During their retirement years, Mike and Chris Scott found a new career as successful innkeepers after purchasing the Staveleigh House Bed & Breakfast. One of their first priorities involved building a model of what their ideal B&B would look like, so they developed the following mandatory/desirable criteria:
• The area had to be an existing destination for tourists, not a destination itself.
• There needed to be an extended season (e.g. not just a summer resort), to maximize the possibility of almost year-round revenue and to take the business to the next level.
• They wanted to be near water, like a Cape May, N.J., property, for instance. Chris is an avid, lifelong swimmer and wanted that proximity.
• The owners’ quarters had to be both substantial and comfortable, so that they did not experience a diminution of lifestyle.
• They wanted to stay in the New England/Middle Atlantic area, so they would not be so far removed from friends and family. (They had lived in suburban New Jersey.)
• The property they bought had to be as turn-key as possible; they did not want to step into a massive renovation project that would detract from garnering immediate revenue once they made the purchase.
• They had to be able to examine the financials of the operation to ensure that the business was a revenue-producer.
• A robust existing client list with, ideally, enough advance bookings to get their business off to a strong start.
After having generated the above list, Mike and Chris prioritized and weighed each factor. The viability of the owners’ living quarters was the deal-maker/deal-breaker, they discovered, as what they were seeking in this major life-changing move was achieving a good quality of life. Launching a B&B was much more than a business endeavor. The Scotts were also setting the parameters for their future lifestyle together, and that meant first finding the right place to live.
Sally Haver retired in 2013 after a long career with the The Ayers Group, div. of Kelly Services as a Senior Business Development Executive. As a senior career management consultant, she has a broad-based business background encompassing human resources consulting, recruitment, advertising/marketing, music production, academia and show business. She is known in her field as a competitive, persistent, highly creative contributor with a generosity of spirit. Since retiring, she has found that there are many people who are working during their post-retirement years, and not necessarily because they have to work. Some retirees are interested in pursuing a lifetime dream, and others find tremendous fulfillment simply by undertaking a new challenge. Haver is an editor and a frequent contributor to The Connector, covering the emerging new work force of retirees, who are choosing to work for the sheer love of it.
Adventures in Retirement:
The B&B Business Concept
By Sally Haver