Behind the Host with Mark Berry

Want to take control of your bookings and find some independence from Airbnb? Meet Stayfi, the game changer in guest data collection and marketing. Now, Stayfi been around for a while, I've talked about a lot, but let me just delve into a little bit more about what Stayfi is and it does. So remember the last time you went into a coffee shop and you wanted to use the WI fi? What did you have to do to get the WI fi? You had to give him your email. Stayfi works exactly like that, but for your short term rental or your medium term rental business. And the beauty of it is that you don't just get the lead booker's details, you get the whole party. And this is fantastic because of a stay of maybe four people coming at your property, you've not just got one email, one piece of data, you've got four. And this is so important to boosting your direct bookings is to build a solid database. Now, after the Stay stay fight, encourage you to keep in contact with your guests and they give you the tools to do so as well. They've got email, they've got sms, you name it, they've got it and it's all automated. Now I reached out to Stay Fi and I asked them, what can you do for the Boostly peeps? What can you do for the Boostly crowd? And they have given us 50% off your first three months. Now that's an exclusive. Now to do that you need to go to stayfi.com forward/boostly b o o S T L Y. Stay Fi is S T A Y F I dot com. When you're signing up, you've got to put the discount code in Boostly B O O S T L Y. Then you get 50% off your first three months of every vendor, every supplier, everybody that that we have recommended over the years. The ones that everybody comes back to me with and saying that was the one, it was Stay Fi. I'm a massive fan of them and I'm so happy that they've agreed to sponsor and partner with this podcast and this show. And now it's time for you to reap the benefits. Go to stay fire.comforward/boostly. Use the discount code boostly and you get 50% off to your first three months. Right, let's get back on with the show.

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Boostly podcast, the podcast that gives you the tools, the tactics, the training and most importantly, the confidence so you can go out there and get more direct bookends we do a mini series where we dive behind the host and this is where we interview hosts from all over the world and we dive into their business. These are people who we find interesting. These are members of Boostly, these are successful hosts and just somebody that you as a host can learn from in the way that they operate their business. And so we're going to interview one of the members of Boostly today. One of the people who I have seen some great interaction from is helped us with some, some videos as well and I'm really excited to get to know his business now. He's based all the way over in Australia. So for the Australian people listening to this, I know you'll be very interested, but for everybody else in all parts of the world, I want you to listen to this guest really, because his business model is awesome, but also as a place that you might want to visit as well. So we've got Mark Berry. Mark Berry is the co founder of, of the business, is called the Bauer at the Brow Lee and he's got these amazing kind of sort of places to come and stay right in the heart of woodland and we're not going to take too much away from him. Let's introduce him, let's find out about his business and see what we can learn. So welcome along Mark. Thank you for joining me.

Thank you for the opportunity.

So Mark, first question is, what is a bower?

I'm glad you asked Liam, because when we built the building, the units, the accommodation units, we struggled to find an accurate description because a cabin conjures up a log cabin, which these are architect designed, very modern, even though they're. And they're contemporary in their finishes and designs. So we challenged various journalists and lodge isn't quite right. And in the end we thought, well, we decided on the name of the business, the bower, because we have bower birds, certain bower birds. So we thought, well, if we call them a bower then that'll engender some curiosity. So we often get that question, what is a bower? Which allows us to explain that it is specifically designed for couples, absolute privacy in the woodland, in the forest. And it's designed for the people who want to get out of the rat race and just enjoy their own company as a couple and enjoy nature and relax and rejuvenate.

Nice, nice. Have you seen since obviously things like the pandemic, have you seen people want to do that more, escape to nature and get away from it all?

Absolutely. We've found it was important before that especially for City people, but not exclusively city people, but the pandemic has just meant and the fact that people are concerned about traveling in mass transit vehicles. And we find that it has definitely increased the desire for people to just get away from it all. They can self quarantine if they like. And each bow is 100 meters apart with a screen of vegetation, so you can't see it. Quite often we'll have people who'll say, oh, we thought we were the only ones here, and we'll say, no, actually we were full, but we didn't see any other guests and that's the way we like it.

That's amazing. And of course, so many owners would be tempted to sort of cram these things in. But what makes it special is the, the privacy, like you say. So give me an idea of the. The business. How many bowers are there and across what sort of land is it? Just the one. Is it a couple? Take us through that kind of.

We. We have 100 acres in total and of woodland and we have five bows. And while they're not spread right across the 100 acres, they're as I said, they're all well spaced for privacy. And that actually gives us a unique selling point because even though over the years we've advised other people to do the same, most people, for one reason or another, cost or council requirements, have decided to put them closer together, which gives us an advantage because people really want privacy.

That's really nice. And to have those five very special. What's the area actually like? So if they come to the area.

What can a guest expect in terms of experiences?

Yeah, experiences in the general area. What is. What draws them to the area?

Well, we're on the coast, as you can see from the picture in the background. The LN's in the foreground and we're very. From our front gate, it's exactly one kilometer to the beach and the beaches are very popular. But our shire area is 80% forested and it is something that the community, local community, treasure that very much and guard that as we do. And the guests like the fact that they are surrounded in bushland, as we call it, or forest. And something that's really popular, which is a bit of a surprise to me, being a farm boy originally, is that they really like walking or rambling through that forest. And that is probably the most popular activity we have, even though we have mountain bikes and we can do skydiving and seaplane tours and all sorts of things, but bushwalking and just being present in nature is Something that's really popular for most of our guests.

That sounds absolutely awesome. And you touched on, you know, sort of being a farmer. I think you mentioned there what got you into hospitality. What is kind of your, your history?

Well, to go back to the beginning, my parents had a thousand acres of beef and sheep country further inland when I was a teenager. And after a bushfire there and then five years of drought midway through that, my father came up with the idea of diversifying and offering farm holidays for city kids. So that gave me a taste of, hey, it was quite lucrative and B, it gave me a taste of entertaining and hosting people from the city and watching their interaction with nature and with farm life. And so I backed that all away after I went to uni and got involved in the computer industry and my wife got involved in real estate and property conveyancing for about 20 years or so. And then when we got fed up with the corporate world, it was, it seemed like a natural thing to go back to some sort of accommodation hosting and hosting of tourists.

That's cool. And how long have you been doing this then? So how long have you had the Bowers?

We bought the land in 1992, so it's just a shade over 30 years now. It is definitely a long time, but seems to have gone quite quickly in many ways.

Now a lot of people listening to this and we see it all the time where people are doing like traditional. They're not necessarily adapting to some of the new marketing ways. But I know yourself that you use things like CRMs and you're doing a lot of marketing. How do you draw in guests to your, to your properties?

Well, because of my computer background, I've always been keen to use electronic marketing from pretty much from day one. Even in the days when people would say, oh, I can't ever take a guest unless I speak to them on the phone. I couldn't possibly do a booking online or via email. So we have been very capitalized from email marketing in particular from the early days by segmenting the market to our guest avatar and really targeting that. We've tried, you know, we've done all sorts of, from Google advertising or Google segmentation, SEO, all those sorts of things. We, we're constantly trying to fine tune and, and trim that. And we're now looking at. Since it seems to me it's getting more and more difficult to get penetration through email, we're looking at using SMS as a channel that people are much more likely to engage with and respond to.

That's amazing. Just, just to do any kind of email marketing like say, SEO and all the things that can get your business noticed. What, what impact has that had during your time with the business on, on the success of it?

Well, by being a little ahead of the curve, I think we've up until the last six months we've probably averaged a little over 80% occupancy year round. So. And partly we're only small and we have that uniqueness, but it's enabled us to have very high occupancy and at premium rates, which our rates are similar to the rates that people charge for properties on the coast, right on the beach or right in the towns with the coastal aspect. So from a financial point of view, it's been very helpful.

That's really nice. It's really good to hear because if you've made a, you've made a fantastic product and obviously you're marketing it in the right way, which is getting noticed. And when it comes down to do you do any social media marketing at all?

We do. And again, you know, we're, we're going through the cycles with, we've started with Facebook and we've moved to Instagram in some fashion. We find that we still, the majority of our guests, because they're not all young people and a lot of them are still use Facebook as their most social, most comfortable social media platform. So we're still finding it's quite strong. But yeah, we're always looking at what's coming next and tracking what the guests are using rather than what our own personal preferences might be.

What would you say has been the biggest challenge? You've been in hospitality now for a while. What would you say has been the biggest challenge that you've seen and how have you overcome it?

Well, over 30 years, we've got a smorgasbord to choose from, from bushfires and floods and natural disasters and pandemics, as we all have. But basically, well, we also had two life threatening injuries, one to me, one to my wife, requiring aeromedical helicopter retrievals and intensive care and all that sort of carry on. But that I would say the most difficult things were a financing. We've always been on a very tight financing leash I might say, but also bureaucracy have red and green tape has really been probably the biggest break we've had. Even though we value the property we have and the nature is what we sell and so we do everything we can to protect it. But the red tape has still been a huge obstacle despite that.

Fair enough. Have you managed to overcome it? Or is it still an ongoing challenge for that one?

Well, you overcome one and then you run into another recession and finance tightening and then finance tightening up. And often it takes five or more years to get over one hurdle with a development approval and a hell of a lot of money in consulting fees to prove that we're doing the right thing.

Yeah, it's such a shame because it brings so much money to the area and done well thinking about conservation and that. A shame people's businesses are affected.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Hostfully, the leading property management software in the short term rental industry. Now, according to Hostfully's researches, property managers who upgrade from a basic PMS to top tools like Hostfully see at least an 11% boost in revenue. That's because Hostfully saves you time, letting you focus on growing your business with features like channel management, free listing on Google revenue management tools, and discounts on integrations. But don't just take my word for it. Hostfully has plenty of success stories. A property manager I know in Manchester saves about a day's work each month thanks to their advanced owner report generator. Another in Liverpool has cut guest communication issues by a third. And somebody that I know in Miami went from six properties to 50 in just a year. Now, you listening to this podcast and you being part of my world, you get a special deal when you sign up. All you need to do is go to www.hostfully, which is spelled H O S T F u l l y.comboostly. there'll be a chat box. Start a chat, mention that you're part of the Boostly world and you'll get a unique discount. Now, I recommend Hostfully to many, many, many people and we've built over a hundred integrations with our websites into them. And I know firsthand how much people love working with them. I love working with them. I'm so proud that they are sponsoring this podcast. So I would encourage everybody go and check it out. Www.hostfully.com forward/boostly. Right, let's get back on with the show, shall we?

So I'm going to flip that over now and look at what has been the most successful moment over those 30 years or some of the moments which really stand out.

And why a little difficult because I can't think of any particular. I'm thinking of a lot of particular instances. But I think the thing that we really appreciate the most is when we get a guest who genuinely appreciates what we're offering. The work that's gone into It. And they benefit by being rejuvenated and refreshed their experience. And when they express that, that makes it really satisfying. And we can sit back and think, well, we've set out to do what we achieved. When you get that sort of feedback.

I bet that shows through the reviews as well.

It does. And the vast majority of reviews are very positive. And it's really great to get that and keep trying to maintain it and pass that on to the staff to make sure that we do keep bar as high as we possibly can.

Nice. And what level of guests do you tend to get direct? You mentioned you get about 80% occupancy. Do you get many direct guests?

Yes, we've always. We've always. I mean, we were started before an OTA was ever invented. We were. In fact, we were. Our customer number with stays, which is Now Verbo, was 747. I remember that because of the. The same number as the airplane, but we were one of about the 700th customer. So we were well established then, and we've utilized all those. But we've sort of never let go of the fact that we really rely on our repeat guests in particular and cultivating them and working to make sure they're still aware of us and which we can do through our email lists. And we can encourage them and incentivize them to book direct. It doesn't always work, but the majority, and I think, you know, I haven't checked recently, but it's. We're up around 75%. Booking. Direct bookings. Something. Something like that.

Yeah. That's incredible. I mean, that is incredible. What are some of the ways you incentivize them to. To come and come back and book direct or to always book direct?

Well, well, we. We give them a modest 10% product to call the credit rather than a discount. But we also. And we also offer them if. If they recommend us to another guest, we encourage them to get the other guest to quote their booking number or their guest number so that we can track that. And it's a case of in all our interactions at the appropriate points, between the initial booking and the rebooking, we reminding people that we have that book direct VIP program or incentive program and encourage them to use it. A lot of them don't need it and ignore it, but it still gets the message across more often than not, we hope.

Yeah. I mean, that's the main thing, isn't it? Staying top of mind. And I love the idea that you're calling it instead of a discount A credit. So the idea being is because they stayed with you once they're in credit, you know like that loyalty scheme, isn't it? So yeah, I really like that, that concept on that. What kind of tech do you use in your business, Mark?

We've, we've tried a few different alternatives over the years and we landed on an Australian product which is quite worldwide, particularly in the US it's growing very rapidly. It's called New Book and the reason I chose it was that it I was looking for something that had as many integrations with third party, what would normally be third party software solutions, things like email marketing automation, access control. We have, we've moved to contactless check in and interactions with all of those things and we don't use all of them. Sometimes we're using Boostly CRM or moving in that direction because it's more sophisticated with what the integrated package has. But the more we can have one database controlling rather than having multiple databases where someone changes a phone number or changes partner, we've got to update their, all their contact details. If we only have to update one database we're much more likely to get it right instead of getting it wrong.

Yeah, I love that. And thank you for the shout out to the boostly CRM with the remote access you mentioned. Is there certain. Do you use smart locks at the moment in the bowers?

We do and that's another advantage of the pms. As soon as the cleaners indicate that the cabin is ready for the guest, the system sends out an SMS with their access code for both the front code on the property and the same code applies to their front or their door. So. And they also were. I don't know if I should mention this but after the bushfire Google Maps very kindly allowed us the luxury of being able to map the individual location of each of our bowers so that the guests can actually get turned by turn directions all the way to their bow. Because we have six buildings and a network of roads, it's quite easy for them to get lost unless they have good directions so they generally don't have to contact us. Help, where are we? Message.

I mean that's brilliant. And especially it's good to have them, you know, be directed to it because you don't want them driving to the wrong bower or you know, in bumping into other guests as much as possible.

Precisely, yeah.

Which locks do you use? Because this question that I get asked all the time is what smart locks should I use? Would you, would you recommend the brand that you've got and if so, feel free to name them.

Well, I would recommend them partly because they work and also because they were cost effective. I looked at the full range and there were some that I just felt were incredibly expensive. But I found, and I was obviously I needed to choose a lock that was integrated with New Book and that allowed me a few choices. I think there's probably half a dozen different choices now. But the one I chose was called has keyless access security and we found them in the main to be very reliable and we don't have too much problems with them. And the integration, the integration with New Book is very good. Now we had a few teasing troubles when we first installed it, but those have mostly been ironed out.

That's really cool and thank you for sharing that. So you've seen lots of changes, right over the last 30 odd years with hospitality. What are some of the changes that you think are going to happen and some of the opportunities which may be coming along?

Oh yeah, I think when we started it was fax machines were very novel for some of our builders and the email was just beyond their comprehension. But I think artificial intelligence is just going to take us exponentially to a new level and it's really hard to imagine where that's going to take us at this stage. I remember many years ago, but when before I was in the computer industry I was talking to my. When I was in the computer industry I was talking to my manager when this is when the Internet just was starting in the mid-80s and we talked about how every bit of information in every library in the world was, was going to be digitized. And I read an article saying that this is going to be bigger than the Industrial Revolution and I couldn't fathom that. I couldn't. How could that be? Just a lot of books on a computer that, you know, we've all seen, seen it now. But I think AI is going to be another step probably even bigger than that, than what we've seen with the Internet.

Yeah, it's exciting times and it's exciting and I know some people find it a bit scary but for me I just see the, all the positives and all the things which we don't know how the industry is going to change, but it's going to be a roller coaster of a ride. So yeah, switching that question up a little bit. What advice would you give yourself if you could go back to the start? What advice would you give yourself?

Going to be something about finding ways to get through the red tape. And the bureaucracy is basically it. And I don't know if I still have the answer to that. And part of it's to do with site selection. In one sense, while the forest and the woodlands is our biggest asset, it's also our biggest liability because the bureaucracy and quite large parts of the community don't want us to touch a single tree or a single shrub on that hundred acres.

So.

And that we can do a lot, very minimal clearing. But if I had no time again, we'd probably buy some land if we could afford it with more cleared land already, whether that be farmland or. But still have the forest. So I'd be more conscious of that probably.

Yeah, that's really good advice. And this we don't know what we don't know at the time, do we? I mean, like you say, it's such a benefit having that amazing forest. But with that comes, of course, the responsibility. But others will, will try and push that responsibility so far that it makes it not commercially viable at times, which is a shame because it brings so much tourism, so much value to the area in general, doesn't it? And like you say, going back to what you said on the guests who are rejuvenated after their stay, then you, you're doing a good thing, you know, so ultimately, you know, the, the bureaucracy needs to step aside, doesn't it? So, Mark, this has been really, really fun. I love. I didn't know all this about your business and obviously we've known each other on the socials for a few years, so it's exciting to understand the kind of model that you've got there and what the area has to offer. I know there's going to be people who want to reach out to you, so we're going to share your details. But before we do, is there anything we've missed along the way?

I guess just going back to that last conversation we had about bureaucracy. One of the conversations we had with a chief planner after we'd been operating for about 10 years and we went back to get approval for more cabins, he said, do you really think people will pay money to sit in the bush and watch the birds? And that was the director of planning of our local shire. And we said, not only do we think that they're already doing it happen for the last 10 years and paying a premium for the privilege. So that was the level of thinking that we were happy.

Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it, that they don't realize the opportunity and the, the, the money, the, the excitement. It can bring to the area and all that money can then help with more conservation, you know, like as in it can actually be a positive, positive thing.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

So how do we get in touch with you, Mark? What is the best way to. To do so or to come and see the. The business?

Well, Our website is www.thebauer.com the bower spelled t H E B O W E R. You can find me there. My email address is simply mark.com and you'll probably find the Baohle on Facebook or Instagram or on the Instagram handle is Browley Bower actually Instagram and and the other socials.

Awesome.

Any of those.

We'll add those around the show notes. However you're listening to this or watching this on YouTube that'll be in the show notes around this media. So that leaves us with the last question, Mark, which is is there a motto or mantra, something which means a lot to you that you'd like to share with with the people listening?

Well, I guess after the experience is that we've had, I go back to my, my family's motto or my maternal side and it, I can't remember the Latin now but translated it means be right and persist.

It's good.

That is, that's something we followed.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Persistence is so key in entrepreneurship and especially in hospitality, isn't it? So Mark, this has been really fun. Thank you so much for, for joining us on the behind the Host on the Boostly podcast. Really thank you for your time and I thank you too for listening to this on the Boostly podcast. I've certainly what I'm taking away from this is what you can create and do good with with the world. You know, do good with your guests. Create something that you absolutely love. It's clear that you absolutely love it. And ultimately create a business which has seen lots of changes. You've adapted, you're doing the marketing stuff that is all across the timeline. You can definitely see the clues of success and that is, is so important. So that's what I'm going to take away from this. So thank you very much Mark and yeah, we'll speak to you again.

Thank you again.