How to build sustainable and successful short-stay accommodation business - 10 Minute video

Podcast we are in season seven, episode 10 and I am so excited for this episode because I have invited Dino Tatelli into the podcast to give us a breakdown of what makes a business successful. Dino is one of those guys that I've had in my world for a while now, part of the different Facebook groups that we're a part of and he is one half of the success engineers. Now what he has done over the year is he has been able to work with some of the most successful business owners that are around and he has broken down the tactics and the tools that they have done to get from A to B. They've just released a podcast between him and Simon, who's his co founder and in the podcast what they do is that they look at businesses like Tinder, for example. We talk about it in the podcast, how it went from an idea to to now being a hugely successful business and they break down the methods and the tactics etc in this. Now for this episode, I wanted Dino to come in and I wanted him to share some of the successful traits and I also wanted him to share what he sees as seen some of the biggest mistakes that he sees business owners make. This is one not to miss. I have a massive thank you to Hostfully, who are the podcast sponsors we talk about Hostfully actually in this episode because I shared one of our mistakes and Dino went on to explain about an experience that he had at a hospitality business in Poland and how someone like Hostfully could have prevented that. So please go and check out hostfully.com please make sure you go check out Dino. And at the end of the call, at the end of his podcast, if you listen all the way to the end, he will share with you a link that you can go to where you can book in a clarity call with him where he will help break down where you are now, where you want to be, what you need to do to get there and who you need to be talking about. Go and check out the show notes booster.co.uk, there's going to be lots of tactics and tips and things to talk about in this, but without further ado, let's jump on in and let's have a chat with Dino. What makes your opinion a successful business sustainable and what threatens that most?

Now one of the key things, Mark, that I think is worth mentioning to the guys listening is that you can't develop world class business like this, a world class ethos if you like thinking anything other than you're going for excellence. However, there is a continuum. There's a spectrum that people sit on from good enough to world class. And it's in my view, and I know Simon shares this, perfectly acceptable to adopt some of the characteristics and the insights and the understanding and the practices of world class people and apply that to being good enough or to being excellent, which is further down the line. Perfectly okay. So I don't want any of the guys thinking, oh, you know, I don't even. World class. That's not, that's not who I am. That's not. The point of this takeaway that I'm.

Getting so far is what so many business owners that we chat to do is to scratch your own itch. You know what I mean? They build something from a problem that they're having, like Tinder from a prime example. So it's really interesting. Like that's the takeaway that I'm getting just listening to these shot examples. But yeah, please continue.

And that's a great way of describing it, actually. Yeah. But here's the key thing. It's understanding that a lot of other people have got that itch and it's uncomfortable or painful and they'll pay to have it taken away. Big, big.

Just like a Tinder date that goes wrong.

For all. I talk a lot about, about Tinder as one of the examples that we use. Never been on it. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. So the next thing is embracing the challenge. The guys listening may have heard the term and I know you have fall in love with the process. I'm not a great fan of that language. It sounds a bit trite and kind of pseudo motivational. But the reality is you've got to build a process that you do love, warts and all. And the message really here, and probably one of the big takeaways, is about the shift from being destinational to becoming directional.

Now we've talked about what people are doing well to sustain. Now I wanted to sort of flip it to the biggest mistakes that you see that business owners make. Now you work with a lot of business owners, you know, you coach and teach and you know, advise. And obviously there's going to be a lot of people. Doesn't matter whether it's massively successful or, you know, kitchen table, like you said at the start. But what's the most common mistake that you see that people that are making that you work with, specifically those business owners.

So there are five what we call fatal mistakes if they're not trapped. First one is obsession, and that is nobody Likes to be told that their baby's ugly. Yeah. So if you've got an idea that. And again, this could be the itch that you've decided to scratch because you think you've got a great idea and it worked for you and it made a difference, so you make a business out of it and the market just isn't interested or isn't interested in the way you present it. And you get obsessed with actually pushing this because you think you've got a great idea and you don't test it. That way lies madness and failure. So being open to feedback and proper constructive feedback that says, you know what, you want to look at this maybe differently or have a different perspective, have different inputs, that's the first of the five. The second is just being in a hurry. We call it the need for speed. There's this kind of modern phenomenon that I call the microwave mindset. People want to press a bloody button and have things happen. And sometimes there's a cycle, sales cycle, customer cycle, whatever it is, doesn't matter. There's that expression that you can't be half pregnant, and you certainly can't be. And pregnancy has a term, it takes time. You can't just press a button and have the baby pop out. So thus it is in business as it is in life. Things take. Some things take time. So the third thing is what Alan Greenspan, who was the chairman of the Fed, called in the 90s, irrational exuberance. We call it the thrill of the chase. So it's being mindful, if you like, of the broader perspective that your business sits in and not just chasing one thing and amplifying that. That's what Thrill of the Chase is all about. There are two other things to pick up. I'll actually pick the last one first because we've just, I've just kind of alluded to it and that is, we call it no spare toilet roll. It's a situation no one wants to be in and it just literally means running out of cash. It's a cash flow problem. You know that expression that turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, cash is king. It's a massive thing to take in the business, particularly small, you know, like in the short stay industries, small businesses, where these things are the lifeblood of the business, frankly. So just making sure the cash continues to flow is kind of key. The final thing we call, with a dutiful nod to Wallace and Gromit, we call the wrong trousers. And that is showing up as the wrong personality or job type for your business. Your business needs. I don't know if any of the guys have read Michael Gerber's Emyth or Emyth Revisited. Yeah, great book. I was very privileged to see Mike deliver that in Sydney when he launched E Myth way, way, way back in the 90s. Great, great book. But one of the things that Michael left out of that was leadership. There are four key personalities that your business needs. It needs a leader, it needs an entrepreneur, which is kind of key. It needs a manager to take care of the day to day and it needs a technician. Guess what most people turn up as in their business? They turn up as the technician because that's what they do and that's what they're comfortable with. But running a team, you need leadership and you need to be the manager.

So we had a one star review and it was simply because of the water. Depending on what floor you're on, the water is at different levels and the.

Top floor is where we suffered the mox.

It's the way that they're billed. The building was created, it was due to where things are being placed. But basically when you are in the shower, it's either extremely hot or it's freezing cold or it's a trickle. And again it's. If anybody was to go onto our reviews on TripAdvisor, we do very well because of our location, because of who we attract. It's very family friendly, we get a lot of really nice reviews. And I think that our problem was as that we took our eye off the ball, we sort of just masked that water problem. So when it came along and we got a one star review and we had really upset guests, we didn't really know how to react. Now I'd like to think that we've got things in place now that we do pre warn people staying in these rooms about the water. But I'd be really interested. For all of your experience and what you've done over the years, how would you have sort of put that proposition to the guests before they booked or made it clear that they were getting.

Certainly my experience of. There's two bits to this. Yep. I think what I'm probably going to do is talk about a concept that will kind of open up the conversation a little bit at the back end of this, but a direct approach which is looking at the processes and setting expectations.