Top 5 Mistakes in My Rent-to-Serviced Accomedation Journey with Athena Dobson

Welcome back to another episode of Girls in Property! Today, I'm flying solo to dive deep into my personal journey in the serviced accommodation sector. Whether you're just starting out or you've already got a few properties under your belt, this episode is for you. I'll be sharing my own experiences, insights, and the lessons I’ve learned along the way.

In this episode, I cover everything from setting up properties the right way, to managing guest experiences, and dealing with the ever-present challenge of maintaining steady cash flow. I’ll talk about the crucial role of cleaners, the risks of outsourcing management, and why staying actively involved in your business is key to success. Plus, I'll explain how I use automation and tech to keep things running smoothly, and the importance of building direct relationships with guests to boost your profits.

So tune in for a real, no-nonsense conversation packed with practical advice that will help you on your property journey!

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Transcript

0:02

Good morning everyone. And welcome to today's episode of the Girls in Property podcast. How is everybody? Welcome back to another episode and welcome to all the new listeners who are listening in. Today, you have me for the next 45 minutes to an hour doing one of my solo episodes, which I have to say gets the most beautiful messages and feedback they really do. Because what I love about these episodes is I really get to dive into certain strategies that I'm doing. giving you a peek behind the curtains and to also help anyone who wants to learn about particular strategies and to learn from the mistakes that I particularly have made along the way or any tips that I found really useful for me that I can then also help you along your journey and your path as well. So today's episode, I thought I'm going to do one of my different strategies. So, so far we have spoken about... My top five mistakes from my first two years as a property investor. You can go and listen to that episode. I've done my top five mistakes from my rent to rent HMO business. So today, let's have some fun and let's talk about, we'll call it the top five mistakes from my rent service accommodation business, but they're more my top five tips for my rent to service accommodation business. And I cannot wait to have a laugh with you today, tell you the stories that I've got for you. I love talking to people about service accommodation because as soon as you talk to someone we all sort of, I don't know how to explain it, we all look at each other as if to give each other a nod to go, it's been an interesting journey. Because you're dealing with guests and guests are remarkable people and we have the funniest stories to tell. I always ask everyone when they say they do service accommodation, I say, tell me your funniest guest or your funniest story that you have. And the stories I have are just brilliant. So I hope to share some of those today with you. And just to really help anyone who is looking to get into service accommodation, some top tips that you can really take from this conversation. So yes, that's what I'm going to be doing for the next 45 minutes to an hour. I hope that everybody is well. I hope everyone is celebrating. It is now October, which I cannot believe nearly Christmas. Somebody, I think somebody said to me it was more 10 more Saturdays until Christmas. which absolutely terrified me because there's so much to do. Of course, I've got the gala coming up as well. The end of year is approaching and we want to finish Q4 really, really strong. So yeah, let me know what you're up to. Let me know what you're celebrating. I get so many messages from incredible women who are all telling me what they're doing and I really love that so I can support you in your journey. And of course the community support everybody in their journeys as well. So in true podcast style, before I dive straight into top five tips and mistakes. What am I celebrating at this moment in time? So to be honest with you, there is quite a lot that I'm celebrating at the moment. I could give three or four different examples for this, but let's do some in order. So what should I do for today's episode? I'm gonna go for today's episode because I think it's so wonderful is I have been... speaking quite a lot this week. You've probably seen me in Manchester, you've seen me in London, you've seen me in Oxford, and speaking to a lot of professionals about what I do, how I've managed to get from where I am, sorry, yeah, where I used to be to where I am within the space of two years, and how I've managed to create income through multiple streams within that space to now be a full-time business owner and property investor. Fantastic and I've loved it and I've loved meeting so many faces as I've met you this week. I've loved it. And you know, thank you for being part of that. But what I really like to celebrate is the fact that as part of this week, one of the things I was also welcomed to do and asked to do was to go and speak in a school for ages 15 to 18 year old young women about entrepreneurship and about a different narrative that they could take to the traditional one at school and To be honest with I've never done it before. It was absolutely terrifying, but I had so much fun. I mean, I don't know why I thought it'd be any different, but the girls are so intelligent. You know, these young women, and don't get me wrong, 15 to 18 is quite a gap as well, so I really had to kind of navigate that. But even like the 15 year olds are so intelligent and so wanting to learn, what was amazing was they were so interactive. I think that was my biggest concern was that at school, you never want to put your hand up. You always want to be the cool kid at the back. It wasn't like that at all. There was about 40 of them that walked in and I thought, my God, I've got 40 eyes on me. And it was brilliant. We had a conversation. I made it completely informal, of course. And we spoke about things such as, you know, a different narrative. doesn't have to, like, for example, when I was at school, I don't know about you guys listening, I was taught, you go to school, you get good grades so that you can go to university. You get a good degree at university so that you can get a job. You then work your way up through the corporate ladder in your job. You then retire. You then spend a couple of years doing whatever you want to do when you retire and then you die. And that's what I was taught at school. And I'm sure many other people were taught that. And what I really want to do is I want to get into schools and say, your life doesn't have to be that. You don't have to follow this linear line that everyone else is following. You can be your own boss. You can create your own business. You can create multiple streams of income, which is what me and so other people listening to this are doing. And I think it's so important to speak to men and young men and young women about this, but because of girls in property, my mission at the moment is to really supercharge young minds and young women to thinking differently. So we spoke about all sorts. I mean, I even got onto the topic about, I appreciate they're young, but I even got onto the topic about, look, you're 18 or 15 to 18, but you might want to become mums. And then what does that look like in terms of social pressure to become a mum? when you also want to have a career and have your own business and how does that look? I felt very old when I told them my grand age of 33 and they all looked at me in horror like I was this old person. I thought, my God. So that bit was fun. But it's important because, you know, I wish somebody had said that to me when I was younger and said, look, you can have both. You can be a mum, you can be a super mum and you can be a super career woman or you could be a super business owner. You can be whatever it is you want to be and... It's so important to encourage young women to think that they can do anything they want to do, not just have to follow this narrative linear line. And we even spoke about the conversation, the subject around the matter of the fact that even in today's society in 2024, men are still earning 16 % more than women in the workplace, which means that for every pound that a man earns, a woman only earns 84p. And the girls were fascinated by this and they were like, why? And they came up with all sorts of ideas about why this might be. One person even said, it because they're taller than us? And I thought, wow, what an interesting question to ask. And it's just their perception, way they see it. But such intelligent young minds that I really, really would love to. to help more. So if you're listening to this and you're, you either work for a school or you know someone that works for a school or you're a, you're a headmaster of a school or you want to do things a bit differently, please get in touch with me because I really, really want to supercharge and power this and create something for 2025 with Girls and Property where I get into schools and I, I speak to girls and I create workshops and I teach girls that there are different ways that you can educate yourself and to take yourself forward. And if you don't feel that university is for you, and you don't feel that the corporate life is for you, and that you don't fit into this square hole in your, you know, round peg or whatever it is, that's okay. That's okay. And you don't have to be, you don't have to be employable. I know for a fact I'm unemployable now. And I know that in my heart. And I just want to tell the girls that like, that's okay. But also tell them that if you want to go down the corporate route and you want to climb the ladder, that's perfectly wonderful as well. It's just to give them the option. It's all about giving them the option to choose what they want to do. And that's what I'm celebrating. I'm celebrating young minds and I'm celebrating young women and wanting to help those young women to really think what is it that they want to do and make it clear that they don't have to be the same as everybody else in the room. There were 40 girls in that room. and you don't have to be the same as the other 40 girls in the room. If you've got a different mind, then go for it. And I had so many girls come up to me after the session telling me like how great it was. Apparently, they get a lot of boring speakers in and apparently I was good fun. So I'll take that. I'll be the fun one. And they really spoke to me about their situation. One girl was 17, so she was still on a minimum wage, I think. Please. If I get this wrong, I do apologize, but it was six pounds something. It was like six pounds 17, something like that. And, you know, it's just fascinating. And she was speaking to me about how she says, look, I've got a promotion recently. I work in a stables. I got a promotion. But they give me more work to do, but I'm still on my six pounds 17. What can I do? And it was those kinds of questions as well that I was so happy to give some advice around. So yeah, if anybody wants to talk to me about me getting into schools, then please, please do reach out. I'm definitely up for a conversation. and let's try and make the world a better place and let's try and be the change we want to see. So that is what I'm celebrating today. Yay. Right. Okay. So here we go. Service accommodation. So a lot of people want to get into service accommodation, which is such a fun roller coaster. It really is. And it could be a fantastic cash cow when it works well. It really can be. It's lots of fun. Summer's obviously a great period of time because people are always traveling, but it's important to understand how to set it up correctly and how to sort of pivot some mistakes along the way, as it were. Now, as majority of you will know, but I would explain to the new listeners, for my service accommodations, I never owned any service accommodations. They were all through a rent to rent strategy. Now for any new listeners, rent to rent simply means that let's say I would have paid a landlord £2,000 a month to rent out their two bedroom flat. for argument's sake, I would then be able to pop it on OTA platforms, which is online travel, online travel agent platforms for let's say 200 pounds a night. And therefore we'll talk about costs, but minus all your costs and expenses, and then you're able to take the profits from that. So you control an asset, you don't own the asset through the rent to rent strategy. So my experience of service accommodation has purely been through rent to rent, not through ownership. So I'm going to speaking to you today about my experience within the rent-to-rent service accommodation industry to hopefully give you some help and some top tips along the way. So before I get into my top five tips and mistakes, the first thing I just want to talk about is setup for service accommodation. So I talked to quite a lot of people within this realm and what they talked to me quite a lot about is the way that they set up their accommodation. Now, When people want to get into service accommodation, this isn't everybody, this is just a few handful of people, they get into it because they really love the idea of interior design as well, which is fantastic, spectacular. And they make the most gorgeous apartments. Honestly, like the photos on Airbnb are stunning when they show me. Beautiful, just over the top and somewhere I certainly will want to stay and will be staying and supporting them, 100%. But what you've got to think about is you've got to think, right, this is not my home. On a rent to rent, this is not my home. This is someone else's home. So yes, I want to make it appealing. Yes, I want to make it attractive to get guests to book. But at the same time, what you've also got to think about is how am I going to make money? Because if you're putting money up front, you need to be able to recoup that straight away. And also it depends on what time of year you're actually setting up the accommodation. Because for example, If you're setting up the accommodation and you take on the keys and you have finished summer and going into the winter months, those couple of first months, you're not going to have the reviews that you want, for example, and you're going to be testing the water and needing to get guests in who predominantly haven't stayed before. So as a result of that, you then need to start thinking about, how are we going to recoup these costs straight away? reviews, I haven't actually written that as one of my five, but just speaking about reviews, if you think about you as somebody who was going to go and stay in an Airbnb yourself or booking.com and you're looking at accommodation, you want to, first thing I do is I always go and look at reviews and I'm like, right, what are people saying about this? When you start out your property, you're not going to have a lot of reviews, of course, are you? because you've just started. So people might be a little bit less inclined to stay at yours than somebody else's who's a similar price. So I'm going to come onto this, but we might need to think about how we're going to price things, for example, to try and attract people to come in, to encourage them to leave reviews, to then be able to build up over time. And in winter, you will naturally have less bookings unless you have contractors, then in summer periods, if you just look at the tourism market. So therefore, when you're setting up, Try to think about your budget, set a budget and stick to it. I see a lot of people where I ask them, what did that cost? Cause that looks amazing. What did that cost? And sometimes not always they'll say, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I was like, what was your budget overall? They were like, we went way above budget. And I'm like, right, okay. We still have to remember that this is a business at the end of the day. And because rent-to-rent service accommodation is such a roller coaster of up and down, you do need to really, really look at your cashflow because cashflow is such a strenuous thing. for rent service accommodation because quite frankly, the revenue that's coming in is so unpredictable. Like you cannot predict it. It isn't like a tenant that you know is paying 800 pounds at the end of the month. You could have an occupancy rate of 80 % one month, 90 % one month. You could also have an occupancy rate of 40 % one month. So it's so important to understand, gosh, like, you know, it's important to understand. where, how are you gonna make that happen? Understand the fact that it is such a roller coaster and you need to make sure that where is your break even? So for example, just doing this in a really linear way to explain it to you for everyone who's starting out. So when I first took on the service accommodations, we got quite lucky with one of them. I don't know if you've ever seen, we've got quite grand photos of one of the Airbnbs. And that was because the... the owner's mother was an interior designer. And so she actually did all the interior design for one of the properties, which is why that one looks really lavish and over the top. So we got quite fortunate with that. I mean, it's got flamingos on the wall. It's got all sorts on the wall, which is fantastic. She wanted to design it. She wanted to sort of pay for it. Fantastic. That actually worked really well in our favor. However, just a note on that, this is a complete side note. Although you think that that might be great and you're like, great, I've got really looking good looking Airbnb's, really good looking on booking.com, it's going to sell loads. When it came to trying to get long-term bookings in and such as contractors, we really struggled with that because the sort of providers with the contractors didn't want to put their contractors in because they were really worried about the insurances and them breaking stuff and things. So actually they did say to us, do you have anything less lavish? Because the insurance just won't cover for the damages made if any damages to this property. So that was a real lesson for us actually that sometimes over the top and bigger isn't always better because then you're stuck with the tourist market which as everybody knows fluctuates. You know I'm in Bournemouth, Bournemouth is a massive fluctuation town. So that was something to learn definitely from that one. So when you're setting up think to yourself about your costs. For example if I was going to go set one up tomorrow I would be looking at Dunelm. the range, Facebook marketplace, know, all of those types of really good quality, but not costly brands that you can go to to decorate in a really, really fantastic way. Don't have anything to OTT. The main things that people love, by the way, when you want to really push your accommodation is I would say they love, of course, to be supplied tea, coffee, all of that. But I would even go as far to supplies a coffee machine. People usually ask for a coffee machine. I'd probably do some like luxury bedding, that type of thing. I'd probably go for a bigger bed. I'd probably go for like a king bed. People used to really like that. And I would always try and get a sofa bed in the lounge so that you can therefore have extra people staying. Those were kind of the main things I would say that people really enjoyed. Of course, any decorations that you can put on the walls just to give it a bit of color. Color always stands out on these platforms. So if you can get a really bright color, for example, such as a painting, that type of thing that could really stand out against a wall. then try, instead of having a lot of carpet everywhere, try and create laminate flooring. It's just much cleaner, much easier for the cleaners to clean up as well. So any tips about staging or any tips about setting up, feel free to message me, but always think about your costs. Ideally, you don't want to be spending more than I would say on average about 5,000 per property, depending on the size of it, of course. But I think for two bed, I think about 5K is about right, I would say, because that's easier to recoup at all. So that's what I'd say about setup. Panelling works really well as well. If you want to panel, that's quite cheap to do. You can get some really good panels from places like being Q, Wix, and that can create a really great effect on the wall as well, but it could be great effect, but really good value as well. So panelling is a really good one, just to mention there. So setup is key. And when you're setting up, always think to yourself, also, just before I go on to talk about my mistakes, always think about your breakeven point. So where you want to be breaking even, I tell you what, sorry, I'm detouring here, I'm talking to myself, detouring. But I always think to myself when I see sources, for example, talking about their rent service accommodation deals, and I always see quite frequently them talking about 70 % occupancy and what you can get for 70 % occupancy. What you want to know is that the property can at least break even and I would suggest at 50 % occupancy. Because if the property can break even at 50%, then any profit after that is yours. That's a good place to start. Because at least then if you've got 15 nights occupied, at least you've covered your costs. know, you don't really want to be breaking even at 70%. That's very stressful to do and hard to maintain. all months round. It really is. I think if you can get about 50%, that's a good place to be. So sources, if you're listening, I would recommend that you start looking at 50 % and speaking to people about that and where they break even. If it's 70%, personally, my advice is I think that's too high with breaking even and you will struggle month on month. It's tough. It really is. And especially with it being so saturated at the moment would be my advice. Right, so what have I got here for my five? I wrote them down, so let's go through them one by one and then we can go from there. So number one I've written down is cleaners are worth their weight in gold is the first thing I've written. And then I also wrote a side note. I said, let's talk linen and laundry. Okay. Cleaners are worth their weight in gold. So I've spoken to quite a few people about this at various events that I've been to and they have all agreed. Cleaners are more than cleaners within the service accommodation world. Cleaners are your managers, cleaners are your eyes, cleaners know what's going on. So for example, I'm about half an hour away from my service accommodation units. I cannot get there every time a guest checks out. So a cleaner will go in and rather than just clean, she'll be able to tell me about snags, she'll be able to tell me about breakages. Let's say that they have broken the lamp or they have broken... a mug or glasses, they'll take photos for me and then I'll be able to then contact the guest that's just stayed if I feel it's worth it. If it's like a small chip in a plate, I'll just say chuck it away, don't worry about it and I'll replace it. But if it's something major, which I'll tell you about some stories, then I will of course then contact the, contact the guest and say, was this you? Now top tip on this one, just as a side note is, Booking.com, I would always recommend taking a deposit, a security deposit if you can. Because otherwise, trying to get money from guests via booking.com after they've stayed, if you haven't already taken money, is very, very difficult, really difficult. I would always suggest trying to take a security deposit. Now, some people have asked me this question before, which is, that put guests off staying in your accommodation? The answer is, it can do, yes. because they might not want to pay a security deposit, but at the same time, what are they worried about? You almost don't want those people to stay if they're worried to pay a security deposit. So you have to do a balancing act, but believe me, you could have like 150, 200, 300 pound costs, like cleaning costs afterwards, which really have outdone your profit on what you would have had if the guest stayed anyway. So really think about that. So I would always recommend doing a security deposit. With Airbnb, Airbnb are really good. They're a bit different. So. They, I believe, I've never had to go up to this amount before, but I believe they offer, I think it's either 150 or 200 in terms of damages. So we've had it before where the sofa got cut. And so we sent all the photos to Airbnb. We then showed the evidence. We messaged the guest first. The guest said it wasn't them. They refused to pay it. We spoke to Airbnb and they said, how much would it be to restitch it up again? which would have been about 50 quid. So they transferred us the 50 pounds and Airbnb did that. So Airbnb are quite good like that. So it's not so much about taking a security deposit with Airbnb because you kind of have that leeway. But also I don't know if listeners would agree with this, but I always tend to find that guests via Airbnb tend to be a little bit more open and a little bit more respectful in terms of as a guest and in terms of them. paying for the charges if there are any that they broke, they'll even let you know in advance. Booking.com is a slightly different client hell, if that makes sense. So it's usually a bit more of a difficult conversation back and forth, I would say. And the communication line is quite different between Booking.com and Airbnb. Airbnb is much easier to communicate with guests than Booking.com, so have that in the back of your mind. So going back to cleaners. So cleaners are incredible and you might need a cleaner last minute. You might need a cleaner where you have... For example, a guest can check in as little as 24 hours beforehand on a Sunday and you're the same to the cleaner, I need you to get there. Now, of course, if you have a good relationship with your cleaner, you treat them well, you pay them well and respect them, then they are going to go above and beyond and move heaven and earth in order to help you. If you pay the minimal and you don't treat them with respect, they're just going to say, sorry, I'm busy. It's Sunday. So you have to have a really good relationship with them. You also have to trust that they do a good job because at the end of the day, if a guest turns up and the cleaning isn't done to perfection, they're going to complain and then your reviews are going to go down. And also the cleaners are the ones who speak to the linen companies or should be speaking to the linen companies because they know what bedding is required. So the communication line then goes between the cleaners and the linen companies as opposed to by yourself. And it just makes everything a lot more. linear and a lot more less complicated I would say. Now speaking about linen, I had to learn all about linen and I have to say what a pain in the bum. Now some people will buy their linen, some people will rent their linen. This was an interesting one. So for the majority of the time we rented our linen. So I rented the linen and All was going really well. They were speaking to the cleaners. Everything was fine. They dropped it off. We created a system, worked really well. But then one day the linen company let me know that they were no longer going to be supplying linen to Bournemouth. And as a result of that, we had guests checking in in three days. And I had to go to, and we had a super king by the way, just to let everybody know, if you have a super king bed in a room, trying to find linen for a super king bed is... very, very difficult. Who does do super kings is Argos, just to let you know. Argos and Sainsbury's do super kings. So on my Saturday, I had to go and buy a bunch of super king bedding, double beds, king beds, everything, which cost an absolute fortune. But it meant that I had to go in and source that effectively. And this is what can happen in service accommodation. Things can turn on their head at any moment. You can have the best system going for the longest time and then bang. some, some like, it's like a chain and then one, one of the chain breaks and then you've got to fix the chain and re re bring it back together again. So it just so happened to be a Saturday. I went out, I bought this linen, I gave it to the cleaners and then they were able to do that. But then the cleaners then said to me, well, where are we going to clean all of this? We can't take it home. It's too much to take home. So then I had to find a provider that would wash and iron the linen that we had, or I had already sourced. to then do that. So then that was a whole other conversation where you just have to go and take it to be serviced as well. So there's quite a lot of moving parts to it as it were. Whereas if you could get a really great cleaning team to deal with all of the linen, do the communication, everything like that works really well. And they are your eyes on the property. They really are. They're your eyes. And if they're not too far away in some instances, but not all, If you are out or if you are far away and there is an issue at the property, sometimes you could have it with the cleaner where you have an agreement with them, but they could go and rectify one of the issues. But sometimes what can happen is that there could also be a language barrier. So with some of our cleaners, of course, their first language is not English. And as a result of that, you might not want to get them to go to the property because English is not their first language and miscommunication can happen. So you might need to go and do that yourself. But cleaners are amazing. They really are. You wanna have good quality all the time. You wanna make sure that they are at all times really keeping an eye on the property and having all of that as well. So really, really great. Okay, so cleaners, linen, we're done, which is great. Then number two, I've written here, outsourcing management is not always the answer. So... One of the things I hear people say all the time and I'm talking about rent to rent service accommodation is they say to me, well, if I was going to take on service accommodation, I don't want that headache, so I'll just outsource it. And I say to them, okay, so you're going to outsource to management. First of all, if you are going to be doing outsourcing, your management for service accommodation, the thing I would just say to you is from a rent to rent perspective, outsourcing. your management, do not recommend because if you try and do your numbers for a rent to rent, it won't work. I believe this is my opinion. I believe if you're going to do rent to rent service accommodation, you have to manage it yourself to make the numbers work because a management cost is typically anything between about 20 to 25%. And then you've got that sometimes to pay on top of that. So if you try and do that and pay and all of your bills and then try and make a profit from rent to rent, it doesn't usually work. So you're therefore managing the property yourself. Now let's just say that you own your own property and therefore you gave it to a management company. I have also spoken to a lot of people who have spoken to me about the management companies for their service accommodation units. And here's what I think and here's what I will say. When you've got a management company doing tenants, it's not so much of a problem because tenants are quite forgiving. So let's say that there's a leaky tap or the dishwasher's broken or the washing machine is broken and you say, yep, thanks, got you know, I'll get this sorted in a couple of days. Tenant usually says thanks, no worries. Whereas if a guest is only staying for a night or a guest is only staying for two nights or three nights, the difference between tenants and guests is you have to be very responsive and you have to fix that problem immediately in order to have a guest satisfaction. rate for them to leave a five-star review that will then boost your algorithm and get you more bookings. So it becomes a real challenge. And what can sometimes happen is that, and I believe that a management company is never going to care as much about your guests or your business than you are. They just won't. So let's say that a management company gets a call like I have done before. I'll give you an example of this. So I self-manage. It was Sunday night, raining, 9pm at night. Steve had just cooked me dinner. We had just sat down to eat this dinner and watch one of my favourite films, Indiana Jones. I get a call from the guest. The guest has just checked in late on a Sunday. They were supposed to check in at 3pm, they didn't check in until 8pm, now 9pm. There were two of them. One of them had broken their arm and therefore they couldn't close the window that led directly to the main street. So they said to me, we need you to come and help us close this window because we cannot, we don't feel safe because the window goes directly onto the main street and anybody could come into the accommodation. So I called people that I usually would do to see if they were around to sort it. Of course they weren't because it was Sunday at nine o'clock. And in which case I had to go and drive to go and help them close this window, which to be fair was very stiff. So I understand why she couldn't do it on her own. So close the window and then drove home, got home for about 10, 10.30 at night, and then was able to eat my dinner, which was now cold. And that's the reality. That really is the reality. Now, would a management company pick up the phone on a Sunday evening at 9 p.m. and would they go and fix that? And you might say to me, the answer to that is yes, that's what we pay them to do. Let's see how many management companies actually would do that. So if a management company didn't pick up the phone at nine o'clock at night to go and action that, what would the guest have actually have done? How would the guest have felt? The guest said that she felt unsafe because it was on a main road and therefore anyone could come in. Could she have left the accommodation and said, don't feel safe to stay here. Nobody's picking up our calls. Nobody's coming to fix this. You've got to really think with a management company, what is it you're actually agreeing to with them? Is it 24 hour messaging? Is it 24 hour? that they go including Sundays at nine o'clock at night. And I'm telling you a management company who has different properties that they have to manage will not care as much about those reviews or care as much about that business and those guests as you do. They just don't. And so I'm always dubious of management. I always am because I always think to myself, what would they have done in that situation? You know, what would they have actually have done? Would they have gone and fixed it? And that's what I was always curious to know. So I don't always think that outsourcing to a management company is the answer. I really don't with service accommodation. I'm sure there are some excellent management companies out there. In fact, they're probably listening to this podcast and in which case get in contact with me so that I can, you know, find out more about you so that I have people to recommend excellent management within, within different areas. But please do also message me and let me know if you've also had some negative experience with management companies and you agree with this because. I don't always think that outsourcing to management is the right way to do it, especially when reviews and guests and being reactive is so important. Tenants and guests are different beings and guests are very demanding. Guests want things fixed now. And that's one thing you will learn when you go into the service accommodation world. Guests and tenants do not think and act in the same way whatsoever. So yeah, just have a think about that. If you are going to be doing... Definitely rent to rent service accommodation. You must self manage and understand that this is not passive income. Service accommodation is not passive income. If you want passive income, go and buy yourself a buy to let, leave it there and cashflow yourself about 300 pounds per month. Easy, don't, that barely takes any of my time. Service accommodation, dare I say, I would call it almost like a full-time job because it is constant. You have guests checking in, guests checking out, linen changes, cleaning changes, breakages happening, check-ins happening, check-ups happening, issues happening whilst the guests are staying there. Really, really important just to make a note of that. And if you are going to outsource it, make sure you give it to the right management company who understands your values and understand why it's so important to really put the guest as the priority even at Sunday, 9pm at night when you've just been served your dinner. Right, number three, what have I got here? Number three I have, okay, here we go. Automation is everything. So this is gonna be all about tech. I wanna talk about tech in this one. So automation is everything. I've written here tech, price labs, channel managers, right. So sometimes I'll speak to people and they'll tell me that they have an Airbnb. And I'll say, do you, do you own that Airbnb? And they'll say, yeah, I own it. I say, how many of you got? They go, I've only got one. And if they've only got one, say, do you have automation in place? Channel managers, how do you do it? And they say, no, I'm, I'm, I just, I'm the person that sends all the messages. I'm the person who does everything. Fine. If that's what you want to do, no problem. I highly recommend that you automate everything to do as much as you can with, service accommodation. So let me give you an example of how this might look. So I talked to my mentees about something called channel managers. Now channel managers, what they do is they effectively link Airbnb, booking.com, Verbo, any platforms that might communicate with each other, they cross reference against each other. So how does this work? I use a particular channel manager called uplisting. However, some of my mentees use a channel manager called SmooBoo. There are many other ones. Go and find out which channel manager is right for you based on your requirements of what you want. But you want to automate for various reasons. Let's take this from the start of how you might want to automate this. Okay. A guest books your apartment on Airbnb for two nights on the 20th of October. You now have two nights booked on Airbnb. The first thing you want to happen when that gets booked for two nights on the 20th of October is that it instantly gets blocked on Booking.com and Verbo and any other platforms that you're on so that you do not have a duplicate booking where two guests turn up at the same time. So the first thing your channel manager will do is it will block across those bookings. It's the first thing you want to happen. So now no one can book across those. You're now booked onto Airbnb. Perfect. All the calendars are synced, all the calendars lined up. Wonderful. You do not want to be doing that yourself because you might forget it. You might take an hour to do it. And in which case within that hour booking.com is booked and it gets really complicated and you have a long, long process to do with that. And also you get in trouble with the platforms that don't like you cancelling, by the way, they get really upset with you do that and they penalize you for it. Then. What you want to do is you want an automated email to go out to that guest who's booked through Airbnb to say, thank you so much for booking. Your accommodation is booked for the 20th of October for two nights for four guests. We look forward to welcoming you and maybe give some information. Say our accommodation provides this, this, this, this, This is the information. And we look forward to seeing you. Now, typically at this point, I actually don't give the full address just in case they cancel. Because they can cancel of course you've got to set your own cancellation policies, but let's say that that that they're They're not staying for a while. So they're not staying for a month two months My cancellation policy is usually within seven days So I don't really give the address. I just say you're booked in for for for Bournemouth effectively for this one then what will happen is That's all done for now then about 48 hours before they are due to check in I have another automated email that will go out to them or automated message that will go out. They'll say, hi, we're looking forward to welcoming you to your accommodation. Here is all the information you require. Your code for the lock-in box because it's self-checking will be issued at 5 a.m. the morning of your arrival. Please look out for this email. So that's the second one that goes out. That's 48 hours beforehand. Then at 5 a.m. the morning that they're going to check in, they get all of the check-in information. And by the way, when I say all of the check-in information, you can also create yourself if you wanted to in something like Canva, which is a great way to create this, you could create yourself a little check-in guide and literally step-by-step give them the instructions. know, make sure you park behind the back of the property, turn at Newton Road, go around the back, look at this white door, take photos, be like, here is the white door for reference, turn to your right. You can give them all the information that is required, which I highly recommend that you do, by the way. I really do. So you give them this whole drop box, this check-in folder, give them the address, give them the lock box code, and say, welcome to welcoming you. Then check-in, yeah, give them the check-in details, check-ins at 3 p.m., check-outs at 10. Then what I would do is then about an hour before they are due to arrive at the property, so say 2 p.m., I'd send another automated message to say, hi, I forward to seeing you in an hour. Once again, here's all the check-in information, check-in instructions, all of this lockbox code, and then send that. Brilliant. So now they know all the check-in information. Sometimes they respond, sometimes they don't, but usually if you don't hear from them by about 5 p.m. means that they're in, and you can see from the ring doorbell that they have actually checked in, and you're like, great, they're in, and it'll ping on your phone. So that's how I usually do it. Then I'll then automate also about sort of that evening, say around 6, 7 p.m. at night, I'll say, Hi, so glad you managed to check in okay. Hope everything is going well for you. If you need anything, let me know. Many thanks. Have you stays and that will then go out to them. So if there are any issues, they can let me know straight away. If they don't respond, then great. Sometimes they'll respond saying, thank you. Everything's lovely. Wonderful. And then what you do is you then get another automated message. This is how many messages by the way, you might need to send if it's not automated and you want to create good customer service is you send another message to them. which is the evening before they're gonna leave at 6 p.m. at night. So let's say they're checking out on the 22nd, you'll send it on the 21st at 6 p.m. And you'll say to them, thank you so much for staying with us. Just a reminder, checkout is at 10 a.m. Please do this, this, this, this, this on checkout, essentially. And then they do that. And then what you'll do is the final automation message you'll send is 24 hours after they've stayed to say, hi, thank you so much. Hope you had a wonderful stay. please kindly leave us a review on XYZ, Airbnb, that type of thing. If you would like to stay again, here is the 10 % code for a direct booking next time, please call us on this number. Because you always want to have direct bookings, which I am gonna come onto as one of my next points, but just for automation purposes, you then send that email, which then sends them 10 % discount to get them direct booking. Now, that's a lot of work, isn't it? Now imagine, having to send that many messages without automation to all of the different service accommodations that you are managing at that time. Mental, right? So automation is everything when it comes to this because then it just works like clockwork. And then, so that's the guests. So that's the messaging to the guests. Great. You're now off of the calendars. That's all synced up. Your guests are all happy. That's all done. Wonderful. And at the same time, what you can do is you can then link it to your cleaners calendars to then say, right, cleaners, so that you don't have to communicate with them. The cleaners know because they can see in the channel manager, guests are checking in on this day, guests are checking in on that day. This is how I need to follow it. And then of course, what I always do is if there is like literally a last minute booking within 24 hours, I do message the cleaners just to say, I'd message the cleaners to say, just a reminder, this guest is a last is a latecomer 24 hours before and they're like, yep, seen it, that's all fine, but it's good just to double check with them. So automation really is such a powerful thing. It really is. And one of the other things I've actually put on here just to talk to you about really quickly is something such as like tech. So we've spoken about channel manage for automation, but then let's talk about things such as price labs. So if nobody's heard about price labs before, price labs is amazing because you can actually look at what's happening in your area. So let's take Bournemouth because that's where I am, for example, when the Red Arrow show is happening, which is a huge festival and event in Bournemouth, price labs know that all and they know, by the way, because all of the hotels have put their prices up, all of Airbnb around have put their prices up. So it matches it with your accommodation to say, right, something's happening in the area on this day. All the prices have gone up. Let's whack your Airbnb up. It might be, for example, that there is something happening at the bit. Bournemouth International Centre, there might be a concert on, and in which case they'll put the prices up. It might be that it's summer, so all the hotels put their prices up, they do the same. Or what will happen is they can see that you're in a bit of a lull period, you haven't taken on that many bookings, and in which case they'll actually drop the price. One of the other things that they can do, which I won't go into too much detail now, but if you wanna explore this a bit more through mentoring with me, then let me know, they can also do things where, let's say, I always do a two night minimum stay. I never have one night stays at my accommodations because I always feel that one night stays can actually breed disaster because it's usually a party. However, I do have an exception to this. What can happen is price tabs, you can actually put in that you will have an orphan night stay. When you have an orphan night stay, means that somebody, let's say someone's booked from the 20th to the 22nd of October, but also booked from the 24th to the 26th, you've got one night, which is the 23rd, nobody's in it. So they'll recognize that something called an orphan stay on price labs. And they'll then increase the rate by about, well, you can choose this, but I usually increase rate by about 10, 15%. So it's usually last minute booking. And then they can book that one night at the higher rate. Because then I'm happy to do it. Cause you've got to be do the whole cleaners, change over a linen for one night. But if you've got that increased rate and you've got that lease that night booked rather than it being empty, it's worth doing. price labs is an amazing tech to use for service accommodation. really is. Some people use turnover B and B for their cleaners as well, but I just use the channel managers. But yeah, really have a look at tech, really have a look at automation. would say when you've got your service accommodation units, it can, it can literally change everything and you set it up once you set it up well, you set it up correctly and it will just transform everything you have going forward. Then number four, I put here, direct bookings off OTA platforms is key. And just a reminder, OTA platforms is online travel agents such as booking.com Airbnb is what I'm referring to with that one. Now, direct bookings is where you want to be. It really is. And the reason is because airbnbbooking.com is great. However, they take 15 % plus VAT, so call it 18 % of commission every time somebody books with you, which is quite a lot of money when you think about it and money that instead could be in your pocket. So what a channel manager such as Uplisting can do and Smubu and some of these other ones is they can actually create you a direct booking landing page that you could book where you're trying to get direct bookings from people. So let's talk about different ways you can get direct bookings for your service accommodation. So you can get repeat guests by giving them that 10 % discount and then giving them details to contact you directly. So you could do that. You could go and leaflet drop, you could put flyers through the doors. One thing I used to do was go down to kind of the Premier Inn travelodges, see all the vans that were staying out there and try and catch the people coming out to say, look, how much are you paying here for the travelodge, Premier Inn? What's your company doing? What's your company details? Happy to give you an offer down in this beautiful apartment rather than just having a room. And that used to work quite a lot as well. You had to catch them at the right time or leave a leaflet in their window. kind of thing. Some people liked it, some people didn't. Travelodge and Premiering quickly clocked on and ushered me away. But you've got to go through it, give it a go and at get one or two from it, which is great. And then the other thing is what you could do, which you've got to be very careful about. You'll be very, very careful about. And again, I can talk to you more about this privately if you'd like to, but you could speak, they could come through airbnbandbooking.com. And there are ways in which you can be very clever about how to get their contact details to get them off of Airbnb and booking.com by needing bits and certain bits of information. Booking.com and Airbnb are very clever. They know, and they can, I think they must have AI on it now. They know the types of conversations to look for when you can send someone's getting a direct booking. And what they do is they either won't send the message. They'll say, your message has been blocked. because you're trying to take this off of it and then they penalize you, don't trust you anymore, which could be really detrimental to your business or they block your email address. They'll block your email address, they'll block your phone. So you've got to be very careful about how you do that. There are ways, there are ways you can do that. But if you want to have a conversation with me about that one, then let's jump on the discovery call and I can explain how you might get around those ideas. But direct bookings are key. So for example, we had one booking that came through Airbnb and it was a six month booking for one of the one bedroom apartments, which to be honest with you, we were really struggling with the one bedroom. And the reason we were struggling with the one bedroom is because families were tending to be staying quite a lot in Bournemouth and the one bedroom provided the double bed and the sofa bed. But people usually come with like three children, four children, it just didn't have the space. So I really struggled with the one bed, I'm honest with you. So when this six month booking came through for the one bed, I was over the moon. It came through Airbnb. I thought to myself, how can I get this on a direct booking? Cause the commission on six months was massive at 18%. So I did find a way. I managed to get them off of it. We started emailing. They came and they had a look at it. I had a conversation with them, did a bit of negotiation, of course. And then they booked, they booked it for the six months through. my landing system for uplisting through there. So everything was captivated within the channel manager. And then I got to keep more of the profit and not give it to Airbnb. So that was a real success. And that took up six months of the year, which was amazing. And they were gold. They really were gold. They requested a couple of things. They requested some extra cleans, which I was like, that's fine. So we sent our cleaners in, but overall could... could not complain. It actually worked out really well in the end, the one bedroom. And we had a one six month booking, we had a four month booking for that one. So direct bookings are gold. They really, really are. And they just carry you through the winter as well, which is fantastic. The two bed, the most I've ever managed to get on the two bed was about a two month booking. And they could be all sorts, they don't have to be contractors, by the way. This was a mum and her daughter. The daughter was coming, I think, to study at one of the colleges and it was a mum and a daughter. and they were there for the two months. it could be anything, anything could be a direct booking, but try and make sure that you get them as best you can off of the OTA platforms. And if you can't, then take the hit at the 18%, keep it all in Airbnb if you want to, and make sure you get some long stay bookings. One thing I would recommend for long stay bookings, by the way, whilst we're on this subject, is I would try and create it so that if they want to stay longer than a week, they have to do it via request so that you can find out what it is that they're actually looking for and answer any questions. The long stay bookings will always have questions. I've been asked for floor plans. I've been asked for video walkthroughs. I've been asked for all sorts. They will always have questions. So just make sure that you stay on top of that and really understand that that's where the real money is, I would say. And then last but not least, Guests do not think like you. I thought I'd finish off with this one. Guests do not think like you. What do I mean by this? Okay, anyone listening who has service accommodation will know exactly what I mean and I hope that you laughed when I laughed as well. Okay, first and foremost, you could send a guest all the information in the world to check into your apartment. And I mean all the information. Look here, stand here, turn right, turn left, like... detailed photos detailed videos and they still won't be able to check in and unfortunately guests are just guests they're human beings and not all humans think alike and therefore it will be You always have to be aware that you always have to Be available to speak to guests to to help them, you know I've had it before where a guest was like the TV won't turn on And they can call quite aggressively and say, your TV's broken. Come and fix the TV. The TV's broken. And I'm like, the TV is not broken. Did you look at the instructions of how to turn the TV on to get to the right one? And they're like, yes. And I'm like, right, let's talk through it together. Can you do this? Can you do this? They're like, it's working now. And you're like, yes. Yes. You have to be very calm and very polite with them. And yeah, it's funny. And guests don't always think like you. And what I mean by this also is we've had all sorts of stories. We've had it where the coffee machines have been stolen. We've had the weirdest one we've ever had was there was egg on the ceiling in the bedroom. That was a real interesting one. I don't know what was going on on that evening, but yeah, there was literally egg on the ceiling in the bedroom. And I was like, I don't even want to know, like literally. I'll tell you one of the ones that I will always remember. always remember and it makes me laugh the most because I always think it's slightly genius of them. We had a guest day once and I remember my cleaners taking photos and calling me saying, Athena, the bedding on the beds is not our bedding. I don't know what's happened. I said, what do mean the bedding is not our bedding? Because we offered luxury bedding. And she sent me a photo and the bedding was white. It was still white. It wasn't weird or anything, but you could tell. that it wasn't good quality, it was low quality. The guest had brought all of her bedding with her. She had switched our bedding, our luxury bedding, to her bedding, taken our luxury bedding and put her bedding on our beds. And my first reaction, which was probably an inappropriate reaction, but I just laughed. I just thought it was one of the funniest things I had seen. And I thought, wow, you know, people are very creative. And of course, when we messaged the guest and explained this to her, she refused the whole thing. She says, no, no idea what you're talking about. This was the bedding that we had. And so we had to go through Airbnb and really get that sorted as it were. And finally, we managed to get somewhere and come up with a solution with the guest. But do it politely and do it where hopefully she'd admit to it effectively. But it's just bizarre. So yeah, we've had coffee machines that have been stolen. We've had all sorts. We've had it where guests have been extremely demanding where, you know, we've explained to a guest, we'll try and be there within an hour and they've said that's not good enough. If you're not here within half an hour, we're gonna vacate. Guests are an interesting one. I worked in the travel industry for seven years. I know guests, I know guests and I know customers very, very well. And sometimes it's just about managing their expectations. And sometimes you have to say to guests, apologies, that's not realistic. You have to give us longer than half an hour to try and resolve this issue. You have to speak to guests in that way. You're always polite, but you're always firm as well. And sometimes they listen to be fair. And sometimes guests are the most wonderful people. They really are. They're the most wonderful, kind people. You own her a peep out of them and they have the most wonderful stay. The five star reviews, fantastic. And sometimes you'll just get situations. I've spoken to many, many people before where they've tried their best to resolve an issue. I was speaking to one of my friends, Laura the other day and she was telling me that she tried her best to resolve an issue with one of the guests. One of the guests just wasn't having any of it. She went above and beyond, brought her wine, brought her chocolates, really, really tried her hardest. It was completely out of her control. The guest said that she was happy. The guest said she had a wonderful stay. They got it all rectified. And then she left Laura a one-star review. Guests just don't think like us. It's just one of the things. And I think they don't realize how detrimental it is to the business. So what I would say is, is always do your best. Always be polite, but also be firm and don't take, don't take anything too personally. If you get a one star review, don't take it personally. Just dust yourself off, go again. Because believe me, when I read one star reviews, I take it with a pinch of salt. Even when I'm staying at other people's properties, hotels, I take it with a pinch of salt. I read the five star, I read the one stars, I read the middle, and then I make my own decision based on it. So I wouldn't worry too much about it. But yes, always try and create a good checking guide would be my advice on that one because guests will always not understand how to check in. That would be the number one call that you get. If a guest is checking in and you get a call from a random number at 3pm, that is a guest checking in. And yeah, make sure that they understand where the Wi-Fi is. Wi-Fi is a really big one. They're always asking about the Wi-Fi. I would leave like also last bit of advice I would give. I would leave like a little brochure if you can within the apartment. just say like local taxi firms, local restaurants, how, know, beachside cafes, that type of thing. Cause the question I always used to get asked was, can you recommend a restaurant tonight? Can you recommend beach cafes? Now they've got that brochure. So they either didn't ask me or I said, please, can you refer to the, brochure that's on your table? So it just speeds you up a little bit. So yeah. And I think, I think that's the majority of them. And then last tip is regarding just thinking about guests here. regarding things like milk. used to think that all guests would want milk, for example, but 99 % of the times they're either allergic or they wouldn't be able to use it and then it's wasted. So I used to buy the mini milks, the little milks that you could use. then guests usually are just happy to go out and buy some milk traditionally. I'm quite fortunate with where the apartments are in good locations. There's usually like a corner shop around the road. And I never had any complaints about the milk. after that one, when I got rid of it, it was absolutely fine. The guests more complained when there was milk, because if I left milk, they'd say, well, can you provide oat milk? Can you provide almond milk? And I'd be like, God, no. Soon as I got rid of the milk, nobody was asking me for any milk. I was like, this is great. So sometimes less is more as well as what I would say. So just to go over that, always think, so let's start again. Just to recap, always think about setup. So think about your setup costs. think why you're doing this, this is a business at the end of the day, think about really great effects for photographs, but don't overspend. So like I said, panelling, where should the money be spent such as coffee machines, luxury bedding, bigger beds, sofa beds, try and get some really good staging photos as well. Try and stage it like a guest is staying. So stage it with orange juice being poured. croissants, try and sell the lifestyle I would say through the photographs and how their experience would be. Number two, cleaners are worth their weight in gold, absolutely. So make sure you get yourself really great cleaners, really great cleaners and pay more. Like don't go cheap, pay more and get good cleaners. Also linen, laundry, you know, always try and speak to linen companies. I would recommend renting linen if you can as opposed to purchasing, it's a lot cheaper. but always find what works for you and get the cleaners to liaise with them because they know they know who's checking in checking out it works really well that way. Number three was outsourcing management is not always the answer again you know like I'm speaking about nobody will care and love the business as much as you do they just won't. Ask yourself would they be prepared to go out on a Sunday night at nine o'clock to go and fix somebody trying to close a window when dinner's just been prepared for them are they willing to do that? and then ask yourself the other question, which is, are you willing to do that? And if you're not willing to do that, don't do it. Just don't do it because it isn't passive. It is hands on and you, you do have to do what you have to do for the business. So think really long and hard about that one. would say would be my advice. number four automation is everything. Absolutely. Think about all of the messages I just said that I typically send really important. Think about the fact that you don't want to have double bookings. can be an absolute nightmare. And then think about in terms of pricing, you want to have that all automated to know, right, when are all the events happening, the shows, how can my prices be in line with other hotel rates and things? Do they need to go up? Do they need to go down? What about orphan rates? That type of thing. Really important. Then we've got direct bookings. Try and get direct bookings off of OTA platforms. Absolutely. Direct bookings is key. Try and always keep your 18 % commissions in your pocket. That will go towards your revenue. You don't want it to go to the online travel agents, you want to keep it. So try your hardest to get direct bookings. And like I said, channel managers is a great place to set that up. And then last but not least, guests don't think like you. I learned that really, really quickly and really early on. And to be honest with you, can people please, listeners, please send me in your funny stories for guests. Send it in a voice note, send it via Instagram. And what I'll do is I'll share it in my stories online. I think these are such fun. I really, really do. So I've got egg on the ceiling, I've got changing over the duvets, I've got stealing of coffee machines, I've got all sorts. So let me know what you've got, would be great, would be really great. So do share that with me. So I hope for anybody listening who's starting out in service accommodation or even who's got service accommodation, I hope that either made you laugh, I hope you resonate with them, I hope you're nodding along. Don't ever let anything put you off starting a strategy if you think it's the right strategy for you. My job is simply to tell you how to avoid or how to make sure that you avoid the mistakes that I might have made or do things in the correct way as best you can based on my knowledge. Please do share your knowledge with me as well. If you've got some top tips that I could maybe sort of share onwards, then please feel free to bring those in as well. But if you want to do service combination, go for it. It's a fantastic strategy. You can do really well out of it. I mean, I have made significant amounts of money in a short space of time through service accommodation. The only thing I would say is be prepared to work hard, be prepared to go on a roller coaster because one month it can be fantastic, another month it could be awful. Be prepared to experience a lot of interesting days through guests, things going wrong and needing to be reactive is what I would say. This is not a passive strategy. Even if you have a management company, I do not deem it a passive strategy because it is still hands on. It is still your guests and it's still your reputation and your reviews. And I'll say it one more time. No one is going to care about the business as much as you care. that that's what I would leave you with. anybody who wants to learn about service combination or talk more to me about it, feel free to send me a message more than happy to jump on a call, speak to you further about it and how I might be able to, to guide you further, as best I can just let me know. So I hope you all enjoyed that session. These ones are a bit more usually educational, because I try and give education as well as doing the podcast. However, I have some fabulous guests coming up, including Hayley Andrews as well in a couple of weeks, which I'm really excited about. She's absolutely fabulous. I'm getting her on and I'm getting some really cool other people as well. So yeah, if you've got any suggestions of who you would love to hear on the podcast, let me know. Any topics, let me know. We are now sitting at 30,000 downloads, which is just mind blowing. I started the podcast on January 15th, 2023. And we're now 2024 October with 30,000 downloads. And I believe this one is the 89th episode. So thank you so much for all your support. Can't do it without you guys. One thing I will ask while I'm on here, please, is for anyone who is still listening, please, please, can you write a review on Spotify or or Apple podcasts or anything that you're listening on. I've noticed that a lot of people are listening of course, the downloads are amazing but people aren't giving reviews and that's what's going to really help boost the algorithm for girls and property. So if you're listening to this and you've enjoyed this episode and you enjoy girls and property, please leave a review. It will mean the absolute world to me as I try and really get girls and property just going from strength to strength. So thank you. So I will leave it here. In terms of property disasters, think I've given quite a few funny ones from the service accommodation days. So I'll leave it at that. Do not forget that we still have tickets to the Christmas Gala on Saturday, the 7th of December. The promo video actually goes out today for that one, which is really exciting. So 21st of October, the promo video goes out for girls and property. There are limited spaces available. Only 80 tickets are up for grabs. So I'm very excited to see you all there. I booked some most incredible entertainment last week. Yeah, I just can't wait to show you all what I've been working on and the vision I've got. All I will say is anybody who came to the Girls and Property retreat in April, picture that but on steroids is all I'm gonna say for the Christmas Gala. I'm going a bit OTT as I always do and a bit. above and beyond. if you'd like to come, grab your ticket. As I said, it's gonna be about 80 incredible females in the room from across all spectrums of property, finance and construction. You do not have to be, you know, 10, 20 years within the property industry, even if you're getting into it, please come along. It is such a welcome community. The question I get asked all the time is, look, I'm on my own. I'm just getting into the industry. Can I still come? I've got nobody to come with. The answer is yes. That's what it's there for, it's to make you feel comfortable. The women are so incredible and so welcoming and please, please come and experience it for yourself. And then of course, don't forget community members get the 10 % discount off of your gala ticket. So do come along, join the Girls and Property community. We're now 75 members strong and we will have our next online meeting on the first Tuesday of the month in November. So very excited to see you all there. And of course you can catch up on anything that you have missed with all the But it's built on the Circle platform. Come and introduce yourself. It is a beautiful place where people are talking about, you know, lease agreements. talking about, what were they talking about the other day? They were talking about land. They were talking about development rights. They were talking about title splits. There's such interesting conversations that are happening. Rent to rent, of course, service to accommodation. Lots and lots of variety of what the girls are speaking about and lots of help being provided. And I love the fact that I'll sometimes go on and see that other people have commented before I've even had a chance to comment, which is what the community is all about. So please do come and join and just DM me the word community, DM me the word gala, and I'll send you both the information. And then finally, anyone who is listening to this that wants to get started in property or really improve their mindset. then just DM me the word mindset and I'll also give you access to my free property mindset accelerator course, which I have created because I believe everybody has the right to have the right mindset. And that is me teaching you, speaking to you. I've got many worksheets to also do limiting beliefs, buster exercise. It's just a fantastic way just to get your mindset in the right place when going forward in your property journey. That's it. I hope you enjoyed the episode. I thoroughly have. It always shocks me when I manage to speak for an hour to myself. But I know that you guys are out there. I know you guys are listening and I know you guys take a lot away from these episodes. So thank you for your support. Thank you so much for listening. Please do leave a review. Please subscribe. Please support Girls and Property. It means the absolute world to me. And I cannot wait to see for the end of Q4 where we celebrate at the gala the success of Girls and Property. and where it will go for 2025. Thank you again. Have a wonderful Monday. Look out for the promo video today for Girls and Property. And I will see you soon. All the best guys. Take care. Bye.