Real-Time Cold Calling: Don’t Miss These Booking Strategies

What we're going to do is we are going to be proactive in trying to get contractors to book and be aware of our business. Now there is a big part of the playbook which explains and shows you how to go and get contractor bookings. But I wanted to put it into practice with the business that we are helping in Leeds when it comes to the documentary that we are filming. So a big part of Cosy Spaces is they want to appeal to contractors and these midterm rentals business guests, they've got free properties that they run, own and manage themselves and then they've got a wider network of other of businesses through contacts and you know, relationship building has been happening in leads over the past two years and this means that we are ideal for contractors, ideal for business guests. So one of the trainings that we've done many, many times, and it's well known in the world of short term rentals, med term rentals, is what you need to do on a night. So you can do this over a course of a month or a couple of weeks, or you can even find and hire people to do this for you anytime between 7pm and 9pm is to drive around the local budget hotels that are in your town, your city, where you are based. Because what the reason why to do it at these times is that that is when the contractors, the tradies, the business people that are working, this is when they're going to be in their accommodation, they're going to be getting food, getting drink in the bar or whatever, but they're parked up for the night because they've finished their shift. And what you need to do is you need to just drive around and all you're going to do is you're going to make a note of the name on the van because every van is wrapped with the contact details that are coming that they're working for, for promotion and marketing. So we're going to get down the name, they're going to get down the number and where they are parked and you're going to put it onto a Google sheet just like what we've done here. So as you can see, we've got the, the name, the website, the phone number, the email, the notes, the date it was parked and a picture as, as well. So we've got any constructions or building sites, we've got the, the picture of the van where it was parked and the likes. So what we're going to do in this video is I am going to reach out on behalf of Justina and I'm going to speak to the people at the company and I'm going to try and find out who is in charge of accommodation and I'm going to explain what we do and how we work. Now, the goal of this isn't to get a booking, to get a booking at this stage is very slim. All my goal with this is to make sure that they are aware of me, of Cozy Spaces and what we provide. And so the next time that they look to do a booking, they will come to us directly instead of booking in at the Ibis or wherever. Because at the end of the day, if they've got three people or two people staying over in an Ibis or, you know, three or four people staying over an Ibis of a spread around, then it is much better to get them into a house that's got their own private kitchen, that's got free parking and, you know, it's going to be much more comfortable. So they'll save a lot of. Save a lot of money, but also as well, it'll be much more better for their contractor. So it keeps them a lot more happier. And again, even if we're full, it's really good to be doing this practice because if we're full, I can tap into my network of host that I have and I can try and get in position there at their places and we just take a cut and we just ask, get a commission or refer us fee, a finder's fee. So it's ways of making money. Now, again, we've done this ourselves, we're going to do this ourselves, but over time, what we can do is we could outsource this. So we could just pay somebody, a college kid or whatever, just to drive around at night, earn a bit of extra beer money and do this for us, fill in the sheet. And then we could also hire somebody to be doing these calls for us. And they are consistently being our sales arm for us in the business. But right now what we need to do is we need to record it, we need to document it so that we can then pass it on to somebody. Now, if I was doing this myself and I was documenting this for Cozy Spaces, I'd be recording Looms at this point. But because I'm documenting this for the YouTube document that we're creating, then I'm obviously on my camera, on my setup and all that cool stuff. My phone is hooked up so you'll be able to hear the calls as, as we go. So let's dig in. So the first one that we See and we've got a couple of different ones here. We've got the Clegg Construction. Now this one is a construction and a building site in Leeds and we've got the other two here which are the vans that are parked up outside the property. Now this is just done on one night of doing this. So we've got two numbers here. So here's how I personally would go through it. You may want to do a different, different way. It's totally up to you. So we're going to go into the first one which looks like Nova and Nova Loo. Nova Lou, very cool. So we've got the business there, we've got the phone number, we've got the inquiries etc. So the first thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to go and try and find somebody or the company on LinkedIn. So Nova Loo on LinkedIn, as I can see here, it has got three employees on LinkedIn. So if I go to click here. So this director, Nigel, who's the director of Nova Lou isn't very. Here we go. Here's his profile. He's got two profiles. Business and building sector flushing. Let's find out more about this business. Building a sales team. Okay, so I've got a name, right? Nigel, he's the name. It looks like a Freeman band. Let me have a look at the site, see if there's any. Okay, so the based. This is their. What could be their just PO address. It just could be whatever that is. Mutual connections which is always interesting. So here's the director. Looks like there's two of them in it together. His role is. Okay, so we've got two names here. I'm going to write down two names. I'm going to write down David and Nigel and we've got a phone number. Okay, so the next job then. We've got this, we've got this, we've got that, which is lovely. The next thing is to go and call. Okay so that'll be the next job. Okay so I've got my phone here, 01904. So the type of questions that I'm going to be asking here is we're obviously going to say, oh, I was down at the, down at the Ibis last night having a, having a drink with a friend and I saw one of your vans in the, in the car park and I just. Basically what we do is we offer accommodation and you know, did you know that you know there are accommodation? Just wanted to check, you know the person that's parked up there. I've seen that you're based in York but are you often in the air? You're often in Leeds, you know how many people are there? Because it could be that our rates are better and it could be a much more better situation to be in a house and be stuck in a, in a budget, in a budget hotel. Just want to introduce ourselves. How many loads of these sort of open ended, open ended questions. So let's see how it goes.

Hello, thanks for calling Novalux led. I'm sorry there's nobody here at the moment so please do leave your name and number and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thank you.

Hi, this is a message for either Nigel or David. My name is Mark Simpson. I'm calling from an accommodation business in Leeds called Cosy Spaces. I was in the Ibis last night having a drink with a friend and I noticed that one of your vans was outside. This call was just literally to find out who your accommodation manager was there at the company, if there is one, and just wanted to introduce ourselves. If you want to have a conversation I'll just send you a message on LinkedIn. I found you both on LinkedIn doing a little Google search and you can respond back that way and we can have a, have a chat to see how we could potentially save you a bit of money next time you're staying over in Leeds. Anyway, thanks very much. If you want to call the number back, My mobile is 079-436-22847 or just reply to me on LinkedIn. Thank you very much. My name is Mark Simpson. Super simple, nice and easy. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to come into, back into LinkedIn. I said I'm going to send a message on LinkedIn and I can also send this as a message on, on email as well. But let's go following on. Hey Nigel, is Mark here? I left you voicemail on the home on the, on the office number and if I wanted to, which I have a little go in here, we could also tap into the power of chat GPT. So if you're not clever, not clever, if you're not confident writing copy or sending a cold message like that, then we can come over into our tools that are readily available. So I'm going to log back in. So help me write a message where I. I am contacting a business owner on LinkedIn to introduce myself and my business, which is called Cozy Spaces. We provide accommodation in Leeds for contractors and anyone visiting the city on work related trips. We are cost effective compared to staying in a hotel. The message needs to be no more than 100 words. Let's see what our friend chat GPT can do for us. There you go. Now I'm going to just use that. Why not, why not have a little play around. Hi Nigel, my name is Mark and I'm part of Cozy Spaces. Accommodation team at Cozy Spaces leads. Again make sure use Grammarly to tidy it up. Could save you money. Compared to having your staff stay in the ibis and insurance site. I'm available speak today if you're free. So a little tidy up which is good to go. I'm going to do that and what I'm also going to do is I'm going to come over, I'm going to send this to David as well. Okay so we've got two messages gone out and all we've got to do now is we will wait for them to get back but I'm not going to finish there. I'm going to go back and I'm going to move on to the. To the next company that we had.

Not that one the first week isn't it? Where's my labor sheet? We are there till the 16th of June.

Oh so here for quite a while.

Probably got. I'd have to have a look because it depends on the teams who's there because some, some will share, some will not share. So obviously I have to look at the range of properties and what's available but I'm happy to have a look.

Yeah, definitely.

Are you always have a look?

Yeah. Well that's why I wanted to give a call just because whenever I, I see vans parked up in a hotel I always assume that they just don't know that there's other options available sometimes and so I just always like to drop a call in because it never helps. You know we've got quite a big portfolio.

Oh I know there's options.

Yeah.

It's just like 20 odd. 20 or 20 odd sites across the country. We're doing this for six and a half years.

Oh my God.

I book about 80, 90 rooms a week.

Oh my gosh. How normally, how do you normally book your stays? Is it just through like booking.com or are you like. Do you have any.

Oh my God. I, I have. Well I have normally got deals with I Mercure was jewelries. Now Leonardo's tend to tend to have a look around guys stay well what we'll do is probably do booking.com first have a look, have a stay, see how we get on. If they're happy, then I'll strike up a deal with a hotel.

Yeah, okay. Wow, that's. That's interesting.

I tend to work it that way.

Have you ever done.

I've got like Premier. I've got business accounts, Premier Travel Lodge. Wow. Discounts. Because the amount of spend that I do every year, do they ever.

Do they ever stay in, like, at homes or apartments? So it's like more of a. Like a comfortable home away from home.

Only if it work. Only if it works out at the right price. And I've got the right teams because, as you can imagine, some of these guys work on site or all day together and the last thing they want to do is see to the busy. So you've got some little work, some that'll work really, really well and it'll do it. It's like when they go away, I mean, my guys never share rooms. Wait, so a lot of. A lot of companies the guys will go to in a room. My guys have to have their own room. Double bed.

Yeah.

Their own ensuite. They won't stay anywhere that hasn't got an ensuite. So, yeah, they're quite. I got princesses I look after every week.

Oh, that.

That is amazing saying that. Some. Some of them have. We've. We've had some manor houses before. We've managed to get, you know, a really lovely rate. Sometimes it's like if we get one person that's particularly away for a lot, we try and get them if they want to their own flat. Some guys want to want a gym, some guys want a Wetherspoons. Yeah, it's just trying to get it right. So. Yeah. I call myself Thomas Cook.

That's a good description. So just. Just out of interest, if you would like to. Do you have like an average budget per head per night?

I do, yeah, Yeah. I try and work around 70. Well, it's gone up a lot. I used to have to work around 45, 50, but now I talk about 75, 80 per person per night.

Yeah, yeah.

So if I have got like a place where I can get them in cheaper, then it's fantastic if they can share. I mean, like, I had cottages down in Chichester for my team down there that they shared and then that's changed and the guys that are there now don't want to share, so. Yeah, but, yeah, brilliant.

Well, we actually have accommodation and portfolio for not just leads, but all over the country. So it could be really good to sort of Keep in touch, because we've got, like a wider range of network, which is. Which is really interesting. I definitely think there's something we can do. What would be your best email at the company?

Yeah, I mean, it would be my name. It's Julie Dot Johnston.

Yeah, fantastic. Really appreciate your time and good luck being the travel agent, so to speak. That's brilliant. And, yeah, I'll send everything over and if you ever want any information or just a chat or even if, like, there's something coming up, just feel free to contact me and we'll see what we've got in our little black book to see what can help.

No worries. We've got. That's brilliant. All right, thank you very much.

My absolute pleasure. Have a good day. Bye. There we go. So it works a number of ways. Now. I'm more than happy to send across my details. I know a little bit more about the company, I know a little bit more about what they've got. They've got. She's booking 60 to 90 rooms a week, which is big. Now, this is not obviously going to be just under Cozy Spaces, but. But, you know, if you've got a network and a referral network, then this is. This is fantastic. You know, you can basically put tap into your little black book, so to speak, and you can just send it across with availability and all that stuff. Budget of about 75 to 80. So let's just say we've got a property. Let me just pull this up here. Let me share my screen while I do this. So they've got an average of 80 pound a night per night. If you've got a place that can sleep five, so that is 400. So basically, 400 nightly rate, if you can get it a little bit lower than that, fantastic. Let's just say 400 nightly rate and say that you can do seven days out of that. That's 2, 800, 2,800. Let's say you can get 50 weeks out of that of a year, then 1, 2, 3, 4. So what's that? 14, 440, 140, 000 potential revenue if you can strike up some good relationships. And that's just one potential property. So, yeah, very good, very exciting. Keep in touch now. And this is it. Now what you've got to do is you've got to keep in touch. I will message Julie now. I will just say, hey, this is. This is what we can do, this is what we can offer. Please do keep in touch. Just make me your first point of contact the next thing that I would do is I'm going to get Julie's address and I've got Julie's name and what I'm going to do is we're going to pop in some maybe donuts or just a bunch of flowers, a bottle of wine, or just send it down to the office. Lumpy Mel, Just saying, nice chatting to you. Please bear us in mind whenever you've got accommodation needs and you know, I can reference the call and just say to my favorite travel agent at Williams Den, etc, these are little things that we can be doing to keep in touch because this could be a fantastic contract. They are there until June. We could be able to accommodate them, no problems at all. So this is how you build up your contractor acquisition model.