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 we'll dig in with this today's.

Interview so i'm chris from design living we're a carniff based medium term service apartment 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 want 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 builders tradies etcetera but it can delve a lot more deeper than that and so you've obviously built up a portfolio based you know i say 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 dot 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 estate agents always get inquiries for stays under six months they can't house them so we do a lot of work with local estate agents filling that gap before before the people get to airbnb and stuff 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 research them online then you get the top twenty 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 so have you.

Got any examples because it's this is really good for people listening it's now we can say well you could do this but if there's any examples you can walk us through that'd be awesome and what were you sort of typing in to find their competitors okay so.

I'Ll go with film companies because i do this quite a lot so there's a company called bad wolf studios in cardiff bay so what we did there is we reached out to like groups through linkedin originally researched bad wolf cardiff and then we found all of their production coordinators because they're the people that book the rooms then we reached out to them through there we rang their office we emailed we sent some cakes lots of little bits just to make sure they knew what we did and there was more than one point of contact as they change them quite regularly once we'd done that with them we found other companies in the area so the location they tend to all be in a similar sort of location and we googled them asked the people we'd spoke to if they had any other companies they'd worked for and just gradually slowly but surely built up a list of names in the area and began to reach out to them as well through linkedin through email through calls through.

Cakes everybody so cakes is a big one that's lumpy mail we talk about this a lot so you know 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 or are you taking a different approach how are you reaching out to these companies originally cold i'm not.

A very good direct salesperson so i'm i just play to my strengths i like i just get on 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 afterwards to then go a bit more direct as they're better at that than i am it's more about building a 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.

Build a 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 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 et cetera 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 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 bring the people book in just a chat hello how's it going do you need anything but i would say 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 so the.

Next question is your niche is obviously pet friendly accommodation furnished accommodation how much do you attribute your success to sort of diving down on that niche compared to say somebody who is just going for the anybody i would you say that that is a tribute to like people pay more attention to you i e film studios or could this be something that you know anybody can do it doesn't matter if they haven't doubled down on any ship i would say.

Relocation it helps a lot being pet friendly because it's very hard to find pet friendly accommodation full stop let alone pet friendly accommodation for three four months so we get a lot of people who are in between homes moving countries with their pets having work done on the house and they'll come stay with us to three four five six sometimes eighteen months things go wrong in there wrong on their refurb but that's that's the sort of win you can get from niching down you'll get the right customers for you for longer periods so.

Relocation then how do you get in contact and how do you find people who are on the relocation let's just say before you answer that question that we've got five properties in say york we can definitely do pet friendly style but we want to get in touch with people that are in middle of a like a relocation or a move how are you going about building up those relationships and how are you finding those leads so a lot of this.

Is seo google placement and also there's rightmove and or gumtree so you can list on those through open rent you can pay to be listed on rightmove as serviced accommodation for medium term stays when you do this you appear as short term stays in rightmove and that's what a lot of people come in from abroad you use to utilize used to find their medium term stays in the uk they don't they don't know where else look so they just they search right move and comes up comes.

Up on top so when you've been speaking to whoever you're building relationships with you obviously specialized and sort of again niche down to one to two bedrooms that's like your your your wheelhouse in this retrospect when you're you're speaking to people and let's just say the properties that we have sleeps five free beds with one one bathroom what would you say then that would open the door potentially to is that like a contractor world or is this still families would you say like relocation would be the vibe like what sort of route would you recommend somebody with that sort of thing going on we've got four or.

Five three beds now in the cardiff area and they all work really well for families on relocation so the relocation market again we get bits from the estate agents and like referrals from them when there's a family in between homes they tend to come to us i would also say the longest contract we've got is actually with healthcare professionals so they've all got similar to contractors they've all got their own bedroom they all want their own separate space but they're down on a contract in the in the heath hospital in cardiff for nine months or so so they booked for the nine month in that upfront and they pay two months in advance how.

Did you get those contracts was that you being proactive or did somebody book with you on one of the platforms and then you built a relationship yeah.

So originally care joined the company booked with us through airbnb but since then we've had four to six new bookings from them all six months plus they originally booked just the one month to test this out i think but then the team reached out we made made the relationship and now when they're going.

To for cardiff what are they predominantly looking for like healthcare is that the free beds did you say or are they looking for the one yeah they're they're looking to travel because it's this is something that i've noticed speaking to other people in america in america the traveling 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 you know areas like cardiff and whatnot 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 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 their rolodex what are you trying to do that's not stand 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 eighteen grand for a six month contract upfront because they don't know if they're going to last the eighteen months at 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 to schedule our calendars to look for the long stays so we don't we don't allow a two a two night booking say a month in advance we just don't allow it so we found that companies know they need the accommodation about seven days before usually they're not very well organized so they'll ring you on that week and we try and make sure we have availability for them to come to us and the more availability we have more often the more they come.

From us it makes sense from like a purely by yeah it's a it's a purely buy in point of view from a from like the buyer's perspective you know money loves speed and it hates friction so if yeah you know if they keep coming back to you and say hey chris what you got and you go sorry nothing then slowly over time they're going to be like they've never got anything there's no point i'm just going to go elsewhere you see what i mean it's like macdonald's and the milkshakes then the milkshake machine's never working so by the time you know someone wants a milkshake they're not going to go to mackie's so yeah having inventory being clever with your calendar being proactive in the reach out and catering your prop or catering your business around what you've got and then discovering what your niche is and then you know tried and tested and experiment over.

Time yeah definitely it's not a quick fix there's no to build the relationship it takes time so you just got to keep plugging away you'll speak to some people that won't like you and it is what it is you just move on basically yeah that is a.

Part of sales obviously you know there's loads and loads and loads of people out there there's loads of potential contracts that you could get you're not going to get a home run every single time and you know you are going to have to eat glass in that retrospect you're going to have to you know call a few people just establish some relationships some you'll have a perfect relationship with some not so much obviously you've you've really doubled down on this got the contracts and the properties have just grown on on the back of.

It so well done yeah we tried trying to get the contracts first and the property second yeah yeah because this.

Will be the last sort of question i wanted to ask and this is something that will definitely pop up say you've got four properties right you've got four properties in cardiff you call somebody you've got that great relationship with and they contact you and say hey we need ten properties what is normally your your answer to that and what advice could you could could you pass on to on on to somebody we would.

Try and help them find the accommodation because the relationship even though we're not getting the money right now of all ten properties would be worth more in the long term so by helping them find the accommodation like like you'll learn to know other operators in your area so you'll know the good ones and the bad ones who have what sorts of properties who you can refer to so yeah we we refer to other companies in the area to make sure that our contact is able to ring us and get what they need we might not be able to provide it but we still give it to them.

As we can absolutely that's the exact answer i would give out i would always say and we'd always used to do this it was like give me thirty minutes and i'll call you back and then in that thirty minutes you know you've got whatsapp groups you've got your facebook groups you've got you know your your little black book of people that have got similar accommodation to you but you know you can get access to their calendar and see it and then call them back and just go yeah we can and that's the that's the main thing instead of saying no you then keep that yes going and you help them as best as possible and if you can sort out a little kickback with the people that you're putting properties in then even better yeah.

You can usually do that but it's not it's not the overall goal no.

Absolutely not absolutely not brilliant right so 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 is is creating this sort of database for you it.

Depends like i in the past i've outsourced out of the company usually to the philippines or bangladesh or somewhere like that and they've just gone and scraped contacts email addresses and then we've called 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 than that yeah it's mainly outsourced we build the lists we email and 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 are the other tech stack that you have behind the scenes what's powering the business we use clickup.

So and avantio the pms so we link the two together clickup more of our operational database 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 yeah.

I try and limit my tech stack otherwise i go down rabbit holes and never come out those are the main ones click up and then that's the.

Other thing appreciate your time now there's going to be a lot of people watching this who are maybe at property free 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 well 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 chrisdesign dot co dot uk comma drop me an email just saying mentorship and.

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 dash z y n dot co dot 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.