VRS657 - When the Calendar Looks Full But the Business Is Bleeding with Sarah Stahl

High occupancy is not the same as a healthy business. That's the thread running through this conversation with Sarah Stahl, VP of Marketing at Lake.com and founder of short-term rental marketing consultancy Market Movers. Sarah has spent the last seven years watching operators fill their calendars while quietly losing ground on margins, guest relationships, and long-term resilience - and she's done being polite about it.

In this episode, Heather and Sarah cover the real cost of OTA dependency, the origins of Sarah's marketing philosophy through her unusual route into the industry via the US Army and rural tourism management, and the thinking behind Lake.com's newly launched subscription model. They also get into a question that's easy to avoid but important to ask: when platforms step back from the booking relationship, who holds hosts accountable? Sarah's answer is more considered than you might expect.

The conversation closes with a candid exchange on AI - Sarah's evolving relationship with Claude and ChatGPT, what she's using each for in practice, and how Lake.com's early edge in AI search results might be one of its most significant (and time-sensitive) advantages.

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📣 The AI Ambassador Program

This episode is brought to you in part by our AI Ambassador Program. If you're curious about using AI in your business - whether it's for guest communication, operations, or even marketing - check out our AI Ambassador Program. It's designed to help you learn, lead, and get hands-on with the tools shaping the future of hospitality.

🌐 Learn more and join us at VacationRentalFormula.com/AI

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Are you listening to this podcast on the move? Get to the show notes here:

https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/podcast/VRS657