Alternative options for your software stack

Hi everybody. Welcome to the new episode of the Boostly Podcast. This is the podcast that gives you the tools, the tactics, the trainings, most importantly the confidence so you can go out there and get more direct bookings. Today we're on the mini series where we shine the Boostly spotlight onto interesting businesses and people who can really help you with your hospitality journey. And today we've got a very special guest. We've got Joe Sayat. Is that correct if I pronounce that correct, Joe?

That's correct, yes.

He is the MD of Rental Ready and we're going to be talking about really the end to end structures of how you can structure your business and also a slightly different point of view to what you normally get. So this is really going to be interesting for you. It's really going to help you tune in for the next 20 minutes and really enjoy this. So Joe, welcome along. Thank you for joining me.

Oh, thank you, Liam. Very pleased to be on the show. A long time listener, you know, first time guest.

I'm excited to do this. So for the people who haven't heard of Rental Ready, can you give yourself a sort of the elevator pitch? Can you introduce us all to it?

Sure. The Rental Ready PMS property management system was born out of Guest Ready. Guest Ready is, has grown phenomenally and maybe we'll get into that story later to become the number one STR property manager urban in, in Europe in eight different countries and you know, serving more than 4,000 properties in, in those, those countries. But very early on they discovered that the tools that were available to them in the marketplace didn't really scale the way that they, they needed to, to serve thousands of properties. So they decided to build their, build their own. So this was built first of all in house to handle Guest Ready's needs. And then about four years ago we decided to offer this as a SaaS platform to other professional property managers and that's where we are today.

Nice, nice. You mentioned there was some history of, of it. Can you take us into the history of the business?

Yeah, the history of the business is just that, I mean it's one of the amazing, you know, success stories, entrepreneurial within Europe. As you may know, Europe is already like the number one tourist destination in the world and each market is quite different. But Guest Ready decided to go full force and open up in more than a dozen countries almost simultaneously with all of their sets of compliance issues, market issues and such. So really taking the bull by the horns to go and deal with all of these issues in the different markets. And what they discovered is that the, you really need to adapt what your operational systems are to each market and you need to have very efficient systems internally in order to, to manage all of these, you know, countries and the properties in the different countries. So they had kind of like outgrown some of the systems that they had been using that were, you know, systems that are available. I mean, the industry is not young. Some of the PMS have been out there for 20 years now. So some of the technologies can get a little bit, you know, sort of long in the tooth. And so Guest Ready said, it's just not doing it for us. We're going to not try to piece together the different solutions that are out there. We're going to build ourselves. It started out through an acquisition with a company called BNB Lord in Paris, which is a very successful property manager that had a system that they were, you know, starting to develop. But it really accelerated at that point to, to manage, you know, all the different properties that they had and the listings and such and really build it out with all the different elements that you need operationally to, to run a property management business for, for short term rental. So today, Guest Ready, I mean, every time I say this, people don't believe me. Guest Ready only uses rental ready. They don't use any other systems internally operationally to manage the properties. Now I can get more into that, but that should give you some kind of an idea of how robust a system rent already could be to handle all of the needs of, you know, the number one SDR urban property manager in Europe.

And who would be the ideal kind of host? If somebody's listening to this and thinking, you know, I need some systems in place, who would be the perfect kind of host? Who, who is your service speaking to most?

We're speaking more to sort of professional property managers, so multi owner hosts or property managers that might have, you know, more properties and probably a more complex system that they have to deal with. So our sweet spot is between about 20 properties under management to about, let's say 70 or 100 properties under management at that point. And many property managers tell this to me. I was just speaking to one in Paris or Lyon that was saying this order to get to profitability, either you got to be just like really, really, really efficient for all of, all of your operations or you need to get to about, you know, 50 properties in order to, to, to do that. But in order to scale, you need to, you know, have the right tools in place in order to, to do that, so that's about where, where we sit in terms of, you know, the, the sort of the sweet spot. People who have, maybe have a direct connection with Airbnb and booking or people who have tried sort of, you know, these lower feature tools and they want to move up to something sort of enterprise level. And so that can go all the way up to 300, 400 properties. That's, that's where we have some of our clients. But it can, it can range from, you know, 20 up, up until that, that range.

There's so many different kind of PMSs and pieces of tech out there and often you see in the Facebook groups and Boostly has got the hospitality community, which is a free Facebook group, where we see a lot of questions and often the question is, you know, what is the best pms? What should I go for? And my answer is always, well, it depends on you, your business, the size, what you're looking to achieve and all of that stuff. What would you say is the things that make Rental Ready really special? What is it that without giving away the secret sauce, what is it that really Rent Ready has done so much better than the competition?

Well, you know, I think that remains to be seen. If we're better than the competition, that's really for the, for the market to decide. But we're really proud that, that we consider ourselves to be a true end to end a true all in one pms. Meaning that all the essential elements, we like to say all the essential elements are under one roof when, when you're at Rental Ready. So this includes not just the channel manager, not just, you know, a pricing algorithm, unified inbox, task allocator, unified messaging. I mean all, all the, the things that you would consider to be sort of like basics you cannot live without. You have to have these things in order to run your business. That's where we consider that we should as a pms deliver that to our customers. And so that, that is within our system. Now we probably wouldn't win a contest is like best of breed for all of these. You can get probably a better unified messaging system from, from Dove. You can probably get like a best, better, you know, guest experience thing from, from Iago, who's a, who's a, who's a partner of ours. You can get better pricing from, from Price Labs or, or be or Beyond. But if you need the basics, if you need everything and everything really, really there to start off with, you know, Rental Ready would be a great place to, to start to look.

That's a fantastic answer. And we mentioned just before we went live that these days, especially if you're a host listening to this and you're thinking, well, what softwares do I need? You know, do I need everything? Because there's so many softwares out there, you could, like we just mentioned, there's, you could have the best in class of each, but you end up with lots of different softwares, lots of different logins. What's your thoughts and advice for hosts listening around? You know, the, the software stack that they could have. What would you say is the, the path the industry tends to recommend versus what, what your views are on it?

Well, I might get a bit controversial here at this point, but I liken, you know, the sort of tech solutions world today with kind of like a, the, the Wild west or like, you know, how you might buy a car more than 100 years ago. So a very good consultant called AJL Atelier put together a list of 420 tech tools that are out there in, in, in the marketplace. And if I'm a property manager, I look at that and I'm, I'm just very, you know, frightened and, and disillusioned by, by the, by the whole thing. Isn't there somebody out there who's like a, like a hospitality business like me who's going to weed through all of this and see just what, what I need? I've worked for, you know, many, you know, SAS platforms in, in many different industries before. And when I was working in ad tech, you know, advertising and technology, there was a very common term which is called the tech tax. So the tech tax means, you know, that in order to be in, in this industry, you need to give so much money to Google, to Facebook, to, to all these, these other tech tech companies just to have table stakes in order to, to, to play in this game. And I, I don't believe that. To go back to the car analogy, imagine, you know, you go into your dealer and you say, I'd like a car place. And they say, sure. And what they bring out is a motor. And you say, I, I can't get anywhere with this, this guy's got no wheels. Oh, we're integrated with a, with a company that makes tires. Oh yeah, yeah, but, but where am I going to sit? Oh, we, we have this great integrator company that, that makes the, the seats and the interiors. And we've got another company, a different company that works on, on, on the chassis and, and stuff like that. Personally, I think that's madness. You know, you should be able to Get a car from a company now if you want to. If you don't like Firestone, you prefer Michelin, get that. If you want a better car stereo system, get it another company. But you should be able to code to one company and drive off with a solution which could be improved certainly. But, but that solution works and if it's good enough for, you know, the number one short term rental manager in Europe, it might be as is good enough for you.

If you're struggling on how to get direct bookings and overwhelmed on where to start, then I recommend you go and book in a call with Boostly and our team right now. We can walk you through exactly what we're offering, how we can help you and give you a portfolio of websites that we have worked with that are matching not only your niche but could be in your location as well. Boostly has helped over 2,000 thousand hospitality businesses all over the world increase their diet bookings. And if you are interested then all you need to do is go to boostly. B O-O-S-T-L y.co.uk forward/call&book in an appointment with one of our sales team.

I really like that. That's a brilliant analogy and you're absolutely right. It is a bit like the, you know, you've got all these different parts. What you really need is the, the model as it comes with the wheels, the seats and everything. And then if you choose to upgrade it, you can upgrade it, but it's got everything to start. So what a great analogy that is. This really, you mentioned that the kind of tech tax. Is there any general advice over? Because there'll be hosts. You know, if you're listening to this and you're thinking, do I spend too much on tech? How do you know what's the steer, you know, like what is the trick to knowing what is too much, what is too many softwares, you know, like because this software is for me as a host, which I look at and I go, that would be useful and it might just serve one little purpose but it would be really useful. So what's your thoughts and opinion on it?

Well, I've seen hosts and this is, this is why it's so amazing and why there's room for everybody. Why there's room for everybody in the industry. You have some people that are just totally focused on guest experience. They think this is, this is my path to success. You have others that are all focused on the pricing. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to have the Best pricing that's going to attract people and and, and that's going to to be my be all end all others want to focus on something unique or you know, upsells or or add ons or or, or things like that to to really make that special. It's it's tricky to do all of those, all of those things. So I, I think it's not, it's not a bad path to go on to choose one of those areas and and, and, and focus on those areas that area and really leverage that. What I think would be, you know, disastrous from a financial point of view and from a profit point of view would be to to try to do it all and to you know, pay the the other companies in order to to do that. Just. I was working at a, a real estate agency in in Paris that was spending 25€000amonth on AdWords to get 50€000 per month in commissions from, from their sales. So spending 50% of of your your revenue on, you know, technology or solutions or to, to other people. I think that's, that's, that's way too too much. I would put the bar at about 10%. You know, if if you're spending more than 10% of of your revenues on on other, you know, technologies which then help you do your business well, then I would negotiate better. I would try to, you know, find more sort of all in one tools or I would choose like a, like a different path. You know, one path. I'm not sure if we've talked about this yet, but you know, it would be possible even to just have a direct booking website and have people come directly to you. That avoids having to use a channel manager, having to use all these other systems that, that you might use in order to operate your business. That, that could be a path to go by. So I think taking a contrarian view and being disciplined with yourself about, you know, the way that you go about it could be the road to riches for property managers.

100% agree. I mean the fact is that every business is different and everybody. You can make your path your own path. And you just mentioned that I think of somebody who's got a really lovely kind of log cabin up in the north of England and they've just got a direct book and website, a stripe link and that's all they, you know, very basic. But the business is successful for their needs. You know, it's a lifestyle sort of business and that's, that's exactly what they need. They don't need all the other tools, tech and things like that. But it just depends, doesn't it? It really does depend. So what I'd like to do is go in a slightly different direction now, which is what are you excited about in hospitality at the moment? Is anything. It can be tech related, it can just be general business, can be trends. But what are you excited about in hospitality?

I really like the professionalization of the industry. I read a stat from Skift that said that 15% of short term rentals are professionally managed nowadays. That's higher than it has been. It sounds really small, but if you look at sort of other asset classes for like long term rentals, for example, about, you know, 30% of those might be professionally managed. So there's still room for the, for the industry to grow. And I think also people are really comparing when you could go to an Airbnb or you could go to a hotel, what are you going to get in terms of your money and the guest experience and such like that. So it's not just, you know, you're competing with the, you know, short term rental properties in your area, you're competing with hotels, you may be competing with camping sites, you may be competing with other ways that people could spend their vacation. And the bar has been set higher. And that's a really good thing. We should all embrace that because there are so many sort of fly by nighters who are dipping in and they're ruining our adrs or they are ruining the reputation of this industry. And when we choose to provide a really superior experience, superior properties, superior amenities, we're doing a service not only to ourselves, but the whole industry and the whole industry could rise with this professionalization. So I see it everywhere where people are becoming smarter about the way that they manage their properties, are really going the extra mile to try to satisfy their guests and provide something which they just can't get elsewhere. And that's fantastic.

You know, you've got me thinking about when I go and book somewhere, I'm always a little bit wary, even now, especially for short term rental of those fly by night hosts you've just mentioned, you know, somebody who's just started doing it, it's not professional, it's not going to be a good experience. And actually that professionalization is going to be so important to help all of our professional businesses, especially because it gives confidence to the, the person who's actually booking that they're going to get good experience. I mean, there's very few times where you book a hotel, a known brand of hotel that you wouldn't expect to have a good experience because you're relying on that. The strength of the brand and the trust within that. And seeing professional short term rental companies grow and actually become, you know, known brands and people trust to book with them is fantastic. And as there's more regulation, which I know a lot of us as hosts are worried about, that same regulation can help put barriers for these fly by night posts who ruin it for everyone. So I think, yeah, I think that's a great point.

Quick break from the podcast to let you know that the two boostly books that we brought out, the book Direct Playbook and the book Direct Blueprint are two of the top rated and the best selling in the hospitality category on Amazon. For just two pounds you can grab both of those books. Right now the foundations and the structures that you need to put in place is in the blueprint. And then for 101 marketing tactics, that is in the playbook. So go and grab a copy on Amazon now just type in Book Direct Playbook or the book Direct Blueprint and we'll see you on the other side.

What top tips can you give to hosts in general? So we're just talking generally in hospitality. What things do you see that can help the person who's listening to this podcast run their hospitality business better?

This may run counter to what I said before about, you know, sort of getting a whole bunch of different technologies involved, but hopefully not because I, I don't think you can do it alone. Nobody can be an expert in all the different areas that, that you need to do well in order to run a professionally, you know, a professional level property or property management company. So find out who's on your team. You know, find those people on, on your team and they could be, you know, on your team from outside of your organization or, you know, you, you may need to, you know, hire to have people within your organization. There's, there's such a, a range that I see out there that you can, you know, solve a problem in a number of different ways, but at the end of the day, it's going to be a person who's going to be the most likely one to, to solve that, that problem and, and build out the way that, that you want to, to build out. So try to hire people who are better than you or try to work, try to work with people who are better than you in one area or another will enrich your entire operation.

And I know as a host that's one of the things which I tend to think to hire people who are trained. And the trouble is that if you're hiring people who aren't better than you and you're having to train them, that's actually giving you another job to do for a little while. Whereas if you're hiring people who are coming from another company who were fantastic there, they should be able to take the role and actually teach you you something. You know, I mean, it's amazing. And this a. It's a really weird mindset shift that is. Yeah. So as we reach towards the end of these, obviously we want to be able to share your details. People are going to be interested to get in touch. And I've got to be honest, this has been one of the most interesting and you know, fantastic spotlight series that we've done because it's just nice to hear different points of view and you know, just very honest conversation, which is what this is all about. Before we do share those details, I just want to ask a couple of fun questions. So out of all the celebrities in the world, who would you invite to dinner and why? If we just give two, two celebrities or two, it can be historic characters, doesn't have to be celebrities, can be anybody you like. But who would you invite to dinner and why?

I, I like Mike Horn a lot. Maybe people are maybe less familiar with him than, than with Bear Grylls, but it's in the same sort of realm of adventurous that sort of, you know, go off in the wilderness, you know, go the length of the, the Amazon river by themselves, you know, climb some of the, the top peaks in the world and just teach themselves how to, to do that. I'm really, really impressed with what he's been able to do as well as, I mean, starting out from South Africa, he taught himself French, Landing in Switzerland and such. So he's, he's just a, just a wonderful guy that I love his story. So I'm sure, you know, we could go long into the night with conversation with, with him. Gosh, I'd be at a, at a loss almost to think about another one, but. Well, maybe continue on the, the sort of adventure mindset. I'm originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and Jack London is an author that I really appreciate, you know, his, his adventure novels and, and such, but also talking about sort of the, the human condition and talking about, you know, how do you, how do you deal in, in this world today? You know, there's so many different ways of going in life and so many different, you know, things that paths to, to success. Or or to just surviving. And so I've enjoyed reading, reading his books, but he seemed to be somebody who sort of lived them as well. So I would have loved to, to have a chance to chat with him.

That's amazing. Yeah, I know Mike Horn. I don't know Jack London, but I will go and check him out after this and I'm sure others will as well. So thank you so much for today. So how can we. I'm going to throw the mic open, Joe. How can we get in touch with Rent already or come and follow the journey or yourself?

Sure, sure. Well, I'm, I'm very pleased that this podcast sort of coincides with a rebranding that we've had sort of our coming of age, you know, because RentalReady is not the most well known property management system out there. So we've got a new brand identity and a new website that we've dropped the, the IO for, for a.com website. So you can reach us@rentalready.com.

Nice. And is there anything else we've missed along the way or any other, anything else that we've not talked about or anything else you'd like to discuss?

Maybe one thing because there's, it's maybe a little bit less nowadays because there was a huge spike in interest all about AI in over the summertime and many sort of announcements that were made by this. But at Rent already, we're very, very pleased to talk about our artificial intelligence solutions that are sort of built in to the platform. When a guest writes to you and you're wondering how do you respond to this? You can generate a response that you may like or not and you can also sort of improve your response. With AI, you can also interpret what a reviewer said. Is this a positive review or negative review or something that you might want to respond to and use AI to sort of pull. This is what we would like to respond when somebody talks about this area or another area. So these things are built into.

The.

Platform at Rent already so you don't have to go elsewhere to look for them. And we're going to be adding more and more of these sort of elements to arm the, the property managers that we work with to really, you know, get along with, with, with their business. Because when you're handling massive volumes of messages, massive volumes of, you know, inquiries, it can be quite daunting. So these things can maybe make it so that you don't necessarily have to, you know, come up with, with all the, the answers yourselves. You can utilize a technology to, you know, hopefully make you faster.

Such a neat feature. And so much time is saved as a host with those, those features. And of course, there's lots of tech out there. I mean, going along the same theme of what we're talking about, where you can buy and plug in things to, to do that, but if it's built into the platform, well, that's, that's the way forward, isn't it? So, yeah, I'm really excited to, you know, see, see what comes from Rent already and, and you know, people listening to this. Go and find out more about them. The links are going to be around this. So however you're consuming this podcast or the YouTube video, the link will be in the show notes, which is cool. So that leaves us with our last question then, Joe, which is, do you have a mantra or motto that you really live by, one that really resonates with you?

Well, one that, you know, has led me down great paths but also got me in trouble is, is just say yes. So what, what does that mean when somebody, you know, offers you a job or, or says, hey, would you like, like to do this either in your professional career or maybe in your personal. Just say yes. See what the, where that leads. You may be very surprised. I had somebody that, that I had a chance to meet, but I had, I had nothing to do with them at, at the time and I had the opportunity to meet them. I just said, okay, yes, I would met them, meet them. You know, five years later, that person offered me a job at a different company that they, they worked at. So creating connections that don't lead you immediately somewhere can eventually lead you somewhere very, very cool. Also, you may have a job or a role in a company that you don't like, or perhaps you're, you know, doing something that you're not necessarily all that, all that fond of, and you have to go outside your comfort zone to use a certain skill. Well, once that skill is acquired, you can use that anywhere you want. So you can take that into the next company that you like a lot better or your own entrepreneurial journey. And then that can be something which reinforces some of the skill, skill set that you've, you've already built up. So by saying yes and doing new things, you're going to be really making yourself better for the next thing, which is probably the thing that you want to do more.

And I completely agree. Again, there is, I mean, I'm going to share something which was when I was about 19, 18, 19, I used to work in a bar and they said, do you want to host the karaoke? Do you want to be the karaoke compare? And I was just like, well, you know, yeah, go on then. And the skills, which I learned from standing in front of people talking and doing that I use today, obviously, as for what I do. So it's so important to say yes and pick up skills along the way. It's ultimately that's what life's about, picking up experience and knowledge and skills, isn't it? So thank you so much, Joe. This has been really, really enjoyable. Thank you too for listening to this on the Boostly podcast. If you've got value from this episode, please do share it with somebody else that you find may get value from it. Also, if you do want to find out more about direct bookings, feel free to search for Mark Simpson's book on Amazon, which is called the Book Direct Playbook. If you put that into Google, it will pop straight up and that'll show you how to get more direct bookings as well as a free video course as well. This has been really fun, Joe. Thanks again and we'll see you all on the next episode.