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VRS488 – Building Lasting Relationships with Your Short-Term Rental Guests: Strategies for the Hospitable Host with Mark Simpson

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This episode of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast is sponsored by
The Vacation Rental Formula Business School
The Short-Term Rental education platform to solve your business challenges

In this episode, Mark Simpson, founder of Boostly, joins Heather to discuss the importance of guest communication in the vacation rental industry. They discuss the concept of a “guest success manager” who can enhance the guest experience and boost revenue by communicating with guests before, during, and after their stay. By having someone dedicated to managing guest interactions, business owners can free up their own time to focus on other areas of the business.

Mark emphasizes that every guest communication is a sales opportunity, making it crucial for businesses to have someone dedicated to managing guest interactions. He also notes that finding someone to fill the role is relatively easy and affordable, with the potential for a significant return on investment. By building relationships with guests and addressing their needs and concerns, properties can create a positive guest experience and increase revenue.

They also discuss the importance of personalization and communication in the hospitality industry. By creating clear systems and procedures and utilizing tools such as Loom, it is possible to effectively train and outsource tasks to virtual team members. This approach can not only enhance the guest experience but also lead to increased revenue and business growth. Effective guest communication, through phone calls and other touchpoints, can help achieve the goal of building long-term relationships with guests and ultimately lead to increased revenue and success in the industry.

Finally, the key to successful communication with guests is to make it personal and genuine. Mark recommends using voice notes or personalized gifts to show guests that they are valued and appreciated. By following these communication strategies, hosts can build strong relationships with their guests and create a positive reputation for their property. Overall, the guest success manager concept emphasizes the importance of prioritizing guest experience and communication in the vacation rental business and recommends hiring a guest success manager to achieve this.

Mark talks to Heather about:

  • His passion for hospitality
  • The critical moments of discovery and relationship building with guests
  • Selling sleep and the morning-after call
  • The biggest mistake owners make – the worst scenario
  • The key phrase to use to capture the best reviews
  • The power of voice notes
  • Optimal timing for a post-stay check-in
  • The one question no one asks after checkout
  • The power of social proof & how to get it
  • Gifting done right

Links Mentioned:

The Gift Goose

Giftology

Clockwork

Close.com

Short Stay Week

Find Boostly:

Find Mark Simpson:

Who's featured in this episode?

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Mike Bayer

You're listening to the Vacation Rental Success Podcast brought to you by the Vacation Rental Formula Business School. Are you ready to take your vacation rental business to the next level? Invest in the knowledge and training you need to get there. With the Vacation Rental Formula Business School, you can gain access to an exclusive course library that covers topics like marketing, pricing, strategies, operations, and more. Become one of our founding members today and get exclusive access to all additional content produced in the years to come. Whether you're just starting out or want to expand your existing business, you'll learn invaluable lessons from the top industry experts. So don't wait any longer. Secure your spot today at vacationrentalformula.com/bizschool and start your journey to success. Are you ready for today's podcast? Let's get started. Here's your host, Heather Bayer.

Heather Bayer

Are you overwhelmed with everything you have to do? Would it seem a luxury to take someone on board to lift a little of the weight? I remember that feeling when we took on our first hire and so much stress was taken away. Today I'm joined by Mark Simpson of Boostly to talk about the one hire you are missing in your business and why you need this person.

Heather Bayer

This is the Vacation Rental Success Podcast, keeping you up-to-date with news, views, information, and resources on this rapidly changing short term rental business.  I'm your host, Heather Bayer, and with 25 years of experience in this industry, I'm making sure you know what's hot, what's not, what's new, and what will help make your business a success.

Heather Bayer

Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast. This is your host, Heather Bayer, and as ever, I am super excited to be back with you once again. Now I am back in Ontario and thoughts of Gulf Shores, Alabama are receding into the background now. And although it's only a few months before I go back, we'll be leaving towards the end of October, heading down to Orlando for the Vacation Rental Managers Association Conference at the end of October, and then just moving on from there over to Gulf Shores for the winter of 2023-2024. It sounds so close. It really does sound so close. And yes, I don't really want to be thinking about that right now. So let's get on with today's episode. So way back when I started my property management business, it really wasn't as easy to find help as it is now. There were some remote work agencies, but they were nowhere near as sophisticated as they are now, and it was much more of a struggle to hire than it is today.

Heather Bayer

Because nowadays you've got Upwork and you've got Fiverr and you've got other platforms. With those, you can get someone to do just about anything for you that ChatGPT can't offer. Even here at Vacation Rental Formula and the Business School, we've got remote assistants across the world who keep us ticking along, managing our social media, they're doing our graphic design, basic administration, and generally keeping us all in order and making sure that we follow the calendar and organize everything in Asana and keep our messages going in Slack. So we use virtual assistants every single day. And it's a good feeling to know there is someone that we can call on just about any time to keep us going if one of us falls ill or needs some time off. And I'm going to let you into a secret here. There is even AI that can create my voice and could do a solo podcast if I needed to drop-out for some reason. All I'd need to do is write the script and it would create an episode. That is so cool. But honestly, this really is me talking right now. Honestly, it is.

Heather Bayer

So when I heard that Mark Simpson, the founder of Boostly, was going to be talking at the short-stay week in Barcelona about the one hire you're missing in your business, I wanted to talk to him about this magical person and how to find them. We're also going to be talking a little too about short-stay week as I'm super excited about it. It's a great opportunity for networking, learning, and visiting this amazing city. I hope that by the time we've stopped talking about it, some of you will have thought, Hey, I've just got to go to Barcelona in May. And if you do, both Mark and I will see you there. But we'll talk about that in a bit. So for now, we're going to go straight on over to my interview with Mark Simpson of Boosley.

Heather Bayer

So I'm super delighted to have with me, once again, Mark Simpson from Boostly. Welcome back, Mark. Always an absolute pleasure to have you on the show.

Mark Simpson

Thank you. This is episode number three now, so I get my hat-trick football.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, you get a T shirt. I'll bring it to you in Barcelona – “I've been on Vacation Rental Success podcast three times”.

Mark Simpson

I'll wear it with pride.

Heather Bayer

It's really great to have you back. You're doing so much at the moment. I see you everywhere. I know you're heading off to Nashville to the Wealth Conference shortly. Tell me what's happening in your world. What's been going on in the last six months or so? And that includes the new arrival, of course.

Mark Simpson

Yeah. I've been making humans, moving countries and doing all sorts of things, mostly in direct bookings as well. This last year, last six months has been a heck of a ride. So we've moved back to the UK. We've had a little baby girl, Rosie, released a couple of books, which has been an unbelievable ride. And I'm just part of another co-authored book at the moment, Hospitable Hosts 2, which will obviously be out now by the time this podcast gets released, which is really cool. And we've really delved really down on direct bookings, website design, API integrations with PMS partners, which has been really cool because we're now actually able to see the websites, how they work, and the bookings that are coming in, where they're coming in from around the world. And we're able to really start to put together some really cool data boards, etc. It's all exciting times.

Mark Simpson

And the cool thing is now for when we last spoke is that there are so much tools, softwares, pieces of kit, advice, training, geared up for everybody. It doesn't matter where you got one property or if you've got 100 and everything in between. It's finally available for all, which is really exciting to me because I remember when I first started in 2011, properly full-time in the family business, there was nothing.  You couldn't really connect anything together anywhere. Nothing talked to each other. So it made everything so much harder. And now it's so much easier for a newbie who's just coming into the game. So it's an exciting time. Even with all the craziness and madness going on around the world, it's an exciting time for hosts and hospitality.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. We're not going to be talking about AI and ChatGPT today, but I did mention in the introduction that way back when I started 20-25 years ago, there was nothing at all, and we're going to talk about this.  How it can be really, really overwhelming to be in this business and to do all the things, all those different moving parts that we've got to do. But I was just saying that I went from there to now, where now there's a platform where you can record your voice and I could publish a solo podcast and not open my mouth. And I said, that's why this is on video. You can see that it's us talking. We don't have two AI talking heads.

Mark Simpson

Yeah, we are real. We are definitely real and coming at you and giving you all the help and advice.  With all these shenanigans that you can do behind the scenes, I feel podcast like this and voices like what we can do and how we can help is going to become even more important, because we could easily fall into the trap of a world of copy and paste where everybody literally looks the same online, offline, everywhere. So it's important to have these messages and how we can personalize our business, which obviously what we're going to talk about today.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. So going back to this overwhelm, I remember it well, the first year or so of my business, and we just did absolutely everything. We were doing everything without the help that was out there on the technology side. Now, it's very different in the technology that's available to us, but we still have all these same moving parts that we have to bring together, whether it's operations and cleaning toilets or hiring housekeepers and people to do supervision, to marketing and the financial side of it. And it's tough for everybody. Unless, of course, you're simply being completely passive and putting your property on Airbnb and standing back and letting somebody do the rest and hoping for the best. So I know where you stand on that one.

Mark Simpson

Yeah, absolutely. Very well spoken. We have two podcast on it of the feelings, and you can definitely go back and listen to that. But yeah, I think times are changing now. I think so many hosts now are realizing you can't just put it on one site and expect revenue to come in. And that's obviously what we're going to talk about because it's really important now more than ever, 2023 and 2024 is going to be the year of the upsell. It's going to be the year of bringing it right back to where it began, which is hospitality, which is what this whole industry is founded on. So it's going to be really important, the hosts who hack into that, will be the ones that will win.

Heather Bayer

And in doing that, hosts are going to have to be more hands-on in different areas, and you can choose where you want to be. But we're going to talk today about the one hire that you're missing in your business. And I'm taking this directly from what you're going to be talking about in Barcelona – “It's going to boost your revenue and enhance your guest experience.” So let me just hand it over to you. I remember when I did my first hire, I hired for where I was weak, and that was in numbers and finance. And so we hired a bookkeeper. But of course, nobody does their own bookkeeping now. You just have a bookkeeper, that somebody out there, maybe your PMS is doing your bookkeeping for you. So how do you start this? What is your one hire? Where do you start?

Mark Simpson

So let's just assume that everybody has got the necessities, i.e. a cleaner,  property maintenance handyman, that's a given. The hire that I'm going to talk about, like we said in the title, you can boost your profits, increase your guest experience. And it falls around something that every host now has tried to automatize this process. There are some amazing companies out there.  Smartbnb back in the day, they revolutionized this by saying, Listen, you don't have to be always on hand to answer every single guest message that comes in.  On Airbnb, for example, or wherever, we will automatize that process, you just give us keywords. And everybody jumped onto that. Obviously, Smartbnb is now Hospitable [hospitable.com], and every property management software, to a point, has got automated messaging. Even Airbnb's now bringing automated messaging… depends on keywords, etc. And so as we go down this route of automatizing, people are like… Because like you say, they want passive income, they want passive communication and all those things. We sort of leave that part, but an important message that I feel every business owner needs to build into their daily life, a piece of writing and a quote you should literally go by and look at every single day is, “Every guest communication is a sales opportunity.”

Mark Simpson

And when we talk about the one hire that everybody's missing, to me, it's just perfectly obvious. And people do this now themselves naturally, but it can be a time suck. And the good news is that you could find somebody very easily, 30-40 hours a week, you're spending less than $600-$700 a month paying somebody to do it. And the return of revenue and the return of guest experience is key. And it's what I'm calling a ‘guest success manager'.

Mark Simpson

So you may be working now with a company, you may be working with a property management software, you may be working to another one of these providers, whether it's upsell or whatever, and they may have a client success manager.  Somebody that reaches out to you and check how you're doing, an account manager so to speak. But imagine then putting it into the world of hospitality and into our businesses and calling it a guest success manager. And there's some key parts of the booking process, and there's key parts of the stay and the after stay that I've identified that will be able to, again, boost revenue, but most importantly, boost the guest experience. And we can go down on this route however and wherever you'd like to weave it into.  But yeah, we're calling it the guest success manager, and I'm excited to dig into it today.

Heather Bayer

Well, I'd like to go into it chronologically. Before the stay, during the stay, after the stay. That's a great place. Because it's that map that everybody has to follow. And so many people miss out some of these really key areas. Andy McNulty called it ‘tumbleweed time', that time between booking and stay where you could be sitting…. and he had this wonderful graphic that he did with a presentation with somebody leaning against one of those old gas pumps and this tumbleweed just slowly going down the road as you're sitting there waiting for somebody to help you plan your vacation because it's not the same as it used to be when you had to do it all yourself. You expect that you're going to get some assistance these days.

Mark Simpson

And this is an awesome thing, you can easily have this alongside a Touch Stay digital guidebook. This is not going to replace that. This is to go alongside it. And a big thing that I always look to do when… Whether it's Boostly, or whether it's explaining to hosts on the hospitality businesses, when everybody ‘zigs', you should look to ‘zag'. And now everybody has gone from that one-on-one communication, phone calls, etc. to automatizing it. Everybody's trying to automatize that process, so they never have to deal with the guest question again. So it's like, Well, when everybody's zigging, how can you zag? And by zagging, what you're going to do is you're going to instantly make yourself stand out from 99 % of the other hosts that are out there. And we'll start with the first point.

Mark Simpson

So there's three main touch points, and obviously, Touch Stay and Tyann and Andy have identified some really key touch points, which is fantastic for the digital guide, but this goes alongside it. So the first touch point is 24-hours after the booking has been made. At max, you could extend it to 48-hours, but let's just say 24-hours after booking, because at this point, when somebody has hit the ‘BOOK NOW' button and if somebody has paid or reserved or however they've booked, it doesn't matter what your policy is, that is the point where they are the most excited.  They have gone, Right, I'm committing to this place and I am excited.

Mark Simpson

Now, some people, depends on how they book, they may have booked three or four of the places and yours is just one of them. And then they're going to cancel two, three, four. It's happened all the time. That's how some people's guest booking process is. So what can you do to avoid you being the one that being canceled? And again, everybody now has that automated message that goes out. Everybody has that confirmation email, confirmation message, etc. So how can you stand out? First thing, pick up the phone and speak to your guest.  There is fantastic software available now where you can use this with a dialer, so you don't have to use your own cell phone or your mobile phone or your landline, whatever. Close.com, C-L-O-S-E.com is a fantastic dial-a-service that you can use. You can use Skype and there's Google Phone. There's all those things that you can use. But the main thing is to drop-in some form of communication. Try doing a phone call.

Mark Simpson

If they don't pick up, a quick SMS just to say, Hey, this is Mark. I'm calling from – insert property name, business name. I just wanted to have a quick chat to you about your booking. But if you can speak to the guest, this is the key part. When the guest picks up, you're not trying to sell them anything. You're not trying to do X, Y, Z, all you're doing is you're going to introduce ypurself to them and thank them for choosing to book a stay with you. So, Hey, it's Mark. I'm the owner, founder of – insert business name. Obviously, we're going to eventually hire somebody to do this. But this is a big part of it. You can say whatever you want to say. And you want to have a quick chat about their stay, about their reservation. 99 % of the time people are like, Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I'm really busy right now, you've caught me at a bad time. Can we arrange to speak another time? That's absolutely cool.

Mark Simpson

But the main part of this call is to do open-ended questions. You want to find out number one, why are they coming?  Is it business? Is it pleasure? Is it a leisure stay? Birthday party? What's the special occasion? Who's going to be in the party? So it's a great way to find out what they're coming to the area for. But then you can ask them some really cool questions in terms of, again, open-ended. So why did you want to stay with us? What made our property stand out from everywhere else? So it's a two part. You can find out why a guest is coming to stay, but also as well find out why they booked you. There's not many instances in a booking process where you can actually survey your guests to find out why they booked with you. And we spend hours going through Rankbreeze and PriceLabs and all of these things to try and figure out why our listing is performing not as well as others and all those things. But when the best thing to do is to survey the people actually hitting the ‘BOOK NOW' button, the people actually giving you money, it's a fantastic way of doing it, because you know what you're doing well. So for example, out of 10 people that you do this phone call with, or your staff member does this call with, and if seven of them are talking about one distinct part of your property, so it could be your lakeside, it could be you're near Disneyland and you've got Disney-themed rooms and it really stood out, then go all in on that.

Mark Simpson

Really delve down on that Avatar, that's the type of person, that's the picture that's popping. So that'll be like, Wow, that's the picture that I need to make sure is prevalent and relevant everywhere to speak to my ideal guest. But also as well, by simply doing a phone call, it will instantly make your chance of a cancelation less, because you are no longer just a property, you're a name, you're a voice, you're a human, you're a person on the end of the phone, and you will stand out from everybody else they could potentially look to book with. So they've got more of an affiliation with you. Again, you end it and just say, Fantastic, we're really looking forward to welcoming you to our house, to our property, to our business. Thank you again for choosing our local business to stay with. We will send you a push notification with a link to your digital guidebook – for example – and check-in instructions. Please make sure you check your email.

Mark Simpson

And by simply doing that, the guest will then go and check their email. How many times have you seen people complaining? Or again, if you're listening to this and you know this, when a guest arrives and you've sent them all the push notifications, all of the emails, all of the texts and they go, you know what? I never got it. I just never got it. And it's like, how? I have sent you this a hundred times. And it's because they just didn't know what to look for. But by telling them this, they know to go and find it, whether it's a text or an email. You can literally… We used to do this at our family business. I used to say, Just check your email now/Just check your text. Is it there now? Fantastic, that is your check-in information. That is how you will find our property. That's the time that you can check in. This is where you get your code from. This is all of the things that you could potentially look for. And you're telling them over the phone. And again, they will love you for that. So that's the first form of communication.

Heather Bayer

Yeah. Tyann Marcink espouses this one. Call them, get on the phone, have that conversation, and make that relationship, because that's what it's all about. That's why the business is hospitality relationships. But we're talking about scale. My company had 180 properties at one time. Actually, they're nearly up to 180 again, the new owners have done a fabulous job, but anyway. So that was tough. In January, February, March, you're probably getting 20-30 bookings in a very short space of time. We didn't have the luxury of being able to pick up the phone and talk to them. I think now they are doing that because they have hired the specific person to pick up on these things. And I think this is where we're going with this.

Mark Simpson

This is where we're going with this. Yeah. So obviously, you have to start off by doing it yourself because eventually you are going to hire somebody. And there are amazing places that you can go online to do so. You can either find somebody that is local to you, or you can find somebody that is a virtual team member. Upwork, Fiverr, there's a company that I recommend called Gravitas Media, and they will do the actual hiring process for you. So by those three different revenues, you can find somebody that will do this virtually. It doesn't mean that they're going to be in the Philippines. You can find someone in Venezuela, South Africa, wherever. Or if you want somebody local, go local. It's literally your choice. Obviously, if you're going to hire somebody from another country, for example, the Philippines, the price that you pay is less. That doesn't mean the quality is any less. The quality is just as good for obviously time zones, etc. You can go right now onto onlinejobs.ph. You can go into the search bar at the top and you could type something as very vague such as Airbnb, and you will then get thousands upon thousands of people who have dealt with property management companies over the past.

Mark Simpson

You could just train them up to be a guest success manager. Obviously, a very key part of this, is the need to have a good Wi-Fi, very good spoken and understanding of English, and obviously be able to communicate on the spot, which is easy to be found. We find these so many times. I'm testing this right now with a company in the Poconos. They are following this process. They haven't got 180 properties, they've got just under 20 properties, and they're able to easily build this into their systems and their structures. A book that I really recommend anybody get if they're looking to hire/outsource systems, structures is Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz, a fantastic book. It taught me everything that I needed for Boostly. And I then went and did the program on the back end, Run Like Clockwork. And again, that really helped put systems and structures in place. And you can hire this locally, you can do this virtually. But you have to start off by doing it yourself. And obviously, you're going to be doing this at a lot lower scale, i.e. one property, two properties, three properties, four properties, whatever that may be.

Mark Simpson

So you can definitely fit that in. And obviously, it depends on the time of the year, where your season is, where your market is. If you can start this in a slow season, fantastic. Because again, with less bookings coming in it gives you more time to cut your teeth so to speak, and start the calls, because I guarantee you that first call is going to be awkward as you're not going to know what to say. You're going to um and aah and splutter and things, where it says practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. The key thing from that first communication, picking up the call, we're not going to look to sell. We're just going to basically do a ‘need find' and ‘find people', why they're looking to choose you. Again, note and document all of this. And even if you get a Google Sheet and you start writing it down, because what you will find will be a pattern. What gets tracked gets measured. And let's just say out of 30 people that you talk to, let's say half of them or more than half of them are coming to stay with you because of a birthday, an anniversary, a reunion, then what you can start to do is, we talk about upsells and we talk about our digital guidebook and things like Rentmount [rentmount.com] and ‘the HOST' [thehost.com].

Mark Simpson

You can start to build in upsell offers and upsell packages. And you could have a package, you can have an anniversary package, a reunion package, or whatever. Whatever the data is telling you, you can build some around that. And then what you can start to do, part of your email automation, your digital guidebook, whatever you have, is you say, Would you like to take advantage of our arrival package? It will be da, da, da. When you arrive, we'll do it for you. You price it up, you can build it into what you're currently doing. Your cleaners or your changeover team can add it in, put it into the property, get your base rate, and then you can mark this up 300% easy because people don't want to do it themselves, but they'll pay to do it. And as new business owners, as business owners in general, it doesn't have to be hospitality. We all make the mistake, and I've said this before, we all make the mistake of chasing new money. We're always looking for the next booking, the next guest, the next reservation. When the true profit and the true revenue growth in your business, is those that are already clicking that BOOK button.  Already the people are giving you the money, they know, like, love and trust you.

Mark Simpson

And if they're going to spend a couple of thousand dollars coming to stay with you for however amount of time, if you say, Hey, would you like an arrival package where your fridge is stocked? It's going to have birthday banners up for X, Y, and Z, the price, whatever you price it at, they are more likely to say yes than no. And again, you can figure all of that out by that first phone call, by surveying your guests.

Heather Bayer

So that's really where the value lies in that first phone call. It's a relationship development, and it's also pulling out what their needs are, what their pain points are, perhaps, and then putting something in place to ensure that those pain points are going to be resolved and their needs are met. It is so simple, Mark. Why don't more people do this?

Mark Simpson

I think that we're so fixated on the stay. We're so fixated on the reservation, on the booking. And again, what we're trying to do, and I think this is just coming from where we are in evolution and all that stuff, is that we are trying to automate everything. Everybody says work, don't work in your business, work on your business, and all that things and stuff. I feel we go down a way of going too far down this rabbit hole where we ignore the most important aspect of this business, which is hospitality.  And I'm not saying you've literally got to meet and greet every guest and all that stuff. But there's definitely things that you can put into place. And then if you do get really busy and your business scales and grows and it gets super popular, fantastic. You are ready to hire for this role now. If it gets to a point where it's like, Wow, this is really busy, you then hire. And I feel like hiring stage, definitely with a lot of people. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, what age you are. I feel like that hiring part of admitting that you need help is a massive, especially for Brits. Definitely for Yorkshire people.

Mark Simpson

I see this. Up until 2016, I would not ask for help. I'd have that busy badge on my sleeve with pride and didn't want to admit that I needed help. But then obviously, I read Tim Ferris' Four Hour Work Week, it changed everything for me in that respect. And still to this day, I feel lots of people don't want to admit they need help. And when they think about online help, everybody just naturally thinks of a VA, a virtual assistant.  And they think, Well, a virtual assistant can only do X. When you change your mindset slightly and don't call them a virtual assistant, but call them a virtual team member and then really look to see what you can do with this. And then you can build your business around the team. Boostly hires and outsources to 40 plus people now all around the world. And I've got nobody in the same country as me. And we're able to run a business now with all the touch points all around the world. And if we can just bring this into hospitality and bring this into a part of guest communication, guest management, and not hiding behind text messages, not hiding behind emails and automation, and adding that hospitality aspect to it, your business will stand out because 99% of people won't do it. So it's the early adopters always win.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. We've been hiring VAs from around the world for years and  when we sold the business, one of our VAs, from the Philippines, had been with us nearly eight years and is still with them full-time. And she's a very highly-valued team member. She just isn't able to join us for the end of season dinners. But she was always there in spirit and still is. One day I hope that Hana will make it across to Canada and get to meet people in person. But yes, and I think you're absolutely right when you say people are scared to do this because they don't want to give away the things that they've been doing for so long – ‘Nobody can do it better than me'.

Mark Simpson

That's the thing I hear a lot. It's madness. Yes.

Heather Bayer

But I think for a lot of them, they don't want to go through what they feel is a hassle of training somebody, because during that training process, and I know this, I've been through it myself, is you get to the point you think, Oh, I'm trying to train this. I may as well just do it myself. It was always easier.

Mark Simpson

Yeah. And the Clockwork book for me was a massive… again, two books, Who Not How [Dan Sullivan & Dr Benjamin Hardy] and Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz, are really, really big books that change the mindset and everything. Once you learn the systems and the structures and not so much SOPs, but IPOs, Information, Permission, Outcome, when it's clearly laid out. And we've got fantastic tools now like Loom and all of that where a task doesn't have to be one of these standard SOPs that you just think of. You've got all that text, all that writing. It can be easy, like a five minute Loom now and it connects so much more. And yeah, it can easily be outsourced, it can easily be shown and it will have massive benefits. And again, the $600 for 30-40 hours a week, a lot of people go, Wow, that's a big spend. It's not a spend, it's an investment. When you change your mindset and go, It's not a spend, spend is when you go and buy a jacket. That's a spend. That's not going to give you a return. It's going to keep you warm, but it's not going to give you a return.

Mark Simpson

That $100 you spend on a jacket isn't going to turn into $200. An investment in a $600 member of staff to bring comers to your business, that's a return of investment, especially if you can nail that 24-hours call, do your surveys, and then you figure out a package on the back of it. But also as well, another really cool part of that phone call is that if you see some ‘orphan' dates in the future, i.e. there's a one day gap or a two day gap, and you've got a guest that stays for four nights and you see there's a two day gap afterwards, you can plant the seed there and then and say, Just to let you know, Mr. Guest, Mrs. Guest, the 26 and the 27, they are available; if you want them…. we can talk about a rate, a special rate…. you can have them if you like. And by planting that seed into the guest, they are much more likely to come back to you and take you up on it. Vice versa as well. Anybody that's staying afterwards, you can say, Oh, by the way, you're actually going to be arriving with us on the first of April, but at the end of March, it's actually available. You got two nights outside. Would you like to book that in? And we can do a reduced rate because you don't know what you don't know. And a guest won't know you can do that. And so by literally telling them you're planting the seed. You're not going to sell it there and then, but it will then come back to you. And I've seen this happen so many times. We're working with a client in Orlando at the moment, and he's just literally done that today.  He rents his property out for $250 a night, done a special rate, round about $190 for that extra one. Done. That's an extra $190 of revenue that you wouldn't have had. It would have had that day sitting empty. And you do this regularly on a consistent basis. And that return of investment just for that one tactic alone will help pay for the member of staff who's doing those calls.

Heather Bayer

Yes, I 100% agree with that. Let's move on to the next touch point.

Mark Simpson

Yeah, the next touch point. So number two of three is 24-hours after check-in. This is a key part. I've heard Graham Donohue from Sykes [Cottages] talk about this, and he's built this into his system, really. But again, after the first sleep is key. So let's say you've got a guest who's staying for a week. That first night's sleep is everything because at the end of the day, if you boil down to what we're doing is we're selling a sleep. We're selling a nice bed, comfy sleep, and sleep is a big part of if they enjoy or stay or not. And so the check-in is then so you pick up the… Again, pick up the phone, just call them and just say, Hey, it's Mark Holland, guest success manager of Instate X. I just want to check, how was your first night? How was everything? How was your check in? And if you can eliminate any issues at this part, then you are saving a potential crappy one-star review, two-star review, three-star review. If you can identify a problem, fix it, then you are instantly putting yourself back on that five-star trail that everybody wants.

Mark Simpson

And whether we like it or not, we live and die by our reviews. And the worst scenario that you can have is that you don't speak to your guest or don't communicate with your guest at any point during their stay. And if there is an issue and you never find out about it, that little niggly little thing, it could be as something as simple as they couldn't check-in, as in they couldn't find the code. They didn't know what the code is, they couldn't find the property, and it'll just start to snowball. And then every little single thing will become a big deal, like a squeaky bed, the Wi-Fi didn't work or whatever. And then by the time they leave, and they're like, I'm not having this. So you're enhancing the chance of that negative review or even worse, nothing. And then when they go home to their friends and families and co-workers and they say, did you enjoy the place you stayed at? No, it's crap. Don't go there. Go somewhere else. You don't want that. So by having that 24-hours after check-in, by doing a phone call, again, it shows personalisation. Nobody's doing it, which is good.

Mark Simpson

And if there is something that is wrong, then you can look to fix it straight away. If everything's tickety-boo, Brilliant, Welcome. Again, that's when you could mention, Oh, by the way, if you didn't want to cook tonight, check out the digital guidebook with some fantastic options. By the way, if you wanted us to provide anything, we've got some options available on our online shop or whatever. That's a fantastic opportunity to upsell. And if everything's great, just say, Fantastic, I hope you have a five star experience. You're implanting psychologically at that point about the five star stay and the five star review. And that's everything that you want to be doing, nudging them and encouraging them to make sure when they leave, they're going to be leaving that five-star review. And that's why that is so key. Super quick call, super quick check-in, but probably, I would say, the most important communicator part of the whole process.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, that's such a value-packed thing to do. We instigated that a couple of years ago, but doing it with a text, it was revolutionary. We went into the Breezeway text messaging platform and then they got a text on the morning of the first day, How did you sleep last night? How was it? If you've got anything you'd like to talk to us about, let us know. We'll be on the phone with you. And that actually cut down our issues by about 60%. We weren't then met with somebody leaving and saying, Yeah, I didn't have such a great week because there was a tap dripping. Well, why didn't you tell us? We say so often, and I hear it so often from people on Facebook groups where they say, Why didn't they tell us? Why didn't they tell us until the last minute? Well, why not give them the opportunity to tell what they're experiencing right at the beginning, rather than let them leave it to the end? Some people don't like confrontation, so they don't want to get on the phone and talk about it. But if you give them the opportunity to do so, then you can save so much time and money.

Mark Simpson

It's the one thing that I wish we did do more with our family business. We did the 24-hours after booking, but we never did this part because, again, I didn't realize how important it was. But what I would always do if we did have a bad review, I would instantly pick up the phone and I'd call them. Nine out of ten times, it would resolve any issue.  Anytime, I would call them up and I'd resolve it. I wouldn't ask for them to take it down, but they would end up taking the bad review down and replacing it. But again, people don't like to have those awkward conversations, but those awkward conversations will help you massively. If seven out of ten people are complaining about a dripping tap. Guess what? You've got to fix that dripping tap. If seven out of ten people are talking about your crappy Wi-Fi, you've got crappy Wi-Fi, you've got to try and fix it. And you can't just bury your head in the sand and go, I only want to talk to the guests who love our place. You've got to sometimes have those tricky conversations because those are the people that are staying in your properties.

Mark Simpson

You're not staying in there every night. You're not staying in there once a week, once a month. These people, your guests, are. They are your live feedback. And if you can look to resolve an issue there and then, or as soon as possible, it is sometimes even better than them going, Everything's great. Everything's fantastic. If you look like a business owner that is helping and looking to help that person and listening to the customer, it wins time and time again. So that's the second one.

Heather Bayer

Okay. And it's so easy to do. If you don't have enough time, if you feel you don't have enough time, then just even the text is sufficient.

Mark Simpson

This is the part where I will let you use… if text is alright. And then staff is super busy, we're doing all the things. This is the part where you can do an SMS. A voice note would be fantastic. I'd love voice note if you can do an actual phone call. So voice note is really good because it shows personalisation.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, very true. Very true.

Mark Simpson

The third one is after checkout. I'm not talking on the day, I'm not talking the next day or the day after. I'm talking 72-hours after checkout. And the reason why you don't do it on the day is because they have to checkout, they are so busy packing, cleaning up, making sure the property's been left in a nice state, getting into car. As soon as they get in that car, the real world takes over. They're no longer in vacation mode. They're instantly thinking, little Timmy's got soccer practice. I've got that work deadline. I've got all the laundry to do. So don't bother them. That is the day they've got to get out, clear out. The reason why you do it 72-hours after is because they're back in normal life and the vacation is still fresh of mind, but it's whatever. But you can drop a phone call at this point here and then just say, again, thank them for their stay, thank them for their customer, thank them for supporting a small business and then survey them.  What did you love about the stay? What could we have done better? What could we have done better is a real good question to ask.

Mark Simpson

And if everything's good and if everything's been great as what we assume it all will be, five-star, the final thing to ask is this question, Do you know anyone? So we really enjoyed having you in our home, in our property. We loved it. Thank you very much for leaving it in such a lovely condition. Do you know anyone who is as cool as you that would like to stay? So asking for that referral. And this is the one thing that nobody does, but it is so effective. And you never asked the question. And I've always said this. I've said this on stage. I've said this on podcast. I've said this on webinars. Shy kids don't get sweets. And if you just asked the question, you'd be amazed at how many people will. And they may turn around and go, You know what, I don't? But you've planted that seed in their brain. So when they're on a Facebook group, for example, when they're on Instagram and a friend pops up or someone they follow and says, Hey, I'm going to were your town is, or your place is, or your location is, and they're asking for recommendations, guess who they're going to say? They're going to say you. And the thing that I always like to do, again, is dangle a little carrot and just say, Hey, if somebody does book and they mention you, then we will send you X.

Mark Simpson

An X could be a bottle of wine, vouchers, whatever.  It may be something that will remind them of their holiday, whatever. Don't offer vouchers or a free night on your next booking. Give them something that they can actually have in their hands that they will go, Wow, that's really cool. I really like that. And again, it's a book called Giftology. Really good book. It's only 190 pages, like a two hours listen on Audible. Now, context, I listen to everything at speed X1.5, so it may be a little bit longer. But again, Giftology is a really good one because people may think like a $50 spend sending somthing in  the post sounds expensive, but if you compare that to the commission that you would pay for a booking on Airbnb, Vrbo or whatever, $50 is nothing. Because if a guest is recommending you to somebody else, social proof powers 93% of all purchases in the world. So social proof is so key. And think about the last time that you booked in a tradesman or you did something or booked a restaurant. It's on the back of you asking or somebody's recommending it in your friend group, WhatsApp group, or whatever. And so that is so powerful.

Mark Simpson

And if a guest books with you directly, that $50 little present and thank you gift is not the commission that you would pay. And that's when you drop it in 72-hours after checkout. If you want to do a little bit of a step up, which is like, make it look even cooler, have your member of staff post something to that guest because you get the guest's address and everything like that. And if you can have a little gift that goes to say, Hey, thank you so much. And that gift could be whatever. It could be ordered from your local business that you've got a relationship with, or speak to them, or it could be whatever. All these tools and tactics that are available now to hosts is crazy. So it arrives and then the call comes in. It's like, Wow, no one has ever done that to me before. Hilton's never done that. Marriott's never done that. Airbnb's never done that. No Las Vegas casino has ever done that. But this small host that I went and stayed with for a week has sent me a little gift and a little thank you card at the end of it that literally just cements that good vibe and that good feeling of their vacation that they've got at the end of it.

Heather Bayer

I would follow that one up, because I've been at the receiving end at times of a gift. It was a number of years ago and we stayed somewhere and we got home and a week later there was a parcel delivered to the door and I opened it and it was a cheap branded water bottle. And it was clearly somebody had gone through the Imprint Catalog and chosen, I'm going to get 100 of these and I'll go for the cheapest and I'll have them branded. And that came out of the box and into the garbage. So there's ways of doing this and there's ways of not doing this. And you talked $50. I've got a thing going on at the moment about swag that you get at conferences, the stuff that you get, everything you get it in the big bag.  You get it back to your hotel room, you open it and you throw the majority of it in the garbage bin. And yet there are some times, and I'm still using an OwnerRez mug that I got at the Vacation Rental Women's Conference. And it was a really useful tea mug. And I carry that with me… Actually, I've got three of them because there were some left over at the end. But oftentimes I'm on a podcast, I'm drinking from this OwnerRez mug.

Mark Simpson

You can take the girl out of Britain, but you can't take the Britain out of the girl. If it's mugs at the end, you're going to be having them.

Heather Bayer

And then there's the Book Direct Show in Miami. There's a company called InHaven, and they do linens and all sorts of great stuff for the properties. I got from there a water mug, a drinking… What do you call it? I should reach over and get it, and then I could show you what it was. I use it a lot, again, when I'm on podcasts. I was out with that, and those don't come cheap. It was a really good one. But I was out on the pickleball court the other day and somebody said to me, That's a really nice drinking mug. Where did you get it? Who's InHaven? So I was able to explain it. I actually don't really… I mean, I segue'd there because I went into swag and I really don't… I'm not sure about the branded stuff, but I think what I'm saying is, make sure it's like… If you're going to send a gift, it's got to be quality and it's got to be useful.  Here it is [insulated water bottle].

Mark Simpson

Lovely metallic mug. Yeah, exactly. And that's exactly what the Giftology book digs into. And I've actually discovered a really cool company based out of America called giftgoose.com. And again, what you can do is you can use that service. They mail it all for you. They will personalize it, etc. And you can have your logo on it or not. But it's something that will arrive in the post. And the reason why I say it's going to arrive in the post and not to give it on the day that they leave is really key, because on the day that they leave, they're going to forget about it. Just like when you're at a conference and you've got all these things going on. On your last day of conference, you come back and it's like, Right, the bag's there. I've got all this stuff here. What am I taking? What am I not taking? But if that was sent to you when you get home, it's a different scenario because nobody sends anything nice in the post anymore. They only think what comes in the post is statements and bills.

Mark Simpson

But if you've got something that arrives and it's opened and it's like, Oh, who's this from? And it's like, This is from a business that you've stayed with. Again, it's a small price commitment that will mean everything because we're in the industry of making memories and they will have had a great time because they're on holiday. Even if it is like a business trip, they'll have a great time because obviously your place is amazing. Everybody that listens to this podcast is obviously a fantastic host and I've got all these lovely things going on. It's going to be five-stars, all that cool stuff. But now it's like, how can we make ourselves stand out from the rest? Everybody complains about saturated markets and all of those things, that nonsense. I call that nonsense. If you're complaining about a saturated market it's because you're a lazy business owner. You've got to always be thinking about how can you always be revolutionizing your business? How can you always be standing out from the rest? And if you do these little things that we're talking about, contacting the guest, calling the guest, speaking to the guest, sending a little gift, and it's not you that's going to have to be doing this, a member of your staff, then this is how you separate from everybody.  And you'll never ever be complaining about a saturated market.

Mark Simpson

But there's two more things that your hiree can be doing outside of communicating with the guest that will fill these 30-40 hours. Because when I talk about this, everybody's thinking 30-40 hours. That's a lot. I don't think I can actually fill those hours with the booking. And so there's two other things that they can be doing that will absolutely have a massive return of investment, if you'd like for me to explain what that is.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly.  Go ahead.

Mark Simpson

So the final two things they could be doing that's not communicating with guests, is to be trying to build relationships with other businesses in your town, your city, your county, your state. And this is key, because your net worth is your net worth. And us as business owners are so caught up in the day-to-day running of our business. Everybody says, listen, you've got to go to meet ups. You've got to go to these events. You've got to go to those BNI [Business Network International] meetings on a Friday morning and stuff like that to build it. But I haven't got the time. But there's a fantastic thing called Google and LinkedIn. And your guest communication manager could also as well be building a group… like a Google Sheet… with contacts. And I call it your Top 100. So find the Top 100 people that you can build a relationship with and you can reach out to. Let's just say that when this guest success manager speaks to the guest 72-hours after checkout and they say, Oh, what did you do? Where did you go visit? And again, if 10 people are saying – our 10 guests are saying, I went to this restaurant.  It was amazing. I went to this place for a day out. It was amazing. Then I would have that as a little cue to go, I'm going to call the owner of said business and just say, Hey, last week alone, we sent 10 of our guests, nearly 100 people to your business, and they ate with you. That's free marketing right there. Is there anything that we could offer to our guests as a coupon or a discount code that would make more people want to come to you? And if any business owner turns around and goes no, they're an idiot because they're turning down literally free money right there.

Mark Simpson

And when you build those relationships, it creates so many wins. I talked about it on the previous podcast, but I'll give a quick summary of it… Is that we had a family farm-stay business, 200-acre property. We had families come and stay with us throughout the year. It was a lovely, lovely business. And about 20-minutes away from us was a farm day out. So they could go, they could ride tractors and play with the lambs and all those cool things. And we discovered that a large chunk of our guests would go and visit that place for a day out because it's a thing to do, waste time with the kids, etc.

Mark Simpson

And what I did is, I called the owner, had a chat with the owner, explained who I was, what we did, and how all of our guests were coming to visit them. And they gave us a free pound off per person coupon. And he had a little tracking code on it. And he didn't tell me this at the time, but he was tracking everybody that was coming. And over the course of the year, he would have hundreds of people come to visit the place. And he called us and he said, Listen, whenever you and your family want to come, no charge, come. And it was great for me and for our kids. It was great. We never had to pay. But the best thing is that that place started to do weddings. They didn't have accommodation, but they started to do weddings. And when the bride and the groom were asking for recommendations for places to stay for the family that are coming in from out of town, guess who they sent them to? To us. And we, again, we worked up a real cool partnership, a real cool network. And that was one of 10 of the businesses that we created really cool relationships with.

Mark Simpson

And it just meant that we had this nice little referral pot going on all the time. And we didn't ask for commission or anything like that. It was just passing each way. Now, what I want for you to do, our listeners at home is think about that local coffee shop, think about the local yoga instructor or the person who does reflexology, anybody that has an experience that you can then adopt and bring into what you're doing. And how can you create those referrals and partnerships? And if you haven't a clue, again, call your guest, survey your guests, find out where they're going because they will tell you. And if you're pretty solid on who your avatars and who your ideal guest is, you'll get together a story here of somebody that you can call. And if you're not confident doing it, guess who's somebody who can? And it will only be about $600-$700 a month. That return of investment is going to be massive.

Mark Simpson

And then the other one, the final one is, if you are somebody that is looking to escape legislation and regulations and want to get into the medium-term rental-based… and I'm going to get into these 30-days plus, you're going to have to pull up your big boy pants, your big girl pants, and do reaching out to businesses, cold call businesses that are in your area, businesses that are out of town, anybody that you know that's coming in from out of state, out of area for an event, for a conference, etc. You're going to have to start building up those relationships with them and get on their books, whether it's health care, insurance, etc. This is what a virtual staff member, team member can do for you. Find the business, communicate on LinkedIn, start cold calling them, introduce your business, introduce what you do, and start to get on their little black book. So when somebody does need a contract to stay or a health care worker stay or an insurance for a family that's relocation, you're the ones top of mind. And they can easily fill up 30-40 hours a week by doing every single thing that we've laid out in this podcast.

Heather Bayer

Boom!

Mark Simpson

Boom indeed.

Heather Bayer

We've reached our time. We've reached the end of our time. And I'm looking down the notes I've made, the value bombs you've dropped in this have been immense. They are amazing. Just in terms of the books to read, I've got them all written down.

Mark Simpson

I know you are a big book fan, so I wanted to drop some book gems for you. When you're on the flight over to Europe.

Heather Bayer

I just want to cover that off, because you are going to Barcelona to the Short -stay Week and you'll be speaking about this. I would love to encourage anybody who is thinking about….. they need to do some networking, they'd like to go and do some education, they want to go and visit a fine city, that if there is one thing you could do this year, one event to go to, it would be Short-stay Week, because there is so much going on there. Mark, you're speaking, I'm speaking, Neely Khan is speaking, Tyann Marcink is there.

Mark Simpson

All of your favorites.

Heather Bayer

All of your favorites.

Mark Simpson

Yes. It's going to be much more than just the event. There's going to be everything going on in and around it. There's going to be a chance to… You get to listen to us and see us on podcasts and YouTube and all those things. A chance to meet up and see us in person and have a chat, which is what I'm really looking forward to. Short-stay Week, Booked Direct Show. I'm going to take this podcast and I'm going to put it all together into a nice little presentation. I've got something really cool planned on-stage as well, if the organizers allow it.  But to see it, you got to come to the show. So go check it out. Just Google it and I'm sure it will come up.

Heather Bayer

And I'll put it in the Show Notes. So you have no excuse not to at least take a look at what's on. Look at the speakers, whether it's Scale Rentals. There's something for those small companies of 20 to 50 properties. There's the Larger-scale Rental Show, which is the larger properties. There's a Luxe Show and there is the Book Direct Show. And then there's extras, which include Tyann and Kate from Touch Stay, who are doing a separate event on the Monday. There's just so much and I cannot wait. I can't wait to meet you, Mark. I think we will probably talk nonstop for the short time I will get to talk to you because everybody else is going to be wanting to talk to you as well.

Mark Simpson

I really do look forward to it and it's going to be a really good week. So yeah, seeing everybody there. Please do come up and say hi and have a chat.

Heather Bayer

Okay, Mark, you've got a very short time just to do your elevator pitch and tell us how people can find more about you and about Boostly.

Mark Simpson

I think the best place would be to go grab this, The Book Direct Playbook. Everything is in there that you could possibly talk about, this and more. And then if you want to go a little bit further, if you've got that, then this is the second book [Hospitable Host]. They're on Amazon Kindle, Audible, whatever. And then from there, you can find me, boostly.co.uk. Come and say hi.

Heather Bayer

And I need signed copies, please, when I'm there in Barcelona.

Mark Simpson

I'll bring my pen.

Heather Bayer

Okay. Mark, it's been an absolute pleasure talking with you. As I say, lots of value bombs in this. The Show Notes will be full of all the resources you've mentioned and all the links, so you can go take a look. Thank you very much. I'm going to see you in May.

Mark Simpson

See you soon.

Heather Bayer

We are just about up to the hour and you know I don't like to go over an hour. I want to keep your attention and I don't want it to take it too much longer. So I'm not going to spin this out. Thank you so much, Mark Simpson of Boostly. That was fantastic. I've got a lot to do now to get the Show Notes together.  Don't forget, there's always a transcription of every podcast episode now, so you can go to the Show Notes and read the entire transcription because there were just a ton of stuff in there and you don't want to lose out on this.

Heather Bayer

That's it for another week. Absolutely amazing to be with you once again. I'm getting excited to go to Barcelona. It's coming up really soon. Hope to see some of you there. In the meantime, I'll see you again next week.

Mike Bayer

You've been listening to the Vacation Rental Success Podcast brought to you by the Vacation Rental Formula Business School. Get access to the knowledge and education to take your short-term rental business to the next level. Visit www.vacationrentalformula.com/bizschool for more information.

Heather Bayer

It's been a pleasure as ever being with you. If there's anything you'd like to comment on, then join the conversation on the show notes for the episode at vacationrentalformula.com. We'd love to hear from you. I look forward to being with you again next week.