STR Insights: Fine-Tuning Concepts and Dominating the Market

Hello. Hello. Welcome along to another podcast. So today we are talking about how nothing drives bookends like impeccable. Easy for me to say. Nothing drives bookends like impeccable design. And we've got a very special guest who's going to be talking why that's important and how you can be mostly booked. And I love that, that term, that's both the name of this person's business, but also we love saying that, yeah, we're mostly booked. That's just a great saying for us STR owners. So if this is your first time here, you're listening to the Boostly podcast, the podcast that helps give 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 is Liam Carolan and this is the miniseries on the Boostly podcast which looks at businesses, people who you as a short term rental operator should know about within the industry. So today I'm joined by Stephen Eagles and as I say, his company is called Mostly Booked. You can go and check them out at mostlybooked Co. And I'm just excited. I've, I've been following Stephen for a couple of weeks since, you know, since we arranged this and he's very, he can polarize a room with some of the opinions, which is fantastic. So I'm excited about this. So Stephen, welcome along and thank you for joining us today.

Hey Liam, thank you so much for inviting me. That is true, my content can be a little bit polarizing at times, but I do feel like it's, it's on point and some things need to be said. You know, there's a lot of, I think what I find is there's a lot of hosts out there who are in different places. There's like the, the host in these Facebook groups who's just got the one listing and it's their baby and they will do it in a certain way and that's very different to how like a medium to large sized operator would operate. So therefore when I come in with some cold truths, you know, they're always there to shoot me down, say that's not right, you know, but a lot of my advice is for this, I would say people with several listings and.

Above, you know, and to be fair, you have to be cruel to be kind sometimes there's a lot of overly optimistic people who go into, into business, isn't there? And they just, some of the truths actually can save them from making some of the fatal mistakes that we see happen. So let's start off by throwing the mic open by saying, can you introduce yourself and your business? Mostly Booked?

Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Stephen from Mostly Booked and I help hosts essentially cut through the noise beat market saturation, that big keyword that everybody is sort of afraid of. I'm a seasoned property manager. We're now an agency that serves hosts to help them stand out from the crowd and achieve a calendar that for most of the time is Mostly booked. That's sort of, that's the aim of the game.

I like it. How did the name come about?

I was trying to hit the nail on the head with what is the desired outcome that my, my avatar would like. You know, something similar to how maybe a host can think about their guest avatar. I think about my customer avatar, what's important to me, you know, because I've been a host myself for many years, sort of growing and scaling other people's portfolios. I've obviously understood that that is the, that's the, the most important thing. It's the thing that we always want. But also it's not to, you know, you'll see a lot of maybe coaches and consultants out there promising, I can, I can achieve you £100,000 in three days, you know. So I thought Mostly Booked is a little bit understated. It's the result that we all rarely would want. If we could be mostly booked most of the time, then that would make us all very happy, I'm sure, 100%.

And there's a saying which I always talk about, which is your vibe attracts your tribe. At the end of the day, some people will go for that, hey, big promise, you know, big result and that and others will prefer just the sheer honesty. And like you say, just being mostly booked would be great most of the time, wouldn't it?

Absolutely.

I just want to revisit the, the problem that the company solves and how it does that. So talk us through who it is you help mostly. You mentioned your avatar and how it is you best help them.

So I would say, sadly, a lot of it, it comes down to almost accountability. You know, I can, I put a lot of time into my content and trying to put the best content out there and coming up with like the latest cutting edge tactics and tools and strategies which are all great as sort of individual strategies. But I think I found that most hosts just simply, they don't have the time for whatever reason to implement a lot of these strategies. They don't have the time to focus on the growth related tasks because the busy checking guests in and maybe even maybe you could say consider scaling a growth specific task, which touches on another problem of host sort of scaling on a bad model to outrun poor performance. So I guess in a nutshell, what you could say that I mostly do is the tasks that I feel that the host should be doing, but they're not necessarily getting the time to do. So just quickly, I originally started with the along the coaching sort of model, which is me preaching to the world, which I'm very good at doing of here's what I think you should do and here's how you should optimize your listing and your pricing strategy, et cetera, which is all well and good and people love to consume that information. But I found that it wasn't necessarily moving any of my clients further down the line. You know, they were paying me because they wanted that problem solved. But then when I'm trying to keep them accountable to hey, have you actually gone and done that work? You know, there's, there's always a million different things going on in their lives that stop them from moving forward. So now I've sort of switched to more of an agency model, which is what I thought, you know, I guess hosts, if they could pay to get the result done versus me telling them what to do, you know, that would be a win, win for us all because I love to take satisfaction and working with hosts listings, seeing them get better, increase performance, you know, it's great for them and great for me. So in a nutshell, and essentially it's like outsourcing your growth specific tasks to an agency from someone that's been there and done it and knows the industry inside out. It's like a safe pair of expert hands is essentially what I'm offering Hosts.

You know, nice, nice. And it definitely resonates with me and I'm sure hosts listening to this disco do you know, so many times I know exactly what it is I should be doing. But a week goes down the line or two weeks and you know, you sit there with a coach, a mentor and they're like, did you do it? And you're like, no, my, my dog at my homework or whatever, whatever the reason is. But yeah, what do you find? First of all, we should mention because there's people listening from obviously US uk. I'd love people listening to this if you're watching on the Facebook Live, just to put in the comments what you're finding your biggest reason is for not getting the time for doing the things that you think you should be doing that would be awesome to find that out on the actually on the call.

And also what do you think is. Are the growth specific tasks that you think will make the biggest difference in your business? What. What do you feel your gut instinct are the big needle movers that will help you achieve a calendar that stays mostly booked. I'm intrigued to see, to see what people think on that.

Nice, nice. And I'd love to circle back to that in a couple of questions time as well, just to just see what the answer would be with your product and your service. Is there a location? We've got people listening all over the world. So is there. Is it UK based? Is it just England whereabouts as your do you specialize?

So purely accidentally for some reason, a lot of my clients are US based. Yeah. Which is beautiful for me because, you know, it's obviously an absolutely huge market. A lot of different types of properties here in the uk. I was used to building portfolios in more of like a city sort of vibe, you know, with sorts of apartments in buildings in that sense. And then I'm going into the US markets and I'm dealing with a lot of clients with log cabins and all of these different types of properties, which is different. Food for thought that definitely the standards of amenities I've noticed in the US are far stronger than in the uk. I feel like it's. I feel like it's easier in the UK to dominate a market based on if you could take some of the offerings that US hosts have, you know, in terms of amenities. Yeah, 100.

I mean there's, there's some US hosts who I speak to and they're like, yes, that's where the golf course is in the backyard. And I'm like, the what? The golf course? Yeah, a little bit putting. Little put and green in the. And you just. He goes, yeah, everyone's got them here. You've got to have one to, to, you know, like even be in with a chance. And you just think about anyone over here in the UK if they've got a putting green or some of the, the cool, you know, games rooms that you get to see and things like that, that would just smash things the rest of the. The listings to pieces, wouldn't it?

So yeah, everybody, it's. It's like there's definitely a herd mentality, you know. So the head mentality in the US is that, you know, everyone's got a hot tub, they've all got a games room, you know, they've got all of the put a lot of efforts into those kind of things. And then in the uk, it's like everyone furnishes and puts the amenities that, that is just on par with everybody else. Like, where's the, where's the bravery, where's the courage? You know, where's the creativity? That kills me, pains me, but, you know, it's, it's also beautiful for the UK clients that I do work with, you know, because it's, it's not that difficult to help them stand out. Whereas the us, slightly more challenging. But, you know, we love a, love a good challenge.

So in a moment, Stephen, we're going to dive into what is impeccable design and how can host listening, you know, achieve some better results. Some of your tips and that. But before we do, just tell us more about your, your history. You mentioned portfolios and bits and pieces. How did you get into to being a coach, an agency for mostly booked. What did you do before this?

Oh, well, I won't bore people too much because, no, this is always the part of the interview that they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it. You know, a lot of people have, a lot of people have a similar questions.

That's why I leave the good questions till after it. But people genuinely are interested in. It's the human connection, isn't it?

Got it. Okay. Maybe, maybe that's a British thing. We think no one's interested in our story, you know, something like that. But I started as a property manager for a friend who had five Airbnbs in Liverpool in the uk. He asked me to come on board. This is when I was completely fresh in the industry. We grew that to over 50 listings. I then went on to work and manage properties for a much bigger operation, which was more like 150 plus listings in Liverpool. So I was sort of seeing how we made a lot of mistakes, by the way, in that first business. So which is why now I feel like I can preach so comfortably because it's like I've made all the mistakes and I'm trying to help you avoid them. And then I went on to work for a sort of bigger operator and seen a more sort of professional setup in terms of the logistics of things. But even still, in both businesses, I sort of came to the understanding, I was fascinated with why is it that some listings are doing really well and others aren't? And then I was sort of creating, you know, you will see all these things, like you must have great professional photos. And it's like, well, guess what, I've just gone on to page one of Airbnb, found a listing in my area. All of the photos are taken with an iPhone. Why is that listing crushing it? And so I, I essentially got the freedom and the time to really focus on what makes a great listing, which as a manager I simply didn't have the time. I'm too busy trying to maintain the business, working in the business and not on the business, you know, which I'm sure a lot of hosts can relate to. So it's not that I'm any more intellectual than anybody else with my sort of service, but just the fact that I've been blessed with the time to really focus on what works and sort of what doesn't. So all that to say I went from property manager to, like I say, started going into the coaching model but found wasn't really getting the results. And I'm sick of seeing all these coaches online who promising the earth and delivering an atlas and so decided to go more. I was doing more sort of freelance work, which is then helping hosts with the pricing strategy list and optimization, various things. And now I've transformed into the agency done for you model, which is mostly booked, which is working with clients depending on some of them are at different stages in their journey. Some people come to me and they're just like, hey, I just need to know what I need to do from a listing optimization point of view or a pricing strategy point of view. Those things are very much easier in terms of less of a nightmare because they don't require physical changes to the listing. But then I the projects, I really love a host that come to me and they're like, okay, let's do the market research. Let work with me on the concept, work with me on the list and optimization every single aspect of it because then I can create something really special. So. So yeah, that's where I'm kind of at.

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I think the one thing that really resonates for me is that like you say, when you're busy hosting, you're spinning all these plates, that you just try to let one drop. So everybody's looking around to, you know, you get one client who then needs the attention on their listing, then you move on to sales, then you need hire a new person, so you're focusing on hiring. Obviously, the question earlier on we asked was to the audience, what should they be focusing on? Or what do they think they should be focusing on? Let's turn that around. What should hosts be focusing on first? And I know it is a bit of a depends kind of question, but in your opinion, what are some of the most common places they should be putting their time and attention for maximum results?

There's a million different ways I could go at this. I feel like, you know the saying that people say, like, don't focus on everybody else, just focus on yourself. Which is true for a certain type of personality. If you're the type of person that is obsessed with continual improvements, yes, you can put your blinkers on, put your head down, focus only on improving every aspect of your business. You will get to the finish line. But I feel for most hosts, they would be better off being hyper aware of what is happening in their market. So I would be scouring Airbnb page one and page two over the next three months, maybe three months out on maybe a Sunday and a Monday, just to see in exactly what's in my market who's on page one and page two. I would then make a list of, let's say, pick 10 listings so you get a good sample size. And I look at every single detail about that listing. Their thumbnail image, their interior design, the amenities that they're offering. What are all their guests telling me in their reviews that they really like? What are their guests telling me that they really dislike? So I'm taking all the strengths and weaknesses of every list and what the titles are, the design, and then I get all of that data and go right then. So looking at my listing, I can now it's glaringly obvious why all of these calendars are mostly booked and why I'm potentially averagely booked or struggling for bookings. Or you might just be doing good and you want to be great. Well, it's like that. That is telling you that the market is choosing those listings and it's for a specific reason. And so if you do those specific things that they're doing very well, you can take back some of that market share. So I think that is a super practical thing the host can do. And every time I do that with clients, they all say to me, oh my God, I've never done that. And it's, it's, it's kind of shocking to me. But I said, but you know, as I say, I understand there as well because you know, they just busy and they're trying to scale and they may be going from one 9 to 5 job into this and the transition and, or you know, they've never run a business before. I get it. But one of the most effective things you can do is be hyper aware of what's going on in your market and then make a. That'll tell you exactly what you need to do. Okay. Their designs, much better than mine. Oh, they're all offering king size mattresses or they're up. They've all got hot tubs. I haven't got a hot tub. You know, all of these, their copyright and looks beautiful and mine's, they're average. All of these different things, they're clean and fee. This is something I always find just not to go off on too much of a tangent, but like is your cleaning fee competitive with everybody else's? I can't tell you the amount of clients that I've worked with and their cleaning fee can be almost double everybody else's. And I know how petty the consumer is in terms of paying for additional expenses that they don't like. They would choose somebody else just because of that small reason. So this is the kind of information that real strong market research can give you. Yeah, I think that's a, that's a really good starting point and it's going back to basics. It's not a sexy exercise, it's a bit laborious, but you will uncover so many things of what you need to be doing just from that exercise.

I love the, the term hyper aware of what's going on in your market because most people. Absolutely, you're absolutely right. Aren't aware of, you know, where do they sit in the market. Are they high price point, low price point, cleaner fees, like you say, all that stuff which is all readily available, but as, as hosts, we might not be doing, not might not be checking that, but it's absolutely available to everybody listening to this right now. So off the back of this call, if you're listening to this podcast, just go and check out the first two pages, do a quick search on an Incognito tab, go on Airbnb, search your area and see what those top properties have got and also look at their calendar, you know, all that cool stuff like Stephen says, that's such a good tip and such a good share. One of the things you mentioned, Stephen, is that your product has moved from, hey, this is what you should go and do a bit like what we've just said there to hey, come to me and my service and I'll do this for you. So two part question this. First of all, why do you think it is that people are now preferring done for you services and in terms of your, your clients, is this something which they need to stay working with you for long periods of times? What, what is the kind of average length of, of a client to, to work with?

Yeah, yeah. So I would say people are preparing done for you, providing it can be done at the right price as well. You know, because this is something I'm sort of wrestling with, trying to remain as competitive as I possibly can, bearing in mind I'm helping them focus in on the right things and doing it for them versus just telling them what to do when there's a bunch of coaches out there saying, you know, taking thousands of pounds off people for saying, oh yeah, make sure that you include your best five photos first. You know, all of these, all of this basic sort of information. So, so yeah, I'm trying to stay as competitive as a can in terms of the duration. It can be. It can be, it's dependent on the host. If they've got like a project and it's, they've got hold of the property and the design and the renovations happening right now and it's got to go live in a couple of weeks, you get some of those and then I get some that are more like, okay, I've done all of those things and now I just want to tweak optimization and from a persuasive point of view and maybe pricing strategy and things like that. So it's completely dependent on, on you know, what, what I'm dealing with from a host point of view. But, but you know, we can. What I tend to do with hosts from a starting point, especially if you're an existing host that already has your listings, you've already done your design and your amenities, your photos, you've listed it, all of that stuff. I try to work with them from like an optimization point of view and pricing strategy first to try to generate additional income so that we can then spend more time going back to improve the elements that make the biggest difference, which is simply your design and your amenities. If you do those two things better than everybody else. I don't care if you've got a ten word description, a one word title, you've got ten photos. You know, I think if you do those two things really well, you'll crush it. But obviously my challenge with dealing with a lot of these hosts is because they've done all of those things and it's so, so labor intensive and went by the time they've done it, they've lost all of that enthusiasm. So me coming in saying, oh, by the way, we've got to go back to the start and we've got to change the wallpaper, we've got to do these different things is super painful for them in both time and money. So I do try to work with them on the optimization, pricing strategy sections first, generate a little bit of income to get them feeling a little bit better about what we have to do and then going in and doing the, the, the work that really counts.

And I think you've touched on something there which I call like STR exhaustion where you know, you've listed, you've listed, you know, 30 properties or whatever, or you've gone through that, that process so often that it's now just a tick box. How quick can I get this listed? As opposed to how right can I get this listed? And things like that. And the thought of going back over some of those bits and pieces, I'm sure there's people listening to this who just goes, yeah, I just, I don't want to spend my time doing that. But like you say, it's so important to do so because it might be new features, it might be something which we don't realize that we've not ticked as hosts or an amenity that you can easily add. I mean, board games are a classic one for me, where you just. Most listings I look at don't have things like board games, books and things like. And you just look at these things and just go, well, actually that's a really quick and easy one. You can't add parking if you haven't got parking. You can't add a pool if you've got pool. But there's things that you can easily adapt and change and ultimately, especially if you're aiming for that avatar, you can easily do these things. Stairgates. You know, there's this, there's certain aspects which don't cost a lot of money but, but you can go and do.

I think it's. Yeah, it's a bit of an example of where hosts kind of Bit of a problem once the touch on which is, you know, this whole market saturation thing and hosts can fall into that trap as I say to get it's way more exciting for them to close on. I've just closed another four listings. Yeah, that is way more exciting than. I've just gone back through my existing listings, tweaked the photos, added different amenities. Oh and I've got 10% more improvement from that list and and then compounded on every single listing. I've then actually I've now got a business that is generating way more positive reviews and I'm happier for it versus scaling on an average portfolio because the target and big numbers, you know, big load of properties. Yeah, I've got an Airbnb empire of 40, 50, 100 listings. That's way more sexy than going in and doing the attention to detail sort of work, you know.

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Definitely. This remind me of a chap we had on a 24 hour clubhouse room which was Bill Faith. And he talked about how he only had eight listings but he said they are literally, he said that, he said this modest, modestly, they'll be the best eight listings in the entire room. And we had a big panel of short term rental hosts. But what he meant was he just spends more time optimizing, making them the very best they can be. And you know that can be worth more than 30 units, can't it? You know, eight really well run units better than those average ones. And this is something which I see quite a lot at the moment. If we record this, this is July 2023. So at the moment, obviously it's not as busy for most hosts as it was over the last couple of years due to staycation booms and things like that. But ultimately one thing that we see time and time again is people posting quite average listings and wondering why they haven't got as many bookings without doing what you've just said. There, which is go and check out your competition. What are they charging? What have they got for that money? And I just think it's such an important point and one which I'm certainly gonna, gonna take away from this. Which. Yeah.

Which is why just quickly, it's so important to. Another tip is to leverage the strengths where your weaknesses are. You know, that's advice that you hear in business all of the time. But I think a big problem, all the interior designers that are watching this are going to love me. Big, massive problem that a lot of hosts have is they think, oh yeah, okay, I can get that rental property and I've decorated my home, therefore why can't I decorate an Airbnb property? And then what happens is, you know, people with unfortunately for them, no taste and they haven't got it. They haven't done the 10,000 hours like an interior designer has done, knowing why certain color combinations work, why certain textures work about light and all of these different things that are in interior designer knows like the back of the hand. And so they create a very beatable product. Whereas if they were to, I think it ties into delayed gratification because they want results backly back so quick and they're not prepared to wait. You know, I put a post up about this the other day about how software companies would defer profits until about year five, year ten in some cases. Of course, I'm not telling the host to do that, but that's the kind of thinking that they might want to adopt and go, and if I was to pay an interior designer that's, you know, adding on a couple of extra thousand versus what I would do myself, you could give them the exact same budget, but they're just going to give you a superior finish than something you could ever come up with yourself, myself included. I would outsource it to an interior designer because it's the most, it's why people book. People book because they go, that looks beautiful. That's why they book. So you can then, you know, run down the, the rabbit hole of trying to list it on every OTA known to man, creating social media accounts, building a website and trying to generate traffic to it. And, you know, all of those are great ideas. Providing the foundation was really strong, all those things become, you know, way, way easier. So infuriates me a little bit of times.

But no, I completely agree. I completely agree. And I was going to be one of my questions. What, what is impeccable design? You know, what, what, what is some of the things that you've seen which you know, work well for short term rental properties.

Yeah, I mean I would say there's two different ways you can go about it. So you can go with simply impeccable, beautiful design which is, you know, thinking about who your avatar is. Let's say it's groups of guys or groups of girls. You know, they're going to be two very different color schemes and you can create your concept around that avatar and that is a sort of, that's a bit of a safer play. But you can just come up with something that almost looks beautiful, almost hotel. Like it's something hotels do really well. They always have beautiful design. Well, unless it's like low budget hotels of course. So you can either just go simply. Right. I want to create something that's beautiful and I'm going to do it in this style because I think it's going to serve that demographic really well. And maybe I don't feel like many people are targeting that demographic too well. Like for example, we've just done a studio in Liverpool. I'm working with a client. I was like, please let me paint it all black. Please let me paint it all black. Because there is no listings on our markets that are painted all black. So we've gone with like black and like natural woods. So. And some really cool artwork. So I'm super intrigued to know how that's going to go. But you can either do that first approach or something else that you obviously see that does really well is like a theme. So going with a really strong theme throughout and focusing more on creating something super creative and a super concept which obviously requires way more planning, more budget of course. But going back to that earlier point about like those software companies, you know, if you want to create real longevity and be unfuck withable, that's exactly what you would do. Spend more time in that creative process. So you know, we were saying before about how hosts will maybe they've already done a couple of listings and then therefore now it's about saving time. How can I do it quicker, not better. I feel like that window is where they need to slow down and put so much thought leverage and get help, get other people. Hey, what you think about this? Look at these mood boards. What do you think about this? How could we make this better? Put it out to your Facebook audience, you know, really go, go to town on that concept because it's like, it's like a magnet. The stronger you make that concept, everything becomes easier and you can guarantee that other hosts aren't doing that. The mass of the markets, all of this market saturation issue goes away if you focus in the areas where other people are skipping past because they believe to be inefficient.

And that reminds me of Mark Simpson talks about. What's his name?

Tim Ferriss.

Yeah, Tim Ferriss. And it's a. It's about zigzag marketing, isn't it? It's about standing out completely from the crowd and just being. Just getting different, isn't it? So one of the things you mentioned there was that the last kind of push to just get things ready. And I see this all the time from hosts who they start off with the best intentions and then what happens is they start ordering stuff, you get so far and then they suddenly go, oh my God, this takes too much time. Let's just get it live. And that's that last little push that they didn't do. That last 10, 15% of not executing well because they were just in a rush is often where it's lost versus, you know, a little bit more time spent there putting a little bit more money and a little bit more effort in that last stage is where that money would quickly pay back instead of it just becoming another. Another property which looks the same as every other property on the market, isn't it? As often people start off with a great intention. So it's such a. I think you've made a good point there with design.

And even if we were to take it one step before that, you could even argue that if you were to spend that extra time at the sourcing of the property phase, you know, a lot of hosts will take like a landlord will phone them and say, oh, I've got this property here. And they're like, I'll take it. You know, if you were to spend way more time going, okay, I need, I need a property that's got a level of uniqueness that before I even touch from a design point of view, it beats everybody else. And it always will once I put my design spin on it. Because it's got the floor to ceiling windows, or it's got that super large balcony, or it's got the exposed wooden beams. You know, it's just better than a standard two bedroom apartment that everybody else has got. So, you know, you could then do your design, take the photos with your iPhone and you'll still beat everybody else who've got professional photos. So sourcing, spend more time being a bit more selective. I know there's a lot of different people at different stages here. For some people they might need to just take a property, get the wheels moving, you know, but certainly as you go, be far more selective. Is this going to. Is this better than what I have? Is it better than what's on the market? And then the same goes for your design as well. If you feel like you're not the best person for design because you simply don't love it, that's absolutely fine. Outsource it to somebody that does. And you can either do either two of those things, just get somebody to create something beautiful for a specific demographic or. Which I'd be way more excited about, is get somebody to help you develop a concept around a specific theme. You know, it could be like a scene in a movie where you're like, I love that movie. And I want to create an Airbnb around that. Go for it.

I love that. I love that. I mean, everything you said, I completely agree with. And that is just so important because so many people pick average properties and I've made that mistake. It resonates with me because I'm actually going through a stage where I'm giving back. Yeah, exactly.

Same same.

Any. Anybody who's. Who's gone through it, where you've actually picked an average property, let's try it might work. And then you get a few years down the line, you go, ah, I churned a lot of money. It didn't make a lot, but I've learned a lot. And I guess that is where some people need to. Need to start. But the themed rooms and the themed houses, I mean, like Stacy, a lot of that in the us I'm thinking about a chap I saw in the Serviced Accommodation UK Facebook group who I think he's 17 years old, but it basically got an essay and he had got one of those old TVs with a video that you used to put in the front, you know, like one of those little ones, and basically got posters on the wall. Everything was a movie poster from the 80s and they had all these 80 movies. And a little instead of everyone goes for a big flat screen tv, which he did have in the other room. But this had all the old VHS tapes with all the old 80s movies. And that was the. The theme. And I thought that was genius. Yeah, I was just like, I've not seen that by anybody else. So.

Anybody who's like, you know, trying to reinvent the wheel slightly or come up with. With new ideas gets my nod of approval. Absolutely.

100. I'd be in there watching like Predator from the 80s or something like that. So, Stephen, as we get towards the end of these, we'd love to just ask a couple of more questions about you or fun questions. So first question, really random. What sauce do you put on a burger?

What sauce do I put on a burger? You know, I want to avoid saying ketchup because that's really boring. But like, when I'm trying to like reinvent her a little bit, I'm like, you know, a bit of hummus. But a hummus goes a long way on a burger. Then with something that maybe, maybe is a good fit for that, like a bit of tahini as well. Glorious.

Nice. Yeah, very nice. Okay, I'll give that. I'll give that a go. What is the podcast movie or book that you'd recommend? What are your. What have you read or read recently that you go, do you know what? I love that everyone should go and check out this.

You know, when you're reading like so many books and you listen to so many podcasts that I'm sure a lot of people do listen to, but I'm trying to think of something that might be. Does it have to be specific to Airbnb and Short Term Rentals? Because if so, the Boostly book is very good.

Thank you. Thank you.

But if not, I would say podcast. I love like Tom Bilyeu. I think he's brilliant. He puts out a lot of great content. Aubrey Marcus, more spiritual. He's a. He's a brilliant podcaster from a book point of view. What have we got here? We've got quite a lot going on here. Anything, anything that you can read along the lines of online marketing. I think you can borrow a lot of principles for your Airbnb listing because you realize that an Airbnb listing is just like selling a product on Amazon or any of these sites, Etsy or any of these in which a lot of them work in the same way. From. They'll work with like five star reviews are like the oxygen to a lot of these products. Which, which is a last quick takeaway for, for. For Host is really focus on five star reviews, even if it means sacrificing some revenue at times because you notice that a listing hasn't had a lot of five star reviews recently because that will do a lot for you in just keeping that wheel spinning in terms of keeping your placements at a high position. Really focus on doing whatever it takes to get on the phone. If you notice that that guest checked out and didn't leave a five star review, well, think of it like one of those Little speed bumps on Mario Karts where it makes you go faster. Think of that for like, for pushing your list and higher up the rankings. I always find that whenever hosts are struggling for bookings and you look and it's like it's just gone a bit dormant and a bit flat. So you just prioritize five star reviews, even sacrifice some dates that Sundays and Mondays, things like that. Let's lower those prices because a five star review is more important.

You've just given me an amazing theme idea. You've just mentioned Mario Mario Kart and just like, that would be an amazing. I'd go and stay at Mario House if there was. If there's one out there, if anything.

You can sit in the vehicle and you have like a Nintendo Wii Pad or something, you know what I mean, to drive it. And then. And then you all get your different outfits, Luigi and all these different people.

Yeah. Honestly, if there's a host listening to this and you already do it, send us a message. Coachly.co.uk, send us a message. I'd love to see it. So, last question, then, just before we throw open the mic and. And find out how we can. Get in touch with yourself, Stephen, what is one saying or mantra which resonates with you?

I would say two of these are probably quite similar, but I do tend to live both my personal and business life with. This is. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to switch things up or find out what everybody else is doing and do the opposite, which is very similar. You know, I'm like that in my personal life anyway, with regards to health, fitness, mindset, all of these different things, I think the majority always tend to be wrong. So I always look at Airbnb and what is. What's everybody doing? What are they all doing that's similar? And, you know, the head mentality exists. They all do the same things. Oh, is this. What is this the standard that I have to adhere to? Okay, going to do that. So just spend a lot of time brainstorming different ideas and yeah, try not to conform. Try to stand out at every turn with your titles, with your descriptions, with your first five photos. If everybody's got a picture of the swimming pool, I'm going to p. I'm going to take a picture of my front door and it's just. It's just a picture of a door and that builds intrigue and that gets more clicks and more views.

Why?

Because you stood out and you've done something different to Everybody else.

I love that. Yeah. This has been so much fun, Steven. So how can we get in touch with you? Where can we go and learn more about Mostly Booked and follow yourself on the socials?

Yes. So everybody can find me at mostlybooked Co. There's a guide on there which is my guide to beating market saturation. So we talked earlier about doing really thorough competitor research. So I've got a ready made spreadsheet laid out there that you can use all of the criteria that I look for that you can then fill out for your own listings. That's all free of charge. And there's other great pointers in there that I won't have mentioned today. So you can get your hands that at MostlyBook co. And then you can always listen to me preaching to the world on Facebook at Stephen Eagles so you can search for me and then you can join my Facebook group which is short term rental artists and I post a lot of great content in there.

Yeah. And I can definitely vouch for that. I've been following you a couple of weeks and it's great fun to see your regular content, you know, and decisive and, and good fun. So Stephen, I've really enjoyed this and I'm sure everybody listening has as well. If you're listening to this on the Boost Leak podcast and you've not, or watching on the YouTube and you've not already clicked, subscribe so you can get notifications about when the next videos come out, make sure you do so. And if there's anyone you know who could get some value from today's podcast, do share it with friends, get them to come and follow us here at Bruce Lee and follow Stephen as well. It would be great to, to spread the word. So thank you very much. That's it from us today. Stephen, was there anything before we bring it to a close?

No, other than go and do your thorough market research, find out what is working in your markets and what you do, what you need to do to win and then action. Those, put them at the front of your calendar, not at the back. Make sure they get done before anything else.

Very nice. Very nice indeed. Well, thanks again and we'll see you on the next one. Bye for now.