Slick Talk: The Hospitality Podcast

Maeva is the founder of Flying Cat Marketing, a content-led SEO agency for SaaS companies in hypergrowth. She's helped VC-backed tech companies like Operto, Avantio, tye, and others scale their organic user acquisition with seamless content operations and world-class, revenue-generating content. This episode is sponsored by NoiseAware & Operto! Running a great property management company means you...

Daniel Cruz and I are back to talk about entrepreneurship and the impact it's had in our lives and the lessons and values we are getting from our recent journey!   We will be bringing on other founders in the industry and we plan to make sure that we are 100% vulnerable and open during these recordings! Slick Talk Sponsors: NoiseAware Hostfully Safely.com Operto Learn more about your ad choices. V...

Chloe Cohen is the CEO of BRIQ, a Real Estate Investor, and the Founder of Real Deals by Chloe. She is an empathy-driven entrepreneur focused on helping others self-empower by approaching life from a balanced perspective-mind, body, and soul. She is a real estate investor and prop-tech advisor at BRIQ, a tech-focused Real Estate Estate Marketing Agency, in New York City. Join us today to learn mor...

After Airbnb became a publicly traded company, we (and many others) predicted this would have a chain reaction with many others trying (and succeeding) to go public as well!   In today's episode, we will cover the news of Vacasa's recent announcement to go public with a 4.5 Billion dollar evaluation!   Thank you ShortTermRentalz for this article: https://shorttermrentalz.com/news/vac...  Startup o...

I loved having Daniel Cruz, CEO & Founder of washbnb, on the show so much, and with all of their exciting news as a company, I just had to have him on for a "late-night recording session" to hear it all! Tune in to hear how washbnb is doing from the recent crowdfunding campaign to being accepted and in week two of Techstars! If you haven't heard Daniel's first episode on Slick Talk, you NEED to go...

Luca Zambello is the co-founder and CEO of Jurny, a hospitality tech company pioneering the next generation of tech-first, on-demand accommodations. A born entrepreneur, Luca launched one of the first professionally operated Airbnb vacation rental companies in 2012, quickly earning the Superhost status that he still holds today. Following that success, he realized there was a need for a more strea...

Mickey Kropf is the Co-Founder and CEO of Vector Travel, Inc, a tech-enabled, full-service, rental housing hospitality company. Prior to Vector Travel, Mickey co-founded and led growth at Rented.com, a short-term rental marketplace connecting owners with short-term rental management companies. Mickey has a background in commercial real estate development and finance. Enjoy 15% off by using SlickTa...

The Founder of Mews, Richard Valtr, is a hotelier with a serious passion for technology and service. His mission is to transform an entire industry with cloud solutions that make hospitality more rewarding for everyone. This episode is a deep dive into his thoughts and opinions on how the hotel industry (hospitality) built products (tech) the wrong way that does a disservice to our guests and indu...

Jonathan Weitz is the founder and president of Avocet Hospitality Group. In 2006, Weitz and his wife Lisa founded Avocet Hospitality Group via the acquisition of Islands West Real Estate, a small vacation rental business of Folly Beach, South Carolina. Over dinner with friends, the ultimate vision of Avocet Hospitality was born - to identify boutique properties that needed renovations and repositi...

Michael Friedman: Director of Sales and Expansion SkyRun Vacation Rentals Michael has over 30 years of hospitality, vacation rental, real estate, and travel and tourism experience. He has created, led, and implemented successful sales, sales training and development programs that increase revenue, market growth, and expansion. His programs have grown businesses by 40% to 1000%. He is a growth-orie...

Calvin is the Chief Experience Officer and Iconicity Enthusiast for ICONIC Presentations, LLC. Calvin specializes in delivering high-energy, customized keynote presentations for organizations that desire to reach or maintain ICONIC status. Calvin focuses on delivering the perfect blend of business concepts, story-telling and music themes to bring home an impactful message that touches both the hea...

With 15 years of experience in fast growing tech-startups, Marcus has successfully built up a leading PMS and Channel Manager for vacation rentals from scratch. During this journey, he has gained substantial knowledge about two-sided marketplaces, VC funding, growing companies and more importantly getting more bookings! Join us and know how to successfully build a leading PMS and Channel Manager f...

As the Chief Executive Officer, Emir is in charge of Rabbu’s growth and visionary efforts. Being a natural entrepreneur and follower of Real Estate, Emir turned a spare bedroom above his detached garage into the genesis for a new asset class within Real Estate and into an opportunity for investors to create more value while de-risking their portfolio through Rabbu. Prior to founding Rabbu, Emir wa...

Andy McNeill is a travel and hospitality entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in his profession. He is the CEO and founder of American Meetings, Inc., an industry-leading meetings and events agency that produces thousands of live and virtual meetings annually for Fortune 500 clients. He is also the co-host of the Destination Everywhere Podcast, a top travel, and hospitality podcast that h...

Noble Crawford III shares his best practices for actively prospecting and generating direct bookings, both B2C and B2B. He dives deep into understanding buyer personas and how critical they are to increasing bookings and growing revenue. Join us today as he shares different strategies and knowledge to grow your business. This episode is sponsored by Hostfully! Hostfully is an industry leading soft...

In this episode, Theron Lewis shares his story of how he has liberated nearly 1 million people from Airbnb and STR bans. He went from almost losing his business in Detroit due to an STR ban to getting the ban pulled, being at the table with the City Council, and growing his business to the 7 figure level due to advocacy. Theron will be sharing some ideas on how to stop/prevent a ban and how to gro...

In today’s episode, let us welcome Wendy Jae and David Tucker from Travelers Book Direct and learn the different strategies that will empower you to create direct relationships with your guests, upgrade how you operate, and master the strategies and tactics you need to tap into your full potential. Learn the foundations and fundamentals of attracting visitors as a Destination Influencer (Destinati...

This week, we are joined by Nitesh Gandhi, founder of Locale, a company that’s dedicated to bridging the gap between home and hotels, offering thoughtfully furnished, upscale apartments for short and extended stays. Nitesh previously worked as an asset manager of large-scale, branded hotel projects across the US. He was also a management consultant at a top-tier boutique firm with experience leadi...

In this episode, Washbnb CEO Daniel Cruz talks about the incredible story of how the company started, and what it took for them to get to where they are today. Being a host himself, Washbnb was founded after he saw the great need for laundry service in the rental industry. Daniel Cruz and the Washbnb team are dedicated to providing the best level of hospitality to their clients. Washbnb prides its...

Anthony Gantt is the founder and CEO of At Ease Rentals, a corporation dedicated to connecting vacation rental hosts to federal and military members and military families during official travel, liberty, and leave. In this episode, he talks about how At Ease came to be, the company’s vision, and how they’re making it happen. Joining Anthony is Mateo Bradford who has been a trusted advisor with At...

On today’s episode, we are joined by Tim From Buoy, Co-Founder/Head of Product at Buoy, a dynamic pricing platform for vacation rentals. Prior to founding the company he was an independent revenue manager, and spent 2016-2018 with Oasis Collections. This episode is sponsored by my friends at Hostfully! Use my code SLICKTALK20 and get $100 off their property management platform or two months free o...

This week, we are joined by Nancy McAleer, Co-Founder of FLARBO. After several years of frustration with the major OTAs, Nancy co-founded Florida Rental By Owners, a no booking fee website "Built By Owners For Vacation Rental Owners". Giving full control back to the short-term rental host, homeowner, and property manager. Dedicated to the Book Direct movement, FLARBO is a sustainable, viable, trus...

In March, the Breezeway Elevate Operations Summit virtual panel welcomed leading management companies and invited them to speak about how to succeed through strong business relationships. The panel covered best practices for delivering (and maintaining) hospitality-like owner services and how they’ll foster more trustworthy owner relationships, increase client retention and boost referrals. It fea...

David Meltzer is the Co-Founder of Sports 1 Marketing and formerly served as CEO of the renowned Leigh (“Lee”) Steinberg Sports & Entertainment agency, which was the inspiration for the movie Jerry Maguire.   His life’s mission is to empower OVER 1 BILLION people to be happy! This simple yet powerful mission has led him on an incredible journey to provide one thing…VALUE. In all his content, and c...

PointCentral provides Smart Home solutions that enable vacation rental and residential property managers to remotely control energy and access to ALL their properties from their desktop or mobile device. Sean Miller, the President of PointCentral joins me to talk about more than just Smart Home automation but the three key value adds that solutions like PointCentral can bring to property managers...