In a world of cookie-cutter accommodations, one man dared to defy the norm and revolutionize the short-term rental industry. Meet Mark Winship, whose journey took an unexpected turn on the road to success. As he expanded his portfolio to include luxury holiday let properties, Mark faced a daunting challenge - how to maintain a personalized guest experience at scale. Little did he know, the solution he would discover would not only elevate his business but also leave a lasting impact on the industry. Stay tuned as we unravel the twist in Mark's story and uncover the secret to his remarkable achievement...

Our goal is to create authentic and memorable experiences for our guests, so they associate our brand with a truly fantastic holiday. - Mark Winship

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Maximize direct booking revenue with proven strategies.
• Create unforgettable guest experiences through personalized touches.
• Foster trust and loyalty with guests in the hospitality industry.
• Elevate guest experiences by tapping into local suppliers.
• Streamline operations for sustainable business growth.

Mark Winship is the founder of Gateway Accommodation and Stay New Forest. With a passion for providing personalized guest experiences, Mark and his wife Caroline have successfully grown their portfolio of short-term rentals to 59 units, soon to be 61. Despite the geographical and target market splits, Mark is committed to maintaining a high level of personalization for every guest. From offering a guest portal with all the information they need at their fingertips to sending a personalized welcome video, Mark ensures that guests feel valued and taken care of. With his focus on systemizing the personalization process and incentivizing his team to prioritize guest satisfaction, Mark has built a strong reputation for delivering a premium guest experience. Join us as Mark shares his strategies for building trust and personalizing the guest experience at scale in the short-term rental industry.

Connect with Mark:

On Instagram: @coaching.winners, @gateway accommodation, @staynewforest

https://staynewforest.info/

https://shows.acast.com/secret-serviced-podcast

The key moments in this episode are:

00:00:08 - Introduction

00:00:36 - Background and Brands

00:03:40 - Personalization at Scale

00:09:03 - Supporting the Guest Experience

00:11:10 - Building Connection with Guests

00:15:50 - Creating Authentic Experiences

00:18:00 - The Shift towards Experiences

00:20:41 - Driving Direct Bookings

00:24:49 - Building Trust and Convert Bookings

00:25:52 - Trust in OTAs

00:31:23 - Personalizing the Guest Experience

00:32:39 - Systemizing Personalization

00:33:53 - Direct Booking Success

00:35:01 - Connecting with Mark

00:37:24 - Real-Life Perspective on Short-Term Rental Hosting

Show notes are available at: https://directbookingsuccess.com/podcast/

Follow Jenn on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/directbookingsuccess

Join the Marketing Hub Free Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/marketinghubforholidayrentals

Sign up for the free masterclass – The 4-step framework for a profitable direct booking sales engine: https://directbookingsuccess.com/masterclasswaitlist

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Direct Booking Success. I'm Jennn Boyless, your host. And today I have Mark winship with me. Mark is the founder of Gateway Accommodation and Stay New Forest. Hi, Mark, thanks for coming on today.

Hi, Jenn. Thanks for having me on the podcast.

Nice to see you, Jenn. Lovely to see you too. So let's get into your background. Let's start there. You've got two brands: Gateway Accommodation and Stanu Forest. So tell us about them.

Yeah, so I run both businesses with my wife Caroline, and we've got two other business partners that we run Stay New Forest with. We started investing and we launched our service accommodation business at the begInning of 2019. So we had a few months lead into things before the whole world got turned upside down during COVID But we've kind of built and grown through that period. We started investing in property actually a few years before that with a different strategy, and then we decided to focus on short term rentals at the begInning of 2019. And we initially focused on kind of working stays and contractor style accommodation in the Midlands in the UK. And we've kind of branched out from there and we grew quite a substantial base around the Midlands. And then we started investing more on the south coast around the kind of luxury holiday let Market. And the portfolio kind of grew and grew and we got more excited about the strategy, if you like. And we actually launched our first apart hotel back in 2021, which was a really interesting project. And then we launched our second hotel in the summer. So it's kind of despite everything that COVID has thrown at the hospitality industry, we've kind of, I guess, found ways to grow and scale and move forward. So it's been a bit of a whirlwind journey, to be honest, over the last, what is it, four years now. But, yeah, that's where we find ourselves now. So we're basically split between two areas. We cover kind of working stays around a regional airport in the Midlands area of the UK, and then off the back of our holiday lets that we had developed and set up down on the south coast. We actually launched a management agency called Stay New Forest, which was really around our sort of passion for the area. And it's a beautiful part of the UK, it's our favorite place to go and visit and we really to sort of tap into that passion and grow from there. So that's a fairly new business, but we're really excited about where that's going as well.

Yeah, that's great. Cool. And today, because you've got quite a sizable portfolio and we talk a lot on the podcast about smaller portfolios, where you might have a couple of units, you might have a couple of cottages, houses, a couple of apartments, but we're going to talk about some strategies for sort of a larger portfolio. So how many units in total do you have?

So we're currently operating 59 units, soon to be 61. We're actually onboarding a couple more as we speak. So, yeah, it's a decent sized portfolio. We're geographically split as well, so they're not all on our doorstep. And that's become a bit of a personal fascination of mine, actually, is around how do we systemize the personalization of things? So the first few units that we launched, if you like, in the kind of short stay rental space, were actually sitting next to them right now. They're actually right next door to our house.

No way.

Literally next door. It was a title split. We split the title in half. We now live in the right hand side and we developed what were some kind of agricultural outbuildings and cow sheds and stuff like that, into six apartments, which we still run today and do really, really well. But clearly, adding the personal touch to guests that stay at those properties to a certain extent wasn't difficult. We live right next door, we can just pop over, we can add that little sprinkling of fairy dust quite easily. But obviously, as we've decided to scale this into a short term rental business all across the UK, how do you maintain that level of personalization? And what we want is for every guest to stay at our property, to feel like it's the only property that we have, they're the only guests staying with us on that particular night. That's what we're trying to get across. And that's not easy when you're operating multiple units. And so I really get quite geeky about the systems involved in making people feel valued and making them feel like they're getting a really premium guest experience.

Yeah, like you said, when you've got them next door, then that's a lot easier. When you've got just a couple, that's a lot easier. It's doing it at scale, that's where it gets really difficult. And geographically, with you guys being split in the country too, that makes it even more difficult because they're not even in your local area. So can you tell us some of the things that you are doing to make the guests feel like they're the only ones that have ever stayed there?

Yeah, because also, just to pick up on that last point, it's not just about the geography split, it's about the target Market split as well. So we're dealing with contractors and very much working stays and corporate stays on one hand, and then right up to sort of luxury leisure stays, really quite bespoke leisure stays, on the other hand. And what does personalization actually mean? Because it really depends on who's staying, right?

Yes.

So for a contractor who's coming to the area to work, personalization might just be us showing that we've thought of everything. We've got all of the answers to all the questions they might have on tap in a really convenient way that they can access. So we have a guest portal, for example, that they can log into. It's got all the information about the property, obviously things like how to get in and how to use the appliances, but it's got links to our handpicked kind of restaurants and takeaways and places to shop. And although we may never personally speak to those guests so we're effectively running an automated kind of faceless organization, they feel that all their needs have been met and they've got all the information at their fingertips and they know how they can reach us if they need to. So for someone who's staying for work, my wife has a phrase, she calls it helicopter hosting. You've heard of helicopter parenting where you're buzzing around more time. Contractors don't want that. They want to just be able to let themselves in but also feel like all their needs have been met. So that's very much about the system side of things. But we even go to some kind of really, I guess, detailed kind of lengths where as part of our automated message thread that goes out through our channel manager, we include a link to a video of myself and Caroline actually introducing ourselves and showing them the face behind the brand. Because if you're going to scale and particularly if you're going to start moving into things like the hotel space, you've kind of got to have a brand, you've got to be business fronting. But at the same time, what's the criticism that's leveled at big hotel chains like Premier Jenn or Travel lodges? It's the fact that they're soulless and they're faceless and it's like, well, how can we build a brand? Because that is very much what we're trying to do. We are trying to build a hospitality brand, but also show that there are people behind it, if that makes sense. Yeah, so we send a video out where we give a personalized welcome message and they know that they can reach us and that kind of thing. We also have lots of, I guess, touch points for the guests physically at the property where they can actually get in touch with us. And as I said, we point them in the direction of our local recommendations so they feel that they've got that personal kind of handholding experience.

Yeah, they've been taken care of, but they don't have you buzzing around them asking them every 2 seconds are you okay? Do you need this? Do you need that?

Yeah, exactly. And it also comes down to the support that we provide as part of our team. I guess we do have a couple of managers now, a couple of essentially virtual assistants that help us run the day to day aspects of the business, including liaising with the guests. And when we onboard those staff and as we continue to provide support to the staff, it's very much around the guest experience, right down to the detail of the way in which we engage them. So an element of their pay is performance related and it's very much tied to the guest experience. It's very much tied to the performance in terms of revenue generated, but how that is linked to guest satisfaction. And it doesn't matter whether that person is more focused on operations or whether they're more focused on guest-fronting kind of hospitality. They're all performance incentivized in the same way because ultimately it all contributes to the same feeling of a premium guest experience. If our operations manager is sorting out maintenance issues very quickly and very efficiently and is liaising with the guest and letting them know what's happening every step of the way, that's going to lead to great reviews just as much as our sales manager who's actually dealing with them. Throughout the course of the booking, we train the staff, we talk to them a lot about top and tailing messages, making sure that, let's face it, not all of the guests that we deal with are always as pleasant as we would like.

That happens, yeah. Because you're going at scale so you can't be as hands on as you have been in the past. And as you grow, you'll have to step back a bit because someone needs to steer the ship, if you will. Right. And you've got the staff there where your team members slow you to take on those details. I love the idea of the welcome video from you and Caroline showing that face behind the brand. Because even though the contractors are just like, okay, I need a place to stay. But I don't want to stay in a hotel. I want some space. I want to be able to make my meals or whatever. It just goes to show that there's somebody there and somebody has cared for that space and has put together the property for them. And it goes to building that connection, that relationship, doesn't it, between the guest, the guest and the host?

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's absolutely key. And we certainly feel we've got a bank of anecdotal evidence now that shows that they're more likely to review you positively if they see the face behind the brand. They understand that we're a small family business, give us a chance to solve issues if you encounter anything, and we'll get onto that and we'll solve it quickly. And I think building that kind of relationship is what's really important. If all they see is a kind of a faceless brand, there's a disconnect there and they're much more likely, we find, to be a lot less sympathetic with the way that they notify you about things that have come up during the issue and the way that ultimately that reflects in reviews, I guess.

And it's also how they treat the property. I find that when you go to a Faceless soulless place, the guests are thinking, well, they have no connection with who owns it, who cleans it, anything. So they may not treat the place as nicely as they would where they would with somebody who they know whose place it is and they've got those faces.

I'll tell you what's really interesting sorry interrupt, but one of the things that were actually in the process of implementing at the moment is a chat bot. Now, that might seem like a strange thing to bring up when we're talking about personalization because why am I talking about essentially a robot? But again, it's how we craft that flow of guest communication to make sure what's key to the guests. The key is that they have their questions answered, that we're responsive, that they feel they're getting what they need when they need it. And obviously, when you're operating 60 plus units with the best in the world, keeping up response time and making sure that there's nothing more disconcerting than if you can't get into a property you've arrived late or something isn't working or you've arrived late, the heating isn't on or something like that. Not being able to get hold of the host and get the answers you need, things like that fester very quickly. So we're actually introducing a chat bot, not because we're trying to distance ourselves from the guests, quite the opposite. We're trying to make sure that we maintain that level of responsiveness as we scale well and that's it.

And we know in this industry that problems do not happen between nine and five, Monday to Friday. The problems normally happen at like midnight on a Saturday, so you've got to make it manageable for yourselves as well as taking care of the guests. So I think that's a great thing. What other things are you doing to really personalize that experience? Maybe talk us through what you're doing with the luxury places on the South Coast?

Well, I think we're so passionate about this particular space at the moment because, you know, the industry is changing really quickly, expectations of guests are evolving by the day. And when we launched a new forest, we didn't necessarily start investing in hotels and holiday lets down on the south coast because we love the area and it was also a foot in the door for us to be able to spend more time in a part of the country that we love. And it kind of grew quite organically. But when we started to look at the service and the offering that other managing agents were providing in that area, we really felt that there was an opportunity to tap in more to the whole experience side of things. And I think we realized pretty quickly that there are beautiful properties in amazing locations in the New Forest in England, are ten a, it's just a beautiful part of the world. And yes, we want to make sure that people understand that we've got beautiful places for them to stay. But equally, it's about adding to the memories that they create when they stay with us, because ultimately, that's what they're going to take away with them. And if we can be instrumental in putting my business hat on now, if we can be instrumental in helping them have a truly authentic kind of New Forest experience, tapping into what the area has to offer rather than just dropping in and dropping out again. We encourage them to engage with local suppliers, local services, local shops and restaurants and independent retailers, et cetera. Then they're going to associate our brand with the fantastic experience that they've had on that particular holiday. But we have to put systems around that. So we are focusing very much on the upsell side of things and how we link with local suppliers and local providers to provide that upsell experience to people to bolt onto the wonderful property that they've booked to stay in. So we've linked with we've got cycle tours of the New Forest, we've got chocolate making experiences. There's a lady who does foraging in the forest and uses it on the stuff they find to make cocktails with. And you're all private chefs, all of this sort of stuff, really tapping into some amazing local suppliers and producers to add to those memories. So that's really the route we're going down more with the luxury stage. And that's where I really see I don't know if you see it the same, but that's where I see that side of the industry really going, is down the experiences side of things.

I totally agree, completely agree. And that's what I seem like. Every conversation I'm having on the podcast goes into the experience and it's like that destination Marketing about it's no longer about your property. I've got five beds. Well, good for you. I've got such and such cotton linen. Who cares? At this fixed stage, it's those experiences that make the memories. Which is exactly what you're talking about.

Yeah, 100%. And that's one of our favorite things about what we get to do now. Yes, we've got some beautiful properties, but being able to get out and meet with these suppliers and it's a great excuse, isn't it, to test drive all the local restaurants and cafes and make sure you're providing those handpicked recommendations. So, yeah, I definitely think that's the way it's going. And I think that ultimately, if you look at it from a business point of view, that is what is going to separate you from the competition. Otherwise, how else do you add value? Other than to add these additional experiences to the Stay no.

And when you look at it, when you look at it against hotel stays and vacation rentals, holiday lets, the difference between the two, this is really where we can make our Mark is the experience. The guest is already choosing a vacation rental, a holiday let as a place for the whole family or a couple or whoever the ideal guest is to stay and to create those memories. So let's provide them with even more for them to make those memories together. I think that is great, I really do. Because I think, as you're saying, I think this is the way the industry is leaning towards and it's how we can make ourselves different from our competitors and away from that mentality of heads on bend.

Yes, 100%. And ultimately, again, put your business hat on. We're scaling a brand here, we're building a business and who are more likely to we're here to talk about direct bookings, right? So who are they more likely to come back to if they link you and your brand with those memories and those experiences? They're more likely to tell their friends. They're more likely to tell you had this amazing holiday down in the New Forest and we did X, Y and Z and who did you book that through? And it's tapping into that side of things, isn't it?

It is. And I love what you're doing with building your brand and that you've made it harder for yourself by having two separate brands and two separate places in the country. But I love what you've done because you're really tapping into the ideal guest for those businesses. Now, how are you getting people to book on your website, on your direct booking websites instead of using all the channels?

Yeah, that's a really good question. That's the Holy grail, isn't it? To try and drive those direct bookings? It's a really interesting one. We look at this in various ways so we are active on social media. We're particularly, again, this is still very much hot off the press work in progress, but we are really trying to, like, let's say, for example, for Stay New Forest, we might post four or five times a week on social media. I would say one of those posts is going to be about a property. The rest of it is going to be about it's going to be an instagram reel or it's going to be a TikTok video of us actually doing one of the experiences or out and about in the forest and showing what's possible and really kind of building that community around people who just are passionate about the area and love what there is to do. And it's almost like it sounds strange, but the accommodation is like secondary to that, in a sense, to the point where and this is certainly not a plug by any means, but it's important to mention that the domain name that we chose for Stanyu Forest is Stay New Forest Info. And we chose that very deliberately and that was because we really want to position ourselves as one of the go to tourism resources, if you like, online for people who are passionate about the forest, who've maybe been there before or maybe grew up there and have got a connection with the area. And we use our website to showcase the best restaurants, to showcase the best places to visit. Oh, by the way, we also do accommodation and that's how we want it to be. We want people to come to us because we are the destination portal, if you like, and oh, have you seen that they actually have accommodation that you can book directly through their website and it's almost secondary as opposed to, hey, look at this property, book this, we've got a special offer on this book here. And then, oh, by the way, you can go for a nice walk in the forest.

Yes. No, and I completely agree. It's something that I do with clients. I always like to say you're bringing people into your website by a side door, especially with the use of blogs and things like that about the local area, about experiences that they can have. You're bringing people in and then they go, oh, yeah, I want to come here. Oh, I can stay here. Oh, great, the accommodation is second now. And I think that it's hard for those starting out to get their head around because they've been so much into that, putting this place together. We need guests, we want to do it. But I'll have people come to me that don't have a website yet and we'll talk about domain names and they will have thought of this really cute title and I'm like, okay, I hate to burst your bubble, but let's be clever about it instead. Let's not use the name of your house or your business. Let's look at your area and what people are going to be searching for, what your ideal guest is going to be searching for. And it sounds like you guys undone that exact thing.

Yeah, and I think that's right. And it's not an overnight thing. This is not going to happen. We got to build a community and we've got to build trust and we've got to build something that takes time to create. Because actually, when you look at how we drive direct bookings, it's a really interesting one because I actually talk to our staff a lot about what's the best use of their time, how can they be most efficient in driving direct bookings? And actually that is more about how do we convert bookings from people who book through an Ota? So who books through airbnb or booking.com? How do we demonstrate to them that the next time that they book, they would be better off, that we can look after them better, we can provide them with a more personalized service and we build that trust. And in many ways, I find that it's more productive for our staff to put their energies into that and create those conversions than cold calling and trying to fish for those bookings externally. So we put a lot of work into that. We have physical Marketing at the property that highlights how they can book with us, why they should book with us. We have automated messages that make that very clear, because it's about building trust, isn't it? At the end of the day, it.

Is, and I'm glad you brought that up, because I was just about to say the word that we haven't used yet is trust. And it all comes down to that. So it's that trust of people when they come across your website and they're like, who does this know? So showing your face, leading into the experiences and the area that shows trust that you are who you say you know, if they're a new guest, but for returning guests, you never want to pay the Ota twice for the same guest, do you?

Yeah, absolutely. I have quite what's potentially quite a controversial take on trust within what we do. My personal experience, certainly 90% of the time, is that the guests actually trust the OTAs. That's been my experience. And if you think about it, it's kind of human nature. Like, we all know we should shop local, but not all of us do it. We nip to Aldi or we nip to Tesco or the big brands because it's convenient, because it's easy, because we know what we're going to get, et cetera, et cetera. We know we should support local suppliers, but we don't always do it. And certainly we only see it from our side of the fence and we go, how on earth could a guest possibly trust booking.com over us? Well intentioned hosts, but they don't. And actually, my experience has been that a lot of guests are very on guard. When you first try to reach out and build that trust, you send them a payment link for a deposit or a link to their guest portal with the best of intentions, oh, what's this link? Should I be clicking on this? I'm not sure what this is. Can this not go through the platform? And you're there thinking, Come on, give me a break. But we have to work really hard to change that perception, if you like, and explain to guests how they would be better off booking with us directly. And that's not easy, I think it doesn't come as automatically as you might think.

No. And it's sort of one guest at a time. It's a slow process because I'm not going to throw airbnb under the bus, but just saying they've been around, what, ten years now or whatever, it's been over that and they have put the guest first in everything they've done. I was actually watching a video the other day and they were saying that airbnb was walking a tightrope between the guest and the host. And I was like, no, they're not. The host doesn't even get a look in you guys. It's the guest. That they've all been about the guests from day one. So the guest has sort of grown up with this platform saying, do everything through the platform, nothing out there is safe. That's the message that they've been given. And it's up to us now to sort of say, actually, that's not true. These are small businesses, people are behind them. They want to give you the best experience that they can give you and that trust. And that is the missing link that I think a lot of people don't get. They're all over social media, but they're posting all about their property. Sell, sell, come and book, book. But that doesn't get that trust across.

I guess that's exactly the message I'm coming with in my experience, has been that just because you have an all singing, all dancing, direct booking website, which of course you have to have, just because you've got a nice glossy looking social media wall, which, of course, you need to have. That doesn't mean you can automatically just sit back and expect everyone to come flocking to you directly. It doesn't work like that. You have to build that trust and add value. You've got to be adding value so that people start to associate you with that experience like we talked about. So yeah, it's hard work, but equally there is a process to it. You've got to be consistent with it. It's about how you communicate with the guests. So, for example, we have a different cancellation policy for direct booking guests. We have a flexible approach to things like check in and check out. It's just little touches like that that show that just get them to start to think, oh, hold on a second, maybe actually there is a reason for me to come to this person directly, but it takes time to build up that rapport. And don't be alarmed, I guess if you're just starting out and actually some guests are quiet their guard is up. We're all used to phishing attempts and scams and all that. And naturally people are a little bit on their guard when they start getting links and notifications from a platform they're not familiar with. And familiarity is really what trust is all about.

No, I think you've nailed it on the head there, you really have. And I think that just one guest at a time when they've stayed with you, they've booked that platform. Because it's not always about price. I think that's another thing that we're like, oh, you get the best price if you book Direct. But that's not always the thing. I think the trust issue is even more important to guests for them to book Direct than saving money.

Yeah. And again, I come full circle because it really comes back to your target Market. I think, with our working stays, ultimately, they are very price sensitive, they are very aware of price and they will be much more receptive to a potential discount or an opportunity to save a bit of money on the next working stay. So that is really the focus. We have fallen into trap before of using exactly the same communication style with our luxury holiday let Market. And we've had totally the opposite response. We had it quite recently, actually, or we felt that was a bit spammy and we didn't like the fact that you were telling us that we could save money on our next day. They didn't like that approach. They're much more around. Look, how can we help you personalize your stay? What are you looking to try and do while you're in the area? Can we help you build a bit of an itinerary for your stay? It's much more that sort of thing. So, again, it's back to knowing your.

Market and it's almost like becoming a concierge for them, isn't it? That's what you would have in a high end hotel versus something like a budget Premier Jenn Travel Lodge or a Holiday Jenn Express, those kinds of things. The front desk will help you, but having that concierge, who knows you, knows what you want, I think, yeah. Tapping into that ideal guest and knowing them inside and out is what allows you to then go about doing the personalization as well as the trust.

And that's exactly how we systemize it. So we have various options, various upsells, once they've been through our online check in process, but they're pretty much all on a request only, and that comes through to one of our managers. And her job is basically to act as the concierge. So she will take their requirements. How many of you are there? Have you got any specific dietary requirements? What are you looking for? And she'll then go to the supplier and go, I've got guests looking for this, what's your availability? Et cetera. And she will broker that on their behalf and it's a service that we can provide and that's how we're adding value.

Yeah. Well, I love it. I love what you're doing. And this new brand, I think, is really amazing. Now, I can't let you go without asking you, what does direct booking success mean to you?

It's really interesting because as you can probably tell, I'm passionate about systems, I'm passionate about automating things, and ultimately, like I've said all the way through, we are running and growing a business. So, for me, direct booking success basically means sustainability, means longevity, and it means the fact that we're building a business that actually has value, it has a tangible existence and it thrives beyond myself and Caroline having to have our hand on the tiller all the time. Because if you build a client base. If you build that trust, you've got a business that can sustain itself. If ultimately, five years down the line or ten years down the line, we decide we've had enough of all of this and we want to move the business on, kind of thing, then going to a potential buyer, for example, this is just an easy, clear cut example and saying, yeah, our business involves sticking it on airbnb and hoping that people book You've got no value there. That's not actually a business. In that sense, the fact that we've got a loyal customer base who come back to us year in and year out or week in and week out for working contracts is that we have a business that has sustainability and it has value. That, for me, is what it's all about. Obviously, it's financially beneficial for us to drive direct bookings as opposed to paying Ota commissions, but for me, it's about more than that. It's about starting with the end in mind. What are we trying to create here and building something that has value that ultimately we have options with in the future.

Love it. Thank you, Mark, thank you for coming on today. I'm going to put your links in the show notes. Where is the best place for people to connect with you?

Instagram. I'm coaching wJenners is my Instagram handle. So I'm on Instagram as a coach. I've also recently had my arm twisted into being on TikTok, so I'm on TikTok as leveraging wJenners as well. So you can look me up there. Stay New Forest on Instagram if you want to have a look at some of the stuff that we're doing on there. And then my wife and I also have a podcast. I don't know if it's like a weight around our necks now, but we love doing it. It's almost like it's our equivalent of a therapy couch, I think, at the end of the week, because we run a podcast where we literally give it warts and all, right? And it is called the secret service podcast. And it's essentially a day to day account. Well, it's weekly, but we relate everything that we go through, the ups and the downs and the highs and the lows. And if we're having issues with cleaners or maintenance or guests, we've had tears, we've had shouting, we've had laughter, we literally open the doors, I guess, to the Jenner workings of our business. So if nothing else, if anybody's listening to those who are involved in hospitality and short stay rentals, they will at least relate to a lot of what we go through on the podcast, I would imagine.

Well, definitely. And so many, if you look at the glossy world of Instagram, not very many people are showing them scrubbing toilets, which we've all done and we all do.

That was in the latest episode, I think.

There you go. Yeah. No, I love it that you're being completely transparent and it's a place to sort of vent out some of those things and we can all identify with what you guys are talking about, you and your wife, Caroline.

It's funny, sometimes we worry that we're putting more people off short stay with rentals than we are attracting to it, but it seems to be the opposite. It does seem to be landing with people who can relate to what we're doing and actually find that there are so many training courses and what have you out there, aren't there? About short stay rentals and service accommodation and rent to rent and all of this and just my personal take, but very few of them are really showing you the real life of what it's like to be a short term rental host. And I guess that's all we're trying to achieve. It seems to be landing with people. We get some lovely comments about it and people who genuinely are following our journey, laughing with us, crying with us. So we'll keep going for as long as we seem to be adding value there.

Yeah, no, I think it's great because you can look anywhere to see that sort of STR, get rich quick thing, which you all know the difference. So I don't think you're putting people off, I think you're just showing that the real world, it takes some work. No one's just going to get, you know, unless you're born into it, I guess. But we weren't that lucky, were we?

No, not at all.

Thank you so much, Mark, for coming on today. And I'll put those links in the show notes. I'll put a link to your podcast too, and I wish you all the best of luck. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Jenn. It's been a pleasure. Take care.