How to scale your SA business with David Diack S6E6

All right, so for those of you that are watching this live, welcome. For those of you watching this back on the replay. Hello. I have never done this on my personal Facebook before. If I have done these sort of things, it's been on the boostly Facebook page, facebook.com forward/boostly UK, if you want to check out what it is. But this right here is going to be a podcast interview. Yes, I got a podcast. Boostly.co.uk podcast, if you want to find out more about that. This is season six and this season is all about service, accommodation, property and how service, accommodation and hospitality, they merge so well. Now, this is live on the Facebook, but this is a live recording. What I'm going to do at the end of this, I'm going to rip the audio, turn it into an actual podcast that you can hear on itunes, Spotify, you name it. The video will get edited and it will get put on the YouTube and everything else, but I thought it'd be a good idea to film this live on the Facebook so you can just see what goes into an actual podcast recording. I'm chatting to David Derek today. We're chatting all about service accommodation, chatting about how to go from starting up in service to accommodation. What is sa? And then we're going to talk about how you grow it. So next time you hear me talk, it is going to be me beginning the podcast episode. If you comment, if you like, if you share, if you say hi and I don't respond, it's not me being rude, it's simply being that I am recording and I cannot see any of your comments on the Facebook. Me and David will jump in afterwards and if anybody's got any questions, be my guest to ask away. All right, so let's get this started. So this is season six, episode six of the Boost Hospitality podcast. We're chatting about service accommodation. Just in case you're tuning in later, you're watching us back on the replay. All right, welcome, everybody, to season six, episode six of the Boost Hospitality podcast. My name is Mark Simpson and today we're going to be chatting all about serviced accommodation. By now, if you haven't listened to the first five episodes, you have got in the back catalogue everything that you need to know about SA. So how to start SA with Trish McGeer. What actually, SA is with Jason Living episode one. Episode three is with David and Amanda Healy on about outsourcing. Episode 4 is with Naeem and we talk about channel managers and. And episode five was recorded with Elaine Watts, all about networking. So Today we're gonna go the next step. So you started up an essay business. How do you grow it? And the gent that I've asked to help me with this is something that I've been following on social media for the past six to eight weeks, recommended to me by somebody to follow him because he's doing some really good things with him and his business partner, he's called David Diack and he's got a really interesting story how he got into property, what he has done and now where he's at. And I thought it would be fantastic to get onto this chat, have a conversation with and we can hopefully learn you watching or listening at home a couple of things as well. So David, welcome. If you could just spend a couple of minutes just introducing yourself who you are and yeah, and then we'll get started with today's episode.

Mark, thanks for having me, mate, really appreciate it. And thanks for getting my name right as well. No one ever gets it right first time, they always say it wrong. But yeah, as you said, my name is David Dyack, I'm based in South Helland Sea in Essex. I've been involved in service accommodation now for, since September 2016. We've gone from, you know, a standing start, no experience to 65 units, a strong pipeline and we're building the business daily, got a strong team in place and our values as a business is all about building that business that's built to scale from day one. So we've implemented systems, we've got team, we've got operations, got manuals, everything in place so that we can build this business and it's unable to grow and continue growing at the pace it's at, effectively.

Nice. So you've got 65 units, which is phenomenal. What was your background before you actually got into the world of SA and property?

Interesting. Yeah, so I've always been one of them people that wanted to get into business. Probably when I was 18, 19, I was just trying to think up the next kind of invention, what can I do next or what business can I start? And I was working at a family computer shop selling, you know, fixing computers but selling like loads of ink and toner consumables. And I just like, you know what, there's a market here for ink cartridges and toner cartridges that people are buying them all around the country so I could buy them at like 35p to a pound, I could sell them for a fiverr. So I quit my job, took out a three year lease on an office, hired my first member of staff realized I didn't know anything about selling, anything about anything about business. Just jumped in at the deep end. And then it all started there, really. Within a year or two, I had five members of staff. We were doing pretty well in terms of turnover and sales. And then, yeah, I mean, the big learn happened. The big learn was growing a business too quick without any systems or team in place, and it come crashing down pretty quick and left me in a bit of a sour situation. And I was like, look, do I want to be sitting behind a desk managing people or do I want to be using my strengths and doing what I enjoy and going out there, networking, meeting people, doing deals and building relationships? And from that point, I got involved in property and I started to attend a few courses. I think we've all probably done some training here and there. And during that process, I learned how to. I spotted a gap in the market, should we call it, where people were looking to do these big deals, investing time and energy in doing deals, but didn't know how to raise the funds for the deals. So I spent work with a mentor who I met along the way. He taught me, like, a hell of a lot about how to raise finance but build relationships. And we spent a couple of years connecting the two together, so finding investors and finding developers and linking them together. Now, the cool thing with that is that you can learn amazing skill set and you can add serious value to people's lives and businesses and change it. But what the struggle is is cash flow, because it's like big developments take time to happen. So a guy who I met at a property event, funny enough, I was attending, said, look, Dave, look, you live in Southend. What about this service accommodation thing? Should we have a little look at it? And that was it. We had a look at it. I say that was it. It wasn't it. We started talking about it, pondering the idea for a while, done a bit of due diligence and said, well, you know, it's got a great leisure market, so let's have a look at that was the attitude. It's got a great leisure market, let's see what we can do with it. And then, yeah, that was it. September 2016. And here we are now.

Here we are now. I like that. So from the training from that course, from you meeting the fella and is that your business partner now?

Yes, yes.

And he's called Matthew Ward.

Matt Ward.

Matt Ward. And from meeting him there to then you getting your first set of keys, what was the. How long did it take. What was the process, what was the, what was the obstacles that came up in that time? And like, what can you, what can you recommend to people that are watching who are pretty much where you were, you know, September 2016?

Yeah, look, so I tell everyone the first deal was your hardest deal. I mean, it, you know, you don't know what to say to agents. You don't know how to position yourself. You don't know. You don't really feel very confident in what you're doing because you don't know what you're doing or how it really works. You're just trying to sort of share your vision, I guess. So we spent a lot of time sort of door knocking, learning that process. And I always say to my clients, look, whatever you do, whoever you speak to, document it, learn from it, and next time you go back, handle that objection and turn it into a positive and how it benefits them. So that was going on for two or three months. And the first significant mistake, should we call it or learn, was that we found a private landlord. He had 30 properties, he didn't really care about his properties. And we were like, look, we can turn this two bedroom flat. I mean, we walked in there and then he went through the floorboards. You know, them places where you just like, we're dying for a deal. Do you know what I mean? So we were like, we can make this work. So my business partner, Matt Ward, is a surveyor. Went away, schedule of works come back, nine grand was the schedule of works. And we sat down with him and he just literally looked at us and he went, I'm not gonna swear. But he swore and he was just like, what the f. Are you gonna spend that kind of money on this place for? What's wrong with you? And he'd done us a massive, massive favor. Cause at the time we were like, you know, we're up for it. You know, we were up for it. And he said no. And what that meant was that we left that relationship there, went and met an agent and got our first deal. And I mean, I wanna transition into how that deal come about because even down to like getting a deal, the agent didn't, you know, there, wasn't really sure still what we were doing. But they gave us like this upmarket one bed, which I'll talk about later on as to why we changed our strategy. But, you know, it was probably a little bit too expensive. But we got there, we made it happen. And then we used that expensive high end one bed apartment to become our show home. And that enabled us to build our business.

So instead of going for the first thing that came along, which I assume that so many people when they get into this world will do you, so I took a step back, you know, thankfully. And instead of going for tons at once, you just went for the one big one and built it up from there. Really, really cool. So you do a really good job of documenting. And you mentioned this document, your business journey. Now, how long have you been doing this? Did you coincide it with starting up your essay business? Or is this something that has just recently come along since, you know, you've got to the level now where you're talking about this more? And when I say document, I mean documenting online, documenting on Facebook, documenting on Instagram, going lives. You do it very, very well, you and your business partner. But when did this happen and what was like the sort of the idea behind it? Yeah.

Thank you. So, I mean, look, I'm a very reserved person personally. Like, you probably would say a lot about what we do in business and how the business works, but very little about me. And, you know, something I struggled with for quite a long time just to sort of say, put myself out there, if you want to call it that.

Right.

But you know, at the same time, like, we're building a business, we're like, we always say we're two steps in front of the people that are starting and there's people that are two steps ahead of us still. So as we're starting our coaching and training company, we said, you know what, let's just share the highs and the lows and everything that happens and not just be real with it, because the more real that we find that we can be, this is just us. This is what happens in our week. One minute you've got an amazing deal happening and it's all spended. The next thing you know, you've got an issue with a guest, it's caused a big problem and a kerfuffle, I mean, even today. So, I mean, these things happen and it's important to share it, but not just share the fact that, you know, this is what happens. It's like, this is what I've learned from it. And if we can just share the upside and say, well, this is what I've learned or what you can learn or how you could do it different, then people get value from that and it helps them move forward in their journey.

So you mentioned there about the new coaching company. When was the coaching company for people started?

So we started what we've done really well was we systemized immediately as we started the business and we spent a lot of time investing in sort of like structure and so it was smoother. And then we brought in a team of virtual assistants based in the Philippines. And once we managed to master the art of bringing in the right people to manage the right systems, our business just blew up, literally. Like, it meant a case of getting new apartments and new properties, bulk with them onto our portfolio and then we could continue to scale. So we created a model called Systemise Outsourcing and scale. And that started last year, helping operators that have typically got more than three apartments plus, because you know what it's like, Mark. There's no off switch, you know. So at home, Friday, Saturday night, you want to sit and relax and a guest is on the phone. You need to sort of think about if you're going to build a business, how you can manage that the best and most effective way. So that's how it got started. We realized that we were really good at implementing that and we helped a group of 10 people do exactly the same thing, replicated our whole business model and whole system and it sort of changed their businesses for the better as well. And then we decided, you know, look, we've got, we can help people start up, systemize and people scale up. So there's free parts to the coaching company now.

I like that. So 2016, two years in, you've absolutely got the systemization absolutely down to a tee and then you've got people that you're now helping. So there's two years worth of, like, really big growth there. What was your biggest takeaway when you were growing? So, again, anybody who's watching this now, and they may have just had their first training weekend for service accommodation, the Giddy asdev, they, they've got all the. Got all the ideas, they're going to go do it. For them to think, though, two years time, I could be potentially helping other people. There's so much that could potentially happen and it may seem a bit overwhelming, but what was being your biggest takeaway in these last two years, from you being there with Matt, getting your first key, from the estate agent to now where you've got 65 units, which is intense. What's been your biggest takeaway and what sort of advice could you pass on to anybody else who's at that stage?

Yeah, cool. So I've got a couple of examples if I like to share them both. So example number one is it's all built on relationships. Like, however you do it, I am how we are now with everybody that I meet, whether it's with our cleaning team, whether it's our maintenance team, agents, whoever it might be, my clients. Like, I'm the same with every person. My goal is to reinforce our relationships and always be improving them. Right. Because business is built off the back of that. So that's been key for us with investors as well, in the sense that we've been able to grow at a good pace because we're very approachable, we've got good relationships, we're transparent, which means that we can have the kind of conversations that enable us to move forward. And even the difficult conversations, you can still have them ones as well, because they're the most important ones. Now, I would say that the main thing, if you're coming off of a training and you're like, what do I do now? The easy thing is to go out there and say, well, I think I can achieve this nightly rate. This is what I want to get and this is what I think will work. And I'm going to go and get an apartment and do that and not spend enough time on the planning and analysis side. Now that's where my business partner, Matt Ward comes in. Because I'm the kind of person that we call it like front end, that we're going to do all the deals and speak to people and stuff. And he's the kind. He's the one who's like the backbone behind the business, who keeps the structure there, ensures that we've planned it all correctly, ensure we've analyzed it in enough detail. And that's what I could say to every single person who's considering starting. Don't just go off of a whim, go off of facts. Research the high season, low season, the companies in your area, businesses that are being built, redevelopment that's going on. There's so many factors you've got to consider. And I would even say reach out to them and speak to them before you even go and get your first unit and start working out what they want, when they want it, what their budgets are. It's a lot of work, don't get me wrong. But it can solve a huge problem. And what it will do with doing things like that is it gives you the confidence to be able to go out there and conversate with agents about what you're looking to do as a business. At the same time, you can have the same conversations with investors because you've done your due diligence and got your research and results right.

Nice. That was A good one. I like that. Do your due diligence, do the research, do the planning, and it just makes life a whole lot easier. So you're talking about systems and structure. Now, how early into the process, how many properties are we talking here? Where you're like, you know what, Matt, we need to do something about this. We've got all these properties, we've got all these guests, we've got all these things. We've got all these moving variables at the moment. We've got all these things going on. When was the conversation? What did it look like? And what was the first steps that you did to then crack the outsourcing?

Great question. So, like, I think it was always looking at systemizing. Right. But it's, you know, sometimes, you know the saying that they don't. You don't know what you don't know. So I'm not a full systems expert in the sense that I don't know every app in the world that exists. Once we've got it and we've integrated it, I'm a master at it. Right. Because I know how it works. You know, finding that it can be difficult for people that aren't used to it. So it was always trying to find something. And over time of just like being out there meeting people and connecting, we were taking all these little ideas and tips and tricks and collating them all together, but implementing them within the business. And I'd say that was around, like, early on. Well, we started systemizing, if you want to call a channel manager system, which is straight away. But when the system started to get heavy, it was probably around 9 or 10 units and started to ramp up and call volume picked up and things like that. So I'd say from day one, we systemized with like a channel manager that was always in place, but until it went up a level was around nine or 10 units, which is probably too late, which is why I advise people to get into it as early as possible, implement it, and then you can just bolt properties onto your portfolio.

Yeah. And you say that you wish you had done it sooner. What would have been. So what has personally been your personal. And I sent you this question beforehand because it's always good to have like a little bit of prep because it does catch a lot of people off guard when I ask this. But what has been your favorite failure? So you can talk about the coaching with this. You could talk about the startup of your essay, but what has been the favorite failure that you've done and how did you learn from it? And what did you do to correct it to make sure that it never happened again?

Brilliant. So I would say my favorite failure is not related to this business. It was related to the office products business purely because where we scaled so quick. I learned the value and the importance of systems and a team early on, like when, when we were literally building the business. And I was sort of thinking, cool, I'm getting to that point in my life where I've made it. And, you know, you're only young, you know, you start being all confident. And I just remember I went on two holidays come back, and I come back to literally no money in the bank. And I had to go and get an overdraft that day to pay my staff. And that was like a seriously, seriously hard thing to do at that point. My staff were like, you know, you are sales people that try and start chasing credit. They don't want to do it, they want to get commissions. So it was really like a big eye opener that, like, you know, if you try and grow too quick without having the systems and the team in place, you will fall in your bum, shall we call it? So I took all the learns from that and we've implemented that into this business, which has enabled us to be able to help other people. And there is a bigger vision and a bigger plan around what we're doing, but that's enabled us to give us a structure and not make the same mistake again.

I like that. Don't grow too quickly, you know, is a thing that you see so many people want to do. They want to go from that first property to 60 units straight away, and they think about the end goal. But there's a lot of thing that goes in between. And as you say, you've learned that massively. So you have now started up, both of you, like you say, a coaching company where you help other people go from 1 to 3 to 5 to 10 to scale the business and using the systems and the structure. What has been the one biggest mistake that you've seen? Not only the people that you help and you coach, but just from a general, because obviously you go to a lot of these events and you see a lot of people in the Facebook groups coming and asking these questions. What's the one biggest mistake that you see that people make when they're getting started in property? And what advice do you give to those people who are making that mistake so they can not do it again?

Yeah, I'm gonna have to go back to the planning and due diligence side because it's a serious issue and I won't mention any names, but I saved a client 15k today, this morning, because he was gonna buy some deals from someone that, without having enough due diligence done on it, and I had to stop it before it happened because it would have, it would have brought, was gonna buy them and it weren't gonna work, they weren't gonna stack. So not doing enough due diligence, like, it's painful for a lot of people. If you're not a spreadsheet person or if you're not a research person, then find someone who is. Like reach out to someone and get a virtual assistant or hire someone on a project basis, although it will cost you upfront money. Get them to help you do the research, guide you through it and tell them what you're looking to achieve. And get that, get that, get that research that you need. It's so important because without that, you've got no data. And without data, how can you create a business plan, essentially?

I like that. I mean, I think it was Elaine who mentioned in episode five of this podcast the reason, what she had learned massively in growing her own podcast when it came to, because we're talking about networking, was that she was buying people's time. And, you know, and that's a big thing. You know, you find people in the industry, interesting people that you want to talk to and you approach them and you sort of pick their brains and that's what buying time would be. However you're going to buy that time, whether it's like jump on a coaching call or whatnot. And I think that's what so many people don't do. They try and, you know, they spend all the money, they invest everything in the first bits. And the first bits with property, you know, is getting those keys, putting the money into the, into the unit, into the apartment, into the property or whatever, to making it all look nice. And they sort of save the website, the marketing, the coaching, so to speak, to the very, very end. So when it comes to setting aside the most important parts of it, when you're doing your research, you should really be looking at. One of the most important things with serviced accommodation is that it's getting heads on beds, that's getting people in. Because at the end of the day, you could have the most best looking apartment in your area, whether it's Southend, Scarborough, Blackpool, wherever you're going to be. But at the end of the day, if you haven't got your research done, you don't know what type of guests and what type of demographic are coming to the area, or say you basically get your property in the absolute wrong location, then what's the point of it? It will just all come to nothing when you open up the doors, you put the properties on all these websites and literally you just hear tumbleweed crash because nobody's looking to book with you. So, yeah, that's a good one. All right, so you've been involved in service accommodation for a while. You've seen and heard a lot of things being said and words that people have said. What is some bad advice that you've been seeing being given by peers in your industry? Don't name any names, obviously. What is some of the bad advice that you see being given people? Lap it up. And what can we basically address here and, you know, and set straight once and for all?

All right, I've got a few, if you don't mind.

Go for it, Go for it.

So I'll start off with the whole, like the full no money down stuff. Don't get me wrong, like you can build a business no money down or low money down, should we call it?

Right.

But it's been sold off quite a lot. It's not a no money down strategy. And the reality of it is that you do need capital, start a business and you should have capital to start a business because you should be using your own capital to get off the ground, get a taste of how it works. Now, the way I see it is if you want to work with investors. Amazing. Definitely work with investors. I encourage you highly, actually. But at least start off the ground yourself, use your own money, test it out and scale it with an investor. So I'm not really a big fan of the whole no money down. It's false expectations and kind of sells the dream. So I'm not. That's one thing.

Just circling back on that one. What does no money down mean for somebody who hasn't got a clue, that is me, what that means? Oh, really?

Okay, interesting. So essentially what no money down means is that you don't, you know, you can go out there and get an investor straight away from day one to put all the money in while you go and do the sourcing and the work, the legwork.

I don't put any money in myself. I find somebody with a. With a pot of gold and I go to him saying, come and, you know, come and work with me.

Exactly that. Yeah. And like, I say, like, it's sold off, like it's very easy to do and, you know, you can do it. Of course you can do it. But personally I see it as you should have. You should have at least have some skin in the game to get your first unit yourself. And then you can say, do you know what? This is how it works, this is how it performs. This is what I do. Then go and raise money, then work with investors and you've got evidence, you've got confidence, you've got background, you've got credibility. So that's my view on it. Whether people agree or not, I don't know.

But this is your platform, this is your podcast. You can say this, this is good, right? That's number one. What's number two? What else do you see that grinds your gears?

The biggest one, I guess is I've heard people saying, like, for your first deal again, is that you should never pay a deposit for your first deal and you should never pay rent for the first two months. Now I've heard that for a couple of people. This is doing a rent to rent strategy, by the way, if you're going to be doing that. But again, it can be done, but typically it'd be done at a higher level. So if you're an operator that might have 10, 20, 30 apartments and you're looking to solve a big problem for a developer, for an example, and take a whole block on, yeah, you can weave in and negotiate those kind of deals. If you've got no background, experience like credibility, money, it's going to be very difficult for you to go and speak to an agent and get your first deal by not paying a deposit and getting two months rent free. So it kind of gets sold to people and then they walk around with this false hope. And I speak to a lot of them that are doing it and I have to kind of like tell them the truth because I'll always tell the truth. And yeah, it's upsetting me to see it.

Nice. I like that. Some really good things. Is there anything else? Have you had a good rant?

Have I had a good rant? I have a couple every now and then.

I like that.

No, there's one more. One more.

Let's finish on number three. I like this.

Yeah, the whole like passive, passive cash flow thing, right? So now look, we've. Here's the deal, right? So we started off getting stuck in doing a lot of the do ourselves. Then we built a team that took a lot of that pressure away from us. Then we had systems and then we bought a bigger team. And now we're in a position where like the team control, like 95% of what goes on.

Right.

So is it passive still? No, it's not passive. Team still needs to be managed. You still gotta motivate, you still gotta inspire, still got to educate, you still got to communicate. So even at this level, with this amount of systemizing and teams, it's not passive. Yeah, you can manage it, like I say. But the whole passive income thing frustrates me.

Yeah, I'm really glad you said that, because I do see that mentioned a lot. And it is going to be a Future podcast episode, 100%. There's a really good Gary Vee episode that I've seen on YouTube recently, and I watched it and he just highlights exactly the nonsense around those two words, passive income. And I can totally see why people buy into it, because they think you can make loads of money and you've got to do nothing for it. What people don't see with people like yourselves is the struggle right at the very start, when you're literally doing it all yourself. And I think people are buying into it, thinking that from day one, as soon as they get the keys or as soon as they get two or three properties, then that's it, job's done, we've got the money coming in. Like you said, you've got to a point now where you've really nailed down the systemization, the structures. You've got a team that takes care of 95% of your day to day, but still, it's not like you can just sit back, switch off, and everything's going to be rosy. You still, like you say, you've got people to deal with, you've got teams to motivate, and you've got jobs and stuff that needs done. So it's easy to look at where you are now. And it's so cliche, but everybody talks about it. But from all the years from 2016 to 2019, what you've had to do to get there, what you've had to learn, new levels, new devils, all of that. So I'm really glad that you mentioned that. Now there's going to be people that are watching this. There's going to be people who are listening this later on in the podcast who are thinking, I want to get in touch with David Dyck. I like what he's saying, I like what he's talking about. I think you can help my service accommodation business grow, or even hospitality business grow, because obviously there's a lot of people tuning into here from the B and B world, from the rental world. Now, if anybody wants to get in touch with you, if anybody wants to find out a little bit more about your talking about the coaching programs or even the outsourcing side of your things, where is the best place for people to go to? How can people get in touch with you? And yeah, just little plug for your business right now.

I appreciate that. Thank you very much. So my Facebook page is David Dyack sa. So just type my name in the Facebook chat and you see we can put this in the link. Me, Mark as well.

Yeah, yeah, don't worry.

So that's my business page and I kind of vlog on there. Like, I just share like what happens, good, bad, the ugly. But yeah, I try. I've logged on there quite a bit. Open it up for questions. You know, if people want to ask me anything, feel free to jump in and do that. Now what we did say, Mark, is for your followers, if they want to get like a free workshop training from what we're doing on how to plan your business, how to analyze it, how to source it and how to set it up, that's our model, the past model. We're going to put something together on just your community. So I've got the link. Don't know if you. I can read it out if you want.

Go for it. Read it out. Read it out, please.

Is that HTTP forward slash, forward slash bit ly boostly sa I like that.

I like that a lot. So, yeah. So bitly boostly B O O S T L Y S A and I'll put all the links below and in the show notes and all the jazz. And like you say, really appreciate you coming on here today, buddy. Really appreciate everybody that has tuned in and has listened or has watched this. As always, this has been the Boost Hospitality podcast. We are now on season six, episode six. So if you are listening to this for the first time, you've got a full back catalog that you can go and listen to. Go into itunes, go into Spotify, you name it, it is all in there. And whilst you are here, go into those itunes, go and leave that five star review because it means a lot and I want more and more people to discover this. But for those of you who have tuned in, thank you very much and I will be back for another podcast episode very, very soon. All right, so if you've just been watching on Facebook, I've just opened it up here. John, thank you very much. Shari, how are we doing everybody that is tuning in on the replay? Adam Goodman for tuning in, thank you very much for putting me in touch with David. That was superb. If you like this, I'll do more. I normally record it. I don't go live, but I thought, why not?

Let's.

Let's go live. We've had quite a lot of views. Have tuned in, so thank you very much. So, yeah, leave your feedback below. Let me know if you tuned in live, let me know if you watched it back on the replay. And if you want me to do this more, then I've got some more episodes coming up next week. If you want to get in touch with David, we'll link him in, but I'm gonna stop the live stream now. Then we get this recorded and we'll get this out. So thank you very much. See you later. Stop recording.