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Hello again.

I'm back with another episode of the Get Fully Booked podcast.

I'm your host, Sarah Orchard.

Today.

Today I'm delighted to welcome one of my fellow industry experts, Lisa Rhodes.

Lisa is a woman on a mission, hugely passionate about supporting us women in short term rentals and I wanted to interview her on the podcast to share what she is up to.

Welcome to the podcast, Lisa.

Hi Sarah.

And thank you very much for inviting me as a guest on your podcast.

I know we've been taking a while to get this date together.

We finally managed it.

We have.

And you and I have known each other for, oh, probably about three years, I reckon.

Yeah, probably, yeah, that time.

And I've watched with interest as you've been developing what you've been doing for women in short term rentals.

So I'm delighted that you're with us today and you can tell everyone a bit more about it.

So first let's start with a quick intro for the listeners on your background in short term rentals because it is pretty extensive.

Yeah, I feel like I've been around for a long time actually when I say to people I've been in the industry for over 25 years and I'm only what, you know, 21, it doesn't seem possible, does it?

But you know, yeah, I entered property at a very young age on the back of my dad's advice to get into property, I think from about the age of 19.

So I invested in property from the age of 19 in traditional buy to lets and then we were living overseas and I said to Clive we need to keep our hand in property really.

So we started building a property portfolio when we were living and working in the Middle east.

Those were off plan properties in Cyprus.

So that was our first sort of foray into an overseas market if you like.

Brilliant.

So how many properties did you end up with in your portfolio?

175.

We scaled up about 225.

At one point.

We only worked with pure property investor owners who were very hands off.

So we.

We had a fully managed full service package for those owners and that was literally doing everything from taking an empty property, interior designing, project managing the furnishing of it to get a.

A ready to go product through to all the rental marketing, the full management, swimming pool maintenance, the whole lot.

And we even then went into facilities management.

So full block management.

We did that too.

But yeah, we scaled up to 225 and then scaled down to 175.

And that was really about niching.

That was about really being very clear about who we wanted to target as guests and what type of properties we wanted to offer as a product and getting rid of those problem children that we've all experienced or misaligned clients, as we should say.

But yeah, that was a very conscious strategy to scale back down to 175 luxury coastal villas and apartments in three locations across the island.

Wow.

And were you living in Cyprus as well at the time?

No, I had a house.

Doing it remotely.

We did it remotely.

So, yeah, I built a team remotely right from the get go, which was about building an ecosystem.

Initially, of course, contract partners and then eventually employees.

And eventually I had three local area managers for the three very defined areas and teams below them.

And I had a team in the UK which worked here in the UK office, running the rental side of the rental marketing and the rental management site from the uk.

Obviously, all the on the ground property management stuff was done on the ground by the team on the ground.

And I ran it remotely for all of the years I ran the business.

Yeah, wow, that's some achievement because that doesn't sound like an easy business model to implement.

I look back now and go, I must have been absolutely crazy.

I mean, EasyJet ran an article on me because they knew I was using EasyJet Bristol to Paphos like a taxi sometimes, you know, like a bus.

I was backwards and forward so frequently in the early years that they literally ran this article on me in their magazine to say, you know, how many of you use it this frequently?

We've got some very frequent passengers using it for business.

And I was one of those people.

But eventually I knew that the plan was that I Did not want to be the person the whole business was dependent on.

And to scale any business, that is the key thing.

That's the key strategy that you do have to start building a team that will do a lot of that stuff for you so that you can run the business, which is kind of where we got to in the end, thankfully.

But it was, yeah, the early days were really hard.

No OTAs, no tech, no PMS's, nothing.

And we were literally building systems from the ground up.

Everything was built from the ground up.

Yeah.

Did you ever sleep?

Not much, no.

And I think that's a very entrepreneurial trait, isn't it, really, that you know, you're always on, like if you are an entrepreneur.

And I came from an entrepreneurial family, my parents both had their own businesses.

I think you are that sort of person where you're always thinking about, how can I improve this, how can I make that better for guests, how can I make sure the team are okay?

And of course we had the time difference, so one hour at some times a year, two hours at certain times a year.

So my team were like a couple of hours ahead of me.

So we had to shift the whole day really to accommodate the time difference and stuff.

So, yeah, going on holiday wasn't easy in those days.

I don't remember really being able to take much holiday when my husband didn't say, is your phone constantly strapped to your ear?

And again, that's another very typical entrepreneurial thing, isn't it?

You know, that you go, thank God for iPhones.

Because that was my entire life in my hands for the business all those years.

Yeah, thank God for iPhones.

Yeah, yeah, no, that sounds really challenging.

But you've got lots of obviously that experience to share with us in the industry.

And I thought we'd firstly sort of start by looking at, you know, why do you feel that women in short term rentals have a big opportunity to tap into the female pound, even though the market is quite busy and congested these days.

It's interesting, isn't it?

Because I mean, you know, I exclusively coach women property managers in the sector and that was a very conscious decision.

And I look back and I think all those years where I didn't have access to a community that understood where I was.

There were lots of business communities, but there weren't any communities specifically for short term rental business owners like myself.

There weren't coaches out there that could help me, support me and understand my business that I was running.

And I think that women do have a real affinity with hospitality.

If you look at the data, 70% of employees in hospitality across the hospitality mix are women.

So, you know, we're in it, we're in.

Women typically navigate towards hospitality and really do it because it's a vocation, it's not just about making money.

So for that I think we have some real skills that we can really tap into this.

As we now know the data showing us that 82% of travel decisions and travel spend are made by women, whether it's, you know, the head of, head of a family, you know, a group of friends or even business decisions.

Behind those decisions at the moment the data is saying is 82% of those decisions are made by women.

So if you are a woman running a hospitality led business, you, you would have a really good understanding of what these women are looking for when they're making their buying decisions or whether they're doing research for a group holiday or a retreat or a business, something like that.

We as women running these businesses have a huge opportunity to understand what those needs are and to meet those needs and help those people to spend money.

With you and understand that buyer's journey.

But it was also a really interesting point you made about not having support.

And I think I found that in my early career in marketing.

It's like not having like a community or like a mentor that you can sort of tap into.

And I think, you know, the industry can be.

Sometimes women are running the businesses solo, maybe their partner has other, you know, full time employment or other interests.

So often it's, you know, in my community I'd say that 85, 90% of my clients and my club members are female.

And it tends to be like you said typically that women led businesses and, but they are often a common thing is feeling quite isolated and lonely in terms of making those decisions and knowing whether they're doing the right thing in their business because they're on their own.

And sometimes, you know, whilst we might, we might be fortunate to have a house, you know, a relationship partner or a home partner, but you know, if that partner's not in the business and that partner doesn't understand our sector, they're a sounding board to a degree, but they can't necessarily help you to navigate some of these practical challenges, these operational challenges, these, these things that we are, they will give you an opinion and it might not be the right opinion because they don't really understand the business.

I know I had that many times, my husband would be very supportive, but he didn't really know enough about what we were doing and where we were going and what, you know, what was happening, he would sympathize.

When there were those moments of frustration when things seemed to be horribly difficult but wasn't really able to help me navigate those.

And I felt very alone with a lot those growth pain decisions, you know, staff decision, staff issues or, you know, just the challenges that I think every host who manages people, whether it's your team or guests, will completely understand.

But if you're not in the industry, you may not really understand.

So they might come back with a very practical piece of advice.

But in the real, it just doesn't really apply well to our sector.

Exactly.

And I think often, like you say, we can have very supportive partners and even like your friends network, but if they don't work in the industry and they don't understand how, how it all ticks and they're not going to be able to necessarily, they can be supportive, but they can't necessarily give you guidance and help shape what you do, which obviously is the beauty of tapping into like minded people.

And how frustrated does your partner get when you're trying to take a break and you are responding to rental inquiries as soon as they come in, when you're trying to have dinner or you're trying to, you know, take a holiday?

And I know my other half is getting so frustrated about that.

But if you don't respond quickly, the chances are someone buy from somebody else, they'll go and book something else, they'll go and inquire for somewhere else.

So that is very practical to our industry.

But if you're outside of it, it's very frustrating for our family to appreciate why that's important when you're running a short term rental business.

Exactly.

Well, you've touched on a few of the pain points.

So that really leads on very nicely to you telling us about the work that you're currently doing with women in your short term women in short term rental mission.

Yeah.

And I was doing the circuits, going to all of the big industry events in Europe and the uk and what I wasn't seeing was a great representation of either women attending or women speaking or women being at the table helping to shape the narrative of what was happening in our sector.

And that really frustrated me because I knew that there was all these women out there These amazing women out there doing amazing things.

Inspirational women doing amazing things.

So why were they not at these events?

Why were they not on these stages?

Why were they not visible?

And I decided to do something about it.

And so women in short term rentals came really from that.

And the mission is to have a global community of women who can offer this safe, supportive environment where there's no ego.

It's just about supporting another female business owner in the short term rental space, but that we can elevate so that the mission is to, you know, provide community collaboration, support, visibility and to amplify the success of women in short term rentals.

And that's really the key pillars of the mission is to do that.

And we have just achieved five.

I think we're at 501 members of our community at the moment and we now have the, you know, we're now very visible to all of the big conferences.

So they always approach me if they're looking for speakers.

They're all very happy to support us running fringe events for the women in short terms because they now realise this is the point of the female pound is they now realise that if we have those women in our community and they want people to come to their events, we're a very good vehicle for getting people to come.

So they now want to work with us, which is great.

Yeah.

So this year, Women in Short Term rentals have been a delivery partner for the Host Planet Roadshow.

And that was an initiative that I discussed with James Varley of Host Planet some time ago, where I said to him, james, you know, some people just can't get to these big industry events.

They're just out of their reach, either practically from a time perspective or financially, because it's a big investment to go to them.

So can we not just take education on the road to make it more available, more locally?

So this year there's been seven Post Planet Roadshow events, starting in Cornwall, Portsmouth, London.

There'll be Nottingham, Bath, Chester and Edinburgh.

And that's been amazing because we've seen more women coming to those events.

Because when you've got practical logistics of like taking your children to school, picking them up in the afternoon, or perhaps you're looking after your parents or, you know, and you are running a business, it's difficult to go to some of these events if they don't fit into the times and geographical locations where you can get to them.

So those have just been some of the things that we've managed to achieve this year.

We've now got 50% female speakers at most of the big events now, which is something we never had even two years ago, which is great.

Which means that their voices are now being heard, their experience is now being shared.

And you know, I even got to meet like the Minister of Tourism this year who was interested in what we were doing for the women in short term mentors community and why it was important and why it was needed and why we need to have more education available so that these women can continue to be sustainable, profitable business contributors to our economy, because we are such a big part of our economy.

That is amazing.

And if the listeners, if there's some female short term rental owners listening to the podcast, how do they, how do they get involved and how do they find out more?

And I can put a link in the show notes.

So tell us, tell us.

Currently we have a closed Facebook group, Women in short term Rentals, easy to join.

We also have a WhatsApp group because some people prefer WhatsApp as a medium to Facebook.

We also have a LinkedIn group.

So there are three groups that you can be a part of and everything gets shared, everything.

Going forward, we will have our own website and we will have our own app in the not too distant future.

And what we're doing is just holding people in a central place so that you can share knowledge, ask questions, know what events are running, know if we're looking for speakers for events and we will at some point, hopefully in the future, have our own conference.

That's the plan.

Oh, that sounds exciting.

So yes, I will put the links in the show notes.

So if you would like to get involved, check out the show notes for the links.

So thank you for sharing that with us, Lisa.

So leading on from some of the points we just talked about, what do women tell you that they struggle with the most in running their short term rental business?

Imposter syndrome.

It's a huge one that comes up a lot.

I speak to so many women that I coach with on a week to week basis.

If you spoke to them publicly, you'd think they were some of the most confident people you've met.

And they are, generally speaking.

But you know, we get these curveballs, don't we, where you kind of go, I had a conversation, I'll give you an example, somebody I've done some work with, they went out and they won an enormous piece of business.

And I'm talking about £300,000 worth of business, right A great contract.

But within a week of getting it, they started doubting themselves about, have I done the right thing?

This is a huge risk financially.

You know, it's all those little doubts that start creeping in, that start to undermine your confidence in what you've decided to do.

And that's when having a coach or a community or someone that you can go and talk to can really help.

Because it's like those moments of self doubt.

And we all have those, don't we?

I think the logistical challenges of juggling being that person that everybody expects to be, you know, at the centre of the family.

You know, we have this sandwich generation where we are at one end of the spectrum, we've probably got children still at home.

At the end of the spectrum, we've got aging parents that now need our support.

And in the middle somewhere is a relationship with a partner and a business.

And that's a big pull on a lot of women at the moment.

And I work with amazing women who are by all accounts superheroes in my eyes, because they are juggling so much stuff.

But some days it's just really tough and you just need to talk to somebody about it.

And I think that's where they struggle.

Because where do you go without feeling you're going to get judged?

Or without feeling like you're a failure, or without feeling that you've, you know, you're not doing the right thing by everybody because you're trying to be all things to all people.

And I get a lot of that conversation in the conversations I have.

And I think what we're trying to do is say, look, it's normal, like this is normal and you are not alone.

And then there's health, the other health issue that a lot of women get.

So if you think the average age of a property manager is late 40s and they start going through, you know, the menopause, for example, and that can derail so many women.

It derails women in a normal employed environment where the data shows that there's a huge percentage of women who walk away from their careers as they hit the menopause.

When you run a business, you don't really have that choice, do you?

You know, can't just walk away from it just because you're having a rubbish day or you don't feel very well, or maybe you don't know why you don't feel very well.

But again, it's another phase, it's another chapter in women's lives that can be very derailing, where it's very Isolating, it's not so much of a taboo subject as it used to be, but it's not something you can openly go and talk to a lot of people, not your team, your clients.

So who do you talk to about it if you're struggling with it and it's having an impact on your business?

So they're just three examples of things that I've talked regularly about to women that are either in the community or who I've worked with.

Yeah, and I think that's a really valid point about that sort of mental load.

And it's, you know, and I think it becomes, it comes to a bit of a head sometimes with the having been someone who's gone through that with my age, it's like, you know, the menopause and the effect that it has on you.

And I suppose the reality is when we're not sort of 20, 30 somethings anymore, and the things you were able to do when you were younger in terms of the juggling and the mental load that you could cope with, I think the mental load gets greater because like you've said, brain sandwich.

Yeah, sandwich, sandwich generation.

Yeah.

Anxiety, brain fog, not sleeping, you know, insomnia, those in themselves of one of something like 56 possible symptoms someone could experience are enough to derail you day to day, let alone derail you if you're trying to run a business.

Yeah, exactly.

And as you said, you know, it's not like you can put your business on pause, you know, and, and when you are the boss, you know, I would say it's the greatest thing about being sort of, you know, self employed or, or like running your own business is that you are the boss.

But it's also the worst thing about.

Being the boss because everybody looks to you and if you're, if you're not, if you're not available because you don't feel great.

And I just, I think, you know, when you, when you run a business, you know, you kind of put a lot of pressure on yourself to be that person for everybody else.

But who's there for you?

You know, And I say to people, you know, I said this desk, this desk I'm sat at now has seen everything from complete joy to floods of tears and everything in between, you know, over 20 something years.

And I'm not exempt from any of those things, you know, I'm as human as the next person.

I have struggled with going through the menopause bereavement, you know, relatives passing away.

When I was working in Cyprus and stuff.

It's there's been some real highs, but there's also been some really deep lows in that 20 odd years.

And I think what I want to do is make sure that this conversation of being honest about stuff is, is available to people so that they don't feel like they're in any way failing when they're having that, that roller coaster which is building a business and having a life.

Because that's the reality.

And obviously I'm involved in your community.

I'm.

I'm in the Facebook group and in your WhatsApp group and what I said.

I see.

And I think what is just, it's just really refreshing to have AU as a leader of it, but also a community where people are quite open and honest and it's not all about Personas and people pretending that everything always goes right because the reality is it, it doesn't.

And I think just to have that safe place to be able to share things and ask for support and to know that that's there is just so valuable for all of us.

And sharing knowledge, you know, sharing knowledge.

Why make life difficult?

If someone knows something, ask the question.

And you'd be surprised how many people step forward and say, you know, I've got some experience in that and this is what I've done or whatever.

And that women are very generous with sharing that knowledge, very kind about sharing that knowledge, which I really appreciate.

And I've been in lots of different mixed masterminds and very male dominated careers in the past and I have felt very alone in those cases and I don't feel that in this community.

No, it's very refreshing.

For our last sort of question, I thought I would touch on a little bit more about your experience and you have shared quite a bit of that already today.

But you told us about your extensive property management experience, but what was your biggest learning during that time?

I'm sure it's probably hard to pick, pick one.

But do you have something to share with the listeners?

I've got something that I would always share with everybody and I.

It's something.

Well, there are two things.

First and foremost is that I got my systems and processes in place first before I scaled.

And that was really important because you cannot scale, as they say, you cannot scale on sand and you make your life very difficult by not having those things in place.

So I always talk about, you know, people, properties, processes and profit.

And the second thing is people.

So, you know, whilst people think that AI is going to take over the world and we won't need People, we are a human service delivery industry and I don't think people are going anywhere anytime soon.

So one of my heroes in life is Richard Branson.

And I always learned from him, years and years ago, which is recruit for aptitude and train for skill.

And I always applied that in my business.

I did not care what someone else had done previously.

If they came to me and they demonstrated they were really passionate about people and service and hospitality, I would train them to do the job.

And that paid dividends.

Actually recruiting the right people with the right aptitude for taking on what is a service based business was the best piece of advice I could ever give anybody because I had people stay with me for years and years and years because they were the right people for the job and they weren't just doing the job for money.

Yeah, that's such a valuable tip because like you say, you can train skills, you can train processes, you can, you can guide people through that how you want something to happen, but if they haven't got the right attitude and aptitude to do it, you're not going to get there.

So that's no.

And the training piece was important.

You know, as your business grows, you know you have to, you have to change as a leader.

You have to up your own skills, but you also have to continually up your team's skills because it's not a static business.

You know, what you've done once may not grow with your business.

So you have to, as the leader working on your business, you have to continually reassess what skills do we need for the next few years, what people do we need.

And there's a bit of juggling there at every stage.

You know, it's never, it'll never stop, stay static.

It will always be a moving thing.

And that was something else I learned very quickly.

You know, as fast as you think you're in a stable period of business, something will happen.

You're like, no, it's not stable again now.

Everything's destabilized again now.

And now we've got another growth spurt and that's going to be another piece of another period of really hard work.

So I think that's the reality of a business if you are planning to scale it.

Yeah.

And I think also, and maybe something to share with the listeners is if you're listening to this and you think, well, I'm not looking to like become a property manager with like hundreds and hundreds of units.

It's like, is this group still somewhere that I would want to hang out and I only have one property.

It's not about how many properties.

Exactly.

It's not about, you know, building empires.

And I think it's anybody in hospitality, in short term rentals, no matter where you're one property or you are a service provider.

Actually we've got a number of service provider women who work within different service provider companies are in the community.

The only thing we are, is we're a no sales pitch community because not about selling things to people, it's about supporting, supporting people.

And that's why we said it's a no sales pitch community.

We don't want people to come thinking, oh, you're only going to be in there because somebody's going to try and sell their services to you.

No, it's a community to provide support.

Exactly.

And I think that's the thing, you know, the challenges are often shared and similar and that we're facing despite whether someone might have just one holiday cottage or they've got a portfolio or a.

Glamping site or a hotel or whatever they've got.

Exactly, yeah, yeah.

And I get a lot of being part of, out of being part of the community.

So I definitely would recommend listeners, if they're women in short term rentals that they should definitely go and check out the links in the, in the show.

Notes and they could support somebody else.

You know, I mean, that's the thing, it's a two way thing, isn't it?

Anybody being part of the community may be able to help somebody else.

So I see it as paying it forward.

My, my reason for this community is not monetary, it's actually about paying it forward.

I've been in the sector a long time.

I feel like we have this responsibility to the next generation of women to be successful that we can help them by paying it forward.

Yeah, that's music to our ears in terms of why, why you started all of this and how we can, we can all benefit from it.

So because it's free, as you say, it's a free, it's a free community.

That's the other thing we'd say there's no, there's no fees in terms of being part of this community.

So definitely go and check out the links in the show notes.

So I have one fun last question for you Lisa.

Today.

If you had a, I'm ask all hosts this and obviously you're, I know you're a coach and a consultant now but you know, you've obviously been our for many years.

So if you had a famous guest or celebrity who came to stay at your property, who would it be?

It would be Richard Branson, without a doubt.

I used to say, if I was able to have dinner at 30,000ft in the sky, it would be Richard Branson.

I've flown on Richard's airline.

He won my loyalty years and years ago as a frequent flyer.

But I would love to sit down and have supper with Richard because I think he.

He has a lot of things that he gets right about looking after customers and people in his team.

He gets a lot out of his team, but he also has built brands which truly do care about their customer and their customer experience.

And he said, take care of your team and they will take care of your business and take care of your customer.

And I absolutely believe in that.

And that was the approach I was taught with my team, was take care of my people, they will take care of my customers, it will take care of the business, business.

And that's true.

So he would be my person I'd love to come and invite to stay.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that.

And you and I were chatting before we sort of obviously hit record.

And, you know, ultimately I did some work with Virgin Atlantic and I completely agree that the culture within the company is quite extraordinary.

And when I worked at Avis, they were my favorite account that I looked after in terms of partnerships, because I didn't think I ever met a person within Virgin Atlantic at their HQ that wasn't a sort of can do, you know, I mean, fun is one of their brand values.

And actually the team were great fun, but they all had a positive can do attitude.

So I think, you know, he did a very good job and does a very good job of instilling that within his team and the culture that he creates within his businesses.

Culture is a very important thing.

I think as you grow any business, no matter how big or small, culture in your team is very important, important.

I think he understands that.

Interestingly, in one of his books, I read that he went to a very big meeting with some very big companies and the CEOs were invited to share their mission statement.

And they all went around the room and there was all these other airline and he said his mission statement was to make money and have fun.

Like you said, some business owners, it's about, you know, the ego and there's a sort of Persona that you see publicly.

But I think, like you say, that's why he's so appealing potentially to have dinner with, because actually, you know, I think he lives and breathes what you see in his businesses.

And what he talks about rather than it just being said for the, you.

Know, I think he lives, yeah, he.

Does live his brand.

And I think if you're going to build a brand and it's going to be an authentic brand, then live your brand, be your brand, represent your brand at every possible opportunity.

Otherwise, you know, you're not your brand.

And I think that's a really good piece of advice.

Yeah.

And he's also done a very good job of extending his brand across lots of different sectors as well, which also is an achievement.

So he would definitely, I think, be a very fun dinner guest.

I think so too.

If he's listening, if Richard's listening, come and have lunch, come and have dinner with us.

We would love to chat to you further.

So, Lisa, it just remains for me to say thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.

I mean, I love chatting to you.

I'm very passionate about this industry and thank you inviting me as a guest on your podcast.

Sarah.

Yeah, thank you for joining us.

And as I said, the links will be in the show notes.

So if you want to get involved in the Women in short term rentals community, you can find out more there.

Thank you for listening today and if you enjoyed this episode, I'd like you to leave me a review because you know how much us hosts love those five star reviews.

Next week I'll be back with a solo episode with tips on how to prompt AI Better to get content that actually sounds like your short term rental brand.

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.

Sam.