Why I am a fan of Collaboration > Competition

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening and welcome. And I am not really here. I am currently in the uk. Fingers crossed. All things going well at the Book Direct show and the Short Stay Summit. Now I am pre recording a couple of these intros so there is something to go out on the daily podcast. Like I said in the whole of 2021, I want there to be a daily podcast going out to help you, the hosts, get the tools, the tactics, the training and the confidence to get more buckets. Now I'm gonna slightly flip it kinda because I was interviewed on a podcast recently by the Amazing Lenka. Now what I wanted to do was just to put that podcast on the booster podcast in its entirety, but it was over an hour long and I do like to keep these episodes kind of short. So what we're gonna do is I've got a little segment of that podcast to show with you. Lenka asked some amazing questions. I sort of documented the whole of Boostly. So if you've ever been interested who I am, the how I got started, why I do this, and most importantly, the tools that I use to run Boostly and recommend to others, then this will be a good one to check out. So without further ado, let me flip my camera. You're going to be listening or watching to the Amazing Lenka and we are delving into all about Boostly and who and how I got here. As always, thanks to the sponsors, I'll be back hopefully in a few days time from the UK we will be able to pick this up as per usual. But for now, thanks for watching, thanks for listening and here is the Amazing.

Lenka compared to some essay providers. I'm in the beginning of the journey and I can, I can prove that that actually, really, really works, the social media thing. And yeah, so just keep fantastic tips, just network, tell people what you do, become the go to expert, answer any questions they might have. I actually even go through sometimes. I have people who would text me or call me and want to ask about essays and then they said, oh, sorry, like I don't think you want to help me much because I'll be your competition. I was like, there's plenty for everybody. There's no shortage. Why would I not want to help you? I want to help you. If there's something I can help you people help me. I can share the knowledge back.

This is something that I was talking to with one of my coaching clients and she is the most amazing human. She's lived a life upon a life upon a life and I Was asking her, because she's in a. In a growth stage right now, does she grow or does she want to grow or is she happy where she is? And. And I said to her, do you have people contact you asking for accommodation? And she said, yes. She's so good at doing the network and so good at getting to know people. She's parts of so many committees and all of these things. And I was like, well, what do you do when these come in? I said, I just pass them on to people. I said, well, are you taking a cut, like a 5 or 10% fee, finders fee? She's like, no. Said, start doing it and you can start to build up your own mini WhatsApp local group of hosts, other hosts. Because it's not competition, it's collaboration over competition. The competition is the OTAs. The competition are the big massive companies that are taking money out of your local area.

Okay?

They're the competition. Every other host is somebody that you can get a stay for a guest. So when a guest calls you, up goes, lenka, have you got accommodation for 1st September for four nights? Instead of you just going, really sorry, no, putting the phone down, you go, yep, 100%. Give me 10 minutes, I'll call you back. You put the phone down, you go straight into your WhatsApp group, right? Everybody, first September, four nights, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. This is the price. Who wants it? They'll come back to you. First come, first serve. You call them back and go, fantastic, we've got you all sorted, I'm going to pass you on to here. They're going to do. And then you just take a 5 or 10% cut. Now, on a singular basis, that may be 50 quid, but you do that every week over the year. That will result in four figures extra in. And all you're doing is you are working in your local community. And then somebody will tell. Someone wants me to. Turned around to me and said, that's not a direct booking. Yes, it is. The money is not the direct booking, it's the guest and where they book. That's the directness. So if they book directly with you, it's your power, it's your cancellation policy. You get their email address, you get their phone number, you can do everything you want with it. You've got their data. Data is the most valuable commodity that there is in the world. This is why Facebook wants everything of you. It's why Amazon want everything. It's why Amazon created Alexa, because they want to know everything about you and every single part of the journey. It's why they put Alex into cars. So I have a putting into the fridges, but I put it into toasters. So I have to put it everywhere because they want to know everything about you. Everything that you see, look and do and feel. It's why Facebook are trying to get these virtual reality headsets, these Oculus is to be the go to because they want all of your data all of the time so that they can sell it to companies that then will advertise to you everywhere that you look.

Okay, so quick break. You hear me talk a lot about marketing and that's because attracting your own guests is how you generate true revenue for your business. But like with everything else that I talk about, it takes time. And it takes not only a little bit of your time, it can take large chunks of your time if you try and do everything yourself. One of the things that I have very quickly discovered is automation and delegation. And this is what I love about Hostfully. And it's thing that I don't think a lot of people know is, is that a big part of their behind the scenes tools is automation communication tools that are set up and designed to automate the process. There are companies out there that charge a lot of money for this, but with Hostfully, it's all built in as part of your service. So if your PMS doesn't provide automation communication, then I would definitely look at maybe booking a call in with Hostfleet as soon as possible. But as sponsors of this podcast. So go and check out hostfleet.com make sure you tell them that Boostly sent you. And as always, to Hostfully, thanks for sponsoring this show. I'm a big supporter and a big fan of everything that you do. And right now, let's get back on with that show that we're talking about.

Thank you. And all you need to do is.

You need to get an email address.

And a phone number and then use it, reuse it. And there's so many amazing tools coming out here right now that will help you do it. But just by building a relationship. Little mini WhatsApp group, get a little network of you together that you can pass around bookings even if you haven't got that. There's some amazing services out there. Comfyworkers.com passthebooking.com There's Facebook groups for this, the hospitality community. People pass around bookings all the time. Whether you want to take a little put or not is totally up to you. But you can so simply do it in your local area. It's just about building a network and just not looking at other people as competition.