Coaching and Mentoring for established Bed and Breakfast owners
Are you growing or dying in 2013 ? 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 [...]
New Year, new start? It usually is the best time to make changes to our businesses, to bring in more revenue, serve more people and extend our reach. But with so many possible options on social media, blogging, video marketing, advertising, SEO etc.etc. it can be hard to know where to start can’t it? 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 [...]
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 [...]
First Name * Last Name * Email * Submit 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 [...]
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 [...]
In Part 4 of this series, we’re going to be discussing a very thorny issue, which I believe is key to the success of our B&Bs… 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 [...]
Why most B&B businesses are not making the kind of money they deserve, Part 3 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 [...]
In Part 2 in this series I’m going to talk about the next problem I see when working with stressed out B&B owners… They don’t build a database. This is especially true with those B&Bs who use third party booking engines. Keeping records of everyone who has visited and categorising them into one nighters, two nighters, etc. is just too difficult when done manually, and so they don’t do it. So Why is it important to build a database? When you’ve defined your niche and you’re attracting guests who absolutely [...]
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 [...]
Hello again and welcome. It’s Yvonne here, with a couple more reasons why Bed and Breakfast businesses don’t make enough money. So let’s get started with number one for today: Lack of personal and business boundaries. I see this a lot with B&B owners, and because it’s really like having house guests, we sometimes feel we need to be on duty 24/7 to make sure that everyone is happy. This is the fastest way to burn out and exhaustion, for sure. Having that personal touch, contact with the owner of [...]
