Attracting Different Niches for Mid-Term Rentals

All right, so Chris, first and foremost, can you just please give us the big intro where you are in the world, that lovely company that's behind you. And, and we'll. And we'll dig in with this today's interview.

Hey. So I'm Chris from Design Living. We're a Cardiff based medium term stay service department provider. We are pet friendly, as you can see. That side, there we go. So we cater mainly to like, the film industries, relocation, anyone with a pet in between homes, things like that. I'm currently running my business from out in Sweden in the mountains. And that's it for me.

Brilliant and award winning, don't forget. Award winning. Yeah, award winning as well. So what I wanted to do, the reason why I wanted to get you on, is to chat about the different type of niches when it comes to medium term rentals or business guests. Because everybody assumes when you think business, that it is contractors, you know, builders, tradies, etc, but it can delve a lot more deeper than that. And so you've obviously built up a portfolio based, you know, like I said, working remotely, which is fantastic. But we don't want to talk about that. We want to talk about the how to attract and how to appeal to these different types of companies. Because if, if anybody in here who is watching this and is trying to get in front of medium term guests, which is like, you know, staying for more than just a few days, it can actually turn into big contracts. You need to have a different way of thinking when it comes to this. You can't just, you know, sit and wait for the booking to come in. On Airbnb or booking.com, you do have to be proactive. So what I wanted to dig into is the proactive ways that you're going about and finding these companies. So first and foremost, let's just dial back. Can you just list off in your experience with who you've worked with, the different types of categories and niches when it comes to the medium term guest and what companies there are related to.

So there's obviously the contractor market, but along with that you've got relocation, so you've got families coming from abroad on contracts to like universities, stuff like that. You have the healthcare professionals, you have the film industry. There's also like law firms sending people to different cities for trials and things like that. They last up to two, three months sometimes, so they're good to reach out to. And we also do little bits with estate agents and referrals there.

So this is good. So we've got relocation, healthcare, film companies, law firms, estate agents, universities. So that the first sort of stage of this would be when you were going ahead and building this list. How did you go about it? What were you doing? How were you reaching out to these people and how did you find their details?

First and foremost, it's quite basic really. You just think of the industry. So say you get a guest for Airbnb who's come from a healthcare healthcare company or they booked through Airbnb through you. What we tend to do is we tend to just find that company's details straight away. We search them online, then you get the top 20 competitors in the space and then we just reach out, reach out to them by phone, by email, try and build a relationship and go from there.

When you're speaking to them and when you're reaching out to them, what is the general gist of the conversation? Are you going in and trying to sell them straight away? Are you taking a different approach? How are you reaching out to these companies?

Originally called I. I'm not a very good direct salesperson, so I just play to my strengths. I like, I just get on the phone, I'll have a chat with them, see what contracts they've got going on, not directly sell, but make sure they do know who we are and that we're available. And then I get one of the team now to reach out afterward to then go a bit more direct, as they're a bit better at that than I am. So it's more, it's more about building the relationship because you want them to use you repeatedly over the coming years rather than just sell the room once and then move on to somebody else. You want to know the long term.

Thing, I think that's a big one. So obviously you're not comfortable at selling direct sales like you said, but what you did is you reached out and you hired somebody that could do that on your behalf. Like, you like having conversations with people and building a relationship with people, that's great. Then followed up from that, you have somebody that's calling and actually doing the selling. Now the next question is you have that initial contract, you have an initial consultation, that initial chat, you leave your details, you show them the portfolio, you tell them who your niche is, etc. Which is great. What is the general lead time from you hanging up the phone to the next person, getting in touch? And then the second part to that question is how many touch points and how many times are you, are they reaching out to them over the course of, say, Six months to a year.

We, we depending on the industry, we reach out regularly. So like the film industry, reach out once a week, just a sort of a newsletter, email sort of thing. Or we ring the people booking just to chat. Hello, how's it going? Do you need anything? But I would say over, over a six month period, the average is probably once every two weeks. That can be like a generic email you send to all of the industries of what you've got available. Something a bit more personalized. But it is, it is about the relationship rather than the sale because once you build the relationship, the sales comes afterwards. We have quite a few companies that just ring us directly when they're staying in Cardiff now, so they don't, they don't bother going anywhere else and that's, that's where you want to be.

This is something that I've noticed speaking to other people in America. In America, the troubling healthcare professional is much more common than what it is in the uk, so to speak. But are you now finding it that the traveling healthcare market in the UK is starting to pick up, particularly in areas like Cardiff and what.

We've always had a trickle of it, but yeah, recently since, well, it's, since we've made the better relationship with the industry, it's, it started to benefit us more. I think it's always been there. We just haven't been top of their mind to be able to monetize it, basically. Wow.

And when it comes to building relationships, apart from sending cakes, what else are you doing in that retrospect to be in that top of mind? Because you're not the only accommodation provider in Cardiff that is potentially in their Rolodex. What are you trying to do that stands you out from the rest that they do go? Let's get in touch.

We take monthly payments as well. So rather than them paying say 18 grand for a six month contract up front because they don't know if they're going to last the 18 months, the six months or they're going to last nine months or three. So we let them pay a month ahead every month to stay with us. That gives them a bit of flexibility. Their budgets are easier for them to maintain. They're not paying out and trying to get money back afterwards. We're very easy to book with as well. So if they ask, we have something available nearly all the time. We try, we try to schedule our calendars to look for the long stays. So we don't allow a two night booking, say a month in advance. We just don't allow it.

Relocation, healthcare, film companies, law firms, estate agents. How are you collecting this list on Google? Are you doing it yourself or are you outsourcing and a member of your team is creating this sort of database for you?

It depends. In the past I've outsourced out of the company, usually, usually to the Philippines or Bangladesh or somewhere like that. And they've just gone and scraped contacts, email addresses and then we've cold reached out from there. I tend to reach out through LinkedIn because it's my face. So if we're doing any LinkedIn outreach, I tend to do it at the moment. But other, other than that. Yeah, it's, it's mainly outsourced. We build the lists, we email. Yeah, go from there.

And what other tools that you've got in place to implement this? If you've got a CRM.

Yeah, we use Zendesk. So all of our calls, Facebook, WhatsApp, all sorts, emails, everything comes into one place.

And Zendex is Z, E N D E S K. Go check that out. And what, what, what, what are the other tech stack that you have behind the scenes? What's powering the the business?

We use ClickUp, so and Avantio, the pms. So we link the two together. ClickUp's more of our operational data days and Avantio is our booking booking engine and OTA dispersion.

Brilliant. Anything else that's behind the scenes or have we got those main three?

I. Yeah, I try and limit my tech stack, otherwise I go down rabbit holes and never come out. So those, those are the main ones we use Avantio, ClickUp and Zendesk, they're the three.

Appreciate your time. Now there's going to be a lot of people watching this who are maybe at Property three, Property five who want to scale and grow, but want to do it in a way where they're not totally stuck in the business and they want to do it in a way that will mean that they're not always trying to find the time to do so. We're not going to be too busy. You obviously achieve this, you do it remotely and it's been amazing to see from behind the scenes. And what's more exciting now is you have got your own mentorship program starting up. Can you just give us a little breakdown of what that is going to be and if anybody wants to find out more, where's the best place to get in touch to ask you about it?

Okay, so it's going to be one to one mentorship with me. There'll be one call and one hour call a week where I'll deep dive into any of the problems you may be having. Any of the bottlenecks help you get clarity on where you want to go. With that, you'll also get access to all of like my systems, all of like the templates we use, ideas on where to reach out all of our contacts. If you're needing a va, we can find a VA for you and stuff like that. And this will be spread out over six to eight months, originally paying monthly because if you don't like it, I'll give you your money back. No problems there and we'll work through it building you and your business to get you where you want to go over the six to eight month period. Best place to reach out to me is there. Chris design.co.uk drop me an email just saying mentorship and I'll give you a call and design.

For those who are listening and not watching the video, it's D Y Z Y N D y z y n.co.uk make sure you go check it out. And obviously there's LinkedIn as well. How do I find you on LinkedIn? Chris Ballard Design there's not many Chris Ballard designs out there so you'll be able to find them easy enough. Epic. Appreciate that. Appreciate this and yeah, congratulations and looking forward to checking in later on. Thank you. Having a blast Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee cuz it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf Making up those rhymes don't write it, just do it loosely.