Welcome to Boostly Podcast Episode 436. This is a recap of my Facebook live where I talked about how Airbnb cannot beat you at this ONE thing.
Here's the audio for this episode:
Here's the video for this episode:
Timestamp
00:00 Start
00:10 A tip and an encouragement for you
01:30 Visit the Hospitality Community
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Visual – YouTube
Audio – Boostly Podcast
Transcript from the Episode
Welcome to the new and improved Boostly podcast. And as always, my name is Mark Simpson, I give hosts just like you to tools, the tactics of training, but most importantly, the confidence to get direct bookings.
A tip and an encouragement for you
And in today's video and podcast, I want to give you a little tip. And this is a bit of encouragement, is it the one thing that Airbnb doesn't have in its arsenal, when it wants to try and expand and grow in an area, and that's the connections, that's the local network, that's the chance for you as a host to go and do what Airbnb can which has become the go-to in your area is an Airbnb, booking.com, VRBO. You know, these big companies Sykes, they're massive, they're huge. They've got call centers all over Airbnb, one of the biggest OTAs out there.
But when it comes to your local area, your local network, your local chambers of commerce, your local BNI meetings can be your local tourism's groups, they can't be in, they can't get in there, you can. And when you start to become the go-to guy in your area. And it's so powerful, the networks, the connections, the bookings, the relationships that you can build by just sitting on a couple of meetings, once a month, or once a quarter is so powerful.
Just imagine if you were able to go to four out of 10 BNI meetings over the course of the next three months. Or if you can maybe go to your local chambers of commerce, or your tourism, depending on where you are in the world. And just sit at these meetings and just meet other hosts, meet other business owners in your area, start to build it, build those connections, the power of referrals, and building a business-to-business network is so so powerful for your business.
Visit the Hospitality Community
And if you doubt that, all you need to do is to go into the hospitality community and ask the question, there are so many people who years and weeks and months and days of full with referral business from other local hosts from other local businesses, sometimes you can get a big contractor booking because simply by knowing the people associated to that deal, they sent bookings to you.
So if you do me one thing this year, please make sure that you try and build a local network, I call it the becoming the go-to, you can call it what you like, you can start by joining local Facebook groups, you can start by going to your local business network Institute otherwise known as BNI. Just go to bni.com. Find your local one.
I know it's hard when you're first starting to think how am I going to fit it around life and business and, and all of that. But if you can spend that little bit of time growing these networks growing these relationships in your area, in your local area where your properties are, in one year's time, your business will be so different.
As always, I throw the mic over to you I probe a podcast over to you jump into the comments. Now let me know what you're doing to build your local network in your area. Tell me the means that you go into Facebook groups that you're a part of, and let us know the results. And let's see if we can have a little brain dump discussion about this.
I'll be back very soon for another busy podcast episode. As always, please make sure that you're subscribed and you share this with hosts all over. If you haven't yet downloaded the audio version jump into Apple or Spotify right now. If you're not yet on the YouTube channel or on Instagram, LinkedIn Pinterest, you name it. My goal is to help 1 million hosts cut down on their overreliance on the OTAs and boost direct bookings.
If you've not yet picked up a copy of the book direct playbook. Please do so it's on Amazon right now. best seller on Amazon Best Seller and Kindle bestseller in print and soon to be best seller in audible as well as please keep it at the top of the charts. Keep it above all those air b&b books. And let's go and boost your direct bookings.
I'll be back very soon. As always, thanks for stopping by. Let's stay proactive. Don't be reactive. Let's go and get some direct bookings.
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