Take YOU to FULL OCCUPANCY in 2016
Template 3 of 3
In my two previous videos, I showed you the 2 things I do minutes after I receive an inquiry, and precisely:
- the standard message I send containing my secret link to a mind blowing “Bespoke Reply” and
- a “follow up anti-spam message” aimed at pulling up the previous one from the spam folder and put it front and center in my prospect’s inbox, in case it was previously missed.
I also briefly explained the subtle psychology underneath the sequence and the messages themselves, to show you why they’ve been responsible for filling up our calendars up to 3 times more than all our competitors.
And I’m happy to confirm how the positive trend keeps going, as we’ve now closed more bookings since last week and we’re topping 50% of our yearly revenue, while we’re still just at the beginning of the year.
Unleashing The Last Piece Of The Puzzle
Today I’m going to close the loop and show you the 3rd and last message I use in my killer conversion sequence, so you can go ahead and decide whether you want to try this out as well.
Before I do that, let me quickly add an extra tip I haven’t mentioned and that’s related to answering the question in my previous video: “how do I know if my prospect received and opened my mail”?
The anti-spam message that’s step 2 in the 3 step sequence serves this purpose, although it also serves a different, subtle and more important psychological purpose of getting your prospect to take action and commit to engage with you, so you can fire up Message # 3 and make one more winning move that will get your prospect one step closer to seal the deal.
There are a few ways to find out if they got and open your email, regardless of whether you want to send an anti-spam message: you can install a tool called Sidekick by hubspot that I used a while back or have a look at Getnotify that Celine@VillaMercier and Neal@CyprusCountryHolidays kindly shared with us in the comments below my previous video – and this is the power of community and mutual help that I love so much.
So thank you Celine and Neal for adding more value to what I’m sharing with you all.
Some such tools have a few limitations, thresholds or require a fee, but overall they can do the job they’re meant to do.
Post Scriptum
Once you sent your first reply and you found out that your prospect saw it, you can close the loop with a “Post Scriptum” message, whose aim is to convince your prospect for good that:
- your offer is truly irresistible,
- the value added proposition you give them is so strong, sweet and thought through,
- that they would miss out big time if they didn’t take you up on that.
Of course you can’t force them to choose you over others and it’s also good that way because you ultimately want to attract just the right kind of guests and you don’t want to rent out to anyone. And in my personal experience, this simple sequence act also as a sort of screening and fine tuning, so I don’t really need to do much else, as by the time they get message#3 the engagement has already been established and a friendly rapport comes as a result.
Message #3
So once step 1 and 2 have taken place, I send out the following, last message:
Subject line: Post Scriptum Casa Teulada Sardinia
Hi again (first name),
I forgot to mention that my wife and I would be happy to stock the fridge and pantry up with a few of your favorite essentials, such as water, milk, tea, coffee, cookies, yoghurt, bread, cheese, etc., for your first day.
We know you may arrive late in the evening, or after a long journey and we thought it would be nice to have something ready for your first day, while you familiarize with the area and get all set up.
Should you want to take up on our offer, all you need to do is send us a list of your favorite items and we’ll have our staff get them before your arrival.
By the way, that’s of course complimentary!
We look forward to hearing from you and wish you a wonderful stay in Sardinia.
Kind regards,
Why Would You Do That?
The purpose of this message is to surprise your prospect and wow them one more time (to reinforce the overall mind blowing first impression you gave with the “Bespoke Reply“), by saving a little, personal and much appreciated treat that’ll make you stand out from the crowd one more time.
Our Treat…
Obviously, it’s entirely up to you to decide the kind of treat you want to reserve. In our case, we budgeted a small amount for our treat in the rental fee, so it’s a win-win.
After all, we’ve been asked so many times whether the supermarkets would be open on weekends, upon late arrivals, where could they find the essentials for their first breakfast or things like that, so we thought about anticipating the need and satisfy that upfront in our preliminary offering phase and this little tweak helped our conversions too!
Your Treat…
So think about what’s the most common questions you get from your guests that you could satisfy in this phase and bear in mind that it must be something valuable and that possibly others don’t do.
A bottle of wine for example, while nice to offer is pretty much standard nowadays and some guests even take it for granted, so you’d need to go a little further to stand out from the crowd.
Proactivity Saves You In Case…
In our case we know that offering a complimentary list of their favorite things they’d love to find upon arrival, has a tremendous impact on their decision making process, influencing that in our favor and also making the check-in moment as smooth and easy as possible, so they are more inclined to subside to whatever may happen that’s unexpected during their stay and goes beyond our control…
For example, over Christmas, we had a couple who rented one of our properties and suddenly the heating stopped working on day 2 and it took me a couple of days to have it fixed.
In their post stay feedback they said how they loved finding a stocked pantry upon arrival, how much they appreciated the effort taken in solving the issue, and how we’ve gone the extra mile like no one else they’ve ever rented from before. That helped mitigating the side effects of an unexpected possible disservice and prevented them from leaving a not so positive review that may have impacted our future business.
Future Benefits Vs Instant Gratification
In a case like this one, you see how the right mindset makes all the difference in winning or losing both a customer, a returning guest and a raving fan. So learn to think in terms of future benefits over maximized instant earnings. While counterintuitive, it’s what will help you fill up your calendars year after year.
And by the way, believe it or not these guests wrote me yesterday saying they want to book again in October!
There You Have It
So there you have it! My 3 step sequence, that’s generated six figures in bookings over the last few years and brought in thousands of $ worth of bookings in the last couple of weeks alone!
Go ahead now and download this third template, so you have the complete sequence at hand to try this out and see if it helps, like it does with us and the owners like Nancy, Amy, Paola and many more, who’ve being using it with great satisfaction.
Like I just said, this sequence alone can increase your conversion rate significantly and will do very well for those of you who want to try it out.
One More Thing
If you want to make the most of the tips I gave you so far and want to increase your conversions even more, so you can turn up to ALL of your inquiries into solid bookings, like we’ve been doing lately, there is one more thing you can do…
If you remember, I told you how my best kept secret for converting this high lays in just 1 link my prospects click in Message #1. That link within the standard message leads to a “Bespoke Reply”, which is a content rich message that wows and blows them away, because:
They don’t expect anything like that.
None of the owners they’re sending their inquiries is giving them such a treatment
Such a response is totally customized and tailored and it only takes you a few taps and a few seconds to personalize.
So you really stand out in your prospects’ mind while you impact them big time and influence their decision to book your home over others.
My First Proposition This Year
Like I said in video #1, my first proposition for 2016 is to take as many of you as possible to convert nearly all, if not all of your inquiries into solid bookings, especially at times like this one, when things like “best match” – and I guess you know what I mean – result in the number of inquiries we receive plummeting from certain listing sites we used to pay big money to advertise on.
And I want to do that by teaching you how to do exactly what I do, and set up step by step not only the sequence I just gave you, which you are ready to do yourself now, but also and primarily, this ‘magic piece of content rich message’ that is the Bespoke Reply and that will increase your conversions even more than what the 3 step sequence will already do.
What If You Could…
I’m about to reshoot my Fully Booked Formula online course starting this week and I’m looking for a group of really determined and progressive owners and crazy visionaries like me, who are willing to jump on board in a journey that I promise being exciting and eye-opening, as I’ll personally guide you step by step on:
setting up the platform to fire up an individual reply in seconds, every time you get an inquiry.
Building a mindblowing ‘Bespoke Reply’ like the one I’ve been successfully using now for over 5 years
learning the psychology underneath each piece of this bespoke reply, that triggers behaviors and influence actions leading your prospects to choose you over others
install a simple little script that will send you an instant notification every time a prospect clicks on your Bespoke Reply, so you don’t have to sit and wait in front of your computer, you’ll get an instant notification even on your mobile device, whenever they click on your link, so you know exactly that they are perusing your unique piece of content in that particular moment, and you can fire up the ‘Post scriptum’ or message #3 in the sequence at the right time or engage with them in a way you prefer. And this part is very important because it’s a little script that one of my previous students made for me to facilitate and simplify this whole sequence process, so you save lots of time and in some cases, it will reduce the sequence to just 2 messages, the standard reply and the Post Scriptum, and I’ll explain why inside the course.
Lastly, we’ll see how this ‘Bespoke Reply’ fits into the big picture and you’ll be good to go and start replicating the same success.
Will You Take Me On That?
Now, because I strongly believe in the value of what I’ve been doing for years, as I’ve seen the results on my rentals and those of all my fellow peers who’ve decided to follow me along the same path, and because I get energized and motivated by owners who are happy and satisfied with what I do, and honestly it hurts me a lot to make people unhappy, because it’s simply not the way I am and the way I do business, I’ve decided to give you a 30 day free access to the course to allow you to build the platform, the Bespoke Reply and implement the system I use.
A 30 day period to walk with me on this and have me guide you step by step….
How This Works
I’ll release several short videos over the next 4 weeks on my own private learning channel, that won’t be visible anywhere else and will take you by the hand to create your own ‘Bespoke Reply’, fit it into the Email sequence I showed you and enjoy the rewards for all your awesome work.
Then, if you think this is invaluable too, on the last day of your free trial, I’ll bill you $197, that is the same price previous owners paid up front to access the ‘Conversion’ Module of the Fully Booked Formula.
If you don’t like what I’ll share or you simply think this is not for you, you can send me a note before the 30 days and you won’t be billed anything, plus you’ll get to keep all you’ve built so far:
the platform to host your own replies
the Theme I use to build my Bespoke Replies, which is one of the top 10 themes to build websites and sells online for $59, and you can even use it to revamp your own website if you wish.
the script that sends you the instant notification for each Bespoke Reply opened.
and a few more goodies I’ll share in the course.
So go ahead now and click the button below to join the ‘Conversion module’ of the New Fully Booked Formula!
1 on 1
Because I want to be able to follow every one of you like I should and increase your conversions significantly, and I know this is going to take me a lot of time, I’m only going to take 100 owners worldwide and you’ll be working with me and the other members as well in our
community for the next 30 days, so you get to build and launch your own Bespoke Reply on time for this peek inquiry season.
One Size Fits All
Don’t be scared, since working with me for the next 30 days doesn’t mean you’ll have to do an incredible amount of work 24/7 7 days a week! Not at all.
Everything will be recorded, I’ll be releasing 3 or 4 short videos per week on the learning platform you’ll have access to, and you can watch them at leisure and follow my guidance well beyond the next 4 weeks.
Commit At Your Own Pace
It’s entirely up to you to decide your pace and the amount of time you want to delve into this. And remember, that you’ll only need to set this system up once, then each time you get an inquiry, you can fire everything up with just a few clicks. It’s that simple.
Trust me, I’ll be guiding you step by step on the whole process so you’ll never get lost or frustrated.
I’ll be there for you and it’s going to be fun and rewarding too, I promise.
So click on the button below and join me and other likeminded owners worldwide on a truly engaging and rewarding journey.
Remember, I’ll only grant access to 100 owners worldwide, then I’ll close the doors until the next opening, because I also have to start organizing the next Vacation Rental World Summit.
So act now and click on the red button below and I’ll see you in our private learning channel just around the corner.
ANother good session Antonio. The ‘trick” i held off on posting after last session was of course Sidekick that you talk about. A great tool, a little sneaky but we need to know if message received and opened. I have been using auto responder for initial contact but the negative is that Sidekick code is not included so you never know if propsect got it. I am changing this method now so I can use you 3 techniques routinely. Since last week, I got two good bookings via a phone call after I saw the inquiry. Also the followup email [lession #2] worked well also.
Many thanks for a good series of tips and I know people will get great value from your Fully Booked Formula.
Hey Ralph! Fantastic timing! Love that we’re on the same wavelength. You’ve been one of my early adopters of the Fully Booked Formula so I’m pleased to know it helped you out! You’re welcome to jump on board again if you want and refresh some of the stuff. As you may have noticed from the video, I went beyond Sidekick for the limitations you mentioned – together with the fact that’s paid too – and I’ve been using a proprietary simple little (free) script that another FBF student and owner (Mauro Bricca) developed for me about 18 months ago. It works like a charm! It tells me instantly when the recipient ‘clicked’ the link, so needless to say he/she received it.
Now that script from Mauro is a brilliant addition and I will be signing up – I should save me some money since I subsctibe to Sidekick. Yes I will revisit FBF – thank you.
I like the ps email – I’ve used this idea but my biggest problem is getting staff in Paris to do this – we mostly have early arrivals so coffee and pastries is a nice welcome. Its like pulling teeth from 5000 miles away to get them to do it reliably – a topic for discussion in a couple of weeks!!
Antonio, Thanks!! Great value on this video even for people who already practice the FBF teachings. I liked a lot your statement about being considerate of future gains with a longer term perspective rather than short term gains that my hamper the reputation hence the future profitability of the business. And that comment was set in the context of a great example that you shared. Also, The revised post-scriptum message is really good. I agree that the bottle of wine is now a standard and we have to do more to stand from the crowd. What I have been doing is to inform my guests about the wine, the coffee, tea, oil and food basics they wiil always find and only after the booking is made I inform them that they would have found also basket of fruit or a a breakfast. I think that mentioning the extras BEFORE their booking is better and would accelerate the conversion process. A question for you… why not saying this on the website? which pros and cons do you see? Why not creating a section called Our free extras and list the wine, food and other extras there? We would miss the surprise effect on the mail sequence but perhaps we get few more prospects and start to convert from the moment they bump into our website or our listing site copy. Interested to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
Ok, let me share one more little tip that goes in the direction of “quintessential customer experience”: how about keeping ‘one’ more little surprise for yourself and show that off when your guests check-in? The bottle of wine, with a personal message welcoming them and saying how “they can find the list they request in the fridge, plus….you thought it was nice to add an ‘extra’ treat for their first night”? I do that too and it’s one more step in the direction of making them raving fans and turn them into ambassadors once they go back home. But this is part of another module of my Fully Booked Formula that you already know very well 😉
To answer your question, the reason I wouldn’t show “all” my best selling points upfront on the site lays in the huge positive influence you have on your prospect by using the ‘surprise’ element that triggers engagement, interest and appeal. And that comes shortly after their first approach to your property.
In other words, you should first off lay out your window (your website) in the best and most visually enticing and appealing way – and that’s why having a killer website is key, so you exercise already a pretty good motivation to consider you and your property as their choice.
Then you can introduce your further surprises, once they get in touch with you to make them think: “this person really nails it! I can trust her and I’m confident I’m going to have a great holiday if I book her place”.
How does that sound?
It sounds great. In reality I guess I can still list some free extras as long as I keep some surprise elements to build up the WoWing experience. Thanks!!
Hi, Antonio. Some really great ideas here, especially the Post Script, although with 15 apartments and 20 cabañas it might run a bit expensive! But I might try sending them a tick sheet of things we have in our own little supermarket, and they can pay us during the course of their stay. That would get them into the supermarket and, you never know, they might buy more! We also give out vouchers for free coffee / soft drinks in our little beach restaurant – that seems to work.
A solution like the one you suggest may work very well for someone managing a large number of properties for sure. This last message works surely well with smaller size VR businesses. And if like in your case, there is a small supermarket that comes with it, there you have it, one more way to monetize on what your guest would eventually end up spending anyway!
Toying with the idea of jumping on board but was wondering what the launch date would be? I know you said you can work at your own pace but with a few things looming on the horizon I would like to know if you can start at your own pace too. Thanks for the tutorials/information you have shared thus far.
Absolutely Neal, you can start whenever you want and proceed at your own pace. The course is already open, you can register here: https://vacationrentalsecrets.mykajabi.com/offers/EWDcweRM
I’m adding 3-4 videos each week, as I’m re-shooting them as we speak. So, while some of you may want to follow me over the course of the next 4 weeks, others may simply take longer or do that at a later time, adjusting the course to their own schedule. It’s entirely up to you and of course once I’ve added all videos it’s there for you for good.