Tips on running a succesful B&B

Before we start today's episode of the Boosted podcast, I have got some exciting news to share with you. For the month of July, I am giving away one month trial of the boostly content creator. Now, you may be asking and you may be thinking, well, what is the boostly content creator host that I have come into contact with in the five years of doing Boostly? And when I say to them, you need to be posting every single day on social media, you need to be emailing, emailing your guest and your list, they always say to me, I haven't got the time. And I can't think of a better month to promote the boostly content creator than July. Because right now everybody around the world is busy, busy, busy, busy. And they haven't got the time to think about the marketing or the social media or the emails, when in fact the best time to do marketing is when you're at your busiest because that means that you always have a pipeline coming through. So I created the boostly content creator for busy hosts. 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If you don't want to continue, you can just cancel at any time. But please make sure that you go and you use the boostly content creator. My goal is a month in the month of July is to get 1,000 new hosts to register and sign up. This is how powerful I know this tool is because the email templates in itself are providing a massive return of investment and I would love for you to come and join. This is for new members only. Just go to boostlycontent creator.com add it to your basket, put in coupon code July and I'll see you on the other side. Right now we've got that out of the way, let's get on with today's podcast episode. Welcome back to the Boostie podcast and today I wanted to highlight and share with you a member of the hospitality community, Alice Douglas, who put together a really nice blog on small business.co.uk and the title is Tips on Running a Bed and Breakfast. And in total, there are 13 tips. And Alice, for those who don't know if you're watching this or listening to this, please do head to the hospitality community. Alice Douglas is a owner of the BNB, which is St Good Church, and I may have mispronounced that. I do apologize. But anyway, let's tuck in. We're going to go through the 13, 14 tips and what I'd love for you to do is to leave your number one in the comments below. So whether you're a bed and breakfast owner or not, whether you do rental accommodation, hotel accommodation, you name it, please leave your tips in the comments below. So let's delve in if you want to go check this out. It's small business.co.uk and then tips on running a BNB. So there's Alice there. Hi, Alice. If you're listening, watching this back, please do go and check out the blog. So, number one, you have to like people. We'll fly through them and then we'll come back and go through ones that I want to just double back on. So, number one, you have to like people. Bit of a given. Number two, your BNB needs to have a wow factor. Interesting. Number three, breakfasts can be complicated and I know there's a lot of people who do breakfast for BnBs will appease it. Especially now 2021, there's, there's something for everything and everything for somebody, from veganism to vegetarianism to pescatarian to just anything you can have anything with order comes in. And I know that Even back in 2011, 2012, it used to stumb our chefs, but now even worse, more so. Number four, encourage guests to book direct. That is a given. A given. Anybody who's listening to this podcast will know that we, we talk about this a lot. Number five, you need to be able to take online payments. It still amazes me to this day in 2021 that there are hosts out there who don't accept online payments. It baffles me. I literally, I can talk about this until I'm blue in the face and there'll still be somebody who I speak to in A couple of weeks time we say that they don't have online payments. Number six, set up automated replies to emails Again, work smarter, not harder. We'll talk about that. Number seven, create an online digital guidebook. I love this. I'm glad that Alice has mentioned this. So many bnbos think a digital guidebook isn't for them. It's not applicable. It's more applicable to rental hosts. It is and obviously hostfully is my number one recommendation. Closely is followed by touch day. Pick one of them too. Off you go. Stamp your BNB with your style. And again, I like that. If guests. I love this little quote. If guests want a non desicc clinical room, they can book in a travel lodge. A BNB should be your space stamped with your style. I really do like that. Well, well done Alice for that. Number nine, you can rent bed linen again. I know we made this mistake and we just had cupboards, cupboards of linen on site, but you can rent it. I know if we were to start all over again, one of the big mistakes I feel that we made as a family is that we didn't rent our bed linen. Obviously you've got to equate the cost, etc. But now in 2021 there are such cost effective solutions for this that just makes it so much easier. Ten years on offer, half price in low season. A little bit controversial for me this one. I think number 10, the headline is more than what it maybe should be. But who knows when the low season is going to be in 2021 the demand is so pent up from 2020 that a normal season, if you think of it especially for coastal locations, goes from say April to November. Get the October half term out the way. When it starts to slow down, who knows, that season may go on. It may go straight through into Christmas this year with the Christmas markets and whatnot and go on into 2022. So whenever your low season may be, definitely look at discounting, but maybe not half price. 11 offer experiences, creative workshops. Again, I think this is fantastic even if you don't offer it yourself. Try and partner up and build relationships with people close to you that do. And the instant one that comes to my mind is Helen Hez, who's based in Competa in Spain. She has teamed and partnered up with a local yoga person and she does little retreats and sessions at her amazing guest house on the top of the hills in Kompetta. The views are fantastic. I know because Laura, the kids and I went to go visit Helen last year and it was a perfect setting. She offers food and drink and it's a nice little package. So again, Helen doesn't have to do all the extra work. You can build a relationship and a partnership and you can just split the cost, split the profits, or just take a cut of the fee. So, again, I love that option, offering experiences, and again, it stands you out from the rest and it's why people come and stay with you, tell guests about other activities. Okay, so this is just bouncing onto what I just said. Number 13. Take at least one day off each week, which, again, is so important. And again, I think, particularly with bed and breakfast. And I speak of a personal experience. You feel like you always need to be on. You feel like you always got to be there because you're scared to take a day off. Because when you take a day off or you turn that phone off, something's bad's gonna happen. Speaking from personal experience, you flip that mindset off and you just say, nothing bad's gonna happen. Nothing bad will happen because you sink it into your mindset that you think something bad's gonna happen. Something does happen, and I've seen it and I've witnessed it with so many other hosts from around the world. So again, Alice, fantastic blog. If you wanna go check it out, just google search smallbusiness.co.uk tips on running a BNB. Alice Douglas. So, again, Alice, I wanted to give you props. I wanted to give you a platform on the Boosted podcast, which got thousands of listeners and watches just to say, well done, Great blog. And again, what's your main takeaway? What's your main tip that you would pass on how to run a successful hospitality business? Please leave it below. If you're listening on the audio, jump into the YouTube channel, come and find this video and leave a comment below. All right, I'll be back tomorrow. Thank you so much for tuning in. As always, my name is Mark Simpson. I give hosts just like you the tools, the tactics, the training, but most importantly, the confidence to go and get your own bookings. I'll be back tomorrow. My goal this year is to do a daily podcast. So every single day you will get help and advice from me. Tools and tactics and training. And if you want to go further on your journey, if you want to get help with social media and emails, go to boostlycontentcreator.com in the promo code. Put in July and you'll get one month free social media content, email templates and much, much, much, much more. That's only available for July. So you've got, what, about 11. 11 days to do so? All right, speak to you very, very soon. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll see you back tomorrow.