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Week 4 - Your Network is Your Net Worth
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Week 4 - Your Network is Your Net Worth

 
Topics in This Section:
1.0 Growing Your Network With Local Businesses
1.1 How to Partner with Businesses
 
“If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together”.
– African Proverb
 
1.0 Growing Your Network With Local Businesses
This week’s tip is based on our Direct Booking Marketing Tip #5 with Mark Simpson from Boostly. Watch the entire series here to learn more tips on how to grow and maximize your direct bookings business.
 
Video preview
 
Partnering with local businesses can be a powerful way to realize several benefits:
  • Provide a discount to your guests
  • Support local businesses and your neighborhood
  • Establish a relationship with local businesses
 
Provide a discount to your guests
Great hosts usually have a list of recommendations of local restaurants, shops and activities that they share with guests. Why not make the experience even better for your guests by giving them a discount with the recommendation? Your guests will be happy and will also feel like they had a more valuable experience that you provided over another accommodation. They are also more likely to refer future family and friends to book with you who may be visiting.
 
Support local businesses and your neighborhood
Small businesses are the lifeblood of a country. By recommending small businesses, especially those in your area, you’ll support the local economy and help those businesses. Outside of helping support local businesses, the reason you want a thriving local neighborhood is that this also attracts more guests to your area and makes it a popular and desirable area to stay. This means more demand for your listings and more potential guests booking with you.
 
Establish a relationship with local businesses
If you refer enough guests their way, over time you can develop a deeper relationship that will also benefit your business in the long run through referrals. We’ll cover how that works in the next section 1.1.
 
1.1 How to Partner with Other Businesses
 
  1. Identify all the businesses in your area and make a list, including what type of business they are (e.g. restaurant, coffee shop, gift shop, etc)
  1. Find places that match your ideal guest that you want to stay with you. For example, if your listing is in a high end luxury condo, you will probably want to find restaurants that are higher end or have a more unique experience that your guests are looking for. On the other hand, if you have a listing that is meant for young families, you will want to find places that are family and children friendly and that can accommodate seating and food preferences.
  1. Ask guests what businesses they visit during their stay and note this down on your list.
  1. Identify the 20% of businesses that most of your guests are visiting during their stay.
  1. Find the contact numbers for these businesses.
  1. Call these businesses, introduce yourself as a local host and let them know that you’d love to refer their business to your guests and ask if they can provide a discount for your guests. Most of the time, they’ll be happy to offer at least a 5% discount. Ask how your guests can redeem the discount and note that down to share with your guests. Ideally, you’ll want to create some kind of printable coupon that you can share with your guests and that has your business name on it so that the business knows you’re the one referring these customers to them.
  1. Reach out to these businesses to check-in every month and see if guests are taking advantage of the discount. If you’re referring enough people to these businesses, very quickly, they’ll see that you’re referring a lot of customers their way and will want to find additional ways of working with you. Ideally, they will even start referring people to your direct stay listing without you even asking.
      2. Some ideas for how you can work even closer together:
      • Create an affiliate program where they give you a referral fee for customers you refer that spend money with them
      • If you think they could be a good source of bookings for you, you can also offer to give them a referral fee for any guests that they refer
  1. Don’t feel like you need to limit this to businesses in your neighborhood either. You can also use these tips to reach out to other businesses that you have a relationship with or that you love and want to refer guests to. If you genuinely love a business, this will likely come across to your guests who will be more likely to try it and the business will love you since you’re referring so much business their way.
      2.  
NOTE: It’s important that you don’t ask for referrals when first reaching out to these businesses. You want to make sure that you’re providing value to them first before asking for anything in return.