BOOSTYLY SHORT-TERM RENTAL DOCUMENTARY COMING SOON (Ep 604

In this episode of “Get Paid for Your Pad,” I had the privilege to host Mark Simpson, founder of Boostly, for an early morning discussion. Mark, known for his impact in the short-term rental space, shares insights from recent industry conferences, including the Bigger Pockets Conference, VRMA, and HostCon. He highlights the growing influence of Google in the vacation rental sector and its move to become the top meta search platform with Google Vacation Rentals. This shift is changing how travelers search and book accommodations, making them more price-savvy and driving the need for hosts to diversify their marketing strategies.

Mark discusses the importance of understanding big players like Google, Airbnb, and Expedia, and how they're targeting growth in different continents. He emphasizes the need for hosts to have a diverse marketing presence, leveraging various channels to increase visibility. Mark also delves into the rising significance of short-form videos in influencing travelers' decisions, noting platforms like YouTube Shorts and TikTok as key drivers.

Another significant topic we cover is working with influencers. Mark advises on the importance of establishing clear contracts and expectations with influencers. He suggests using platforms like Stay MO to connect with influencers and negotiate deliverables like Instagram stories, posts, and drone shots. The key, Mark notes, is engagement and relevance to your target market.

Lastly, Mark talks about his latest endeavor – a documentary featuring two hosts over a year, highlighting their growth and lessons learned. This documentary, aiming to resemble a Netflix-style presentation, is set for a release on the Boosly YouTube channel with a live watch party.

For those interested in direct bookings and leveraging Boostly's services, Mark mentions a special discount for listeners who mention “Get Paid for Your Pad” when booking a call with Boostly.

Before we wrap up today's episode, remember to connect with us on Instagram @getpaidforyourpad for exclusive content and behind-the-scenes moments, and don't forget to hit that ‘Subscribe' button on our YouTube channel for even more great content. We appreciate your support, and can't wait to see you on our socials. Stay tuned, and keep being awesome!

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Jasper Ribbers (00:01.271)
What's up everybody. Welcome back to Get Paid for Your Pad, episode 599. And I'm breaking a record with this podcast because this is the earliest I've ever recorded a podcast. It's 5 AM in the morning here in California. I'm only doing this for the one and only Mark Simpson. He's the only one that gets me up at 430 in the morning. Mark, welcome to the show.

Mark [boostly] (00:23.95)
Hey, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. You give me that calendar link and I will get booked in at any time. So.

Jasper Ribbers (00:31.119)
Yeah, we were just chatting. I was like, how was he able to book a podcast at 5am in the morning? And I realized the time just changed. So it was six before and now because I haven't said it Eastern time. So I've just changed that to specific because this is a little early but we'll make it work. Mark is of course the founder of Boosley as I'm sure everyone who's listening to this podcast.

Mark [boostly] (00:47.621)
Mm-hmm

Jasper Ribbers (00:58.835)
is familiar. He's a bit of a celebrity in the short rental space. And we just actually hung out at the VRMA in Orlando just a couple of weeks ago, which was a lot of fun. So Mark, you've been on a kind of a tour. You've done like a how many conferences that you go to in the last month or so?

Mark [boostly] (01:17.91)
This last three weeks have been crazy. So there's three weeks, three conferences, the Bigger Pockets Conference, Verma, which was luckily they're both in Orlando. And I jumped on a plane and I went straight to Houston to do a host con. And it was amazing because I think I met everybody in the industry in these three weeks from every walk of life from like the Verma side, which is more traditional model, vendors, et cetera too.

bigger pockets, which is traditionally more real estate, but there's a huge short-term rental, a medium-term rental sort of exposure there, and then HostCon, which was, you know, it's all short-term rentals. And yeah, it was amazing. It was so good because we were able to bring the family over as well. So when we weren't doing, when I wasn't doing conferences, I was doing 20,000 steps a day doing Disney, Universal, and all that.

Jasper Ribbers (01:56.589)
Nice.

Jasper Ribbers (02:03.795)
I know, I saw the photos on your Instagram. So what are some of your takeaways? What did you learn in the last couple weeks at these conferences?

Mark [boostly] (02:12.146)
Oh, so from Verma side, obviously when you go to Verma, you get the big dogs there. The big dogs is Google, Airbnb and Expedia. And the real big takeaway from the Verma side was exactly how much Google are like creeping into short-term rentals, especially for 2024, the stats that they brought. And obviously the context is the stats that they bring is from their side, but they're heavily…

Sort of disrupting the industry people aren't just going straight to Airbnb and just straight booking on that platform anymore What they're doing is they are maybe discovering something on Airbnb But then they're coming back to Google search and they are they are more aware now the traveler is more savvy with pricing 100% so Google want to be the number one meta search

platform out there and the stats, it's, I haven't got them to hand, but they are growing and growing and growing in terms of how many people are using this new product, which is Google vacation rentals. So that's my big takeaway massively from that.

Jasper Ribbers (03:09.848)
Hmm.

Mark [boostly] (03:13.338)
Um, I think that's, I think that was one of the biggest, another cool one, which was in a session at Verma again. Um, there was a panel with Julie George, Rebecca Cribben and a few others, Stacey St. John, and they were talking about how they grew their portfolios through, through managing other properties. And Rebecca Cribben said something which really stuck out to me. She said about, uh, running, uh, KPI checks for the managers every six months. And I, and a KPI check is a key performance indicator.

And it's something that I've done at Boosley with our customers, but I never would have thought of doing it in the world of hospitality and the management model. So that really, that really interested me. And for her, the reason why she said it was a benefit was a, um, they could see how they're doing in terms of their score, their, you know, their performance, but also as well, she said that they run it because they were never afraid to sack a client.

Jasper Ribbers (03:42.81)
Hmm.

Mark [boostly] (04:05.434)
And especially in the management model, as you grow, when you're first growing, you just look to bring anybody and everybody on, you know, and it's gonna be mostly referrals, word of mouth, et cetera. But as you grow, there's going to be 20% of your clients who are gonna give you 80% of your headaches. And so she was very strong on this. She said, listen, don't be afraid to sack your clients. I know she's grown to a huge portfolio, well into its hundreds. And so I think those are the biggest takeaways that I think I can give.

right now, but it was, yeah, overall, it was amazing to speak to people, meet people face to face, you know, and, and just, you know, you dig into more conversations that way. And I loved it.

Jasper Ribbers (04:42.815)
Yeah. I want to touch on what you said. You're saying Google is really trying to take a slice of the pie here, right? And you're saying that more and more people are using Google. I found it interesting, you know, like Airbnb came out with their numbers, what was it like last week or so? I don't know if you saw it, but they booked total nights and experiences came in at 113.2 million for the quarter, which I think was a record.

Um, last year it was 99 million. So it's like, so do you think that the industry is still growing that much? If, if, you know, if Airbnb is still booking record amount of nights booked and you know, there's a lot of parties that are taking you as a piece of the pie as well.

Mark [boostly] (05:31.978)
Well, not only Airbnb, but Expedia just posted record revenue as well. Now, again, it's you've got to take everything at context. You've got to take it, you know, and end of the day, they can publish whatever numbers that they want to publish and all that sort of stuff. But there is definitely I think the reason for their growth and they've targeted this is that they want to grow in specific continents, not the USA, not Northern America, because they've boxed that off. They dominate that one. But they're targeting now the areas where they're not.

really well known in, you know, for example, Asia, because Ogoda is a massive presence in Asia. If you've ever tried to book a stay there, that's a subsidiary of the Booking Holidays group. But, you know, I truly believe with Airbnb and I watched a podcast with Brian Chesky and Stephen Bartlett from the Diary of the CEO. And the way that he's talking, I don't think he is particularly looking for growth now. I think he's wanting to maybe cut down on the amount of people that use their platform.

but really focus in on this specific group of people that use a platform that will.

that will book on it every single time. The way that he's talking is, I said that he's trying to turn it into the Tinder of OTAs because they really wanna, if you log in now to your Airbnb account, if you go to your profile section, in the past you would just put your name, your description, but now it's you put in your likes, your dislikes, your favorite movies, what do you like doing? And I really believe what they're trying to do is sort of go back to basics almost.

and just really sort of focus down on a core group of people and not, you know, which is obviously going to annoy a lot of the shareholders and all that sort of stuff. But I feel like they really wanna go back to basics on this. And again, this is just me reading between the lines of what he was saying and all of this. And with that being said, this is why I think you'll see the emergence of more bookings on Expedia, more bookings on Verbo. You'll see more bookings with other OTAs, for example, Wimstay, Hotel Tonight.

Mark [boostly] (07:23.818)
I think you'll see an emergence of smaller OTAs with such a core focus group of people, for example, Fabstates, who focus on the LBTQ+, and all these other sort of niche down OTAs that you'll see. And so I think there's definitely more piece to the pie. I think there's plenty to go around, and it's now that the world is fully open up.

the back of what happened in the early 2000s, I think 2020s, I feel like, um, it's truly interesting and I see that Google being that pinpoint, that meta search to where they will try and fixate on that because they don't want bookings on Google. They want to be that meta search that then push it direct, push it to a, b, c, d, o, e.

Jasper Ribbers (08:00.879)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's important to notice. So that's how Google, it's called Googlefications, is it?

Mark [boostly] (08:10.882)
Google vacation rentals, Google holiday rentals, it changes every time I log on and see it. But yeah, basically when you run a search on Google, you've got Google travel, Google flights, Google hotels, and now there's a new tab that says Google holiday rentals.

Jasper Ribbers (08:16.378)
Oh.

Jasper Ribbers (08:25.823)
Yeah, so it's like, it's not, it's not an OTA, right? It's like essentially like what it does is you, you search and then it'll, it'll give you direct booking websites essentially. Isn't it?

Mark [boostly] (08:37.462)
Well, basically it's a listing on Google Map, right? But in the past, this was called Google Business Listing.

and a Google business listing, you could have an account, you could add your pitches, you could add a website, add a phone number, post updates, that's gone. They're eliminating that. And people who still have a Google business listing, that's gonna just get removed automatically if you've got a short-term rental or a medium-term rental service to an apartment. Those of you with boutique hotels, don't have to worry about it. You will still be on Google business listing because you've got a shop front. What they're doing is they're moving everybody to this Google vacation rental. And the pro is that…

Jasper Ribbers (08:45.517)
Right.

Mark [boostly] (09:14.642)
Um, you don't have to do anything. You will automatically be added in because of your property management software, AKA host fully. So host fully have an integration with Google. They will push all of your listings. It's on their platform into Google vacation. And that's the pro you've got nothing to worry about. The con is that you can't dictate optimize it, you know, try and beat the system, beat the ranking.

because Google don't allow that. It's literally they get the, pull the information from Host Fleet, whatever information you have on Host Fleet is what's gonna be presented on Google Vacation Runt.

Jasper Ribbers (09:47.455)
Right. Yeah, I'm just looking at it right now. So you're saying, are you seeing a lot of hosts that are getting real good traction? Or can we even tell? Like, let's say we get a direct booking. How do we even know that person came from Google notification search?

Mark [boostly] (10:01.986)
So in your extra net on host fully, it will tell you if it's come from Google. Who is benefiting the most boutique hotels hands down. I was speaking to a host who has got properties in LA and they said, and they use logify.

And they said that 40% of their bookings over the last 12 months has come from Google vacation rentals or Google hotels because they had a boutique hotel. Now a boutique hotel is different to a short-term rental because you can do that thing where you can optimize your listing, you can change the pitches. And if you've got really solid reviews on there, you're just going to bump straight to the top. She said that literally you could run a search for places to stay in Los Angeles or specific areas of LA and her listings are coming right to the top. Non-paid, right?

sponsored listings, you've got the map and you've got organic listings. She would just come in the top all the time and she was like, you know, 40% of my bookings are coming from Google, which is epic because there's no commission to pay yet. No commission to pay. So it's a direct and it will show that in your backend of your PMS.

Jasper Ribbers (11:03.819)
Right. Yeah, I'm noticing too, like when, as I'm looking at, um, at, uh, Google right now, I'm noticing there's a lot of boutique hotels on there. Makes sense.

Mark [boostly] (11:12.974)
Hmm. Well, you've basically my big tip for 2024 is you've got to have a diverse marketing strategy more than ever. And that includes direct. So you've got to have your Airbnb plate spinning here, but you've also got to have your

Mark [boostly] (11:30.05)
you know, your direct booking place, but you've got to make sure that you've got loads of different vertical arms because people aren't just going to Airbnb anymore, right? And there's loads of properties on Airbnb, tons of properties. People will complain that it's oversaturated. So what you've got to do is you've got to make sure that your property management software tool is connected to as many different channels as possible. And if your PMS can't connect you to lots of different channels, then maybe it's time to invest in a rentals United or a channel manager, because everybody confuses channel managers and PMS is they think they're the same thing. They're not.

channel manager will spread your wings and spread your diversity. So you are in as many different places as possible. So that when a guest is clicking around, shopping around, it's say, they go to whimstay, say they go to insert other website, then your property is still showing up. It's like the billboard effect to make sure that your property is as many places as possible. So when they've got that decision-making process, you're the one that pops up.

So yeah, it's gonna be key and Google's gonna drive this and the public perception is going to change And one of the main generators of this is short form video They showed how YouTube shorts is the starting point for so many people's decision-making process So I don't know about you how you and how you decide on places to go eat in restaurants or whatnot But my wife and I we look on tik-tok, right?

TikTok is a major indicator of where we choose to stay, but now YouTube Sharks are basically ripping what TikTok is, ripping what Instagram Reels is, are building their own version and it's search.

Jasper Ribbers (12:51.659)
Mm-hmm.

Mark [boostly] (13:02.71)
So, you know, TikTok isn't search. YouTube is owned by Google. YouTube comes up in the search. And so, so many people, and they showed this in their presentation, loads of people are starting off their search now by watching a short form video, places to stay in Boston, places to stay in LA, places to stay in San Diego. And then from there, they're going to the Google search, to the map, then to the website or wherever I'm making the book. And so, yeah, there's some really interesting things that came out of the back of Irma for me personally.

Jasper Ribbers (13:28.639)
Yeah. I mean, uh, my wife definitely gets her inspiration on TikTok and Instagram. She's standing right across from me right now. So hopefully she won't get mad, but I refuse to look at TikTok. I refuse to look at Instagram. I'm old school. But it's, uh, so on that point, like we, we just hosted a number of influencers at, uh, at our free while properties, right? Um,

Mark [boostly] (13:37.862)
Hahaha

Mark [boostly] (13:44.53)
You don't need to because you've got a wife that does it for you. Exactly. Right.

Jasper Ribbers (13:58.507)
Which is, you know, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that because I think for the low season, you know, when it's hard, especially during the week, it's hard, hard to book the units. Um, do you think that's a good strategy to, if you're going to sit empty anyway, might as well offer some, you know, comp stays to influencers and have them share on TikTok and Instagram and all that stuff.

Mark [boostly] (14:21.042)
It's a nice little plug for the book, the book direct playbook that I'm holding up right now. It's been around for over a year now and there's a full chapter dedicated to working with influences, but most importantly how to work with them the right way. Because you're right, in your shoulder season, slow season, say that there's a week and you can't get that week booking booked.

The best thing to do is to get content creators in there, taking pictures, taking content, taking videos, if they've got drone shots, getting drone shots, because content creators now are better than most professional photographers, in my opinion, because of the content they can create. They can create lifestyle photography, which everybody knows that people buy from people. And if you can get five, 10 influencers or content creators into the property, and let's just say they average from between 5,000 followers to 100,000 followers.

people who follow the influencers or content creators, they are engaged in them. And when they turn around and say, hey, I'm using this product, B, I'm reading this book, C, I'm staying at this place, then they are much more likely to act on it than if it was just random Joe blogs, running a Facebook ad or a LinkedIn ad or a YouTube ad. So 100%, but the problem where 99.9% of all hosts and property management companies fall down is that they don't.

Jasper Ribbers (15:31.776)
Yep.

Mark [boostly] (15:37.67)
establish a clear contract or a guideline of how to work with said influences.

And I believe you've had Jordan from Jordan who has got the website that's connecting influencers to host up. I can't remember what it is off the top of my head, but I remember in that episode, stay at the 100% it's a fantastic resource because he is so talented. He, a, he's an influencer with his, uh, with his dogs that he's got and he's such a great, great guy and a great fallen. I've got to know him well and the, and the website that he's created is a fantastic place to connect the two.

Jasper Ribbers (15:52.947)
Stay MO.

Mark [boostly] (16:11.07)
The trick is, is you have to make sure that you work with them correctly. You have a clear contract. This is what you're going to get. This is how much you're going to get paid because yes, in 2024, you are going to have to pay these content creators because they know their worth now, but B, this is what we expect in return.

five Instagram stories, one Instagram post, all of your raw pictures or edited pictures sent to me in a Google drive. If you have a drone, I want this types of drone shots. I want a video highlight reel because the content creator will love that.

Jasper Ribbers (16:27.481)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Mark [boostly] (16:44.906)
If you give them clear guidance, they know exactly what they need and want. And you can negotiate on exactly the deliverables and what they give to you. And you can negotiate on the rate. But what I want everybody to sort of get in their mindset is, you know, when you book in that real estate photographer or that professional photographer, you have a deliverable. You know exactly what you're gonna get. Try doing that with the content creator that you're gonna work with. And if you're like, well, I don't know where to look, stay ammo is a fantastic resource. There's a whole chapter on this book on how to find them.

Jasper Ribbers (17:05.34)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mark [boostly] (17:12.306)
Um, and, and yeah, so for the shoulder seasons, phenomenal, you know, it's, it's one of the best ways of, of working with them. And then the ultimate upside is when they do post out about it and they say, Hey, go check out here. Your Instagram followers going to increase the people on your website. It's going to increase the amount of inquiries you get is going to increase literally off the back of one person's post, which, you know, is, is epic.

Jasper Ribbers (17:35.951)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and we were able, and we work with Jordan at Stay Ammo, by the way. But we actually, we were able to actually get quite a few influences in there who weren't looking for to get paid. They were just looking for the, or, you know, we can negotiate it that they would just get their stay comped. So, you know, we still have to pay for the cleaning and stuff. So it still costs a little bit of money, but yeah, I feel like.

Well, we'll see. Like we, we just had them in there like a couple last couple of weeks. So we'll see, but you're a hundred percent right. Like we literally have a list of deliverables, right? It's like, all right, one reel, one post, like X amount of stories, right? Um, all that stuff. So another thing I'll say on this, on this topic, since we're talking about this is, uh, you also got to make sure that like number one, the, their follower, their, their followers are engaged because you know, you know how

people can buy followers and all that stuff. I see people on Instagram, I won't name any names, but I see some people on Instagram talking about short term rentals and they're like, wow, this person got like, I've never heard of this person, he's got like 500,000 followers. And then you look at how many comments they get and it's like one or two comments per post. But so you have to look at engagement, you have to look at are the, is there following, is that your guest avatar, right? Because, you know, obviously if you get an influencer in there who…

Mark [boostly] (18:45.616)
Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers (19:01.943)
who their followers are just not the type of people that would stay at your units. Then it doesn't make any sense. Plus also the location, right? Cause like, yeah, we can work with an influencer in Australia, but like we don't get a lot of Australians like book our units, right? So we have, we have influencers that have following in San Diego and LA. Cause that's like a two hour drive from, from us. So, but yeah, we'll, we'll keep everybody posted on the, on the results that we're seeing.

Mark [boostly] (19:08.158)
Yeah.

Mark [boostly] (19:24.416)
Yeah.

Mark [boostly] (19:28.714)
Yeah. Well, I think the easiest thing to do because you will, when you start to get a bit of notoriety, you will start to get people reach out. I get it all the time in my inbox. Hey, I can do this. I've got this amount of followers, yada, yada. The best blocker that you can send anybody is show thing. Send me a media kit.

Any content creator, any influencer is half decent. We'll have a media kit ready to go. We'll show you their stats, who will show them engagement rates and all of that. And if they don't have one, it's an instant in the bin. It's like when you're hiring and you looking for the right person to join your team, whether it's virtual or in-house, you set requirements and you have these barriers that you put in place to make sure only the best get through the barriers.

Jasper Ribbers (19:44.937)
Mm-hmm.

Mark [boostly] (20:06.238)
It's the same when it comes to doing this, even though you're not hiring them to be a worker for you, it's still hiring them to do a job. So I feel like when you look down that way and when you change the mindset of doing it, um, you'll have much, much better results.

Jasper Ribbers (20:13.048)
Mm-hmm.

Jasper Ribbers (20:20.835)
You know what I love about doing a podcast with you? Like, I never know what we'll end up talking about. Like this morning when I woke up at four 30, I had no idea we were talking about influencers.

Mark [boostly] (20:25.07)
Hahaha

Mark [boostly] (20:28.95)
And here we are, here we are, here we are.

Jasper Ribbers (20:32.311)
But on that note, let's talk about your latest Endeavor, which is a documentary, right?

Mark [boostly] (20:41.194)
Yeah, 100%. So yeah, first and foremost, thank you for letting me talk about this. It is something that we've been working on all year and I'm very excited about. So I've been doing Boosley for seven years now. We've got over a thousand videos on the YouTube, Boosley YouTube channel. We're approaching 700 podcast episodes, but everything is very same-sy. It's me talking into a microphone or my co-host Liam talking into a microphone. And so the YouTube channel just looks same-sy. So at the start of the year, I hired a company and I said, what I wanna do?

Jasper Ribbers (20:42.595)
That is about that.

Mark [boostly] (21:10.91)
is I want to have a pillar piece of content on our YouTube channel that is something different than anything I've ever done before. And we bounced some ideas around and we came up with a documentary. And so what we've been doing since January up until October the 14th, when I jumped on a plane to fly out to Orlando for my three weeks of conferences, is we've been following two hosts.

all the way throughout the year documenting every single part of the process. And the two hosts that we, that we brought on board, the main rule was this. Number one, they couldn't be a Boosley customer. Number two, they've never worked with Boosley and sit and see if they hadn't had clue who we were even better, because I wanted to take two hosts who were at the start of their journeys and I wanted to implement everything from the book that I played book that I showed earlier, but also as well, the book that I had blueprint, which was our second book that we put out.

And I wanted to implement everything from these books into these businesses. And what I thought we were going to do is we were going to just follow a very same script for both businesses and at the end of it we'd have the similar results. But what we learned was that both businesses, both different personalities, different state of their journey, different business models. One was a management company, one was an owner to short-term rental. And the results and what we did in the end was so different but it's created one

amazing documentary and I do say so myself and I'm ready to see the edited version of it um because the results have been epic and each one of them have a different wins

Jasper Ribbers (22:44.367)
So share some of the takeaways. What did you learn from following these people for like a year?

Mark [boostly] (22:49.63)
Yeah, so what we wanted to do is I wanted to have one person in the UK and I wanted to have one person in the USA because the YouTube channel, the podcast we have about

60% of our relationship is in the US and Canada. And then we've got about 30% that's the UK and then 10% is spread around the world, which has always surprised me because obviously with this accent, everybody just assumes that I just work with people in the UK, but we've actually got doubly amount of customers now in the US than we do in the UK over the seven years. So I wanted to make sure that anybody watching the documentary go, well, it's all right for him and it's all right for them because they're in the UK.

So I wanted to make sure we have somebody in the U S someone in the UK and the UK, uh, Justina, we, um, started working with her. She had the management model. So, uh, she had three properties at the time. Her goals and her aspirations was to, was to grow to maybe 10, 15, 20 properties. And she wanted to start to maybe dabble in a bit of buy to rent and all those cool things. So she was in a growth mindset. Uh, she had already had a property management software in place, which was using up listing.

She had a free account on, on price labs, but just being as, um, not fault, but, you know, I would say one of the cons in her business setup is that she was very shiny object syndrome. She loved bouncing from software to software. She was doing everything herself. She had a cleaner, she had a property guy, but everything else was her. Kearney who was in, um, America. He was a newbie brand spanking new. He'd just got his property open in December. He bought it with his business partner. They'd spent three months doing it out.

and they literally just listed it on just Airbnb. So for them, they were fresh. They wanted to eventually grow, but they wanted to establish themselves in the first part because when I first met them, they didn't know if this was going to be a forever thing or is this gonna be a flip or what, but they wanted to have a bit more clarity by this point next year. And the takeaways for the two were like vast. It couldn't be more chalk and cheese. For Justina, for her, what we decided to do,

Mark [boostly] (24:53.162)
we could have quite easily started to implement all of this into the business, which is 101 marketing tips. But I said to her, listen, I could give you a keys to the Ferrari, but you wouldn't have a clue what to do with it because everything is just scattered. You are bouncing from software to software. You're doing this all yourself. So instead what we did was we go, right, well, let's just put a foundation in place. You're ready to grow. So for her, instead of changing her PMS from uplifting to somebody else,

We're like, well, let's optimize what you've got. And I feel that this is where 90% of your followers will also be in the same problem is where they have a bit of kit, but they don't spend the time to investigate what they can actually do with it. So, you know, I was very lucky. I called up Vinnie up listing the founder. We've got on a zoom call. We obviously documented for the YouTube channel, explain what we were doing, said about the documentary and he spent time with her going.

this is what you've got. Did you know about this? Did you know about that? And we're able to optimize it and fully take full advantage of it. For example, we were able to connect up her listing account to a booking.com account, which never had been done. So we're on there. And then we were able to make sure we did the same on Verbo. But the main thing for her was optimizing what she had. I got in contact with Anaarag at Price Labs. Again, we booked a Zoom call. And I was like, right, well, can you just show Justina exactly what the platform does in…

in the area of the country where she is. And again, he showed her all of the stats. He showed her the price that she should be charging. Again, optimizing what they had, which was key. And for her, what she was able to do is go, right, I don't need to bounce from software to software, from tech to tech. I can stick with what I've got and I can make sure I'm making the full use of it. And when we had that down, we're like, right, well, let's do the next stage. And hiring was a big thing for her.

Jasper Ribbers (26:18.767)
Mm-hmm.

Mark [boostly] (26:35.03)
She used to have a career where she was in charge of operations at another company. So she was very good at SOP She was very good at documenting but the problem is that this was her baby, you know She knew every aspect of this business. She didn't trust anybody to come into the business to help her So I contacted somebody that is a gravitas media, which is Tega fantastic at hiring and bringing in virtual team members We sat down introduced them

He was able to put together three applicants based out of the Philippines who were fantastic for Justina. And then she worked with him to pick the right one. And she was her first proper hire. Um, and she's still there now and she's kicking ass. She can control all of the things that she needs to control. So Justina has been pulled out of doing the day to day of the business. So guest communication, making sure the price is right uplisting, all of that is, is solid. So for Justina, what she's been able to do.

she's been able to grow that business that she couldn't do before. So you've now took on board a, uh, a block of apartments that is, um, jumping into short-term rentals. She's done them all out and then I'll plug them into a place. And so she's grown her portfolio by 200%, which is epic. And she has a solid business in place now that can, that can skyrocket. And she can do so because she's no longer working in the weeds and she's not bouncing around from software to software, which is epic. So she's done on that. Kearney.

Jasper Ribbers (27:56.782)
Hmm.

Mark [boostly] (27:59.29)
He has established himself and he is now past that 45 star review mark on Airbnb. He's got a solid foundation in place. We got him on Guesty for Homes as his property management software. Again, we hooked him up with Price Labs. And for him, he just needed that education because when you first start, you know, think back to way back and everybody can do this thing to when you first started. And it's like, right, I've got this property. I need to get bookings. I'm on Airbnb now.

And this is where he was at. So we were just able to just sort of slow him down, just point him in the right direction, just go, hey, you need to get this, set it up. And Kearney is like an unbelievable action taker. He is still in his W2 job. So he's still working, but he, in his spare time, and he's a single parent, he just works and graphs and graphs. And I say, hey, do this. And by, you know, a couple of days time, it's done. So it's been an amazing working with him. And we obviously put together his website, like we did with Justina.

We've got him that solid base, guesty for host. We made sure it's fully set up. We got all of his automated messaging created. And the main thing for him was to start to build a database. So we created email marketing. We set up a Google form. So, you know, this goes to every single guest so we can create that data. And we've established over a year, number one, who's his avatar, which is key we're talking about that. Who's his ideal guest? Why are they coming to the area?

What are they coming for? And we've got this all on a Google sheet with about 50 names now. So we've got a real solid foundation to build and grow. And the cool thing is, is because he's doing such a good job, is that he's getting referrals. He's getting direct bookings from referrals from his guests that have come to stay with him because of what he's built and just having the right things in place. And he's the number one in his area. He's getting more money than everybody else in his area.

And yeah, it's been amazing to see. And now he's looking at buying his second property, which is going to be in Tampa. He's maybe going to do the management model or he may do this sub two phenomenon that's spreading around America at the moment. So he's got all these potential options of what he may do, but he's got that confidence now to be able to, to grow.

Jasper Ribbers (30:02.852)
So you followed these two people for a year and tell us more about the documentary. So you can put it on YouTube. Is it like one documentary or is it like a series of what does that look like?

Mark [boostly] (30:15.646)
Yeah, so it's going to be a one hour documentary. I hired a company in the UK called I am Productions and they've been phenomenal. They've guided us throughout. We've you know, we've properly done proper filming days and it's been it's been great. So it is going to look like a Netflix style documentary that you sit down and watch. And it'll be for an hour. It's going to get released on the 26th of December on the evening. Sorry, December. Good. Thank you for that. 26th of December, the day after Christmas. So in the UK, we call it Boxing Day. So the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, everybody's chilling out.

Jasper Ribbers (30:34.859)
November or December?

Jasper Ribbers (30:40.899)
Gotcha.

Mark [boostly] (30:44.79)
Not doing much, eating leftover food, drinking, whatever. At eight o'clock UK time, so that'll be three o'clock on Eastern time in America. We're gonna go live and do a live watch party on the YouTube channel. And it'll be for an hour, I'll be watching, we'll be doing some giveaways and cool things as well on there. And then it'll just sit on the YouTube channel so you can watch back at any time. And after that hour, we'll split everything up, we'll create loads of little short videos from it and we'll do follow-up interviews and stuff like that.

Yeah, it's going to sit on the Boosley YouTube channel and it's going to have a watch party at 8pm UK on the 26th of December.

Jasper Ribbers (31:19.827)
Awesome, man. Do you have a place where people can go to toss this in their calendar, like a Google Cal link or something like that?

Mark [boostly] (31:27.686)
Yeah, if you, if you write down this domain, B O S T L Y. So boostly.co.uk forward slash iCal. I C A L. That'll open up a webpage that we've created that you can just sync up the calendar to your calendar. So you will get a notification on the day of it going to be happening. So yeah, boostly.co.uk forward slash iCal. Add it to your calendar. You can add it to your Google calendar, your Apple calendar or whatever.

Jasper Ribbers (31:36.069)
Mm-hmm.

Mark [boostly] (31:56.078)
calendar you're using and then you'll get a notification on the day. And you can also come and follow the Instagram, which is BoosleyUK. Go and subscribe to the YouTube channel and you'll get all the notification when it's going to be happening.

Jasper Ribbers (32:07.703)
Sweet dude, awesome. Well, I'll be watching.

Mark [boostly] (32:09.422)
Thank you. Yeah, well, it'd be nice. It'd be a normal time for you over in West Coast. It won't be 5am.

Jasper Ribbers (32:16.159)
Well, I'll be in Amsterdam. Seeing the family for Christmas will be easy.

Mark [boostly] (32:20.51)
There you go Seeing the family so I'm actually gonna be in Switzerland of all places I'm gonna be in Geneva on the 26 me and the family because we're gonna go and see a friend over Christmas But yeah, we're gonna be sat in a sign a hotel in Geneva and I will launch this live on the YouTube on the 26

Jasper Ribbers (32:39.043)
Sweet dude, excited. Is, are you gonna publish it anywhere else or is it just gonna be on YouTube?

Mark [boostly] (32:44.718)
It's going to be on YouTube. I haven't got enough money to send it to Netflix because you've got to give them a good quarter, $25,000 just to even get in front of their faces. So we're going to do it on YouTube. We're going to do it in our world. Because as soon as you start submitting it to Netflix and Amazon, they, you know, it's all the bureaucracy, Hollywood heads and all that crap that comes with it. So I'd rather just keep it fully in my world, on the YouTube, on our channel. So we can have it from there and we can just, you know, do what we want. Then we'll.

Jasper Ribbers (32:54.987)
Oh really? Oh.

Jasper Ribbers (33:11.819)
Awesome. Sweet dude. Well, I'm excited to see the documentary. This is kind of, I guess, not completely at first. I think there has been some documentaries, maybe, on Netflix or something. But it's definitely like you don't see this type of content a lot in our industry, huh?

Mark [boostly] (33:26.271)
yet.

Well, it's a first for me. And I mean, I know there's a lot of people who've done different styles and whatnot. Matt Landau is phenomenal at this. He's a storyteller. But I just wanted to make sure that on the Boosley channel, when somebody comes, yes, there's a binge bank of content, but it's all talking heads. It's all very same-same. I wanted to do something that I've never done before. And I'm very lucky now in the business of Boosley. You know, I've got a managing director who can take care of all of the day-to-day. It means that I can do creative and cool and different stuff like this and so.

Yeah, it's been a long year, but it's been a great year. And I'm looking forward to promoting it and getting it out there on the 26th next month.

Jasper Ribbers (34:05.055)
Awesome dude. Before we wrap up, I want to do two things. First of all, let people know what Boostly is all about.

Mark [boostly] (34:14.562)
So Boostly is short for boost hospitality. And what we do at our elevator pitch is we give hosts the tools, the tactics, and the training to grow their business to be 65% direct. So my goal is for everybody who comes into our world to get to 65% direct that leaves 35% to be OTAs. The problem at the moment is it's the other way around or it's even worse. It's like 80% OTAs, 20% direct.

When you've got a business that's 65% direct, you're building your house on your own land. So you're not being overreliant on other people to bring your revenue in. So that's what we do. And we do that through website design. We've got a CRM, which is email marketing, social media scheduling. And then we've got the training, which is really cool that teaches everybody about book direct, keeps you accountable. And then we've got the tribe.

So we've got 2,500 customers, 2,500 members all in there talking about direct bookings, direct bookings, direct bookings. So yeah, that's what we've been doing for seven years now. We've generated $50 million of direct bookings for our websites this year, which we're about to have a press release to go live with. And yeah, we're the go-tos when it's all about BookDirect, which is epic.

Jasper Ribbers (35:06.05)
Right.

Jasper Ribbers (35:20.171)
Yeah, sweet, man. And we've actually used the Boostly website for quite a while. Now that we launched FreeWild, we decided to go for a custom-built website, so we invested quite a bit into that. But it was definitely easy to set up the website, especially because we use Hostfully. It has a very nice integration with Boostly. Do we still have our good old coupon?

Mark [boostly] (35:31.511)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jasper Ribbers (35:49.379)
Discount code, pad, is that still active?

Mark [boostly] (35:51.522)
Absolutely, absolutely. So the best thing to do, if anybody's watching this and they go, you know what, I wanna get to 65% direct, go to boostly.co.uk. You can book a call on there. And then there's a section that says, how did you discover Boostly? If you just put pad or Jasper or get paid for your pad.

That's all you need to do because then we'll have an exclusive discount for those that come from the podcast to us. So make sure you do that. You've got to book a call. You can't just sign up and give you credit card details over. You've got to have a call with us because this is a done for you service. We've got to make sure that we want to work with the right people. We don't want to work with everybody. So, you know, we turn away more people than what we let in. So book a call, mention you come from the pad, from the podcast. And then if you decide to go for it, we'll chuck in a nice little exclusive discount when you do.

Jasper Ribbers (36:36.195)
Boom. Yeah, and I think a lot of people in our community have ended up working with you, and the feedback is always good, so I can definitely vouch for it. All right, so last but not least, I want to introduce a new feature on this podcast. It's kind of inspired by a podcast that I personally listen to, and I thought it was really cool. Basically, what we're going to do is every time I have a guest on the show,

Mark [boostly] (36:46.903)
Yeah, thank you.

Jasper Ribbers (37:02.947)
they're gonna ask a question and it's a question about like a fact or a stat, right? It's not an opinion. It's like, all right, how many, you know, how many short rental hosts are there in, you know, Country X or, you know, what was the, you know, what's the growth of the industry in 2022 or whatever it is, like a stat or a fact. And then I'm gonna ask that question to my next guest, right? So you're gonna come up with a question right now, putting you on the spot.

Mark [boostly] (37:16.412)
Okay.

Mark [boostly] (37:21.195)
Okay.

Jasper Ribbers (37:31.167)
And then I'm going to ask the question to my next guest, see if that guest knows it. But also, like everybody who's listening, you can send in, if you know the answer, then send it to me on Instagram, and I will feature your business on the podcast. So like for everybody, I'll pick one person who sent me the right answer, and I'll share your Instagram, or I'll share your brand, like your company, so you get some free promotion.

Mark [boostly] (37:31.277)
Yep.

Mark [boostly] (37:45.011)
Ooh, I like this.

Jasper Ribbers (38:00.071)
So that's the incentive for sending in your answers. So Mark, you're the first person. It's got to be a fact, right? We have to be able to confirm that it's actually true. You can't make up random stuff.

Mark [boostly] (38:05.3)
I can ask any question any question any question any question that I want

Mark [boostly] (38:15.17)
Prove it. Okay. So I can't say who is the best football team in the world. I can't say that, right? I can't say who's the best, because that's the vast opinion. All right, here's one. Here's one that's top of mind. So how many listings are there on Airbnb that was last reported? How many on Airbnb? No, listings. And that has been reported. It has been released.

Jasper Ribbers (38:22.727)
Nah, because it's definitely not Liverpool.

Jasper Ribbers (38:36.707)
How many listings are there on Airbnb? So not how many hosts, how many listings, right? And then we're looking for the latest, yeah, the latest number that was officially released by Airbnb, I guess, right? All right, all right.

Mark [boostly] (38:44.77)
The latest numbers.

Mark [boostly] (38:49.738)
Yeah, by, by OB&B. But there will be, I'll give you a little clue. There will be a company that starts with A and ends with A that will be also able to give you that number. But it's got air in the middle as well. But yeah, that's a really good question because you're gonna get tons of, you're gonna get tons of comments and messages and whatnot. So I like that.

Jasper Ribbers (38:59.244)
Hehehehe.

Jasper Ribbers (39:07.275)
All right, guys, so like if you're listening to this, if you know the answer, then message me on Instagram, okay? I'm only gonna look at Instagram for this, just to make it easy, right? Because I don't wanna have people reaching out on 10 different platforms. And by the way, my Facebook account was hacked, so anybody who's trying to get a hold of me on Facebook, just know that it was hacked, somebody hacked into it. And I tried to run some ads. And now, you know, I've been trying to get…

Mark [boostly] (39:17.534)
Yeah, easy.

Jasper Ribbers (39:34.775)
back into my account uploading my ID and everything, but Facebook is notoriously horrible at customer service. So I don't even know if I will ever get my account back. But anyway, so I'm done with Facebook. I'm just doing Instagram now. I do have a Facebook group in the course that we just started at Cashflow Mastery. So I created a new profile just so I have access to that. But anyway, so don't try to reach out to me on Facebook. If you know the answer, what's the…

Mark [boostly] (39:39.202)
Bad. Yeah.

Mark [boostly] (39:44.416)
Yeah.

Mark [boostly] (39:57.718)
Wow.

Jasper Ribbers (40:02.531)
total amount of Airbnb listings as of right now. Message me on Instagram, get paid for your pad. So easy to search, get paid for your pad on Instagram. Send me a DM with the answer, and I'll pick one of the correct answers on the next episode. And I will plug your business and give you some free exposure. All right, Mark, good question.

Mark [boostly] (40:23.01)
Great idea. Love it. Good one.

Jasper Ribbers (40:25.288)
Thanks for being the first one. I know you're the type of guy I can just toss this at you and you're gonna come up with something. So that's why I chose this episode to do that. Any last final thoughts? Maybe one more prediction for 2024.

Mark [boostly] (40:30.445)
I'm sorry.

Mark [boostly] (40:34.424)
Thanks.

Mark [boostly] (40:41.418)
2024 is going to be about having a diverse marketing strategy. You have to be visible as many places as possible, the billboard effect. And, you know, that is my big tip for everybody to be doing so. And Google is going to massively be a pioneer of this. So, you know, be ready. Use this quiet time now to get a direct booking strategy in place, having your diverse marketing strategy in place. And don't put your eggs all in the Airbnb basket. That's all I ask.

Jasper Ribbers (41:08.651)
Alrighty, and with that, we are wrapping up this episode. So Mark, I appreciate you jumping on here. It's nice to see you a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't know you were at that, I almost forgot how tall you are.

Mark [boostly] (41:17.611)
Yeah.

I'm nearly as tall as Eric, not quite. It was like, we're a nice little, like a straight line down between the three of us.

Jasper Ribbers (41:22.776)
Hahaha

Jasper Ribbers (41:27.687)
I know. It's funny, because everybody I met at the conference, they all think I'm very small. Because they've seen videos of me and Ericson actually shuttering and then on Zoom, I look like a midget. So people are looking to the floor like, where's Jasper? And I'm like, I'm here. And they're like, oh, you're actually not that small. Yeah, exactly.

Mark [boostly] (41:35.575)
Hahaha

Mark [boostly] (41:40.385)
Yeah.

Mark [boostly] (41:46.414)
Oh, you're like normal size, yeah. Whatever normal size is, but yeah, exactly. But yeah, it was epic to see people. It was really good to connect and to meet people, meet your lovely wife, meet the pooch, meet your family and see Eric and see everybody. And the amount of people from Legends X that were at that event was crazy.

Jasper Ribbers (41:53.687)
Hehehe

Jasper Ribbers (42:07.999)
I know, right? That's why it was so fun for me to be there, just hanging out with students. All right, buddy, thanks for the time and everybody who's listening, hope you enjoyed this podcast. And don't forget if you know the answer, how many Airbnb listings exist at this time, send me a DM on Instagram and I'll pick one winner and I'll feature you on the next podcast. So with that said, have a great week everyone and we'll see you next time.

Mark [boostly] (42:11.298)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

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