Intro
[00:00:00] Mark: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening and welcome everybody to a very special episode of the Boosley podcast because there are no guests, and there's no talking about new things. This is just talking about the latest steps of Boostly and as you know, I like to document the journey. that we have been going through over the years.
[00:00:16] We're now seven years in, which is phenomenal. Um, and I just wanted to give a little bit of an update on where we are. So Boostly right now, uh, we are at 52 members of staff and growing. We have generated in the last 14 to 15 months, 15 million direct bookings for our client's websites. And the community is growing and growing and growing.
[00:00:40] We're touching 2, 500 hosts, uh, members, which means there are about 10, 000 listings that are currently being running through Boosley as we speak, and that's what is being tracked. We are moving to a method where every single listing and person that we impact and help is tracked. We're working towards that.
We’ve grown
[00:00:58] To give you a bit of context, 13 months ago, um, before I read Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz, we were probably about 20, just under 20 members of staff, and now we've grown to 52.
[00:01:11] That book has helped us exponentially grow to the level that we are at now, but there becomes a problem, and this is the problem that we currently have within Boosley. When we grow, the team grows, and the more Heads and bums that you add on seats, virtual seats, bearing in mind, we haven't got an office.
[00:01:29] We're all virtual, um, problems can occur. And we have grown very quickly because of the demand that has been growing for diary bookings. And one of the things that I've been working to do over the last seven years is to verbiage diary bookings. So when somebody says diary bookings, I think of Bruce Lee.
[00:01:46] Just like what Airbnb has done with short-term rentals, I've tried to verbiage that with, Direct Bookings, which is fantastic because we can get more people involved. Now, the mission, which is why, you know, I have to adapt my role within Boostly is to get the attention of the OTAs. I need to get the attention of the Bookins Holiday Group, the Airbnb Group, and the Expedia Group, and my ultimate mission and ultimate goal, the big goal is to get a seat at the table so that hosts can have a say in all the decisions that they bring him.
[00:02:15] And I want it to be a third party, which is us, which will be all about direct bookings so that we don't get left behind. Now, for me to be able to do that, I need to make sure that the day-to-day running of Boostly is taken care of. And this next book that I have just been reading is called Traction, which is massively going to impact the future.
[00:02:33] Now, the current problem that we have within our system is that I believe that we are too much in the business. And that Um, the communication post website going live is a current bottleneck. Our communication as we stand is broken and I apologize for that. If you've been caught up in this, if you are a Bruce Lee member, our communication is not where I want it to be.
[00:02:54] Now, this is not to belittle any member of staff. These are the tools and the systems that I have given you, what we've put in place is not right for the next level of Boostly. We could handle it when it was 10 members of staff, when it was under a thousand members, when it was, you know, all of the things that it wasn't now.
[00:03:12] But as we've grown, we've not adapted. And as much as I like to think that we've improved other areas I believe now the project management team, the onboarding, the build is phenomenal. I believe the tools that we've created to help with that, with the API connections, I feel like it's one of the best out there.
[00:03:29] I feel like with the coaching that, you know, we've brought Liam Carolan and closely into the, to the unit, he's running the coaching and the masterminds, which is fantastic. I know, but, the CRM and the thing that we've built out there is, is going to help revolutionize it.
Communication is key Â
[00:03:41] But there's another problem, and that's just communication. And so this is what I'm telling you now. This is what we are going to fix next. Um, I'm
[00:03:48] a massive fan of who not how. So instead of me trying to work out, like, how am I? How are we going to fix this with the leadership team that we have that I believe is working too much in the business and within the bottle, it's sometimes hard to see where the problems are.
[00:04:02] So we have gone, who can we bring in? So we're bringing a person from the outside, an expert in somebody that helps teams get rid of problems, make sure that the, the tools and the systems and the software and the things that you've got in place, the SOPs are correct. Now that will take time. It's not going to be a quick fix.
[00:04:19] It's not going to be a slap your fingers and it's done. It's going to take time. So what I ask from everybody, whether you're somebody who's just on the, on the, on the sidelines of joining Boostly, you've just joined, or you've been with us for a while. bear with us while we make these changes. Again, I have documented everything about Boostly ever since day one, you can go back and find all the videos where we talk about Boostly from 2016 to 17 to where we are today, and I look forward to doing the next video in a couple of years where we document even more of the journey as we are getting towards this big goal, but every business isn't perfect.
Need a bit of reflection
[00:04:52] Every business needs to have a little bit of reflection point and I can all only but give good words about, you know, Wickman traction. I feel like I'm such a late bloomer on it. So many people recommended it to me and they were right we're implementing the EOS system right now into Boostly and I'm excited to see what we come out of it with that.
[00:05:13] But as we go on, I just want to say to everybody that what everything that we do. Everything that we create, everything that we bring in, everything that we test and tweak is all to affect you. It's to impact you, it's to impact your business. Again, I want everybody to get the two C's back into their business.
[00:05:34] Control and confidence. When you've got confidence in your business, you've got control. When you've got control of the business, you've got confidence that you will be able to run this and grow it without the OTAs. Okay, so with that being said, under a 10-minute episode. Wanted to give everybody an update on where we are, obviously right now.
Thank you
[00:05:52] Um, thank you to everybody who is joining us on this journey. Thank you to
[00:05:56] Everybody
[00:05:56] Mark: that is, is, uh, trusting us to get their website up and running live and functioning and taking direct bookings to everybody who's coming to the coaching and the masterminds for everybody who follows who buys the books and all those cool things.
[00:06:08] Thank you very much. And I am looking forward to repaying it all to you in the future. Take care. Having a blast, gonna get it on the Boostly podcast. Boostly like Bruce Lee, cause it's so hard and the T is loose. Makin' up those rhymes, don't write it, just do it loosely.
