Turning Stays into Stories: A Host’s Journey to Creating Memories

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Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Boostly podcast. This is the podcast that gives hosts the tools, the tactics, the training and most importantly, the confidence so you can go out there and get yourself more Direct bookings. We do a mini series on this podcast where we interview interesting and successful hosts from all over the world. And we've got a wonderful host with us today who's got a really successful business and one which I've spoken to at one of the recent shows and this inspired me to share this podcast, invite him to the podcast and share his story because he embodies everything which I think all hosts should be doing, which is to really take action and, and to go out there and, and to. To make it happen. So let me introduce to you today we've got Andy Cheetham. He is the owner and managing director of the Terrace Windermere. So for those who are US listeners who don't know where Windermere is, there's an awesome place right in the middle of one of the national parks here. And it's very picturesque, very beautiful, very touristy.

Not to be confused with the American Windermere as well, which is I think pretty similar somewhere. Somewhere in America. Never been. Should go.

I didn't know there was one in. In there.

That's amazing. But absolutely, yeah.

Welcome along, Andy. Thank you for joining me.

My pleasure. And you know, great to see you again. I did enjoy yours and Mark's company at the show recently. It's great to see you both. So thank you so much. Thanks for having me on.

No worries. Thank you for coming to our, you know, sort of come and see us at London. That was the short Stay summit. Did you have a good, a good time there? Did you enjoy the short?

Yeah, I really, really got a lot from it. I thought it was a bit of a very worthwhile thing. It was my first show and I've kind of kept myself in the shadows really. First show, met a lot of people, saw a number of talks in between. I went to most of the stands or the sounds that were relevant to me. Any. And yeah, I got a lot from it and I would thoroughly recommend that to anyone thinking of going. It's worth a visit.

That was really good. And it's a great melting pot of ideas, isn't it? So, Andy, tell me about your business. Give us the elevator pitch. For those listening and haven't heard of yourself and your business, what can they expect from the Terrace Windermere?

Okay, so we're a group of large houses. We have six large houses, one small house which just happened to come as with. With a large house, a buy one, get one free. The Terrace itself consists of five pretty large Victorian properties, listed buildings. They were built for the owners of The Windermere railway in the 1850s and there always been a private row and they've always been holiday houses as such or started as holidays, that sort of thing. Various things in over the years. And yeah, so we, we slowly bought all of them. So we've actually got an entire, entire row which is private. So it's a private street in effect. And that makes us pretty unique. Each house sleeps between 12 and 16 people. And so every weekend we fill every weekend. And every weekend it's just full of people who have come to have a great time. We don't really ever need to worry about disturbing people because all the guests are there to enjoy themselves. And Friday evenings especially, that kind of arrival, arrival madness that goes on when people come into the houses is very special. Yeah, so we, we cater for most things, milestone birthdays, family get togethers, three generations. We allow hendoos, stag dos. It's very different in the Lake District. People that come intend to be slightly different, slightly different audience than other places. They come for the countryside, they come to enjoy themselves. They come to. Yeah, for country pubs and fires and all the things that go with it. So this Sag and Hindus, even though they, they have their fair share of pink hats and streamers and mad banners, they're still pretty respectful. So yeah, we, that's, that's our market.

It sounds first of all very brave to host those, but I know we'll, we'll dive more into the group stays and some of the tools and tactics that you're using to attract these. But in general that is very unique. I don't know anybody else, any other hosts who have got like a row and especially large groups. And this is something which I know with group stays they've been on the rise, especially since COVID people are traveling multi generational. So I'm excited to dive into this today and talk.

Yeah, absolutely.

All the cool things. So for the hosts and for the people listening, what is it that, that you'd love for them to take away from our chat today? What would you most like them to remember about you and about the terrace, Windermere?

Well, I think I'd like them to understand the business and for them to understand what we do and how we do it. But I think today is a bit of a thank you for the Boostly crew and what it's helped me with. I've been in this business since 2006, so quite a long time. 18 years. I slowly came into it, I had another job and over that time I've grown the business. But over the last year I took this step after really after listening to your podcasts and reading the books of going more direct than I've ever been before. And so a bit of this is actually about you guys, me thanking you.

You're going to catch me blessed.

Maybe a little bit unusual, but I just felt when I spoke to you I thought, look, you know, it'd be nice to get on and just say yeah, you've, you've given me something and I really appreciate that.

Well, thank you so much. And, and this is, you know, it does mean a lot to hear that what Mark and what the team and what we all do is having a good effect. Ultimately direct bookings is something which I've built my short term rental business on and it's just great to hear success stories. So let's dive more into that today. So talk us through where you were, I guess before. Were you 100% kind of reliant on the OTAs? How did you get your bookings originally? And talk me through the journey of the change.

Yeah, so I was a founder and owner of quite a large advertising agency. I founded it in 1993. So a long, long time ago. Probably when you in school or might not have even been born.

No, no, I'm an older guy. I'm old enough to remember that.

And look, I was creative director and I had a pretty good reputation. The company was in, in the north of England was probably one of the biggest and the best still going. We were bought out by wpp who's which is a massive, massive company, a global company. And I stayed on for a long time but I also knew that I needed an insurance policy. I'd made some money from building the business but I sold it when I was 34 and rather than restart in advertising which is. It's a big thing. It's a big thing. And I had lots of things in my contract which would stop me from trading in certain ways and with certain clients. So rather than start again in advertising, I thought, well look, I need something else. So I started the holiday business actually by mistake a little bit. I'd like to say it was good planning But I. In 2006, the property boom was like full flow. I mean it was crazy and I, I thought I'd sold my business. I had a little bit of a kind of rush of blood to the head. I had a big boat in the Mediterranean, I had moorings, I had, I had a quite a hedonistic lifestyle which I really enjoy, enjoyed. And I don't regret regret at all.

Sounds fun for me.

Yeah, we could see, we could see the world changing actually. Advertising is a good barometer. It's a good barometer of what's coming. You feel it before anybody else. You feel the clients cutting back. You start to think something's happening. So I thought yeah, my earnout is pretty much finished. It doesn't feel like I'm going to get much more out of my shares. In fact if anything at all I'm burning through the money like a lottery winner or a bad lottery winner. There are good ones out there as well but yeah, and I better do something sensible. So I'll get into property. I'll buy somewhere in the Lake District somewhere I can get together with friends and anyway I'm in the process of buying it. My mother in law hands me an article from the Sunday Times which I've still got somewhere. I should have bought it up for this, for this call and it said buying a holiday let at this moment in time is like winning the property lottery. It was just a brilliant article. It said this is what you've got to do. And back in those days there were a lot more breaks than there are now and certainly a lot more than there are going to be in the future. No matter who gets into government it's going to get tougher. So I bought the first one and I thought yeah, yeah we'll use this property ourselves, do a bit of holiday letting, put it on the, on the rental market with a local agency and bang, it filled. So I thought oh how can I get the money for a second one? And had to get a bank in tow. And so in the first couple of years I bought three and then came the financial crash and I was thinking oh I'm in negative equity now, what a mistake I've made. But I followed that through, kept going, kept building the business, found a bank at the time that were that had faith in me and managed to actually build up not just the terrace, I've got another site called Orist Head House and I had another site called Oakland hall and Oakland west or two of the so I had nine properties altogether at one point, huge mortgage, lots of debt but over the years built it up and in 2019 I sold the Oakland part of the business and packed in my advertising job and became a full time holiday let person even though the business was at a scale of at that point anyway just before lockdown so I packed in my very secure 29 years of employment and yeah, got going and then six months later, we're in lockdown. I know we all went through it. So, yeah, that was a difficult time. I probably meandered way off.

No, no, no, it's interesting. No, it's interesting because, first of all, it shows that you've got to take risks within any. Any business. Right. And this. Only when you stop and, you know, say you sold at that stage, then you'd be cashing out at a loss. Do you know? I mean, so the fact that you said that, hey, I've got the determination, I'm going to keep going with this, this is what I'm going to do. I imagine there's some transferable skills from the advertising side of things as well. Of course. And for those who are watching on the YouTube instead of on listening on the podcast, you'll see Andy's actually in front of a screen, which got awesome graphics in the background that he can change as well. So there's some. Really.

There's a little change. There's a photograph of our place. Nice. Yeah, yeah. Actually, I can probably drop myself into it, which. Yeah, we could all do that.

No, that's cool.

Yeah. There's the terrace. That's the street. Go around it. Probably making everybody dizzy.

Nice. Cool. For those on the podcast. And you brought up the image behind of the terrace and you mentioned that you bought a few places. Did you buy this terrace one after the other or was this all one big purchase?

The terrace took about nine years put together. So, yeah, the. The first one was the middle one, the middle house on the terrace. And that I bought that next door was a guest house, and next door to that was a private house. And so it was a mix. It was a mix. And the. One of the private houses came up for sale, and actually a friend of mine said, oh, I think I'll buy that. And he said, do you mind? And I said, well, actually, I had.

Yes, I do.

And that will make us competitors. And I'm not really sure about that. So we agreed. He went off and bought a holiday let elsewhere, and I bought that. And then the guy in the middle eventually who owned the guest house said, look, my wife's not well, I'm not sure about your clientele. We're a very, very quiet guest house. And you're bringing all these groups of people in and would you like. Let's not argue. Would you like to buy me out? So he got a good price anyway, so he did very well out of it. And then the other two came up again. I got on very well with them. Did A deal off market, bought the properties and then I had the whole place. So that gave me, that gave me the ability then to control how parking worked and how the bins worked and all of those awkward things that you get with holiday let's. Prior to that, people would rack up on a Friday with too many cars, park them in next door's car parking place. They'd come out, they'd argue the bins were difficult because our guests were generating a lot more waste than other guests and it just carried on like that. So it was far better to own the whole thing.

That's cool. And hey, if you, if you don't want competition, buy, buy them out is the lesson here ultimately. And, and the fact that you've got the entire row now where you can focus on your preferred guest avatar is, is really cool. I mean ultimately control within this, within any business is super important. And the fact that you're not having to worry what the neighbors think and, and, and that side of things is, is very cool. And also it's impactful as well because when people come and stay, if they stay in one and they think of another group stay in the future, well, probably they'll come and stay in one of the other ones because they know you've got more than one, so that must help.

Well, yeah, that happens a lot. That happens a lot. We, we repeat visitors. You know, we've got a really good high portion of repeats, which is lovely. We've got people that come every year, we've got people that come every few years. We've got people that have celebrated their 40th and their 50th with us. And that's great. Yeah, really good.

That's really cool. And what would you say has been one of the biggest wow moments so far on your journey?

Wow moments go. I wish I'd had time to prep for that one. You know, every day I, I go to the terrace and I, I look across the car park, I have a wow moment. I think how, how I, I started with nothing. I left school with three O levels or GCSE as they're now called and went to art College at 16. And yeah, on the business front I'm, I'm all self taught. Yes, I'm a qualified designer, but actually business, I taught myself so I get quite. Yeah, I suppose it might, might sound vain, but those are moments when I think, wow, how on earth did it get here? You've got something to be proud of here.

Oh, 100. And it's inspiring as well for people Listening to this, I, I mean I've got lots of nieces and nephews who are now an age where they're going through exams and stuff like that and they're all super worried about, you know, their various results and things like that. I'm going, well, actually, providing you can learn and you're up for putting effort in, then you know, you can really dive in and, and create something successful.

Yeah, some of the most cliche, but some of the most successful people in the world, a lot of them are not qualified or have very low qualifications. Look, I'm not saying that's a good thing. You don't think, well, I'll sort of bounce my way through school because yes, of the richest people on the planet didn't make any effort at school. That's not what I'm saying. But if you happen to not do as well as you thought you would, we're going to, don't panic. There's always another route, there's always another way. So.

Yeah, I completely agree. So you bought your, you steadily bought the terrace and when you first started doing holiday, let's say when you're quite new to hosting, how did you get your, how did you get your guests? Where did they come from generally?

Well, we, we used a large, a large ota. Well, when I say large, we started with a local, small local OTA that was a great partner and still is a good partner. And we, they drove in in the first years, they drove in most of the sales. But very quickly I realized that I had to boost those, I had to add to those. So in tandem with the ota, I then started advertising on various sites in the main aimed at bigger groups, so group accommodation, last minute cottages and big cottage, which is a part of that, the big holiday house, various various sites and some that have gone now, some that went commission based and I had to drop. My strategy was to go with websites that were fee only and not commission based at the beginning because what I wanted was names and email addresses that I could warm up and then pass on to the OTA to fulfill because I didn't want, I didn't want financial responsibility at that point. I didn't want to be chasing people for their money to be trying to, you know, send them key codes and all the bits and pieces that comes with actually the direct process. I was a very busy executive and just thought, well, I need that process by somebody else. But in the evenings I was very happy to answer emails and warm people up, get them to the point of purchase and Then pass them on. And the ota, they would take them and convert them for me. And that all worked really well until things got a lot more automated at OTA level. So they, once that started to happen, the personal bit dropped off a lot. So they, when I say you, you come to me as a client and said, look, can you do me a deal? Can, can I have this extra or that extra? And I think, well, it's not, yeah, it's no problem to me. So I'd say, of course, Liam, yeah, yeah, we can do that deal for you. Yeah, great, no problem. Fl right back to you. Copy in the ota, say, this is how it's going to work. Liam's going to give you a call. Who can I send them to speak to? Let's get him booked in and look after him. And it works brilliantly. But as things grew and companies got bought out and got bought out and bought out, the OTA that I was dealing with just stopped having. They didn't want to take personal calls. So I would, I would warm you up, pass you on and say, give them a call, this is the number. And they'd say, Liam, Liam, who? And who's Andy Cheetham anyway? The Terrorists. I'm not even sure we got a business called the Terrorists. Hang on a minute. So it started to fall down a little bit. So I had to accept their automation and I had to because I kicked against it for a long time. I used to complain and complain and eventually I had to give in and say, well, they've gone automated. It's time I looked at my strategy and moved forward from there.

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I get the. They say people are moved by either pursuit of, you know, a goal of which will bring more. More pleasure, or escape from pain. It sounds as though you're escaping the pain of. Of the automation. What did you do at the time to take your business then and take it to a different kind of level, the different strategy?

Okay, so, so in, I think it was 2014, I had to have a hip replacement. I had a big mountain bike crash in, in Canada and smashed my hip to smithereens, and I had a hip replacement. And during the time off work, I was told, like, look, do not put your foot on the ground. And we want this to set before you do any walking. And so just stay at home and just sit and don't even go out of the house at all. I thought, right, okay, I'm gonna. This is the rest of my life. I'm still just early 40s at that point. Yeah, yeah, early 40s. And I don't want to mess this up. So I thought, right, what can I do? So it's time to just address the business. So I, at that point I built. I had a website, but I had a new website built. I integrated a PMS in which is Super Control. And so I built an infrastructure that could go direct if I wanted, but also one that I could hopefully integrate into the OTA's web system. It took me a long time to get that to happen, the integration between my site and the OTA site, but once that happened, it made life a lot easier for me.

That's awesome. And Super Control, I know, is one which allows you to do that. Not many property management Systems work with OTAs in the way that Super Control do. So that's awesome to hear.

Yeah. Am I. And though you guys, you push hostfully, is your one of your partners of.

Choice, Hostfully sponsor this podcast and is. We work with many different. I always describe PMS like cars, that ultimately if we were driving a car, you might need a people carrier. If you've got big group, you know, that would be different for if you wanted to go super fast, you know, and it's the same for PMS that ultimately your needs will be so individual. A bit like you've said that you wanted one that's still integrated with the OTAs and it's important to try and discover one which works for you and your business is. My thoughts on that all get you from A to B, just like cars do. But it's how.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I do understand there are different ones and different integrations within those. Sometimes I do get frustrated that certain integrations won't work with super control, but actually there's a big choice and yeah, it works really well for me. I know my way around it. I'm a sort of guru on getting around the levels within it. And yeah, so I put that in in 2014 and had that running in the background, had the website running. That was all great. Building, building the business going really well. We became OTA's biggest independent client in the UK, which is pretty good. So, yeah, so we were. We've been doing over a million pounds revenue and for a number of years and lockdown came. They were brilliant in that process. You know, the way that they, they took all the pressure off from clients and handled them and did all the refunds and, you know, didn't allow. Allowed us to get on with our business without penalizing us too much. And um, yeah, so I. It was pretty good. And then of course post lockdown, everybody did well. Didn't you know, it was just, it was just an amazing kind of period that you thought, wow, the sun's shining. It's brilliant. We're all doing well. This is never going to end. Isn't it great? Let's buy more, let's do more. And then last year, bang, really, really hard things hit me really, really hard. I was starting to feel it probably back end of 22 and early. By early January, February, when those, those January bookings didn't roll in like they normally would, I thought, well, this is getting, you know, getting a bit dodgy. Spoke to the ota. Yeah, well, it's a global problem, you know, it's happened everywhere. We can't do much for you keep on plugging away. And eventually I thought, well, I have to take things into my own hands. And I remember I'd been Down south for some reason, south of England. And I was driving back, I thought, must be. There must be a podcast. There must be a podcast. So started listening, looking, found the Bruce Lee podcast, bought the Bruce Lee books, dove in, thought, wow, what, what, what's happened? When I wasn't looking, it was like that, hang on, I've been concentrating in, in. In lockdown. I think they were, they were ways you could go. You could either concentrate on, on the properties and, and you know, renovate and decorate and try and get them all sparkling or constant concentrate on the infrastructure and the digital side. You know, probably they're really clever people. Did both. But I threw myself into property renovation and during that time, wow. The. The amount of platforms tech that appeared was amazing and I missed it. I missed it. I really had. So I listened to the podcast. I listened to probably a hundred of them. I don't know how many. I just kept. I have to drive from Manchester to Windermere regularly twice a week. And so on the way up I listened probably to two on the way back, two. So I was listening to at least eight a week. And when I was at my desk doing stuff I'd listen to more, I just like a sponge, just trying to absorb as much as I could. And I thought, well, yeah, look, these guys sound good. So I need a new website doing. In fact, I'd like to split my businesses in two. So I've got two distinct units. So I've always sort of accounted for them as two separate businesses, but have one website. So I. So I approached Boostly and you built me two really nice websites which I'm really pleased with. They work well and all integrated into super control. Yeah. And so that was exactly to the day 12 months ago.

Wow.

Which, so not the launch of the website actually came later, but the relationship and me saying, right, I'm going to press this button on direct bookings happened exactly to the day 12 months ago.

Awesome. I mean, it's exciting to hear and it's one thing which I encourage. I mean, people listening to this, listening to it on a podcast. But it's a moment in my life when I started listening to more podcasts was when I saw a definite increase in quality of the business that I was doing because you just can't help but take in what you're listening to. And car journeys are great for that. I now do it through dog walks and car journeys is when I listen to any learning content.

So absolutely, you've got to stay curious and sometimes you forget that and you, you you get, you get left behind very quickly if you don't.

Oh, 100%.

But if you, if you, if you're interested, I, I'm, I'm really interested. I'm interested in the tech, I'm interested in how it works and how you can use it. Yeah. And, and I, there's some, just some brilliant stuff out there. And so. Yeah. So here we are 12 months later.

That's amazing. And how has things changed for you in terms of. I know you've got some slides and bits and pieces. Feel free to share if you wish. But how has things changed during your journey?

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

Well, that's, that's just a little stack there. How have things changed? Well, if you look at, in the background. That way. That way.

Yeah, that's the way. Yeah.

Okay. They're quite difficult.

It's like a weather person kind of.

Like over my shoulder. So the, the, the orange segment is actually the, this, this is the 12 months booking. So this is from a standing start. The orange segment is the OTA bookings from my original OTA, which is now currently running about 20%. Yeah, yeah. And actually on the year it's about 30%. So on that and that and all the other segments are different sources. So they're all the different sources from. There's a small bit of Airbnb in there which I could integrate. There's a little bit of booking.com, a little bit of VRBOVE, but a whole chunk of direct.

That's what we like.

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, it wouldn't have happened without you guys. So actually if I look at that in terms of. That's probably. You can't see much going on there, but you're looking. That's 30% of £1,134,000 bookings. That's the actual figure in 12 months.

I mean that's, that's first of all inspirational. But also the commission saved on that potential is, is, is a huge amount which we do like to like to hear. So let's talk about some of the things you've done which has worked for you in, in your business. How, what, what tools and what tactics have you. Have you put in place?

Well, here's, there's a little slide behind, but yeah, so I can slide that way.

I like it prepared for those on the podcast. There's a slide in the background with the tech stack, which is amazing.

Yeah. So my tech stack really, it's got super control at the center of it, which is the dms. And then out of that really second to that, or in tandem with that comes the Boostly website. I've got two of them. Thecherishwindermere.co.uk and rsheadhouse.co.uk they're the websites. And we also have. I put in a Moneypenny telephone answering system so I can sort of call forwarding system, which is brilliant. It's really great system. We have the Inspire heating systems. I know you've talked about that in the past on.

It's a game changer.

Oh, it was just. I had an argument with a friend of mine who. Who is a heating. A very big guy in industrial heating and he's. I was talking about my heating bills and how I was getting fed up of people. I turn up and the thermostats were at 38 and the people would be out and they've just left everything on. So they walk into the properties. Oh, it's a little bit chilly. Whack it up. Turn it onto constant.

Yeah, full as they can.

Yeah, full as you can. They'd also go into the boiler cupboard. They would turn every dial they could. The boilers would. Would be strained and. And so they'd blow up. Well, you know, blow, but break down regularly. And Inspire is such an amazing system. It also integrates into supercontrol. So my Inspire system actually takes an ical feed from my bookings. Turns itself on. Turns itself off when. When guests come. When there's no guests in the property and no movement that turns the heating down. It was costly to put it all in, but I think it's paid itself back in under 12 months. So definitely Inspire on the heating system. Moneypenny on the telephone answering systems. I'm just installing touchday, which I know again is. You've talked a lot about in the past. Just get my head around that. I did have your welcome in before that, but found that wasn't that what didn't work for me? I've got a couple of minute noise monitors or. Yeah, this is minutes, isn't it?

Yeah, a minute. I. I spoke to the. One of the guys there and they said. Because I called it minute, like I thought it was called.

Yeah.

I was wondering whether they were like, no, it's not that far. Call it minutes. And I. Okay, minute.

Okay, great. Good. Yeah. So I've got a couple of those because we had one neighbor who was fields away who used to complain. So I just thought, well, I'll put that in. And that's been great. It just tells me when things are getting a little bit out of order. Usually it dies down very quickly, but for me, that is there. If I do get environmental health turning up and saying, you're noisy, I've got a. I've got a system and I've got an audit log really, of problems and I can say, look, well, you might think that, but actually this person who's complaining is probably exaggerating a little bit because here are the stats and.

It'S just having that in place, they instantly. They can trust you. I mean, I had somebody come to my place, a police officer basically rang up saying about the, you know, the noise and we could actually demonstrate. I could send him the screenshot of the noise throughout the time they were there and say, look, yes, it was a bit loud between, I don't know, 9, 45 and 10. But actually the rest of the time it's quieter than a vacuum cleaner, you know, like. So. Yeah, you know, it's.

Yeah, I like those analogies they use as well. Yeah, Quite a vacuum cleaner that.

Exactly.

That works. Yeah, it is. That's a great system. I'm. Yeah, I'm also in the process of installing Stay. I've put it in one property so far. It's complex. I have to say that. It's complex. It's a complex setup. They're based in the States. I'm really trying to get on with it and make that work. So perhaps if we, next time we speak, if I'm good enough to be invited back on, I'll tell you how.

Stay definitely will be invited on. And I do. There's. There's definitely a need in the market for more of those type of systems, aren't there? Do you know what I mean? There's, there's not a huge number of choice of, of those, but they're in a way. Email collector.

Yeah, we, we, we had deco routers, which is fabulous and I really like those and that they're still live in a lot of the houses. I like to be able to log on when. When somebody says, hey, you know, the WI fi is down in this house, I can log on and say, no, actually, I can see you've unplugged the.

You switched it off. Yeah, switched it off.

Because all the other routers are still going. So you've unplugged it and that. I can't tell you how many times that happens. Yeah, so we've also got. We have Google Nest cameras on the driveway just to monitor traffic inside and out, just to make sure there's no incidents. Part of Super Control is Holiday rent payments, which is an integrated payment system and that works really well for us. Yeah, just the way it integrates, the way it collects the damage, deposits, refunds, all of those kind of things. That works really well. Xcover is a. Is an insurance product that's part of Supercontrol again. And then key data. Just starting to learn from the lovely Sally Henry key data and trying to get my head around it. I love data, I love facts. There's just so much information on there, it's hard to understand it, especially for a guy that school with three DSEs.

I. I use. I use key data. But they must hate it when I'm constantly asking them, like, hey, what report can I do? Which will tell me this, this is what I want to know, what data do you have? And they'll actually, to be fair, this supports. Great because they'll set up that report and you can have it. So it just emails it to you, which is. Which is good. I think with key data, you've really got to know the effect you're wanting to have. And this is like anything is asking the right questions to get the right answer. But sometimes it's taken me a little while to. When you just dive in and look at the menus, I'm like, wow, there's so much data here. I'm a bit overwhelmed. So I completely get that.

Yeah, so. Yeah, so. So a lot of tech and I'm willing. I've tried a number of things, a few things that are not on there, some have dropped, but I'm always willing to give it a go. I haven't looked at any things like Breezeway, you know, cleaning, cleaning control type apps and housekeeping apps as yet.

If you want a video on those. I've actually, I've been sad enough to compare both Breezeway and Turno. And I've got a side. Yeah, I've got a video which. Which talks about both.

Yeah, I mean, I have a really good housekeeping team. I've got about 14 housekeepers. I've got two maintenance guys. As you would expect for a business with our scale, we've got quite a number of people. We recruit well, we pay pretty well, I think. I think that's one of the key things. Don't underestimate the value of those people. They're the driving force of your business. When guests turn up and the place is lovely and tidy and smells great and looks clean, it makes a huge difference. And ownership, ownership, having those housekeepers really feel it, like it's their house, it Makes a huge difference. So I'm a bit wary of going into those apps because the people certainly my housekeeping team are not that digital. They. Some of them don't even have smartphones. Trying to even get them to do digital timesheets sometimes is difficult. Trying to get them to log on and look at scheduling.

I find they're handy for if you've got lots of different people with lots of different cleaning teams especially because it's trying to get that kind of standardization, you know, like. But 100 if you've got great people and they know what they do. It's like any business. The two hardest things is. Is more sales and more good people to help you run the. The business they say isn't it? So this is very cool and just getting to learn obviously the what's happened in your business. I've certainly felt inspired about the journey and you know, the going from 2006 to now seeing the journey. Is there any kind of favorite tactics or anything that you'd like to share for people listening in on the podcast? Which is a. Hey, do you know what? That worked for me. And people should really give that a look too.

I think the old and this applies to any business. Sales solve everything. You know, you can. You can look at your business. You think I'll save money here, I'll save money there. But ultimately if you can, if you drive more sales then you're going to. You're going to have more success. It's amazing how many people go from the other end and they start thinking, well if I just cut this and I don't supply that and I cut out the things and I get people to do their own cleaning or whatever, we'll be more profitable. Concentrate on sales is my big, big kind of advice for anybody. Revelations. Yeah I'm not sure whether I've got anything other than just you've just got to work at it. You've got to work it. Anybody that says holiday let business or yeah our industry is easy is just. They just don't know. It takes time, it takes effort and it is a proper.

A proper job and a passion as well. In. In for most, you know, it's. It's. How many other things do we encounter, you know careers where actually our job is about inspiring other people to come and have fun somewhere for depends on the stylist that you've got. But it's amazing.

That's right. That's right. And. And for a while I had a bit of a. A problem with. With the. I felt A little bit. I come from this really sexy job, creative director, advertising agencies, making TV commercials, flying all over the world doing sexy stuff. And I thought, oh, you know, this is really how I ended up here. And it wasn't. I thought it's not really a noble profession. Neither is advertising that way. There's nothing terrible about advertising. But I thought, you know, am I going to finish my, this, this just holiday let guy. And then I was at this thing called the Do Lectures which is a, an amazing business conference, very different place. And I was talking to a guy and he said, what do you mean? He said, what do you mean it's not. No, but he said, you did, you said, what an amazing job. You make memories for people, you give people the best of times. You know, they don't, won't be speaking about the time they, you know, they had a great day in the office, but they'll always be speaking about the great times they had at the terrace or, you know, wherever, wherever they were staying. It's you, you underestimate yourself. And from that moment I thought, yeah, I feel a little bit better about what it is.

Oh, 100%. I couldn't agree more. Because the memories that people make when they're, you know, as a group and you know, going away, they're the sort of things which genuinely do last a lifetime. I mean, I'm sure you've had the same. I've had people pose at the properties. You know, I've had people who met somebody while staying and you know, they come back as a couple next year. And in, in the hospitable hosts community, one of the hosts actually met their husband actually was the person who came and stayed at the property. So they then met. So you know, this is the, the thing where it's a very people focused business is, is hospitality, isn't it?

So we've had, we've had some crazy ones as well. We had, we had probably the, the, the funniest one was I have a manager. She's fantastic lady. She's. Yeah, a mature lady. And she walked into one of our properties expecting no one to be there. It's after the guests left and she wandered into one of the bedrooms and there's a guy in bed and he said, wait, what, what are you doing? Everybody else has gone. And he said, oh, I'm really sorry. He said my friends have gone, we're here and my friends have gone and they've left me with no clothes. So they'd left him on his own in the holiday house. Now she's got a great sense of humor, right? Okay, so she went out to the charity shop, said she got his sizes. I was going to say she weighed him up, but that sounds a bit bad. She got his sizes, went down to church, she just bought a comical outfit. She turned back up with it, you know, this crazy, crazy shirt and crazy trousers and a big pair of mad shoes and said, look, there's some clothes.

Off you go.

Off we went. And she just, she just couldn't stop laughing about the whole thing. Yeah, absolutely. Because so many people could have been offended. Oh, yeah, she just took it in a stride. And the poor guy, look, we've always, we've all had gags played on us. It was a bit of a cruel one.

This is what we're saying though, that story for him, he'll be like. And they even had to go get me charity clothes. You know what I mean?

Absolutely. You know, absolutely. That, that, that certainly was one that made me laugh out.

So there's three questions I want to squeeze in.

Okay.

Into this. So I'm going to squeeze every, every drop of every drop of the sort of ice from you.

So, yeah, yeah, I just wanted to say into your kind of wrap up questions. Look, I've been thinking a lot about Boostly and I think I mentioned to you, Mark, I think you're a great company. You've done me a lot of favors. I think Boostly is more than a website building company, it's more than a community. I think you're a transformation business and a lot of, a lot of this there, all of this has been enabled by you. You gave me the confidence, you gave me the tools, you gave me the tactics to get where I am and I really appreciate it. So that's my little wrap up. Before I get into your wrap up.

Thank you so much. And Andy, I should have said, and I haven't said it, start. But you mentioned Transformation Company at the Short Stay Summit. Genuinely, that was the thing that I took away from the show going, that is, that's awesome. That has had that effect and a.

Bit like without them.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Anybody that's listening to this podcast and thinking, well, you know, okay, I can get somebody else to build a website, that's fine. Yes, you can. But I think you give so much more and you're there, you're there with your advice, you're there with the podcast, you're there at the end of day, the phone if needed or certainly an email. And I'm not talking about you Mark, I'm talking about the wider team, I think, you know, don't underestimate the power of that.

Thank you so much. It honestly means a lot and. Yeah, thank you, Andy. You're going to catch me blushing in a second. So, Andy, that for the, for the final questions, you know, we like to have a fun one and an inspirational one and then share your details. So the fun one, I'd love to know what your superpower is.

Well, I think my brother described this. I look at every day as a dog day. I wake up every day as a Labrador. Every day is a new day. Today could have been the most awful day, but tomorrow when I wake up, I will be wagging my tail, looking at life through an amazing lens and just starting again. So that's my. Yeah, every day is a dog day. So, yeah, that's my superpower.

They do say optimistic people tend to be more successful as well. So that, that does make sense and you certainly embody that. So before we go on to the inspirational one, I think we really should share your details on how people can get in touch with you, because I've certainly. I feel like I've learned a lot, but also more the journey from yourself. Andy is inspired, will inspire me and many others listening to this. So how can we come and follow the business or yourself, your socials and come and find out more about the Terrace Windermere?

Well, our main part is the boostie websites you've delivered for us. So the terracewindermere.co.uk and orishead house.co.uk or our two URLs, it's all there. So, yeah, yeah, so that's where to find us.

Thank you so much. And I know there'll be people going across there. If you listen to this on the podcast, you can find those in the show notes as well, those links. So, Andy, to see us out, the question I'd love to ask is what mantra has really resonated over your journey and still resonates with you today?

I think. I think it's more. More of a life mantra. And that's one that again, the do lectures, actually, which a massive fan of, they have on their wall saying that givers get lucky. And I think if you can give more than you take, if you can help, if you can help people, if you can give just, you know, some thanks, like today, that's all I can give you. I can't. I can certainly give you my subscription money, but I think if you can give more, then you're gonna actually eventually receive more. And that's, that's how I run my life.

It definitely resonates. So thank you so much, Andy.

Oh, you've given me a lot. So there you go. You've got lucky.

Well, thank you so much.

We'll get lucky. Yeah.

Well, for sharing this journey with us and for. For coming on the Boostly podcast and yeah. In inspiring the people who are listening to this. So thank you two for listening to this on the Boostly podcast. If you'd continue the conversation, you can come and join the hospitality community recreate on Facebook. And there is a book which Andy mentioned, which is the book Direct Playbook. It's available from Amazon or any main bookstore, I should think, and it's by Mark Simpson and it can help you with tips on how to get more direct bookings. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you very much, Andy. We'll see you again in the future, I'm sure.

Thank you, Boostly Transitional Company.

Thank you.

See you soon.

See you soon. Thanks. Bye for now.