[00:00:00] Hi, it's Karen here. I'm the owner and founder of Bed and Breakfast Academy. I provide training and ongoing support to aspiring and existing Bed and Breakfast owners, helping you create a B& B lifestyle you'll love living with guests Life has thrown a few curveballs our way in the past couple of weeks.
My little grandson Leo landed up in hospital. Then my daughter and her husband caught a stomach bug. And of course I went down to help and inevitably caught the same bug. We've all just about recovered now and are looking forward to taking it easy for a while. Leo had his first birthday last week and has been loving the trike that we bought him.
In the midst of all this chaos, I did manage to write and publish my latest blog post in collaboration with the Cumbrian Hospitality [00:01:00] supplier out of Eden and I have to tell you this because it is something of a rare event and I'm feeling a little bit smug this morning I have just signed and returned my completed tax form to my accountant ready for him to file.
It's rare for this to happen before January
as we approach the end of the year it's a good time to review how you run your B& B and consider any changes for 2024, perhaps to attract some new markets. If the idea of welcoming dogs to your B& B is something you've been considering, I've written a blog post that delves into the practicalities of running a dog friendly B& B and recommend some products that can make your life a lot easier if you do decide to go down the route.
Running a dog friendly B& B isn't for everybody though and I've
included some points for you to consider before you do decide to [00:02:00] start accepting dogs. Head along to bnbacademy. co. uk forward slash blog to check out that post.
In this week's podcast, I'm going to be talking you through what I believe makes a good bed breakfast and my top 10 tips for running a successful B& B.
If you do find this podcast useful, then you'll want to check out a mini workshop I recorded called The First Steps to Running a B& B. It's just 30 for a one and a half hour workshop and includes some bonuses such as my... Ultimate B& B kitchen equipment list, answers to the most,
oh, apologies first for any odd noises in the background. Safi the dog is, is nooking her blanket. I'll see if I can get that out in the edit, but just in case I don't. bAck to the workshop. Yes, it answers, some of the 10 most commonly asked questions [00:03:00] about setting up or buying a B& B. Also included in the mini workshop is a 40 voucher towards the cost of my signature course. Head along to bnbacademy.
co. uk and click on mini course from the top menu bar and you can find more about it there. When I was setting up my own bed and breakfast, my focus was very much on those added extras that would turn it into something special.
The very expensive Welsh blanket, the Eggs Benedict at breakfast, and the huge brass bed to name just a few. And if you want to create a B& B that stands out from the competition, all of those are important.
Before you start to think about any of the bells and whistles, you have to make sure you get the basics right first. Let's start with talking about beds. Providing a comfortable bed for your guest is [00:04:00] one of the most important basics for any bed and breakfast.
We've had so many holidays ruined by a bad mattress. Places we would have loved to revisit again but couldn't bear the thought of another week without sleep. Once we stayed at a villa. on a vineyard in Tuscany near Arezzo. The views were breathtaking and we could help ourselves to as much free wine and olive oil as we wanted.
The owner would appear every lunchtime just after we'd eaten with some free Vinsanto and sit down and chat to us. But that bed! We ended up sleeping on the floor in the lounge, it was so uncomfortable. So buying the right beds is an important and Also an expensive decision, unlike, say, pillows, where you could offer different pillows to meet different customers needs.
It's impossible to get a mattress that everyone is going to love. So your [00:05:00] aim is to get a mattress that will meet the needs of the majority of your guests. A firm mattress with a topper gives most people the support they need while not feeling like they're sleeping on a board. I do have a blog post about how to get the right beds for your B& B, which you can find over on the B& B Academy blog, and I'll also link to it in the show notes.
The next point is to consider your bathroom design carefully. The majority of people will want an en suite or at least a private bathroom. There may be some target markets that would happily share a bathroom. But generally, if you can get an en suite in, then I recommend you do so. A private bathroom is one that is external to the bedroom, so they have to go out of the bedroom door to get to the bathroom, but it is for the exclusive use of guests during their stay.
A private bathroom will have a [00:06:00] lock on the outside, so that guests can leave their personal belongings there, and they're not sharing it with any other guests or the owners. In my experience, the majority of guests want a shower. I provided both shower and large separate freestanding bath. But whilst at my B& B the shower was generally always used, the bath was probably only used about 20 percent of the time.
You need to consider your market carefully when making the bath shower decision.
I talk a bit more about that in the workshop. And another essential for Ben Breakfast, ensuring that that you have enough hot water for every guest to have a shower or bath without, uh, running out.
Make sure your boiler and your hot water tank can cope with lots of people all having a shower at the same time.
The third important point is to make sure your bed and breakfast is clean A B& B [00:07:00] must be spotlessly clean, whatever your star rating. Whenever you change over a B& B room, it's really almost like doing a spring clean for each new guest. Even if you employ people to help you clean, the final responsibility for ensuring that room is up to standard is yours.
I used to have a couple of people help me out with the cleaning at my B& B. But I would always go into that room before guests arrived to check that it was all done to, um, my standards. And number four, we have serving a good breakfast. The type of breakfast you provide is going to be determined by the types of guests you have coming to stay and your location. I think still most guests coming to a B& B in the UK will expect some form of cooked, full English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, wherever you are, breakfast.
This needs to be made with the best ingredients you can source within your budget. And be well cooked, but you may have guests who [00:08:00] have different breakfast requirements. For example, you might find business guests may just want to eat off the buffet or overseas guests have have different requirements for a breakfast.
Following the first COVID lockdown, several of the B& Bs in our Facebook group successfully transitioned their full cooked breakfast to a continental, delivered to the room. If you're in a town and city, if there are plenty of places that people can go out to find breakfast, you may decide not to offer breakfast at all. If you do go down the route of Continental only, or even no breakfast, this does need to be very clear in your marketing materials. You'll also need to cater for people with other dietary requirements such as vegetarians or vegans or those with food intolerance.
I do have a few posts about breakfast on the blog. If you go there and you can actually search on [00:09:00] breakfast and you'll see all the breakfast posts, including a lot of my favorite recipes.
We're at number five now, which is deliver great customer service. Many people choose to stay at a B& B rather than a hotel because they enjoy that personal interaction with the owner.
So being welcoming to the guests is, in my opinion, a basic requirement.
I was reminded a few years ago that you can provide a wonderful B& B in a beautiful area and provide the best possible breakfast, but if you get an element of the customer service wrong, all of that just won't matter. I've mentioned this before in other podcasts. I was very lucky, or maybe it wasn't so much luck, but it was around good customer service and understanding what my target market wanted, , but I've had very few people who complained about the B& B or didn't like what I offered. There were one or two, but [00:10:00] generally I was very lucky. I have very few examples of things going wrong. So my apologies if you heard this one before. So my guest hadn't received the confirmation email I'd sent her. It sort of disappeared between me sending it and her inbox, which happens increasingly these days.
Unfortunately, this is the email with the directions to find us and recommendations for local places to eat. Though in my defense, that is also on my website. To cut a long story short, she was very unhappy with me from the moment of her arrival. She wasn't interested in any of my explanations and despite me providing her with the best possible customer service while she was there, she went on to send me emails afterwards pointing out what I should have done differently.
There really was nothing I could do to make this woman happy. I'd lost her before she arrived. However, normally, if something goes wrong at the B& B, and you handle it in a way that really impresses the guests, you can turn a negative [00:11:00] situation into a positive. But customer service is important, right from the start of people finding your website. right through to them checking out and what you do after they check out.
In the online course, I talk about the five stages of the B& B guest experience and what you really need to be doing at each stage. So those stages are before the guests arrive. Check in whilst they're staying with you, departure and after they've left. In the example I've just shared, the process went wrong in that very first stage before they'd even arrived.
It's important to ensure your processes are running smoothly for each stage and that your customer service is consistent throughout. I do have a blog post which is all about how to deal with difficult guests. We're up to number six already.
One of the basics of running a B& B is to ensure that you're complying with all of the [00:12:00] legalities that are required of you.
It is a bit of an urban myth that a small B& B in the UK doesn't have to meet any legal obligations. A smaller B& B may have fewer requirements than a larger establishment, but that doesn't mean there are none. So to name just a few, you need to consider accepting guests with disabilities, fire regulations, food safety, entertainment and alcohol licensing, having the right insurance in place, planning permission, building regulations, health and safety regulations, equality legislation, and there's a lot more.
This shouldn't put you off running a B& B, it's just a case of going through each of those legalities step by step and just making sure that you've got all of your legal ducks in a row, and then you can relax. Well, almost. It's important that you keep up to date with changes in legislation [00:13:00] and that you remain compliant.
At number 7 we have providing Wi Fi and power sockets. This may be a bit of a contentious one as some people don't care whether they have Wi Fi or not. I was recently looking for a holiday cottage in the Elam Valley. And I found one that advertised itself as no Wi Fi, no phone signal and bats in the roof.
And it was fully booked for the next year. But for other people it's an essential. A B& B owner friend had a guest who refused to stay because the B& B Wi Fi was not working. This may seem a bit extreme. But he was there on business and needed access to the internet to work in his room.
Unfortunately for my friend, she was having ongoing problems with the internet provider. Her broadband signal was either non existent or very slow. She decided to be completely upfront with her guests and publish on her website and social media pages, the problems she was having and that she [00:14:00] couldn't guarantee wifi would be available.
Would this put off some of her guests and lose her business? Potentially yes, but at the same time, I think it's best to under promise and over deliver. As with Wi Fi, having enough power sockets to plug in all of your devices is an essential requirement for many people these days. If you can, try and make sure you have power sockets next to both sides of the bed and consider investing in power sockets with integral USB sockets
We're at number 8 now, so number 8 is picking the right location. This maybe should have been number 1 before beds. One of the most important elements of Peapaw is the location of the B& B and for many the proximity to amenities they want. We live in a beautiful rural area with stunning views. But guests often used to mark us down on location because we didn't have a [00:15:00] pub or a restaurant within walking distance.
It's really important to know what your target market's requirements are in a location. If you're moving to set up a B& B or to buy an existing one, you're in a good position because you can choose somewhere that will meet your potential guest's criteria for a well located B& B. If you're setting up in your existing home, you've got no control over your location.
But if there are disadvantages to where you are, you'll need to look and see what you can do to make your B& B more attractive to potential guests.
And also be upfront and honest with people. I was contacted by a woman who asked... were we next to a road because she didn't like a lot of road noise. And we are next to a road. It's a B road and there aren't many cars. Going past at night, but sometimes it can be a bit of a rat run during, uh, the rush hour in the morning and the [00:16:00] evening.
So I was very upfront with her and explained this and then recommended a friend's B& B, which is actually down a sort of virtually a dead end track and is much quieter than our B& B is. And the woman was very grateful for my honesty. You don't really want to try and get a sale from a guest at all costs.
I'm a bit of a believer in karma and honesty will, serve you in the long run.
If you are in a location like we are, where there wasn't anywhere to walk for an evening meal, you could offer evening meals, I did this for a few years, I'm not a huge fan of offering meals at a B& B I was working a 70 80 hour week when I was doing that so instead I started offering platters which I would leave in the guest fridge in their room.
At number nine, it's really important that you're open to guest feedback. Most of us don't like to receive constructive feedback or a negative review, but it is worth listening carefully to [00:17:00] what your guests are saying. They may have ideas for improving the B& B guest experience that you hadn't even considered.
You don't have to take every bit of feedback on board, but if you're hearing the same thing from guests several times, it's probably time to... Get a bit honest and look to see if you can act on it. If you do have a negative review, I do have both a podcast episode and a blog post, which is how to respond to a negative review about your BNB.
And number 10, and this is about the most important asset in your business. And no, it's not the building. A good B& B is usually only as good as the people who run it, which is why it's so important to look after the most important assets in your business, which is you. Many B& B owners run themselves ragged during busy season, which leaves very little left in the tank if something does go [00:18:00] wrong.
Remaining well, happy and refreshed isn't a luxury. It's good business sense. So make sure you take time off, book in holidays and take steps to stay healthy . , I hope you found this podcast useful. If you're thinking about taking the First Steps to Owning a B& B, there's that course that I mentioned right at the beginning, First Steps to Owning a Bed and Breakfast.
Head over to bedandbreakfastacademy. com. Code UK and it's in the menu there. Or if you've definitely decided you want to run a, b and B, there's my signature course. How to Set Up By Run a Marketing Bed and Breakfast. Again, you'll find that on the website. Thank you for listening and I'll speak with you next time.
