Top Tips for Lucille Hayward, a Hospitality Owner in Canada

Foreign. Podcast. I was able to delve behind the scenes and take a look at a Boostly Academy member's current marketing practices and give her one to three actionable bits of advice that she can be putting into practice right now that will help her totally thrive when the lockdowns are lowered and people can book. What I would love for you to do as well is go check out hostfully.com they give you a digital guidebook for for absolutely free that are sponsors of this podcast that would make this all possible. One free digital guidebook for everybody right now. Absolutely free. Go and sign up hostfully.com if you want to get a little bit of a bonus when you decide to go to the premium option. Just put Boostly2M in the promo code and you get two months for free. As always, please make sure you spread and share and tell people about what we're doing here. We're trying to help the hospitality owners around the world bounce back from this COVID 19 crisis and get this industry kick started. Please enjoy this episode. Please learn a lot, but most importantly, implement it into your business and I will see you on the other side where we're going to be doing marketing review live my close up.

Good looking, let me tell you. Get more bookings. Oh, that'd be nice. Giving me tips, tools and advice. Yeah, you're gonna get them, hon. You're gonna sit back, listen to Mark Simpson.

Whoa.

Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee, like Bruce Lee. Cause it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely. Respect, you're better but direct. Here are the words in the podcast. That's what comes next.

Good evening, good afternoon, good morning, welcome. Happy birthday to Lucille. This is going to be a marketing review for Lucille and her business. And I just want to say thank you to everybody that has tuned in. And the reason why I am doing so is because we've been sharing so many tactics and tips and advice with so many guest experts over the past 22 months. What I want to do now is really just dial down and give individuals help and advice. So what is a marketing review? Let's get straight into it. Let me share my screen with you right now. So again, what we're looking at right now is the form. So this is the form that I get everybody to fill in when they come into my world so I can figure out a little bit more about them. This is what is called the marketing review form. Okay? So thank you so much for Lucille for filling this in on her birthday as well. So here's what we're going to be doing. We're going to go through the form and then what we're going to do is we're going to look at website, we're going to look at a few other things and see if I can unpack something that will help. We can give advice over to Lucille right now. First name Lucille Hayward. Business is Mobiley Lodge. Lucille is based in British Columbia which is obviously in Canada. We have a worldwide audience here. Everybody. How many years have you been running a business for? 5. Which of these best describe your property? It's a B and B. Tell me about your business. What is your unique selling point? Our authentic log buildings and mountain hospitality. Sounds amazing. What is the breakdown of your guests leisure? What is the average night stay at your property? Which of the following best describes how you interact with your guest? Halfway to hands on. We have some pre arrival guest communication but none post date is one of the first things I'm working on from the academy membership. So again just a bit of context. Lucille is a member of the Boostly Academy. That is my private mastermind training. A big part of that is that we show a little bit more behind the scenes on all the effective tactics and tips that you need to do. Who designed your website? I paid somebody to do it for us. How many visitors do you get to your website a month? How do I check now that when was your website created? I need a new website doing. Do you have access to Google Analytics? I believe so. I understand I'm partner says but it's just on a list of an ever so big priority. Are you happy with your website? No, I need to change it. Which of these companies do you use for your online booking engine? Resnexus. So again a question for everybody that is tuning in right now. Who do you currently use as your online booking engine? Your PMS free to book Avivo little hotelier high level software booking factory beds 24 any of them Please put it in the comments below. Let's see a little tally of who we got. Which online travel agents are you listed on? So booking.com and Expedia do you pay to be listed on any websites? No. Do you email your guests after they have stayed with special offers on use? No. Which software do you use? So the PMS has a built in basic emailing software scheduling for guests. What is your overall occupation levels for the previous year? Now obviously these types of results will be a little bit skewed we can still take it from what the past year is though. 66 to 75% bookings. Of that total, direct bookings is sort of in the region of 26 to 50%, you know, which is a good score on average. How much money do you spend in commission costs each month? So we're sort of looking about 2,500 to 5,000amonth average spend in the commission costs. We're sort of talking anywhere between the lines of 30 to 60,000 pounds a year. So again, the question that I've got for you, what is your average commission cost every month to third parties? Put it in the comments section below. How would you say the majority of your new bookings come in for it via a third party? Which of these marketing channels have you attempted in the past? Facebook ads, Google Ads, email, Worked with the PR agency, Printed leaflets, influencer marketing? None really. What have you attempted in the past? Have you attempted Facebook ads? Have you attempted working with a PR agency, email marketing, etc. What do you wish you could have a go at but don't know how to again? Facebook, Google, etc. What is the one bit of advice you wish you would receive before you started your business? How to market your business. We're super lucky we opened the doors in 2015 and were fully booked. The roller coaster started and it seemed like there was a way off to take a step back and look at systems. Finding it challenging to create a whole systems view as I'm too buried in the details. Wave a magic wand. How would your business profit look like? In six months we would have a consistent shoulder and winter season bookings from new and repeat guests. This would impact profits significantly. Peak season revenue would no longer needed to be funneled off into off season costs. Where do you feel that you struggle the most when trying to achieve your goals? Figuring out where to start. I think so many people are exactly in the same as you. There seems to be so many. Enough about the areas which I want to achieve my goals for the business, for example, Google Ads, et cetera. What we're going to do now is going to flip over to the website and we're just going to have a super quick look at that because again, it was something that I always like to do and have a look at one thing that really stands out as soon as I go onto the website. Apart from the stunning views and that fantastic image that was taken at the top left hand corner here, Lucille, your website is not secure, so your connection is not secure. Now this is important because Google are actively downgrading your website and if somebody comes onto it, they're getting hit with that message. Now you're lucky that the webpage opened up at all. What I've noticed and I've discovered over the course of the previous sort of six months is that websites are not even getting loaded up. There's a big red screen to say warning, this website you are trying to visit is not secure and it won't even load up. Now this is a super simple fix. You can go to wherever is your domain. So whether your domain is starred reg123 GoDaddy, etc. And you can pay to get an SSL certificate. So if everybody in the comments could just put SSL certificate please and then Lucille, you can go and ask your domain for it tomorrow. It's super, super important because you know there are going to be people coming on your website. You know, you don't know at the moment because we haven't got Google Analytics set up. And again Google Analytics is free. Super, super simple to set up. If you. These are some of the things that I'll be doing tomorrow. Okay, so set up Google Analytics. I would get your website secure. It will cost like 30, $40 max. But what you need to do is get Google Analytics set up so then you're able to track for the next one to two months exactly how many people do come on to your website every single month, which is super important. Okay, so we need to know how effective the website actually is. So you can't do that without Google Analytics. So again if you open up a Google page, type in Google Analytics setup, it's, it's super straightforward to do and you can do it within five to 10 minutes and you can do that tomorrow. Now the one thing that I always say when it comes to a website loading up is that you want to have your main unique selling photo as one of the first things that people see. Now I think everybody will agree with me this looks stunning and it's a really good unique selling picture. The reason why you want that this is what's called above the fold is you want to encourage them to scroll down and find out more, which you definitely do. One thing about the banner here that looks really cool and it stand out but it's on the wrong side. This needs to be over here. Now the reason why it's not me being petty, but research and studies and surveys and stats have proven that our eyes naturally get drawn to the top right hand side of every website. So bearing that in mind, you Want to have this ribbon just moved over here. I think this is a really nice start. Okay. But a little tweak over here and it could make all the difference. Okay, next as we are moving, as we are scrolling down here, as you can see we've got different sections. So explore. We've got weddings, we've got eat, we've got cabins. Which is, which is, which is, which is great. But you gotta again you gotta think about this. People buy from people. People book and buy from people. They want to know more about you. So they want to know about you, want to know more about why you started this business. Do you live on site? Do you not live on site? And again it's something that I noticed so many people not doing. All it is is just a little section in here before the website ends and just introduce who you are. Now if I just show an example of a boostly website. So these are the websites that. We've got over 200 of these websites out there. This is the ones in the structure and the template that we give to hospitality owners. As you can see, we've got the book now button in the top right hand corner. But the first thing that people see here is a little bit more about you, our story. So this is something that I would be looking to do because it is something that is really important and so many people do look at this. Okay, so again a real simple fix. You can either add it at the top here or if you wanted to, you could just add it at the bottom here, have it as a separate section as it's called. And again whoever did your website for you, they can easily add that in. You don't have to go and put a lot in. As you can see we just got three lines here, a paragraph at most. Just put in a little bit more about you, about your story, about. Introduce your name, give your name, give the family, you know exactly who they're going to be communicating to. Because again when you do that you just stand out so much. And again it's more people finding out more about you, the business owner and about the business. Another thing that you can do is these reviews that are just scrolling here side to side. This is a software called reperso R E P U S Get. One of the big reasons why people leave a website without booking is because they're looking for that social proof. And again, it's a super simple fix. Reperso is around about $10 a month. But what it does is it pulls in only your five star reviews from Google Facebook, booking.com, airbnb, etc, TripAdvisor. Wherever it pulls in those five star reviews and it puts it in a really nice scrolling image here or it lays it out in more of a grid style here. So again, it doesn't look fake, it doesn't look like those reviews that are just being copy and pasted and it would go really nicely on the homepage. So as they're scrolling down here and they're going, this looks fantastic. Oh yes, great. We've got food, fantastic. We've got places to stay, here's some feedback, here's some great reviews, here's a little bit more about them. And then again if you just add another book now button right at the bottom, then you're ticking off so many potential boxes for the guests. Always finish with an faq. Again, if you want a super shortcut way of getting a bit more visibility on Google over the course of the coming weeks and months and potentially years, then add an FAQ to your website. Frequently Asked questions. It really helps eliminate any questions that a guest may have contacting you if you can have those frequently asked questions at the bottom of your site. So I would look at what we've got here, Lucille, and I would put it to your website designer to try and amend it. I mean as far as looks wise goes, it looks really good. There's definitely some performance things. It definitely can be filled out a little bit more. If you aren't that confident with your current website designer, you're more than welcome to come and come to boostly.co.uk websites but this is not a sales pitch. This is me doing a marketing review coaching call for you. But again it's a solid website. A couple of tweaks, that's a major one right there with the ssl. But again something you can be doing straight away. Now the main thing that I want for everybody to be looking at right now and everybody needs to be doing this, your homepage of your website now needs to have what you are going to be doing post Covid. Now I talked about this last night in the in the previous episode and I've talked about this so many times over the course of the past two months is that post Covid post lockdown until it gets eradicated and it disappears. Our travelers mindset and what they are looking for going to drastically change our unique selling point. Our USP is going to be different. Okay, so what they want to know about is how are your properties being cleaned? What safety procedures are you going through? I would Definitely focus on your website, getting Google Analytics up and running, which again is free to do. Get the SSL there, right there sorted. But I would be looking to get a website that will actually work for you and get those important things on the website because there will be a lot of people who are going to be looking for this. And again, if you act first, then you will be the one that comes out well on the back of this. And again, don't just put it on your website. We also need to be looking to put it on to our Facebook page and also as well Google business listing will will surely sooner rather than later. Also let you add this detail in as, as well, let me just go back to the Facebook page very quickly. So you've got a, again, a lovely picture here. You know, you're very, very, very lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world here. But again, what I would be looking to do is I would be right here. And again, this is another theme to follow is I would get a picture of you and you know, your family here, the people that are running the business, whether it's you and your team or you and your family, whoever runs the business, I, whoever greets the guest, whoever has contact with the guests, I'd be getting the picture in here because again, this is the social media, this is our social profile. People don't resonate with logos, they resonate with pictures and faces. People buy from people. Please remember that. So I'd be looking to change that profile picture up as soon as possible. The COVID picture here, you actually have the ability to add five to six images here. It's a scrolling image that you can put in. So I'd be trying to get your five best images that you have and put it in here so you can edit the page and you can add them in. I always say that if you're struggling to find out what to talk about, what people like to see, then there's some really cool things that you can do. If you go to your TripAdvisor page, for example, and you come and scroll down to the bottom here, they will tell you, your guests will tell you what they love most about the property. So log cabin. These keywords get mentioned most in these reviews that you've got. So over 112 reviews. Log cabin, great room. Log construction, deep snow, homemade muffins, kicking horse. Rooms are spacious. Couple of nights, glacier National Park, Two Nights Canadian Rockies, Short Drive, Golden, B.C. lucille. So they mentioned Lucille. They mentioned Jonathan. People love you guys. Now another thing that I noticed Tourism golden. Tourism golden. They are bidding on your brand name on on Google search. I don't know if you you knew about that but they're bidding on your brand name. So I don't know if this is a commission type website or what, but if that's the case then I would be looking to fight fire fire and I would be looking to put your bid on brand at the top there so people can come through to your website. But until the website gets fixed, don't really focus too much, too much on that. So one thing that you know, again the things that one thing that I am noticing is people are not wanting to be in big cities, they want to get away. And again what I recommend that you do 16 hours to Vancouver. It's a long journey. So what I would be looking to do, what I'd be looking to talk about here right now would be finding places that are three or four hours drive around. You go back and check out the staycation episode. If you haven't checked out the staycation episode which I recorded on Monday, Monday 11 May put that practice into place, get those tactics and tips in place because they will help in the short term massively. Let's get, let's get more about you. Let's put your personality, let's put your, let's put your brand, let's put all of that into the website and onto your social media. Let's definitely do that now. I hope this has been helpful. I love doing these. I love to dig into it a little deep more. Obviously all I'm seeing is the front end. I don't get the privy to go in into the back end. But tomorrow we're going to do another Boostly Academy member. We're going to do their business, we're going to go through their marketing review. We're going to do the same thing on Thursday and like I said on Friday we've got Matt Landau, who's our special guest to finish off these Boostly daily Live videos, finish off the podcast series. Lucille, thank you so much for doing that. I just want everybody please, if you could just do a big favor and tap the love heart button, the Love heart emoji and say thank you to Lucille for doing that. If you want to find out more information about COVID policies and things like that, there's loads of posts about this in the hospitality community Facebook group. Please go and find more information on there. There's loads of helpful tips and advice and again I'll put in the comments. There's a really cool PDF that I discovered recently. So I'll put the link into that as well about COVID policies and protocols, etc. I do think that is going to be the way to go tomorrow. We'll be back. Again, thank you so much. And again, all I ask is one thing, one favor. Whether you're watching this live or watching on the replay, please do go and hit the like button. Share it, tell a group about what we're doing, take a picture of the screen and go and post up on Instagram, post up on Facebook stories, tag in Ostleruk and I will share it. Let's spread the word. Let's show the hospitality owners around the world what they need to be doing to not only survive these times, but thrive on the other end. I do know that this is going to end. I firmly believe that we will get bookings and we will get lots of people wanting to come and stay with us. The goal and the advice that I want to give everybody is we got to stay visible. As I said yesterday, on Thursday I'm going to be announcing something very special all around. What's called Project Kickstart. Make sure you save the dates 25th to 30th May in your calendar. Make sure you book yourself out. There's going to be a five day training that I'm going to do absolutely free for everybody. It's called Project Kickstart. I'm going to show everybody how we can get visible very, very quickly. So that's going to be happening the 25th to the 30th. More information is coming on Thursday about that. Make sure you you're on my Facebook for them when I start talking about it. But for now I'm going to leave you with a little wrap all about Book Direct. Have a great evening. Have a great afternoon. Happy birthday, Lucille. Thank you so much for doing that. And again, I'll see you all again very, very soon.