Brooke Pfautz has been a guest on this show more often than almost anyone, and he has never come back with the same story twice. This time he arrives having taken his own company apart. Vintory, the business he founded seven and a half years ago to help professional managers grow their inventory, has been rebuilt from scratch as an AI native platform, launched this month as Vintory AI. The work was done by a small team reporting directly to Brooke, outside the main company, and most of his staff did not know it was happening.

Heather brings him back because of a single line in a video he posted: 

“Most companies spend too much energy protecting the business they already have instead of building the one that is coming next.”

 The conversation works through what it took to act on that line, and what it cost.

For anyone walking the halls at VRMA this October, or weighing up a tool with AI on the banner, this episode gives you a way to tell the genuine article from the retrofit. It also gives you Brooke and his team’s four-part formula for any AI system, whether you buy one or build it yourself, and an honest look at what has changed in owner acquisition and what has not changed at all.

About the guest

Brooke Pfautz founded Vantage Resort Realty in Ocean City, Maryland, grew it to 500 properties under management, and sold it in 2013. He spent five years as chief business development officer for a large management company in Orlando, then moved into software with LiveRez, which is where he fell in love with the technology side of the business. Seven and a half years ago he founded Vintory with a single mission that has not changed since: help professional vacation rental managers grow their inventory. Vintory has now worked with more than 1,000 companies on the supply side, and Brooke is a familiar voice on owner acquisition across the industry.

Key takeaways

• AI native and AI wrapped are not the same thing, and the difference shows up in how fast a company can ship. Brooke reckons 90 percent of the booths at VRMA will have AI on them, and 90 percent of those are dabbling on the fringes.
• Every AI system needs four parts: context, rules, skills and connectors. Miss any one of them and you get slop. Brooke’s team remembers it as "Can Robots Sign Condos?"
• Context is the ingredient most people skip. Feeding a system your history, your positioning, your brand voice and your avatars is what separates usable content from generic filler, and both Brooke and Heather write iteratively rather than accepting a first draft.
• Owners have not changed. They still want to know they can trust you, that they will earn more, that their home will be looked after, that you will communicate, and that guests will be well hosted. What AI changes is the ability to reach the right owner with the right message at the right time, at far greater scale.
• Rebuilding proved easier than retrofitting. Launching new features at Vintory used to take months and now takes weeks, which is the practical argument for starting over rather than bolting AI onto an existing platform.
• Nobody hires Vintory because they want AI. They hire because they want more management contracts. The technology is the means, and the result is the only thing that counts.

‍Connect with Brooke Pfautz

Brooke is active on LinkedIn and happy to hear from managers thinking about their own owner acquisition, and he answers his email. If you are at VRMA in October, his session on owner acquisition and AI is worth putting in the diary.

• Email: brooke@vintory.com
• LinkedIn: Brooke Pfautz 
• Vintory AI Introduction: YouTube 
• Website: vintory.com

‍This episode is sponsored by StayFi

StayFi is branded Wi-Fi for your properties. When guests log on, it collects the details of everyone in the group rather than just the person who booked, then handles the follow up that brings them back through your own website, commission free. Go to stayfi.com and use the code VRSUCCESS for 50 percent off three months of StayFi service.

‍