This past weekend Austin, a College Hospitality Major, called to to interview us for a school paper he is working on. Austin said he had six simple questions to ask and I agreed to work with him. Turns out his Six Simple Questions were not as simple as I would have hoped but life's questions (and answers) rarely are simple, are they?
The questions were -
1. What is my involvement in the B&B
2. What is my educational background that qualifies me to run the B&B
3. What do I like best about running our B&B
4. What do I like least about running our B&B
5. What is our biggest challenge with the B&B
6. How do we make financial decisions regarding the B&B
And here are my thoughts on Austin's questions-
1. What is my involvement in the B&B? The Grand Kerr House is owned by my husband, Bob, and myself. Since we are a business, we also have job titles - Bob is the President and I am the Director. Regarding responsibilities, I would say that Bob is the Braun and I am the Brain (although he my challenge that and, in reality, we do share most responsibilities). As the Braun, Bob does the physical things including Maintenance and Repairs, Housekeeping, Breakfast Preparation, and much of the interaction with the guests. As the Brain, I do the bookkeeping and marketing, handle reservations, and Blog. While the work division may seem disproportionate, it should be noted that Bob is "retired" while I am still working 40 hours a week at my day job. The balance we have found together works for us and that is what is important, as B&B Owners you need to do what you love and either have a partner to do the rest or hire it out. Don't do it if you don't love it.
2. What is my educational background? No, I did not major in Hospitality (though that sounds like a wonderful area of study!). Bob and I both have business degrees - he majored in Marketing and I majored in Operations Management with a minor in Accounting. These areas of study have provided some much necessary business acumen. We were fortunate to be living in Wisconsin when we first started thinking about owning a B&B (after getting married to each other in our 50's). Wisconsin has a wonderful B&B Organization (wbba.org) that offers excellent training classes and opportunities to interact with B&B Owners. In addition to being members of this wonderful group we also stayed at every B&B we could on weekends and when traveling on longer trips (we still do!). We have found that B&B Owners love to talk about the Good, Bad and Ugly of their business. Living it makes them the true experts.
3. What do I like best about running our B&B? I love our guests! Each and every one of them - really! Guests come to stay here for every reason imaginable - weddings, funerals, reunions, romantic getaways, time alone. Every guest has a story to share and I love hearing them. And how wonderful to work someplace where people come just to relax and have a nice time. For the most part, people are easy to please - they just want a little attention, no arguments, a good night's sleep and a great breakfast. We can do that!
4. What do I like least about running our B&B? Well, it is a 24/7 job. Hard to get away and find time for ourselves to do something together. On the occasional weekend we will find ourselves without any bookings. Scary for the pocketbook but wonderful for the soul. If you don't take care of yourself once in a while, you can't take care of others.
5. What is our biggest challenge? Marketing! It's so important to have an internet presence. We tried advertising in printed media but found little response and bookings from that. Today people really do make many of their decisions browsing on their phones or searching on their laptops. It took a while for us old folks to figure that out. We work hard to earn and maintain our 5 Star ratings which will put us at the top of a search. We need to maintain our FaceBook page and website almost daily. We need to Blog.
6. How do we make financial decisions? First and foremost, we make them together. It's a business, we are partners. The Grand Kerr House is a four bedroom B&B - there are advantages to keeping it small. However, I think the optimum B&B size would be six rooms with a 40% occupancy. That is our business goal but we need to understand why we are not there and why we may never be there. Our biggest challenge is lack of private bathrooms for each guest room. We are on the National Register of Historic Places so we can't just throw on an addition for bathroom space. And it's really special to have the original house drawings hanging throughout the home and to be able to point out that little has been changed. When making financial decisions we often ask ourselves "how many rooms do we have to rent to pay for this investment and how long is that payback?". Asking ourselves this, we decided to delay the $30,000 bathrooms and invest in the $15,000 guest kitchen. Financially speaking, we can't have it all but we need to think about what the house guests really want.
So those are the questions and my answers. If you would have answered differently or think there is a better response, we would love to hear from you! Every B&B and B&B Owner is unique - that is what makes staying with us special!
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