Stop Chasing Growth: Why Quality is the Only Way to Scale Your Business
episode
The Accommodation Show - Hospitality Success Series!
41 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 22 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What inspired Elle Knight to leave banking and start My Stays?
Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the accommodation show. This week I'm joined by a friend of the show, L Knight. Welcome to the show.
Good morning, Bart. How are you?
Very well, thanks. How are you going over there in New Zealand?
Good, good. We are um obviously in some of our quieter months uh here in Topo, the North Island. Um but we are super busy doing stuff in the background, which is awesome.
Yeah, look, um I was just having a little squiz of your business. So it's quite incredible. We uh we've been talking for a little while, you were at Strive and uh were on stage sharing your journey, your stories, some of your tips. Uh you have a hundred and seventy properties uh under management across New Zealand and you started in twenty fourteen. Um New Zealand's a great place for uh short-term rentals for hospitality for accommodation. Um it's kind of synonymous with with the country. Uh that hospitality if you jump onto an airplane. I was watching a comedian that uh is out in New Zealand right now from Ireland and she was talking about how she has a Kiwi friend in Ireland and she said, Oh, they're so so nice.
They're so amazing. They're incredible. But then she realized that there's nothing special about them because they go to New Zealand. Everyone is just super nice. So Look, I'm really looking forward to talking to you and sharing your story with the audience as to what you're doing with MyStates, how you grew the business, and a bit of your philosophy. Cause I think that that's one of the main things that you that struck me it strikes me about talk. strikes me about your business from talking to you um is that uh the way you run your business is also as important as growth, money and all that sort of stuff. So look, tell us a bit about my stays. Um maybe from that sort of uh uh infancy journey through to uh where you are today and what the business looks like.
Awesome. Um, thanks Bart. I sort of stumbled across this industry like a lot of people, I suppose. Um, had started my working career in in the bank and uh I was a business lender. with B and Z left the bank when my son was born uh profoundly deaf and um he needed bilateral cochlear implant surgery. And unfortunately it's not quite like you just go in and get surgery and everything's all fixed. So I was travelling to and from Auckland uh weekly for the therapy that he needed and just realised I couldn't give my job or the workplace, my clients what what they deserved. So I left work and then stumbled across the opportunity. uh to purchase the management rights of eight apartments. And I kind of thought, Oh, this sounds like a little
side gig that will work well around appointments and kids and things like that and uh took it on. So at that point it was my mother in law and I. Um Some people probably think, Holy heck, how but I have the most amazing mother in law and we still are very good friends, um, that took on the business and um You know, we were cleaning all day. Denise was going home and washing and ironing all the linen at night and I was then doing all the manual processes of managing the booking side of things. Um Back then. It wasn't you know, there was EB and B, but it was kind of the less professional take on it. you know, not so much the property management companies weren't a huge thing, particularly in Topa where we started.
And um I guess in a small town word of mouth travels pretty quickly. We then started having people coming to us and going, Oh, we've heard you're managing properties. We want to manage ours and um so on and so forth. And so over time we sort of just started growing and next minute we had thirty odd properties and we were like, Oh, working seven days a week and up till midnight doing admin and ironing and actually at one point looked at each other and said, Actually, what are we doing? Um, at that point it was just all manual. It was Excel spreadsheets, it was an email to confirm the booking, no live availability. a very average website. So um it was at that point that we got to about twenty or thirty properties and thought actually
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What inspired Elle Knight to leave banking and start My Stays?
0:12β5:37
2
How did Elle turn a sideβgig into a 170βproperty portfolio?
5:37β12:04
3
Why does Elle believe quality and peopleβfirst beats rapid growth?
12:04β17:03
4
What systems and processes did My Stays implement to professionalise?
17:03β22:29
5
How did the βGemβ model help expand My Stays across Newβ―Zealand?
22:29β27:18
6
What role does AI and internal software play in managing SOPs?
27:18β32:28
7
How does Elleβs empowerment philosophy keep the business sustainable?
32:28β36:57
8
What practical tips does Elle give for founders of shortβterm rentals?
36:57β41:29
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Accommodation Show - Hospitality Success Series!
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