Niching Down: How Your Vibe Attracts Your Tribe

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Hey everybody. Today on the Boosted podcast we are talking about niching down and how your vibe attracts your tribe and we're going to do that with a successful and interesting short term rental host. We're going to ask questions about his hospitality business, extract all the stuff that he's doing well that you can put into your short term rental as you listen to this. So if you haven't listened to this podcast before, you're listening to the Boostly podcast. We are the podcast that gives hosts the tools, the tactics, the trainings and most importantly the confidence so you can go out there and get more direct bookings. My name's Liam Carolan, I'm Mark Simpson's co host and today we've got Andy Easton. He's coming from the UK down in Cornwall. His business is called Beach Retreats and you can check them out@beachretreats.co.uk and we're going to dive into what that business is all about as I'm sure you'll understand what niche he's going for straight away. But yeah, welcome along Andy.

Hi Liam, it's a pleasure to be here.

It's a pleasure to have you here. So start off by introducing yourself and you know what you find most enjoyable about hosting.

Sure, sure. So I'm the MD for beach retreats down here in Cornwall and we have about 250 properties that we look after, all privately owned and we work on a commission basis. And what do I like about the hospitality? It's really bringing the new properties on some great new areas, secret beaches, stunning properties, great interiors and meeting new owners and educating them about the sector.

Nice, nice. And just tell me a little bit more about the business. So where, obviously we've mentioned where it is, but what kind of model do you use, how many units and what kind of guests do you tend to host the most?

Sure, sure. So we've been around about 14, 15 years now. We are part of the Watergate Bay Hotel group. So if you've been down in North Cornwall, you might know Watergate Bay between Newquay and Padstow. And we've kind of grown from that hotel DNA of looking after guests and offering great guest experiences on the beach. So we now look after 250, I think it's about 255 properties that we've got in the portfolio now, all united by that, that characteristic of being within walking distance of a beach, having good local amenities. So the beach cafe, good restaurants and the water sports and, you know, and contemporary interiors as well. So the kind of really modern kitchens and new build properties really kind of resonate with our guests. Average guest, I guess if you look at the data, she is 45, she lives in the home counties around London. She is successful family. It's a family who career professionals appreciate quality. But I think when we talk about our demographic, it's, it's not so much about the age or the gender, it's more about the, it's more what they like to do. So our guests are very active, they like to get in the water, the wild swimming, the drink, trying the bodyboarding or the walking the coastal path. And that's kind of a really nice kind of angle to it is, you know, they're not just here to walk around tourist attractions. You know, they're getting active and they're doing what they do at home, but in a sunny location.

That's cool. And you mentioned before, and I know we mentioned this just off air beforehand, but I asked, is all of your properties near the beach? I mean, it sounds like an obvious question, but, you know, you said they're all within walking distance to the beach, which is so important. And this is what brings us back to, you know, the vibe attracts the tribe, if people know what a business does. And there was a great video recently by a chap called Daniel Priestley who says that when you're doing an elevator pitch, people like to put you into some sort of box. So instantly I now know that, you know, beach retreats. Co.uk is Hey, I can walk to the beach. So I know if I want that kind of feel of hey, I can walk. And there's, there's a, there's a beach close by, there's activities, then I know where to go. And yeah, that's, that's really cool. So where do you market your, your properties at the moment?

So everyone books direct. I think it's kind of something we're really proud of. We have a few properties where the audience have asked to list on Airbnb and that's fine, we'll do that for them. But it's book direct. So the marketing is a really kind of broad mix of channels. I come back to the, the guest journey when they're booking a self catering holiday in Cornwall. It's a very kind of planned, quite traditional market. It's that once a year holiday with the family when they're coming down to market, special occasion or to go to an event. So the journey from right I'm going to book a holiday to actually arriving is very, can be very kind of drawn out. It's a few months of looking around the Internet and actually picking out the areas and the type of property and the dates are all kind of coming together. So the marketing tends to be really based around that demographic and their interest, the workers, the people who like to do yoga on the beach, the people like to get in the water and it's just kind of like dripping some nice content to them at different points when they release the book. Beach Treats just very much the name, you know, they think of. So that's kind of, it's nice Instagram shots of the sunset. It's might be an event that's happening down here or that course or path, which has just reopened, that is that driver for wanting to book a holiday. So when. So if you look at the, the marketing and where our bookings come from, it's, it's very much a mix of a bit of pay per click, a lot of pr, we do a lot of influencers and reaching out to journalists. But then it's our newsletter. Instagram account has been really effective over the past few years and now we're playing with TikTok and seeing how that, learning from what, how that contributes to that journey. But it's very much a suite of tools that generate that one booking.

That's cool. And I'm going to go slightly off script here because I want to dive a little bit more into that. So I mean, pretty much 100% direct bookings is amazing. And you've just mentioned, you've sort of mentioned a lot of things in passing that you may do and you don't realize that you're doing it so well. So you just mentioned influencer marketing is a big one. Doing things like reach out newsletters and being around the press. Instagram, not everybody markets on Instagram. And the thing is that you've mentioned several things which, which are great. Now I was asked earlier on today, how much work does direct bookings take? And I said it depends on your business. But for you, how much work does direct bookings take? Is it, is it more, what would you say? And is it all worth it doing all this?

Yes, it does. Especially when you commit to managing your brand on a social media channel, it's not something that you can back away from and quite often it's difficult to see that direct return on the investments. I think with these channels, especially with influencer marketing is a great one in that we've had some really kind of interesting guests there with us. Quick, well known people and their families come down and you'll see this spike in the traffic and all of a sudden you'll get a few phone calls. But that particular you might get awareness to say 50,000 followers of a really good Cornish influencer. But they don't all translate into bookings there and then. So it's actually kind of, if you imagine that we do that in November, that the influencer comes out season so we've got availability, it's quite easy to arrange. The people who see that influencer might book a holiday in January for next, next July, I guess in my book and it get there this weekend, there's everyone in between that that you're reaching out to. So it's very difficult to measure return on investment in that respect. But our approach would be that we know who our customers are, we know where they live, what age they are, what they'd like to do. And we're dripping that content via the newsletter and via social media throughout the year. And it's not all book now messages. It's very much just looking at, here's some dolphins that came, came through the beer today and you know, a few drone Shots always kind of really work in terms of engagement. Everyone likes to see a beach from the air.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, any of the dolphins, I mean, sound amazing to me. I'm, I'm actually heading down, not too far away from you, so I'm hoping to see some, some amazing sights.

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Just before we move on. You mentioned, first of all, you know who your demographic is. How did you find out who your demographic is? And for people listening going, you know what, I don't know who my demographic is. How did you find out your demographic? Is there any tips that you can share around that?

We use Facebook. It's quite a good insight into who's looking at your site, who's engaging with your sites. We've got 50,000 plus followers on Facebook. There's quite a really good body of customers to look at. But we did a guest survey about three, four years ago and with an incentive to win an iPad, and the questions were very much geared towards understanding who our guests are and spending a bit of time thinking about the questions and what you want to get out of that survey before you rushed into it really helps us. So we ask questions about what they like to do and, you know, where they like to go. Just. It wasn't kind of. It was quite specific to questions that we wanted to answer on activities and when they like to travel. I think the really interesting one is the people who, you know, you come to Cornwall in July and August. It's a very different experience to coming down in September as other most UK staycation destinations, I would imagine. So, yeah, we would give me a simple survey for the price of an iPad. We got some really good insights into, into who our guests are and what they like to do.

Nice. When did you decide that it was going to be beach, Walkable distances to beach. When did you decide that was going to be your niche and why the.

Story of how that company was founded, it's really, it's really good one in that the Watergate Bay Hotel, if you've been down this way, a great destination. It's owned by some very clever people who know how to manage a destination and continue reinventing and keep it relevant. And it was purely that in the beer, some new apartments were built on the Durinix Hotel site. Hotel guests who knew the owners of the hotel bought them and they asked the owners of the hotel to look after these apartments for them. So all of a sudden you've got a small, well formed portfolio of holiday lets and the hotel as a hotel back in the day, this is 14 years ago, we've got a marketing team, we've got a cleaning team, we've got a maintenance team. So we could pretty much drop that mini portfolio into the existing operations back in the day and Beach Retreats, it was very much a natural name, I guess, because of the proximity to the beach and it's just growing from that geographically. So we've moved along the course quite gradually in both directions and then you get further afield and you get down to Senancor at the far end of Cornwall and you're on the south coast as well. And we've just taken our first property on Endeavon as well. So taking that brand criteria and applying it, you know, anywhere in the country is a really interesting kind of conversation that we're having at the moment.

Nice, nice. So it's great, great domain name as well. Beach retreat, you know.co.uk is just very, very good, isn't it? So getting back on track, what advice would you give yourself if you could go back to when this all started?

Well, I mean, I've been here about 11 years and we've grown quite steadily, quite organically over about 10, 15, 20% every year. And I look back at it now, I think celebrating achievements is something that's very much in our we've just launched new people plan and part of that is along with well being and that kind of remote working rewards, but also it's about celebrating when we do something well and you know, we've won fair few awards over the years and you win the award, you come back the following morning into work and you've got an inbox full of inquiries to deal with and campaigns to set up in marketing and a few guests to address that. You go straight back into that kind of day to day operation the morning after and all of a sudden it's like two months later. So it actually not celebrating what we have achieved is something we can do better. So, yes, I'd recommend that to everybody is just take a moment, say, well, two years ago we only had 10 properties and now we've got 30. Going to business advice three times, which I think is some great achievements out there. Great stories out there about how people are doing it really well, 100%.

Celebrating the good times is so important for everybody's sake. You know, the team, everyone involved in the business. Great thing for social media as well, for when you're. You're celebrating that. What would you say the top pieces of tech that you use in the business and. Or what's your favorite app and system that you've used?

Yeah, well, we've just. We've just integrated with your welcome, which is the digital concierge tablets, and they've got that direct connection into our pms, which means that when a guest arrives in the property, they've got a tablet which is saying, dear Liam, welcome to this property. I hope you have a great stay. And we're using that tablet to be quite local and quite authentic. So the content on there is trying to really connect the guest with a local experience provider. So that might be the guy who takes the family wild foraging, it might be somebody who does a barbecue on a beach or yogurt before breakfast, and lots of kind of authentic local experiences of which Cornwall's already thriving with at the moment and having that connection. We've invested quite a bit of time and effort into curating that content. So we delight to guess. And it's getting away from the traditional kind of tourist attractions or the reasons that you might come to Corpus and giving guests an authentic, you know, original experience. It's all very, very Instagrammable, of course, and very sharable, which obviously helps to kind of that momentum. And. And alongside that, the fun bit, you've got the practical information about the property. And I think I always kind of think about, you know, when a guest arrives and the property is completely different to what they're used to. So having information at your fingertip, everything from the WI fi to, you know, where the bins are. Practical stuff really makes a difference, is that it's personal to that property. And that's something that we're really proud of, that it is custom. And then we've just launched a new feature on the concierge, so when you arrive the morning after, the tablet will flash up. How's your. And it'll give you a star option of 1 to 5, so you can just tap on 5 stars if you're really happy and you're enjoying yourself. Or four stars if you tap one star then we know there's a problem. And if some, if a guest on the first morning gives us a one, two or three star, that goes straight to the reservations team and they will call the guest up and discuss what the problem is. And what we're finding is a really effective way of addressing any issues on that first morning rather than waiting till the end of the stay and having, you know, unhappy guest when it's too late to address any issues or concerns and that, you know, we talk about our. We have all the guest feedback that comes in from the tablet is there's lots of reviews on there as well and you know, we have some great scores around cleanliness and value for money and guest experience. And will I come back again off from the back of that. So using the tablets to really connect when the guest wants to but not be too intrusive is a really fine balance.

That's really cool. And for anybody listening to this who hasn't heard of your welcome tablets, your welcome tablets is one of the kind of pieces of tech which often gets overlooked. Often people are looking towards the touchstays or the host flees to be able to send out a digital link. The difference is with your welcome tablets is that they give you the physical tablet and that's the thing that obviously your guests can physically hold, physically read. And the difference that you've just mentioned there, Andy, is I haven't heard of people like hostfully or touchday being able to send that five star tick here as to what you experience. And at the moment, I mean that's pretty amazing. And that just means that you can capture their experience straight away. You kind of know if they've ticked five star that probably you're going to get a five star at the end of the day. And like you say, if you tick, if they've ticked one to three stars when you get in touch with them, this your chance to put it right. And there's a lot of lessons that people can take, especially hosts listening to this for, you know, even if you've just got one property and you're not using your welcome tablets, just check in with your guests the morning after, you know, a quick email, a quick phone call and just say, hey, how's your stay so far? Anything which may not be going to plan for them, that's your chance to put it right and can be a massive effect overall to your reviews. So that's really cool, Andy. I really like that.

Have you got three? I just, especially in our situation where we've got, our properties are quite far, very spread out, so we're not meeting guests, we're not welcoming them, they're arriving anywhere between 3 o' clock and midnight, so we can't physically meet them. So that often you lose that connection to the guests who may be even booked online. You've never even spoken to them or shared an email. So that touch point, I think is really important to kind of when the.

Guest wants it, 100%. Is there any other tips in general that you can share around your hospitality experience? Anything that somebody listens to this would go, do you know what? I needed to hear that. Because they may be getting started in hospitality or may even be a few years in and just, just looking for advice.

I think the one thing that I always get excited about if I'm going to a property, like checking it before a guest arrives is that first experience when I arrive at a property. I talk about that quite a lot in terms of what that means in that our guests have traveled typically quite a long way in heavy traffic. It's, it's not a fun journey to get to Cornwall most weekends, especially during the summer. So I arrive to a new area, I'm using the sat nav, I've found my parking space, I've got the key safe code, I've got the information on my phone. So I've got to the front door. And that can be quite a thought moment getting to that point, which is supposed to be a holiday. Of course, you try and remember that. So when I open the front door and I walk in, that first impression is, I think a really key driver for any, anybody in the leisure sector is that I arrive, I open it, I walk in and all of a sudden this, this spotless room opens up with a, with a sea view that opens up to kind of, wow, look at that. And the kitchen is spotless and there's a fresh smell in the property. And I feel justified that I've, I've chosen the right property for my precious time off. I only got a week, I've been really busy. This has to be really good for me and my, my family or my friends. So when you arrive and you have that, that sensation of walking into a, walking out onto a balcony and hearing a seagull, those kind of emotions really kind of like really important. And that kind of really does play a lot into the success of, I think for us especially, is that I arrive, I feel Something special. I've done the right thing. I've chosen the right property. I think it's a really kind of compelling experience that everyone should try and strive to deliver. It's a relief almost, isn't it? I've made the right choice.

I mean, everybody forgets what you did and what you said, but they remember how you made them feel. And if you can make your guest feel special, especially, I mean, like, not everybody listens to this. Will host leisure guests, some will be more midterm or contractor stays, but certainly if you're focusing on leisure, that first feeling as they walk in is just so important. And that may set the standard for the rest of the stay. If you can make them feel special, then, you know, they might be a bit more forgiving if the boiler goes wrong or if something goes wrong during their stay.

Yeah.

And, you know, we're dealing with 250 properties which have 250 boilers and 250 dishwashers and washing machines. So we're getting very good at being able to respond to that situation where if a dishwasher fails, I mean, it happened a few weeks ago and one of our team was at the property within an hour, had a quick assessment and spoke to our local supplier who had organized a spare part to be delivered tomorrow. So the dishwasher was only out of action for one of seven nights, which the guest was still a bit about that, but did some washing up during the holiday. But little things like that where, I mean, another example would be that one guest arrived and they only had one set of towels per person per week and said, well, I need more towels. And we, we just jumped in the van and we, we took them down seven towels. So they have a fresh towel every day. So for the cost doing that, the laundering of seven towels versus the cost money that they spent on their holiday, it's worth it. It's little things like that that can really kind of, they'll go home, they'll tell the friends and the family and the book again. And it's a very kind of traditional, repetitive habit of booking that family holiday every year in Cornwall.

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Ultimately, as hosts, we sometimes get more fussy guests, don't we? It's part of being hospitable, dealing with, with the, the different levels of requests within hospitality. What would you advise for others who are listening to this? Where would you advise them to go and learn some of these lessons? Is there any resources you recommend? Books, podcasts or mentors, coaches?

I know one good podcast which is worth explaining to. So I've been quite lucky and I've managed to attend some of the events that happen in the UK and around Europe as well. We were at scale at rental show in Barcelona. We which was amazing for the week, which is obviously quite commitment I think to go there. But short stay some of it and I think the scale rentals are coming to London as well. So it's just a really. What I really like about this sector is we can go to these events and no matter how many properties we manage, if it's our own individual property or if we're looking after 250, I always end up just talking to people in the sector quite openly, honestly and productively about our shared experiences. So being in that environment, talking to the people you know, listening to the presentations have, have been really valuable if, if it's possible to get along to one of these events.

They're great events. I mean the rental scale up, this is for property managers listening to this who are over 20 properties. They do it Barcelona, they've now come to London in September as I record this, this is 2023 and if you haven't been to some of these events, you mentioned the summit, what was it?

The short stay summit, which is London in April I believe the Short Stay.

Summit and all these events, if you haven't been to them before as a, as a host, you need to get yourself along to them because they're just absolutely amazing places to share experiences. Hospitality can be lonely at times. So just get into these events and talking to other people and realizing that you're not alone. Other people go for this and then sharing ideas and seeing all the awesome speakers and what they have to share. So yeah, really great point. What would you say the future holds for your business?

Well, beach. A beach can be anywhere in the world. It doesn't have to be in Cornwall. So as long as you're on a beach with a good, it's good quality Stock and it's good local amenities that could be, let's say it could be the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Far East. But I think for now we're kind of, we're kind of in that in a bit and obviously we want to grow the portfolio and keep it personal, keep it friendly for our owners and for our guests. So we still have that level of customer service and guest experience, that local, authentic experience for guests when they arrive. But so that looks like Devon Dawson. As we kind of move along the coastline, obviously those hotspots where our brand really resonates, I think that we'll be moving into. It's quite exciting. We talk a lot about apart hotels as well in our sector, especially in the leisure sector and we partner up with developers who would build, furnish and retain those part. Hotels, which could be anything from 10 to 20 units, are great for us because it means you've got one owner you can work really closely with, really kind of enhance the guest experience and you know, manage the occupancy really closely and deliver a great guest experience with a really light touch though. So it's not manning a front desk, it's using the technology, using the tablets to ensure that guests are having a great time, that the properties are all really well maintained. So I think we'll see more of those in the beach retreats portfolio in coming years.

Nice. And when you talk about Apart Hotels, I can't help but think Dave Goodfellow, who's based in Chester and he's. He does a. We talk property every morning on Clubhouse still and apart Hotels, there's some great nuggets of information if anybody's interested to go and dive into Clubhouse and like saying rental, scale up all these awesome places that people can get information about these exciting emerging areas within the hospitality industry. Before we bring things to a close, Andy, just tell me a little bit about what did you do before hospitality, how you know, what did you do in past life?

Well, I was working in publishing as it happened, as a marketer in publishing. I always remember this is going back to the late 90s, if I can kind of timestamp myself. I went to a one day course to learn HTML and at the time that was quite new emerging and that was one day course how to write HTML, started building websites and getting into the digital marketing side of marketing and we were publishing academic journals and genealogical content online and charging for us, doing search engine optimization and email marketing. And it was purely that a recruitment consultant put me in touch with the letting agent in South Devon that we can apply these skills in the hospitality sector. And that was really interesting. So we moved down from Yorkshire down to Devon at the time and I thought it was a bit of a punt to kind of do that. We had a very young family at the time and I remember working in a fishing village in South Devon, thinking, this is great. I'm on holiday for the first year. Felt like I was on holiday in that you work, you finish at 5 o' clock and you go down the beach. This is. And this is great. I think it's. It's a great lifestyle to kind of. That work life balance is really strong down here in. As I'm sure that most of you know, if you're working especially in the leisure sector, you're typically operating in a very tractive part of the country or the world even. Sorry. And that has its benefits.

Nice. Nice. As we just. Before we find out how people can go and find out more about the business, one fun question just for the sake of it. If you could invite any historical figure or famous person to dinner, who would you invite and why?

Oh, my goodness me. For dinner? My goodness me. That's a good question to ask off the. Without any kind of script or any kind of preparation. That's a really good question. I'm going to kind of have somebody from the narcissist can be a footballer who's like Jackie Milburn or something. Is it. I guess. Is that. Is that good enough? It's not really.

No. It's whoever you prefer. It's your. Your choice. And why are you a big, big fan of Bigfoot?

Yeah, that's. That's the best you're going to get out of me. I'm pretty Liam.

That's cool. That's all good. That's all good. Okay, so how can we find out more about the business? Where can we go and search for it?

So we're on LinkedIn Beach Retreats. @ beach retreats on Facebook. I mean, probably Instagram is kind of where most of the activity happens nowadays. But I'm on Instagram as well. I'm on their Facebook. I'm on LinkedIn as well as Andy Easton. So if you want to connect, just look me up on. On LinkedIn. And we're starting to do more and more on LinkedIn, especially to kind of talk about what we're doing and hopefully there's some. There's some kind of. We're sharing some insight from our guest surveys on that on the platform and some trends as well. And we will be publishing A kind of a forward looking white paper on the state of holiday letting in the Southwest in September, I.

Believe. Nice, nice. So we can go and check that out on LinkedIn and obviously. Beachretreats.co.uk if, I mean, I'm inspired to go book a holiday down in Cornwall. You've certainly sold the area and the idea we can walk to the beach. So just as we bring it to a close, I'd love to know if there's a motto or mantra which really resonates with.

You. Well, probably there's a book that kind of springs to mind and that's the Art of Being Brilliant by Andy Kaur. And that's just purely. It's about positivity, well being and happiness and, you know, celebrating success and just being positive and have a positive outlook in the world. And I think when you have that, especially in hospitality, it really helps to kind of deal with the challenges and just enjoy that work life balance. Yeah. The Art of Being Brilliant by Andy.

Corp. I'll check it out. That'll stick on my audible list after this. So, Andy, this has been fun. Really enjoyed getting to know beach retreats and yourself and ultimately just. It's great fun, isn't it, being in hospitality. So if you're listening to this on the Bruce Lee podcast and you've enjoyed this, all you need to do is subscribe. If you're listening in or watching on YouTube, if you're listening to the Boostly Podcast, we thank you for putting your attention with us. We know there's so many places you can put it and again, if there's anybody who you think can get value, make sure you share it with friends or let them know about the Boostly podcast. And we appreciate you listening into this one. Thanks very much and bye bye for now.