My MAIN Tip to increasing Direct bookings

Welcome to the Boosie Podcast. My name is Mark Simpson and I've got something special for you today. So recently I was invited by Hostfully to come and do a special webinar for them and we talked about direct bookings. We went for a good hour, it was really good. And I reached out to them afterwards and saying could I please have a copy of that? I would love to turn that hour into a couple of short episodes of the Bruce Lee podcast. And you know, I know a Hostfully well and they said yes. So I have got a little segment of our chat to share with you now. What I love about it is that Hostfully are also sponsoring this episode. So if you're wondering who is Hostfully then they are one that you should get on your radar. They are the market leaders for the online digital guidebooks. Please, in 2021 get a digital guidebook. The cool thing is this is free. So F R E E. We know you love the free stuff. So go to hostfully.com go get your free digital guidebook. If you ever want to upgrade and get more digital guidebooks then you do have to pay. But it's a very low cost and if you put in boostly 2m you'll even get a little discount which is exclusive to team Boostly people. They also do PMS software, property management software. So if you're looking to change and you want to get a good one, they are one of the best multiple award winners. Our website that we create at Boostly links straight into Hostfully. It's fantastic. We love it, it's fun, it's really easy to use, really easy to set up and your guests will love it too. So please do go check them out and do mention that you came from Boostly because they will look you for that. So let's get on with it. You're going to go straight in and what we're going to talk about today will be something very much direct booking related. The next person that you will see will be myself. You'll have David Jacoby and you'll have Brad from Hostfully. So let's get on with the show. So the first question that was submitted was what is your main tip for increasing direct bookings? And there are literally so many verticals and so many ways we can go down that. But if you want to know the the best way of increasing your direct bookings and I don't have my phone to hand when I'm working I like to leave my phone in the car. But that is your best device. Right now, to include creasing your direct bookings, is your telephone. It's the contacts that are in your phone. And it's something that I've just recently revisited. I've been sort of rehashing and recapping almost 12 years of hospitality because this year I'm putting together my first ever book and the first draft has been put together and it's going to be released in November, which I'm excited to tell more about when it is ready. But to put the book together, I had to sort of like, really re dig into things that I've done in the past for the family business that worked. And one of the best things that I've done and one of the things that I've talked about quite a lot since is utilizing your contacts, your relationships that you already have. Now, they may be friends, it could be acquaintances, it could be people in the local area, it could be past guests. I think what stands the test of time in any industry, it's not so much of what you know, it's who you know. And it's the same in any environment. And I've worked in lots of different environments. I used to be a soccer coach, you know, I used to work in offices. I even used to do garden and mulching back in the day when I was a backpacker traveling around Australia. And again, it's the same thing all the time. It's not who you know, it's. It's not what you know, it's who you know. And this is fantastic for direct bookings because again, you can just literally get your phone out. You can just pick 10 contacts and it could be close friends or it could be just acquaintances or just anybody like that. And it can be simply a case of picking the phone up. Or if you're not confident in picking the phone up, you can send a text message or a WhatsApp as me and David. Try and get David on the WhatsApp speed, having none of it. But again, you can do a WhatsApp, a voice note, you know, and just literally reach out to somebody and just. There's four little words that are really, really, really important. Do you know anyone? Do you know anyone that's coming to the area? Do you know anyone that needs accommodation? Did you know that I. We've got accommodation and we're looking for guests. Do you know anyone who's coming to town? And you know, if you ask 10 people and you'd be surprised at what the answer may be, if you ask 10 people and they all Say no. And you ask another 10 people, if you keep going down that train, eventually someone will go, you know what? I do know somebody. And again, because that know like and trust factor is there. You've already, you've already established that. And it's really, really powerful. And that's even before we get onto previous guests. You've got guests that have already stayed with you, they know you, they like you, they trust you. And again, it's super powerful and really popular. You don't even have to rely on email for this because again, a lot of the times if a guest books review via an ota, you don't get that email address really, but you all get the phone number, the WhatsApp number. And again, it's a simple thing, picking up the phone, having a call. And when I do this tactic, I always used to adopt the 8020 rule. So I wasn't just calling up everybody, I wasn't calling up people that came for a one night stay or you know, fly by through. I was doing the 8020 rule. So I was looking at the 20% of guests that either brought in 80% of the revenue, so a real big booking, or it was 80% of people that I knew that were just really nice people or they just had a really good time, they left that amazing review or just, you know, you know, if for those who've been in hospitality for a long time, there's guests that, you know that now that because they keep coming back kind of regular, they just become friends. And, and that's what I love about this business and hospitality is that we had guests come year after year after year to our, our family business and, and they were invited to mine and Laura's wedding, my wife Laura, because they, we got to know them so well. And again, it's just a case of picking up the phone when you really need it and just go, do you know anyone.