90 minute deep dive into all things Direct Bookings

So recently you will have noticed that I've been on a bit of a webinar guest podcast sort of run and we've got another one today, another 90 minute webinar where I did for an amazing group over in America. And what I've got right now is I've got 90 minute podcast to share with you. Whether it's video or audio, however you're tuning in. But please do stick around and tune on because we do go in some really cool in depth tactics, which is awesome. So without further ado, let's get straight in. I'll have a little bit of an intro but then we get straight into the questions. So again, thank you very much to Uri and Bev and for Stacy for setting this up and it was such a great little session. Tune in. This is another direct booking masterclass, really good podcast, another long form podcast. I hope you're enjoying these. We're going to chop it up and we'll post up a load of little videos online as well. So here's a diary booking masterclass. Thank you so much and let get straight into it. Nice. Again, Stacy, thank you so much for the introduction and for everybody for being here. So let me just do a little round robin. I know we've got 60 people in the zoom room with us. Can you please just in the chat box. Just so I know, has anybody ever seen me before? Instagram, YouTube podcast. Does anybody know what I do or what I talk about? Just give me a yes or a no and I'd love everybody to. It doesn't matter whether it's a no. It doesn't matter whether it's a yes. If it's going to have more no's and yeses, this is actually really exciting. Okay, I am going to give you a little introduction, but I will warn you now, if you haven't, go and get a pen and paper because I'm going to be giving you a lot of things to write down. This may be overwhelming, but don't worry, this is being recorded. This will be a rewatch backer. And for those of you that are watching on the replay, make sure you got your pens and papers ready because we're going to be giving you lots and lots of things. Now, the way that I like to do my zooms, my webinars, my live videos, whatever you want to talk about it, I don't like to do it where it's just me talking. I like to make it very interactive. So I really do need you to be concentrating, looking at the zoom Looking at your camera, whatever you're looking at, make sure you focus. Don't try to do three or four things at once. And I will need you to be typing, so don't sit on your hands, be ready. Okay, so first and foremost let's, let's kick off. I'll do a little bit of an intro, then I want to find out more about you. And then what I want to do is I want to pack you off with so many tips and so many tools that you're going to literally be buzzing at the end of this and ready to get go. Just, just so I know in the chat, how long do we have? Because I'm good, kids are playing Minecraft, we're fine. How long do we have? Is it a hard hour or so?

We typically can go to until 1:30, so if you want to stop at an hour and take questions, or we just do questions, spread out, either way works cool.

Well, yeah, please do because there will be times when questions come to mind. Do pop them in the chat and you know, we'll tackle them as we go. A lot of the times I'll answer questions as I'm going. So first and foremost, because there's a lot of noise, I need to do a little intro just so you get an idea of, of why you're listening to a weird British guy with a hat on on Friday afternoon. So first and foremost, my name is Mark Simpson. I give hosts the tools, the tactics, the training and the confidence to get more direct bookings. And I've been doing this now for nearly six years. I started in hospitality, short term rental accommodation, whatever you want to call it, way back When I was four years old, I was born and raised on a 200 acre farm, stay, bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere in the United Kingdom. So give me a quick yes or no. Has anybody ever been to the United Kingdom before? Has anybody ever been to England? Don't call it London. It's not London, it's England.

Yep.

Okay, here we go. Lots of yeses. So I'm in the northeast, so there's a very popular seaside town called Scarborough if anybody knows the Simon and Garth Uncle Song. Have you ever been to Scarborough Fair? That is my hometown. That's Scarborough. That's me and my family farm was about 20 minutes inland from Scarborough. So 200 acre, middle of nowhere. It was all livestock and arable and then there was a foot of mouth crisis. So my parents, very clever, had the foresight to pivot and change the farm into a farm stay accommodation so they knocked down one barn, they built four guest house bedrooms. And I'm four, five, six years old at this time. I'm just, you know, in my own little world playing and all those things. But all of a sudden people start coming and I just got so used over the years of just having strangers in my house. It just became the norm. Those four bedrooms soon turned into 14. It became very popular. And again, I'm in my teenage years. You know, I'm doing breakfast before going off to school, I'm changing beds at the weekend, all those things. And it was, it was an amazing childhood. And as I was growing up, I wanted to do one thing. I wanted to be a soccer player. I wanted to play for Liverpool Football Club. That was my team. There's one problem, I am crap at playing football, so I couldn't be a footballer. But so I fell into soccer coaching. So did soccer coaching, had an amazing experience, got all my badges and then had an amazing opportunity to come where all of you lovely people are, which is America. So for six years I would travel to America for five months at a time, coach, do all the cool stuff and then go back to United Kingdom. I've been to pretty much every state, so I would love to know, what state are you in? I've seen a few people drop it, but there's 60 odd people in here now. What state are you in? Let's see if I can bring back some good memories of places that I've been. Southern sc. I'm streaming about Southern Carolina, California, Ohio. Amazing. Keep dropping them in 2011. So I'm going to fast forward 2011. After traveling the world and doing all these cool, amazing things, I came back into the family business. At this point, my family business was about 25 years in. I'm the eldest of four siblings and my parents asked me and my wife and my eldest, Alfie, who was about one or two at the time, he's now nine, to come into the business and help sort of bring it into the 21st century. When I first came into the family business, my parents were still running everything on pen and paper. They were literally doing tippe and crossings and crossings out and all those sort of things, which was crazy. This is a 14 bedroom guest house, by the way, so it's very busy and they're doing it all on, literally offline. So my job was to bring it online. And what my role was was pretty much get it on Facebook, get it on the Internet, get it on, you know, booking.com. airbnb wasn't really around back then, but it was booking.com Expedia and what I did is I just spent all my time taking that amazing offline word of mouth and putting it online. And over 18 months it went really well. So our Facebook page grew to be the most followed locally sourced Facebook business. And our TripAdvisor ranking was one of the top three in the Northeast of the country, which is great. This is when TripAdvisor was big. It's not so much anymore, but over that time had an amazing experience and you know, we were always 18% direct bookings, 80% direct bookings, 20% third party bookings. And then what started to happen was I started to meet other hospitality owners in the area, guest house owners, rental owners, hotel owners. And we would meet up every quarter and have like a little meetup which wasn't on Zoom. It was in person. And at these meetings I got chatting to other hosts and I was asking them about how they were getting bookings, how they were getting heads on beds, and they were always telling me that they were over reliant on booking.com, over reliant on the Expedia group. And I was asking them about why weren't they doing email marketing and all social media and all the things. And they just looked at me, at the blank expression, and I just said, I don't know what to do. And so I went to our local council, our local tourism and asked them if they were giving helper support and they said no. And I looked further afield and I couldn't find anybody else giving helper support. So, you know, a little light bulb went off. I created a Facebook group and that's called the Hospitality Community Facebook group. If you're not part of it, there's a lot of people who don't know who I am. Please do come and find it. It's a free Facebook group and we've got over 6,000 members from people from all over the world in all different niches, whether it's glamping or short term rentals or hotels, guest houses, please do go check it out again. I'm going to give you lots of links and I guarantee, because I talk a little bit quick, people are going to go, what is that link? So if you're stuck or lost, if someone could just please help me by putting hospitality Community in the chat box at Zoom, then someone can write it down and we can go, and if you need me to spell, think again. I'm going to try and make sure I don't Go. Too British. I do apologize if the accent really comes out, but I'll try and keep it as easy to understand as possible. So 2016 started doing that. Fast forward six years and I've got the podcast, the YouTube channel. I help hosts online get more bookings, try and give you the confidence, like I say, the tools, the tactics, the training, but most importantly, the confidence to boost your direct bookings. And the reason why this is important, and I want to tell everybody why this is important, and I want to send throw over the questions to you. The reason why this is so important is that if you right now watching this and if you are on Airbnb, if you're on booking.com, if you're on VRBO, and if they are responsible for 70% or more of your bookings that come in, then you are building your house on someone else's land. And this is why it's important that we try and reverse that. Because when you build your house on someone else's land, when you, when you have got a third party that is responsible for your bookings coming in, then all it takes is for your account to be hacked, you get a couple of pretty bad reviews, or for whatever reason you drop off the site, then you are really going to be struggling for revenue and income. I've been talking about this since 2016. I didn't think that a global pandemic was going to be coming in 2020. Well, that is obviously what happened March 2020. Everybody remember it. Give me a quick yes or a no. Did you have a short stay accommodation business in 2020? Doesn't matter if it's yes, doesn't matter if it's a no. Just want to see if everybody can remember this, what happened. So March 2020, obviously the world's going up, turning upside down. Everybody who had an Airbnb account, Airbnb account will remember this day. End of March, Airbnb, without any prior warning to any host, just sent out a message to all of their guests saying, doesn't matter what policy it is at the place you're going to be staying at, doesn't matter if it's the strictest policy, you can cancel your stay free of charge. People were canceling bookings left, right and saying, I know hosts that have lost tens of thousands of dollars that day. I know hosts that didn't bring out on the make it out on the other side of it because Airbnb didn't give us any power, they didn't give us any heads up, they didn't give us any notice. They didn't give anybody any chance to contact a guest and have a chat with them before they're going to do it. And because of that, like I say, people lost a lot, a lot of revenue. Those of you that had direct bookings, we were one. We had with a lot of them. We were able to contact each guest individually, have a human one on one conversation with them, and we were able to change, not cancel the dates. We were able to save that revenue because we weren't reliant on other parties bringing in our bookings. And this is why this is really important. And what I want to do today, I want to help as many people as possible. My big goal is to help 1 million hosts cut down on the overalliance on Airbnb booking.com and this is why I'm super excited for today because there's a lot of you that have never ever heard of me before. So we can really get in and really help. If you've got property, if you've not got property, if you're thinking about getting into it, then this is really important that we all tune in and we all listen. So this is why I throw it over to yourself. There's a first question. Again, I'm going to ask a couple of questions. Please do make sure you all get involved on the chat. So first and foremost, do you have currently in your portfolio short stay accommodation, yes or no? Yes. No. Yes. Yes. No, not just yet. Getting ready. I know Stacy does not any at the moment. Okay, brilliant. So even if not, you can still pick up a lot of tips. What I'm going to share with you today. So those of you that have said yes, how many out of 100%, how much are you reliant or how many of your bookings come in via an online travel agent, Airbnb booking.com VRBO or other. So out of 100 and again, there's no right, there's no wrong answer. Please don't be shy. Please don't, don't put your number on. Okay. Steve 100%. Beth 50. 50. Good. Stacy 683 nice. Norm at 90%. Tammy 100%. Okay. This is good. This is why it's really good to have direct booking focus months, etc. Which is, which is awesome. So this is where I really want to dig in and give lots of help and support. So those of you and I'm going to go. Steve, I'm going to go. Norma, I'm going to go. Tammy, I'm going to go. Rahel Stacy. So when it comes to direct bookings, when it comes to getting a direct booking, what is your number one biggest concern at the moment? What is your biggest pain point when it comes to direct bookings, what could be the first thing that I could tackle to everybody? Because I don't want to talk about A, and then you're all struggling with B. I want to make sure that I can give as much help and support to as many people as possible while we've got our time together. So, again, don't be shy, don't be scared. What's your biggest concern? And Mick, okay, brilliant, Mick, great question. Now, what I want for you to do, Mick M I K. Mick Weber, can you please unmute yourself? And let's dig into a little bit of context around that question. So floor is yours, my friend. You've unmuted. Mick, what is your biggest concern when it says platform and website?

The biggest concern is that, you know, I think the reliability of having a large, you know, multimillion dollar airbnb platform is that it's. It's more consistent and a little less scary than venturing out, trying to find a third party software that could handle all that. I guess it's just lack of understanding of what's out there. I think that'd be the big thing for me.

Okay, so let's delve into that a little bit more. So what's your current setup right now? What's your business model that you have?

Right now? It's 100% Airbnb. I've only got one right now, so I'm pretty small. But I am interested in looking for other options. And we're actually looking to buy our second property here this spring.

Congrats. And where are you in the world?

We're in Cincinnati, Ohio, but we're going to be investing in South Carolina in the Myrtle beach area.

Nice. Had many good night in Myrtle beach back in the day. All right. Cincinnati High, Myrtle Beach. Fantastic. One property. So break down that one property for me. What is it? Is it a three bed, four bed?

It's a three bedroom, two bath, three bedroom, two bath.

Lovely. And how long have you had that property for? How many years? Months? Weeks?

About two years.

Two years. Lovely. So you've got two years worth of guest stay with you and have come 100% from Airbnb?

That's correct.

Lovely. Perfect. So excited. This is, this is lovely. So, okay, have you ever communicated with your guests? So, as in, are you in the same town, city, state as where your property and your guests Are or you. Do you live off site? As an outside, out of state?

I live off site, so most of the communication is. Is via the platform. I'm. I'm happy to give them a cell phone number that they can contact me directly and anything that they need. Everything. The important stuff is automated. You know, the doors, the key, the access, you know, anything in the property. But it's. Most of the communication is either via the Airbnb platform or text.

And do you clean it yourself? Do you have cleaners? Do you have property maintenance?

I have cleaners, yeah. Cleaners can handle the maintenance as well.

Cleaners do the maintenance. Lovely. Okay. And is there any communication with the guest after the stay?

Not as much as I need. I'd be willing to say that that's okay.

So is this your main focus, or do you have another career, another source of income?

I'm a Realtor in Cincinnati and I'll be buying and selling real estate, and I'm actually building my own investment portfolio on the side.

Awesome sauce. Brilliant. All right, so, fantastic. So, first and foremost, platform, website, Airbnb, do all of this. All these sort of questions coming in. So the biggest thing that I can gather is it's time. Is that right?

It is. Yep.

It's a time. So, okay, have you ever had. For two years you've been doing this, have you ever had a guest reach out to you, asking to come and rebook?

We've had issues with rebookings and. Yeah, we've run into some. Some issues with rebookings, definitely.

What's. What's this, then? So anybody wanting to rebook? You've had issues with rebooking? Could you just expand on that, please? One of them.

It was a weird.

It was.

I guess it was like a cancellation policy they had.

They had.

Because I had the auto. I think they call it the auto booking. I had that feature set up. They had run into some issues. I think they had misread my price per night or something, and they were communicating me with. On rebooking, either for a different time, a cheaper time, and it was pretty tough. They ended up wanting to rebook or telling me they wanted to rebook, and then once I kind of canceled that reservation, they kind of. They just went off and ran off. Interesting time.

No worries.

No.

So you've actually have got a neighbor in the crowd, Stacy. Did you and Stacy know each other? You're very.

I don't think. Hi, Stacy. I actually just moved to Cincinnati. I moved from Clemson, South Carolina. My wife and I now we're here in Cincinnati, Ohio.

So, Stacy, as you go, good connections right there. Okay, Nick, thank you very much for that. All right, So I want to try and help as many people as possible, but this is really good one to start with. So what everybody has to realize, and I think, like Beth, obviously, Las Vegas and loads of cool things, you've got, you know, you've got an amazing opportunity here and now, everybody to be able to start building guest expectations and guest relationships. Okay? And what I love, and like Beth's in Las Vegas, you'll know this 100%, is that we gotta look when we're doing this at what the big chains and the big hotels do, do really, really well. And 10 years ago, their technology levels and their tools and the things that they had at their disposal was so advanced to what we had. Now because of the explosion of Airbnb, these skills levels are sort of equal. So we have got so many more tactics and tools and things in place that can help us. The first thing that I would love for you to do and I would love for everybody to do is to invest your time, not money time, in a thing called a digital guidebook. So again, just a little yes or no, yes or no, do you have guidebooks in your properties? And when I say guidebooks, it's those laminated copies that you leave on the kitchen table that nobody reads. Beth, I would love to come back to Vegas at a lot of good times there one day. Yes, yes, yes. Brilliant. Okay, so give me a little yes or no. Do you have digital guidebooks? A digital guidebook. So have you taken that offline guidebook online? Yes or no? Brilliant. So we've got a couple of yes and no's. Okay, so a free digital guidebook for everybody to get started. Hostfully.com. hostfully.com. Okay, go and make sure after this, go to Hostfully.com. if someone could put that in the chat, that would be lovely. You get one free digital guidebook. And these digital guidebooks are going to be an amazing tool for you to start a couple of things. Number one, get data capture. So get your guests information. For example, email address, first name. Email is really important. We're going to circle back to a second. Number two, to enhance your guest experience, which is fantastic and free, to increase your local network. Somebody asked me this week, what is my number one tip to increase in direct bookings. And I'm sure that's on the top of your mind. And honestly, my number one tactic for everybody to expand their business, whether you are in real Estate, whether you're in hospitality, whether you're in E commerce or services is your relations. Relationships and partnerships. Relationships and partnerships is going to be the key for any business to succeed. Then this is the reason being and again I'm going to talk about this later, but this is my book, the book Direct Playbook. I released it last month and I'm very, very happy to say it got to bestseller. But I had a full tactic in here. There's a full section in this book. The book Direct Playbook, it literally costs less than $20 when I talk about relationship building. And the reason why it is so important is that you could either, number one, try and do this all yourself. Don't reach out for any support and just head down and just go focused and don't accept any help or don't try to build any relationships or networks. Or you could try and do the alternative, which is look to build a real good local network of businesses and supports in hospitality and not hospitality. So what do I mean by that? Let's bring it back to the digital guidebook. Now those of you that have got a laminate guidebook, a printed guidebook that sit around, I guarantee there'll be takeaway leaflets in there, some flyers for like some local takeaway services, you know. Now that's all well and good, but imagine this, you've got a digital guidebook. Imagine this from the guest perspective. So take off your host hat for a second and put on your guest hat. Imagine that you book a short term rental, okay, imagine you book a stay, a vacation, staycation, workcation, whatever you want to do. So 24 hours before arrival you get an automated Mick, you'll love this automated message just to say, hey Mark, really looking forward for your stay. Just to let you know I've prepared for you a little welcome guidebook packed full of our recommended local places to eat, drink and stay. Okay, here's the link. So it's literally there. Think about when you're most engaged to your stay is literally at your Pre arrival. So 24 hours before you due to arrive, an automated message comes in with a link to a guidebook. To access the guidebook you've just got to give your email. Simple, easy, we give our emails up for a lot less nowadays. Give the email that opens up, okay, you've got in that guidebook clear instructions how to check in. Okay, a yes or no. How many times have you had a guest call you on the day of arrival saying oh, I can't find your place, I don't know where to park, I can't get in the house. I guarantee there's going to be yeses even before I let you type in the answer. So again, you can have in there in the digital form how to arrive, where to pack. This is where Beth was talking about lockboxes and things like that. Listen, this is how you use the code. We've got it really simple. But just in case, there's a lockbox over here and you could record a little video and have it in your digital guidebook also as well, when people arrive, it's, you know, if you need to is local. Local places that we recommend to eat. These places do delivery X, Y and Z. Now where are you going to get this information from? Super simple. If you're in the areas, let's say we're in Cincinnati, Ohio right now. Mick and Stacey, I'm sure you can as well think of your favorite places that you like to go and eat. Think of the favorite places that you like to get food from. Think of the places that you like to go and visit, whether it'll be a big chain or a local independent business. Now, what you're going to do and bearing in mind this is something that we did and it was one of the best things that we did. And I didn't even have a digital guidebook back then. It had to be all be lamented. So what I did is number one, I thought about who our guests are. So who our. And Mick, you've got two years worth of data here, which is great. So think about the 20% of guests that come 80% of the time. So what do I mean by that? What are the types of guests that come and stay at your place? Are they families? Are they solo people? Are they couples? Are they friends that meet up? Is it big families, little families? Is it for work? Is it for leisure? Is it for pleasure? And then think about what is your town or your city or your location really known for. So think about the type of people, why people come. Is it for conferences, is it for expos. Is it. Is it for, you know, football season, soccer season? Is it for all those things? So match them too. And then what you're going to do is you're going to go, okay. Once I figured out that where would they like to go and visit, where would they eat? So for example, our family business was the farm stay property. Okay, can you think I'm going to throw this out? I've never asked this question before and I'd really love to know what your response is. Who do you think our ideal guests were? It's a farm stay property in the middle of the countryside. Who do you think our ideal guests were that came to visit us? City slickers, city folk, Families. Families are the ones. So as families, young kids wanted to go and stay on a farm stay property. Those are the majority of people. These are the ones that we spoke to. And again, we were a young family. So this is really easy because I could literally put our hat on and put ourselves into these shoes. So when I went to go and recommend local businesses, when I went to find places to recommend, I wasn't going to recommend a nightclub because again, our customer avatar had one or two year olds, they weren't going to go and a place to go and have a, have a big drink and whatnot. So what I was doing, I was looking for places, family friendly cafes or, you know, fun things to do, other farm stay locations, maybe a woodland sort of, you know, walk or whatever. And then what I did was I didn't just put the name and telephone number on there, I went to speak to the business owner. And this is the key. So you can pick up the phone, you can send an email or go and speak to them and just introduce yourself because I guarantee they have never heard of you before. Okay, you can pick up the phone, go and speak to them and just say, hey, I'm Mark Simpson, I'm the owner of a farmstay property. We've got 14 bedrooms, we've got three holiday cottages. We have about 500 to a thousand guests come stay with us on a yearly basis. We really love what you do. We think it'd be a good fit. Could we recommend our guests to come and stay with you and to come and visit you? Sorry. And do you have any voucher codes or coupon codes that we can sort of put in place? That's a really good idea that the coupon code. Bear that in mind. Now any business owner that you take that to, they would be stupid to say no. They are literally passing that money. I have never had anybody that I've gone to say that to, but it's turned around and go, you know what, Mark? No thank you. We don't want, we don't want money, we don't want customers. We're fine, thank you. Every time they say, yeah. What we did was I was able to get a nice little pool of 10 little local business owners, whether it's eating, drinking, little place to go, as in days out. And we had a little coupon code for every Single place. It was either money off, free dessert, whatever. What we did then is we put it into our guidebook and you can put it into your digital guidebook. I went to stay at a place with my wife five years ago and on arrival the owner gave us a little custom map. This is something I've just started talking about recently because it came back to my mind for our anniversary they gave us a little custom map. On that custom map they had a little map of their town and it was pinpointed. The places that did the vouchers, it was so cool. We visited them all. It was great. So again, a custom app. How could you do it? Super simple to do, easy to do, but building those relationships. Now this works as a win, win, win, win number one for your guest because again, when you arrive at a new place, at a new location that you've never been before, you don't know the layout, you don't know where places are. If you can have your host, your property manager, the person that you're staying from, provide you an itinerary, guest experience goes through the roof. But even before they've arrived, top recommended places. This is, this is why people love, you know, going to stay with, with hosts instead of big, big hotels is because you get that local experience. So that's a win for the guests, guest experience for the roof. It's a win for the business owner, for the business owner that you've gone to approach because again, he or she is bringing in extra revenue for doing no marketing at all. No literally marketing at all. And it's a win for you because if you do well and they start going to the event, and I'll tell you why it was a win for me as the host is that we were sending so many people to this business. Number one, I never had to pay for a visit ever. Me and my family could go for free all the time. But number two, they actually started to pay us a kickback fee over time. So for every 10 people they would pay us X amount. So I was making extra revenue and I didn't have to book out any rooms. It was an extra revenue income driver which was, which was fantastic. And this is the best thing and I'll save this for last the property in mind. The days out farm that we were sending people to, they got their wedding license and they started to do weddings or they didn't have accommodation because of the relationship that we had built up. When a bride and a groom would book a stay and they asked you have any local recommended accommodation Guess who was the first person that they recommended? It was us. We got so many wedding bookings coming in from that relationship and that partnership that we have, that we have created. Now, think about right now for those of you that are 100% reliant right now on. On OTAs. Think about your location, Mick. Think about the location that you've just moved to. Think about your guests that have visited you over the last two years. Think about the places that. Who they were, whether they were, you know, couples, families or whatever. Think about the places that you would. You're recommending, you may be already recommending them. What can you do to create that relationship and then put it into a digital guidebook? Because the best thing about Those wedding bookings, 100% direct, no commission on our rules, on our terms, every single time. Okay? So how can you bring that into your business? Number one, relationships? Again, if I've gone a bit too quick there, just go onto Amazon. It's called the Book Direct Playbook. It's less than $20. It is literally laid out there to a T. And if you're thinking about customer Avatar, as in who are my ideal guests? Who are the ones that are coming in? There's a full chapter on that as well in there. Please do go and pick it up. It'll be your best friend and the reading over the next couple of weeks. All right, Mick, if you just want to quickly unmute yourself, number one, could you put that into practice?

Absolutely, yeah.

I'm going to set you a challenge because you were the first person to put your hand up. I'm going to set you a challenge. Are you on Instagram, sir?

I am.

Okay. Okay, send me a message. Two weeks time. I want an update. I want to see that you've got a digital guidebook and I want to see that you started to reach out to local businesses in the area. Okay.

All right.

Homework has been set, sir. All right, Good man. Appreciate it. So, yeah, please do, everybody as well, everybody on here. As a thank you for having me, I do want you all to reach out to me on Instagram and say, hi. So It's @Boostly UK. @Boostly UK. I'll just put it in the chat. And for those who want to know how they can go and grab the book, it's on that link now. Thank you very much, David, for putting the link in. All right, so what was a. Do we have another question? Because I know that we've typed a lot there. Does anybody have another question up here? If you want to Ask me a question. Just unmute yourself and we'll just go to. I have a question. Here we go, Norma.

Okay, so outstanding information so far. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

My question is. So I do some of. I don't. You do all my bookings online with platforms, in other words. So my biggest problem is how do I process their payments? So that's my issue. Money.

This is going to be the next part, and it's a great question.

Obviously I'm getting the money, but I want to know the best way to.

Yeah, 100%. No. So great question. And again, Mick's probably in the same situation because his first part of his concern was the platform and the software to use. Okay, I'm gonna give everybody a resource here. I'm gonna say a couple of things and I guarantee. I'm gonna say fast. I guarantee people are gonna say, what has he just said? So bearing in mind, I'm gonna give you a blog post to go and reread all of this. Okay, so it's boostle.co.uk.com forward slash, P for Peter, M for Mother, s for sugar. Boostly.co.uk PMS. Right. PMS. Does anybody. Let's hazard a guess. What does PMS stand for in the chat? Let's see what interesting answers we're going to get here. What does PMS stand for in the world of hospitality? Let's see who's going to be the first one that gets it. Gets it right, because this is going to be. Stacy, I knew you're going to get this. Property management system. Property management system. Property management system. 100%. This is going to be your best friend. Now, there are some people out there who say you don't need a PMS until you've got five, six, seven properties. My opinion, you need it straight away. Number one, the reason being it's better to get into this practice because it will make life easier 100% of the time. And what a property management software does. What a property management system does, Number one, you talk about payments. Every single property management software will have the ability to link into a payment processor. Stripe is the most popular one worldwide. Funny enough, this is a little fun fact that people might not know. Stripe was founded by two brothers from Ireland who were born in a hotel, brought up in a hotel. So they know the industry inside out. So Stripe is one of the most common ones. There are others. But literally your property management software will link in to Stripe for payment processing also as well, a good property management software, otherwise known as A channel manager will link into Airbnb, will link into booking.com will link into VRBO. So you don't have to always keep updating separate channels. You can just update everything, as in pricing, availability from one platform, one place. So saves you on time. The problem with a PMS is that there are thousands of them. There isn't one company that fits all. I could ask Stacy who she uses. It'll be different from what somebody else would use. In fact, I go regularly into clubhouse rooms and Facebook groups and forums and I see the post, which is the PMS that you Recommend. For every 10 replies, you'll get 7 different brands. That blog that I gave you boosted.co.uk PMS. I interviewed over 100 hosts and property management companies and I got the top 10, the top 12, and then we wrote a blog about each one. So again, it's totally unbiased. I don't get. It's not my company, it's not my money or anything like that. I just put the best ones on this. You can go and do your own research. Again, you may know others, you may have heard of others. These are just the ones that. The top recommended ones. So again, it doesn't matter if you've got one property or if you've got 100. Having a property management software sooner rather than later is the key. And the best thing about having a property management software, a property management system, is that you're able to have a website as well. So you'll have a direct booking website where you can actually send people to. So when you're speaking to a friend that you haven't seen for ages, or you're speaking to that business owner and introducing yourself and they ask you, well, what's your business? Instead of just sending them an Airbnb link, you can send them your direct booking website. It looks professional, it looks branded, it looks like you know what you're doing. And again, it's. You'll have more confidence to send somebody to there when you're introducing yourself. So a property management software, Norma is the one to go. Right, let me test this. Those of you, yes or no, do you have a property management software? Property management system, yes or no? Yes, yes, yes. Brilliant. Okay, next question. Who do you use? So who do you use? Let's see, who's going to be the common ones or the uncommon ones? Which company do you use? So we've got Hostaway, owner Res. Okay, so we've got hostware and owners. We've got a few, which is good. Again, Please don't be shy. We only got a few people commenting. We've got 68 people in the room. If I ask for bit of yes or no, please do, please do jump in. There's no right or there's no wrong answer. Okay, so a property management software is a key part to having your business. Now let me give you a little tip. So for those of you that have got a property management software, this, what I'm going to give to you now is if we're going to do it on skill level of 1, being low to 10, being like super high ninja skills, this is probably about a 6 or a 7. And this is something that wasn't available 10 years ago, but it is now and it's proven to be so effective. One of the main ways to increase your direct bookings is that you need to educate your guests about the power of direct bookings and why someone should book direct with you. Now, at the start I was talking about Las Vegas hotels, the big chains, the Marriotts, the Hiltons, all those jazz. Go and look at their website, Sue, I knew you're going to ask that question, which PMS is the best? Go check the blog, go and look at their website, go and look at the terminology they use on the site. So for example, with the Marriott, with the Hilton and the big chains, they actually reward people who book direct. So for example, if you go on their site, you can see best rates when you book direct, free WI fi earlier, check in. And again, like I said, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel here. What can we do that the big chains are doing and put it into our businesses. So what we have to do is we have to re educate the guests about why they should book direct. And it can start simply in all of your properties. One of the simplest things that you could do is identify where in your properties at a high touch points. And this is something that I tricked and tricked and figured out very early on. So do you remember when I said that we became one of the most ranked businesses on TripAdvisor in our country? The reason being is that we were actively asking for reviews. What we did is we identified that the highest touch point in our rooms and in our rental accommodation was the door, the front door, the door they came in and out and all I did on the back of the door, I got a nice little piece of a four card and I laminated it and I just asked if they could leave a review, good or bad, on TripAdvisor. I give them the link and they saw it every single time they opened and closed the door. I know some people now who put that on the fridge. Little laminate, little fridge magnet. Ask them to leave a review. Now, you don't have to ask them to leave a review on TripAdvisor, but you can mention best rates when you book direct. Did you know you could have saved 10% or 5% you could have saved if you'd have booked directly. It's all about education. And this is where Airbnb are very clever. Their marketing teams are outstanding. They have marketed it and they have branded it to not only guests, but to hosts as well. About why they are the only platform, about why they are the best, and about all of those things over the years. All we have to do is we just have to re educate our guests and explain to them why they should book direct. Now, what I said about the skill level, this is pretty cool. So if you have a pms and this is another really cool tool, is that from your property management software? So let's just say owner as or Hostaway, you can go right now onto your platform, onto your pricing, and you can mark up the cost that goes to Airbnb or booking dot com. So what do I mean by that? Say that your average nightly rate is $100. I'm just gonna do simple maths. $100. You could mark it up by 30% to booking.com Airbnb. So it's going to show as, let's just say $130 on Airbnb. But on your website, on your direct booking website, it shows at 100. Okay, so you're not discounting it, you're just marking it up. So a guest, a future potential guest is on Airbnb. Okay? They're looking at your listing and in your profile. Again, another little tip. This is a little Airbnb tip right now. And I expand about it more in the book and I show you how to do this. But on Airbnb, you've got a profile. On your profile page, you can upload an image of your company logo. And on your profile on Airbnb, this is your personal profile. You could say, hey, my name is Mark, I am the manager, founder of. Insert your business. Check us, check our online reviews out. They're really good. So you're literally implanting it into the future potential guest. Hang on a second. This isn't just somebody who's got a spare room or whatever. This is a proper business. And they will go and Google you. And when they Google you, They'll find your website because you've got a direct booking website. They'll come to your website and then they'll see that the exact same property on the exact same night is actually 30% cheaper. What are they going to do? Best rates when you book direct. Okay, now, it's not just money. People don't just care about money, about the rate. Sometimes it's the incentives. And this is something that we did really well, and this is something that worked a lot of the times. So what we would do is our check in time was 1pm, so the time that you could check into your room or the times you could check into your cottage or your Holiday rental was 1 o'.

Clock.

What we did is we pushed the check in time on the OTAs back to 4 o'.

Clock.

Okay, so when people were looking at our website and they saw the check in time was 1pm and they saw the check in time was 4pm on OTA, what do you think they were doing? We were telling them best rate when you book direct, but you get better incentives, I. E. Earlier checking when they book direct. It's just all about doing these little things to change the psychological aspect of your guest or your future potential guest. And you just got to always make them know that you get the best rates and the best incentives when somebody books direct. And that's a big part of it. And that's what you get with a property management software system. So this is why I'm super excited. We've had so many people that are saying, no, I don't have a property management system Again, your homework over the next month is to get one. Doesn't matter if it's one property or if you've got five or six properties, go and get one. Set it up. You can start to take advantage of these tools. Norma, how did that answer your question? I can see you scribbling. I can see a lot of people writing, which is great, which is amazing. Did that, Norma, did that answer what you were talking about with payments, etc.

That was very comprehensive. Yes, it did. Thank you so much.

My absolute pleasure. Okay, so I know we've got time for maybe one or two more. If anybody has a question, please don't be shy. I know we've got a lot of people in the room.

We haven't. We have actually 35 more minutes, so lots.

Let's go.

So I want to ask a question right here. So Airbnb has AI artificial intelligence that searches for keywords on their host sites. So if you are saying that you could put these, these suggestions onto the. On your platform, on Airbnb, or verbal. How do you get around the AI catching you? Because obviously they don't want you to do that.

Right.

So how do you get around doing that? I have an idea, but I just want to know if you'll confirm my idea.

Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, Airbnb isn't as clever as what we think it is. First and foremost, don't worry. That's the firmness. That's the firmness, but it's how you word it. One of the worst things that any of you could do, and this is really important, is that if you get an inquiry message on Airbnb, So instead of somebody doing instant book, if someone messages you and they go, hey, Norma, I've seen your property, Loves, looks amazing, would love to book, the worst thing that you could do is go, yeah, absolutely, Mark, here's my phone number. Let's take this off site. Because, yes, those Airbnb keywords, AI tools, they will spot that and then you'll get a little angry letter, angry email from them. I'm not saying don't do. Don't do that.

Okay.

But when I talk about clever terminology, it's about placing things in the right spots. For example, if you have a business logo, okay? So if you've branded your business, if you've got a business logo, there is nothing stopping you branding every single one of your images that you upload to Airbnb with the logo in the bottom right hand corner. What does that do? Every single time somebody comes onto your listing, I believe it's 80 to 85%. They go straight to your pictures. Okay? So the pictures are the most important. I don't have to teach you to suck eggs on that one. Everybody knows that your pictures is the most important. I'm sure there's going to be some amazing training on pitches and stuff either before or coming up. All right, so if pitches are so important and it's where people click to, to check it out, what do you think would happen if you brand it with your logo on every single one in the bottom right hand corner, Every time they're looking at it, they're looking at the logo and it says, you know, we had the granary, the granary Scarborough as our logo. Now writing around the logo, every single time we mention about. Check out our online reviews are rather good. That gets through the AI, no problem. They're going to go Granary Scarborough onto Google. If you Google the granary Scarborough bearing In mind, it's not our family business anymore. We sold in 2021. But Granary Scarborough, our website, would come up. We're driving people away from the platform onto our own direct booking site. Every single time. We're just sinking it in because again, the big misconception still to this day is that Airbnb is a place you go for a, you know, a sofa, spare room or someone's, you know, some, someone's like a hobby. They don't realize that a lot, for a lot of people, this is now their business, their livelihood, their career in brands probably property management companies. Okay, so again, it's just about re. Educating the guest. So again, no problem getting around the AI. It's not as clever as what we think it is. But just, you know, just be. Be sensible. But good question. Is there another question? Do we have.

Yes, I have Aster with her hand raised. Esther, why don't you unmute and ask your question?

Lovely. I love the hand raising. Hasta. Hello? Oh, no, I'm speaking to a robot. Tell you what, Asta, mute your microphone because we can't hear you and then pop your question into the chat box and I promise you I'll answer it. I think you're in a bad signal area. Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna mute you.

So somebody else asked Mark, which PMS do you use?

Okay, so the PMS that I use may be different. The one that you should use, it really is that simplistic of an answer and it's not me being a politician or sitting on the fence. It really is. That's the case. What you need to do is you need to figure out what is the most important buying motive for you and reverse engineering. Back now, when I chose my property management software system, bearing in mind I was working with my parents. My parents were Yorkshire farmers. They were computer illiterate. Minus 20. Okay. My mum was so bad at sending an email, she would ask where to put the stamp before sending the send button. Okay. So I needed to make sure that the property management software that we were using every single day had amazing support on the other end. Amazing support. Somebody that she could pick up the phone to and ask. And that was our main thing. So we used Free to book. Free to book. It's a Scottish based company. The most patient people you can imagine. Because me and mum used to just argue constantly and she will admit it, but we butted head so many times over it. But that was because that's what went then. But you, it may be different. You May need to have amazing reporting. So you can, you know, for those of you that are doing the arbitrage model, for example, you're going to do rent to rent, you need to have all management services, you need to have an amazing reporting tool to send to your landlords, etc. That you're working with. It may be a number of reasons, but again, until everything gets consolidated and I said there's over a thousand, until they all just buy each other out and left with a core some. That's where I put that blog post together because I wanted to interview over 100 hosts, some 200, I think hosts. We get interviewed and we put together the best of so again. And bearing in mind, you know, it's. It literally you could ask 10 people, it'd be all different. So it's just a case of booking a demo and working on it. But this is the cool thing. It is so easy to switch now. Ten years ago is impossible to switch now. It is so easy to move from one to the other. So if you start with one a year down the line you're like, want to try something else? It's so easy to do. Why did your family choose to sell the estate? Very good question. We had it for 30 odd years and my mum and dad wanted to retire and spend some time with their grandkids. If anybody who's been in hospitality you will know it sucks time away from you, you know. And this is like me and my wife run it for so long. We had two boys, you know. This is why I started doing Boostly is because as soon as we realized we're going to sell a family business, I wanted to see my kids grow up. I never saw Alfie or Charlie, but we've got Frankie now and I'm so fortunate now that with Boost Lee, I can do the school run twice a day. I get to see him loads. I'm going to go down after this, play some Minecraft with him and you know, when you're in an evolved hospitality to the level that we were and I didn't have any systems and structures in place, you know, 11 o' clock at night, getting a phone call from a guest drunk, trying to get into their room, he got to go and deal with it. So that's why we sold. They just wanted to retire and having a great time on the event. Okay, what's the next question?

Sorry, Mark to jump in. Just want to see if. Asher, can you get your does? Is the sound working now? Sorry, no, I don't think so.

Aster let's do Lenora because Lenora's got a question and I can see cameras on, microphone ready.

Yeah. Can you guys hear me now?

Something There we are.

Can you hear me now?

Yeah, we can hear you now.

Lenora, stay there. We'll do Asta and then we'll come back. Yeah.

Something wrong with my device. Anyway, my question was that. I think Norma asked that question and you answered it. But my question was that wouldn't interfere with Airbnb website and our website that we trying to do direct booking. That was my question, but I think answered it.

Would it? Would it piss them off? Is that what we're saying?

No, wouldn't interfere that what with the website we are using with the Airbnb and we are going to book a direct booking with our system. Wouldn't interfere with all the system.

As in like a double booking? Yeah, no, no. That's the beauty of a property management software. A pms. When you've got a pms, it controls everything. So it communicates two way. So if you get a book on your website, it closes it off on airbnb booking.com vrbo. Same as if you get a and on Airbnb, it closes it off on your direct booking site. That's why you need to do this. Bearing in mind, when I first got going in the family business, we had pen and paper. So if we had a booking come in on booking.com, i had to run to run inside and make sure that we closed it off everywhere else because that was the pain point. And so. Yeah, don't worry, don't worry. Oh, okay.

Okay. Thank you so much. Okay.

It uses the iCal. Is that what it does?

Well, it's. It's got more advanced now. It's called API technology. And yeah, so basically with API and iCal and two way. Yeah, it's just getting more advanced, which is super cool. But you don't need to worry about that. All right, Lenora, you've been.

I'm gonna need help on that. Thank you.

Okay, no worries. That's what I'm here for. Reach out.

Bye.

Thanks.

I feel like I'm a radio host at the moment. I love it. All right, Lenaro coming to you. How can I help?

Good afternoon. Unfortunately, I tried to tag in too early and then I ended up being late. So my apologies. So currently I'm facing an odd situation. I'm doing really well on my Airbnb. One I'm currently hosting at 7,000amonth and the other I'm hosting at 4,800amonth. I stay booked, but they're booking multiple months. And every single month, Airbnb has taken about a thousand dollars a month for me from, you know, or vrbo, whichever one that they book on. So I guess my question is, should I, like, start a website for the type of people that I deal with? Because I have a. I have a very niche section of people that I deal with. It's not like families is not, you know, it's more corporate, you know, so I'm just trying to see, like, should I just go hard at targeting them through some kind of avenue?

Oh, my gosh. This is the best question.

Or just be okay with the money.

That I'm gonna blow your mind? Lenara, are you ready for this? This is unbelievable. You have got such a cool setup. All right, this is. And everybody please get your pens and pencils ready because this is. This is important, especially if you've got corporate or business guests. The easiest people to get direct bookings from. A corporate business guests. What I want for you to do, Lenara. So have you got guests in right now? Yeah. All right. Oh, my God. All right, so how many properties you've got? Two.

I have three.

Three. Okay. You've got. You've got literally got business guests in right now?

Yes. I couldn't believe it. They tried to book my other house. That was 5,000amonth. But I told them, you know, directed them to the other house. I said, it's bigger, it's better, you know, minus a hot tub. And I just knew they were going to call me and say 7,000 was too high. You know, I was waiting for it. I was, like, sitting at my computer and they just booked it and, like, are going to be there for months. So where are you in the world in Columbus, Ohio.

Loads of people in Ohio.

Our houses are not in any special area. I don't have anything like that. They are very beautiful, but they are not in, like, some prime location or anything like that.

I've got homework for you. Okay. Right.

Okay. All right.

What I want you to do after this, I want for you to do me one thing and one thing only. Call your guests. Okay? You're going to call them. You've only got three properties. You've got three people in this. It's super simple. Call the person who made the booking. Airbnb don't share with you their email address, but they share with you their phone number. You got to take advantage of this, because I guarantee it's going to come to a point where they don't even give you the phone number anymore. They're going to try and keep it all on platform but you've got their phone number, which is amazing. This is how the conversation is going to go and you want to be as super like friendly as possible, but it's going to be, hey, so it's Matt calling. I hope you're having a great day, hope you're selling in well, let me know if you need anything. By the way, are you here for business or leisure? And they're going to say, oh yeah, business, what are you doing? Like why, why are you in town? And there's so many answers they'll give you, but just keep those open ended. What, why, what when, how questions and what you want to do. A lot of that.

They're linesman.

Linesman, right. So here's what you're going to try and do, number one, try and work out. And this is for everybody, this is not just like specific to you and this is for everybody. What do you want to try and do? Figure out number one, do they make the booking themselves every time they come to the area or is there somebody in the company who makes the booking for them? So for example, it could be an accommodation specialist, it could be a pa, it could be a number of verticals on who that could, could be. Now if it's them directly that are booking this day, just say to them, would it be easier for you if I just invoice your company for this day? Right, let's just pad out for a second. If it's somebody that's making the booking for them, your question back is what's their name? Do you have a name and phone number? I'd love to speak to them. Name and phone number, email address. Okay, you get the name, the phone number and the email address. Let's just go down this scenario. What you're going to do, number one, do a little Google search. So go find their LinkedIn page. Okay, you're going to name phone number, email address, going to find out who they are on LinkedIn, get their name, number, email address. You're going to call them. Now they're either going to give you the, the head office's phone number or they're going to give you their direct number like cell phone number, et cetera. Now if you get given the reception, the head office, you're going to go to a gatekeeper. The best way to get past the gatekeeper is when you've got a name. So it will go, hey, is Excel, let's say, Stacy. Hey, is Stacy there? Oh, she's not in right now. Or can I ask who's calling? Just say, yep, it's Lenora. We've got a couple of your guys staying with us right now. They've mentioned that I should call her directly. We're hosts. We've got several accommodations in Columbus, Ohio. I just wanted to introduce myself because whatever. And they'll pass you through. When you speak to Said Stacey, who is the accommodation specialist for the whole corporation, just say, hey, just let you know I want to introduce myself. I don't know if you realize, but the property that the chaps are staying in right now is actually one of three that I have in the area. Outside of that, I've got a wide range of contacts in Columbus, Ohio. We actually have a lot of accommodation. Is there any reason why you book via Airbnb 9 out of 10 times? I'll just say I just did a search is easiest thing. They say, well, actually, well, here's my direct phone number, here's my direct email. It actually works out more cost effective for you if you book with me directly. Just send. I can send you an invoice and we can work it all out. Number one, they will do that. Simpler, easier for you. You're saving a thousand dollars on commission costs also as well, what you could do, if you really want it to be extra sneaky and cheeky, you could work out maybe a 5% discount or whatever and just say, well, actually, we actually do a 5% discount if you book direct. And all I have to do is send you an invoice and you pay me. It makes life simpler in every single way form and as well, you've got a direct form of contact there. Because then what will happen, Lenora, if you decide to grow more properties in Columbus, Ohio and you get more, you could literally every month, you could just call that person and just go, hey, do you need an accommodation? Should we just renew? Should I just invoice again? And it'll literally be where instead of them going to Airbnb, you're booking with them directly every single time. You just invoice them from your Xero account or your QuickBooks account or whatever. You're using direct bookings every single time. And this is the cool thing, what I want for you to do as well, I'm trying to, not to give you too much, but I want to give you loads of things that you can go away and do.

Listen, I need it. Go ahead.

So what you need to do as well, I Know from what I do, because we do websites, right? We do websites and coaching and all those cool things. I know another host who is in Columbus, Ohio right now. I do a couple. Right, what you need to do is to start to network in and around your local area. Try and get on board more hosts that fit in your business model. Right? And this goes alongside what I was talking about earlier with the guidebooks and trying to reach out to, like, local cool restaurants, bars and stuff. Try and build a local network, a WhatsApp group or a Facebook group, or a chat group of local hosts in your area that can fit around your business. As in, if you're looking for corporate, find other people that have got places ideal for corporate. Because what will happen is you can go to Facebook. Yeah, you can. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you can go to Stacey, who's the accommodation specialist, and, you know, she'll message you and go like, lenora, I need. You know, I've got an extra load of people coming in.

Can you.

Can you home another 10 people instead of you going, ah, sorry, no. And then she has to go to Airbnb. You go, yeah, leave it with me. You go into your WhatsApp group chat, you go into your whatever chat and say, hey, I need 10 accommodation. Who can sort it out? And then what you'll do is you'll be able to take a cut, a little kickback fee, a little workout, a little referral fee with everybody. So, again, you can earn more profit, you can earn more income without having to do more work. You're literally just building relationships and filling it all out. And this is amazing, amazing way to sort of, sort of do that. So, yeah, I'm really excited and I've got homework for you. Lena, are you on Instagram? I am right@booster UK. Send me a message after this so I can clock it. I will check in with you in two weeks and I want you to have called your guests in the next.

Your Instagram is at what?

At Boostly uk. It's literally on my chest. It's right there.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Yeah, B O, O. That's okay. I talk with a weird accent. I talk very fast.

Let me see this real quick. L Y.

There you go. Boostly uk. B O O, S T, L Y. But, yeah, please, everybody, do go and pick up a copy of the book. All my details are in here. After you've done so, you can get it on Kindle, audible print. Less than $20. I guarantee you, you will get bookings off the back of that Darren booking.

So, so quick, fun fact, just for everybody, just to be fun. I had a, I have a corporate guest that we're doing an eight month, like a private lease after he's booked with me three times and he's never showed up. He paid for it and everything. Just five grand three times. He's like, hopefully I see you in June.

I'm like, whatever you want, Lenora. Look at Tammy's chat right there. You've actually got some hosts you can hook up with right now. I have corporate housing in Columbus. Let's talk Tammy. So this is the cool thing about doing this, this is why it's cool being part of these masterminds and groups and, and things like that is this. There's direct bookings literally everywhere. And this is the cool thing, this is something that everybody can do, whether you're in hospitality or about to get into hospitality, whether you're looking to take on property or what. The biggest marketing arsenal, marketing machine in your arsenal right now is sat on your phone. Everybody has got family, friends, contacts, people who know, like, love and trust you. But I guarantee 80% of them don't even know what you do. So all you need to do is pick up your phone, you can do this later, you can do this at the weekend. If you've got spare five or ten minutes, go onto the notes of your phone and type up like a little block message you can copy and paste, but you're going to go and start with four little letters that are going to change everything in your business. Do you know anyone? Do you know anyone, for example, hey, Stacey, do you know, do you know anyone who's coming to Columbus who needs accommodation? Do you know anyone who wants to co host their property? Do you know anyone, xyz? I use it all the time. Do you know anyone who needs a website? Do you know anyone who needs a website? Do you know anyone who needs a bit of help with diet bookings? I send that message all the time and it always. Because people know like trust and love you and then they message somebody because of that social proof, because of that person, it's a friend doing it. And they're more likely to go, oh yeah, okay, I'll go and stay with them or oh yeah, I'll use them and services. The relationships and the partnerships that you can grow in your network will absolutely boost your business. If you try and do this alone, you'll go nowhere. And I've learned that lesson time and time. I utilize it with the granary, with our family business and I utilize it with Boostly and it works. How is that? Does that helps?

Yes, absolutely. As far as the lady who said that's odd. This Guy has over 75 reviews. He's from California. And their company just keeps like prep, you know, pushing back the dates. So. And they don't. He just, he, he builds them. Builds this other company to. For his housing, so it doesn't even matter to him.

This is the amazing thing about corporates. This is an amazing thing about corporates and things like this is that they've got, they need to spend the money. A lot of them need to spend it just for like tax on those reasons, you know, they, they, they can be your best guess. And you know what, if you are solidly booked out for eight months and you're like, oh, I'm solidly booked, go and get another property. You will get another property. Just keep growing, keep growing, keep growing. And this is like it, corporate business bookings. They take care of your Monday to Friday, and then the weekends take care of themselves.

My house is 3, 600 square feet. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Pleasure. I look forward to getting this Instagram message setting you homework for sure. All right, take care.

So Maddie, I think Maddie is next with her hand raised.

Yeah.

Mattie. Hi, Mattie.

Hi.

How are you?

I'm really good. Are you enjoying this?

Yes, very much so. I have a lot of notes.

Good.

I had an Airbnb with a friend. We did rental arbitrage for about two years. We were using a condo, and then we ran into some HOA problems. So, you know, we closed it down. And so I guess I've been reconsidering. That was in Dallas, Texas. I'm in Stone Mountain, Georgia. So I'm considering doing something in the metro area. But what I wanted to ask you about is we. We were working with a company that set us up on like booking.com and some other places in addition to Airbnb. And we ran into a couple of situations where the people that booked did some damage to the, to our. To the condo and took some things. Just a couple of incidents. So my question is about screening your guests. When you're doing direct booking. Are you doing things. Some things differently or considerations? Could you speak to that little bit, please?

Absolutely. And it's another great question, and it tees me up nicely because when I, before I come on these zooms and webinars, I always in my mind think, I got to talk about this and got to talk about that. But when I get going I totally forget. I just go on so many tangents and I love these questions tonight because it brought me back to some important things that I wanted to say. I'm going to give you another website, I'm going to give you a link to check out and this is one of the main, main, main things that always amazes me. And this is where Airbnb have got their marketing spot on. So everybody knows about air cover. They made a big song and dance about it back end of last year Airbnb and it all looks amazing. But guess what? You get the exact same things with third party providers in the world of hospitality. But Airbnb have just got it nailed to a tee how they can talk and promote it. So here's the best one. Well, not the best one, there's loads of them but this is one the top of my mind. Super hog.coms u p e r h o g.com you've got. There's loads like track sorry there's proper insurance as loads as a mother UK, US based and worldwide ones. But super hog.com do the guest screening for you. So again, there's so many tools available that can be built into what you're doing that where it's the exact same things that the Airbnb give you. And plus as well you don't have to go through Airbnb as anybody ever tried putting a complaint or a refund request or somewhat through Airbnb. It's the hardest thing in the world to do because nine out of 10 times they side with the guest. This is why you don't have to build your house on someone else's land. Super Hog.coms u p e h o g.com Go check them out. So there's lots of tools and things available. And the cool thing is now more financial institutions are building out brands and strands in their business for short term rentals. So it's going to be more and more and more easier in the future for guest screening for host and rental. And the cool thing about Super Hog is that they insure you for every guest for up to $1 million. Super Hog sorry. Yeah. Superhog.com thank you Greg. Again, sorry, apologies for my poor.

Would you speak to just a little bit though in terms of, you know, is it, you know, questions to ask the guests? Because we had a couple of guests where, you know, we had even gotten, you know, their driver's license and talked to them personally and we still encountered a few problems. But I think these were the booking.com people so I guess I'm asking in terms of screening, from the point of, you know, do you talk to the guests, do you ask them certain questions just to make sure that they are who they say they are? And I think some of these people were actually local people who were booking. And maybe that's something to be on the lookout for as well.

I mean, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, you could do all the screening in the world, you could ask all the questions. But is anybody that dealt with a con artist, they'll tell you what they want to do and they'll do whatever. There's always running that risk. But that's why you've got insurance, that's why you've got all these things in place. But anything can happen on the property. You can do as much screening as you want, but what you want to make sure is that you've got all of the backup in place just in case anything does go a little bit awry. One thing that I love to do, and I did it, I didn't do it for every guest because bearing in mind we've got 14 rooms and we had free holiday cottages, we had a lot of bookings coming in. But what I would do is I would focus on 20% of the bookings that were bringing in 80% of the revenue. So if I saw a booking come in for two weeks, as soon as it come in, or up to 24 hours after, I'd pick up the phone and I'd call them. I'd pick up the phone and I'd call them because I want to find out why they're coming to stay. There's the story. Write this down as a story behind every booking. It's up to you to try and figure out what it is. So what do I mean by that? And I'll give an example of somebody who told me the story. And anybody who's heard me speak before, you'll have known I've mentioned this story and it is so powerful. And it will literally want you to call up that next guest as soon as the booking comes in. So there's the lady that I know, and she's got properties by a lakeside, and her properties stand out because they are just stunning. On the side of a lake, beautiful part of the world. In the Woodlands, I believe it's in Canada or North America, one of the two. So anyway, there's a booking that comes in and then on the note of the booking confirmation, it said that we are really looking forward to come and stay with you. It's my son's ninth birthday. He wants to learn how to fish. Okay? And the lady saw that note and she did the meet and greet. So she would meet every guest as they came in. Okay? Now she could have just driven from her house to where the property is and did the normal meet and greet, show them where things are and leave. But no, on the way to the property, on the meet and greet, she stopped off at the local fish bait, tackle shop, sports shop, and she bought a fishing rod, a little bucket and some bait. Okay? Cost her about 20 bucks. Nothing much. Drove to the property. When the guests arrive, waiting for them at the, at the foot of the porch was the bucket, a fishing rod and a little note saying, have an amazing birthday from us at the. At the property. Now think about this on a guest experience level. That's an instant 5 star review straight away. Even with anything else, that's a five star review because little Timmy has got a little present on his birthday. This is why they come. Amazing. The offside of it, what happened? Social media posts everywhere say, oh, this is amazing. This is so fantastic. When they got home, told friends, families, co workers, anybody about it. And again, repeat booking. She said to me, I think six, seven years, repeat booking year after year after year after year. Plus all the friends that came year after year after year. So there's a story behind every booking. Why do I tell you that? I guarantee you the next guest that books is a story why they're coming to stay with you. They'll be coming for work. I've already told you how amazing speaking to work guests, commercial guests, property guests are. They could be coming for a wedding. They could be coming to see somebody X, Y and Z. It could be a traveling nurse, a healthcare worker. So what can you do to make that guest experience? Now I'm not saying to spend tons of money. That list was $20 and it took five extra minutes out of that day to go and do that. Doesn't have to cost a lot of money. Just what can you do to figure it out? And if you've got lots of property, congratulations, hire somebody to do this for you. VA or somebody. You know, if you've just got one like Mick amazing, you just got one property to worry about. Give them a call. What can we do to make your life a bit easier? Those sort of things. How can we, how can we make your stay a little bit extra special? Those little things will just get your guest experience through the roof because this industry lives and breathes and Dies on its reviews. And the little things that you can do doesn't. If you did something like that, it doesn't matter if your bed's a little creaky or a bit crappy or if the, whatever, the heating doesn't work for night, whatever. By doing little things like that, they will remember the amazing gesture that you did. More about the crappy WI fi. So again, think about that.

Thank you.

My absolute pleasure. I think I went on a bit of a tangent then. I don't know if I've answered the question or not, but it's getting to about an hour and a half of me talking. I need a beer.

Yeah, thanks. Can you answer the question about bad reviews?

Can I ask. Answer the question about bad reviews. Go on. And Beth, what's the question?

I didn't ask it.

Somebody in the chat asked, how do you handle bad reviews from bad guests? Been there. Ah, well, you know what, the way that I always went about this is that if it's a 1 out of 10, as in for every 10 reviews, one is a crap review. Shake it off. Like Beyonce says, shake it off. If there's 4 out of 10 reviews that are crap and they're talking about the same thing, fix it.

Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift, shake it off. Not Beyonce. Sorry, sorry. So you've got to take it. I mean, this industry is absolutely brutal, right? And reviews by now, after many, many, many, many years in it, I can just shake off any bad review and which is stand me into good stead because obviously with releasing the book, there's going to be amazing reviews and there's going to be some crap ones, but I can just shake it off. But if there's something that a large chunk of people are saying, fix this, fix it, don't ignore it, fix it. And reviews will massively help guide your business. Okay, number one, if I ever got a one star review, I would call them up straight away. I would call them up straight away and just apologize. First and foremost, you've got to be able to apologize. As a small business owner, apologize profusely and just say, find out what the matter was. At the end of the day, they're right in that scathing review for a reason. Okay? Find out what it is. If it's literally something that is not in your control, apologize and move on. You know, if there's something that is because of what you did or whatever, then they want to tell you for a reason. I found that by speaking to a one on one on the phone and having a human conversation at the end of it. If you feel like it was the right thing to do, I would say, listen, I totally understand. Could I ask a massive favor? We will definitely fix this. Could you just please either remove the review or amend it to say that we've spoken or something like that. A lot of the times they'll just remove it because they've already had their grievance or whatever it may be. But by picking up the phone and having a human conversation, you're able to do it. Never reply in email or written text, because the written text can get taken out of context when you speak up, pick up the phone and have a conversation. It's, you know, all those barriers and all that pissed offness and all those things just, just, just go away. I've. I've reversed so many bad reviews by picking up the phone call. I can literally think about them, I know them. I can just relive those conversations in my head. It's not nice, it's not pretty. You literally want to do anything else but pick up the phone. Your gut is wrenching, your heart is beating, but it's how you learn. And as you grow as a business owner, I promise you hope that helps. Beth, whoever answered the question?

All right, yes, thank you, Mark. Thanks for taking the time to stay so long and talk to us. And I believe we have your website in the chat, but I will put it in there again. So if anybody is interested in talking to Mark separately offline, this is his website. You can also find him on Instagram. But, Mark, feel free to just pimp yourself out, too.

Now, I was going to say, if anybody could just do me a massive favor. I haven't got my phone because otherwise I'd take a picture. But if you could just take a picture of the screen of the zoom to show that we showed up tonight, go and upload it onto Instagram and tag in@Boostly UK. That is all I ask. Please do continue the conversation. Instagram is my favorite social media channel. I don't know if you've gathered. I love Instagram. And so what, you want to keep in touch, please do so on there. And yeah, if you could do so, just go pick up this book. It's literally $20 for the print audible. It's like $10. Everything that I've spoken about tonight is in more detail in here. Plus, as well, it's. I've got an online course behind it for absolutely free. So when you buy the book, because everything that I talk about is very hard to maybe take on board. In written form. I've got videos and tutorial videos behind the scenes on how to do all of this. And, you know, it's. It's literally that. Please go pick it up. Please go say hi on Instagram. It's Ostly uk. Take a picture of the screen, upload it. Say hi for everybody that does. For everybody that takes a picture and uploads it to Instagram and tags in Boostly uk. I will send you a special piece of bonus training that I didn't even cover tonight for absolutely free. Just make sure you do it in the next 48 hours. Take a picture at Booster UK. We should all know by now. I've said it so many times. I literally showed my chest for Lana earlier when she was asking. It's easy to do. Take a picture, upload it to instagram @boof UK. Thank you so much for having me. I've had a ton of fun and I really am excited to see what Mick and I'm saying. Lorna. But I know that's not right. What was.

Lenora.

Lenora, I do apologize, Lenora. I'm really looking forward to seeing what you two particularly can get out because I've sent you both some homework right there, and I want you to report back to me. So please do keep in touch. All right? Thank you.

I have a question, everybody. I have every. I have a question for everybody. Is there anything. I'm trying to start a business Airbaby in Orlando. Does anybody have any connection, any lead or anything in Orlando area? If you guys know anybody, you could call Jason. Oh, Jason is in Tampa.

Yeah, I was that the female Airbnb group. I recommend hopping on there and asking because there's tons of women in that area.

Where is that? In Orlando?

It's a Facebook group Aster that you can post your questions in. And there's so many people from Florida and Orlando and all over different areas. I know huge numbers in Kissimmee there.

Oh, okay. Do you. Okay. What do you guys.

Yeah, we can connect with you offline on that, Esther.

Okay.

Okay. Please send to me, please. Thank you.

All right, thanks for your time. Mark. I don't want to hold you up from eating dinner with your family, so thanks for coming on. And if there's anything else we can do for you, please let us know.

Send me a message on Instagram. That's perfect. Thank you so much for having me. I've loved it and I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with so many people. But go have an amazing weekend and if you ever want me to come back again in the future, just reach out and ask, and I can make it happen.

Definitely. Thank you. Have a great day, everyone, and thanks for joining.

Having a blast Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee? Cause it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf Making up those rhymes don't write it, just do it loosely.