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My serviced accommodation
business is about to fail. What do I do?

Watch Jai's Full Interview

Four years ago, Jai had two units, a phone full of WhatsApp groups, and no idea what to do next. Today he runs 36. He spent three weeks in Dubai last year, and the business never noticed he was gone.

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What changed between two units and 36

If your SA business feels like it is about to fail, it is rarely one big thing. It is usually 5 or 6 of these at once. Jai had almost all of them at two units.

Before

2 units, growth stalled

One unit in a block, no relationship with the agent

Bookings dependent on OTAs

No Google Business Revenue worth the name

New units sat empty waiting for the algorithm

One unit pre-booked solid for a month before it opened

Everything in Jai's head

Could not leave for a weekend

A job that owned him

After

36 units, including two 12-bed guest houses in Cambridge

5 of 6 units in the same building, handed over by landlords who trust him

Direct bookings coming in from Google, off a brand people can view

150+ reviews, generating high-value enquiries on their own

One unit pre-booked solid for a month before it opened

Slack for the team, ClickUp for every SOP and workprocess

Documented processes a VA can run

Three weeks in Dubai, business ran itself

An asset he could sell

He stopped being invisible on Google

Why serviced accommodation businesses fail, and what Jai did instead

He stopped being invisible on Google

Most SA operators build a listing, not a brand. Jai rebranded and set up his Google Business Account properly full details, real photos, and review requests as part of the checkout process. He is now past 150 reviews, and reviews bring in enquiries that never touch an OTA.

The maths is simple. A booking that comes through your own site keeps the commission.

He sold the unit before it existed

With a real brand and a set of good photos, Jai marketed a new unit ahead of opening and occupied the earliest month before the doors opened. No ramp-up period, no waiting for the OTA to trust a new listing, no empty nights while the algorithm makes up its mind.

That only works if there is a brand for people to book with. It is the payoff for the starting step.

He got operations out of WhatsApp

Everyone runs their earliest few units on WhatsApp. It works up to about 5. Past that it turns into a mess of groups where nobody knows which message is current and the owner becomes a full-time message router.

Jai moved team communication to Slack and every process into ClickUp. Cleaning turnarounds, check-in routines, maintenance, guest issues written down once, followed by anyone.

He built it so someone else could run it

Once the processes were documented and a VA was running them, the business stopped depending on Jai being available. That is what let him spend three weeks in Dubai without the calendar falling apart.

It is also the difference between a business and a job. A buyer will pay for a system that runs. Nobody will pay for a business that only works when you answer the phone.

What 36 units unlock

Jai is now moving into managing properties for other owners, and buying blocks outright. The rent-to-rent model got him the cash supply and the operating system. Ownership turns it into something he can pass on.

Real Words form Jai About Piers and Growyourbnb

Ace Homes Ltd
SA completely sold out till year end!!!
My SA is completely sold out till this year end. All this is due to the hard work Piers and his team have put in behind the scenes with taking care of listings and consistently marketing it. I started with sparse bookings and had a bad time with another booking company based in UK. I could have never imagined a monthly booking until Piers stepped in and did his magic. Now I have months of consistent bookings and can focus to further expand my SA business else where.
Bikash Kerung
Turning Short-Term Chaos into stability
Working with Piers and his team was a turning point for our serviced accommodation business. We had properties but lacked the right systems to scale properly. They helped us implement clear processes, strengthen our direct booking strategy, and position ourselves better for long-term stays. As a result, we’ve secured quality long-term bookings and now operate with far more structure and confidence. If you want to build a proper, systemised short-term rental business — not just chase bookings — I highly recommend them.
Moe Fathi
Working with Piers has been great
Working with Piers has been a game changer for our business. He’s incredibly knowledgeable and understands operations at a deep level, not just theory. Before working together, a lot of our processes were manual and founder led. Now we have proper systems, clean transitions, clear team structure, and everything runs through Slack efficiently. The business feels calmer, tighter, and actually built to scale whilst also increasing bookings. He didn’t just advise, he helped us operate like a real company. Would highly recommend to anyone serious about growing properly.
Conny Johnny
Piers is a very good coach
I was coached by Piers and his team when I had three Airbnb's and was looking at retrieving one, but I went through the 18 weeks coaching with Piers and we had a long term booking from a contractor. You get daily track of your Airbnb by his team, weekly calls of what has been done by Piers himself. He helped create a Google page and a website. You can choose to add a well trained VA which is covered in the 18 weeks program. I will definitely recommend him and you will definitely see the results.
Huse Pulat
Highly recommend
Before working with Grow Your BnB I was getting plenty of enquiries but hardly converting them. My calendar was set up wrong, dates were blocked incorrectly and I didn’t understand how the platforms were reading my availability, so I kept turning guests away. They went through everything with me step by step and showed me how to manage it properly. Now I understand how to structure availability, control stay lengths and avoid gaps. I also have a clearer approach to longer stay enquiries instead of relying only on short bookings.

If three or more of those symptoms are yours

Book a strategy call

Jai did not need a new market, a new city, or more capital. He needed a brand people could access, a booking channel he owned, and processes that lived somewhere other than his head. That is the same order of operations we run with every operator we work with, whether you are at two units or twenty.

 

On a strategy call, we will look at where your bookings actually come from, what happens to your business if you disappear for a fortnight, and which of the four Correct above is the one holding you back right now.

FAQ

Serviced accommodation questions we get asked most

My serviced accommodation business is about to fail. What do I do now?
Work out where your bookings come from. If more than 80% arrive through OTAs, you do not have a business problem; you have a distribution problem, and it is fixable inside a few months. Fix visibility first (brand and Google Business Profile), then direct bookings, then operations. Doing it in the other order is why most operators stall.

Rarely because of demand. The common causes are total dependence on OTA algorithms, thin margins after commission, no brand for guests to find or return to, and operations run out of the owner’s head so the business cannot grow past the hours in their day.

It depends far more on margin and channel mix than unit count. An operator with eight units and 40% direct bookings usually takes home more than one with fifteen units living entirely on Airbnb.

A Google Business Profile with real reviews does the heavy lifting; a brand site guests can book on holds it, and asking every departing guest for a review compounds it. Jai is past 150 reviews, and they now generate enquiries on their own.

For operators with direct booking channels and systems, yes. For operators paying full OTA commission on every night and managing by WhatsApp, margins have been getting thinner for a while.

Serviced accommodation questions we get asked most

Only if it runs without you. Documented SOPs, a team that follows them, and a booking channel you own are what a buyer is paying for. A portfolio of rent-to-rent agreements with everything in the founder’s head has very little to sell.
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