In this episode, Debi Hertert talks with Alanna Schroeder of “The Distinguished Guest”, a vendor at the Host2Host 2017 conference in Portland, Oregon. Alanna started as a commercial real estate agent, then wanted to have another baby, so started renting out her house in Lake Tahoe. She recognized a need for a source of higher-end products for vacation rentals and started a business. She spent a lot of time sourcing products, finding those that looked good and are good. Alanna tries to source from large providers, so the same products will be available a year from now. She ended up getting so busy with her Distinguished Guest business that she put the Lake Tahoe property on long-term rental, and now has a place in Hawaii on short term rental including Airbnb. She has some clients that stay multiple weeks, even up to three months. Debi asked Alanna about her third business, “VR Mastered”. It’s something that Alanna is doing with Tyanne Marcink and Beth Carson of Vacation Rental Travel Magazine. VR Mastered is basically a boot camp to teach people how to get on social media of Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest and Twitter to market their properties. Also helping people edit their listings on the main platforms. She found that most of the people in her first group were not familiar with social media and were excited to learn the techniques. Check out these links! Alanna's premier vacation rental supply company:
https://www.thedistinguishedguest.com/ Her vacation rental "Bootcamp":
http://www.vrmastered.com/ And Alanna's Hawaii vacation rental:
http://princevillevacationrental.com/