Month: February 2021

It was four years ago this February that things turned around dramatically for our serviced accommodation business (‘our’ referring to Chris and I). Leading up to that point the business we’d started the summer before was in bad shape and actually burning cash rather than making profit. 

Why was that? –  you might ask.

Well, I have no shame in admitting that it was a business built on guesswork, hope and the sheer volume of summer tourist demand. Come the winter however, we were subsidising the business. Something had to change, and fast…..

Bill Gates said that, “Early success is a lousy teacher”. Well I can attest to that. In the first version of our SA business we certainly weren’t experiencing early success. We were instead experiencing something that many might, who embark on a new property endeavour with a cavalier attitude of hope and guesswork, and that something was a load of painful lessons.

However, that painful experience and associated lessons in the winter of 2016 brought out an incredible resourcefulness in me. It forced me to search hard and dig for solutions. Those solutions came in the form of a simple yet powerful approach to business I had learned a few years prior.

It was applying that approach that led me to starting again, from scratch, and create an SA business in a new location within 45 days, that was profitable from the beginning. 

So in a short space of time, it really was a tale of two businesses – one based on guesswork, the other based on predictability and certainty, and I knew which I’d rather have more of.

That ‘pivot’ I referred to all started on 2nd January 2017 with one simple little email to find the demand first- that email I sent started an incredible chain reaction that transformed our property business. It led to several simple yet powerful conversations that saw me securing a 5 month booking before I even had a  property to accommodate them. And within 45 days of sending that first email we welcomed a team of contractors to the property in the photograph attached. The rest, as they say, is history. We went on to grow a nice little business that has consistently served both our guests, and us, extremely well since. 

If this true story strikes a chord of curiosity and interest, then I invite you to read about it in much more detail in my book Predictable Property Profits (you’ll find it on amazon).

Serviced accommodation is a phenomenal property business to be in whether as your primary focus or as part of your wider property interests. We made more pivots in our business during the early part of the lockdown that has enabled us to operate at phenomenal occupancy over this challenging period.  And now all the signs are there for it to be a much more lucrative second half to the year for SA Operators. 

So, which property investment strategy would you love to have working for you?

Single lets, HMO’s, serviced accommodation, commercial property, development …. the principles in my book ‘Predictable Property Profits’ apply to them all. You can read in detail about how we and other successful property entrepreneurs have applied these principles across multiple different property strategies.

Whatever stage your investment journey is at, this book can serve you because it’s all about better serving your own end users – your tenants/buyers/guests…whoever your end user may be.

For property entrepreneurs, it can feel like our work is never done. If you have even a slight inkling of perfectionism in you then you will likely be able to relate to this post (I confess I’m a recovering perfectionist myself). The thing about perfectionism is it can be your best ally at times, but also your worst enemy.

Here’s a handy definition from wikipedia for context:

‘Perfectionism, in psychology, is a personality trait characterized by a person’s striving for flawlessness and setting high performance standards, accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.’

If you can relate to the above in any way then you’ll know that when it comes to goal achievement and productivity in your property business, and probably in most areas of life for that matter, having this trait means you can be extremely hard on yourself when it comes to what you did and didn’t get done.

That’s why it’s so important to have a healthy philosophy on productivity. You might be thinking, what on earth is he talking about…philosophy on productivity? Bear with me on this as for those that do, I’m confident it will serve you. This stuff is crucial to sustain momentum on your journey to success.

Your personal philosophy on productivity matters way more than you think. And here’s why – there are so many people doing amazing things yet being too hard on themselves because they are measuring the wrong things and philosophically just looking in the wrong place for what they think they should be measuring.

What we’re talking about here is the whole ethos for how you feel at the end of a work session, at the end of a busy day, and how you feel about yourself as you head into the weekend or time off. In other words, whether you feel as though you’ve done enough.

The sad truth about entrepreneurship is that you have a never ending list of to dos and regularly feel like “I’ll never be done”. If you’ve ever felt this then that is what getting a healthy philosophy on productivity is going to help with.

This is something I’ve personally wrestled with for as long as I can remember and I’ve actively sought to understand and reframe it. Having finally discovered a new paradigm for thinking about personal productivity, I’m excited to share it.

To explain, I need to quickly refer to the Zen Buddhism practice of enso circle drawing – the ritual of attempting to draw the perfect circle. Here’s the thing, when you sit down to draw one you are fundamentally attempting the impossible, for something to be a true circle it has to be perfect and no human being can draw a perfect circle.  

The Zen Buddhists decided to make this a daily practice ie the decision to attempt something that strives for perfection yet cannot ever succeed at being perfect.

As they realised that perfection was out of sight, they dropped the game of trying to be perfect and started embracing imperfections.

This is a powerful metaphor for thinking about productivity, more than that, its the most powerful principle for thinking about my productivity day to day and week to week that I’ve ever come across.

The enso circle is a metaphor for what we do when we sit down to be productive as human beings. We seek to do something as entrepreneurs that is perfect ie we want to win, hit big goals, do 100% of what we are capable of but we need to commit to creative and courageous work that isn’t actually ever done ie we need to draw the perfect circle.

Borrowing the enso principle, we get to liberate ourselves from the belief that we have for everything we are working on to be perfect, by embracing imperfection. As I’m sure many will agree, embracing imperfection is essential to move people and process along in property. 

Here’s the key – the magic of the Zen monks drawing these circles is not that they draw them one time, or that it looks a lot or a little like a circle. The magic is that they show up and do it every single day. It’s a ritual that generates incremental progress over time by showing up and striving towards perfection, imperfectly. Perfection is the goal but with the knowledge that they’ll never quite get there, however by consistently practising they actually create something of incredible beauty.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PHILOSOPHY WE CAN EMBRACE FOR OUR PRODUCTIVITY IS STRIVING IMPERFECTLY, EVERY SINGLE DAY.

We can approach our property goals and to do’s in the same way as an enso circle practice. When we plan out our week ahead, we’re creating a vision and a definition of perfection as it relates to what we aspire to get done. All we have to do is show up each day and strive imperfectly in that direction. And when you do or don’t arrive at that perfect place (ie when you’re reviewing on a Sunday night), no matter what happens you’ll have created something incredible (ie incremental progress in your property business) and you’ll have learned more about what it takes to get closer to that idea of a perfect week.

What will you strive for imperfectly today?

This week I had the pleasure and the honour of leading four property mastermind days. Four packed days, different people each day, different business plans, different geographic locations, different respective goals and challenges, yet one overarching and clearly shared theme – to create more of the life they want through the vehicle of property. 

In his book Think And Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill explained the Mastermind principle as, “The coordination of knowledge and effort between two or more people who work towards a definite purpose in a spirit of harmony…no two minds ever come together without thereby creating a third, invisible intangible force, which may be likened to a third mind”, also known as, the Mastermind.

It is this collective intelligence we were tapping into across these four days. By way of a little glimpse behind the scenes, here’s just an overview of what our groups were sharing each day:

-ideas to overcome obstacles or capitalise on opportunities

-inspiration and belief

-support and challenge

-power team contacts

-strategies and tactics to level up

-mindset development

-resources and tools

-potential JV opportunities

-laughter and friendship

This is what makes these days so powerful and why I love them so much. And when we underpin it all with the key pillars of productivity, like specific process based goals stacked with accountability – this is how phenomenal progress and results happen. 

Property entrepreneurship can often feel like a lonely and isolated journey. For the first 8 years of my own property journey I had no property friends, community and certainly no mastermind. And boy did it feel lonely at times. No one to ask questions to when I was second guessing myself, no one to discuss property ideas with or celebrate little wins with. The whole property and personal development thing was my ‘dirty little secret’ for years whilst living the corporate life. If only I’d been part of a property mastermind group back then, progress would have been so much faster and the journey more enjoyable. 

I’ve been involved with various mastermind groups since 2013 and the growth and friendships that have come as a result has been remarkable. I really do love masterminds, and they will feature as a significant part of my life and business for decades to come. I can absolutely see myself masterminding with my peers in my eighties and beyond!

Chris and I have visions of designing and building amazing venues in spectacular locations for our Mastermind Retreats. Picture the beautiful wood and glass chalet in the snow capped Alps, or the cantilevered mediterranean villa overlooking the sea.  These properties would serve the needs of Mastermind Retreats that we and others like us bring to the venue several times a year. The rest of the year these will operate as high end holiday homes with several weeks dedicated to causes close to our hearts. The big non commercial drive for us with properties like this is to give us the opportunity to help create rich and memorable experiences for others – in particular our aim is to donate holiday stays to families dealing with cancer and families whose children have experienced hardships in their young lives.

When people have asked me, ‘how do you get good at this property thing?’ my answer is always the same – you practice, consistently. And if you wanted to know how you get even better – the answer is you get around others who are practising. And if you want to become unstoppable?…..It’s community! But not just any community. I’m referring to the kind of community or tribe you find inside a mastermind group. A group of people learning, taking action, sharing, celebrating and growing together. 

Jim Rohn once said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”.   

Who you spend your time with influences the person that you will eventually become.

Ask yourself – are the people that you are spending the most time with helping you grow and take your property business and your life to the next level?

This week I thought it would be helpful to bring you some more tactical tips on optimising your listings with booking dot com, ready for the staycation surge. (Sorry this post will bore the non SA peeps but letting you know now so you switch to another post 🙂 

You may or may not remember I wrote a post on this back in December following a catch up with our account manager and I summarised key takeaways in a post (link at the bottom). This week we had another helpful zoom call so I thought it would be helpful to share with other SA operators.

While 80%+ of our bookings are direct, we still absolutely like to optimise the gaps with b.com so these calls are great for keeping sharp and understanding the wider short stay demand. 

A BRIEF SNAPSHOT OF WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW

(these are some stats from our region of Scotland but likely pretty representative of the UK right now due to lockdown)

As you’ll know operators can only accept bookings from essential workers right now so naturally bookings are fairly low.

98% of bookings are from domestic guests (again as you would expect)

Searches on b.com have started to increase as families are ruling out foreign holidays and starting to book in UK holidays

There has been a noticeable spike in family bookings and the stay duration has increased for the average stay on last year with more stays stretching to a full week vs 3 nts. 

Domestic bookings are increasingly being made on mobile. 

COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES TO OPTIMISE B.COM

GENIUS vs NON GENIUS

*If you’re not already, consider joining properties onto the Genius program, as 57% of bookings made for our area are for Genius properties and this goes up to 75% of bookings in other parts of the UK. [Per property you will see this in the property extranet Opportunities > Genius Partner Program, alternatively you can opt in in bulk through the Group Extranet under Bulk Editing > Genius]

*The Genius booker sees all the genius properties first in their listing options and they can even filter to see only genius meaning the non genius property either doesn’t get seen or is seen last.

*B.Com stats show that the Genius booker spends 11% more on average than non Genius bookers

*Genius bookers give you a greater sense of certainty as they are more committed guests as have proven to show up as planned and not be fraudulent. They also tend to book longer in advance. (Contractors are often Genius bookers). 

MOBILE RATES

*With 73% of searches being made on a mobile device, the Mobile Rates could be used to convert those guests and compete for business. [You can add per property extranet under Rates & Availability > Mobile Rate. Or you can do this in bulk across the properties in your group extranet in Bulk Editing > Mobile Rates]

*With increased numbers of millennials travelling, they will typically book via mobile and are more likely to leave reviews. So, if you’re actively looking to increase the number of reviews you could use mobile rates for a while. (these can be turned on and off easily)

PREFERRED PROGRAM

*39% of bookings come through the preferred program (where you pay an additional 3% for boosted visibility) and increases your ranking/visibility for all types of bookers ie genius or not. However do note that the added 3% commission stacks on top of the 10% genius so in total you are giving away 10%+15%+3% of your booking (you need to do the maths for your nightly pricing so it doesn’t become unviable).

OTHER OPPORTUNITIES

*If you already use Occupancy Based Pricing, Child Rates can be an easy setup and a great way to attract the growing demand from families. [You can set this in the property extranet under Property > Policies  > Child Policies. Oor you can do this in bulk across the properties in your group extranet in Bulk Editing > Child Rates]

*The B.com analysis showed that France, Germany, the Netherlands and USA are starting to look and book for UK locations – whilst we don’t do this, you can attract them with a Europe or USA Country Rate. [You can build Country Rates in the property extranet under  Rates & Availability > Country Rates. Or you can do this in bulk in the group extranet in Bulk Editing > Country Rates]

*The book window is fairly wide at the moment, so best to ensure you have availability loaded into your calendar right through this year.

*There has been a rise in the amount of 3-7 night bookings. To compete for this business, consider using a weekly rate to attract longer stays. [You can set this in the property extranet under Rates & Availability > Rate Plans > Add a new rate plan > Weekly Rate. Or you can do this in bulk across the properties in your group extranet in Bulk Editing > Weekly Rates]

Hope that’s been useful. Any other booking optimisation tips you can share with your fellow SA Operators?