BIO
While traveling across the U.S., my work often brought me to Nashville. Something about the city called to me and after finally convincing my husband, we made our move from the Cocoa Beach area to Nashville in 2013. The city welcomed us with open arms and I discovered this whole other side to Nashville than what i had experienced when I was just visiting.
As Nashville grew in popularity, every distant cousin and long lost friend wanted to come visit us (ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration but the point being we had a lot of visitors when we first moved here). when our guests came, we always wanted to show them the real nashville, not the parts i had apparently missed when I used to visit. Eventually, we realized we could host people beyond just friends and family.
After purchasing and restoring a 1920s home in East Nashville, Nashville Vacation Homes was born. Though not my professional background, I happen to also have a knack for design and poured my creativity (and sweat equity) into that home. I never planned to be a vacation rental host. In fact, I started out as an aspiring writer but made the switch to digital media early in my career and never looked back. I was, and still am fascinated by digital media because of its ability to enable change and connect people. This need to always adapt is what keeps me challenged, drives me to find creative solutions and teaches me something new every day. With so many parallels, it's no wonder why I fell in love with vacation rentals, too.
My days in digital media involve connecting businesses to their customers, connecting people to their "aha moments" through coaching/ training and finding solutions to complex problems. Throughout my career, I have had the honor of doing this with some of the best media brands across the globe.
You're probably asking yourself how all of that relates to vacation rentals, right? Well, it wasn’t until several months into hosting my own vacation home (and a lot of wasted time and money) that i realized even though vacation rentals were new to me, I could apply everything I had learned my entire career to styling and advertising our vacation home. It all of a sudden became clear to me that I needed to simply do what I've always done: define my audience, differentiate my home and deliver on my promises. Almost a year after we welcomed our first guest at our first vacation rental, we purchased our second and today, we own and I manage 4 traditional vacation homes and 1 extended stay rental (30-90 day stays) in Nashville.
I personally furnished and styled each of them and never really thought too much about it - other than how fun it was to have an outlet to express my creativity. words like "stylish" and "design" kept showing up in my reviews. Other hosts would ask me for design input. I started styling vacation rentals for friends and then they told their friends. Recently, I decided to make it official and became a certified expert psychological stager.
The same thing was happening on the marketing and guest experience side of my vacation rentals, too. I would show people how to use various tools, what to do with their listings to get them to rank, price strategies, you name it. Fellow hosts would ask to hire me for an hour or two to teach them the ropes. Eventually, I said yes.
Throughout all of this, I joined and started volunteering for our local short term rental association, NASTRA. Through an odd series of events, I quickly found myself in the president role. It was this amazing group that introduced me to the concept of advocacy and what it really meant. Yes, we were fighting regulation together but they gave me a reason to stand up.
This community of fellow hosts and now, friends has consistently reminded me why I love hosting- the connection. The connection to travel. The connection to community. The connection to people.
In june, 2018, I left my full time role as a Senior Vice President at one of the largest media companies in the U.S. and now work with them on a part-time, contract basis. This has allowed me the flexibility to prioritize family and all things vacation rentals, including forming The Hospitality Creator. I am now afforded the opportunity to help fellow vacation rental owners and managers. I hope you'll be one of them!