How to Start & Run a B&B BandBED2eBook-1 | Page 14

clientele, though, don’t ever put a single bed in a room that will take a double:
put in a double, and allow for two as far as fittings are concerned. If you sell it as
single occupancy, the guest will appreciate a double bed, but more importantly
you can also sell it as a double. If you have small rooms that would not fit a
double bed – especially if they would not fit an en-suite bathroom either – then
before making them singles, consider knocking them into the next room to create
a family room or suite, or making a spacious bathroom to the next-door
bedroom.

Your marketing strategy: clearly this must be geared towards generating the
type of clientele that suits your B&B. See Chapter Five on Marketing.
If you are still looking for a property for your B&B: congratulations, all your options
are still open! Rather than having most of your key decisions on rooms, décor, and
marketing dictated by the property you already have and its location, you can enjoy the
freedom to choose the type of B&B you want to run first, then look for a suitable
property and location for that type of business.
In reality, of course, if your B&B will be your home as well, this decision will not be a
pure business judgement, but will be mixed in with (or completely subsidiary to) your
personal decision on where you want to live, and the lifestyle you want to enjoy. Fair
enough – first things first. But your B&B will be a business, so do make an effort to
think through the business aspects of your decision. This is especially important if the
B&B income is expected to be a major part of your income: if your business will be
important to you, then you should treat the early, critical choices with the importance
they deserve as business decisions.
BEWARE: This stage in the planning process is fraught with dangers from a potential
enemy who might sabotage your business – yourself! If you will be relying
significantly on B&B income to fund your new lifestyle, then you MUST keep a sensible
business “hat” on when weighing up whether to commit yourself to a property. A B&B
is a property-based business so the choice of property is everything.
There is no point, for instance, in choosing purely for lifestyle reasons to buy a remote
cottage in an unpopulated area, then trying to run a B&B business from it. The same
factors which made you choose to live there yourself – the remoteness and lack of
people – also make it a disastrous choice for a business which depends on a steady flow
of people to the area.
We’d have to ask, in such an example, why you want to run a B&B at all? If you want
to “get away from it all” – including from people – then don’t run a B&B. It’s a people
business.
You as a businessperson must guard against the insidious arguments you may hear
from a very persuasive source – you as a person. Yes, listen to them: why not plan for
a business to fund your lifestyle? We did. BUT be realistic: if the business has to fund
your lifestyle, then firstly it has to work as a business.
A particular temptation – one of the worst pitfalls in planning any hospitality or
tourism business – is to persuade yourself that, because YOU have fallen in love with a
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