My Chat with David Diack 🚀

People that are tuning in live and asking questions. There's one that I'm really happy is coming because David is the man to answer this. But before we go into it, David, just give us a couple of a minute, a minute of your life and just intro to everybody who you are, so basically where you are in the world.

Hi, everyone, I'm David Dyack from Sunny Southend in Essex. Been operating in the hospitality industry since September 2016. Been a good journey, done well, built a good team, built a good business. Got to 65 different service department units, should we call it, in a minute, varying from studios one bed to two beds, three beds, little bit of everything. And then, yeah, here we are. Now. We've helped people along the way, coach them, help them start, systemise, scale up and evolve, really. We've been doing that for the last 18 months.

Because I was sat with you on the 12th of March when all of this started to kick off. We were at the. This Short Stay show, easy for me to say, and we're literally seeing it as it all sort of kicked off. How can you describe the business and your life from the 13th of March to, say, the 17th of March, those sort of four days that followed?

I'm not gonna lie to you. Like, I was, I think, just before that I was away in Centre Parks. I'm sure it was before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went just after. Yeah, that weekend and I remember being away at the weekend and I was like, holy shit, this is like, this is. Can I swear on this as well? And you know, like, when you sort of having a word of yourself and I was away, I was with my family and I was just thinking, this is going to hit us hard, like, how are we going to deal with this? So I'm not going to lie, I had a bit of a weekend where things are mulling over. I got back and spoke to my business partner, Matt, who's on this, and we just said, look, let's make it happen. What have we got to do between us to get through this and do well? And, mate, not gonna lie, like, it's difficult with a team and housekeepers and having clients you've got to manage and agents and landlords you've got to work with and having very awkward and difficult conversations, but you have to step up and have a big mindset shift. And we did it between us and we've done all right. We're really, really proud of where we're at. To be fair.

The question that I wanted to ask you, it was something that Came on from Aaron and he basically said that his cleaning team let him down with an appointment that they should have done and he lost a book. And on the back of that, obviously with now more than ever, the way that your properties are cleaned is so important. That for me is a systems sort of miscommunication now with what you do. What you and Matt do really well is you've got your systems and structure in place better than probably anyone that I know. So how have you had any issues have you had. Because obviously you've got a membership program, you've got people that you help and you know, get into sa. Have you sort of seen any of these things happening? Like what. What advice would you give to somebody that would be having a problem with that moving forward? So that could potentially happen again. Yeah.

Cool, mate. So, like, if anything, like on our programs, SA business build up, we talk heavily about being a couple of steps ahead. Yeah. So although you might have one cleaner, we're always talking about having plan A, plan B and plan C. And in our situation, we've had issues. The issue is the money down to PPE not being available in all fairness. And housekeeping team has not been able to actually clean because they haven't got the right equipment, which has taken time to get and we've got to respect that. But having a plan A and a plan B in place for everything, communicating more than ever. We've had to make sure that we're very vocal with our team. We've held team meetings, we've spoke to everyone. We want to make sure they're comfortable, we're comfortable, we're on the same page. We're all talking about the outcome. Post this as well and what it means for the business and the longevity that's in it for them. At GM bought us this culture that the business is built on the foundation of housekeeping and maintenance, which it is. And we need to respect their views and what with them so that when we do come out of this, we're all able to thrive and grow as people as a business.

Obviously we're going to get Matt on in a couple. A couple of minutes time. Spoke to Andy before and he said that he really found a lot of joy in Facebook groups. OTA bookings were coming in, but he's able to convert them into a direct speaking to existing clients to sort of get them stay. So what was like, we'll let Matt talk in length about other things that you guys did. But what's the one thing that you could say that you did that you can remember you doing just to sort of help the people business.

Me and Matt have been sort of working hard on the NHS stuff like getting in with the right people. And I think the consistency and the persistency of drumming up and working on relationships we've already had, building new relationships has made a significant difference. And between that, between getting the agreement or the opportunity to house NHS funded by the government is one thing, but then getting the leads has been sort of one of the key things. I mean, I put a post up this morning, so last night, so 219 shares across multiple Facebook groups. I've got a flurry of leads coming through for NHS staff who've got to self isolate. Just like being aware of who your audience is. Like, one minute is corporate leisure and whatever else. Next minute you go, right, this is our audience now. How can we possibly be in front of this audience every single point of whatever we do every single day? And what are all the angles we can tap up? And that's what we've done.

When you're going down the NHS route and key workers and whatnot, are you charging for this? Are you doing it free? Like, how are you sort of bridging it?

Initially we were charging a very, like, reduced rate some, is what Andy said, to be fair, building up sort of relationships from that. Then we've been speaking to them, the doctors and the nurses, and understanding how their colleagues are getting accommodation, how they're getting it paid for, you know, by the government, and then following up on that process and going deeper and deeper and deeper down the line. I would love to say that I'm trying to pull something together for other operators and working on it. Been a difficult thing to get, but it's actually all funded by the government going forward. So we're in a position now where we can accommodate nurses and doctors and we're paid a good rate and it's funded by the government.

What is the one tip, then? So people watching this and we've got a lot of people watching live, we're going to have a lot more people watch back on the replay if they can take bookings now. And I want to stress if they can. You know, there's obviously a need for accommodation right now from NHS workers and key workers. What would be the one bit of advice that you would give to somebody that is wanting to sort of get these bookings? Like, where should they start? The first thing that they should do tomorrow morning?

The first thing, the quickest and easiest thing to do for me was create a post. If you're not friends with me, add me on Facebook or I'll share it into one of the groups or whatever. The exact post that I wrote, I've shared three posts in two weeks. And the audience that it builds off of it and the people that come towards is just phenomenal. And that's the quickest thing you could do. It's free, it won't cost you anything, but it's getting away awareness around what you do.