#069 Escaping The Rat Race With Glamping Cabins At Devonia Escapes

What's it like to work in a traditional job and build a glamping business on the side? Is it possible? And more importantly, is it realistic to think that your side hustle can one day be your forever job, allowing you to power down from the corporate world? This is what trees are in John from Devonia Escapes of Setup. Want to know how they've designed their escape plan? Literally, welcome to episode 69. Glamping and unique holiday rentals are surging in popularity with the growing desire of customers to book holidays that deliver and experience. They are also the new business of choice for those wanting to improve their work-life balance. So how do you build a strong business like this that gives you the life you need and a great investment? I'm Sarah Reilly and I want to share what I've discovered after being immersed in this industry for over 20 years to inspire you to find out more about what's going on. Welcome, this is the Business of Glamping and unique holiday rentals. Theresa and John, it's so lovely to see you. Thank you for joining me on the podcast. I'm so excited to cover your business because I've seen it since the beginning. All the way to now, you are welcoming guests. You're getting great reviews and it's really exciting for me to see that whole journey. So please share with me why did you decide to set up a glamping business and explore this industry? I think myself, I've been in IT for 30 odd years. I work evenings, weekends, every hour, God's end. So it was more maybe looking for something that was a better work-life balance and some of the weaker potentially do from home, from the farm. So I think it was before lockdown, we looked at it or I did. And then I slowly dragged Theresa into the idea. I looked around, see what other people do in the area and sort of came up with the idea of glamping, looked at different structures, etc. And then also to look to see, was it viable to do anything on the actual, the farm? Where we could do it on the farm. And I think most important, if I can get the backing of Theresa to let me spend lots of time and money to potentially get it up and running. As you can see, this was just there and in mind that we had, we were lucky enough to move back to our family's farm. We lived in a town close by, but obviously we took the decision to sell our home. We moved back to our family farm in 2014. So this has been sort of like, you know, we know 2024. So it's slowly been moving in this direction for a number of years. My parents have a very small 78-a-car. We were lucky enough to be able to convert one of their unused buildings into our amazing home now. Although saying that, we were never going to build again, going through the drama, going through the conversion. I was a little bit hesitant when John started suggesting he was going to design and handcraft some cabins or whatever. Now, we went for a few ideas actually because we looked at pots, we went visit to glamping shows and things like that. So the bug was, for me, slower to get going. But yeah, and we were like thinking pots was the way to go. And when we actually visited them and had a look at them, things like the glamping show, we suddenly realised John could do much better, which is why we came away. We thought we'll use the ideas that we pick up and that's when John's slightly designing himself what we've done, which is much for generous size. Don't just go by him. Well, we're going to go into what you built and how much it cost and everything else about that. But first of all, I need to ask you, why do people choose to visit your part of the world? Why do they choose to become a glamping guest? What is it that you have in your area that attracts them? We love living in North Devon. We love it and we really wanted to showcase it to guests. So we're extraordinarily lucky to be living here. We are 10, 15 minutes from the North Devon coast, which is so dramatic and beautiful, beaches and cliffs and all the things that, whether you're sure at least whatever time of the year, the coastline is so dramatic, it's, you know, we're so lucky. And on top of that, we're also in the countryside. So there are some amazing trails and walk cycleways that we can offer guests and shungo where to go for a bit of countryside, bit of the coastal scenery, as well as some beautiful attractions like Clivelli, for instance, so picturesque. We always recommend a little fishing village called Apple Dwar and in stone as well. And we seem to get great feedback from our guests that they love visiting these places. Yeah, it's amazing in North Devon. I know it well because I also live in the area. The history from places like Clivelli is just seeping out. And I know that when people come from the cities and other places and they come down to North Devon and they see a village as stunning and historic as Clivelli, they are literally, I had no idea this existed in the UK. This is just incredible. And also that we are surrounded by multiple beaches of every different description. Up we've got sandy beaches, rocky beaches, coastal climbing beaches. We've got the whole southwest coast path. And we've even got some of the highest grade surf beaches in the whole of the UK. So people from America and Hawaii, they all come to us to actually use our waves and enjoy the surf that we have. So it's just incredible. And I totally agree with you. It's about sharing it, isn't it, with other people and making the most of it and showcasing it is a wonderful word that you use there. So I love that. When you were thinking about, okay, let's build some cabins that see what we can do. I mean, did you think about your business plans? Did you think about the whole process in terms of what it might cost and what income you might get back? And did you think about your structures in terms of, how can we lengthen our season as much as possible? Tell me a little bit about your thinking around that. Part of it is we'd stayed in various glamping slides previously to give us an idea of what they were like, the space and that sort of thing. And we've been to the glamping show. And I think we'd sort of worked out what we wanted, but we wanted to make it bigger, to make it more, maybe use a friendly, you get a little bit more space. And at the same time, thought, or we can probably, you know, build that ourselves. So I did a lot of research in how much it would cost to actually build a product, to actually buying it off the shelf. Obviously, I didn't factor it in my time. So it probably would have ended up being a lot more, but I feel that what I produced, cost-wise, was cheaper than buying it off the shelf, doesn't account for stress in doing it. (laughs) But we also wanted, because we know that the area was so beautiful year round. And in order to make it more profitable for us and the return on our investment, we knew we needed to make it structures that were perfect year round. So we've got our decked area outside, which is beautiful, but inside in the colder sort of shoulder months, we've got the wood burner installed, which we've already had now just starting, people have just started to use the guests that have come, have started to use it now, not really being used obviously or so, because they've been outside using the little campfire stove, but now the wood burners starting to be used. So you've put under for heating in as well. - So the idea is if you can put the under for heating on, if you want to have a nice cozy atmosphere, put the fire on, and if you really adventurous, have the actual bath running when it's nice and frosty, hopefully the sort of caters for anybody all year round. - One of the things that I could definitely see being great, if someone's gone to the beach all day and they've been surfing in the wild waters, and then they come back and they jump in your outdoor hot tub. I mean, how amazing is that? So you chose the structures you chose, which were the cabins insulation with all the heat and the moccons, and actually from having seen your structures, they're much bigger than many other cabins. So it allows a really nice sized bed, plenty of room, either side of the bed to get in and out. - The practical point for the size was that so we could always get around the side of the bed and change the bedding into the house. I've watched some amazing structures, and I think, oh my goodness, I don't know that I could physically change the bed very easily, having to clamber over and try and meet the bed for the change over. So that was, it was a practical, but also from us a very personal king size bed that we definitely knew, but we also chose to have them so that they can be split into singles. - I think that was a really clever idea because it means that friends can stay when they're on a walking holiday, or you can have partners, husbands and wives, celebrating something romantic. So you can have both. So you're not saying no to some people, the amount of times that I actually go away with one of my daughters, and it's just me and one of my daughters, and I'm only offered a double bed. We both quite liked. have our own beds. So to be able to change it like that is lovely. So there's something about the base of your structure that you had to put together, the foundations of it to be able to build it as the size that you built it. So how did you go about doing that? So I know it wasn't anything off the shelf, you had to design it. What was that process? Yeah, we knew what the size of the structure was, but it was more a case of, well, how are we going to fix it to the ground? How's it going to be held down? So, rather than using concrete and all that sort of thing, we decided we'd make a steel frame. So I sort came up with a bit of an idea of what I was looking for frame wise. I spoke to a local engineer, well, he's very local to us, and he had a look at it, said, yeah, he can build that. I suppose it took him probably about a month, six weeks, so he built two separate steel structures. I painted them by hand, once they arrived, so it was a bit of a mammoth task to paint those. And then we literally pulled, dragged and lifted them into place, ready to put the cabin structures on top. Would you call those skids? Yeah, they'll be like metal skids, but the idea is they lift the cabin up by probably about half a meter off the ground. So hopefully there's no frost, any frost is below it, so you'll be above that. And yeah, it just made it a little bit easier for pulling decking, etc. So it's not sat on the floor, it's up above the ground, and then you get a little bit more of a view from where the cabins are at the moment. It's quite impressive. It does allow that height, which means that people can see across the tree canopy, which almost gives it a sense of it's in the trees, but it's not in the trees. And so why did you choose that particular position? This was an area of the land that wasn't really anything, any use for anything, because it was on a slight slope next to a hedge. It was more by accident, somebody said, oh, I don't need to try looking down here. So we walked along there and we thought, oh, you know, it's a bit too steep, etc. to do anything. But I think once we sort of looked at it, took a step back, walked around it a few times from above and below. I think we thought, yeah, this could be an ideal location, because it's it's high enough to look over down onto the stream. And then there's potential with that area below that you're looking over, some future expansion with maybe tables, chairs, or whatever it might be. And you decided at the beginning that you were going to have dogs, because it's really important in this area, because it welcomes dogs. And you were happy to welcome them in both the cabins. I mean, did you design anything specifically for the dogs? I think we originally started with one cabin, we thought we'd always thought we'd got a dog, we've always had dogs, so we thought we'd try it with one and see what it's like with one in and one out sort of with dogs. And then after while we decided that it was almost 10 to one with the things with dogs and not with dogs. So whilst we were doing it, we built some the Decking area with mesh fencing that it looks appropriate. It's not too coarse or anything, but that was able to contain dogs within the Decking area with a nice gate to getting in and out. It just means you can leave the door open on the cabins and the dogs can run around on the Decking area and they don't have to, people don't have to worry is that they're going to run off. Yes, loved it, they've loved the fact that it's enclosed. I mean, what sort of size is this? I think it's six metres by around three metres. So it's not huge, but yes, I've just seen really delighted that they can just feel confident that their dogs aren't going to go anywhere. They are in that enclosed area and we get some lovely pictures of them just like the Decking, you know, they sort of, they look like they're worn out, which means they kind of good exercise around here with the beaches and the walks and then they come back and the dogs are just lying and all chilled out on the Deck area. So it was definitely a decision we took. And then we've obviously already tweaked it to make both cabins now dog friendly. So we include obviously for guests when they come a little guest hamper for the guests, but also for the dogs. We just give them this very standard dog bowls, a couple of dog poo bags. We give them a towel, essential dog towel. We definitely need rain or shine dogs. We just sort of find a bit of mud or just the wet grass that they're going in through all of that. So the dog towel gets really well used and also dog treats, which we have from an amazing small supplier. They're in our local town of Westwood home and we buy their little doggie bait biscuits that they make at home. Beautiful packaging, meat free grain free, really local. And so we're sort of supporting them as well, by putting these little treats in for the dogs. It is so nice when the whole family can be together, including their fur babies because so often people say, no, we don't welcome dogs. So to be able to bring your dog away on holiday is fantastic. And I know that that's really important for so many people. So going back to the build briefly, how did it work out in terms of the cost? Is it something that you managed to work out at the beginning and then you managed to stick to the budget and at the end it was exactly how you expected it to be? We set a budget doing sort of calculations for I don't know for how much we thought it was going to cost to build and that sort of thing. Yes, it did of sorts, stick to budget. However, we decided we were going to decking up. It was a bit more extravigun than we thought. So that cost a little bit more. And then there's utilities which unfortunately end up just costing a fortune. They cost a little bit more than we were led to believe originally. So that bought the price up. The build itself pretty much went to as per the budget. It was more the additional extras if you like the pampering of it that we thought, yeah, we've probably under budgeted for say things like sofas beds and all the additional nice things that you put in it if you like. So I think that was a little bit more expensive than we thought. Or I thought trees are probably new, but what I budgeted for and what what we ended up with was more funnily cost wise, but it was worth it because it did make it makes the cabins. It's not worth so hard on his spreadsheets. Oh my goodness, he spent hours searching online for prices before we started trying to make you know, for the business plan really, really did spend hours and hours putting together and trying to give really realistic cost planning on there. But as anyone will know, on any of these building programs that you watch on TV, yeah, we had a contingency that went and then we still needed some more. So yeah, without a doubt, you know, we did go over budget, but John had worked so hard at working out every single part of it and it's kept us pretty much there. It's just I think what he hadn't counted on was the time and that's where everything has taken a lot longer than we ever expected. The time aspect is of course it's going to take time and your time is valuable, but obviously it means it's easier with the actual financials because it's not going to cost money. But it's still your time is still money. So it's a delicate balance to weigh up. Do we do it? Do we build it? Do we fund the whole thing that way or do we look into investing and maybe buying in something? If you had to do it again, would you buy it off the shelf a bit more or you still happy that you did it the way you did it? I think I'm happy the way I've done it or the way we've done it, I should say, surely because I feel we got more for our money. I could buy one off the shelf, but then everyone else can buy one off the shelf. I was just something that are more unique than you will see anywhere else. So I think we're happy with what we've got. It fits what we plan for and it gives people a better stay if you like. What people quite often ask because it was taking such a long time. Why not? Didn't you just do one or get one done first and then start the second? And I have thought about that quite a lot. There was part of me sometimes that wonders, should we've just done one and then that money could have been put into that one. But you knew with your calculations and everything that you worked on, the return on investment and what we needed to bid for us. We needed the two units, two cabins in order to make it work for us. And we've had yeah, we've had really good responses because I was really worried about privacy. There is obviously space between the two cabins, but it doesn't seem to have deterred or caused any issues. We've had lovely reviews. So I think I relieved that we'd definitely moved ahead with two because it was a push to really difficult working on two at the same time. Because they're not canvas because they're cabins, it means they're more insulated from the noise. And there is that distance between the two, but also because they're cabins, you're attracting partners, friends and it's not big groups which are a bit noisier. So again, it means that you're not going to have those challenges of noise. And from a lot of the sites that I visit, they do have their units too close together. but I wouldn't say that's at all what you've got. You've got a nice distance and also you are insulated cabin. So it's a very different experience. But I do think that a lot of people who think about doing the same as you, they often start by thinking, "Oh yeah, I could just throw something up on my land or I can do this on rented land or whatever it is." And they don't think there's much cost, they don't think there's much effort involved and they think it's a project that can happen really quickly. I mean, what would you say to someone like that? Yeah, I would think again and maybe do you planning, before you bother doing anything, do your research, go and look at the competitors, or research competitors, see what's available on the market and then see what's involved in doing it because I think we looked at it and I think originally we thought, "Oh yeah, we just pluck them on the ground." But then you've got a you've got the planning side of it, then you've got the finances and then yeah, then you've literally got to get utilities, but then you even to put them in, put them under the ground is a was a mammoth task and then actually get it all connected up, whether it's to the grid or to a borehole. So you know, there was a lot more work involved to get to the stage before and then we could put the cabins in place. You know, it was, yeah, there was probably almost just as much time preparing everything, getting to the stage where we could put the cabins on the ground. It was like a lifetime going down, sort of going down, it wasn't that long, but it's taken two, three years to get it open, I think, and we've already been planning and thinking about it like a couple of years. So we're sort of five years in. That's all, just and that's what I think I would tell anybody is, yeah, we've done it and we're really really, and I'm so proud of John for getting it because it's without him, this none of this would have happened. This is for he's, you know, very unassuming, but and it blessed him, he keeps saying we, but absolutely no doubt it's John's hard work that's actually got those cabins there, they're open, we're welcoming guests, yeah, but it's taken a long time. Ran of applause to John for sure. But the wonderful thing is as well that you realise that now that you're attracting guests, there's a lot more to it than just the structure, just the build, and we will get on to that in a minute. But what was the first thing that you did before you started accepting guests? There's one thing you told me that you did that I thought that was vital because it actually highlighted something that might have been an issue to the guests. Tell me what that is. Stay in it, stay in your unit, give it a go, we stayed in both of the cabins and because we've got a decked area with a really heavy wooden gate onto it up to the cabin, we were there in the cabin and we were like, is there somebody outside? What's that noise? And there was this sort of, and it definitely sounded like as if somebody was walking on the decked area. No, it was dark at night and we know the area, we know our neighbours, but even that sort of fridges out a little bit. So John went to investigate, I didn't move. And then literally the only thing it was is the gate latch, the metal latch against the wood wooden gate and the cabin was just blowing and moving. And it just had been amplified or something that it sounded like foot and we were like, we need to sort that out in the morning. So John obviously fixed the latch the next day because you can't have guests staying and thinking there's somebody outside when all it is is a little bit of wind blowing the gate. So thankful for that, thankful for things like trying out the frying pans on the hub. We realised one was way too big, couldn't get it to work just so we had to, we bought them. Obviously had to swap for smaller frying. Just simple things like that, that staying in it, we thought we'd had all the utensils, we thought we'd add everything sorted. There's always little tweaks. And tweaking is so important isn't it? Because that's actually what makes the five star reviews. If you're tweaking and you're meeting your guests' expectations. So when you were ready to book or receive bookings, what was the thing that you focused on the most? Because as we know, when you have built your structures, you really should start building your other online structures to accept guests. And that doesn't always happen because people are so involved in the build and making everything perfect that it's quite hard to get into the mindset of, okay, now I need to be building my booking system, building my website and everything else and doing my SEO. So when did you start thinking that that needs to happen? When did you start building all of that? Too late or not, not early enough. I'd started sort of on the website almost at the same time that I started building. Unfortunately, the build took more of a precedence than anything else. It was like, right, we've got to get everything built, we've got to get it all done. And then it was almost the last sort of three months of titivating and finishing everything off. It's like, oh, we better get this sorted quick. Get the website up and running, get the social media running. It was all in place, but it wasn't finished. And it's like, yes, we don't get this done. We're just going to be late for the party. So it was, I think just before we were opening, we delayed probably by at least a couple of weeks just to try and get the website done. Like you say, get the SEO done, get social media and get it all sort of linked, get something. So the pictures and images represented what we were selling. So we had a photographer in, get all that done. And I think at that time, we were confident that the website was there. The social media was up and running. And then we thought, right, yes, we can open now because everything's in harmony. It's all sort of linking together. The cabins, the website, etc. And then it was like, right, go from there. I think in hindsight, we would have done it a lot sooner, just on a, especially on the social media side and the SEO, just to try and get found by everything that bit earlier, even if it meant delay, you know, we weren't necessarily ready to open. But if we done it that much sooner, we possibly would have had maybe more bookings. I don't know. But yeah, it's, it's unfortunate. I think trying to do the build and do everything, it's something that's got to give. And yeah, maybe it shouldn't have given so much. The irony of it a little bit is that John can build websites and does it? Obviously, John being John thought he could do everything. And in reality, he couldn't physically mentally do both. So that is one thing I think we would seriously consider sort of shopping that out to somebody else. It's even if, you know, because it, John could have done the work, but it was just the timing of it and things that we maybe should have looked at that a bit more. But it's a catch 22 with the old photographs. What can it to build a website? You need amazing images. We're still working on the cabin that we didn't have the images for the site. So, yeah, we knew we wanted to get the website up and running. It didn't happen as early as it should have in hindsight. But yeah, we got there in the end. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But it's also, as you say, you were maxed out. You had your limits and you'd reached your limit. And that was that. And yeah, I'm always saying to everyone, when you put your spade or your shovel into the ground, that's when you start building your online assets at the same time. But that's all very well to say that when you're so maxed out with everything else, you just can't physically do it. And you took the decision and you quite rightly did that you just had to let something give. The fact is that you've actually got so many skills with your website with your SEO that you can actually make faster progress than a lot of other people. So although you did start a bit later, you did it faster. So you've had more success getting people's eyes on your website, on your booking, on your social media, even though you started a bit later. So you are fortunate that you do have some knowledge there. So what's one of the biggest things that you think have been useful in obtaining your guest bookings? I think because our builds took over everything and we potentially didn't have a website running as soon as we'd like to. We did use an online travel agent to give us a kick start to be able to get bombs on seats if you like, try and get some reviews out there. And then hopefully we can redirect those to direct bookings and at the same time getting the website and SEO social media running that we can encourage more people just to book direct through ourselves rather than using OTAs. Absolutely. And as the ultimate aim isn't it to attract people to your website so they can make booking there. But as we know, because we've worked on your SEO together that actually if you do some SEO work, it can take six months or more for your website to really feel the benefit of that work. So this is a long game. So even though it's an organic result, it's not going to cost you anything. It's going to continue to be a benefit to you in the future. It does take time to get going. So you do have to rely on the asset that are out there already, but it costs, of course. Some sites are listing sites, so you pay in advance, and then you hope that they'll send you customers, while other sites are on their travel agents and then you pay a commission per booking. But as we know, the business model for the online travel agent is to remove communication between you and the guest off their platform, because that means they could come to you and make the booking through you. The online travel agent loses that booking, so they do design it so that you have less communication with your guests, and as you aim to do, you want to have that brilliant communication between you and your guests and to nurture that relationship. So this ultimately is you are aiming for direct bookings, and how have you designed things through your processes, through your online assets to make that happen? I think really through all the social media, through the websites we blow in the trumpet, book direct, book direct, make it so, you know, at all points, there's either links directly to a website, or they are pointing you towards the book now, potentially, or I know, with ourselves, it's always cheaper to book direct than go through the OTA. A few people do that. They've obviously seen the little snippets in some of the photos that we've managed on the online travel agent, that just point them to us if they're that interested, they can find us. And we've definitely had a few bookings where people have been, you know, all the online travel agent and then have come direct to us, which is great. We just obviously want to promote that. We need to keep obviously up with our social media feeds. We're still learning. We're still learning about how to advertise and boost post things like that. So we are, we're still learning. Honestly, every day, still learn something new, more things that we could do to make sure that we can be found because we know it's a huge market, we know it's hugely competitive. We've been really pleased with the amount of bookings we've had for our first season, but we just need to now push that now into because we could do year-round, we've just got to sort of find our way on how we can advertise that a little bit now. The thing that I love is that you're so eager to learn and you're really willing to put the time in, but just to give an example, because you're part of my glamping club and I was showing a member how to do something, advertise something on Facebook. Can you stay there late? And you are one of the last to leave the meeting, which we did go over time, but and that's what I love that you are really determined to understand and learn and develop your own personal skills so that you don't have to be reliant upon the online travel agents and that you don't have to choose that as the only way that you're going to get your bookings and also that you are as a business owner growing in strength to be able to buck the trend when there is maybe a dip in online bookings or maybe people are traveling elsewhere and so you have to fight a bit harder to be able to get the guests that you want. And is there anything that you've learnt in this whole process that you thought, you know what, I didn't even think I'd be able to do that, but I can. I think I still struggle with the sales marketing. I knew that was always part of it. We know we talk about in our sort of group that we having the units, having our cabins, there's only a first part of it. The other 50%, it needs to be on the marketing, on the sales, on the online presence in order to get people guests to want to stay and I think I'm still grappling with that and still, you know, but that's the biggest thing is that we need to keep plugging away and keep giving different things a try because it's just pressing that button sometimes. You know, we look and look and look and think and overthink and we've got to learn actually just give it a go, just put something out there and if it doesn't work, we've got to not do it again or give it a go in a slightly different way. So yeah, that's what we're sort of still learning. Yeah, so I always say to everyone in the group, business is just a series of experiments and we just have to try the experiment, see how it goes, measure the experiment and decide did that work or didn't it work? If it did work, we do it again, we do more of it, if it didn't work, then we don't. We just put it down, we move on to the next thing, we don't take it personally, we literally see it as a line of experiments and I think it's a bit unfortunate when small business owners, they try something it doesn't work and it almost puts them off trying anything else and they take it very personally and it's not a personal thing at all. It's just that's what you have to do in marketing, you have to try the experiment. So I love the fact that you are and it will pick you up new skills and everything else. So if you had to do all of this again, your whole project again, what do you think you could have done to help you make progress faster? I think the process that we've done so far, what we have done of the the financing is research and I think that all went reasonably to plan. It's more the online presence, we needed to do that a lot earlier, potentially six months earlier, get some sort of presence and get ourselves out there so people know that we're there and potentially they're in anticipation of us opening. We left it a little bit too late because of which it's trying to do everything else but yeah in other I think the online presence of website etc should have been done a lot sooner just to give us more reach when we do go live. Yeah, I agree with that. I just by starting slowly, by not quite having the big data we're open moment and things and bookings come flooding in is that when they started tripping in, my goodness, that was a learning kind of for us having guests day. You know that whole routine about checking guests in, then the change over the amount of work involved in that and the time and the cleaning process, all of that has actually we've taken this summer still to sort of try and get a routine and that has been a huge change because suddenly we talked about it, talked and talked and suddenly we got guests in and we're like oh crikey now you know how we're going to do this, how do we do the turnaround and stuff like that. So in some respects, having it that slightly slower open has probably worked you know our favour because you're all about opening and I wasn't actually in that right what's is open, how are we going to respond, you know with that time and our effort and the work involved and I was adamant for instance that I was going to do all the laundry from the very beginning and we would at least do a season of doing all the laundry all the washing ironing before we thought considered cleaners or you know finding a laundry service or something like that. I don't know how many weeks we were in and that changed so quickly because I work four days a week else where and so I was finding literally every evening I was trying to iron and it was taking me was it two hours per cabin just doing the bedding ironing bedding and that's after you've had a day at work you're coming back you're trying to have your evening meal and then you're sitting about doing work and I was like we can't do this so in that respect I we found a laundry so we still do a lot of the washing and drying ourselves we don't use a tobble dryer but the bedding we have outsourced and they're really really good we go we drop it off at them we collect it a few days later but because of that that's additional cost we did up our prices on the online travel agent to cover for that and that has sort of like saved me an awful lot of time and stress but that's how quickly it changes you think you're going to do something and we started and I was like yes you know I'm going to do this and actually you just couldn't but we've tweaked it and we've improved it and we're far as per your now I think it's really important to understand about the tweaks and changes as you go and adapt and pivot because things never stay the same as you expect they're always adjusting and so that's what's great from what you've done is you have figured that you do need to assess it as you go you're new into the industry this isn't your only job you both have jobs and you're running this business and you still want to have a lifestyle and you do need to pay for help and bring that help in always the challenges to anyone I speak to whether it's a big business or a small business it's always the challenges when do I get that help in and when do I commission them and bear the brunt of having to pay that extra money so it's a difficult decision but you did the right thing absolutely you do need to question why you're standing there doing all these extra jobs where you could get help to do that and probably have some fantastic sheets cleaned all those fake tan lines removed without you having to worry about them so you're able to take a bit of time off which is important yeah absolutely we've you know we've been pleased so far with those sort of decisions that we've made you've had some wonderful reviews since you've started and loads of fantastic guest feedback in fact I even know that people who are planning to build something similar to yours have actually come and stayed to pick your brains about exactly how you did it and what materials you used in the course and everything else which which is fantastic. But with all of that, and with the feedback you've had, what's the one thing that you've been most proud of since you started your business and launched? I think getting a review, getting the Google reviews from people. People actually say what they think. We've met people that have come and stayed. We've helped people after they've had breakdowns. Car breakdowns. Car breakdowns. Car breakdowns. Flaptires and that sort of thing, always willing to help. It makes their stay any better. Yes, I think the fact that people leave us reviews. They say that the ones we've had so far, lovely stays, they've enjoyed it, not some relaxing. That's what the idea of this was. So give people the stay that they need that they wanted and they give us reviews accordingly. They say that they loved it. And how about you, Theresa? Difficult to say one thing. I am just really proud of the whole business that, you know, we just had that idea and it's gone from that idea into two cabins that are beautiful. They're in a beautiful location that we're now welcoming guests. And yeah, and it's hopefully that business will keep growing now. We've got, you know, we need to keep up the momentum with our social media and our marketing. But, yeah, the whole thing. I'm hugely proud of. And ultimately you have built an asset, an asset that will be with you for the rest of your time now. And that's really fantastic, isn't it, to think that this is an asset that you can continue to develop. It's going to continue to support you and your family. And I think that's so awe inspiring, really. And it's probably the reason why so many people want to get involved in this industry as well. So tell me what address should people go to to see your website and what are your social media handles. So our website is www.divoniaescapes.co.uk Facebook and Instagram, you can search for Devonia Escapes, all on word and you will find us on there. And actually if you just go to Google and put Devonia Escapes, it comes up number one. Because of all the SEO work you've done, because of everything else you're doing to help your website get seen, it's really beneficial when people want to find you and find out what you do. So I would definitely urge people to go and have a look at that for a fantastic, relaxing, romantic or adventurous stay with your partner, with your furry best friend or anything else. And also you may find me wandering around on one of the beaches. It'll be really nice if you say hello. Thank you so much for joining me today and I look for very much just seeing you in the club in the week. So take care, see you soon. [BLANK_AUDIO]