Running a successful bed and breakfast takes plenty of gumption and hard work. Yet it can be a highly rewarding career path, especially for individuals and couples who are up for the challenge. However, it’s not enough to just want to open your home to visitors night after night. Getting a successful bed and breakfast going requires tremendous dedication.
Think of it this way: Most successful bed and breakfast operations are set up in a family’s own home. In other words, you’ll be sharing your house with new people all the time. That requires tremendous dedication to serving others as well as comfort living with lots of other folks evening after evening.
Still think that owning a successful bed and breakfast would be a dream come true? Then you’ll probably want to know more about the advantages that come from being an innkeeper extraordinaire.
What Are the Benefits of Operating a Successful Bed and Breakfast?
The first upside to the B&B lifestyle is that you can work from home. After all, your home will actually be your workplace, and not just in one room. This gives you the opportunity to remain on your property while still being able to earn an income. And that’s a huge treat, especially if you’ve become tired of living more of a corporate, in-office lifestyle.
The second benefit to having a successful bed and breakfast is that you’ll get to help people relax. Only 4% of people from the United States don’t rate their vacations as very important. The other 96% are thrilled to have time off. Lots of individuals, duos, and families look forward to taking at least one trip per year. Your bed and breakfast could be exactly the oasis they’ll need to de-stress from the concerns of everyday life.
Another advantage to a B&B shingle is that you could potentially meet travelers from around the globe. This is especially true if your successful bed and breakfast is located in a destination hotspot that attracts journeyers from other countries. For instance, if your B&B is near a major city or close to a well-known landmark, you could end up with guests from just about anywhere. That’s pretty exciting and gives you the chance to learn more about other cultures as well as introduce foreigners to life in America.
Finally, setting up a successful bed and breakfast in the Internet age allows you to make use of digital marketing. You’ll have an easier time than ever advertising your B&B thanks to a plethora of portals that vacationers use to figure out where to stay. Spend some time looking at the platforms that you feel will be best suited to your bed and breakfast. Then, consider advertising on the most appropriate ones.
What to Do After Buying Your B&B
So you were bitten so hard by the B&B bug that you signed a contract on a historical property in your favorite little town? Great! However, you don’t want to open your doors right away. Although you technically could start taking in visitors any time, you’ll want to speak with experts from a few different fields initially.
Why should you gather information before embarking on your successful bed and breakfast venture? Think of it as hedging your bets. You can’t afford to have anything get in the way of a terrific launch. The five professionals listed below will be able to steer you in a good direction.
Consult Interior Designers and Remodeling Services
Unless you’ve purchased a house that was already arranged as a working B&B, you’ll need to figure out how you’re going to set up the home. For instance, are you going to undertake some major remodeling and add small bathrooms to every large room or suite of rooms you offer? Or will you ask guests to share one bathroom per floor in a more communal, European style? These are big questions and may be ones that you can’t fully make on your own.
This is where an interior designer can come into the picture. Interior designers help you see the potential and possibilities that you might be missing. Speak with at least one interior designer about the different ways that you could leverage the skills of someone who offers residential and commercial design build services. Could you bump out a few walls to make bigger bedrooms on the second and third floor? Make better use of an outbuilding, such as a roomy shed, sizable carriage house, or on-property cottage? Is it appropriate to use the basement space as a guest bedroom even if it doesn’t have windows?
You don’t need to limit your dreaming about the way you arrange your successful bed and breakfast, of course. Just recognize that your dreams might not be practical. That’s okay. Brainstorm with your interior designer upfront and toss around all the ideas you can. From that point, you can narrow them down to fit your vision and budget. In fact, you might walk away from the experience not wanting to do much with your B&B at all. On the other hand, you might end up calling a remodeler to bring out your theme.
Successful bed and breakfast tip regarding interior designers: If you can find an interior designer who’s worked with B&B owners in the past, you’ll put yourself ahead of the game. The interior designer may be more expensive than other designers, but they can give you the straight scoop on what guests want when they pay to stay at a B&B.
Hire an Electrician to Ensure Safety
Many successful bed and breakfast operations exist in older homes. Why? Chalk it up to the ambiance. Travelers love to vacation in places with character. What could have more character than a home built a century or two before the television was invented or an astronaut stepped foot on the moon?
Keeping this in mind, you’ll want to talk to a professional about electrical services right away. Even if the electrical elements of your property seem to be running fine, you should always get them completely checked out.
Why all the fuss? Let’s look at what’s likely to happen when your successful bed and breakfast takes on guests. Each guest will stay in separate quarters. Many or all will have their own bathrooms. And everyone will need to use the electricity at some point for everything from lamps to phone chargers to hair dryers. Plus, you’ll be using the electricity to run the washing machine, dryer, and kitchen appliances to make those yummy morning meals.
With so many people on the grid at once, you run the risk of overloading your electrical system if it’s not up to par. Don’t worry, though: You shouldn’t have to pay for precision metal finishing or get too crazy. Nevertheless, you’ll definitely want to figure out how to make sure that your B&B investment is secure. If a guest starts an electrical fire and your insurance determines it was because you didn’t do your due diligence, you’ll have trouble getting your claim okayed or paid.
Successful bed and breakfast hint about electricity: Many people are interested in solar power right now. You may even want to see if you could partially supply electricity to your B&B through a system of solar panels. Depending upon the electrical load you anticipate per day, you may not be able to become fully independent of the need for incoming electricity. Yet you may be able to supplement with solar and save money down the road. Oh, and some guests might find it appealing to stay overnight at a B&B with owners who care about being smart stewards of the environment.
Speak to Local Business Owners for Guides and Coupons
Are you new to the place where you’re going to be operating your successful bed and breakfast? Or is it someplace you’ve never really fully explored as a fellow business owner? Start to make friends with other small companies in your area. Find out which guides they advertise in, which websites they rely on for marketing, and what types of coupons they offer to get new customers to try their products and services.
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You may also want to join an association of businesses in your community if one exists. Being part of a Chamber of Commerce or other organization allows you to meet other entrepreneurs, such as someone who started their own snowmobiling shop on the outside of town. Perhaps you and the snowmobiling business founder could offer joint offers to people who want to save money on a snowmobiling weekend for two.
If nothing else, getting to know other leaders in your town will give you in-roads to understanding what works and what doesn’t. Don’t be surprised if you meet other B&B owners, too. Instead of feeling like they’re your direct competition, see them as peers. Who knows? You might be able to help each other in some way. After all, your B&B can only hold a certain number of guests per night. Maybe you and the other B&B could refer “overflow” visitors on busy weekends as a gesture of good faith and camaraderie.
Successful bed and breakfast suggestion on networking: Do your best to build and expand your personal network. It might not seem important to know the guy who runs the vintage candy shoppe or the retiree who runs an antique jewelry store that’s only open on the weekends, but you never know. Sometimes, opportunities can come out of the blue, and they can come from people in your network.
Make Deals with Local Spas and Therapy-Driven Businesses for Customer Relaxation
Your guests will count on you to supply them with more than just a place to sleep. They’ll expect you to play the role of concierge, right down to recommending restaurants, shopping centers, museums, playgrounds, bike trails, and more.
In anticipation of your role as a veritable tour guide for your region, see if you can snag some deals to pass along to your visitors. Would the local chiropractor offer a special one-time adjustment for travelers who have wrenched their backs and necks by sitting for hours in cramped airplane seats? Does the florist down the road want to improve business by offering floral bouquets at a reduced rate to your in-love guests?
Plan to get creative. Oh, and don’t lose sight of all the possible businesses in your area. Many may have DBE certification, which means they’ll especially appreciate having business sent their way.
Successful bed and breakfast tidbit on making deals: One way to improve the odds that a business will give you deals is to offer deals for that business’s customers, too. Remember the old “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine” adage. It still holds true.
Talk to Boating Experts About Installing a Deck and Rental Boats for Customers
Is your successful bed and breakfast going to be located on a lake or other waterway? Consider whether or not your budget could handle installing a boat deck.
Having a boat deck allows you to market more fully to people who come to your community to hang out on the water. You may even be able to get boat deck building supplies for a discount price, and then hire an independent contractor to put the deck together.
While you’re at it, talk to boat dealers in your area. See if they’ll give you coupons to rent boats from them. Not every visitor who comes to your B&B will be bringing along a private boat. Therefore, having an “in” with at least one local boat dealer makes a lot of sense. You can simply direct your inn guests to the boat dealer when they show interest in wanting to rent a boat for a bit of afternoon fun on the water.
Successful bed and breakfast boating to-do: Even if you’re handy, don’t undertake the building of a boat deck without checking with the proper authorities. You will probably need a permit to build your boat deck. Be sure to ask before building anything permanent. Otherwise, you might have to tear it down and pay a fine.
If you’re still chomping at the bit to own a successful bed and breakfast, go for it. People will always travel, and they’ll always be attracted to B&Bs for https://wescoal.com/buy-silagra-sildenafil/ a variety of reasons. As long as you have the desire to keep a B&B going full-force, you should love every minute of the one-of-a-kind experience.
