Innkeeping Advice
When it comes to business, we Americans are an interesting bunch. We have decided that the American Dream equals independence in the form of entrepreneurship. The most respected members of our community are those who have turned the dust sifting through their fingers into a fortune-or at least a respectable business. With this imperative running through our veins, it's no wonder that so many people decide that the business for them is innkeeping.
There are two reasons everybody wants to be an innkeeper. First, innkeeping takes no hard skills. Congeniality and graciousness can't be acquired or learned. You either have it, or you don't. Toilet cleaning and bed making require no talent, just endurance. Second, innkeeping promises a paradox it can't deliver: While the user side of innkeeping-the pleasant experience of being a guest-provides enjoyment and fulfillment, the supplier side guarantees hard work and headaches, even for the independently wealthy hobbyist innkeeper.
There is no shortage of books available to help aspiring innkeepers along their way to realizing their dreams. These books are essentially startup manuals, and though they always employ a finger wagging warning about the perils of being a small business person, they fail to illustrate adequately the true consequences innkeepers can expect to encounter. What aspiring innkeepers need is reality and truth.
Dealing with-and acknowledging-the pitfalls of running a small business (and in particular, running a bed and breakfast or small inn) should not be construed as a negative approach to what requires an optimistic endeavor. Instead it should be viewed as properly equipping one's self for the ride ahead. The first myth that needs to be shattered is the notion of the "independent" business person.
As a new innkeeper, you will be dependent on everyone and everything, starting with the bank. Even innkeepers who have enough money to buy the real estate outright still need startup money-that's because no smart business person would risk their own capital on outfitting a new venture. If you lose your own money, your own savings, you're out of luck. If you lose the bank's money, the bank is out of luck, you declare bankruptcy and go on your way.
That means that you will need to develop-and depend on-a good relationship with a local bank. This may be difficult if you're moving into a new area to start your bed and breakfast because the local bankers know the pitfalls of B&B's as business ventures, and they're likely to try and dissuade you from attempting to realize your dream.
As a new innkeeper, you will also be dependent on yourself and your spouse (if you're doing this with your life partner), and those are two people you may have never done business with before. While it may sound like a strange exercise to consider yourself in the third person for business purposes, it will be a useful exercise in the long run. Can you be tough on yourself when you need to be? What about discipline? To think that you're going to be a perfect employee for either yourself or your partner is perfectly foolish. Innkeeping isn't for softies.
As a new innkeeper, you will also be dependent on the economy, locally, regionally, and nationally. The local economy might itself be dependent totally on something as capricious as the weather. Is your inn going to be in a place that needs snow in the winter, beautiful foliage in the fall, and sunshine in the summer? Can you guarantee those things? The regional economy might depend on the policies of your state government. Is your state friendly to small businesses? What's the tax rate? What kind of state regulations-health, labor and industry-will you face? The national economy can be even more difficult to predict and deal with. Anybody in the hospitality industry on September 11, 2001 can attest to that. And the recession of 2008/2009 is another reminder that the big stage is something completely out of the hands of small innkeepers.
As a new innkeeper, you will be required to deal with a host of new administrative expenses and duties foreign to you. How will you acquire and pay for health insurance? What about your own living expenses? Who will design your business plan? Clearly there are some people who have the necessary profile (business school graduates, people who ran someone else's business) to handle these things-and there are some who don't.
And finally, as a new innkeeper, you will have to deal with guests: attracting them, booking them, serving them, and hoping they respond favorably to your product. This may be the most difficult task of all, because the product is you. You are "the show." Are you ready to put yourself, the very essence of who you are, on the line, day after day, for the scrutiny and approval of total strangers? That takes supreme confidence-of blissful ignorance.
There really aren't any books or seminars or magic bullets that will help an aspiring innkeeper succeed. There is only the strength of self-reflection and honesty. Aspiring innkeepers should spend a lot of time talking with seasoned innkeepers, getting the real, behind the scenes story about how difficult a job this can really be. Only then, armed with reality and talent and training, should innkeepers make the leap from aspiring to practicing.
