Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Behind the Host podcast, the podcast where you can learn from other hospitality owners from across the world and how their businesses thrive so you can pick up tips tactics and some of the training that you can implement into your own business.

So today I'm really excited because we're joined by Tim Mortimer from B&B Made Easy and he's coming from Australia. So all the way from the other side of the world. So welcome along Tim.

It's a pleasure to have you here. So normally I give a great big introduction and Tim needs no introduction at all. He's a hospitable host. He's a best selling offer. He's got over right. He's got 118 units in Australia. But what I'm going to do is not steal too much thunder from here. I'm going to let him introduce himself and his business and tell us a bit about yourself then Tim.

Yeah, first of all, thanks very much for having me. I asked a hospitable host of all. We've got our own little sort of community going on and really enjoy crossing past from time to time. So, you know, when I've got this opportunity to speak, I'll jump that it's a thank you very much.

I'm Tim Mortimer. I'm in the orange and New South Wales in Australia. Orange is a town about four hours drives west of Sydney. So in the middle of the lockdowns, we, although for some periods, we also had periods of intense travel where, you know, Australia's borders were closed. Even state borders were closed and we've got a lot of students. I just come in. So luckily for us, we had, oh, I'd started the business a couple of years earlier.

I've gained the knowledge and was ready to grow and handle the workloads that we actually thrived during that COVID sort of between lockdown time in Australia. And yeah, love the industry and just continuing to thrive and learn as much as I can and obviously pass on as much as I can as well. So I think we can all help each other out here.

And Tim, I think you're being modest there. You're a superstar when it comes down to the how quick your business is as grown and just for what, what did you do to take us back to before you got into the business? What was your career and how did you, how did you get into this? How did you spot the opportunity?

Yeah, so I grew up in this town in Orange. It's a third and wide region and there's a few other industries. So it's always been kind of growing and driving. So a lot of opportunities. That way, similar to you, I was struggling until I was struggling, but looking at trying to look after my family and, you know, it was much so I could look for opportunities and, you know, I was a school teacher, a peer teacher, you know, which was good. I enjoyed the role. I've had to take up a second job in the boarding school.

You know, looking after the kids, who was you were doing over night care and things like that. So working very long hours and then a lot of the farmers around the town, they'd send their kids in and got talking to the families and then earn that orange. And I knew, anyway, Orange has a lot of homes that just you'd empty when, when those farmers or borders parents come to visit, they use it for that. That's their investment in their sort of holiday home.

Or, you know, their place to study kids. So being like a moment, I thought, geez, you know, and I was, this is how I think as well. So finally, sort of an idea that might have a bit of traction and haven't stopped thinking about it since.

I reached out on a Facebook page again during during a shift when there wasn't much going on, just started thinking about a business idea around short term property management in our town didn't take long to realize these things are exists all around the world.

I was quite sheltered in Orange, but luckily reached out on a Facebook group and a lady by the name of Julie George responded to me. We had half an hour conversation and that was all the inspiration I need to get to where we are today, which is pretty much three and a half years.

With my teaching job and managing close to 120 properties now, we're talking houses, not you know, so it's been a very quick change, but it's very exciting as well, which I love.

I love that as well there. You mentioned Julie George and if anybody's listening or watching and doesn't know who Julie George is, just type in one million dollar host and she has had a fantastic story. She's got her own book hasn't she. She's also in hospitable host.

Yeah, we'll keep plugging the book, but yeah, she is an amazing host and short term rental thought leader really isn't she in the industry, so yeah, that's amazing to hear.

And you've gone from, you know, sort of you spotted that opportunity, you've then, you know, sort of realized that there's some empty homes in the area you've reached out to somebody who's kind of walked that path before and got some advice.

How did you get your first one? What was the first one or first few talk us through how you done that?

Yeah, so naturally it was a slow start. There was a big learning to have to be done off the advice of Julie, I went and got my real estate license before even starting the business because that was my commitment to then moving forward.

I was quite lucky my parents, I had a vineyard in town and they had a couple of apartments on it. Mum was only on booking.com, so, you know, that was my sort of a piggybacked off that little bit to learn whilst doing a lot of nighttime research and the beginning of the podcast and things like this, just just to gain some knowledge.

I knew that it wouldn't take long before I could become a bit of a market expert in the area because that I was doing it before and then once I was there, I could then offer the service of helping other people out because I would have more knowledge.

I did about nine months and then I remember I saw a house for sale and I thought Jesus would be amazing. I had a bit of luck as well. I called up the owner, found the orange is a small community.

I've never heard the owner was, gave them a call, it was a cold call, I remember exactly where it was, what it was, I called over the car and it was nervous, I was sorry, anyway.

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