Behind The Host With Jodie Stirling

Okay, so welcome today to another podcast with the amazing Jody Sterling, who has got Sterling Stays, which based here in the uk. Jody, I'm so excited to have on because we're actually part of a project together called Hospitable Hosts. And I'm not going to take anything away from Jody, I'm going to let her explain it, but it's so exciting. So please listen in and yeah, let's take it away. So, Jody, thank you for joining me today.

Hi, Liam, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. It's a real honor. And yes, we're working together in a project, so I'm really, really excited to talk about this. Yeah, thanks for having me on.

I'm looking forward to this. So before we get started on Hospitable Hosts, I would love to know just a little bit more about you. And so the people who are listening can just understand, you know, how you got into hospitality and, you know, tell us a bit about where your business is based and a little bit about yourself. Who is Jody Sterling? Sure.

So, yes, I am in the Cotswolds. I have a collection of quintessential gorgeous little 250 year old cottages. Actually one is 450 years old and in a beautiful town called Tetbury. Tetbury is famous for its royal connections. We have Prince Charles who lives there. Princess Anne lives in the neighboring village. And yes, we see Camilla walking down the street doing her shopping. It's quite normal and all the guests love it. They love going royal spotting and it's a really beautiful part of the English countryside. So that's where my cottages are. How I got into the hospitality industry. Wow, you've got to circle back 20 years. When I started my career in hospitality, I was a receptionist in a five star hotel in Sydney, Australia, which is. That's where I'm from. And I soon built my way up to front of house manager and I worked with some really large hotel chains going around, firstly Australia and then over here in Europe, opening new properties and training their staff. So I do have a strong hospitality background and hospitality is just me. I love helping people, I love sorting out problems. Actually, I think there's no better way to, well, I get self fulfillment out of getting this guest who's having a rotten, awful stay and being able to turn it around and they really, really enjoy it the time they leave. So, so not that that happens in one of my properties, but back in the hotel days that's what used to happen. Guests ranting and raving at staff and I would step in and sort it out. It was great. So, yes, I've been in hospitality for a long time. I had a break. Why? I was having a family. I've got three children and I focused on them. My family is everything to me. So I wanted to just put. Pull away and really focus on them. And now they're all older and they've gone off to university. I only have one at home. So I stepped back into this industry and the way I did that was really just by accident. I. As I said, we. We settled back in the UK in this village of Tetbury, and the house that we had, that we were living in, had a separate cottage next to it. And now we thought, well, we can put our bikes in there, we can wait for people to come and visit us and that's where they can stay. Or I thought, well, let's try this Airbnb thing. And so we had done extensive travel with my family for the past two years before we came to the uk and we decided to set it up. We thought we knew what people wanted when they came to stay at a property, just with using our own experience. And away we went. We listed it and within two hours we were getting bookings. It was quite incredible. It was such a ride. Loved every minute of meeting all these new people from all around the uk. I found myself telling my story. Well, you're from Sydney. You're, you know, why you. Why are you now in the Cotswolds? And I was literally. Our house was in a field surrounded by sheep. And yes, it was very different, but it was. It's also very beautiful as well. Just. Just a completely different experience. And that's me, that's how I got into it. So from that one property and getting my children and my husband in, they were, they were our housekeepers. We set up a travel fund by funding this Airbnb, or short term rental I should call it, shouldn't I? So everyone chipped in and we all managed this property as together as a family. And it then funded trips skiing in France and going hiking up in Switzerland, and it became a real family thing. And then from there we decided to get another property in town, which went nuts as well. It just worked. We didn't do anything different. It was just. It's just a really cute little cottage that oversees guests. A lot of Australians actually come to visit and they come to the area for High Grove, they go and visit Prince Charles's home. And it just worked. And from there I got another property and another property and another property. And then other people who had properties saw me around, running around with my washing basket full of all my white linen. By this time, we did have a team. I'd built a team, but I'm always zipping in and out. Cottages and people then started approaching me. Would you manage my property? Would you manage my property? Yes. Yes. Why not? So I love it. That's me, that's my story. That's where I am today. And I wouldn't think about doing anything else.

That sort of snowballs into, you know, sort of like it grows, doesn't it, really fast and there's a lot to digest there. I mean, first of all, the thing that I get from yourself is that because you've traveled, you know, to different places, it was natural where you looked at, you know, instead of having a bike shed, whatever, you naturally. Well, people can travel here to a beautiful part of the uk. There's a reason for people to, to travel there. Not just the, the countryside and that, but like you say, the Royal Connection. There's a lot of people come to. To UK for that. And that's interesting what you're saying about people coming from Australia. Obviously you've got good links there, so anybody who wants to come across, then that just makes sense, doesn't it? So it sounds like an amazing journey so far. And just that what you were saying about the, you know, the dealing with. With guests and, you know, from the hotel days, definitely your, your warmth and the, you know, how easy you are to speak to definitely comes through. So you're definitely a N in that side of things. So that's really cool. So obviously you've moved to the uk, you've started your business. Tell me, take me a bit more forward then. So where did this idea of. Well, first of all, what is Hospitable hosts? For anybody who hasn't heard what hospitable hosts is, what is it? What does it mean?

Okay, so Hospitable Hosts has been an amazing project that I have been working on with 40 other hosts from around the world and yourself included. And we're all professionals. And what we're doing is sharing our story of how we got into the industry and some funny stories about guests and some tips and ideas that we can share to motivate and inspire other people to, to be the best that they can be in this industry or, or even to encourage people to come into this industry because it is a really great industry and it suits so many people. And look, people say it's easy, it's not easy, it's fun, it's doable. If you like people, you'll love doing this. So I know it attracts a lot of people from the hospitality industry, the retail industry, the medical sector, school, school teachers. And I think we all have this same share the same passion for helping people or as the Americans call it, serving people. You know, we want to be able to give people good experience when they come and stay in the properties. So we'll go back one year actually from today. I participated in a multi author book with 24 fabulous women in the US and I came across this group and they asked me to be a part of their book. And it is a very different style of book or very different topic. It's all about how you'd like to leave your legacy in the world, this world. Because that's another side of me. I'm all into energy or frequencies and positive mindset. I teach children how to do that as well. So I'm a kinesiologist, so I look at brains and I teach children and their parents how best that they learn and they can use that within their schooling or in their sport. And it's a really great thing to do. So I participated in this book, had a really amazing experience and I was just felt I was really supported by all of these wonderful ladies and I just sat back and thought, well, how can I use this experience that I had being in this book within an industry that I know there's nothing like it. And also I want to connect and collaborate with other hosts like me because I felt at the time, you know, I got to a level in my business where I wanted to expand and grow and learn new things, but I had no idea how to connect with people that were doing the same thing. And I stumbled upon Clubhouse, which you and I met in Clubhouse as well. And it was just a game changer for me, honestly. There was all these people in this room that did what I do and even more there was coaches giving away information, there was people setting up websites, there was, you know, there was just. I was so gobsmacked that there was this world that I didn't even know existed because I was just the lonely host, you know, doing what I did. So I started reaching out to people and I wanted to connect with people and I thought what a better way to do it and to bring everybody together and share our stories and have a common goal to inspire other people to do what we do. And that was, that was the birth of hospitable hosts.

So much comes from that clubhouse as well that, you know, I know especially in the early days with clubhouse, just the sheared with business, sometimes you join, you know, you get into business and you find actually you think you're the only one in this particular situation. But going on places like clubhouse or you know, joining Facebook groups, which has got a lot of the similar minded people like you say there's some amazing information shared and actually just hearing other people's stories. I can remember you, you know, speaking in clubhouse and just you get to meet people from literally every corner of the globe and it's like you're in the, you know, in the living room having a drink with them. You know, it's very informal. And I remember thinking before joining Clubhouse, you know, what was it all about? How is that different from say something else? And it's like being on a tv, radio or TV or radio show and you can just jump in and join the conversation. It is really, really different. So yeah, really enjoyed that. And once you had got the, this idea, this spark of the idea, obviously it's only been a relatively short period of time which I've been really amazed about. You know, talk us through how it became an actual thing. You know, how it went from just that spark of an idea to, you know, what is now going to be a book coming out very soon.

Yeah, sure. So, well, firstly, I'm a Gemini and I have lots of ideas. All these. My husband is just like, oh my God, not another one, Jody. I come up with all of these ideas and it's putting it, it's implementing them, which is the, the next stage with this book. So that I had to experience. So what I did first I reached out to a publisher who I knew was very successful, successful in bringing these books to into the world. And her name is Adriana, she's in the U.S. she has her own publishing house. So I reached out to her, I told her the I pitched the idea and she's like, oh my God, this is amazing. This is gonna really take off. And then I attended an in person event after lockdown in London and I just introduced myself to a few people that I'd been listening to on Clubhouse or I'd seen on YouTube and I just pitched the idea and everyone was very positive. So away I went and I networked my socks off as well as running my business and growing and expanding that and it just went from there, really. I got some really great people involved in the book so they were very quick to jump in. So we have Mark Simpson, we have Some big names in the industry, we've got Mark Simpson. Across the other side of the world, we've got Julie George, we've got Stacy St. John, we've got, look, we've got so many. It's, it's difficult for me and I don't want to leave anyone out there.

I know, I was going to say, yeah, I don't want it name all 40.

But yeah, when, when I started this project, I had no intention that it was going to be all the big names in the industry. I opened it up for everybody. But I suppose they're used to talking about themselves because the whole writing process, as you know, when you go through it can be kind of daunting. You know, you sit and you have to think, what am I going to write about? I've got 3,000 words to set in my chapter and what am I going to write about? What's interesting about me? And you do go on a self exploratory journey. Did you find that?

Definitely is a bit like. I actually found writing quite meditating as well, you know, actually quite, you know, it energized me and relaxed me at the same time. It was really bizarre. So yeah, I mean you mentioned just a couple of things within that which was so important. First of all, I think the thing that really came across certainly when you pitched the idea to me was the energy that you had about it, you know, that is it spreads the energy as soon as you're excited about something. Just how, how much of a good idea is the fact that you can get people from all across the world, every single person's got a story to tell and every single person has got something that we can learn from. You know, I'm a firm believer that every host has had a situation that I probably haven't had and I could probably learn from. And that's really what you see in this book with a lot of different people. You know, you mentioned there were some who were saying getting started in the industry, some a story about saving a guest's life. You know, like there's, there's so much in there to digest. But looking back on what you did over this last year, you know, starting with that energy and the excitement, you took action to be able to go out there and actually, you know, you contacted the publisher. Some people wouldn't have even picked up that, that phone or send that message, do you know what I mean? So that's, that's a big thing. The networking is massive and I've seen you network and you know Sort of suddenly Jody was everywhere. Clubhouse, Facebook, do you know, I mean, in all the communities and surrounding yourself by, you know, getting great people on board and getting people to, you know, buy into the awesome idea. In less than a year, you've turned this from, you know, something which wasn't ever going to be into a physical thing, which will probably. The great thing about print is it'll outlive us all. Do you know what I mean? So that's, that's really exciting.

So, yeah, it's actually been a five month project, so it has been pretty full on from start to. We're now launching on the 16th of May. Yeah. And it's just if I can do it, anyone can do it. You know, you put your mind to something, you can just do it. I wasn't comfortable in being in front of the camera at all. And actually this is how I got into this whole world. I joined a Facebook group and it was called Rock the Mic. And I knew I had to get in front of the camera and start talking to people. And I, I went through a. I think it might have been a four week program with this group of ladies and I didn't once get on the camera. I just couldn't. No, I couldn't stand it.

I was like, you're a natural, Jodie. I don't know what you.

No, I couldn't. I, I am actually quite a shy person and I don't like to put myself out there. So this has been for me, the most massive learning experience. You know, I, I didn't even do zoom calls, Liam, before, you know, I.

Were you the person with them off? Just the name Jody on it, was it?

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, and yeah, I just had to, I just had to step up and do it. And I believe that everybody in this book or everyone who will be in the future books, because, yes, there is going to be another one. It takes a lot to step up. It takes a really great mindset. You know, you've got to get yourself into this mindset of stepping up and taking action, and that's with each other. Anything you do in your business, anything you do in your shirt and rental business that you have going on, you're listening to this podcast. So you're all in the industry, but it's stepping up and making those changes, whether it's for you personally, it's you for your guests, you for your business. I, I believe just believing yourself, you can do it. Yes, the energy. I'm into energy and frequencies. So when we. It's we call it the ripple effect. So I. I am. Well, I do have a lot of energy. In Australia, we call it the Ever Ready bunny. You know, the Ever ready batteries. I just keep going.

But that comes across. And, you know, you just mentioned, you know, the. The future there. I. I can see this, you know, in a relatively short period of time, in, wow, five months, you've gone from that idea to, you know, something physical and something which people will be able to pick up and buy and hold. What is the future? You mentioned there might be future books and that side of things.

Yes, yes. Well, we had so much interest for people coming into this book, and especially when people realize, you know, you can use this book not only to promote yourself as an author, but to promote your business. So you can, you know, my. My idea is that everybody has a copy of this book in their properties, so their guests will see who they're staying with and learn a little bit about you. So you, as a host becomes more of not just that person on the side, but they get to know you. And I think they like that experience when they know where they're staying. So we're. I've opened it up. After this one launches, there will be another book and it will be again, hosts from around the world all coming together. And I've seen people in this book really grow and expand and networking with each other within the book. It's a really great group. So we build a community as well. The hospitable host community has started and it won't stop. So we've got it. We will have another book coming out. So if anybody listening to this is interested in being a part of this, this amazing journey of becoming a published author, becoming a number one bestselling author, which we're all looking forward to, please get in contact with me.

That is amazing.

I can make it happen.

100%. You can make it happen. What I loved about that is putting one in each of your properties, you know, for your guests. What a great idea. And, you know, now all you need is you need hosts with, like, hundreds of properties because they'll be buying hundreds of the book.

Yeah, that's right.

But, yeah, that sounds like a really good idea. I mean, so where is the place that, you know, people can find the book or if they're looking to either purchase the book, where. Where would they go and do that? Is it. Is it going to be available in, you know, the known places like Amazon and stuff?

Yeah, so it'll be on Amazon and you can also purchase it through hospitable host.com we'll have a link there and you can buy one or as many copies as you like. It'll be a printed coffee table style book and also come out as an electronic book because some people just find that easier these days.

Definitely. Very nice. So I feel we've covered kind of hospitable hosts and that's an amazing project. I'd love to dive more into, you know, sort of aside from the book, just more about advice from yourself or more about you. So what would be, you know, we mentioned that the book could be good for people looking to get started in hospitality. What would be your piece of advice for anybody who's looking to get started in the industry? Put you on the spot.

Yeah, yeah. Well, of course you need a great property or a property, but I believe also you can have a mediocre property and still give a really great experience. Know, when I was traveling with my family, we stayed in all styles of accommodation. And some of the ones that are most memorable are the ones not that had the, you know, the fancy bed linen or the beautiful artwork or the latest styling, but they just, they were operated by real, genuine people. So whether they came to the door to introduce themselves or they just picked up the phone and, you know, had a conversation and found out why, in fact I was coming to this, this area with all I wanted to, you know, did I have any needs, special needs that I needed attending to. I think communication is a really great thing to start with, you know, and that is. Well, where do you start with that? It's even in your listing. If you can communicate to a level that you set your guests expectations, I think that's number one. Then communication throughout the course of their stay or even prior to their stay, and then keeping in contact with them afterwards, asking them what could you have done better as a host? Was there anything they would have liked to have experienced while they were staying with you? I think having a really good look at your communication style is really important. And listening is know communication is a two way thing, the speaking the word and it's also listening so taking, taking note of what people are saying to you.

Love that. I love that. That's, that's true what they say that people forget, you know, what you say or what you did, but they'll remember how you made them feel. And what you just mentioned about some of the places that you'd stayed is how those people made you feel about staying there. You know, they were genuine people, how you felt about them. And that's, that's what's memorable, isn't it? So it's. That's a really cool.

Yeah.

And is there anything talking more technical, is there anything that you use in your business or something, you know, a system, an app, a tool that you really swear by and that's really helped launch your business or help to grow your business?

Oh, gosh, there's so many, isn't there? There's so many in the work, in the industry. The biggest one for me, as my business grew, really, I got my own website, obviously that was really important with my own booking tool, so I don't have to rely on the OTAs. That was really important for me. The other thing within my business was a cleaning scheduling tool which has revolutionized my Sunday evenings. I can now take some time to sit back and watch a movie with the family rather than taking two hours to sit there. I literally used to sit there and plan out my week of cleaning with my cleaners. So this tool is. It's connected to my booking platform. So as soon as a booking is made, it gets assigned to a cleaner. She has the ability to accept climb the job. If she declines it, it goes on to somebody else and it's. It just means it's hands off for me. They love it. Like, there are scheduling tools out there that can be a little bit clunky and a little bit confusing, but this particular one, they get an app, it's set every morning. They get notifications locations of where they're supposed to be on each cottage. There's the list of tasks that they have to do. So they use it as a checklist. They can take pictures of the oven. So, you know, I don't have a guest coming in and saying, well, the oven wasn't clean, you know, because I've got my proof. It honestly has changed my business.

That's amazing. That's amazing. I actually forgot until you said, I had a flashback of the times where I used to put in the little blocks of when the cleans have got to be and stuff like that. Like, you forget, don't you, as you, as you grow, what you had to do to get there.

But yeah.

What was the name of this app though? Is it. You didn't mention what the name was?

No, it's called VR Scheduler.

VR Scheduler. Awesome. That is one I'm not familiar with, but I use Breezeway in my business. And as soon as you've got something which will cover that side of things, I mean, the operation side takes so much time doesn't it? To run daily with the cleaners. Communication just takes all of that out of it. So you. They can see what they've got to do. They know when it's got to be done. They can communicate back to you. As we said, communication is so important and yeah, that is a proper game changer. Definitely what I'd like to do now because we've been going a little while. I'd love to just do a couple of really quick fire questions. So answer can be as short or as long as you like. But I just love these. These are just fun little questions which I like to stick in just to find out a bit more about you. So what was your first job, Jody?

I worked in McDonald's.

Oh, nice.

Would you like fries with that?

McDonald's are still. They're the best upsellers in the world. Yeah. Awesome. And also one of the biggest real estate holders in the world as well. So.

Yeah.

What was your favorite holiday destination or what is your favorite holiday destination? Now we can all travel again.

Oh, my gosh. I get asked that all the time because traveling for two years with the family, we went everywhere from Iceland to. That was amazing. Oh, my gosh. We'll leave it at Iceland because.

Yeah, if you had to hang your hat. Iceland.

Yeah, yeah. There's so, so many. But Iceland was pretty amazing.

Yeah, awesome, awesome. What was the last gadget that you purchased or the last thing you purchased?

The last thing I purchased some milk this morning.

Fair enough.

I went to the shop and got some milk before the hungry tribe raised their heads. Yep. Milk. Not a gadget, but milk. Yeah.

Still, it makes the tea. It keeps the day going for me. What celeb would you most like to meet?

Easy. Kylie Minogue.

Oh, nice. Why, why Kylie?

Oh, she's. She's just amazing. I love Kylie Minogue. Love her music. I have since she came out, really. I've been to a lot of her concerts. My children were born to Kylie Minogue playing in the background.

Fair enough. You'd have to tell her that if you met her. Julie George will be loving that because she loves home and away. She started those neighbors, wasn't it? Those neighbors, One of the two ye.

Yeah, yeah. Yes, it was neighbors. Yeah. But if. And I would like to meet the Queen, actually. I think she's on a, you know, more intelligent side than Kylie Minogue.

But you never know being in the Cotswolds where your places are.

No, I know. Yes. I've met Kate and I met Will and my daughter's actually been there on the Slide with George. So that was quite fun. But no, the Queen, to me, I think she's just, she's seen so much, so much change. She's met so many amazing people. So I would like to have a conversation with the Queen, make her a.

Cuppa using the milk you've just got. Okay. And yeah, lastly, what was your top book recommendation for the listeners? Can be fiction, can be non fiction, whatever you like can be your own, I guess, if you want it to be one of your own, of course.

Hospitable hosts.

Hospitable hosts.

Yeah, hospitable hosts. And we'll give Mark a plug. The book Direct Playbook is amazing. Yeah, yeah, no, that's been a great book for me actually. I've been going through the pages and I actually gave my copy away to a young guy, 18. We got talking to him at actually my daughter's birthday party and he just bought his first Airbnb property, property that he was gonna get jump into Airbnb World. And so I thought, right, I'm going to pass my book on to you. So he sent me a message, he's already read it. So he's on his, on his journey. So, yes, this one is also very good too. This one here, 12.

Oh, Gary Vee.

Yes, yes. I've really, really interest enjoyed reading this book.

So on the podcast with Paul Anderson, the Instagram social media hotelier, he mentioned, he mentioned Gary Vee. So that's a big one at the moment.

Oh, did he?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But yeah, and definitely that thing that you've done with the, you know, the young guy who's just got his first Airbnb is amazing. That manuscript that is in there, which will just help him to, you know, just get some more. More guests. So many people out there are training how to get the properties, but not how to get the guests. And of course, getting the guests is how actually we, we earn money and actually getting the guests is all about being a host, isn't it?

So, yeah, that's right. There is, there is that real element to this business that a lot of people talk about scaling and getting the, getting the properties. But really how good are your properties without the hospitality of the host? And I do believe that we need to focus on that as well. So 100% suitable host is all about.

Is all about, you know, building these relationships, isn't it? So, Jodi, it's been an absolute pleasure. If people are listening and they want to get in touch, what's the best way to do so?

Well, I'M on Facebook. Jodi Sterling. I'm on Instagram. Jodi Sterling. Or you can just reach out to hospitable hosts.com and if you'd like to stay in one of my properties in the Cotswolds, just, you know, get in contact and hashtag bookdirect.

What a perfect way to end. On. Jody, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. Look forward to seeing, you know, sort of how Hospitable Host does and the next, you know, not just the next book, but the next series of books coming out. So awesome. Thanks again, Jamie.

Thank you so much. Thanks, Liam.

See you soon.

Bye.