The why and who of the Direct Booking Success Summit

Ep_05 The why and who of the Direct Booking Success Summit

Jenn: Hello, and welcome to episode number five of the direct booking success podcast. Thank you so much for being here with me. If it wasn't for you, I'd just be sitting here talking to myself. My cat's not even listening. She's sound asleep. A question I want to answer for you today is why did I start the direct booking success summit last year now I started it because it can be quite a lonely place out there.

We work for ourselves. And mainly by ourselves, a lot of us don't have someone we can bounce ideas off of, or talk through something we are thinking of doing. We can't survive in a vacuum. We as humans need others. Of course, this was a fact that the pandemic brought home to all of us conferences are a great way to bring us all together, to connect with each other and even better when we're all in the same industry, connect and learn. The problem that I have. And perhaps you do as well, is that I don't have the budget to travel to the mall nor can I just drop work and my family to head off for a few days, don't get me wrong.

I'd love to not have to do bedtime with a grumpy tired kid for a few days. That would be great. But seriously, I don't have the big travel budget to be able to go to conferences around the world. But the great thing is that we can almost have the same experience at an online summit. Sure. We don't get to be face to face, but we do get to connect with each other.

We do get to learn. We do get to be part of the community and Hey, there's no travel. There's no packing. We don't even have to leave our house. Hey, we don't even have to get dressed if we don't want. So that's a win-win win for me. All presentations are free. All the events in the Facebook group are free.

This is why I created the direct booking success summit. It's for you. It's for me. So we can be part of something together. Let's not forget our speakers. I really could not do this without them.

I have 17 speakers lined up to give presentations of great value, real learning opportunities for you. They aren't there to pitch their services. They are there to teach, inspire and connect. I want to share with you who each of them are and what they'll speak about. Some of them I'll be speaking to on this podcast in future episodes.

Please note that I'm re recording this in July. So some of the titles or topics might be slightly different from what we actually end up with in September. And as they're 17, I'm not just gonna rattle them all off right now. I'd put you to. I put myself to sleep, but what I am gonna do is talk about half now and save the rest for the next episode.

So in no particular order, let's start.

Heather Bayer who doesn't know her name. She is a legend in the industry, a Brit who moved to Canada's cottage country in Ontario to start her vacation rental business. She has a fabulous podcast called vacation rental success, which I listened to every week. She will be speaking on why we should all be concentrating on direct bookings.

Julie George, a globe trotting superstar who has been attending conferences left right and center the past few months. She is also known as the author of the million dollar host and is based in Australia. She'll be speaking on creating your magnificent brand.

Jodi Bourne. Jodi is a website designer and marketer with a fabulous Texan accent. A self-described professional tourist. Jodi has stayed in over 70 vacation rentals. I don't know if many people could say that. Her topic of choice for the summit will be how to build a standout social media strategy,

Di Hammill Di started her journey to short term rentals in a very unique way.

After living off grid with her children, she started to teach the skills she was using just to live. She needed accommodation for those coming to do her courses. And that's how her business started. She will be presenting her method for being everywhere online. So your ideal guest will find you

Si Ranshaw is one of the few men that I'm allowing into the summits lineup.

He is a photographer, but not just any photographer, a short term rental specialist. His work is brilliant. And he'll be speaking on how to get the most out of your property in your images. Michelle Woodman. Michelle is a website developer and has built up her own short term rental business. Using tech.

She will be bringing her tech skills to the summit where she'll be sharing how dynamic pricing can help you drive your direct bookings.

Kelly Odor she is the marketing director for bookstore, a PMs property management system. Based in Scotland. She will be speaking on the guest experience and how you can use tech, but still give good service

Tyann and Kate both are connected to touch day. One of our generous sponsors, Kate is the chief marketing officer and Tyann is the queen of guest experience. Tyann and Kate will both be speaking at the summit. Kate will be sharing what is what PR is and how to use it to drive direct bookings.

And Tyanns presentation is titled true stories. The magic fairy dust of communications on the guest experience. So that's it for this episode, those are the first bunch of speakers and I will introduce the rest to you in the next episode. Don't forget. The wait list is open on the website, direct booking success, summit.com.

If you'd like to be one of the first ones to get tickets, when registration opens in September, see you next week.