How do you scale campaign strategy across a complex product suite without overwhelming both your audience and your sales team? In this episode of Pipeline Brew, Matt is joined by Stephanie Almeida, Senior Marketing Manager of Demand Generation at Avalara, the automated tax compliance software powered by AI.
How do you scale campaign strategy across a complex product suite without overwhelming both your audience and your sales team? In this episode of Pipeline Brew, Matt is joined by Stephanie Almeida, Senior Marketing Manager of Demand Generation at Avalara, the automated tax compliance software powered by AI.
With over six years at Avalara and an extensive background spanning both agencies and in-house teams, Stephanie shares what it really takes to build sustainable, high-performing B2B campaigns in today’s noisy landscape. Some of the topics covered in their conversation include incorporating agility into new product lines, why content, messaging and sales should be aligned around campaigns, and how paid syndication is a still winning strategy.
You’ll also hear Stephanie’s advice for educating sales on top-of-funnel expectations, and why she says every marketer should advocate for bold, emotion-driven brand work. Stephanie brings a practical, tested perspective that’s especially relevant for marketers navigating multi-product complexity and shifting buyer behavior.
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Guest Bio
Stephanie Almeida is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of experience in the technology sector, specializing in marketing and advertising. She currently serves as the Senior Marketing Manager at Avalara, where she leads a team in developing innovative campaigns and strategies that drive brand growth and business performance.
Prior to her role at Avalara, Stephanie held key positions at several leading advertising agencies, including VML and Razorfish. Her expertise spans across various domains, including digital marketing, brand management, and integrated advertising campaigns. Stephanie is known for her ability to bridge the gap between creative teams and business stakeholders, ensuring that marketing initiatives not only resonate with target audiences but also align with company objectives and market trends.
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Guest Quotes
“As a CFO or a finance leader, tax compliance is usually not their full-time job, it’s a portion of what they do. So really making sure they have the education they need and can feel confident in that area is a lot of what we focus on. That’s where our campaigns need to meet them.”
“I believe that paid syndication should definitely be a part of a holistic marketing strategy and plan. We have seen that we typically have really strong website traffic, but just like everybody else, we've seen some declines in paid and organic search. Now with the AI answers being within the platform and getting people what they need there, it's really helpful to balance out your overall lead gen strategy.”
“You can't just go out there and be super generic with your messaging. You need to tap into people's feelings and emotions. Be funny, be something that stands out. You gotta be bold.”
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Time Stamps
00:00 Episode start
01:15 Icebreaker
03:05 Stephanie’s career journey
05:00 What is Avalara?
06:35 The challenge of scalable campaign strategy
09:05 Aligning with sales across complex product lines
12:05 How Avalara builds content around core pain points
14:05 Why paid syndication still matters
17:00 Educating sales on top-of-funnel leads
18:30 The role of brand in demand generation
20:00 Standing out in a crowded messaging world
21:20 What’s on Tap
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Links
[00:00:00] Matt Hummel: Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Pipeline Brew, the podcast that meets at the intersection of people and pipeline. We're bringing you fun yet insightful conversations where you'll not only hear from marketing experts, but also get to know them as well.
[00:00:23] Matt Hummel: Hey everyone. Today I'm super excited to be joined by Stephanie Almeida. Stephanie is currently the Senior Marketing Manager of Demand Gen at Avalara, the automated tax compliance platform where she's been for over six years. Today we're gonna deep dive on how to actually build and stick to a sustainable campaign strategy.
[00:00:42] Matt Hummel: Why paid syndication is critical in today's landscape, and how to find harmony in your branded demand functions. So Stephanie, welcome to today's show.
[00:00:51] Stephanie Almeida: Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
[00:00:53] Matt Hummel: I am excited to, to be here to do, I was gonna say, I'm excited that you're here, but I'm also excited to be here, so there you go.[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] Matt Hummel: I've been looking forward to this. I know we've met a few times, and I'll get into this later, but you're one of the few people I know in tax marketing and. Tax marketing is, it's an interesting place to be and you and I have both spent some significant time there. So we have, I'm excited to have you on the show if only for that reason.
[00:01:19] Matt Hummel: But as you know, we like to kick off each episode with a little icebreaker to get the ball rolling. So, question for you. What is your go-to beverage when you need a little Pick me up.
[00:01:30] Stephanie Almeida: Okay. So. This is gonna be a super unpopular response, I'm afraid, but I, I actually don't drink coffee.
[00:01:39] Matt Hummel: Wait, remind, remind the audience where you live.
[00:01:41] Stephanie Almeida: I live in Seattle, so Yeah. So it's like doubly bad. I am, I live in Seattle and yeah, I
[00:01:48] Matt Hummel: am a, I'm a grown adult. And you're a non coffee drinker. I'm grown
[00:01:51] Stephanie Almeida: adult that does not drink coffee, but I actually, I quit caffeine altogether like 15 years ago, so my go-to drink is like water [00:02:00] and I am. So basic with my Stanley, but yeah.
[00:02:05] Matt Hummel: Now is this plain water? Is it bubbly water? Flavored water?
[00:02:10] Stephanie Almeida: No. I mean, I'll, I'll do a bubbly water every now and then, but I'm a purist, like I just love. You know, good crisp ice water.
[00:02:21] Matt Hummel: Hey, I appreciate that. Have you seen those videos of the lady making ice water for her children where she's like melting ice cubes and then running it through a cheese cloth and then she combines different Oh, and like, oh, she is a purist and it's, it's a little over the top, but I'm a few months into my caffeine free journey, so I drink.
[00:02:41] Matt Hummel: A lot of water. Unfortunately, I don't like bubbly water, you know, and there's clearly Canadian, which to me has way too much sugar. I liked it as a kid. I tried it as an adult, and I'm like, I can't do this. So
[00:02:52] Stephanie Almeida: I've never been into like, like the flavor packets and all that. No, none of that. No, no, no. Just can't do it.
[00:02:59] Stephanie Almeida: Any [00:03:00] water.
[00:03:00] Matt Hummel: Gimme water. Pure.
[00:03:02] Stephanie Almeida: Pure and simple.
[00:03:03] Matt Hummel: Yes. Pure and simple. All right, well, before we talk more about what you're up to today, I'd love for you to tell the audience a little bit more about yourself. Your passions and your background.
[00:03:12] Stephanie Almeida: Yeah, so I uh, I've been in marketing and advertising my whole career.
[00:03:17] Stephanie Almeida: I actually started at Sprint Marketing. Landline bundles if you can. Ooh, imagine that. I, then I, I moved into advertising agencies after that for a really good chunk of my career. And then six years ago I kind of made that leap back to client side work at Avalara.
[00:03:37] Matt Hummel: Awesome. And you're in Seattle?
[00:03:39] Stephanie Almeida: I'm in Seattle.
[00:03:40] Stephanie Almeida: Been here all almost 20 years.
[00:03:43] Matt Hummel: Which, wow,
[00:03:44] Stephanie Almeida: because I, I, I can still remember, you know, moving here and being all nervous the first,
[00:03:50] Matt Hummel: aw, first
[00:03:51] Stephanie Almeida: few months, but yeah.
[00:03:53] Matt Hummel: What brought you out to Seattle?
[00:03:54] Stephanie Almeida: I was at an agency at the time and we had just won the Microsoft business, [00:04:00] and so I came out, it was a six month project.
[00:04:04] Stephanie Almeida: I had just bought a loft in Kansas City. So I really had no intention of actually moving, but that opportunity came up for like a six month project out here, and so I was like, yeah, sure. I'll go there for six months. You know? Absolutely. And then 20
[00:04:22] Matt Hummel: years later,
[00:04:23] Stephanie Almeida: at the end of the six months, I wasn't ready.
[00:04:24] Stephanie Almeida: I wasn't ready to to go back. So it just kind of became permanent.
[00:04:28] Matt Hummel: That's cool. Well, Seattle is an amazing city, so there's so, yeah, there's just so much. There's so much culture, there's so much life. There's great businesses. The food is great. Yeah. We had dinner when I was out there a few months ago, and the fish was amazing.
[00:04:41] Matt Hummel: You're in a good spot. Well, for those who don't know, I mean, obviously I introduced Avalara very high level. Tell us more about Avalara's focus and kind of position in the industry at large.
[00:04:51] Stephanie Almeida: Yeah, so Avalara is a leading tax compliance software company. So we help businesses of all sizes [00:05:00] automate their compliance journey from end to end.
[00:05:02] Stephanie Almeida: We help people automatically calculate the right tax rates, file their returns. Manage exemption certificates and and so much more, and we actually just celebrated our 20th anniversary. Recently, so,
[00:05:18] Matt Hummel: no kidding. Yeah. Just in line with your 20th anniversary in Seattle. I
[00:05:22] Stephanie Almeida: know, I
[00:05:24] Matt Hummel: know. Well, that's awesome. I mentioned this at the top of the show, but I spent 10 years in tax marketing, most of them in more of the professional services side.
[00:05:33] Matt Hummel: But that did help me work at one of your competitors. But I learned about Avalara more so when I was at your competitor and loved. What you guys were doing from a brand perspective, from a product perspective, and really came to appreciate as a nemesis, of course at the time, who Avalara was. So it's been fun to get to know you in this realm too.
[00:05:51] Matt Hummel: So let's dive into our first topic campaign strategy. So one of the biggest challenges that I've seen as I've been out the field talking other [00:06:00] marketers is. Challenges around campaign strategy. And I think where companies struggle is organizations that have multiple products, they don't often know how to create scale because they're trying to go to market with, you know, one product at a time and they don't really have that company story or a platform story.
[00:06:19] Matt Hummel: And I really just see that challenge around creating scale. Have you experienced this similar challenges, different challenges when it comes to campaign strategy and, and when you think about campaign strategy at Avalara. Do you like where you are? Has it been a bit of an evolution as well?
[00:06:34] Stephanie Almeida: Yeah, for sure.
[00:06:35] Stephanie Almeida: I mean, this is something that I run into a lot here because as you know, compliance is a very tricky business and at Avalara we have so many products that help with the entire process of compliance end to end. So although we started our business helping customers, you know, automate sales tax calculations.
[00:06:59] Stephanie Almeida: [00:07:00] File their returns. Over the years we've grown, we've built additional products, we've acquired other compliance businesses throughout the years, and so it's a great story. But you know, it's not a one size fits all platform, right? Every company is different, every industry is different. You know, where you're selling, how much you're selling, all of those things really factor into which products, you know, within the platform that you need.
[00:07:31] Stephanie Almeida: So, yeah, it, from a marketing standpoint, it is, it is tricky, right. You know? Yeah. You, you need to know where you prospects are. In that journey and which specific pain point within that journey they're dealing with at that moment. Right? And that can be really tough. But I will say I actually recently moved into a new role where I get to focus a little bit more on our, [00:08:00] uh, small business segment and specifically with our core products.
[00:08:05] Stephanie Almeida: So, you know, our core products are the, the returns, the calculations, the exemptions. I think, you know, we have a really good kind of platform story with those. You know, we have other teams that are kind of focused on our, what we call our accelerator products and our newer things. But I really enjoy kind of getting to, to focus in on like what's core to our business and
[00:08:31] Matt Hummel: yeah,
[00:08:32] Stephanie Almeida: that helps.
[00:08:33] Matt Hummel: That is helpful. And when you think about. This, and you've got a platform story, are you finding that you need to have that direct alignment with sales in terms of you've got sellers who can sell the whole platform, or sellers who can sell the accelerated the accelerator products or, uh. Is there a little bit of tension, not in a personality way, but just between how leads are being generated and where customers are sort of gravitating towards versus what sales reps are [00:09:00] necessarily equipped to to sell?
[00:09:01] Stephanie Almeida: Yeah, I mean that's something that our sales team is definitely kind of. Ever evolving, right? Because we have all these newer products and because they're also complicated, right? There is not one salesperson that can possibly know and understand and be able to talk in depth about every single one of the products that we have in our lineup.
[00:09:24] Stephanie Almeida: So yeah, I, that's kind of evolving. Like right now, our sales team is really kind of focused on. Specific segment, size and core, kind of similar to the stuff that I'm focused on. And then we do have some sales teams that are, are more specialized in those newer accelerator products.
[00:09:45] Matt Hummel: Got it. When you think about your world tax, specifically B2B corporate tax, right?
[00:09:52] Matt Hummel: That value prop, that Avalara's offering doesn't necessarily change. Certainly day to day, but really, unless there's significant [00:10:00] tax changes, correct. Yeah. And so when you think about your campaign strategy, are you able to create it in a way that's generally pretty evergreen to where that's actually helping you be able to create more scale as you wanna get down into different personas and things like that?
[00:10:14] Stephanie Almeida: Yeah, I think, you know, what I've seen, and especially you know, having been here for over six years now, is that there are. Some themes, some like overarching messaging themes that kind of never go away, right? We have campaigns that are focused on legislative changes, right? Like, you know, the one constant is change, right?
[00:10:38] Stephanie Almeida: Yeah. So, so knowing that every year there are tens of thousands of legislative changes, and Kentucky is now deciding to. Put a sales tax on blah, and Kansas has decided to remove sales tax for this service or you know, whatever. Like, it's all the kind, you know, [00:11:00] and I mean, there's thousands of them and there's just really no way of keeping up with that.
[00:11:04] Stephanie Almeida: So that's something that, you know, I think is inherently a pain point for anyone within, you know, that deals with tax compliance is like, oh gosh, am I, am I keeping up with all the things that are changing? So that's a big one. We still find that Nexus is just in general is one of the big topics that, you know, how many years are we out from Wayfair at this point?
[00:11:29] Stephanie Almeida: You know? Yeah. But people are still not sure, especially as they're, you know, a growing business, you know, where they've only had to worry about a couple of states. Right. And now suddenly they're growing into five, 10 states or more. They're like, wait, what? What is this nexus? Like, oh, their threshold's different than this state.
[00:11:49] Stephanie Almeida: And you know, so there are a lot of themes like that, you know, and a lot of education that people need. 'cause as a CFO or a finance leader, like tax compliance is [00:12:00] usually not their full-time job, right? It is a portion of what they do. So, you know, really making sure that they have the education that they need and can feel confident in that area is a lot of what we focus on.
[00:12:11] Matt Hummel: That makes sense. And how does content get created within Avalara? Is it sit within demand or does it sit within brand? How do you think create content that fuels your campaigns?
[00:12:20] Stephanie Almeida: Our content strategy team does sit within brand, but we have kind of a dotted line alliance to them. So marketing strategy and content strategy really work together.
[00:12:32] Stephanie Almeida: You know, it does help that we have kind of these main themes that we sort of can recycle through each year and just kind of do different. Nuance, you know, pieces within each of them, whether it's, you know, a guide or a white paper or a checklist or an infographic and really just kind of aligning to what we need from a marketing standpoint.
[00:12:55] Matt Hummel: That's great. And are you guys, when you do campaign strategy and content strategy, how often are [00:13:00] you. Coming to the drawing table, if you will, around that. Is that annual? Is it quarterly? Is it performance driven?
[00:13:06] Stephanie Almeida: From an overarching standpoint, it's annually. Really? Oh, that's great. Big caveat though, things pop up, you know, all the time.
[00:13:15] Stephanie Almeida: We just purchased a new company for, you know, for example or something like that, you know, or something big is changing in, I don't know, maybe the world of tariffs, something along those lines, right? So those things pop up and we are definitely agile enough to be able to kind of regroup and refocus the team.
[00:13:36] Stephanie Almeida: Where needed.
[00:13:37] Matt Hummel: That's awesome. Well, I wanna switch to talk about syndication. So, yeah. You know, in a world increasingly dominated by ai, paid syndication, I think should be something more brands consider investing in. As the market gets more and more saturated with noise. What are your thoughts here? I know you guys leverage syndication, but you know why?
[00:13:57] Matt Hummel: What has made you guys stick with continuing to [00:14:00] to leverage content syndication across your efforts?
[00:14:03] Stephanie Almeida: Yes, 100%. I believe that paid syndication should definitely be a part of a holistic marketing strategy and, and plan. We have seen that we typically have really strong website traffic, but just like everybody else, we've seen some declines in paid.
[00:14:19] Stephanie Almeida: Mm-hmm. And organic search. Now with the AI answers, you know, being within the platform and getting people what they need there. We've also seen other channels like, you know, paid social. And things, areas that we've typically seen leads coming from that have started to decline a little bit too likely just due to kind of oversaturation.
[00:14:42] Stephanie Almeida: So I really believe that paid syndication is, is really helpful to kind of balance out your overall lead gen strategy, right? Like it's just another channel that you need to have lined up.
[00:14:58] Matt Hummel: Love it for [00:15:00] marketing leaders out there who may not have used it before. Any tips or tricks on how to get started?
[00:15:06] Stephanie Almeida: My biggest thing is just making sure that you have a diverse strategy, even within paid syndication, right? I mean, obviously you need that within your overall plan, but Yeah, even within paid syndication specifically, you know, I work with a variety of. Vendors. And within those, I have a variety of tactics and programs that I have set up with each of them.
[00:15:31] Stephanie Almeida: I have some core vendors that I work with and I'm constantly kind of trying to test somebody new all the time too. And within those, you know, just making sure that you have that diverse set of tactics and programs. Right. So some of my lead gen efforts with paid syndication are like. Just standard CPL programs.
[00:15:53] Stephanie Almeida: I have some that are HQL programs with, you know, additional questions about somebody's [00:16:00] level of interest in sales tax automation. I have others that include display advertising, you know, to help surround those accounts and really help, you know, grow their intent. So it's really just, you know, being flexible and constantly testing and then, you know, ensuring that you, you lead.
[00:16:19] Stephanie Almeida: With data, right? What, what does the data tell you? And, and put your efforts there.
[00:16:24] Matt Hummel: Love it. And last question on this topic, a lot of the questions I get, or concerns, if you will, around syndication are sales understanding or sales acceptance of content syndication leads. Has that been something that you've had a work through?
[00:16:38] Matt Hummel: Within Avalara
[00:16:39] Stephanie Almeida: for sure. For sure. I mean, you probably know this, we kind of went away from paid syndication for a while. We were spending quite a bit in paid syndication and doing a lot there for several years. And then we had a leader that was like, oh, nope, paid syndication, leads don't work. Look at this.
[00:16:57] Stephanie Almeida: You know? And [00:17:00] so, I mean, I think it's kind of just overcoming those perceptions, right? I mean, these are top of the funnel leap. So you know you're going to get that when you get a brand new lead and then you try to send it through to sales right away. They're top of funnel, you know, they've shown some interest, but now you need to nurture them a little bit and make sure you get them there, you know, eventually.
[00:17:22] Stephanie Almeida: But if you try to work 'em right away, then yeah, everybody's gonna say, oh. It's a
[00:17:27] Matt Hummel: garbage.
[00:17:28] Stephanie Almeida: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[00:17:29] Matt Hummel: totally. I've had to fight the same fight many times and I always go back to the point you just made around, these are top of funnel leads, but it's also, if you think about it, however you're doing your segmentation, if it's ICP, if it's target accounts, whatever it is.
[00:17:42] Matt Hummel: These are our target accounts. These are our target profiles. These are people who have expressed some degree of intent or interest in said product solution, area of topic related to what we can deliver on. That does not mean that they're sales ready, but it means that we now have a [00:18:00] fully marketable contact that we can start nurturing.
[00:18:03] Stephanie Almeida: Absolutely. And
[00:18:04] Matt Hummel: building that future pipeline for sales. So. You mentioned you run some programs with display, which is a great kind of segue for our last topic around just the harmony between brand and demand, and I'd love to talk to you about your view of brand and demand and how you feel those two functions work best together.
[00:18:24] Matt Hummel: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:24] Stephanie Almeida: Yeah, for sure. I feel really passionately that no matter who you are, even if you're a leader in the space, you should always have some level of brand advertising in market. For me, it's like you look at some of the most recognizable brands out there and they don't stop creating brand advertising campaigns, right?
[00:18:44] Stephanie Almeida: So I think in today's kind of oversaturated environment, I just feel like this is even more critical. You know, people see thousands of ads and messages every single day. So if you think that they might remember your [00:19:00] white paper post from. Three days ago, like, no way. You know, they won't remember it from five minutes ago if they didn't click on it at the same time, you have some, you know, interesting messages out there about how, maybe how tax compliance can actually be more relaxing, you know, and it's kind of fun and, uh, attention grabbing, like.
[00:19:24] Stephanie Almeida: You know, maybe the next time they do see that white paper, they'll, they'll actually go and click on it this time. So
[00:19:30] Matt Hummel: I love that. And I, I know obviously you sit on the campaign side of the house, but. Now that there is more attention being shifted back to a brand, to brand spend, brand recognition, brand awareness as a, you know, both to to build or it's really to create new demand.
[00:19:47] Matt Hummel: Right? It's such a powerful tool. Do you anticipate challenges kind of in the same way where you said, why would someone remember my white paper? Do you think with more and more brands starting to just push general brand messaging, [00:20:00] that there's gonna be sort of an equal level of competition that. Brands who really want to compete from a true brand perspective are gonna have to start to think differently about how they, how they go to market around brand.
[00:20:12] Stephanie Almeida: For sure. I mean, you have to come up with something that is actually interesting, right? Like, yeah, you, you can't just go out there and be, you know, super generic with your messaging. Like you need to tap into people's feelings and emotions. Be funny, be, you know, something that that stands out. You gotta be bold.
[00:20:33] Matt Hummel: Yep. I read a quote today. It said, people who don't express a point of view might be very pleasant, but they're not very interesting. Right.
[00:20:41] Stephanie Almeida: And. And I love that you're not memorable.
[00:20:44] Matt Hummel: Yeah, exactly. So thank you for all the words of wisdom. Again, I love all the work you're doing at Avalara. I think the way you're thinking about campaign strategy and your team is executing and the partnerships I'm seeing with, with brand and content's just awesome.
[00:20:56] Matt Hummel: So a lot of goodness in there. So thank you for your insights there. I [00:21:00] wanna transition to our last, last segment, which we call What's on tap. So today it's what's on tap for Stephanie. And we'll see if it's something different than water at the end of the day. So when I flip that question around, and unless something changed since we had dinner, uh, a few months ago, I know it's not water.
[00:21:17] Matt Hummel: So what is your favorite drink when you need to unwind?
[00:21:22] Stephanie Almeida: I would say, I mean, I've never had a bad margarita night, like I'm just. Um, a margarita night is always a good time. I mean, it might be a tough following day, but it you're gonna have fun that night, so,
[00:21:39] Matt Hummel: amen. The text in me just says, amen. One of my favorite people, uh, she's a vegetarian and that's not why she's one of my favorite people.
[00:21:47] Matt Hummel: I, I let her, I forgive her for that, again, coming from the barbecue capital of the world, but she said, Matt, the great thing about being a vegetarian is I can eat chips and salsa and drink margaritas. I'm like, you know what? That's not a bad [00:22:00] life.
[00:22:00] Stephanie Almeida: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:22:01] Matt Hummel: So that's awesome. Well, when we spoke last time, you were about to take your kids on their first trip to Vegas.
[00:22:08] Matt Hummel: Well, yeah. I know it's been a minute since then, but how did that go?
[00:22:11] Stephanie Almeida: It was actually so much fun. It was really busy. We were there for a family wedding. So lots of family, but you know, lots of fun at the pool and going to the wedding. And on our very last night, everybody else had left and it was, we were the only ones left in town still.
[00:22:31] Stephanie Almeida: Uh, and we actually, we took our girls to the neon museum or the, the neon graveyard, um, which was so cool. Like I will say I've been to Vegas quite a bit. Um. And I had never been there and it was just, I mean, it was like. Quiet, but just all these old amazing like refurbished neon signs from Old Vegas. And I, I mean, it was, it was really neat.
[00:22:59] Stephanie Almeida: It
[00:22:59] Matt Hummel: was cool. [00:23:00] Oh, that is so cool. Well, that's awesome. And good food. Did you guys see any shows?
[00:23:04] Stephanie Almeida: We took the kids to the, what is the one at Excalibur or then. The jousting one. Oh, I
[00:23:12] Matt Hummel: know what you're talking about, but yeah, don't ask me to tell you the name of it.
[00:23:14] Stephanie Almeida: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, and kids had fun at that, so that, that was good.
[00:23:18] Stephanie Almeida: Oh,
[00:23:18] Matt Hummel: that's awesome. Yeah. Well, good. Well, I know you and your husband also have a little side hustle with some Airbnbs. Right. Any, any funny stories or lessons learned that you can share with, with the audience?
[00:23:31] Stephanie Almeida: Oh gosh. Um, I mean, I don't know. We're still newbies in it. I, we've been doing it a little over two years now.
[00:23:37] Stephanie Almeida: So, I mean, I think ultimately for me it's, it's such a nice outlet. You know, from my, my day to day work of, you know, I, I feel like I'm a, I'm a party planner at heart, so I just, I love creating a space that, you know, I think people will enjoy and relax and, you know, want to spend time with their friends and [00:24:00] family in so.
[00:24:01] Stephanie Almeida: If I think I'm gonna like it, I, I hope that other people will like it too. And so far it's working. We, we've, we're, we're super hosts, so, uh, Ooh. Keep our status there. So, yeah.
[00:24:11] Matt Hummel: That's awesome. We're big fans of Airbnb because with my kids' age and their also refusal to share a bed, which I get, but they've frankly been unable to share beds since they were two.
[00:24:23] Matt Hummel: It's been a little frustrating. But all that to say, hotel rooms just aren't generally set up for four people.
[00:24:28] Stephanie Almeida: No.
[00:24:29] Matt Hummel: Who won't share a bed. So we, we love Air Bebes and I'm surprised how many, when you look at them, you're like, if you had just spent a little money on pictures or if you would just not have your grandma's quilt on your bed and maybe, maybe use different light bulbs so it's not so yellow everywhere, just saying, but it's just remarkable.
[00:24:50] Matt Hummel: And so I appreciate, I've always wanted to get into the Airbnbs for that same reason because you kind of have that design aesthetic in. You know what sells. I mean, that's what we do day in and day out and so [00:25:00] Exactly. Well, that's cool. Now, are your Airbnbs nearby that you guys can go check on, or are they different cities or states?
[00:25:06] Stephanie Almeida: We just have the one right now. Okay. And it's like a two and a half hour drive away. It's in, it's in Eastern Washington, so Okay. We have to go, go up over the pass. But I mean, less than three hour drive was kind of our, my threshold of like, you know, you can make it a weekend trip. You know, pretty easily.
[00:25:26] Stephanie Almeida: Yeah. It's, it's, it's not too far and, you know, still, still in Washington, but we get a totally different landscape and weather out there, so that's nice to be able to escape too.
[00:25:36] Matt Hummel: That's cool. Well, I think there's two camps on Airbnbs. There's the one that says, find a place in the optimal location for renters.
[00:25:44] Matt Hummel: So you know that that could be enjoyed in the summer and winter. So certain towns in Colorado, for example, or Washington, and then there's the other camp that's like find a place that's close enough that you can spend a weekend at. You and your family can go vacation at, but still gets enough rental [00:26:00] traffic.
[00:26:00] Matt Hummel: But if you miss a few weekends, that's not the end all be all. 'cause it's still your play. It's kind of your, your HomeAway from home.
[00:26:06] Stephanie Almeida: Exactly.
[00:26:07] Matt Hummel: So it sounds like for you guys, it's, you're kind of in that sweet spot, which it's a little bit of both.
[00:26:11] Stephanie Almeida: Yeah, yeah. It's definitely a, it's a summer destination for sure.
[00:26:16] Stephanie Almeida: So it's pretty quiet, um, in the winter. Um, I mean, we do make it over there, but, uh, but yeah, it's, it's heavy. This is our, this is our busy season for sure.
[00:26:26] Matt Hummel: Well, good. Yeah. Well, Stephanie, this has been an amazing conversation. I really appreciate all the time you took outta your day to talk to, to me, and I, and I know that our listeners are gonna get a ton out of it.
[00:26:36] Matt Hummel: So thank you again.
[00:26:38] Stephanie Almeida: Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me.
[00:26:40] Matt Hummel: You bet.
[00:26:43] Matt Hummel: Thank you again to Stephanie for joining us on today's episode of the Pipeline Brew. I hope you all enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. Please leave me a comment with your thoughts and make sure you subscribe to the show so you'll never miss an episode. Once again, I'm Matt Hummel and I'll see you next [00:27:00] time.