Welcome to Boostly Podcast Episode 552. In this episode of the Boostly Podcast, Liam Carolan interviews Dave Goodfellow, a host who specializes in service accommodation in the UK.
Dave is a well-known name in the hospitality industry and is considered one of the top names in Clubhouse for his We Talk Property.
Before entering the hospitality industry, Dave worked in a home improvement company and then in a high-end shutter business.
He eventually got into service accommodation after having a background in property management and a connection to the hotel business through his partner's family.
Throughout the podcast, Dave will be sharing his knowledge and experience in the industry to help listeners learn and implement tactics in their own hospitality businesses.
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Timestamps (audio)
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Transcript from the Episode
[00:00:00] Liam: Okay, so thank you for checking out this episode of the Boostly Podcast. My name is Liam Carlan. I'm the co-host of the mini-series where we go behind the host and dive into somebody else's hospitality business. Uh, the main reason is so you can leverage the, their knowledge, implement some of the tactics that they have done, and, uh, just learn things you may not have known before jumping into today's show.
[00:00:24] Today we are joined by a host who specializes in service accommodation in the uk. Um, I'm going to introduce, uh, Dave Goodfellow. And, uh, he, he really is, uh, he's from Noki Stay and he really needs no introduction for those who may already known him, knows that he's, um, You, you may be familiar with him because one of the top names on Clubhouse for his We Talk property.
[00:00:47] He's frequently sharing tips. Um, he's shared loads on social media and in general, I feel quite lucky to have said that. I've known Dave for a few years and, uh, you know, I've learnt a lot from him. So I'm sure you guys today are gonna [00:01:00] get a lot of great tips and knowledge from him for the next sort of 30 minutes.
[00:01:03] So, Settle in and, uh, yeah, let's go behind the host with Dave to, uh, leverage his, his knowledge and, uh, learn his story. So, welcome along Dave. Well,
[00:01:13] Dave: what an introduction and , I've gotta live up to that now, so thank you, Liam . No worries, rose, be honest. I'm so, I'm so glad that, um, I'm able to come on and, and share and, you know, catch up with you.
[00:01:23] It's been a, it's been a while.
[00:01:25] Liam: It has. I mean, I'm genuinely, as we said just before we went live, I'm excited, first of all to, to speak here again. And also I know, uh, that people listening will, uh, you share so much knowledge in general that, that there's gonna be a lot of learning since today's episode. So, um, No pressure.
[00:01:42] Yeah, no pressure. No pressure at all. Um, hey, after a little while, I, I always forget the camera or the, the microphone's even on after a little while and just, just chat. But, um, yeah. So first of all, Dave, if you can share your background, what did you do? Let's just go back to before you got into hospitality, what was your background?
[00:01:59] [00:02:00] What was your career? And then going a little bit forward, how did you start in hospitality?
[00:02:04] Dave: Okay. Yeah, great question. So, um, I started my career as a, in a home improvements company, and I spent a lot of time there. So I worked for them for around about 15 years. Started at the bottom, um, booking service engineers on, you know, broken handles and stuff like that.
[00:02:21] And then kind of worked my way up to, um, director. Went through like a management training program, worked in every part of the business. Um, yeah, just full on. And I stayed with one company for 15 years. Moved away for a couple of years to a, a, like a really high end shutter business, which we did like a security shutters for the m o d for billionaires and, you know, Russian billionaires in London and all that sort of stuff.
[00:02:50] That was, that was an interesting time. Nice. Um, And then I went back to Everest for a couple of years and then kind of got into, got [00:03:00] into the service accommodation after that. Um, but how did I get in? How did I kind of get into this? Well, I've always, from a, from a young, from you say from a young age, from working in a career where I was doing like project management and managing installation teams and stuff like that, I used to buy property.
[00:03:19] Um, do called it flip what they call flips. So you buy a property, re renovate it, do the B B R R buy refurbish, refinance model or sell it. Um, so flip was selling it. B R B R R was buy, refurbish, refinance. And I did that for a number of years, but I did it as like a side hustle. Didn't really know it was called flipping or by refurbish refinance.
[00:03:41] Um, And then my, my kind of other half her, her family business was in hotels and they've got a, a large hotel business that's been running for about 30 years. Um, but I wanted something that was kind of, wanted to, was gonna bridge the gap. So I wanted, I liked the [00:04:00] property stuff cause I was interested in property.
[00:04:02] I mm-hmm. , I like the hotel stuff, but I wanted something in the middle without all the sort of operational headache around the pub and the food and all that sort of stuff. And I also wanted to get out of, um, my, my day-to-day, and I wanted to get into a place where I was running my own business. So, yeah, can that, that kind of gets, gives the back, gives the background.
[00:04:22] I started about 11 years, 12 years ago now in property doing flips. And then four years ago I started my short-term rental business.
[00:04:31] Liam: Awesome. So the short-term rental, uh, business. How did, uh, first of all, if you let people know whereabouts in the world and, uh, the name of your business, how many units you kind of started with, and what your business looks like as, as we talk today in, in 2022?
[00:04:48] Yeah, so,
[00:04:49] Dave: um, my business is called Noki Stays now. Um, that's been a recent changeover, rebranding this year. Um, I'll tell you about that a bit later. I suppose you can ask a few more questions around why we did [00:05:00] that. Definitely
[00:05:00] Liam: diving
[00:05:01] Dave: into that . So how did I start my s t R business? Well, I had a ette portfolio and the anti landlord taxes were just become crazy.
[00:05:11] Um, you know, I had a, had a tenant in one of my properties in Chester, little Roman, Roman city, uh, up in the. Um, and I couldn't get her. She stopped paying. I couldn't get her out. And I got to the point where I was like, what, what, what am I doing? You know, how can you have a person in your property that's not paying you and you can't get 'em out your property?
[00:05:37] It's illegal to, to, to, to remove them from the property. So I thought, right, well, how can I go down a different route where I can still be in property, but, um, have a lot more control over what I'm doing? So my three bedroom townhouse, which which was in the center of Chester, it was kind of perfect for service accommodation, thinking about what I know now.
[00:05:59] But back [00:06:00] then it was kind of a bit of a, I wasn't kind of a pun, it was a massive punt for me. Mm-hmm. , I put it into service accommodation within the first month. Um, he'd done three and a half thousand pounds in revenue. , which I thought was good, and I had a management company managing it for me. Now that property's doing about four and a half thousand pound a month, and it nets me between 1,502 grand a month.
[00:06:23] Um, but back then three and a half grand a month was like, wow, what's where, where's this come from? So, I put that into service accommodation in the first, in November, 2018, and I thought, right, I'll go out and buy another one. This is, this is a great strategy. So I went out and bought another property, um, in Chester, which was a, it was a three bedroom masonette that I was gonna, that I was changing, I was gonna change into a four bedroom masonette, but that took time to kind of build out, right?
[00:06:57] Mm-hmm. , so, I was like, well, [00:07:00] if I wanna get out of my job, I'm gonna have to do things a bit quicker here than, um, than buying houses is doing them up. Cause it's gonna take between, you know, four to six months to do what I wanted to do with the properties and, and then, and then start, start 'em cash flowing.
[00:07:15] So I then got into renter rent or rental arbitrage is what they call it in the states. Right. Um, for all those American listeners, ,
[00:07:24] Liam: there is a few, as I was, we should have clarified service accommodation as just short-term rental
[00:07:29] Dave: effectively. Short-term rentals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then I started, uh, looking into renter rents.
[00:07:35] Um, That was a lot quicker. So in the January we took on a couple of renter rents in the January and then it just started snowballing First year we did about, I think it's 13 renter rents in the first year. Um, and we bought a couple of proxies as well. Um, and over the last sort of four years, we've grown our, um, We've [00:08:00] grown our, um, rent to rent portfolio.
[00:08:03] We've grown our serviced management portfolio, so we manage other people's properties for them as well and just take a cut of the gross revenue. And we've grown that over the last years to around about 50 50 properties, um, that are open now. Um, and I've got, uh, an apart hotel that we're building out at the moment as well in, uh, , which is 11 apartments.
[00:08:25] Um, and we've got a load of stuff coming up next year. So, um, alongside that we've got a ette and h HMO lettings agency. Um, again, that's got around 150 properties in that at the moment. So we're property wise around about 200. Um, reason why we did that was because we were getting a lot of inquiries coming from the short term rental business that didn't work as service accom.
[00:08:52] Short-term rental. Um, and we just had another decided that, you know, we were letting all this business go. What could we do? [00:09:00] Well, well, we could set, let an agency and have a multifaceted kind of property business that covers everything. now. Do you know
[00:09:07] Liam: what, that's inspiring, especially for myself to hear who, who does short term rental here in the uk because you're absolutely right.
[00:09:14] Just seeing the opportunities that come in that we are having to say, Hey, that's not quite right. We actually have more of that conversation now than, than, you know, Hey, this per property's perfect. You know, often it is not perfect, but it could be good for like you say, H M O or, or. Absolutely fine.
[00:09:30] There's a buy let and at the moment it is just saying no thank you. Whereas for yourself, now you can pass over that, you know, that opportunity to the other side of the business, to the H HMO or to the, to the buy. And
[00:09:42] Dave: one of the, one of the things that we tend to focus on though is, you know, like, like see your portfolio landlords that maybe have got buy lets that, that are not quite making any money now because of the anti landlord taxes, because of the, you know, the increase in interest rates and all that sort of, Um, we can take a [00:10:00] portfolio landlord and go, right.
[00:10:02] Well, let us have a look at your portfolio. We'll work out what is best for service accommodation, what is best for hmo and what you should leave on a buy to let, and we can take all that on in under one under one. Roof Now, if you like. Excuse the pun, .
[00:10:17] Liam: Well, I mean, it's, it's such an opportunity, but going back just a, a step, so, um, you know, first of all, congratulations as, as such a, a grower journey and one which I've, I've been pleased to, to see as well on the, on the sidelines.
[00:10:29] Um, that sounds like one of the wow moments was when you first made that three and a half thousand pounds on the first short term rental. Mm-hmm. Has there been other wow moments along the way? Has there. Bits that you could look back and for the people who are at tune in and listening where you could go, do you know what, I'm glad I made that decision then.
[00:10:47] And there's a few other of those type of decisions.
[00:10:49] Dave: Is there, has there been a few moments all on pivotal moments, I suppose, um, pivotal moments where, you know, if I look back what we did and how we operate at that time, and the, the main one [00:11:00] was during Covid mm-hmm. . So, um, I suppose from, from the, the short term rental service accommodation, Business aspect.
[00:11:10] Um, the, the time when, you know, Boris Johnson came on and he was like, we've got to close. No business traveling, no leisure traveling. No. And we were like, well, that's all of our business. What are we gonna do? Yeah. And I was determined at that time. I was like, right. I said, and I said, some, a business partner at the time, I said, this is not gonna beat us.
[00:11:31] We're gonna, we're gonna find a way of making sure that we fill all of our properties and, and, um, Do something different. So we did and we just had to look at different avenues. So I went to the NHS and got a contract with the NHS to fill all of our properties with doctors, nurses, cause they were over.
[00:11:47] They were over spilling, right? Um, same with key workers. They still were able to travel. So we were getting people from like power stations and whatnot, filling our properties. And when everybody was handing their keys back, we were [00:12:00] like, I was on social media. Like, no, if you've got a property and you can't fill it, come to us.
[00:12:05] I'll take the properties off you. So the pivotal moment for me was definitely in Covid and kind of making sure that I had that, um, that drive and. The not giving up mentality, I suppose. So that was the biggest, pivotal moment for me.
[00:12:20] Liam: That is, I mean, that was awesome. And I remember at the time, you, you reaching out, you had, you literally were needing more stock when everyone else was needing less stock, weren't they?
[00:12:28] So, um, yeah, that's, that's, that's amazing. And. When it comes down to the, the actionable kind of things that you've done. So, um, if somebody was listening to this and just going, well, is there certain traits or skills that you used transferrable from your previous career, from your previous role that has transferred into what you do now?
[00:12:49] Um, would you be able to share some of those that you think has been really helped along the way? I
[00:12:54] Dave: think. Any, any business you work in, [00:13:00] in, in my opinion, , you may, you may disagree with me. The, the business principles are all the same. It's just a different product or a different name above the door. So whatever it is that you are working on, um, within a business, and you'll have certain KPIs that apply to that business.
[00:13:17] But the main thing really is about the people. Um, so you can have any business in the world if the people aren't right. Inputting into that, and I use this phrase, you put shit in, you get shit out, right? Mm-hmm. , um, if you've got the right people, you've got the right team around you, and you've got the right feed in at the, the front end, you're gonna get the good feed out of the back end.
[00:13:38] Does that kind of make sense? Yeah. Yeah, that does. That's, um, um, for me, in, in any business that I've ever worked in, it's always been. The, the recruiting, the person, the training and the development of whoever you've got around you to build that business. And I think from my Everest days that, that's the home improvement company that I [00:14:00] worked for.
[00:14:00] Um, they were very hot on sort of getting young talent or new talent. Training them and giving them a, a fantastic training program and getting 'em into a position where they could be the best person that they want, that they could be for that business. And I think that's come from my previous, previous work.
[00:14:19] Love that. Absolutely
[00:14:20] Liam: love it. And is there actionable advice around what you could share as to how, how do you go out and get your bookings for, for noki stays? What is, what channels do you use? How do you, how do you market
[00:14:32] Dave: towards guests? Yeah, so it's a, it's a multitude of things really. I wouldn't say it's kind of one things fits all.
[00:14:39] Um, we, we obviously use the, the OTAs, which is a, a bit of. Uh, the sore subject for a lot of people. But I think in essence, when, especially when you first start in your ota your, your service accommodation or short-term rental business, the OTAs are your best friend. Um, you know, they're gonna fill your property for [00:15:00] you.
[00:15:00] They're gonna market your property for you. They're gonna do everything that you, that you, um, that you want really to get. You started. But as you grow your business, we all know, and I'm you guys at Bruce Lee as well, kind of advocate this. If you are, you're building a business on somebody else's foundations, you haven't got a business, so you've then gotta implement, you know, your direct booking strategies and your, your socials, and your s e o and E, everything that goes with that to get direct bookings.
[00:15:32] Now, one tip that I'd give ev, give, give to people is let. When you start in a bus, when you're starting, use the OTAs to get their foot in the door and then just speak to your customer who's at your property, speak to them, ask them very simple questions. You know, we, we always do what we call a midday call.
[00:15:52] So they stay one night next morning or the next sort of day, they get a call off of one of our virtual assistants or one of our [00:16:00] rooms managers. They'll ask them, you know, make sure they're happy with the product, happy with the place. And then we'll just ask 'em a simple question, are you returning next week?
[00:16:09] Mm-hmm. , they are returning off from a discount. Our ota, the way that we have our, our listings set up is they're more expensive on the OTAs than they are on our direct booking website. We offer 'em a discount to come back to us, and we always, if they're coming back, turn an OTA customer into our own customer.
[00:16:27] And that's the big, probably the biggest way to get direct buckets in my opinion.
[00:16:32] Liam: That makes sense. And you know, it's, it's a great tip, isn't it? Just reaching out to, to your existing people, to be able to form that connection and, and relationship is so
[00:16:39] Dave: important. 1, 1, 1 last tip I'd give to somebody. Five words.
[00:16:44] I always, we, we always use hope is five words and I've thought about it. , you, you know, anyone else? Mm-hmm. . Okay. Speak to them. Who's in your property? If you've got contractors and business people, do you know [00:17:00] anyone else? Love it. They do. They're gonna tell you and they. Um, have somebody else that can come and stay at your property.
[00:17:08] It's, and it's such a simple process.
[00:17:10] Liam: It's, it's so important, isn't it? Because these, these people are often, especially if they're working, working on site with somebody else who's literally the, the next, uh, you know, that might be first fix, second fixes come, you know? And of course, they're often the, the same groups, so they'll, they'll tend to know someone.
[00:17:25] So, yeah, it's a really, really
[00:17:27] Dave: good test. One of, I made one phone call cause I was doing all the phone calls back then, I didn't. I didn't have the team. I couldn't afford the team around me during Covid, to be honest. And I made one phone call doing that, and I booked seven of our properties from one contractor.
[00:17:42] Yeah, it was like 30 grand worth of bookings or something silly. And it was just from, just from asking that one question. .
[00:17:50] Liam: Well, one of the things I always say to people is there's always somebody looking for property in your area. You know the demand, doesn't it? It never flatlines. There's always a level of demand.
[00:17:59] [00:18:00] It's just finding where then people are and who needs your property, and that sounds as though that's exactly what you've done during covid and also weekly with people that you are always finding your next point of demand by, by, by reaching out to people, which is, which is cool. So one of the things which strikes me, David, with, with, with, with yourself, David, is.
[00:18:17] You've kind of gone on this journey of, you know, like you say from, uh, employed to then doing, uh, rent to rent, uh, rent arbitrage to then, then, you know, converting some of the buy-to-lets, and you are always very, uh, forward thinking with the next, um, the next opportunity. So I've got two questions, uh, off the back of that one.
[00:18:39] When would you advise for, for people listening? When should you start considering, um, my camera's gone off . Um, yeah. When would you start considering using those, um, you know, alternative methods? Like you say you now got h, m O as as, as an option. Is it something that somebody really early on should start to map that out?
[00:18:59] Or is it as the [00:19:00] opportunities come along? And then the second part of that question is, are there any opportunities at the moment which most people aren't thinking about that you think. You know, something that you think people should be thinking about.
[00:19:12] Dave: Wow, that's a big question. . Let me hit the first, lemme hit the first one first.
[00:19:16] So I'm gonna use the D word here. And that is, it depends. Okay. So it depends on, um, we've got your camera back now. . Yeah.
[00:19:25] Liam: I'm back in the room with you swapped
[00:19:26] Dave: cameras. We're in . You look better on that camera, mate.
[00:19:31] Liam: Really? I, I should have, I, I should have, uh, kept to this one at the start, .
[00:19:36] Dave: Um, right. So it depends.
[00:19:38] It depends what your bus, what, what you, what your end goal is. Okay. What you want your business to be. Um, for us, we're just about diversifying and, and getting ourselves into a position where we're not reliant on one particular business. We want multiple businesses that can, that we can diversify in. So if we have a.
[00:19:56] You know, a change in the economic climate or something [00:20:00] happens, we've got, you know, a number of different moving parts that we can move on to. And it's just, it's just about diversifying. One thing I will say, um, in terms of your, your, your systems and the systemization in a business, and again, businesses, in my humble opinion, um, it's not my humble opinion.
[00:20:19] It's loads of people's opinion. I used to work with like really high end, um, consultants on this stuff in, in the home improvements business. Every, every business or every pro process, every process in the business has like a stage, step by step process. Okay? It's really important that you get those processes in place at the beginning and get the systems to kind of, uh, follow up on that.
[00:20:45] And most businesses will follow a very similar path. They'll just have. Adjustments in those, in, in those processes. So for, for example, our service accommodation business has a step-by-step process and a systemized approach to going from, you know, [00:21:00] your lead all the way up to your customer going out, and then the aftercare and the follow up marketing that goes behind that.
[00:21:05] It's exactly the same for hmo, and it's exactly the same for a Bette. With some slightly, slightly different tweaks rather than having, you know, people coming through all the time, you'll have a tendency for six months. Mm-hmm. , but it's the same process. So going from a service accommodation business and having that process all kind of lined up, then putting that into a buy to let an hate chip mo business, it's a whole different ballgame when you go from doing that very complicated service accommodation or s t R strategy back to a buy to let, and it's game changing for, you know, letting agencies.
[00:21:40] I'm sure. Did I answer the question then? I'm not quite sure I did. Yeah, yeah. No, you did.
[00:21:44] Liam: In terms of every business, you know, when should you consider? Well, it depends, but it's just being conscious of the, you know, the format of most businesses. You know, which is your, you know, where are your leads coming from, where are your conversions, where is your delivery and, and that sort of thing.
[00:21:58] So that's really cool. [00:22:00] Um, you mentioned that, you know, it's important to have systems and tech, and this is one thing, whenever I think of yourself, Dave, I always think. Awesome tech systems. You, you, you, you really put a lot of emphasis on that. Um, would you be able to share. Tech you use within your business or what your, uh, short-term stay business uses, and, uh, are there any bits which really has, you know, revolutionized the
[00:22:24] Dave: business?
[00:22:25] Yeah, so we're just going through a bit of a transformation at the moment actually. Um, we, we did used to use, um, Trello, um, for a lot of the, the sort of stage by stage processing. , we've, we've changed now and we're using something called monday.com. Mm-hmm. and, um, you know Harry don't you, Harry? I know Harry, yeah.
[00:22:45] Yeah. So he was a mentee of ours. He went through the processes and we quite quickly found out that he was better at the kind of systemizing stuff and doing the, the bits than we were. So I guy under my wing, now he is now a business partner of mine and he's building [00:23:00] out a complete process for our whole business.
[00:23:02] Both the lettings, the HMOs, and the, um, the SA business on monday.com. Nice. You've got a really good setup for all of it. I mean, it's quite, you've gotta customize it all and you've gotta have some of these very, um, tech minded to be able to do that. Um, but we also integrate things like Slack. Um, you, I'm sure you use that.
[00:23:22] Um, we use uplifting as our channel manager. She's great. Channel manager. Vinny is Vinny's fantastic. Vinny Braman. Um, Probably missing off the stuff now. Um, what else do we use? Slack You, so you want your communication tool for all your, for all your people. You want your channel manager for your bookings.
[00:23:43] Um, and then monday.com is just like a CRM or a store for everything else that goes on in your business. And it's great for project managing. It's, it's great for even things like linen, doing your linen counts and it's got everything in there. HR has everyth. Um,
[00:23:59] Liam: like you say [00:24:00] that you've got the main ones covered there, but a lot of people don't put enough emphasis onto that organizational tool, especially as, as they grow, do they?
[00:24:07] So it's one of the things which I've found, you know, when you're starting off, you don't even need necessarily a PMs. You can use the OTAs and that, but as, as you grow, you get PMs, and then as you get a bit bigger, sometimes that pmms doesn't have some of the day-to-day organizational stuff. Yeah. You know, around the cleaners or, or even around.
[00:24:24] Hey, I want to make sure I've built out this, this funnel or this communication or this task within in the work. And so having that, uh, monday.com, it sounds as though that's what it it does. And you used Trello in the past was,
[00:24:35] Dave: uh, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, with the, with as, as you grow, when you get bigger, there's, there's things that start creaking.
[00:24:42] So we used to use, um, to keep. When you got to about 30 properties, it started creaking a little bit. And, but it also had some really good tools that, that we didn't get with up uplifting, up, uplifting are working on now actually. Um, but then we've implemented other things like clipfolio in the background, which is another [00:25:00] like KPI tool, which we don't use now cause we use in Mundane instead.
[00:25:03] Um, but it's, it, I suppose it's. You've gotta continuously be thinking about, right, well, what's, what's coming next? What have we got coming up in the future? How can we now build the next stage of our system? What do we need to change? And you continuously on a, you continuously on top of those, that systemization stuff and making sure that everything works for you.
[00:25:25] Who's melting as well? That's another one that we. Yeah, we,
[00:25:28] Liam: MailChimp is great, isn't it? For, for retarget and remarketing, uh, to, to guests on the CR CRM format. But the, um, I, I think it's so important that the point that you've just made of as, as you grow what you need now, You build and you might need to dismantle certain parts of it to grow.
[00:25:46] And you mentioned that you're going through kind of a bit of a change at the moment. And I guess part of that is, is you recently rebranded. Can you talk us through why the rebrand and what the, what the aim and the, the result is gonna be?
[00:25:59] Dave: Yeah, [00:26:00] so well, couple, couple of reasons for the rebrand. Really main reason was that um, we had a business called Copper.
[00:26:06] And, um, somebody else trademarked it. . Ah, okay. in the background started after us. They trademarked their copper house and, um, we thought it was a bit of a risk carrying on doing, using that. Um, so we rebranded to what we feel now is a much more fitting brand to our business culture and our customer and all that sort of stuff.
[00:26:29] Um, We've rebranded to noki, um, N O K I. Um, now you'll, you'll probably know, uh, my actual business behind everything that we do is called Iconic Service Accommodation. I K A O N I C. Um, No, my, my, the guy, one of my business partners as a marketer, he went through this massive branding exercise and we all sat in a room for a day and went through all these different things and we were trying to come up for, with a name.
[00:26:59] And, [00:27:00] uh, he, he, he killed. He killed, I killed it. And he, he hates me for it. So I was just like, well, what's, no, what's iconic backwards? And we come up with Syno, which was like, let's put Syno in, in, um, in Google. And it came up as like this beach on in Indonesia. Mm-hmm. . But it was a shithole, it was , it was a horrendous beach.
[00:27:21] Said we can't call it that. So what's Noki? What does that kind of say? So we went in and noki is a Japanese word for an eaves on a. Oh, nice. It was quite a fit, quite fit in. Um, and no key as well. It's kind of like, well, a lot of our new apart hotels and stuff, keyless, entry, all that sort of stuff. And it seemed like it just felt right and the Japanese culture as well, calm, serenity, very clean.
[00:27:50] And it all kind of just fell in place. Um, but it was just iconic backwards, .
[00:27:56] Liam: Nice. That's, I'm glad we got the story behind it because I, I did wonder, I saw it spring [00:28:00] up on social media and, uh, Yeah, I did wonder. I, I love how it is more modern and instantly to my mind, I thought you were gonna say it's because we don't use keys anymore.
[00:28:08] It's no key, you know, that side of things. But I
[00:28:10] Dave: kinda just fell in place as well, sort of look rather than judgment, I suppose. ,
[00:28:16] Liam: one of the, um, things which I've always noticed is, is, you know, your journey on social media and, uh, you've always shared, I mean, I can remember, you know, for, for last few years, and for anybody who goes check you out, there's, there's videos which go back where you walking your dog and you're sharing the challenge from.
[00:28:31] That stage like years ago and that side of things. How important has, um, social media been towards your journey?
[00:28:38] Dave: Oh, massively important. I mean, the social media, like Facebook and Instagram and stuff like that has, has its value. Uh, mo the most value social media that I do, those been, um, clubhouse and the, that we talk property club that we have, uh, from the, the property coffee.
[00:28:56] We started that a couple of years ago. Um, and [00:29:00] the, the kind of the people that I've networked with, the people that I've met and the people that I do business with today, um, it's just been absolutely massive. From that, it's helped me grow like the, the people that I would never have normally met, you know, because been up in Chester, we'd.
[00:29:20] You know, you can go to networking events and stuff like that, but being able to be on a platform where you can speak to somebody there and then and ask them a question and get a really good answer for it has been massive. And then the networking that goes on outside of that as well, that's been the, the one of the, well call it pivotal moment if you like.
[00:29:38] Um, and that's been the biggest thing for me in the. Yeah, couple of years has been able to network with those people and share on social media my journey, but then also take on board from other people that are miles ahead of me, um, what they're doing as well, and implement that. that
[00:29:56] Liam: that really does show, because like you say, one of the, [00:30:00] one of the people we, uh, we look up to saying the network is, is your net worth.
[00:30:03] And that is one of the things which is just so true that having the right people around you, um, yeah. If, uh, for the people who, what, why should somebody listening consider doing Eva mentorship training or getting involved in, in these networks where, where you have the opportunity to do.
[00:30:22] Dave: So what, so look, this, this is a really simple answer.
[00:30:26] Getting educated or networking with people that have been where you have been before. What, sorry? Been where you've been before. That's the wrong saying. . Um, p Being with people that are in the place that you would like to be in the future. Where else can you get that? Where you're just gonna ask them a question they're gonna know instantly and tell you.
[00:30:47] So I have this saying that you can either pay for your education, And get where you wanna be and do it in a really streamlined fashion and get there quicker. Or you can pay for your education fu [00:31:00] fu through, through, through mistakes, because one way or the other you're gonna pay for it. But for me, I would much prefer to have that laser focused and get there in a streamlined way, rather than making all the mistakes and whatever.
[00:31:14] Let somebody else do that. Pay somebody else to teach you and you will grow so much quick. And it opens your mind as well to different aspects. You know what you think is possible when you start speaking to other people. Like it goes so much further. And then when you get to that, you get to a certain stack or the bubble, you get to this certain size, the bubble bursts, and you go, oof, what's all this little space out here?
[00:31:40] Then it happens again and again and again. And we were talking about it before we started, right? If I'd have asked you, you know, two years ago, And where you're at now, you'd have been well over the moon with that, right? Yeah. But now you're there. You're like, oh, what else can I do? Yeah,
[00:31:59] Liam: it's, it's the [00:32:00] classic, um, I think Steve Jobs said this easy.
[00:32:02] Looking back, you can see those steps, but looking forward, it's never very clear, is it? And exactly like we were saying beforehand, you kind of see in the path of the next couple of years of where, where the journey entrepreneurial journey's gonna take you in short-term rental and, and otherwise it's not easy going, looking forward.
[00:32:20] But the same should happen again. And I Is there anything on, on that note then? Is there anything, if you could go back, classic question. If you could go back, what would you, I, is there any advice you'd give yourself or anything you'd change? Um, if
[00:32:32] Dave: you could go back Yeah. A hundred percent I'd, the, the advice I'd give to myself is, get started earlier.
[00:32:39] Mm-hmm. in short term rentals or property. Just start earlier. Get educated a lot earlier as well. I'd have been a lot further ahead than I am now. Not that, not that I'm unhappy where I am. I'm, I feel blessed from what I've got and where I've, where I've come from. Um, but I could have been a lot further ahead if I'd had [00:33:00] done it earlier.
[00:33:01] Mm-hmm. and got educated at the same time and, and, and rubbed shoulders with those people that you know that are gonna help you. That's great advice.
[00:33:09] Liam: And, uh, Dave, there's so much more that if, if we have time, that I'd love to dive into the apartment hotel. You mentioned earlier on there, there's so many opportunities and, and things.
[00:33:17] Um, but you know, as, as we come towards the end of these, we'd love to do a couple of quick fire questions, just for fun, just to find out a bit more about you. So the answer can be short as long as you like, and then we'll let everybody know how they can get in touch with you as well. So, um, yeah, quick fire questions then.
[00:33:32] So, um, uh, how do you spend your leisure time? What's your hobby?
[00:33:37] Dave: Oh, wow. Um, leisure time. So I like to skate when the opportunity arises, so I skate. But one, one of the biggest things I do is just binge on sit Netflix series or Disney stuff, and I'm, I'm, I'm a sucker for it. So Star Wars, um, oh God. Any, [00:34:00] anything, uh, Marvel, all that sort of stuff, I can just, I can sometimes just sit over weekend.
[00:34:06] And just binge for hours and hours and hours, and I think sounds like a really shit hobby. But , it works for me. It helps me switch off. I like to spend a lot of time with my family as well, my little girl and my, um, my fiance. Um, it's massive for me. Making sure the family time is, is planned in every week.
[00:34:26] Liam: Hey, I love that. And that's, do you know what it's, we shouldn't feel guilty about the stuff we enjoy at the end of the day, if you enjoy it, I mean, I, I love Netflix. Uh, just a quick follow up to that. What is, what's the thing you're watching at the moment? What should everyone go and check out?
[00:34:37] Dave: What am I watching at the moment?
[00:34:38] Um, I'm into the new and or series, the Star Wars. So the, do you think Star do all those little miniseries, have you seen them like the, so you had the Mandalorian Bobba Fe Now's Andor, which is kind of like before the Rebell. Just before the rebellion started, started and all that sort of stuff. Really sad, [00:35:00] but I absolutely love it.
[00:35:01] I don't care.
[00:35:02] Liam: People think I'm gonna, I, I watched the first episode of that last night, so I am gonna binge that this weekend. So I'm right there with you. It
[00:35:07] takes
[00:35:08] Dave: a bit of time to, to get into it. I, I watched the first couple of series and I, uh, sorry, the first couple of episodes, and I found it a little bit slow, but I found that with quite a lot of the, um, the Star Wars series.
[00:35:19] But after you get into like the third, fourth, fifth episode, it starts getting better and better. So, yes, stick with it. It's one
[00:35:25] Liam: on the, on one on the watch list. Um, what's one thing that you think that everybody should read? Who's listening a book or, um,
[00:35:32] Dave: right. I've got a couple of books, right, which have been massive for me, for me personally, and for my businesses.
[00:35:39] So, and I can't pick between the two, so I'm gonna give you both of them, and they're both by the same author. The first one is called Rocket Fuel by Gino Wick. Um, and essentially that's all about visionaries and, um, integrators and working out who you are as who you are as a person, um, which is massive for me.[00:36:00]
[00:36:00] Um, and then the second book, and read them in succession. So do Rocket Fuel first, and then the next one is Traction, and that's by Gino Wickman as well. And Traction's got this thing called the entrepreneurial operating. It helps you plan out the kind of ne next 10 years and how your business, you know, how to work out, you know, your processes in your business, the type of people you have in them.
[00:36:25] Just a fantastic books. And they, they were given to me by Rob Moore when I was doing my, um, one-to-one mentoring with him. Do you know,
[00:36:32] Liam: I'm gonna, they'll be the downloads on Audible straight after this. And I'm sure many people watching the live or or listening Will will be downloading those two. So traction and uh, what was the other one?
[00:36:42] Rocket Fuel. Rocket
[00:36:43] Dave: Fuel. Rocket Fuel. Gina Wickman, g i n o. Wickman.
[00:36:47] Liam: Awesome. Um, what did you wanna be
[00:36:49] Dave: growing up? What did I wanna be growing up? Uh, I wanted to be an accountant strangely. One stupid [00:37:00] thing. I used to really enjoy counting money, but I didn't realize that when I had a piggy bank, I used to really enjoy counting money.
[00:37:07] Obviously is what account does, but , hey. Yes. I thought that that was what an accountant, that's what I wanted. So I wanted to be an accountant. Um, hey,
[00:37:15] Liam: it's, it's kind of, it's a nice thing to count money, I mean, in general, isn't it? Actually.
[00:37:18] Dave: Couldn't think of anything more boring than me , to be honest. But they,
[00:37:22] Liam: uh, always an interesting one.
[00:37:24] Um, last two questions. So what celebrity would you love to meet? And then we'll end with our classic, classic
[00:37:29] Dave: question. Ooh, what celebrity would I love to. Tom Jones is cool, isn't he?
[00:37:35] Liam: He is. Do you know, I've, I've been lucky enough to see him live in concert a few times. He is, uh,
[00:37:40] Dave: he's got some think of the stories.
[00:37:41] He, but you're sitting in a room with him. Just, I just, just imagine the stories he'd be able to tell you. Um, I think
[00:37:50] Liam: that's a very British answer as well. Tom Jones, you know, that is like, that's great. He's the
[00:37:54] Dave: alive one. The, the, I suppose a celebrity that's dead would be Steve Jobs. I'd love to kind of [00:38:00] get into his head.
[00:38:01] Um, I know he. You have a lot of regrets on his deathbed, but you know, the, the, the business brain behind that guy has just been, yeah. Fantastic. So yeah, Tom Jones and Steve Jobs couldn't be .
[00:38:15] Liam: Yeah, they're slightly different. There's great answers. Hope you might, and one, one way we always love to end the show is, is by asking Eva, well, we asked a couple of different questions, but for yourself, Dave, what mantra do you live?
[00:38:30] Dave: Okay, so good question. Consistency is key. So consistency is key. It's the boring, mundane things that you do on a regular basis that will help you grow, not the exciting stuff. And along with consistency is key. Um, action equals results.
[00:38:50] Liam: You can't have the, uh, results without the no matter. Yeah, no matter anything if you're not taking action.
[00:38:55] So what a great way to, to bring it to a close Dave. So for, for people listening, [00:39:00] what, what's the best way to, to get in touch with you if they want to, to reach out with you and find out more?
[00:39:04] Dave: Um, so we're across all socials, but um, I've got one link that covers everything, which is, which is Malin. Link, um, I dunno if you've got that in the chat or I've, I've got
[00:39:15] Liam: it here for the people on the podcast.
[00:39:17] I'll just read it out and then we'll also add it to the show notes. So if you're watching on YouTube or watching the live, we'll add it to, to the comments, which is Link Tre and that's l i n k T R dot e e. Slash Dave, d a v e, Goodfellow, which is g o o d f e l l o w. And uh, yeah, you can check out all of his links there, which is, is amazing.
[00:39:40] So, um, yeah. Well, I hope everybody who's listening has enjoyed, uh, this, this podcast and for the live. Um, I know you can put your attention in many places, so I thank you for, for putting your attention with Bruce Lee and checking out all the things that we do. For those who want find out more about Boley, you can go and find out more about us at Boley, which is b o [00:40:00] s tl y.co.uk.
[00:40:02] Um, David, was there any questions or anything, uh, you wanted to share? Anything I missed before we bring it to a close? I don't think
[00:40:08] Dave: so. I think we've covered everything There am more so great interviewing, Liam. Thank you. Didn't it? Wouldn't expect anything else from you, but listen, thanks for having me on.
[00:40:17] Really appreciate you giving me the time to come and share my story with all the. Podcast, Bruce Lee, YouTube, whatever it is. You've got everything, haven't you? ? So thank you very much.
[00:40:28] Liam: Appreciate it. Thank you so much for spending your time, uh, with us and uh, okay everyone, well let's bye from Dave and uh, let's bye from me too.
[00:40:35] So, uh, we'll catch up to you. Catch catch up with you on the next one. Thanks and uh, bye for now.
[00:40:40] Dave: Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee led Bruce Lee cuz it's so hard on the tee is loose leaf picking up those rhymes? Don't write it, just do it loosely.
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