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The Power of Knowing Your Target Market

Yvonne Halling on December 7, 2012

Yesterday, Peter from French Entrée, a British magazine specialising in everything French for British Francophiles, phoned me to tell me about a great deal he could give me on some advertising space. He went on to explain that French Entrée would be at the France Show in January, happening in London and that they would be distributing the magazine to over 180,000 people. He was delighted to be able to offer me, a past customer, a special deal of just £130 for a quarter page ad. What a bargain, he [...]

Categories: How to run a bed and breakfast business - Tags: "bed and breakfast business", "running a b&b", "running bed and breakfast"

Why Bed and Breakfast Owners are Struggling, Part 5

Yvonne Halling on October 26, 2012

Part 5 is the final part of this series, and today I’m going to talk about two skills all business owners need to survive, and without them, we’re dead…. 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 [...]

Categories: How to run a bed and breakfast business - Tags: "how to run a Bed & Breakfast", "running a b&b", "running bed and breakfast"

Why B&Bs don’t make money, Part 1

Yvonne Halling on October 12, 2012

This is Part 1 in a series of 5 where I explore the reasons why most B&Bs are not making money I’ve been helping a small group of B&B owners recently, and I’ve noticed a few common threads as to why they’re not making the kind of money they deserve, and so I’m going to share them here on this blog in the hope that if you find yourself thinking “that’s me”, then I’ll be able to give you some tips to get you moving , making more money and [...]

Categories: Bed and Breakfast how to, How to run a bed and breakfast business, Marketing a Bed and Breakfast business - Tags: "how to run a Bed & Breakfast", "running a b&b", "running bed and breakfast", how to run a bed and breakfast business

Bed and Breakfast Money Management

Yvonne Halling on September 18, 2012

Key financials for busy B&B owners A common theme amongst B&B owners that I’ve noticed recently is that they are not sure if they’re making any money or not. Many people who open a B&B are not business people and are running a kind of hobby business, but still I believe it’s necessary to know where you are financially, if only for your own peace of mind. After all, this business is demanding and sometimes stressful, so you wouldn’t want to be doing it for nothing, would you? Here’s what [...]

Categories: Bed and Breakfast how to, How to run a bed and breakfast business, Marketing a Bed and Breakfast business, Opening a bed and breakfast business - Tags: "bed and breakfast business", "how to run a Bed & Breakfast", "running a b&b", "running bed and breakfast"

Features, Benefits and WIIFM

Yvonne Halling on March 15, 2012

Did you know that the words your prospective guest reads within the first 7 seconds on your site can make or break the sale? So it makes sense then to grab their attention as quickly and as easily as you can. And we do this using benefits, not features and we relate those benefits to our prospect, not to what we do or what we have. It often puzzles me why highly educated people put letters after their names. Perhaps they’re thinking that they’ve gone to all that trouble and [...]

Categories: Bed and Breakfast how to, How to run a bed and breakfast business - Tags: "bed and breakfast business", "how to run a Bed & Breakfast", "running a b&b", how to run a bed and breakfast business

12 things I love about running a Bed and Breakfast business

Yvonne Halling on March 11, 2012

For me, a bed and breakfast business is the ultimate lifestyle business, but I didn’t always think that. Back in the old days before the internet, we were pretty limited by how many people we could reach, and therefore how much income we could make. I did some research recently which told me that over half of all bed and breakfast businesses in Europe were turning over less than 10,000 euros a year, and that the average income is just 18,000 euros. I know this to be true, because that’s [...]

Categories: Bed and Breakfast how to, How to run a bed and breakfast business - Tags: "bed and breakfast business", "how to run a Bed & Breakfast", "running a b&b", running a bed and breakfast business

How to extend your B&B season

Yvonne Halling on March 8, 2012

How to extend your season to bring new guests and returning guests to your B&B When your bed and breakfast season is dictated by what everyone else is doing, and the other tourist attractions in your area are closing, it can be a challenge to keep going. Mostly everyone will tell you, we’re closed now, or there’s no tourists, or it’s not worth staying open. Maybe that’s true for them, and so we need to be creative. I first started running a bed and breakfast 11 years ago, and life [...]

Categories: Bed and Breakfast how to, How to run a bed and breakfast business, Opening a bed and breakfast business - Tags: "how to run a Bed & Breakfast", "running a b&b", "running bed and breakfast"

How to deal with the guests from hell

Yvonne Halling on March 5, 2012

We’ve all had them, that’s for sure. I remember a while ago, I agreed to let two couples stay at my B&B who were attending a wedding in the village. I don’t know if you know this, but in France a wedding typically goes on all night, ends around 6am, when everyone goes home to bed for a few hours and then the party starts again around midday or early afternoon. I don’t mind them coming in at 6am if they’re quiet, but it’s the staying in bed until lunchtime [...]

Categories: Bed and Breakfast how to, How to run a bed and breakfast business, Opening a bed and breakfast business - Tags: "bed and breakfast business", "how to run a Bed & Breakfast", "running a b&b", "running bed and breakfast"

The 5 Best Things About Working For Myself

Yvonne Halling on March 3, 2012

It’s so long since I worked for anyone but myself, I can hardly remember what it was like to work for someone else, let alone be in the politics and snares of a corporate environment. So as part of my contribution to Esoul here’s what I love about working for myself: Not having to ask permission to create something new. When I dream up a new idea, I tend to just do it, so having to ask someone else (perhaps my boss) if it’s OK, would slow me down and [...]

Have you thought about getting some help?

Yvonne Halling on February 24, 2012

Running a Bed and Breakfast is a full-on occupation, and can be exhausting, especially without any help at all. You may have been running your B&B quite well without any help, perhaps there’s just the two of you taking care of everything. I know that I started out like that, running a hobby not a business, and when my B&B started getting busy, I somehow resented the guests coming and spoiling my lovely house, taking all my time, and wanting something when I was with my family. I was up [...]