As part of my research for the book, I invited B&B owners to take part in a survey, and the results were very interesting.

• 1% was using a proper Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to keep in touch with past guests and tempt them to return
• 90% were using no online technology, apart from a booking system
• 97% wanted more income

You may already know that I won an award last week for creative and original marketing using the very powerful and very magical Infusionsoft CRM system.  Among their 10,000+ customers I was honoured to receive this award.  They said they had never heard a marketing story like mine.

If you’re not using some form of CRM system in your Bed and Breakfast business, you’re leaving hundreds if not thousands of dollars/ pounds/ euros on the table.

Infusionsoft is the “daddy” of CRM systems.   Click here to see how I use it, and how you can use it too to delight your guests before they arrive, have them coming back and referring you, and make more money.  You deserve it.

Oh and let me know what you think of it.

I heard someone say once, “you’re either growing or your dying”, and it’s kind of stuck in my mind. And I think it was Steve Jobs who said “innovate or die”. Do you think it’s true?

Let’s think about it… when we’re born we’re small and every day we get bigger, stronger and better. Everything about us is growing, we’re all about growth both physically and mentally. And then when we reach adult-hood, we kind of stop growing physically, and many of us stop growing mentally, and maybe that’s where we start dying.

In our Bed and Breakfast businesses, we always need to be innovating and thinking of new ways to do things, delight our customers, deliver our value and bring more and more guests into our world. If not, then we’re definitely dying.
When we stick to doing the same thing, year after year, things get stale and boring, and if we’re not careful the revenue may stay the same, or worse, start dying.

Albert Einstein said that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity!

Don’t get me wrong, if you have a great formula that works every time, then don’t throw it away, but build on it and do more of it in a bigger and better way. You may need to invest in learning some new skills to do that, but you and I both know that successful business owners always invest in new skills to keep ahead of the curve.

So what are you going to learn in 2013, that you didn’t know in 2012, to move your bed and breakfast business up a notch? What do you need to know that you don’t already know? And from whom will you learn it? What needs to change?

Identify it and then make that change.

I’d love to hear your thoughts?

Yvonne

In the Bed and Breakfast world, many of my fellow B&B owners have had a really good year in 2012, but there are many more who have not, and want to change that in 2013 in terms of revenue and lifestyle . And who can blame them?  Running a Bed and Breakfast business is a very demanding role so it makes sense to want to make a decent living from it, while maintaining a reasonable lifestyle too.

I’m really excited to be running a webinar next Monday 7^th January and to helping fellow B&B owners with their questions and challenges.  Here’s what they’re saying, so far:

“Where do I find the best places to market online to get the most out of my small budget?”

“How do get repeat business?”

“How can I move away from large booking engines that take so much commission?”

“How do I fill rooms in the off-season?”

These are all great questions, and I’m going to answser them all and more.

Register now for the Free webinar here

http://bedandbreakfastcoach.com/your-best-bed-and-breakfast-year/#

See you there

Err….

In the past 12 months, I have had almost 9,000 visitors to my website, and they have booked a total of 647 rooms.  50% of them bought dinner, 20% of them booked a champagne tour with Jiles, our champagne expert, several bought our books on the region, took picnic lunches, champagne, and some bought our App.  Many of them have been here before several times, and came back this year with their friends and family.

None of this has cost me anything, apart from my time writing blogs, newsletters, keeping in touch with my community of over 1000 past guests, giving them reasons to return, doing short videos, posting photos, helping people on forums and on the social networks.  All of which I love to do.

We specialise in helping people discover the hidden gems of Champagne, through tours, tastings and our extensive network of local producers.  We offer an experience that they wouldn’t find on their own.  We are their experts in our local area.

Ah but, Peter said, how do you know some of the people at the France Show won’t be your target market?  I don’t, I said, but many of them won’t be, so why would I spend £130 advertising to them when they’re not interested?  And he agreed with me!

Life becomes so much easier when you KNOW who you are serving. Who do you want to serve?

Characteristics of “wannabe” successful people:

• Makes excuses and blames the economy
• Think that it’s alright for “them” but it won’t work for me – I’m different
• Afraid to learn new things
• Don’t invest in themsevles
• Don’t invest in their business
• Don’t take action
• Thinks in terms of “cost”
• Afraid to change

And now the characteristics of  “willbe” successful people:

• Takes responsibility and makes their own economy
• Thinks that if it’s worked for “them”, it will work for me
• Embraces life-long learning
• Knows that constant investment in their own personal development is the only way to achieve success
• Invests in their business consistently and measures results
• Takes massive action
• Thinks in terms of “return on investment” rather than the cost
• Is afraid to change but knows that changing will bring better results, and makes the changes anyway

What do you think? I’d love you to leave a comment below

Our 12 Week Group Mentoring Programme is open until Friday 30th November.  CLICK HERE to find out more

Hello and welcome, I’m Yvonne Halling and this is just a quick video  to let you know about the free webinar I’m presenting on Monday 12th November where I’ll be sharing the 6 key Principles to creating a sustainable and profitable B&B business even while allowing you to have more fun and relaxation

These are the exact 6 principles that I used to transform  my own B&B business  from a struggling and demanding hobby to a professional 6 figure business in less than 2 years. 

How’s your B&B doing?  If it’s less than ideal why not let me share what I know with you so you too can turn your B&B from an energy drain to a cash cow?

So what do you need to do right now to join my free webinar?

Step 1
Leave me a comment below to let me know what specificially your big challenge is right now, and

Step 2
Simply enter your name and email in the box below this video and click submit.  You’ll then be automatically taken to a page where you can register for the webinar.

Places are limited to 100 and I’m sending this message out to everyone on my list so please do it now so you won’t be disappointed.  I’m looking forward to having you join us.
Thanks for your time and see you soon.

Yvonne

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Poor Marketing and Selling Skills

I don’t know about you, but when I was at school, there were no classes on wealth creation, selling, marketing, adding value or anything useful like that.  In my day, we focussed on memorising facts from the past and trotting them out in the exams.  The results of those exams defined us as successful or as failures.  What a lot of nonsense!

Selling and marketing skills are two of the best skills you can learn for yourself, because when you’ve mastered them, if only a little bit, your business life will never be the same again.  And without them, you will struggle.

Most people think of selling as slightly dubious, conjuring up images of used-car salesmen from the 60s pressurising people into buying things they didn’t need.

On the contrary, nothing could be further from the truth.  Selling is helping people to get what they want, and marketing is letting them know about how to get what they want.  Simples.

And the truth is, these skills are completely learnable, we just have to be willing to learn.  Not so simples.  Sometimes learning a new skill is scary.  We ask ourselves, can I do it?  Will it work?  Am I good enough?  The answer to all these doubts and fears is action.  Take one step at a time, try something new, evaluate the results.  If it works, do it again, if it doesn’t try something else.  Just keep moving forwards, and you’ll crack it sooner or later.

They don’t set goals, have a plan or keep financial records

Just because we have an accountant, or that we don’t need to submit any books because of the business structure we’ve set up for ourselves, doesn’t mean that we don’t need to keep financial records, set goals and have a plan for ourselves.

There’s a popular saying “if we don’t know where we’re going, all roads lead there”.  This means that if we don’t set up our financials to record everything we take and spend, then how do we know if we’re getting “there”, and more importantly, how do we know where “there” is?  How do we know if we’re making money, spending wisely, investing in the things that bring us the best return and a hundred other things we need to know, otherwise we’re flailing around spinning our wheels and getting nowhere.

Having accurate financial records is one of the best things we can do for our B&B businesses, whether we think we need them or not. After we’ve set them up, it’s such a lot of fun watching the numbers rise compared to last year, last month, or even last week.  What we focus on expands, so focus on the financials and start having more fun.

Next up in Part 3 of this series  I’m going to talk about the next problem I see when working with stressed out B&B owners…

They don’t charge enough for the value they offer.

How do we know how much to charge?  The answer is, we don’t.  We guess, based on what others around us are charging.  The real test is what the market will pay.  And the market will pay according to the value they receive.

What we may think is expensive may be cheap for someone else, and conversely, what we think is cheap may be expensive for someone else.  It’s all relative to our individual perceptions.

Here’s a little exercise for you to do with a partner or small group.   Everyone must write down what they think is a small amount of money.  Don’t share this with each other yet.  Then everyone must write down what they think is a large amount of money.  Then share with the group.  The surprising thing is that we all have different ideas about what is a small amount of money and what is a large amount of money.  And everyone’s right!  For them.

So how do we decide how much to charge in our B&Bs?  We test, test and test again.  And the interesting thing is that there are customers at every price point.  The question is, at which price point do we want to position ourselves, so that we make the money we deserve to make for the value we bring?