Five years. Can you believe it?

Get Fully Booked is officially five years old, and I'm not letting this one slip by quietly. Because if I've learned anything from working with hundreds of hosts, it's that we are absolutely terrible at celebrating our own wins. We hit a milestone, give ourselves a quick nod, and then crack on as if nothing happened. And I'm calling us out today!

This episode is a little bit different. Yes, I'm celebrating, but it's also evidence. Five years in business is no small thing when you consider that almost half of all businesses don't make it this far.

But beyond the celebrations, I want to give you something genuinely useful to take away.

Business milestones are a seriously underused marketing tool. Whether you're approaching your first year, just had your 100th direct booking, or you've just landed your 50th five-star review, there is real marketing gold in that moment if you know how to use it.

I'm walking you through why celebrating publicly actually builds trust with future guests, how to use milestones to deepen connection and drive engagement, and the practical ways you can turn your next business anniversary or achievement into a proper marketing moment - not just a one-and-done Canva graphic.

And yes, I'm sharing a little of my own journey too - the highlights, the hard bits, and why after 30 years in marketing, I'm still absolutely not done.

Here's to the next five. 🥂

---

Key Takeaways:

1. Business milestones aren't just something to feel good about - they're a powerful trust signal that shows guests and potential clients you're the real deal and here for the long haul.
2. Almost half of all UK and US businesses don't survive to year five, so if you've hit a significant milestone, that is something worth shouting about.
3. Celebrating publicly isn't showing off - it's evidence of your experience, consistency and commitment, and in a market saturated with AI-generated listings and faceless businesses, that really matters.
4. Don't let a milestone pass with a single post and a quiet nod - plan it, build content around it, and use it to create genuine engagement with your audience.
5. Milestones are a brilliant excuse to look forward as well as back - share what's coming next in your business to keep your audience hooked and following your journey.
6. Whatever your next milestone is - your first direct booking, 100 Google reviews, a fully booked month - grab it with both hands and make it count for your marketing.

---

Do you have a marketing roadmap for your business?

No more winging it and feeling like you are in constant marketing chaos! Create your easy-to-follow marketing roadmap for the year ahead. My Direct Bookings Bootcamp is now available ON DEMAND! Let’s make this the best year yet for direct bookings! Head to my website for more info.

---

What would you do with an extra £20k+ in your holiday business?

I've saved £100k in commission in 5 years by taking 100% direct bookings and now I show Airbnb hosts, holiday cottage and glampsite owners how to do the same.

It is easier than you think to move to 70%+ direct bookings.

If you currently rely on Airbnb or another online agent (OTA), take Sarah's FREE quiz here - it's time to give them the boot!

---

Connect with Sarah:

Website

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn

---

You're listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard.

Are you ready to master your marketing so you can ditch your reliance on the online agents and grow your direct bookings?

I'll be sharing with you exactly what it takes to grow your direct bookings and the simple marketing steps to get more profit in your pocket.

Hello.

Hello and welcome Back to the Get4Fullly Booked podcast.

Today's episode is a little bit different because we are celebrating Get Fully Booked turning five and it's season five of this podcast, so it seems a little apartment.

Yes.

I have had done five years of my marketing club membership, the Fully booked business club, over 260 marketing help desks, 91 direct booking boot campers, 60 monthly training workshops, and hundreds of hosts who have gone from why is nobody booking?

To knowing exactly what marketing will make the difference.

And honestly, I didn't start this business thinking, in five years time, I'll have built a million pound business.

I started it thinking, surely there's a simpler way for hosts to do this marketing thing without losing their minds.

And I was determined to help them do it.

So today I want to do two things.

I want to celebrate properly, because so many business owners, we don't do this.

I want to give you a practical framework for how you can celebrate your own milestones for your business in a way that it actually helps to grow your business.

Because business milestones, they're not just sentimental, I think they are important signals to your customers.

We celebrate our own birthday, so why not a business one?

You know me, any excuse for a party and possibly a gin and tonic.

So let's get started.

So let's start first of all with there's a little bit of a sort of elephant in the room, particularly if you are based in the UK and you're British, because I think we are naturally very reserved and we don't like to sort of celebrate things because we feel like it's showing off.

So we tend to, you know, not celebrate milestones in our businesses.

So if you've hit 100 bookings, you sort of quietly nod and move on.

You launch a new website, you post it once on social media and then you pretend like nothing has happened.

You survive your first year in business and you go, well, that's just what we do, we just have to get on with it.

But no, it isn't.

Here's why celebrating business milestones really matters.

I think the first reason is it helps to build trust, longevity, signals, safety.

Five years for me says that I'm not a flash in the pan.

Marketing guru that suddenly appears, tells you all these, you know, new tricks and then disappears.

I've been here a while.

I've been doing marketing for 30 years.

I've seen many market shifts, I've seen very many recessions.

I've navigated Covid when I lost all my retained consultancy clients.

And I've worked with real hosts in real businesses for almost 2,000 days.

For you, as a host, it might be that you're celebrating three years of welcoming families to the Lake District or, or your 150th five star review on Google.

Possibly you've had 100 direct bookings this year or last year.

That tells your future guests and other people that they can trust you and I can too.

It reinforces your authority.

You know, milestones are receipts in the bank.

They show experience, consistency, results.

And now in an increasingly crowded and saturated hospitality market, I think that really matters.

And funnily enough, I saw the other day that somebody was creating a fishing site with someone else's images and trying to get people's data.

There really is a strong trust recession and people feeling very skeptical now with AI that what they see in front of them, is it real?

Does it actually exist?

So some of these markers that you can put down in the sand, you know, having those Google reviews, being a real person and telling your story and showing people what you've achieved and where you've come from helps to put that trust marker down and gives you that authority.

Thirdly, it also deepens the connection that you have when you sort of celebrate anything in your business.

You bring the audience into your journey, you remind them that you're not a faceless, large corporate.

This is your story.

Often it's your family that you're running your business with or you've worked really hard to get to that point where you've been able to launch your glamping business or refurbish your barn or build up your portfolio of properties.

You've worked hard.

It's your story.

And people love stories.

It's human nature.

And stories help us to build, as I said, they help us to build trust.

So it's not just about guest days, it's not just about courses that I offer or the membership that I offer.

People do buy into journeys.

So if you've just been sort of brushing off all of the milestones in your business because you do feel it's a bit show offy.

I want you to think again about that.

And celebration of anything in your business is not about ego, it's about evidence and giving yourself a bit of a pat on the back.

And there's a very well known fact that almost half of businesses, and this is for the uk, UK and in the US don't make it to year five.

I've actually been self employed for almost next year it'll be 20 years.

So actually to make it to five years and actually our hideout business is six years old.

So you know, to hit those milestones shows that you're committed and that you're in for the journey.

I want to talk to you a little bit about how to celebrate a business milestone with a few practical ideas so that you can take from this podcast not only me celebrating get fully booked being five, but that you can take some practical ideas away to maybe promote in your own business.

Because a business milestone shouldn't just be about creating a canva graphic and posting it and, you know, forgetting about it.

I'm going to give you some ideas about how to do it properly.

So I think the first step is to tell the story.

People don't connect with just the five years, they connect with what you've done in that time.

So how did you get to building your glamping site?

How did you go about converting that tumble down barn into the luxury holiday let that they see in front of them.

They want to know how you got there.

So for me with Getfully booked this means that, you know, I started with a simple mission.

I wanted to help hosts to get to grips with their marketing and master it so that they could have a more profitable business and that they could beat the big boys.

I'm all for fighting, I suppose, the underdog and fighting so that we don't have to, you know, rely on other people to tell us how to run our businesses.

The whole thing about running a business and being running a small business, it's hard.

So being in control of your business is really important.

And I did watch hosts struggle with marketing overwhelm because people made it too difficult.

And I went about and it took me a couple of years to sort of formulate this but to come up with a marketing blueprint, which is my customer delight marketing blueprint, which is a real simple seven step system and that's what I teach in my bootcamp because I felt that, you know, how marketing is taught and how I've learned marketing was potentially too complicated and I wanted it to be accessible and easy for people to be able to do that own marketing and to demystify it so it wasn't viewed as as complex and difficult.

And for me, seeing my members and my clients get more direct bookings, maybe their first direct bookings and sending me messages does fill me with joy.

So I think the second thing is involve your audience.

So a milestone in your business is the perfect excuse to create engagement and it gives you a hook really for some marketing activity.

So for any short term rental business you could do like you're celebrating two years so you're giving away a two night stay.

Celebrating our hundredth review.

Here's 10% off a midweek stay.

Obviously you do that if it's the low season and you're not giving away your prime time.

It's our birthday, so here are five of our favourite guest moments.

Or you could share five of your guests favorite things that they do in the area.

Make it a moment, not just one post.

Try and bring people in to engage with your business and be part of your celebration.

The third thing is like anchoring it into the future as well.

So a milestone is not just about looking back and celebrating the years that have passed, it's also a way of looking forward.

So what are you building next?

What are your plans for the business going forward?

I've got some major plans for get fully booked this year which I'm really excited about.

So keep an eye on my socials and my website or if you're on my email list, I'll be telling you all about that.

But it is important to tell people sort of what's coming next and also to encourage them to stay, you know, tuned in and to follow your journey.

It's about creating that, as I said, that connection and wanting them to come with you on that journey.

So lastly, I wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, why this milestone matters for me because five years is exciting but the real reason that I want to celebrate get fully booked being 5 is I feel I've had a significant impact.

And over the past five years I've seen hosts that have gone from hating doing their marketing and feeling like they were no good at it to feeling confident and actually enjoying doing their marketing.

They have grown their direct bookings many over 70% and as high as 96% or even 100%.

I've got one club member who was at 80% but actually grew that to 95% direct bookings.

So.

So I've been filled with joy that those direct bookings have grown and that they have no longer been reliant on an OTA and having them control their businesses.

Those businesses have become more profitable and more sustainable.

And for those hosts, those owners, those clients and club members that I've worked with and their families, they have built a lifestyle and a freedom that they wanted because each of us has very different motives for wanting to run our businesses.

So I want you to do a little bit of work here too.

So I'm going to give you something to think about if you run a glamping site or another short term rental.

Just think about how many milestones have been celebrated with you in your business.

How many anniversaries have been celebrated, how many kids have discovered maybe nature for the first time or built a den in the woods for the first time or I don't know, swung on a tire swing or done something that they wouldn't normally do at home.

How many birthdays or I do moments have you had?

So I think just wrapping up, I think I'll be honest, there have been moments in these past five years it hasn't all been plain sailing and I could have at times easily stopped.

I think we all, when we run our businesses, it can be lonely.

I'm lucky that I've surrounded myself by good business mentors and I'm part of a couple of masterminds where I mix with like minded business owners who help to lift me up when I'm feeling like it's hard work and I'm not sure if I want to carry on.

And they give me insights and encouragement and it's very, very valuable.

But there have been moments of doubt, there's been moments of frustration when others have blatantly just copied what I'd created.

I think we've all been there moments where maybe business associates or even my club members or clients haven't behaved with integrity or as nicely as I would hope.

And it's hard not sometimes to take that personally.

But the reason I'm still here is that I think I will live and breathe marketing to my last breath.

I have been doing it for 30 years and I truly believe that hosts can master it and get to their own business goals and life dreams.

Because that's ultimately, you know, none of us do marketing just for the sake of it.

We do it because it's going to help us to be successful and for our businesses to grow and to bring money in.

And ultimately I always say the money is in the marketing.

So it but it's what that money then does for you in your own life.

And depending on what you want to achieve.

And if you're listening to this and thinking, I don't know if I'll still be here in five years, what I'd like to say to you is, you don't build to five years knowing everything at the start.

My business now looks very different to how it did at the beginning.

Get Fully Booked is different.

It evolves.

But you don't build to that.

You know, you build to that five years by actually doing it and just being tenacious and staying in the game.

And I know for many hosts at the moment, the market is very tough.

And I just say to you, keep going.

So here's what I'd like you to do.

If you have a milestone coming up, whether it's your first year in business, maybe you've got to 50 bookings, 100 Google reviews, maybe your first direct booking.

I had one of my club members get their first AI source on one of their bookings.

Your first fully booked month.

Whatever it is, don't let it pass by quietly.

I want you to grasp it with both hands, plan it, build content around it, use it to build trust and celebrate it.

And if you want support, building the kind of marketing that means you're still here in five years, you know where to find me.

Thank you for being part of this Get Fully Booked journey.

Whether you've been here since day one or you've just found this podcast last week.

Five years and I'm just getting started.

I've got some exciting plans for you this year.

Thank you for listening and I'll see you next week.

Thank you for listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard.

If you want to see if you are ready to ditch the likes of Airbnb and grow your direct bookings, put your business to the test with my free direct booking roadmap quiz.

Head to my website get fully booked.com?

quiz, and let's get you more direct bookings and more profit in your pocket.