According to Malcolm Gladwell in ‘Outliers’ It takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice at something to become a master at it. This applies to our business too and sadly we see too many quasi ‘experts’ proclaiming how they can teach their skills in a short course or an ebook, and make millionaires out of a […]
My guest today took his interest and knowledge of real estate investment and has turned it into a vacation rental business. With three properties currently listed on Airbnb & VRBO, Michael Hamilton was about to fly off to North Carolina to close on the fourth, when I was able to talk to him from his […]
When I got into the vacation rental business in the 1990s, it was simple. You just advertised in a local paper or put a sign outside the property. That worked pretty well. After all, my place was one of very few available for summer rental in our area. Most guests came year after year and […]
If you think about the last time you read a good novel, it probably wasn’t the story that got you immersed in the book to start with, it was the opening lines; the way the writer drew you into the narrative, and the descriptive text that had you identifying with the characters from the get-go. […]
Some years ago when Cottage Blogger was in its infancy, and the cottage rental market here in Ontario was meeting some challenges of change, I came across a new listing site. Cottage Country.com was a start-up and at first glance seemed like every other listing site that was sprouting up at that time. They were […]
I don’t like to label myself, but in issues of technology I find myself overwhelmed sometimes with the speed of progress, the wealth of new gadgets and gizmos, and most of all, the ability of my 2 year old granddaughter to operate an iPad. My label would be ‘recovering dinosaur’! I’ve seen the light and […]
When a vacation rental experience is bad, most people would just write a poor review, shrug it off and put it down to experience. Fortunately for us, the founder of Dwellable, Adam Doppelt didn’t let it rest. In the same way he helped people discover new restaurants when he co-founded Urban Spoon, so Dwellable aims […]
If you are a reader of Matt Landau’s excellent Vacation Rental Marketing Blog, you have probably been following his amazing website makeover series. If you are not familiar with Matt, this is a great introduction to some of his work. Several months ago, Matt launched the Makeover – a project where he took an under-performing property […]
The Source (formerly Radio Shack) in Canada has been running an ad for a couple of years with the ‘I Want That’ theme. A little weird, but it says where we are now in the crowded retail space – if something grabs our attention sufficiently, it’s usually enough to draw us in to finding out […]
