Tracy Lotz, founder and CEO of LiveRez, has his photo taken by Idaho Statesman Photographer Darin Oswald at the LiveRez corporate offices in Boise, ID.

LiveRez and Founder/CEO Tracy Lotz were the focus of the cover story in the Nov. 2 edition of the Idaho Statesman’s Business Insider Magazine. The article, titled “The Boise Business Behind Your Vacation Rental,” spans five pages and includes a lengthy Q&A with Lotz.

In the article, Lotz discusses his background, how LiveRez was founded, the company’s business model, its software, trends in the industry and the company’s consuming-facing directory of vacation rentals called RezSecure.com – Trusted Vacation Rentals, Trusted Vacation Managers.  The story also included photos of Lotz, members of the LiveRez staff, and property photos from LiveRez partner Valet Vacation Rentals (in McCall, ID).

You can read the full story online at IdahoStatesman.com (NOTE: Requires Subscription).

And the winner is….

LiveRez.com Founder and CEO Tracy Lotz congratulates Margy Roe of Ocean Properties and Vacation Rentals, Inc. on winning LiveRez.com's iPad 2 giveaway.

Margy Roe of Ocean Properties and Vacation Rentals in New Smyrna Beach, Florida is the winner of LiveRez.com's iPad 2 Giveaway at the 2011 National VRMA Conference. The announcement took Roe completely by surprise.

"I was very excited. I had no idea. I kind of forgot I even put my card in there," she said. "So, this is nice. Thank you!"

LiveRez.com Founder and CEO Tracy Lotz congratulated Roe shortly after the announcement.

"Seeing the look on Margy's face when she realized that she had won an iPad 2 was awesome!" Lotz said. "This is one of the funnest things that we do at the VRMA conference, and we are glad to have given it to such a nice lady."

Shortly after the announcement, Roe was still shocked that she had won. According Roe, her boss, Kelley, is normally is the lucky one.

"Maybe it's rubbing off on me," she said.

So how does winning the iPad compare to Roe's success in other contests?

"This is the most amazing thing I have ever won!" Roe said.  "Thank you very much!"

Did you miss our own Tyler Hurst's workshop at this year's 2011 VRMA National Conference? Hurst, along with vacation rental managers Betsy LaBarge and Colleen Almoney, presented on the "5 Fundamentals of Closing Bookings over the Phone." If you missed the presentation, you can view the slides online or check out the video highlights below.

LiveRez.com had a whole host of SWAG available at its booth during the 2011 VRMA Conference in Orlando, FL.

The national VRMA Conference offers an unmatched opportunity to meet with vacation rental managers from all over the United States and beyond. This year, LiveRez.com is doing a number of things to connect with professional VRMs. But these communication efforts can be used by just about any business to share its solution and connect with the people it can help.

Here are some of things we’re doing this year:

Stand Out: At LiveRez, we’re proud of our partners, and they have come out in force at this conference. To showcase our partners, we are giving them LiveRez lanyards and ribbons that say “LiveRez Partners.” In a conference setting, it’s always nice to let others know what groups you’re a part of; it really helps facilitate the networking process. One thing that can help LiveRez partners network outside of the conference is the LiveRez Network group on LinkedIn.

VRMA Gold Sponsorship: We think the VRMA is very important for vacation rental managers across the company, and our primary goal is to serve professional vacation rental managers. Many of our partners are VRMA members, as well. So, it only makes sense for us to give our support to the VRMA.   

SWAG: It’s the Stuff We All Get, and at the annual conference it’s in high supply. At LiveRez, we’re giving out pens, mints, ribbons, lanyards and more – all branded. Giving away useable branded items is a great way to connect with current and future customers (in our case, partners). Not only are these great for the conference, but in many cases they travel home with the attendees.

Promotions: Giving away a popular item is a great way to get people to visit your booth, start conversations and develop relationships. This year we’re giving out an Apple iPad 2 (who wouldn’t want one of those?). Concurrently, we’re running a promotion for a free iPod Touch on our LiveRez Facebook Page. To enter, just go to our page, click like, and then fill out the form. It’s that easy.

QR Codes: You can only fit so much information on a sales sheet, brochure, post card, etc. But, thanks to the advent of smart phones with QR-code-scanning aps, giving people a quick path to your website has never been easier. All of the LiveRez sales sheets at the conference have these codes on them. And, if you shorten the link with Bitly, you can actually see how many people are scanning the code and going through to your website. These days printed marketing materials are not complete without QR codes.

Presentations: LiveRez.com will be delivering its 10-minute Gold Sponsor presentation Wednesday morning during General Session. Additionally, LiveRez sales manager Tyler Hurst will be part of an educational presentation entitled “5 Fundamentals of Closing on the Phone.” That presentation will Tuesday at 11 a.m.  You can check out the slides in advance here.

What are you doing to connect with the people using your product and services? Share your ideas below in a comment.

LiveRez.com's Josh Hurst, Tyler Hurst and Rich Cook greet attendees at the 2010 VRMA Conference in San Antonio, Texas.

It’s that time again! Every year vacation rental managers and the suppliers that help them succeed all come together for the industry’s largest gathering: the VRMA National Conference. As always, LiveRez will be there in force, answering all your questions about our software and giving away FREE stuff.

Why You Should Come

If you’re heading to the conference, here are some great reasons to come visit us:

• We’re giving away a FREE iPad!!!
• You can get free LiveRez SWAG
• You can get all your questions answered in person
• You can network with some of our many successful vacation rental manager partners (they’ll be out in force, too).

Other Things to Check Out

LiveRez.com will be delivering its 10-minute Gold Sponsor presentation Wednesday morning during General Session. Additionally, LiveRez sales manager Tyler Hurst will be part of an educational presentation entitled “5 Fundamentals of Closing on the Phone.” That presentation will Tuesday at 11 a.m.  You can check out the slides in advance here.

What to Do if You Can’t Make It

If you can’t make it, no sweat. We’ve got you covered. We’ll be broadcasting live updates through our social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, the LiveRez.com Blog). It’s the next best thing to being there in person.

Conference Details

WHAT:
VRMA Annual Conference

WHEN:
October 9-12, 2011

WHERE:
Hilton Bonnet Creek
14100 Bonnet Creek Resort Lane
Orlando, Florida 32821

For more information, visit the conference page.

See You There!

Information presented in LiveRez.com's Guerrilla Marketing webinar is now available for download as a white paper.

On Wednesday, Aug. 31, LiveRez.com hosted a webinar entitled “Guerrilla Marketing: 5 Tactics to Grow Your Vacation Rental Business Now.” Nearly 180 vacation rental managers from across the nation signed up for the free educational presentation.

If for some reason you missed the webinar or want to brush up on some of the things the LiveRez marketing team went over, you can download the webinar as a white paper.

Download the white paper here >>>

During the webinar we received numerous questions, and many people were sharing their ideas for how to implement these Guerrilla Marketing tactics to help their individual businesses. If you have questions or want to share your ideas and brainstorm with other vacation rental managers, check out the discussion on our Facebook Page.

Join the Discussion on Our Facebook Page >>>

And for timely updates and expert advice from LiveRez.com, follow us on Facebook or Twitter (@LiveRez), or check back here at the LiveRez.com blog.

BOISE, Id. –– LiveRez.com, the largest and fastest growing management solution for professional vacation rental managers, recently added a number of new features to its industry-leading end-to-end platform.

“These updates are part of our ongoing commitment to continually developing new technologies that empower our partners to grow and succeed,” said Tracy Lotz, founder and CEO of LiveRez.com.

Some of the highlights among the new features include:

• Updated reporting functions
• Vendor management
• Enhanced owner statement capabilities
• Advanced security features
• And an exclusive property marketing tool

In addition to the aforementioned features, LiveRez.com also rolled out a number of new options for current features. These updates give LiveRez.com partners even more customization choices for the many tasks that the system can handle automatically.

“We’re excited to offer our partners these new features, and we look forward to releasing even more exciting new features in the near future,” Lotz said. “Our growing team of programmers has been on a coding spree these past few months, and I don’t expect them to slow down any time soon.”

To learn more about LiveRez.com, please call (800) 343-2891 or visit LiveRez.com.

About LiveRez.com

LiveRez.com is a complete, online, vacation rental property management solution, focused on making vacation rental property managers fully operational online and thereby increasing bookings. LiveRez.com offers best-in-class dynamic websites, an industry-exclusive connection to QuickBooks for trust accounting, an online booking engine, an end-to-end property management system, online marketing services, and a unique “Pay-As-You-Book” approach, which provides a mutually beneficial partnership between LiveRez.com and its vacation rental manager partners.

To receive timely updates from the company, follow LiveRez.com on Facebook or Twitter (@LiveRez), or visit the company’s vacation rental software blog.

LiveRez will hold a webinar on Guerilla Marketing at noon on Wednesday, Aug. 31 .

Looking for low-cost, high-return ways to market your business? You may be in need of a Guerrilla Marketing boot camp.

As part of its ongoing webinar series, LiveRez.com will offer a quick 30-minute look at Guerrilla Marketing aimed at teaching you simple tricks that will help you spread the word about your business. The webinar, entitled “Guerrilla Marketing: Five Tactics to Grow Your Vacation Rental Business Now,” will be held at noon on Wednesday, Aug. 31.  Among other things, the webinar will explore:

• Innovative ways to get press
• How you can giveaway and get back more
• What QR codes are and how can they be used in marketing
• Why some YouTube videos go viral

You can sign up for the webinar here.

Some Quick Background on Guerrilla Marketing

For those of you not familiar with the term “Guerrilla Marketing,” it all started when Jay Conrad Levinson coined the term in his 1984 book of the same name. Since then, it’s came to represent an ongoing movement away from high-dollar marketing campaigns and toward creative, low-cost methods to advertise your business.

This week LiveRez.com reached a significant milestone, as it partnered with its 500th Vacation Rental Manager. Since first offering its software in 2008, the company has ridden a wave of extraordinary growth, and LiveRez.com is now the platform used by more vacation rental managers than any other.

According to LiveRez.com Founder and CEO Tracy Lotz, this growth is a testimony to the company’s partner approach, whereby the business has aligned its economic interests with the many professional vacation rental managers who use the LiveRez.com software.

“This is a significant achievement for LiveRez and speaks volumes to the quality of people I work with everyday – both LiveRez employees and our many great property manager partners,” Lotz said.

LiveRez started with the idea of making it easy for travelers to book vacation rental homes online. That idea grew into the industry’s best all-in-one solution for professional vacation rental mangers. Today, with the combination of its dynamic websites designed to increase bookings, the company’s exclusive integration with QuickBooks and the platform’s robust reservation system, LiveRez is the industry’s only complete, end-to-end cloud platform. LiveRez.com's main competition comes from HomeAway Software for Professionals, which bought Instant Software and Escapia last year.

LiveRez sales guru Tyler Hurst played a key role in nearly all of the company's 500 partnerships. On Friday, he took time to look back on how far the company has come since 2008.

“It’s been a blast to be part of this great success,” Hurst said. “500 is a great milestone to hit; however, it is the relationship we develop with every property manager that really excites me. The real fun is to watch our partners grow and succeed using LiveRez. And really it’s their growth that’s allowed us to become the company we are today, and it’s their growth that will move us forward in the future.”

To learn more about LiveRez, visit the business at LiveRez.com or call 800-343-2891. And, to receive timely updates from the company, follow LiveRez.com on Facebook or Twitter (@LiveRez), or check back here for regular company updates.