Mark Simpson’s YouTube recap (Season 6, Episodes 8–14) summarizes seven podcast interviews. Guests and focal points: Episode 8 — Sally Campbell (her art background, Progressive training, mentor Rob Moore, documenting her journey); Episode 9 — Gordy (practical, high-impact tip for getting bookings); Episode 10 — Adam (hospitality focus; guest feedback pre/during/post stay; referral-driven bookings); Episode 11 — Paul Smith (regulation, health & safety pitfalls, detailed operational topics); Episode 12 — Anakan (runs business from iPhone, systemisation, Guesty, managing 40+ properties); Episode 13 — Benjamin PorterSmith (marketing and direct-booking expertise; contacted host via Gordy connection); Episode 14 (penultimate before current) — Abby (location selection strategy favoring family-friendly/rural towns like Bakewell, Whitby, Lake District; writing a book; Touchstone connection). The recap highlights booking tactics, systems/tools, hospitality practices, regulatory risks, and location-selection strategies.
Chapters
Episode 8, Sally Campbell from SA Secrets podcast. Again, another podcast that I tune in on. I listen in and the reason why I love Sally is because she's basically documenting her journey, why she started her love of art, why she chose Progressive as the training company that will teach her more about property and all the other things, why she chose Rob Moore as a sort of mentor, and why she believes that he's the right guy for her. And you know, we talk about a lot of different things in this episode. Another good one for you to go and check out, especially if you're on the progressive bandwagon. Episode 9. We then started part one of the Touchstone Education Guys and Gordy was fantastic to interview, so be so positive. And he shared some really, really effective tips on how to get bookings for your essay property. One tip, in fact, that he shared, which you have to go and tune in to find out what it is, is one that I am sort of just forwarding on to other people when they say I can't get bookings. This one tip, which takes maybe two hours of your life, is worked phenomenally for him and I guarantee that will work for others. Episode 10, possibly, some could say we have an unknown in the service accommodation world, but is definitely one to keep an eye on. Adam is somebody that I actually went to stay with in Birmingham back in June. Me and Laura went down, we had a couple of kid free days and Adam kindly invited us down in exchange for a coaching call, which we did, and it was phenomenal. And I actually went and met Adam and we just discussed in our podcast episode what he does that's different from everybody else. And we go down the route of hospitality. We go down the route of how he gets feedback from his guests pre, during and post stay and how it has helped him get so many bookings based on referrals. Episode 11, Part 2 of the Touchstone Trifecta, as I like to call it. Paul Smith, headgyver. You'll see him a lot, you know, really in depth interview. He really talked about some topics that I don't see many other people talking about, specifically when it comes around regulation, health and safety, the pitfalls if you don't get that. And again, we touch upon a lot of things. How his first ever experience with service accommodation was somewhere close to home to me, you know, in Middlesbrough. Episode 12. Anakan, again, really interesting character, part of the Progressive crew, does a lot of his own thing. But we spoke about how he runs his whole business just from his iPhone. Again, he has built systems and Structure in place. He attributes guesty as a big part of him being able to run everything, all of his properties, which I think is from what I remember coming in at 40 plus due to that. In fact, now that he's grown that he's systemized, that he structured it, he's now looking at going into other aspects of property. Episode 13 Benjamin PorterSmith came into my world purely because when I was doing the research for Gordy, Ben reached out to me. He's a good friend of Gordy's for many a year and I asked him some questions that I could ask Gordy that would throw him off. To be fair to Ben, I think he let him off lightly because Gordy absolutely smashed it in the interview. But after it, me and Ben got chatting, found out that Ben is an expert marketer. He teaches property people loads of direct booking tips, which is right up my alley. Finally, the one before this one, the penultimate episode I chatted to part three of the Touchdown Trifecta, Abby. Abby is just one of those infectious characters and I've been trying and trying and trying all, all summer to try and get Abby on the podcast. We're able to work out a date. In fact, when we spoke, Abby was in Italy. She was doing a week away with the Touchstone crew, going through so many things, she was writing a book. She's an extremely busy lady, but she very kindly put out, set time aside to chat to me about how she chooses locations. Now, the locations, like I said at the start, service accommodation is predominantly in built up cities because that's where the assumption is, where you're going to get the most bookings. Abby has taken a different route. She's got properties in Bakewell, she's got properties in Whitby and she's going to go to the lakes and you know, she chooses her areas based on where she would take her kids for a holiday. And I love.
