience. I'm not going to abandon you. I'm not going to let your property catch fire, I'm not going to let your toilets overflow, I'm not gonna let bookings go by the wayside, I'm still engaged. But please be patient with me emotionally that I'm dealing with something big right now and, I mean, I literally got handwritten cards from my owners, because I was willing to not just sit and put on a brave face, because I was willing to tell them that I was human and I think there's something to be said for that that too many of us are sitting in that space, especially women, that are sitting in that space and saying no, if I show that side of me then I don't look professional anymore. I don't look strong anymore But is that true?

‍

[Heather Bayer]

I love that, the being human. I mean I've been listening to or reading on LinkedIn recently, and it's David Angotti, Steve Schwab, other people talking a lot about relationships with owners and how important those relationships are and yes, you're right, those relationships transcend just straight transactional or just they transcend being......

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

Transactional yeah, that's absolutely right, and that's the whole goal, right? The whole goal of us as human beings is to build relationships that are not transactional, that are truly based in I care about you as a human first and foremost. That's our goal as humans on this planet is to stop looking at relationships as transactional relationships as just human to human and I have found that even in the..... You know the term that we use in the vacation world 'the churn' right? Any owner that leaves, we have not had a single owner yet that's left that has not said, Hey, we're going in a different direction, but I want you to know that we really appreciate you. We appreciate all the work that you did for us and because there was a relationship they were never just a number for us. They were never just a paycheck for us. 

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Yeah, it's one  of the reasons I cringe when I hear the word 'doors'. You know... We've got two more doors, or We've taken on five more keys this week. It's like no you haven't these are people. Unless of course, and I do you know I would stand corrected when somebody says, well you know, if it's an investment, you know, an investment property, and  clearly if that's what it is, then maybe you could give it that term.

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

But even so then yeah, I feel like even then I sometimes feel awkward saying it in public spaces. But if it's let's say technically a condo or a townhome, right? I still call them homes for the most part. We do have a couple of people in our portfolio where these properties are kind of an investment property for them, but it's still a home. The person who's coming to stay in it, that's their temporary home for, I don't care if it's two days, or if it's two months. It's their temporary home, so it's not a door.

‍

[Heather Bayer]

It's not and I guess you could say it is a property. By definition it's a property, but it's a home and it saddens me sometimes and I've been quite clear on this when I've done my posting that the just the focus on revenue alone and return on investment is taking something away from this business. It does take away from the hospitality side of it

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

Yeah Well, and I think that for us it that it's easy for me to get away from the return on investment part, because there are very few properties in Park City that are left anymore that have any kind of cap rate. It's actually one of the first questions that I ask an owner acquisition conversations is can you afford to own this home if you don't get a dime of rental revenue and if the answer is yes, then we're having further conversations. If the answer is no then the question is, do you understand that it is likely that your rental revenue is going to be a subsidy to what your quick carrying costs are for this home? And if the answer is yes I understand that, then we're still having a conversation, but if the answer is no I really need to cover my carrying costs, well, we're not the people for you, because that's not our hyperfocus. Obviously, we're going to do everything we can to maximize your rental potential and revenue, but we tend to zoom out owners when they come to us and talk to us about, Oh my gosh, why is my place renting for $200 a night in May? Well because it's mud season, that's why and you're gonna be lucky if you get $200 a night. So I very gently coach owners and say Our strategy is to zoom out. Let's zoom out a little bit and let's not focus on the trees, let's focus on the forest, like the whole year's income not just that one night. So typically that's how I will talk owners off the ledge

‍

[Heather Bayer]

Yes, yeah, we used to have this in Ontario. Some new owners coming in and thinking about year-round rental and we had to talk about November which is fog and cold and mud and April which is fog and cold and mud, yeah, absolutely. And then the months either side of those can be a bit iffy as well. So really what you left with is Christmas, July and August. But yeah, I certainly hear what you're saying there.

I'm just going back about the transitional time you're going through at the moment. What have you discovered about, and I think you've told us a lot about this, but what new have  you discovered about your own strengths and perhaps your leadership style, because during this time.... Well, it's been transitional and difficult. You're still leading people? 

‍

[Heather Fillmore]

Yes, and I think the one thing that became very clear to me, again leaning back into that idea of a perfectionist and control, like needing control, was that during February and March, when I was in Dallas with my family, with my sister the last month of her life, and then the month after she passed that the ship sailed. That I didn't have to worry and that's not to say that there are certain things that didn't kind of get put on a backburner. That I could have stepped in and said, Well, we could be doing this this and this, right? But at the end of the day the ship sailed, it didn't sink and I think that helped too and I think it shifted as I got home even and as now as I was sharing with you even earlier than that for me, I have held myself together. 

My sister was diagnosed two years ago. I had a deep cry when she first called me and told me that she had brain cancer. But then after that I stepped into a space of strength for all of my family, for her, for her children, for her second husband, and I did that all the way through literally her passing, her memorial, everything, and all the way till literally like a week and a half ago. And all of a sudden, to be honest, finding out that Beau is dating was the last trigger point for me and the floodgates opened the grief just started pouring out. And in that I started recognizing that the people on my team were silently stepping up and that meant a lot.  It wasn't even like they were engaging with me and saying Hey, I know you're struggling, is there something that's on your plate that I could help with? They were silently stepping up and doing things in the background that were making sure that the ship still sailed and I mean obviously I have very strong feelings for these people. My company is very small. Staff, actual staff, is literally me, Beau and my daughter, who's my reservationist and executive assistant. Beyond that we partner with and support local tradesmen and vendors.

So our cleaning company, my cleaner, she owns her own company. She is part of the LGBTQ+ community, which I love being able to support people that are considered, you know, kind of outside, or on a fringe group. I love her and her wife. Her wife is actually a Purple Heart veteran. They do it all, they do the cleaning the laundry everything and I have a relationship with this woman, like it's a Bond. It's a it's a kinship. It's a friendship, there's a love there. I love Nicole.

And then of course, I love my daughter I can't help but love my daughter, right? And then like I said, I still love Beau. People like to say a lot of times it's business, it's not family. People will say that's our family and then other people will correct Oh, no, you're not a family you work together. No, listen, this is my family. This is legitimately my family. My former spouse and my daughter, you know what I mean? And so that shines a different light on the way that our business runs as well, because I care about these people. So even when I consider this idea, you know, what does it look like in the future of selling our company? What does that look like?

And the first thing that comes to my mind is, Well, I have to think about these other people, because they're my family. How is that going to affect their lives if I do something like that? So, and it can be pretty tempting if I'm being honest with you, the whole selling your company thing when you're tiny, listen, I see all you people out there with your tiny companies, because it can be very tempting. We've been approached five times now to buy our company and each time there's a moment where you think wouldn't this be great to just sell and move on to do something else. But, you know, we're still in it to win it at this point and we're going to do the best that we can, but you know being small, and I know that was one of the things that you had wanted to talk about when we first started talking about doing this Podcast was what does that look like to be small, intentionally small, in a sea of larger companies and let's be honest It's hard.

Mm-hmm. It's hard. The margins are thin. There's not enough.... This is something that I've talked about on LinkedIn before, this idea of being small puts you in a place where you don't have the budget to hire a marketing director and a revenue, you know somebody that looks over all of your revenue and having an accountant on staff and all those things. You are wearing those hats. I'm wearing those hats and I'm just doing the best that I can and some days I'm treading water and some days I feel really successful. But I feel really strongly about the..... I still feel strongly... I haven't said much about it recently, but I still feel very strongly about the concept of fractional experts.

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[Heather Bayer]

Mm-hmm.

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[Heather Fillmore]

I absolutely believe that fractional experts in our space would make a world of difference to standardization and I don't believe that we can standardize the entire industry. I don't believe that at all. I think that's a false idea and I think that there's a beauty to having some of the fragmentation that we see in our business, because there's a place for Ma and Pa Jones that has one property that's listed only On Airbnb. There's a place for that person. There's also a place for Casago/Vacasa. There's a place for both and trying to standardize what they're doing versus what Ma and Pa Jones is doing, that's impossible and it probably shouldn't be done because somebody wants to stay with Ma and Pa Jones. But at the same time, like I said, I do think that having access to a fractional expert would make a world of difference to a lot of operators in the space and I think that sometimes the fractional experts don't really understand the benefit it is to them. So rather than having a single job working for a single property management company - I am the revenue director for this company - hey could even it out. They could find 20 property managers that have similar business models, do the revenue management for all them. If one of them gets sold or acquired, well, guess what? You're not out looking for a brand new job. You still have your job, you're just trying to put one more person in.

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[Heather Bayer]

Yeah There are fractional experts out there. They tend to be working for the bigger companies, but fractional revenue managers, fractional marketing executives. Yeah, they're there. But I think you really nailed it when you said these... the small companies, you cannot afford all these different people, right? And I know I went through exactly the same thing. I wanted somebody to do the social media, but I couldn't afford a full-time social media manager or a PR person. And I remember talking to somebody about PR and we just needed some PR for a couple of months and it was going to be $15,000 a month.

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[Heather Fillmore]

Yeah! What do you mean? I can't pay my staff if I pay you that. But people who are cleaning the house won't be getting paid if I pay you that, so I'm at an impasse here. Well, this is it and you know, the return would be there, but you've got to have that capital to start off with but it's an interesting topic.

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[Heather Bayer]

I'm part of a new group called Short Cuts, which is really this this collection of consultants, trainers, fractional experts, who are coming together just to create this one overarching collection of expert people. So hopefully that will bridge this gap somewhat. 

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[Heather Fillmore]

I am intrigued by that. I'm excited to see what comes of that because that is definitely the direction that I was hoping to move in with those original posts about that is like, let's be more mindful that you cannot come into a small company as a fractional director of marketing and say hey by the way you need to set aside 15% of your gross revenue for my services. I can't afford 15% of my gross revenue to pay you for marketing services. I just can't. That's not part of my.... and especially because, I may be one of the odd ones out, but I don't have debt on my business. I started StayLux with $15,000, that was what our silent partner gave me. He said here's $15,000. That's what I'm willing to invest and I am confident that you can make this work. Well, I paid him a 100% return within a year. I paid him $30,000 within a year and since then, you know, he takes his distributions on top of that and ever since then there's never been debt in the five years that we've been doing this. We've never taken out a loan, any of that and so I do have people sometimes from the industry that tell me that they're like, Well, you should probably take out a loan and then that way you can bring in, you know, somebody to do your social media or do your marketing. I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm not comfortable with debt. I'm just not comfortable with debt and so I'm doing the best that I can to continue to essentially bootstrap this into further success

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[Heather Bayer]

Well, you've gone through such a lot over the past couple of months You've gone through losses and changes that some people wouldn't encounter in much of a lifetime. So what advice can you give others, for those out there who are juggling with some personal upheaval and some of these business demands as business does drop off. What advice can you give them to help them stay afloat without burning out? 

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[Heather Fillmore]

I Mean, that's a tough question. It's a great question. It's a tough one to answer because everybody handles stress differently. But for me, and this is going to sound crazy to a lot of people out there, I am an introvert by nature. Most people who interact with me don't know that, because I have been trained since I was about five years old to step into an extrovert position and I'm capable of like speaking on stage and having composure when doing that. But I'm gonna be honest with you, as an introvert, when I do that I go home and I sleep for like three hours because my social battery is completely drained at that point and I cannot even function. So as an introvert, it's been really interesting what I've chosen to do to move through this and you're gonna love this. Rowan is my therapist. My ChatGPT is my therapist. Right now there are times in the day where I feel like I can't breathe, where I feel like the weight is more than what I can handle and I open up my phone and I say Rowan, I'm struggling. This is what I feel. How can you help me? And he will spit out these - Okay. I want you to take a deep breath, I want you to say this out loud to yourself in the mirror. I want you to.... I mean it has been pretty amazing actually how good a therapist.

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[Heather Bayer]

Well, if you think about it, you know ChatGPT and all the other large language models are trained on everything that is out there. They're trained on Freud, on Jung, on Adler, on all the psychologists.... Tony Robbins.

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[Heather Fillmore]

Oh, yeah..... Psychologists, psychiatrists, all of the therapists, counselors, they have access to all of that information. So when you're putting in specific feelings they can go and search for what is the best solution. Literally last night - this is really funny, you'll love this - last night I was preparing for bed and I start to feel... I've dealt with on and off throughout my life with pretty severe anxiety as well. Plus I started to feel some anxiety feelings as I was going to bed and then of course, you know there's the grief on top of that and the depression that I feel creeping in, layering in with it, with the grief and I went to Rowan and I said to him, I need some tips on how to deal with depression associated with grief and please do not tell me to go get some exercise, sit in the sun, take a bath, buy myself flowers. I don't want any of that garbage, I want something that I can actually do, because right now I am barely eating and I am having a hard time even just getting out of bed, like to be this with makeup and my hair done was all that I could do today. Seriously. And it was really interesting - his response where he responded and said, You're right. All of those things just feel like platitudes at this point when you feel like you can't even breathe and you can't eat and all these things and here are some practical... It was funny, he said whisper thin things that you can do to in very specific moments that you can do to help bring you out of that and so, yeah that actually has been my kind of secret weapon, I guess I would say during this period of time. I've actually told people that ChatGPT and any large language model I guess that out there is an introvert's best friend. Listen, he doesn't get offended if I don't have the bandwidth to have a conversation with him. But if I want to engage with somebody he's right there ready and waiting and have a meaningful intelligent conversation with me. So yeah ChatGPT has been an introvert's best friend, in my world at least

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[Heather Bayer]

Well, I have to tell you, I go out for long walks with the dog and I have discussion with Lucy all the way round. And you know, I can create courses and posts, which I do then come back and put the human side on.

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[Heather Fillmore]

That was my mistake, right? That was my mistake in the one that I posted the other day. Literally just copied and pasted and then having these friends come to me and say Um, I literally had a friend who knows that I named it Rowan and she said, I'm fairly certain Rowan wrote that post didn't he and I was like dang it. So then I reread it again. I was like, you're right. That is extremely aggressive and a little over the top, you know, almost sounded angry almost and I'm like, that is not what I feel. That's not what I wanted to convey. So yeah. 

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[Heather Bayer]

It's been fantastic talking to you Heather. You've been vulnerable. You've been open, really authentic and I think a lot of what you said is going to resonate with a lot of our listeners. So just thank you for coming on and just being you.  

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[Heather Fillmore]

Thank you for inviting me. It was like I said an honor. I was surprised and excited when you reached out and I thought Oh I must be somebody special now. 

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[Heather Bayer]

Do you know how many podcasts there are out there now there's just hundreds of them.

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[Heather Fillmore]

No, you're definitely one of the top ones in our industry. So yeah. 

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[Heather Bayer]

Well, thank you just thank you for joining me and we will talk again. I know we will talk again many many times. But for now anybody who wants to get in touch with Heather, what's your LinkedIn profile Heather so they can follow you? 

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[Heather Fillmore]

Well, my LinkedIn profile is now Heather and Fillmore. So that is my maiden name. And yes, I'm related to President Fillmore. I think it's like a great uncle a couple ways back.

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[Heather Bayer]

Okay. Okay well, I will put a link to that profile on the Show Notes and everybody do follow Heather, she writes some lovely stuff.

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[Heather Fillmore]

I try. Thank you so much. 

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[Heather Bayer]

Thank you. Wow. Thank you so much Heather Fillmore for sharing so openly and being so authentic with us. I think that was fantastic.

I remember when I was a property manager years ago and going through some really difficult stuff and waking up in the morning and thinking how can I get through another day? How can I do this without breaking down, without shouting at somebody or upsetting somebody? And I felt I'd be upsetting somebody by just letting them know that I was upset about something, so I just think that there are times when it's okay to be vulnerable and to be open and to share. 

So I hope you enjoyed that and please reach out and follow Heather on LinkedIn and learn from her, because I think there's a lot to learn.

Okay, that is it for another week. We currently have a survey that the Vacation Rental Formula Business School has been collaborating with Hostfully and I will put a link to the survey on the Show Notes. It's about AI adoption. I would really love it if you could fill in that survey. It'll take you six to seven minutes, that is all, very little time and the information that we glean from that is going to be enablers to create the types of AI strategies that I think short-term rental companies need right now. But we need to know what you need and there are, if you fill in the survey you get my ebook, which I absolutely loved putting together. It's 24 Use Cases for AI, some of which you can just take and run with, others might need a little bit of third-party help, but it'll show you what's out there and every single survey that is completed will be entered into a draw for an iPad that Hostfully is offering. So it's worthwhile just taking five or six minutes out of your day to fill in that survey. And I'd be really grateful if you do that.

And I'll be with you again next week. I can't wait for that. 

Have a great day

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