Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / Terry Whyte’s Vacation Rental Comeback: Resilience After Two Hurricanes

Transcript

Terry Whyte’s Vacation Rental Comeback: Resilience After Two Hurricanes · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

0:00
Is there a secret to this business?
0:01
And my answer is yes, there is a secret.
0:04
And that secret is you can't have a weakness build your
0:07
business around domestic travel. It protects you against crisis.
0:12
I'm going to lead you out of this.
0:13
I am the numbers to prove it. But what we're doing compared to
0:16
the competition, and my goal is to lead my owners out of this
0:20
mess. Imagine facing 2 hurricanes in
0:23
just two months. That was the reality for Terry
0:26
White in Anna Maria Island off the coast of Florida Florida.
0:30
Hear how he bounced back by harnessing his 30,000 strong
0:34
e-mail list storytelling and exceptional content marketing.
0:39
This is a lesson every property manager needs to hear.
0:48
Terry, thank you for joining us on the House Planet podcast.
0:52
What was it like going through 2 hurricanes in two months?
0:56
How did it impact your properties, first of all, and of
0:59
course your your mindset. It was, it was pretty crazy.
1:03
You know, to be hit with one hurricane is one thing.
1:05
To hit 2 back-to-back is really something very few people I hope
1:09
I ever have to experience. So it was really a tale of two,
1:16
not just two hurricanes. The effect of the the one
1:20
hurricane, the first one that hit was real bad.
1:21
The second one that hit was supposed to be catastrophic.
1:24
And it didn't turn out to be much of a problem at all.
1:27
Got we really got lucky there. But the tail of the two
1:31
hurricanes was the first one. And really it was the effect it
1:35
had on properties that were built on ground level and then
1:39
the other ones that were on pillars, that the ones on
1:42
pillars were barely affected at all other than the swimming
1:44
pools. The properties on ground level
1:48
were pretty much destroyed. And it was a very different
1:52
hurricane in a way. People normally would associate
1:55
hurricanes with extensive wind damage, you know, 100 mile an
1:58
hour winds and stuff. Ours was primarily all flooding.
2:02
All the damage had very little to do with wind damage and
2:05
primarily everything to do with flooding.
2:08
So how did you deal with it and how did you bounce back?
2:14
Dealing with it, it was very difficult because it was very
2:18
devastating to start with. And then access to the island,
2:21
of course, was cut off. You couldn't get to the island.
2:24
So just trying to get accurate information on how extensive the
2:27
damage was, how extensive the damage was to my properties, in
2:31
particular how to get my team onto the island where that was
2:38
at one time fishermen were on the mainland, just they were
2:42
just volunteering to say, hey, you want to get the island, jump
2:44
on the boat, we'll take you across kind of thing.
2:46
And then eventually a lot of the damage and really affected me
2:51
more than most people. I was just unfortunate.
2:53
A lot of my properties were blacked out.
2:55
They had no electricity and some of them didn't have electricity
2:58
for almost 3 months. So I was really unfortunate
3:02
there. But then getting my, when I
3:04
finally got my people onto the island, because I'm not only a
3:07
property manager, I'm an owner. I have the pass, I had this
3:12
property pass that will get you on the line in case of emergency
3:16
and they have to cut you off. So I had all my, my team has my
3:20
passes. So I was eventually able to get
3:22
them on and then assess the damage to the properties.
3:25
And again, it depended if my properties were on pillars, not
3:29
much damage at all other than the swimming pools.
3:31
And then anything on ground level was just destroyed.
3:35
Just describe to us the geographic location, exactly
3:38
where you are, and then in terms of the properties, how many are
3:41
we talking and how many are yours that you own and how many
3:45
are ones that you manage? OK, so Inter Island is a very
3:49
small island on Florida's Gulf Coast.
3:51
It's about halfway down the state on the Gulf there it's
3:55
only 7 miles wide, 7 miles long. The widest part would be half a
4:00
mile, but that's hardly ever happens.
4:01
It's basically about the width of a football field, wide.
4:05
So there's water. There's the Gulf of Mexico on
4:07
the West. There's Florida's Intercoastal
4:09
Waterway on the east, and that's so literally, you're surrounded
4:14
by water and the unthinkable can happen.
4:17
But I've owned there for 35 years, managed there for 35
4:21
years. We've had some hurricanes, you
4:23
know, and been blacked out a little bit here.
4:25
And they do something. They blow the roof off of this
4:27
place or that place and knock some trees down.
4:30
But in 35 years, we're very fortunate.
4:33
But this one, we weren't so lucky.
4:34
This one got us, you know for sure.
4:37
So just talk about bouncing back then what you've, what you've
4:41
done since and and how your businesses recovered since 2
4:45
hurricanes in a very short space of time.
4:48
I had, I had a business plan and I knew what my strategy was
4:53
going to be immediately. You know, once he once got
4:55
through the assessment and knew how bad, how properties fared,
5:00
other ones didn't My strategy, I knew from the start, I had to
5:04
change the narrative and it started on Facebook.
5:07
So as bad as it got on Facebook, you know, they all the photos of
5:10
the damage, you know, and stuff like that.
5:12
But you can also leverage Facebook when it starts to
5:14
recover, which I knew I, I would do it.
5:17
But my primary strategy was I had to change the narrative that
5:21
this place is destroyed and it's going to take two years to
5:22
rebuild. And then I knew I had a plan in
5:25
place and I knew how I was going to attack this and what the
5:29
strategy would be. I've always been a big believer
5:35
in marketing, especially content marketing, more so than SEO or
5:39
anything like that. And so I knew I was going to
5:43
really leverage my past guest database, you know, which I had
5:47
about 30,000 people on that. So number one, that was my #1
5:52
strategy was I was going to continue with the content
5:55
marketing. And then just just to reflect
5:59
the recovery, the process of it House, even if it was slow,
6:03
anything was good, anything was good news because it couldn't
6:05
get any worse kind of thing there.
6:07
So and then. So I did that.
6:10
And then what I did too with my strategy was on my website, I
6:16
had a banner on there and it was every 14 days it was an update
6:20
on the progress of hurricane recovery.
6:22
And then because I'm big into content marketing and digital
6:27
marketing and e-mail marketing, we sent an update out every, I
6:32
always did it anyway every 14 days to my database.
6:36
So in that was the recovery on my website was recovery.
6:40
And then I would take and I would copy and paste the
6:42
highlights of the recovery into my, my OTA listings, you know,
6:49
so every, everything was there. But I think the one big thing
6:52
that helped the most was, and I think you've probably seen this
6:55
I posted on LinkedIn. Year to date, I'm up 5.2%, the
7:01
island is down 36.0%. And I think the the strategy,
7:08
the the marketing, the the game plan really worked out in the
7:14
end. Yeah, this shows the the power
7:16
of storytelling and marketing because this is a a recovery
7:20
strategy, but also a direct booking strategy is pretty much
7:23
the the same thing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
7:26
OK, real talk now for all you hosts out there, you know that
7:29
moment when you guest messages you again with, hey, what's the
7:34
Wi-Fi code? Or you're staring at 5 different
7:36
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7:39
cottage. Yes, we've all been there.
7:42
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7:46
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7:49
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7:52
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7:56
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7:59
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8:02
Honestly, it just makes your life easier and keeps your
8:06
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8:09
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8:12
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8:23
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8:32
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8:35
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8:37
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8:40
Less stress, more bookings sorted with housefully.
8:45
Just how important is it? You know, when you've got those
8:48
30,000 guest emails and these are all people that have been
8:51
before and I imagine the vast majority have absolutely loved
8:54
it. How important is it to utilize
8:56
those customers who are engaged in what you're selling?
9:00
That, that was my #1 strategy. I knew the first people to come
9:04
back and stay with me and trust me, you know, they could believe
9:07
what I was saying that, you know, we're covered, the beaches
9:09
are open, the restaurants are open, you know, you know, my
9:13
properties are in good shape. That, that was the key for me
9:17
to, to leverage that because if I was trying to find new
9:20
customers, I that would have been a pretty tough deal, you
9:23
know for sure. Yeah.
9:25
And in terms of marketing and you know, content marketing like
9:28
you mentioned there, just how important is that for property
9:31
management companies because you hear of a lot and marketing if
9:35
times are tough, that can be the first thing that that goes to
9:38
the wayside. They don't spend any money on it
9:40
anymore. And I've heard also tales of
9:42
property management companies who don't really prioritise
9:44
marketing and and you know, they don't really grow maybe as fast
9:47
as as they could do. So that from your point of view,
9:50
just like how important is it to concentrate on that content
9:53
marketing and that storytelling aspect?
9:55
It's critical to me. It's I never want to be, you
9:59
know, solely dependent on OTASII advertise on them.
10:03
I'm about 50% booked. It depends on the month.
10:05
Sometimes it's as low as 30. You know, it just depends on the
10:08
month kind of thing there. But there's two metrics to to
10:13
that guest as well. It's if you're getting the
10:19
returning guest that that's a great metric.
10:22
That means you did a good job. They've, they had a good
10:25
vacation, they trust you kind of thing.
10:27
But if you're not growing organically, you know, they're,
10:30
that's the second metric. So for me, I always put real
10:34
emphasis on organic growth too. So I have, I have both covered.
10:39
I put the significance on both, you know, the returning guests
10:44
and the organic. And in the end, I think when a
10:46
crisis comes like this and things can go bad and you never
10:50
know what, like, just like Airbnb, maybe they move you to
10:53
the bottom of the algorithm. Maybe it's booking.com, you
10:56
know, there's always that. And I, I look at my website as
10:59
an OTA, like I'm an OTA, you know, So I take it seriously.
11:03
I would say other than my PMS, probably my website is the
11:06
second biggest part of my tech stack and most important to me,
11:10
you know, so it's, it's critical.
11:13
And what are the aspects of your website that help you to convert
11:18
lookers into bookers? Work.
11:21
Work with reputable vendors that know what they're doing.
11:25
Like I spend a lot of money on Google Adwords, for example,
11:30
Facebook, Facebook PPC, Instagram PPC and then e-mail
11:35
marketing on top of that. But working.
11:37
So I have AI have a really good website built by professional
11:41
website built that I'm proud of that looks real good.
11:43
You know, and people would, would, would look at it and say,
11:46
there's a professional, you know, he knows what he's doing.
11:48
So you get you got the credit, instant credibility there and
11:51
then proven partners that you work with that they know PPC
11:55
because you can burn through money like thousands of dollars
11:57
and have nothing to show for it. And then e-mail marketing.
12:00
How do you effectively e-mail market to people that you don't
12:04
end up in spam that they don't read it, they don't open it, you
12:07
know, so working with reputable and it costs money, but it's the
12:11
return is is well worth the effort.
12:16
Going back to the recovery a little bit, how did you deal
12:19
with the crisis in relation to your own team that, that you've
12:23
got working for you and also like the, the local community,
12:26
how did you help the community to, to recover as well?
12:29
I mean, presumably by getting more bookings, but I mean, I
12:32
imagine there were lots of, lots of acts of acts of kindness
12:35
among the community to help everybody, you know, unite and,
12:38
and deal with these problems. The community wasn't such a big
12:43
deal with kindness or anything like that.
12:45
We were all in the same trying to get just get through it, you
12:49
know, and try and what I've always pride myself in.
12:52
And I never tried to be like the rest of the community.
12:54
I'm I'm better than what they do, you know, And I have the
12:57
doubted to show it. But what really surprised me the
13:01
most was the acts of kindness. I've got a couple stories I want
13:05
to share with you. You know, you know, the guests
13:07
that they see one hair on the floor, they're on the phone,
13:10
they say 1 Leaf in the pool, they're on the phone, they're
13:13
threatening bad reviews. So the, this one complex in
13:17
particular, I own three properties in this complex and
13:21
there's 32 in it. And between owning and managing,
13:24
I, I control over half of what's in there.
13:27
But anyway, that complex was one of those that lost power.
13:31
We had no power for three months to 8.
13:35
Only 8 condos in the complex had power 24 others didn't have it
13:39
for three months. So 1st guest I accept.
13:42
So I call him. He had already pre booked and I
13:44
said hey I can't accept you the pool's green.
13:46
That's you know he says I don't care about the pool I just I
13:49
just want to come. So he comes, he stays there.
13:54
The pool's green. It was going to stay green for
13:56
the next three months. There's so much sand.
13:58
You couldn't walk anywhere because there was 8 foot sound
14:01
sand drifts. It was like Chicago in a
14:02
snowstorm where they plowed the roads.
14:04
Instead of snow, it was sand. There might have been, there
14:07
might have been 5 restaurants open.
14:10
The guy gives me a five star review, you know, after he after
14:13
he leaves another woman, GAIL, she had rented.
14:16
This was supposed to be here 8th time staying with me.
14:19
So I call GAIL and say, GAIL can't, can't take you.
14:23
I'm going to give you money back.
14:24
She says, Terry, just keep it. You know, I'm going to when you
14:26
recover, I'm just going to. And then then she calls me about
14:31
a month later and she says, oh, by the way, when I was supposed
14:34
to stay with you, I went to the mainland.
14:37
I flew to the mainland. She was in the Midwest, so she
14:39
flew across the country, rented a motel room.
14:42
You couldn't get to the island. They weren't allowing cars onto
14:45
the island. So she's 70 something years old.
14:48
She drove as far as she could. Then she walked for miles the
14:51
rest of the way every day for seven days to clean up garbage
14:55
on the island and then walked back and went to her hotel room
14:57
and then flew home the the next week.
14:59
So, and even to this day, I get so many people that they're
15:03
unaware of the recovery. They just think, you know, we're
15:07
still kind of devastated, you know, and, and stuff like that.
15:10
And they say we just want to be part of the process.
15:13
We just want to come. We understand that things
15:15
weren't like they used to be. The restaurants aren't like
15:18
they, even if the food's crappy, we don't care.
15:20
We just want to go to the restaurants, give them our
15:22
business. We just want to be part of the
15:23
process, the recovery. And so that was the most
15:27
surprising part and the enlightening part, you know, the
15:30
people that that really cared, you know.
15:32
Yeah. So.
15:33
Showed how much those people love the love the destination
15:36
and and the businesses there for sure to to other property
15:40
managers who who are going to face crisis at some point.
15:44
It might be weather related, it could be anything else.
15:47
What are your top tips to property managers when they're
15:49
facing a crisis? The proudest part I am of this
15:54
whole deal and the recovery is through it all.
15:58
And in the end, when I started the recovery, I didn't, I didn't
16:03
have to use any new technology. I didn't.
16:05
The only vendor I, the only new partner I brought in was I
16:09
brought in Ryan from Switch Back Marketing because for e-mail
16:12
marketing, I knew he was the best, so I brought him in.
16:15
But other than that, I, you know, the number one question I
16:18
get asked in this business all the time is, is there a secret
16:21
to this business? And my answer is yes, there is a
16:24
secret. And that secret is you can't
16:26
have a weakness. If you have a weakness, it's
16:28
going to get exposed and it's going to hurt you.
16:31
So in the end, here I my business was in really good
16:35
shape. My tech stack was in really good
16:37
shape, the partners that I work with, the vendors that I worked
16:40
with. So when it came time to get into
16:42
recovery mode, I was in real good shape.
16:45
So if you're in good shape before the crisis starts, you'll
16:48
be in good shape when the recovery mode starts.
16:52
So what are your core goals for the rest of 2025?
16:58
This is the biggest challenge that I've faced.
17:01
You're probably not old enough to, I've been through so many of
17:05
these. I've been in business before.
17:07
VRBO is you probably don't even remember the financial crisis.
17:12
I'm not even sure if you're old enough to remember that There
17:15
was 911. There was the Gulf oil spill.
17:20
Don't even know if you remember that there, you know, And then
17:23
of course, COVID, several recessions.
17:26
My goal is to, I've told my owners I keep them, I've kept
17:29
them really updated on what I'm doing, what my strategy is, what
17:32
our numbers are that, but I've told them, I'm going to lead you
17:35
out of this. You know, you, I have the
17:37
numbers, I have the numbers to prove it.
17:39
Look what we're doing compared to the competition.
17:41
And my goal is to lead my owners out of this mess, you know, And
17:46
then I'm in good shape and I'll pull it off for sure.
17:49
Well, I certainly remember the 2008 financial crash and of
17:52
course and of course 911. But yeah, yeah, it was
17:57
interesting. Actually.
17:58
I was recently at the the short stay Summit in London and
18:01
presented a panel about, you know, saying our own as the
18:05
forgotten community in in the short term rental space.
18:08
And we were talking about owner communication really and keeping
18:12
them up to date with with what's going on.
18:14
Like how important is that and how do you prioritise owner
18:18
communication to constantly keep them in the picture?
18:21
Because one of the bits of feedback was that owners want to
18:24
know more than ever before in the last few years.
18:27
Yeah, you're right. And traditionally I've did a
18:29
really poor job of that in the past because my most of my
18:32
owners have been with me for over 20 years.
18:34
So they just trust me. They never question what I do.
18:37
The numbers are always good and they're just, they're just
18:41
happy, you know, they just don't question it.
18:43
But I knew this was different, that, you know, this is
18:46
something we've never faced before.
18:48
There's uncertain times here. There's a lot of competition out
18:51
there. I really needed to communicate
18:53
with them of what I was doing, what our numbers are, what my
18:55
strategy was going to be, how it's it's either working or it's
18:59
not working. So for me, it was a real turning
19:02
point for me that I really needed to change my mindset
19:05
where I needed to communicate with my owners, bring them into
19:08
this, make them part of this and really reassure them that I had
19:12
a plan and I was going to lead them out of this.
19:15
Obviously you're, you're dealing with the the recovery this year
19:18
in 2025, but are you seeing any other trends in the industry
19:23
that house and property managers need to be aware of?
19:26
Yeah, Yeah, there's there's a lot this is as far as trends and
19:32
challenges. Then there's always
19:33
opportunities. But you know, technology is
19:37
incredibly complicated to a lot of people here.
19:42
At some time, we're going to have to have a very serious
19:47
discussion about the cost of technology.
19:49
You know, the Vicky's rental rental business, the margins
19:51
aren't that big. The cost of technology is pretty
19:54
crazy. Technology is spread out.
19:58
Then we really need to change the narrative of fragmentation
20:03
because it's not getting that way now.
20:05
It maybe it was at one time here.
20:07
I've written extensively about it.
20:09
If you have a good PMS now, PMS is a really starting to take
20:12
this serious. Guest he's taking it serious
20:15
streamlines taking it serious track has taken serious host of
20:18
hostfully taking it serious. So now if you have a really good
20:21
PMS, the CRM is taking over technology in our industry like
20:26
we have never seen before that they're even stronger I'll give
20:30
you an example. I know boom you were there at
20:32
them boom look at boom was a reluctant PMS.
20:35
They wanted to be everything but Apms and then they got so strong
20:39
that they, they were viewed as a threat, you know, so they had to
20:43
become PMS. But you just look at all the
20:45
best technologies in our industry now, whether it's Enzo,
20:48
whether it's Akia, whether it's Breezeway, when we remove the
20:51
operations module from Breezeway, it's ACRM DAC when
20:55
they're acquired by Alberto Ruberu, you know, in the hotel
21:00
industry, Do you know all the best technologies now are the
21:03
CRM, you know, so between a really good PMS and a really
21:08
good CRM, it's not as fragmented as people are led to believe
21:13
that they believe themselves. They just don't understand how
21:16
strong some of these other platforms are.
21:18
An example, look at look at IKEA, look at Enzo.
21:22
They're really they're really many micro PM s s, you know, so
21:27
but the trends that I'm seeing is technology for sure is is a
21:32
real and then the next trend we're going to see, and we've
21:36
seen Airbnb, they've started it. They tried it during and Covic
21:39
kind of held. So in their defense, it just
21:41
didn't work because of Kovid is what's going to happen when you
21:45
get to the destination. You know, we're we've been
21:47
through this. We're going through the
21:48
evolution now. It's a natural evolution.
21:51
We've learned how to use OTAs, you know, to leverage the list
21:55
on them and make, you know, normally quite a bit of money,
21:58
you know, and be pretty successful doing.
22:00
But we're past that now. There's way too many
22:02
two-bedroom, 2 bathroom condos with a pool.
22:04
You know, what's going to happen when you get to the destination?
22:07
How are you going to leverage that kind of technology is
22:10
really what is, is what's coming next here?
22:14
I'll give you an example. You probably know, you probably
22:16
really aware of them. They're out of Greece.
22:18
It's called trip around. You know, keep keep an eye on
22:20
trip around. They've now entered into a
22:22
partnership with Fair Harbor, which is good.
22:26
So they're going to take up what's happening when you get to
22:29
that destination. They're going to be playing a
22:31
pretty big role in technology going forward there.
22:35
And then there's going to be so many opportunities.
22:38
Just look at what's happened lately.
22:40
You know, Walmart's in, American Express is in, Chase is in.
22:45
It's only a matter of time before Facebook maybe gets in.
22:48
Maybe. Is it going to be Amazon?
22:49
You know, there's going, there's so much opportunity going to be
22:52
here. And then the challenges, I would
22:55
say there's 2 ones that I see are very going to be very big
23:00
challenges. The first one is going to be
23:02
radical Islam. What's going to happen?
23:04
It's we're going to see the day, probably not too long.
23:08
It's not going to happen today or tomorrow, but it's going to
23:10
be too dangerous to travel east of Germany, maybe France, but
23:13
probably Germany. And then insurance is going to
23:17
be, it won't matter anywhere on water.
23:20
It could be Delaware or it could be Michigan, it could be Ohio.
23:22
It's not going to be particular to the state of Florida.
23:24
If you own a property on water, insurance is going to be a real
23:29
it's going to be a problem here and then the that one there.
23:34
And then I would say build your business around because of
23:39
what's going to happen in the future.
23:40
Build your business around domestic travel.
23:43
You know, I've always tried to build my business around it kind
23:46
of protects you against any crisis, whether it's 911,
23:49
whether it's COVID, you know, anything like that.
23:52
So always keep in mind, I try and do my best e-mail marketing,
23:57
you know, everything that is happening.
24:00
I try to keep the future. It protects you against crisis
24:05
when you're in a drive, not only drive to market, people will
24:08
still fly if it's safe, you know, they'll do that.
24:12
But domestic travel, and I see, I see the US having domestic
24:18
travel having a very bright future for sure.
24:21
Makes makes a lot of sense, especially with the kind of the
24:24
protectionist things that are happening at the moment.
24:27
And America First and I guess, yeah, having the having
24:30
somewhere people can drive to fly to very quickly or even the
24:33
boat if they're, if they're on on islands and stuff not far
24:37
away. Yeah.
24:39
OK then. So, so what's next then?
24:41
What's next for for you guys for for Anna Maria Island Beach
24:45
rentals? I'm trying, just trying to, to
24:49
get through this year. This is going to be a challenge.
24:51
You know, it's been, I've kind of misread it in the sense that
24:56
I was going to write off December, January and February.
24:59
I thought if I got any revenue, any, you know, I'd be, I'd just
25:02
be lucky. In fact, I was up, I was up this
25:05
year. So I really didn't.
25:06
But then I thought if I could get to March, I'd be OK, you
25:09
know, and the data is showing for the next 90 days that I'm
25:13
down, for the next 90 days I'm down about 2%.
25:17
The island's down 42.3. So when I thought I would get to
25:21
March, you know, I'd be OK, It's not working out that way.
25:23
So I've got significant challenges coming to me.
25:26
So my marketing strategy, you know, and everything.
25:30
So as far As for the rest of the year I've I've got some work to
25:33
do for sure. But you're definitely booking
25:36
the trend against the competition on the island, no
25:39
doubt about that. All right then, Terry, we've got
25:41
a few questions to finish, these questions we ask everybody who
25:45
appears on the show. So what's your favorite brand in
25:48
the STR industry and why? OK.
25:51
So it would definitely be moving mountains.
25:53
You know, they've been able to establish themselves as a
25:56
premier brand with in a saturated market.
26:00
You know how many, it's just crazy now all the properties
26:03
that are on the vacation rental market, the our industry has a
26:07
bit of a bad reputation, you know, of low standards, you
26:10
know, and processes and stuff like that where they've been
26:14
really able to overcome that. And and not only is it good for
26:19
them, it's good for our entire, when other people see vacation
26:22
rent, it's good for our entire industry.
26:23
So what they're doing is reflecting on the rest of it's
26:26
making the rest of us look good. You know, So what moving
26:30
mountains has been able to accomplish is, is incredible,
26:33
you know, in the environment that we're operating in.
26:37
Yeah, Robin, Craig and and the team we had Robin on the
26:39
podcast. Yeah, amazing business gets a
26:41
lot of plaudits and rightly so. An individual in the STR
26:46
industry you'd like to give a shout out to and why?
26:49
Tim Cafferty from Outer Banks, and he is an incredible
26:53
ambassador to our industry. He's an incredible person and
26:57
just somebody that I have the utmost respect for, you know,
26:59
just as a person. Great.
27:01
Shout out there for Tim. Finally then, number one lesson
27:04
learned from 2 hurricanes in two months.
27:10
Like I said, having a good business plan in place before
27:13
tragedy, before the crisis strikes and then you're in a
27:17
really, really good place. And I'll give you an, you'll
27:20
know where I'm going with this when I say I work for General
27:22
Motors for 32 years. I'm retired from General Motors
27:25
and at one time they were making billions of dollars worldwide.
27:30
The North American operations were losing millions of billions
27:34
of dollars, but they're making so much money in Europe and
27:36
Asia, all over the world. And they ignored the problem
27:40
that was happening in North America.
27:42
And I told you that story with me.
27:45
Everything that I was doing was working, except every metric was
27:49
working except e-mail marketing. For some reason it wasn't
27:53
working. And I knew it wasn't working,
27:57
but all my properties were full all the time.
27:58
My owners were happy. So I just said, I'm going
28:01
golfing, you know, great. So but when the crisis hit, I
28:06
knew my #1 strategy had to be my e-mail marketing.
28:10
And I said to myself, you knew this was a problem.
28:12
You ignored it. You didn't fix it, you know.
28:15
So fortunately, I was able to fix it, and I was fixing it on
28:18
the fly. And it didn't cost me.
28:20
It didn't really hurt me, but it could have.
28:22
But I would say be in a good position, but you're running a
28:26
good sound business. You're in a good position before
28:28
a crisis. You'll be in a real good
28:29
position when recovery starts. Sometimes you just got to put
28:33
off that round of golf, eh? Yes, yeah, you're exactly right.
28:37
Terry, it's been a real pleasure.
28:39
Thanks for sharing your journey and joining us on the Host
28:42
Planet podcast. Thanks for having me, appreciate
28:44
it. I hope you enjoyed that
28:46
interview with Terry White. Whether things are going well or
28:49
you're facing a crisis, never underestimate the power of
28:53
marketing. If you're looking for more free
28:56
education, head to host Planet dot Club, the fastest growing
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