Leader Seminar: Building Bridges and Leveraging Relationships in Your Community ▶️

Updated on December 7, 2023

• Solving the puzzle of short-term rental regulations in your local community is a multi-faceted process. Virginia Beach STRA leader Elaine Fekete suggests bringing as many pieces of data with you when meeting with your local City Council officials. They want numbers in order to come up with an effective solution for all parties involved.

• Susan Bailey from the board of Mile High Hosts in Denver shared that it’s less about how you strategically choose organizations to be a part of, but more about serving on boards and volunteering with organizations that have deep meaning to you. If you do what you love, you get this benefit of bleed over capability and bleed over credibility, giving you the opportunity to educate others and bring them along.

• If you’re going to face conflict: prep and educate and advise. Be the authentic person that you are and represent what we do so well: being a responsible citizen and host.

• Matt Landau of VRMB Communities and the How to Save Your Vacation Rental Business podcast with Dana Lubner (that’s me!) urged the STR community to grab a coffee with someone they view as an “opposition.” You’ll be surprised to find out that you probably have more things in common than just your differences and it’s from those shared values where co-created solutions can start.

• We need to be an active part of the STR conversation because if we don’t, it will only get worse. We have to work with our communities on what is best for everyone and not just ourselves individually in order to create sustainable solutions that are beneficial for all parties involved.

• You are NOT alone. There is a community of other local leaders dealing with many of the same challenges. Stay tuned for our next Leadership Seminar where we’ll get to connect with each other again.

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