My Chat with Matt Ward 🚀

We have got Matt Ward, we've got Matt's business partner. David was on a couple of people ago and started chatting again. If you could just explain what your sort of role in the company is and then we'll go into how your mindset was. We spoke about obviously David being at Alton Towers, having a bit of a wobble, but let's just see, like, what is your role in the company? What do you do? And then we'll sort of go on to how it was back on the.

Hi, I'm Matt. We obviously got the business based down in Southend. We've been running for a few years now. My role in the business is more so the numbers side of things, the more of that analytical kind of research side. I wouldn't go as far to say I'm like a complete geek, but I do love my numbers and spreadsheet and I'm partial to a good few systems. That's the. I love them. Yeah, so that's pretty much what I do in the business as well as a lot of the sort of sales, sourcing the book inside as well and working on a lot of the numbers.

Just like with David, I was sat with you on the 12th. We were in down by the London Excel before I got turned into a hospital. And we're having a, having a chat and I don't think either of us could even comprehend about what could happen next. We were chatting more about the football season than we were about the hospitality. So then obviously we went our separate ways. On the 13th was when it really started kicking off. 14th and 15th was the weekend and then 16th was the Monday. How what happened? Like from your end, from the side that you. Obviously you're analytical, you see the reports and all of that. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17th of March, like where, where were you at? Where was the business at?

Quite funny because it was actually my partner's birthday on a Saturday, so there was about 25 of us that went out in central London and it was almost like quite surreal. Like, should we be going out? Should we not be going out? It was kind of in that bit before. And then the Monday came and over the weekend me and David were chatting a lot and it was like we kind of just dropped into this temporary lull where we're like, you know, shit, where's this all going? Are we gonna have to shut the business down? You know what's gonna happen? I think between in about a 12 hour gap, me and Dave just got super resourceful and we just thought of like every possible thing that we could do and how we could cut our costs back and what kind of deals we could do long term, who we could approach, you know, where we could find leads, that kind of stuff. And we just, we just went into what we call sort of hustle mode and we just went into like super resourcefulness. So, yeah, it was like, it was a bit. It was a very, very strange time, especially when they kind of announced. Was that when they announced lockdown as well?

23Rd. So the week after. So, yeah, you had a week before. Yeah, week before. So, yeah, talking about being super resourceful about going into hustle mode, what were some of the things that you were doing to be proactive?

I think one of the main things was looking at like, our existing costs, really. And it's funny, isn't it? It takes something like that for you to then realize and scroll through the bank statements and look through Xero and see where all the money's, all the money's going and where you can save instantly. So that was a big thing we did and I think we curved about 3, 400 quid a month instantly there and then. So that was brilliant. We then looked at doing some of the longer term stuff. So we thought, okay, how long is this going to go on for? 10, potentially. It could be three months, it could be six months. We don't really know. So what we started to do was advertise the properties on more of a longer term basis. So we looked at things like on Airbnb, putting like a bigger monthly discount, put in a weekly discount, because we noticed that we were getting sort of like two to four week inquiries as normal, when we'd normally be getting sort of three to seven days as normal. So it was a big shift and we just kept adapting and kept trying to find, you know, different avenues. Like, for example, we were getting approached by a lot of couples who were both living at home but now wanted a place to live during lockdown. So then they were all coming to us in about a week. I housed about five or six couples into our apartments. You know, things like that I'd never even thought of. But, yeah, they just came out the blue. So, yeah, we just, I think it was a lot of things like that and just knowing, just having to look in every single angle and have the right sort of mindset when we're looking at the angle and going, okay, how can we monetize that?

You obviously part of what you and David do, you help and mentor and coach other people are in sa. What has been the main Bit of advice that you've been passing on to them. During this time, I imagine your phone has been going a bit crazy. Lots of questions from people that may have just got started. You know, it's part of what you do, you help people get started and whatnot. So what has been sort of the main bit of advice that you've been passing on to them?

So the main thing really for me being the numbers guy really is like, know your numbers at the back of your hand now more than ever if you don't know your costs, like when you're quoting long term deals or when you're speaking with your suppliers and you need to still continue to make a profit or at least at minimum survive during this, you need to know the numbers at the back of your hand. So for me what that meant was going back through all of our properties, looking at all the break even figures and seeing what we needed to hit on a minimum monthly basis and then speaking with all our clients and saying, look, if you're going to go out there and you're going to be looking for a long term deal, you know, you need to hit this as a minimum and gave them a sort of a calculation on how to do it and like a spreadsheet, of course, because I love those. And then just, yeah, just kind of, just kind of went through it and just said, look, let's aim the same to make a profit. But even if we just, you know, break even, at least we, at least we're going to get through this period, which is, you know, unprecedented. As they keep calling.

Have you had conversations with landlords or have, you know, of your members, the people are part of your training group that have had conversation with landlords about taking a bit of a payment holiday for a couple of months. Have you heard of any conversations? Have you, like, how's the conversations being started? You know, is any sort of advice you could pass on to anybody that may be thinking about this.

So we've been advising our clients to do that where possible. Especially as, you know, the government is advising us to shut down in terms of leisure bookings. That cuts off such a huge sector of the market for, you know, a lot of people, the whole of our industry, you know, because we all do some sort of leisure really on the whole. So we've just been saying, look, you know, have the, it's all about the relationship that you've got between you and the landlord. End of day you're, you know, you're paying their rent, you're guaranteeing their rent for a long period of time, if you're taking it on a rent to service accommodation. So, you know, this is not a quick, quick win. They're in it for the long run, we're in it for the long run. So if we can work together and we can get through this period now and it's going to be a short period, it's going to be over, you know, eventually, whether that's a two months, three months or six months, it's going to be over. And then once we're through that, we can come out the other side smiling and we can say, look, you know, we're still in business together. The last thing that people want to be doing is going out of business in, you know, during coronavirus. I've seen businesses, I'm sure we've all seen businesses go out already and it's, you know, it's super sad and that's exactly what we want to avoid. So, yeah, just about having that human to human contact and just saying, look, let's work together on this and yeah, we'll get through the other side.

I really do appreciate that. And obviously you and David are doing fantastic work. David shared about the things going on with the NHS and whatnot. So if people want to find out more about what you guys are doing, where's the best place to reach out? Where's the best place to go? Is there a website? Social media, like, where can I go for that?

So I'd say immediately, look@www.freesatraining.co.uk. we've got a free training, 30 minute free training. We've got another five videos that come off the back of that. You guys get. There's about an hour's worth of free training that will get you started. And then, yeah, just feel free to drop us a DM or join our community, which is the SA education community. Just search that on Facebook and join. We've got nearly 2,000 members in there now. So, yeah, come and say hello and look forward to seeing you there.