Scale Rentals Week: What Did You Miss?

Welcome to our latest podcast episode!

In this episode of the Boostly podcast, Mark talks about how he recently attended the Scale Rentals Show, also known as the Short Stay Week or the Book Direct Show, in Barcelona, Spain. The event lasted for five days and consisted of various conferences each day. Mark shares his top takeaways from the event and expresses gratitude to the organizers and sponsors. He discusses the different conferences and speakers he encountered, including topics such as search engine optimization (SEO), web development, influencer marketing, and communication strategies in the hospitality industry. Mark also mentions his own participation as a speaker, where he talked about the importance of sales and customer service in the context of the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the hospitality industry. Mark concludes by highlighting the success of an after-party boat event he organized with the help of sponsors, providing an opportunity for networking and creating lasting connections among attendees. The Scale Rentals Show proved to be a valuable experience and an opportunity to learn from and engage with industry professionals.

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Transcript from the Episode

Intro

[00:00:00] Mark: Welcome back to the Boostly podcast, and I have just got back from spending a full week in Barcelona, Spain for the Scale Rentals Show, otherwise known as the Shortt Stay Week, otherwise known as the book direct show. This was an event and a half. First and foremost, it was a five-day event, with different conferences every single day.

[00:00:26] Mark: And as you can tell, from five days of conferences, from the book Direct Show to Scales Rental, to Exit to Touch Day, to Web three to SEO, and everything else in between. So got some little Boostly tired eyes here. But this podcast, what I wanted to do was to just give you my sort of top takeaways. And, um, also as well to give some massive shout-outs in this episode.

[00:00:46] Mark: So let's get started. If you are new here, if you are coming in from, uh, watching the Scales Rental, or if your first time you've checked out the video or the podcast, please, please, please do me a massive favour. Hit that subscribe button. Make sure you give this video likes, and if you are listening to the audio, then share it with somebody around the world.

[00:01:04] Mark: This podcast at the moment is just tipping a hundred thousand downloads every single month, which when I first started seven years ago, and it was just five people, one of them was my mum. Uh, I never thought it would get to this level. YouTube has just topped. I'll get very close to topping 5,000 subscribers, which gives me the confidence to keep on going, talking about the book direct method, the book direct movement, and all the tips and tricks and tactics and all those cool things in between.

What did the week consist of?

[00:01:29] Mark: So let's get started. Monday of the, uh, short stay Week Scales Rentals week. Um, I flew into Barcelona late on Sunday. Um, I flew in, I landed in the airport hotel because I was too, uh, late to get into Central Barcelona. And what I did is I popped on the TV just like Barcelona Football Club. We were about to win the championship, the La Liga Championship.

[00:01:53] Mark: Um, and as you can imagine, There was a lot of fun and games going on at the hotel. It was a great atmosphere. Got my head down, woke up the next morning and then got into the centre of Barcelona. So the event was held at the World Trade Center, right in the slap bank centre, right down by the port of, uh, Barcelona.

[00:02:10] Mark: Great venue, loads of things happening, and the first day was, a nice little warmup. So in the morning, There was the, uh, SCR Summit of Scales Rentals. We had, uh, people like Craig Webb Nava from, uh, flying Cat Marketing. We had Jan from Logger. Uh, we had Zach from spontaneously talking about SCR tactics and, you know, it was a small room.

[00:02:33] Mark: Small crowd, but the advice in there was, was good. Um, there are a lot of questions as you can imagine about AI chat, G P T and how that is going to disrupt SCR. But the message was consistent throughout. Know your audience. Know who you are writing to create good, consistent content. Google and Bing will pick you up in the afternoon.

[00:02:59] Mark: Two conferences was going on. There was a web free, uh, with Luca from, uh, from the Fantastic Trips community. I got to meet Cynthia from De Travel who, uh, we co-authored the book Direct Blueprint together. Uh, but also as well, it was fantastic to find out about some, uh, new companies like Trend, which is taking reviews into the blockchain.

[00:03:20] Mark: Getting rid of scummy reviews, fake reviews, and having it with a, in the blockchain world, which was very interesting to me to see. But down in the main room, we had a tough day. So touch day took over the whole afternoon and out the whole week. And I've said this to them and I'll say it again on the podcast and, and on a video, it was my favourite part of the whole week, the free hours that Tyann and Kate had.

[00:03:45] Mark: And Alice and, and Emma and the whole team put together was, was insightful. Um, so much so that I'm trying to get Tyn to come on to the Booley podcast and to, uh, document her communications flow to her guest when they check into the property because it is next level. And, you know, I've been talking about it to a lot of people ever since.

[00:04:07] Mark: So, um, Hopefully, they do it again. Hopefully, they put on their event and, uh, that they can walk you through it because it wasn't just the, the communication flow, but it was, um, the one I I also liked as well that stood out for me was the influencer marketing chat from, from Alice. Um, one of the first times that Alice has got up on a stage in front of a hospitality crowd and done this talk and, you know, it was, it was enlightening, it was funny, it was educational.

[00:04:31] Mark: You know, I had a massive amount of fun. Uh, during that, during that day we did a game of how closely are you connected to, uh, Brian Chesky, which was a lot of fun. You had to be there to know it and um, yeah, really, really fun. Got a lot out of it. And then in the nighttime, we went for a lovely meal right down by the Ramblas, basically because Barcelona had won.

[00:04:52] Mark: The league the night before. Um, the next day they were doing a parade around the city to celebrate it with the fans. And, uh, I went for a meal with the fantastic team at Touch Day, plus a few other, uh, people, and they managed to book a restaurant that was right next to the, where the, the whole team and the fans were celebrating in, in, in the middle of the Ramblas.

[00:05:13] Mark: Um, and. It was entertaining and say the least. There were fans everywhere, fireworks going off, fireworks setting off just outside the cafe. It was an amazing meal. Um, lots of tapas. It was, it was really beautiful. But, it made for an entertaining evening. Um, had a lot of fun. And again, that was one of my takeaways,, of the whole week was to, was to see that.

[00:05:33] Mark: Day two, which was Tuesday, was the book direct day. And again, this is one of the main reasons that I flew into the event. One of the main reasons I took part in the event was to speak at this. Um, you know, we had some amazing speakers and presentations nearly. Neely Cann is always producing something that gets people thinking, not just on a business level, but on an emotional level.

My talk and after party

[00:05:55] Mark: Um, and we had, uh, Daniella, who was talking about business with WhatsApp, and uh, we had Heather Bayer who closed out the day, uh, talking about really focusing on your niche. And then, uh, before Heather, I got up and talked about the one hire that every business doesn't have that is needed. I need to work on the title.

[00:06:15] Mark: It was my first ever time doing it. I'll be totally honest. I felt let down in myself with my performance of the talk because again, it was my first time doing it. It was like a, it didn't feel, it didn't feel as good as the other ones that I have done over the past sort of year or 14 months. I enjoyed it as always, as I love doing every talk.

[00:06:35] Mark: I try and make it fun. We did, um, We did rock, paper, scissors. I threw sweets out. We did the s st R shot, which is the tequila shot. If you don't know what that is, please go and check out my video from Nashville. And also as well, uh, before we even started the talk, I got everybody to write down on a piece of paper, the worst, the funniest, the most gruels thing that a guest has left behind after their stay.

[00:06:56] Mark: Um, and I read. The best answer is out at the end and the person won a very special prize that we'll talk about in a second, which was a lot of fun. Uh, we recorded it. The video is out on socials now. You can go check that out if you want to giggle, and it'll be in a separate video. But yeah, overall I'd give my talk.

[00:07:13] Mark: Five out 10, to be perfectly honest. Um, I enjoyed it. It was only 30 minutes, but I feel like I could have done a lot, a lot better. And I will tweak that and I will bring that back at some point in, in the future because it is something that we need to talk about now. Uh, it all boils down to sales, customer service.

[00:07:28] Mark: Um, those two things are going to be key moving forward as we move into more of an AI world. In, hospitality. Tuesday night, um, was something that I wanted to, pull off and William wanted to make special. Um, when we go to events, you know, you are given so much advice. You have so many conversations, you're to do so many things, but you know, you have to do something special if you wanna be remembered, and I always say this, nobody remembers what you tell 'em, but they always remember how to make you feel.

[00:07:56] Mark: And so on the choosing night, the organizers, Damien, Jean Paulo, et cetera, they were very kind to gimme that slot to put on an after-party. And I wanted to do something that, you know, it wasn't just drunk in a bar. I wanted to do something that was going to be remembered and the fantastic aver of flying cap marketing and myself, we sort of brainstormed a few ideas and she came back to me with a few options and the best one was a boat party.

[00:08:20] Mark: So what we did is we spoke to a captain of a boat who had this pirate boat that could see up to 60 people, 65 people at most. Uh, they would provide a DJ, provide an open bar, and they would just take us around for a couple of hours around the Mediterranean, around Barcelona so we could get a lovely sunset shot and have a great time with 60 people who are at the event.

[00:08:43] Mark: Fantastic. We then, um, put together a budget. We put together a plan, and uh, then I had, I went out into the world of my little black book and I went to find some sponsors who wanted to help put this event on because it was quite expensive. And, you know, boost Lee is bootstrapped, I don't have that amount of money lying around.

[00:09:01] Mark: And so I went to, um, So people that I know, vendors in the industry, and I said, Hey, we wanna do this. It's gonna be part of the short stay week. Would you like to be part of it with me? And, you know, we sent out a message to a lot of people, but I wanna give a special shout-out to Guesty, to Aird a to touch day and to Safely who all came back.

[00:09:22] Mark: And they kindly agreed to split the cost with, with Boostly. Uh, and, and again, this event wouldn't have happened without them. And I know that everybody on that boat. Had a fantastic time. I know that there was networking going on, friendships were formed, and it was fantastic to see for the rest of the week people who were arriving by themself.

[00:09:41] Mark: Met on the boat, chatted on the boat, got together in their little group, and then throughout the week I, I saw him around the events and going for drinks and stuff afterwards, which is, which is fantastic. And so for me to see that it was a lot to organize, especially getting 60 people on a boat with a secret meeting location point was, Was was very hard, but it was, the payoff was huge and we got a lovely sunset soft shot, a sunset shot at the end, uh, which made it all well, and it's currently up there on the LinkedIn and on the Facebook.

[00:10:07] Mark: So go and check it out. Um, go find Mark Simpson on Facebook or on LinkedIn and you will see that. But again, I wanna say Guesty, thank you so much. It's a fantastic partnering with you. You are a fantastic partner, uh, for the website design business that we do at Boostly. Uh, thank you so much, Aird a, uh, we've just started working together and I'm looking forward to doing more and more events in, in the future touch day.

[00:10:28] Mark: We've worked with Touch Day for years. Part of the book, coho co-authors of the book I Blueprint, and, you know, it's fantastic for them to be part of it and safely, you know, again, just started working with them. Thank you to Will Slickers for making the connection happen. And looking forward to working with you more in the future.

[00:10:42] Mark: Do go check all of their businesses out. Um, if you haven't done so already for your property management software, uh, for pricing, uh, for your digital guidebook and for, you know, protection, guest safety, insurance exception. So fantastic. Uh, really lovely it. And we had a good night. We went out for some drinks afterwards, and then Wednesday and Thursday was all about scale.

[00:11:05] Mark: So scale rentals is exclusively for people that have got more than 25 properties. So the conversation in the room gets to that next level. And I know that the people who go to this event, they say it's their favorite event of the year because you are surrounding yourself with other people are a similar part of their business journey.

[00:11:25] Mark: Going to other events is great, you know, and you know, I love the book Direct Show. I, I love s d I wealth, um, I'm looking forward to going to my first ever Verma and my BiggerPockets events later this year. But the scale rentals is, it attracts a different crowd and it's, it, you know, I get inferior complex B vs.

[00:11:43] Mark: I come away from thinking like, why am I doing this? Why do people even listen to me? Because the conversations in that room, the people that are up on stage, Just the people in general that attend, uh, just absolute demons in their game. They have bossed it, they've levelled up and they're running the show.

[00:12:03] Mark: And I learned so much from just being in there. Uh, whether it was, uh, Louis, Louis Andrews who has got Party OVO network. Talking about how they became the, second most recommended business, on Airbnb. Um, what they do with guest communication flows and uh, and all of that. How they, how they get staffed and just all of that was just fantastic to me.

[00:12:26] Mark: But the one thing that stood out apart from that was he said something that, They only take on properties for their business that they know will generate five-star reviews, like extra extraordinary experience. And that stuck with me because when you're starting in your business, it doesn't matter whether you do website design like Boothy does, or whether you're a host or whatever.

[00:12:46] Mark: You just say yes to everything. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But as you grow, one of the hardest things that everybody teaches you and thing that you have to learn the hard way is you have to say no. There's always a shiny object, and there's always an opportunity, but sometimes saying no opens up a yes to a fantastic opportunity.

[00:13:04] Mark: And that stuck with me definitely from that day. Um, Evan from AI Adaptive is leading the way in machine L, machine learning and ai. He did, an unreal talk about, you know, how the OTAs and the next progression of their journey, what they are doing with machine learning. He,, documented exactly what booking.com have been doing for years.

[00:13:25] Mark: It's why the experience that you get when you go on their site is different to what, you know, I would get or what the next person to you would get. And also as well,, he pinpointed everything that you need to be doing on your direct booking website. So what it looks like, it's given the personalized experience that what is, we're going to be moving into personalized marketing is going to be a thing that a lot of people are gonna be talking about as we go into 2020.

[00:13:52] Mark: Four, 2025. So make sure that you are ahead of that. Um, other talks, Amber, um, she flew in from Orlando. She was, uh, sorry in Florida 48 hours earlier talking at a Verma event. I Flew in and opened up, the Thursday session with, uh, employment Brandon, and again, she's, she's so good at talking. Then, the talk always sticks with you because she crafts a story around it.

[00:14:19] Mark: She's as she's as good as Neely in this retrospective, and she talked about this one little screw for a cost less than 25 p, less than 25 cents that, um, Was a little mistake from a staff member who just didn't do that check that resulted in 50,000 pounds or $50,000 worth of, of damages, and then she brought it back into hospitality.

[00:14:44] Mark: And again, really good talk. If you, if you get an opportunity to see Amber speak, whether it's in America or Europe, uh, any point over next year, I massively recommend that you do so. And then the other thing that I took away from, from the event at scale was, uh, in one of the smaller rooms, so there was the, there was the main stage at the bottom in the main auditorium, and then there was the pod room, and then there was the knowledge room.

A new bill that will impact us all in 2024/2025

[00:15:07] Mark: And on day two on Thursday, um, uh, a lady from Brussels came down and she was being talked about, uh, that and talking about how in 2020. Four or 2025. There is going to be a VAT thing brought in throughout Europe and the UK that's going to impact every single one of us that is in the UK and Europe.

[00:15:37] Mark: The bill is currently being processed now, and uh, what it will mean is that the massive OTAs, Airbnb, booking.com, vrbo, et cetera, they're going to. Be forced to put 20% of that on top of every single booking that comes on their site. So for you as a host, not only will you be paying the 14, 15, and 16% commission, but you'll also then have to be paying another 20% on top of it, which could cut into your p and l.

[00:16:11] Mark: I recommend that you go and look at this cause it's not being talked about enough. I was dragged into that room, uh, by Tim Andrews, Louis's dad from the OVO Network saying, you need to watch and listen to this. And I'm so glad that I did. I wanna find out more about it. But you can start by doing a simple Google search.

[00:16:27] Mark: Just put in, uh, that 20%. Um, t r bookings 2025 2024. Um, go and look at what's being said. Look, they talk about, and I'm gonna do my very best to try and find out as much as I can over the next year to 14 to 16 months. It's not a hundred per cent happening, but a lot of the countries are, um, championing this and it's the hotels that are also this as well.

[00:16:50] Mark: It's gonna impact the impact short-term rental industry. So go check that out. Friday was the, um, the fan finale. A lot of tired eyes, a lot of tired voices, a lot of tired faces in that room. I went along to go and check out the s t r, uh, the Scales Luxury and the scale exit. Those two events.

[00:17:13] Mark: Finished it off, um, really nicely for anybody that is looking to exit their business, exit their hospitality brand. They went through. The documentation, the people that you need in place, and as well, even if you don't want to exit your business, even if you aren't looking to sell, you should be getting these systems and instructions as documents in place.

[00:17:35] Mark: Because at the end of the day, if you can build a business that someone would want to buy, that's not a bad business to have. And bringing this back to dire bookings is that nobody's gonna buy your business if you are solely reliant on one income revenue generating stream. So if you're solely right on Airbnb, no one's gonna be looking at you.

[00:17:56] Mark: They want to see a nice, varied revenue stream of direct Airbnb, booking.com, vrbo, and other OTAs that you may, may, may be part of. So do bear that in mind. Overall, fantastic week. Um, in my honest opinion, one day too many, uh, I think four would've been perfect. I think you can easily cram that into four days and I've given my suggestions on what they could do with the other pod rooms instead of it being, um, just the free rooms and how they can do that.

[00:18:25] Mark: But I've had such a good week. It was fantastic to speak to so many different people from different parts of the industry. The main events that I've been at this year have been the one in Nashville and the one in London. And both of them were, were just like, like a whirlwind. But this week was great because I got, actually got a chance to stop, have a chat with people, uh, without being pulled in several directions, but also as well to be able to watch some talks, a couple of other talks, and take, take away some massive, um, bonuses and, and things that I wanna personally talk about.

[00:18:57] Mark: Moving forward. So Damien Sheridan, uh, jam Paulo of scale rentals should give yourselves a massive pat on the back. I know how stressful it was, I know how much work there was, and you had a fantastic team around you to help and they are gonna be back next year. So if you wanna make sure of one event, put it in your diary for 2024, the 14th to the 17th of May.

[00:19:21] Mark: Back in Barcelona, back at the World Trade is one that you do not want to miss, especially if you are over 20, 25 properties, wherever you are tuning in from around the world. It was amazing to see so many Americans fly in. Some Australians fly in for this event, uh, because it was over a week. You know, you could have a good week in Barcelona and, and, you know, to make a full, uh, a full week out of it.

[00:19:42] Mark: So again, thank you to touch Day. Thank you to Guesty. Thank you to Air d n a Thank you to Safely for helping put the boat party together. Thank you to MABA from Flying Cat Marketing. Go check her out, uh, for helping me get it all together and the boat party was, was a massive success. The whole week was a big success.

Outro

[00:20:00] Mark: Until next time, we'll be back Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with a new podcast, and a new video. Uh, thank you so much for sticking by. If this is the first time that you're tuning in, go and share it. Please, please, please, we've, we've topped a hundred thousand downloads. This is unreal. And so the book out message is getting spread around so many times every single month.

[00:20:15] Mark: Let's see if we can get that to 200,000. Thank you very much for tuning in and I'll be back very soon having a blast. Gonna get it on the Boostly podcast. Boostly like Bruce Lee cuz it's so hard. On the tee is a loose leaf making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely.

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Transcript from the Episode

Intro

[00:00:00] Mark: Welcome back to the Boostly podcast, and I have just got back from spending a full week in Barcelona, Spain for the Scale Rentals Show, otherwise known as the Shortt Stay Week, otherwise known as the book direct show. This was an event and a half. First and foremost, it was a five-day event, with different conferences every single day.

[00:00:26] Mark: And as you can tell, from five days of conferences, from the book Direct Show to Scales Rental, to Exit to Touch Day, to Web three to SEO, and everything else in between. So got some little Boostly tired eyes here. But this podcast, what I wanted to do was to just give you my sort of top takeaways. And, um, also as well to give some massive shout-outs in this episode.

[00:00:46] Mark: So let's get started. If you are new here, if you are coming in from, uh, watching the Scales Rental, or if your first time you've checked out the video or the podcast, please, please, please do me a massive favour. Hit that subscribe button. Make sure you give this video likes, and if you are listening to the audio, then share it with somebody around the world.

[00:01:04] Mark: This podcast at the moment is just tipping a hundred thousand downloads every single month, which when I first started seven years ago, and it was just five people, one of them was my mum. Uh, I never thought it would get to this level. YouTube has just topped. I'll get very close to topping 5,000 subscribers, which gives me the confidence to keep on going, talking about the book direct method, the book direct movement, and all the tips and tricks and tactics and all those cool things in between.

What did the week consist of?

[00:01:29] Mark: So let's get started. Monday of the, uh, short stay Week Scales Rentals week. Um, I flew into Barcelona late on Sunday. Um, I flew in, I landed in the airport hotel because I was too, uh, late to get into Central Barcelona. And what I did is I popped on the TV just like Barcelona Football Club. We were about to win the championship, the La Liga Championship.

[00:01:53] Mark: Um, and as you can imagine, There was a lot of fun and games going on at the hotel. It was a great atmosphere. Got my head down, woke up the next morning and then got into the centre of Barcelona. So the event was held at the World Trade Center, right in the slap bank centre, right down by the port of, uh, Barcelona.

[00:02:10] Mark: Great venue, loads of things happening, and the first day was, a nice little warmup. So in the morning, There was the, uh, SCR Summit of Scales Rentals. We had, uh, people like Craig Webb Nava from, uh, flying Cat Marketing. We had Jan from Logger. Uh, we had Zach from spontaneously talking about SCR tactics and, you know, it was a small room.

[00:02:33] Mark: Small crowd, but the advice in there was, was good. Um, there are a lot of questions as you can imagine about AI chat, G P T and how that is going to disrupt SCR. But the message was consistent throughout. Know your audience. Know who you are writing to create good, consistent content. Google and Bing will pick you up in the afternoon.

[00:02:59] Mark: Two conferences was going on. There was a web free, uh, with Luca from, uh, from the Fantastic Trips community. I got to meet Cynthia from De Travel who, uh, we co-authored the book Direct Blueprint together. Uh, but also as well, it was fantastic to find out about some, uh, new companies like Trend, which is taking reviews into the blockchain.

[00:03:20] Mark: Getting rid of scummy reviews, fake reviews, and having it with a, in the blockchain world, which was very interesting to me to see. But down in the main room, we had a tough day. So touch day took over the whole afternoon and out the whole week. And I've said this to them and I'll say it again on the podcast and, and on a video, it was my favourite part of the whole week, the free hours that Tyann and Kate had.

[00:03:45] Mark: And Alice and, and Emma and the whole team put together was, was insightful. Um, so much so that I'm trying to get Tyn to come on to the Booley podcast and to, uh, document her communications flow to her guest when they check into the property because it is next level. And, you know, I've been talking about it to a lot of people ever since.

[00:04:07] Mark: So, um, Hopefully, they do it again. Hopefully, they put on their event and, uh, that they can walk you through it because it wasn't just the, the communication flow, but it was, um, the one I I also liked as well that stood out for me was the influencer marketing chat from, from Alice. Um, one of the first times that Alice has got up on a stage in front of a hospitality crowd and done this talk and, you know, it was, it was enlightening, it was funny, it was educational.

[00:04:31] Mark: You know, I had a massive amount of fun. Uh, during that, during that day we did a game of how closely are you connected to, uh, Brian Chesky, which was a lot of fun. You had to be there to know it and um, yeah, really, really fun. Got a lot out of it. And then in the nighttime, we went for a lovely meal right down by the Ramblas, basically because Barcelona had won.

[00:04:52] Mark: The league the night before. Um, the next day they were doing a parade around the city to celebrate it with the fans. And, uh, I went for a meal with the fantastic team at Touch Day, plus a few other, uh, people, and they managed to book a restaurant that was right next to the, where the, the whole team and the fans were celebrating in, in, in the middle of the Ramblas.

[00:05:13] Mark: Um, and. It was entertaining and say the least. There were fans everywhere, fireworks going off, fireworks setting off just outside the cafe. It was an amazing meal. Um, lots of tapas. It was, it was really beautiful. But, it made for an entertaining evening. Um, had a lot of fun. And again, that was one of my takeaways,, of the whole week was to, was to see that.

[00:05:33] Mark: Day two, which was Tuesday, was the book direct day. And again, this is one of the main reasons that I flew into the event. One of the main reasons I took part in the event was to speak at this. Um, you know, we had some amazing speakers and presentations nearly. Neely Cann is always producing something that gets people thinking, not just on a business level, but on an emotional level.

My talk and after party

[00:05:55] Mark: Um, and we had, uh, Daniella, who was talking about business with WhatsApp, and uh, we had Heather Bayer who closed out the day, uh, talking about really focusing on your niche. And then, uh, before Heather, I got up and talked about the one hire that every business doesn't have that is needed. I need to work on the title.

[00:06:15] Mark: It was my first ever time doing it. I'll be totally honest. I felt let down in myself with my performance of the talk because again, it was my first time doing it. It was like a, it didn't feel, it didn't feel as good as the other ones that I have done over the past sort of year or 14 months. I enjoyed it as always, as I love doing every talk.

[00:06:35] Mark: I try and make it fun. We did, um, We did rock, paper, scissors. I threw sweets out. We did the s st R shot, which is the tequila shot. If you don't know what that is, please go and check out my video from Nashville. And also as well, uh, before we even started the talk, I got everybody to write down on a piece of paper, the worst, the funniest, the most gruels thing that a guest has left behind after their stay.

[00:06:56] Mark: Um, and I read. The best answer is out at the end and the person won a very special prize that we'll talk about in a second, which was a lot of fun. Uh, we recorded it. The video is out on socials now. You can go check that out if you want to giggle, and it'll be in a separate video. But yeah, overall I'd give my talk.

[00:07:13] Mark: Five out 10, to be perfectly honest. Um, I enjoyed it. It was only 30 minutes, but I feel like I could have done a lot, a lot better. And I will tweak that and I will bring that back at some point in, in the future because it is something that we need to talk about now. Uh, it all boils down to sales, customer service.

[00:07:28] Mark: Um, those two things are going to be key moving forward as we move into more of an AI world. In, hospitality. Tuesday night, um, was something that I wanted to, pull off and William wanted to make special. Um, when we go to events, you know, you are given so much advice. You have so many conversations, you're to do so many things, but you know, you have to do something special if you wanna be remembered, and I always say this, nobody remembers what you tell 'em, but they always remember how to make you feel.

[00:07:56] Mark: And so on the choosing night, the organizers, Damien, Jean Paulo, et cetera, they were very kind to gimme that slot to put on an after-party. And I wanted to do something that, you know, it wasn't just drunk in a bar. I wanted to do something that was going to be remembered and the fantastic aver of flying cap marketing and myself, we sort of brainstormed a few ideas and she came back to me with a few options and the best one was a boat party.

[00:08:20] Mark: So what we did is we spoke to a captain of a boat who had this pirate boat that could see up to 60 people, 65 people at most. Uh, they would provide a DJ, provide an open bar, and they would just take us around for a couple of hours around the Mediterranean, around Barcelona so we could get a lovely sunset shot and have a great time with 60 people who are at the event.

[00:08:43] Mark: Fantastic. We then, um, put together a budget. We put together a plan, and uh, then I had, I went out into the world of my little black book and I went to find some sponsors who wanted to help put this event on because it was quite expensive. And, you know, boost Lee is bootstrapped, I don't have that amount of money lying around.

[00:09:01] Mark: And so I went to, um, So people that I know, vendors in the industry, and I said, Hey, we wanna do this. It's gonna be part of the short stay week. Would you like to be part of it with me? And, you know, we sent out a message to a lot of people, but I wanna give a special shout-out to Guesty, to Aird a to touch day and to Safely who all came back.

[00:09:22] Mark: And they kindly agreed to split the cost with, with Boostly. Uh, and, and again, this event wouldn't have happened without them. And I know that everybody on that boat. Had a fantastic time. I know that there was networking going on, friendships were formed, and it was fantastic to see for the rest of the week people who were arriving by themself.

[00:09:41] Mark: Met on the boat, chatted on the boat, got together in their little group, and then throughout the week I, I saw him around the events and going for drinks and stuff afterwards, which is, which is fantastic. And so for me to see that it was a lot to organize, especially getting 60 people on a boat with a secret meeting location point was, Was was very hard, but it was, the payoff was huge and we got a lovely sunset soft shot, a sunset shot at the end, uh, which made it all well, and it's currently up there on the LinkedIn and on the Facebook.

[00:10:07] Mark: So go and check it out. Um, go find Mark Simpson on Facebook or on LinkedIn and you will see that. But again, I wanna say Guesty, thank you so much. It's a fantastic partnering with you. You are a fantastic partner, uh, for the website design business that we do at Boostly. Uh, thank you so much, Aird a, uh, we've just started working together and I'm looking forward to doing more and more events in, in the future touch day.

[00:10:28] Mark: We've worked with Touch Day for years. Part of the book, coho co-authors of the book I Blueprint, and, you know, it's fantastic for them to be part of it and safely, you know, again, just started working with them. Thank you to Will Slickers for making the connection happen. And looking forward to working with you more in the future.

[00:10:42] Mark: Do go check all of their businesses out. Um, if you haven't done so already for your property management software, uh, for pricing, uh, for your digital guidebook and for, you know, protection, guest safety, insurance exception. So fantastic. Uh, really lovely it. And we had a good night. We went out for some drinks afterwards, and then Wednesday and Thursday was all about scale.

[00:11:05] Mark: So scale rentals is exclusively for people that have got more than 25 properties. So the conversation in the room gets to that next level. And I know that the people who go to this event, they say it's their favorite event of the year because you are surrounding yourself with other people are a similar part of their business journey.

[00:11:25] Mark: Going to other events is great, you know, and you know, I love the book Direct Show. I, I love s d I wealth, um, I'm looking forward to going to my first ever Verma and my BiggerPockets events later this year. But the scale rentals is, it attracts a different crowd and it's, it, you know, I get inferior complex B vs.

[00:11:43] Mark: I come away from thinking like, why am I doing this? Why do people even listen to me? Because the conversations in that room, the people that are up on stage, Just the people in general that attend, uh, just absolute demons in their game. They have bossed it, they've levelled up and they're running the show.

[00:12:03] Mark: And I learned so much from just being in there. Uh, whether it was, uh, Louis, Louis Andrews who has got Party OVO network. Talking about how they became the, second most recommended business, on Airbnb. Um, what they do with guest communication flows and uh, and all of that. How they, how they get staffed and just all of that was just fantastic to me.

[00:12:26] Mark: But the one thing that stood out apart from that was he said something that, They only take on properties for their business that they know will generate five-star reviews, like extra extraordinary experience. And that stuck with me because when you're starting in your business, it doesn't matter whether you do website design like Boothy does, or whether you're a host or whatever.

[00:12:46] Mark: You just say yes to everything. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But as you grow, one of the hardest things that everybody teaches you and thing that you have to learn the hard way is you have to say no. There's always a shiny object, and there's always an opportunity, but sometimes saying no opens up a yes to a fantastic opportunity.

[00:13:04] Mark: And that stuck with me definitely from that day. Um, Evan from AI Adaptive is leading the way in machine L, machine learning and ai. He did, an unreal talk about, you know, how the OTAs and the next progression of their journey, what they are doing with machine learning. He,, documented exactly what booking.com have been doing for years.

[00:13:25] Mark: It's why the experience that you get when you go on their site is different to what, you know, I would get or what the next person to you would get. And also as well,, he pinpointed everything that you need to be doing on your direct booking website. So what it looks like, it's given the personalized experience that what is, we're going to be moving into personalized marketing is going to be a thing that a lot of people are gonna be talking about as we go into 2020.

[00:13:52] Mark: Four, 2025. So make sure that you are ahead of that. Um, other talks, Amber, um, she flew in from Orlando. She was, uh, sorry in Florida 48 hours earlier talking at a Verma event. I Flew in and opened up, the Thursday session with, uh, employment Brandon, and again, she's, she's so good at talking. Then, the talk always sticks with you because she crafts a story around it.

[00:14:19] Mark: She's as she's as good as Neely in this retrospective, and she talked about this one little screw for a cost less than 25 p, less than 25 cents that, um, Was a little mistake from a staff member who just didn't do that check that resulted in 50,000 pounds or $50,000 worth of, of damages, and then she brought it back into hospitality.

[00:14:44] Mark: And again, really good talk. If you, if you get an opportunity to see Amber speak, whether it's in America or Europe, uh, any point over next year, I massively recommend that you do so. And then the other thing that I took away from, from the event at scale was, uh, in one of the smaller rooms, so there was the, there was the main stage at the bottom in the main auditorium, and then there was the pod room, and then there was the knowledge room.

A new bill that will impact us all in 2024/2025

[00:15:07] Mark: And on day two on Thursday, um, uh, a lady from Brussels came down and she was being talked about, uh, that and talking about how in 2020. Four or 2025. There is going to be a VAT thing brought in throughout Europe and the UK that's going to impact every single one of us that is in the UK and Europe.

[00:15:37] Mark: The bill is currently being processed now, and uh, what it will mean is that the massive OTAs, Airbnb, booking.com, vrbo, et cetera, they're going to. Be forced to put 20% of that on top of every single booking that comes on their site. So for you as a host, not only will you be paying the 14, 15, and 16% commission, but you'll also then have to be paying another 20% on top of it, which could cut into your p and l.

[00:16:11] Mark: I recommend that you go and look at this cause it's not being talked about enough. I was dragged into that room, uh, by Tim Andrews, Louis's dad from the OVO Network saying, you need to watch and listen to this. And I'm so glad that I did. I wanna find out more about it. But you can start by doing a simple Google search.

[00:16:27] Mark: Just put in, uh, that 20%. Um, t r bookings 2025 2024. Um, go and look at what's being said. Look, they talk about, and I'm gonna do my very best to try and find out as much as I can over the next year to 14 to 16 months. It's not a hundred per cent happening, but a lot of the countries are, um, championing this and it's the hotels that are also this as well.

[00:16:50] Mark: It's gonna impact the impact short-term rental industry. So go check that out. Friday was the, um, the fan finale. A lot of tired eyes, a lot of tired voices, a lot of tired faces in that room. I went along to go and check out the s t r, uh, the Scales Luxury and the scale exit. Those two events.

[00:17:13] Mark: Finished it off, um, really nicely for anybody that is looking to exit their business, exit their hospitality brand. They went through. The documentation, the people that you need in place, and as well, even if you don't want to exit your business, even if you aren't looking to sell, you should be getting these systems and instructions as documents in place.

[00:17:35] Mark: Because at the end of the day, if you can build a business that someone would want to buy, that's not a bad business to have. And bringing this back to dire bookings is that nobody's gonna buy your business if you are solely reliant on one income revenue generating stream. So if you're solely right on Airbnb, no one's gonna be looking at you.

[00:17:56] Mark: They want to see a nice, varied revenue stream of direct Airbnb, booking.com, vrbo, and other OTAs that you may, may, may be part of. So do bear that in mind. Overall, fantastic week. Um, in my honest opinion, one day too many, uh, I think four would've been perfect. I think you can easily cram that into four days and I've given my suggestions on what they could do with the other pod rooms instead of it being, um, just the free rooms and how they can do that.

[00:18:25] Mark: But I've had such a good week. It was fantastic to speak to so many different people from different parts of the industry. The main events that I've been at this year have been the one in Nashville and the one in London. And both of them were, were just like, like a whirlwind. But this week was great because I got, actually got a chance to stop, have a chat with people, uh, without being pulled in several directions, but also as well to be able to watch some talks, a couple of other talks, and take, take away some massive, um, bonuses and, and things that I wanna personally talk about.

[00:18:57] Mark: Moving forward. So Damien Sheridan, uh, jam Paulo of scale rentals should give yourselves a massive pat on the back. I know how stressful it was, I know how much work there was, and you had a fantastic team around you to help and they are gonna be back next year. So if you wanna make sure of one event, put it in your diary for 2024, the 14th to the 17th of May.

[00:19:21] Mark: Back in Barcelona, back at the World Trade is one that you do not want to miss, especially if you are over 20, 25 properties, wherever you are tuning in from around the world. It was amazing to see so many Americans fly in. Some Australians fly in for this event, uh, because it was over a week. You know, you could have a good week in Barcelona and, and, you know, to make a full, uh, a full week out of it.

[00:19:42] Mark: So again, thank you to touch Day. Thank you to Guesty. Thank you to Air d n a Thank you to Safely for helping put the boat party together. Thank you to MABA from Flying Cat Marketing. Go check her out, uh, for helping me get it all together and the boat party was, was a massive success. The whole week was a big success.

Outro

[00:20:00] Mark: Until next time, we'll be back Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with a new podcast, and a new video. Uh, thank you so much for sticking by. If this is the first time that you're tuning in, go and share it. Please, please, please, we've, we've topped a hundred thousand downloads. This is unreal. And so the book out message is getting spread around so many times every single month.

[00:20:15] Mark: Let's see if we can get that to 200,000. Thank you very much for tuning in and I'll be back very soon having a blast. Gonna get it on the Boostly podcast. Boostly like Bruce Lee cuz it's so hard. On the tee is a loose leaf making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely.

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